Heart of the Vampire (Vanderlind Castle) (22 page)

“I mean, if she knew about us, what would Colette think?”

At first
, the look on Jessie’s face was so heart wrenching that I wished I’d bit off my tongue rather than asked the question. But his expression quickly changed like a fast-moving storm rolling across the sky. He was hurt, then angry, then puzzled. His expression finally settled back to sanguine. “I think if she knew that she and I couldn’t be together, then she’d want me to be with someone that makes me happy. She had a very generous spirit, and I’m sure that stayed with her, even after crossing over into whatever world comes after this one.”

I blinked at him a few times. What he said made so much sense on so many levels. It was how I hoped I would feel when facing my own death. After all, the best outcome of our situation was that I would grow old and die.
But Jessie would have to keep on living. “That was really lovely,” I whispered. “I wish I could have known her. She sounds like a truly kind person. I wish I was that kind.”

“You’re kind,” he assured me, leaning back in to
brush his lips across my neck and causing an electric thrill to race up my body. “Personality wise, you’re more like Lily, I think, but you’re kind.”

“Come out, come out, little vampire,” said a laughing male voice from outside the gap in the castle wall. “And bring your human. It’s time to pay the piper.”

Without a second’s hesitation, Jessie snatched me off the couch and whisked me through the air, around the screen, and up through a small hole in the ceiling that I hadn’t previously noticed. The opening was so small that he had to keep me pressed against him lengthwise, his legs clamped against mine, and still my heel clipped against a rock. It hurt, and I would have cried out in pain, but Jessie clamped a hand over my mouth.

We had been plunged into the pitch black, and I couldn’t tell what was going on. I only knew we were in a narrow space, and we were moving upward . The space restriction made it so Jessie couldn’t go super fast. He had to negotiate us around some large rocks or broken bits of the castle, I couldn’t tell. I guess then things opened up because we started picking up speed.

We burst from the top of the castle. I could see stars all around us and the lights from the town below. Then my view was abruptly eclipsed as something like a finely woven net, but heavier, was tossed over our heads. Jessie let out an unearthly cry of pain. He began writhing and howling, still holding on to me but desperately trying to push away the cloth. His skin was sizzling and burning away wherever the net touched him. Two vampires grabbed some ropes that were hanging off the net and started towing us through the air.

“Jessie, what the hell is it?” I yelled, not even sure if he could hear me over his own anguish.

Chapter 33

It took my brain a few seconds to click into gear before I realized the thing covering us was some kind of silver mesh, and it was burning Jessie’s flesh. “Hold on,” I shouted at him as I jerked off the robe I had put on over my clothes. “Get under this,” I said, shoving the material between him and the silver. As soon as Jessie’s skin was no longer touching the net, he stopped groaning. “Are you all right?” I asked, after he’d been quiet for several seconds. “Are you burned? Is this silver? Is that what’s going on?”

“I’ll heal,” he said, his voice ragged with pain.

“So, you’ll be all right?” I asked again.

He took a moment to answer. “I’ve failed you. I swore I would keep you safe.”

“You didn’t fail me,” I insisted. “It was Vilma. She betrayed you. If you’re going to blame anyone, blame her.”

“No.” Jessie shook his head under the robe, completely unwilling to even entertain the idea. “She would never do that. If she told anyone where we were, it’s because they tortured her.”

“Tortured her?” I said, feeling a sudden flash of anxiety for Vilma’s wellbeing. “You don’t think the Bishops would torture her, do you?”

“Aurora, we’re vampires,” he said ruefully. “I know we can come across as civilized with our business suits and office buildings, but never forget who we are.”

“Too right,” laughed one of the vampires who were towing us across the sky. He had obviously been listening to our conversation. Then, in a faux Transylvanian accent, he added, “Ve vant to suck your blood.” Both our captors laughed heartily as if the joke was incredibly original.

Jessie pulled me closer, and I tried not to cry. The Bishops had obviously ruled against us, and that was a death sentence for me and a century in a coffin for Jessie. “Will you ask them to kill me quick?” I whispered.

