He paused, his hands clenching and unclenching before he went on, “Understandably, I became incensed. I declared that I hated her and that when I felt better, I would hunt her down and kill her for what she had done to me. She told me to ‘just try it.’ She warned that if I ever moved against her, she would slaughter everyone I had ever cared about, beginning with my family. And then she went a step further, saying, ‘If you so much as ever speak to any of your friends or family again, I will have them destroyed.’ I asked her why she would do such a thing, why she would doom me to such a wretched existence when she did not even know me. She looked at me with the emptiest eyes I had ever seen and explained that she did this now and again ‘for fun,’ chose a person to turn and then abandoned them. Even if she never saw us again, it gave her some sick pleasure to know that we were out there, her ‘children,’ other monsters like her, all alone and miserable. She said she chose me because she thought I was handsome, and she could see I was young and healthy and that, at twenty-eight years old, I had my entire life ahead of me. It made the act of turning me that much sweeter, she said, to know she had taken so much from me...” He glanced briefly out the window, clenching his fists again. “So, as I said, it was akin to being struck indiscriminately by some horrid disease. There was no reason behind it. No personal motivation. It was simply an act of random evil.”
Silence reigned in the SUV for a while after Nathan had stopped talking. Then Jessica said, “Wow, that is so messed up.”
“Yeah,” Lucy agreed, shivering, “what a psycho.”
Nathan’s mouth lifted on one side, but there was little humor in the expression. “It gets worse. Sometime later, I arrogantly tested Marta’s threats against me. Could she really have knowledge of everything I did, I wondered? How would such a thing even be possible? It had been months since my turning, and I had hardly spoken to a soul. I ran into a pair of friends out on the street and, out of sheer loneliness, I accepted their invitation to share a drink with them in their home. The evening passed without incident. I did not tell them about what had happened to me, nor did they seem to suspect anything strange. They did not comment on the fact I hardly touched my drink. But then, a few weeks later, both of my friends turned up killed. Shot to death in their car, with no apparent motive. Their murders have never been solved.” His voice had remained steady, even somewhat detached, as he’d related this story, but now his face was taut with grief.
“Nathan,” Jessica said, “that’s awful. But it could’ve just been a coincidence.”
“Yes, it could have.” His tone made it clear he didn’t believe that for a second. “Regardless, I have remained isolated from most humans since then. I interact with them, of course, as I must in order to get by in society. And that seems to be safe enough, thankfully. But I have never risked contact with my family, nor developed any new close relationships. I simply drink the blood of animals, maintain a watch from afar over my family, and otherwise keep to myself.” He turned his head. “You see now, Jessica, why I did not want you to become involved with me.” A fearful look crept into his eyes, and Lucy could tell he was genuinely worried about her friend.
“You’re pals with Kiefer,” Jessica pointed out.
“Yes, and look where it got him. Beaten to a pulp and left for dead. Anyway, Kiefer is a special case. He has his sorcery as a means of protection, obviously, and his brief bout with vampirism has left him…altered in some ways.”
“Altered?” Dara asked anxiously.
“Perhaps ‘enhanced’ is a better word,” Nathan said. “He is better able to defend himself now. Besides, he knows about Marta’s threat to me, and that he endangers himself through our affiliation. It seems unwise in my view, but he chooses to remain my associate despite the hazards.”
Jessica leaned a little closer to him, smiling with her head tilted. “Oh, I can see why he’d risk it,” she said, and reached out to take Nathan’s hand in hers.
Surprise registered on the vampire’s face. He didn’t pull away, but he said, hoarsely, “Jessica. You do not want to touch me. I am…an unclean thing.”
Jessica scooted across the seat and rested her head on his shoulder. She wrapped her arm around his waist. If he was as cold as ice or as hard as stone or in any other way unpleasant to the touch, she didn’t let it show. In fact, Lucy thought her friend seemed to be thoroughly enjoying being so close to him.
“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, Nathan,” Jessica said with a soft sigh. “Really, I am. It bites—if you’ll pardon the pun.”
Lucy watched as the vampire closed his eyes and some of the tension leached from his face. It was
