Damon (12 page)

I’d never stayed in a real hotel before. Damon’s family might have had some money, but my family had always been third class all the way. This place was plush.

“We’re staying here?”

“I made reservations. It’s perfect.”

I wanted to stay in this beautiful hotel but I only had my two hundred dollars emergency cash in my bag. And I was a little intimidated. I didn’t have the clothes to fit in here.

But I wanted to stay here, so I started mentally finagling my finances and decided I could probably squeeze another hundred out of my checking account with my ATM card. If I put off a few bills and tried to make up the difference cleaning houses once we got back home. Provided I still had a job when I got back. “It looks expensive.”

“I dragged you here so it’s on me,” he said and leaned in close to see if I would give him a kiss. “Don’t be mad, okay. I have a few years left before I completely lose my mind. I’ll find the answer, I promise. Before it’s too late. You can trust me.”

Maybe I was gullible, or maybe I just wanted some peace in my life, but I decided to believe him. And I decided to get into the mood of a vacation while I had the chance.

***

Our room wasn’t as large as I would have imagined, but it was luxurious and very clean. We had a mini-bar, a big TV in a wood cabinet, and a nice view of the river. We also had a king-size bed.

Damon walked across the big bed then stepped down to look out the window.

It felt odd being in this strange room with him. Always before, I’d had the comfort of home to soften his presence.

Just to see if it helped, I walked across the bed, too, and stepped up to the window beside him. I only felt marginally more relaxed.

To my surprise, Damon scooped me up in his arms and tossed me on the bed. Before I’d stopped bouncing, he dove at me, landing on top of me without actually touching me. He looked down at me with a villainous grin and eyes to match, and roughly forced my legs apart with his knees.

He kissed me slowly, easing his weight down over me. Then he gently rubbed my temples until I felt very soft and warm.

“What happened with Teddy?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“What went wrong? I need to know.”

I stiffened from head to toe and looked into his eyes. “You did read my diary!”

He gazed at me with a worried expression. “You said you loved him so much you thought about carving his name in your arm. Then you never wrote about him again. What’d he do?”

“I don’t know. That was forever ago.”

“Only two years ago. You still remember.”

“Somebody’s going to shoot you someday,” I told him. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Did he cheat on you? Hit you? Was he bad in bed?”

“No,” I sighed. “He met Mama and…. She wouldn’t always take her medication back then and really put on a show for him. She was a bad horror movie that night, a real one-woman show. He had to be taken to the hospital for stitches and Mama was arrested. She thought he was an assassin sent by the devil to kill her and dump her body in the river. She upended the dinner table, and the wonderful meal I’d cooked. Then she broke off a leg of the table and attacked him with it. What I remember most was that I couldn’t stop screaming. They had to give me a sedative. I’d just had enough, all I could take. Something in my mind snapped. I’ve never been quite the same since.”

A violent shudder passed through me at the memories. Dark moving shadows, loud crashing noises, and the faraway screams in my ears. “Anyway, I learned not to make that mistake again. I never brought anyone else home. You got in only because you barged in.”

He rested on his side, still half covering me, and lifted my hand. He traced the scar on my wrist with his tongue. “Is that what caused this?”

I tried to pull my hand away, but he wouldn’t let go. “Don’t.”

“Tell me. I showed you all my scars.”

After growling, I decided to be fair. He had told me about his dozens of scars, including the time his father had locked him in a closet for days and Damon had been forced to drink his own blood to survive.

“I didn’t do it that night, I did it the next night, after Teddy told me I was even crazier than Mama and I’d better stay the hell away from him or he’d make me pay. He was so mean, right in front of our friends. He started telling them all about what Mama had done and they just stared at me. They just kept staring and staring, like they were horrified. I thought I wanted to die. I didn’t really. It was just the worse night of my life, worse than the dinner with Mama, and I happened to have Grammy’s fingernail scissors handy. Dr. Sanderson said it was the result of stress and that it happens sometimes to children of schizophrenics. It doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”

He lay over me again, raised my arms over my head, and held them there, his face so close he could flick my lips without moving. “I’m going to tell you the biggest secret in the world,” he whispered.

