Blood Curse

Blood Curse

Vampire’s Love

Janice Harrell

A vampire …

Rina paced restlessly around the perimeters of the house, smiling to herself—lucky thing it was only a superstition that vampires couldn’t enter a house without an invitation. All she needed was a broken window, perhaps, or cellar door. She spotted the tree that grew near the house, its branches stretching to the height of the lighted room upstairs. She scaled it as easily as a cat and perched on a branch, her weight scarcely stirring its leaves. As she watched the boy get into bed her mouth fell open in fascination. Through the open window, she could smell the dust of the grave that clung to him. She watched for a long time as he tossed under the sheets. Finally he grew still …

Suddenly, like a magnifying glass in the sun, her wavering consciousness managed to focus the scattered molecules onto the rug beside his bed. A cold breath of air stirred the curtains as Rina found herself standing beside the boy’s bed trying to remember who she was. Rina. A vampire. She was two hundred years old….

1

It was late but a light still burned in a big house on Netherwood Lane. In an upstairs bedroom, James Ryder lay sprawled on his stomach on his bed scowling at an old sketch pad he had found in his closet. Inside its cardboard cover was printed, in block letters—

JAMES CHAMBLESS RYDER

TYLER FALLS, NORTH CAROLINA

PLANET EARTH

AT THE EDGE OF A MINOR GALAXY

James smiled wryly. Back in the seventh grade he’d been awfully certain of his place in the universe, hadn’t he? Things made sense to him back then. It must have been nice.

The phone by the bed rang and James reached for it. He knew only one person inconsiderate enough to call this late. Hi, Chelsea, he said, settling back against his pillow.

How did you know it was me? she cried.

James smiled. "Who else calls at one

A.M

.?"

Did I wake you up?

No, James admitted.

Good. We just got back from the Outer Banks and I had to tell you right this minute that I love, love, love you! I missed you so much. My aunt was staying with us at the beach cottage with her four bratty kids, and I’m still sticky from them slobbering all over me.

With competition like that I had to look good, he said. He flipped back to the last few empty pages of the old sketch pad. Really, Chels, you ought not to call at this time of night. You could have woken up the whole family.

Aren’t you glad to hear from me?

Sure, said James. Of course I am, he added more firmly. He was holding the receiver with his chin against his shoulder, and as he spoke he sketched a cartoon of Chelsea. She was easy to draw. With her broad-jawed face and tiny nose she reminded James of a cat. One of the aristocratic kind—Siamese, maybe. He gave her a slender cat’s body and a long expressive tail that curled into a question mark. He could hear her muffled voice as she said something to her mother.

My mother is nagging me to hang up, she said, returning to the receiver. "Like I don’t remember that tomorrow is a school day? Am I stupid or what? Of course I remember. I’m just not going to let school ruin my life. I cannot wait to get away to college. Then it’s good-bye forever to this dinky town, this family, the whole bit. Once I’m away from home, I can do anything I want and Mom can’t do a thing about it. Just a minute! I have to go, James. My mother is going to kill me if I don’t hang up. See you tomorrow."

James’s nerves were jangled when he hung up, and he knew there wasn’t a chance he was going to fall asleep. He tossed the dog-eared sketchbook to the floor. He had been on edge even before Chelsea called, he realized. He put on his sneakers and moved silently downstairs and out of the house.

Rina Cargiale’s black cape brushed the grass as she walked in Oak Level Cemetery. It swung open with every step, showing the gleam of its black satin lining. Though the night was warm, eddies of cold air rolled off her, and in the moonlight her face looked ashen. Her footsteps were silent and neither the cape nor her tiny, slippered feet left any trail on the dew-frosted grass.

She went to the oldest part of the cemetery where an iron fence threw barred shadows against the gravestones. A huge oak stood at the edge of the old cemetery, and its mighty roots heaved the tombstones drunkenly askew. A marble angel leaned precariously to one side. On another grave, a marble lion slept on a marble cushion that slanted downward sharply.

Rina inhaled the scent of mildew that clung to the ancient tombstones and the still-fainter scent of old bones. She often visited these old graves, fascinated by the way the big oak made the ground heave and buckle, as if it sought to wake the dead. It stirred a hope in her that she didn’t dare acknowledge even to herself.

