The next morning, Sam awoke much earlier than a regular teen would have dared to, though he wasn't aware of that until he read the clock. 4:37, it read, and because it was mid-January, it was still black as pitch outside and it was much more appealing being underneath the covers than outside of them. Nonetheless, he turned on a lamp before getting out of bed. As soon as his bare feet touched the floorboards, he grimaced.
It was cold. Much colder than it had been the last few days. Santa Carla must have been going through a slight heat wave, because the temperature teetered between fifty and sixty degrees when Sam arrived here a week or so ago. It was much colder here than in Arizona, but that was to be expected—especially when Santa Carla was located near the ocean. Still, it was a shock to his body and he began shivering. He longed to jump back into those warm sheets, but he couldn't allow himself to sleep any longer.
He was on a mission.
I really need to pee, though.
Okay, so the mission waited for a few minutes. But when he emerged from the bathroom, he tip-toed down the stairs (mostly because it was freezing and his toes cried a little with each step he took) and peeked into the living room. Then the dining room. Then the kitchen. He saw no one. He wondered if everyone had gone to sleep already and he had missed his chance, but that didn't make any sense. As he looked out the windows, it was still so black he couldn't see anything outside. There was no way they were asleep; there had to be another two or three hours before the sun rose.
Where was everybody?
Well, if they were going to be doing their own little secretive vampire stuff for a while, Sam was going to attempt what he had planned on doing this morning before the supernatural beings closed their coffins.
He was going to eat. Specifically, he was going to cook.
Now, that was something he had never, ever done before—obviously. The most self-sufficient Sam had ever been in the kitchen was fetching himself a bag of chips when he was feeling peckish. So he stood there for a good five minutes surveying the kitchen, trying to figure out what he could make with the current supplies. Marko had stocked the fridge, and it was a good thing Sam had been shopping with him when he had. There were boxes of mac 'n cheese, instant mashed potatoes, cereal, and cake mixes—to name a few. (If it wasn't obvious, Sam was a huge fan of pantry goods.) The problem was, Sam wasn't confident he could make anything without burning the kitchen down or making a huge mess.
Maybe it was best to play it safe and go with the cereal—but there was no learning experience in that. For the first time, Sam was capable of actually doing something himself, and he was going to take full advantage of that.
Mac 'n cheese it was. Baby steps…baby steps.
He dug out the pot that he felt would be the best size and set it on the stove. Then he tentatively grabbed the box of noodles and cheese powder and read the directions on the side. Boil the water, add the noodles, cook for eight minutes, DO NOT RINSE (he made a mental note to not rinse), add the ingredients… Simple enough. He filled the pot to the brim with water and turned the stove on a low heat, afraid the flames would get out of control if he turned the knob to a more intense setting. And then he waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
5:20. Come on, stupid water.
Little tiny bubbles were forming on the bottom of the pot. What did that signal?
The sounds of an old screen door opening and boots on the hardwood floor dragged Sam out of his concentration (it had been his hope that the harder he stared, the faster the water boiled). He perked up, turning his head in the direction of the footsteps. Someone was coming from a little side porch that branched off of the kitchen (he'd said this before but damn Max's house was big; there were doors and rooms everywhere). He had about five seconds to guess who it was, and at first he thought it was Michael. From his experiences here so far, the others made no sounds when they walked. But it wasn't Michael, Sam quickly realized. Not even close.
It was David.
Sam tensed for a moment and hoped David was just passing through the kitchen, or getting something quickly—both of which involved him leaving right away. And for a second, it looked like David was going to do just that—until he realized what Sam was doing.
The leather-clad blonde (who apparently made a lot of noise when he walked) paused as soon as he laid eyes on Sam. "What?" Sam asked defensively, suddenly aware that he was holding a wooden spoon in the air like a torch in one hand, and the box of mac 'n cheese in the other.
It took David a moment. He cocked a pale brow but simply said, "Nothing."
Sam was aware of every movement the vampire made, including his steady, deliberate footsteps. He stopped a few feet away from Sam, bent in front of the sink, opened up the cabinet underneath it, and pulled out a yellow, metallic container. "What's that?"
David made eye contact with him, and he felt a chill run down his spine at the sight of those icy blue irises. "Lighter fluid."
"For what?" Sam dared to ask. Do I even want to know?
"For Leo's girlfriend."
Sam blanched. "What?"
"Everyone's outside," he said. "Including Leo. We're burning her body." He explained so briefly, so casually, that Sam blinked several times before it fully set in.
"What—Why?"
"Why not?"
"Because…" But Sam couldn't think of any specific reason as to why they shouldn't burn the body, other than the obvious observation that it was probably frowned upon by most humans. Humans, though. Vampires probably had their own normal traditions, their own reasonings, which Sam would never be able to grasp as long as he had a heartbeat. And even though the recently-deceased woman was human (as far as Sam knew), she had been seriously involved with a vampire, and therefore would probably be treated as if she was one of the undead. Was that why Sam had to participate in Michael's initiation? Because he was related to one of them?
When Sam never finished his sentence, David took a step away from the sink and turned toward the entry he had come from. "Oh," he said as an afterthought, turning around again. "You might wanna turn that up." He nodded in the direction of the stove. "Or you'll be waiting forever."
And then, as deliberately as he had walked in, he left without another word or a single glance over his shoulder.
