Vampires Never Get Old, page 12
I rip open a bag of plastic vampire teeth and spread them around the bar. As the DJ dims the lights, some of them glow in the dark. The bartender arrives—a surly guy who looks like Oscar Isaac if Oscar Isaac had been dipped in the same vat of radioactive whatever that turned the Joker’s hair green.
“You the boss, niña?”
“Only my dad calls me niña,” I say, and he laughs. “I’m Theo.”
He shakes my hand. My dad always taught me to look someone in the eye and never be the first person to let go. I wish I could implement that at my school with teachers who seem to look through me. Then again, my dad comes from the generation of immigrants who think that everything is fair if you just work hard enough to die for it, even if you’re undervalued and underpaid. Me? I have dreams. Big ones. A solid handshake can’t hurt, I guess.
“Listen, the doorman flaked,” Latino Joker says, scratching the tattoo on his left bicep. “Want me to call Mr. Greenspan?”
“Actually…” I hold up my phone. My dad also taught me to never lie. Never steal. Never sin. I failed my catechism for a reason. But there are some things my Ecuadorian dad can’t teach me. Not in this city, not in my school, and definitely not in this bar. “I was just messaging with Mr. Greenspan and he said everything’s cool.”
With that settled, I turn my attention to the finishing touches. A rusty candelabra hangs precariously from the low ceiling. It looks like a safety hazard, something out of a haunted mansion. Using a step ladder, I plunk battery-operated tea lights into each candle holder. When I’m finished, I step back. The ceiling makes a strange groaning sound, and I hold my breath for a second, waiting for it to come crashing down. But it’s all good. The DJ kicks off the music—something with heavy bass and deep guitar.
“Now I’ve outdone myself,” I say.
“You sure have,” says a young woman I recognize right away. The kind of ice-blond hair that reminds me of a cotton swab. She’s got killer cheekbones and lips that would make most makeup tutorial accounts jealous. Her dress is all lace, like on the cover of this really old record my mom has of some woman named Stevie Nicks. There’s a white lace choker around her slender throat, and she walks like someone who is used to owning a room.
That’s the pose I’ve tried so hard to capture in my photos. Sure, I get four thousand likes just standing with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background, but I definitely don’t own anything like Imogen does. I will, someday.
“You must be Imogen!” I say. I clear my throat and lower my voice. “I’m Theo. Glad you got my invite. We’re just getting started.”
“Aren’t you … adorable.” She’s about five foot seven, just shy of being taller than me. Her eye color looks a little unreal, a marbled blue and hazel. My whole body tenses when she gets five inches from me. I have the immediate instinct to take several steps back. But you know what? I’ve gone to Catholic school and private school my whole life. I have seen meaner, richer, bitchier girls, and I stay put.
I spin in my black baby-doll dress. It’s a little over-the-top, and tighter than the cheap online picture promised. But I was going for more of a Wednesday Addams look. “Thanks. I like the look. Very retro.”
For the first time, I notice another group of women standing around us. How did they get in so quietly? Three brunettes and three redheads with skin so white it looks like it could glow in the dark, like the fake teeth on the bar. One of the girls picks up a pair and jams it into her mouth. She nearly doubles over with laughter.
“I’m curious,” Imogen says, tapping her finger on her chin. “How did you and Brit meet?”
It’s hard to explain to some people that I met one of best friends on the internet. My mom doesn’t understand why I spend so much time on my phone. Why I can’t just have friends in the neighborhood or at school, other than Miriam. There’s always been something that doesn’t click for me. It’s like looking at photos of myself might help me figure out who I really am. I know some things: I’m the daughter of Ecuadorian immigrants. I’m an A student. I’m going to take the world by storm someday, somehow. And when I love people, I will ride or die. That’s why I have such few friends.
Brittany was a happy accident. Sometimes she’ll say the things I’m feeling without me having to explain myself. Sometimes she lets me vent about Genie Gustavson writing nasty names on my gym locker (and then threatens to have her taken care of). That’s what this whole party is about. Thanking Brittany, because she won’t even take the time to pamper herself. She’s in college and all she does is take pictures on days when it’s dark and rainy. #Vampstagram is our inside joke, and this Imogen and her friends might laugh it up, but I think this party is the best idea I’ve ever had.
So when she asks how Brittany and I met, I shrug. “Around. She’s so secretive, though. You’re literally the only person who’s ever tagged her in a photo.”
“Yeah, she’s camera shy.” She sashays over to the bar and winks at me. “Come have a drink.”
My mom is the best hostess I know. She spends all day making food—rice, pernil, hayacas, potato salad, just the works—then showers and puts on a pretty dress. Alcohol never passes her lips, but she’s all smiles. I am not my mother, and we drink the bloody mimosas I came up with.
As the music thrums, making the walls and ceiling vibrate, more people pour in. More women who’ve powdered their skin to the shade of death. One woman is in a lime-green dress and platform shoes. She leads an older woman by a leash and takes up a cushion seat.
Okay, that’s new. Maybe she thought it was one of those kink bars, or whatever they’re called.
