"So when did it start for you? I mean, when did you first figure out you were, uh, different?" Eric asked.
They were sitting at Maura's kitchen table over coffee, their conversation in distinct contrast to the homey setting.
"Like you... thirteen or so. Maybe puberty made it kick in? All I know is that's the first time I woke up in the hospital getting pumped full of bags and bags of blood. Some guy in an alley jumped me, I thought it was for, you know, what a girl would think a guy would be jumping her for, so I fought back like I thought I should. While I was busy kicking his crotch, he just snapped my head back and dove in. It took a few more times and a lot more time in the library to figure out what was happening. Why, now that was a mystery. For awhile anyway."
"Same with me, first time was some random guy, rode in with some bikers passing through. I guess they were all like him. Funny, I could tell there was something, well, something dark about him by the time he grabbed me. I just didn't know what. It happened behind the bar. I didn't get drained as far as you did, I think he heard someone coming or something. And it was a long time before it happened again." Eric laughed then. "Even immortals avoid this one horse town."
"Why do you call them 'immortals'?" Maura wanted to know. "You know what they are."
He shrugged. "I dunno... 'vampire' sounds so, well, weird. 'Immortal' sounds less crazy."
It was Maura's turn to laugh. "'Immortal' sounds so hoity-toity. Not that I'm into name-calling... but shit, vampires are what they are. Immortal, undead, spawn of the devil, I've never been into euphemisms."
In short order Eric and Maura were firing nonstop questions and answers, all caution burnt off by the excitement of finding someone "like me". Even the differences made them feel less on their own.
Maura: "So I seem to smell really special during new moon... amber and honeysuckle, or so Nick says. Might be just his inner poet working, but it does send out a signal farther and wider at that part of the lunar cycle!"
Eric: "Not me, not sure how they pick me out. I'm thinking maybe the ones that got me had noticed before, and then came back to find me. Not one of them I hadn't seen at the bar, or somewhere else around here. Took me a while to read the signals but I can pick them out at a hundred yards or more now. I just get this... buzzing in my head."
Maura: "I couldn't tell you were like me. How did you know?"
Eric: "I don't know how I knew, I just did."
And so on. The similarities between them were weirdly reassuring, though questions remained unanswered. Why did they never get sick? How long would they live? Would their blood lose or gain power as they got older? After the initial rush of question-and-answer, more everyday subjects took over. Like the matter of survival.
"I guess I've been lucky, living out here in the middle of nowhere, not so many to watch out for."
"You're probably right," Maura acknowledged. "Cities are where predators go to find prey, right? Like serial killers, go where it's easier to disappear in the crowd, easier to pick out the targets that won't be missed. On the other hand, the Community has given me safety in numbers."
Eric sat back then and gave her a questioning look. "I don't get it. You told me you spent your whole life among them after that first year or two, but you call them predators and serial killers. And the next minute you talk about this 'Community', like it's a circle of friends or something. It doesn't add up."
"Nope, not even a little. Until recently it was kinda like, y'know that jailhouse cliche, you're one con's bitch so you don't have to be everybody's. Don't get me wrong, not every one of them was pure evil. A few treated me decent, took care of me. But it might have been more like protecting their stash than reaching back to the kindness of their former hearts, y'know? I was a city girl, so it was impossible for me to get by on my own with so many on the prowl, easier to embrace the dark side so to speak, than to fight it. It wasn't til I got to Toronto that I found anything like the Community. I learned a long time ago not to ask why or how. I was just glad not to have to be ready to run anymore."
"I never ran... I just stayed right here. Maybe you're right, it's because it is the middle of nowhere. It must have been hard to leave home like that, for good. It must have been hard for your parents."
Maura shifted, and stared at the table. "My mother was all there was, and she worked all the time to pay the bills. It wasn't that we weren't close on purpose, just maybe by necessity." She got up, paced around a bit. "Sorry, too much coffee. I'll be right back."
After fleeing to the bathroom she waited a few minutes, catching her breath. There were things she didn't need to think about, never needed to discuss. Nick knew everything about her, it came to him in her blood, and that made it easy to leave lots of things unsaid, the loose ends left to lie undisturbed.
"Hey, I'm sorry if I said something to upset you," Eric apologized when she returned to the kitchen. "What we got is hard enough to deal with, never mind piling on all that other stuff."
"Yeah, well... living in a Community that asks no questions means I never had to think about answering them, right? Real convenient."
"Look, do you mind if I ask you something personal?"
Eric's awkward expression made Maura laugh out loud. "Are you kidding? Like what we've been talking about isn't?"
"Yeah, yeah, point taken. But ever since I figured out who you are, what Nick is, Sherry and I both haven't been able to figure it out."
Maura stopped him before his curiosity could trip over his hesitation. "How do we survive it? How does Nick not be a raving addict, and how do I even live at all, when he shouldn't be able to keep from draining me dry?" When Eric nodded more eagerly than he may have intended to, Maura felt almost guilty. "Sorry, Eric, I don't have a clue. We'd only known each other for a few hours when he offered me a place to stay during the new moon. For protection. And I honestly don't know why I trusted him, I mean even when I'd figured out he was a guilt-ridden mess of a vampire, and hadn't fed on humans for so long... well my 'disappointments' until then were absolutely consistent. So I figured the worst that would happen was what I was already used to. Imagine my surprise to discover how wrong I was."
