A Girl's Guide to Vampires

The room suddenly went gray as a wave of bone-deep hunger slammed into me, sucking at me, pulling me down into its icy hold. I was gripped by it, possessed by it, drowning in a need I couldn't begin to understand. Just as abruptly as it started, it ended, leaving me gasping at Christian as he placed a chaste kiss on my wrist. I pulled my hand back, wanting to scream, wanting to know what was happening to me, needing to understand why my mind was suddenly doing things it shouldn't be doing. Something is wrong with you, a frightened voice in my head cried out. I whirled around, desperate to run away, wild to escape the imaginings of my fractured mind.

Raphael stood in the doorway to the dining room watching Christian. His eyes were hooded, glowing with unspoken emotion, hard and glinting and so full of anger the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Slowly he moved his gaze to me, then gestured to the dining room and held out his hand for me. 'Shall we?'

I stood sick at heart with the knowledge that I must truly be going mad, and struggled to control my beating heart. Inside my head I was shrieking and screaming and pleading for someone to explain to me what was happening, but outside I stood silent, unable to move lest the stillness break and the madness descend upon me again.

You see visions of vampires. Something is wrong with you.

'Joy? You look like you need to eat. Come, let us have dinner.'

Christian's voice was an oasis of calm, but it didn't stand a chance in the wild turbulence that filled my mind. He, too, held out his hand to me. I stared at it, unable to move.

Vampires or insanity—which did I want as an explanation? My mind fractured a little more trying to decide. I put my hands up to my head, wanting to hold it together, terrified that I would lose control over everything important to me. Vampires or insanity? Which was real, and which was my imagination? How would I know which was which? Could I trust myself to recognize reality anymore, and if I couldn't, who would help me?

Your mind can't recognize what's real and what's not, the voice in my head whispered. Something is wrong with you.

'Joy.'

Raphael's voice glowed like a beacon in the maelstrom of my whirling thoughts. I fought to control the swelling panic that gripped me, tried to focus my thoughts so they didn't drag me down with them, drowning in a sea of confusion and fear. Desperately I clung to the thought that if I could just have a little time, I could figure things out and make sense of all the disorder.

There is no hope. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOU!

'Joy.'

'There is nothing wrong with me!' I yelled at Raphael. 'So I have a few visions? So what? Who doesn't? I REFUSE TO GO MAD!'

The words echoed in the long, narrow hallway, disturbed only by the muffled hum of noise from the bar. Shocked that I had yelled out loud, I stared wordlessly at Raphael.

He pursed his lips. 'I think you're going to be more trouble than I first anticipated.'

Chapter Six

Dinner was a trial. Despite my bellowed statement that I would not allow myself to go mad, I was worried about the disintegration of a formerly sound, if not terribly brilliant, mind. As I saw it, life was offering me two paths: Either I could believe in vampires and live happily ever after, or I could go not-so-quietly insane and have myself locked up. Given those choices, there was really no contest. I took a deep mental breath and told my skeptical self that I was only doing this for sanity's sake.

I would believe in vampires.

During dinner neither Christian nor Raphael made mention of the episode in the hall, a fact that left me wondering uneasily if they were humoring me in order to keep me from going off the deep end again.

I did not like the feeling.

'Oh, come on, have a little din-din. Tell you what, it'll be my treat,' Roxy pleaded with Raphael a few minutes later.

'No, thank you. I told you I've already eaten.'

'Yeah, but surely you could put away a little something extra? You're a big guy, I'm sure there's room in there for a little pork and sauerkraut, eh?' Roxy grinned at him, nudging me under the table with her toes. I gave her the one-eyebrow. 'Yes? You wanted something?' lift, as perfected by the man sitting across the table from me.

'No, thank you.'

'How about dessert? The strudel here is really good.'

'No, thank you. I don't want anything.'

'Roxy, leave him alone.'

'Appetizer?'

'No.'

'Glass of wine?'

'I don't drink wine.'

'Roxy!'

'I can't sit here and eat my stuffed pork and dumplings if he's not going to eat anything!' Roxy declared, frowning at Christian in a meaningful manner until he obediently transferred his attention to the menu. She turned back to Raphael and was going to bait him further, but I made the squinty eyes to end all squinty eyes at her, and for what was probably the first time in her life, she backed off.

'Geez, you guys don't have to look at me like that, I was just expressing a polite interest. Wasn't I expressing a polite interest, Joy?'

'No, you were being obnoxious and pushy. You deserve to be snapped at.'

'Oh, sure, you take his side. No surprise there, considering you almost had your tongue down his throat a few minutes ago.'

'ROXY!'

'Good, here comes the waitress. Has everyone but Stretch here decided what they want?'

I prayed for an earthquake to open the earth up at my feet and swallow me whole. From the martyred look on Raphael's face, he was praying the same thing.

'So, do you live around here?' Roxy asked Christian once we had placed our orders.

He nodded, his fingers tracing the rim of his wineglass. 'I do. About a kilometer west of here.'

'Really? What do you do?'

'Roxanne!' I slapped at her hand as she was about to snag the last bit of bread.

'What?'

'It's not polite to grill people. I told you almost everyone but Americans find it invasive to question them about their life.'

She grinned her pixie grin at him. 'Sorry; didn't mean to be rude.'

He smiled as he took the piece of bread she offered. Roxy turned to me with her eyebrows lowered. 'Am I allowed to talk about myself, or is that also rude?'

I shot Raphael a 'what can I do with her?' look. He lifted both eyebrows in return in a manner that seemed to suggest a gag might be effective. I was forced to agree he had a point.

Christian laughed at Roxy's question, the warm sound rolling around the room and covering everything in a soft blanket of silk. 'I'm not in the least bit offended by your questions, although I would much rather hear about what brings two such lovely women to a small corner of the Czech Republic.'

'A wild goose chase,' I muttered.

Roxy ignored me. 'Have you ever heard of a local author named Dante?' she asked Raphael and Christian. The former shook his head.

Christian frowned slightly as he toyed with his bread, rubbing crumbs off the crust. 'Yes, I have.'

'I thought you might; he lives in this area,' Roxy continued, digging through her sizeable purse for a copy of