Page 100 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)
100
Salt Lake City, January 26, 2025
Iris
What do you say to the mother whose corpse you stabbed so you never had to talk to her again?
“My throat hurts,” I croak.
“Yes, I would assume it does.” Her gaze is flat and emotionless. I’d say it’s because she’s dead, but she’s always looked at me like I’m a spreadsheet. Adding and subtracting in her mind, trying to find a way to make me worth her time. I never was worth her love.
I sit up a bit straighter. Everything hurts. Each muscle and tendon and bone, pieces of my body I never even knew existed making themselves known through sheer aching agony. I feel like I’ve been through an aggressive cycle in the dryer. “Can I have some water?”
“You don’t need water, you need a transfusion.”
I laugh, imagining Arthur Holmwood, Doctor Seward, Quincey Morris, and Van Helsing all lined up in the hallway, eager to make me theirs by filling my veins. Has there ever been a grosser analogue to sex? But I’d never have attracted their attention in the first place. I could never have played the survival game Lucy had to. They would have punted me straight into Dracula’s arms just to get rid of me, inheritance be damned.
My mother flinches with the force of her distaste over my laugh. I study her. She looks young and not dead, but there’s something off. Some lack. I never could explain it in a way that made sense, but growing up, that was how I figured out who was a vampire and who wasn’t. Not fangs, not claws, not glowing red eyes. Just an uncanny valley of absence. Simulacrum of life. Almost there, but not quite.
Maybe that’s why so many aspiring social media influencers, young moms desperate for validation and money, and aimless men who feel like they deserve more than they have are attracted to what Goldaming Life offers. It’s real life with a filter. Everything smoothed and beautiful and fake.
That’s why I didn’t notice “Elle” was a vampire. Lucy’s like them, but she’s not. She still has something vibrant and living and authentic about her.
I lean my head back against the headboard. Even though this is my childhood room, nothing in it was ever mine. The bed frame is sleek and sophisticated and hard; the bed and a nightstand are the only furniture. My mom must have had a chair dragged in here so she could lurk in comfort. The walls are white, the ceiling black, the only notable features those two baffling closet doors and the round red window dominating the alcove between them.
“Well,” I say, “I feel like we should address the undead elephant in the room.”
She doesn’t let out an annoyed sigh. I guess that’s one big change. No more weary exhalations, no more sighs, no more hisses. So that’s nice. But her expression conveys the sigh fairly well. “Yes, Iris, I’m not dead anymore,” she snaps. “Though we prefer the term ‘living goddess.’?”
I snort. “Oh, that’s so cringey. I’m embarrassed for you.”
Her eyes narrow. I brace myself. Whatever she says next will hurt. Then one corner of her mouth hooks up in a smile. “It’s going to happen to you, too.”
My hand flies to my neck. It’s bandaged, but I know what’s underneath. Those twin points throb as if his teeth are still there. “Because of what he did to me?”
She has the decency to look cross. I’m glad she’s annoyed that her pet vampire attacked me. Maybe she does have a single maternal bone in her body, after all. But one of the small, useless ones. Her coccyx, probably.
“No,” she snaps. “We stopped that before it could progress past the point of no return.”
That must have been who was shouting on the porch. Did I manage to squeak out an invite before I passed out? Doesn’t matter. I’m alive. And Dracula is…
“Where is he now?”
“He doesn’t matter.” My mother’s left eye twitches with the lie. She thinks she knows me, but I’ve made an art of studying her. He does matter to them. Which means they’ll keep him safe. Which means Lucy will live.
I want him to suffer. I want him ended in agony. But not if it means Lucy dies, too. Even if she’s not in my life, I want to know she’s still out there, somewhere.
I put an arm over my forehead. “So, what? One of your cronies turns me before I die, like they did to you? Hard pass.”
“No one ‘turned’ me. It was always going to happen. It’s what’s wrong with our—sorry, your blood. Mine’s no longer a problem. Everyone in our family line is born infected.”
