Dark Heirloom (An Ema Marx Novel Book 1) (9 page)

“What’s a ‘sire’?” I cringed as she snapped my middle finger.

Jesu answered for her. “The vampyre or vampire who bit you is termed your sire.”

“Oh. Ow!” I jumped.

“Try to be still, darling. I don’t think you want me to have to start over.”

I gnashed my teeth together.
Last finger
, I told myself as Maria crunched my pinky into place. “How can I feel pain, but nothing else?”

Maria smiled at Jesu before turning her attention back to my hand. “You can feel; it just seems numb compared to the sensitivity of human skin. Our nerve endings don’t come that close to the surface, so we are less sensitive to pain and other physical feelings. What feels like a pinprick to you now would feel like being stabbed with a knife if you were still human.” She placed her palms on my hand, one on top of the other, and pushed down with all her weight until my hand crackled and snapped.

“Ouch! Jesus!” A growl rumbled in my throat.

“All right, I’m all done. No need to get feisty. You must keep your hand perfectly still and flat for a half hour. No getting up from that spot, do you hear?”

I nuzzled my hand, wanting to lick it. “What if I have to go to the bathroom?”

“You’ll just have to wait, darling.” She smiled.

Grumbling, I rested my chin on the counter and looked over my ghost-white hand. “What did you mean when you said my powers depend on my sire?”

“Here is not the place to discuss such matters,” Jesu whispered.

I nodded. Right. Jalmari could hear us. Yet I had so many questions, and not having the answers was beyond frustrating. The sound of the fridge door opening, and blood sloshing from side to side, awakened my carnal hunting instincts. I nearly jumped out of my seat, but Jesu placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Patience,” he whispered. “You will get some.”

I glared at him for a moment, but obeyed and dropped my chin back onto the counter. Moments later, Maria placed a tall glass of blood in front of me. My head shot up as I gripped the glass and flung it into my mouth. Jesu placed a hand on the flute, tipped it down, and forced me to sip it. I growled a warning at him.

His gaze narrowed. “You need to learn self-control.”

“Get your hand off my drink before I give Maria a reason to re-break
your
fingers.”

He hesitated before letting go. I gulped down my drink, licked my lips several times, then tried to lick the glass clean. My tongue couldn’t reach far enough, so I set it upside down on the counter and waited for the last drops to trickle down. Jesu and Maria sipped their drinks and watched in silence.

“I have one last question and then I’ll shut up for a while,” I bargained. “What’s the cat’s name?”

Jesu instantly choked on his drink. Slamming the glass down, he sputtered and coughed up blood. I gawked at him. “Are you okay?”

Maria eyed Jesu. “The cat? Why, the cat is—”

“No,” Jesu coughed, trying to suck in air and clear his throat at the same time. “We… do not… have… a—” he gagged on the last word.

Maria’s smile stretched into a sly grin reaching from ear to ear as she watched Jesu. She turned and looked directly into my eyes. “The cat is a stray. He doesn’t have a name.” Stealing a glance at Jesu, she added, “
You
should name him.”

“Me?”

“Absolutely. You two would make great company for each other. Besides,” she waved her hand. “The rest of us are not very fond of the creature.”

Having a pet made my stay here seem more permanent. However, I already promised the cat I’d bring it back to Chicago with me. I looked at Jesu. “What do you think?”

His face turned bright blue. At first I thought he was actually choking, but the death stare he was giving Maria from behind his ebony hair made me realize he was blushing instead. Jesu spoke to Maria in hushed Finnish. Both of them stole little glances at me when they thought I wasn’t looking.

I shrugged and turned my glass right side up. A circle of red had gathered on the counter and I licked it off. The tingling urge to hunt ignited in my gut as the blood took its effect. They must have been able to tell I was falling under the bloodlust’s spell because they both excused themselves and walked toward the fourth wing, disappearing into the corridor.

Left alone to wait as my hand healed, I struggled to refrain from attacking the refrigerator. I made a mental note of all the things I had learned, and all the things I still had questions about. The latter far outweighed the former, filling me with frustration. With the blood still fresh in my system, I wanted so badly to beat the answers out of them.

