The Vampire Club (19 page)

“
What’s he saying?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“
Think it’s important?” I asked the professor.

“
It certainly warrants investigation.”

I ambled over to Dial and the hanging vampire. “What was that again, Laumer?”

The vampire’s pale lips, lips I remembered that had once been juicy red, parted: “I cannot be caught again. Ever.”

Reasonable enough request, but unavoidable. Except I really didn’t want to be the one to tell him that. I mean, “Sucks to be you” is not what a vampire wants to hear.

The vampire spoke again, “The sun—”

“
My god,” said the professor, and I briefly wondered which of his gods he was referring to, or if he would start down his list of several thousand Hindu names. “We have to get you out of the sun.”

A true dilemma indeed. But I think the vampire had truly worse fears to grapple with at the moment.

The vampire shook his groggy, pale head.

“
The sun...is the key,” he said. “There is a way out.”

Chapter Forty-five

The sun had not yet made its full entrance, and the dawn was still chilly, which made the vampire’s words all the more inscrutable.

I leaned close to the draining vampire. He seemed distracted, distant, fragile. I figured it was because of his multiple, near-fatal-but-not-quite-because-he’s-a-vampire silver bullet wounds.

“
You were saying something about possible escape and perhaps our delaying imminent death....” I goaded the fading immortal.

“
Yes, yes, it’s just my damned soul trying to find itself—causes me to fade in and out.”

I nodded sympathetically. Vampire souls were one of the great philosophical debates of the Vampire Club.

“
I’ve got only a few minutes before I achieve total coma—”

“
Funny,” I interrupted. “We’ve got only a few minutes before death.”

“
I do not want to wake up another two hundred years from now. Those small-minded freaks have no right to control the natural order of any mortal or immortal being. They must be stopped, and that time is now. Are you with me, human-called-Andy?”

“
The nobility of your kind must be preserved at all costs,” I said bravely and absolutely meaning it. “I’d give you my soul.”

“
Good. Because that’s what I’m asking for.”

The soul is one of those things we all like to joke about, and the topic usually only gets serious in the temple of your choice. Most of us like to believe our soul will know what to do when the time is right. But we also understand our souls are not likely to enjoy the crunch of Cheetos or the sweetness of chocolate or the complex joy of watching
Dark Shadows
remakes. In short, the soul only matters when you’re dead. The rest of the time, it’s your mind, ego, and sensory pleasures that are most important.

So of course I thought the vampire was joking, that cryptkeeper humor we all know and love.

The vampire didn’t look me in the eye. I take it he was too weak to even raise his head. “There’s only one way out of here and it’s through you, Andy.”

I was silent. Something deep down in me began to shake. Maybe that something deep within me knew what was going on but I sure didn’t.

“
Me?” I finally said. “Why me?”

The vampire raised a hand. “Unless someone else wants to volunteer.”

“
Volunteer?” The three of us said in melodic unison.

“
Yes, but I’d prefer you, Andy. I sense you are willing, and you must be willing.”

“
Oh, like the rule where you have to invite the vampire in?”

“
You must invite me.”

“
I’m still not following,” I said.

“
Only a vampire can get us out of here. I want you, Andy, to be that vampire.”

Chapter Forty-six

On a slight rise in the not-too-far distance, a war jeep with a mounted machine gun crashed through trees and rocks. And I was faced with the decision of my life: whether to die, or whether to be undead.

“
I can make you a vampire, Andy. You are our only hope—your friends’ only hope for life, my only hope for peace in my troubled soul.”

“
If we get out of this,” I said, “I would really like to know more about this troubled-soul aspect of being a vampire.”

“
You’ll learn soon enough. Now, Andy, you have a choice to make. I don’t think I need to tell you what you will be getting yourself into if you choose to follow the way of the immortals. You will not be walking blindly into this, and for that reason I will feel little or no guilt for taking away your humanity.”

“
So my choice now is either eternal death or eternal life?”

“
Eternal life is a simple term for a complex situation, situations I can only discuss with you later if we’re both still around. But yes, you will never, ever die, Andy Barthamoo. You will be a vampire until the end of time—and beyond.”

All my life, in all my dreams, I had longed for this moment. The only thing I could compare it to was when I was deflowered by my friend’s older sister. I had so looked forward to that moment and when it finally happened it was somewhat of a letdown—the strangest sixteen seconds of my life.

Would this happen here? Would it not be as I expected? Did the vampire have problems no mortal could understand? Would these problems plague me as a vampire, torment me? Was it worth it?

Did I have a choice?

Not if I wanted to die a mortal along with my friends.

And not if I was brave enough to embrace the wildest dream, the deepest fantasy, the ultimate purpose of my existence—

“
Hurry, Andy. I mean, I don’t want to rush you, I know this is kind of a heavy decision, but we’re going to die otherwise,” Dial said. I knew he had been prepped for death through all his training, but he didn’t want to die now in the hands of his former clansmen. He had a new life ahead of him with the Vampire Club and Juan.

Through the trees came the
crack crack quack
of a distant gun, showering leaves and twigs on us as we all ducked.

“
What do I have to do?” I asked. My heart pounded in my chest harder than I ever remembered, harder even than with my friend’s older sister.

