A/N: Ten pages long aren't you proud?! To those of you who've been
comparing my story to Raine Malfoy's 'Leave Me Here To Bleed' are
completely off your rockers! My story pales in comparison to her story. If
any of you haven't read it do so. Please? Then you'll see how much my story
sux!
Disclaimer: I own the plot and all the characters I have previously specified. Use them with out my permission and you're as good as dead! Got that? Good.
I woke but didn't open my eyes. I didn't feel capable of greeting the world yet.
"What?"
"I told you I was surprised you hadn't managed to kill her yet."
"I'm not going to kill her. I can control myself."
"That's not what you told her." I furrowed my brow confused. Who were they talking about? Me? Were Taber and Risika talking about me? I heard a low growl issue from the area where Taber's voice had been coming from. Risika hissed back. I already had a headache and they insisted on making it worse didn't they. I pulled the pillow from beneath my head and put covered my head with it. It didn't help. I spoke to them but all I got in reply was confusion.
"What did you say?" I pulled the pillow off my head and sat up regarding them both.
"I said, would you both just drop it or if you insist on talking about me you could at least go elsewhere?" Risika seemed to find this hysterically funny and sat where she was on my table laughing her head off. I got up and went into the bathroom as more laughing issued and then silence. By the time the silence had started I had already put on fresh clothes and make up. I walked out ignoring the still silent duo. I went over to my desk and picked up a pen to write down my dream so I wouldn't forget but I stopped short at seeing the drawing Dream had made of me. I picked it up studding it then set it down.
"Won't my friends be worried about me?" I asked.
"What?"
"Won't my friends be worried at my sudden disappearance?"
"No." Risika answered.
"Why not?"
"Angel, Angelica Kayla Ornn transferred schools."
"Oh."
"I need to go. I'll be back later." Risika announced suddenly.
"I should go I don't want to be tempted to hurt you with out some one else here." He said solemnly. I had the sudden urge to make the look, the look of hurt, of despair, of resignation, to disappear. The past week had been to much, almost dieing at his hand, finding that he had saved me, remembering, and once again my near death. It was too much, this one last thing pushed me to do something I would with out a doubt regret. I walked forward until I stood in front of him; he was taken by surprise and stood his ground. Wrapping my hand around the back of his neck I leaned forward and planted my mouth on his. It took him a fraction of a second to realize what had happened and then he did and his lips moved over mine. He put his arms around me and with one hand he rubbed small circles at the small of my back and with the other he worked at the tense muscles in my neck. My other hand traveled up his back and tangled itself in his soft hair. His tongue explored my mouth and mine did the same. His mouth held a slightly metallic, salty yet sweet flavor. The flavor of blood I realized but it was so good. Sweet. Addicting. I knew I was probably killing him a little at a time bit by bit he was dieing. I was torturing him. I knew it but I couldn't stop. Knew that every second we stayed thus it became harder and harder for him to resist sinking his teeth into my neck and stealing from me the life he had fought to preserve. Still I do not think all the reasons in the world could have made me pull away. I could feel my heart beating faster. The interval between each breath became shorter and shorter with every passing moment and still he was dieing. He broke the kiss abruptly and scrambled to get away from in an almost clumsy way. I was panting trying to catch my breath. I watched intently as he licked his lips and stood up. He studied me as my breath slowly went from ragged to even and he watched, as my legs became things of substance again instead of rubber. I took a slow deep breath and raked my fingers through my fine strands of raven hair. I could see him swallow nervously. It was a human habit he seemed to have picked up somewhere.
"Why?"
"Why what, Taber?"
"Why did you do that? I could have killed you." His voice came out too soft, obviously hiding forcibly suppressed anger.
"You didn't." I said taking a step toward him. I saw panic in his eyes for such a brief moment it might have been a trick of the light but it had seemed real. He stepped back, away from me.
"You have a very diminished sense of self preservation for one so young." He informed me dropping into a role I hadn't seen him play before. I stepped forward and once again he stepped back. It was an odd game we played. I was amused to see that I could hold such power over him. I took another step forward and he remained where he was as though he'd caught my thought and was determined to prove me wrong.
