Page 55 of Night of the Vampire
Pulling the box in front of me, I opened it and pulled out a slice.
"I had a hard time figuring out how to live my life as anything other than a slave. I got in trouble a lot. People in the north weren't always as tolerant of us black people as we were led to believe. I ended up in jail for a lot of years. It was mostly my own fault for not controlling my temper—"
"That's bullshit. You have as much right to express your emotions as anyone."
His smile was sad. "You would think so, wouldn't you?" He scratched at his nose. "Anyway, I was probably on my way back there when I met up with Killian again. I recognized him right away, even though it had been over twenty years since I'd seen him last. I was in bad shape, and he took me into his home. Gave me food. Gave me shelter. Helped me find work." He took a sip of his soda. "We got to be good friends."
"Was he still human the second time you saw him?" I was trying to figure out how they'd both become what they are now.
"No," Jamal said. "He was a vampire. A young one."
"How did it happen?"
"You should probably ask Killian that."
"I'm asking you."
He shook his head.
But I wasn't backing down. "I'm asking you, Jamal."
He took another drink of his soda, eyeing me over the rim of his glass. "All right. But don't tell him I told you this."
"I swear," I promised, grabbing another slice of pizza.
"Apparently, it all went down because of a woman."
I rolled my eyes. Of course, it had to be that.
Jamal laughed. "I know what you're thinking, and you're absolutely fucking right. It was like a bad movie. Killian wouldn't even tell me about it for like, a year."
"So, you knew what he was?"
"After a few months, yeah, he told me. He kind of had to at that point. Sun allergies weren't a thing at that time."
Ah. I was right. "You guys can't go out in the sun."
He rubbed one hand over his short hair. "Nope. Although the older you are, the more you can push it. But direct sunlight is a no go for any vampire."
"You're getting off the subject," I told him. "How did Killian become a vampire? How did you become a vampire?"
"Killian confessed his story to me the night I found out he wasn't human anymore. A woman named Olivia turned him one night after..." He glanced up at me. "Well, after. He'd met her at the home of a friend. He was enthralled, as anyone would be by such a beautiful and mysterious woman, especially back then. She offered him things he'd never dreamt of having. Money. Power. A chance to see the world change with every decade for as long as you wanted. See new inventions, meet new people. He would never age. Never die. And if Killian was anything. He was a survivor. But, most importantly, she offered him companionship. So, he took her up on her offer." He paused while he took a drink. "She killed his friend a few months later."
I covered my mouth when it dropped open from shock. "What did he do?"
"He killed her."
It was wrong of me, I know, but at that moment, I was glad he'd killed her. As I was quickly finding out, vampires had an attachment to their makers. And, God help me, I didn't want Killian to have any such attachment to another woman.
"What about his family? Other friends?"
But Jamal shook his head. "He came over from Ireland with his parents during the famine. I believe he was fourteen at the time. His mother didn't survive the journey and his father died a couple of years later from an illness. He was on his own over here. By the time he could travel back to Ireland, there was no one there he really knew."
Sadness filled my heart for that young boy who'd had so much struggle in his life. "So, what about you?"
"Me? I'm easy. I got into a fight and got gutted like a deer, though you wouldn't know it now." He lifted up his shirt. There was no scar. Only smooth, brown skin and rippling abs. "Killian healed me. But to do that he had to turn me."
"And I take it that wasn't what you wanted."
