It’s Back

So…It has been a very, very long time since I have worked on this story. It has been a personal struggle to work on this story as I feel like in many respects the height of it’s popularity as far as content goes has passed and a now extremely over saturated subject material will not fare as well in the public market.

I have decided to stop hosting the www.BornForThisNovel.com website as it is a yearly expense that seems to cost more than seems justified on such a slow moving project, however, I will begin using this site again. For those of you invested in the story, all of the material will remain housed here, and any new content that is produced will be posted here. Please look for Facebook and Twitter posts frequently to see if there is any new material, and thank you all so much for your continued support and loyalty.

 

Sincerely,

Ellē

 

Say Goodbye!

Hello all, this will be the last post on this site. It has become too hard to maintain two Born for This sites so in an effort to conserve energy and continue to provide you with a quality story, this site will be no more. All of you who subscribe to this blog, thank you for your readership. I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. Please click hereto subscribe to the new site found at www.BornForThisNovel.com.

Thank you all again for your loyalty. I will see you on the new site.

Yes I know…I am a slacker…

I know, I know. You all probably thought I dropped off the face of the earth. Truth be told I haven’t been able to even look at my blogs for two weeks.  I haven’t written anything in two weeks…well that is not true. I wrote two sides of a piece of loose leaf paper while I was at work the other night because something moved me to, but that’s it. This 30-day Challenge burned me out. In my defense I actually took on 3 30-day challenges at once and in retrospect it was too much. But as they say, excuses are like armpits–we all have them and they all stink.

I could have tried harder.

I am so ashamed. I set my self a goal and I did not reach it, and then out of no where this week sneaked up on me and I have been cleaning like a mad woman and cooking like a mad woman in preparation for my End of an Era Dinner Party on Thursday.   I promise, starting on Friday,  I will get back into the normal swing of things.

Thank you all for your devotion to reading the blog over the 30-day Challenge. There is always next year.

Day 13: A Day Alone, Part II

I spent most of my day, unintentionally, at this little old bookstore in the South Side called The Pen. The Pen was one of the small independent bookstores that were set in an old row storefront. It had been there forever.

The Pen had two floors, each with 12-foot-high ceilings. Every inch of wall space was covered by shelves that were packed with new and used books. The center of the second floor was open, with a traditional, wrought-iron, spiral staircase in the center to take you from the first to second floors. Once on the second floor landing there were a series of four walkways that came off the landing to get you to the second floor shelves. There were ladders that rolled all along the shelves so you could get to things on the top shelf.

I loved it here because it wasn’t like all of those big corporate chain stores. There was no coffee shop or music department. Just lots of books. There were no help-your-self kiosks and they did not carry every title ever published, although I have no doubt that they could get it. The Pen was the sort of place you could go if you needed a book to find you. It was a great joint to go and just look around, particularly when you know you are looking for something, but you just don’t know what it is. Today was one of those days.  My brain was still buzzing with everything that had happened the night before, so much so that I couldn’t concentrate on any one thing that was bugging me.

I probably would have ended up spending the whole day there if my tummy hadn’t had different plans. At about 3 o’clock my stomach started growling something fierce and I decided I better find some blood soon, before I ended up eating a pigeon in the alleyway. 666 was on this side of town, but they were always packed, so I decided to head to O Negative instead, because I wanted a more relaxed atmosphere and I wanted to check up on the place for Luna.

As I retreated down the spiral stairs from the second to the first floor I glanced over the railing into a box one of the employees was unpacking. The book on top was a Simone de Beauvoir book titled All Men are Mortal.

“Excuse me, but may I see that book?” I asked, tapping the boy on the shoulder. He jumped, book in hand and stared at me.

“Huh?” he responded, a dumbstruck look on his face.

“The book, may I see it?” I asked again, pointing to his hand. He reached out the book, still staring. “Thank you,” I said, taking the book from his hands. I quickly scanned the book description. It read:

“Probably Simone de Beauvoir’s strangest and most compelling novel, All Men are Mortal is a captivating exemplum of existentialist credo. A beautiful and accomplished young actress revives as downcast stranger at a French resort. He becomes thoroughly attached to her at first and confides a terrifying truth: he is immortal.” etc. etc.  It was exactly what I was looking for.

