Chapter 4

Parting company with Elissa had not been as painful as Peter had expected, mainly because he knew they would meet the following night.

But the phone call he had made to Charley had been uncomfortable, as he had said he was out of town for a couple of days, and said the reason was because he was looking for a new job to start, for when the Fright Night show was over.

Of course, Charley had believed him and wished him luck with it – which made Peter feel guilty, because he hated lying to such a good friend, but it seemed there was no other choice to be made...

As he had put the phone down, he had thought how sorry he was that a situation had ever come about to mean that honesty was something he could not give to the one person who had been through so much with him, and who knew the truth about the existence of vampires – again, it seemed ironic that the cause of this was a vampire...

But after hosting the show with a stiff aching back, he had left the studio and Elissa had been waiting for him in the parking lot. She was alone and as he kissed her fondly she clung tightly to him, and he realised the more he saw her, the less he thought about the fact that she was a vampire – she was simply Elissa, and he loved her - and that was good enough for Peter Vincent.

They drove back to the big house half covered by the shade of heavy tree boughs, and as he parked outside he saw the porch light was on, shining a welcome in the darkness.

"April took Opal over to a friend's house for the night, she will be sleeping over in the daytime too and coming back tomorrow night," she told him as they got out of the car and she then paused to open the gate, "My daughter will enjoy it – April's friend is a vampire mother with three children, Opal loves sleepovers."

As they walked up the path towards the house he asked her a question.

"How did you meet April?"

"She was given to me on loan for her services while I was pregnant," she replied, "Mr Jet Marlowe sent her over to take care of me, April is a qualified doctor. But after Opal was born the two of us had become friends, and she asked to stay and Jet said that she could, because she could help out with his daughter."

"Do you see him often?"

"No," she replied, and then she unlocked the door and opened it, and Peter followed her inside.

"He stops by now and then," she added as she closed the door behind them, "But he is the vampire king – not my boyfriend. He has boyfriends of his own. And plenty of women, too. I always knew I would never be his bride."

And as she turned and looked at him, Peter placed his hands on her shoulders, feeling her cool flesh through the fabric of her silken dress.

"So we're quite alone, the vampire king is no more than a friend and you're sure you want to take me to your bed?"

She smiled.

"I'm very sure."

And he pulled her close and kissed her, and she ran her fingers through his hair as their kiss lingered. It felt like agony to let her go again because he was aching with need for her, but he let her go long enough to take hold of her hand instead.

"Show me to your bedroom, I'm keen to see where a vampire sleeps when they don't own a coffin."

"I think you want more than that," she replied, and she gave his hand a squeeze as they went up the stairs, and the feel of her touch made his heart miss a beat.

The way up the stairs was lit by soft electric lighting, he guessed the house looked like this all the time – the Victorian décor dark against the soft bulbs, with the windows permanently blacked out, giving the impression that the house was cast into eternal night. When they entered her bedroom he saw a romantic scene before him – candles were lit on the dresser and reflected its light in the triple mirror that stood upon it, the velvet drapes at the blacked out window were tied back, and the covered window obscured by thick lace net. The drapes at the window were a shade of deep red that matched the drapes that were tied back on the four poster bed.

As he stood there in the doorway he saw himself reflected in the mirror, and in that looking glass, he reflected as standing alone. He turned his head and looked to Elissa, who smiled warmly.

"The mirror is there to reflect light," she told him, "But I do have a looking glass made of dark mirror that does reflect a vampire's appearance – let me show you."

As he followed her into the room he looked at her in surprise.

"Vampires can't cast a reflection!"

"They can in a dark mirror," Elissa replied, and she led him over to a full length mirror in the corner of the room and turned it around.

He looked on in disbelief as he saw clearly into the ordinary-looking mirror – ordinary in every way except that it reflected him with Elissa standing beside him...

"How can that be?" he asked.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror as she replied, as her eyes clouded with sadness.

"There are not many of these mirrors around any more – they are very old, and hard to come by. As far as I know the method to create such looking glasses has been lost in the mists of time, but they say a vampire's mirror is created by adding human blood to the silvering process. I do not like to think on how this mirror was made, but I am thankful for its use."

