Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (15 page)

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“It started with you complexion,” she said. “You’re much  too pale to be Greek. Your skin looks like flawless white  marble. And then there’s the way you talk that has nothing to do  with being a foreigner. You speak like somebody from a whole  different time  –  an
 
earlier
 
time. But the missing shadow

clinched it.”

For my part, I now realized I should have been more alarmed by her willingness to take me home after having just met me. The seducer had become the seduced. She didn’t lack for courage. I’d say that for her.

“Very well,” I said. “Your gambit was well played. Now let

me go and I won’t harm you.”

“Let you go? You’ve got to be kidding. Do you  know how  many years I’ve been looking for a real vampire?” she asked  breathily.

“Naturally, I’d be happy to answer any questions you may

have, if you’ll just ”–

She didn’t seem to hear me.

“For years I’ve travelled around the world as a guest  lecturer or  as a visiting professor, teaching only at night. I knew  one of you would come to me one day.”

“How could you have possibly been sure of that?”

“You came, didn’t you? Was it curiosity? Amusement? To

have your ego stroked?”

“I might have wanted to kill you, have you ever thought of  that? Do you have any idea what I’m capable of?” Since  friendliness hadn’t moved her, perhaps intimidation would. I  issued a snarl to punctuate my words.

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“I didn’t believe you wanted to kill me. I thought you  wanted sex and blood which was just what I wanted to give  you.” By the look of her, my  display of menace only excited her  further.

Although the sun was not yet visible, I could fell its approach like an itch underneath my skin. “Would you close the drapes, please?”

She blinked. “How much sunlight would it take to kill

you?”

“Not bloody much.” Alarm warred with fury in my mind. I  had to force myself to stay calm. “What do you plan to do with  me? What do you want?”

“I want knowledge.”

I remembered her words from earlier  in the evening, not to mention the microscope and the collection of slides and beakers.  “You’re going to study me.”

She laughed and there was a hysterical edge to the sound.  “I’ve been fantasizing for years about what I would do if I ever managed to capture a vampire. At first I decided that I would go all Doctor Frankenstein and dissect the blood drinker so I could study it piece by piece under the microscope on a cellular level.”

I resisted the urge to squirm. I didn’t relish being sliced and diced. Perhaps if I concentrated hard enough I could think of a tactic that would inspire her to free me.

“But then I thought of something else. What better way to

find out what it’s like to be a blood drinker than to be one? I

want you to make me a vampire.”

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The  thought of making this beautiful woman a monster

repulsed me. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Oh, yes I do. And it’s not just that I want to learn about

vampires. I wasn’t kidding when I said I thirsted for knowledge

–  all kinds of knowledge. Think  of the possibilities. As an  immortal I’ll have all the time in the world to absorb all the

information and wisdom that’s been accumulated in human

history.”

A frisson of excitement shot through me. Here was a kindred spirit indeed. “I wasn’t kidding earlier. I am a seeker of understanding as well,” I said. “You might call me the eternal student.”

Coming closer, she sat on the edge of the bed beside me.  She looked deeply into my eyes, as if gauging my sincerity. Her gaze was so intense I was sure that, if  I’d had a soul, she’d be looking into it. “You’re not just humouring me, are you? You really understand.”

“I’m not humouring you. I truly understand your passion for

learning.”

“What do you like to study most?” she asked breathlessly,

her eyes gleaming.

“Earth sciences, art, social science, medicine  –  everything  really. It’s why I live near universities.” The approaching dawn  was starting to smoulder inside me. A faint crimson glow was  bleeding over the horizon. “Please. Could you close the curtains  now?”

“Will you turn me?” she asked.

“You’ll lose your soul,” I said. The solar sensation that had

started as an itch was burning me in earnest now.

120

“I don’t care. What do I need with a soul when I can live  for

ever?”

I cursed her and her ancestors as I writhed on the bed, trying in vain to turn my body away from the window. “You will become a monster! A vicious, slathering beast with no conscience. It will take you years to overcome your bloodlust enough to resume your academic pursuits if you even survive that long.”

Victoria stared at me evenly, as if waiting for my narrative to worsen until I described a condition she couldn’t live with.  This was how much she wanted immortality. I began speaking more rapidly, describing a kill in the most gruesome and vivid detail I could imagine. And still she could not be moved.

“What can I do to get through to you?” I demanded. “What

do you need to hear to turn you from this path?”

She sprang to her feet and paced the floor alongside the bed.  “I need to hear answers!  I want to know how the universe was created. I want to know the meaning of life. I want to know if there is a heaven and a hell. I want to know if there is a God!”

“I can assure you there is a God because I know there is a

Satan!”

She stopped and tossed  her head, causing her raven hair to fall over one shoulder. Her beauty was fierce. “
How
 
do you know?”

“Because I am one of his demons,” I hissed.

My eyes swam red with fury and I unsheathed my razor-like fangs. I felt my face contort into the killing mask that was the last thing my victims saw upon this earth. I’d never seen my own visage at its most monstrous. But I have some idea of its

121

power if the stunned horror on the faces of my fledgling  vampire prey were to be taken as a measure. Still, Victoria  was  unafraid. She was not unaffected, however  –  far from it. Her  face registered an emotion I could not reconcile with present  reality. She was aroused.

She was still leering at me as the sun broke over the horizon

and I began to scream.

