“I’m game,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Which is how I found myself browsing adorable vintage clothing stores and old-timey drugstores on the Atlantic City boardwalk with a vampire wearing Ray-Bans; dragging an ever-growing number of bags around while ignoring my increasing fatigue and achiness. We stopped at a little cafe to rest for a bit, sitting at a wrought iron table shaded by trees while I wolfed down an Asian-inspired salad with chicken and orange sections.
“So, tell me more about yourself,” I urged around a mouthful of lettuce drenched in sesame-ginger dressing. “You know way too much about me, and I know next to nothing about you. You’re English, obviously. Where were you born?”
He was watching me tear through the salad with evident fascination, but I refused to let it bother me. Now, he settled back in the chair, determinedly casual. Other voices buzzed around us, combining with the sound of wind rustling through leaves to ensure that our conversation would be private as long as we spoke quietly.
“As it happens, I was born in Yorkshire,” he said. I nodded, still chewing. “... in thirteen twenty-one,” he finished.
I choked on the bite of salad.
“Thirteen... twenty-one?” I rasped once I’d dislodged the lettuce from my trachea. “As in, thirteen twenty-one A.D.?”
“You asked,” he said mildly.
And I had. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been dropping hints pretty much since I’d met him that he was old. In fact, I wasn’t certain why hearing him rattle off an actual year should make such a difference to me. It did, though. If he was to be believed—and almost despite myself, I did believe him—then he’d been born in the freaking Middle Ages.
“What was it like?” I couldn’t help asking.
Both eyebrows lifted behind the reflective black of the sunglasses, as though I’d surprised him.
“It was harder in some ways, and easier in others,” he said after a beat. “I was... the oldest son of Thomas and Lisabeth Thorpe. I had two younger brothers and three sisters. The family ran an iron smelting operation, processing ore from the northern mines. It was sweaty, backbreaking work, but it was honest, and at the end of the day you had something to show for it. We never went hungry.”
“I can’t even imagine how different things must have been back then,” I said softly.
He gave a barely perceptible half-shrug. “I was two years shy of my thirtieth birthday when the Black Death came to York. We had no conception of disease organisms and the way contagion worked... it all seemed so terrifyingly random. Families turned on other families, accusing them of witchcraft, or of drawing the plague to the city by not being devout enough.”
“That’s terrible,” I breathed.
“Human nature has always been to lash out when danger threatens,” he said. “When my youngest sister fell ill, my brothers urged my father to turn her out of the house, but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. The rest of us got sick one by one. Eight days later, I was the only member of my family left alive—too weak to bury the bodies, or even to rise from my pallet so I could feed myself.”
I found myself holding my breath, caught up in the story. Aching for the man seated across from me.
“Someone barred the door of our house from the outside, not that I had the strength to go anywhere in the first place,” he continued. “I remember being afraid that the other villagers would set fire to the place with me inside. That, and the agony of thirst, like my throat was burning up. I could see a jug across the room. I was sure it had ale in it, but I couldn’t get to it and there was no one to bring it to me.”
A lump rose in my throat as I pictured it.
“I’m certain I would have perished by the following morning,” he said. “The plague is a ravenous and impatient killer, for humans—or at least, it was back then. But that night, someone unbarred the door and entered the house. It was pitch-black, or else I’d already gone blind. I was barely aware of fangs sliding into my throat, drinking my tainted blood until I slipped into death’s cool embrace. I woke some time later, frantic, with someone else’s blood in my mouth... running down my chin. My heart wasn’t beating. The lack of a pulse nearly drove me mad before I figured out what had changed.”
My heart was beating fast enough for both of us by that point. “You were... turned by another vampire?”
“Apparently, the foolish bastard thought he was doing me a favor,” Rans said lightly. “He buggered off as soon as the job was done.”
My jaw dropped. “He just left you there? With no idea what had happened to you?”
“More or less.”
“What a complete asshole!” I said, loud enough to draw a couple of looks from the tables around us. I sank back into my chair, blood rising to my cheeks.
Rans’ expression turned wry. “Well, if it’s any consolation, he’s dead now, so...”
I could hear bitterness behind the gallows humor, but before I could respond, he changed the subject.
“Enough about me. I’m not the enigma,” he said. “Tell me more about your family. Your mother was a politician and your father is an accountant. What do you know about your grandparents?”
I took a moment to change mental gears. “Uh... my dad was never close with his parents. I didn’t have much contact with them. His father is dead, and as far