"Another gift from his majesty?" Peter wondered.

"How did you know?"

"It was just a wild guess," he replied, and then he put his arms around her turning her from the mirror and towards the bed.

"Now," he said softly, pausing to brush a stray lock of dark hair from her face, "Let us forget all this talk of mirrors and kings, Elissa. Let's go to bed. I want to be here to hold you in the darkness long after the sun has risen."

He saw desire in her eyes and she needed no words to reply as she kissed him and he returned her kisses as they sat down together, and then fell back on to the soft bed, and as he reached for her, she ran her hands over his body and her touch sent shivers of pleasure through his clothing, heating his flesh as he gave a gasp and then began to impatiently undress, while still kissing his vampire lover.

It was to be another night filled with passion – and a back ache in the morning was definitely going to happen, but he didn't care as she lay back and surrendered to him, letting him take the lead as he made love to her, holding her down until his passion was spent, keeping that distance between him and the sharp teeth she could not help but expose as she gave a cry of pleasure.

That night he allowed himself to get closer, even daring to kiss her lips while her sharp teeth shone razor sharp and her eyes carried the glow of the vampire.

When their passion was spent and he was exhausted and she was warm beside him breathing hard as the glow in her eyes began to fade, he noticed she was looking tired – something he had not see before, because the night always seemed to bring out such energy in her...

"Is something wrong?" he whispered as they lay together in the darkness.

"It is almost daybreak," she whispered, "You can't feel it, because you're not a vampire. The sun rays can't touch me but I feel the coming of dawn as a call to sleep. Just wrap your arms around me and don't let go."

And he did wrap his arms around her, he held her close and as she slipped into a deep, heavy sleep, he released the cord that held back the drapes and they fell forward, closing the four poster bed into absolute darkness.

Peter slept heavily that morning, in the dark and recovering from the night they had spent making love. When he woke up the drapes were open and the dim lights were on, and as she leaned over him, he looked up at Elissa and smiled.

"I should say good morning but I'm sure it's evening."

"It is," she said fondly, "I must have exhausted you, Peter. You're keeping vampire hours."

And his smile faded as a troubled look clouded his eyes.

"What?" she asked him, and he said nothing in reply as he brought his hand up to the side of his neck and touched it cautiously and then breathed a relieved sigh.

"What did you do that for?"

"Sorry, it's just that when you said that, I thought maybe -"

She was out of bed now and reaching for a long silken robe, which she threw on angrily.

"You thought what, that I bit you while you slept?"

As he sat up and the last trace of sleep left him, he knew he had made a dreadful mistake. Elissa was hurt and angry, and this was not something she could forget or brush off easily.

"Please forgive me, I didn't mean to insult you."

As he looked at her he ran his fingers through his hair and gave a sigh.

"You're a vampire. I have never slept beside one of your kind for so long before! I didn't know, maybe you got hungry in the daytime, maybe I was there and warm and human and the thought of it was too much to resist – that is what went through my mind, and I know I was wrong and I'm sorry!"

"Get dressed and get out of my house," she said bitterly as she blinked away tears, "I can't forget this, Peter! I am a Banished one, we do not harm humans, how many times to do I have to say that to you?"

He had got out of bed and his back ached as he reached for his clothing and began to get dressed quickly as he said nothing in reply, desperately hoping he could think of a way to save this situation from getting worse.

"I'll show you what I drink," she said sharply, "Wait there for one minute."

And she left the room and went down stairs, and while she was gone, he finished dressing in front of the triple mirror on the table, then he grabbed her comb and ran it through his hair.

As he looked at his reflection he knew at that moment he felt his age, and tonight he certainly looked it – he was sure his hair had never been whiter or the lines on his face deeper. He was getting old, perhaps too old to go through a romance ending in heartbreak...

Now he was dressed once more, he looked back at the bed where he had spent so many happy hours with Elissa, and he wondered if it had really been worth the pain to follow, because clearly, she was so furious with him she would never forgive him for his accusation...