Maria returned, startling me when she appeared out of thin air. “How’s your hand doing?”

I shrugged. “Hard to tell when you can’t feel a thing.”

“Can you wiggle your fingers? Easy now, one at a time. Does it hurt?” She watched as I moved my fingers up and down. A dull ache stiffened my knuckles.

“It’s a little uncomfortable, but not painful.”

Maria nodded. “All right, you can go if you’d like, but try to keep it still, don’t use it for anything today.”

I stood and let my arm drop to my side. Jesu appeared just in front of the corridor, waiting for me with his arms crossed. He walked me back to the fourth wing in silence. I could feel the effects of the drink wearing off as the two of us stood in the hall between my room and his. I grabbed Jesu’s wrist before he could shut himself in his room again.

He turned his head and peered at me.

I took a deep breath to calm the little bit of bloodlust left in my system as I gazed into his eyes. “Jesu, I need answers.”

“Read the journals.”

“How did you know about that?”

He shrugged and stepped into his room.

“Wait.” I wrapped my hand tighter around his arm. “There was something else that happened to me while my hand was stuck in the wall. I think I was temporarily blind, and I felt like I was… floating.”

Jesu’s gaze darted around the room before he wet his lips. “Can you show me? Can you do it again?”

“I don’t even know what it was.”

“What were you doing just before you went blind?” He faced me. We stood less than a foot away from each other as he watched me intensely. I tried to think, but shrugged.

“Nothing. I was just sitting on the bed with my hand stuck in the wall, yelling for help and trying to pull it out. When that didn’t work, I tried relaxing to see if it would slide out. Next thing I know, I’m blind and deaf.”

“But you could feel everything around you, feel the air?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “What does it mean?”

“Do it again. Relax until you go blind.” He narrowed his gaze, as if daring me.

Butterflies flitted around my stomach. I looked away from his hard staring. “I’d rather not. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.”

Gently, Jesu took my chin into his hand and pulled my face in his direction. He stared deep into my eyes. “Do not worry, Ema. I will bring you back. I promise.”

Oh, the way he says my name…

“It’s not just that, it’s, well…” I looked at my feet. “See, I somehow ended up naked last time.”

“Oh.” A bright blue tint colored Jesu’s cheeks as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, we can go into your room and I can hold up a blanket.” He avoided looking at me while saying this.

I hesitated. “Promise you won’t look?”

“Of course. Come.” He motioned at my room and we went in. My stomach twisted in knots at the sight of the hole in the wall as I stood near the bed. Jesu snickered at it as he yanked off the comforter and held it against me with his arms spread wide.

I winced as he watched. “Do you
really
promise not to look?”

“Absolutely. I would not dream of it.” He said this a little too convincingly. I pursed my lips and wondered if he thought I was unattractive.

I closed my eyes and took several slow, deep breaths. After a few moments, I opened my eyes. Jesu stared back. I snapped. “Don’t stare like that, it makes me nervous.”

“Sorry.” He turned his head away.

I sat on the edge of the bed, closed my eyes, and tried again.
Relax. Peaceful. Weightless. Like a feather.
My toes and finger tips prickled, then my arms and legs, until my whole body tingled the way it does when a limb falls asleep. A slight chill ran up my spine, buzzing with energy.

Testing my vision, I tried to open one eye. I couldn’t. Or did, but couldn’t see. Blackness surrounded me. I tried to sniff the air, but my nose was clogged.

Oh my God, I can’t breathe.
I tried to scream, but had no voice. I tried to scramble for help, but couldn’t move.
I’m going to suffocate!
Or at least I thought I would. I thought my lungs would burn and gasp for air, but nothing happened. I just floated, surrounded by a black fog of serenity. I didn’t need to breathe.

Something warm wafted through the air. It came to me as nothing more than a quick ripple of heat pulsing through my body. I liked it because I could feel it. I could count each ripple as it rolled through me. Thick and strong, the heat softened the chill that wrapped my bones. Sensual and masculine, my brain named it automatically. A hand. Jesu’s hand.

Whoa.

My body grew heavy in a matter of seconds. My muscles pulled themselves together, tensing tight. I dropped two inches, making the springs in the bed bounce as I landed.

