Chapter 10- Halfway Gone
Author's Notes: Okay, I'm really sorry. There was a long wait for the last one, and it wasn't very long. I'm sorry. After all that wait I should have given you a big fat chapter, but I didn't. I don't deserve reviews for making you wait so long, but if you'd like to grace me with your words I would be a big, fat zeppelin filled with joy. *hangs head in shame.
Note: the time when Evelyn is a half vampire is represented in a different style than I usually write in. This is because I write from the characters perspective, even though it is third person. It's still from Evelyn or David's perspectives, not omniscient. So, since Evelyn can't remember everything that happened, it's more of vignette style.
Evelyn rubbed her neck. The marks had disappeared already, but it felt as if they were still there, underneath the skin. The whole area on her neck around them felt strange, almost like a bruise was underneath.
David stood before her, with an audience of Marko, Paul, and Dwayne behind him. He seemed so different! She just wanted to lurch forward and be held by him forever, which was a much more submissive feeling than she'd ever had, though the longing for closeness was familiar. "How do you feel?" he asked. His tone was rather flat, but his voice sounded so much different!
Evelyn was concentrating on it and holding it in her mind when she realized that several seconds had passed since the question had actually been asked. She was a bit too slow in answering. She focused, closing her eyes for a second, and opened her mouth to speak. She was still having trouble thinking. "My whole body feels strange. All my tiny cells are moving and glowing…" It was like her mouth was moving independently because she was concentrating on how different her own voice sounded.
"That is the blood and the bite. Your transition will be much more intense than someone who drank our blood from the bottle."
"Huh?" said Evelyn. She hadn't been paying attention. She had just noticed how many colors were in the fibers of the carpet and the dust. David took her face in his gloved hand and turned it towards him, and Evelyn understood. "My whole body hurts, too. It feels so… dry."
David smiled a devil's grin. "Then have a drink!" said Marko cheerfully from behind her. He was holding a jeweled bottle filled with blood. She was positive it was blood; she could smell it.
"Gimme," she said. She felt about six years old. She just wantedand wanted and WANTED and really didn't care what happened. She just wanted. She held out her hands like a toddler holds out its hands for a sippy cup of milk.
Marko handed the bottle filled with undead blood to her. Just before she put it to her lips, David put his hand over the mouth of the bottle. "If you drink that, you'll become a part of the pack. You'll be our sister forever and ever."
"Forever and ever…" said Evelyn, pensively. "Amen!" David had never been much into the ceremony of inducting new members into the pack—in the Old World they called it the Dark Birth or something ridiculously elaborate and pretentious like that—so he moved his hand away. He had never told any of the others what they were getting into. In fact one could say he tricked them at worst and lured them in under false pretenses at best. But if this worked best, if this is what true leaders did, then so be it. A vampire's most valued defense against time was its ability to change, to evolve.
Evelyn drank down the sweet, red liquid. Nothing ever tasted so good, nor was more satisfying. All too soon, the bottle was taken away. She frowned and made a face at David, who just handed the bottle to Marko who disappeared again. "But I want it," she said. David just looked at her, and he thought there was a look of understanding in his eyes. "Rah!" said Evelyn, half growling, half yawning. It was the sound of an unhappy baby lioness. When her lips came back together there was something new. Twin fangs stuck like tiny daggers out of her gums, protruding past her lip. Her yellow eyes widened in surprise as her hands went to her mouth. She found she could move her arms at an alarming speed and was even more surprised, and even more so to see she had nails like claws. "Oh!" she cried. She flexed her hands and ran her tongue across her teeth.
She found that in this state she could see more clearly, hear better, and smell everything. She heard birds and surfers, but what she heard most was a slow pounding that she instinctively knew was David's heartbeat. She stepped forward and put her head on David's chest. She had to lean down a bit, because David was not very tall, but the position, which would have been awkward if she were human, seemed much more natural now. Her muscles were simply more adept at moving and holding positions for longer without tiring. She never wanted to leave him, not ever. They were more than lovers now; they were kin.
But David wasn't the only heart she heard. She could also hear Marko's, Paul's, and Dwayne's… and something far, far off in the distance. Something much slower she didn't even consciously notice. "I hear you!" she said excitedly.
"Didn't you hear me? I told you," started David.
