Mangi la minestra o salt'dalla finestra.


I woke up with a start, not entirely sure where I was. I had been in the middle of a dream, and for a moment, I couldn't place myself. I listened for a moment, hearing muffled noises of general splashing and cavorting by a swimming pool, and with the reassurance that everything was going to be okay, I opened my eyes and found myself in the same guestroom I had gone to sleep in. I sighed with relief, and tried to recollect the dream that had startled me so much.

In my dream, I'm a young child, running away. I'm standing at an unfamiliar place, a boat dock, a train station, I don't quite know what. There's a person with me, urging me to hurry. I don't ever see more of this person than her black slacks and her stylish black heeled boots. I hug this person's legs, I'm crying and I'm fearful. I'm afraid that I'm going to lose this person, but I don't know why or how.

The scene moves away and the person with the black slacks is gone. I'm looking for her. I'm walking down a sidewalk, under an evening sky. I'm alone. I hold my breath, listening intently. I hear a woman screaming in the distance, and it makes me afraid. And then I wake up from the dream, trembling slightly.

It reminded me of the ones I had as a child, the person in the black pants telling me to hurry, as though the two of us were running away from something. And hearing her scream. I had another dream a few weeks ago, that was similar last night. There was something in last night's dream that reminds me of this old dream, and I couldn't quite place why. In the older dream, I was sitting on the floor beside her in a dressing room of some sort, as she was getting ready for something, perhaps some sort of event. I never saw her face, but I remembered feeling at ease with her. She leaned over and clasped a necklace around my neck, a butterfly pendant with a smaller butterfly beside the larger one. I had played with it before and I was so proud to be wearing it, as though I was important and 'grown up' for wearing the necklace.

There was more to that dream, but the focus had been on this necklace. I thought it had belonged to her, perhaps.

Well, anyway, if I were a shrink, I'd have to tell myself that my strange dreams about running away and spending time with this familiar but unknown person was complete nonsense, and that I probably used it as an escape from whatever was happening in my real life. Those dreams only seemed to crop up when I was afraid or stressed.
After learning yesterday that vampires roam amongst us, I think that hit the definition of both fear and stress.

I yawned and I stretched out on the bed. I rubbed my eyes and then I opened them, looking around. There were curtains over the window, but there was a rosy hue around the edges of the fabric, as though the sun was preparing to set. I got up, intending to grab a shower before grabbing breakfast from the kitchen. As I stood up, I nearly stumbled over a box on the floor.

That's odd. I didn't leave a box on the floor.

Glancing down, I saw that there were nearly a dozen of these white boxes stacked up on the floor in two columns. I tilted my head to the side, trying to figure out what they were and what they were doing on the floor. They looked like the shallow wide boxes that the high-end boutique stores in Milan used for packaging clothes after a purchase.

I know I wasn't in Milan last night.

I wondered what these boxes were doing here in my room, I didn't think I was expecting anything. I rubbed my eyes again, trying to push the sleepy fog out of my brain. And then I remembered: Ingrid had told me that she was going to get some more clothes after she had thrown out my jeans and sweater from last night. So I guessed, whatever was in those boxes, had something to do with clothes. I knelt down beside the boxes, slightly apprehensive because the high-end boxes were not anything close to what I had in mind.

I opened the top box, and as I lifted the lid, I saw what looked like a deep plum colored garment wrapped in tissue. Lifting the garment, I realized it was an evening gown, and judging by the looks of it, it would probably fit me perfectly.

Why on earth would she deposit an evening gown in my room??

I gingerly set the gown back in the box and closed the lid. I moved the box over to the bed, and wondered what would be in the next box. Maybe somewhere in here I'd find an explanation, I had a funny feeling that these boxes didn't contain a replacement pair of faded jeans and a cotton cardigan, and I surmised that perhaps Ingrid was a little crazy.

Everything else here is a little crazy.

I opened up the following boxes, and I was both stunned and speechless at the clothes I had found tucked into the tissue paper. Cashmere sweaters, silk pajamas, leather jacket and pants, fancy underwear, soft camisoles, silk blouses, dresses with accessories, shirts and business suits that clearly cost more than my annual tuition at the university. I was even more speechless when I glanced at the labels on some of the clothes, top designers of Europe that some women would die for. And everything looked like it would fit me perfectly, which was a little odd since I hadn't told Ingrid my clothing size. Nestled inside one of the top boxes, I found a note that simply said: "Here are a few things to tide you over until you can go out shopping", written in Ingrid's old-fashioned, loopy handwriting.

I wondered if she thought she was being humorous.

I sighed softly and put the tops back on the boxes and stacked them neatly against the wall. I was speechless. Ingrid and I definitely had a different taste in fashion. I was a down-to-earth jeans and sneakers, fresh faced, occasionally messy pony-tail sort of gal. Dressing up, for me, consisted of slacks and a clean sweater, or a sundress and spending a few minutes pinning my hair up and tucking in a flower. And I wasn't exactly sure how to communicate that without sounding like I was ungrateful. I just didn't know how some people could wear clothes that cost more than a down payment on a new car. Didn't they worry about getting a stain? If a person can buy renter's insurance for an apartment for reimbursement of damages, can they also buy apparel insurance for their clothes? I shook my head and wondered if I was starting to lose my mind.

Yup, losing one's mind may just happen with frequent regularity around this house.

I sighed again and decided to take that shower. There was something about showers that just couldn't be matched with anything else in the world. The warm spray was refreshing. Having my own brand of soap and shampoo was almost like having my own little corner of "things are okay" here in the middle of this bizarre melodrama I seemed to have walked right into the middle of. I let myself dawdle, thinking back to the warm summer days when my family would gather on the back porch drinking wine or iced tea, listening to my grandparents talk about the bygone days, after a fantastic dinner my grandmother had made. My stomach growled, and I realized that I needed to finish up and get myself a snack, or breakfast or dinner or something. Whatever time it was.