Whipping my head around, I realized I was back in my room. Jesu still held up the blanket, but was facing me; his eyes the size of one dollar coins. His skin was paler than normal, even for a vampire. My clothes lay in a pile by my feet.

“Give me that.” I snatched the blanket and quickly wrapped it around myself. “You promised you wouldn’t look.”

Jesu stared back. His lips moved, but no sound came from them. Suddenly, I didn’t think it was my awesome body that had stolen his breath.

“Jesu?” I shook his shoulder. He blinked then paced the room. I watched as he pulled a box of cigarettes and a lighter from his back pocket. “Jesu, what happened?”

He looked at me and then turned away, pacing again as he lit a cigarette.

“Damn it, Jesu, I’m getting extremely impatient with this entire family.” I stood. He finally faced me and placed both hands on my shoulders. His blue color returned, but he didn’t look any more at ease.

“Remember what you asked Maria about your powers?”

“Uh, yeah.” I stared back. He was scaring me now.

“You can do it.”

“I can do what?”

“You can turn invisible.”

“Huh?”

“And fly.”

“Come again?”

Jesu laughed hysterically. “Ema, you can turn invisible and fly.”

Chapter 10

“Jesu, you’re not making any sense.”

He held my shoulders, a frantic look in his eyes. “You can fly, Ema. You can fly and phase just like the others.”

“First of all,” I shrugged out of his grip and took several steps away from him. “I don’t know what phasing is.”

“It is the term for walking through solid objects.”

“Second, I wasn’t flying. I was hovering at best.”

He nodded. “True, you did not go very far, but this is just the beginning. Wait until you learn to really soar. Oh.” He slumped against the edge of the bed and took a long drag of his cigarette. His brows furrowed as he breathed out puffs of smoke.

I didn’t know how he could stand smoking. Cigarette smoke smelled bad enough when I was human, now it was sickening.

“Ema,” he narrowed his eyes. “You cannot tell Jalmari about this.”

“Why not?”

He stood and pointed his index finger at me. “Promise me. Promise you will not tell Jalmari what you can do.”

I watched the cigarette bob between his lips as he spoke, worried it would fall and set the bed on fire. Keeping this news from Jalmari was probably in my best interest, and I wouldn’t have told him anyway. I didn’t want to speak to Jalmari at all if I didn’t have to. However, I was curious what this meant to Jesu, and I wanted to have the upper hand for once.

I bent to gather my clothes and then shuffled across the hall to the bathroom to redress. I thought things over for a few minutes before going back to my room.

“I’ll stay silent under one condition,” I said while replacing the blanket on the bed.

Jesu cocked his head. His black hair fell to one side as his green eyes widened. The look reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t place who. I pushed the thought aside and took a deep breath.

“I want you to help me.”

He blew out another puff as he sat on the edge of the bed. He studied me as he spoke. “What does that entail, exactly?”

Good, now I was getting somewhere. But what
did
that entail? “I want to know what you know. Everything. No more secrets. I want to know why I’m here, why I’m like
this
, and how I can get home. And, if you don’t know the answers to those questions, then you’re going to do what it takes to help me find out.”

Jesu sucked in smoke, burning through the last two-thirds of his cigarette. “Is that all?”

I hesitated.
Was
that all? “And… no telling anyone what we’re doing.”

Jesu grinned and nodded once. “Very well, I will keep quiet if you will.”

“And?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“I will cooperate with you, if you cooperate with me.”

“Okay. Deal.”

“Deal.” He dragged the cigarette butt across the stone wall to put it out.

“So,” I glanced around. “What does this mean?”

Jesu took a deep breath. “It means your sire could do the same things. It means we are that much closer to solving the puzzle.”

“But, I wasn’t bitten, I don’t have a sire.”

“I know. I have a theory about that, but I need to test it. We cannot tell anyone about this. They will tell Jalmari if they knew. We have to figure it out before he does. This conversation never leaves this room, understood?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, duh. Like I want to run to Jalmari with this news.”

Jesu pressed his lips into a thin line as he stood and made for the door. “I have to go to do some research, I will be back when I am done.” He pointed a finger at the journals on my nightstand. “Read those.”