The boy was still standing there, gawking at me, a half smile on his face. I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “You know it’s not really polite to stare hon, people might get the wrong idea.” I straightened up and he looked me in the eyes and blushed a little. “Thanks again, you made my day,” I flashed a smile at him, winked and went to the register.

 

Just as I got to the corner, I heard someone jogging, coming up on me quickly. The boy, who couldn’t have been more than 21-years-old, had followed me out and was catching up to me. He called out, “You’re really pretty you know.”

I turned under my umbrella and smiled. “Well, thank you,” I said.

“Your hands were so cold in there, you should put down your umbrella and warm yourself up in the sun,” he said. I raised my hand a wiggled my fingers.

“I’ve got gloves, I think I’ll be okay.”

“Still, it’s such a nice day, why hide from it? Perhaps we could go get a cup of coffee and sit on the patio. My treat,” he added at the last minute.

“You’re sweet,” I said, “but I don’t drink coffee.”

“A tea then, or hot chocolate.”

“Thank you, but no.” I was flattered by his persistence. “Besides, I don’t think you would like me in the sun.”

“I doubt that.” He thought for a moment “Okay then, how about a cocktail? There are some great bars on this street.”

“Thank you again, but alcohol is not my drug of choice. Your determination is very charming, but I’m just not interested,” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and then skipped across the intersection. He smelled delicious, so much so that my fangs had started to extend from hunger. I had to get something to eat.

He crossed right after me and suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, doll, one drink won’t kill you. Gimmie a chance.”

Yeah, but it might kill you, I thought. Doll? Who did he think he was dealing with? He was beginning to push my limits on niceties. “Say,” I said, turning to face him, “what’s your name?”

“Sean,” he said with a triumphant smile.

“Say, Sean, tell me something,” I said cocking my head to the side and taking a step toward him. He took a step back, still smiling.

“Anything,” he replied, raising his eyebrow, encouraging me to fill in my name.

“Veronica.”

“Veronica,” he repeated thoughtfully, “what would you like to know?” The cockiness oozed from his voice.

“What I would like to know, Sean, is your blood type.” I took a few more confidant steps towards him.

“Excuse me?” Sean asked, clearly confused. He had begun backpedaling as I stepped towards him.

“Your blood type hon.” He had come to the corner and had stopped backing up. I stopped when we were about six inches apart.

“Why would you want to know that?” he asked, trying not to sound nervous.

“Tell you what Sean, I’m going to try and guess.” He let out a little snort of laughter. “If I guess wrong, I’ll let you take me to 666 for a drink. If I guess right, you’ll drop it and let me go home.” Sean shrugged and nodded in agreement, a smug look on his face.

“What’s your favorite cocktail, so I know what to order when I get there?” he said.

“We’ll discuss that if I lose.” I winked at him and leaned over bringing both of us under my umbrella. He stood still, as I brought my face up to his neck. I was so hungry by this point my fangs were fully extracted beneath my lips. My stomach gurgled in response to his heart rate, as it picked up speed. Whether it was from nervousness or curiosity I did not know.

I brushed my small nose along his throat, from his collarbone up to his chin, breathing in his scent as I went. He shivered imperceptibly under the cold of my touch, goose bumps forming in my nose’s wake. I had felt him tense slightly from shock when he felt the temperature difference between us. His smell was so intoxicating it took a lot of strength for me to skip my instincts and bring myself back to the corner of 24^th and Bell St.

“So what do you think Red Cross?” he was trying to be sarcastic, but his voice cracked a bit from nerves.

“I think,” I said taking a step back from him, and looking him in the eye, “that you shouldn’t get so up-close and personal with strangers. You could get yourself hurt.” I winked at him and turned to walk away. I heard him let out a relaxed sigh and jog back up to walk beside me.

“I knew you couldn’t do it,” he said with a smile. “Besides an angel like you couldn’t hurt a fly like me. So what do you like to drink?”

I stopped and turned to look him dead in the eye, putting my hand on his shoulder. “I know, your blood type is AB positive and you’re anemic,” I said matter-of-factly, “and you smell absolutely mouth-watering.” With that, I smiled a full, perfect, full fanged smile at him, and let him go. His mouth dropped open while he stared blankly in silence. “It was nice meeting you Sean,” I said and I turned and walked to my car.

