Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side (21 page)

I hiccuped a sob, unable to hold it back. At the sound, Dad grunted, the huge snort of someone trying to sleep in a hard chair, and I was afraid he might wake up, so I released Lucius's hand, wiped my face with my sleeve, and returned to my room again. It was almost dawn by then, anyway.

Chapter
24

DEAR UNCLE VASILE,

It is with profound regret
—
and no small measure of apprehension regarding your reaction
—
that I write to inform you that
I
have encountered a small accident with a horse I purchased "online."

Oh, how you would have appreciated Hell's Belle. Such a terrible, awesome, feral creature. Black from her forelock to her hooves and, needless to say, the very core of her being. Would I have desired anything less?

Returning to the narrative, though.
My
deliciously vicious mare dealt me an admirable thrashing
—
for which I absolve her completely. The result was a broken leg, a few cracked ribs, bit of a gaping hole in one lung. Nothing I haven't survived before at the hands of family. But of course, I'm afraid I shall be on my back for at least a
week
or so.

I write less in hopes of gaining your sympathy . . . (Oh, that's a rich thought, isn't it? You, Vasile, getting weepy over someone's well-being. I really would laugh out loud at that, if doing so wouldn't make me cough up more blood.) No, I put pen to paper more in the interest of giving the Packwoods their just due, as I have certainly never been spare with them in terms of criticism. (Recall my missive following that first lentil casserole? I cringe a bit, to recall. There's never really a need to resort to expletives.)

In this crisis, however, much to their credit, Ned and Dara rose to the occasion, immediately grasping the fact that taking an undead individual to the hospital would have been a decidedly unfortunate move. (How many of our modern brethren have been inconveniently lodged in basement morgues for days
—
and even stone mausoleums for years
—
due to a lack of what humans call "vital signs"?)

But as usual, my musings wander. Returning to my point, perhaps we have been unjustly harsh regarding the Packwoods. They showed great insight, and, more importantly, risked themselves for
me. I almost wish that I could replace their hideous folk dolls, as a gesture of my gratitude. Could you, perhaps, have one of the local women fashion some crude poppet out of, say, a wooden spool and some scraps of wool? Nothing fancy. Aesthetic standards for this particular collection were not high, believe me. "Ugly" and "ill-crafted" seem to have been the key criteria.

As for Antanasia . . . Vasile, what can I say? She responded to my accident with the valor, will, and fearlessness of a true vampire princess. And
yet,
a princess possessed of a kind heart. What, we must ask ourselves, would this mean for her in our world?

Vasile, few are the times when I would claim to have greater experience than you, regarding any subject. You know that
I
am humbled before your authority. But I will risk addressing you with some authority here, myself, as one who has spent considerable time now in intimate contact with humans.

(No doubt you already grow angry at my impertinence
—
believe me, I can feel the sting of your hand across my face, even several thousand miles away
—
but I must continue.)

Living as you have in our castle, isolated high in the Carpathians, you have had little contact with those outside our race. You know only the vampire way
—
the Vladescu way. The way of blood and violence and the harsh scrabble for survival. The endless fight for dominance.

You have never seen Ned Packwood crouched above a box full of squirming kittens, nourishing them with an eyedropper, for god's sake
—
when our people would have thrown the shivering strays out into the cold, watched them carried off by the circling
birds of prey, with no regret. Nay, with a sense of satisfaction for the hawk that would not go hungry that night.

You have never felt Dara Packwood's trembling hand search-ing
for your pulse as you lay prostrate
—
vulnerable!
—
half naked, injured, on a plank table.

What would one of our kind have done, Vasile? If Dara had been a Dragomir, not a Packwood, would she not have been tempted, at least, to take down the rival prince in that opportune moment? Yet she feared for my life.

This
—
this is how Antanasia was raised. She is not just an American, but a
Packwood. Not
a Dragomir. She has been coddled with kittens and kindness and soft touches. Nourished with pale, limp "tofu" in lieu of the blood-soaked spoils of a slaughter.

And you didn't hear her cry, Vasile. You didn't feel her grief, as I did, when she thought I was destroyed. . . . It was palpable to me, Vasile. It tore through her.

Antanasia
—
no, Jessica
—
is soft, Vasile. Soft. Her heart is so tender that she could not help but mourn even me
—
a man whom she can barely abide.

Her enemies
—
and we know, as a princess, she would have them, even in peacetime
—
would smell that weakness, just as I sensed her grief. At some point, another female would rise up, thirsty for power, hungry to take Jessica's place. Is that not the way of our world? And when confronted, at the moment of truth, Jessica would falter, just for a split second, not sure if she could bear to waste a life
—
and she would be lost. Even I could not protect her at all times.

