Twice Bitten (9 page)

“Ah, chérie, do not be alarmed,” Garvan said to me, his sexy voice soothing, despite the fact I felt no less terrified. Especially since I had just tried to move my arms and legs and couldn’t do it. I could barely feel anything from my neck on down to my toes. “In just a minute we will reach our destination.”

I remember how this announcement confused me. I tried to picture what campus locale was nearby—even considering the ultra-quick movements I’d seen from both vampires previously. If they planned to carry me out the window at our present drift, we might make it to the Alumni Center if we were lucky, and that’s if we allowed a few more minutes to make the trip.

However, once we cleared the window and hovered some forty feet above the ground below, they both took firm hold of my arms and shoulders. Everything suddenly sped up. Sped
way
up, I should say. It was as if we had been shot from a cannon into the sky, and we flew so fast that the lights below us became a streaming blur.

It wasn’t long before the lights below disappeared and the air around us grew even colder. Then, as quickly as Garvan predicted, we reached our destination; dramatically slowing down once we approached a cave deep within the Smoky Mountains. By my estimate, we were five to ten miles east of Knoxville. Tall cedars and eastern pines stood near the cave’s entrance, and a roaring fire glowed from within the cave. Garvan and Armando set me gently upon the ground.

My legs felt weak, and it took me a minute to catch my breath after such a frightening and exhilarating experience. I was surprised to find myself dressed in my parka, which covered much of my nightgown. I marveled at how the two had put it on me while we flew through the air, and without me being aware of this fact. Just before we landed, Armando placed my slippers on my feet.

Unlike the other night, both were dressed entirely in black, wearing leather trench coats that hung below their knees. Their boot heels clicked against loose gravel just outside the cave’s mouth.

“You are now ready to meet the princess and the rest of her entourage!” Armando proudly announced. “Right this way…please!”

He motioned for me to walk through the entrance, while Garvan joined him behind me. I could feel them withdraw as I stepped through a narrow passage that opened to a fairly large room. An immense fire burned within a large stone ring near the room’s center, and in front of it stood a tall female flanked by a slightly shorter male on her right, and a petite female on her left.

“So we finally meet, Txema,” said the taller female.  “Come…closer. Let me have a better look at you, my cousin.”

“Cousin?!”

How could this pallid woman be any close relation to me? Granted, she stood almost as tall as me with the same build, and her shoulder-length dark brown hair flowed the same way mine did—even with the same slight widow’s peak atop my forehead. But her eyes were greener than mine, like sultry emerald fires. They were similar to Tyreen’s eyes, only brighter and unearthly in their glow. 

She smiled, and the tips of her fangs peered out through her full pouting lips—also the same as mine, and my best assets, according to Peter. Her subtle nod and amused smile let me know that she had just read my thoughts.

“Yes, it’s sort of like looking in a mirror, eh?” She chuckled warmly, and in the next instant moved from the fire to a mere two feet in front of me. (I wish they wouldn’t do that shit, as it’s extremely unsettling.) A slight lilac scent arrived with her. “You are as radiant as advertised, and you remind me of Bernadette Soubirous, the girl who put the city of Lourdes on the international map long ago.”

She stepped back with one hand on her hip, studying me, while apparently comparing me to this other name that I remembered hearing my grandmother speak of, when I was younger. The way this woman stood there reminded me of both my grandmother and Aunt Sylvia, Papa’s sister. That’s how they often stood, when ready to make a point about an issue.

“You have heard of Bernadette, correct?”

Her French accent was more pronounced than Garvan’s, but there was also some other influence in the delivery of her words. Perhaps, an older Basque touch?

“She’s the one who saw visions and had a shrine built in her honor. Thousands of people come to visit the town every year,” I acknowledged, after nodding shyly. I could tell that I suffered a huge disadvantage in terms of what she knew about me and my family. It was
her
family too, apparently, which I struggled to wrap my mind around.