"You know what I think?" I smiled at the irony. "Actually you probably do but I'm going to tell you any way. I think," As I said this I took several steps forward until I stood in front of him, not two feet away. "Your heart isn't encased in ice anymore." I reached out and placed my palm flat against his chest over his heart. "That's what I think. I think you care about me." I allowed one of my eyebrows to quirk up as if to challenge him, to challenge him to prove me wrong. The next second the look was wiped off my face as I found myself suddenly pinned to the wall with Taber's strong hands around my neck.
"Just because I find you attractive, because I don't want you to die so soon does not give you the right to assume I care for you. You cannot assume anything about me." He said eyes narrowed, expression hard. He flexed his fingers. "Got that?" ‡Yes. ‡ If he had wanted to frighten me for a while he had done his job well. I was scared almost so much so that I could ignore the gagging feeling in my throat. "Good." He looked down at me a slight smile on his lips. He kissed the top of my head and slid his hands down to my shoulders. "Even if you are right." His smile magnified at my apparent look of shock. "Remembering the duality with which I live my unlife may some day save you."
"/I am pure light but I dance I the dark/ I am a kitten with claws of steel/" I started quoting.
"/I walk on the edge of a knife/" Taber surprised me by saying.
"/I'm drowning in darkness one moment/ and soaring in white fire the next/ I am matte black and I'm the purest of whites/ I am love and I am hate/ I am life and I am Death/ I am ying and I am yang/ I have horns and a halo/ I am fire and I am ice/ I'm the Earth and I'm the air/ I am the rose and I'm the thorn/ I am all the colors and I am the absence of them/ I live where the sun and the moon share the sky/ Who am I?/" I said finishing the poem and looking at him expectantly.
"The famous 'Contradictions' by Giselle Scott." Taber said.
"What do you think she's talking about?"
"Vampires." He said mildly.
"Really?"
"Yes, It is the truth after all I did ask her."
"She's dead."
"You could say that. More like she faked her own 'death' though. Remind me and I'll take you to meet her some day."
"But-but" I spluttered. "You just said she was dead!" He smiled.
"I'm dead."
"You're not dead you're a Vampire that's different."
"Do you know the meaning of the word 'alive?'"
"Of course. It means that you live."
"It means more than that. I've spent a very long time trying to figure out whether or not I am alive. My medical definitions being 'alive' is one; Breathing. While I can breath I find no necessity to do so other than to talk, besides it hurts. Two; Brain activity. I think therefore I am would be one analogy of that. Three; the need to consume food. While I do need to eat I do not think what I 'eat' exactly fits their parameters. Four; your heartbeats. My heart has not beaten in many years and yet I stand here talking to you. I am I alive or dead?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I. Ah but we have strayed a bit from our topic have we not?" I nodded. "How can you tell that Giselle's poem 'Contradictions' is eluding to Vampires?"
"Because you're evil I the sense that you must feed off of the blood and death of mortals to survive. You-" He was grinning like a Cheshire cat who knew a secret.
"We don't have to. Don't have to kill mortals for their blood or even drink human blood. We could survive off animal blood. We could even drink from several animals a night so as to not kill any of them. The blood lust would burn at us though. It feels like there is a monster made of white fire in your stomach trying to claw its way out. Your veins feel as though you're trying to pump lava or molten steel through them in the stead of blood. Hence we choose to kill humans for their blood."
"You are evil that you chose to kill-"
"I notice you avoid the word murder. Why?"
"No reason. To kill humans. Yet being a Vampire gives you such beauty that you become a mockery of Gods creations."
"Exactly." He cocked his head to the side listening to something I couldn't hear. He groaned in annoyance. "Where do you want to go?" He asked suddenly. "Anywhere. Just pick quickly."
"I.S.S." I said sarcastically.
"Interesting choice." He said and I realized he truly had taken us to the International Space Station. "You look surprised." He said attempting to lounge against a wall (or was it the ceiling?) but failing miserably.
"Do you know how ruddy far up in orbit this?"
"No. Nor do I particularly care for trivia." He tried to move away from the wall but used so much force he crashed into the opposite wall. I laughed at him earning a half-hearted glare. I pushed away fro the wall very carefully until I was floating in the middle of the hallway. I did a few experimental summersaults then tried cartwheels. I back flipped then pretended to swim. Walking on the ceiling in no gravity was just like walking on the floor and not nearly so much fun as I had always thought it would be. I felt very dizzy from all my blood rushing places I could have sworn it hadn't ever gone before. I turned to Taber to ask him to take us back but my words stopped short when I saw the smirk that adorned his face.
"What?"