The moon shone bright as a searchlight overhead and her shadow leapt to meet her as she walked. Suddenly she sensed that someone else was in the graveyard. She grew still and then quit breathing altogether. The vibration of heavy footsteps traveled through the thin soles of her slippers, and the night breeze brought an unfamiliar scent. Her sensitive nostrils quivered.

Slipping swiftly from shadow to shadow, she crept close to the iron fence and peeked through its bars to the lawn outside. There were no gravestones in the newer part of the cemetery, only brass plaques that lay flat in the grass. A solitary figure stood some yards from Rina, head bent. He sank to one knee, his back to her. She noticed under his feet the cross-hatched lines that showed the grass had been recently sodded. It was a new grave he was visiting, then. But why at this time of night? Rina’s interest quickened. The boy had no shovel, so he couldn’t be planning to dig up the corpse. Perhaps he needed only a small amount of dirt. As much grave dirt as would fill a flowerpot would be enough for rites of black magic.

In her black cape Rina looked like a shadow under the overreaching oak tree, so she knew the boy would not see her spying on him. Her amber eyes glowed like a cat’s as she watched, and when at last he stood up, she knew she had been wrong about his stealing grave dirt. The newly planted squares of sod lay undisturbed.

The boy turned around and looked at her a long time, as if he were a deer caught in the glare of her gaze. Either the moon or deep emotion had drained his face of color and his blond hair looked silken and insubstantial. Rina was so stunned by his beauty that she gasped. She wondered if he were some spectral prince come to take her to the underworld. It took her several moments to realize that he hadn’t seen her though he seemed to be looking right at her. Perhaps he was only struck by the picturesqueness of the old cemetery with its marble monuments standing like misshapen bones in the moonlight.

The boy turned and walked away down the gravel path. He was wearing sneakers, Rina noticed, a prosaic detail that told her he was no visitor from the underworld.

She slipped silently out the iron gate and followed him. Though he had much longer legs and was walking fast, it was easy for her to keep him in sight. Her entranced gaze fastened on his pale hair in the darkness ahead of her, and she let herself fall into a state in which she was as much shadow as substance. She drifted after him fluidly, sliding along the dark edges of the sidewalk, her white fingers trailing along a crumbling wall. A shifting pattern of light and darkness, she moved silently. Her small feet moved over a bunchy mint plant without crushing its aromatic leaves.

The boy let himself in the front door of a twostory frame house. A light flicked on inside. Rina peered hungrily through an open window and saw a grand piano, a splash of flowers in a vase on a gleaming table, and brightly colored chintz furniture. The living room spoke of home and happiness and her heart felt a familiar stab of envy. But then the light downstairs flickered out and she heard the boy walking up the stairs. Pricking her ears, she heard running water in the bathroom. A light came on in an upstairs bedroom.

Rina paced restlessly around the perimeters of the house, smiling to herself—lucky thing it was only a superstition that vampires couldn’t enter a house without an invitation. All she needed was a broken window, perhaps, or cellar door. She spotted the tree that grew near the house, its branches stretching to the height of the lighted room upstairs. She scaled it as easily as a cat and perched on a branch, her weight scarcely stirring its leaves. As she watched the boy get into bed her mouth fell open in fascination. Through the open window, she could smell the dust of the grave that clung to him. She watched for a long time as he tossed under the sheets. Finally he grew still, his breathing measured. When she was sure that he was asleep, she let her concentration scatter to that muddled state that comes just before unconsciousness. Her molecules drifted and became a mist that hovered for a moment like a cloud before the open window.

Suddenly, like a magnifying glass in the sun, her wavering consciousness managed to focus the scattered molecules onto the rug beside his bed. A cold breath of air stirred the curtains as Rina found herself standing beside the boy’s bed trying to remember who she was. Rina. A vampire. She was two hundred years old. She lived on Oak Lane in the home of an old lady who died several months before.

Reassured that she could remember that much, she touched herself gingerly, letting her fingers slide down her body. She was relieved to be solid once more. Changing into a mist frightened her. She was afraid she would someday let herself scatter into the shadows and be unable to collect herself. But tonight she had been forced to take the risk. She hadn’t sorted out the reasons in her own mind, but she knew it had something to do with her need to get close to this boy.

Rina bent over him and inhaled his scent. Her cape shielded him from the moonlight and, as if sensing the change in the light, the boy frowned in his sleep and mumbled something she couldn’t catch. Afraid he might wake, she held a hand close to his face, her fingers splayed out like starfish over his closed eyes. She focused her concentration, willing him to sleep. At last he grew still.

