It wasn't true, you know. It especially wasn't true about diamond-like sparkles when one went out in the sun. The woman rolled her eyes, a singular blue in a sea of brown. She stood in front of the small cinema in the Village, staring at the posters displaying the latest offering to the sort of people who went to tiny art houses – who, in turn, charged a premium price for a ticket. Most often the theatre was cramped, dirty, and the air was thick with pretension.
A quintet of flicks about a vampire family and true love played that afternoon and evening. After each offering, there would be a thirty-minute discussion and finally, two hours devoted to The Meaning of the Story. The woman again rolled her eyes.
Sometimes, the tale just didn't mean the curtains blowing at the window presaged a storm of emotion. Sometimes, it just meant somebody left the darn window open.
Did she want to go in? It might be amusing to listen to all those high artsy-fartsy types dissect what is essentially a bad teen romance. Little would they know they were in the presence of… well, never mind.
The woman continued her stroll down St. Mark's Place. There was always something so energizing about New York City. It was on the go twenty-four seven. LA was laid back; NOLA was fun at Halloween. London was all tea, tiny little sandwiches, and hot blood pumping under those chilly Brit exteriors.
Ah, yes, the red stuff. It was best when it was hot, direct from the body, its salty-sweet, coppery goodness bursting in her mouth. Kind of like Pop-Rocks or Alka-Seltzer, fizzy and delicious. One form of sustenance for her new life.
However, it was considered gauche and ill-bred to dip into that well. Instead, there existed a huge underground railway of sorts that supplied what her body craved. Not quite the same as human blood, but the packaged plasma and platelets of slaughtered animals, carefully preserved and bottled for consumption stood in good stead.
She almost wished that Tru-Blood was real.
The woman also drew energy from others as a thief steals electricity from the grid. It was something she had to tamp down and only use in dire emergencies. For if she allowed herself to partake freely, the unfortunate donor would cease life.
Five years. She wondered how much Sleepyside changed in that time. Five years since an overzealous noob turned her, as they say in the movies and on television. Five years since she saw him.
Jim.
She wasn't dead, not precisely. Or a zombie. Or even undead. It was a different method of existence, that was all. But they couldn't leave her in Sleepyside, alone and uneducated. While her body was coping with the virus running rampant through her system, they slipped away.
In that time, in five years, she saw the world. Eventually, she left them, the family who taught her everything she knew about being infected. She listened to their apologies, forgave them in her heart and mind.
She scoured the news. It made headlines, her disappearance. There were pictures of her being held up by her haggard-looking parents and Jim, interviews on television where they begged her abductor to let her go. Crime shows rehashed old triumphs, speculated on where she could be and with whom.
Was Trixie Belden even still alive?
Well, yes, in a manner of speaking.
When she woke, she didn't have golden eyes. They were the same blue, her head still a mass of unruly curls. But, oh gleeps, colors seemed so rich! She could almost taste them. Music never sounded so sweet and beautiful. Sounds were never so sharp, the smells never so pungent.
It was, as she found out, a different plane of reality. It was almost like learning everything all over again and unlearning some of those movie tropes.
She wasn't immortal. She would age, albeit slowly. She wasn't super strong, able to lift tons with the flick of a wrist. She was stronger, certainly, could send a full-grown man sailing across the room.
But, she was no Supergirl.
She was able to go out into the sunlight. However, if she wanted to go out for more than thirty minutes at a time, she had to slather on the highest SPF sunblock available. The virus made them all sun-sensitive.
And then, of course, there was that blood thing. She found she could eat and drink but derived little nourishment or pleasure from consuming other than, well, blood. She could feel it all around her, warm and pulsing. People had no idea just how utterly tempting they were.
Oh, the energy that flowed around her, a vast sea of it. A little bump here or there in a crowd. Recharging for her and the unwitting donors only wondered why a wave of tiredness crashed over them.
Despite her travels and broadening of her knowledge, his blood still called to her. Across the miles, into the night or in the blinding sun, she could feel the beat of his heart. And now, she was back.