After finishing my shower, I dried myself off, and, after wrapping myself in a towel, I went in the second room to grab my medication and a bottle of water from my backpack. I was surprised when I couldn't find my medicationsanywhere in my backpack. I was sure they were in there before. I checked all of the obvious places I, or someone else, could have set them: the desk, the bathroom, the nightstand, the closet. I couldn't find them anywhere. I then remembered that Ingrid had said something last night about my medications, and I wondered if perhaps she'd forgotten to return them. Oh well, I'd find out from Ingrid, and get them in awhile. Oddly, I wasn't feeling the least bit sick or worn out, which was normal when I hadn't taken my medication twice daily like I had been instructed to do. I wandered back into the bathroom and found the hair dryer that had been set on the counter with the other toiletries. My grandma had been one of those 'old school' parents who believed that wet hair was a guarantee for catching pneumonia or something. I had never caught anything, but drying my hair immediately after a shower was a habit, and I was grateful that whomever had set out toiletries had also included a hair dryer. After drying my long hair, I glanced at the lush brown locks in the mirror while debating what to do with them. I decided to just leave my hair down. That took less effort than anything else.

I walked out into the bedroom, contemplating what I should actually wear. As much as I appreciated Ingrid's gesture of getting me more clothes, I just did not picture myself capable of wearing any of them. I turned to the closet and found the extra set of clothes I had packed from New York. I would always be more comfortable in a pair of faded jeans and a favorite t-shirt. As I put on my clothes, I sighed softly.

Well, tis better to be comfortable than to be right.

After getting dressed, I went downstairs to find breakfast. As I arrived in the kitchen, I noticed that while the kitchen was empty, the window that overlooked the poolside area showed that there were a handful of the 'architecture students' playing water polo or volleyball as the sun set behind them. It was a beautiful scene and I found myself wishing I had a camera. The guys were gorgeous, the lighting was gorgeous, and the sunset was gorgeous too. I remembered after a few minutes that I was on a mission, and returned my thoughts back to the kitchen.

After looking through the fridge, I realized that eventually I'd need to ask for some specific items. Apparently, strange luxuries like milk and eggs were unknown in this household. I grabbed a container of yogurt and made myself another meat-and-cheese sandwich minus the bread. I poured myself a glass of orange juice and went to sit down at the table by the corner of the kitchen. I watched the guys goofing around in the pool. They seemed so carefree, and for a moment I felt a stab of jealousy. I didn't want to be playing in a pool, but I realized that most of the last two days of my life had been more intense than I could have imagined. I found myself wishing I could relax. I rubbed my temples, the first sign of a headache coming on, and made a mental note to go back up to my room and search again for my medication when I was done with breakfast.

I was just finishing my food when I heard someone come down the kitchen stairs. I was facing away from the stairs, so I turned slightly so I could see who it was. It was Adrian, the dark haired guy who Ingrid had used as a living explanation of who she was and what she did. I shuddered slightly at that recollection, then, having gazed at him for nearly a full minute, I remembered that I hadn't said anything to him and I was staring at him like I was an idiot. I greeted him and asked him how he was doing. He replied that he was doing fine, but I noticed his voice didn't have the vigor I would have expected, had he been truly fine.
He came over and took a seat across from me at the table. He had a bottle of soda, and he began peeling an orange. I watched him, and I realized that I had questions about last night, questions that Ingrid or any vampire wouldn't be able to answer.

He looked up at me and apologized because he didn't remember my name exactly. I reintroduced myself and smiled softly. I could imagine remembering my name wasn't particularly high on his list at that moment when he had met me.

"Is it okay if I ask you about last night?" I asked to him.

He looked apprehensive for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Yeah, I suppose so. Its not normally something I discuss, but you're hardly considered an outsider," he said.

I kind of wish I still was."Shoot," he said, letting me know that I was welcome to 'fire when ready'.

"Did that hurt?" I asked him. That was the question I was itching to know since last night, but I didn't find it appropriate to ask Ingrid. That would have been asking the wolf if the sheep feel pain.

"Nah, not really," he replied. "Sure, there's an initial sting, but it goes away," he clarified.

"Do people die on a regular basis, from doing what you did?" I asked, wondering if there was some high mortality rate associated with this sort of activity.

"Not usually," Adrian replied. "I've been doing this for about two years, I haven't heard of anyone dying in that time, but there are rumors especially about the Freshies who know more than they ought to about a customer's life."

"What's a Freshie?" I asked him.

"Freshie," he said and pointed to the side of his neck where Ingrid had gotten to know his jugular vein as part of a macabre show-and-tell opportunity. "I'm a Freshie, the guys outside are Freshies, there are gals too who are Freshies. We donate blood."

"By letting anyone sink their teeth into you?"

Adrian laughed softly. "Doesn't quite work that way," he said with a wink.

"Then, how does it work? Does the blood bank or Red Cross / Red Crescent Society call you on the phone and ask you if you're interested in making a living donation that doesn't involve sterility or needles?"

"Freshies work for vampires. We supply blood, they supply payment. There's a company that handles the details of the supply and demand who organize where Freshies go, but I don't really know about it. Pretty much though, I go where I'm told, when I'm told, and it's a nice paycheck."

"And that sums up the life of a Freshie?" I asked.

He nodded and started drinking his soda.

"What do you do, aside from this?" I asked him, curious about any other life he had that didn't revolve around giving blood.

He shrugged.

"College, sports, hobbies?" I asked, attempting to prompt him into saying something anything that gave a glimpse into his life.

"I go to the gym. My buddies and I hang out. I get paid well so I don't need to go to college. I like to tinker with my new motorcycle and go out clubbing."

Lofty goals…. not!

"Oh," I replied, not exactly knowing what else to say, I had expected him to have some sort of ambition in his life, and it seemed as though he didn't.

