Heart of the Vampire (Vanderlind Castle) (10 page)

“What?” I asked
. I was still thinking about the death certificate and dreaded the words that were about to come out of his mouth. Jessie did seem to like to make a dramatic exit.

“If we’re going to convince the Bishops that we intend to be conjoined, then I guess I’d better give you this.” He shoved a small velvet box into my hands and then disappeared into the night.

The box was square and fit neatly into my palm. It was the deep hue that I had come to think of as Vanderlind purple. With trembling hands, I flipped open the lid.

There sat the biggest diamond
ring I could imagine. I’m no expert in jewelry, but it had to be at least three carats. It was round in shape and about the circumference of a dime. The light from my bedroom got caught up in the stone and made it dance with tiny rainbows. “Oh, my God,” I gasped.

The setting was white gold or possibly platinum, I couldn’t tell, and there was a channel of smaller diamonds surrounding the center stone. The band of the ring had fine roses and filigree work crafted into the metal.
It was so pretty, I just stared at it for a few seconds with my mouth open.

“Are you kidding me with this?” I called out into the night and thought I heard a faint chuckle in response.

Chapter 15

“Hi
, Dad, it’s Aurora,” I said, gripping the phone way too hard.

“Aurora?” my dad said, as if he’d never heard the name before.

“Yes, your daughter,” I replied pointedly.

“Oh, hi
, honey.” He began to sound a little warmer, like a regular father might. Maybe he just had to repeat my name that way so Tammy wouldn’t immediately pounce on him and pry the phone out of his hands screaming, “Who is it?” I wouldn’t have been surprised if she sat in his office all day while he worked.

I was on lunch at school and
had stepped outside to make my phone call. We are not allowed to use our phones inside the school. In fact, if a teacher even sees you with a phone in your hand, it’s reason for confiscation. I’d slipped mine into my bag from my locker and snuck out of the building like I was a shoplifter. Using your phone on school grounds wasn’t strictly prohibited, but not encouraged. I usually just held off until the end of the day, but I wanted to get my dad’s call out of the way.

“Just checking in with you about Thanksgiving,” I said when
it became obvious he wasn’t going to take the conversation there voluntarily.

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah... Um... You know I’d love to see you, honey, but Thanksgiving isn’t such a great time for you to visit. I mean, well... It’s short notice
, and... We’re really busy right now, and... I’m sorry; it’s just not going to work for us.”

“I understand,” I told him. “Maybe next year.” If I was alive to see the next year.

“Oh. Okay. Maybe,” he hedged. “Well, we’ll talk about it later.”

“Okay. I’ve gotta get going. Bye
, Dad,” I said and quickly hung up. I found it peculiar that I felt the impulse to say, “I love you,” at the end of our conversation. Did I love my dad or did I just feel compelled to say it because he was my dad and that’s what you’re supposed to say? I didn’t really have the room in my brain to figure it out. What I did feel was a level of relief that he actually didn’t say yes. That would have complicated things more than they already were. He’d done what I’d expected; he’d said no. Now all I had to do was lie to my mother, fly to Budapest, get a dead body through customs, and convince a tribunal of vampires that I was the reincarnated spirit of my great, great aunt. How hard could that be?

As I slipped my phone into my bag and headed back into the school, I saw Fred waiting for me. I knew it was cowardly, but I’d been avoiding him all morning. He was probably expecting me to be all thrilled and gush over how excited I was that he’d sent me roses, but that’s not how I felt. What I felt was slightly annoyed. There was a ton on my plate. I needed to focus on staying alive, not on sparing the feelings of the high school football star. But I also felt guilty. I knew it was such a chick way to feel, but I couldn’t help myself. My mom once told me, “If women stopped doing things because they felt guilty, the world would grind to a halt.” That was probably true, but it didn’t stop me from feeling
that way.

“Hi
, Fred,” I said as I walked inside.

“Hi.” He gave me a big expectant smile.

“Thanks for the flowers,” I told him as I kept walking.

“You’re welcome,” he said, keeping pace at my side. When I didn’t add anything to the conversation
, he said, “I hope you like pink.”

