“You know Bloodsheds go through it too?” I blinked and looked up at her. “When they die, they don’t just wake up and are vampires two minutes later. Their souls leave and go down to hell just like ours do. While their bodies change on earth, they sit down with a demon too. I had always been told they didn’t. When I was a kid. My mom.” My voice took on almost a distant tone.
“They hated Bloodsheds?” She frowned.
“Most Bloodborns do.” I shrugged. “I grew up being told their existence was unnatural.”
“Bloodborns are obnoxious.” She rolled her eyes. Her blood-red eyes.
I tilted my head. “You’re one.”
“I am. I get the disgust at the blood community. Glorifying how Bloodsheds turn is gross. But treating them like second-class citizens is kind of dumb.”
“I wouldn’t say they are treated like second-class citizens.” I suddenly felt very defensive. “They’re just- different.”
“How so?” she demanded. “We are both born human, we die at 27, we need blood to survive and can’t go out into the sun. All that’s different are our eyes.”
“No,” I interrupted her and put a finger up. “Not just the eyes. Bloodsheds can’t have children. Their line dies with them.”
“Oh, so that’s why you all act so uppity? Because you guys can have little bat babies?”
I grinned. “Bat babies?”
Her eyes sparkled with laughter, causing all the tension of our conversation to melt away.
“Fine. They are just like us, without the bat baby option. You wanted to know about curses?” I changed the subject quickly. I wasn’t in the mood to discuss blood politics. She nodded.
“Yes. So, you died. Your soul went down to hell, and at some point, you made a deal with the devil that was there to greet you. What was yours?”
“Mine?” I asked.
“Their name?”
“Why would I remember that? I barely remember what all we talked about.”
“Mine was Samson.”
“Good for you. And?” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cards. I started shuffling them in between my fingers in my lap.
“What do you remember?”
“It sounds like you remember a whole lot more than I do.” I dodged.
“I’m not sure.” She began to play with her hands. I sighed then and looked up at her.
“I gave up my human life for someone very important. I was going to change in just a few hours, but I wasn’t there yet. If you die before you turn, you die forever. So, I made the deal to let me turn into a vampire in exchange for some things.”
“The ten thousand souls.”
I nodded.
“Who was it? The person you died for?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
Silence fell around the room, almost as if a thick blanket.
“Oh,” she said.
Yeah. That’s the problem.
