Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1) (12 page)

“Then do
not ask,” Blackwell said. “Odd that they’ve taken you under their wing,
though.  Babysitting is not their usual line of work. Nor is it mine, but
tonight will satisfy my most recent debt to Artemis.” He leaned forward. “I am
a man who pays my debts, Mr. Jones.”

Oliver
didn’t care much for the idea that anyone was babysitting him, but he thought
perhaps it was wise to show some discretion in a house full of vampires. 

He was
actually in a house full of honest-to-god vampires, he thought. This was real.
How strange his life had become.

“Well, I
don’t think you have anything else to tell me right now,” Blackwell said.
“Another time I might like to talk a bit about the stock market. I enjoy
hearing new opinions, and you seem at least passably intelligent. But it’s late
and I am growing tired.” He smiled gently at Oliver. “And so are you, I’m
afraid.”

“Tired?”
asked Oliver. He
was
getting tired; that was true. He had assumed it was
the alcohol getting to him, but Blackwell’s statement had made him wonder.
“What is that, some kind of vampire mind trick?”

“Nothing
so droll,” Blackwell said. “Rather, it is the Seconal in your wine.”

Oliver
stared at his glass. He had nearly finished it. Fear gripped his heart like
ice. Was this really happening again? Could he possibly meet someone who
didn’t
try to drug him?

“Just
relax, Mr. Jones,” Blackwell said. “It’s too late. It’s impossible to fight it
now.” 

Oliver
tried to get to his feet, but only made it halfway up before collapsing back
into his chair. The wine glass slipped out of his fingers. He expected it to
shatter on the floor, but in the span of a heartbeat Maria was on one knee next
to him, the glass clutched safely in her hand. Even through the fog that was
quickly overtaking his mind, Oliver managed to be astonished. He had never even
seen the woman move.

“Thank
you, my dear,” Blackwell said. Maria rose and nodded at him, placing the glass
delicately on a nearby table. “Do forgive my own rudeness, Mr. Jones. I gave my
word you would not be harmed, and so you will not be. But neither can I have
you wandering around my estate, taking note of my affairs. There is a great
deal here I simply cannot afford to let you see.”

Oliver
wanted to reply that he couldn’t care less about Blackwell’s secrets; all he
wanted to do was to stay alive. But all he could manage to say was, “Don’t
care.”

“I’m
sure you don’t,” Blackwell smiled. “Maria will show you to one of the guest
bedrooms. Well, I suppose she will have to
carry
you to one of the guest
bedrooms. Don’t be concerned about her; she is quite capable. In the morning,
perhaps you will be so good as to join me for breakfast. We’re having an
Italian.” He looked at Oliver expectantly.

Oliver
tried to speak, but he could no longer find the energy to make his lips move.
“That was a joke, Mr. Jones,” Blackwell explained. “You see, I implied that we
would be eating an Italian
person
.” He regarded Oliver with
disappointment. “That was funny, wasn’t it, Maria?” he asked her.

“Very
funny, my master.”

Blackwell
sighed. “She would say that anyway,” he said to Oliver. “All these years, and
I’m not sure I ever developed a sense of humor. Maria, be a dear and help Mr.
Jones to his bed.”

Maria
bent down and wrapped her arms around Oliver, then lifted him up as easily as
she might have a child, draping his head carefully on her shoulder. Oliver
found he could no longer keep his eyes open. “Ssh,” Maria whispered. “That’s
it.  Go to sleep.” Her voice was calm and soothing, like a mother’s, but her
breath was cold on his neck. Oliver wanted to scream, but he knew he was too
far gone. He felt himself drifting off as she began to carry him away, and then
everything was lost in comforting blackness.

Chapter 13

Oliver
had been staring up at the lacy white canopy of a four-poster bed for several
minutes, his vision lazily drifting in and out of focus, before his mind
managed to fully register that he had woken up. He felt dizzy and nauseous, as
if he’d taken a serious blow to the head and was dealing with the aftereffects
of a concussion. Had someone hit him? Not that he could recall, but he had been
drugged into unconsciousness twice within a twenty-four hour period, and he’d
had a nice glass of wine to top that off. Who could tell what all of that was
doing to his system?

He still
didn’t know what Sally had sprayed him with back at his office, but Blackwell
claimed to have put Seconal in his wine, which was a drug Oliver had at least
heard of before. Wasn’t it used to knock people out before surgery? It was a
barbiturate, if he remembered correctly. He was sure that mixing barbiturates,
alcohol, and whatever else he’d been given was a very bad idea. It might be a
good idea to see a doctor when all of this was over.

