The Thirst Within (13 page)

“Thierry?”

“You’re amazing.” And before I can reply to
him, he leaves out the secret closet door. When I look up the closet door is
closed, and in the next second I hear the door closing upstairs. He’s
fast
.

The bath looks and smells completely inviting.
There’s satiny foam covering the water. I undress, take out the hair tie holding
my ponytail, and rework my hair into a bun. Then I climb in the tub filled with
the aromatic oils.
Ah
. The water just covers my nipples; the foam sits
on my breasts. I briefly wonder if it’s chance, or if he’s really good at
estimating the water level against my body volume. I shake my head; it’s
totally chance. I want to add more water so that it at least reaches my
shoulders, but I promised him I wouldn’t. Mmm. It feels divine. I could pass
out here in this tub. As the tantalizing scents fill my nostrils, I let the
scenes and revelations from the past hour slowly sink in.

I broke into Thierry’s house. Thierry is a
vampire. His brother Corben is also a vampire—and Thierry’s maker, no less. That
explains the massive influence that Corben has over Thierry. Thierry referred
to Corben as his younger brother, but Corben is probably older. They might not
even be brothers; they could be “blood brothers” or some vampire thing like
that; Corben just happens to look younger.

Thierry is over two hundred years old.

He can read people’s minds. I wonder if it’s
true that he can’t read mine or if he only said it to make me feel better….

I saw him drink blood. His lips were covered in
some man’s blood. Oh God.

I’ve kissed a vampire. He really is a vampire.

A lot of little things now make sense, like how
he always seems to show up right after I eat, so we never go out eating together,
not since that first time. I only seem to hang out with him at night. Have I
seen him out during the day? I can’t remember. There’s so much I don’t know
about him. It freaks me out a little that he’s over two hundred years old. Does
he see me as a child? He’s kissed me. But he’s never urged me to have sex.
Can
he have sex? With me? With other vampires?

He didn’t kiss me tonight….

My thoughts keep weaving in and out of the
theme at hand. I’m in shock, yes, but I’m taking this all surprisingly without
difficulty. I’m sure it’s because I’ve always, as far as I can remember,
believed in the supernatural. When I was about eight years old, Nana Fran
caught me watching a movie about vampires and werewolves. She must’ve thought
it was inappropriate for young children, because she was quick to point out
that the movie was make-believe and that the monsters weren’t real. I was upset
because I remember
wanting
the vampires to be real. They were striking
in appearance, and powerful; I wanted to be like the main character, a female vampire
that kicked ass. And I’m pretty sure I had a girly crush on the lead guy.

Then as I grew up I decided that they were
probably real, and werewolves, fairies, angels, and aliens too; and that just
like the aliens, they chose not to make contact.

It probably had to do with surviving the
accident that killed my parents. When the mind cannot explain, it invents. I
still remember the man with the fire eyes that saved me, and wonder if he was a
mythical creature. I’ve always thought of him as an angel. But now I wonder,
was he something else? A vampire? Having had a glimpse of the supernatural
world, my mind is open to new suggestions. The strange memory is rehashed with
new possibilities.

The combination of the quiet house, the fragrant
oils and the warm water is absolutely relaxing. Before I even have formed an
intelligent opinion, I fall asleep.

***

I wake up to a hand on my forehead. I open my
eyes expecting Corben. What? Oh—yeah, I was dreaming of Corben. Ew. Must’ve
been a nightmare. But no, fortunately Corben is not the one touching me while
I’m naked and passed out in a bathtub. It’s Thierry and he looks radiant. Then
I remember he’s a vampire, and I smile widely. He’s still radiant.

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” he says softly. “Thank
you for not leaving. Or drowning.”

“My pleasure.” I blink, and my eyes feel odd
because I fell asleep wearing my contacts. However, they aren’t dry as they
usually get when that happens, and I wonder how long have I been sleeping. The
water’s still hot, and the foam still covers me. “How long were you gone?” I
ask him. My fingers are pruney and it feels like a long time has passed, but it
can’t have been that long if the water’s still this hot.

“Only about fifteen minutes. Okay, let’s get
you out of there.”

“But I haven’t rinsed.” I feel like I could
stay here another fifteen minutes. Or an hour.

“Trust me, you don’t want to rinse that stuff
off. Here, I brought you this robe.”

A robe! My eyes light up like he just gave me a
puppy. It’s the robe I had envisioned: white, super soft, sumptuous. Now I do
want to get out and fall asleep in
that
. Thierry holds up the robe wide open,
holding the arms out for me. He makes a show of turning his head the other way,
and even raises the robe past his eyes so that he can’t see me.

