Double Take - A.J. Cole (classic fiction txt) 📗

“Dever would have guessed,” she grumped under her breath.

All conversations ceased as soon as she and her escort entered the spacious room. Chairs lined three of the walls, leaving the polished wooden floor open in the center. People of all heights, colors and ages had filled this middle area, only a few sitting, all of them holding what looked like glasses of red wine. As she watched two of the occupants sip at their drinks, she noticed that while the contents of one glass left no coating after being downed, the other did. That one looked viscous, and she had no doubt it was blood. Was the other person not a vampire? Or maybe a vampire who happened to enjoy wine? She’d have to ask about that later.

A woman in a magnificent embroidered gold and black vest over a satin, cream-colored blouse with balloon sleeves, a knee-length black satin sheath skirt and blood red heels approached. Her hair was amber blonde, her face pale, her lovely features delicate. She, too, had those glittery irises that seemed more iridescent than any definable color. When she was close enough, she extended both arms, and before Arissa could react, pulled her into a firm hug.

“Welcome, dear Arissa. I am so pleased you chose to come.”

“Thanks,” she replied as soon as the woman released her. “Are you Kyria Scarlatis?”

“Yes, I am. Kyria Scarlatis, Vampire Priestess and current Queen of the Animated Dead.”

Ah, that’s what the “VP” thing meant! But – “Queen of the what?”

“Oh, now, don’t let the name put you off, darling. Those of us who are full vampires are, in fact, quite dead. Still, we walk the earth, as well as think, talk, feel, feed. That makes us ‘animated,’ you see.” She put an arm around Arissa’s shoulders, leading her toward the front of the room, “You, on the other hand, are almost dead, yet very much alive. You are the closest we’ll ever have to children, because unlike us, you shall continue to age. Slowly, to be sure, but age nonetheless.”

They’d reached the front by this time; Kyria raised both arms and once again the quiet conversing, which had resumed while Arissa was being hugged, stopped. She walked behind Arissa and put both hands on her shoulders. “Everyone, I am pleased and honored to introduce to you the latest member of our werepire ranks. This is Arissa Martin, a college student at City University. She’s studying business, and is doing rather well, from what I’ve been able to learn. We can all be very proud of the child, and should assure her that we’ll do all we can to help her on her journey through life.”

Polite applause followed this introduction.

“You may well be wondering, my dear, what is to come next,” Kyria continued, her powerful aura convincing Arissa that it would be a bad idea to demand that this woman also stop calling her that. “Well, first, we have chosen a mentor for you. This person will answer questions as they arise, help you when you get upset or confused about your new life, and fill you in on the history of our people. But before all that, please – I’m sure you have many, many questions, and that’s why we’ve met here tonight: to answer them for you.” She gave Arissa’s shoulders a quick squeeze, and with a charming smile stepped aside, leaving the girl standing alone and exposed, feeling like the Emperor when he realized he’d been duped by his tailors.

“Um, yeah. Okay. So… well, here’s one. You guys have had someone leave notes for me in my apartment. Don’t you need to be invited in before entering a person’s home?” At least she was no longer nasal.

A slender girl stepped forward – in fact, everyone in the room was slender, and Arissa wondered if there was such a thing as an obese vampire. Or a chubby werewolf?

“Hello, Arissa,” said the girl, her eyes glittering at her. “You’re correct, of course. We do have to be invited in, but not into each other’s homes. We have free access to those because we are kindred.”

Kindred. Great word. “I see. How many of you are werewolves?”

Almost half of those present raised their hands, one or two standing close enough that she could see their eyes didn’t glitter. Instead, they all had silvery-grey irises and slightly oval pupils. Interesting. “Okay! So how many are werepires?” Now she was beginning to feel like a stand-up comic in Las Vegas – as in, “What a great crowd we have tonight! So how many of you are from Ohio?… ”

Four hands shot up, and she peered into the crowd to see what their owners looked like. All but two were too far away, and one of those was hidden behind a hairdo. The werepire who was close enough to see was Leander.

“Wow,” she said, surprised. “Not many.”

“No, which is why you’re so special,” said a man standing beside her schoolmate.

“I see.”

After that, she asked the remainder of her questions and found out that most vampires attended church, that holy water didn’t bother them one bit, crucifixes meant nothing other than what they were supposed to mean, and that they could have sex but not children of their own. They also were sensitive to daylight, but didn’t burn to a crisp in it. Sun poisoning – or their non-fatal version of it – was the worst that could happen, but it was horribly uncomfortable while it lasted (for about an hour after exposure). Sunblock didn’t help much, so they tended to stay indoors as much as possible during the day. And no, they didn’t glitter. Only their eyes did, which had more to do with them being dead than anything else.

She also learned that while werewolves had it worse in some ways, since they couldn’t control the change under the full moon’s light, they didn’t get affected by it when it was cloudy, raining, snowing, or if they lived in Los Angeles (the smog usually blocked the moonlight altogether). But if they did change, they were still able to choose how, what, and sometimes who, they would eat. In essence, they turned into highly intelligent beasts, able to retain their human minds while being somewhat overwhelmed by the need for raw meat.

