“Yep.”
“So, what about you? Are you—”
“Human, like I said. As human as you are,” Michelle replied, gingerly tipping the chicken pieces into the frying pan, already sizzling with onions. She began chopping up the ham as she added, “I have just been trained really well by him.”
“So, what are you to him, really?”
“A friend mostly. I am probably the only one he has.”
“Does he kill people?”
Michelle winced before adding the ham and stirred it together.
“He has done, yes. Mostly in his early years after he was turned. But then he learned how to drink from humans without killing us, so that’s how he went on before he met donors.”
“Donors?”
“People who volunteer to let him feed on their blood. He has had a few over the years. Right now it’s me.”
“He drinks your blood? You let him?”
“Yep,” she said, as if such a thing was the most normal situation in the world.
Alex stared at her. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“Alex, I think it’s time for you to stop pretending you don’t know what’s going on, just because it’s less scary then admitting the truth to yourself. There are things that go bump in the night. You met two of them yesterday. Believe me, though, I know how you feel. I had dealings with vampires before I met Dante. One in particular called Julian. That guy is a scary motherfucker. Thankfully, someone upstairs was looking out for me and I found Dante. Or he found me, I guess. It’s complicated.” Michelle shrugged.
“Can you try and un-complicate it? Please, I want to know how you met him.”
Both girls sat down at the kitchen table. Michelle cleared her throat. “I used to be with Julian, who always wanted another vampire called Melina. It’s a story that goes back and back,” she added, as if she had heard this story over and over. “She denied him for decades apparently, but out of the blue she said yes. So when he got her, he suddenly had no use for me. I had been his for three years, since I was fifteen. I was an eighteen-year-old with no money, no job, and I had lost touch with all my friends, and my family thought I was dead. They had even held a service for me.”
“Really?” Alex asked.
“Yeah. Dante found one of the funeral programmes last year. I’ve got it at home. Kinda freaky,” Michelle replied. “Anyway, I despised vampires more than you could ever imagine, but I had nowhere else to go. The word went out that there was a human available, and Dante bought me.
“I swear, had it been any other vampire, they would’ve killed me within a week. I was a total mess and just wanted it to end. We never spoke for the longest time. I didn’t want to let him near me, even though I knew I had my duty. But he never tried anything. Day after day, I would wake up and there would be food on a tray next to my bed, with a credit card. Was I game enough to use it though? Of course not. I knew vamps had their tricks, so I left it alone. Eat yes, spend no. Night would come, and he would walk in, replace my tray with more food and drink, only to walk back out again.”
“It sounds like he thought of you as a dog.”
“Well, I thought so too at first. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I thanked him one night just as he was walking out of my room. He turned around and gave me a little smile. He only said, ‘You’re very welcome’ and then he left.
“It was the most genuinely nice thing I had heard for so long. It was around then that I realised it had been days and I hadn’t fed him. I knew if I wanted him to keep being so nice, I had to let him feed on me. So about an hour later I knocked on his door.
“He told me to come in, so I did and waited for him to speak. He was sitting at his giant mahogany desk looking at me. Now that I got a chance to study him, the first thing I noticed was how pale he had become. Now Dante is rather tanned. This is because they stay the way they were made. Like, if you’re a black human you don’t suddenly transform into an Albino. But it’s when they don’t feed they get shade of pale, like off milk. They look sick. He had bags under his eyes, slow eye movement. Imagine someone who has the stomach flu and you’ll have an idea.”
Alex nodded, waiting for Michelle to continue.
“I stuttered and stammered, and finally tried to indicate that I knew he hadn’t fed yet, and did he want to, and he just politely calmed me down and told me I didn’t need to concern myself with that.”
“What’d you say?” asked Alex.
“Nothing. Dante stood up and took both my hands and held them. He told me he wanted me to get better, healthier again after having been in Julian’s ‘care’ and that he’d be fine. He didn’t look fine, and I told him so, but he just laughed and kissed me goodnight. I’ll remember that kiss for as long as I live.”
The meal was ready. Alex brought both plates to the table and sat down with Michelle. She twirled some pasta and took a bite, not surprised to find it delicious.
“What can you tell me about them?” Alex asked. “The real stuff, not just in stories.”
Michelle unpacked the laptop and set it up, plugging a USB modem into a slot. “I downloaded and copied a few things you might find interesting. They are like vampire history books. Dante
