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CHAPTER 3

  “Vampires? Really? That’s the best you could come up with?” Jonas said. He’d thought she might actually tell him the truth. He watched TV and read books; it wasn’t like his world was going to end if she admitted they were psychics, or government experiments, or aliens from—

  “Jonas Black! I have lived for over five hundred years, survived an ocean crossing on a ship with sails—let me tell you what a joy that was before satellite cartography—and I have never, in all that time, seen anything to indicate there are living, thinking beings on other planets.” She frowned and added, “Except for angels, though whether they’re alive or not is tricky, and they’re not the most sociable bunch, so I haven’t asked.”

  Jonas swallowed.

  “What? Do you think I enjoyed having you think of me as some kind of sickly night clerk?” she asked, seeming genuinely curious.

  “I guess I never gave it much thought. But just because you didn’t enjoy it doesn’t change the fact you hid things from me.”

  His mother didn’t say anything; she just nodded.

  “Things I would have wanted to know,” Jonas added.

  She gave him a smile. There was no apology for her behavior, just an acknowledgment of his last statement. I should learn how to do that, Jonas thought, as he looked at her. The bruises on her face were gone, and the cut on her lip was mostly healed. Even her hair looked perfect again.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Okay, that’s really creeping me out. How are you reading my mind?”

  “I’m not, really. It’s more like you’re broadcasting, or shouting in a quiet room. Most humans do.”

  “I thought you said I was a vampire.”

  She sighed. “It’s complicated. We infect people. We don’t usually… reproduce.” She said the word like it was something a little bit distasteful.

  “Okay, wow,” Jonas said. “So, what? You stole me from someone?”

  “No! I gave birth to you, same as a human would. Your father and I were part of an experiment to make vampires less susceptible to the sun. It had, shall we say, unexpected consequences.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like blood in places vampires don’t usually have blood.” She arched an eyebrow, and Jonas blushed.

  “What else?”

  “Aside from pregnancy? Let’s see…” She closed her eyes and pinched her lips. Amelia does the same thing, he thought.

  “And for the record, Amelia is a very nice girl, but must you think of her so often? And I’m quite sure you’ve never actually seen her without clothes on.”

  “Mom!”

  “Believe me, I wish I didn’t know either. In any case, the side effects of the experiment were a loss of bone density, resistance—but not immunity—to sunlight, the loss of all my offensive mental powers… and you,” she finished, smiling at him.

  “Resistance to sunlight? So that’s why you volunteer to work later than some of your co-workers, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “At the blood bank.” The pieces were starting to click into place for Jonas.

  His mother smiled, except it was more like she was baring her teeth at him. Then, her neck and jaw muscles bulged as both her upper and lower canines extended another half-inch.

  “You’re a vampire!”

  “Yes,” she said, with a mix of fondness and condescension.

  Jonas blinked. “I felt that! Your emotions, I mean. I could actually feel them.”

  “We can project our thoughts and emotions, but a feeling is about all I can manage these days. Others can do more.” Her eyes grew distant. “It feels like having my tongue cut out, sometimes, not being able to communicate properly,” she said. Jonas felt his eyes tear up even though he wasn’t exactly sure what she meant.

  “Sorry, forgot to break the connection,” she said.

  The sadness cut off as sharply as if he’d hit the power button on the TV, but the experience left his head throbbing. He blinked several times, then said, “What else can you… can vampires do?”

  “The mental powers are the main thing. We move faster, hit harder, we’re technically immortal, not that anyone’s lasted long enough to test the theory… And you’ve already noticed my hair,” she said, winking at him. “It’s called a glamour. Makes people ignore the little imperfections.”

  Jonas focused on his mother again—really looked, the way his father taught him to. He could see light bruising on her cheek, and her hair wasn’t quite as neat as he’d first thought, but it was hard to keep his eyes on it.

  “What about weaknesses?”

  “Sunlight, dismemberment, starvation—”

  “You mean blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Human blood?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Jonas, human blood.”

  “From humans?”

  “From a bag, mostly. I work in—”

  “A blood bank. Got it. I’m an idiot.”

  She patted him on the knee. “Wineglasses are nice, too.”

  Jonas’ stomach churned, and he glanced toward the fridge.

  “No, that’s red wine, in case we have guests. I have a mini-fridge in my room.”

  Jonas laughed. “Do you sleep in a coffin?”

  “Not for many centuries. Besides, it was mostly just a way to hide from hunters. Life is much safer nowadays,” she said, grinning.

  “What about running water, being invited into houses, and garlic?”

  “Water’s more of a phobia. We have denser bones, and we don’t have to breathe so we don’t float. Garlic just smells bad, and breaking and entering is rude but possible, as you saw tonight.”

  “Wait, that guy was a vampire? Was he in the experiment with you and Dad, too?”

  “There’s a compound that allows us to tolerate sunlight for a limited amount of time. It’s expensive, hard to make, and it burns off pretty quickly if you use your powers. The humans own the formula, and the Agency gets a ration of it for emergencies.”

  “So the Agency attacked us?”

  Alice shook her head. “There’s a black market for it. Someone either stole or traded for the Serum, but that’s Marcus’s problem.”

