Four months later ...
It was a quiet night at the bar and Pam observed her dominion in cruel satisfaction. Most of the customers, intoxicated and still laughing manically, had staggered out of the bar over an hour ago and now only she remained, hands on hips, surveying Fangtasia, her own personal kingdom. Ginger, the deluded human employee of the bar, emerged from the ladies' room and was now earning her keep by cleaning up spilled vodka shots at the bar, humming a tune to herself. Pam rolled her eyes and shook her head, chuckling darkly to herself. That one had been glamoured one time too many.
Ginger, humming another tune, piled the empty glasses onto a tray and made to leave, but her clumsiness had been intensified by a few free bottles of beer during the night and her high heels were just a hazard waiting to happen. She tripped, too dramatically in Pam's opinion, and the vodka glasses flew high into the air. Pam knew that this little incident would come out of Ginger's pay check and lazily cast her eyes over the scene, expecting to hear the chinking sound of breaking glass. To her confusion, no such sound was heard. When she concentrated, she saw Aurora standing next to the wobbly Ginger, holding all seven shot glasses in both of her hands. Pam's expression soured as she saw her hand them to Ginger who ran her hands through her hair, having witnessed the vampire move at the blink of an eye.
'Thank you, sweetie,' she said, smiling weakly, rearranging the shot glasses again. 'These darn shoes ... '
'Don't worry, it's fine. Besides, those shoes are gorgeous, if a little higher than I should think necessary.'
Ginger laughed giddily and resumed her journey. Aurora smiled after her and noticed Pam staring at her coldly. Within a second, she was standing in front of her brother's child, mirroring her stance with her hands on her hips. Pam's eyes narrowed even further as she stared a few inches down at Aurora.
'What do you want, cupcake?'
'Just being a helping hand, buttercup,' Aurora replied as if butter would not melt in her mouth.
'You're hanging around here too often for my liking.'
'I like this place,' Aurora said simply, scanning around Fangtasia as if to prove her point. 'It's exciting and dangerous and ... '
'Totally not your scene. You've never been somewhere like here, have you? That's why you're here all the time, like some crazy adrenaline junkie.'
'Believe it or not, Pam, but I've been in clubs and bars before. In every decade. In every century. It's surprising how easy human minds become putty in my hands.'
Pam's eyes widened and she hated to confess it to herself, but she was mildly impressed. Granted, she didn't like the girl very much, but Eric seemed determined for them to play nice and be family. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad after all.
'Speak of the devil,' she murmured to himself as Eric entered through the front door of the bar, a smile on his face and a spring in his step. This was unusual for her maker and Pam's eyebrows rose correspondingly with her curiosity. 'Eric? Why are you so ... smiley?'
'Why, Pamela,' he said. 'Can't I be satisfied once in a while?'
'No, Eric,' Aurora said. 'For once, I agree with Pam. Honestly, you look a bit deranged.'
'Deranged?' Eric repeated. 'That's a bit strong.'
Pam glanced at Aurora and hinted at a grin. 'My ... aunt is right.'
'Don't call me that, Pam. It makes me sound so old.'
'Well, last time I checked, you were,' Pam said cattily.
'Enough, the both of you,' Eric said, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated manner. 'Pam, can I talk to you privately please?'
Aurora nodded and went to the bar, her eyes never leaving Pam and Eric. Eric raised his eyebrows at her and she stuck her tongue at him childishly. Eric repressed a chuckle and she settled down to pouring herself a glass of scotch, making sure to do as her brother said and not listen to the conversation between maker and child.
'I thought you two were making progress,' Eric said in his native tongue of Swedish to his progeny, who was wearing a haughty look that he was all too familiar with. 'I thought you were beginning to accept her.'
'Eric,' Pam deadpanned in a flat tone. 'Face up to it. She's not my family. She's never going to be my family. You are my only family and some spoilt little child is not going to change that.'
'Probably not,' a new voice said in perfectly articulate Swedish.
Aurora stood there, empty glass in hand, watching them bitterly. Slowly and still trying to process what was going on, both Eric and Pam turned around to stare at her, eyes widened and mouths slightly open in shock.
'I am trying so hard to be accepted here,' she said in the language Eric had spoken as a human. Had he known better, he would have thought that she was Swedish herself. 'Eric has welcomed me with open arms and I love him for that. But you ... You have done nothing but put me down and degrade me. Well, I'm sorry if I'm part of the family, truly I am. But we are related by blood and that is something you are just going to have to deal with. And, Pamela, the next time you're trying to talk to Eric about me behind my back, be sure to use a language Godric did not teach me.'
Then, an infuriated Aurora left the bar at a speed only a vampire could muster. Eric sighed and stared at his progeny who looked after the Roman vampire with a different expression on her pale face.
