Call out to the Dead

I woke up later that night with Michael in his usual place, mind obviously elsewhere, brooding. He was looking vaguely in my direction but he hadn’t even noticed I was awake yet. Most of the time I woke up with him there he was lost in thought but he noticed everything still. Here it was like he was on sleep mode, there might as well have been bubbles bouncing all over his face.

I didn’t know whether I was supposed to get his attention or just ignore him. I either wanted to bother him or figure out what he was thinking about.

When his eyes snapped to mine, pulling himself from his revere, as I pondered he took away the whole decision for me. His face didn’t change. “I see you’ve got your rosary back on.”

So pretty much I’m all torn up from a vampire attack from the day before and he thinks I should stop wearing my rosary. Logical. In that whole “what the fuck” sort of way. “Should I not be?”

“What are you afraid of?” He shot back quickly. “We’re here, you’re safe.”

“Explain last night then.” I retorted easily.

“You’re still here aren’t you?” He fired in much the same way.

“Barely Michael.”

“It’s not like it’s going to happen again. You are safe Eliza.” The words were so sincere but I couldn’t trust such a simple declaration.

I actually had to ask the question that was horrifying to even think let alone put out into the air. “What did you do to Erika?”

He smiled a cynical sort of smile and laughed the same way. It was clear something inside him questioned why he did whatever he may have done. “I broke the only law vampires try to abide by. For you.”

Those words made my heart jump. For me, he did something that I could tell carried a weight I wasn’t even close to comprehending in my human moral compass. Plus those words spoke volumes in other ways too. The bitter inflection told me so much more, he didn’t want to feel the need to protect me like he did. I was making him feel something, something he may have never wanted to feel. He was humanly attached, experiencing emotions you don’t instantly think of when you think of creatures that kill humans as a hobby. Part of me wanted to smile. The other part was absolutely terrified.

“Does that mean she’s…” I couldn’t finish that sentence but know Michael would have an easier go of it.

“Dead.” A word he could say without hesitation. “Quite. She’s nothing more than ash. I left her body out for the sun to devour.”

A soft smile finally forced its way out. He did something far against his better judgment for me. “Thank you Michael.” My hand wove itself around my rosary honestly contemplating taking it off.

Then a vampire came bursting through my French doors scaring the crap out of me. I let out a little scream and shut my eyes dropping my rosary that instant.

“I’m sorry Eliza.” Aaron’s voice rang out as he closed the doors behind him.

Michael groaned at his friend’s excessively bad timing.

I opened my eyes back up and tried to regain my composure. “Sorry, I’m still a little jumpy. Did I thank you for fixing the bathroom door already?” I spoke in an unsteady voice.

“Don’t mention it,” He waved off quickly before getting back to why he’d barged in. “There’s a way we can brake off from the coven,” He spoke only to Michael, “Thanks to Eliza here.”

I didn’t know what I did but when I looked to Michael it seemed he didn’t know either.

“Like start our own coven?” Michael asked with a face of confusion I hadn’t really seen on him before, his full lips out, slightly agape, in something of a pout.

I had to admit it was cute. Maybe my realization of his… I don’t know attraction, I guess, to me made me a little more open to look at him as a man as opposed to a monster.

“That and we won’t be bound to be nomadic anymore.” He said trying not to show his pure excitement at the prospect. “We could stay. Go where we want! Not be pulled around by the curse anymore!”

Now I understood the excitement. I wanted to travel yes but I always wanted something stable to call home. My home was all I knew, all I had left of the many generations before me. This house told a better history of us than the family tree in the front of the old family bible that was brought over from Ireland with my family.

“How?” He sounded more eager than Aaron.

“I found a ritual in our,” He cast a careful glance over to me, “Book.” I wasn’t intended to know of this book obviously.

Michael’s face turned cautious. “What sort of ritual?”

“We can’t harm Eliza, Michael. That’s sort of the point. We’re cursed to be wanders because we “can’t” coexist with humans. This ritual contradicts that.” He spoke easily knowing Michael’s cautions. “The only way it would work is if she gave a very minor donation.”

I was guessing he didn’t mean cash.