  Jonas felt a bit untethered. It was a lot to process. “Are Bert and Phillip—”

  “No, they’re werewolves.”

  So that’s why Bert smelled like a wet dog, he thought.

  “I know! It’s disgusting, isn’t it?” she said, laughing again. “And, of course, they say we don’t smell like anything at all, as if that was a bad thing. Would you believe the things we kill each other over?”

  Jonas started to laugh, but from what he could tell, his mother was serious. How am I going to tell Amelia about all this?

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Jonas. You won’t tell her,” she said, the smile fading from her face, “Not for a while, anyway, and maybe never. Humans don’t react well to abnormalities, especially if it might affect their children.”

  “We’re a little young to be—”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Why do you think she asked if my disease is hereditary? You obviously don’t have it.”

  “I didn’t tell you about that,” he said.

  “No, she did. When you introduced us, she was thinking about it.” He started to protest, but she cut him off. “I told you, it’s like they’re shouting all the time. No wonder we used to live in isolated castles and treat them like cattle.”

  Jonas gave her a look, like she’d just sprouted an extra head. “Seriously?”

  She stood. “Seriously, but that’s enough questions for tonight. I’m late for work.”

  “Wait!”

  “No, Jonas, we can talk tomorrow. I’ll tell you—”

  “Please, Mom, just one more question and then you can go. What does it feel like when a vampire attacks you, mentally?”

  He thought of the dizziness he’d felt outside Amelia’s apartment building and the feeling of someone reaching into his head. His mother stood very sti
ll, and he felt the lightest touch on his mind.

  “I thought I’d have more time,” she said.

  Jonas had no idea what she was talking about. Then, without explanation, she took out the card Marcus had left behind and placed it on the couch, then leaned over and kissed his forehead.

  “I can’t protect you anymore,” she said and walked out.

  ♟

  With his mother gone, Jonas took a moment to reflect on everything that had happened. His home was broken into, he and his mother were assaulted by a vampire, and then they’d been rescued by a pair of very polite werewolves in pinstripe suits. He’d been useless during the whole fight. If anything, he thought his mother might have done better without him.

  He clenched his fists and realized he was shaking. Probably adrenaline, he thought. He was scared—he acknowledged that, and didn’t think he was wrong to be—but he was also ashamed of how helpless he’d been.

  The top hinge of the front door was broken. It wouldn’t keep a normal human out, much less another vampire. The coffee table was in pieces, the dining room table was broken from Bert smashing the man in black through it, and the kitchen was a mess. There were broken plates and spilled food everywhere, and the oven was trashed. He hoped the promised cleanup crew would take care of it, somehow, because he didn’t know where to begin.

  He thought about calling Amelia, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Some boyfriend I am. Will she have to protect me, too, if I’m attacked on the way home? It made him angry. He’d find a way to fight back, even if it meant carrying a UV flashlight and a squirt gun full of holy water. I should’ve asked Mom if crucifixes work, he thought.

  He reached over and picked up the card his mother had left. Marcus Fangston, it read, in blocky white letters. Other than that, the card was blank. Jonas snorted at the last name—was it some kind of joke? Either way, he had a feeling that vampires looked at the world through very different eyes.

  The conversation with his mom had been more than a little disturbing, like he was dealing with two personalities trapped in one body—part maternal, part homicidal. He wondered how much of that was due to the experiments she’d mentioned, and how much was because people were food to her.

  He walked to the bathroom at the end of the hallway, between his room and his mother’s. He was tempted to go check out the “mini-fridge” she’d mentioned but decided against it. It had always been their room, and as much as some things had changed in the past few hours, some things hadn’t.

  He flipped on the bathroom light and winced. He had a black eye. It wasn’t one of those little, “I got into a scuffle and held my own,” red spots on his cheek, it was a deep, purple bruising that said, “I got the crap beat out of me.” He’d have to come up with a good story for the teachers. “I got decked by a vampire” wasn’t going to cut it, but maybe some older kid jumped him, one he didn’t recognize, or they could just have been horsing around. He’d figure something out.

  Besides the shiner, he also had a cut on his right elbow from where he’d gone through the coffee table. Great, he thought. He put some antiseptic spray on it and slapped on the biggest Band-Aid he could find. It stung, but admitting that was more than his pride could take after the night he’d had. His mom hadn’t needed a bandage. She’d shaken it off and gone to work like an action hero. Some kind of vampire I am, Jonas thought.

  He saw his reflection in the mirror. He opened his mouth, stopped because he felt foolish, and then bared his teeth anyway. No fangs. He sighed, then flipped the light switch off and went to bed.

  ♟

  He dreamt of Amelia. She was smiling at him. He bent forward to kiss her neck, and she went limp in his arms. Her hair smelled of lavender, her skin was soft and smelled like plain soap but, for some reason, he felt like he was doing something wrong. When he pulled back, there were puncture wounds on her neck. She fell, slipping from his arms and disappearing beneath inky black water.

  He woke in his room, alone in the dark and silent apartment. Just a dream, he thought, lying back down.

  After that, he slept dreamlessly until morning.