I stand up in the bathtub floor and Thierry
wraps the robe around me, which is great because I’m feeling lightheaded again.
He pats me down to soak up the excess moisture and the bubbles that cling to me,
and I almost fall into him.

“How are you feeling?” he asks me.

“Wonderful. Sleepy.”

“Okay, Tori. I’m going to take you home,” he
says.

Home! I forgot I had one. “No, don’t take me
home,” I plead, as I climb over the tub.

“But your guardians will be wondering where you
are,” Thierry says sensibly.

“I’m not sure that’s true.” I think of Uncle
Roland, never around to begin with. He’s a good guy but definitely not a father
figure; not to me, and not even to his stepdaughter. And June, I swear, if I
came home knocked up one day, she’d be so happy because then she’d be able to
marry me off to the baby daddy and get rid of me.

“Here,” Thierry says, and hands me the pile of my
clothes. “Put this on and meet me in the room outside.”

“No! Don’t let go of me. What if I fall?”

He shakes his head disapprovingly, but he
smiles and looks so amazing that I want to kiss him. “Quit making this so hard
on me, Tori. But sure, okay. Put your clothes on. I’ll just stand here and
watch.”

“What? No… turn around.”

He rolls his eyes at me and turns around, one
arm behind his back holding on to my shoulder.

“Your family cares more than they let on,”
Thierry says out of nowhere while I put my clothes back on.

“How do you figure? Oooh. Have you read their
minds?”

“Yes, I have read their minds.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. They’re pretty loud.” I make a confused face
he can’t see, but before I can ask what he means, he adds, “Their brain
activity is loud, I mean. I’m not even super good at reading minds. The older
we get, the better we are. Right now I only can read the ones that are loud in
their heads; they project more distinctly, so it’s not that hard.”

“So you can read their minds because they’re
loud? Is that the norm or….” I pause to put my shirt over my head, moving his
hand away. “Okay, I’m done,” I announce.

He turns to me and smiles. “You look great,” he
says.

“Thanks. So is it normal to hear people’s
thoughts, or is it rare? Are the Harrises just so goddamn opinionated that
they’re shouting in their heads all the time?”

“For me it’s not normal, but it’s not rare
either. For the most part there’s always something to hear or get off
somebody’s head. The ones whose minds I
can’t
read are the exceptions,”
he says, and looks at me as if trying to figure out whether he’s spotted a
unicorn.

I smile at him. I like that he can’t read my
mind.

We move outside and he takes me to his garage.
The entrance is on the first floor, through the courtyard. As we pass the hot
tub downstairs I dream of putting some of the satiny oil Thierry used in my
bath in it, and of dipping in… with
him
. Warmth spreads over my body,
and then I remember he won’t even kiss me.
Why
?

We’re walking through the door right below his
room balcony and into his garage, and I wonder, when I’m not here, does he just
jump out his balcony to reach his car? Possibly.

Inside the garage he opens his car passenger
door for me, and after I’m seated he walks around at regular speed to his side,
which disappoints me a little. I want to see some preternatural speed. When he
moved me to his bedroom from the roof, that was the first time that I truly
experienced the supernatural, and I want to experience it again. But no, he
walks like a human would. Once inside he presses a button in his car and the
garage door opposite of the entrance we came in rumbles to life.

On the way to my house I think back about what
he originally said about the Harrises.

“So what did you mean, the Harrises care about
me?”

“They like you more than they let on,” he
repeats.

“You can’t tell me that June likes me. She’s so
mean. I got the smallest room and a hand-me-down bed and covers. I know my
uncle wouldn’t do that on purpose; it’s her going out of her way to be evil.”

“Oh, trust me, I know. I’ve had to refrain a
few times from showing her the error of her ways. But lately, now that you’ve
been with them for a month and a half, she’s now tired of antagonizing you, and
can now see you for what you are. You don’t yell at her like your cousins do.
You don’t constantly harass her for money. And you stay out of trouble. Or so
she thinks.”

“Oh. That’s interesting to know. I’ll make sure
to stay out of her way and keep working so that I never have to ask for a
penny. What about Uncle Roland and Fiona?”

“Those two I wouldn’t even have to read their
minds. I can tell by observation. Fiona wants to be like you, orphan and all.
And your uncle really wants you to be part of the family. I can tell when he
talks to you.”

I smile. “No way.”

“They do,” he insists.

“So how do you know all of this? What, you’ve
observed me at home?”

“Um. Yes. For a little while after I’ve brought
you back this week. I just listen in. I make sure you come in alright and that
no one gives you a hard time for me driving you, which they don’t. I quickly
realized it’s because they don’t know that I’m bringing you home every night.”

