Blood Relations - Chapter 23

December 18, 1997

Vicky got up in front of the podium and cleared her dry throat with the smallest cough. Looking nervously around at the humans gathered in the community center, she searched the last row of plastic chairs, where Amber sat wearing a wide grin.

Amber raised her hands to offer Vicky two thumbs up for effort.

“Hi, my name is Vicky, and...” She raised her eyes to the ceiling, trying the think back. She gave up and shook her head. “For way too long, I’ve been a functional alcoholic.”

She paused as the crowd all spoke up to greet her in a chorus of “Hi, Vicky.”

She smiled with self-conscious giddiness and waved. “I’ve been near bars far a long time, always picking up drunks every night. I’ve been going out so many nights, you’d think I was a vampire.”

This was a bold move, but it had the appropriate effect, as everyone laughed.

Vicky sighed, and her smile fell. “I started drinking, because my boyfriend was enabling my habits. I could have eaten healthy and avoided alcohol, but he liked me drunk. Maybe it was because I was a funny drunk. Or maybe he did it because I was a horny drunk.”

Vicky had to fight against the urge to cry, and she still had to raise her hand to ball her fists against her eyes, obliterating the first tears. She continued to rub for a few seconds to get rid of any trace of their blue tint on her skin.

Dropping her hands to grasp the sides of the podium, she took a deep breath and thought, Let him go. Let William go, and Jun, and Ellen. From now on, you have a partner.

Vicky looked at Amber then and smiled. “After him, I kept up the habit, because it helped to make me feel less lonely. But even when I found someone, I kept going to the bars, picking up other drunks. I got so good at working drunk that I never even thought about it. But one night, I was sitting in my favorite goth club.”

She paused as another round of laughs went through the room. “You laugh, but they had an awesome wine called Red Blood Cell, and when you look like me, people expect you to order certain drinks. I mean, can you not see me asking for a Bloody Mary?”

More laughter. Vicky dropped her head to look at the podium. “I looked around, and I realized that I was the worst drunk in the room. Because I could keep drinking, and I didn’t feel it anymore. I didn’t feel anything at all. And because I was drunk, I had someone special come into my life, and I couldn’t see it. I...I let her get away from me, and she ended up deciding she was straight after all.”

She paused to snap her fingers, but this admission brought nervous laughter. Revealing that she was bisexual made people more nervous than her confession to being a vampire. Vicky smirked at the absurdity of the idea.

“I met someone else, and I almost lost them too. But I almost lost them to a drug that they binged on, and I joined them in overdosing on it. And this was...it was so much worse than the alcohol. I thought I didn’t feel anything as an alcoholic, but I must have still had some kind of flawed moral code in place.

“But on the drugs, I didn’t give a fuck. I know this will scare you, but while I was on that drug, I would have thought of killing every last one of you, and it would have been funny, even appealing.”

She lifted her head, nodding as she appraised the sea of white, frightened faces. “That one bad trip scared me. I didn’t think anything could scare me, but that trip through hell did. And that’s when I decided to sober up.” She raised her hand to point to Amber. “I couldn’t do this without the help of my partner. I love you, Creampuff.”

“Love you too, Vicky,” Amber called over the hoots of laughter over Amber’s pet name.

Vicky waited for people to get quiet, before she smirked. “If we can just find the right guy to add to our trio, I think we’ll be happy vamps.”

***

“Excuse me?”

The man who called out to them was tall, dark, and ruggedly handsome. His squared jaw and lean cheek sported just the faint stubble, just enough to be sexy. He dressed in khakis and a pale denim work shirt, unbuttoned at the collar.

He wore cologne hinted with pheromones, to make himself more appealing, and hair tonic to keep his long brown hair under almost perfect control. He also smelled of a recent cocaine high, though he was no longer feeling the rush of the drug. He would be looking to get away from the meeting soon for another toot through his favorite one hundred dollar bill. Even with polite distance separating them both Vicky and Amber could smell the drug on him, and on his billfold.

He swept back his hair behind his right ear, smiling confidently before he offered out the same hand. “Hi, Robert Slocum.”

Vicky smirked as she clasped his hand. “Named by nature, I would hope.”

Robert snorted and took Amber’s hand next. “It depends on whether I’m having a good night, I guess.” He raised his hand to scratch the far side of his eyebrow, and then the corner of his eye. “I was...um, very impressed with your speech. It’s admirable that both of you are giving up drugs...”

He twisted around to see if anyone else was listening. No one was, but he lowered his voice to say, “Seriously though, were you messing with us? I mean, is this some kind of routine you do, to come in and spook the normal people?”

Vicky shrugged. “No. Are you belittling my experiences with drugs just because I look like a goth?”

Robert’s mouth fell open. “Uh, wait. You aren’t a goth?”

“Well, just because I hung out at—” Vicky snorted. “No, I can’t even say it with a straight face. Okay, so what if I’m a goth? So what if my girlfriend outvamps me on a good night.”

“Like tonight,” Amber added before Vicky could keep rambling.

“Okay, so it’s your culture, and you aren’t just here to fuck with us.” Robert smiled and put his hands in his pockets. “Sorry if I’m giving you a hard time, but I’m a bit protective of the flock.”

“Or the harem?” Amber asked.

