“Right . . . so, you see . . .” He paused again and then warned, “I’m just going to tell you flat out.”
“Okay,” Holly said.
“Right.” He nodded, and then added, “It’s going to sound crazy.”
“Okay,” Holly repeated, not at all surprised. She was already beginning to think there was something wrong with the man.
“So here goes,” he said, and then blurted, “I’m a vampire.”
Holly stared. She’d thought she’d been ready for anything from his weird prefacing, but “ . . . Vampire?”
“Yes. But we’re not really vampires,” he assured her. “I mean, sure we have fangs and used to feed on mortals, and yes we’re strong and all that stuff, but we aren’t dead or soulless.”
“Well that’s . . . good?” She ended the comment on a question because, frankly, Holly wasn’t sure what the right response was here. The poor man was obviously delusional. Vampire? Yeesh. She’d thought the craze for vampires had died out, but apparently Justin Bricker had been affected by its brief outbreak. The poor deluded soul thought he was one. It was sad, really. He was a good-looking man, personable and seemed smart enough, but he obviously had mental-health issues.
However, she kind of owed him one. He’d picked her up after she’d taken a tumble and knocked herself out. Holly suspected that part of his story was true. It made sense and explained her headache and memory loss.
The rest of his story, however, that she’d fallen on scissors and stabbed herself and that he’d healed her with his . . . well, she wasn’t sure what he supposedly healed her with. Vampires bit and sucked blood, they didn’t usually go around healing people. That was Jesus. Perhaps he was getting religion mixed up with his delusional fantasy, she speculated. She understood religion often played a role with crazy people.
“Yes, it is good,” Justin assured her. “Life is much less complicated now that we don’t feed off mortals.”
“I can imagine,” she said, keeping her voice soothing. At least he didn’t take his fantasy to that level and go around trying to bite people. If he did, she’d be concerned. This seemed a mostly harmless fantasy though. He didn’t bite, so didn’t do anyone physical harm, which left sleeping in a coffin and avoiding sunlight and garlic as his M.O. and that was fine with her. Live and let live and all that stuff. Although Holly did wonder if she might not be doing him a disservice by not calling in some help, like maybe the police, and suggesting a seventy-two-hour evaluation in a psych ward.
“In fact, we’re nothing like the television and movie versions of vampires,” Justin assured her.
“Well, no, I guess not. None of them can heal,” Holly murmured, her gaze sliding to the door as she wondered if she dared try to leave. Would he get physical in his effort to stop her leaving? She suspected he would unless she handled him right. She would have to remain calm and talk her way out of this room. She had to get home and . . . well, Holly wasn’t sure what she should do after that. She had no idea what time it was. The bedside clock read 7:34 but was that morning or night? How long had she been here? She’d thought it was morning when she’d first woken, but now that she knew she’d been unconscious, she wasn’t so sure. And the curtains were closed and thick enough to block out sunlight if there was any.
“We can’t heal either as a rule,” he explained, drawing her attention again. “I was only able to heal you by turning you.”
Holly blinked at this and then tilted her head. “Into a vampire?”
“Yes. Well, we prefer the name immortal.”
“Uh hmm.” She hesitated and then stood. “Well, then I’d best get home and take care of things.”
“You can’t go. I have to explain everything,” he said, straightening and positioning himself in her way.
“Can’t you explain later?” Holly suggested, trying not to sound desperate, but wanting to leave. Hoping to use reason he might agree with, she pointed out, “If I’m a vampire now, there are loads of things to take care of. I mean I’ll need to buy a coffin and maybe find some nice Igor type I can get to bring me . . .” She let her words trail away and simply waved a hand vaguely. She’d been going to say people to feed on, but recalled at the last moment that his delusion didn’t include biting people.
“I think you mean Renfield,” he said with a faint smile.
“Do I?” she asked, turning sideways as casually as she could in the hopes of maneuvering past him toward the door.
“Yes. I wasn’t around when it first came out, but I read Stoker’s work as a teenager. It’s been a while but I have a good memory for names. I’m pretty sure it was Renfield who did Dracula’s bidding.”
Well at least he wasn’t imagining he was hundreds of years old. So his delusions weren’t completely out there, she assured herself and said with determined cheer, “Right. Sorry. Renfield then.”
“You don’t need a Renfield,” he assured her. “Like I said, we don’t bite mortals anymore. It’s not allowed.”
“Oh? Why is that?” Holly asked, with feigned interest, her gaze sliding sideways to the door and back.
“It was too risky,” he explained. “There was too much chance of drawing attention to ourselves that way.”
“Hmmm.” Holly nodded as if she believed him and sidled toward the door an inch or two under the pretext of shifting her feet. “So how do we feed? Do we buy pig’s blood from the slaughterhouse? If so, I guess I need to arrange for that instead. Lots to do. Must get to it.”
“No, we get our blood delivered now.”
That startled her enough to draw her full attention. “Delivered? Like pizza?”
“Pretty much,” Justin admitted on a laugh. “We have our own blood banks and whatnot.”
“ ’We’?” she queried.
“There are a lot of us. Not like millions or anything,” he added quickly. “We try to keep our numbers low. We wouldn’t want to outgrow our food source.”
“ ’Food source’?” she queried carefully. “You mean people?”
“Mortals, yes. We even have laws and rules to ensure we don’t turn too many.”
“Laws?” she asked with feigned interest, managing another sliding sideways step. “What kind of laws?”
“Well, we’re only allowed to have one child every hundred years, and we can turn only one mortal in a lifetime.” His expression turned serious and he said, “Most save it to turn their life mate.”
Holly frowned over the having-one-child-every-hundred-years bit, which seemed to suggest he believed he would live hundreds of years after all, but then the last bit stuck in her mind and she asked, “Life mate?”
“It’s the one mortal or immortal we cannot read or control, and who cannot read or control us.”
“You can read and control mortals?” she asked dubiously.
Justin nodded. “We all can. Immortals can control every mortal, except for the crazy or their life mates. It’s how we recognize our life mate. That inability to read or control them is why they can be a proper life mate, the one we can live happily with for our very long life.”
Holly shifted another step to the side, alarm beginning to creep up her spine as she absorbed what he was saying. Swallowing, she said, “And you used your turn on me.”
He nodded solemnly. “You’re the one, Holly. You are my life mate.”
“Oh wow,” she said weakly and thought, You poor, crazy, deluded sap. She’d started out thinking he was harmless enough and had helped her when she lay unconscious and helpless. She’d sort of convinced herself, if only subconsciously, that he wasn’t a danger to anyone and not to bring the authorities down on him. But he’d built a whole vampire world in his mind, with blood deliveries and supposed other vampires wandering around. More important, he’d developed an unhealthy fixation on her as his “life mate” . . . and all without exchanging a word or even a smile with her. The guy was cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and this was getting pretty creepy. She was starting to have visions of being locked in a cellar and forced to sleep in a coffin, maybe even raped in that coffin by this man who had decided she was “the one.” He needed help. And she needed to get away from him as quickly as she could.