A Vampire's Christmas Carol (8 page)

Pity turned to horror as she backed away,
raising the stake in her right hand and clasping the cross in the
other. At least the ravaging effects of the convulsions robbed him
of the superhuman speed. It took a painful amount of time to pull
himself just a few feet across the carpet.

Worse were the sounds he made. The moans and
groans were bad enough. Then he started pleading, his voice thin
and whiny, a stark contrast to his usual deep, mellow tones. “I
smell you. The blood…red blood. Please. Please! Need…the red blood.
Come closer, just a little closer.”

Instead she backed away another step or two,
wincing as another convulsion ripped through him, jerking his body
like a boneless doll into contortions that had his arms wrapped
around his shoulders and legs bending up behind him so far his feet
almost reached his neck. Incoherent sounds—some shouts, some
cut-off moans and a few pleas—poured out of him until the spasms
finally passed and left him sprawled on the floor, arms and legs
stuck out at odd angles. Nonetheless, he looked up, the red glow
flickering in his eyes, and began to creep in her direction
again.

“Michael!” She raised the stake. “Stop. You
don’t want to do this. Remember? You want to die human.”

She considered running for the front door,
but it was four-thirtyish in the morning, still dark and probably
still snowing outside. If this pursuit didn’t stop soon, though,
she’d take her chances.

“Michael, please! Remember.”

He halted and stared at her. The red glow
flickered a few times, then his entire body went tense and rigid.
His eyes closed and his head dropped onto his extended arms. For
several long minutes, he lay there. His back heaved up and down
five or six times before that slowed along with his breathing.

Finally he rolled over onto his back. When he
opened his eyes, the red glow was gone, leaving only the dark blue
irises around a black center. He remained still, gathering his
strength, for several minutes before he again got to a sitting
position. After a glance around, he levered himself up to his feet
and staggered back to the leather chair, where he all but collapsed
into it.

“I can smell you,” he said. It was more a
statement of fact than either warning or plea. He rubbed his hands
over his face. If he’d looked ravaged before, he approached being
skeletal now. The bones protruded sharply and his eyes had sunk
deep into his skull. His skin was the color of raw, unworked clay.
Tremors, not huge convulsive ones, but a fine series of quivers,
shook him continually. “Probably better you don’t come any closer.”
Even the words seemed to be an effort.

“All right. I’ll stay here.”

A series of heavy breaths pumped in and out
of him. “It’s— Talk to me again. Say anything. Distract me. Do you
have any plans for this Christmas?”

“Nothing special. I’ve got a few tins of
cookies in the car. I expect my mom will burn hers again. Of
course, my brother claims he’s developed a taste for burnt cookies,
but I bet he eats mine first. So will Laura’s kids. We would have
had eggnog last night around the fire, but, frankly, I won’t miss
that all that much. I’m not sure why everyone likes eggnog so much.
Probably that dab of bourbon my dad puts in it. I’d rather just
have my bourbon straight.”

“I still have trouble accepting that ladies
drink so much now,” he said.

“They did back when you were alive,” she
said.

“Not so much.”

“Maybe not. But you think all that cooking
wine went into the food? And didn’t they like to have a nip of
sherry sometimes?”

“Yes, but that hardly counts.”

“You ever tried sherry?”

“No,” he admitted.

“It packs more punch than you expect.”

“All right. I concede. What else will you do
on Christmas? Aside from eat the roast you hope your mother will
remember to put in the oven and the pies you hope she manages not
to burn too badly.”

“Actually, I’ve got a couple of pies in the
back of the car too, but they’re probably frozen by now. And I’ll
remind her about the roast. If I get there.”

“You will. What about the morning? Christmas
morning?”

“The usual. The kids will wake us all up way
too early, probably right about now, in fact, to open their gifts.
Paper and ribbons will fly. Boxes get torn open and pieces
scattered. Then the adults exchange their gifts, a bit slower,
since we don’t all open them at the same time. We go around the
room, taking turns opening things to make it last longer and so we
can all enjoy each other’s gifts more. Then we’ll have coffee and
Laura’s coffee cake, one thing she does really well in the kitchen,
before we start working on dinner. Oh, and I forgot, on Christmas
Eve--last night, I guess--my dad and Mark, Laura’s husband, were
probably sweating putting together that bike they got Matt. Or
maybe they got it pre-assembled. I don’t know.”