“What?” he asked, sounding shocked.

“I don’t want to be tortured,” I said into his ear. “If you can, will you please tell them to get it over quickly? And maybe let me send a letter to my mother before…” I couldn’t hold back and started sobbing in Jessie’s arms.

He ducked me under the robe with him and held me tightly, whispering into my hair. “Don’t give up yet, my darling. There’s still a chance. Don’t give up hope.”

After a while of sobbing under the robe without much oxygen, I had to stick my head out to get some fresh air. There was the double benefit of the blast of fresh air causing me to stop bawling. I took a look around. We were pretty high up, but I could tell we were following the Danube. It appeared that our vampire captors were flying us directly back to Budapest. They were both wearing heavy gloves, which explained how they were able to manage the silver net. I couldn’t believe with what casual enjoyment they were returning us to our doom. They were happily chatting to each other, just flying along as if they didn’t have two condemned people stuffed in a sack trailing behind them.

Jessie might not have believed that Vilma had betrayed us, but I knew the behavior of jealous females a lot better than he did, even vampire females. Soon she would be rid of me and maybe find a way to free Jessie from his imprisonment after not too long. She would fabricate some excuse to tell Jessie about how we were discovered so easily and how our vampire captors knew of his secret exit. She didn’t care about betraying anyone. I was quite sure the only thing Vilma cared about was making sure I was out of the picture.

Back in Budapest all too soon, the vampires landed on the roof of the Bishop building. They carried us into the building and kept us in the net while we rode in the elevator down to the thirteenth floor. There, outside the lobby, they finally deemed it safe to release us from the silver mesh. Jessie came out fighting, fangs bared, but the other vampires got the drop on him, pointing miniature crossbows at his chest.

I let out a little laugh when I saw the crossbows. The arrows they held were no bigger than well-sharpened pencils. It seemed ridiculous to have them flashing the things around like dangerous weapons, but Jessie didn’t think so. “Come on,” he said, taking me by the hand. “Let’s hear what the Bishops have to say.”

“Okay,” I said, giving him a hesitant look. He probably wouldn’t be killed, after all. It was only me facing the death sentence.

Jessie squeezed my hand and said in a low voice. “Don’t give up hope. There’s still a chance.”

Looking into his endless gray eyes, I did feel a small flame of hope kindle in my belly. I couldn’t help it. I knew it was foolish, but that was the way he made me feel. His skin had looked horrible in the harsh lighting of the elevator, like someone had brazed a raw slab of beef on a searing-hot barbeque grill. Since we’d exited the elevator, it looked vastly improved. More like Jessie had a bad sunburn that a permanent disfigurement. By the time we entered the lobby, Jessie had no signs of injury. His looks were back to being dizzying, but I wouldn’t have cared if he had stayed maimed; I would have loved him anyway.

Waiting for us in the lobby were Madame Csorbo, the Duke, and I couldn’t believe it but also Vilma. The fact that she had the nerve to show her face astounded me. I knew I was going to die anyway, so I thought I might as well give her a good slap across the face.

I darted forward, my hand raised, but Jessie must have anticipated me. Sweeping me aside in a gentle but firm motion, he said, “Vilma, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she sniffed. Then, glancing significantly in my direction, she added, “I can see you still haven’t regained your senses.”

Jessie didn’t seem to be picking up on what she meant. “Did they torture you?” he asked, scanning her from head to toe. “How did the Bishops know where we were? How did they find us so quickly?”

“I told them,” she said with a sniff that might have been to conceal a small chuckle. “Don’t be so simple, Jessie. You killed our brother. You have to face the punishment for your crime.”

Jessie’s jaw literally fell open. I saw the full understanding of the betrayal cross his face.

“You can go in now,” the receptionist told us, motioning toward the hallway and the conference rooms.

I grabbed Jessie’s arm and tried to roust him from his fog. If we were going to try to run again, we really should have tried right then. But he just kept walking. My legs were trembling, and I was on the verge of panic. We had to get out of there. We had to at least try to make a break for it. But Jessie wasn’t with me. He wasn’t thinking about the future. He was lost in what Vilma had done. I knew that if I tried to escape by myself, it would only end with the vampires tearing me to pieces and feasting on my body. My only hope was to beg the Bishops for a quick death.