Oliver
was still very tired, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to sleep. He
wasn’t even sure he knew
how
to go to sleep naturally anymore. Maybe
he’d have to ask someone to come in and knock him out. Wasn’t that what had
happened with Michael Jackson?

For a
moment Oliver wondered if all of this could simply be his first ever dream.
Everything from the time he had supposedly woken up yesterday morning until
now. He had no experience of what dreams were like, so how could he really say
it wasn’t? 

Or maybe
this was all a hoax. An incredibly elaborate, disturbing hoax, but one could
make a case that nothing as bizarre as recent events could possibly be real. He
certainly wouldn’t believe this story if someone else was telling it to him.

Was
Candid
Camera
still on the air? Oliver wasn’t sure. He hadn’t seen it in years.
What would Allen Funt be saying right now? “We’ve convinced this man that he’s
in a house full of vampires. Let’s watch what happens!”

Allen
Funt was dead, wasn’t he? Maybe he wasn’t, and that was part of the prank, too.

Oliver
sat up slowly, but not slowly enough to keep his head from spinning. He shut
his eyes and tried to wait it out. After a moment things seemed to slow down
again. Oliver decided that there was no way he’d be joining John Blackwell for
breakfast. Maybe he’d just wait outside the house until someone came and picked
him up. Or maybe he’d take a cab out of here. He just wanted to get away from
this.

Oliver
looked around the room, moving his head slowly in an attempt to prevent another
dizzy spell. The bedroom was fairly Spartan for a man of Blackwell’s means. The
queen-size bed itself was elegant enough; Oliver couldn’t recall ever seeing a
four-poster bed complete with a canopy in his life, but other than that the
room held only a bedside table and an oak dresser in one corner. There was no
television, no artwork, nothing that would have made anyone call the room
comfortable. Blackwell must not care to have long-term guests, Oliver thought.
Nobody would ever make themselves feel at home here. 

Or
perhaps this room belonged to one of his “subjects.” That was the word he had
used, wasn’t it? He wondered what it meant for a vampire to have subjects. Did
they receive a salary? Would
slave
have been a better word?

The room
had only one door. Oliver assumed it must lead to a hallway. He hoped he
wouldn’t have a need to go find a bathroom later. Even with Blackwell’s
assurance that nobody here would dare harm him, he was fully aware that to a
house full of vampires, he must look like a hamburger with legs.

A
digital clock on the bedside table read 2:52 am. He’d only been asleep for a
few hours, then. He had no idea what dose of drugs he’d been given, but it
seemed apparent that Blackwell had just wanted him out of the way for a while.
It clearly hadn’t been an attempt to hurt or kill him. He shouldn’t be in
danger here.

It
occurred to him how absurd that statement would sound to any rational person.
He was alone in a secluded, heavily guarded house in the country, and everyone
in said house other than him was a vampire. Not teenagers dressing up in black
clothes and wearing too much eye makeup. Real, honest-to-god vampires. He was
definitely
in danger here.

Oliver
lay back in the bed and closed his eyes. He supposed he should try to get some
more rest. There was no telling what tomorrow would bring, but he felt
confident that nothing else would be happening tonight.

There
was a soft
click
at the door. Oliver sighed and opened his eyes. Why
couldn’t anything work out the way he hoped?

He sat
up again, shutting his eyes as another dizzy spell hit him. There was more
nausea, as well. For a moment he was sure he was about to vomit, but the
feeling quickly passed. He opened his eyes in time to watch the door slowly
open. The maid he’d seen earlier, if that was really her job description,
slipped into the room silently. She was still wearing her lacy black dress. She
smiled at Oliver and shut the door quietly behind her.

What had
her name been? Something that sounded like a brand of champagne. “Chantal,”
Oliver said, remembering. “Um…hello?”

She
smiled at him again and Oliver could see her fangs glistening across the
darkened room. They were eerily bright. “You remember my name,” she said. “I’m
flattered, Mr. Jones.”

Oliver
assumed she had been sent to check on him. “I don’t need anything right now,”
he said, just a bit nervously. “Do you happen to know if anyone called here
asking about me? Artemis, maybe?  Or Tyler?”