“Actually, it is three million people each year that journey to Lourdes—many on pilgrimage,” she said, her eyes twinkling with the same mirth I’ve often felt when someone gets the facts wrong about a subject. “A basilica was built long ago in 1876, and an underground church was finished in 1958. The town served as a medieval stronghold for yours and my ancestors, too.”

“Oh,” I said, quietly. The warmth from the fire had reached me, and my parka had become a furnace on my shoulders and arms.

“Allow me,” she said, moving to remove my coat so quickly that I scarcely felt my arms pulled through it. “Now, that’s better, eh?”

“Yes… Thanks.”

“My earthly name was Berezi Ybarra, the great, great, great auntie to Bernadette—who is one of
your
most famous ancestors, as you’ve surely been told,” she continued, handing my coat to the other female who stepped forward after a slight nod. “But our bloodline goes very far back…further than you can even begin to imagine.”

“Which again is why we’re all here!”

Armando’s booming voice echoed off the cave walls, drifting up through a small shaft nestled between an outcropping of stalactites above us where the reverberations were shriller. He danced around the fire, wearing a maniacal look on his face while playing an imaginary violin. The others all snickered.

“Yes, it is the reason we’ve come,” this female, once known as Berezi, continued. “The bloodline that began thousands of years ago is now in danger of extinction. Armando and Garvan have advised me that you now know the reasons for our urgency to protect you. Due to the expanse of your Basque relatives throughout the world, less than ten years ago there were nearly one hundred females who carried the gift that our breed of vampires needs to survive, and which allows us to govern the less-fortunate of our kind. But, roughly six months ago, the gift carriers began to die. In September, the survivors numbered just fourteen… dwindling to three as of two weeks ago….”

Her voice trailed off, and she looked away, as if somehow reliving what had happened to these ‘carriers’. No doubt they bore the same birthmark as mine.

“Yes…they did,” she advised, turning to face me again, as if I had voiced my thought. 

Dressed in the same dark clothing and trench coat as Armando and Garvan, she opened her coat and pulled her sweater away from her neck. The pastiness of her skin accentuated the tiny teardrops that marked her carotid artery, near the base of her throat.

“It is the mark that we all bear—all of us who carry the gift,” she advised. “But you are now the only
living
human being in the entire world that has it.”

For the first time during our conversation, her eyes betrayed her depth of worry. This was some serious shit! An enormous burden began to settle upon my shoulders, and its weight nearly took my breath away.

“Armando called you a princess when we arrived here,” I said, looking for some distraction…something to lessen the impact of what she just told me. “My papa told me recently that the little tears on our necks were once the symbol of Basque royalty. Is that true, and is it the reason Armando said that?”

“It’s more than that, I assure—“

“Armando, let me handle this!” she scolded him, though lightly. He nodded his consent to her interruption, and she addressed me again. “Your papa is correct. Many members of the Basque royalty have been born with the same birthmark, as well as their ancestors from other cultures. Our lineage dates back thousands of years, where the carriers of this gift easily infiltrated the ruling classes of the world’s most highly developed civilizations.”

“That’s why we do not address her as ‘Berezi’,” said the petite female, who suddenly joined us, eyeing me as if I were a very rare novelty—or perhaps, more likely, as a delectable treat to taste. Her French accent was also strong, and I detected the slight aroma of roses. “She is known to us all as
‘Chanson de I’Eternelle’
, since she is the vampire who carries forth our Song forever.”

Her eyes were violet, so unusual and assuredly a byproduct of her vampire birth long ago. They flashed with desire within her small oval face that was framed by a rich halo of crimson colored hair hanging in loose curls upon her shoulders. All her other features were dainty, including her thin lips and delicate nose and cheekbones. Her similar attire of black leather trench coat, stiletto heels, and a dark sweater beneath did little to make her look fearsome. If not for the fangs and her china-doll porcelain skin—as well as those piercing eyes—she could easily pass for some men’s magazine pin-up.