Chapter 34

“Jessie Vanderlind of the Vanderlind Family,” Winston said, reading out our sentences. We had been ushered back into conference room three, Jessie still stunned, me still panicking, no one else giving a damn. All the Bishops were back again, in their same seats, staring at us with their impassive eyes. Before each of them was a gold chalice. I could only imagine they were all filled with blood. It made my stomach shrivel. Turning to me, Winston added, “And Colette Gibson, human. You have been found guilty of killing Count Viktor Adami to spare a human life.”

“Are you kidding?” The words escaped from my lips. “That’s not fair. Viktor was an asshole. This isn’t justice.”

“Just wait, you little fool!” snapped the matriarch vampiress. “If you’d only keep your mouth shut, I think you’ll be satisfied with the ruling.”

Winston cleared his throat after shooting me an annoyed look. “Due to extenuating circumstances, this court has determined that today will be Colette Gibson’s maker’s day. No other amends will be required.”

“Here’s to Colette Gibson becoming one of the chosen,” the vampiress with the bun said. All of the Bishops raised their goblets in a toast, smiling and nodding at me.

“No!” Jessie roared, his voice filling the room.

“Jessie, what’s going on?” I turned to look at him, but he was too focused on the vampires.

“You can’t do this!” he shouted at the Bishops. “You can’t turn her. She’s not made to be one of us. It’s not right.”

“Our decision is final,” Winston said, his words rather clipped. He’d obviously expected a different reaction.

“Jessie?” I asked again. I wasn’t sure if I completely understood what they were talking about, but I had the feeling they had just announced they were about to turn me into one of the undead.

“Don’t do this,” Jessie pleaded, turning to the Bishops’ matriarch. “You can’t do this.” He fell to his knees and bent his head in a posture of extreme supplication. “I’m begging you. Don’t change her. It would destroy who she is. It would obliterate everything I love about her. Please, take me instead. Lock me in a coffin for a thousand years. Stake me and send me to my final end. I don’t care what you do to me, but please spare Colette.”

“Jessie, no!” I tried to stop him. He couldn’t offer his life. Not to spare mine. “It’s not worth it. Just let them make me a vampire.”

He whipped his head around and stared at me, pain and anger etched across his face. “Be quiet. I know what I’m doing.”

Winston was a little wide eyed, goggling in surprise at Jessie. “You’d really rather die at the stake than have your human become one of us?” he asked.

“A thousand times over,” Jessie assured him.

The matriarch vampiress sighed. “That was very romantic, young man,” she said. “But are you sure you know what you’re agreeing to?” She shifted her gaze to look at me. “This is actually quite an honor for the young lady.”

“You can’t kill him,” I said, somehow finding my voice, even though inside my head I was screaming. “I’ll do what you want. I’ll become a vampire if I have to. Just don’t kill him. Don’t lock him away.” The whole room shifted a little. Those obviously weren’t the words they expected to come out of my mouth. They thought being killed and then brought back as the undead was an honor.

Jessie turned to look at me again. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do,” I told him. “I won’t let you do it. I can’t let you do it. If you die, they might as well kill me, too. My life will be over.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jessie insisted, his gray eyes the color of the Atlantic during a perfect storm. “This isn’t the life for you. There’s so much you don’t understand.”

“I understand that I love you,” I insisted. “I understand that if you died for me that my heart would be broken. I mean, forever broken. You know how that feels. You know what I’m talking about.” Jessie had mourned for the real Colette Gibson for close to eight decades. He couldn’t tell me I’d get over him being staked for my sake.

“Madame Bishop?” I said to get the matriarch’s attention. We hadn’t been introduced so I didn’t know exactly how to address her. “I’m happy to become a vampire,” I told her. “I know Jessie doesn’t think it’s right, but I’ll get to spend eternity with him, so that’s fine by me,” I said. “I would very much like to accept the honor of November thirtieth being my maker’s day. But I have a request, if it is not too presumptuous for me to ask.” I knew I was being very presumptuous, but hell, they were about to turn me into a vampire, I had to try something.