He left, closing the door behind him. I immediately opened it a good twelve inches. If I ever got another limb stuck in the wall, I wanted someone to hear me calling for help.

Lying on the bed, I pulled Dr. Bedford’s journal from the nightstand. This one was about the vampyre’s diet and digestive tract. Bedford tried to explain their need for blood. He compared the vampyre diet to other primates. A number of large apes ate meat, but they were mostly omnivores and not very good at hunting. Bedford ended his findings by comparing the vampyre diet to that of their closest living relatives, humans. He noted that a high protein diet was required to maintain the health of our large, intelligent brains. Assuming the Nephilim were more intelligent, a blood diet would supply them with highly concentrated amounts of protein.

By the time I finished reading Dr. Bedford’s journal, daylight crept into the room from the small window above the bed. I reached for the sunglasses in the little drawer on the nightstand. Putting them on, I sighed. I had no idea how the others passed the time during the day, but one thing was becoming evident. I didn’t think vampires slept. I wasn’t tired, despite being awake for seventy-two hours.

Stretching my limbs, yet being careful with my bad hand, I put Bedford’s journal back and took the third book. Mr. Goudy discussed vampyre breeding. Unlike Dr. Flückinger and Dr. Bedford, Goudy seemed a tad repulsed by the fact that vampyres existed. Nonetheless, he wrote rather thoroughly about the nature of hybrid reproduction.

While it was extremely rare for two different species of animals to mate in nature, it was not unheard of. Goudy reported cases of fertile grizzly-polar bear offspring in the Northwest Territories. More popular were the Candid hybrid offspring of coyotes, wolves, jackals, dingoes and domestic dogs.

With Nephilim in extinction, first generation vampyres could no longer be bred. However, the fact that vampyres could successfully procreate fertile offspring could only mean that humans and Nephilim had the same number of chromosomes. Thus, vampyres had the ability to breed back.

The breeding of two vampyres only yielded a fifty-percent chance of bearing a fully vampyric offspring. There was also a twenty-five-percent chance of bearing a fully human or fully Nephilim offspring.

But where, Mr. Goudy asked, were those theoretical human offspring? And, for that matter, where were the Nephilim, who were thought to be extinct? Goudy suggested they could be among us, perhaps more rare than a grizzly-polar bear cub.

I thought about Jesu. He had said he was born human while Jalmari was born a vampyre, so someone must have bitten Jesu. Did his parents do it? That would make sense. Most parents would do what they could to help their child fit in with society, and a human child reared in a vampyre society would be challenging.

But what of the possibility of the Nephilim offspring Mr. Goudy suggested? Would the parents keep such a thing? I flipped the pages, hoping for an answer. Instead, Goudy poured in page after page of scientific calculations; advanced mathematics spanned the length of three chapters. I flipped to the last chapter, which summed up his findings. The very last page listed the percentages of possible vampyre-to-human mating, which resulted in an equal fifty-fifty chance of having a vampyre offspring or a human offspring.

Baffled, I put down Goudy’s journal. I could tell it was now noon from the way every object in my room glowed with a yellow haze. I wanted to talk to Jesu. I wanted to ask if my theory about him was right. I wanted to know how Nephilim could be extinct when they could still be produced through breeding.

As if I’d summoned him, Jesu walked in just then, holding a large frayed book bound in worn leather. He sat on the bed and flipped through the pages.

I looked over his shoulder, but couldn’t understand the hand script. “What is that?”

“It is a record of every known vampyre clan in the world.”

“Who wrote it?”

Jesu hesitated. “My father started it. Jalmari continued it after he passed away. It’s divided into two parts, the major clans and the minor clans. The minor clans are more like sub-cultures within the major clans.” He pointed to charts and lists which covered every page. “Jalmari and our father kept lists of every clan’s leader, their birth and death dates, and who inherited the throne after them.”

He pointed to another list. “This tells the details about the High Blood Council.” He flipped to another page and then tilted the book so I could see. “Here we have a list of every major clan’s features and powers. We will go down the list and see what you can do.”

“Won’t that take forever?”

