Chapter 13
“Mother!”
Allie’s shrill voice stopped me just in time from pounding the spatula stem straight through Jared’s unbeating heart.
(Okay, that’s not entirely true. Demon-Hunting Kate knows better than to immediately stake enigmatic vampires who protect her daughter from boardwalk-trolling demons.
Mom-Kate isn’t quite so rational about a vampire flirting with her baby girl.)
“Do you think I missed that shimmer in the mirror? Talk,” I demanded, pulling the stake back a few millimeters, but otherwise not moving. He wanted to get out of that chair and come at me? He’d encounter the dull-but-still-functional end of my spatula.
“I’m here to help,” he said, his hands lifting in surrender. “Swear to God.”
“Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “Figure of speech.”
I put the end of the stick into his ear. “Another smart aleck remark and you’ll be as mindless as a zombie, and immortality will feel pretty damn long.”
“Mo-ther. Will you please just chill?”
“I promise,” Jared said, keeping his eyes on me. “I only want to help.”
“The hell you do.”
“Mother!”
That time, I glanced at her. She was wearing oven mitts and holding the pan of rolls.
“He saved me, remember?”
“Allie, baby, get with the program. He’s a vampire.”
She froze, her eyes going wide before she backed away, tossing the pan on the kitchen table. Without, I noticed, putting a trivet under it. “Wait. What? Seriously?” She looked from me to Jared.
He shrugged, looking more than a little abashed.
“But—” Her brow furrowed as she met my eyes. “But, it’s daytime. And the sun is out.”
Clearly, my kid still has a lot to learn.
“Back off, girly,” Eddie said. He’d crossed to the table, and now he used a fork leftover from the morning to dig out a cinnamon roll.
He took a napkin from the holder, opened it on the table, then dropped the gooey roll right on it.
Then he took a seat and looked up at me.
“If the kid wanted to harm her, he’s had plenty of chances. ”
Since that was true, I backed off. But only a little.
“Don’t get too comfortable, though,” I added to Jared, brandishing the spatula stick and making a mental note to keep something wooden and sharp in the house. I mean, seriously? Demons and vampires? This town was on a definite downward spiral.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Allie asked, taking a step forward, then another step back, clearly unsure how close she could safely get to this creature.
Jared shrugged. “What? I’m just supposed to say, ‘Hi, I’m a vampire. Demons want to kill you, but you should trust me?’”
Allie looked between me and Eddie, then back to Jared. “Um, maybe?”
“How old are you?” I demanded of the boy-vamp.
“I told you. Seventeen.”
“Yeah?” Allie asked, her head tilting as she looked him up and down.
“Let’s try that again,” I said. “How old are you?”
Jared squinted, studying me. Then he said, “One hundred and twenty-seven.”
I glanced at Eddie, whose brows rose as he said, “Huh. Young then.”
“Young?” Allie said.
“That explains the sun,” I said to Eddie.
“Hello?” Allie said. “Are you guys going to clue me in, or do I have to fly back to Rome for a class on vampires?”
“Yeah, the whole vampire thing is a little bit different than what you’re used to,” Jared said to Allie. He looked between me and Eddie. “You want me to explain, or you guys want to take the stage?”
I forced myself not to laugh. I still didn’t trust the guy, but I did like him. “You’re doing fine so far. Just give her the real deal and we’ll be cool.”
“Yeah, so the thing is vampires aren’t exactly demons.”
I started to lift a finger, but he raised a hand to cut me off.
“I’m getting there. The way it works is that way way way back, the first vampire was created when a man killed another man by slicing his neck and sucking his blood.
Not the usual thing to do when you kill someone, and no one knows why he did it, yada yada yada, blah blah blah, it’s all supposedly written out in some mystical magical books that have long since disappeared.
But apparently the guy he killed was a demon, and by sucking the blood he sucked in the demon, too. ”
Allie shook her head, clearly baffled by this rambling explanation, but to her credit, she said nothing.
“Anyway, according to legend which nobody can completely verify, but’s probably true, this original vampire got lonely. I mean there were demons wandering around like the kind you hunt,” he added with a nod to me, “but that wasn’t exactly the same deal. They were different, right?”
“Different how?” Allie asked.
“This new guy was still the guy he was before the demon went into his body. He didn’t die and then get reanimated by a demon.
And it wasn’t like possession because the demon was there, but wasn’t controlling him.
Wasn’t doing anything, actually. He was just part of him.