“She’s not well enough for that yet.” Michael spoke protectively.

I always loved being spoken about like I wasn’t even in the room.

“We’re not even ready for it yet!” Aaron said hands up trying to display the fact he wasn’t after a pint of blood now. “We have other things to do and acquire.”

Michael’s face stayed hard. “We’ll talk about this later. Keep looking into it.”

Aaron just left the way he came. Dismissed with the simplest of phrases. The longer I lived with the vampires the more I was beginning to understand that there was a hierarchy. Michael was the oldest.

He focused back on me. “Don’t worry Eliza. The utterance of the word donation tells that it will all be up to you.”

There were so many things I wondered about vampires. It was more enforced as he told me of words that obviously had deep meaning for them. “Why won’t you tell me more about your kind? Except for when I ask question by question? Why don’t you just speak freely?”

I wish I understood what it was about Michael that brought up an antiquity in my speech. I spoke so much more elegantly when I was talking to him. Like I was trying to compare with the times he came from –or at the very least meandered through- where everything was longwinded but sounded beautiful.

“Eliza, being a vampire has meant that I haven’t spoken to humans in excess in a very long time. I don’t always know how to speak freely. There are a lot of details of being a vampire you’d rather not know. If you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer them.” He spoke honestly. I think he did the same thing with me that I did with him. Fell back into that old world way of speaking. I’d heard him speaking to the guys or Jo and you know he’d flow perfectly in modern day society.

The question that peeked first in my mind wasn’t the one I thought I’d lead with. “Are you born this way or made?”

“Both actually. The elders are born, they are always the most powerful, and the rest are made. Can vampires have children? Yes but it’s a far rarer phenomenon than human birth. Why is that the question you lead with?” Somehow this conversation had already lightened his mood and his devious flirting smile crept up his face. “Are you longing for some vampire children? If you take off the rosary we can give it a go.” He winked for emphasis.

I laughed as a subtle blush washed over my cheeks. “Exactly what I want when I’m laid up is to figure out if a vamp can knock me up. You’ve got me pegged you perv.” I said sarcastically. “Would it work that way though? Vamp and human?”

He nodded lightly. “It’s the most common sort of vampire pregnancy actually but the woman has to be the human. The vampire is almost nonexistent in the child though. They’re usually stronger, faster, and age better than everyone around them but other than the random psychic traits that sometimes present they’re human.” He chuckled knowing things that I obviously didn’t. “There’s more halfs walking around the world than you’d know.”

I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to pro athletes and people of the like.

“Does the whole stake through the heart thing work?” I was satisfied with that other question.

His eyes expanded in faux shock. “One moment you’re trying to get me in the sack now you’re trying to get me with a stake. You run really hot and cold you know. No. They don’t. They definitely slow us down though. To kill us you either need to be strong enough to rip us to pieces, fire, or trap them in the sun. Those are the good old tried and true.”

“Do you feel the same range of emotions as humans?” I was getting increasingly curious about exactly what he felt.

He gazed off, thinking back I guess. “There are some feelings that are almost entire abolished when you’re turned but there are some that come back from time to time and shock you at their strength. There are things we feel more fully than humans but we tend to go longer without them.”

God that sounded deep.

This next question wasn’t really to do with vampires. “Do you ever wish you weren’t turned?” My voice asked gently.

Part of me didn’t want to know. The side of me that had grown increasingly fond of him over the time I’d known him worried he’d say no. That he loved the exhilaration of the kill or something more macabre.

His eyebrows pulled together as he seriously thought about this. “Yes. From time to time I think things would have been easier if I wasn’t a vampire but then I wouldn’t have seen all the wonders that sprang up over the years.” He looked at me eyes connecting with mine powerfully. “You are quite the wonder, to have missed this,” he put his tattooed hand to his heart to indicate emotions invoked, “Would have been miserable.”

What more really needed to be said? A smile gently touched my lips and my hand wound back around the rosary and pulled it off over my head without a second thought. I sat it on the bedside table knowing his words to me had never been less than the truth. From the very first, “There is something about you.”

I extended my arms out to him inviting him to come closer for the first time.