“And they’re okay not knowing.”

“As the lady wishes,” he says with a slight
bow.

“What about Jack? Is there anything interesting
at all I should know about him?”

“Jack… yeah. I’m keeping an eye on him in case
he turns psycho as he grows older. He’s a little introverted, but he’s not yet
seven. He may grow out of it. I think his mother’s to blame, though. She’s
always hovering. He wants her to leave him alone.”

“I thought he hated anyone.”

“No, he just doesn’t like her. If you talked to
him, you might like him.”

Total insight into my family. This is surreal.
Vampires are surreal.

“Thanks for the info,” I say.

“Anytime.”

Later, after he has dropped me off at home and
I notice that, indeed, June hasn’t been her usual bitchy self, I smile to
myself. I try yelling in my mind.
I love you Thierry
! And wonder if he
can hear if I yell loud enough.

As I get ready to pass out on my own bed, for
some reason I move to the window and pull the curtain off to the side,
something I never do. And there he is, across the lawn by the side road.
Thierry bows. Then he disappears.

I get under the covers and smile. There’s
nothing else to discuss with my brain. I’m in love with Thierry, and I don’t
care that he’s a vampire. In fact, now we can be even closer, since he doesn’t
have to protect his secret from me anymore.

I smile in the darkness. My newfound friends,
silence and sleep, claim me once more.

“What did Corben say?” I ask Thierry the next
day. It’s Monday and I’ve just finished my shift at the theater. John was
there, and he kept having to rouse me from my daydreaming. Andrea was not
pleased, but I told her I was distracted because my boyfriend turned out to be
totally different than I expected. She was sympathetic and left me to my
musings.

“What do you mean?” Thierry asks presently.

“Last night you said you had to call him; so
what did he say?”

“Oh, nothing,” he says. “He has no problem with
you knowing. I knew he’d be okay; I mean, he wouldn’t order the vampire mafia
on you—no, there’s no vampire mafia”—he adds when I make a surprised face—“I
just had to tell him to keep him in the loop.”

“I see.” I’m terrified of Corben. His name
equals misery to me. I just got Thierry back a week ago, and now I know his
secret; I don’t want him to leave me again because his brother-slash-maker
doesn’t like me.

Thierry is taking me to dinner, which he claims
he’s wanted to do all week, but didn’t, because I would have grown suspicious
if he didn’t eat in front of me. Now that I know about his special diet, he
feels more relaxed, and free to do things with me he never did before. Like
dinner. This part of knowing I like. Also, knowing
itself
. It’s a huge
relief to finally know what the hell was his big secret deal with his brother.

However, I don’t like the not kissing part. He
hasn’t kissed me since I found out he was a vampire. Not that we used to kiss
all the time, but at least once per day I’d get a lingering, belly-melting
smooch that would make me feel like I was finally doing life right. But that
hasn’t happened since last Friday night. Almost three days. I’m counting.

We walk in and the hostess’ eyes go wide when
she looks at Thierry.

“H-hi,” she says, stammering a little. She
gathers herself and tries again. “Hello. Welcome to Roma. Two?”

“Yes, please. And may we have sit over there in
that corner booth?” he asks, pointing.

“Certainly,” she acquiesces with a huge smile.
Of course. No hostess in her right mind would ever deny Thierry a request.

We get seated next to a window, and though the
table isn’t too far away from the main restaurant traffic, the fact that we’re
in a corner makes us somehow secluded. The main area has a large group of
people whose loud conversations afford us some privacy. I’ve never been here
before, but it looks like a nice place to go on a Monday night with a vampire
boyfriend. I did look up the restaurant I lied about yesterday to the renting
agent Lucy, but it seemed too fancy for me. It didn’t have what I consider
regular comfort food, probably on account of it being so fancy. So I chose a
more low-key restaurant instead.

I’m excited to sit with Thierry, knowing his
secret, while everyone around us has no clue. I want to know everything about
him, about vampires. I realize I should have brought my journal with me to take
notes. I have so many questions but I can’t think of a single one right now. I
roll my eyes up looking for a question in my head, but at that moment a
waitress interrupts to take our drink orders.

I order iced tea, and she looks expectantly at
Thierry.

“And for you?” I could be imagining it, but she
smiles too much at him when she asks him.

Thierry looks up at her and says, “Just a
water, thanks.”

“Great. I’ll be right back with your drinks and
some breadsticks,” she says enthusiastically, and leaves.

Thierry looks at me and smiles
conspiratorially. “I’m
so
sorry, I already ate,” he says, pretending to
be apologetic.