Snowflakes were dusting the ground by nightfall, and one even caught Sam's eyelash as it fell. He watched the white puffs slowly descend from the night sky, fascinated and enthralled, despite the god-awful temperature associated with them. He'd never seen snow before. Obviously Sam and Michael had never gotten a taste of winter in Arizona—only seen it on TV. These snowflakes didn't look like Sam had expected; they weren't perfect, symmetrical, crystal-like snowflakes. They were more like little fat blobs of white. Nonetheless, it was pretty.
But the prettiness wasn't enough to overshadow the freezing air. Sam began shivering within seconds of being outside, despite the nice warm jacket he was wearing. He hadn't been aware that the initiation was going to take place outside—not until Marko wordlessly threw him a jacket. Sam took that as meaning it was going to get cold, whatever they were doing that night. He also took it as Marko not knowing that Sam still had Paul's leather jacket, something the seer wasn't going to admit to just yet.
As Sam walked around the side of Max's house, hands shoved in his pockets and nose shoved forward into the jacket's collar, he looked at Michael several times out of the corner of his eye, watching for any signs of apprehension from the new vampire. Sam found plenty.
In the large backyard was a large mound of wood that stood several feet high, waiting to be lit. Once they reached the pit, Sam was suddenly very aware of the fact that he had absolutely no idea what he was expected to do, or where to stand. The others had been walking to the wood pile with him, so he waited and followed their lead. They all stood casually around the fire pit in a circle, so apparently this wasn't going to be a fancy, multi-step initiation that began as soon as everyone was together. That was a plus.
David opened the same bottle of lighter fluid he had taken early that day, pouring the liquid across the fire pit until the bottle was empty. He threw the metal container into the pit and Dwayne took care of the fire, flicking on a lighter and tossing it onto the wood. The logs were ablaze in an instant, the fire licking high at the sky and smoke billowing wildly around them.
Sam covered his mouth against the smoke and shied away from the sparks that formed once the fire settled some. He scanned everyone who was standing around the fire, now that he was able to see them all. Their faces were contoured with shadows and orange, but he could easily identify each of them. All six of them, not including Michael, of course, because it was weird for Sam to consider Michael "one of them."
Wait. Six?
That was when Max spoke—the first time anyone had said a word since they stepped outside. Sam had almost been expecting the middle-aged man to say something like "We are gathered here tonight to celebrate the turning of Michael Emerson…" Instead, he said, "Normally, I would take the time to reflect on life and death and the transition into vampirehood, but I think that would be repetitive to some of you, considering I say relatively the same thing every time." Sam heard someone snort in replacement of their comment. "Thank you for the confirmation, Dwayne. I won't be doing that tonight, because we're also accompanied by the living."
It felt like all eyes turned on Sam, and he could feel himself flush—though the heat of the flames might have been a factor in it, too.
"God forbid we talk about death around a human." The voice was laced with sarcasm, of course, and Sam didn't have to find the vampire's face to know who it was coming from. The voice was enough.
Max frowned at Marko. "Let's not—"
"What's a human doing here anyway?" someone quipped. Sam didn't recognize the voice—at all. It belonged to a female, that was for sure. The voice register was much higher than the boys'.
It was the additional one—the sixth person that Sam had counted but hadn't been able to see. When did she get here? She had to have literally popped in out of nowhere once they left the house, because she was not around before.
"I will explain," Max assured her, his tone just as patient as it was before her outburst. "But first, I must introduce us, to them."
I already know who all of you are, Sam thought, but hey, let the Head Vampire of Santa Carla do what he wants…
"Michael, Sam—" he acknowledged both of them before continuing "—every metropolis within a few hours of Santa Carla has one vampire in control of the area. Most larger cities in the world do, in fact. In every area the rules are different, to accommodate for the vampire-to-human ratio, of course, so keep that in mind if you ever travel outside of Santa Carla's limits. This city has a little under one-hundred-thousand humans and seventy-six vampires."
"I thought it was seventy-seven now."
"No, it was seventy-five before and now it's seventy-six with Michael," Marko corrected Dwayne.
"No, I'm pretty sure it's seventy-seven…"
"There are roughly seventy-six vampires." Max brushed the number conflict off and pushed on. "Because there is a relatively large number of us compared to humans, vampires in this area are not allowed to kill their victims."
"Is it really that easy?" Sam scoffed in disbelief. "Just choose not to kill them and they live?" What was all this nonsense about vampires being monsters whether they wanted to be or not, then?
"Actually, no. It's not that easy, Sam. It takes some vampires years before they can be in the same room as a human and resist the urge to bite them. Some of us still struggle with it." His eyes swept over the others briefly. "And by us, I mean this coven, which doesn't stretch past this circle."
"Wait." It was Michael who spoke up this time, his mind still muddling through the last thing Max mentioned. "You don't kill people? Then how do you even…? What, are there people walking around the street with bite marks on their necks?"
Max chuckled. "No, Michael—there is a particular way we feed, and we only hunt several times a month." There were a few raised eyebrows and he clarified, "Well…most of us do. But as a newly-turned vampire, you will need to feed much more often than the rest of us. Your self-control training begins tonight."
Michael had visibly gone pale; even Sam could see it, through all the hued lighting. "And I have to go through with whatever it is?"
"Yes."
"Well…" Paul cut in. "You don't have to…"
"He does," Max said firmly, "because he isn't joining us as someone's mate. I'm not simply vouching for him tonight—I'm making him a real vampire."
Michael swallowed thickly. "What do I have to do?"
"I said we aren't allowed to kill our victims."
"Yeah."
"Well, there is an exception. And the exception is tonight."