Midnight Sun, page 9
part #1 of Mortal Heat Series
“So, there you have it. That’s the truth.” A long sigh escaped his lips, and he ran his fingers through his hair again before looking up at me hopefully. “Lucy, I told you this wasn’t just about Todd and Emily, because it’s about protecting my entire species. I didn’t want to tell you because it endangers all of them, not to mention it’s a difficult story to believe. I’ve never actually told anyone before,” Mick remarked, glancing back and forth between Emily and me again. “I have to say, you’re taking it better than I imagined. I suppose it helps that you saw what you did,” he mused.
Em and I were still staring at him mutely. He reassessed our faces, then amended, “Well, maybe not that well. Do you have more questions?” He asked gently, his eyes faintly glowing.
Em’s voice snapped like a whip. “What does this have to do with vampires, and my neck bleeding, and me being all gaga over Todd?” Her hands were gripping the shotgun on her lap tightly, knuckles white with stress. Her entire body was tight; she hadn’t shifted her position since she sat down.
“Well,” Mick began, scratching the back of his neck, ‘That’s a little more difficult to explain.”
“MORE difficult?” Em’s voice was incredulous. “More difficult than aliens and space travel and shape-shifting?”
“Well, maybe not more difficult,” Mick amended, “But definitely more... uncomfortable.” A flush crept up his cheeks, and I suddenly understood that he was hesitating because whatever it was, Em would not like it.
I shook myself out of the stupor I’d been mired in, and stated, “I need a drink. Preferably two. Anyone else need a drink?”
“Yes, please,” Mick said gratefully, “Need help?” He started to rise from the couch.
“No, you stay right where you are,” Em snapped, lifting the shotgun. “Lucy, I would also like a drink, please.” She maintained eye contact with Mick, who stared directly back at her as he resumed his seat.
I glanced between the two, then darted into the kitchen and grabbed three beers from the fridge. I took a long drink from my bottle and a deep breath before I walked back into the living room and delivered one to each of them. It forced Em to set down the weapon, but the gun remained on her lap. Mick drank deeply from his and steeled himself to deliver the next bombshell we were waiting to hear: What did aliens have to do with vampires?
A VAMPIRE'S WEAKNESS
MICK TOYED WITH the bottle in his hands, rolling it between his palms. Em stared at him as if her eyes were laser beams and she could bore into his skull to withdraw the information he was holding back. I shifted nervously from my left foot to my right and back again. The feeling that this would be bad news was stifling; I still hadn’t begun to process what we’d heard, but somehow I knew this would be worse.
“Well?” Em prompted, one hand gripping the shotgun and the other wrapped around her beer. She hadn’t even opened the top yet, just held it stiffly on the armrest of the chair.
Mick cleared his throat. “To be clear: We’re not vampires. At least, not as you know them. The stories you’ve heard about vampires are based on my people, however. When we first arrived there were some incongruous tales about blood-drinking demons, but over the centuries they have come to center on us.”
I spoke up, confused. “I thought you said you were vegetarians? Doesn’t that kind of contradict drinking people’s blood?”
“Let me explain. We don’t drink blood for food. We are vegetarians, even though animals here aren’t the same as they were at home. We communed with the creatures back home with a… you’d call it psychic energy. We didn’t kill them because we knew them as individuals, despite their lower intelligence. After eons of a plant-based diet, we couldn’t just start killing for food.” He shuddered slightly, which I found highly ironic. A vampire that doesn’t like the idea of killing for food is the definition of a contradiction.
“Okay, so you don’t drink blood for food. What do you drink it for, then?” I pressed, dreading the response but eager to hear the answer.
Mick sighed. “It’s how we mate.” He tipped his bottle up and emptied the contents into his mouth, then brought it down and began to peel the corner of the label.
“WHAT??” Emily’s voice rang out as she stood, gripping the gun and still-capped bottle tightly.