I laugh at his pretense. That reminds me of a
question. “So can I ask you a question about your… lifestyle?” I ask gingerly.

“You can ask me anything,” he replies. “But I’m
going to ask you a few questions, myself.”

Oh. I sit back, interested. What could he
possibly want to know about me? “Shoot,” I offer.

“Well, for starters, how did you get in my
apartment last night?”

I blush but grin, because while I know
trespassing was a bad thing to do, I know he’s forgiven me. I mean, I’m
forgiving him for being a killer, for Christ’s sake.

“It’s a long story,” I say.

“I’m immortal,” he replies, and I laugh again.
It’s not that funny, but I’m giddy.

So I give him a brief summary.

“You just wanted to see my apartment while I
was out,” he repeats to me when I finish.

“Yeah. I missed you,” I say, and finally feel
some shame. “First I wanted to see the front apartment, but then, I dunno, I
thought I could enter your place and… sit on your couch, or something. It was
only once I was in that I felt like exploring.” I don’t really go into the
I-must-open-every-door part.

He sighs, and I’m spared the reproach by the
waitress, bringing our drinks and a basket of breadsticks.

“Are you ready to order?” She looks at Thierry
for an answer, but he looks at me, deflecting the question.

I nod.

“Ladies first,” she smiles condescendingly at
me. I know she wants my boyfriend. Bitch.

I order pasta. She turns to Thierry with what I
consider an unnecessarily wide smile.

“Nothing for me, thanks,” he says, all
charming. She blinks.

“Oh,” the poor dazzled girl says. “Okay. I’ll
go put that order right in.” When she leaves, she does a little shake of her
head.

He turns back to me.

“Did you do something to her?” I ask him.

His expression turns all impressed; his eyes
narrow and he gives me the most beautiful unbelieving smile. “What do you
mean?”

“Did you mind-control her or something?”

“Wow, Tori,” he says, then he sits back. “Maybe
I did.”

“Aha! What else can you do?”

“I can do a lot of things. But I’m not going to
name them all; it’d be like showing off.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” I say too eagerly.

“Eat some bread, Tori,” he says, pushing the
basket towards me.

Fine. I grab a breadstick. “So you drink… people,”
I say, lowering my voice at the end.

“I do,” is all he says, his voice low as well.

“Do you… have to kill your victim?” I’m
surprised how hard it is to ask the question out loud, even if I’m almost
whispering it.

“No, I don’t
have
to.”

“But do you, ever?”

“If he deserves it,” he says plainly.

Oh. I was expecting him to say
No way, never.
Except yesterday
.

I pretend his answer doesn’t faze me. “He?”

“Usually a he,” he says casually, like we’re
talking about people that he goes out drinking with, not people that he kills.
“I rarely drink from women or children. I’m afraid I’ll kill them because
they’re so fragile. But guys, I don’t mind overdrinking from some guys. I
have
killed people, Tori. Never forget that.”

“I know,” I say, and look down at the bread.

“Lots of them.”

“But you know if they deserved it or not,
because you can read their minds,” I say, strangely having to defend myself
from liking him despite the fact that
he’s
the one that kills people. Oh
God. He really kills people. How many people, and where does he stash the
bodies?

“I can’t really know if they deserve it or not,
Tori. I’m a killer, myself. If I read a guy’s mind and I think he deserves to
die, I don’t feel bad about killing him. But really, what gives me the right?
What do I know about the consequences of killing him? I don’t usually think
about these things. Sometimes I’m surprised that I value their lives so little….”

I’m getting scared against my will. I don’t
like Thierry admitting that he kills just about anyone. “What criteria do you
use?” I ask slowly.

“I kill murderers, rapists, sadists… bad
people. Evildoers. But not thieves or simple jackasses from high school.”

“Oh! Okay, so it’s not just anyone.” I relax a
little.

“Right. First of all there’s no need. Like I
said, I don’t have to kill to feed. I only kill when I think I’m doing humanity
a favor.”

“If that’s the people you kill, then you
are
doing the rest of us a favor.”

He shakes his head. “But if I know a guy is a
murderer and I don’t kill him, then what? Should I feel guilty I didn’t kill
him? I don’t have time to kill people left and right. It takes a great deal of
effort to get rid of the evidence. I have to be thorough; I can’t implicate
myself.”

“Why? What do you do with the bodies?”

He pauses for a second before answering. “If I
kill a murdering thug from a bad neighborhood, I dump him in his house. No one
cares. But if it’s some jerk pretending to live a normal life in a nice
neighborhood, it’s a lot harder. I have to make sure to unmask him before his
death is discovered; unfortunately not everyone has evidence lying around. I
could just kill him and forget about it, but if I do that again in a few weeks,
then the police will think innocent people are getting killed on their watch.
They’ll make a case and start a search for a serial killer, and nobody wants
that.”

