Double Take, A.J. Cole [i want to read a book .txt] 📗

bodies going. They didn’t need to breathe, ever, because the intake of living blood was now their breath. This meant they were free to eat purely for enjoyment, and when he’d discovered hamburgers after coming to American many, many years earlier, he’d found his newest favorite snack. Humans, on the other hand, functioned merely as liquid oxygen tanks with a brain.

He also assured her that over the centuries, he’d kept his sense of humor. Many of his kind had not, unfortunately, and their negative mental states had led to the sort of behavior that encouraged what vampires called the Van Helsing Syndrome (giving “VHS” a whole new meaning). When she’d asked if that meant a desire by the living to hunt down vampires and drive stakes through their hearts, he’d nodded, looking unhappy.

After this, he’d begun her lessons in how to live as a werepire. He explained that on nights of the full moon, she’d experience a form of teething pain as her regular canines retracted into her gums and the fanged version grew in over them. The first time that happened, he said, her gums would bleed a lot since the new teeth would have to make their own openings.

She wasn’t thrilled to learned this, but said nothing so he could continue. Next, he told her to be careful about how she moved. Everything she normally did would be enhanced, every sense heightened dramatically, her normal strength increasing to deadly levels. He said she’d have to force herself to move slowly, because she might otherwise find herself going through walls by accident. This wouldn’t cause any injuries to speak of, but would be hard to explain the next day if she’d happened to crash through a wall in her apartment. What to tell the landlord, much less the next-door neighbors, hmm?

The most immediate thing she’d experience, though, would be a driving need for living blood. To satisfy that, she would have several options, all of which he started to go over with her, beginning with the most obvious – biting a human. He said the smartest way to do this, if that was her choice, would be to choose several people instead of only one. That way, she could take “sips” from each until she’d had enough to get her through the next several hours. In this way, none of her victims would have to die.

Now, chewing slowly on his burger, he considered her question about whether or not she’d have enough self-control to avoid murdering the person. Swallowing, he said, “Perhaps not at first. But I’m glad you asked, because this brings us to the next option. Have you ever heard that it’s a good idea to eat something before you go food shopping?”

“Yeah, but what… never mind. Go on.” She knew what he was getting at, but wasn’t sure how she could get blood before hunting for a convenient jugular.

“One of the stories circulating during modern times is true. We do have people working in blood banks, and some of us have personal caches of blood in our homes. You might want to consider doing this yourself. We generally keep the blood in wine bottles, which get stored in cleverly-disguised freezers. For us, it’s a matter of keeping several bottles out and thawed for daily consumption, but the werepire can wait until the day before the full moon to defrost one.”

“Or freeze it on sticks and have blood-pops.”

“No.”

“Sorry.”

“Right. But anyway, I see you get the gist. Have a few glasses before you go hunting. Since this will be your first full moon, though, even that might not be enough. Your craving will be intense, rather like being on the verge of an orgasm but unable to touch yourself.”

“Vlad!”

“Fine. Let me put it a different way. It’s like you’ve been under water so long, you’re only seconds away from drowning, and the surface is less than an inch from your mouth.”

“That’s better.” She didn’t want to admit it, but Vlad was really hot, and him saying things of a sexual nature made her… uncomfortable, but in a pleasant way. “Okay, so the urge will be pretty much irresistible, right?”

“Right. If it’s any consolation, we never leave a newly made werepire on his or her own during the first full moon. Even though you’ll be much stronger than any of us, we have some chance of reasoning with you, of holding you back from doing something regrettable.”

“How?”

“Chains, usually.”

She gave him a suspicious look, realized he wasn’t kidding even a little, and sat back, eyebrows raised in appreciation of how much more serious this was than she’d imagined.

“It may take several of us to secure you, but secure you we will, and then make sure you get enough blood to calm you down. Once that’s accomplished, you’ll be taken on your first hunt, where we’ll show you how to attract a human, take your sip, and leave the person with no memory of what happened.”

“Except for the odd dual punctures on the person’s throat?”

“Not even that. We can heal those. You experienced that yourself.”

Arissa frowned, confused. “But won’t that turn them?”

“Not the few small drops of blood necessary for such a small wound, no. In your case, you were bleeding out through a major artery and would have died soon. I had to give you a much greater quantity, which, mingled with the toxins from the werewolf, completed the turning process.”

“Good grief.”

They said nothing for a while after this, finishing their meal in comfortable silence. Arissa ordered coffee, too, but wasn’t in the mood for dessert. When they were almost done and Vlad was pressing his forefinger into the plate, gathering the fallout of crumbs from his brownie, she asked him how soon on the date of the full moon she would start to feel the changes.