Then she came back into the room, in her hand she carried a crystal drinking glass decorated with elegant engraving. The liquid within was thick and crimson and as she approached him, he stepped back.

"This is my breakfast," she told him, "Well, some of it. Watch me drink it -"

"No!"

He looked away and she raised the glass and drank from it and then said his name again. He looked back at her, and her mouth was stained with fresh blood and the glass was empty.

"This disgusts you," she said, "I can see it in your eyes. It doesn't matter that no one gets hurt, its still blood and I'm drinking it and you find that monstrous."

"No, not monstrous," he told her, "But hard to accept! Please be patient with me, Elissa! I can't adjust to your ways, I can't accept them easily."

She blinked to clear tears from her eyes.

"Then you should go," she said as her voice cracked with emotion, "Just leave, because if you can't accept these things, you can't accept who or what I am - and I can't change that."

Her words hit him painfully as he thought of all they had shared and the pain in his heart cut deeply as the thought of walking out of her life was almost too much to bear.

"You don't want me to go."

"Yes I do," she replied, "I'm immortal, I can't spend eternity with a man who can't accept the fact that I'm a vampire. It just won't work."

Peter looked into her eyes.

"Please," he begged her, "Think about this, Elissa – you need to give me more time, I need to learn and understand more. It could work between us, it really could!"

She shook her head.

"I want you to go," she said quietly, and as he left the room and closed the door behind him, she stood there before the triple mirror on the dresser, the one that did not reflect her image, and she was glad she could not see herself within, because as she heard him walk down the stairs and the door slam shut a moment later, she stood there and wept, wishing it all could have been so different...

The days passed by, and then turned into weeks.

Charley called Peter, who lied and said he was busy, simply to keep his friend away, because he was heartbroken over Elissa, and that was something Charley could never know, that the great vampire killer had got his heart broken over a vampire...

But Charley persisted with his phone calls, knowing it was most unlike Peter to avoid him. And so Peter invited him over one afternoon, by now it had been over a month since he had last seen Elissa, the pain in his heart had not eased nor faded, and he knew it would be a very long time before he could think of her without shedding tears. He had lost count of the times he had gone over that conversation when he had accused her of biting him, he had wished he could have changed it, but it was done now and could not be altered.

By now Peter had finished filming the last of his Fright Night shows, and that too had left a void in his life – he had hoped when the show finished, by now he would be making plans with his lover, but there was no lover, because she had sent him away, because he could not accept the fact that she was a vampire...

Perhaps she was right, maybe it wouldn't have worked out.

But the nagging thought that burned in his mind was too much to think about:

What if they had worked out? How wonderful would it have been, and how much future happiness had he lost?

He was sure if he knew the answer to that question he would spend the rest of his life regretting the day he walked away...

Elissa was still heavy on his mind on the afternoon Charley came over to the apartment. And eventually, after sitting with Peter for more than an hour and getting little in the way of his usual friendly chatter, Charley was certain that something was wrong.

"You're not still worried about those vampires, are you?" he asked him.

Peter looked at him and paused for thought.

"Vampires? Which ones?"

"The female kind, specifically, the woman with the child. The ones who got scared off by your crucifix."

"What about them?"

He had spotted it, Peter looked tense.

"What's going on?" Charley asked, "I know there's something wrong – if you can't tell me, who else can you share it with?"

And then Peter fell silent for a moment as he gathered his thoughts.

While he waited for him to start talking, Charley had already made his own guesses:

This had to be about the woman and the child, the two vampires who had turned up at the apartment. Maybe he was scared they might come back, or maybe he was concerned at the thought that they were part of something much bigger – the Banished sounded like a large organisation, and the thought of so many vampires out there was enough to scare even the bravest of vampire killers... But when Peter met his gaze, his reply came as a shock.

"I gave her a chance, Charley. I got to know her...I got to know Elissa. And she was harmless, and kind, and beautiful...and I loved her, and she loved me but I couldn't accept what she was...And that is why she walked away."

