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“Why?”
Ansel tapped a single finger on the sofa’s arm rest.
“I want you to think well of me, I guess.”
Saber was strangely touched by this admission.
“What’s true, from vampire stories, and not true?”
He smiled and looked up at the ceiling, sighing.
“We show up in mirrors, but tend to avoid them. We are not irritated by the smell of alums, but a garlic clove in the mouth of a corpsewillprevent it from becoming a vampire after burial. There was a time I was bothered by the symbols of the Catholic Church, but that effect seems to have waned. I have my theories as to why. We can’t fly, exactly, but we can levitate off the ground for a little while at a time, though I haven’t found much use for that ability, and others are better at it than I am. I do have heightened strength, speed, and senses. As I said earlier, we can’t read minds, but we can share images and feelings with humans. If you’re enjoying a glass of wine, or a painting, I can enjoy it, too.”
“I knew I felt something strange, that first night when I met you.”
“You feel things very strongly, Saber. Being around you is like…” He thought for a moment. “It’s almost like being human again.”
She looked at him, not knowing what to say. He continued.
“I can’t enter a home without being invited. That is the strangest one of all to me. I can, contrary to popular narrative, go out in the day, but I would be sluggish and nearly blind, which would make me extremely vulnerable. But it wouldn’t kill me, at least not for a little while. I’ve never stayed out long enough to find out if it’s lethal.”
“Do you miss the sun?”
“No,” he said simply. “I don’t really miss anything. I’m not the person who died in that medieval forest seven hundred years ago. I’m a vampire, we’re different. We don’t have human attachments. I don’tmissthings.”
“Are there any rules among vampires?”
“Rules? Like what?”
“Can you kill another vampire?”
“There’s no ruling body, nobody to…punishme, or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. We’re predators, and predators tend to be solitary, but I’ve heard of younger vampires being in… societies. Whatever you would want to call it.”
“How about the other vampires here on the island?”
“What about them?”
“Aretheyin a society of some sort?”
“I’m not sure. Not the ones I know.”
“Are you friends?”
“Friendly but not friends,” Ansel said, and smiled.
Saber felt a shudder of anxiety. What, she wondered, did he really know?
“Do the others live together?”
“Some do, yes.”
“But you won’t tell me where?”
“No, of course not. Why do you want to know?”
“Maybe I’m fascinated, and I want to know more.”
He stared at her, his body so still he looked like a piece of statuary.
