Vampire Crush(47)
Author: A.M. Robinson

The words die on my tongue. Vlad is standing on my porch, the black T-shirt I wore last night dangling from one finger.

"I have come to return your blouse," he says congenially, but wedges a black boot in the door when I try to slam it closed. With practiced ease, he grips the knob and pushes it forward forcefully enough that I stumble backward. After he walks inside, he surveys the foyer with curiosity. I should run, bolt through the kitchen and tear outside, but then to . . . where?

"You can keep it," I croak, gripping the wall in a futile attempt to feel secure. "Get out of my house."

He ignores me, tilting his head to the side and examining the shirt with what I can only call brave affection. "Perhaps I should start calling you Cinderella," he jokes. "Although next time I might prefer a glass slipper instead of such a . . . well . . . a well-loved blouse."

It strikes me that Vlad alive, quipping in my house means . . . "Where are the other vampires?"

Vlad says nothing, just continues to do his best impression of an evil coat rack. I realize that I will get no answers unless I play along. Darting forward as quickly as possible, I rip the shirt from his hands and wiggle into it. The thin barrier of cotton does nothing to make me feel safer.

Vlad pulls out his little black book. "I hope that you will take this as a gesture of goodwill, dorogaya."

"I don’t want your feelings journal, thanks."

"Then why did you rifle through my belongings? You have followed me around since the very beginning, interfering, asking questions about my history and my vehicle preference."

"That was back when I thought you weren’t just someone who’s spent too much time with the books in the back of the library."

Anger, dark and ugly, washes over his face, and I think that I’ve gone too far. There is no reason now for him not to kill me and get a blood boost as a consolation prize on the way out of town. I am going to run; at least I won’t die without a fight. I dash for the living room, planning to head for the back door, but he’s in front of me before I can even make it to the couch. When I look up, he’s peering down at me with a brittle smile.

"Wonderful idea, Sophochka," he says from between gritted teeth. "Sit and I will explain the reason for my visit," he says and unfurls a hand toward the sofa.

"How did you find me?" I ask, cautiously sitting.

He gives me a withering look. "I did endure your sister for a very lengthy week. But even if that were not the case, Violet always chattered on about how she would call on her good friend Sophie, but she had used her last card." He pulls a ragged square of paper from his pocket and flicks it across the coffee table. "I found this in her possessions."

I open it to find the address I scrawled down for her that first day in English class. What must have happened to give Vlad the opportunity to prowl through Violet’s belongings? My fingers tremble. I never should have left.

"Where are the other vampires?" I ask again, but Vlad has already sauntered over to the far wall that Marcie has transformed into a shrine of family photographs. It runs chronologically from left to right, from pudgy snowsuits to Caroline and me trying to be ironic while standing next to Minnie Mouse and failing because we both still secretly loved her.

"Where is your mother?" he asks as he examines our early years.

"The mall."

He gives a strained chuckle. "Your real mother. Because here you are with cake on your face at what I hope is an early birth celebration," he says, pointing at a red-framed photo, "and there Caroline is at hers, but you do not appear in the same photographs until . . . here." He points at the photo of all of us standing in front of this house; I was five and Caroline was six, and we had all just moved in together.

"That’s none of your business," I say. The truth was that my mother left when I was two, and no matter what tricks I pulled, my father wouldn’t talk about it. As I got older, I realized that someone who didn’t bother to stick around to take care of her two-year-old wasn’t worth the fascination. Child psychologists may call me a liar, but I honestly don’t think about her much, other than to curse the genetics that turn me into a lobster after one hour in the sun while everyone else gets to look like a sexy peanut. And now I can add giving a conspiracy-theorist vampire more fuel for his theory.

"You still think that it’s me," I say. "After everything Neville told you, you think that it’s me because I have a stepmother and you can play connect the dots on my back."

He turns to look at me. "I have other reasons."

"Mental illness?"

His nostrils flare. "Neville’s betrayal was a blow, to be sure, but perhaps they kicked him out because he is not to be trusted. And then there is my recent realization," he says, and then pauses as though waiting for a drumroll. I refuse to give it to him.

"Where are my friends?" I ask again.

"They are gone!" Vlad explodes. "They have left! I told them if I ever saw them again I would burn them all alive myself."

I don’t move. He is not boasting of killing them, and knowing Vlad, he would if he could. But James wouldn’t have just left without saying good-bye; he couldn’t. When I continue not to say anything, Vlad throws his journal at me hard enough that it thwaps against the couch cushion. After a few moments he clears his throat and pretends that handing it to me was his intention all along.

"Please, Sophochka, turn to the marked page and read the underlined section aloud."

I pick up the journal with trembling fingers and begin to read the beginning of the section I didn’t make it to the night before. "And the child of the Mervaux was mortal, immune to the vampire. There were those who thought that it – "

"You can stop," he says and then leans forward to tear it back out of my hands. "Do you see?"

"See what?"

"I cannot influence you," he says. "I always assumed that ‘immune’ meant only that the child was mortal in birth, but now I see the evidence was there all along. I can sense your thoughts flickering, but I cannot grasp them."

I’m relieved that this is his big revelation. Frankly, exceptions to their powers ranks right up there with miracle babies on the list of things that vampires should stop being so surprised about.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, but James taught me how to prevent you from butting in."

For a second, his triumphant expression wavers, but then he doggedly shakes his head. "No. That first night, in the woods, I tried to use my sway over you and it did not work. You wiggled when I bit you."