“Is that possible? Wouldn’t your Magic die with you? And can you even die?”
She turned her face upwards and stared at the ceiling. “Theoretically it is possible for me to give my Powers, but I’m not sure if they can be taken against my will, except . . . ” She let the sentence trail off as she stared up.
“Except what?” Jamie urged her to continue, curious to find out more about this. Although everything she was saying was completely outlandish and fantastical, and hearing her speak of these things filled him with a sense of fear because it couldn’t possibly be real, he found himself wanting to know about it. His curiosity getting the best of him.
Sam chewed her lip and looked at Jamie. “Except you.”
“Me?” Jamie pointed to himself, his expression confused.
She smiled a little. “Not you specifically, but a Vampire, or Vampires. They might be able to steal my Powers if they tried.”
“Uh . . . Vampires aren’t all that magical,” Jamie stated. “It’s more like a medical condition with no cure.”
Sam laughed genuinely, a sound he had never heard before; it made him smile. It was good to hear her laugh. “My Magic is in my blood. If a Vampire consumed all of my blood they would consume my Magic.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
She shook her head. “I don’t, like I said, it’s theoretical. But, well a Vampire wouldn’t attack me, because Aleczander wouldn’t allow it. And my blood wouldn’t taste very nice either . . . not the right kind of nutrients.”
“How do you know Aleczander?” he asked, and wondered if she knew that Aleczander was his Sire.
Sam looked at him. He wondered if he had succeeded in hiding the jealousy he felt. By the look on Sam’s face, he hadn’t been all that successful. She smiled coyly. “He’s my Vampire husband.”
He almost choked when she said that. “What?”
Sam smiled. “Yeah. I’m Mrs Vampire.”
Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Are you messing with me?”
He could tell that Sam was trying not to laugh. “We met in Rio, where we danced upon the sand.”
Jamie gave her an unimpressed look as she burst into a fit of laughter. “You’re messing with me.”
She spoke through her giggles. “You should’ve seen your face, it was hilarious!”
Jamie shook his head without smiling. “That wasn’t funny.”
“Why not?” Sam asked.
“It just wasn’t,” he snapped. “And you didn’t answer me, seriously. I mean, Vampires are dangerous, and if one is following you around—”
“One is following me around,” Sam stated with a meaningful glance at Jamie. “You. And why does everyone think that Vampires are so dangerous all of a sudden? Was there a memo that I didn’t get?”
“Vampires are dangerous,” Jamie stated.
“No . . . they’re not. At least not to me they’re not.”
“Bu—”
“After my parents were killed, Aleczander and his wife Evangeline took me in.”
“Wife?”
Sam laughed. “Yeah, they’re both my friends. I lived with them, and about two-thousand other Vampires up ‘til I was four.”
“Oh,” Jamie said, for lack of anything better. He ran his hand through his hair. Sam sat there in silence examining her book closely. “Aleczander is my Sire,” he mumbled in a feeble attempt to keep the conversation going.
“That makes you his first fledgling. Congrats.” She gave him a thumbs up. “You’re next in line for the Vampire throne.”
“His first what?” Jamie asked in confusion.
“His first fledgling,” Sam repeated. “The first human he Turned into a Vampire.”
“Oh,” he thought for a second. “Are there others?”
“Just Evangeline, but you’re way older than she is. Like way way . . . WAY older. Like—”
“I get it,” Jamie said, cutting her off before she could say more about how old he was.
She smiled a little. “You’re ancient. Like, pre-historic.”
“I am not pre-historic. I’m . . . historic.”
Sam laughed. “From ye olde ancient times.” Jamie scowled and shook his head, turning his attention away from her and to the book he had in front of him.
“You wanna know something funny?” Sam asked after a moment.
“Sure.”
“Evangeline was the one who gave me the address to the Blood-Bar for you.”
“She was?”
Sam nodded. “I was looking for Aleczander, but he wasn’t home.”
“So the friend that you were talking about who goes to the Blood-Bars all the time, was my Sire?” Sam laughed again while nodding. “You could have just given me his phone number.”
He couldn’t help feeling slightly betrayed. Sam had known how to get in contact with his Sire all along and instead of allowing him direct contact she sent him running around to questionable places.
Sam shrugged. “If I had you would have wondered how I knew two Vampires. And it would have been better if you knew nothing about me. But you just couldn’t walk away when you had the chance . . . and now there’s a million dollar bounty on your head.”
Jamie remembered what Claudio had said about staying away from Sam. And Sam telling him that he was going to die because he hadn’t. They both meant what they said. And because he refused to listen he was sitting here right now with Sam, having enjoyable conversation inside her home.
He knew that with the situation he was currently in—with Vampire Hunters and who knew what else suddenly taking an interest in him and wanting him dead—that he should have been wishing he’d followed their advice. But he was with Sam, which was exactly where he wanted to be, so in all honesty, he had absolutely no regrets about the choices he’d made and if given the option would do the exact same things all over again.
She smiled sadly. “You should have stayed away from me when I told you to.”