“A few weeks? Wait. How often do you feed?”

He takes a slow, deliberate breath as he thinks
about it. Or about how to answer me. “I feed every few days, but I only need
very little blood, so I can take from random people and let them go. They don’t
even know it happened.”

“How? Do you hypnotize them?”

“Yes, it’s a form of mind-control.”

“And the wound?”

He shrugs. “Disappears with a little bit of our
blood.”

“So your blood heals?”

“No, the human body heals itself; it just heals
a lot quicker using our blood.”

I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean. But
anyway, back to you letting murderers roam free….”

“Tori, I’m not some goddamn vigilante,” he
says, leaning forward, speaking in hushed tones. He doesn’t sound angry, just a
bit irritated. “You just can’t kill everyone that ever raped or killed anyone.
The public would go crazy thinking there’s a serial killer on the loose.”

“Not if you show the evidence!”

He sighs exasperatedly. “The evidence is
sometimes the bones of someone they killed. What do I do then? I read his mind,
figure out where he buried the body, dig it up, leave a note for the cops?”

“Why can’t you just kill them and hide their
body? Like that guy yesterday.”

“But
that
takes a lot of time and
effort.”

“You did it in fifteen minutes!” I counter.

“No, I moved his body to the trunk of my car. I
buried him
after
I’d dropped you off.”

I jump back a little in disbelief, making a
repulsed face. “He was in the trunk when you drove me?” I whisper, and it comes
out angrily.

He leans forward again and grabs my hands. His
cool touch makes me think of the dead guy in the trunk, and I shiver. He lets
go of my hands immediately. “Tori, listen. Let’s take a break. This is too much
at once.”

I get anxious at the thought of taking a break.
I’m afraid that he won’t continue if he stops now. “No… please. It’s fine. I’m
fine. I just want to know everything at once. But I understand, really. I can
see it would take you a while to do what you needed to do, if you were to do it
right.”

He sighs and looks at me like he wants to tell
me I’m being childish and I’m not going to get dessert for this. “Okay,” he
says. “And you’re right. I can’t spend hours arranging a perfect murder every
time I get hungry. So I only drink a little bit.”

“So you let them live because you’re lazy?” I
say, almost making fun of him.

“You can’t blame me for being lazy,” he says,
still a little annoyed, but he definitely sounds less somber.

I don’t know if I’m relieved that he doesn’t
kill as many people as I originally thought, or concerned that there are
murderers out there still roaming the dark alleys of New Orleans. Which reminds
me….

“Thierry?”

“Yes, Tori?” He so doesn’t want to go on. But I
do.

“Did you kill the two guys outside the theater
the night you first saw me there? In the back alley….”

He straightens up and looks at me. I could be
wrong, but he looks embarrassed, or afraid. Or both. “Yes,” he says slowly,
deliberately. “I did.”

So it’s true. It chills my blood, because these
were two guys that I saw alive once, not just guys in stories of dead people.
“I knew it,” I whisper.

“You did? What made you think that I did it?”

“Well, I knew they died. I mean, that they were
killed. One of the guys I work with went to their funeral. I looked up the
story online and recognized the big guy. But I’m not upset,” I add quickly,
because he’s looking more and more like he’s afraid of my reaction.

“Tori…. I’ve got to tell you something. Those
guys weren’t murderers or rapists. They were just punk thieves….” He’s getting
more and more apprehensive at the confession. “They were planning on robbing
whomever came out of there, which they had done before plenty of times.
However, when they saw you, they both thought about taking you… having their
way with you. They both imagined what it would be like. I didn’t like that, so
I went back that night, found them, and killed them.”

***

My food sits untouched in front of me. Well,
not untouched; uneaten. I’ve been stabbing the penne like it killed my father.

Thierry sits in front of me looking worried.
But he doesn’t need to be. I don’t think I care about what he did.

I remember that night in the alley. I had been
so afraid. My only means of protection had been keys stashed between my
knuckles. If the guy tried something, I was ready to attack him. That was, of
course, before I saw there were
two
guys, and I realized I was in deep
trouble. If Thierry hadn’t been there, and they had attacked me…. I would’ve
been raped, according to him. And if they had, if during the attack some higher
power had magicked a gun in my hand, I would have shot them. Of course I would
have. I wouldn’t have said, “Leave me alone; I have a gun.” I would’ve shot
those two assholes in the head, multiple times, until they were dead.