For him.
8888888
James Winthrop Frayne II was alone in the Clubhouse. Just like he wanted to be, alone with his dark thoughts. Alone in his bubble of misery, missing her. Always, missing her.
People told him he should move on. His parents, her parents, his sister. The rest of the BWGs. He tried, really, he tried. He'd dated a couple of girls, but they were never his Trixie. An hour or two into it and he'd be bored or telling them all about his lost love.
The thing is, he thought, I don't believe she's dead. I know she's not dead. I'd feel it if she passed. And that hope, that knowledge, sustained him through the endless dark nights and the sunless days.
Jim went over the whole thing in his mind for the millionth time. From the moment he met the cerulean challenge sparking blue fire in her eyes in an old, decrepit mansion, right up until getting the notification that she was missing.
Missing. Seven letters. M-I-S-S-I-N-G. And his world ended.
How many times had she and Honey been missing? They were always found. They always came back.
Not this time, though. Not this time.
He asked her out when he was seventeen and she fifteen, and never looked back. They were destined to be, JimandTrixie, all one word. They waited until her seventeenth birthday to take their relationship to the next level, and on her eighteenth?
He still wore the engagement ring on a chain around his neck that he was going to surprise her with on that day. It was a talisman, a beacon that she would come back to, and then he would slip it on her finger.
Jim berated himself. He should have been home, instead of accepting that summer intern position working with disadvantaged children in the old camp in the Catskills. It once housed a summer playground for escapees from New York City, much like Grossman's. Now, though, its new life was that of an expansive playground for disenfranchised city youth. He was there ahead of schedule, going through orientation for the upcoming summer season.
Trixie was working in Sleepyside in the new coffee shop that opened there recently, Federal Espresso. Honey was working at the Country Club as a receptionist. Usually, the two girls traveled together, but Trixie was working a double that fateful day and Honey was meeting Brian and going out to dinner and a movie.
Trix biked into work and was biking home. Interviews of the other employees indicated she was offered rides home, but declined. Said she needed to work off all that excess energy that swirled around her in an atomic orbit.
Sometime during that ride home, the unspeakable, the unthinkable occurred. Her bike was found in a ditch on the side of the road along with her wallet and cash, offering few clues to investigators probing her disappearance. No blood, not a robbery… it was an abduction, pure and simple.
Matt Wheeler showed up at the camp, his face a grave mask and Jim shuddered at the memory. He heard the words Trixie and kidnapped, could see his father's mouth moving, but nothing made sense after that. Nothing at all.
The next couple of months were a haze. Pleading on television alongside her parents for her safe return. Being questioned by police as a Person of Interest, although no-one really believed that. Going over and over the meager clues surrounding Trixie's disappearance.
The police, the FBI, the Bob-Whites. They needed her to solve this mystery. Except this time, Trixie was the mystery.
Life went on despite it all, as did the unbreakable bond of the BWGs, although it was now tinged with sadness. There was that empty chair now, and they were acutely aware of it. Nothing would ever be the same. There was a new normal for him and for Peter and Helen Belden; for everyone. The suffering was etched on their faces.
You never get over the loss of a child or the woman who saved you; they knew the statistics. If the missing person wasn't found within forty-eight hours of disappearance, chances were… well, they all knew the outcome. And now, it had been five years, five long years since Trixie disappeared.
Everyone else believed her to be dead.
Not Jim, though. He closed his eyes and still could feel her soft lips against his; her body moving against his when they made love. He sat alone in the Clubhouse, thinking about all the wonderful times they had together and with the rest of the BWGs.
He didn't know what made him go to the Clubhouse today. Maybe it was just to feel closer to her. Maybe he just liked to torture himself, to flay his already guilty conscience. Jim opened his eyes and glanced around, sighing heavily. Nothing was ever going to be the same and none of the private investigators he hired over the years found one iota of evidence of Trixie.
Jim closed his eyes again, leaning back against the couch, imagining. Imagining how her lips felt, the taste of her, and that unique scent that was just Trixie.