The vampire asked to be set down, preferably against a tree. Dial obliged, and once seated, Laumer looked at me weakly. “Don’t need to do much. Just need to drain your blood.”

Like he said, not much.

Chapter Forty-seven

“
Get it done,” said Dial.

“
You need to first drain most of your blood,” said the vampire.

I started shaking. “I’ve never done that before—”

“
Here, give me both your arms,” said Dial. He pulled out a switchblade. “You may not want to watch this.”

He pushed up the sleeves of my shirt. My mouth opened to protest, but no words came out.
What are you doing, Andy?
an angry voice raged in my head.
He’s going to cut the shit out of you. You’ve got to think about this before
—

I can’t.

It’s going to change your life.

No time to think.

Forever.

“
Look away, Andy. I’m sure you’re not going to want to watch this.”

I was suddenly very cold. My teeth chattered as I asked: “Y-you’re sure this has to be done? Can’t you just bite me?”

Laumer grimaced from his own pain, then answered, “It’s the only way. You need vampire blood in you and I need your human blood, and I am too weak to strike. I can’t feed while the silver is in me. I will give you my blood in its stead. Yours has to go.”

At least he cleared things up a little. I think.

“
You ready?” asked Dial, and I felt him place the cold blade on my right wrist.

I nodded. Barely. I thought of Janice, and what she would do when she found out I was a vampire, and if she’d think I was as hot as Tom Cruise and Robert Pattinson—

Dial pressed the blade into my wrist and slid it silently. I jerked and convulsed. He held me tight. Too tight. My face was pressed into his chest. He would not let me see. I tried with all my might to move away. To hold my bleeding wrist.

The professor was shouting something knowledgeable. He didn’t like this at all. We shouldn’t go through with it.

It felt like there was an open space between my wrist and hand. Felt like there was nothing there. My head spun. Faster and faster.

Somebody was fumbling with my other arm, my other wrist. I could no longer stand. “Let me sit, goddammit!”

And through the spinning and approaching darkness that was clouding my thoughts, I realized what was happening. He was going to cut my other wrist. No! I cried inwardly. Don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re killing me! What if this vampire thing doesn’t work?

Then you die.

Something stopped me from voicing my thoughts. Something deep within me knew this had to be done. Knew I wanted it done. Knew that I’d wanted it done for far too long to stop the process now.

So I hung limply and quietly in Dial’s arm while my second wrist was severed, gunfire still crackling around us like bloody popcorn.

* * *

I had been dealt a mortal blow. My body and mind knew it. Even though I’d understood what needed to be done to become a vampire, that did me little good now. Because stopping the process of my death now seemed impossible, no matter what forces I was dealing with. I had accepted death, and it was only a matter of a short time.

A moment’s peace meant everything to me. The most important thing in the world.

I’m not sure how long I rested or if indeed I achieved any sleep at all, but at some point, just when I seemed to be drifting away, something tugged in a part of my mind that was so incredibly deep, so incomprehensibly part of me, but not part of me, that I did not know this part of me existed before.

A tugging from the abyss. Something moved, something in me, like the most stubborn of tree roots, had been jarred loose. My last physical thought was that I suddenly realized what the thing was.

You mean it’s right there? That’s where your soul is stored? There!

It knew what to do, my soul. It knew its resting place was quickly dying, and it would have to move on. It was restless in my body, but at the same time utterly confused. The time was wrong to die. It had not been ready—had, in fact, been taken by surprise. But now it was accepting the irreversible fact of death and even looked forward to a new beginning elsewhere.

The tugging stopped, and I—yes, I, for somehow the shift from physical to spiritual had been made—felt at ease. The hard part was over, the leaving of the dead body.

It is customary for the soul to look back at its prior existence. To look at it with either fondness or scorn. All this was as real to me now as facts of life in the physical.

And that’s when I saw the vampire hunched over me or what was once me, his face pressed against my wrists. His head bobbed up and down like a pigeon’s at bread. Blood rolled down his chin, and I paused to watch this curious event before leaving, something I was allowed to do, however briefly.

And then something jerked my astral body, as if someone had pulled my arm—which was at this phase absolutely impossible. I looked at my mid-section and was surprised to see a beam of light attached to my physical body like a pliant, fuzzy string. The light beam had jerked me. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The light beam thickened before my eyes. Below, the vampire suckled my ripped flesh. Before me the beam had doubled and now moved me more vigorously. The vampire bobbed and bobbed, his lips lapping eagerly at my blood in a repulsive yet oddly elegant mockery of sensual indulgence. The beam grew and grew. The vampire crawled on top of me, covering my body, smothering me. The beam was as thick as my former body, opening like a tunnel.

And the darkness inside began to pull me back to my physical body, as if my earthly flesh were sucking on the other end of a massive straw.

I should have been gone, long gone, going toward the light and all that. Instead, it was almost like the darkness was keeping me tied to the world. The light tube grew and grew, filling my vision, finally jerking me forward into its empty maw. I could not resist. I could do nothing except watch helplessly as I was drawn back to the ground. Quicker and quicker, until I was literally slammed into my physical body.

The light went completely out, and only darkness remained.

My soul was back, and it felt like it would never leave again. Ever.

Chapter Forty-eight

I was dead tired—and that’s what scared me. Because I wasn’t dead.