“So, how should I address you, then?” I asked, not sure how to address either one at this point.

“‘Chanson’ will be fine,” said Berezi. “And, this is Raquel Meurtrier.”

She gestured playfully to the flaming redhead, who curtseyed with dramatic flair.

“Ah-hem!” Another booming male voice resounded behind the females, as the lone remaining stranger to me lifted his chin in defiance at being ignored for so long. Even so, I detected an impish glint in his amber vampire eyes.

“And this…this is Franz Blutliebhaber,” Chanson said, motioning for him to join them. 

Franz stepped over to us, completing my immersion in a mixed bath of sensual aromas. He bore more of a sage-like musk scent that seemed to go well with his strong German features. Blonde with high cheekbones and dimples framing a toothy smile, only the fangs and iridescent eyes would alert otherwise unsuspecting humans that a dangerous predator walked in their midst.

I cracked a wry grin at the thought these five gorgeous former humans would make one hell of an act, like some heavy metal band with a metaphysical twist. “America’s Got Talent” could do much worse. Too bad they were just visiting.

“You are quite humorous.” Chanson chuckled for a moment, alluding to my latest musing, but then her demeanor turned solemn. “We have a proposal for you…something serious to consider. As it is getting harder to protect you, we ask tonight that you return immediately with us to Europe.”

Wow.  Part of me was flattered by all of this attention. But, I couldn’t even consider leaving my country…my homeland. I loved Virginia, and my second home of Knoxville, Tennessee, had already found a place in my heart. And, aside from not wanting to leave my friends and be any farther away from my family, I had a slew of homework and several tests to study for before Thanksgiving break began in a couple of weeks. 

“I can’t,” I said, lowering my gaze. I worried that this might piss her off enough to rip my head from my shoulders, and then the five of them would share my precious blood amongst themselves. “I need to stay here.”

She nodded in response. The look on Chanson’s face was one of intense concentration. Perhaps, she searched my thoughts for a truthful confirmation of my words to her, or more likely some weakness she could use to twist my arm into going.

“It’s far too dangerous for you to stay, Txema—I
won’t
allow it!”

Everyone turned toward Garvan. Distressed, his green eyes flashed even brighter than Chanson’s. As he regarded me, I sensed intense longing emanating toward me like a powerful magnet. My pulse began to rise, and I could feel my face flush.

It drew an amused laugh from Armando, who clapped his hands approvingly.

“While I certainly share Garvan’s opinion for urgency, I can only admire his infatuation with our cherished guest,” he said, still chuckling while moving up to Garvan and grasping his shoulder in a show of brotherly affection. Meanwhile, Garvan scowled. His face flushed as it had the other night, only this time from obvious embarrassment. “Perhaps you fancy this young girl—this young
human
—as your vampire bride, no?”

“She needs to be safe—none of
us
can afford for anything tragic to happen to her!” he seethed in response. 

Apparently, there were limits to his subservience to Armando. A glance at Chanson confirmed that he needed her approval instead to go on. She nodded slightly, and Garvan continued.

“Armando, you should be just as passionate as me in getting her to agree to leave with us—
Tonight!
You should
all
be helping me convince her!!”

He looked at each of his companions individually, his eyes and quivering mouth imploring them to aid him. Everyone nodded quietly while a slight snicker escaped Armando’s mouth. 

“Come, Txema.
Please
, come with us back to France!” Garvan begged me, his tone almost plaintive as he ignored Armando. “It’s the surest way to save your life, and I guarantee
every
comfort imaginable will be provided to you!”

The way he looked at me pulled on my heart and almost made me say ‘yes!’ I felt like I was sixteen all over again, experiencing my first taste of love. But, I also knew the treachery of infatuation. Such infantile attachments most often lead to empty promises and assuredly a broken heart. Not to mention the blatant betrayal of Peter’s devotion.