“I’ve survived two centuries so far,” Jamie said confidently. “There are Demons after you and Vampire Hunters after me, I’m on your side so can I assume that you’re on mine?”
Sam hesitated for a moment, but then she nodded. “I’m on your side.”
“Well then, I’ll watch your back and you watch mine.”
“I suppose we could give it a try, it’s not like I can abandon you now.”
The doorbell rang and Jamie jumped slightly with fright, not expecting the sudden noise. He looked towards the attic door, then glanced at Sam. “Who’s that?” he asked curiously.
Sam stood. “Dinner.”
CHAPTER 35
I FOUND 1 OF UR FLEDGLINGS.
Sam sent the text to Aleczander as she walked down the stairs. She opened the door, there was a guy there with a pizza box in his hand. “Sixteen-fifty,” he recited, his tone sounding about as bored as he looked.
Sam handed him a twenty, then took the box out of his hand. “Keep the change.” She closed the door before the pizza guy had a chance to say anything else.
She heard her phone buzz on the table beside the door where she had set it down. Sam held the pizza box in one hand and picked the phone up with the other. There was a message from Aleczander.
It read, CLAUDIO TOLD ME. I CAN’T SEE HIM FOR A MONTH OR SO. I HAVE DEALINGS TO DO WITH THE LYCANTHROPES AND WHATNOT, BEST TO KEEP HIM OUT OF SIGHT, I’LL CALL YOU WHEN I’M DONE WITH THAT AND YOU CAN BRING HIM TO SEE ME.
Sam replied with, WHATEV, TEL EVA I SAID HI.
After shoving her phone into her bra for safekeeping, she went into the kitchen, hunkering down at the fridge where she got herself the bottle of Pepsi.
As she straightened, a wave of dizziness overtook her, causing her vision to blur momentarily. She turned swiftly, pushing her back against the countertop for stability as she squeezed her e
yes shut, giving her head some time to clear.
There was a moment before she felt her body calm, when her instincts caused her lips to part, a spell almost escaping her.
Snapping her jaw shut and clenching her teeth together, she ignored the voice in the back of her mind that told her she should call Jack for help and with a determination, bordering on stubbornness, wrote it off as nothing more than a moment of vertigo before she made her way back to the attic.
When she opened the door, Jamie was standing by one of the shelves that lined the walls, leaning against it, flipping through the pages of one of the books. He looked up when she entered and smiled. “You didn’t tell me you wrote poetry.”
Sam looked at him in confusion. “What?” she asked. “I don’t write poetry . . . I don’t even read poetry.”
Jamie smiled then looked down at the book in his hand. “I will not shed a tear for life, for death I will not—” Sam rushed forward and slammed the book he was reading closed.
He smiled at her again. “They’re not bad you know,” he said. “Some of them even rhyme.”
Sam rolled her eyes and set the pizza box and the Pepsi bottle down on her chair, discretely placing her phone on the table before he had time to notice where she’d stashed it. She picked up the book Jamie had been reading from, then slapped him across the head with it, putting as much of her physical strength into it as possible.
Jamie looked more surprised than angry or hurt. He put his hand to his head, though Sam knew that it would take more than being slapped with a book to cause him pain. “What was that for?” he asked.
“For being an idiot,” Sam replied, then placed the book back on the shelf. She cleared a space on the table for the pizza box and left the Pepsi on the floor. “That’s not a book of poetry, it’s a book of spells. I didn’t write them, they were already written. And you don’t read a spell out loud unless you want to put it into effect.”
“Oh,” Jamie said and ran his hand through his hair. He smiled awkwardly. “Sorry . . . So what was that one?” Sam opened the pizza box while glaring at him.
“That one was a belated birthday present from Jack . . . it’s a spell for immortality,” she said. “Want some?” She pointed to the pizza.
Jamie looked at the pizza as if it were diseased. “No . . . Thank you.”
Sam bent down and searched under the table for her bag. Inside it was the plastic flask she had taken from Jamie’s house when she’d gone there to get him a blood-free t-shirt. “Here,” she said. Jamie looked at the flask curiously, clearly recognising it as his, then at Sam. “When was the last time you ate?” she asked waving it in front of him.
“Uh,” Jamie shifted uncomfortably. “Two days ago, maybe.”
“You’re probably hungry,” she said. Then placed the flask directly in front of him.
Jamie shook his head while staring at the flask. “I’m fine,” he told her and forced a smile. “I’m not that hungry.”
Sam smiled to herself as she bit into the first slice of pizza. “Liar, liar pants on fire,” she mumbled.
“I can wait ‘til later,” he said.
Sam rolled her eyes. “Just drink it,” she snapped with impatience. “It’s not like I care, I’ve seen Vampires drink blood before, sometimes even from living flasks.”
Jamie tried not to laugh. “You don’t refer to humans as living flasks!” he scolded.
Sam sighed internally, he’d drink it if she just left it there. She turned her face upwards to stare at the ceiling for a moment while she considered the weirdness of Vampires. The bare light bulb on the ceiling glared into her eyes, causing her to have to close them to block out the light. “I have something for you,” she said to Jamie as she thought of how she didn’t necessarily have to have the light on.