"Part of the pack," she repeated in unison with him. She giggled. She was feeling most giddy and unusual. And still so strangely childish! She thought that once she joined the pack she would quit feeling inferior. Not so! But now she felt taken care of, their little sister, and David's personal companion. His lover. His female part. She had no idea what to call herself in terms of her relationship with David. "Girlfriend" seemed so little, so cheap, so limited.
The next day Evelyn woke up. It was seven o'clock and since it was summertime, the sun wouldn't set for another hour and a half or so. She sat up in the covers and peered through the cave through a curtain of red hair.
So strange. I cannot tell. Did I dream my whole life? Was I anything before this? Did I have a father before David, a brother before Paul, Dwayne, and Marko, a sister before Cathy? Cathy and I are two of the same. I can feel it. We are two parts of the same thing.
A green lawn. A brick house. Suburban life. High school. Dances. Acceptance letters to college. I was so excited. Did it ever really happen? My whole mortal life, trickling out of my head like a leaky faucet. All because of him. Ever since I met them. He sucked out my life when he sucked out my blood, and the memories with it.
David did that. He could make you forget. He could make the things you used to do seem strange and foreign and strange things seem normal. Some small part of her screamed "You're in a cave! Your parents are worried! Your friends are worried! You dropped out of school! Go home!" but it was all lost in the vast blackness of David's trench coat.
Evelyn got out of bed and wandered around, shuffling through junk, ancient junk, until she came to what she was looking for: an old mirror. She looked at herself, wholly visible because she was invited into the cave, and thought that weeks ago (How much time has it been? How long have I been here? Weeks? Months?) the boys had stood out on that boardwalk in San Francisco. Now she looked like one of them. Indistinguishable from their style of dress. She was a street bum, living in a cave, on the expressway to full-fledged vampirism. She hadn't even felt it. Hadn't even felt a change at all until David's blood was running down her throat.
A skateboard wheel fell from the ceiling, directly at her feet. How strange…
If things were a blur before, they certainly were now. She could feel everything, but it felt as if nothing had meaning, nothing was registering.
When the boys flew out from the other caverns of the cave, she was crouched at the foot of a cabinet, going through the old junk, ancient junk, looking for what she wanted while David stood silently watching to the side. He knew what his fledgling was searching for. "Where is it!" she shrieked. "Where do you keep it? David…" she half sobbed, "I need it David! I need it! You don't understand. I'll die!"
"You need it," he said, verifying her statement. He paced slowly forward, silent except for the soft crunching of his boots on the dirty floor. Then he spoke slowly, "You certainly need it. But you're wrong. I understand." Suddenly he was directly behind her, and he turned her face in his ungloved hand to look at him, forcing her to make eye contact. "I have understood every night for a hundred and fifty years. I understood when I woke up alone in a bloody bed. It's the worst at first, always. But you won't die. Not for a long, long time. And if you figure out a way to feed, you'll live forever." He crouched down next to her. "You'll never grow old, Evelyn, and you'll never die. But you must feed."
The other boys all looked at each other. They remembered those words, those exact words. He had said them to each of the Lost Boys, at one time or another, when they were newly turned. Dwayne, the oldest besides David, had once said that David's sire had said them to him when he was turned, but the others didn't know if he was just guessing or if David had told him. Dwayne seemed to be the only one of them who knew anything, a single iota, about David's life before California.
Seeing Evelyn as a freshly turned vampire had made David dream. It was the same dream he always had whenever someone was turned. There was a beautiful woman, Clementina, fair skinned and dark haired. She spoke with a thick Italian accent. "Come here, David. Come sit next to me." She beckoned to him from a bed surrounded by gossamer curtains. It was her bed at her wealthy estate in the country. David did not need to be told twice. He removed his frock coat and boots at once, smiling.
Afterwards, he rolled over to sleep. He was so sleepy. Clementina encircled him with her arms and whispered in his ear, "I have something to give you."
"Mmm," said David, sleepily. "Now? This very instant?"
"It cannot wait another instant," she answered. "In fact, I believe it is long overdue."
He was about to open his mouth to speak when he felt a pain in his shoulder, right at the base of his neck. Instead he cried out. He struggled and tried to hit her away but she was much stronger than he thought. He tried to get out of the bed but he was tangled in the sheets and she was holding him so tightly. He yelled until he started feeling faint and spots appeared around his eyes. He looked up as the lights around them grew dimmer and the bed seemed to come up to meet him from behind. He gasped for air. He couldn't see. He could only hear. He heard her rustling with the glasses they had drunk the wine out of, but couldn't tell what she was doing. The next thing he could tell there was a cool glass against his lips and a fiery hot liquid spilling down into his mouth. He could either swallow or choke, so he swallowed.