“Will you turn me?” she demanded.

“Yes!” I shouted, burning from the inside out.

“Then let’s get started,” she said, closing the drapes with a

flourish.

Her squeal of triumph was the last thing I heard before I

passed out from the shock of my injury.

I awoke in cool darkness after a troubled sleep plagued by nightmares. She’d closed the drapes an instant before I would have gone up in flames. I stretched tentatively to test my injuries, and sensed her warmth. Victoria was curled up beside me, naked.

“I guess you needed some time to rest and recover,” she

said. “I’m sorry I had to do that to you.”

I fought to bring my rage under control before I replied. I had never been as ill used in my long existence as a blood drinker and by Satan, this minx would pay. “Yes. The  rest was very helpful,” I said. “Your blood will help me to complete my healing.”

122

She became excited again and got to her knees on the bed beside me. “That’ll be the first part of the blood exchange that you’ll use to turn me, right?”

“That is correct,”  I said. Little did she know she would  never get to the second bit of the process  –  the part in which she  would in turn drink of my blood. She would not survive that  long.

“Why don’t you release my wrists and we’ll get started,” I  suggested as calmly as I  could manage and with what I hoped  was a winning smile.

From a bureau drawer she withdrew a knife. I had a moment’s concern when she approached me with it, but she only cut the plastic fasteners. Then she unlocked the metal handcuffs.

I rubbed my wrists . The marks left by the bindings were already disappearing. Now I smiled in earnest. “Come here, sweetling,” I murmured.

There was no need for the kind of violence I abhorred. I would not kill her by ripping and consuming her flesh. Instead I would simply  drink her blood  –  all of it  –  at my leisure. By the time her draining was past the point of no return, she would be unconscious and helpless to protest.

Beaming, she lay down beside me and swept her hair aside, offering me her throat. “I can hardly believe this is happening.  I’ve waited for this so long. It’s what I’ve always dreamed of.”

Dream on, darling. I thought, extending my fangs. I encircled her with my arms and gathered her to me, positioning my mouth to her throat. I bit down without using glamour and she gasped. Her hot blood flowed across my lips and I savoured its sweetness.

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“Can you see in the dark?”

“What?” I asked, annoyed that she’d interrupted both my  feeding and my fantasies of revenge. “Yes. I can see in the  dark.”

She sighed and offered her throat again. “I have so much I

want to learn from you.”

It was not her nakedness or the flavour of her blood that aroused me, but her last simple statement. She wanted to learn from me. “What else do you wish to learn?” I asked, curious.

“Are your other senses as powerful as your vision, like the

legends say?”

“Yes.”

“And must you be invited into a house before you can cross  the threshold? Last night I didn’t say the words exactly, but I  clearly welcomed you.”

“That’s all it takes,” I said. “You don’t have to say the  words. You merely have to wish me to come inside.” I tried to  remember the last time anyone had ever asked me to share my  own knowledge. Unsettled, I licked at the wounds in her throat  and bit down again.

“How do you feel about literature?”

“What?”

“As my sire, you and I will be together for ever. I mean,  maybe I’m being presumptuous, but you are going to be my  mentor, right?”

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“Uh, right.” Because of my aversion to fledglings, I’d never  considered the possibility of creating another vampire. Thus, I’d  never thought of what it would be like to play Pygmalion  –  to  shape a young blood drinker in my own image no matter how  long it took and no matter how much carnage had to take place.  “What were you saying about literature?” I asked  distracted.

“Oh sorry. I’m just so excited I’m rambling. You and I can  discuss literature. And Philosophy. And  –  everything! Hey,  here’s a philosophical question  –  do you think that everything is  knowable given enough time, say another thousand years? Do you think cosmologists will have unravelled the mysteries of the  universe by then?”

“That is my most fervent wish,” I said sincerely.

I bit down again, trying to concentrate on the task at hand even as a fantasy was taking shape in my mind. What would it be like to have a soul mate to share my studies? Someone who shared my ravenous hunger for truth?

Impossible! I could not bear to see this woman reduced to a ravenous animal. I would rather see her dead, and the sooner the better. To see her as a savage  would repulse me. I pressed my fangs deeper into her flesh and drew deeply from her veins.

“How old are you?” she managed to ask, even though her

voice was growing weaker.

“What?” I was becoming intoxicated  –  the point at which I  would be unable to stop drinking her blood even if I wanted to;  the point at which if I were going to make her a vampire, I  would have to feed her my own blood.

“How old are you?” she repeated, her eyelids fluttering.

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The thrum of her pulse, so strong at the outset, was

becoming thready and weak.

“I was born in Greece hundreds of years before Christ.”

“You’re from ancient Greece  in the classical period?

Really?”

This news obviously thrilled her. She rallied just enough to

lift her head to stare blindly at me as we were still in the dark.

“Yes. Really.”

“What did you do there? For a living, I mean?”

“I was a priest at Delphi.”

“Get out!”

“Excuse me?”

“You worked with the Oracle? Is it true the sibyl spoke in

riddles?”

“Yes. It was my job to interpret them.”

She swooned in my arms and I was sure it wasn’t from the blood loss. “You thirsted for knowledge even then. So much so that you worked your way into the sanctuary at Delphi. That’s why you became a vampire, isn’t it? You wanted to go on seeking . . . for ever. Just  as I do.”