My conversation was cut short when Ingrid arrived in the kitchen.

Adrian stood up. "Is there anyone I can get for you, Ms. Mathesen?" he asked, gesturing to the guys outside who were now climbing out of the pool and chatting amongst themselves.

"No, but thank you Adrian. How are you doing?" Ingrid replied.

"Better than the usual," he responded.

Remind me not to ask how "usual" was defined.

"Good," Ingrid responded.

"Bella, if you're finished, do you care to accompany me?" Ingrid politely inquired.

Not if its breakfast time for you too.

"Sure," I responded, and I walked across the room, depositing my dishes into the dishwasher, and wrinkling my nose when my back was toward her. I was really in no hurry to see another graphic description of how she lived her life as a vampire.

I followed Ingrid out of the kitchen, across the main floor, and into her library. She sat down on an oversized leather chair, and I sat on the sofa, following her lead.

She looked down for a moment, and I realized that she had picked up, and was now holding a drink in her hands. Something alcoholic, I surmised, with a touch of pink, and I figured I knew what caused the coloration.

At least she didn't invite me to attend her Bartending 101 course.

Ingrid looked uncomfortable for a minute, alternating between looking at me and looking at the lowball glass in her hands. She sighed softly, then looked at me in the eyes and began speaking finally.

"Bella, I know we've been on rocky ground since you've arrived here, but I'm afraid I need to be the bearer of bad news."

Uh oh… If a vampire could classify it as 'bad' then I don't want to know how it would be catalogued in human terms."Is Marcus okay?" I asked, the first person that came to mind who I thought would be in danger.

Ingrid sighed softly. "Yes, he's fine."

"What happened then?" I asked, not quite sure what could possibly be going wrong.

Ingrid got a faraway look in her eyes, and she started telling me a story.

"Josef has enemies, people who have a grudge against him."

I nodded; this had been told to me already. It made sense.

"Many years ago, he was here in Europe and he found himself falling for a vampiress, a female vampire.

"Was this during World War I?" I asked.

Ingrid offered me a small sad smile. "No, Bella, think several decades before any of the World Wars."

I nodded, realizing that time had a totally different meaning for vampires.

Unfortunately for Josef, there was another vampire who also fancied the woman, and, while in a dispute, Josef killed the other vampire. As I understand it, the other vampire attacked him and Josef was protected his own life. That vampire's sire took a personal grudge against Josef, perhaps believing that Josef had done the act intentionally, and has spent much of the last 150 years, more or less off-the-radar of the rest of the vampire world. He's been stalking Josef, from a distance. If Josef has a successful business venture, a gas line will mysteriously burst and take out the block and take out the business venture, or the company will inexplicably be fire bombed, or the government will be alerted and seize the property. Things have been hell for Josef. He's even gone so far as to engage others who have a similar grudge against Josef. But its not always just Josef's businesses, they have attacked him personally too, from the playbook of 'Ivan the Terrible' seemingly. They've killed close associates to Josef, and they've also killed vampires who were sired by Josef. They have their targets on you now, Bella, as you too have been 'sired' by Josef, just not in the usual sense."

"Last night, they learned that you were in Europe, and they assumed that you had gone to your family's home in Italy for refuge. They didn't find you there, but they assumed that your family knew where you were. When your family wouldn't tell them what they wanted to know, they killed them."

I looked at Ingrid, puzzled. The words she had just said weren't quite registering.

She cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable, and said, "I'm sorry Bella, but your family is dead."

That's impossible, there are just too many of them. She must be joking.

"My grandma? Aunt Lucia? My uncles? My cousins?" I asked softly.

"Yes, Bella, the whole family," Ingrid said, looking sadly at me.

"How did you find out?" I asked.

Maybe she's wrong, she couldn't possibly get this information so quickly.

"The company I run, Bella, it's a cleaning service, we were notified."

"Are you sure?" I asked.

This can't be happening.

"I'm sorry, Bella," Ingrid said, sadly.

My eyes filled with tears as the enormity of the situation finally descended into my head. "They were such good people," I said. "Grandma was one of the sweetest people around, my aunts and uncles were all upstanding members of their community, and my cousins, some of them were still only children." I bit my lip and continued, "why would anyone want to harm them?"

I wiped away the tears that had started falling. This couldn't have happened to my family, I didn't want to contemplate it or acknowledge that anything could happen to my family.

"I'm sorry, Bella." Ingrid said again, twisting her glass nervously in her hand as she looked into my eyes. "Evil doesn't play fair. I'm sorry that your family got wrapped up in this. They didn't deserve to die needlessly at the hand of vengeful vampires who were hell-bent on retribution."

I stood up and ran from the room. Ingrid was saying more, but I didn't hear it. I didn't care to hear it. I heard what I needed to hear, and nothing else she had to say was going to make a difference, ever.

My family was gone, and it was all because of me. They were killed because they didn't know where I was, and their killers didn't believe them. This was all my fault. If it weren't for me, they'd all be all right, and everything would be normal. How on earth does someone prepare for over a dozen funerals? How does one even begin to move on from something like this?

I ran up the main stairs, two at a time, and flung myself onto the bed in my room, my body shuddering with sobs. I pressed my face into the pillow, trying to muffle my screams of agony. So many things gone, senselessly. My cousins… Giulia would never see her fifth birthday. Mario was preparing to take his first communion. Giovanni had just gotten married, and his newborn, Valentina, and his wife were staying at Aunt Lucia's house until they had a down payment for a house of their own. My aunts and uncles…. My grandma… There would be no more evening get-togethers on my grandparents' back porch. There were no more cousins to buy "Americana" gifts for on their birthdays. There would be no more Christmas festivities. There would be no more Easter Mass with the family. There would be no more 'letters from home' for me to receive, to get a glimpse of my extended family in pictures and notes. It was just gone. Gone forever. And it was all because of me. It was all my fault.