She threw the pizza crust into the box, then made her way across the room to a small wooden jewellery box on one of the many shelves. She opened the box and took out a ring. Then she walked back to the table and held it out to Jamie.
He took the ring out of her hand as she sat down, and looked at it. “Are you proposing to me?” he asked with a smile.
“Not even in your dreams,” she scoffed. “It’s a protection amulet.”
Jamie tilted his head to the side slightly, looking at her curiously. “Protection from what?”
“The sun,” Sam stated. “The best way to protect from the sun is to take a piece of jewellery, a ring, necklace, earrings, bracelet, whatever. Preferably one with a stone that already has protective properties. Then you charge the stone and put an enchantment on it.” Sam leaned forward. “You see the way the stone has three different colours in it?”
Jamie looked at the ring. “Yeah.”
“The light blue is for the morning sky. The normal blue is for the evening sky. And the navy-blue swirls around them both, bringing the night to every time of day. Which means that whoever wears it carries with them a piece of the night and can’t be harmed by the sun.”
“What type of stone is that?” Jamie asked curiously.
“Well, it’s not any specific type of stone anymore.” Sam took the ring out of Jamie’s hand and moved it around, trying to see it from different angles in different lights. “I think this used to be garnet. It’s a type of reddish, orangey-brown colour. It’s really good for protection.” Sam held the ring on its side and pointed to the stone. “You can still see little reddish sparkles in it.”
Jamie looked at the ring, then took it out of Sam’s hand. “Are you sure this will work on me?”
“Yes. It will.”
There was no question about it, Sam knew it would work. She had enchanted it herself so she was one hundred percent sure.
“How can you be so sure?” Jamie asked.
“Put it on,” Sam ordered. He hesitated, then slipped the ring onto his finger. She waved her hands at the window, sending out a gentle current of energy to throw the curtains open.
Jamie made a dive for the floor as soon as he saw the first beam of sunlight. Sam tried to suppress her laughter. He peered up at her from practically under the table and gave her an unimpressed glare. Sam smiled. “Hey look . . . it worked.”
Jamie picked himself up off the floor, then sat back down while dusting off his clothes. “I could have died!”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen. You’re fine.”
“Don’t call me a drama queen,” Jamie mumbled to himself. He opened the flask, took a sip of the blood inside, then looked towards the window. “How am I not on fire right now?” he asked himself.
Sam answered him anyway. “Because I’m amazing,” she said proudly.
Jamie smiled at her fondly.
“How long will it work for?”
“Forever,” Sam said through a mouthful of pizza. “As long as you wear it you’re safe from the sun. Oh, and I texted Aleczander, he said he’s busy for the next few weeks, but he’ll call me when he has all of his duties sorted out and I can bring you to see him.”
“You texted him just a minute ago?” Sam nodded. “Are you allowed to talk to him?” he asked. “I thought he was King of the Vampires or something.”
“He is,” Sam said.
“I thought you’d have to talk to his guards before you get to talk to him.”
“He doesn’t have any guards,” she said, laughing at Jamie’s ignorance. “And even if he did, he’s one of my Guardians, so I could talk to him directly whenever I feel like it.”
“He’s one of your what?”
“My Guardians,” Sam said. “One of the people who were assigned to protect me.”
Jamie raised an eyebrow in confusion. “Assigned by who?”
“The Moirai,” Sam sighed, thinking he was asking way too many questions. She saw the look of confusion on his face at the word Moirai and decide
d to explain before he could ask yet another question. “Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. They’re called the Moirai but are better known as the Fates.”
“The Fates?” Jamie asked. “Like the mythological hags who spin the threads of life.”
Sam nodded. “Don’t call them hags,” she said. “They can hear you. They’re like most immortals, and look a lot younger than they are. Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis determines the extent of the thread, and Atropos cuts the thread when time is up.”
“So if you have the Fates, or the Moirai on your side, why are there Demons after you?”
“Because fate is on no one’s side,” Sam explained. “All the Moirai do is tell the story, everyone has control over their own actions. But every time you make a decision it puts a chain of events into motion. So every time you go left instead of right, the Moirai know everything in your life that will be influenced by that decision. They don’t control what happens, they only know about it.”
“Oh,” Jamie said thoughtfully. “Do they at least give you fair warning?”
Sam shook her head. “If they did that it would alter any decisions I would have made and inevitably change my life in ways it wasn’t supposed to be.”
“So basically . . . they do nothing.”
Sam nodded. “Basically.”
“Have you ever met them?”
Sam shook her head. “No, but—”
“I have.” Sam tried not to laugh when Jamie jumped as Jack materialised beside her. “They’re three of the most useless, annoying bitches you will ever meet in your entire life. I despise all three of them. And I say this knowing full fucking well that they can hear every single word I’m saying. They may not be able to influence peoples destiny, but they make up for that by making up a load of bullshit rules that certain defenceless Ghosts have no choice but to go by, because they were threatened with spending an eternity in the godforsaken shithole known as Limbo.”