"Your clothes don't seem to be affected by gravity here like they are on Earth." He observed.
"You!" I said pointing my index finger at him. He reached out with his usual super-human swiftness and grasped my wrist yanking me towards him. Now in a gravity field this would have been all well and good. I would have crashed into him and so on but we were on I.S.S. and there fore not in a gravity field. The result of this was that yes I crashed into him but every action has and equal and opposite reaction. We both went tumbling head over heals until we crashed into a wall. "As fun as this is I don't see how astronauts can stand it. It's making me dizzy what with my blood rushing every which way."
"Where to then? I want to avoid Risika for as long as possible."
"Let's go to an open air café in Paris and people watch." I suggested, realizing now that if Taber was amiable I could go any where in the world in an instant.
"Want to go to the Café de Mort?" He asked.
"Café of the dead? Nuh-uh I am not going to another Vampire place."
"I was only kidding. Now where to go...?" He looked at one of the walls for a moment then he smiled. "Ah, I know!" The familiar feeling of gravity returned in an alley just off a very busy street. I had never seen so many people in my life! I pulled away from his grasp and watched the slightly fantastical amount of people as they streamed by.
"Where are we going?"
"To a café." He answered. He took my hand and stepped out into the crowded sidewalk. A short walk later we were seated at a trestle table in an open-air café. Taber studied a menu that was written all in French. A waiter came not long after he had set the menu down on the table.
"What will you have to eat, Mossier, Madamozelle?" The man asked in English but with such a heavy accent it took me a minute or two to understand what he had said. Taber ordered in fluent French not bothering to ask me what I wanted.
"You speak French?" I asked my interest piqued.
"Why do you think I agreed to bring you to Paris? I speak French, French people speak French. It makes it so much easier knowing what they are saying. If you had asked to go to say, some where in Germany I wouldn't have gone."
"Esprecanze Duestch?" He looked at me blankly. "I'll take that as a 'no.'"
"We could go though since you speak German." I had to laugh at his assumption.
"Actually that's about the only thing I can say in German. I can read Latin and Greek though."
"Don't they teach you to speak other languages in school these days?"
"Not really. I guess 'The Man' just assumes other countries will teach their children to speak English. I taught myself to read Latin and Greek. Dead languages fascinate me."
"I wouldn't say that around some of us if I were you."
"Oh?"
"They might be mad at you if you suggested the language they grew up speaking was 'dead.'"
"But they'd be-"
"Yes, thousands of years old. Seite is even older of course. They say God created him on the Eighth day when He threw his creations from Eden. I say its bull crap. I think-"He cut off as the waiter approached carrying a tray laden with food. He set down two cups of coffee two glasses of lemon aid and several other small dishes. I took a sip of the hot coffee and looked at the food. Some of it was familiar and some looked overly extravagant and more than a little exotic. Taber looked at the food he'd ordered for a moment then set one of the dishes in front of me.
"What is it?"
"Good. Try some." He chose a dish of fruit for himself and started eating them. I bit into one of the oblongs he'd given me and the flavor, tart outside filled with what must have been pure sugar on the inside, exploded inside my mouth. I surveyed the rest of the food and found that there was a decided lack of dishes with meat in them. The rest were either mostly fruit or crazy looking things made of sugar. "Good?" He asked just as I bit into another.
"Mmmm-hmmm." I licked my lips and took another sip of coffee.
"You drink and awful lot of coffee." He commented. I shrugged. "Any way. I think that Siete exists by accident."
"What kind of 'accident' could create an immortal who drinks blood?" ¥I'll tell you later. There is some one over there who is listening to us just a bit too hard. ¥ He shrugged as though he didn't know the answer to my question.
"I don't know. It's only a theory after all." He gave me an uncharacteristic lopsided grin. "And not a very good one at that, my Angel." I had finished with the first dish he had given me and he'd replaced it with one that looked like chicken and mushrooms in gravy. I picked up a fork and started eating it.
"So why exactly are we trying to avoid Rachel?"
"Oh, she was just being bother some." He rolled his eyes. "You know how she can be when she goes into one of her 'fits.'" He said between bites of some sugary thing. I was itching to ask him what happened to the real food he ate after it went in his stomach. I had finished my coffee and now I took a sip of lemon aid, which I discovered was not sweetened. Bad idea, I nearly spit it out." When we had most of the dishes bar two identical sugary looking things the waiter came over and set down two glasses of blood red wine. At least I hoped it was wine. He took our empty dishes and left. I took a bite of the desert dish and smiled as it melted on my tongue leaving a sweet and sour taste in my mouth. I lifted the wine glass and sniffed the contents much to the amusement of Taber.