I curled up into a ball on the bed, not caring that my shoes were probably leaving a mark on the white coverlet. I wrapped my arms around a pillow and just cried. My soul now felt completely empty. I knew Grandma was getting old in years and I knew her life would be ending in the next several years, but I never imagined I would lose everyone all at once. It hurt so much inside, I thought my heart would stop pumping and shatter. I wished it would. I lay there crying, mourning my family for several hours until I fell asleep.

I woke up later, my body felt awful, and as soon as I remembered why I was laying on the bed fully dressed, tears started streaming down my face again. My whole family didn't deserve to die because of me. They didn't deserve to be murdered. I just lay there, not sure if I'd ever find the will to get up again. I didn't care anymore. If my whole family was dead, I found myself wishing just a little bit, that I were dead too. I just lay there, curled up, facing the wall. I don't know if minutes passed or hours passed. I didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

Time passed, and Ingrid came into the room and sat on the foot of my bed. I didn't have anything to say to her, I didn't even want to look at her. She sat at the foot of my bed, saying nothing. Perhaps she didn't know what to say. Maybe she forgot what it was like to have a family. After awhile, she got up and left. That was a mild improvement, as I realized that I had preferred to be alone. I couldn't deal with myself, I didn't want to deal with anyone else. I wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to focus on what a rational person would do in this situation. I realized that there was nothing rational about this situation. People just don't have vampires show up and destroy their entire lives. This is the kind of material that CBS and major television stations will turn down because they decide that its too far-fetched to be considered as a realistic television show. This was just too far removed from reality; I didn't even have a grasp on it. I sighed and I rolled over to face the wall. I prayed for this nightmare to stop unfolding.

Just fold yourself right back up and disappear, please.

I fell asleep again, and when I woke up, I realized it was daylight outside. I also realized that I had neglected some of my own body's needs, and I definitely needed to empty my bladder now.

Life's always great until you have to take a pee.

I decided too that I should probably take a shower, maybe it would help ease the knots that were everywhere, in my neck, in my stomach, in my back, in my soul.

I stepped under the warm spray of the shower, and instead of reaching for my shampoo, I just stood there. I closed my eyes. I remembered the smell of my Grandma's bathroom. It always had a flowery scent of her powder. I had thought I was all cried out, but the memory sent a new wave of tears. I slumped down with my back against the tile, sitting on the floor, with my knees pressed against my chest. My chest heaved with sobs as I cried. My family didn't deserve this. I didn't deserve this. I rested my forehead on my knees, angry at my father, whoever he was, for being a vampire and creating me. I was angry at God. I was angry with my mother for abandoning me only to let her past come back and haunt everything that mattered to me. I was angry with myself. But deeper than my anger was my pain. No matter how angry I could get, the pain still hurt worse. I closed my eyes and tried to ease my pounding heart and aching chest. After several hours, the water began to run cold. I think I stopped caring. Maybe I would catch hypothermia or pneumonia and I would die. Maybe then things wouldn't hurt as much as they were hurting now. I think I was in that shower for hours, just ready to give up on the whole world. I had a raging headache, and I realized I hadn't taken any of my medication in awhile. I hadn't eaten either. But I didn't care. I just sat there under the spray of the cold water, not caring. It was a unique experience. I must have started dozing off, because there was suddenly someone walking into the shower, turning off the tap. I didn't move to figure out who it was. I didn't care; I didn't even lift up my head.

Someone picked me up by my shoulders and stood me on my feet. I was handed a terrycloth bathrobe to put on, but I couldn't find the willpower or the energy or the give-a-damn to put it on. So instead, I just stood there, the bathrobe limply resting in my hands. I knew I should be cold, but it oddly didn't register. I also knew that I should care that I was wet and nude in the bathroom with another person, but that didn't really register either. Someone coaxed my arms into the sleeves and wrapped the robe around me. I belatedly realized this person was Ingrid. She steered me over to the bed and I sat down on the edge. I sighed softly, already tired from the exertion of walking across the room. I closed my eyes. Ingrid came over and sat on the bed, and with a towel, she gently towel-dried my hair. I opened my eyes and stared blankly at the wall in front of me. Despite Ingrid's multi-thousand Euro wardrobe she had purchased for me, she found my faded jeans on the floor. She walked over to the closet and pulled out one of my well worn t-shirts.

The irony of the shirt pulled me out of my zombie state. Maybe it was the only thing that could have registered at that moment.

It was a favorite shirt of mine, a Christmas gift from Giovanni, one of the only cousins who understood my sense of humor. The shirt itself was green, and in silver script it read: "La vita è come un albero di natale, c'è sempre qualcuno che rompe le palle".

The English translation: "Life is like a Christmas tree, there's always someone who breaks the balls."

The shirt somewhat expressed how I felt at the moment.

I thought to the last Christmas I had spent with my family. My grandparents' house was warm and cozy, the children sang Christmas songs while the adults drank sat and drank Asti, a local sparkling wine. Giovanni had just gotten married the summer before, and he and his wife announced that they were planning to start a family. The kids were excited about winter skiing, while some of them wanted to season to start warming up so they could play soccer again. After knocking down my grandmother's needlepoint project, soccer had been permanently banned as an indoor sport within my grandparents' house.

I was so lost in thought about my last Christmas I spent with the family, that I hadn't realized that Ingrid had begun dressing me, as though I were a small child. I was surprised to find her pulling the shirt over my head and standing me up so that she could pull up my underwear and fasten my jeans around my waist. I couldn't remember the last time someone had dressed me, but at the same time I found myself lacking the willpower to even care. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. I closed my eyes and wished that the world would just fade to black and disappear.

"Come on, Bella," she coaxed gently. "I'm sorry that I had brought you such devastating news, but you need to be strong and to take care of yourself."

