Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony (The Order Saga Book 1) (2 page)

I’m sorry to have to leave you like this but I can’t stay or explain myself further. I accidentally cut your arm with my nail while moving it and I hope the bandage was sufficient. Thank you for the books and for a truly wonderful evening! Again, I’m sorry.

She’d started to sign below that but scribbled it out and wrote “Kimberly” instead. No number, no nothing. I remember the note very well because I must have reread it a hundred times in the week that followed, imagining a wide variety of tones it could have been written in. I called off both my jobs that day, went back to bed in my bedroom and slept until the next morning.

The next week or so was hell. I did my best to forget her and move on but the memories haunted me. I tried to write but I couldn’t, so I just read when I could get up the interest. At work I was listless and irritable, snacking and going out for meals more often than I could afford. Jan, my boss at Oracle, was sympathetic when I told her about my “date” and offered to have her coven pray for the Goddess to help me love myself. I told her I’d been doing that without help since I was thirteen. On nights when I wasn’t working, I sat around at home and watched my
Buffy
DVDs and stuffed my face.

About a week later, I cleaned out the little trash basket in the living room and found a cotton ball with blood on it. I couldn’t think of how it’d gotten there until I remembered my arm. The cut was deep and still hadn’t completely healed. Sniffing the cotton ball, I recognized the medicinal smell of an over-the-counter topical anesthetic. The same kind Michelle had used on me when we exchanged blood as part of our lovemaking, before I started to enjoy the pain of the cut.

I realized my new girl was also a vampire.

I had to find her again!

* * * * *

Being a member of the vampire subculture for years, I’d hung with psychic vampires, people who role-played as vampires, people who just liked a little blood sharing with their sex and people who really believed they were creatures of the night (complete with coffins and dentally-bonded fangs). That night, I took the train up to New York and hit The Sanguinarian, one of the biggest vamp clubs in the city. I got no results from describing her, so I paid an artist I know to do a sketch.

The next night, I told the Captain at my security job that I’d had an emergency in my family and needed to take all my vacation days. Since I hadn’t requested the time two weeks in advance, he said I would have to quit if I wanted more than a day or two. I said fine and asked him to mail my last check. I kept the day job at Oracle, since I figured “Kimberly” for a night person. I wasn’t sure how I’d be paying all my bills come September but I didn’t care.

I hit every vampire and Goth club in New York with the sketch and came up empty. I wondered why somebody with a need for blood that compelled her to drink from one night stands wouldn’t frequent clubs full of willing donors. I tried the clubs in Philly. Ditto.

I figured Kimberly was probably an alias, so I kept my eyes open in Princeton in case she’d also lied about not living nearby. The more I thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that she’d just happened to come into Oracle that night, looking for books about vampires. She’d come to my apartment that night fully prepared to take blood and she’d done it with a skill that only came from practice. Perhaps she was a nurse but I was certain she was no amateur. She chose me. Her timing, her approach and possibly even her appearance had been specifically designed for me.

She chose me.

A lot of people would be creeped out by a realization like that. Call me sick but I kinda liked it. She’d seen something special in me and singled me out.

I got a hit the second night at the Princeton University East Asian Library (less than three blocks from Oracle.) The reference librarian thought she was a grad student or worked in one of the research labs in some capacity and said she was a regular. I also discovered that the “librarian look” wasn’t her current style. The librarian described her wearing jeans and casual blouses. He also said he didn’t remember her eyes being green. After that, I staked out the library every night until closing and then drove around or walked the streets.

I spotted her on the fourth or fifth night—I can’t remember which because I wasn’t sleeping well by then. I almost missed her in her baseball cap, workout shorts and Einstein  tee shirt. It took me a few moments to be sure it was her but there was something about the subtle way she searched her surroundings as she went. She wasn’t furtive but she was watchful in a way that struck me as experienced. I figured the guy in the library must have told her about my interest in her. I couldn’t imagine her being this worried about me, so I decided that she was either paranoid by nature, or this was a woman in hiding from somebody. She crossed the street and power-walked toward one of the larger campus buildings.

I followed, keeping a distance and doing my best to move near trees or objects big enough to obscure me when she stopped and glanced around. I’d never gone to Princeton but I’d become familiar enough with the area to know that the hall she headed for wasn’t a lab or research building. I gambled and decided that she was gonna move toward one of the building’s other exits. As soon as she went in, I ran around to the opposite corner, finding a spot which gave me a view of both of the building’s other doors.