The matriarch nodded. “Go on.”

“I’m only seventeen,” I told them. “Human years, of course, but still, that’s pretty young by modern American standards.” Jessie just stared at me, eyes wide, his perfect lips parted in a small “o” almost like a kiss from a child. No one else said anything, so I took a deep breath and kept going. “In the Vanderlind family, it’s a tradition that family members aren’t turned until they are twenty-four.”

“But you’re not a family member.” Vilma all but hissed at me, there was so much venom in her voice.

“I know,” I told her before continuing to address the entire room. “But I will be a family member when I marry Jessie.” I raised my left hand, letting the enormous engagement ring sparkle in the fluorescent lighting. “And I also know that after Jessie and Daniel, there are no more Vanderlinds left. They are the last of their line.” My statement caused some whispering amongst the vampires. “I’m not arguing about being turned,” I told them. Giving a small bow toward the head vampiress, I said, “I think it’s the right thing for Jessie and my relationship.” A small smile flitted across her lips, and I had the feeling that she had argued in my favor. “I’m asking for a delay until I’m twenty-four. That gives me an opportunity to grow up a little.” I reached over and took Jessie’s hand. “And it also gives us a chance to try to have a child.”

“You can’t have a child!” Vilma leapt to her feet. “It is impossible. Vampires cannot bear children!”

“But humans can,” I insisted. “And modern scientists are doing remarkable things with fertility. Did you know that Japanese doctors are on the verge of cloning a wooly mammoth using frozen DNA? They think within five years we’re actually going to have mammoths again using an elephant as a surrogate mother.” This was news to the vampires. They all just gaped at me. “What I want to know,” I continued, “is why can’t we do this with vampire DNA? With the right doctor and a few more advances in technology, why couldn’t I have Jessie’s child?”

Even Jessie turned to look at me, completely flabbergasted. “Do you think it’s really possible?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said in complete honesty. “I’m not a scientist. But I think it’s worth trying. Don’t you?”

There was some grumbling amongst the vampires. No one looked completely convinced. I had the feeling that several of them would have been happy to leap onto the table and suck all the blood out of me at that exact moment. I was about to say a bit more about DNA, but Jessie superseded me. “Look at it this way, it’s only seven more years,” he told the other vampires. “And if it works, it’s a way to extend family lines that we thought had come to an end.”

“I think this is something we should discuss amongst ourselves,” the matriarch said. “You may wait in the lobby until we reach our decision.”

Jessie rose and then took my arm to help me to my feet. I felt stunned, like I was superimposed on the scene rather than actually functioning in it. The idea of being turned into a vampire was only slightly less frightening than being outright killed. The thought of drinking human blood to stay alive was pretty damn repugnant. Where would I live? How would I survive? What would I tell my mom?

As Jessie guided me out of the room, I heard the matriarch say, “I meant
all
of you need to wait in the lobby.” Glancing over my shoulder, I noticed that Vilma had tried to stay in her seat, obviously keen to contribute her two cents to the debate. She reluctantly got to her feet and followed us out the door.

In the lobby, Jessie settled me into one of the chairs. I felt a wave of panic. There was a very good chance that I was on the verge of becoming a vampire, and I needed to know what would happened to me if the Bishops went through with their plan. “Jessie,” I said, looking up.

He bent and kissed me on the forehead. “I think you’ve done it,” he breathed in my ear. “Just try to stay calm, and we’ll see what they have to say.”

“But, Jessie…” I said, my lips trembling.

“I need to have a word with my dear friend Vilma,” he told me. “Do you think you’ll be all right on your own for a minute?” I nodded, too stunned to say no, and Jessie gave my shoulder a little squeeze before striding over to the loveseat where Vilma had flung herself, one leg hooked over the armrest.