“No,” Chantal
said. She took a step closer to the bed. Oliver saw something in her eyes he
didn’t like. It was hunger, mixed with a dollop of lust. It was a look he
didn’t enjoy being on the other end of.

“Ah,
okay. Well, thanks for dropping by,” Oliver said. He heard a small tremble in
his voice and hoped she hadn’t noticed it.

Chantal
sighed. “Mr. Jones, I’m afraid I need something from you.” She stopped at the
edge of the bed, close enough to reach out and touch him if she’d wanted to.

“Oh,
really?” He smiled, attempting to look calm. “What is it?”

She
suddenly climbed onto the bed with him. “It’s something only you can give me,”
she said.

This was
a cliché, Oliver thought. Wasn’t this directly out of Bram Stoker? The sexy
vampire woman was going to try to seduce him now? There had to be a way to head
this off. “Your dress is getting wrinkled,” Oliver pointed out. Then he blinked
in surprise at himself. Was that really the best he could come up with?

“I’ve
been waiting so long,” Chantal breathed.

Oliver
wondered how far he’d get if he tried to run, or if he would even make it to
the door in his current condition. But then he remembered how fast Maria had
moved earlier. If that speed was typical of vampires, he wouldn’t have had a
chance, even on his best day. Much less when he was fighting the effects of
narcotics.

Chantal
pushed him roughly back onto the bed and threw one leg over his hips,
straddling him. In another context, and with a
living
woman, Oliver
might have found himself quite turned on. At the moment, though, all he could
think about was keeping his blood inside his body. 

She leaned
down and caressed his cheek with her hand. “Handsome boy,” she said.

“Thank
you,” he replied automatically. “You’re very…” he began to say, before he
caught himself.  Politeness had a time and a place, and this was neither. “Mr.
Blackwell said I’d be safe here.” He heard fear in his own voice and hated
himself for it.

“Yes, he
did.” She leaned down and licked his cheek like a puppy might have. “I suppose
he’s going to be very angry with me,” she breathed.

“Definitely.
Definitely very angry,” Oliver said. Good god, he was actually aroused, he
suddenly realized. 

“I guess
you’ll just have to kill him for me,” Chantal continued.

Oliver
blinked. That wasn’t what he had been expecting at all. He had thought all she
wanted was a late-night snack. “Excuse me?”

“I’m
going to make you mine,” she said. “And then you’ll kill him for me.” She
stroked his other cheek, seizing his wrist when he tried to stop her. Her grip
was like a vice. “No,” she said sternly. “Don’t try to fight me. You’re nowhere
near strong enough, and I don’t want you damaged.”

“Please
don’t,” Oliver said simply. He knew there was nothing else he could do now
except beg.

“It’s
okay,” she said soothingly. “It’s not going to hurt.” She frowned suddenly.
“Well, that was a lie. It
is
going to hurt. A lot. But you’ll get over
it.”

“I don’t
understand,” Oliver said. 

She
leaned down again and brushed her lips gently across his cheek. “I want to be
free,” she said into his ear. “Once I’ve turned you, you’ll be under my
control. For a little while, at least, you’ll be compelled to do whatever I
command.” She smiled. “He won’t see you coming until it’s too late. So you’ll
kill him for me, and then my bondage will be over.” She shrugged. “Or you might
fail, but you’ll be dead and he’ll never know which of us turned you. There are
more likely suspects than me.” She kissed him again. “My
dear
man, I’ve
waited so long for this chance.”

“What
about Maria?”

“Oh,
she’ll definitely kill you,” Chantal said. “Although I suppose if you did
manage to beat her somehow, you would be my first subject.” She smiled. “Either
way I can’t lose.”

Chantal
placed her hands around Oliver’s upper arms and gripped him tightly. “Don’t
struggle now,” she whispered. She leaned forward and kissed him delicately on
the neck. A second, almost sensual kiss followed, and then she opened her mouth
and bit into him.

Oliver
felt her sharp fangs penetrate the flesh of his neck deeply. The pain was like
being burned with a pair of fiery needles, so hot he wondered if the wound
would smolder when she let go of him. He tried to scream, but no sound would
come out of his mouth other than a high-pitched wheeze. He felt Chantal’s fangs
retract, her lips pressed tightly around the wound. His blood spurted into her
mouth and she began to drink.

After a
few swallows she pulled back and looked at him curiously, wiping his blood off
of her bottom lip. “You taste funny,” she said, a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Must be the drugs I put in your wine. Sorry about that.”