I shrugged. I had no ability to be strong, and I wasn't sure I was able to take care of myself or if I even wanted to. I wondered what it was like to be dead, if dying had been a painless process for my relatives, or if it had been painful and drawn out. I shuddered slightly at that thought. I didn't want my relatives to have died in a painful way, especially when I was responsible for the whole mess.

Ingrid grabbed me by my shoulders, and I opened my eyes as she stood me up, then led me down the stairs to the kitchen. I didn't think that vampires needed a kitchen, but I also realized that I wasn't thinking clearly anymore. Maybe vampires need kitchens to store vast roasts and legs of lamb. Not everyone who attends every party in Ingrid's ballroom could possibly be a vampire. Didn't the humans involved in her life need to eat at parties too? I shook my head and realized that my own train of thought was rather random and nonsensical. Here I was thinking about Ingrid catering a party, and I had no idea how I managed to get there. My mind wandered back to the last holiday party at my grandparents' home. Late one night I had snuggled up with the children, and shared with them some of the favorite American Christmas stories, translating the "The Night Before Christmas" and "Twelve Days of Christmas" back and forth between English and Italian until all the children were laughing because I began mispronouncing words that they knew so well, because my own mind had started to get jumbled up amongst the two languages and the myriad of questions coming from the kids about the different details about the stories.

Ingrid cleared her throat, and I was pulled from my momentary daydream.

"What do you eat?" she asked me.

I didn't respond. I didn't want to eat. I didn't even want to think about it. My head was pounding, my heart was pounding. I felt like I couldn't get a deep breath into my lungs. I didn't think I was having a panic attack, but I certainly didn't feel like eating. My heart ached as I realized that the same cousins I had laughed over Christmas stories with, would never hear another story, sing another song, or read another book. It wasn't fair. They didn't deserve this.

"Bella, you need to eat something," Ingrid coaxed as she started rummaging through the fridge.

I walked over to the corner of the kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table, crossing my arms in front of me on the table and resting my head on my forearms. I closed my eyes. The whole world seemed to fade away. It was kind of peaceful. It made the hurt inside me lessen just a little big.

Someone pushed my shoulder, making me sit up. Ingrid set a plate of food in front of me.

"Eat," she said.

I didn't respond. This seemed like a moot point. I stared blankly at the woman, and I wondered if it were possible to throw up even when my stomach was empty. The thought of food was definitely on the opposite spectrum of appealing.

"You have to eat, Bella" Ingrid said.

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't really care if I ate or if I didn't. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. I closed my eyes, the hurt in my soul matching the pain in my body. I wasn't certain what was wrong with my body anymore. I wasn't accustomed to my body feeling so badly. I also wasn't accustomed to having my whole world ripped out from beneath my feet.

I heard Ingrid get up after awhile and leave the room. I found myself hoping that she'd lost interest, but at the same time, not really caring. I moved the plate away from me, and moved my arms on the table so I could rest my forehead on my forearms again. It didn't do anything to lessen the pain around me, but moving away from the light had a mild improvement to the throbbing inside my head.

She came back into the room a few minutes later, and she gently raised my head, making me sit up again. In her hand, she held a stainless steel cup filled with a dark liquid.

"Honey, if you won't eat, will you please just drink this?" Ingrid almost sounded like she was pleading with me. My nose caught the scent and it was intriguing for a brief second. I recognized the military-looking guy from the other night. I didn't understand why he popped into my head while I was looking down at the contained sanguinario spectacle before me, but I realized that I didn't really care. I stared at the liquid in the cup, my mind on my family and their untimely passing, my feelings of helplessness. Maybe I should have called them to tell them they were in danger, and they'd all still be alive. I felt a tear start creeping down the corner of my eye, and I tried to will myself from crying again. Shouldn't people run out of tears at some point?

Time slipped away from me. I don't know if it was a few minutes or several hours, but I realized at some point that Ingrid wasn't in the room. She was in another room, and it sounded like she was possibly on the phone. I guessed that when she's been around for centuries, death of humans doesn't mean much. After awhile, I realized her phone conversations were about me, I thought. She talked about my blood type and was asking if compatibility was a problem. I had no idea what she was talking about. She asked to someone, still unidentified, about how much time. I really didn't care about her conversation, and I walked back upstairs to my room. I curled up into a ball in the far corner of the bed, tucking my knees against my chest. I closed my eyes. I didn't have any more tears to give, I decided. I felt like shit, probably the combination of everything that happened these last few days, coupled with the fact that I had no idea when the last time I took my medication was.

I listened to the sounds of the house, the guys playing pool somewhere in the house, the faint sound of Ingrid talking to someone. I thought I heard a car drive up the driveway, but I wasn't sure.

I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up next, I found myself being lifted up into the arms of Baldric, the anaconda man. I knew it was him by his scent, but I lifted an eye to confirm. He carried me downstairs and took me to Ingrid's library. I could hear a man at the front door, talking with some other man about packed cells and whole blood and blood types and syringes and needles and such. The first man had an American accent; the second sounded like he was British, but that he was on some sort of official business of some sort, or else that the first man made him nervous. The American accent sounded casual and relaxed yet concerned all at the same time. I didn't really care, I tuned them out.

The anaconda man sat down on a chair and positioned me on his lap, resting my head against his shoulder. His arms felt comfortable, and the raw emotion about my family made his comfortable arms cause more pain inside my soul. Never again would I feel the warm embrace of my Grandma. Never again would I get to hug my younger cousins. In addition to the pain within my soul, my body felt violently ill at the same time.

I didn't realize that the American accent was done at the front door and had entered the library until I heard him talking to Ingrid. She was worried something about the right blood type because I wasn't a vampire. I stared blankly at the two of them, the words coming out of their mouths weren't making much sense. I closed my eyes and willed the world to drift away. The American accent guy assured her that he'd spoken to his own guy, a Guillermo, and called Marcus to double check.