He didn’t follow.

Day 12: A Day Alone, Part I

Everyone left to go hunting at about 5:30 in the morning. I came down shortly after they left, micro waved a bottle of deer blood for breakfast and watched the weather channel.  Lorelei had been right; it was going to be a beautiful day; not a cloud in the sky. I went upstairs and checked my email, perused my bookshelves, found nothing I hadn’t read at least five times, stared at the ceiling for a while, and decided to exercise. I went through my New York Ballet routine, just to keep on my toes, so to speak, and then I took a shower

I stuck around the house until about nine, puttsing with this and that, cleaning the bathrooms and washing the dishes last night, waiting for the bookstores to open. I planned on spending the day shopping. I chose to a nice, white, long sleeved top and a pair of blue jeans to cover up in. It was a bit brisk, so no one would find it odd that I threw on a scarf, gloves and puffy vest. The more cover the better. I grabbed a Japanese paper umbrella, and I was out the door.

Unfortunately my bike was not conducive to umbrella carrying, so I was forced by fashion to take a car. I jumped in my candy-apple red Spyder and was on my way.

As I drove past the cemetery I saw a runner headed towards me on the opposite side of the road. He had the lean build of a well disciplined runner—strong but not muscular in the lumpy sense. Just strong. He was wearing a pair of cut-off sweatpants with no shirt and an I-pod on his arm. As I drove by, the runner stopped and looked right at me. It was Gaspard. He smirked, like he knew it was me, and followed the car with his gaze as I rounded the bend.

Day 11: Floating, Part II

“Tell me what you know about vampires.” I said to Jetta as we were cooking dinner. And then my mother almost snarfed her wine all over the counter. “Please don’t laugh, I am serious.”

“I think someone shouldn’t be watching Nosferatu when they are already having a hard time dreaming. Vampires Gaspard? Really?” she asked as she wiped off her chin and the counter in front of her.

She mused to herself as she slowly peeled the skin from a grape, tossing it into a messy pile on the counter in front of her. Finally I couldn’t take it any more.

“That’s enough,” I said snatching the grape from between her fingers and popping it into my mouth. I bit down with my mouth open squirting juice in her direction.

“Now that’s no way to get what you want,” she retorted, getting back up to grab a rag and wipe the counter. “You seriously want to know about vampires? Why don’t you get online and do some research?”

“Because I don’t want to sift through all the bullshit vampire crap out there; I don’t want movies and gimmicks. There is so much vampire garbage out there now a day; apparently they are all the rage.”

Jetta snorted. “If only they knew…” she said drifting off into her thoughts.

“Mère s’il vous plait, tell me what you know.”

“It’s not much really. They keep very private. It is easier now more than ever for them to co-exist undetected, particularly in a town like this, with hospitals galore. Over population and poverty the world over has made disappearances and sudden death more easily looked over, especially when it comes to the sick and dying. Vampires don’t need to have healthy blood, just blood, or so I’ve heard, so many have taken up residencies and careers in hospitals, nursing homes, even homeless shelters in order to get by.

“I have also heard rumors of those who have learned to get by on a low to no human diet. But those are just rumors. I’m not really sure if that’s possible given their condition. That’s really all I got.”

“What about the sunlight myth?”

“Well that one is tricky. That is one of their little trade secrets they keep to themselves. I personally don’t believe they turn to dust in the sun. It doesn’t seem to make much sense to me since they obviously have fairly normal body and bone structure as us as they are basically human.” I glanced over my shoulder at her. “What? They are. Just with a little magic added to them. Just like us.”

“Can they die?”

“Of course they can. They just won’t die by getting old, or succumbing to illness. They have to be killed physically, and if I am correct, which I’d like to think I am, violently.”

“Violently? How so?”

“Oh Gaspard! All this melancholy is not healthy.”

“It’s not going to kill me. Trust me.”

“Very funny,” she said giving me a truly mom glare. “Why do you want to know?”

“I have a theory,” I said cautiously.

“Oh this ought to be good,” she teased as she stirred the pot. We were making Cajun.

“Look if you’re not interested I can just keep it to myself.”

“No, no, hit me. Tell me what you’ve got brewing that brain of yours.”

