Helens-of-Troy (46 page)

“Looks can be deceiving,” Ellie
retorted. “You should know. You saw me the other night. You trapped
me in the van. You were foaming at the mouth, looking like a wolf
from a black velvet “howl at the moon” poster, but I know it was
you.”

“How?” he asked. Perhaps this girl knew
more than he initially thought. Perhaps she already knew and
accepted the fact that he was different. SHE had told him that one
day he would meet a girl that would truly understand. Could this be
the girl?

“Your eyes. One blue, one brown. Same
as the damn dog,” Ellie said. “A little too much of a co-incidence,
don’tcha think?”

“Sorry,” he shrugged. That hadn’t been
the answer he was hoping for. Maybe it wasn’t going to be love at
first capture. He chuckled to himself. “I guess I wasn’t paying all
that much attention to your face then either.”

“
You’re giving the term ‘one
sick puppy’ a whole new meaning, do you know that?” Ellie pointed
out.

“Was that some sort of compliment?” he
asked.

“Whatever works for you,” Ellie
answered.

“I wasn’t being a pervert,” he
protested. “I did notice you, but I was keeping an eye on the rake
your grandmother was threatening to lobotomize me with. We wolves
are funny that way.”

“Was that some kind of an apology?” she
asked.

“Whatever works for you,” he
mocked.

“I take it you’re some sort of
shape-shifter?” she bantered. “I’m sorry, were you aiming for wolf?
Because you got mutt.”

“I can transform, yes,” he said
indignantly. Poor little Poppett. She would never understand what
it was like to be able to take on another life form. She’d never
know what it was like to soar through the air like an eagle, with
eyesight that could spy your prey from above the clouds. She’d
never know what it was like to be a canine, and follow the scent of
your meal in fresh made tracks. Unless of course, she became like
him.

“Why don’t you just turn yourself back
into a human?” she asked innocently.

“It doesn’t work that way,” he answered
with a note of regret in his voice.

“I’m not trying to be a bitch or
anything,” she said softly, offering him some sympathy. “I was just
thinking that this whole vampire thing must be a lot to deal
with.”

“Like your fresh scrubbed cherubic face
isn’t a bit of an issue for you?” he asked
sarcastically.

Ellie was taken aback.

“I get issues, girlie. I have a few of
them myself.”

He took a deep breath, his nostrils
flaring as he unconsciously let out a snort. He wanted to turn
around and slap her silly, like she was an annoying little sister.
But she wasn’t his sister, she was someone his own age as it turned
out. And she was really quite—pretty. Those green eyes that
alternately flashed with anger and clouded with tears. He could
feel himself getting an erection just thinking about her. It was
the first one he had since his transformation and it felt pretty
darn good, he had to admit. Aside from the obvious sexual arousal,
it made him feel...warm...and perhaps even borderline
fuzzy.

“Hit me with your best shot,” she
stammered, fighting back emotions that she knew would end in
tears.

“You’re very intuitive,” he sighed,
taking a strand of her hair into his fingers. “I do feel like
knocking you senseless again, but that’s starting to get old. You
look different now, that’s all I meant. You were less put together
both then and when I saw you at the bridge. You looked girlier.” He
paused. “But today’s look. I get that as well. The dark eye shadow
and the heavy mascara. Make-up hides the imperfections. You use it
to transform yourself into an enchanting little vixen.” He put the
strand of hair between his lips and tossed it lightly with his
tongue before releasing it. “Maybe sometime you can give me a
lesson or two.”

“Okay,” Ellie thought, not sure which
was more uncomfortable, the hair thing, or him secretly wanting to
be a goth-vamp in disguise. That was pointless, really. Either you
were the real thing or you weren’t. It made her wonder—was his
demonic look really just some sort of male teenaged
fetish?

“That would be nice,” he said softly,
bowing his head before her. “Sometimes I feel all alone. But now I
have you.”

She hadn’t noticed it before, when he
was standing up, but as he bent his face forward she saw that he
had white spots on a patch of hair towards the back of his head. At
the roots.

“Since we’re besties, sharing make-up
secrets and all—do you dye your hair?” she asked.

“I don’t have heterochromia,” he said
quietly, refusing to look at her. “You’re wrong about
that.”

“Uh, what do you mean?” she asked, not
knowing whether she really wanted to hear the answer. Anything
either hetero or non-hetero in this conversation was making her
even more nervous.

“Give me a break, Poppet.”

Her curiosity got the better of her and
she continued to stare at his hair. There was more than a slight
variance in the color tone closer to his head. She smiled to
herself, knowing she was right. He may fancy himself as a creature
of the night, but really he was someone who needed another trip to
the salon.

“I know you think I’m pale because I’m
a vampire, but that’s not really why I look this way. I’ve always
been pale. When I was mortal I had stage two Waardenburg
syndrome.”

“And that would be...?”

“A rare condition, characterized by one
blue eye and one...”

“Brown,” Ellie said softly, becoming
aware that at least a part of his condition was still
human.

“Among other traits.”

“You know,” Ellie offered, feeling a
slight guilt pang for even having brought the subject up at all.
“It’s not all that rare. I remember I had a nanny once whose son
had eyes like yours. We used to play together. He must have had
Worden...”

“Waardenburg,” he corrected.

“Right. He must have had it too. But he
had other problems. He was deaf, and he wore leg braces to help
himself walk.” She laughed. “I know that’s not funny, but he’d kick
me with them every once and a while and it hurt like
hell.”

“You must have been mean to him,” he
snapped.

“It was just kid stuff. I took one of
his dump trucks once and smashed his sandcastle. He kicked me, then
he stomped his heavy shoes on the ground and waived his arms in the
air like a crazy kid until I gave it back to him. Much like—you
did—a few moments ago.”

