Page 62 of The Night Firm

I stand as she glides into the room, resplendent in her gown—which is now a blood red floor-length design that hugs her body like she's been dipped into it, with matching lips, and long hair shimmering down her back like an inky waterfall. She raises an eyebrow when she sees that I'm alone.

"No Night brother to guard you against my dangerous appetites?" she asks with a mischievous spark in her eyes.

"Should I be scared?" I ask in reply, in what I hope is a confident-totally-not-scared-at-all attitude.

"Not of me," she says, sliding gracefully into the chair across from me.

She sips at a wine glass full of blood as red as her dress and then smiles at me. "What can I do for you, Eve?"

She says my name slowly and with meaning, and given who she is, I wonder about her life. Her adventures. Her history.

"I had a few more questions I was hoping you could help me with," I say, pulling out the letters.

I had a whole speech planned, but under her intense gaze, my mind is a bit tongue-tied, as it were.

When she sees the letters, her eyes widen a fraction and she sets her glass down. "May I?" she asks, holding out her hand.

I give her the stack of parchments and study her as she flips through them.

"Where did you find these?" she asks.

"Mary Dracule's bedroom," I say.

She raises an eyebrow. "I underestimated her."

"So you don't deny that you wrote these?" I ask.

"No. I don't. But they were meant for Vlad. How did Mary get them?" she asks, but the question is clearly rhetorical.

"Dracula never saw them," I say, wondering if I'm telling her too much.

"How can you be sure?" she asks.

"He denied knowing what they were," I say, "and we had a third party test them."

"That explains so much," she says, looking almost relieved.

"Like what?"

"Like why he never contacted me, even to tell me to bugger off. It's not like him to ignore me so entirely."

"Why did you send these?" I ask, cocking my head to the side slightly as I study this enigmatic mystery before me.

"I missed him. I still miss him. Vlad is my match in every way. He is the love of my many lives. He is my personal sun, the light and warmth I thought I would never experience the joy of…that's what he has always been for me." Her expression is that of one lost in memory, blind to what is in front of her, trapped in the past.

"If that’s true…why did you break up then?" I ask, curious about her side of the story.

"I knew he wanted a child of his own blood more than anything. Maybe even more than me. But he would not betray me in that way. He could not. Not with our sire bond. So…"

A single tear slides down her perfect cheek and she makes no move to dry it as she continues. "I ended things between us and freed him to find a human with which to procreate. Something, despite all my years on this earth, I will never be able to do. A vampire's womb is full of death. It is too barren to carry a child to term."

She leans forward and slips a hand under the cushion of her chair and pulls out a box of cigarettes and a lighter. Noticing the surprise on my face, she shrugs. "Don't tell the brothers. They'd frown at my flagrant use of contraband. Not that I give a single shit about their fragile boy feelings, but I'm not in the market for trouble at the moment."

She pauses to light a cigarette and takes a deep puff, closing her eyes, a look of sublime joy passing across her face before she exhales and then refocuses her gaze upon me. "I'm sure you've wondered about this world, and why any of us would spend time amongst mundanes, given the limitations of the sun, the risk of being discovered?"

I nod. "Yes, that's true. I have wondered." I'm not surprised she surmised this about me. Given her lifespan and clear intelligence, I imagine she is quite the master manipulator, which means she has a keen insight into others. And the tragic irony isn't lost on me. Eve was the mother of humanity, but also blamed for the fall of humanity. The creator and the destroyer. The savior and the villain. Lilith was the mother of all vampires, but never a mother herself. For some, that could be a great and painful burden to bear for so many lifetimes.

"There are perks to your world," she says, taking another hit from her cigarette. "These, for instance." She smiles. "Technology, sanitation, style, and comfort of living. The mundane world has it all. Yes, it comes at a price, so those of us with means have homes in both worlds, to move back and forth through them as we like. The best of it all. Sometimes the Otherworld can be frustrating with its artificial limitations of advancement and growth. Its backward ways." She blows smoke and it coalesces into the shape of a dragon storming the sky with billowing fires. "It will soon be time to set the worlds on fire, Eve. I wonder if you'll be ready."