“ Well, the other night, after the ritual, I was taking a bath and Idunn spoke to me.”

“Oh Gaspard, how exciting!! What did she say?”

“’My children are coming. Your gift be revealed, your cure be known. As you willed it I grant it. It is up to you to take it.’”

“My children are coming…” she said to herself as she dropped the snipping crawfish into the pot of boiling water. She then turned to me, “Idunn’s children would be children of death?”

“I would assume so.”

“Which would presumably make them dead right?”

“Presumably…” I replied as I chopped up the celery for the dirty rice. “Which says to me two things, vampires or zombies.”

“Well zombies are just ridiculous. Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a zombie,” She said matter-of-factly.

I shook my head at the ridiculousness of the conversation. “So then we are agreed that vampires are the realistic possibility for the children of Idunn?”

“Sure, but I am not sure where you are going with this.”

“Well, I get this message from Idunn, and with in minutes the Pryces are on our doorstep. Then there was the tattoo on Remington,”

“Which was my sign, I assume,”

“Right, and then, don’t you find it a bit odd that this family has owned an undertaking business and cemetery for over 100 years, never changing hands, with children who are more than willing to take it over?” I asked as she was straining the crawfish in a colander, their brilliant orange-red shells lighting up the sink.

“So what are you saying?”

“I think it is obvious that the Pryces are some kind of a sign, but I think they might be a cure,”

“And, if I am following your train of thought correctly,” Jetta interrupted, “you think they might actually be vampires?”

“Exactly. It makes sense, right?”

“I suppose…”

“You know it does!” I whined at her. “Now, let me ask you, how has this spell been affecting you?”

“Nothing too unusual. Some overwhelming dizzy spells, and flash hallucinations of a fiery dragon that I can only assume is the spell reminding me that Remington was the sign. You?”

“Um…nothing really. Just voices in my head.” She had stopped mid-taste-test and was staring at me. “I know what you’re thinking,” her eyes got real wide, “and no, no, not literally. I am not going crazy. I can only hear mine. But then there are her vibes; I guess that is what you would call them.”

“Hers, whose?”

“Veronica’s,” I said with a sigh. It really could have been worse. She was totally hot. Definitely the hottest one in the family. And there was a spunk, a certain feral nature about her, that was very sexy.

“And yours. Well you can always hear yours.” Jetta just shrugged.

“Not like this,” I confessed. “It’s like my conscious and my subconscious are talking to each other. Both conscious—and loud.”

“Well what do they tell you?” She didn’t mean it to be sarcastic, but it certainly was a mocking tone.

“It’s just like I have two people with me and we are always discussing options, or hashing out ideas, or looking for something with one set of eyes and three brains.”

“And Veronica’s…what? Energy?”

“She’s different. With her it’s like something inside me, whispering, or giving me a nudge towards the right thing to do or say.”

“Hmm…” Jetta was scooping a heaping pile of dirty rice onto her plate and piling crawfish onto mine. “What do you think is the purpose of that?”

“I’m not quite sure really,” I said and took a mouthful of food. “Maybe it was just a sign. Kind of like you seeing the dragon.”

“Maybe it is a means of locating her when you’re ready.”

“But ready for what? And besides she goes to school with me. She is in almost all of my classes. I know where to find her.”

“Maybe it will give you a clue as to how she will fix things.”

“Well whatever it is, at least I’ll get to know her better. She’s never even looked at me before. Now, if nothing else, maybe I’ll get a shot at one of the hottest girls in school.” I said it without even thinking about it. As soon as I said it I knew it was true. Until then I hadn’t realized I had harbored such an attraction to Veronica Pryce. Apparently that was something my now conscious subconscious had been hiding from me until now.

I glanced over at Jetta as she snapped the head off of one of her minuscule lobsters, a smug smirk on her face as she sucked its innards out. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said with a smile.

“Not nothing. What?”

“ It’s just that I have been waiting centuries for you to find someone to love, and here the answer was a beatless heart away. Hundreds of years of women at your disposal, and it is only when you are begging for death that you find something to live for.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, no one said anything about love,” I was putting a stop to that kind of talk. “How about we focus on figuring the puzzle that needs to be solved, and getting me fixed first, then we’ll worry about love huh?”