She brushes the woman’s hair back and exposes her neck. They look like the time Ricky Ramirez and I had to pretend-kiss when we were Maria and Tony in our school’s rendition of West Side Story.
A white girl who must be younger than me shoves a cigarette in her mouth. She looks like an extra from a blink-182 music video. “Ugh, I remember when this city was alive.”
Oooooookay?
I dive deeper into the club, where people seem to have multiplied. A couple of women are making out on one of the love seats. Red wine is spilled on some of the napkins. Should I have gotten black napkins?
I change my trajectory and go to the front of the bar, where three young guys who look like they took a wrong turn from Williamsburg are clustered.
“Is this BYOB?” one of them asks, bringing out a flask from the pocket of his flannel shirt.
What does he mean, “bring your own booze”? There’s literally a full open bar!
They catch sight of me standing near them and one smiles. He’s the youngest of the three, with dark eyes and close-cropped hair, like he just got out of bootcamp.
“You new?” he asks, slightly confused.
“Not any more than you are,” I say. I don’t want to make a big deal that I’m technically two months shy of graduating high school.
“Where’s the guest of honor, anyway?” one with a handlebar mustache asks. “I’ve got a bone to pick with her. She’s got to loosen the reins on this vampire curfew.”
“You’re telling me,” the young guy mutters. His muscles flex when he takes the flask from his friend. He doesn’t drink, though. “I know Imogen is still pissed, but that’s another story.”
“Imogen wants to turn every model that catches her eye. That’s why we didn’t sign the petition.”
“Wow you guys are really into this RPG stuff,” I say.
I’m about to shoot Brittany a text when her name lights up my screen. I reread the line where she says she won’t be able to make it. Oh, no. Unacceptable. I text back without looking and pocket my phone.
The guy with the crew cut looks at me with suspicious curiosity. He grins and it gives him the appearance of a wolf. “Want?”
Do I want a drink out of a flask from a strange, but objectively hot, boy at the party where I’m the hostess and the guest of honor hasn’t shown up or texted me back? I grab it and drink.
The liquid is warm and slightly thick. Metallic. I feel my gag reflex at work. Blood. That’s definitely, 100 percent blood. The tiniest sip pools on my tongue and dribbles down the corner of my mouth. Before I can wipe it off, the boy drags his thumb along my chin and brings it to his lips.
Gross.
When he smiles again, taking the flask back, I see teeth. Not the neon canines decorating the bar. Real, sharp ones, so sharp I know they’d break skin at the barest touch.
Maybe, just maybe, Brittany wasn’t lying.
Maybe, just maybe, I’m in the center of a basement full of vampires.
* * *
THEO: how come you only have one selfie?
BRITTANY: i think i’d rather take pictures than be in them.
THEO: i used to think that if i took enough pictures, i’d learn to love myself more.
BRITTANY: have you?
THEO: i dunno. maybe i’m getting close.
* * *
BRITTANY
I didn’t choose to become what I am.
I was made during a lawless time of vampires, when consequence was a thing only for mortals. I was hardly older than Theo when I met my—well, I’ve never quite determined what to call him. Sire is hardly the right word, though it bears some piece of the truth. In two hundred years, I have failed to find a word that encompasses both the immaculate violence of his actions and the transformative power I found in their aftermath. Offender. Trespasser. Malefactor. They all lack some piece of the horror I experienced during the attack and after.
He may have been the catalyst of my transformation, but I was the architect. Every choice I made thereafter was a response to his opening argument. If his argument was something along the lines of being more powerful than me by virtue of his sex and his circumstance, then I have been crafting my answer ever since. Not everyone I bite becomes like me. I have to choose. I get to choose. And over the years, I have chosen women like me. Women who were told they were less than, unworthy, weak. Women who were hungry for the world. Women with fangs. My petits crocs.
My phone chimes softly, reminding me that it is 10 p.m. and I am missing an appointment. I dismiss the reminder without looking at the words.
There’s an unfamiliar feeling spreading beneath my ribs. Not hunger, but something close enough. As I button my frock coat to my chin and step out onto the streets of New York City, I push Theo and the disappointment she is surely feeling now as far from my mind as I am able.
I may not have chosen the path of the moon and shadows, but I did choose New York City. One hundred years ago, I left the windswept valleys and rolling mountains of Virginia for the frenetic energy of a city. It’s easy to become a drop in the ocean when the ocean is so unimaginably vast.
I turn away from the river and aim for the park. We don’t hunt here. We used to, soon after it was established in the late 1800s, but I outlawed it decades ago. Now hunting here would put us all at great risk. There are too many eyes on this park, too many stories birthed from its rolling hills and dark corners. Anyone who hunts here now will be expelled from the city.
I don’t have many rules. Just a few. Each is meant to protect my flock from a world that seems increasingly capable of understanding creatures like us and accepting that we are real. But the most important is this: No siring.
The city may seem large, but that could change in an instant. We must add to our ranks with care and exquisite intention. Anyone who disobeys this edict won’t simply find themselves expelled, but very dead.
