I raise a placating hand. “Sorry, Sophie. You’re right. You should be a part of this since you’re going to have to be the one to convince Prendergast of the truth.”
She sets her jaw. “I told you, I won’t tell him about Jonathan and me.”
“Maybe you won’t have to. But before we know for sure, Jonathan, tell us the real story.”
Better take a seat, he says. This will take some time.
Reluctantly, Sophie and I sit down. She takes the foot of the bed. I plop onto the divan facing it.
Jonathan spins his tale.
Prendergast’s grandmother was not a paragon of virtue brought to ruin by a seductive vampire. Just the opposite. Long before I came to Leadville, about 1861 or so, Leticia Hurlburt ran one of the first bordellos in the city. She and her business partner found whiskey and whores such a lucrative business, they soon accumulated fortunes of their own.
I came to Leadville attracted by the same thing. The promise of wealth, the lure of gold. Wasn’t long before I began frequenting Leticia’s establishment. I was young, handsome and generous with my gold. I soon became a favorite, not only with her girls, but also with Leticia herself.
I had no idea of Leticia’s true nature until the night I got into a drunken brawl with another miner outside the saloon. The miner drew first. He shot me in the chest and pain was the last mortal sensation I was to experience.
I learned from Leticia later that she had my body brought to her room. There was a faint heartbeat and her first inclination was only to drink from me as she had so many fatally wounded humans who fell at the steps of her establishment. But my will to live was strong and when she bit through the fragile layer of skin at my jaw line and began to drink, I stirred in her arms. She was overcome with another desire. She had no companion to share her life or her wealth. I was handsome, young and strong. Her human family all lived far away and had cut off ties because of what she chose to do with her life.
Jonathan pauses as if sorting memories. Leticia had been turned when she was twenty-one, a young widow with a son, and leaving him with her family was the hardest thing she had ever done.
But she was vampire and when the one who sired her moved on, she followed. They parted ways in Leadville. He moved on to California, where rumors of even richer strikes meant fortunes to be made and miners in lonely, isolated cabins an easy food source to be tapped.
Leticia set down roots in Leadville. Her business flourished. There were enough killings to keep her well fed and her true identity concealed. For that was the nature of a mining town. Disagreements were settled with a gun or knife. Bodies would be left on the sidewalk. Leticia saw that they were properly buried. After she’d fed.
Now here I was, a young man, in her arms, moaning with pain and the pleasure of her teeth at my neck. She decided I would become her companion. She hesitated only a moment before tearing open her wrist. She held my head with one hand and pressed her wrist against my lips, keeping it there until she saw my throat move. I came to gradually, drank slowly, hesitantly at first, but as my life force grew stronger, so did my demand for the blood. Soon I was holding her wrist to my mouth, greedy, insatiable. When she knew the change had taken place, she pushed me gently away.
I remember looking at her with eyes full of questions. My body hummed with new life and I felt stronger than I’d ever felt before. I was sexually aroused, too, and she felt the stirring of my lust.
He sighs as if the memory still filled him with pleasure. She opened her gown and welcomed me in.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jonathan stops. The story of his becoming provoked in him a far different response than the story of mine does in me. His voice is filled with wonder reflecting the depth of feeling he still has for the woman who turned him. I was taken by force by a rogue who intended to rape and kill me. The only thing I feel for that bastard is hatred.
Jonathan’s story raises so many questions. Why did they part ways? What became of Leticia? Is she still alive? My head swims with possibilities. Vampire relationships seem short-lived at best despite the prospect of immortality making ‘til death do you part’ more than just a cliché. Or maybe it’s because the prospect of spending eternity with one person too often becomes a cliché of another sort: familiarity breeding contempt.
Sophie shatters the fragile shell of silence with a snort. “So the story you had me write was a lie. Prendergast is right. Your fortune belongs to him, the human descendant.”
I blink over at her. “How did you come to that conclusion?”
She glares at me. “Isn’t it obvious? Jonathan isn’t a blood relative. He’s not even a bastard child. He’s the product of an unholy alliance between a vampire whore and –”
She stops suddenly with a gasp, clasping her hands to her midsection and doubling over.
Jonathan’s fury radiates outward, a rabid, raging storm that he is using to cause Sophie physical pain. I’m frozen in shock. I didn’t know he was capable of such a thing.
Sophie has fallen back on the bed, drawn her body into a fetal position. She is moaning, a terrible keening sound that sets my teeth on edge. It rouses me to action. I start for her, sending a message to Jonathan, yelling at him to stop.
Suddenly, the tone and timbre of Sophie’s cries change.
She sits up, eyes flashing, the guttural sounds from her throat morphing into a language I don’t understand. Her words spew forth like a geyser, as if by the sheer force of their intensity they are unleashing an internal defense against Jonathan’s attack. She is no longer in pain. She is wresting control from Jonathan.
She is casting a spell. I feel Jonathan’s presence slip away as she continues the incantation. Her eyes are closed, her hands clasped in supplication. I don’t recognize her. An aura of magic, dark and ominous, surrounds her. Her face is a mask of grim determination, all vestiges of softness and compassion gone. The Sophie who saved my friends and was willing to sacrifice her life to right a wrong committed by her sister is swallowed up by this other. Watching her, dread chills my bones. At this moment, she reminds me of Belinda, the black magic witch who stopped at nothing to get her way.
A shiver of repulsion makes me move away from the creature on the bed. Even vampire is reluctant to interfere. We can only watch and wait and hope reason returns to Sophie before it is too late.
I remember what Jonathan said. If he dies, Sophie does, too. Is she aware that her own fate is tied to his? And what if Jonathan is wrong? What if she can rid herself of him and continue on as before? Would she revert to her real age? Would she care? The frustration I felt in her makes me believe that life or death may make no difference to her. Her only goal is to be free.
Finally, the chanting stops. Sophie’s body relaxes as she slumps back against the pillows. The sphere of sinister light that surrounded her is gone. Her eyes remain closed, but her face softens. A small smile touches the corners of her mouth.
“Sophie?”
Her eyes open, her expression is at once surprised to see that I’m still in the room and pleased that I am. “I did it,” she says. “How long?”
At first I’m confused by the question, but then a flash of understanding. “Five minutes. Maybe less.”
The smile widens. “I’m getting better. The first time it took almost twenty minutes and I was exhausted after.” She stretches, languid as a cat. “I feel fine.”
“Jonathan?”