88888
Trixie parked the rental car in the little-used driveway that led up to the former gatehouse the BWGs converted into their Clubhouse. The closer she got to Sleepyside, the more she could feel the beat of Jim's faithful heart. It was tantalizing, and when she finally entered the confines of Sleepyside, her acute sense of smell immediately homed in on him.
Trixie made her way to the Clubhouse, taking in how vibrant and alive the preserve appeared in her altered state. She could hear small animals skittering in the underbrush; blades of grass fluttering in the light breeze; the heavy footsteps of a doe and the lighter footsteps of her fawn as they scavenged for food.
She stood outside of the old building for a moment, letting the memories wash over her. A slender hand stretched out to touch the worn cedar shakes that mellowed into a soft gray. Did they always feel so rough and sun-warmed?
She was really here.
And so was he.
The hunger in her rose as if it were lava erupting from deep within the confines of the earth. She wanted him, all of him. She wanted to taste the scarlet river that pulsed through his veins in a thunderous beat.
Trixie pulled on all her resources, all that she learned over the past five years. In less than the blink of an eye, she was at his side, placing her lips on his.
888888
Jim was in a twilight zone, not really one-hundred-percent asleep, yet not totally awake. He was comforted (and truth be told, horny as hell) by his too-real daydream of his Trixie's lips meeting his. Her luscious mouth, the taste of her, those sharp little teeth and her scent enveloped him and…
Wait. What?
His eyelids shot up, and it was real. She was real. At least, he thought it was real. Strong arms went around her, good so far. He pulled her close, felt her familiar-unfamiliar curves and…
His voice uttered hoarsely, "Trixie?" At the same time, he sent a fervent prayer to the heavens that he wasn't hallucinating. Maybe his mind finally snapped. If so, he never wanted to go back to reality.
Oh, gleeps. It was the first time in five years she was called by her name. To her new family, she was Elin Lind. She got used to answering to that name; her passport and drivers' license reflected it. To hear her real name issuing from his lips unleashed powerful emotions held in check for those many years.
"Jim." More like a prayer than a name, he took her lips again. Jim didn't care about the hows or the whys right then. He only knew the comfort of her in his arms, that she was real and she was kissing him with the same intense hunger.
They parted so that Jim could draw a breath. Yes, she still breathed but could hold her breath for extended periods. I must remember that. Otherwise, Jim will pass out.
"Trixie." He cradled her beautiful face in his hands. "Let me look at you." He wanted to drink the sight of her in, a thirsty man with a tall glass of ice-cold water within arm's reach.
She broke free of his grasp with a giggle, one he remembered well as he began to catalog the changes five years wrought.
Her hair was longer. Those sensual curls touched her shoulders now, thick, inviting… and weren't those strands of hot pink peeking out from under?
Trixie was beautiful. Jim always considered her beautiful before, but now? Now she was gorgeous. There was a smoldering sensuality that hadn't been there earlier, its siren song calling to the primitive male in him. Her eyes were that bright blue, thickly fringed; cheekbones fine slashes in that sculpted face. Her body was womanlier, making his fingers itch to unwrap it, savor it as if it were a lush painting in a museum.
As Jim took note of the changes in her, she did the same to him. He was thinner, but his shoulders broadened more. His face was all masculine angles and planes, the bright green of his eyes registering his shock and awe at seeing her. Deep within flared the desire that he could not control when they were alone.
And they were very, very alone.
However, the questions tumbling around in Jim's foggy brain grew too large to be contained, even by rampant lust. He stood and moved over to one side of the room, needing space. Following his lead, Trixie retreated, her back against the closed door. They remained like that, almost as if they were two adversaries facing off.
"How, Trixie? What happened? Where have you been? How did you escape?" The questions tumbled out as she watched those talented lips move when all she wanted was to taste them again.
She knew the questions would be coming. She laced her fingers together behind her, needing the solid, smooth wood to ground her.
"It's a long story, Jim." She glanced at the floor, that rough-hewn wood scavenged from Mr. Lynch. "I'm not sure you'll believe me."
