He stared at me a full minute before looking toward the sun again, and when a thin trail of smoke rose off his bony hand, he jumped into the truck and ducked down. “Please hurry, I’d really rather not burst into flames.”
I stomped on the gas and spun the truck around. The rising sun was behind us as we raced to my house, and when I pulled into the driveway, Marlon wasted no time running inside. I hurried inside behind him and yelled for him to go to the basement. Most houses in town didn’t have one, but for some reason, this one did. Fate.
Aaron sat on the couch, frozen, as he watched me hurry inside. “What happened?” he asked and looked around.
“Marlon ran in before me. He was moving fast and you might not have seen him.” I rushed to the basement door with Aaron on my heels.
“Oh, I saw him. He was laying down a pretty good smoke trail behind him.” He said it like it was something we saw daily.
“Fuck. Marlon?” I yelled as I stomped down the stairs. It was a simple, unfinished cement-lined basement I used for storage, and my mom used to keep all her canned goods. There, behind all the shelves, I saw him ducking down and covering his head. “You’re okay. There are no windows down here.” He looked up then and his eyes shot to all four walls before they settled on me.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Four
Marlon
Whoever thought the life of a vampire was all blood and good times was sadly mistaken. Wait, did anyone really think that? I thought of the human who had the idea to dig me up and I was pretty sure it was a human much like him that would have thought about burying me in the first place.
“Sorry, I know it must suck to have to be stuck inside when the sun is out,” Blake, the lesser idiot of thetwo, said. Both were young, and mostly unremarkable humans. But Blake’s eyes were a beautiful green that made me want to stare a little too long, but then I remembered I wasn’t here to admire his eye color.
“I have no choice. It’s either stay out of the sun or die a painful death. I choose to not burst into flames.”
“Yeah.”
He was a man of few words, much like his ancestor. I saw a hint of my mate in this distant relative, but I didn’t want to admit that to myself and nothing would make me admit it to him. He wasn’t sure he should trust me, and that was wise. I’d trusted my mate and had paid dearly for it.
“What are you going to do all day?” he asked.
“I will rest.” People tended to think vampires didn’t need rest, and they also thought we needed a lot of blood. Some vampires chose to drink until they were filled to the brim. I didn’t need that, which was one of the reasons I was able to survive so long under the ground.
“How old are you?” he asked and took a seat in a chair that was next to an old sofa. Since it seemed he wasn’t leaving anytime soon, I sat at the end of the sofa, as far away from him as I could get.
“I told you I’m very old.”
“Yes, but not exactly how old. How did you get here?”
“Do you mean here, in Occident, or here, in America?” I gave up on ignoring him. He obviously had nothing better to do, so why not indulge him, and possibly myself?
“Tell me your story,” he said and pulled his knees up to his chest like a small child waiting for a bedtime story.
“I was born in Sligo, Ireland, in or around 1300.” Ignoring his gasp of surprise I continued. “During the time I was human, there were many battles and disagreements between villages and townships. But it was mostly a quiet life, and I tried to stay busy on my parents’ farm and out of trouble. One night a traveler came asking for a place to sleep. My parents let him bed down in the barn, but I was curious abouthim. He was dressed strangely and had an accent I’d never heard before. There was something that drew me to him.” Thinking back through all the years, I knew the game he played. He didn’t have to hunt to feed; he need only find a farmer willing to let him stay the night.
“That night I snuck off to the barn after they’d fallen asleep. I thought I was so sly as I slipped into the barn. But to my surprise, he was awake, even though it was the wee hours of the morning.”
My mind replayed that moment in the perfect clarity that only a vampire possessed. Once more I was in the first stall, peeking between the slats of wood and hoping to catch a look at this stranger.
“I was expecting you, lad,” he said in his strange accent, without even looking in the direction I was hidden.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because I wanted it to be so, and it was.” He moved so fast he wasn’t even a blur. One moment he was kneeling on the floor of the barn facing away from me and in an instant, he was in front of me. I wasso shocked I couldn’t react. He bit me then, without asking and without regard for my pain. He fed on me so viciously he tore my throat out and left me. Probably thinking I’d be dead by morning. But somehow, I survived and dragged myself deep into the barn as I healed.”
“I thought you had to drink your creator’s blood to be changed?” He interrupted my thoughts to ask, and I realized I’d been speaking out loud.
“That’s a myth. If a vampire drinks most of your blood but you survive, then you could be changed. It doesn’t happen often, and most vampires aren’t willing to risk it for fear of being responsible for a baby vampire that is so much worse than any toddler.”
“A baby vampire?” He wrinkled his nose and in some strange way it made him even more attractive. Not that I noticed he was attractive, I lied to myself.
