“That’s a real cold shot.”
“Yeah, isn’t it?” Tor paused, thinking, then shrugged. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Can’t we tell the police about the plates?”
“Not without telling them how we know. I don’t want Aaron arrested.”
“I can understand that. He’s an old friend, huh?”
“The oldest one I have. We were college buddies. We still get together, go to Raiders games with a couple other guys. Sometimes we all goof around playing basketball, too.” He tilted his head to one side to consider me. “Do you like football, by the way?”
“I like to watch it on TV. But you can go to games without me. I mean, you should get to spend time with your guy friends.”
“You won’t mind?” He raised one eyebrow.
“Of course not!”
“Okay. I always end up missing a game or two, anyway, thanks to the damn bjarki, but we get season tickets for the Black Hole. You probably wouldn’t like sitting there. It’s kind of a rowdy crowd.”
“I’ve seen them on TV. If you went in bjarki form I bet no one would notice.”
He laughed at that. “We were some of the weird guys, back at Cal. Freaks and geeks. You never would have gone out with any of us, if you’d known us then.”
“Maybe with you. Maybe. You clean up pretty good.”
He grinned and agreed.
We spent the evening reading in the living room, Tor with one of his books on magic, me with the pile of Icelandic sagas he’d given me, stories of kings and treachery and evil sorcerers from the Hebrides—good stories, all right. One thread ran through them that I didn’t really get. At one point I looked up to see Tor laying his book aside.
“Want something to drink?” he said. “I think I’ll get myself a beer. I’ve read all I can tonight of this heavy stuff.”
“None for me, thanks. Can I ask you something? In these sagas, the men are always talking about their honor and killing people over it. Why? I don’t get it.”
“It’s a shame culture, that’s why. Once a man is shamed, he’s less of a man. And that’s the worst thing, to give up your manhood.”
“But the way they define manhood creeps me out.”
“It’s a real archaic way of thinking, yeah.” Tor got up from the couch and stretched. “But it hasn’t disappeared.”
“That’s sure true. That’s what Nils lost today, isn’t it? Honor points.”
“It’s not exactly a point system. But yeah, you’re right enough.”
I frowned at the copy of Njall’s saga in my lap. “All of these guys pride themselves on facing death and being super brave, but they’re terrified of being shamed.”
“You bet. You can’t kill shame with a sword. That’s what makes it so frightening.”
I supposed so, and Tor went into the kitchen to fetch his beer.
Around two in the morning I had a nightmare. I was standing on the high wooden bridge in the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. As I looked down into the little stream that runs underneath it, a creature rose up, formed of mud and slime. Huge, and shaped like a man—it reached for me with fingers dripping green rot. I stood transfixed as it grabbed my ankles and yanked me off the bridge. The water beneath spread and swelled to a deep dark pool that reached for me with green fingers. I screamed and screamed again. The water churned with waves and tossed me this way and that.
“Maya! Maya, wake up!”
I opened my eyes and stopped screaming. A light went on in the bedroom. I was curled up so tightly that my arms ached. A naked man with sandy brown hair and a dimple at one corner of his mouth knelt beside me on the bed.
Tor. It took me a few seconds to recognize him.
“You were thrashing around,” he said. “What was the dream?”
“I was drowning. Again.”
I stretched out on my back and felt my pounding heart slowly return to normal. He lay back down and turned on his side to look at me.
“A memory dream?” he said.
“No. There was a monster involved.” I forced out a smile. “And a black hole. Symbolic stuff everywhere. Was I screaming?”
“Oh yeah.” He leaned over and laid his hand alongside my face. “Sort of a weird muffled scream, but I could hear it, all right.”
His touch, his concern, comforted me. He kissed my mouth, the side of my face, my forehead.
“Can you go back to sleep?” he said. “Are you okay now?”
“Yeah, because you’re here.”
He smiled with a glowing, pure pleasure as if I’d given him the best present in the world. “Yeah, I’m right here,” he said. “And I always will be.”