I slip around the reservoir and my feet crunch against the gravel as I cut south, ghosting past the sandy-faced obelisk, illuminated from all four corners. Soon I leave the park behind, crossing the swift current of Fifth Avenue and diving into the clutches of the city.
A girl with dark, frenzied curls emerges with a laugh from a building directly ahead of me. Her mouth is red and her eyes are an autumn-leaf brown that reminds of me of Theo. It takes me a second to realize it isn’t her, but I’ve stared too long. The girl’s smile falters suddenly and she flinches as if something whispered into her ear: Danger. Her expression shutters when she catches my eyes, and she turns on her heel, swiftly moving away.
That unsettling feeling in my ribs expands again, that not-hunger hunger. If I were still human, I might have a name for this feeling. Unease? Frustration? Guilt? Something that puts me at odds with myself.
“Hey! Let go!” The voice of a young woman rises above the constant refrain of horns and engines and steam.
I find her immediately. She’s leaving a bodega on the corner, her arms full of groceries. Just behind her, a young man stands too close, his eyes as wide and wild as his grin. It’s a look I recognize. I have seen it on the faces of so many men over the years. It is an expression of sheer delight, of near-ecstatic joy at knowing his actions are wrong and unstoppable.
The young woman takes a brisk step forward, tugging the edge of her coat from his hand with a scowl and a curse. She hurries away and looks back only once to ensure he does not follow. Laughing, the young man steps back into the shadowy corner of the bodega, where he waits for his next victim.
He does not have to wait long.
The hunger that is not hunger expands again and I move in front of the young man. He blinks, certain I was not there a moment ago. To him, I slipped from between the shadows, a dream and a wish.
“Follow me,” I say, letting my voice sink into my chest like the purr of a lion.
“Yeah,” he says, eyes wide and helpless now, following the tether of my voice into the narrow alley where shadows are eager to receive us.
I find the shallow depression of a doorway, perhaps the back entrance of the bodega, and I stop.
“This will hurt,” I say, and he only nods in wonder. “Unbutton your jacket and don’t make a sound.”
He smells like lemons and sweat, and when I bite him, I relish his shiver of pain. Blood coats my tongue like the first juicy bite of a strawberry. It is tart and sharp and earthy all at once, and I drink until that strange not-hunger begins to recede.
The young man does not make a sound, and I do not drink recklessly, only enough to sate my appetite.
“There,” I say, digging a handkerchief from my pocket and dabbing the corners of my mouth. “Now go home and stop being such an entitled brute.”
He nods, eyes still wide even as he scampers from the alley.
Just then, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I swipe past the lock screen to the message waiting for me. It’s from Theo.
So … did I mention this is a surprise party and all your friends are here? Feels important to say that lol
For a moment, I think I’ve misread the message. My mind considers all the ways it couldn’t possibly mean what I think it means. Theo could not possibly have called together the vampires of New York City to throw a surprise party for me.
Could she?
And then all at once, I know the truth.
I run.
* * *
BRITTANY: i’m going to ask you a question. and you don’t have to answer.
THEO: i love your dire voice, b. okay. ask me.
BRITTANY: is there anyone who knows the real theolinda?
THEO: i’ll answer if you will.
* * *
THEOLINDA
The bathroom of the Root & Ruin has a single exposed lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. I sit on the grimy toilet seat after scrubbing my tongue. It’s a good thing I carry an emergency kit in my purse—bandages, mints, mini-toothbrush, Midol, ibuprofen, TUMS, a hydration tablet that crumbles to Pixy Stix dust, lip gloss, three colors of lipstick, an emergency hundred-dollar bill, ID, pepper spray, and a pocketknife.
I wet a napkin I got from Latino Joker and dab it on my cheeks and my neck. Oh my God. Brittany is a vampire. Her friends are vampires. That’s why she doesn’t take pictures. That’s why she joked about it being a “vampire filter.” I knew it was too cool to copy. But these people, they’re not cool. They’re dangerous. I should have trusted my instincts when it came to Imogen.
Can they smell my fear like sharks? Was that cute boy testing me by giving me blood? I pop another mint to get rid of the metallic taste, but the ghost of it is still there. I take long, deep breaths.
Okay okay okay. I can handle this.
Can I, though?
I could barely handle when I got into The New School instead of Columbia. I could barely handle when my brother used my library book for rolling paper. This is just—not how I expected the night to go.
Brittany owes me an explanation.
Then it hits me—I’ve spent the last two years texting with a vampire. She could have easily found me. Drunk my blood and all of that vampiry stuff. Why didn’t she? There were so many times when she could have met me at one of the places I recycle for photos. God, I’m a stalker’s dream and that’s the first thing I’m changing starting tomorrow.
Brittany could have killed me at any moment. Instead, she talked to me. Instead, she was my friend.
Then why isn’t she here?
I take another breath. I toss the napkin on the floor and look in the mirror, which is surrounded by decades of graffiti.
“I am Theolinda Cecilia Romero de Reyes and I have too much to lose.” I tug at the corners of my eyeliner to smooth out the smudges, reapply my lipstick, and walk back out into the party.