Marcus? What on earth would Marcus have to do with any of this?

The American accent guy came up to me. The anaconda man rubbed my shoulders vigorously and I opened my eyes, looking at the blue eyes of the American accent man who was now sitting beside Baldric and I, but in another chair.

"I'm Mick St. John," he said, introducing himself and squatting down in front of me. "I'm a friend of Josef's and I was in the area and I heard that Ingrid needed some help with you."

I shrugged. I didn't need help from anyone, I just needed a hole to crawl into. Maybe I'd see my family again if I stayed in the hole long enough. I closed my eyes, memories of them flashing through my mind. The pain in my body was so great that I could barely breathe.

I opened my eyes to some unfamiliar sounds and saw that this man, Mick, was pouring dark red liquid from an IV blood-donation-appearing-bag into a glass. I closed my eyes, not caring, listless.

A moment later, I felt the glass pressed against my lips. I could smell the contents to realize it was blood, somehow different than Ingrid and earlier. Someone else's life blood. I wondered how my family was killed, if they had bled. If some monster had bitten them and sucked out all of their life blood. I gagged. I probably would have thrown up because of that last thought, and I was thankful that neither Baldric nor this Mick guy had forced me to drink. I turned away from the glass and burrowed my head into the anaconda man's chest, trying to get away from the blood, not wanting to think about my family's last thoughts or how they met their demise.

I heard someone sigh, Mick, I thought. I wasn't sure what his problem was, I didn't even know why he'd involved himself into this or even who he was. Ingrid never said anything about strangers, and I had a guess this Mick stranger was a vampire too.

Baldric started rubbing my back, almost as though he sensed my tension and pain. It kind of felt good, and I found myself relaxing somewhat in his arms. He started saying something softly in my ear, reassuring and kind, but I had no idea what he was saying. I rested my head against his shoulder and took a few ragged painful breaths.

"How long has she been breathing like that?" I heard Mick ask.

Ingrid said something in reply that I couldn't quite hear, but as a result, Mick swore.

I didn't know why Mick would be swearing. I doubted that Ingrid appreciated it particularly. My breathing sometimes got weird if I hadn't taken my medications in too long, my heart also would start beating funny too. It didn't bother me, and as life was going now, I didn't really care. The anaconda man was still rubbing my back, a gesture I found soothing, and I started slouching in his arms, running out of energy to even hold myself up.

Mick reached for one of my arms, pulling it toward him. It fell away from me limply, but he had a firm grip on it. A moment later, I felt a sharp pain in my inner elbow. I tried to pull my arm away from the source of the discomfort, but Mick still held a firm grip on my arm. I opened my eyes and saw that Mick was holding a large syringe in his hand, filled completely with a dark red substance, and the hypodermic needle attached to it was straight in my vein. I whimpered but the pain caused by the needle was quite small compared to the pain my whole body was feeling. Baldric resumed rubbing my back when it was clear to him that I wasn't going to fight Mick or the needle.

Several minutes later, the pain in my body started easing up. I noticed that my breathing took on a more normal, more human quality. Mick pulled the needle out of my arm, and started checking out my vein in my arm in a concerned sort of way. He seemed to know what he was doing, so I didn't even try to pull away.

"She needs more," I heard Mick say to Ingrid, and Ingrid muttered something that sounded like an agreement.

"Bella, honey," Mick addressed me. I opened up my eyes and looked at him. "Do you think you can drink some?" I didn't answer him, but it was almost like he read my thoughts, hunger mixed with apprehension. I had no idea how my body decided to be hungry, several minutes ago hunger hadn't even registered. He smiled. He took the syringe out of the glass, and poured more of the bagged red liquid into the half-empty cup. He handed the glass to Baldric, and the anaconda man brought it up to my lips. It smelled enticing, and, blocking anything else from my mind, I closed my eyes and drank it, taking the glass from Baldric halfway through so I could drink it more quickly than he was helping me.

I felt a tingle go through my body from top to bottom. This was better than a double espresso. I found strength I didn't have before, as I noticed too that the pain that had been hurting me before was significantly diminished. I sat up, and maneuvered myself so I saw sitting beside Baldric, instead of supported by his arms.

"Can I have more?" I asked, and I heard Ingrid, Baldric and Mick all laugh, as though my comment brought relief to all of them.

"Sure," Mick said, "but go easy on it." I didn't even attempt to contemplate what he meant; I was focused on his movements, and the enticing scent that had captured my attention. He poured more dark red liquid into the glass, filling it halfway. When he handed it to me, I surprised myself by taking it from his hands and up-ending the glass, finishing the contents in nearly one gulp.

I felt significantly better. My headache was gone and the pain in my body was leaving. My thoughts were starting to clear up, and in odd moment, I realized that moping around and mourning my family probably wasn't going to solve anything. I sighed softly and willed the tears to keep from falling. I didn't think I was going to stop missing them anytime soon.

"What happens now?" I asked, to nobody in particular. I didn't want to stay here sitting amongst the vampires. I also didn't want to admit that the blood of another human had just managed to turn my world right-side up again, nor did I want to admit that this blue-eyed vampire before me was actually quite handsome in his own rugged way.

Ingrid answered, "You're going to go upstairs where we can keep an eye on you better."

Better than what?

I found Baldric gently guiding me to my feet, and we went up the main stairs. I was surprised when he didn't stop at the second floor as I had anticipated, but ushered me up to the third floor.

"I'm not supposed to be up here." I murmured softly to the anaconda man.

"For now, Bella, this is where you need to be," Ingrid said, as though she heard my comment.

"Why?" I questioned.

"I don't want to leave you with the Freshies in case there's an accident," Ingrid replied smoothly, without going into details. I wondered what sort of accident I could possibly get into, but I let it slide.