"What?"
"What did you think it was?"
"You know. But I'm very glad it's wine." I took a sip and felt an immediate dizziness over come me. "Good Gods it's strong."
"That's what I was going for." He said grinning and taking a sip.
"Trying to get me drunk?" I asked with raised eyebrows.
"No. I thought you might like to try real wine though."
"Right." When the wine was finished I felt more than a little dizzy and I was covered in a blanket of happiness. Taber took American money out of his pocket and paid the waiter. I stood up and tried to walk but weaved one way then another.
"Wheee!" I said laughing.
"You're drunk." Taber said flatly and put his arm around my waist leading me away from the café. It took me a moment for his words to sink in.
"Noooo." I said sarcastically. He looked down at me with an odd expression. "Where are we going? Home?" He didn't answer. I nearly tripped but he caught me and I leaned into him for support. I wanted to stop him and turn into his arms and kiss him. Just kiss him and never ever pull away. "Mmmm. This is nice." I mumbled.
"Don't even think it." He warned.
"Whhaat?" I asked the word inexplicably drawn out. "Wat?" I tried again but still it wasn't right. Maybe I was drunk. We weren't walking along a crowded Paris sidewalk any longer we were in a room. I pulled away from him and tried to turn cartwheels as I had done earlier but I fell to the floor in a heap laughing. "Wheeee!" I said tried summersaults instead. "Beeeing druuuunk s'awfully fuuuun."
"Not for long. You'll be hung over soon."
"I feel wonderful!" I shouted. I stood up slowly. I stumbled over to where he stood still as a statue. I threw my arms around his neck and looked up at him. "Yoooooooou arrrrrrrree reeeeeeally priiiiity." I said smiling and laughing a little at my own words. "Priiiiity." I said putting my hand on his face and letting my fingers memorize the smooth forehead, closed eyelids, high cheekbones, nose, and slightly parted lips. I staggered. He wasn't there any more. I looked around the room for a door but there were none. No windows, just a large bed and two chairs. I made my way over to the bed and fell onto it. I drifted into sleep.
Disclaimer: I own the plot and all the characters I have previously specified. Use them with out my permission and you're as good as dead! Got that? Good.
I woke but didn't open my eyes. I didn't feel capable of greeting the world yet.
"What?"
"I told you I was surprised you hadn't managed to kill her yet."
"I'm not going to kill her. I can control myself."
"That's not what you told her." I furrowed my brow confused. Who were they talking about? Me? Were Taber and Risika talking about me? I heard a low growl issue from the area where Taber's voice had been coming from. Risika hissed back. I already had a headache and they insisted on making it worse didn't they. I pulled the pillow from beneath my head and put covered my head with it. It didn't help. I spoke to them but all I got in reply was confusion.
"What did you say?" I pulled the pillow off my head and sat up regarding them both.
"I said, would you both just drop it or if you insist on talking about me you could at least go elsewhere?" Risika seemed to find this hysterically funny and sat where she was on my table laughing her head off. I got up and went into the bathroom as more laughing issued and then silence. By the time the silence had started I had already put on fresh clothes and make up. I walked out ignoring the still silent duo. I went over to my desk and picked up a pen to write down my dream so I wouldn't forget but I stopped short at seeing the drawing Dream had made of me. I picked it up studding it then set it down.
"Won't my friends be worried about me?" I asked.
"What?"
"Won't my friends be worried at my sudden disappearance?"
"No." Risika answered.
"Why not?"
"Angel, Angelica Kayla Ornn transferred schools."
"Oh."
"I need to go. I'll be back later." Risika announced suddenly.
