Page 6

They’re Josep’s problem now.

I t’s hard for me to watch Syrsee go. There is a weird feeling inside me, an urge to go after her and bring her back. It’s almost painful. It starts out as hollowness in my stomach and then progresses to a pressure in my chest as I watch the truck disappear back down the driveway.

I don’t take anything about myself for granted right now. I don’t know if this urge and these feelings are just emotional because we just made a major decision about our relationship—one I’m not necessarily happy with—or if it’s some kind of reaction to my food source being too far away.

Food source. It’s crude, but it’s accurate.

Of course, Syrsee is much more than food to me. And I thought I was much more than an emergent vampire to her, but maybe not.

I don’t know. But here is what I do know—making big decisions about anything right now would be a mistake. There’s too much going on. There are too many new things to decipher. There are too many confusing feelings. So I’m trying to let it all slide down my back. Trying not to get caught up in the sense of loss, which isn’t even real. I haven’t lost her yet.

Yet .

That word sticks in my mind for far too many seconds.

Is it inevitable? That she will hate me one day? Is it inevitable that she will become just another feeder in a bedroom being fed on by me?

I wish I had people to ask. In human lore like movies and TV shows, vampires come in groups. There is always a leader, a bunch of minions, and an older, wiser father or mother vampire who knows all the secrets and doles them out, little by little, on a need-to-know basis.

And even though all that shit is fiction, I’m starting to feel a little cheated. Because I have no one and nothing to guide me through this. I’m a blind man crawling around on my knees in the dark.

I turn and find myself looking at the door to the basement that leads to the root cellar. And before I know what I’m doing, I’m heading towards it. I pull open the door and stare down into the darkness, my new, better eyes adjusting automatically, focusing on the hidden shapes in the black. Steps. That’s all they are.

Then the smells are all back. I can smell everything in the cabin individually. The floorboards, the curtains, the gas in the lines feeding the stove. They are separate and distinct.

But then I smell what’s in the basement. And it is not separate and distinct. It is a bouquet of scents that all mix together perfectly. Dirt, and insects, and water, and rust, and iron, and tree roots.

It is the scent of earth and the moment I get to the bottom of the stairs and my feet touch the ground, a wave of relief floods through me. The pressure in my chest eases and the hollowed-out feeling in my stomach evens out. I sit down on the bottom step, take off my boots, and then stand back up, my toes wriggling in the wet dirt.

A breath comes out. I relax.

This relaxation is so immediate, I take off my jacket, then my shirt, and a minute later I’ve stripped naked and the scents all around me are something new now. They are a mist of lavender and it coats my body like rain.

I forget what my problem was.

I forget why I’m here.

I almost forget everything as I pull open a door and walk forward into the tunnel that leads to the root cellar. The mud squishing under my feet—even that feels good.

Syrsee wouldn’t like this. I would not want her to find me like this. I would not want her to know that I am a thing that lives underground. That I am a thing that needs it. Because only gross things live underground. Only gross things don’t need the light can survive in the darkness. And I can already feel it inside me. The idea that I don’t just live here, I belong here.

The door to the root cellar appears and I open it and step inside, looking around with my new, vampire eyes. The shelves are not empty, but everything on them has rotted into a petrified version of its former self or just deteriorated away into bits and pieces. There are about a dozen glass jars on one shelf, the size of baby food jars, and next to those are vials.

Vials? I blink a few times, wondering when the hell I would’ve put vials in here.

Never, that’s when.

Come to think of it, when did I ever can up baby food?

Again, it never happened.

So where did these jars and vials come from?

I walk over to the shelf and pick up the first jar. It’s covered in a thick layer of dust and I have to wipe this all off for several seconds before I can see the label. It’s faded and old, obviously, but it’s also fancy. Vintage might be the right word. I read it out loud. “Thirst.” Which tells me nothing. So I pick up the next one, perform the same actions, and read it out loud as well. “Hunger.” I repeat this for all the jars. “Gasping. Purging. Chills. Sweats. Fatigue.”

I think about these words for a moment and realize that they are symptoms. Not of diseases, but the lack of basic requirements. I set the last jar back down and start picking up the vials, cleaning them off, and setting them on the shelf in a neat line. Then I read the labels. “Despair. Loneliness. Regret. Contempt. Estrangement. Fear. Shame. Guilt.”

I let out a long breath. Because I think this is like a medicine chest. Cures for what ails me. Which means I have all these things to look forward to.

With this realization, I sober up. The last bit of magical haziness that came from feeding on Syrsee evaporates and I suddenly feel like a man who woke up after a bender.

This makes me huff out a laugh. Because maybe I should drink the vial filled with the cure for guilt. And shame. And regret.

Fucking hell, I should just drink them all.