The effect came instantly. He could feel the life coming back into his body as he drank. Some part of him instinctively knew that this was what was going to save his life, so he drank. There was no thought, really. It was all he could do. And then he passed out again.
He woke up later. He didn't know what time it was. At first he didn't remember what had happened, but then he sat up and felt the dried blood on his shoulder. He turned around to see the pillow and sheets were covered with blood. He looked around and sat up further, realizing he was still naked. He was actually afraid. He felt his shoulder for any sign of a wound but there was none. He got out of bed, arms wrapped around himself, shivering from the cold of the night. The fire and all the lights had gone out and he was alone.
He put on his pants and boots and went to the washtub. He splashed water across his face and washed the blood off of his shoulder and back. He still had the taste of her blood in his mouth, so he rinsed it out with water, but the water seemed flat and flavorless. It did nothing to quench the burning thirst he felt. He cupped some water in his hands and drank more and more, but it was useless. Then he looked up into the small mirror that hung above the washtub and started. He was see-through. He could see right through himself to the bloody bed behind him. "Oh, God. Please…"
Suddenly there was a voice behind him, and the room was filled with candlelight. "They all say something like that. Usually when I kill them. The three most common words from dying lips: please, God, and don't. I believe you uttered all three earlier."
"I…" stuttered David.
"You are what I am, now. Un vampiro. A vampire. You are now and will be every night hereafter. There is no going back." Clementina smiled. It was only later that David would learn that if he had shoved a stake through her then, he would have gone back.
"What's going to happen to me?" David asked.
"You will never grow old, David, and you will never die, but you must feed," she said. David almost whimpered. He had never felt so small. "You are thirsty, no?"
David wanted to deny it if it would make her go away but he couldn't so he nodded.
"Then finish dressing and come with me."
That very night she made him feed. He didn't want to kill that man, but she cut his throat open with a stiletto knife and then there was no hope for him. They had ridden all the way to the nearest town and she had gone into the pub, bold since she was a lady, and made him wait behind in the alleyway. When he was through with the man, his last drop drained, he stood up and spat the blood that was in his mouth onto the floor. Clementina hit him over the head. "Don't be wasteful!" He almost whimpered again but covered it with a glaring look. "And stop that whimpering. That's no way for a vampire to behave. We rule the night, we don't whimper in it. Stand up. You could command millions one day, if you live long enough." David stood up straight, and dropped the man's body, his face morphing back to normal. On the inside he was hardening. Clementina smiled a tender smile and reached up to stroke his face. "Come now. Enough learning for tonight. We need to get back; the dawn will kill us."
It was raining outside. Paul, Dwayne, and Marko sat on the beat up couches in the cave while David was with Evelyn, talking to her. "He asked her," said Paul. "He asked her if she wanted to become a vampire. He gave her a choice." His tone was that of wonderment. "Did he ask either of you?" He sat up, looking at his brothers and partners in crime.
Dwayne and Marko shook their heads. "No… no, man. He just did it No questions asked. He just gave me his blood and I didn't even know what it was."
They both looked at Dwayne, who had known David the longest. "It's not his way to ask. He asked me if I would be his friend. He asked if I would like to travel with him. We met while traveling, actually. I was suspicious, but I said yes. I didn't think he would… but he left to get drinks to celebrate our friendship, but the whiskey was laced with his blood. That is his way."
David came down the steps to where they were sitting. "Ready for a game of cards, boys?" he asked, holding up a deck. They pulled up a table, leaning to one side, of course, and Marko began to deal.
Cathy and Evelyn sat together on the bed, lounging about while the boys played cards. Cathy leaned over to Evelyn. "Hey, I got a question for ya."
"What?" asked Evelyn, turning to face Cathy directly.
"It's kinda personal… and weird…"
"We live in a cave together. Personal and weird is our motto."
Cathy laughed. "Okay, okay." She took a breath. "What's the deal with you and David?"
Evelyn tilted her head. "Um, you mean, like, as in defined in words?"
"No, I mean more like… do you love David?"
