I'm the Vampire That's Why

Chapter 1

The night I died, I was wrestling a garbage can to the curb.

I had a perfectly healthy fourteen-year-old son who should have taken out the garbage after dinner, but he, and let me quote him directly here, “forgot.”

Every Sunday and Wednesday night we had the same conversation, usually five minutes after he crawled into bed. Here’s the script:

Enter the Mother into the Pit of the Despair. I refuse to walk more than a foot into the Pit because I’m afraid a radiated tentacle might emerge from a gooey pile of papers and clothes and drag me, screaming and clutching at the faded carpet, into the smells-like-lima-beans clutter. I open the door, try not to inhale any noxious boy-room fumes, and delicately scoot one Ked-protected foot inside. Cue dialogue.

“G’night, honey. And Bry? Did you take out the garbage?”

“Oops.”

“It’s twice a week. It’s your only chore. I pay you ten bucks every Friday morning to do it.”

“It’s a heinous chore.”

“I know. That’s why I pay you to do it.”

“Sorry, Mom. I forgot.”

At this point in the twice-weekly argument, variations occurred. Sometimes, Bryan faked snores until I went away, sometimes he actually fell asleep mid-lecture, and sometimes he whined about how his nine-year-old sister Jenny didn’t do chores and I still paid her five dollars every Friday morning.

So, yet again, just after ten p.m. on a Wednesday night, I found myself pulling first one, then the second thirty-gallon garbage can down the driveway, and trying to align the grimy plastic containers near, but not off, the curb. Do not get me started on sloppy, lid-flinging, half-trash-dumping garbage men who are extraordinarily picky about the definition of “curbside pick-up.”

When huge, hairy hands grabbed my shoulders and heaved me across the street and into Mrs. Ryerson’s prized rose bushes, I didn’t have time to scream, much less panic. The whatever-it-was leapt upon me and ripped open my neck, snuffling and snarling as it sucked at the bleeding wound.

Good God. What sort of man-creature could hold a grown woman down like a Great Dane and gnaw on her like a favorite chew toy? It slurped and slurped and slurped … until the excruciating pain (and honey, I’ve suffered through labor twice) faded into a feeling of weightlessness. I felt very floaty, like my body had turned into mist, or like that time in college when I took a hit of acid and had the “Tinkerbell” episode. I knew that if I just let go, I’d rise into the night sky and free myself from gravity … from responsibility … from Bryan and Jenny.

Just thinking about my kids slammed me down to Earth. My husband had passed away a little more than year ago in a car accident. Don’t feel too sorry for me, though. I was in the middle of divorcing the son-of-a-bitch.

I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t lift my arms. I couldn’t open my eyes. But I felt my body again, every aching, pain-throbbing inch of it. The heavy, smelly thing pressing my limp body into thorny branches and noisily smacking against my throat grunted and rolled off. Dry grass crunched and leaves rattled as it moved, growling and groaning like well-fed coyote. I didn’t flicker an eyelid for fear it would try for a killing blow, though if the state of my neck wound was as bad as I thought, I was dead anyway. Then I heard the sounds of bare feet slapping against pavement and realized the thing was running away. Fast.

I don’t remember how I disentangled my sorry self from the bushes. I have vague memories of the roses’ too sweet scent as I crawled across the street and collapsed near my knocked-over garbage cans.

For those who know me, meeting my end amid muttered curses and spilled refuse was not a great shock. But, shock or not, it was still a crappy way to go.

* * *

Some people believe that dying ends all possibilities of humiliation.

Not so.

When I awoke, I wasn’t standing at the pearly gates of heaven. Well, not unless the religious definition of “pearly gates” was way, way off-base.

I was latched onto the velvety inside of a muscular male thigh, my teeth embedded in the flesh near his groin, my mouth soaked with warm, very tasty liquid.

No, the man was not wearing pants. Hell, he wasn’t wearing underwear. Who am I kidding? The man didn’t have on a stitch of clothing.