I don’t, though. I just turn around and go back down the tunnel, pick up my boots and clothes, and then go back up the stairs. Once the basement door has been shut behind me, I wash my feet in the bathtub and put my clothes and boots back on, feeling a little stupid for taking them off in the first place. Then pick up our backpacks and put one in each of the two bedrooms.

I give Syrsee the one with the private bathroom and I take the other.

I unpack the meager things I have collected since being reborn. Three pairs of jeans, two thermal shirts, four t-shirts, and some socks and underwear. I put all these things in a dresser that is mostly empty—the top drawer is filled with towels. Then I put my toothbrush in the hallway bathroom.

This is it. This is what my life has become. A backpack of clothes and a toothbrush. I don’t even have a phone.

But just as I’m thinking this, I look over at the one hanging on the wall in the kitchen. I walk over there and pick it up, then smile when I hear a dial tone.

Too bad I don’t have anyone to call. But I feel five percent less isolated than I did thirty seconds ago and I’ll take it.

I’m just turning my back to it with the intention of heading outside when it rings.

I turn back, staring at it. “Really?” I ask the phone.

It responds by ringing again.

I pick it up. “Yeah.”

“Ryet! Oh. My. God! Ryet ! I’ve been calling you for weeks!”

“Echo?”

“Are you OK? Where are you? Is Paul there?”

“Yes, I’m OK. You called me, so you know where I am. And no. Paul’s not here.”

I have never hated Echo. I actually kinda like her. She’s a little brown-noser when it comes to Paul, but she’s just a halfbreed. It’s kinda her job to do that. She takes a moment to actually internalize my answers, then huffs out a laugh. “Right. I called you. I forgot, it’s a landline. So you’re at your place?”

“Obviously.” Though I don’t hate Echo, this is enough to make me tired of her. “What do you want?” It occurs to me here—only after I’ve said these words in the rudest way possible—that I should possibly, maybe be nicer to her since she is… well, all I’ve got in terms of friends and family at the moment. Sad as that is.

“Paul is gone. Do you know where he is? I mean, I’m sure he’s fine. Underground or something. But the halfbreeds, Ryet. They’re taking advantage of everything. They’re going a little crazy too.” She lowers her voice here. “I found Lucia up in that tower room. Paul cut off her head, Ryet. Her head !”

“Right. Yeah. I was there.” Sort of. “So. Why are you calling?”

“The halfbreeds. What are they supposed to eat ?”

“I’m sorry?”

“They… we… we have to eat. And the feeder died. What happened to the Black witch you and Paul brought home for us? Do you know where she is? We’re… hungry .”

“First of all, I didn’t bring her ‘home’ for you. I didn’t bring her there at all. Second, you’re a halfbreed. Order a pizza if you’re hungry.”

“Well”—she scoffs here—“duh. We have eaten. We just… haven’t… eaten . If you know what I mean.”

She means blood, of course. “Listen, Echo, I’m sorry it’s turned out this way, but the blood is gone.”

“ What ? What do you mean?”

“The blood. Is gone.” Even if I was in the mood to share, I would never share with the halfbreeds. There is no way in hell that Syrsee will end up feeding halfbreeds. She’s mine. She was made for me. And the sooner these tweakers get past this little truth, the better. “You need to go back to eating like humans. For every meal. There are no more Black witches in your future. Is there anything else?”

Echo is speechless on the other end of the line.

“Echo?”

“Right. Um. Are you sure ?”

“Am I sure there is no more blood for you? Yes, Echo. I’m sure.”

“But where is Paul?”

“I don’t actually know. In the ground, probably.”

“The ground.”

“Yep. Are we good?”

“Last time he went to ground he stayed away for two years. Is that what we can expect?”

“Probably.”

“O… K.” She pauses. Like she’s picking and choosing her words very carefully. “But who’s in charge here? I mean, we’ve never been left alone before. We always had Lucia.”

“Josep, I presume.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Jo-sep.”

“Who the hell is Josep?”

“The vampire who lives under the house. Good luck with that, by the way. I’ve gotta go. Bye.”

I hang up the phone, smiling, feeling a bit satisfied, actually. It’s not nice to confuse her. I mean, she probably is feeling the effects of no blood. I’ve never been a halfbreed, obviously, so I can’t be sure. But even if it’s just psychological, it’s an addiction at this point.

I would not want to be her, that’s for sure.

They’re probably gonna go crazy out there in the mountains. But whatever. They’re Josep’s problem now, not mine. I grab my jacket and step outside.

It’s only then, when I’m standing on the porch with the cold air swirling around me, that I realize I was way too warm.

It’s back. It’s been thirty minutes—maybe forty-five—and the hunger is back.

I take a seat in a short-back rocking chair that I made forty years back, and I settle in to wait for Syrsee. Telling myself, over and over again as I close my eyes and breathe deeply, that I will not attack her when she gets here.