I lay locked inside his gaze, so hypnotized no force in nature could have diverted my attention. If Mama had burst into the room wielding a chainsaw I would have let her carve me up rather than let go of the intense closeness and wild sensations created between us.

He lowered his mouth to my ear. “I drink blood. All the time. I have to. To survive.”

I stiffened and tried to turn my head, but he jerked and growled and firmly held me bound beneath him. He’d changed in an instant and his body hardened into a steel cast all around me. Pain suddenly erupted everywhere his body touched mine.

Warning bells rang out a riot in my mind. I’d seen this sudden change too many times before.

“Don’t move,” he whispered, his tone urgent and deadly serious. “Don’t move.”

I didn’t move, though I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding outside my chest, and I couldn’t catch my breath.

Damon really was ill, and unfortunately, I knew these symptoms. Some pesky little voice in his head was urging him to hurt me, and he might follow those orders, even if he didn’t want to. All he needed was the slightest provocation.

Fear raged wildly in my mind as I searched for a way to stay in control of the situation. He was so much stronger than Mama, and I’d foolishly put myself in the most vulnerable position possible. I could only lie perfectly still and try not to provoke him.

We lay that way for endless minutes, until he shifted slightly and lifted his head to look at me. “I have proof.”

The immediate danger had passed and I relaxed a little. “About what?” I whispered.

His expression was still red and wet and dangerous, but his eyes were soft and pleading. “We’re vampires. I have proof. Believe me, Magic Maggie.”

If I’d learned only one skill from living with Mama it was the ability to find the right shade and tone to play along without sounding condescending. But then, I was only used to Mama, and everyone is different.

“Show me,” I whispered.

He didn’t move, but at least his attitude didn’t change to one more aggressive. The heat from his body was so intense I was almost overwhelmed and had to tilt my head back to breathe.

“I’ll tell you first,” he said. “Relax. It’s gone now. We’re okay. I’m not like my dad. I’d never hurt you.”

I lay still. “Okay. I’m relaxed. You’re too hot.”

He rose off my body a little, enough to let some fresh air flow between us. “There’s a place where they all live,” he said. “In a cave. Granddad wrote it down and I went there. I found them. I saw them. The vampires.”

“What happened? What do they look like?”

“Like us. But not the same inside. They’re not like us. They’re foreign. Their eyes are foreign.”

“Creepy and scary, Damon.”

“I don’t know,” he said, his tone drifting. He rose to his hands and knees and stared at my chin. “I don’t think so. We’re a part of them.” His eyes traveled up my face and stopped at my eyes. “You and me. We have them in our blood.”

The expression in his eyes changed to one of fear and disbelief as he talked himself into a state, and I thought I understood what he was really saying. The mental illness disease, traveling from one person to another in the blood, on and on, had found its way to us. The disease was foreign, not normal, and couldn’t be seen right away from our outward appearances.

I massaged his arms and shoulders beneath the short sleeves of his t-shirt. “We’ll be all right.”

“We have to stick together,” he said. “It’s imperative that we do.”

“We will.”

“That’s what they did. They stayed together.” He turned and slid off the bed. “I’ll show you. I’ll tell you the truth.”

I also stood, debating what to do. A part of me wanted to run for the door, another part wanted to stay and finally allow myself to drift away on the inevitable tide of delusion. A large part of me craved the release. I was so tempted, and so tired of fighting to stay sane.

I could still feel his heat on my skin drawing me to him.

He’d seen my scars and he hadn’t run away. I’d seen his scars and couldn’t honestly say they were uglier than mine. God, I did love him. So much I wanted to jump on his back and force him to take me with him everywhere, every day, for the rest of his life. I wanted to stick myself to his skin like a leach and live off him.

I wanted him to love me in return. And I wanted the love to be real, not desperate.

He searched in his tote bag and brought back a small pink bag with yellow flowers on it. My old makeup bag, which he’d likely found under the sink in the bathroom. His eyes were clear and calm again, so I calmed myself and sat down beside him.