At that moment his words soothed me further, but as I lay awake, they began to bother me. He was assuming that we’d stay together forever, or if not forever, at least for some long time. Why wouldn’t I want to stay? He was kind, sexy, generous to a fault, supportive when it came to my art. Yet he frightened me at moments. With his sorcery Tor seemed like a man from another world, an alien world. He brought strange experiences with him, memories of past lives, sorcerous enemies, hints of dark things hiding in my own mind.
Like the talent to speak in an ancient language, one I didn’t know, didn’t even recognize. That alien world could be mine, too, if I had the guts to travel there. The thought made me shiver and squirm. I realized that night, as I lay next to him, that I was afraid of myself, not of Tor.
I did feel guilty about lying to him. I’d never told him about my disease, and that night I questioned my motives. I found myself remembering that seriously old-fashioned term for girls who took guys for expensive gifts: gold-digger. Did it come down to that, after my working so hard to take care of myself and earn my own way? The beautiful flat, a fancy car—I was willing to bet that if I asked him to buy me expensive clothes and jewelry, he would. Fortunately for his cash flow, I’d never do such a thing.
I decided that I was going to have to tell him the truth. I promised myself that I’d do it first thing in the morning, but I never quite got the chance in my hurry to leave for class. When I came home, Tor was sitting in the living room reading. I changed my paint-spattered clothes, then came out to join him. For a moment I stood in the doorway and studied his face and his body as if I were going to do a portrait of him. I wanted to fix his image in my mind, just in case my ugly secret lost him for me. I wanted to remember the strong line of his jaw, the way his thick, straight hair fell over his forehead when he looked down, and his broad hands that knew my body so well. He glanced up and smiled at me.
“Need something?” he said.
“I’ve been thinking about getting into your jeans all morning.”
He laughed and followed my lead into the bedroom. The sex—it overwhelmed me that afternoon, just how good it was with him. He teased me, worked me up, and coaxed me into lying on top of him. I’d never had a climax like that before, sensations so strong that they edged close to pain without ever crossing into it. We rested, didn’t need to talk, just lay in each other’s arms. When things started up again, I crouched on my hands and knees so he could take me from behind. Like bears, I thought—but he fondled my breasts like a man.
When we finished, he lay down, smiled at me, and fell asleep. I wanted lunch badly enough to get up without waking him. I took my shorts from the floor and crept out of the room to put them on.
After I’d scarfed some leftovers I found in the fridge, I went back to the bedroom. I’d left the door open, and through it I could see Tor, still naked and sound asleep, perfectly relaxed and sprawled. He was lying on his side but tipped a little back to reveal everything he owned. He’d crooked one arm over his face to shelter his eyes from the light. On an impulse I got one of the big sketchbooks and some rust and sepia Conté sticks. I sat down on the floor, half-naked myself, and drew him just as he looked. I considered adding a twist of sheet for modesty but decided against it. I liked all of him, and I wanted a record of it, right down to the scar on his left th
igh from the werewolf bite. I turned the page and did another figure study, more polished this time.
Making those drawings made me wonder why I kept downgrading my feelings for him. Just physical attraction. You hear that, and it’s a sneer. Only physical. Only great sex. Well, it’s not that easy to find. When you do, it’s just as wonderful as any other kind of love. The truth hit me hard. At last I knew what I felt about him, even though it meant that I was going to have to lose him. I loved him, and I couldn’t keep lying to him. After I finished the drawing, I took the sketchbook and sticks into my room. I didn’t want him to see the drawings, even though I couldn’t say why.
That evening at dinner I decided to try approaching the subject of my disease sideways, as it were, to work up some courage. Tor gave me an opening.
“I’ve been thinking about Nils,” he said. “Well, I did some magical work today that I guess you could call thinking. He’s not Björn, or not his latest incarnation, I guess I should say. I’m sure of that now.”
“Good,” I said. “That’s one less thing to worry about.”