"Where should she go?" Baldric asked to Ingrid.

"You can put her in my room," Mick offered. "I'm accustomed to the human factor," he said.

I yawned, it must be daybreak, I mused to myself. I had completely lost track of time but my body seemed to adjust to a sundown-till-sunup lifestyle, regardless of how tired I was or how jet-lagged I became. That was one reason why I needed an alarm clock to make sure I didn't sleep thru my classes at school.

Baldric led me down the corridor to a room, and, when he opened the door, I saw that it was a guest room set up in a similar fashion to mine, with the major exception being that the windows were tinted and that the room was black marble. I glanced outside and saw the sun starting to rise over the hills in the distance. I yawned again, and Baldric led me over to the bed and I lay down on the dark green silk duvet cover. Baldric eased off my shoes and set them on the floor beside the bed.

I looked over at the dark haired giant of a man. I was surprised at how at-ease I felt in Baldric's presence. Maybe he was my oversized security blanket like Ingrid had implied. "Is this Mick guy expecting to share the bed with me?" I asked sleepily.

Baldric laughed, and Mick walked into the room. "Wouldn't dream of it, Bella. I don't use a bed, plus I'm not sure my wife would approve." Mick came up to the bed and stood beside it with an easy grin on his face. Apparently thinking about his wife was something that made him smile. I wondered how many years, hundreds of years or thousands of years he had been married for.

Baldric bid me a quick farewell, and left the room. Mick stood by the foot of the bed, awkwardly, and after a few minutes, he went to the second room and came back with a chair. He sat down on it, and, removing his dark boots, rested his feet up on the bed and tilted the chair so only the back two legs made contact with the floor.

He closed his eyes and sighed blissfully.

"Comfortable?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he replied

We were both silent for a moment, and I rolled over and stared at the ceiling.

"Bella," Mick started, "I'm really sorry about your family."

"Me too," I replied, trying to blink back a new wave of tears. I turned to face him.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't there to stop it from happening, but if I can give any consolation, the three vampires responsible for your family have been taken care of."

"Are they going to prison?" I asked, wondering how the authorities caught up with them so quickly.

Mick laughed softly. "We have a different sort of justice system," he responded, as though he wanted to tell me more details, but decided against it.

Ingrid had mentioned that the vampire community had its own way of dealing with problems. I guess this was an example of what she meant.

"What am I doing up here?" I asked Mick, wondering why, if I was just going to sleep, why Ingrid had me coming to the third floor instead of my guest room. "Is there a problem with my own room?"

"Ingrid thought it appropriate to keep you away from the Freshies until we know how your body handles blood and higher amounts of vampire blood in your system than you're accustomed to."

"Because I hadn't taken my medication?" I asked.

"In something like five days," he agreed.

I hadn't realized it had been five days. It seemed like only a day an a half since Ingrid told me about my family, but I had felt so crummy in the aftermath that I supposed that time could have escaped me. I shrugged off the lapse of time.

"Nobody keeps silver in their house," Mick said, as though explaining something. I remembered Ingrid mentioning that there was silver somehow in my medicine and I realized belatedly that perhaps it was the source of a problem. "Silver and vampires, it never seems to work out well. There are other ways to deal with your health problems without potentially poisoning those around you."

"But I'd never poison vampires," I said.

"I know, Bella. Ingrid realized that it may be as much of a hazard to you as it was to anyone you might encounter. So, drugs out. We'll find some other way to deal with things. In the meantime, we'll keep you away from the Freshies," he said with a lazy grin.

"But I don't have fangs, I'm not a vampire." I said, in case Mick didn't know yet. "I don't think the consistency of my blood plays any role in this," I continued.

Mick shrugged softly, then smiled. "All the better reason not to leave things up to chance. I've learned a thing or two about taking chances in these years."

"Are you five hundred years old too?" I asked the youthful man.

He chuckled. "Not all the vampires in the planet are as old as Ingrid and Josef. I'm only in my nineties, but don't let that sway your opinion about me."

I looked at this man, who was claiming to be older than my grandfather when passed away, older than Grandma, but my brain just seemed to get stuck on the fact that Mick didn't look any older than Ingrid. A ninety year old perpetual thirty-year-old. That would be a challenge for any bioethics class, except that vampires aren't a topic covered in any medical journals or research. I mentally shrugged that off.

My mind wandered to a different topic. "You said earlier that you were accustomed to the 'human factor'. What did that mean?"

"Most vampires aren't accustomed to having humans in close proximity. I guess I'm the exception to that." He closed his eyes and sighed happily, the opened them and looked at me. "I found the love of my life and I married her."

"And she's normal?" I asked, incredulously.

"As in a human and not a vampire?" Mick asked with a twinkle in his eye, and I blushed, realizing that I'd probably just insulted him and anyone who considered vampirism as a 'normal' way to live life.

"She's human" Mick assented. "But not for long, if she has her way about it."

"She wants to be a vampire?" I asked, confused.

Why would anyone want to be a vampire?

Mick shrugged again, as though the question didn't sit well with him. "She wants to be with me. Since I happen to be a vampire, she's decided she'd like to join eternity with me while she's still young."

"And what is it that you want?" I asked cautiously, trying to understand Mick's discomfort.

He paused for a moment, considering the question, considering how much to reveal to me.

"I just want her to be safe. The vampire world isn't always safe," he said.

Thinking about my family, I countered, "The human world isn't always safe either."

Mick sighed softly, and I realized that this was an emotional minefield for him probably, and I decided to change topics before he or I turned into a mushy ball of emotions.

"What's her name?" I asked.

"Beth," he said, and smiled. "I became so accustomed to calling her Beth Turner that I'm still adjusting now that we finally share the same last name."

"That's a beautiful name," I said.

"For a beautiful woman," Mick agreed.