He opened the bag and took out a black velvet pouch. He opened the pouch and spilled an assortment of small, uncut gemstones onto the bedspread. I spread them out and looked them over. Pink, purple, gold, green, blue and red stones rolled against my palm.

“Are these real?”

“Gemstones from the cave,” he said, selecting a green stone the size of a die. “Emerald. The hidden treasure.” He smiled at me and held the stone up toward the sunlight from the windows. “I’ll have it cut for you. To match your eyes.”

I took the stone and looked at it more closely. Through the roughness of the outer stone, I could see a line of shining green. I smiled at him. “I’ve never had any real jewelry.”

He leaned in to give me a kiss on the forehead. “You will.”

“Where did you find these?”

“Granddad had them in a drawer. I used to play with them when I was a kid.”

“Damon, Corky owned a jewelry store. Do you think maybe you took the stones from his house?”

He took a deep breath, staring off, and blew out the breath, puffing out his cheeks. “Yeah. I probably did. I’m not sure. I do remember playing with them as a kid.”

I decided it didn’t matter. Both Corky and Elliot were gone and Damon couldn’t help himself.

He handed me a black and white photograph from the makeup bag. It was old, ragged at the edges. “This is them. Look.”

I took the photo, but had to turn on the bedside lamp to see. There they were. My grandmother, Grampa Harvey, Chester, Bella, Verna Jarvis, Corky and Elliot, as children. They stood in front of a white building, probably a small church or school, dressed in what were probably their good clothes. They were all about nine or ten years old, except for Gram, who look a year or two younger. I’d never seen pictures of them as children, not even my grandparents, and it seemed odd to recognize their faces in such young children. But I could see them. Each of them in those little faces.

“Wow.” Tears came to my eyes. “They were always together. Such good friends.” I’d had friends over the years, though only Jaynie still spoke to me. The rest had given up on me as soon as we’d graduated high school. I’d always wanted to be a part of something special like this. A group. A real family of friends to subsidize my chaotic natural family. A place where I truly belonged.

I turned the picture over.
Pine Hollow. KY 1948
.

“Where is Pine Hollow?”

“Just over the state line.”

“You’ve been there?”

He nodded and took the photograph. “I found the cave. We’ll go there tomorrow.”

I stood up as I suddenly remembered. “I have to call Chester. He’ll be worried when I don’t show up in the morning. He’ll have the police out looking for me.”

Damon grabbed my hand. “They know where you are.”

“They probably do, but I need to call and… explain.” I let out a breath of dread. “Chester’s gonna be so mad at me.”

“Don’t tell them about Pine Hollow.”

“Why not? I want to see where Gram lived. I want to know more about their life there. I always thought they were from here in Knoxville.”

He pulled on my hand and I sat down, wary of upsetting him again. “I called Chester,” he said. “I talked to him. I told him we had to come here for your mother and he said it was okay.”

I didn’t want to accuse him of lying, but I didn’t think Chester would agree to this trip. Especially without hearing from me personally. “He said it was okay? Just like that?”

“We have to cut ties with the vampires,” Damon said. “Until we know the truth. They’re ruthless.”

“But I thought we were vampires, too.” I shook my head. We’d already had this conversation. I didn’t know Damon well enough to guess what was going on in his head.

“Maggie, baby,” he said, taking on that condescending tone again, “they didn’t want us to know. They’ve let us all suffer for fifty years. They stood by and watched your mother and my father go insane. They see it happening to us and they do nothing. How can they be on our side? Tell me that?”

I tried to think, but I was getting confused. On the one hand, I did believe a secret had been kept by the old people. On the other hand, I didn’t believe we were vampires. Chester and Bella had been like second grandparents to me my whole life. But, at the same time, after Gram had died, they’d abandoned Mama. They never came over to the house to check on her. Only Verna Jarvis had stuck around after Gram was gone. Chester did, however, give me a job, and he and Bella had watched out for me over the years. I knew they cared about me.

I looked again at the stones on the bed. “What do these prove?”

Damon raised a questioning eyebrow.