“Yeah, it would have been a real nasty knot if that had been the case. But you know, sooner or later he’s bound to show up. Björn, I mean.”
My stomach clenched. I laid down my fork.
“God, I hope not!” I said.
“Unless he’s worked through the wyrd he set in motion. He never struck me as the type who would. It means admitting you’re wrong. But it’ll haunt him until he lets you go.” Tor considered for a moment. “And until he apologizes to me. The bastard, lying to someone during an honor duel! Whoever he is now, he’ll have to pay for that.”
“Wyrd is like karma?”
“Pretty much, yeah. Sooner or later, you reap what you sow.” He paused for a smile. “Just to quote from another tradition.”
And what had I done to deserve my vampirism? I had wondered about that for years. Thinking in terms of past lives, and my mother totally believed in them, had made me feel that I deserved it. She’d never said so. In fact, she’d told me the opposite. Not everything is karma, sweetheart. Never ever think you deserve this. Had I believed her? No. Kids blame themselves for things they don’t understand. Blame hurts, but it gives you the illusion that you have some control over your life.
Tor returned to eating his dinner. I realized that I could open the subject with a casual remark about a hypothetical situation. What if he did throw me out when he heard the truth? I’d lose him, but I’d never have to learn why I could speak in a language I didn’t know. The monster of my dream would have to sink back into his black hole.
“Suppose someone has a fatal disease,” I said. “Did they do something to deserve it? Or could it just be bad luck, genetics, or some kind of accident?”
“Sure.” Tor looked up from his plate. “Any of those. That’s why no one should blame anyone for being sick or poor or whatever. It really pisses me off when I hear people do that, say someone’s responsible for getting sick or being out on the street because of what they did in a past life.”
He’d given me the perfect segue. My heart started to pound in such terror that I could not speak.
“Are you okay?” Tor said.
“No.” I made myself force the words out. “There’s something you don’t know about me.”
“You’ve got some kind of disease, don’t you? Is it leukemia?”
I felt my entire body turn hot, then cold. “How did you—”
“Maya, look!” Tor laid down his fork and swiveled on the chair to face me. “You’ve got olive skin, right? A little darker, maybe. Which hides things like turning pale pretty well unless someone’s really looking at you. I like to look at you. So I can tell that when you’re tired, the blood leaves your face. You get tired real easily, too. At first I thought, well, you’ve been working too hard. But that’s not true any more.”
“I thought I was better at hiding.”
“No.” He held out a hand. “C’mon, tell me. I’ll take care of you. You should know that by now. I’ve been thinking lately that I should put you on the health insurance.”
“That won’t do any good. What I’ve got, they won’t cover. It’s not leukemia, no. That’s too normal.”
“Well, I’ve got investments I can call in to pay for—”
I shook my head no and struggled for words. I finally realized that there was only one thing to say, the brutal truth. Tor let his hand rest back in his lap and waited.
“I’m a vampire,” I said. “A real one. I’m not dead or undead or anything like that. It’s not like the movies. I just can’t regenerate my life force like a normal person. I have to steal it from other people.”
Tor stared with his mouth half-open.
“It’s a disease, a really rare one, and it killed my father. It’s going to kill me, too, sooner or later. Probably sooner.” The words broke through my fear. To tell someone the truth, to admit it, to explain at last—the relief turned into a bitter pleasure. “It’s a gene mutation from Central Europe. My father explained it to me, and it’s the root of all the old vampire legends. It’s real, Tor. You should understand if anyone can. It’s like the life force you give off after the bjarki change. I call it élan, but it’s probably got another name. I can harvest it when you throw it away.”
“Chi. It’s called chi or sometimes etheric substance or magnetism.” He crossed his arms over his chest and went on looking at me, merely looking, his eyes unreadable, his face set into a mask.
“You can throw me out,” I said. “I always knew it would happen, once you knew the truth.”
“What?” The mask split and let me see Tor again. “I’m not going to throw you out. Why do you think I would?”