"Baby, if you told me Godzilla was lurking in the Hudson, I'd believe you. Please, what happened to you?" Jim had to get her talking. The sensual voluptuousness she was radiating was driving him insane with desire.
"You were up in the Catskills. Oh, Jim, I couldn't wait for you to come home. I missed you so much. Every time they offered me a double at Federal Espresso, I worked it. I'd rather work than sit at home pining for you."
"You don't know how many times I wished I was there. I blamed myself, Trixie. If I were home, I would have picked you up at work."
"It wasn't your fault, Jim." Trixie's words rushed out. "I was in the right place at the wrong time."
"You were kidnapped," Jim offered up.
"In a manner of speaking." Trixie was nervous. She hadn't felt that way in a long, long time.
"What do you mean, in a manner of speaking?"
She sighed and ran a slender hand through her curls. "I was riding my bike home that day. It was almost dusk, and I was over by Martin's Marsh. I wasn't scared, though. It was Sleepyside and Glen Road. I was near home. I was planning your homecoming, so I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings. We'd only have a little while before you were back at the camp for summer."
Jim nodded as another pang shot through him. She was planning something for me.
"I'm still not sure if I heard a noise or something else caught my eye. I glanced across the street, and there were several RVs pulled over to the side. I remember thinking that they must be lost or one suffered a mechanical breakdown. The next thing I remember is being knocked off my bike. I blacked out. When I awoke, I was in one of the RVs. It was two weeks later."
"Trixie, oh, dear heaven! Did they keep you drugged or something?" All kinds of scenarios swirled through Jim's fertile imagination.
"No, not that. They had to take me, you see. I was infected." She shrugged those slim shoulders. "Apparently, I fought the infection with everything I had."
"Infected? Infected with what?"
"I need you to keep an open mind, Jim. This is the unbelievable part. They told me I had been, um, changing. My body, my senses. The virus took a long time to do its work. I was with a nice couple, John and Alma Gabor. They had been taking care of me. They explained what happened to me."
"I was bitten by a newly-created vampire. Tomás chose the life. He wanted to be with his best friend, Callum. They agreed to turn him but had reservations. He is rather impulsive, and that is not a good thing in… in our kind. He… Tomás, that is, drained enough of my blood to cause infection. John and Alma couldn't leave me there, couldn't take the chance that I would draw attention to their community. They just bundled me up in the RV and took off."
"Are you on drugs, Trixie?" Jim demanded. Her story bordered on insanity. "Did whatever happened to you break your mind?"
Trixie exhaled sharply. "Every word is true, James. I woke up, and I was… Just. So. Ravenous." The last three words were punctuated with a seductive smile, the power of which Jim felt down to the tips of his toes. In the blink of an eye, less than the beat of a heart, she was next to him. A slender finger traced the pulse beating madly in his neck. "I wouldn't have been able to resist that. I'm barely able to, even now."
She was on the other side of the room again, her big, blue eyes filled with sadness, with hunger. "Now, do you see?"
"Are you, are you dead?" Jim realized he didn't care. He wanted it. He wanted her lips near the blood that thundered through his veins. He wanted her to sink her sharp teeth into his skin. He wanted to surrender to the waves of sensuality that were pouring off her.
"Don't believe everything you see in the movies. No, I'm not dead. It's just that I am different. Not immortal, can look at crosses, even eat garlic. It's the virus makes us crave blood. Believe me, some talented researchers are trying to find a cure." She shrugged. "My molecular structure was altered, right down to the DNA. I spent the last few years with John, Alma, and the community. They taught me how to harness it, how to control it. I've traveled the world with them, Jim. It didn't matter where I was; I still wanted you. I could feel your heartbeat. I could feel you."
"I came back. I came back for Honey. For the BWGs. For my parents. My brothers. But most of all, for you. I'll understand if you don't want to be with me. I'll slip out of town, and no one will know I was ever here."
"I don't understand, Trix. If vampires are real, if they really exist, then why isn't it more well-known?"