“Nah, a few days at the most. We could probably eliminate most of them by tonight.”

“Maria said the color of my eyes narrows it down to four clans. Should we start with those?”

Jesu shook his head. “Maria’s wrong. Had you a sire, then she would have been correct. But I think you could be a mix.”

“A mix?”

“If you tell me about your heritage it might help speed things up.”

“Whoa, slow down. A mix? Like more than one clan?”

“Yes. I told you, I have a theory.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “So let’s hear this theory of yours first.”

Jesu sighed. “I think you are a vampyre. In fact, I am certain you are.”

“That’s impossible. Vampyres are born.”

“Are you saying you were not born?” he smirked.

“You know what I mean. I certainly was not born a vampyre. I think I would have noticed before now if I was.”

“Not necessarily. Vampyres are mostly human until they hit puberty. Once the hormone levels rise, the Nephilim genes are kicked into high-gear and the vampyre changes. The process takes about three years total. During this time, the vampyre gets their powers, loses the pigment in their skin, and begins to age slower.”

“But I’m not an adolescent. Besides, wouldn’t one of my parents have to be a vampyre too?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps, perhaps not. Two vampyres can reproduce a human.”

“Yes, I know. I read the journals.” I motioned to the pile of books.

Jesu nodded. “So maybe two humans can make a vampyre.”

“That’s not possible.”

Jesu grunted. “Are you always this closed-minded?”

I narrowed my gaze. “No, but surely you know that doesn’t make sense. Vampyres are human-Nephilim hybrids. So it’s impossible for two humans to produce a vampyre.”

Jesu shook his head. “Think of this way; let’s say a hundred years ago two vampyres had a baby human. The baby survives, grows into a man, and has a family—”

“His Nephilim genes are passed down,” I whispered.

He nodded. “Exactly. Now say that man’s grandson marries a woman who also has Nephilim genes present in her DNA. Could they not reproduce a vampyre?”

“Oh my God, it’s like a recessive disease.”

Jesu scowled. “Well, I would not say that, but you get the idea.”

“Wait.” I stood. “You think I could have vampyre ancestors?”

“It is possible.”

“But that’s just your theory, right? You could be wrong.”

He nodded and glanced at the thick book on his lap. “Yes, I could be wrong. That is why we are going to test it and see. If I am correct, you could have any mixture of vampyre genetics spanning back thousands of years.”

“How will we know if your theory is correct?”

“If I am right, you will have multiple powers from multiple clans. That is why we are going to go down the list one by one to see what you can do.”

Gnawing my lip, I decided to tell Jesu about my family. We made a deal, and he was honoring his end of the bargain so far.

“The truth is, I don’t know a whole lot about my extended family. My mother is Romani-Hungarian. She immigrated to the U.S. with my grandparents when she was a child. Both grandparents passed away when I was little. I don’t know if I have other living relatives in Hungry. Mom doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Do you know her maiden name?” Jesu asked.

“Mora,” I said. “Helena Mora.”

“And your father?”

I winced to the side. “Dad was Native American.”

“Was?” Jesu cocked an eyebrow.

I folded my hands in my lap. “I haven’t seen him since I was ten.”

“I am sorry.”

I shrugged. “I don’t remember much about him. I don’t think we were ever close.”

Jesu turned his attention to the dusty, worn book on his lap. He flipped a couple of pages and then pulled a folded sheet of blank paper and a pen from his pocket.

“Would you like to start now?” He smoothed the piece of paper over the page of the book and wrote Mom’s name at the top.

“Sure, I guess,” I said.

He nodded. “Quite a few clans can phase and fly, so that does not tell us much, but I will note it anyway.” He scribbled unintelligible words on the paper. Tapping his index finger on a chart in the book, he continued. “We will begin with the Strigoian Clan, from eastern Europe. They are originally from Romania, but spread out and now occupy Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary. They are a heavily female populated clan and many of them are hermaphrodites.” Jesu paused and glanced at me.

“What?” My shoulders coiled at his questioning glance. “I am not a hermaphrodite!”

His lips curled at the edges. “Are you sure?”

I crossed my arms and glared at him. “This is serious, you pervert.”