Oliver
was breathing hard. “Jesus, that hurt,” he groaned.

“Oh,”
she said sympathetically. “My dear boy, that wasn’t the painful part.” 

Chantal
extended an index finger and carefully traced a line across her left breast
with the fingernail, leaving a narrow red trail in its wake. Blood began to
trickle down her chest, at first only a few drops, but then more as the wound
began to open. She leaned down and pulled Oliver up into a sitting position,
then put her hands delicately around the back of his head. Slowly she guided
his head down to her breast, as if helping a baby to nurse. “Drink,” she said,
pressing his lips against her bleeding skin.

Oliver
wanted nothing more than to keep his mouth tightly shut, but the combination of
drugs and the bleeding wound in his neck had left him weak and without the will
to fight. And there was something about the smell of the woman’s blood that was
beginning to appeal to him. It would be sweet and spicy, he knew. He found that
he wanted it. Something was changing inside of him, making him want to drink
it.

Chantal
stroked the back of his head gently, but didn’t release her grip. “Go ahead,”
she said. Oliver’s lips were wet with her blood now and he could taste her.
Instead of metallic bitterness, he tasted something wonderful. It was as sweet
as he had imagined, but it was also so much more. It was as if someone had
bottled the taste of sex. He wanted more now; he wanted to drink it in deeply.

Oliver’s
lips parted and her blood entered his mouth. He drew it in and swallowed.  It
was perfect, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to do this forever. He swallowed
again, savoring the blood as it went down his throat. But the blood still
wasn’t coming fast enough to satisfy him. He needed to open her. Oliver
hesitated only for a moment, then he pressed forward and bit into her flesh.

Chantal
pulled back, a bemused look on her face. “My goodness, you are a hungry boy,”
she said.

Oliver
swallowed again and again. Chantal let him drink for a moment longer and then
finally pushed him away. “I think you’ve had enough,” she said with a smile.
She sighed deeply. “Was that good?” she asked him.

“More,”
Oliver said.

“Not
yet,” she said. “Later you can have all you want. But for now,” she frowned.
“You see,
this
is the painful part.”

Oliver
looked at her in confusion. What did she mean? That hadn’t hurt at all. He
looked at the wound on her breast, which was already beginning to close. Could
that have been what she meant?

He felt
his stomach turn over and he was suddenly nauseous again. It was much worse
this time than it had been before. Blood didn’t agree with him at all,
apparently.

Then the
pain hit him, and Oliver screamed.

It felt
as if he had swallowed a handful of burning razor blades and they were tearing
his insides apart. His body convulsed violently and he screamed again. Chantal
frowned at him. “Not so loud, please,” she chided him. She pushed him down hard
and pressed a palm against his mouth, clearly meaning to stifle the noise. “It
doesn’t last long,” she said reassuringly.

Oliver
panicked. This was all wrong, he thought. All of this. How could blood ever
have appealed to him? How had she made him want to drink it? It must be part of
how vampires feed, he thought. Some kind of seduction.

He could
feel her blood hot in his veins now. It was running through his body, radiating
heat down to the ends of his fingers and toes.  He could feel something
changing in his body. In a short time he’d be one of them, he knew. It was too
late for him.

No
,
he thought.  This wasn’t going to happen.  This
couldn’t
happen. 

“There,
there now,” Chantal cooed. She didn’t remove her hand from his mouth. “You’re
almost there.”

No, he
wasn’t, Oliver thought. It couldn’t possibly happen. Vampires weren’t real. In
spite of the fact that he was looking at one, he suddenly felt certain that
this wasn’t really happening. It was a dream. He was having his first dream. He
wasn’t really turning into a vampire.

Oliver
heard a sound like rushing water in his ears. The noise built until it was loud
enough to drown out everything else in the room. There was something familiar
about it, he thought. Hadn’t he heard this same noise before, and not so long
ago?

Then the
room around him began to move. At first it was minute, as if he’d looked away
for a moment and when he looked back everything around him had shifted
slightly. Then his vision blurred. Chantal was still there, but she was now a
nearly formless blob above him. The room behind her spun around them. 

Oliver’s
vision focused on Chantal again but the room was still moving. Chantal looked
down at him curiously. “What is it?” she asked.

And then
everything stopped moving, instantly snapping back into place. The sound of
rushing water was gone. The room was still there, just as it had been a few
moments ago. Chantal was smiling down at him, hand still pressed over his
mouth.