And after a while, this first vampire realized he was immortal.
And immortality can get pretty freaking lonely. ”
“Go on... “ She sounded a little leery, but interested.
“I don’t know details, obviously, because I wasn’t around back then, but the bottom line is that he did the whole bite and suck routine, which Hollywood got pretty much right, and created other vampires.
The thing is, it’s all the same original demon, just—I don’t know— diluted, I guess.
It’s not like a new demon who comes in from the ether and invades each time.
So it’s the original person plus demony bits. ” He looked at Allie. “With me so far?”
I saw the haunted look in her eye, and knew that she was. She had a demony bit inside her, too, after all.
“Go on,” I told him.
“Yeah, well, that’s pretty much it. I mean the immortality gig is pretty cool, except I imagine it gets old after a while.” He grinned up at me. “I’m not there yet. I mean the last hundred years have been pretty freaking interesting.”
“And the blood?” Allie asked. “You survive by drinking blood?”
He shook his head. “Yes and no. Mostly, that’s how the change happens. After that, human blood isn’t just food, it’s like a drug. Hollywood didn’t really get that one right.”
“Human blood?”
“Yeah. We don’t need a lot of sustenance, but we need some. I mean, technically I’m dead, but I still need energy, right? Otherwise I’d just watch television all day.”
“Okaaaaay….”
“I can drink pretty much anything—alcohol doesn’t do shit for me. And the only way to really get a blood buzz is to drink human blood. That’s where you get the horror stories. Think of it like PCP or something. It can really make a vampire lose its shit, you know?”
Allie looked at me, her brow furrowed.
“Do you drink human blood?” I asked.
“Not hardly ever—what?” he added off my look. “If I said never, would you believe me?”
He had a point. “Go on.”
“Anyway, let’s say you hear about a nest of vampires who are running around ripping necks open and killing the humans? Those are the addicts. And it’s bad. When I need to eat—which really isn’t that often—it’s animal blood all the way. Gets you a little buzzed, but it doesn’t have the same effect.”
“So you’re just good like all the time?” Allie asked. “You’re like this shiny nice immortal who walks around forever?”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much it.” But as he spoke, I noticed that he was looking down at his Converse tennis shoes.
“They’re all addicts,” I said gently, letting Jared know I understood even while explaining the truth to Allie. “There’s always going to be that urge. There’s always going to be that risk. And some vamps fight it better than others.”
He looked up at me, his eyes hard and fierce, and in that moment, I could see the demon inside him.
“I fight,” he said. “I fight hard. And I’m not in line with those demons.
I don’t want this place to be a hell on Earth.
I’m still having a good time here. Whoever wants to hurt Allie, I’m not on their side. I want to protect her.”
I didn’t challenge him. I wanted to believe him.
So help me, I wanted someone on our side, and if this boy really was willing to look out for Allie and watch her back, the fact that he had the strength of a vampire wasn’t a bad thing at all.
But I was only letting him near my kid if he truly convinced me that I could trust him.
“You still haven’t told me about the sun thing,” Allie said. “So that’s just a whole bunch of bullshit they made up for movies?”
“Allie…”
She rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Mom? I got a demon inside me, remember? I don’t think saying bullshit is a big deal.”
“I assure you, it is.”
She rolled her eyes again, and when I saw Jared laugh, I warmed up to the guy even more.
“Yeah, the sun thing,” he said. “So when you’re young like me, you can walk in the sun, no problems. But when you get older, a couple of things happen.
For one, it’s harder to fight the urge for the blood.
For another, you burn in the sun. The older you get, the more you burn, until finally you’re a crispy critter if you even step out into the light.
The more blood you drink, the longer you can postpone that. So it’s a vicious cycle.”
“Oh. Well that sucks. How far away are you from that?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know.” He looked between me and Allie and Eddie. “Couple of centuries I guess? But I’ve known some vamps who it happened to around the hundred and fifty mark. Some around the thousand-year mark. I guess it’s different for everybody.”
“And killing you?” Allie said, her voice hard and practical. “Stake through the heart?” She nodded to my hand that still held the spatula. “I figure my mom knows what she’s doing, right? Or did Hollywood get that wrong too?”
“Yeah, stake to the heart.” He spread his arms wide, exposing his chest. “I don’t want you to, but if you feel like you have to, I won’t fight back.”
“No. You keep talking.” I held up the spatula stick. “But until I’m one hundred percent sure, I’m holding onto this.”