'I guess you'd better go after her,' she murmured and stalked off, leaving her maker alone to contemplate his next move.
To his slight amazement, it took Eric only a few seconds to leave the bar and discover the whereabouts of his fuming sister. He stood outside his establishment and looked around him, his senses keen and on alert. He smelt fresh paint which he soon found came from the messages left by anti-vampire protestors on the outside walls of Fangtasia. Eric smirked – these ridiculous humans actually thought that they were being brave, brawling 'DIE, FANGERS!' on the wall the way a rebellious teenager does. However, Eric knew that the support of this opposition against his kind would be growing, festering in towns and cities all over the world. He admitted that he probably should have seen it coming; he knew deep down that vampires would have only a few years after the Great Revelation until they became a minority, harassed and downtrodden by the humans that would think of them only as monsters and never as equals. Russell Edgington had been idiotic and insane to do what he had done and had destroyed the relationship that vampires were trying to build with humans, but Eric knew that it would have come sooner rather than later. Remembering what Edgington had done to him whilst he had been human – scarcely older than Aurora had been – Eric's hands curled into fists and he took grim delight in cursing the vampire, now wrapped in silver chains and imprisoned under layers of solid concrete.
Eric's finely tuned hearing then picked up the dulcet sound of Aurora's voice; although, the normally beautiful tone was now a snarl as she spat out words in a language that Eric knew hardly anything of. No, not words, he corrected himself. These strange sounds were curses. Eric could only hazard a guess as to the translation of the words, but he somewhat feared for them to be directed at him if he made the mistake of asking.
Eric hovered a few feet off the ground for a second or two before he lifted himself gracefully into the air. Once at the level of the roof, he eyed a sitting figure and descended, his feet touching the metal of the roof with a soft thud.
Having heard this clearly as a bell from a few feet away, Aurora ceased her cursing as her head snapped up and her body stiffened, preparing for the mysterious intruder.
'Relax,' Eric said, holding up his hands, palms facing her. 'It's just me.'
Aurora calmed down and she stared at her brother with burning curiosity, but she did not say a word. Taking this silence as a good sign, Eric sauntered over and sat himself down next to her, their shoulders just touching. His blue eyes found her brown ones and she inclined his head onto his shoulder; he was a little startled by this at first, but he rested his head on hers gently as they both watched the dark night they had roamed for thousands of years.
'Can I ask you something?' he murmured then, his voice soft as it always was when in conversation with his sister.
'Of course. Anything.'
Eric grinned. 'I'll take the 'anything' part into consideration, shall I? So, what are you doing up here?'
'That's it?' Aurora said, bringing her head up to show him her raised eyebrows and amused expression. 'That's your big question?'
'You did say I could ask you anything,' he pointed out. 'I want to know what you're doing up here on the roof of my bar.'
'Isn't that just a little obvious?' she sighed. 'I'm up here because I can't stand to be in there.'
'Look, Aurora, Pam is going to take some time to come round – '
'Some time?' she echoed. 'Eric, are you blind? She despises me.'
'She doesn't despise you,' Eric countered. 'She just ... hasn't quite warmed up to you yet.'
'Brother, the only time Pam will finally warm up to me will be when I'm burning on a bonfire.'
Eric chuckled darkly. 'You and Pam are family. You're my family. You are both so important to me. You have no idea how precious you both are to me.'
'That's sweet of you to say that, little brother,' Aurora said, ruffling his hair. 'But face the facts. Pam is jealous.'
Eric's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 'Jealous?'
'Yes, you know. The emotion where humans supposedly turn green and believe that there is a little monster on their back.'
'I know what it means,' tutted. 'But why would my progeny be jealous?'
Aurora heaved a sigh and turned to face him, her eyes round and boring into his. 'Eric, think about it. Nearly every single night for the last year, I have been here with you. I have had your undivided attention, which you have given me so easily. Now, Pam has been with you for how long?'
'Just shy of a century and a half.'
'Exactly. You're her maker. You are all she has ever known. And I'm guessing for that century and a half, you have treated her like a vampire goddess, showering her with gifts and being her father, brother and friend as Godric was to you.'
Eric nodded and she swiftly continued, pained considerably at the mention of her lost love.
'She's angered by my constant presence here. You can see that she does not like me. Well, she doesn't like the time I'm spending with you.'
Eric gathered all of what she said together and came up with, 'She's pissed at me for spending so much time with you.'
Aurora nodded and her eyes switched back to the night sky, knowing every star by heart. She had seen them all and more than once, she thought that when she finally decided to end her immortal life, she would love to join them – to become a star and live in the heavens peacefully for all eternity ...