"Yeah… I mean, yes, I do. Very much. I can't…"
"Hm. Wow. Can't what?"
"I can't… leave. I just can't. Even if I wanted to. But I don't want to, not ever. I can't even want to want to leave. I just want to be with him and to stay and to stay… does that sound corny?" asked Evelyn.
"Just a bit. But it's okay. It's me asking the dopey questions here."
"'Kay. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know. I was just wondering what the deal was. You two seem… close."
"Yeah we're close! He's like my boyfriend."
"Like your boyfriend or he is your boyfriend?"
"Well, we haven't said it in so many words, and since I was turned it's like even more than that, but I'm his special lady and he's my guy so… it's like that. He really cares for me. He'd kill for me. He has killed for me. I've never met anyone who'd do that for me before."
"Hmm," said Cathy. "He kills for you?"
"Yeah. Whenever people fuck around with me he just," she made a chomping motion and a smacking motion with her fist, "smacks 'em down. No questions."
"Does that make you feel weird?"
"Yeah, sometimes. It used to. I guess I'd better get used to killing." Cathy saw Evelyn was nervous when she said that. "But at the same time it's disturbing, it's also really flattering. Like, it makes me feel like the best thing in the world! Is that sick, that someone getting hurt could make me feel like that?" Evelyn asked.
"I don't even know what sick is anymore. I don't think I could say," answered Cathy pensively. "Hey, another question: where are you from?"
"Huh?"
"Where are you from? You kinda have a bit of an accent…"
Evelyn shut her mouth tight, like her accent was going to jump out and betray her. "Oh… um, I'm from Texas."
"Texas? Whoa. I thought people from Texas had a much stronger accent than you do."
"Not all Texans do. I lived in the city, in Austin."
"Did you have a horse?"
"I just said I lived in the city!" Evelyn laughed. "I rode a horse once when I was in Indian Princesses. No one has a horse in the city, except really rich kids and equestrian freaks. No, I drive an old Camaro."
"Oh. Here's another: how old are you?"
"What's with these questions? I'm twenty-three. How old are you?"
Cathy pursed her lips together. She was embarrassed about being so young. "I'm sixteen."
"Oh. Wow. Sixteen? Damn…"
"What?"
"Oh, it's just, you're so young." Cathy made an unhappy face. "No, I mean, like, so young have been turned into a vamp and to have run away from home."
"It wasn't really my choice…" Cathy was bitter.
Evelyn felt bad. She'd had a choice, and she'd picked vampire. She thought she really could learn to love it, if she really wanted to. Really what she had picked was David. That's what she had wanted, even more than being young forever, sleeping all day, and partying all night.
A voice rang through the cave. "Evelyn! Come see this!" It was David.
"There's my guy," said Evelyn, and she got off the bed and walked over. Cathy followed a few paces behind. "What?" she asked. She didn't see anything out of the ordinary with the makeshift card table.
"Aw, he just wants you to see how he's owning our asses at Texas Hold 'Em," said Paul.
"Yeah, he just wants to rub it in our faces," said Marko.
Evelyn laughed and sunk down onto David's black-clad lap. He chuckled at his victory and wrapped one arm around Evelyn's waist. He trailed his fingers across her stomach as his hand came to rest on her thigh. "Hand me the money," he said, smiling. He laughed as he looked around at his boys. "This is how it oughta be, boys! Money in my pocket, cards in my hand, and cigarette…" Evelyn took the cigarette out from behind his ear and put it in his mouth. "Cigarette in my mouth. Light me, Ev." Evelyn took out his black lighter with a fanged skull on it and lit his cigarette for him, since both his hands were occupied. He pulled her so that she was closer and her long legs slipped and ended up on either side of him so that she was straddling him.
"Well, you're sure jolly tonight," said Evelyn, smiling down at him.
"What can I say? I'm feeling good. Got a lot of problems resolved in the last few days."
"Well, anyways, I can't sit like this."
"Aw, you're sitting just fine. Very fine."
Evelyn kissed him and turned around where three male vampires and one female vampire gawked awkwardly.
"If you two get any more fucking precious…" threatened Dwayne.
"You'll what?" challenged David. The smirk hadn't left his face yet so it wasn't a serious threat. Wow, though Evelyn. He really is jovial tonight. He seems so much more… lighthearted. Evelyn squeezed David's shoulder and got off, running her fingers across his back as she walked away. As much as David wanted to go follow her swaying hips right back into a good quiet place in the cave, he wasn't about to abandon his boys.