Jessie started the conversation, saying something in a low voice that I couldn’t catch. Vilma responded with, “Well, I wasn’t going to have you making a fool out of yourself for the next fifty years. I’d have drained her myself before I let that happen.”

I sincerely wished there was another human in the room so I could catch their gaze and roll my eyes. Vampires were so convinced of their own superiority it was annoying. Then I remembered what that other human had said to me in the ladies room at the vampire ball and felt a momentary urge to snicker.

There was a beeping sound, and the receptionist picked up her phone. “You can go back in now,” she announced, so we all got up and shuffled back down to the conference room.

“Congratulations,” Winston said to me after we were all in the room. “It looks like not only will you be a vampire, but you will have the chance to become a mother. Your maker’s day will be on November thirtieth of your twenty-fourth year.”

I didn’t know if I should jump for joy or burst into tears. I turned to look at Jessie, but he only gave me an encouraging nod. “Thank you,” I said, trying to appear honored or pleased or something besides a little nauseated.

“And starting now, Colette Gibson will be accorded the same respect and benefits as if she was already made,” the grand vampiress announced.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Vilma growled.

“Let it be known that anyone who does not treat her with the respect she deserves shall have to deal with me personally,” the matriarch went on, unleashing a fiery look in Vilma’s direction. “She will, after all, one day be the mother of a Vanderlind.”

The next thing I knew, we were all out on the sidewalk. “What just happened?” I breathed the question into Jessie’s ear as we walked out the door of the building, our arms entwined. He responded by shooting me a look and giving my arm a squeeze.

“Would you like to catch a ride with us?” Madame Csorbo asked as a limousine pulled up to the curb.

“No, thank you,” Jessie told her. “I think we’ll fly back. Colette and I have a lot to talk about.”

After the others had piled into the car, Jessie led me down the street. We walked along for a few blocks without speaking. I had no idea what time it was, but the streets of Budapest were empty but for us. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked after about the fifth block.

Jessie turned and looked behind us. No one was there. He looked to the left and right. We were all alone. Then he cracked into the most dazzling smile I’d ever seen. “You did it, Aurora,” he said, sweeping me into his arms. “You did it!” he shouted, launching us into the air.

We went swooping and barrel rolling through the sky with Jessie laughing and me holding on for dear life. “Jessie, whatever I did I’m glad you’re happy, but I really don’t want to throw up,” I told him.

Jessie settled us on the roof of a tall building, him sitting on the ledge with me in his lap. He kept kissing my cheek again and again, and then squeezing me tight. “Okay, okay, I get it, I did it,” I told him, “but would you please explain what I did?”

“You tricked the Bishops into letting you live,” he said, joy dancing in his gray eyes.

“I did?” I was confused. “I thought they just agreed to let me stay human until I’m twenty-four and then it’s vampire time.”

Jessie laughed in delight. “But don’t you see, vampires have no real concept of time. Not the really old vampires. Not the Bishops. It’s nothing to them. They’ll mean to have someone check up on you in seven years, but by the time they think of it, a good thirty or forty years will have passed. And by the time they actually send someone to America to check on you, you’ll be in your sixties. And they’ll be looking for Colette Gibson not Aurora Keys. Probably by the time they find you, you’ll be seventy or eighty and none of this will matter,” he said, chuckling so gleefully he had to kick his feet in the air like a child.

“But…” I tried to absorb what he had just told me. I didn’t have to become a vampire. That was a relief. But that also meant that I would grow old. And Jessie would stay seventeen. “Don’t you want to be with me?” I asked. “Don’t you want us to be together?”

“Of course, I do,” he said. Looking deep into his fathomless gray eyes, I could tell he was sincere. “I want it more than anything in the world,” he insisted. He set me down next to him, but kept his arms around me. “I love you, Aurora. And I don’t love selfishly. Not anymore.” His eyes grew distant for a moment, and then he looked back at me. “I should have never asked Colette to run away with me. That was selfish. That was wrong. I should have thought of her safety first instead of my own feelings. That’s what true love is—when you care about the other person more than you care about yourself. You see that with a mother for a child. You see that with humans that have been together for fifty years.”