Twice Bitten (28 page)

“Hmmm…I would say the best way to describe it is exhilarating,” a young man’s voice observed from behind me. Tyreen looked beyond me, smiling coyly as I turned to face Garvan de sang. A four hundred year-old vampire from France, he looked like a typical European playboy that night, dressed in a white Armani suit and apricot silk shirt opened at the neck. Garvan’s fiery emerald eyes peered through shoulder-length blonde hair that fell forward as he served himself a champagne glass filled with fresh plasma—his preferred ‘Type O’ kept ready at room temperature. “Unless you forget about the speed…forgetting about that would be bad.
Very
bad. “

“How so?” I wanted him to elaborate. I could tell Tyreen was even more curious than I.

“Depending on how fast one travels, it’s possible to slip past the earth’s gravitational pull,” he explained, his expression playful and his normally rich aristocratic accent muted. “And then ‘poof’, you are no longer part of this world ever again.”

“That would suck for anyone,” I said, while Tyreen’s hopeful smile faded.

Meanwhile, Garvan’s own smile widened, revealing his gleaming fangs.

“Yes, that’s a correct assessment.” He moved over to an empty seat next to Tyreen. “But, it’s far worse for a vampire. Imagine for a moment that you were like Tyreen or me, and can no longer easily die…. Can you picture how much fun this could become if all of us were shot out into the vast expanse of outer space?”

“Are you suggesting we wouldn’t just turn into a block of ice out there, destined to orbit the earth until ‘Kingdom come’?” Tyreen’s sarcastic wit that I’ve always loved overrode the slight fear I sensed hovering just below the surface.

“Well, I suppose whatever is organic within our vampire bodies would freeze,” interjected another male voice from behind us. The accent was almost genteel Spanish, as I suppose the rich plantation owners who occupied Haiti and Cuba after arriving from Portugal and Spain sounded several hundred years ago. “But no vampire likes to spin around anything—definitely not the earth—
ever!”

I turned further in my seat to face Armando. Like Garvan, he was also dressed like a young jet setter. Only he preferred a full black Hugo Boss suit with a burgundy silk shirt. My Spanish protector—and among my favorite immortals—is quite a looker, with long dark hair he keeps slicked back. If the stereotypical widow’s peak atop his forehead doesn’t betray his preternatural status as a blood drinker, his unearthly deep blue eyes and prominent fangs will remove all doubt in an instant.

“You two sound ridiculous!”

From the front of the plane, Raquel Meurtrier eyed us with playful contempt. I realized then that an impromptu ‘vampire meeting’ with Gustav must have officially ended. As my most diminutive and dainty vampire protector, Raquel was dressed in black tights and a long purple cardigan sweater that surprisingly worked well together. Especially with her flowing crimson locks and intense violet eyes. The slight smirk on her face told me that she enjoyed my latest admiring nod. Unlike the other female vampires in my close circle of companions, Raquel doesn’t gravitate to the latest designer fashions. She prefers a wardrobe featuring elegance crossed with a loose thrown-together feel, and is the closest thing to Lady Gaga we’ll likely ever see in our exclusive society.

“You sound more like a pair of real dumb-asses, in my opinion,” she said as she sauntered toward us, a more roguish grin tugging at the corners of her thin lips.

“Perhaps ‘dumb-asses’ who never considered the combustion of their vampire bodies once this so called orbit brought them face to face with the sun,” added Chanson. She somehow joined our little group without me seeing her entrance into our area. Only her distinctive lilac scent alerted me to her presence. “And it would be a hell of a lot hotter and crueler without the ultraviolet protection from the earth’s atmosphere.”

Dressed in a dark blue Armani suit similar to the blazer and skirt laid out for me the previous afternoon, she carried a laptop with her. Chanson sat down next to me, grimacing slightly. The look on her face said the meeting she and the others had attended, except for Tyreen, had involved some sort of battle…. A war of wills, perhaps? This sort of thing usually makes me quite uneasy. But, at the moment, the olfactory barrage from their collective presence was of worse concern. Even more than the chilled presence Chanson and Raquel brought with them, since neither one had fed that evening.