Mick set the peeled label down on the coffee table and looked at Emily calmly. “It’s how we mate. If you think about it, it’s not very different from how humans mate. Or so I’m told. I’ve never tried it, myself.”
“No, I think there’s a big difference between how we ‘mate’ and puncturing someone’s neck to drink their blood.” Em was positively shaking now. I nudged her and tipped my head, indicating she should sit back down. I took the beer bottle from her, opening the top and handing it back to her before I slid the shotgun from her lap. She released it, flexing her fingers.
Mick shrugged, resigned now. “Be that as it may. You mate by exchanging body fluids, correct? The semantics aren’t important, just the eventual exchange of fluids.” He looked up at my face, then Em’s. Assured we were following along, he continued. “It’s the same for us. Our natural skin is very hard, like a shell. We have a softer membrane on our neck that allows us to facilitate this exchange of fluids. The male punctures the female’s neck and withdraws some of her blood. He mixes it with his genetic material with glands in his throat, then injects it back into the female through the same membrane. The exchange is euphoric for both participants... you would say orgasmic. This encourages them to repeat the process, ensuring a large amount of the male’s genetic material is in the female’s system. Her body then uses that material to create offspring.” Mick’s voice dropped. He hunched forward, his wide shoulders straining at the seams of his black shirt. His tone was sad as he continued. “Most of our females died before we left our planet. Those that survived the trip have stayed in our hidden community, protecting the ship and attempting to rebuild our population. It’s a slow process, because, like our lives, our reproductive cycles are very long. It takes years for a female’s body to create an offspring. Our females are our most valuable asset and are highly prized. They are also all paired, which means those of us who do not have a mate never will. Because of that, we have... discovered that mating with humans is an equally pleasurable experience.” He sighed, then sat back, rubbing his palms on his black jeans.
“Unfortunately, we have also discovered that your bodies are not designed to handle the injection of our genetic material. It causes an unnaturally strong attachment to us, as well as a series of other issues, as you have discovered. For that reason we typically do not mate with a human female more than once. Occasionally one of us will have an unusually strong connection with a human, and then we have to intervene and separate them, as neither will willingly stay away from the other. It appears to be some kind of psychic connection of the kind we had with creatures on our home planet. We aren’t sure if it’s because we are becoming more attuned to your species after being here for so long, or the repeated intake of your blood is making us adapt somehow. Either way, it’s dangerous for the human. The more aggressively the couple mates, the more blood is withdrawn from the human and replaced with our genetic material. It has been known to kill humans in the past which leads me back to your stories about ‘vampires’. We don’t drink blood for food, but we can unintentionally take too much and kill a human. That is where those stories came from.”
“And what about the ‘burned by the sun’ stories?” I interjected.
“Because we lived mainly underground in a planet much further from its star, we find being outside during the day difficult. I could withstand it for short amounts of time but it would force me to assume my natural form for protection and eventually the radiation from your sun would kill me.”
“Wait, what’s eventually?” I interrupted again. “An hour, a day, a week?”
“More like ten minutes, maybe fifteen?” Mick shrugged. “We don’t know exactly. No one wanted to sacrifice themselves to find out, after surviving what we did to get here. We adapted to a nocturnal lifestyle that allows us to live a fairly normal life. However, that is where the ‘burned by the sun’ vampire rumors came from.”
“And what about the crosses? Garlic? Stake through the heart?” Em fired off the question as if searching for weapons she could use against him.
Mick shook his head slowly. “That’s all make-believe. A stake through the heart would kill us in our human form. When we shift, we are exact anatomical replicas of the creature we are imitating, aside from the afore-mentioned glands. A stake through the heart would kill a human, wouldn’t it?”
“What about needing an invitation to cross a threshold?” I asked, my heart hammering.
Mick shrugged again and brought his eyes up to mine. “We are very polite. We would never force ourselves upon someone who didn’t want our company.”
“So, it doesn’t physically prevent you from entering?” I verified, my hopes in this last line of defense shattering.