“You have to put together your bicycles
yourselves?”

“You haven’t seen that in any movies? I guess
I don’t recall seeing it either, but it’s generally a scene ripe
for comedy. Tab A never fits into slot B the way it’s supposed to
and sometimes they forget to include part number thirty-four. Or
when you fit tab C into slot D, tab A jumps out of slot B. It’s
been known to reduce strong, smart men to blobs of blubbering
borscht.”

A harsh chuckle interrupted her. “Blubbering
borscht? Dare I ask what that is?”

“Um, well, really, I don’t know. Borscht is
some kind of Russian soup, I think. But it sounded good, didn’t
it?”

His breath heaved in and out as though even
the laughter was an exertion that threatened his fragile
self-control. And he enjoyed it anyway. “It did.”

“I just made it up. Anyway, a couple of aunts
and uncles and cousins will probably come over to join us for
dinner. The guys will find some sports thing to watch until dinner,
or if the weather’s nice, they’ll go out and throw a ball around
themselves. They’ll come in bruised, bleeding and covered in mud
and tell us they had a great game, but cousin Andy cheated and
moved before the snap. Then we’ll all sit down to eat and stuff
ourselves until we’re uncomfortable and go sit around the living
room like lead weights for a bit until someone drags out the games.
We’ll play cards or something until we’re ready to drop.”

Michael’s fingers dug deep into the leather
and an occasional glow of red flickered in his eyes. He tried to
watch her as she talked, but had to look away periodically. “It
sounds like fun.” He swallowed hard and winced.

“It is…usually. Unless someone gets into an
argument. It happens fairly often. I guess we’re kind of a
competitive bunch. My brother and a couple of my cousins are
especially prone to it. They don’t like to lose—at anything.”

Michael nodded. His face tightened, lips
pressing together and lids narrowing. His body was tight with the
effort to hold himself in check.

Exhaustion started to make her feel heavy and
listless, but she dared not let her alertness fail. She was running
out of conversational ideas, however.

“Michael? What would it be like to be a
vampire? What would you be doing today if you had…turned
already?”

“Tonight, you mean? Most likely I’d be out
hunting. A vamp has to feed every few days.”

“Hunting? Finding someone to feed on? How do
you decide?”

“Usually you try to find someone who’s out
alone at night. Someone who can’t fight back. Or you try to take
them by surprise and sink your fangs in before they even know
you’re there. It’s generally not hard to find someone out late by
themselves, even on Christmas Eve.”

He sighed and shook his head. “According to
some of the books I’ve read recently, it’s sort of okay to find
criminals and lowlife types to feed from. I don’t buy it. Who set
us up as judges of who deserves to die? It’s still stealing a life.
And a vampire has to do that every few days. So I’d likely be out
searching for some poor lonely soul, walking somewhere on Christmas
Eve or looking for a handout or plying their trade or maybe just
making last minute deliveries.”

“Couldn’t you feed on animals, like you’ve
been doing?”

He shook his head. “Once you’ve drunk human
blood, you crave it and nothing else will do.”

“Would you truly be Antoine’s servant? Even
after you became a true vamp?”

“Yes. He couldn’t completely control me, but
he could exert a strong influence. He already can if I forget and
look into his eyes. Like I did that night at the feast.”

“And you’d never be free of him?”

“Until I or someone else disposed of him and
took his place.”

The clock chimed five o’clock and they both
listened to the five bells toll.

“How could you get rid of him?” Carol
asked.

“Staking is the usual way, but if you want to
be sure it’s permanent, beheading is better. Or burning. Otherwise,
if the stake is removed, the vamp can rise again.”

She shivered. “I think I’m sorry I asked. Can
we talk about something more cheerful?”

