Chapter 15
Fifteen
JULIAN
Maris needs help.
I want her to need me. I fucking need it.
As twisted as it is, the need to be needed is what drew me to be a doctor in the first place.
Killing is easy especially for a vampire or supe.
It’s so fucking damn easy that even humans do it.
All vampires go through a bloodlust phase when they’re newly made and the high of killing is on par with feeding and fucking.
We’re hungry and horny, everything turned up to eleven on the 1-10 scale and killing is a mix of both, or at least it was for me.
The attention you get from someone when they know it’s their last moments, the begging, the fucking yearning look in their eyes when they realize you’re the only one that can save them.
Save them by not taking the last of their pathetic life for yourself.
But that attention is fleeting, it’s a flash in the pan of life. If you want attention, real attention that stays and works itself under your skin, feeds your ego in the same focused, desperate way then healing is the game you want to play.
I learned that the year I left Rosanna briefly.
I vanished into the countryside and there I happened upon a craggy-faced healer in a backwoods village in France.
The woman was frail, so slight she looked like a stiff wind would finish her off.
One might have thought she’d be lonely, forgotten, only sometimes remembered in the village she lived in, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I watched as the little old woman that set up shop with the help of her daughter in one corner of the town market be the belle of the fucking ball.
From sunup to sundown she worked her healing, and each and every time she was given praise, gifts and tears.
The looks of adoration and desperation piled on like thick slabs of butter on perfectly toasted bread.
It was decadent the way the people knelt and wept, crying out to her that she was their only hope as they offered her what they could.
She took payment, sometimes livestock, sometimes a barrel of spirits, or a few bolts of cloth.
Whatever it was they brought it was enough but even I could see that she would have done it for free because she knew what I knew.
The attention was all the payment she needed.
She wasn’t forgotten this way, she never would be forgotten this way and that was living forever in its own way, wasn’t it?
It was as close to what a human could manage in any case.
I stayed with her for nearly a year to understand it.
To learn from her. She changed me fundamentally as a vampire and that witch was my first teacher.
She taught me how to heal and how to command equally.
The need, the desperation, the sobbing, hysterical begging.
The belief that I’m the only reprieve, the only chance any of them have to survive is not something that comes instantly.
It’s seeded and tended patiently until it’s ripe for harvest.
I want fruit from Maris.
Darkness and vulnerability, bitter and sweet, a mix that’s uniquely all Maris calls out to me but first, the woman needs help.
She’s falling apart like a badly stacked house of cards.
Every move she made was laced with an edge of exhaustion that made even me ache.
Yes, I’m a vampire well removed from the pretty notions of a soul, and I don’t lie to myself that humanity still lives in me, but being a doctor for as long as I have means I’m more attuned to humans than the average bloodsucking undead.
I understand their emotions, the rhythms of their bodies, the way pain seeps out of them into the world.
I’m trained to assess the damage and do what I can to keep them standing.
Maris is going to take some work to get back in working order. If I hadn’t come along, I’d give her inside of a year before she’s six feet under.
She’s not sleeping. At all. I can tell that from the way her voice shook when she talked about the break in.
There’s more at play with Maris. She’s wound tight.
She’s going to lose her shit before I can taste her if I don’t calm her down.
I didn’t miss the way she sidestepped my question about family and friends.
She went straight to her mood at work, no mention of anyone because there is no one.
If there was, she’s run them off. Even if I wasn’t interested in Maris, I’d be able to tell that from a long way off if the way she decked the man in the coffeeshop is anything to go by, add a murder on top of that and I don’t think Maris’ social calendar is exactly booked and busy.
She’s alone. It’s not safe for a human to be alone. Safety in numbers and all that. It makes them vulnerable, easy to influence. It’s exactly perfect for my needs. I won’t have to isolate her to get her to come to me. She’s done that all on her own.
I enter my rental through the back door, Maris’ injuries on my mind and head for the bathroom on the ground floor.
I put some of the stash I normally carry with me there.
It’s nothing too drastic–Xanax, Valium, a few benzos.
Nothing that would raise eyebrows if anyone saw a doctor with them.
I open the medicine cabinet and scan the bottles for what I need to put Maris down for the night.
Trusty Triazolam.
Just enough to put her to bed quick and get her rested.
Her body needs rest to heal and I can tell she’s not had near enough of it.
I grab a roll of gauze, disinfectant and swaps.
I bring a healing salve a witch gifted me in thanks for saving their kid.
Maris might not need stitches but she’s going to need more than some disinfectant to rid her of the damage that dead fuck did to her face and the salve is the perfect cover for what I’m planning to do.
I dump the lot of it in my work bag that I left sitting on the kitchen counter and sling it over my shoulder on my way back out the door.
I’m halfway across the yard when I hear my name being called.
“Julian!”
It’s not Maris so I keep on walking. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear whoever it is that’s screeching from the sidewalk.
“Oh, Julian! Hello! Julian, wait!” I hear them open the gate to the front yard and debate the pros and cons of staying on course to Maris’.
On the pros list there is the fact that I’ll be alone with her again and this time I’ll be free to touch her.
She might even confess what she did last night if I’m lucky.
The cons though, whoever this local is yelling at me will notice where I’m going and that’s going to lead to questions and questions bring attention.
I need neither of them in Vesper Point because the biggest on my current list of secrets is, I buried a man for her in a graveyard last night and I really don’t fucking need any extra attention.
In the end cons wins and I stop in the yard and turn to face the human waving at me like I don’t see them.
The only person that knows I’m here is Aubrey but this isn’t her, and I don’t think the staff from the hospital would be so brave as to track me down like this, so who the fuck is it?
I look them over, it’s a woman, older, around her seventies with gray and silver hair, a teal dress with a big bow on the shoulder that looks more suited to an eighties soap opera than everyday attire.
Cream heels and a clutch round out the look.
What is this woman doing here so dressed up?
I raise my hand in greeting and walk to meet them when they come tottering off the sidewalk and into the grass with their heels.
When she gets closer, I see a full face of makeup on the woman.
She must have been a beauty in her day, but now the makeup is…
garish at best. The eyeshadow matches her dress and it’s thick, the teal pigment settling into her wrinkles like a bruise.
Bright pink lipstick highlights the fact that age has long stolen the collagen and left her with more of a slash.
Gaunt cheeks sport a rosy blush that makes her look like she’s just run a mile, not walked the two hundred feet from the shiny Mercedes I see parked in front of the house.
“Oh, I'm so glad I caught you!”
“How can I help you?” I ask her, plastering a friendly smile on my face.
“Miss….?” I opt for Miss, letting her think I believe the mask she’s tried to paint on her face.
I’ll play into whatever game it is that she’s playing.
Whatever she’s doing here, she’s doing it in the spirit of a younger woman.
That has my guard up. Women only do that with me when they want one of two things: drugs or me.
More often than not, they want both. I shift the bag on my shoulder closer.
Drugs would make sense, maybe she’s an addict and thought she’d come try her luck with the new hapless doctor who doesn’t know her history.
The woman smacks her forehead with a hand that sparkles in the sun.
There’s a ring on every finger and a diamond tennis bracelet slides down her forearm when she moves.
Hmmm, maybe not drugs then. The jewelry looks real.
The sparkling sapphire ring on her pointer finger alone is worth fifty thousand.
If she wanted drugs she could find a connection no problem.