Oliver
felt one more jolt of pain, and then he caught fire.

Chantal
screamed in terror and scuttled backwards, falling off the end of the bed to
the floor. Oliver sat up and looked at his arms. He was covered in flames. But
while he could feel heat, the flames weren’t burning him. His clothes and the
bed he had been lying on were unscathed.

Oliver
climbed to his knees. The razor blades in his stomach were gone. There was only
fire now. Cleansing fire.
Of course
, he realized. That was the purpose
of the fire. It made perfect sense to him now. The fire was there to burn the
vampire blood out of him.

That
made sense, didn’t it?

Oliver
leaned forward and vomited. He saw bits of Chinese food and the blood he had
just consumed leave his body and splatter on the mattress. Incredibly, the
blood itself appeared to be boiling. Rather than being absorbed into the sheets
and mattress, he saw the blood sizzle and evaporate like water landing on a hot
frying pan.

Chantal
was on her feet, backing away from him towards the door. Her eyes were wide.
“What are you?” she screamed at him.

Then the
bedroom door burst open, tearing itself off its hinges and crashing to the
floor. Maria stood in the doorway, still wearing her immaculate business suit.
Oliver could see John Blackwell a step behind her, along with two other people
Oliver could only assume were more vampires.

Blackwell
stared at Oliver. “What on earth?” he asked in wonder. Maria looked over her
shoulder at him questioningly. She wouldn’t make a move without instructions,
Oliver knew, but she’d do whatever her master commanded. 

It was
time to get out of here, Oliver thought. He couldn’t trust any of them. How
long would it be before another one of them tried to make a meal out of him, or
use him for their own purposes? He wasn’t safe here. 

Even
with his body on fire he wasn’t sure he could get past the vampires. What
should he do?

He
needed a door, but the room’s only exit was blocked. But if there had been
another door, he could use it. He needed another door. A door that led
somewhere else. Somewhere far from here.

Why did
the bedroom have just one door? He needed it to have another one.

He heard
rushing water and the world shifted yet again. When it snapped back into place
Oliver suddenly saw the room’s other door. In his panic he had somehow not
noticed it before, but there was a door just behind him. He stepped toward it
hesitantly. How had he not noticed it when he had woken up earlier? He had been
so sure there had been only one door.

“Where
the hell did that come from?” asked one of the vampires, staring at the new
door in shock.

“Master?”
Maria asked, looking at Blackwell. She was nervous, Oliver thought. Why was she
nervous? Oliver took another step toward the new door.

“No!”
Blackwell cried, throwing a hand forward. “Mr. Jones, please wait!”

“He’s a
sorcerer!” said one of the other vampires.

“No,”
Oliver said, but his voice sounded very strange to him. It was deep and echoed
strangely, as if he were shouting up at them from the bottom of a well. “I’m
not.”

He
turned to the door. It hadn’t been there before, had it? No. But that hardly
mattered now. It was here, and it would take him away.  He turned the handle
and opened it. He could see nothing on the other side, but the door frame
itself was filled top to bottom with what looked like shimmering blue water.
The door wasn’t a door from one side of a wall to another, he realized. It was
a door from one place to another place.
Of course
, he thought. That made
perfect sense.
Didn’t it
?

But
where did this door go? It hardly mattered, Oliver thought, as long as it led
to someplace safe. Somewhere far from this house of vampires.

Oliver
raised a hand and touched the shimmering blue water. It yielded to his hand,
and he saw his fingers disappear into it. He pulled his hand back and his
fingers came with it. He wiggled them curiously. 

“Stop
him,” commanded Blackwell. Oliver saw Maria shift her body weight but he could
see things now he hadn’t been conscious of before. He could see the path she
would take to get to him. She was never going to have the chance, he thought.
Oliver shut his eyes and stepped forward through the new doorway. He was going
somewhere safe.

Oliver
opened his eyes but all he could see was blue light, so bright he had to close
his eyes again. Strong winds buffeted his body this way and that, as if he had
stepped directly into the path of a hurricane. Then as suddenly as it had come,
the wind was gone. Everything was calm again.

Oliver
opened his eyes. He was outdoors now, standing on dirt path surrounded by pine
trees. A short distance away he could see a small pond with benches and picnic
tables nearby. A park, then? 

Oliver
looked behind him. There was no door there, and nothing to suggest he hadn’t
simply walked here from somewhere else.