Curious to know if there were any other creatures around that had erroneously been attributed to myth and legend, she asked about zombies. The room grew quiet, its occupants giving each other oblique stares and avoiding Arissa’s gaze altogether.

“Okay, now you’re being flat-out creepy,” she said, crossing her arms. “What don’t you want to tell me?”

“It – it has to do with, with reproduction,” a slightly older woman said, looking at the floor and clearing her throat.

“You’ve lost me. What are you talking about?”

Vlad came forward, spreading his hands in a what-can-I-say gesture. “It’s a rather unfortunate side-effect, you see.”

“No, I don’t see. A side-effect of what?”

“Having children.”

“But you all said you couldn’t have children!”

“Not us, Arissa, you. Werepires. If you have children with each other, they seem normal for the first twenty or so years, but if they have sex with a normal human, the human mates become zombies.”

She pursed her lips, doing her best to stay calm. “And if we have children with regular humans?”

“They’re born with fangs and claws, but are extraordinarily beautiful otherwise. They also have normal human appetites but live about three times as long as humans do. Many of them have their fangs filed down and keep their claws trimmed so no one notices. Oh, and they almost always have silver eyes with oval pupils, and white hair. People often mistake them for albinos.”

Is that all? Nothing unusual there! “Ah. So I guess we werepires keep the contraceptive manufacturers in business, eh?” She wasn’t trying to be funny. Carefully enraged, for sure.

“Heh, yes, well, no one encourages pregnancy among your kind.”

She’d heard enough. “Okay. Where’s this mentor person you’ve assigned to me?”

“You’ve already met him,” said Kyria. “And no, it isn’t Leander. He’s too young, for one thing.”

“Of course! Only four hundred or so. Yep. A real baby.”

“Among your kind, that is young.”

“Uh-huh. So… ack! Hold it! You mean to tell me – I need to sit down.” And she did. Right there on the floor.

Leander had conveyed two important facts that day at school, yet for some reason neither had registered, or perhaps she’d purposely blocked out the implications. He’d told her that he was like her, and that he was about four hundred years old. From that, she should have recognized the import of Vlad’s words Monday night when he had said she’d have an “insanely” long life.

This also meant that if for some reason she married a normal human and had kids, she’d outlive them. After all, the average human lifespan was about seventy to eighty years, so her husband would die first, but that age, multiplied by three, would be two hundred and forty. Or three hundred at the outside for her offspring. She, on the other hand, was looking at possibly four hundred or more. Oh, how that would suck!

Apparently every werepire had undergone a similar moment of realization, because they’d separated from the rest to come and stand before her in a semi-circle, waiting for her to recover enough to be addressed, she assumed.

“Well, shit,” she muttered, sniffling again but not from allergies. “Wow.” She climbed to her feet and found herself looking at four pair of oval-pupiled eyes.

Two of them were female, one of which was an attractive middle-aged woman, the other a girl who looked to be about fourteen. The two males were Leander and a teenager who had probably been – maybe still was – a football player.

“We welcome you, Arissa, and will always be here for you,” said the older female. “Any time you have questions or concerns that you might not wish to share with your mentor, you may call upon any of us. My name is Freya.”

Wasn’t that a Norse goddess or something? “Is that your real name?”

“Yes, Arissa. I’m originally from Norway, but have lived here so long, I no longer have an accent.”

“I see.” That explained the light red-blonde hair and her height, which had to be close to least six feet.

The younger one put out a hand. “Welcome. I’m Maya.” She offered a smile as they shook hands.

Arissa gave her an assessing look. “How long have you been a werepire?”

The girl shrugged. “Nine years. I know – until you came, I was the baby around here.” She giggled, her beautiful brown eyes sparkling. “That made it easy to get away with a whole lot!”

Arissa grinned, liking the girl and hoping they’d have a chance to hang out. Her time spent as a werepire made her a year or so older than Arissa, and they’d probably have a lot of fun together. “I’m very glad to meet you.”

The athletic-looking boy cleared his throat and put out a hand, and a large one it was, too. When he grasped Arissa’s in a careful handshake, her own disappeared inside it. “I’m Reg,” he said in a deep voice.

“Nice to meet you.” I think… He may have looked like a teenager, but the way his eyes were caressing her body was – no, actually, that was exactly like a teenage boy. Still. “Um, how old are you, Reg?” And you can let go of my hand now.

“As of last week, I’m thirty-four.”

Oh, crap. “Really! Ha! Don’t look a day over seventeen!” Where’s the exit?

“That’s about how I feel, too. According to the way this werepire thing works, none of us will show an increase in age until we reach four hundred and seventy-five.”

She gulped. That long? “Sheesh.” She tugged her hand out of his. “Exactly how long do we live?”

“The oldest werepire on record,” said Leander, “was a woman named Crescenda. She was twelve when she got attacked, and didn’t begin to show any signs of aging until she was five hundred and ten. She then aged