I still almost missed her.

She’d opted to travel straight through the building and exit opposite where she’d entered. Only now there was no baseball cap, her hair was down and the glasses were gone. In the light of the doorway, I also noticed that her eyes were brown and not the brilliant green I remembered. She came out at the tail of a small group of chatting friends, doing her best to look like she was with them.

After we got away from the building, she veered away from her group and I followed her meandering route back to a one story colonial on a cul-de-sac. Small as it was, there’s no such thing as cheap housing in Princeton, so she obviously had money. I waited while she unlocked her door and disappeared inside, watching for another ten or fifteen minutes just to be sure this wasn’t another feint. Then I went back to my car, drove home and slept for about twelve hours.

* * * * *

The next afternoon, I ate lunch, shaved, put on a dress shirt and trousers and headed up to Princeton. The sun still hadn’t set by the time I got there, so to kill time and help ease my nervousness, I stopped for an early dinner. Finally, when it was dark and I couldn’t wait any more, I drove to her house and rang the doorbell.

No answer.

I knocked and waited, hearing nothing from inside. The windows were all curtained and impossible to see through. I found it hard to imagine she’d packed up and moved in less than a day, though that was one of the fears that resurfaced in my mind every few minutes. I sat down on her front steps and waited.

I was there about an hour before I heard the door open.

She wore jeans, a summer blouse and wasn’t wearing her glasses but she was exactly as I’d remembered. Her gorgeous green eyes were back (she used color contacts when she went out).

“You need to go home. Leave me alone,” she said.

Well, gee, who wouldn’t walk through fire for a reception like that?

She was already closing the door but I stuck my hand in the way—an incredibly dipshit move if she chose to just whack it with the door until I pulled back but I had to know if she’d do it. Instead, she stopped with a sigh and glared at me.

“I can’t go. Not … not until we talk.”

“Fine,” she said. “Hurry up and come inside.”

I stepped into a small foyer from which I could see a kitchen in back, a hallway that probably led to the bedroom and bathroom and a living room that looked like my high school library. I couldn’t see everything but there were full bookshelves and still more books piled on every horizontal surface that wasn’t already holding a computer. There were at least six computers on the huge corner desk, probably networked. One rolling chair at the desk. Later, when I was able to see more of the room, I spotted the bank of monitors for the hidden, night vision cameras that covered the entire exterior of the lot.

“Look, I’m sorry to have to come here like this,” I said as she closed the door and I got my bearings. She had no lights on, just the glow of the living room monitors. “But you don’t know what I’ve been going through since that night. I … it hurt waking up with nothing but that note…”

“What do you want, Avery?” Her anger was back but it was a bad disguise for the pain I could hear. My eyes were adjusting but I listened carefully to her inflections. She still hadn’t turned from the door. “I thought my note was pretty clear. Do you need to hear it in person? I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry if you thought there was more to that night than there was. I’m sorry you were hurt but I can’t give you any more than that. There is nothing more.”

It felt like being stabbed, hearing her say that but I did my best to hold on to my temper. I knew she wanted to turn this into an argument so I’d just get angry and leave but I couldn’t let myself fall into that trap. “No, there’s a hell of a lot more, at least as far as I’m concerned. I need to know what that night was really about, what was true and what wasn’t. I need to know who that woman I had such an incredible time with was … because I think I’m in love with her.”

She grabbed my arms and shoved me back against the wall—I couldn’t believe how strong her grip was and in the weird glow of the monitors from the living room, her features looked sharp and barely human. “Stop being ridiculous! You don’t know anything about me and you can’t, do you understand? The smartest thing you can do is forget about me—”

“Oh, don’t go all tragic loner on me! So you’re a vampire, big deal!”

That brought her up short and she flinched back. I knew now that by putting my cards on the table, I was literally risking my life.