I wish I could say that the embarrassment of my cheek brushing against his testicles outweighed my need to suck his blood—and yeah, I know, ew—but it was like … it was like … a half-off sale at Pottery Barn. No, better. It was like eating, without gastrointestinal or caloric consequences, a two-pound box of Godiva’s champagne truffles. No, no … like … oh God, like finally fitting into that pair of skinny jeans that taunts every woman from the back of her closet.

Uh-huh. Now you know the ecstasy I’m talking about.

After another minute or two of sucking on the stranger’s thigh, I felt firm, long fingers under my chin.

“That’s enough, love,” said an Irish-tinted voice. “You’re healed now.”

With great reluctance, I allowed the fingers cupping my jaw to disengage me from the yummy thigh. I sat up, licking my lips to get every dribble of blood (ew, again) smeared on my mouth.

“Where am I? What happened? Where are my kids?”

“Ssshhh. Everything will be explained.” He tilted his head, looking me over in a way that caused heat to skitter in my stomach. “Your children are fine. Damian is watchin’ them.”

Damian? Who the fuck was Damian? Whoa, girl. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Well, crud. The whole breath thing wasn’t working. I didn’t even want to think about my lack of heartbeat. I had to stay calm. I focused on the room and realized I could see everything clearly. What the hell? I had been relying on glasses to see past my nose for almost ten years. With this kind of vision, I probably could see all the way to Canada.

“So … with all the, uh, blood-sucking, I’m guessing I’m a vampire now.” Just saying “I’m” and “vampire” together was so ridiculous, I wanted to giggle.

“Yes. We Irish vampires call ourselves deamhan fhola.” He grinned at me. “It means blood demon.”

“Oh. Well, that’s certainly … descriptive.” In a bad, yucky, soulless way.

We were in some sort of small, white room. It had a long, uncomfortable steel slab sticking out from the wall and we were on it. About six feet from the steel slab on the left side of the room was a door without any visible knob or handle. That was it. White room. Steel bed. Naked man. I looked down at myself. I was in some sort of white hospital gown and I smelled like antiseptic.

I was a vampire.

Jessica Anne Matthews. Vampire.

The stupid giggle erupted and I nearly snorted and snarfed myself into a seizure. “Me. A vampire.”

“Yes.” The guy who’d been my life-saving snack was leaning against the wall, his knees drawn up slightly. Raven-black hair feathered away from his face, the ends of it curling on his shoulders. He watched me with the strangest eyes I’d ever seen. He looked like Pierce Brosnan in his Remington Steele days, except for the color of those eyes. “With eyes like the sea after a storm,” I muttered, quoting one of my favorite lines from The Princess Bride. Those strange eyes were gray. No, silver … an ever-changing silver that seem to eddy and swirl like a fast-rising river.

Given his size, my guess was that he was just about six feet tall. He was muscular and trim like an athlete, rather than bulky like a gym freak, with a light dusting of black hair on his chest and thighs.

I might’ve been delirious or crazy or dreaming, but I checked out his package. It was impressive, too. From a patch of black hair sprang a large erection. His testicles tightened underneath my blatant scrutiny and I remembered the soft feel of his balls against my cheek as I suckled his flesh just inches from his groin. His gaze dropped to his penis, his lips curving upward as his eyes met mine again. He seemed to ask, “Want a ride, little girl?”

And you know what? I did. I wanted a ride. I hadn’t had sex in eighteen months. Sessions with the battery-operated boyfriend did not count. The last man I trusted to touch me, to bring me pleasure, had betrayed sixteen years of marriage by doing the same lovely, naughty things to another, younger woman. Then, before I could seek proper revenge, he had gotten killed in a car accident. I always thought it had been a mundane way to go for a man who had ripped out my heart and then stomped it to bloody bits with his cloven hooves.

But I digress.

“Do not have sex with Mr. O’Halloran.” The command echoed around the room. Even with my new vision, I couldn’t spot the speakers.

The Pierce Brosnan look-a-like rolled his eyes. “She fed on me like I was the last Twinkie in the box. A little thanks might be in order.”

“If you have sex with Mr. O’Halloran,” said the voice, obviously unimpressed, “you will be mated to him for the next hundred years.”