"OK," I started, sitting again, "the car is taken care of. Now let's deal with the rest of this mess."
Cameron stared down at his hands clasped in his lap. He sighed in disgust. "It really is a mess, isn't it?"
"It could be worse, but it's not good. Why didn't you get in touch with anyone?"
"At first, I thought I was just… sick. I didn't believe all that vampire junk. I thought I might have something really nasty, but I figured I'd either get better soon, or I'd have to go to a doctor. When I found out what was happening to me—I mean when I believed it—I panicked."
"You seem to have adapted. If you'd called your mother, you could have avoided panicking her, too." I wanted to kick myself for sounding like a stereotype.
"What was I supposed to say? 'Hi, Mom. Sorry I can't make the birthday party, I'm a vampire and I wouldn't want to upset you by biting the guests'?"
"How about 'I'm sick, but I'm going to be fine and I'll see you soon?"
He sighed again and lowered his head even farther. "I guess I didn't think, but I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not very good at this vampire stuff."
"You mean you don't just wake up one night and know how to be a vampire?"
"No. Usually you have somebody around to take care of you, teach you, until you can take care of yourself."
"So, what happened to your… tutor?"
Cameron shrank. "He threw me out," he whispered.
In a cartoon, the wooden desktop would have slammed into my lower jaw as my mouth popped open. Cameron squirmed and snuck a peek at me out of the corner of his eye. I clenched my eyes shut and smoothed out my face.
"Threw you out?" I repeated, choking on a dry throat. I swallowed and restarted. "Why?"
"He said— He didn't— I didn't want— I—" Frustrated, he plunged his face into his hands. "I can't do this!" he howled. "I suck at this!"
I didn't laugh. I stood up and walked over to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder… and fell straight through to the Grey.
I couldn't breathe. I was cold, frozen, falling, sliding through something writhing, oozing, squeezing into me. Black cold. Cameron raised his head and looked through me with a gaze like a razor. I yanked my hand away from that burning cold/hot, live/dead flesh… and stumbled backward, falling against the desk and sitting down hard on its top, gasping.
"What's wrong?" he asked, jumping up to offer assistance.
I pushed at the air between us. "Don't touch me!"
He recoiled as from a blow, drawing his hands back against his chest.
I gnawed air and fought back to some kind of equilibrium.
"I–I really wasn't expecting that." I straightened myself up and tried to smile.
"What happened? Are you OK? You… flickered." He peered at me, ducking his head to squint at my face. "What are you?" he asked, backing away a step.
I laughed. "Are you afraid of me?" I waved a hand over my body. "Look at me—an ex-dancer with a run in her stocking and rips in her blouse. Why should you be scared of me? You're the vampire, the transcender of death. Who the hell am I?"
"You… you're something—I don't know. You're—you're more here than most people."
"I'm more somewhere. Look, Cameron, I'll tell you my nasty secret, then you can tell me yours. OK?"
Chapter 17
Cameron gave a slow nod. "I seem to be able to see things most people can't," I started. "I met a couple recently who said there's a… another sphere of existence sort of parallel to, or on top of, the normal one. The paranormal. In between here and there, there's a place where things like ghosts and vampires exist, the same way ordinary people do in the ordinary world. Making sense?" "I get it."
I nodded and made my best stab at the story, dawdling over my words. "I got into an accident a while ago, and afterward I started seeing, moving, into this… place. It's called the Grey. Sometimes I just see things like film projected on fog. Sometimes I can go all the way in—but I try not to. I don't know if I leave the ordinary altogether or not. But I'm getting pretty good at catching sight of things that sort of waver in the Grey, even when I'm here." "You mean like ghosts?"
"Yeah. I see a lot of ghosts. And a lot of other stuff. I can't say I like it. And I can see you. You seem to exist in both places at the same time. I think that you see me with both sets of eyes, so I seem more solid or more real to you than a lot of other people do."
"You do seem more real than most people have in a while. So what happened just now?"
"When I touched you, I… fell in."
"Whoa. That's pretty weird."
"It's not a lot weirder than being a vampire."
His head bobbed as he thought about it.
"So what's your story?" I asked.
"Urn, well… can I skip over some of the details?"
"Sure. For now." I leaned back against the desk and crossed my arms. I could feel the molded edge digging into my butt, but I wasn't about to move.
"Yeah, OK. See, I was down here in the Square a lot a while back, trying to help out a friend."
"Your sister, Sarah?"
He hesitated to confirm or deny.
"She told me about it. She said she'd been some kind of possession for a while. A guy named Edward kept her as a toy."
He closed his eyes and looked tired. "Yeah." His lids rose, but he didn't refocus on me. "I finally got a hold of Edward, and I tried a lot of things to get him to give Sarah up, but he wouldn't." His voice was starting to growl and resonate. "He was so damned amused about it. I was ready to smash his face in. I couldn't have done it, but I wanted to. I got pissed off and asked him what would induce him to let Sarah go. And the son of a bitch said me!"
My stomach did a flip. I put my palm out toward him. "Calm down a little, Cam. You don't need to boil the atmosphere."
He glared at me, then slumped a bit and took a couple of deep breaths. "I didn't mean to get so wound up, but it really wound me up at the time. Anyhow, I was kind of creeped out about it. But I had to help Sarah. It was like she was fading a bit more every time we met.
"Anyhow, I–I said he could have me." Cameron looked down at his hands. "I didn't know he was a vampire. I thought he just wanted to have sex with me. I didn't know he wanted to… make me."
Now he looked up. His eyes glimmered. "I thought he was just some kind of kink and I figured I stood a better chance of holding him off than Sarah did. I'm not hung up about sex, so I didn't think it would be a big deal. I figured he'd find me boring after a while and let me go. But that's not how it went.
"At first it was just sort of weird… I don't really want to discuss that part." He tucked his head sideways and looked at me with a grimace.
"OK. Go on with the part you do want to tell," I encouraged.
"Anyhow, so… Edward's a vampire and now I'm a vampire."
"Why isn't Sarah a vampire, too?"
"I don't know. I think he was having a lot more fun just sort of playing with her. Or maybe he doesn't like girls. I don't know."
"And then what happened? Why did Edward dump you?"
He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Oh, I pissed him off. I had a meltdown, got nasty, lost my temper, and he tossed me out and told me to fend for myself. I've tried to get some help, but I don't know who to turn to besides Edward, and he won't even look at me. I mean he literally doesn't see me. I'm really in a mess. There are other vampires around town, but I think Edward is a big man in the local community and he's got them all scared or something. I've been cut out, I guess. It's kind of scary. I could get killed just because of the things I don't know, but I don't know how to learn them. There is no Vampirism for Dummies handbook. I tried reading the folklore sections in the library but most of that tells you how to destroy a vampire, not how to be one."