Charley stared at Peter in disbelief, the words had barely sunk in and had hit him hard:

Peter had fallen in love with a vampire?

And then he spoke again.

"I loved her, Charley. I loved her, and now I have lost her and I didn't know it would hurt this much!"

Then Peter was sobbing, and Charley got up from his seat, sat down on the sofa beside him and put his arms around him as tears ran down Peter's face.

"I loved her, Charley!" he said again.

And Charley felt an ache in his own heart to see so much pain the eyes of his close friend.

"You loved her, okay, I get that part," he said gently, "Now take a minute to calm down and tell me everything."

Peter blinked away tears as he looked at him in confusion.

"Charley, I've lied to you! Doesn't that bother you? And I had a love affair with a vampire, how can you be so understanding after the battles we fought against her kind?"

By now Charley had let go of him. He looked into his eyes and replied with no less than total honesty.

"We never had to fight off one of her kind. She's peaceful. It sounds like the only kind of danger she poses is the ability to break hearts. And no, I'm not mad at you for lying. This isn't about a vampire – it's about a woman you fell in love with, and you're hurting because you lost her. I know how that feels, I felt that way when I broke up with Alex."

"But Alex wasn't a vampire."

"True, and maybe Elissa being a vampire isn't so hard to accept if you really try. She's not dangerous, so what is there to dislike?"

He gave a heavy sigh.

"Her teeth, the blood drinking, waking up next to her and wondering if she's bitten me in my sleep - that's the hardest part - that's why she told me to get out -"

"You accused her of biting you?"

"It was a passing thought I couldn't ignore," he admitted.

"No wonder she was angry," Charley replied, "She's part of a vampire clan that don't believe in drinking from humans – and you accused of doing the one thing she's against!"

"I hadn't thought of it that way," Peter said, "But it's too late now, she asked me to leave, and so I left."

"Maybe its not too late," Charley replied, "Tell me everything, I'm sure there's a way we can fix this."

In the time she had been apart from Peter Vincent, Elissa had also been shedding tears of regret – but for more than one reason. She had known before April had confirmed it because vampires simply did know. Even when April had confirmed it, she still didn't want to believe it, but she had known the truth before anyone else – and now April was not at the house to speak up for her, because she had taken Opal over to her friend's place to play with the children, because the news had got back to Jet Marlowe and now Jet had come to visit, and he had insisted on seeing her alone...

"Why did April have to tell you?" Elissa said quietly, and as she looked at him, Jet sat comfortably in a leather padded, high-backed Victorian armchair as he looked intently at her as she sat at a distance from him on a couch in the corner of the front room.

"Because it is her duty to inform me of these things," he replied, "And I am not surprised at all, I knew you had deep desire for that man, Elissa. But you know this will most likely end badly – you have also put your own life at risk in the process. And sooner or later, you have to tell Mr Vincent, because it's only fair to involve him."

She looked at him in alarm.

"I can't tell him about this!"

"You must," Jet replied, "We are a decent clan, Elissa. We do not lie about such matters, nor cover them up even if a mortal is involved."

She wanted to cry but held it back.

"Are you putting him through this to punish him?"

"Why would I do that?" Jet asked.

"Because he used to be a vampire killer. Is that your way of punishing him, to tell him everything because then he will know the consequences?"

Jet shook his head.

"You misjudge me, Elissa. I'm not a harsh man. Only my enemies know my ugly side, and most of my enemies are either dead or working for me now. But largely, I am a fair person. And he has a right to know."

She blinked away tears.

"I did love him."

"And I think you still do."

She nodded.

"That is true, but he could not accept me, Jet!"

"Perhaps you both need more time," Jet replied, and she looked at him in surprise.

"But you were against me seeing a mortal!"

"That was then. Things have changed," as he spoke he looked hard at her as he spelled out the facts:

"Elissa, you fell in love with a mortal, you had a relationship with him and now you're living with the consequences and if there's a chance this relationship can be saved, you must try. You must do it for the sake of your half mortal child, even if it does not live, because there is a small chance that it could survive. You have to tell him. Tell Peter Vincent you're carrying his child."