Chapter 16. Lorena
lorena
Vampires once roamed the earth. And somehow, humans defeated them. Then we erased them from history.
How is any of this possible?
Traffic was bad on the way back to school. Minaro gave us sandwiches for dinner on the bus, and we returned at curfew.
William vanished the instant we set foot in the manor, but thankfully my friends didn’t notice.
Back in our room, Salma, Tiffany, and I are working on our precalculus problem sets before bed, but instead of equations, I just keep seeing William’s family in that portrait.
They look exactly how eighteenth-century people are described in our historical records.
So how could we forget the part about fangs?
There’s no denying that William’s search for answers isn’t just his anymore. It’s mine, too. It’s the whole world’s.
The girls fall asleep quickly, but I stay up late reading Jane Eyre. I’m midway through the novel, and even though a fire has just broken out in Rochester’s room, I can’t focus. So, when my roommates fall asleep, I sneak out.
I head to the library because I have a feeling he’s there, and I’m not surprised when I find him sitting in front of a computer.
“I have not summoned you,” says William without turning around. “Why are you here?”
“I need to know more. Why you were hibernating, why history was changed—”
“I am hunting those very answers,” he says, and by my next breath, he’s standing before me.
There’s something different about his eyes tonight. The purple seems faded, like it’s been watered down. It almost looks like sadness.
“You need your sleep,” he murmurs, and I realize he’s inspecting my face, too.
“You sound like—” I’m about to say Salma, but I catch myself. “Stop spying on me.”
“It is my duty to know my Familiar,” he says unabashedly.
“Then as your Familiar, I need to know more about you, too.”
“You already know far too much.”
“I barely know anything! At least tell me how you became … this?”
He turns away from me, and I regret that my first question raised his guard, so I try another. “What was happening in the world when you went into hibernation?”
“I am trying to work that out.”
“Do you have a theory?”
He’s still not looking at me. “I assume there must have been a war between the species,” he says after a moment, “and we lost—”
“But how?” I demand, losing my patience with this question. “How could vampires lose to humans when you can just make more of you—?”
He whips around, full pigmentation returning to his eyes, and my heart catapults to my throat as I think he’s going to attack me.
“Most of us cannot.”
The admission feels personal. Like this is the first thing he’s said to me that’s cost him something.
When he doesn’t offer more, I adopt a more neutral tone. “What does that mean?”
He shakes his head, like he’s not going to explain. “One bloodline possesses that power,” he says, and I realize he is shaking his head not in answer, but in defeat.
This time, he doesn’t elaborate, and I get the sense he’s done sharing.
But my curiosity is too strong to stop asking. “Only one vampire family can turn humans?”
He doesn’t nod in assent, nor does he correct me.
I feel completely stumped. In none of the vampire stories I’ve heard of have I come across this bit of mythology.
“Are you one—?”
“No,” he says quickly, like this is a sore subject. “I am not.”
It reminds me of how I react when I get asked about Ma, as if my whole body rejects the line of questioning.
I feel weirdly let down by his answer.
It’s not that I wanted to become a vampire, exactly. I thought about it peripherally, but I didn’t give it actual consideration. I was busy just trying to survive.
Yet the possibility was still there. It’s like a door had opened to a much larger universe that was too overwhelming to look at directly, so I kept it at the edge of my vision—but now that the door to that universe has shut, I wish I’d gotten an eyeful first.
“Who are they?” I ask, not expecting him to answer. And even if he does, it’s not like I’ll know them.
“The Stokers.”
The heaviness of this conversation lifts a little, and I wonder if he’s messing with me. “As in, Bram Stoker?”
I’m nearly smirking, but the vampire looks into my eyes as if he could suck the information from my brain.
“Who?”
“I guess he’s after your time,” I say, walking toward the stacks. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
I hurry down the stairs, and by the time I make it to the first level of the library, I’m out of breath. William is leaning against the wall, already waiting for me by the door.
“He was an author,” I say, striding up to a table stacked with all twelve books we’ll be studying in English this year. “He even mentions death-sleep,” I say, suddenly remembering where I came across that term before.
The vampire sees me reaching for a copy of Dracula, and he plucks it first.
He flips through the book’s pages hungrily. A few minutes and a third of the story later, he asks, “What is this?”