"I should go I don't want to be tempted to hurt you with out some one else here." He said solemnly. I had the sudden urge to make the look, the look of hurt, of despair, of resignation, to disappear. The past week had been to much, almost dieing at his hand, finding that he had saved me, remembering, and once again my near death. It was too much, this one last thing pushed me to do something I would with out a doubt regret. I walked forward until I stood in front of him; he was taken by surprise and stood his ground. Wrapping my hand around the back of his neck I leaned forward and planted my mouth on his. It took him a fraction of a second to realize what had happened and then he did and his lips moved over mine. He put his arms around me and with one hand he rubbed small circles at the small of my back and with the other he worked at the tense muscles in my neck. My other hand traveled up his back and tangled itself in his soft hair. His tongue explored my mouth and mine did the same. His mouth held a slightly metallic, salty yet sweet flavor. The flavor of blood I realized but it was so good. Sweet. Addicting. I knew I was probably killing him a little at a time bit by bit he was dieing. I was torturing him. I knew it but I couldn't stop. Knew that every second we stayed thus it became harder and harder for him to resist sinking his teeth into my neck and stealing from me the life he had fought to preserve. Still I do not think all the reasons in the world could have made me pull away. I could feel my heart beating faster. The interval between each breath became shorter and shorter with every passing moment and still he was dieing. He broke the kiss abruptly and scrambled to get away from in an almost clumsy way. I was panting trying to catch my breath. I watched intently as he licked his lips and stood up. He studied me as my breath slowly went from ragged to even and he watched, as my legs became things of substance again instead of rubber. I took a slow deep breath and raked my fingers through my fine strands of raven hair. I could see him swallow nervously. It was a human habit he seemed to have picked up somewhere.
"Why?"
"Why what, Taber?"
"Why did you do that? I could have killed you." His voice came out too soft, obviously hiding forcibly suppressed anger.
"You didn't." I said taking a step toward him. I saw panic in his eyes for such a brief moment it might have been a trick of the light but it had seemed real. He stepped back, away from me.
"You have a very diminished sense of self preservation for one so young." He informed me dropping into a role I hadn't seen him play before. I stepped forward and once again he stepped back. It was an odd game we played. I was amused to see that I could hold such power over him. I took another step forward and he remained where he was as though he'd caught my thought and was determined to prove me wrong.
"You know what I think?" I smiled at the irony. "Actually you probably do but I'm going to tell you any way. I think," As I said this I took several steps forward until I stood in front of him, not two feet away. "Your heart isn't encased in ice anymore." I reached out and placed my palm flat against his chest over his heart. "That's what I think. I think you care about me." I allowed one of my eyebrows to quirk up as if to challenge him, to challenge him to prove me wrong. The next second the look was wiped off my face as I found myself suddenly pinned to the wall with Taber's strong hands around my neck.
"Just because I find you attractive, because I don't want you to die so soon does not give you the right to assume I care for you. You cannot assume anything about me." He said eyes narrowed, expression hard. He flexed his fingers. "Got that?" ‡Yes. ‡ If he had wanted to frighten me for a while he had done his job well. I was scared almost so much so that I could ignore the gagging feeling in my throat. "Good." He looked down at me a slight smile on his lips. He kissed the top of my head and slid his hands down to my shoulders. "Even if you are right." His smile magnified at my apparent look of shock. "Remembering the duality with which I live my unlife may some day save you."
"/I am pure light but I dance I the dark/ I am a kitten with claws of steel/" I started quoting.
"/I walk on the edge of a knife/" Taber surprised me by saying.
"/I'm drowning in darkness one moment/ and soaring in white fire the next/ I am matte black and I'm the purest of whites/ I am love and I am hate/ I am life and I am Death/ I am ying and I am yang/ I have horns and a halo/ I am fire and I am ice/ I'm the Earth and I'm the air/ I am the rose and I'm the thorn/ I am all the colors and I am the absence of them/ I live where the sun and the moon share the sky/ Who am I?/" I said finishing the poem and looking at him expectantly.
"The famous 'Contradictions' by Giselle Scott." Taber said.
"What do you think she's talking about?"
"Vampires." He said mildly.
"Really?"
"Yes, It is the truth after all I did ask her."
"She's dead."
"You could say that. More like she faked her own 'death' though. Remind me and I'll take you to meet her some day."
"But-but" I spluttered. "You just said she was dead!" He smiled.
"I'm dead."
"You're not dead you're a Vampire that's different."
"Do you know the meaning of the word 'alive?'"
"Of course. It means that you live."
"It means more than that. I've spent a very long time trying to figure out whether or not I am alive. My medical definitions being 'alive' is one; Breathing. While I can breath I find no necessity to do so other than to talk, besides it hurts. Two; Brain activity. I think therefore I am would be one analogy of that. Three; the need to consume food. While I do need to eat I do not think what I 'eat' exactly fits their parameters. Four; your heartbeats. My heart has not beaten in many years and yet I stand here talking to you. I am I alive or dead?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I. Ah but we have strayed a bit from our topic have we not?" I nodded. "How can you tell that Giselle's poem 'Contradictions' is eluding to Vampires?"