"So what did happen?" he asked, "how did protection change to... something else?"
Maura shrugged. "We fell in love. What a cliche, right? Everyone who knew Nick, mortal and vampire, almost keeled over at how quick we connected. We just... happened to each other at the right time. In some ways just like regular people, believe it or not."
"So... it's not just blood then?"
She was surprised to feel herself blush. "No, not just blood, but that's always part of it, it's part of that deep connection. It's really hard to explain..."
Eric leaned across the table. "You don't have to. It's none of my business, anyway." He sat back again and gestured with both hands, laughing toward the ceiling. "I can't believe this! I thought I was a bigger freak than the immortals." He put on a very respectable Bogey and added, "And of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world..."
"Hah, shoulda known you'd be a movie buff. Well don't get too excited, the population of our respective little freak worlds has only increased by one each."
"Except for that other one, who trailed you here."
She had to laugh at that. "Yeah, well he's in a class by himself. If you can call it 'class'. Lucien LaCroix, Nick's, uh, father I guess you'd call him. It's remarkable how typical some of the baggage is that comes along with this relationship."
Eric was shaking his head and laughing again. "You're telling me that annoying in-laws are part of the deal, just like for mortals? What next... sordid love triangles with other women..."
Maura dropped her head on the table with a thump then raised it again. "Kid, you have no idea."
As if on cue, the phone rang. Maura leaped up and snatched the cordless receiver from the wall bracket, not bothering to look at the caller i.d. because who else would be calling at two a.m.?
"Funny you should mention sordid triangles," Maura observed before barking into the phone, "No Natalie he's not here. Interviewing for a job, actually. Oh yeah, he will call you back when he gets in. I'll make sure he does, because if he doesn't, I'll marinate him in garlic and roast him on a spit in the dooryard at sunrise! Right? Fine!" She switched off the phone and slapped it onto the table in front of Eric, who was more than a little taken aback. "You don't wanna know," she told him. "Let's just say some relationship issues are universal."
Eric looked at his watch. "Oh brother, it's almost three a.m. and I gotta be to work early tomorrow. There's somebody made an offer on the bar, we gotta make it look decent."
"So Ernie wants to sell?" She had no idea if she'd met Ernie or not. Details of the previous night were still pretty fuzzy.
"Ernie's been dead for years," Eric explained. "Mike owns it now, and he's been saying for a while now he's sick of 'being his own boss' when it's he business that's the boss of him. So he's had it on the market, but nobody around here was crazy enough to want it. Guess some out-of-town fool wants to give it a shot. Anyway, we gotta put lipstick on the pig, before the maybe-buyer comes in tomorrow night." He looked at his watch again, and shuddered. "Make that tonight." He headed for the kitchen door, the way he'd come in. "I'm glad we had a chance to talk about stuff, Sherry's gonna feel a lot better about it now."
"So am I," Maura admitted. "Nice to know there are a couple of people we don't need to worry about. And you're not the type that would worry the Enforcers either."
Eric paused halfway out the door. "Enforcers?"
"I'll tell you about them later. They're as big a legend in the Community as you and I are! See you at the bar, and I promise to be sober next time."
As soon as she'd locked the door she heard a knock. "Did you forget something?" she asked, opening it again. But it most definitely was not Eric she found standing there.
"Maura! How nice to see you've recovered from your unfortunate foray into intoxicating spirits."
Slam!
"Forget it LaCroix, I am not gonna invite you in!"
But when she turned to brace her back against the door - as if that would help - she saw him in the doorway that led to the living room, leaning casually against the doorjamb.
"Falling back on a tired old myth," he clucked disapprovingly. "You do disappoint me, my dear." He nodded toward the cordless phone that still lay on the table. "Though hearing your ungracious promise to the persistent Dr. Lambert, it appears that country living hasn't improved your disposition."
"Yeah, well there's room for two on that spit," she growled.
She would have shoved past him to get to the other room, but he stepped smoothly aside to let her pass. She knew him well enough to know he hadn't shown up just to drive her crazy. She sat in the armchair by the fireplace, not offering him a seat, but he settled on the sofa nearby as if he belonged there.
"Surely my faux daughter-in-law can spare just a few moments to listen to a... proposition that may benefit us both?"
Both? Maura thought. Not 'all'?
"I don't suppose I have a choice, do I? Okay then, but keep it short. And none of your usual tricks... there's some nice sharp tomato stakes in the shed."
"Oh very well then." LaCroix waved his hand impatiently. "Why waste social graces on someone who cannot appreciate them. I really don't understand why Nicholas couldn't find someone more... refined to pretend to marry."
"Why don't you just drop the usual bullshit and cut to the chase."
LaCroix smiled inwardly. Though she never would admit it to him, he could tell her curiosity was piqued. This was going to be easier than he thought.