Michael nodded. A red flicker came and went
in his eyes, so quickly she barely saw it. “What do you do for a
living?” he asked. “Since you’re not married, I assume you have a
job?”

“Yeah, but it’s really not exciting. I’m a
junior accountant.”

“Do you like it?”

“Actually, I do. Everyone thinks I’m kind of
weird. No one’s supposed to like spending your time buried in
numbers and reports. But I like making things add up properly and I
like finding hidden meanings in the numbers. They can tell you a
lot more than you think.”

“Such as?” he asked.

Pinpoints of red continued to flash off and
on in his eyes, but for the most part, the irises remained deep
blue. The tension of his body didn’t abate, however, and she could
see the effort it cost him to fight the need wracking him. His
fingers were about to poke holes in the recliner’s leather arms and
his long legs stretched out rigidly. His ankles were crossed and
pressed hard against each other. Every now and again he winced,
though he tried to suppress it, and an occasional small gasp worked
its way past his control.

“You can tell a lot about a company by
reading the financial reports closely,” Carol aid. “I once caught
an employee of one of our clients embezzling. It wasn’t even all
that cleverly done. I’m not sure how he got away with it for as
long as he did.”

“How did he do it and get away with it?”

“He was in charge of accounts payable. He and
a friend created a dummy company that sent in fake invoices. Of
course, the invoices were always for expenses that looked
realistic. For a long time nobody questioned them. Until I noticed
that the company seemed to be spending a great deal more than usual
on fuel. It was a trucking company and, of course, they used a lot
of it, so an increase of a few percentage points didn’t really
register with them, though it meant quite a nice bit of cash for
the perpetrators.”

“Why wasn’t that clever?”

“Most companies try to stay on top of costs
and keep them as low as possible. If anyone had taken the trouble
to look at fuel costs, they’d have seen right away something was
out of line. Apparently no one did, though, until I called their
attention to it.”

“How often do things like that happen?”

Carol shrugged. “Not that often really. Most
of what I find that’s out of whack is the result of honest mis—“
She broke off when Michael started to shake again.

Moments later, he lay on the floor, writhing
and twisting. Teeth snapped together like castanets as he shook,
while incoherent moans escaped him to rasp along her nerves.

She hadn’t thought anything could be worse
than the last episode, but this one was. For a few minutes, he
thrashed around so hard he knocked over an end table and threatened
several others. His body bent into positions the human frame wasn’t
meant to attain. All the while he grunted and gasped.

How aware was he of what was happening to
him? The sounds he made were almost animal-like and the spasms
clearly out of his control, but when he opened his eyes, there were
shreds of consciousness alternating with the red glow that
indicated his vampire hunger taking control.

Helpless pity made her stomach twist into a
knot. Anger joined it as the spasms continued and his grunts grew
into louder groans. If Antoine had shown up right then, she
probably would have tried to stake him on the spot.

Then Michael started screaming. He tried to
suppress it. But even his strong will couldn’t hold them all back.
They sometimes emerged as hideous gurgling sounds and sometimes as
anguished shrieks.

She couldn’t bear it. That wrenching
expression of sheer agony cut into her like a knife, shredding her
nerves and twisting her heart. Tears burned her eyes and left hot
tracks down her cheeks.

Carol raised the stake she held. Mercy
demanded she put him out of the horrible suffering. No one should
have to bear pain like this.

She didn’t drive it into him.

He didn’t want that mercy. Her arm sank down
to her side again, though she kept the stake ready should he move
to attack her. She had no right to put him out his misery just
because she couldn’t bear it. If he could stand it, so could
she.

After ten long minutes, the screams and the
writhing died down. He lay quietly on his side, chest heaving.

The fire popped while she waited for him to
move. The flames were dying down too, so she went over to put
another log on it, giving wide berth to the area where he sprawled.
She didn’t risk moving her gaze off him for more than a second or
two as she took pieces of wood from the bin and tossed them on the
fire. A small bucket nearby held pines cones. Carol threw in a
couple of those and drew in the fresh, outdoorsy scent they emitted
as the flames swallowed them.