You might recall how my vampire companions all carry distinctive scents. Aside from Chanson’s lilac scent, there’s cinnamon for Garvan, ginger for Armando, roses for Raquel, and honeysuckle for Tyreen, the newest vampire. Yes, it can be too much sometimes. The collective odors often remind me of a flower shop combined with some kind of weird spice boutique.

Not an easy combo for a new mom to be. Definitely not, considering the accelerated morning sickness I already endured. Hell, it was afternoon and evening sickness, too. The ‘all day’ bullshit made me worry this unpleasantness might last throughout my entire pregnancy.

I had nothing to compare this to, since mine wasn’t a normal human conception process. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Peter Worley and I were forced to have sex while Chanson drained my blood until I passed out. The only fertilized ovum I’ll ever produce had begun its transformation into the fetus that in six months would become my angel, Alaia.

“You look pale, Txema,” said Armando. “I believe a bottle of Perrier will restore your color, no?”

Before I could respond, he had already disappeared. I’ve mentioned before how much I truly hate it when they do that sort of thing—here one instant and zip away the next.

“Really, a glass of wine would be a better choice!” I called after him, or at least to where I thought he disappeared.

“Uh-uh-uh,” chided Raquel. She stood behind Chanson, trying to steal a peek at what our vampire princess had just typed into her MacBook. “No alcohol fun for you, sweetie, until you’ve hatched your young!”

Well, at least this was cynical wit I could relate to.

“Perhaps you’re right,” I said. “I guess I’ll settle for a diet Coke instead.”

Really, if I’m forgoing alcohol, then it doesn’t matter what they serve me, unless it’s blood. Armando soon returned, but with a glass of lightly sweetened iced tea instead.

“I believe we have much to talk about before the plane lands in the next half hour.” He chuckled sourly while studying my face. “There’s much to be aware of in light of Gustav’s most recent update.”

He reclaimed his seat after handing me my drink, ignoring a sharp glance from Chanson. It wasn’t the first time I’ve noticed how he sometimes irritates her. Whatever discussion she’d just had with Gustav left her in no mood for Armando’s cavalier nature that night.

“Let me handle this,” she told him coolly, before turning her attention to me. Her emerald eyes seemed more luminescent than usual. Like Garvan, her long dark brown hair hung forward, although she brushed it away from her face so she could see me clearly. They all turned to study me, and I felt the blood rush to my face. I hate being the center of attention—despite what one reviewer of my first journal posted online about me last year. “Since we all heard the report from Xuanxang, it’s only fair Txema learns the truth about what is happening in China.”

Chanson’s voice is almost musical, except when she’s upset or worried. When that happens, her words come off fairly harsh. I doubt she’d remain in high regard among her vampire peers if this were perceived as a normal weakness. No doubt some of her vulnerability is due to her overt fondness for me, her distant cousin.

She and I are near mirror images of each other. We’re both tall and athletic, but with enough curves to pull an admiring eye now and then from either sex. My hair is only slightly lighter than hers, and our facial features and the way we talk and smile are nearly identical. The biggest difference is in our eyes, as mine are more hazel than hers. Then again, I’m told that Chanson’s eyes were the same as mine before she became a vampire.

“Are we still going to the Himalayas and the Palace of Xu Zheng you told me about earlier tonight?” I hoped I didn’t sound overly concerned one way or another.

“Yes, that’s our destination…or, at least our original landing point,” said Chanson, her tone brighter. It was as if she stole a peek at my inner thoughts, and it pleased her by what she found. 

Before undergoing the sacred ‘sex and blood’ ceremony—the Relance de sang, I mentioned—my thoughts were completely open to any vampire. I believe many of my readers have experienced this unpleasant ‘thought nakedness’ with a vampire by now. But after I was brought back from the brink of death, I soon found that I’d inherited a lighter version of their telepathic abilities. Yes, it can be somewhat disconcerting…and even annoying. But I’ve only been affected when around human beings like myself, which at the moment consisted of the pilots and the flight staff aboard the jet.

