Those young pale lips parted and her fingers hunted for my face.
Phaedra was my first human that I would turn. We were both virgins at this.
I wanted to deny the arousal but I couldn’t, no more than I could deny how much I relished savoring her succulent blood.
Lust pounded through me in a drumbeat of sexual conquest. I wanted to rip Phaedra’s blouse and bra apart and press my body against hers.
My hands fumbled for her belt and I had the image of me spreading her legs and thrusting into her while blood streamed from her throat, between her breasts, and over her belly.
I gripped the upholstery and my talons tore into the fabric.
No.
I would only turn Phaedra, no more.
My hands trembled from the struggle. I clasped the back of Phaedra’s neck and brought my mouth to hers.
I sealed our lips together. I pushed her blood back into her mouth and licked her teeth.
A fountain of energy rose from deep inside. The fountain gathered force, as if propelled upward by an explosion.
The energy flowed from my mouth into Phaedra’s. Our heads fused as one and a current of psychic force surged from me directly into her.
The current was a lightning bolt fixed between us. The energy crackled in my head.
Slowly, the crackling weakened. The lightning bolt dimmed, turned into a weak spark, and disappeared.
The force receded from me and I pulled my mouth from Phaedra.
Her aura blazed neon orange. Her eyes were open to the point of popping from their sockets, straining with horror and pain as if she’d awakened in a raging volcano.
Phaedra gasped and lurched in the Jeep. She gagged and retched, spewing bloody vomit on her clothes and the interior.
She raised her hands, gawking with terror as if her flesh was on fire.
The scene mirrored what had happened to me in Iraq, though now I was on the other side of the experience.
The words of the ancient ekimmu who had turned me echoed through the years:
I’ve given you what you want.
Immortality.
As a vampire.
Phaedra convulsed. She stared at me, then through me. Her face showed the astonishment of this new universe. Then the realization seemed too much, and the weight of this new world brought an overwhelming fatigue. Her convulsions eased. She closed her eyes. The undulations of her aura smoothed into an amber sheath.
I stroked her hair. It was moist with perspiration, the last time this would happen. I hope she didn’t have a thing for garlic, but she was Italian.
I’d done it. Forced again into something I promised myself not to do. I’ve created a vampire.
Phaedra was stuck forever as sixteen. I didn’t know the rules for underage bloodsuckers.
She didn’t want to die and she wouldn’t, at least not in human terms.
Now she was my responsibility, even more than before. Yesterday she had one kind of family, now she had another: the immortal undead.
I retrieved my backpack and hooked it over my shoulder. I took Phaedra in my arms and carried her down the hill to my Toyota.
We needed to rest. She had a new existence to start, and I had the zombies to destroy.
I drove us through town and back to the forest. I hid the Toyota in the trees and carried Phaedra and my backpack to the morada.
I emptied Phaedra’s duffel bag of camping gear. I laid the sleeping bag inside one of the benches of the morada. I removed her parka and slipped her into the sleeping bag.
She shivered. Her eyeballs shrank within the sockets. Her hair was like dry grass.
My watch said 4:17 A.M. The morada gave enough protection from the morning sun, but to be sure, I zipped the sleeping bag over Phaedra’s head and covered her with the bench seat, temporarily entombing her.
After washing Phaedra’s blood off my arms and changing into my clothes, I chucked the sweatpants with their zombie funk into a plastic bag. I retreated to a corner opposite the door. I sat on the dirt floor, 45 pistol in hand, and arranged a coat over my head.
I didn’t make the effort to stay awake. Phaedra’s adolescent blood (the best, especially from virgins, but in this case, oh well) and the need to sleep hit me like a sedative.
I awoke lying on my side, my face in the dirt. I held the pistol like it was a metallic teddy bear.
A tapping noise drew me to the door.
I gripped the pistol and pulled it close to my chin as I peeked from under the coat.
The cracks in the door shone with morning light. The board covering the latch quivered and moved out of place. A small black ball poked through the opening. The ball had two beady eyes and a pointed beak.
A crow.
It cawed.
I threw the coat aside. Phaedra remained asleep inside the bench.
I waved at the crow. “You’re practically inside. Come in.”
The crow jerked its head from side to side as if studying what was in the room.
“What do you want?” I wondered what the Araneum needed. An update on my current assignment? A new mission?
My joints hurt and I approached the door like an old man with arthritis. The crow pulled its head back through the hole. There was a quick scratch of claws and the flutter of wings.
I eased the door open, careful to avoid any sunlight. Fortunately we remained in the morning shadow of tall Ponderosas.
The crow was gone. What did it want? Was it from the Araneum? If so, where was my message?
I scanned the forest. Phaedra and I were alone. She would awaken soon as a vampire.
I closed and latched the door. I primed a camping stove and made coffee. It’s recommended that you don’t cook inside an enclosed space, but we were vampires.
I inspected my right leg. The wound had healed and left me with bullet scar number…I’d lost count.
I sorted through Phaedra’s gear to look for something of use. I unzipped a toiletry bag. It contained jewelry and watches. One watch was a lady’s Cartier, the other a Rolex Oyster. I counted six jeweled necklaces. Four diamond tennis bracelets. Strings of pearls. Gold rings.
I found a camera bag, empty except for prescription bottles stuffed with rolls of hundreds.
All this cash and jewelry made for a handy getaway kit.
Where had this stash come from? Phaedra didn’t dress like she was lavished with a wardrobe budget.
She’d stolen the jewelry, I was sure. How she’d gotten the cash, I didn’t want to know.
I picked up a cigar box covered in macaroni and sprayed with gold paint. Probably a crafts project from summer camp a long time ago. Sequins and costume jewels had been glued over the painted macaroni.
I opened the box, expecting childhood treasures and mementos. Inside rested a dozen razor and knife blades, all embellished with toy gemstones and dabs of gaudy fingernail polish. The blades seemed almost ceremonial in their decoration.
Under the blades I found an envelope stuffed with photographs. Some of the photos were Polaroids, others inkjet color prints. Every picture framed the same subject, a bleeding slash across flesh: an arm, a belly, the back of a leg.
The flesh belonged to Phaedra.
She was a cutter. She ritually mutilated her body out of self-hatred.
The back of the photos had short poems about the wounds. Mostly about fascination with the blood and controlling the pain.
I was too repulsed to feel pity. Even undead, I couldn’t do this to my body. This girl had huge problems and now she was one of us.
I put the photos and blades back into the box, which I pushed into the duffel bag.
The coffee boiled. I poured type B-positive to half fill a cup and topped it off with coffee.
The bench seat exploded into pieces. Splintered wood sprayed across the room.