“I am Lord Charles Winthrop, at your service, and the reason I am here should be obvious. I have come to take you home.”
“Oookay then. Listen, Chuck—”
“The name is Charles.”
“Whatever. Listen, I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He seemed genuinely surprised. “But we’re family! My family has always lived together.”
“Dude, I already have a family. And the guy who bit me and threw me into the ravine is not a part of it, get me?”
“I’m sorry about losing my temper and throwing you into that gully. I was angered that you struggled so. But my dear Colby, we are family. I am your Creator and your allegiance is to me.”
“Wow, you are so not getting it. You’re not my anything. I don’t know you, I don’t like you and I have a family who loves and cares for me. So take a hike. Beat it.”
He was getting angry again, but then so was I. How dense did he have to be? I was never going to hang with him, ever. Couldn’t he see that?
“I’m afraid this won’t do at all,” he said through clenched teeth. He looked at my house and caught a brief glimpse of Great-Aunt Chloe walking by the window.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said in my most menacing tone. “You get within so much as ten feet of anyone in my family, I will stake you so fast it will make your head spin.”
He laughed at me, so full of self-assurance. “Dearest Colby, you wouldn’t hurt me.”
I stepped closer, until we were practically nose to nose, which meant Chuck was not all that tall. I looked deep into his eyes, making sure I had his complete attention, and whispered, “Watch me.”
His face lost all amusement. He growled and tried to slap me but I was too fast. I dodged his blow and kicked him in the groin, again. He buckled forward, gasping.
“I wish you would quit
doing
that,” he said with a moan.
“I meant what I said, Chuck. Stay away from me and stay away from my family or your immortal days are over.” I started to leave.
“Do you really think those Tribunal Investigators are going to help you, Colby?” he managed to get out.
Despite myself, I turned back to him.
“Oh yes, I know all about Thomas and Carl. They have been chasing me for awhile now. They are never going to give you one of these.” He held out his hand and showed me a large old-fashioned ring that looked a lot like a class ring.
“What’s that?”
He laughed at my naïveté. “Why, it’s what you need, my dear. It’s the reason you
will
live with me.”
“Why do you want me to come with you so badly? And don’t give me the family line again. I know families who are glad to live hundreds of miles from each other.”
He stared at me hard. “You are different. You are strong. There is something special about you.”
He turned to leave. “And, Colby, dear? Kick me again and I will rip off your leg.” He said it so casually I shivered. Then he disappeared in the light fog that was always present in the autumn evenings in our neighborhood on the Plateau.
As if in a daze, I walked back inside my house and straight up to my room. I picked up Thomas’s card, took a deep breath and dialed the number. He picked up on the first ring.
“Thomas here.”
“Hello? This is—”
“Colby Blanchard.”
Well really, who else would it be?
“Yes, I was wondering if maybe you and I could talk a little more about, well, uh, about my circumstances.”
“Sure. Shall we say about an hour from now?”
Wow, that was quick.
“Great, how about we meet at the Krispy Kreme at the bottom of the hill from my house?”
“Are you sure you want to meet in public?” he asked uncertainly.
“Actually, I insist on it. Oh, and no Carl please.”
He chuckled into the phone and my toes curled in pleasure.
“That would be fine. See you then.”
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I put down the phone. I was smiling! I was completely crushing on this guy—this
vampire
. I had to snap out of it. The last time we spoke his buddy wanted to kill me, and the only other vampire I knew was the nut job who wanted to be my family but also threatened to tear off my leg. I had no reason to assume that Thomas wasn’t just as whacked-out as the rest of them.
Still, I dressed with extra care. Low-slung jeans, turtle-neck sweater, cute half boots and matching scarf. It said “interested” without trying that hard. I added a swipe of pink lip gloss with blusher, popped on my FosterGrants and was out the door with time to spare.
I borrowed the car from Dad with only a short amount of resistance. Once I mentioned feeding, he couldn’t give me the keys fast enough. He was dying to know how his invention would hold up to practical application. He even wanted to come along but I convinced him I couldn’t eat with anyone else watching. I was too self-conscious. It must have been the oddest conversation between daughter and father in the history of mankind.
When I arrived at the Krispy Kreme, the parking lot was pretty deserted. It was more of a hangout on Friday and Saturday nights, but on Monday things were pretty lame. I waited in my car until exactly the appointed time. I opened the door and was overwhelmed by the scent of doughnuts, which normally would have been a good thing. But with my new olfactory superpowers, I wasn’t sure this was the best place to meet Thomas after all.
He arrived right after me, dressed in a forest green sweater that hugged his shoulders (yum) and faded, fitted jeans (yum, yum) that hugged his thighs. Seeing Thomas in 501’s made me want to ban baggy pants from the face of the earth. I was pretty into him and somehow, I didn’t care that he was a vampire. After all, so was I.
“Hey,” I said as he slipped into the booth across from me.
“How are you doing?” he asked, his eyes reflecting concern. “This can’t be very easy for you.”
And the prize for understatement of the year goes to … the hunky vampire in the doughnut shop.
“Well, I admit it isn’t easy finding out you’re a vampire.”
“Colby, you’re not a vampire.”
Seven
“
E
xcuse me? Then why do I drink blood?”