My mind seemed to etch through the throes of old discarded and useless information. I'd heard of someone named Beth Turner a few years ago. While I was still in Milan, the girls on my dorm would watch an internet tabloid, getting the scoop on the Hollywood comings and goings and getting an opportunity to practice our English vocabulary. If I remembered correctly, Beth was a doe-eyed blonde knockout before she left the program, only to be replaced by someone who wasn't nearly as attractive nor enunciated as clearly. The enunciation part had been a bitch and I had quit following the Hollywood comings and goings. Hollywood was close to LA, if I remembered correctly. It suddenly dawned on me, and I stared at Mick St. John.

"You're not talking about the Beth Turner, are you?" I asked, my eyes widening in a form of surprise.

"How do you mean that?" he asked, looking at me strangely for a moment.

"Beth Turner, a reporter for an internet news company. Company was full of interesting tidbits of the American culture. Buzz something. Buzz line? Buzz cable?"

Mick chuckled. "BuzzWire?" he offered.

I tried to access my mental rolodex, but the name didn't quite fit. "That may be it," I responded cautiously, wondering how much I'd forgotten already in the English language.

"Hollywood?" he supplied. "Trashy tabloids? A new startling exposé every six hours? Fantastic fluff pieces that occasionally seem to be lacking any factual evidence?" He offered me another lazy smile.

I smiled back. "That sounds about right," I said, trying to recount the times I rolled my eyes as my roommate took this website as the gospel truth about the United States comings and goings.

"In that case," Mick said, "It sounds like you already know my wife thru her former employer."

I was dumbstruck. I didn't realize that vampires had ties that even stretched to news corporations, if that internet reporting company counted as a news corporation. I hadn't realized that perhaps vampires were more pervasive than I had ever considered. I had just assumed that they live out their lives in their own vampire worlds.

My curiosity took a different tangent and I found myself asking a question that was far more personal than I had intended.

"Does she sleep in a freezer with you?" I asked

Mick laughed as though I'd asked something funny. I quirked my eyebrow at him, trying to figure out what was the source of his humor.

"Do you sleep in a freezer, Bella?" he countered.

I made a face, not even wanting to imagine giving up soft pillows and warm blankets in favor of some cold dark sub zero place. Earlier tonight, I was sitting in a cold shower and I hadn't cared, but I found myself beginning to care again.

Mick laughed again, looking at the expression on my face. "Beth feels about the same way about it," he said.

"What do you do, for a job?" I asked him, wanting to change the subject away from freezers.

"I work as a private investigator in LA," he said.

"And you're in London, because?" I questioned, wondering what LA had to do with London and if his private investigations took him here. LA and London weren't exactly a quick commute apart from each other.

"I'm in London because I'm helping out a friend," he said.

"Ingrid?" I asked.

"No," he said. "Josef… and you."

I gave him a puzzled look.

"When Josef realized you were in trouble, he sent me to… um… help make things better. He had presumed that you would have gone to Italy, and when I got there I saw what had happened to your family. The Cleaners and I, we took care of the vampires responsible for your family."

"The Cleaners?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, I would have thought Ingrid explained it to you."

I shook my head. Ingrid didn't seem to explain much to me unless I asked her outright.

"Ingrid is one of the directors for the Cleaners."

"Her janitorial company?" I asked, bewildered.

He looked at me, equally confused for a moment. Then it was as though the light bulb turned on, I could see it in his face.

"Ingrid's 'janitors'," he said, "are vampires who help clean up problems in the vampire/human community."

I shuddered a little. I would have preferred them to have simply concerned themselves with cleaning office buildings and ruining the occasional vacuum cleaner.

"How did you end up in London?" I asked.

"The Cleaners put me in touch with Ingrid, and we got things squared away. I arrived to London in time to deal with a half-vampire going through a deep stage of mourning that nearly took her life."

I blushed when I realized he was talking about me, but my mind started wandering back to my own family and wanting to ask Mick about them, but not sure I wanted to hear the answers.

He smiled softly at my embarrassment and decided to ignore anything else. "Don't worry," he said. "You're kind of uncharted territory in terms of the vampire world, and I'm glad I was able to help."

"What's going to happen now?" I asked.

"Well, Bella," he said, "for now, its time for both of us to grab some shut-eye. We'll figure out what needs to happen next when we get there."

"Please don't tell me that you plan on sleeping in that chair," I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course not," he grinned. "It's not cold enough. But I figured I'd hang out for a bit and make sure you settled in okay before I went away."

I yawned softly, sleep already starting to spin cobwebs in my brain. "I think I'm okay," I said to him.

"I know," he said, "but Josef would put a stake through me if he thought I was doing anything less than making completely sure you were going to pull through and be fine. He doesn't want to lose you too."

"Me too?" I echoed.

Mick sighed softly, a dark look flashing on his face for a second before it passed. "That's a long story, Bella. And one that's not quite suited for a bedtime story."

"I didn't realize that telling stories for bedtime was in your job description, Mr. Private Investigator." I said with a smile, stifling another yawn.

"I do a lot of things that aren't in the job description," he countered.

"Like injecting blood into complete strangers?" I offered, thinking of the scene in Ingrid's library earlier.

Mick smiled. "Sort of like that," he conceded.

"Now, Bella… Its high time for you to get some rest," he chided gently.

My eyes were already half closed, and the thought of sleep sounding better and better with each passing moment. I yawned.

"One more question?" I asked, struggling to keep my eyes open. "You said that you're a friend of Josef's. Is he an okay kind of guy?"

"He's one of the best friends anyone could have," Mick said.

I thought he said more, but I was already falling asleep fast after getting another opinion that my father wasn't out to kill me. I sighed softly, and sleep overtook me. I guess Josef didn't sound like such a bad sort of person to know.


This is the place where I grovel for input and opinons. Honestly, if I can take a handful of hours and put this together, can you take a handful of seconds and let me know if ya like it?