"Because you're evil I the sense that you must feed off of the blood and death of mortals to survive. You-" He was grinning like a Cheshire cat who knew a secret.
"We don't have to. Don't have to kill mortals for their blood or even drink human blood. We could survive off animal blood. We could even drink from several animals a night so as to not kill any of them. The blood lust would burn at us though. It feels like there is a monster made of white fire in your stomach trying to claw its way out. Your veins feel as though you're trying to pump lava or molten steel through them in the stead of blood. Hence we choose to kill humans for their blood."
"You are evil that you chose to kill-"
"I notice you avoid the word murder. Why?"
"No reason. To kill humans. Yet being a Vampire gives you such beauty that you become a mockery of Gods creations."
"Exactly." He cocked his head to the side listening to something I couldn't hear. He groaned in annoyance. "Where do you want to go?" He asked suddenly. "Anywhere. Just pick quickly."
"I.S.S." I said sarcastically.
"Interesting choice." He said and I realized he truly had taken us to the International Space Station. "You look surprised." He said attempting to lounge against a wall (or was it the ceiling?) but failing miserably.
"Do you know how ruddy far up in orbit this?"
"No. Nor do I particularly care for trivia." He tried to move away from the wall but used so much force he crashed into the opposite wall. I laughed at him earning a half-hearted glare. I pushed away fro the wall very carefully until I was floating in the middle of the hallway. I did a few experimental summersaults then tried cartwheels. I back flipped then pretended to swim. Walking on the ceiling in no gravity was just like walking on the floor and not nearly so much fun as I had always thought it would be. I felt very dizzy from all my blood rushing places I could have sworn it hadn't ever gone before. I turned to Taber to ask him to take us back but my words stopped short when I saw the smirk that adorned his face.
"What?"
"Your clothes don't seem to be affected by gravity here like they are on Earth." He observed.
"You!" I said pointing my index finger at him. He reached out with his usual super-human swiftness and grasped my wrist yanking me towards him. Now in a gravity field this would have been all well and good. I would have crashed into him and so on but we were on I.S.S. and there fore not in a gravity field. The result of this was that yes I crashed into him but every action has and equal and opposite reaction. We both went tumbling head over heals until we crashed into a wall. "As fun as this is I don't see how astronauts can stand it. It's making me dizzy what with my blood rushing every which way."
"Where to then? I want to avoid Risika for as long as possible."
"Let's go to an open air café in Paris and people watch." I suggested, realizing now that if Taber was amiable I could go any where in the world in an instant.
"Want to go to the Café de Mort?" He asked.
"Café of the dead? Nuh-uh I am not going to another Vampire place."
"I was only kidding. Now where to go...?" He looked at one of the walls for a moment then he smiled. "Ah, I know!" The familiar feeling of gravity returned in an alley just off a very busy street. I had never seen so many people in my life! I pulled away from his grasp and watched the slightly fantastical amount of people as they streamed by.
"Where are we going?"
"To a café." He answered. He took my hand and stepped out into the crowded sidewalk. A short walk later we were seated at a trestle table in an open-air café. Taber studied a menu that was written all in French. A waiter came not long after he had set the menu down on the table.
"What will you have to eat, Mossier, Madamozelle?" The man asked in English but with such a heavy accent it took me a minute or two to understand what he had said. Taber ordered in fluent French not bothering to ask me what I wanted.
"You speak French?" I asked my interest piqued.
"Why do you think I agreed to bring you to Paris? I speak French, French people speak French. It makes it so much easier knowing what they are saying. If you had asked to go to say, some where in Germany I wouldn't have gone."
"Esprecanze Duestch?" He looked at me blankly. "I'll take that as a 'no.'"
"We could go though since you speak German." I had to laugh at his assumption.
"Actually that's about the only thing I can say in German. I can read Latin and Greek though."
"Don't they teach you to speak other languages in school these days?"
"Not really. I guess 'The Man' just assumes other countries will teach their children to speak English. I taught myself to read Latin and Greek. Dead languages fascinate me."
"I wouldn't say that around some of us if I were you."
"Oh?"
