Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (36 page)

Me? Well, it was a dream.

And my feet  –  my whole body  –  wanted nothing more than

to dance.

When the gazebo came into sight, as pretty as a white confection on top of a wedding cake, I ran towards it. Something more than wonderful waited for me there.

“You!” I said, skidding to a halt at the entrance as I spied

the man leaning with his arms crossed against a pillar.

“Me,” he replied, a stranger with a familiar voice.

“But  –  you’re a movie star!”

It was an accusation. I didn’t expect my very rare dreams to

go off on such grandiose tangents.

“And I worked very hard to become a genuine movie star,”

he answered, totally unashamed for showing up in my fantasy.

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“Would you prefer meeting a celebrity?” His gesture took in the

small building. “Here? In our space?”

Our space? Yeah, it was, wasn’t it?

I turned around, my skirts belling out around my legs. I could see my reflection in the highly polished, white marble floor. And his reflection came to join me. He moved with the grace of Fred Astaire. (I’ve been around long enough to have seen Fred and his sister Adele dance on the stage. I know what  I’m  talking about).

His hand touched me, one at my waist, one gently gripping my fingers. His warmth against my coolness. The next thing I knew we were circling the room, caught up in the music.

“We’re waltzing,” I said. “I don’t know how to waltz.”

“I learned it when I auditioned for Mr Darcy. Didn’t get the

role, though.”

“But you learned how to dance.”

“Silver linings,” he said.

I studied his face. There was a sweep of dark hair across his crow, high-arching eyebrows over penetrating green eyes,

severe high cheekbones softened by a lush, full mouth. “You

would have made a great Darcy,” I told him.

Of course he had the body of a god  –  or at least a man who spent a fortune working long hours with a personal trainer  –and now that body was pressed to mine. I liked it. The longer we danced the more I liked it.

My skin wasn’t cool any more.

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“This is  –  nice,” he said.

“In a strange way,” I answered.

“You’ve noticed that, have you?”

I nodded. His green eyes twinkled at me. We danced around in circles for a long, long time, caught up in the music and the flow of energy between us. That’s what it was all about for me  –flow and energy, give and take. For once I knew that I was giving as much as I was taking, and it felt good.

“What are you  –  we  –  doing here?” I asked.

“Dreaming about dancing,” he answered. His smile  devastated me. “I’m as surprised by this as you are. One  moment I was floating in grey clouds  –  I think I was screaming,  but there was no one to hear me, not even me  –  and the next I  was here  with you.”

“I was in blackness,” I said “That’s normal for me.”

“The grey was terrifying,” he said. He whirled me around  faster, until we both laughed. “This is much better,” he said. He  pulled on me closer. We weren’t dancing any more, but the  music played on and the world continued to spin.

“No one should be in darkness,” he said. “Grey or black or

any other kind, especially not alone.”

I started to say that I didn’t mind being alone, but being with him made me realize that I did mind. “I’ve been lonely and didn’t know it.” Though I was looking into his eyes, I was talking more to myself.

Neither of us spoke for an unknowable time after that but we continued to look into each other’s eyes and shared  –  what?

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Our emotions, our souls, the essences of our  beings? All of the above, I guess.

“This is such bullshit,” I finally said.

“But you like it.”

My gaze flicked away from his, but I couldn’t stand the loss of contact for long. “If I could blush, I’d be blushing,” I told him when our gazes locked again.

“We live in a time and place that’s cynical about love.”

“Darlin’, I come from New York. People in LA are

amateurs about cynicism.”

He shook his head. “I used to live in New York,” he said. “I tended bar while I went to drama school. I saw plenty of broken hearts there.”

“Broke a few, too, I bet.”

“Too bad I didn’t meet you there.”

I laughed. “I left long before you were born.”

“Really? When were you there? How did you get to be   ” –

He looked puzzled for a moment, then said it. “  –  a vampire.”

Those in the know generally don’t ask. Maybe they think it’s rude, or that mystery is part of my mystique, or they are afraid of getting their throats ripped out. I hadn’t told this story for a long time. “I worked at the Plaza back in the 1930s.”

“The hotel? ”

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I nodded. “I was a telephone operator. There was a Mob

boss that lived there.”

“Lucky Luciano?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“I’ve been doing research to play him in a film.”

“To bad. I hate seeing that bastard glamorized.”

“He did bad things to you,” he  guessed.

“He had me killed. He wrongfully thought I’d overheard  some conversation and might testify about them in court. A hit  man was sent after me. It turned out that the killer was a hungry  vampire. He drained me and left me for dead.”

“But  ”–

“But  the vampire didn’t realize I was one of his bloodline.”

“You were already a vampire?”

“No! My family  came from Wallachia. There’s some sort of  genetic mutation that kicks in when a vampire bites us. Old Vlad  the Impaler really is Dracula, and the king of  us all.”

“That’s amazing. I’m part Hungarian. Could I be a

vampire?”

“Depends if your grandmas got raped by the right sort of

invaders, I guess. Do you want to be a vampire?”

He shrugged. “I want to hear more about you.”

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“Nice answer. The gist of it is I woke up dead and had to

start over from there.”

“Did you go after the one who turned you?”

“You’ve been watching vampire movies.”

“Been in one.”

“I saw it, had nothing to do with my world. But you were

good.” I added.