“Because of Dracula,” I say, feeling sick all over again. It makes a strange sort of sense. Dracula bit Mina and gave her his blood, but he never finished the job. And then she had a baby afterward. Born infected, then passing it down the line to us.
My mother keeps talking. “Our bodies fight back, trying to keep the vampirism dormant. That’s why we’re anemic, and why our immune systems attack our blood cells when our core temperature drops too low. But eventually our bodies lose the battle, and we die. Then our true nature can take over.” For once, her smile isn’t a performance. It’s genuine.
“You’re happy about it!”
“This is what I was born to be. What I’m meant to be. That other phase, that shadow of a life? It was nothing but suffering.”
“Then why did you fight to stay alive? All those transfusions, all that medical care.”
“It’s our sacrifice. The price we pay to become this. To live forever under the protection and power and pride that the Goldaming family name offers. We might be born into it, but we still have to earn it.”
Sounds like religious bullshittery to me. Like the churches that say God loves you unconditionally but then proceed to give you a bill you’re expected to pay to stay in God’s unconditional love, accompanied by all the many, many conditions under which God actually no longer unconditionally loves you.
“Either we’re born to be vampires or we’re not, Mom. Don’t see why we have to earn it.”
“ Living goddesses, ” she snaps. “Every new generation is required to give as much blood as they can, because the blood—”
“Is life?”
“No, the blood is worth a tremendous amount of money, you little brat. Stop interrupting me. Our empire was built on that blood and its unique properties. Do you think I wanted to be a mother?”
“Wow. Wow. We’re just being fully honest now. Okay.”
She shakes her head in disgust. “You act like you’re the first woman who ever wanted to walk away from the responsibilities and demands on her body and life. Well, too bad, Iris. We have a legacy to uphold. We have a line to continue. And you’re going to participate, whether you like it or not. I tried to help you have more children, earlier. Release you from some of the burden I felt so keenly.”
“Oh fuck you forever, Mom.” I try to get out of bed but I’m too weak to manage it. That’s why she started this conversation before I got medical care. I literally can’t leave. “You weren’t trying to help me, you were trying to breed me. That wasn’t kindness. That was straight-up evil, and we both know it.”
She leans back in her chair. “Stop being petulant. This is what you were born into, and you’ll contribute whether you want to or not. Don’t make it harder on yourself than it has to be.” She stands. I think I’m free, but then she reaches beneath her chair for something. “Then again, you never could take the easy path. I don’t suppose this will be any different. And don’t think I don’t know about this.”
She drops my precious silver dagger on the nightstand. “That was really hurtful, Iris. I also know all about your plan to escape, and that you don’t care about your poor father. You only pretend to so we’ll believe we can control you.”
“Don’t talk to me about Dad! He lived in absolute fear of you! He still does. Real mature, breaking into his room and scaring him.”
She laughs. It’s dainty, almost coquettish. I can’t believe it’s coming out of my frigid mother. “Can you blame me? It was funny!”
“You’re a monster.”
“No, dear. I’m a goddess. Branding matters. Get your terminology straight, or there will be consequences.” She turns as if to leave, then pauses. “Oh, I meant to ask: Who is she? The vampire who tried to kill Dracula? She got inside your house before our security did. I thought you knew better than to invite people in.”
“What?” My heart races with panic, but there’s not enough blood in me to handle it. A wave of dizziness nearly pulls me under. “Where is she? Is she okay?”
My mother’s eyes widen. Her nostrils flare and then her smile spreads. If I thought her laugh was bad, it’s nothing compared to the triumph in her expression. “You care about her, after working so hard to make yourself untouchable. We have her in our lab. How does that make you feel?”
I lunge and grab her cold hands. She can literally smell how much Lucy means to me. As long as Lucy’s safe, I don’t care. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll have a baby, I’ll have five babies, you can take my blood every day, I’ll run the company and toe the line and wear a fucking pantsuit, anything. Just don’t hurt her. Let her live.”
My mother leans forward and brushes a kiss against my forehead. I try not to shudder at her touch. “Good girl,” she says, the first and only time she’s ever called me that. All it cost me was everything.