Later that night David sat in a wing backed chair, smoking a cigarette and brooding. His good-naturedness at having solved the problems of the rogue and of Evelyn's mortality status had faded somewhat, and he was back to his usual self. He was leaning over, idly stroking his stubble, when Evelyn came up behind him. She leaned over, fully in fang, and grazed his exposed neck with her razor-sharp teeth. David sat bolt upright in his chair. "I can bite back now, y'know," she said softly in his ear. David was momentarily paralyzed. "But I'm so thirsty, David." She slinked around the chair so that she was in front of him. She was wearing black peg leg jeans, so tight they almost didn't fit at all, and a black tank top. Her eyes glowed out from under her red hair, the features of her face demonic, but it didn't seem grotesque to him.
She walked forward slowly until she was so close that his legs were in between hers, though he was sitting down and she was still standing up. "You've got to help me, David," she said so softly. He knew what she was doing. She was trying to seduce him into giving her blood, prolonging the time until she would have to make her first kill.
"I can't…" he said. "You've got to… you've got to…" He seemed to be having trouble speaking. "You need to learn to get blood for yourself. Your instincts know what to do." She raked her now claw-like fingernails over his shirt, almost ripping it. "I can't help you with this. I can't…" His words were just a whisper when he breathed out. She moved her claws up and ran them along his neck. Waves of feeling shot down into his stomach and lower. She knew how a vampire's body worked, how sensitive the neck area was, along with other areas where major veins and arteries were, and now she had the fangs and claws to work with.
"You can." she whispered, and this time he didn't say anything. He was never one for denying himself what he wanted. He could feel his fangs pushing against his gums and lips as well as himself pushing against the tight crotch of his jeans.
He looked around. It was an unspoken rule that the boys had that they would not taint the chairs and couches. "Here," he said, and the next thing Evelyn knew they were flying through the cave and were going through the tunnels to the room David used to use solely for personal storage. Now it had a makeshift bed made of several layers of blankets and pillows on the ground.
He laid her down and kissed, undoing her pants with one hand. She pulled back and looked at him, and he could see the cold, hard thirst in her eyes as she took off his shirt. He knew all along there were ulterior motives to this tryst, but the look on her face confirmed it all. She wanted blood. She also wanted sex, but first she wanted blood. That was her number one goal. This was not the order he preferred to do things in, but he knew that stopping her and redirecting the course of this would be rough indeed. For this part, at least, she was in control.
His black shirt was tossed aside and she turned him over so that she was sitting on him. Looking down at him, she stroked his neck with her clawed fingertips, scratching at the pale skin, before leaning over and biting down. She would have tried to be gentle, but she was so new at this she didn't know how. She just bit down suddenly and it hurt. David squirmed underneath her from discomfort. She was rough. So new. She would need to be taught.
Oh god. Did she know when to stop? David lay in wait, feeding his childe and his lover. She needed to be taught when to stop. David started feeling the pull on his veins. She was taking too much. "That's enough," he said softly. "Stop," he said. It didn't register in her blood-starved brain. "Stop," he commanded, using his power as a sire over her. She heard him this time and stopped. She was still sitting on top of him, blood running down her lips. His blood running down her lips. "You could kill a vampire that way," he told her.
She continued looking down at him. No change in her face. Her hard yellow eyes blinked slowly. "You could have killed me if you hadn't stopped!" he said, forcefully, pushing her off of him. "Do you understand? I am NOT your victim! We can share blood but you cannot just take, like a greedy child."
"…a greedy childe," she repeated slowly.
David reached over and took her face in his hands. "You've got to learn to control it." He wiped the excess blood of his neck and put his shirt back on before getting up and leaving.
"But!" she said as he left. When she heard the rushing sound that meant he had taken flight and was gone she finished softly, "we didn't even get to do it…" She fastened her pants and pulled her legs in close to her, resting her cheek on her knees, and then realized her mistake. She felt the strange ball in her throat and refused to blink her now brown eyes for fear that she would start crying. She bit her lip and held her eyes as wide as she could, but three hot tears escaped anyway. She refused to wipe them. She refused to acknowledge their presence. He would not make her cry. She would not allow herself to cry. No more tears came.