In the past, I fear that I have considered Jessica superficially. I (we?) have been guilty of believing that a change of clothes, lessons on etiquette, a deep and satisfying thrust of fangs to the throat could make her vampire royalty.

But you didn't hear her cry, Vasile. You didn't feel her tears fall on your face, your hand.

Perhaps vampiredom could survive Antanasia
—
but could
Antanasia
survive vampiredom? She shows promise,
Vasile,
but that promise is years from maturation. In the meantime, she would be doomed.

Maybe it is the medication speaking. Honestly, Vasile, the Packwoods have the most wonderful Hungarian healer, very loose with dispensation, if you get my meaning. Yes, perhaps it is the plethora of potions coursing through my veins and saturating my brain, but I ponder these things as I lie here
—
missing, I might add, the first basketball "scrimmage" of the season, against the rival "Palmyra Cougars." (As if I haven't slain
those
before, and would have done so again on the court.)

Getting back to Jessica, though. We vampires are soulless, yes. But we do not betray our own, do we? We do not destroy wantonly, correct? And I fear that vampiredom would, indeed, destroy Jessica.

Should we not consider setting her free to be a normal, human teenager? And leave the problems of our world where they belong: in our world, as opposed to on the shoulders of an innocent American girl who longs only to ride her horse, giggle with her best friend (I've developed a somewhat twisted liking for the deliriously sex-crazed Melinda), and share "nice" kisses with a simple farmer?

I look forward to your thoughts, even as I already anticipate your phenomenally negative response. But you raised me to be
not just ruthless but honorable, Vasile, and I felt honor bound to bring these issues to light.

Yours, recovering,

Lucius

P.S. Regarding the doll: Request button eyes if possible. That seemed to be a "theme."

Chapter
25

"MOM, I WANT you to tell me what happened that night."

My mother was in her home office, glasses perched on her nose, poring over her latest delivery of academic journals by the pale glow of her desk lamp. At the sound of my voice, she glanced up. "I was hoping you'd come to talk soon, Jess."

She motioned to the lumpy, cast-off La-Z-Boy that served as a guest chair next to her desk. I sank in, pulling the musty Peruvian wool blanket over my legs.

Mom spun her chair toward me, sliding her glasses up into her hair, giving me her full attention. "Where should we start? With what happened between you and Lucius on the porch?"

I flushed, looking away. "No. I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about two nights ago. When you brought Lucius here. Why? Why not to a hospital?"

"I told you, Jessica. Lucius is special. He's
different."

"Different
how?"

"Lucius is a vampire, Jessica. A doctor trained in an American medical school would not understand how to treat him."

"He's just a guy, Mom," I insisted.

"Is he? Is that what you
still
believe? Even after what you saw, crouched by the door?"

Staring down at my hands, I twisted a loose thread around my finger and tore it out of the blanket. "It's so confusing, Mom."

“Jessica?”

"Hmm?" I glanced up.

"You've touched Lucius, too."

"Mom, please ..." We weren't going
there
again, were we?

Mom gave me a level stare. "Your father and I aren't blind. Your father caught the tail end of your . . . moment. . . with Lucius on Halloween night."

I was glad the desk lamp barely cast a puddle of light on the desk, because my cheeks were blazing. "It was just a kiss. Not even that, really."

"And when you touch Lucius, you don't notice anything . . . unusual?"

His coolness. I knew immediately what she meant, but for some reason, I hedged. "I don't know. Maybe."

Mom realized I wasn't being completely honest, and she had little patience with people who got intellectually lazy when faced with a difficult concept. She pulled her glasses back onto her nose. I knew I was being dismissed. "I want you think about what you saw back in the dining room. What you've felt. What you
believe."

"I want to
believe
what is
real"
I whined. "I want to understand the
truth.
Remember the Enlightenment? Geometric order replacing superstition? Sir Isaac Newton? Who unlocked the 'mystery' of gravity? And who once said, 'My greatest friend is
truth.'
 
How can a vampire be 'true'?"

My mom stared at me for a long moment. I could hear the clock on her desk ticking as she marshaled her considerable store of knowledge.

"Isaac Newton," Mom finally said, "retained a lifelong faith in astrology. Did you know that about your so-called rational scientist?"

"Um, no," I admitted. "I did not know that."

"And remember Albert Einstein?" Mom noted, smugly. "Who unlocked the
atom?
Something we could barely conceive of just a century or so ago? Einstein once said, 'The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.'" She paused. "If atoms can exist, hidden and yet everywhere, for millennia . . . why not a vampire?"