"Our community is hidden in the shadows. Most have taken a vow not to infect and create more of us. It… it was an anomaly that I was made. Could you imagine what it would be if it were revealed to the world? The hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials would pale in comparison."
"Then why did this, uh, noob vampire get created? The one that infected you? Wouldn't his creation be against the law?"
Trixie went to sit beside him, felt warmed when he didn't flinch away. "Ours is a peripatetic existence. Nomadic, one might say. We can't stay in one spot overly long. People notice we're not aging at the same rate. The caravan I ended up in was moving from Phoenix to Bangor, Maine. Callum was infected when he was around eighteen, in the early nineteen-hundreds. In our time, he was attending school in Phoenix and became best buds with Tomás, the noob. Tomás sussed out that things were a little strange in the Gabor household and made the connection. He begged to be turned. There was nothing for him in Phoenix except some lousy job or joining a gang for protection. The family had several meetings about it, from what I understand, and Callum begged them to let him turn his good friend. In the end, they allowed him to change. Tomás was a wild child before, and they had a hard time with his impulse control. He's better now."
Jim blew out a frustrated breath. "And yet you spent five years with them. Five freaking years traveling the world, as you say. How could they go undetected in today's world? You practically have to give blood just to get on a plane."
Trixie giggled, sounding so much like the old Trixie, Jim's heart constricted. "There are a lot more of us than you think, James. Some of the greatest hackers are part of the colony. Some of the world's greatest researchers. Politicians, musicians, even actors. We can get our blood fix – don't worry - through an underground of connected stores. Animal blood only. Plus, there is another way for us to feed. Energy. All of you give off so much energy! Did you ever start the day feeling wonderful? You go into New York the crowd is energizing. Someone accidentally bumps into you, gives you a quick apology, and disappears into the throng of people. A minute or two later, you're aware the day isn't so wonderful, and you're darn tired. That's us, too."
"It all sounds like some bad Hammer horror film, Trixie. I can understand the blood thing. But energy?"
"You love science, Jim. What else is the human body but a bundle of electrical impulses? All we do is tap into that well."
Jim ran a hand through his hair. "Five years, Trix," he reminded her. "Five tortuous years. For me. Your parents. Your brothers. Honey. Dan and Diana. Why didn't you come back before now?"
"I had much to learn, Jim. About control. About what I was. What I will be until the day I die unless a cure is found. About the world and how to navigate it in my new skin."
"You said you're not immortal."
"No. But there's the rub. We age slowly. The Gabors are nearly five hundred years old. They impressed that on me, the responsibility of age. The heartbreak of it. I am human in almost all ways, Jim. I can get married. I can even have babies."
"But the infection…"
"It doesn't transmit by blood. Only by saliva in an open wound. A child of two of us, two vampires, would be human. Will age naturally and die. The same with a vampire-human child. John and Alma had children. They suffered when their children passed, for they would not infect them. They suffered when they had to leave their human family behind because people started to wonder why they never aged, even with the aid of makeup and prosthetics."
"And what happens if they… your researchers… find a cure? Will you turn into a pile of ashes?"
"I don't think so. We would just begin to age normally, go back to being what we were before."
"Human."
"I like to think we still are, just, I don't know, like the X-Men."
That startled a laugh out of Jim. They sat in silence for some time, Jim digesting all she said and Trixie merely enjoying the pleasure of looking at him. "I rebuilt Ten Acres, you know. Just like we imagined. Not a showy Victorian mansion, but a large farmhouse, suitable for a growing family." He grasped her hands, hard.
"I never thought you were dead, Trixie, Never. I knew you were out there. I called to you at night. All those sleepless nights. I called to you in my dreams and nightmares."
"I heard you, Jim. All those years and all those miles, I felt you. I'd like to see it. A phoenix from the ruins."
"Let's go now. We, ah, we need to talk. There's always the chance one of the BWGs, Regan, or even Mr. Maypenny might happen by. I want you all to myself, at least for a little while."