“Sure, I guess,” I said, making my way toward the cafeteria. I needed to grab something to eat before facing the afternoon.

“Has your mystery guy ever sent you flowers?” he wanted to know.

I shook my head. “Not yet.” He had given me a beautiful necklace and a three carat diamond ring, but it wasn’t really fair to bring that up. Jessie had vampire money
, and Fred was probably scrounging from his allowance.

Fred thought this over as we walked. When we reached the doors to the cafeteria, he said, “So I guess I have to keep working at it.”

“At what?” I was confused.

“Winning you back.”

Oh, God, Blossom had been so right. He did really still think it was all about him.

The whole thing made me tired. “Fred, I’m super stressed right now. All I want to do is grab some food and get to my next class.”

“Oh,” he said, looking deflated.

I felt a
nother wave of guilt wash over me. Fred was nice and cute, and I really should have been dating him instead of being faux engaged to a dead guy. “Thanks again for the flowers,” I said, squeezing his arm before I dashed into the cafeteria.

I knew I was giving Fred false hope
. The healthiest thing he could have done was get over me and move on with his life, but I just couldn’t tell him that. Not with him looking so down. Besides, deep under my attraction for Jessie and my fear of being killed by vampires and the possibility that I was the reincarnation of some dead relative, I did on some level like Fred. Despite his jock exterior. Or at least, I would have liked him if I’d been living a normal life for a teenager. No such luck with that, though.

I couldn’t concentrate. We had a test in history, usually one of my favorite subjects, but I was pretty sure I’d bombed it. I kept thinking of things I needed to pack. Was I really going to go through with it? Was I really going to sneak off to Budapest with a vampire to face a jury of vampires? Was I insane?

I just couldn’t think of a way out of it. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life leaving the house
only during the day. Eventually, I would slip up, and a vampire would get me. The best chance I had was to try to convince the Bishops. It was terrifying to think about—a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from. I had to trust Jessie. It was my only option. I had to believe that he would protect me if the Bishops ruled against us. A life spent on the run from vengeful vampires while being protected by a vampire sounded stressful. And here I thought high school was bad.

As soon as I got out of class for the day
, my phone was ringing. I noticed as I went to answer it that there were a few messages waiting, all from my mom. And it was her calling again. “Hello? Mom?” I answered, knowing immediately that something must have been very wrong. My mom wouldn’t have been peppering me with phone calls otherwise.

“Aurora, it’s Grandma Gibso
n,” Mom said, her voice carrying a small tremble. “The nursing home called because she’s having a hard time. They need a family member over there right away. I’d go but I’ve got two counseling sessions this evening, and these girls are both really struggling. I can’t cancel on them at the last minute.”

“You need me to go over there?” I asked as I headed toward my car.
No, no, no
I shouted in my head.
I don’t want to see my crazy great grandmother. I don’t want her freaking me out even more than I’m already freaked. Not today of all days!

“Would you, honey? Please?” Mom said. “I would really feel a lot better if someone could check on her.”

“Of course,” I told her, desperately not wanting to go but knowing it was the right thing to do. “I’ll go right now.” It was the least I could do, even if it meant Grandma Gibson messing with my head. There was a very good chance it would be the last favor I would do for my mom, ever.

“Great,” M
om said with a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, Aurora.”

I
really did not want to deal with this new, future-predicting great grandmother, but I didn’t see how I had a choice. My mom was counting on me. She really loved Grandma Gibson, and I did, too, when she wasn’t completely freaking me out. On the way out of town, I stopped by our house and grabbed Fred’s roses. They really were pretty and would probably cheer Grandma up a little bit.

“We’re so glad you’re here,” the woman at the front desk said as I went to check in. “Lily has been having a very hard day.” After looking at my signature on the sign-in sheet she said, “She keeps asking for Colette. Will she be dropping by, too?”

“Um, no,” I had to tell her. “Colette died about eighty years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” the lady said, appearing genuinely concerned. “Well, I’m sure seeing you will cheer her up. Especially bringing such pretty flowers
. Aren’t you a sweetheart.” I wondered how much of a sweetheart she would think I was if she knew I was just ditching flowers from my ex-boyfriend.