"They might be mad at you if you suggested the language they grew up speaking was 'dead.'"
"But they'd be-"
"Yes, thousands of years old. Seite is even older of course. They say God created him on the Eighth day when He threw his creations from Eden. I say its bull crap. I think-"He cut off as the waiter approached carrying a tray laden with food. He set down two cups of coffee two glasses of lemon aid and several other small dishes. I took a sip of the hot coffee and looked at the food. Some of it was familiar and some looked overly extravagant and more than a little exotic. Taber looked at the food he'd ordered for a moment then set one of the dishes in front of me.
"What is it?"
"Good. Try some." He chose a dish of fruit for himself and started eating them. I bit into one of the oblongs he'd given me and the flavor, tart outside filled with what must have been pure sugar on the inside, exploded inside my mouth. I surveyed the rest of the food and found that there was a decided lack of dishes with meat in them. The rest were either mostly fruit or crazy looking things made of sugar. "Good?" He asked just as I bit into another.
"Mmmm-hmmm." I licked my lips and took another sip of coffee.
"You drink and awful lot of coffee." He commented. I shrugged. "Any way. I think that Siete exists by accident."
"What kind of 'accident' could create an immortal who drinks blood?" ¥I'll tell you later. There is some one over there who is listening to us just a bit too hard. ¥ He shrugged as though he didn't know the answer to my question.
"I don't know. It's only a theory after all." He gave me an uncharacteristic lopsided grin. "And not a very good one at that, my Angel." I had finished with the first dish he had given me and he'd replaced it with one that looked like chicken and mushrooms in gravy. I picked up a fork and started eating it.
"So why exactly are we trying to avoid Rachel?"
"Oh, she was just being bother some." He rolled his eyes. "You know how she can be when she goes into one of her 'fits.'" He said between bites of some sugary thing. I was itching to ask him what happened to the real food he ate after it went in his stomach. I had finished my coffee and now I took a sip of lemon aid, which I discovered was not sweetened. Bad idea, I nearly spit it out." When we had most of the dishes bar two identical sugary looking things the waiter came over and set down two glasses of blood red wine. At least I hoped it was wine. He took our empty dishes and left. I took a bite of the desert dish and smiled as it melted on my tongue leaving a sweet and sour taste in my mouth. I lifted the wine glass and sniffed the contents much to the amusement of Taber.
"What?"
"What did you think it was?"
"You know. But I'm very glad it's wine." I took a sip and felt an immediate dizziness over come me. "Good Gods it's strong."
"That's what I was going for." He said grinning and taking a sip.
"Trying to get me drunk?" I asked with raised eyebrows.
"No. I thought you might like to try real wine though."
"Right." When the wine was finished I felt more than a little dizzy and I was covered in a blanket of happiness. Taber took American money out of his pocket and paid the waiter. I stood up and tried to walk but weaved one way then another.
"Wheee!" I said laughing.
"You're drunk." Taber said flatly and put his arm around my waist leading me away from the café. It took me a moment for his words to sink in.
"Noooo." I said sarcastically. He looked down at me with an odd expression. "Where are we going? Home?" He didn't answer. I nearly tripped but he caught me and I leaned into him for support. I wanted to stop him and turn into his arms and kiss him. Just kiss him and never ever pull away. "Mmmm. This is nice." I mumbled.
"Don't even think it." He warned.
"Whhaat?" I asked the word inexplicably drawn out. "Wat?" I tried again but still it wasn't right. Maybe I was drunk. We weren't walking along a crowded Paris sidewalk any longer we were in a room. I pulled away from him and tried to turn cartwheels as I had done earlier but I fell to the floor in a heap laughing. "Wheeee!" I said tried summersaults instead. "Beeeing druuuunk s'awfully fuuuun."
"Not for long. You'll be hung over soon."
"I feel wonderful!" I shouted. I stood up slowly. I stumbled over to where he stood still as a statue. I threw my arms around his neck and looked up at him. "Yoooooooou arrrrrrrree reeeeeeally priiiiity." I said smiling and laughing a little at my own words. "Priiiiity." I said putting my hand on his face and letting my fingers memorize the smooth forehead, closed eyelids, high cheekbones, nose, and slightly parted lips. I staggered. He wasn't there any more. I looked around the room for a door but there were none. No windows, just a large bed and two chairs. I made my way over to the bed and fell onto it. I drifted into sleep.