“Because I’m a thief. I take life from other people without them knowing. Just a little bit at a time, not enough to hurt them. My dad told me it wouldn’t really hurt them, if I only took a little bit from people who were young and healthy. I hope to god he was right.”
“He probably was, yeah. Okay. So. What are we going to do about this?”
The room lurched to one side. Tor got up and caught me by the shoulders.
“Let’s go into the living room,” he said. “I feel like a jerk, perching over my dinner like a raven while we talk about this. Come on.”
It was my turn for the idiot stare.
“What’s wrong?” Tor said.
“You’re not going to throw me out?”
“No. Don’t be stupid!”
“Then you don’t believe me.”
“Of course I believe you. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Don’t you think I’m crazy? Delusional?”
“No! I wondered why you could take the bjarki in stride. I guess I know now. We both have a problem, don’t we? Why do you think I’d judge you?”
I had never seen it that way before. Why hadn’t I? Because you’ve been so damn wound up in your own illness, I told myself. Paranoia is a kind of vanity, I realized. I’d thought that I was the only pariah in the world. I got up and let him lead me into the living room. When I sat down on the couch, he sat next to me, but he turned so he could look right at me. I leaned back against the cushions and trembled. The sense of relief had deserted me. I felt like I’d had too much to drink and done something horribly embarrassing, maybe even criminal, that I was now going to pay for.
“Just one thing.” He spoke quietly, but I heard menace in his voice. “Have you been stealing from me? I don’t mean taking what I need to get rid of. I mean stealing. Like, when I don’t know it.”
Even though he never moved, I was abruptly aware of just how much taller than me he was, how much stronger.
“No!” I stammered. “I never would, Tor! Not from you, not from my friends, either.” I twisted my hands together in my lap to stop them shaking. “It was only after the bjarki change.”
“That’s okay!” He relaxed and smiled. “I was casting it off, and if you wanted to use it, why would I care?”
I’m not sure w
hy I found it so hard to believe him, maybe because I felt like two people fighting inside one skin. One of them felt a hard knot of disappointment that he wasn’t making it easy for me to leave him. The other knew I wanted to stay.
Tor started to speak, then looked away with a little twist of concentration to his mouth. His eyes became distant, unfocused. I wondered what was wrong until I felt the élan began to gather. He pulled it from the air and from the sunset light coming in the living room window, summoned it with his sorcery. He turned, raised both hands, and like a flood of pure water let it pour over me. I gasped, sobbed, breathed it in, and fed—ah god, it felt so good to feed, to feast on life without stealing it from some person who’d never done me any harm. And so much! I glutted myself, soaked up far more than I could process. Letting some of it slide away again felt as luxurious as stroking silk velvet.
“You’ll never have to steal from me,” Tor said. “All you have to do is ask. Maybe not even that. I’ll probably be able to tell when you need it. I’ll give it to you, Maya. A gift.” He smiled with an ironic twist to his mouth. “Some gift! It’s free. All I’ve got to do is harvest it.”
I sprawled back on the cushions in the ecstasy of having fed. He slid over close to me and let the remnants of élan drip from his hands. I sighed and stretched in the luxury of it.
“Tor?” I said. “I love you.”
He smiled at me like the sun breaking through fog. When he held out his arms, I turned into his embrace and kissed him. Only much later did I realize that he’d bound me to him with chains stronger than any rune.
On Wednesday, when I came home from school Tor was working, as he called it, in the lower flat. I got myself some lunch, then brought out my laptop and put it on the coffee table while I sat on the couch to do some banking. I’d attached both of my credit cards to the online billpay, nice and convenient, though the total of what I owed was anything but. It would take me a long time to pay them off, but at least I could make a start. I needed to leave a certain amount in my checking account to keep it open, of course. Beyond that, I wanted to divide up the balance between the cards. If I sent it all, it would leave me without any cash on hand. I could keep out enough for gas and maybe a lunch with my friends, but how much? I was going back and forth about this when Tor came back upstairs. I wondered if I could still consider myself his employee.