The two walked to Trixie's rental vehicle hand-in-hand. Jim took note of little things. Her skin was as soft as ever. She pointed out a few critters he would have missed. She smiled and said Mr. Maypenny was cooking up his famous cinnamon rolls, even though his cabin was a couple of miles away.
A short ride later, and they were pulling into one of the garage bays in the newly reborn Ten Acres. Jim wanted Trixie to park her car in the bay. Sleepyside was full of nosy neighbors who, seeing an unfamiliar car in Jim's driveway, would immediately make an unplanned visit.
Trixie wasn't the only one with more than her share of curiosity! It was just that her over-the-topness sort of drowned out everyone else.
As Jim said, the house was a lovely, large, updated farmhouse. With its deep wraparound porch and gleaming windows, it whispered a warm welcome. He led Trixie through the garage and into the mudroom/laundry room.
"It's just like we talked about, Jim," she breathed, stunned. She was not only dizzy with the realization he waited for her, still wanted her, but with the fact he smelled just so… delicious. His heart was thundering in her ears, making her ravenous.
The waves of sensuality pouring off her were spiking his libido to unprecedented levels. She was here, she wasn't M-I-S-S-I-N-G any longer, and all he wanted to do was make love to her. He didn't care what happened when she was gone, didn't care what she was, didn't care about anything except the need to join with her.
Somehow, they were in their bedroom. Never just his bedroom, oh no. It was always their bedroom when he spoke of it and in his mind. Blood was rushing through him as her naked form rose over him. "Make me like you, Trixie," he begged. "I can't exist without you. I love you."
He defeated her with his words, with the pheromones that were pumping off him, with her long-simmering love bursting like white lights in her head. The veins in his neck were pulsing in time to the frantic beat of his heart.
Trixie licked her lips and wondered if she could resist.
88888
The young couple walked in the night, unafraid, taking in the sights and sounds of Greenwich Village. As usual, the Village was full of life, energy, and the most amazing characters. The tall redhead and the petite blonde were impossibly attractive, creating a slight buzz wherever they went.
Of course, some of it was due to the miraculous return of the blonde woman five years after being kidnapped. The papers were full of the happy reunion with friends and family of Trixie Belden.
Romantics sighed over the quick marriage of Jim Frayne to her, the man who never gave up hope that his love was still alive. And at last, the beautiful blonde returned to him.
Mystery enthusiasts pondered the story of Trixie's return to Sleepyside. She was kidnapped, it was reported, by a person or persons unknown. She couldn't remember any of it, just that eventually she was taken in by a kind family until she regained her memory. Out of respect for them and their desire not to get involved publicly, Trixie declined to name the family.
The police pressed her to no avail. She didn't remember being knocked off her bike that far-away day near Martin's Marsh. What was important was the here and now. The cops speculated she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, but she assured them that was not the case.
Chief Molinson conferred with a couple of neurologists and psychologists who concurred. A blow to the head such as Trixie suffered could erase memories, similar to what accident victims suffer in car crashes. She would probably never regain that memory.
Ah, well. C'est la vie.
Trixie and Jim went down the few steps of the converted brownstone. A small, careworn sign announced that they were entering Mina's Café. Trixie had to giggle when they made their way through the dimly lit bar. Vampire wannabees, all dolled up in the best steampunk and goth money could buy, sharply defined canines honed by the finest dentists. All had expressions of ennui as they guzzled their deep red faux blood concoctions.
"Tourists," sneered one as the couple made their way to the door to the left of the bar. A nod to the bartender and it unlocked, allowing the couple to pass through to the exclusive and expansive back area.
It too, was crowded, but not with Elvira clones or Vlad cosplayers. There was a surgeon over there; a couple of well-known Broadway actors; even a politician or two. Just normal people, talking and laughing.
"Hey, Jack." Trixie greeted their server.
"Mr. and Mrs. Frayne. Welcome back. What can I get for you?"
"The usual," Jim replied with a smile.
"Warmed?"
"Of course," Trixie laughed. "Warmed is so much better."
Jim gave the server a wicked grin. "Just make sure it's perfect. 98.6°. Perfect."