'Don't worry,' Eric's voice broke her dreamy haze and she returned back to him in the present. 'I think that she's starting to simmer down. She knows how close I am to you.'
'She knows you so well, Eric.'
Eric shrugged. 'She is my child. There is not a secret in me that I have not shared with her.'
'Secrets do not stay well with us vampires, I find. Secrets lead to lies and lies lead to feelings of resentment. And when you live forever, it is hard to shake those feelings.'
Eric smiled and wrapped his arm around Aurora, bringing her closer to him until her head was resting on his chest. He kissed her head and ran his fingers through her hair absentmindedly.
'You didn't finish your story,' he murmured.
'Which one? I've lived for two thousand years and seen nearly all the world. You're going to have to be more specific.'
'The one about the human who could draw. Esperanza.'
Eric felt Aurora's frame become rigid and she murmured something under her breath.
'You didn't finish it. You didn't tell me what happened to her.'
'You know what happened to her,' she whispered in a cold, unfeeling voice that Eric knew was just like his own. 'It's the same thing that happens to every human eventually.'
'Maybe this will help you. Talking about it. You cared for her.'
'She was my friend. She was ... amazing.'
'Well,' Eric said, rubbing her cheek with the flesh of his thumb, 'tell me how amazing she was.'
'How's that?' Aurora said, anxiously showing Esperanza her latest attempt.
They had been sitting in Esperanza's hotel room for three hours and during that time, Esperanza had decided to draw Aurora. She was an extremely talented artist and Aurora had barely time to get comfortable when she had finished. It was a beautiful sketch of Aurora, perfectly shaded and shaped. It had captured her youthful innocence yet it showed her devilish grin. After seeing what her friend had produced, Aurora had quietly asked for her instruction. Aurora had always yearned to be able to draw, but she believed that she did not have the skill necessary. She had seen masters of art paint and sketch for centuries and had admired them from a distance, hoping that one day in the eternity that she would live, she would learn to replicate their skills.
'Not bad, not bad,' Esperanza said. 'Although, I do have one teeny, tiny criticism.'
'Here we go ... ' Aurora chuckled.
Esperanza rolled her eyes. 'I said 'one'. And it's nothing major, I swear. It's just your shading. You're pressing down on the pencil too hard. Your lines are too thick – '
'You said 'one'!' Aurora giggled and pushed Esperanza playfully before the conversation dissolved into peals of laughter, which continued for several minutes until the girls found themselves brushing off tears of mirth. Soon the room was silent and they sat there, still smiling to themselves.
'So, how've you been keeping since they ... ?'
Aurora couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence and closed her eyes. Esperanza sighed and started fiddling with a loose thread in her hospital gown.
'Since they told me about my cancer?' she finished bitterly.
Aurora nodded and looked back at her friend sadly. 'I'm sorry I brought it up, Esperanza. I just – '
'It's fine, honestly. It's better I start talking about it 'cause soon ... '
She stopped and shut her eyes as a tear rolled down her cheek. Aurora reached for her hand and gripped it tightly in hers. She could feel her friend's pain, both emotionally and physically and she truly hated seeing her like this. She knew that she could do something but the consequences of doing what she knew only she could do were too severe to even comprehend.
'I just ... ' Esperanza murmured, tears coming thick and fast now. 'I thought ... I would have a life, you know? I'd go to art school and graduate with some kind of fancy degree. I'd get an inner city apartment in New York, one with a massive studio where I'd paint and draw on massive canvas and make as much mess as I like. Then, I'd ... I'd find a guy and fall in love. I'd have kids and they'd have kids. I'd have a good life and die an old lady in my bed, surrounded by my kids and my grandkids, even my great-grandkids. Not like this ... barely sixteen, my body decaying from the inside out, hooked up to hospital machines, before I've even had a chance to see the world, to live my life ...'
Aurora sat there and listened to her friend, knowing that she was right. In a few months, even weeks, her already ailing body would give up its fight for life and she would fall into a deep, dark slumber from which she would never awaken. Aurora looked down at her pale wrists and traced the veins up to her elbow. Her blood was the best medicine that Aurora knew and could cure any ailment. A few mouthfuls of her blood would completely rid Esperanza of the cancer growing inside her. She would be healthy and happy. She would have that life she so desperately craved. She would do all the things she planned to do. She would have a future. However, Aurora knew that in order to do this, she had to reveal what she really was and she could tell that Esperanza may not be as accepting as some people had in the past. She could not bear to lose the only friend she had left. She deliberated on this as Esperanza's eyes closed and she fell asleep, deciding that she would heal her in the next week or so and tell her what she really was. As she left the hospital room that night, she watched her sleeping friend and vowed to make sure that Esperanza got that life she dreamed of. After all, she deserved it.