When I got
to her room, Grandma Gibson looked fine. She was seated at her table, as usual, messing with her cards. “Hi, Grandma,” I said, forcing cheerfulness into my voice. “How are you?”

“I am fine, Aurora,” she said, looking up from her game of what I had always assumed was solitaire. “I guess the real question is, how are you?”

“Great,” I told her. “I brought you some flowers.” I lifted the bouquet of roses a little in the air to draw attention to them.

“Thank you,” she said, sparing the roses only a small glance. “Ex-boyfriend or creepy guy hoping to be your boyfriend?”

“Wh...” She had caught me out, and I didn’t know how to answer.

This made Grandma chuckle. “This isn’t my first time around the block,” she explained. “I know the only reason people bring nice flowers to the old age home is because they don’t want them.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling genuinely ashamed. “I can give them to the nurses at the front desk if you want.”

“No, that’s okay, dear. Please don’t worry about it. It’s the privilege of the old to call out the young. When I have the presence of mind to do it, I like to take advantage of the situation.”

I realized, with some surprise, that Grandma Gibson was acting normal. Not just normal, but pretty damn sharp. This never happened when I visited. I sometimes got Sweet Grandma and frequently got Confused Grandma or Agitated Grandma and then there was the new Fortune-Telling Grandma, which I did not appreciate, but rarely Sharp Grandma. Everyone had warned me that she was having a horrible day, but there she was, giving me guilt for recycled flowers. It made me suspicious. “What’s going on, Grandma?” I asked, parking myself in the spare chair.

“I had a visit from your young man,” she told me quite casually as she flipped over a card and placed it in one of the long rows she’d made.

“Fred?” I was confused.

“No
.” Grandma shook her head. “That wasn’t his name.” She pursed her lips. “He looked exactly the way I remembered him. So handsome. I can see how Colette was taken in.”

“You mean Jessie?” I asked. There didn’t seem to be any point in trying to conceal his name from her. “Jessie visited you here?”

Grandma looked up at me. “Jessie. Yes, that’s right. That’s his name. Back when I knew him we always addressed him as Mr. Vanderlind, but I suppose things aren’t as formal now.”

I should have known Grandma Gibson would find a way to make my visit weird. Pinching the bridge of my nose to fight back a headache, I asked, “So you’re saying Jessie Vanderlind came here? To visit you? During visiting hours or something?”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Aurora,” she said, mildly ridiculing me. “Visiting hours end at six. He couldn’t have come out then. He came last night. He was there,” she said, pointing across the room. “Lurking outside my window.”

“He...” I stared at the window for a moment
. The curtains were wide open, and the late afternoon light was streaming in. If I were her and I saw a vampire lurking outside my window, I would at least have the curtains drawn. “What did you do?”

“I opened the window and invited him in,” she said matter-of-factly as she rearranged a few of her cards.

“You did what?” I couldn’t help but exclaim. I trusted Jessie with my life, but he always insisted that I never invite him into my home. He always wanted there to be at least a small barrier between us.

“I told him he was welcome to my blood,” Grandma continued, ignoring my outburst. “All that he could drink. But in exchange
, he had to leave my great granddaughter alone.”

“You... He...” I stammered. “What did you do that for?”

Grandma sighed, giving me a weary look. “Because I’m old. And I’ve lived with the pain of Colette’s death for most of my life. If he were to kill you, like he did my sister, and I was to just keep on living, there wouldn’t be any sense in it. I would gladly trade my life for yours if it meant he would go away and leave my family alone.”

“He’s not like that,” I told her.

“Not like what?” was her reply. “Not like a vampire? He doesn’t feed off of humans? He doesn’t drink blood? He doesn’t lure young girls into falling in love with him and then steal their lives?”

“No, he doesn’t,” I said firmly. “He did fall in love with Colette. But he’s not the one that killed her. He couldn’t have. He loved her too much. He still loves her.”

“Yes, he tried to tell me that, but I wouldn’t listen to his lies.” There was no getting around her there. She obviously wouldn’t listen to anyone.

I wondered how Jessie must have felt seeing Lily Gibson after so long. “What did he say?”