“You’re lovely when you’re bullshitting. What happened to

the evil one who turned you?”

“I don’t know if he was evil.”

“He was a Mob hit man.”

His indignation was adorable. “I’ll concede his profession

was evil.”

“You’ve never done anything like that.”

His certainty of my goodness was even ore adorable. “No, I haven’t,” I assured him. “But after a while wrestling with all the implications of immortality you get some perspective on good, evil, expediency, stuff like that. And no, I haven’t seen him again. At least, not that I know  of. I didn’t get a good look at him while he was sucking the lifeblood out of me.”

“But how did you survive? Didn’t you have a teacher, a  mentor? Didn’t another vampire bring you into the dark  world?”

I laughed and stroked his cheek. “I suppose there’s

melodrama somewhere, but I’ve never been involved in any  –

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other than being rubbed out by a mobster, which I did find

pretty melodramatic at the time.”

He traced his hand up and down my back, sending tingling shivers all through me. His sympathy warmed me  even more than his touch. “I’m sorry you went through such trauma. How did you survive?”

“I found the right bar and ordered a beer. Getting all the

blood drained out of you makes you thirsty.”

“It was a vampire bar?”

I nodded.

“Did some instinct kick in that drew you to your own kind

and they taught you how to survive?”

I nodded again. He was smart and quick on the uptake. The man had many great qualities. And he could dance in a way that made me feel like I was having sex standing up, fully clothed,

without ruffling a hair or breaking a sweat. Not that vampires  sweat. “I’ve explained me,” I said. “How about you? How did  you get here? Wherever here is.”

“That is the problem isn’t it? We seem to be dancing in

limbo. Though I like being here with you.”

From anyone else, any other time, I would have considered that a line. But his eyes held genuine pleasure, genuine sincerity.

“I’m falling like a rock, you know,” I told him.

“Me too. Is that a bad thing?”

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We both shrugged, and that became part of the dance. We

laughed together, and that was part of the music.

“As for me,” he went on. “I remember being with friends at

their house. We played Scrabble.”

I love word games. “Scrabble? Is that any way for a movie

star to spend his evening?”

“Now you know why the paparazzi hate me. I lead a quiet

life.”

“Me too. But how did you get here?”

We danced in silence for a while. I watched as every

possible emotion crossed his face.

He finally said, “It has something to do with ice cream.” He

looked deep into my  eyes. “Is that crazy?”

“Probably,” I told him. “But much of life makes no sense.”

“Life and death? Am I dead?”

I pulled him close and we stood still in the centre of the gazebo for a long time, holding each other tight, giving comfort amidst the frightening questions that had no answers.

“You’re so good for me,” he said at last. “I don’t even

know your name.”

“Everyone knows yours.” I gave a faint, sad laugh. “No one  really knows mine any more. I became Serephena back in my  hippie phase.”

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It was his turn to laugh, at me, but not mockingly. “Oh, no, that won’t do. That name isn’t you. It’s a flighty name. You’re solid and strong and grounded.”

It was like he was giving me back myself. “Stella,” I

admitted. “My name is Stella.”

His smile was a blessing. It was sunshine. It was . . .

I awoke as I always did, at the moment the sun went down.  It was normally the most pleasant moment of the night. This time I woke with an anguished shout. I lay on my back with my eyes squeezed shut and tried to will myself  back to sleep. That didn’t work, of course. All I ended up doing was crying, and the tears that rolled down onto the pillowcase made a disgusting

mess  –  vampire tears having blood mixed in with the saltwater.

I stripped the bed, threw the sheets in the laundry and paced around restlessly for a while wondering what the hell was going on in my head. Was I going senile? Worst of all, loneliness welled up in me and grief shook me and the heartache . . .

The heartache was a very real sensation. Physical pain

radiated out of the core of my being where my shattered soul

ached for the loss of half my being.

Or something like that.

I hurt. I really emotionally and physically hurt from what I knew had only been a dream. It took a couple of hours before I could get  myself together enough to head off to the Alhambra in the hope of staving off the painful loneliness.

There wasn’t a huge crowd at the club, but the place was jumping when I showed up. Everybody was gathered around the bar, abuzz with conversation.

I spotted Tiana and went up to her. “What happened?”

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“Anton went up in flames this morning,” she answered.

“Why’d he do a thing like that without having a goodbye  party first?”  I asked. Anton was the bartender. He lived on the  second floor. Used to.

“He didn’t want to make a fuss.”

“How’d it happen?”

“Usual way. He walked outside to see the dawn.”

It happens. Every few decades the urge to end eternity gets hold of a vampire. I hadn’t succumbed to the depression yet, but the way I was feeling tonight I sympathized with Anton’s choice. I wasn’t sure my usual panacea of show shopping was going to be enough.

“Did anyone sweep up the ashes?”

“Oh, yes,” Tiana answered. “He’s already in a nice urn over  the bar with a sticky-note reminder to sprinkle some blood on  him in a year or two. The problem is what are we going to do for  a bartender now?”

Blood brings us back and we are usually ready to carry on after an ash vacation. I wasn’t in the mood to join in the ‘what are we going to do to replace Anton?’ discussion occupying everyone else’s attention, but I did manage to elbow my way to a seat at the bar. I found myself looking up at the television overhead.