“No, it doesn’t. But as I just said, we would never enter somewhere we were not welcome.” His eyes turned to Emily, who seemed dazed. “This is why it is so important that you deny him, Emily.” Mick’s voice was gentle, and Emily shifted slightly to meet his gaze. “Todd feels a connection with you, and can’t stay away from you despite knowing he should. However, if you reject him, he will leave and never return. I know you also feel strongly about him, but he can’t help himself. He will eventually kill you, and it would destroy him, too. Even if you don’t have enough self-preservation to stay away for yourself, you have to drive him away, for his own good.”
Em continued to stare at him, gripping the beer bottle in one hand and the armrest of the chair with the other. “Where did Todd go?” She asked, her voice low.
“I told him to go back to Midnight Sun and take care of his show,” Mick answered simply.
“Why did he... do that? Change like that?”
“He was probably very upset. If we sustain serious injury, either physical or psychological, it can cause us to revert to our natural form.” Mick’s luminous green eyes shifted back to me. “Whatever Lucy said to him must have really upset him.” His tone was gentle, but it was still an echo of his earlier rebuke. I had hurt Todd so badly that he had unintentionally revealed his true form.
Well, I guess that had been my intent, but I never imagined that would be the result. I thought he would reveal himself as a vampire, not an alien. I stared at Mick, trying to imagine what he looked like in his ‘true form.’ Try as I might, I could not see past his handsome human shape. The shoulder-length blonde hair, broad shoulders, bright green eyes with hints of blue...
“If you ladies have no more questions, I will go back to Midnight Sun and check up on Todd, make sure he’s okay.” Mick rose, wiping his hands on his pants and straightening his shirt. “I know this is a lot to digest. Since I’ve never told anyone, I have no idea how long it will take you to come to terms, or if you even will.” He turned to Emily again. “Just think about what I said, okay? Lucy has my number if you have more questions.” Turning back to me, Mick waved a small, silent ‘goodbye’ before turning and letting himself out through the front door.
I crossed to the couch and practically fell into the cushions. Emily was still in a daze, her full beer spilling condensation down the back of her hand.
“Lulu,” she breathed, “What the fuck just happened?”
I shook my head slowly. “I dunno, Em.”
“What are we gonna do, Lulu?”
“I don‘t know, Em. But I promise you, we will figure it out together.”
ALIEN MOJO
EMILY AND I sat up most of the night, trying to digest what we’d just heard. As we talked through Mick’s incredible story, I could almost see Em transition through the five stages of grief. Number One: Denial, came hot on the heels of Mick’s departure.
“No,” she stated flatly. “It’s bullshit. It’s complete bullshit. Aliens and vampires? Aliens are vampires? Please, you know I hate all that Sci-fi crap. It’s too ridiculous, how can he possibly expect us to believe that?”
After retrieving the laptop and replaying the recording, there was no way to deny what we had witnessed first-hand. The camera clearly caught Todd’s face as it transitioned to a hard blue-green shell, his eyes growing larger and his nose disappearing. It was impossible to deny what we’d both already seen with the video proof staring us in the face, so Emily quickly transitioned to Stage Two: Anger.
“What the FUCK!” She shouted, storming around our living room. “Who... what... who does that? How is that even possible? Are you telling me that... thing... has been drinking my blood and, and... and spitting it back into my neck? With his... semen? Uuurggh!” She didn’t expect a reply, and I didn’t give her one. I was trying very hard not to think about the semantics of what Mick had just explained to us. In the back of my mind, I remembered a time when his lips had brushed my neck, and I was all-too aware of what almost happened in that moment. I remembered the heady, euphoric feeling of his touch on my skin. I imagined the complicated feelings Em must be going through, trying to rationalize what she had felt with what happened.
Eventually, the storm of Em’s anger subsided, and we reached Stage Three: Bargaining.
“Maybe... maybe that thing out there wasn’t Todd?” She hypothesized. “What if it was some kind of impostor, that took on Todd’s appearance?” Her eyes glowed with hope. I hated to crush her, but I couldn’t let her continue down this track.