Laughing, Robert rubbed the corners of his mouth in a roguish gesture. “I try to help spread the love around, sure. But there’s no ring on this finger, is there?”

Amber smiled as she winked at Robert. “I noticed that too. I wonder, have you ever thought about playing around with a pair of crazy-ass vamps?”

***

Amber pushed Robert against the wall and raised up to kiss his chest. Robert laughed, his eyes locked on Vicky. “You know, Creampuff, I’d really like to see what she can do with those lips.”

“Yeah?” Amber said in a quiet, coy voice, “Well lean down here, stud-muffin, and I’ll explain the problem.”

When he leaned over, she grabbed the silver cross on his neck and tugged it lightly. “Vicky has an allergy to silver, so you have to lose the crucifix.” She waited out his laugh before she added, “and the earrings. Sorry, but if you want to find out what she’s like, you have to lose the metal. Otherwise, you’re just playing with me.”

Amber leaned her body in, arching her back to writhe against him.

She smiled impishly and said, “Not that I mind either way.”

“Well hey, no offense, but...you’re like the short, cute sister. I could still see doing you, but I’d feel really guilty the next day,”  Robert said, straightening up and puling off his silver stud earrings. “I’d have to have Vicky do me next, to help me get over the guilt right away.” He took off the necklace next, and he tucked them into his pocket.

Amber stepped back and smirked, “Good night, sweet prince.”

“Amber!” Vicky shouted, her deafening, angry volume causing both Amber and Robert to jump. “You don’t ever, ever mangle the bard like that again!”

Amber rubbed her finger in her ear as she nodded. ”All right, fine! Fuck, Vicky, I think you just called the cops in advance.”

Robert looked back and forth quickly, and yet realization still came to him far too slowly. “Hey, you guys don’t really think you’re vamps, do you?”

“Oh, I’m not a vampire.” Amber smiled to show off her fangs. “I just have these because I’m having a vampire’s baby. But I don’t need to eat now, because I just plowed through four guys in an alley not two miles from here. We were looking for a meal for Vicky, and we saw the sign, ‘Alcoholics Anonymous meets tonight.’ I bet Vicky that there had to be at least one sober asshole like you taking advantage of—”

Robert tried to run by shoving his way past Vicky. She caught him under his throat and pushed back, slamming him into the wall with one arm.

His head cracked against the wall, and stars exploded in his vision. He slid down the wall, groaning as he tried to fight the overwhelming urge to close his eyes.

He heard something click, but he couldn’t look up. He thought the click was a switchblade, but he couldn’t be sure.

Amber said, “No, Vicky. I want to see you bite him.”

“What?” Vicky retracted the switchblade, staring at Robert with an uncertain expression. “Amber, I can’t.”

“I’ll get rid of the body, Vicky. I can destroy every last trace of the bite. There’s no guilt here, is there? You never worry about the victims being good or bad anyway, so this is one rule that you normally obey to help you survive.”

“And you’ll explain that to Emil before I tell him that I bit someone?”

“Go ahead,” Amber said. “After he finds out what I can do, he might take me along on a hunt to clean up after him too. It’s one more way that I can be useful to the coven, right?”

“Amber...jeez, I don’t know.” Vicky knelt, crawling over to Robert with a slow, uneasy pace.

He raised one hand, waving it in a protective gesture that meant little. He was too woozy to throw a real punch.

Vicky pushed his arm down, and then she frowned at Amber. “Now you’re making me feel dirty.”

Amber laughed quietly. “Why? Because I’m watching you eat?”

“No, because you didn’t used to enjoy it this much. And now...well it’s kind of dirty.” Vicky watched Amber sink down onto her haunches, and she pointed at Robert. “He’s an adulterer, and that’s really not all that bad.”

“Oh, and when my humanity returns, I might feel bad about you eating him? Would this guy be any different than the house full of teens you ate because you were stoned off of my tainted blood? Will he be different from any of the other victims we take together in the next year?”

Amber had knelt down, duck walking closer as she spoke. She leaned over to look into Robert’s glazed eyes. “Funny, he doesn’t look like a victim to me. He just looks like food.”

“He is.” Vicky reached out to pet Amber’s cheek. “Amber, I don’t like seeing you unhappy, and when this bloodlust wears off, you will have to live with this. I don’t.

“I’ll deal with it when that day gets here.”

“So, if you’re getting rid of the body, that means you’re going to using the feeding spell to consume him?”

“Yep, I’ll liquefy him, bones and all,” Amber said. “I’ll leave a clean pile of clothes, without a trace of DNA on them.” She closed her hand around Vicky’s fingers and tilted her head to kiss Vicky on her palm. She slipped her tongue out to lap a wet trail on Vicky’s skin, and she smiled when Vicky stiffened in response and started to pant.

“You’ve always told me that you couldn’t deny your nature, but you don’t bite victims, and that is denying a part of yourself.”

Vicky leaned her head over and laughed nervously. “Holy shit, Amber. When did you become the devil?”

Amber laughed too. “Let’s not go swelling my ego, lover. I’m a far cry from Lucien or Dimitri.” She pulled Vicky’s hand away and waved toward Robert. “Now, hurry up and eat your dinner before he dies and gets cold.”