“They’ll probably wake you up.” He put his finger in his mouth like a little boy, licking off the crumbs.

“Oh, hell. That’s going to happen Monday, and I have both classes and work that day.”

“You might want to skip your first class, then, since you’ll be dealing with bleeding gums and severe mouth pain.”

“Oh, perfect.”

He shrugged. “It’s not so bad. You can take aspirin – five should do it – and be ready to head out in time for second period.”

“What about work? My hours are four until nine-thirty.”

He sat straighter, no longer in casual mode. “Call in sick. Under no circumstances should you be there after sundown.”

“Could I – ”

“Arissa, listen to me. If you go to work Monday, you’ll kill everyone there before you even realize what you’ve done. I’m not exaggerating. Stay home after school – one of us will be waiting there for you. In fact, call your boss today and tell him you have a family emergency that will take you out of town on Monday. This will give him a chance to replace you on your shift.”

“That bad, eh?”

“That bad.” He pushed the plate away. “Ready to go? We still have other options to discuss, if you’re in the mood to keep listening.”

“As if I had a choice! Sure. Where to?”

“My home. I need to train you in controlling your strength and speed, not something we can do in the local gym. I live in a loft and have a large open area for exercise.”

“Cool – okay.” Four day ago, had someone told her she’d be having lunch with a vampire, casually discussing the best way to drink blood and bite people, she’d have had that someone Baker-Acted immediately. And had she realized that the very vampire who had bitten her, turned her, and totally pissed her off four nights earlier would turn out to be this charming, funny, seriously sexy and kind-hearted man driving her around in a to-die-for Jag, she would have… well, she didn’t know what she would have done. But regardless – it was all good now.

Once again, he did the faster-than-a-chipmunk-on-fire dash from the diner to his car, then from the parking garage across the street from his building to the front door, but this time, she nearly kept pace with him.

“Hey, how come you have to park across the street?” she asked as he was unlocking the door.

“Because these used to be warehouse spaces, and the building didn’t have underground parking of its own. There is a lot out back, but I prefer keeping my car out of sight. I’m sure you can appreciate why.”

“Yeah, late-model Jaguar, tinted windows – a carjacker’s dream.”

“Exactly. At night, the garage is constantly patrolled and under video surveillance, too.”

They took a converted freight elevator to his floor, which was the fourth of six. The apartment covered       a vast space with sparse but tasteful decor, the living areas defined by expensive-looking carpets, leather furniture, and gorgeous antique tables, curio cabinets, and pricey-looking knick-knacks.

“So what’s this other option?” she asked, laying her purse on a table, her books beside them. “And wow, by the way. This is gorgeous! What do you do for a living?”

“Not much these days. After nearly five hundred years, I’ve managed to accumulate enough wealth to keep me in luxury without having to labor for it. I do volunteer work now.”

“Where?”

“Assisted living facilities, libraries, museum, places like that. In the libraries and museums, I work in the archive sections which are invariably located in the basement. No one else really likes that, but I’m fine with it – no windows, so I can be there during the day.”

“Smart.”

“Well! Have a seat and we’ll talk a bit more, then I’ll introduce you to your first vampire work-out.”

By the time he dropped her off at her car, she was tired in that just-had-an-awesome-day-at-the-beach way, having learned not only that she could out-gymnastic any gymnast on the planet, but that her other options when she went all fang-like included a hemoglobin I.V. drip, allowing herself to be restrained in a straitjacket and monitored by her mentor or another who might volunteer to help her through first-night cravings, or all-night sex.

Yeah, no. That last one she declined with a polite but firm “No, thank you,” which Vlad claimed he fully expected her to do.

“You’re a decent young lady,” he said, “and I really didn’t think you’d want to go that route. But,” and he shrugged, “I had to make it available.”

And that was that. She felt far more prepared now, at least to deal with the change. Before starting to make supper that evening, she called her boss and told him she couldn’t come in on Monday – a family situation had arisen, and she couldn’t avoid it. No lie there, really. Mr. Peterson, the manager of the jewelry shop in the mall where she worked, expressed his appreciation that she hadn’t waited until the last minute to tell him, and said he hoped everything would be all right. She thanked him, told him she’d be in Wednesday, and hung up.

All in all, it had been a good day, despite the weird way it had started. Now all she had to deal with was what to do about her growing infatuation with Leander.

“Infatuation my butt,” she mumbled, removing her meal from the oven. “Feels more like you’re in love with him, ya big twit. Go figure.”

SEVEN

 

 

Saturday – normal. Arissa slept in, eased into