“I think so,” I whispered. I started to ease my way out of the room. I knew Pam was coming for me again, and she had a mean right hook.
“Don’t,” Pam said quietly. A quiet Pam was a scary Pam.
I flopped down on the couch, ready to get ripped a good one. I was an A student in high school and college. For some reason, I couldn’t absorb this stuff. Maybe it’s not that I couldn’t, it’s that I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to be a Vampyre. Vampyres were freaks of nature. Vampyres didn’t even exist. I did not want an expletive-spewing Angel to be my main food source.
I wanted to eat chips and salsa and smoke and see my reflection. I wanted to go out in broad daylight and not have to wear a shitload of sunscreen, long sleeves, long pants, a hat and huge sunglasses. I wanted to have kids someday, but that was no longer an option, what with no functioning internal organs.
I did not want to have to worry about being staked through the heart with silver or being decapitated. Let’s not forget about burning to death . . . wouldn’t want to leave that little nugget out. Those are the three real ways to kill a Vampyre. What about holy water, crosses, sunlight, and garlic? All bullshit . . . they’d just make a Vampyre laugh or piss them off. All Hollywood fairytales, although there was some truth to the sunlight myth. While it wouldn’t kill a Vamp, it could burn their skin quite badly. Who wants to look like a bloody piece of meat even for a short while?
I never really needed or wanted to know where every major artery in a human was so I wouldn’t nick it with my razor sharp fangs, inadvertently killing same said human.
Mostly I really did not want my mother to find out. I was sure in her mind this would definitely be an insurmountable hurdle to my having a big career like hers. Like that was ever going to happen. I didn’t want a big career like hers. I had absolutely no idea what I really wanted other than good friends, great sex and some Prada that was in season. At almost thirty, I worked as an art teacher at the senior citizens’ center and had just received a crazy large inheritance from my Nana. I would have preferred to have my Nana instead of her money, but that wasn’t the way the world worked.
Ask anybody who knew me . . . I was a good person. I was fun, but not extremely motivated unless it involved high fashion, art, or my friends. I’d recently heard my neighbor describe me as very smart, tall, single, financially irresponsible, quite pretty, boyfriend-less and kind. Great. I knew people in town were taking bets on how long it would take me to run through my inheritance money. Hell, they probably had good cause considering the amount I dropped on new clothes recently. The thing I was best at was shopping, but no one was lining up to pay me to do that . . . Holy shit, I was totally depressing myself.
“What would your Nana say?” Pam asked.
That stopped me. My eyes flashed and I could feel my fangs descend. “How dare you bring my Nana into this.”
She had no right to . . . My body jerked and I had a strange deja vu. I looked at Pam for a very long moment. I stared into her Angel eyes, searching for something . . . that I found. My body relaxed and I started to feel lightheaded as I moved towards her. My fangs rescinded. I felt calm and centered.
“She’d say ‘Buck up, Princess, it could be worse’,” I told her quietly. I paused, my eyes never leaving Pam’s for a second. “She sent you to me.”
Pam said nothing. She just smiled. I reached for her and gently took her face in my hands. I touched my forehead to hers and let my bloody tears flow freely.
“Did she want you to tell me anything?” I asked hopefully.
“She loves you and she always will.” Pam caught me as I collapsed and she rocked me like a baby until I cried myself out.
“I still don’t want to be a Vampyre, but I can learn now,” I whispered.
“I know you can, honey,” she said. “I know you can.”
Chapter 5
She was going to die if I didn’t help her. The voice inside the tomb was not weak or sickly. It was strong and melodic and very insistent.
“Astrid, you have to help me,” she begged.
“How do you know my name?” I asked, thrown by the familiarity.
“Because you are part of me,” she replied. “Push the stone, Astrid. Help me, please. You’re the only one.”
“Why does it have to be me? I’m not strong enough,” I insisted. Then I started to cry. I should get help. Big men or the police or a crowbar.
“You are strong enough,” she said simply. “There’s not much time left.”
In that moment I knew she was right. I was strong enough. She was going to die if I didn’t get her out. Now.
I walked slowly toward the tomb, my hands outstretched. I could feel the tingling in my fingertips. It quickly spread down my arms, through my chest and into my legs. My heart was pounding inside me, my stomach felt twisted and it was hard to breathe. The wind picked up and blew my hair wildly around my head. I was inches away.
“Push, Astrid,” she gasped.
I awoke with a jerk. God, that dream seemed more real every time I had it, and I’d been having it since I was four years old. As I snuggled down deeper under my covers and tried to go back to sleep, I noticed movement on my ceiling. What the fu . . . ? This Vamp vision was insane. The tiny cracks in my ceiling looked like faces, little mini faces with little teeny hands. Some looked angry, some sad, but most of them were laughing and pointing at me. I looked around my room to see if anyone else was here. Nope. I was definitely the object of their ridicule.