“Em,” I said gently, “Remember, Mick said he has known Todd and the rest of Mortal Heat for a long time- they grew up together. Think about what that means. Mick is five hundred years old.”
“Well, maybe Mick is some crazy guy off his meds,” Em snapped. “How do we know he’s telling the truth, anyway?”
“He didn’t tell us anything until we saw Todd change with our own eyes, Em,” I reminded her. “We saw it again on the camera. You know it’s true.”
Shortly thereafter, Emily switched to Stage Four: Depression.
“Oh, God,” she moaned, “The one romance of my life was with a fucking alien. I’m going to die alone in a house full of cats.”
We had transitioned to whisky after the beer, needing something stronger to deal with the night’s revelations. Now a good fifth of the way through the bottle, we were curled up on the couch, sharing a blanket that was dotted with drops of brown liquor and smudged eye makeup.
“No, you won’t, Em,” I comforted her, rubbing my hand on her arm. My words were only slightly slurred from the drink. “And it’s not your fault. It’s not like he said, ‘Hi, I’m Todd Benson. I’m a green alien/rock star/vampire-dude and I want to shoot my babies into your neck.” Suddenly I giggled, the ridiculousness of the idea momentarily taking over for the horror that it was true. Em looked at me, angry at first, but then the giggles overtook her as well. Our giggles transformed to full-on hysterical laughter, and we roared in unison until we were gasping for breath.
“Green.. alien... rock star... vampire... dude,” she panted, glittery mascara tears running down her cheeks. “Like, you just had to throw ‘dude’ in there? Oh, and the ‘rock star’ part is super important!” She laughed again, practically choking on the words. “’Cuz, you know, a regular alien/vampire-dude is a no-go, but since he’s a rock star, well then shoot away,” Em collapsed against me, still giggling.
“Wait, that’s the part that’s making you laugh?” I gasped, my sides aching. “Not the ‘shoot babies in your neck’ part? I thought that was the punchline of that joke,” I teased, feigning annoyance. I was just happy she could laugh about it.
We continued in this way for a while, making silly jokes that were even more funny—or maybe only funny—because of the whisky in our veins. Eventually our laughter quieted, and as we snuggled together staring blankly at the TV screen, Em reached Stage Five: Acceptance.
“Lulu,” she started in a soft voice, “What am I going to do? I feel like... I could love Todd, and you know I’ve never felt like that about any guy. But is that just his weird alien mojo? Do I even have real feelings for him?”
“I dunno,” I answered honestly. “I don’t exactly have a lot of experience in the ‘true love’ department, and I have none in the ‘weird alien mojo’ arena. Either way, you heard what Mick said: You have to tell Todd you don’t want to see him again, for his sake and your own. He can’t help himself otherwise, and he will kill you...” I trailed off when I noticed that Emily’s expression was far more uncertain than I expected. “You understand that, right Em?”
She looked down and fidgeted, toying with the fringe on the throw blanket we were snuggled under. One small hand rose to tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear, and her eyes eventually followed, meeting mine. They were wide and bright, despite the alcohol in her system and the melted makeup on her face. “I understand that is what Mick believes,” she said hesitantly, “but I’m not sure I believe that’s the only possible outcome.”
“What other outcome could there be, Em?” I asked, concerned at the turn this conversation was taking. “I know you weren’t exactly with it this past week, so you don’t know what I saw. You were sick, Em. You were like some sort of walking zombie person who only slept during the day, unaware you were bleeding from the neck. The only thing you cared about was seeing Todd, like he was some kind of heroin and you were a drug addict. It was frightening. You weren’t there, Em. It wasn’t even like you were another person, so much as not really a person at all. A hollow shell of a person.” I took her hand and squeezed it. “Em, I was so worried about you! It took days away from him for you to even start acting more like yourself. A few days back together with him and you’ll be back to the zombie zone. I don’t know how long it takes for it to overwhelm your system completely, but I believe it will.”