Meanwhile, my thoughts had become a cloudy mess for my vampire companions to muddle through. Instead of the verbatim translations from my head they once freely enjoyed, they suddenly had to rely more on their intuitions and intelligence to define the bits and pieces they gathered from me. It provided my only shot at some sort of privacy, since Gustav has mandated I not be left alone or unprotected at any time.

“Our original welcome to stay there indefinitely is now limited to a few months.” Chanson paused while the others nodded in agreement. Only Tyreen abstained, since she was the lone vampire aboard the flight uninvited to either of the meetings that took place since we left France. “Ralu’s presence in the lower plateaus of the Himalayas has greatly alarmed the Chinese emperor and those vampires loyal to him.”

“Keep in mind that Huangtian Dadi’s vampire nation is much smaller than ours, where his one-hundred and twenty-four vampires are less than a third of our European group,” added Raquel, to which Chanson raised an approving eyebrow. She motioned for her to go on. “Xuanxang advised that the other forty-three vampires residing in the Chinese domain are either undecided in their loyalties, or have already given their support to Ralu’s cause.”

I didn’t like the way this sounded…so bleak and a touch ominous. It was as if my fate, and more importantly, the fate of my unborn child were of tenuous concern in the bigger vampire picture. My world is no longer the global community to which all of you belong. I’d already witnessed first hand on several occasions how a ripple of unpopularity in the realm of the undead can have drastic consequences for mortals such as myself. I suddenly worried about the personal danger of traveling into a land where some of my hosts might hold the same contempt for me that Ralu does—regardless of any uniqueness from my heritage and bloodline.

At present, I assumed the world’s vampire population contained roughly eight thousand souls—the vast majority condemned to serve Ralu in his personal and ruthless army numbering at least six thousand. The European vampire nation had shrunk to just over three hundred and seventy dark souls the night before, after Ralu’s attack upo
n
‘le chateau de douleur’
,
Racco’s once-glorious castle in the French Pyrenees near Perpignan. The remaining scattered ‘vampiredoms’ are part of what Armando calls the HRBDA, or the ‘Hallowed Reclusive Blood Drinkers Association’. Apparently most vampire groups are extremely shy, and avoid contact with human societies at all costs…unless they cross paths with unwary, and thu
s
unfortunate, stragglers.

“So, I guess what I went through last night turned out to be for nothing…Ralu is still just as aggressive as he was before the ceremony—he still intends to subdue the world! Maybe we should continue on until we find a place that’s safer,” I said, pausing to look into everyone’s faces. Frozen expressions looked back at me, some mirthful while others serious…but all intense. “Somewhere in America would probably be better.”

“Which America are you referring to?” Garvan sounded irritated and a tad worried, as if I had any real say in where we’d end up. “It’s true that Ralu has stepped up his attacks, and either continent will soon be overrun by his mercenaries. Unless you long for an existence languishing at the very tip of either the north or south poles, you should patiently await Gustav’s direction.  He has a plan to deal with this, Txema…and some of it was laid out for us this evening.”

“Then, why not speak clearly, instead of—”

Before I could finish my rebuke, I felt the coolness of Chanson’s index finger upon my upper lip. Surprised, I immediately shut up.

“I think it’s best if we get settled in our new accommodations first, and then we can continue this discussion in a more meaningful way.” She cast another sharp glance, this time at Garvan. Armando snickered while looking on. For the moment, she ignored him, focused instead on the rest of her message to me. “The plan will make much more sense from within the environment where it will be carried out.”

I politely nodded, both out of respect for my cousin—my strongest vampire ally—as well as the simple truth behind her words. She was right, there wasn’t a damned thing that could be done about our destination at this point. We would reach the Palace of Xu Zheng before long. Aside from having to refuel the jet to get us across either the Pacific or Atlantic, we’d need to secure a place free from vampire attacks—not to mention the far-reaching telepathy of Ralu Izcacus.

“I’m hungry,” said Tyreen, after an awkward silence followed Chanson’s advisement to me. “My stomach’s churning again!”