Page 31 of Into The Light

“Wow. That’s so hard to comprehend.”

I nodded. It had been awhile since I had talked about it. My life as a human was a memory now, and I didn’t stop and think back on it very often, used to my new reality.

“Mark tells me you’re going to change him into a vampire?”

I saw the flash of judgement in her eyes when she looked up at me from the bubbling water below. The fire crackled and sent embers floating up into the night sky. I watched them flutter about like fireflies for a moment before answering her burning question.

“Yes. That is our arrangement.”

“How do you do it? Does he have to die? What happens? Is it safe?”

She fired off questions as she leaned forward on the edge of the stones just beside me. Her face rested upon crossed arms, inquisitive eyes searching mine for answers.

“We discovered, quite by accident, that anyone who dies with our blood in their system awakens a vampire.”

“So, you’re going to kill Mark.” She scowled.

I shook my head. “No. I’m going to grant him eternal life.”

“But you need to kill him first. So, he’ll be dead.”

“Only for a few moments.”

“But you didn’t have to die to become what you are, did you?”

It was a good question. “The transformation had been excruciating for all of us. I had passed out during a particularly painful moment and awakened transformed. We all sometimes wondered if we had indeed died, and some of us just never returned. None of us can be sure though. So, answering your question, I don’t know. My heart beats. I breathe. For all intents and purposes I seem to be alive... just a different kind of alive.”

“So, to be a vampire you just need to drink blood every day?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And no sun?”

“No sun.”

“Ugh. I would hate that. I love the sun. Do you miss it?”

“I hardly remember it. It’s been six hundred years since I’ve seen the sun.”

“Can you be killed?” She arched a curious brow.

“Contrary to the stake through the heart theory, we can only be killed by beheading. And considering no human is strong enough to strike the blow, we can basically only be beheaded by another vampire.”

“So, you’re pretty much invincible.”

“Pretty much.”

“Wow. That’s a lot to digest. What about your family? Where are they now?”

That question caused a pang inside my chest. Rifts and pain followed when it came to talking about my family. It had been a decade since we’d parted ways. “Your turn,” I said dodging the question. “Tell me how Emilia Charles ended up sitting in my hot tub?”

“Oy. Where do I begin?”

Everything about this fascinating and beautiful woman intrigued me and I longed to know every detail. Where she grew up, what she loved, what she hated... everything. These thoughts never occurred with Jenny. She represented food, nothing else. Asking her about herself would have been as strange to me as Mark asking his milk where it was pumped just before pouring it into his coffee. It was different with Emilia. She wasn’t just food to me. She was already so much more.

Emilia sat back in the hot tub, her eyes meeting mine. “I grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, just outside Milwaukee. Only child. Two parents. No other family that I ever heard of. My parents both worked two jobs to keep us afloat, so I rarely saw them. When I did, they were too tired to do much but stare at the wall and try to recover.”

“You must have been lonely,” I said, sadness creeping in as I pictured her small and alone.