“Only the most famous vampire novel ever written.”
I can’t believe it was actually penned by Count Dracula! Just imagine how this would change every critic’s interpretation—
“Published in 1897,” says William, still leafing through the book. “This Bram Stoker need not necessarily have been a vampire. Perhaps he was someone who wanted to make sure our history was never forgotten—so he hid fact in fiction.”
“But the lore isn’t even accurate, right?”
William looks up from the book.
“If it revealed everything, it would not be a secret.”
I frown, not quite following him. “I’m still stuck on how only one family can turn humans.”
“One bloodline,” he corrects me. “That is why human members of the Stoker lineage have always been protected by my kind and feared by yours. We want them to carry on reproducing and create more future Stoker vampires, while humans fear and detest them because they are destined to become powerful immortals one day.”
He falls back under the book’s spell, and I let him keep reading as I process this new bit of information. Yet I’m distracted by the intensity of his expression as he consumes the story at a pace that feels like a page per second.
I recognize the way he gives himself over to the novel, like it’s not a paper-and-ink object but a portal, and I realize the vampire and I might actually have something in common.
“Who were you?” I ask, the words escaping my lips. He looks at me, and I get the sense my stare has given something away.
His gaze drifts back to Dracula, like he is more interested in the book than our conversation.
“I’m going to bed,” I say after a while.
William’s attention swings decidedly back to me, and I feel like a mouse that’s wandered into a lion’s den. I wish I’d just gone without saying anything.
I start moving toward the door. “You’re right that I need more sleep,” I add unnecessarily, and there’s a hardening in his gaze when I say the word need that instinctively tells me I’ve overstayed my visit.
“’Night then,” I call over my shoulder as I dart past the crystal door, down a couple of grand staircases, and through the darkened halls. Sticking to the shadows, I listen for any patrolling staff members as I cut to the third tower.
It’s only when I make it to the bathroom that I rest my hands on the vanity and exhale in relief. When my eyes meet in the mirror, I see the same wild look I wore after my first encounter with the vampire.
Only this time, my skin isn’t losing its pallor, nor am I trembling with fear.
If anything, blood has rushed to my cheeks, and my breaths are shallow.
I look excited.
Climbing up the tower steps, I keep my footfalls whisper-soft. But when I make it to the penthouse’s landing, I feel him.
I turn around, and he’s a couple of steps below me, matching my height. My heart is pounding so hard, I worry my roommates will hear it knocking.
“I hope you have not forgotten my needs,” murmurs William, his gaze trailing my neck. His voice seems to fill the whole tower, wrapping around me like bands of smoke.
“You seem to have plenty of energy,” I say, not meeting his eyes.
“Feeding me is one of your duties as my Familiar,” he says, climbing up a step so that he’s a little taller than me.
“Finding a second Familiar would be such a hassle,” he goes on. “It would mean there is a second human in this world beyond my control. Under the current circumstances, I could not allow two such people to exist.”
He takes another half step up, so that one foot is resting on the landing, and he leans in until our faces are too close. “Do not give me a reason to replace you, Lorena.”
I back up against the door, my heart bruising my ribs with its blows, and I squeeze my eyes shut in anticipation of his bite—
But when I open them again, he’s gone.
“WHAT DO you make of Mr. Rochester?”
I hear Minaro’s question, but I’m too swept up in the story to look away from the text as she kicks off the discussion portion of class.
“I know today is Friday, and you have all checked out, but you have been reading Jane Eyre for five days straight without the internet to distract you. I expect you to have met our heroine’s love interest by now.”
“I find him to be a true-to-life characterization.”
I look up at the sound of William’s voice. He’s in Mateo’s old seat, one row up and two spaces across from me.
“Good. Expand on that,” says the director.
William squares his shoulders. “Well, like all mankind, he does what he must to get his way.”
The others don’t hear the insult, but I do. He’s talking about humans.
“Have you finished the book, dear?”
William says, “Yes.”
“Then let us hear from other people, as we do not want to spoil anyone’s reading experience.”
“But that’s because he’s a product of his environment and trapped by societal norms and expectations,” I say suddenly.
I think I hear Salma gasp. I’m not big on speaking in class—like ever.
“Tell us more about that,” says Minaro.