“Yeah, I know you took some blood from me and you either drank it or you’re using it for some funky science project. I knew that before I started looking for you and here I am.” She let go of me and moved away. I held out my arm. “You want more? Go ahead, take it! Isn’t it easier to have a willing donor than going around seducing strange men in bookstores? It’s also pretty obvious that you’re in hiding from someone or something. Well, if they’re looking for you alone, wouldn’t it be harder to find you if you were with a guy? Not to mention I could probably help out in other ways…”

She was just looking at me and I couldn’t see her expression well enough to know how I was doing. I started pacing a little. “Dammit, don’t you understand? All I want is an honest chance. At this point in my life, you are the best thing that ever happened to me! You’re smart, beautiful, interesting, exciting, funny, warm—”

“Funny?”

“Well, okay, maybe more witty than funny. That’s okay. I’ll be the funny one.”

She laughed with a sniffle that told me I’d reached something in her. It was enough to calm me down a little. “All I’m saying is let me have a chance at a relationship with you, Kimberly, whatever that means. If it doesn’t work, I’ll go away quietly. Or maybe I’ll grow old rapidly like John Blaylock in
The Hunger
but you know, whatever.”

Neither of us said anything for a few moments. Then she sighed, long and deep and leaned back against the wall. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Oh God, Avery … you sweet, impossible, stupid … wonderful boy…”

I walked over to where she stood and leaned down and kissed up the tears from the heat of her skin. I moved my mouth to hers and kissed her lips. They opened for me and I tasted the copper tang of fresh blood in her mouth and pressed harder, penetrating more enthusiastically with my tongue…

Before the kiss could lead to penetration of a different sort, she eased me down and rested her head on my shoulder. “Caroline,” she said.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Caroline.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you, Caroline.”

She laughed and kissed behind my ear. We held each other for another few minutes and then she led me back into her kitchen for the first in a series of very long conversations that began our merry adventure together.

PART TWO

The fact that we choose to refer to our peculiar form of reproduction as “Creation” speaks volumes about the God-like power we see within ourselves as well as the low opinion of the human material from which we originate.

- Dr. Caroline Ludlow,
The Order: History, Structure and Purpose
.

From the Diary of Caroline Ludlow

Sept. 14, 1946

Tonight Sebastian has asked me to join him. Though not wholly unexpected, I am still in a whirlwind of emotions. The implications of his proposal are staggering. To be his bride forever, truly forever, as a Vampyr.

He has promised me that if I decline his offer, nothing would happen to me. I’d be free to leave and live as before but he has revealed to me the existence of The Order and its control of mankind. Can I just go on working a “normal” government job in a government that is merely a puppet?

Stop beating around the bush, Caroline! Sebastian is the most fascinating, romantic and charismatic man I have ever met. I LOVE HIM!!!

How could I settle for an ordinary life or marriage to an ordinary man who’s ignorant of the true nature of the world around him? The truth is, I can’t. Sebastian has already changed me forever.

What should I do?? If I accept his offer, Sebastian will make me a Vampyr, an immortal being who must drink human blood to survive and sleep during the day to avoid sunlight. Eternal youth and immortality, at a price. Living off blood isn’t evil, is it? So many species do. It’s not as if I would have to hunt and kill every night, not with the blood banks set up nationwide and the companies that exist to serve The Order. Even if I had to hunt, I only need a pint each from several people a night, not enough to harm anyone. No one need die to sustain me.

I’m rationalizing. Yes, there are drawbacks. Yes, it’s not a perfect situation but if I understand it going in, the harm can be minimized. I have the ability to understand a society I never suspected existed. I also have the opportunity to influence that powerful society toward doing less harm to the people it controls. Perhaps a synthetic blood substitute can be created, something with all the nutrients Vampyrs need to live on. Surely Sebastian and the others could see the advantage.

In the end, I suppose it comes right back to love. I don’t want to live without Sebastian. I can’t. I don’t want to be alone anymore. There is no one like Sebastian. Every moment with him has been stimulating, exciting and romantic. Think of what he’s offering. Not just a good marriage but the opportunity to truly make the world a better place! Meet the brightest people, travel the world and see every new discovery make its impact. Promote science and medicine to help rid the world of disease, poverty and hunger. Help Sebastian and his allies understand their enemies better, to minimize the damage they can do to both mankind and each other. Maybe we can stop future wars, or at least, lessen the horrors they inflict on the innocent. I can make a real difference! Not to mention being alive for the next centuries and seeing the marvels that will exist. Not just see them but touch them, live with them! Isn’t that reason enough to accept Sebastian’s offer?