“Colby, you’re Undead, but not a vampire.”
“Is this because I don’t have a license yet? Because I can’t officially call myself a vampire without it?”
“No—you aren’t fully Blooded, that’s why you can’t call yourself a vampire. You are too many generations removed from the original vampires to actually
be
one.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your attacker, Charles Winthrop, is a fully Blooded vampire, but we estimate he is twelfth or thirteenth generation. We aren’t entirely sure, but we do know his offspring are not fully Blooded. Mongrels, if you will.”
I’m not a vampire?! I’m a half-blooded mongrel?! Oh, I don’t think so.
“So even though you have vampire characteristics, you are not a true vampire,” Thomas finished.
“I see. Tell me what characteristics a true vampire has.”
“Well, we can’t go in the sunlight; are burned by holy water; must feed daily; have superhuman strength, speed and hearing. Also, we have a finely tuned sense of smell, and we are immortal.”
“That’s it in a nutshell then?”
He smiled at my comment.
“Do half-bloods tend to have some of the characteristics?” I asked.
“Yes, they can have any combination but never at the same capacity of a Blooded vampire.”
“Probably gives you Blooded guys a feeling of real superiority over us poseurs, huh?” I said it teasingly, but he nodded as though I was serious.
“We
are
superior—and there are no other half-bloods. The license process ensures that no genetic mutants are created.”
Genetic mutants?! No one calls me a genetic mutant, no matter how hot they look in jeans!
“Seems like your vampire license process just doesn’t work,” replied the resentful genetic mutant half-blood.
He nodded in agreement.
“Occasionally a vampire goes rogue. They can’t handle the new system; it’s too much for them. They become unstable and want to start their own clan.”
“How new is this system?” I envisioned a process that was still so young, a lot of the vampires weren’t ready to adapt.
“Only about two hundred years old.”
Wow!
“How long have you been a vampire?”
“I was turned during the war.”
I didn’t want to sound stupid but if the law was considered young at 200 years old, then Thomas could be referring to any number of wars. Human history was jam-packed with them.
“Which war?”
“World War Two.”
So he was around eighty years old, give or take a few. It wasn’t fair that gramps here still looked like a college boy and now that I knew his real age, I was
still
infatuated with him. Was I creepy or what?
I looked down at his hands. Sure enough, he was wearing a ring similar to Chuck’s but not nearly as old. I played dumb. “What’s that?”
“My license.” He held his hand out for me to see.
“Can I hold it?”
He smiled. “Sorry, it only comes off when I’m dead.”
“Eek,” I muttered, looking it over across the table. “Looks old.”
“Not really. I am relatively young. I didn’t have a license in the beginning either, you know.”
Now that was intriguing. “Really? Tell me about it.”
“I was stationed in Germany, in the war. We marched on Normandy and during the fighting I was separated from my unit. I was terrified, I’m not ashamed to tell you. Anyway, I was hiding until daylight so I could find my unit without getting shot by patrols when this German soldier is suddenly right next to me. I didn’t hear a thing. I thought for sure I was a goner. It was odd he didn’t reach for a weapon. No gun, no knife, nothing. I was struggling to get my gun when he told me to stop, and I did. I just looked at him and was filled with numbness. I couldn’t move. He told me to look at the stars and I did, then he fed upon me.”
I was transfixed by his story, remembering the sensation of numbness but also remembering that I was able to fight it off.
Thomas continued, “When he drank his fill, I was barely alive. I don’t know why he did it, but he opened his own vein and made me drink. He created me.”
“What happened then?” I was fully enraptured with his story, so parallel to my own.
“I passed out and woke up a couple hours later. The soldier was still with me. I had an unbearable thirst and he seemed to understand this. He took me to a place where I could feed.”
“Where was that?” I asked.
Thomas’s gaze hardened a little, but he answered my question. “He took me to a battleground where most of the men were already dead. I found one or two that were too far gone to save.”
“I’m so sorry, Thomas. That must have been terrible for you.”
For a moment he seemed lost in thought but shook himself out of it when I asked, “How did you finally get your license?”
“At the time, Germany had its own Princes and were adopting the license procedure, though it worked a little differently. I brought them the license of my Creator and I was given his license as my own.”
“So you had to kill him, right? That was the only way you could get his license.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand. Why did he do it? He had his license. Wasn’t he getting along just fine?”
Thomas sighed deeply. “My Creator had been a vampire for hundreds of years. That does something to you. He was very sick. You will learn that vampires don’t live in the human world but my Creator was in the army, living with other humans. It does something to the mind. Makes you dream impossible dreams.”
Okay, whatever that means
. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it anymore so I changed the subject. “So why get a license at all? Why is it necessary?”
“It’s the law. It’s due process. Listen, Colby, there was a time when our kind was primal and savage. There were tribal feuds for power and many vampires lost their lives. Despite this, no one wanted to create more offspring for fear their children would usurp their power and kill them. Our kind was on the brink of extinction. It took the creation of the Tribunal to save us. Other areas began to adapt our notion and slowly we are rebuilding our race.”
“So the Tribunal is what? The vampire congress or something?”
“The Tribunal of any area consists of the three most powerful vampires, or Princes, to use an old-school term. They govern our area and keep the peace.”
“Why three and not just one?”