Page 35 of Night of the Vampire
"How would you know? You weren't there when it happened."
"I wasn't. But I was there right after and I felt it. I felt the magic. It wasn't yours."
She stared up at me as though I'd lost my mind.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm not crazy. It wasn't you."
"You can feel magic?"
More people were sending nervous glances in our direction and I realized we were standing toe to toe. I took a step back. "Let's walk."
Glancing around as though she just remembered we were standing in the middle of the sidewalk on a public street, she fell in beside me.
Neither of us spoke again until we got to my car.
"A Tesla, huh?" She seemed surprised as she eyed my black Model S.
"Doing my best to save the environment and all that," I told her. I held her door open for her and waited until she'd slid inside the synthetic leather interior before I jogged around to the driver's side.
As soon as I was inside and the doors were shut she began to bombard me with questions. Which was good. It distracted me from the way her delicious scent filled the small space.
"What do you mean you can 'feel' magic? Are you a witch, too? Uh...warlock? Is that how you knew about me?"
I laughed. "No. But I've been around them long enough to be familiar with their ways."
"So, you know my family, then?"
I pulled out onto I-10 and headed northwest toward the swampland. "I've known them for a long time. Since your aunt was nothing but a wee child."
"But how can that be? You can't be more than...what? Thirty-five? Forty?"
"I was forty-two," I told her distractedly as I changed lanes. Too late, I realized my slip.
"Aunt Judy is in her sixties. It's not possible that you knew her then."
Dammit. I tried to play it off. "Many things are possible if you believe in them." She would find out what I was, sooner or later, but I was suddenly averse to telling her. I didn't know why. It would only help my cause for her to have a little fear of me.
But the truth was, I didn't want her to be afraid. I wanted her to long to be near me always. Not run away.
Frustrated with myself and my rollercoaster of emotions, I drove faster than I ought, speeding down the highway and weaving in and out of traffic. From the corner of my eye I saw Lizzy's hands clenching the sides of her seat and it only angered me more. Easing off the gas, I tried to calm myself. I didn't know what it was about this woman...this witch...that caused such extreme reactions in me. But gods, I ached to be close to her again like the first night I'd brought her to my home.
I was a vampire, and yes, when I was first reborn, just like my heightened senses of touch and hearing, my emotions had also become something to be reckoned with. It had taken me a long time to learn control, and at times I'd felt like a five-year-old lad again, throwing tantrums when I didn't get my way. But, eventually, it had gotten better. I'd grown older and more used to this new body. More used to the force of my anger, the delirium of my joy, and the animal need of my lust—both for blood and for sex.
But the gods help me, Lizzy brought all of it to entirely new levels.
"Are you angry with me?" Her voice was quiet but firm, as though my rage made her nervous, but not enough for her not to question me about it.
I exhaled fast and hard, the sound loud in the quiet of the car's interior. "No. I'm not angry at you."
"So, now I'm kind of wondering what the car did from the time we left the Quarter until now."
I frowned, looking over to find her lips twitching with mirth. Instantly, my mood changed from frustrated anger to complete and utter joy just because her dark eyes were dancing. I didn't care that I was the brunt of her joke, only that she was happy.
For Christ's sake. What the hell was the matter with me? Shaking my head, I faced the road again. "We're almost there."
That drew her attention back to the narrow road we were on and the moss covered cypress trees draped over it, their trunks underwater. "You're living on the swamp?"
"Only temporarily."