The teenagers turned and stared at each
other. For two people so different it was becoming abundantly clear
that there was an uncanny connection between them.

“Gaspar?” Ellie whispered, as she
wondered whether this prick who was holding her captive was once
the little boy she played with in a sandbox.

He looked at her, trying to place the
tiny face tucked deep in his memory upon the body in front of him.
She knew his name. How could that be?

He looked into her eyes again. They
were like HERS, yes—but that wasn’t why they were
familiar.

He took her hand in his and held it for
a moment. Just to touch someone again was in indescribable thrill
to him. When his soul—perhaps not the right word given his
circumstance—when his being connected her with his past, the
feeling within him was almost orgasmic.

He began to use her fingers to sign a
name, as he had been taught as a deaf child. He struggled with the
first letter ‘E’, but the sequence came back to him quickly and he
easily added ‘L-L.’

She put her hand over his. It was cold
to her touch, but not as cold as she would have thought a vampire’s
skin would be. It was seasonably cool. A little uncomfortable
maybe, but nothing a pair of fingerless gloves couldn’t help with.
She reached for his fingers and finished the word for him, signing
“I.E.” with her hand.

“I remember,” she said
softly.

“Ellie. The pretty girl with the pretty
mother,” he sighed. “This is an unexpected crossroad in our
lives.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said, not
knowing whether to laugh or cry. “What happened to you? Are you
really a vampire?”

“I don’t want to talk about
it.”

“But look at you—you are talking. You
can obviously hear. And you can run faster than anyone I know. Is
it...” she hesitated, “…better?”

“Sometimes,” he answered. He sniffed
her. The scent she was emitting aroused him but not like the blood
of the children had. It aroused him in a way he found both sensual
and dangerous. “You’re so confusing, Ellie. You’re driving me
wild.”

“Is that a bad thing?” she asked. She
could see a look of lust in his eyes. She knew the look. Tom had
looked at her that same way the night he was in Helena’s kitchen.
She had found it exciting then, until things went awry. This time
the awry had come first.

“I don’t know whether to eat you or
not,” he said.

“You’re still considering it?” she
gasped. “Even though we were friends when we were
younger?”

“Yes,” he answered honestly. He felt he
owed her that much. She had been one of the few children who would
play with him. The others had found him too unusual. Or their
parents had. Same difference. “I don’t know if we were friends.
Playmates maybe. We were sometimes horrible to each
other.”

“We were toddlers. That’s how we
expressed ourselves. There wasn’t a whole lot of premeditation
involved.”

“Are you a virgin, Ellie?” he
asked.

“Whoa. How did you segue to that?”
Ellie answered. “Are you inferring a different meaning to the verb
‘eat’? Because I am definitely not in the mood right now, thanks.
And that has nothing to do with whether I’m a virgin or not. Who
are you? My mother?”

He smiled and ran his fingers through
her hair again. “See, that’s what I mean. How old are you Ellie?
One minute you’re risking your life to get a stuffed animal out of
a van and the next you’re talking like a dick magnet. You’ve
crossed the line from coy to cock teaser, and I don’t know if it’s
intentional. Do you?”

“Go write about it on the wall over
there, since you know how to spell my name. And leave Beastie Boy
out of it.”

“You haven’t answered my
question.”

“You never answered mine.”

Gaspar picked at the flaking paint on
the wall. He hadn’t allowed himself to spend much time thinking
about whether his life had been better as a human. It hadn’t been
normal in any sense of the word, so it was rather hard to judge.
“It’s better than being dead,” he shrugged.

“Being a vampire?” Ellie said
softly.

“Yes,” he nodded. “You were right. I
can shape-shift whenever I want to. It makes it easier to feed.
People get anxious when they see a wild animal feeding on prey, but
they usually keep their distance. It’s better that way. I’ve
learned that now. That’s why I do it.”

“So, how old does all this make you?
Not that you look ancient or anything, but with vampires, you never
know, right? Like, when I thought you were three, you weren’t
really three hundred or anything?”

A slow grin came across Gaspar’s face.
“I’m one vampire year of age. I was fifteen human years, just like
you, when it happened.”

“So this just happened, this change in
you?”

“It was a dark and stormy
night.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, just say
so. You don’t have to be a smart-ass about it. I’m just
curious.”

“Don’t believe all that ‘knowledge is
power’ crap” Gaspar said. “The less you know about me, the better.
Ignorance is bliss, as they say.”

“Who? Who says that? They’re wrong. I
don’t know anything about my dad, but that doesn’t make the pain
any less. The more I try to forget him, the more I want to know
about him. It’s a whole new definition of reverse
osmosis.”

Gaspar took an interest. “You don’t
know who your dad is?”

“No. He was gone by the time I was born
and my mother refuses to talk about him.”

“Interesting. My dad was around when I
was born, but my mother tired of him and married a French Count
named Henri BonVillaine. That’s where my surname comes from—some
rich guy my mother married for a year. It’s not a bad name, I
guess. Gaspar BonVillaine. Sometimes I have this nightmare where I
learn my real name is Gaspar Gomez. Talk about a let down. I wake
up in a cold sweat. Maybe that’s why I never ask. Who my real
father is, I mean.”

“Try Ellie Bochelli...”

“What?”

“Never mind. What happened after that?
After your mother left the Count?”

“She eventually tired of him as well
and we moved here, to Troy. Somewhere in all that, we met you and
your mother. Now history is repeating itself. I guess we were
always meant to cross paths again.”

“Cross paths? You talk like you’re from
the eighteenth century. How many dog years is one vampire year?”
she laughed. “Just curious.” She could see it hit a nerve in
him.