* * *
“How many times did he bite you?” Jack asked, looking closely at her neck under the bright fluorescent lights in the kitchen of the Bedford Restaurant at the Savannah Hotel. It was three o’clock in the morning. The staff was gone.
“I don’t know, once. Besides, what difference does it make?”
“It makes a difference. Three bites and you’re his.”
“Jack, you’re obsessed. You’ve got to quit thinking everyone’s a vampire! You need to burn that Bram Stoker novel, get rid of your Anne Rice collection, and quit thinking you’re somehow related to the Van Helsings.”
“I’m not obsessed!”
“Ugh, you thought my neighbors were vampires simply because they seldom go outside during the daytime.”
“Yeah, well, tell me they didn’t look unusually pale, and I’ve never seen eye teeth that long on a ten-year old. They’re like tusks.”
“You’re ridiculous.” The bright fluorescent lights overhead hurt Lexy’s eyes.
“So, just humor me,” said Jack. “It’s real important that he didn’t bite you three times or like I said—you will be his.”
“So I’ll break it off with him! I won’t ever see him again.”
“I mean his like for all eternity. There is no breaking up.”
“Well, at least I’d be able to say I was in a lasting relationship. Unlike the two years I wasted with you.”
“Funny,” Jack said, giving a dramatic eye roll. “Hey, you know that gun case I keep in my study, the one with the antique war relics? I know one of those guns still works. Here’s my plan. I can have my silver coins melted down to make silver bullets.”
“Silver bullets?”
“To shoot through the vampire’s heart and kill him.”
“Are you crazy? Vampires don’t exist!”
“Look, that’s the only way.”
In a creepy, weird kind of way, Lexy felt a strong bond with Victor. She felt protective of him although he acted like some lunatic when he bit her neck and locked her in a coffin. And she called Jack crazy.
“Okay, look,” Jack said as he rummaged through drawers, “this is what we’ll do first.” He ran across the kitchen, searching the shelving units. “Dammit, where do they keep it?” He scanned the kitchen, and then dashed over to the refrigerator. “Huh-ha!” he said, as he jabbed a finger into the air. He rooted through the refrigerated items, and pulled out a large jar with a label. He fumbled to unscrew the lid, getting annoyed because he couldn’t open it fast enough, when cloves of garlic spilled across the stainless steel countertop. “We’ll make a necklace for you.”
“That’s a myth! And I don’t think it’s funny!”
“I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying to protect you,” Jack said, as he pulled a knife from the utensil drawer to slice into a garlic clove.
“Protect me from what? Victor? Okay, I agree the whole vampire cult thing is a little far out there, but with the exception of when he stuffed me in a coffin filled with dirt, he really hasn’t done any harm.”
“He what?” asked Jack, as he looked up at Lexy, when the sharp blade slipped and cut his finger. “Dammit!” he exclaimed, dropping the knife.
“Oh, Jack.” Lexy rolled her eyes, grabbed a roll of paper towel, and ripped off a square. “Give me your hand.”
Jack held his index finger and grimaced at the blood oozing from the cut. Lexy reached for his hand and immediately felt lightheaded. Instead of wiping his finger, she became fixated on the blood and its sweet metallic odor, while gazing at the dime-sized droplets as they splashed down on the cold stainless steel countertop. She felt overcome…her eyes closed…
“Lexy, stop it! What are you doing?”
She opened her eyes and found she was hungrily licking the blood off the countertop, and then grabbed Jack’s wrist and began sucking his finger.
“Lex, normally this would be a turn on,” he said, trying to break loose from her grip, her fingernails cutting into his skin. “But you’re acting weird. Cut it out!” He finally broke away. Lexy staggered backward, while her tongue ran over a drop of blood that clung to the corner of her mouth.
Jack looked at her wide-eyed. “What the hell just happened?”
Lexy put her finger to her temples. “I don’t know. I had this feeling of floating and next thing I knew I was…well…I don’t know!”
Jack gasped. “Oh my God, you’ve already begun the transformation! But how can that be? Are you sure he bit you only once? Tell me everything he said to you.”
“Yes, he bit me only once! But he mentioned something about me being this Madeline chick and that one more taste and she—I would have been his.”
Jack nervously ran his fingers through his hair. “Don’t you see, Lex?” His eyes lowered to stare at the area of the countertop she licked, then back at her. “You’re probably the reincarnation of the love of his life. One more taste probably meant he was ready to give her a third bite to make her his. Vampire hunters probably killed her before he could get the chance. If you’re the reincarnation of her, it would only take one bite to make you his—his last taste.”
Lexy’s fingers lightly grazed the wounds on her neck. She felt confused. As ridiculous as it sounded, she wondered if it could be true. Why would she have done something as gross as licking Jack’s blood? And why would she like it.
Barefoot, with her hair a tousled mess, her black cocktail dress caked with dirt, Lexy ran from Jack, down the long winding staircase of the hotel, out into the night, and into a maze of people, all of whom looked like they were straight out of “Deliverance.” The people were scary, the traffic seemed scary, the lights, the fountains, the Eiffel Tower, the lion, everything! Wake up, she shouted in her mind. Wake up from this terrible dream!
She ran south past New York New York and down Tropicana Avenue and ducked into a dark corner behind one of the casinos. As she leaned her back against the cool brick wall, she could still taste the blood from Jack’s finger. She was surprised it tasted better than the pineapple martini she’d had at dinner. Even better than Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, her only vice. Her knees buckled under, as her body slid down the wall and her butt hit the hard pavement.
She touched her fingers to her lips and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now.