Her hand was so close to him then that she could feel the heat of his blood pulsing through his veins. At the thought of the blood her fangs slid out of their sheaths and glinted white in the moonlight. Her mouth watered and suddenly she bent her dark head and sank her fangs into his neck. His legs jerked reflexively. As she drank his blood, he did not struggle. Instead he sighed in satisfaction as if it were he who were feeding. The spell she had cast had held.

After a moment, she pushed away from him and licked the blood off her lips. She folded her arms across her chest and smiled down on him. If she had enchanted him, she thought, then it was only fair because he had caught her in a web of enchantment as well. She stared at him, wanting to drink up his beauty as she had drunk his blood. Though he was blond, dark lashes lay against his cheeks and he had black eyebrows. He looked sleekly muscled and his body pressed heavily against the wrinkled sheets. Rina was surprised that she had earlier mistaken him for a visitor from the spirit world. Now that she saw him up close, he was so poignantly human. His helplessness in sleep struck a chord of tenderness in her.

She glided around the room, fingering his belongings and humming softly to herself. His blood, warm inside her, had banished the icy chill that often troubled her at night. Glancing around, she saw a couple of posters of rock groups and a few charcoal sketches that had been taped to the wall. By the window was a bookcase that held both books and CDs. A few athletic trophies were pushed up against them, like bookends. One showed a gilt figure mounted on horseback. Rina’s sharp eyes made out a name etched on it—James Ryder. Another trophy seemed to be some sort of award for the hundred-yard dash.

Rina paused a moment before a somber painting that hung beside the bureau. Painted in blues, greens, and browns, it showed four people gazing at a burning candle. One was James himself, she realized, a good likeness. The others in the picture must be members of his family. The initials J.R. were neatly written in the lower right-hand corner. James must be the artist.

She looked with renewed interest at the charcoal sketches taped to the walls. He must have drawn them as well. They were lively and drawn with sure strokes. One showed a girl with a pie-shaped face, blond hair, and a demure smile. The fluid style of the sketch reminded Rina of the work of an artist she had met in Paris in the last century who had wanted to draw her, but she had refused. It was unwise for vampires to risk the glare of publicity.

Rina opened the high school yearbook lying on the desk and leafed through it until she found James’s picture. Gazing at it, she felt her heart turn over. The intensity of her passion frightened her and she closed the book abruptly. Behind her, James snorted. Then, to her surprise, he sat up.

In a movement quicker than thought, Rina folded herself into the knee well of the desk and crouched there, holding the yearbook clutched to her chest. James struggled free of the sheets and staggered to the window. Standing there, leaning against the windowsill, he rubbed his fingers against the fang marks she had made in his neck. He stared out the window a moment, puzzled, as if he were wondering what had woken him. Then he groaned a little and stumbled back to bed. The bedsprings creaked as he threw himself down and jerked the sheet over him. Perhaps, she thought, he was faint from the loss of blood.

Rina waited until she could hear the heavy breathing that meant he was asleep before she emerged from under his desk. Then she laid the yearbook back down and flitted to the window. Opening the window a bit wider, she put a slender foot out of it and slid out onto the roof. Her cape billowed behind her like a sail as she ran down the sloped roof and then leapt lightly to the ground. James, she whispered. She liked the feel of his name wrapped around her tongue. Her fangs gleamed in the moonlight when she smiled. His smell and taste intoxicated her. She hadn’t had such a powerful feeling since—since she couldn’t really recall when. Two hundred years of memories had proved to be a heavy burden, so she had grown in the habit of letting memories slip through her fingers like sand. She thought little about the past and less of the future. Only small threads of recollections tugged at her now and then.

But tonight, with a passion that frightened her, she knew she must have James. A future without him was unimaginable. She wanted to drink him up and pour her own blood down his throat. That would be bliss, she thought with a sharp intake of her breath, and the end of all her loneliness. She drew her cape tightly around her as she slipped into the shadows and her sudden embarrassed giggle rang out from the darkness.

2

It was the first day of classes and it looked as if everyone had shown up early. A group of kids James didn’t know had gathered under an oak by the street. The girls had masses of curly hair and wore astonishing numbers of rings. The boys wore shortcropped hair and sullen looks. A cloud of black smoke hovered over them. Several were gloomily puffing on cigarettes. Their gazes were faintly hostile as he passed. He was just as glad to draw close to the building’s entrance and into more familiar