“What ever you say son, but how do you know you don’t need love in order to ‘solve this puzzle’ as you so astutely put it?”

“Whatever. I think I am going out tonight,” I stated, clearly closing the subject.

“Going out? You never go out. Where are you going?”

“I dunno. Someplace fairly close. I want to get out, socialize. Have a drink. Maybe I’ll go down to Type O Negative.”

“O Negative huh,” Jetta asked thoughtfully as she cleared away my plate. “Interesting.”

“Why is that interesting?”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No. Why?”

“No reason. Why not go somewhere you know? Like Kaya? Or The Happy Day? They’re close.”

“Is there something wrong with Type O Negative? Have you been there?”

“I have. Do you know anything about Type O Negative?”

“Not really. I know it is a Goth bar. I know it is above the Recovery Room. I know it is a tea house during the day.”

“Why did you pick that bar then?”

“No reason. It just popped into my head.”

“Do you know who owns it?”

“No. Do you?”

“I do,” she said smartly. She turned around and faced me, a big smile on her face.

“Who?”

“Luna Anne Worthshire Pryce.”

Oh I thought. “That is interesting.”

“And you know what else?”

“What’s that?” I could guess what was coming.

“Your Veronica is one of their best bartenders.”

Of course she is. “Huh…”

“I guess that spell worked better than we thought. It’s pulling you right to her.”

“No it’s not. She probably won’t even be there.”

“Of course she will.”

“How do you know?”

“Why else would you decide to go to a bar you’ve never been to, on a Saturday night, alone?”

“Something to do?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well either way, I am gonna go get dressed,” and I got up and left the dining room headed for the stairs.

“Wear something black,” she called after me, “It is a goth bar. And you look good in black,” she added at the end.

Great. Wear something black to the goth bar that you are only going to because the hot maybe vampire girl who might be your salvation, may be bartending, and your brain is making these decisions against your will. “What has my life come to?” I asked myself as I climbed the stairs to get dressed.

 

Day 10: Floating, Part I

 

Sensory deprivation is an amazing thing. It’s the closest you can get to a self induced hallucination without the aid of drugs. The amazing thing is that when your brain is truly free to think at full potential, without the bombardment of the senses, the mind can show you astonishing things.

As I crawled into the tank, I could already feel my mind relaxing to the lack of light and smell. Once the lid was down on the tank and I could hear nothing but my heart, my sense of touch disappearing like my skin was melting away, I began to let my mind drift to the dream. What were the things I remembered?  I was in a rainforest. I was sweating. You were sleeping in a sauna. Ok that’s explained. You were running. You were being hunted my brain corrected.

You’re right. I was being hunted. And I couldn’t see.

I think that was sauna induced.

I don’t know, I think it means something. But what could it mean? Ok what else?

You were short of breath.

I was being hunted.

Point taken. Ok. She was toying with you. She could have caught you, but she didn’t. Not until she wanted to. Why?

The game? Thrill of the chase?

I don’t think so.

Explain?

Well, when she finally catches up she hides for a moment and when she steps out she is shrouded. Why would she be shrouded? If you were the prey, and the intent was to catch and kill, then when I decided the game was over, it wouldn’t matter who I was. You would be dead.

But I can’t die.

And she knew that.

No, you told her remember. I replayed the conversation over in my mind.

[“No, it’s not!” I shouted at myself.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” spoke a beautiful voice from the shadows.  I watched as the cloaked figure stepped out of the trees and into the beam of sunlight on the path. Her head was hooded, that much I could see. But her face remained a mystery, the sweat from brow dripping into my eyes, clouding vision.

“Do you want to die today Gaspard?” she asked me, tilting her head quizzically. Her voice sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I began rubbing my eyes to clear my vision.

“No I don’t want to die today,” I replied as I rubbed my stinging eyes. “I just don’t want immortality and more. I don’t want to die.”]

But she was able to read my mind.

Maybe, or she was just responding to you shouting at yourself.

Ok. Moving on. She give me an option. Live or die. If she knew I was immortal then how could she kill me?

Maybe she is the exception.

Maybe. Lets come back to that. What do we remember about her?

She was cloaked.

At first.

When she uncovered she had violet eyes, and fog rolling off of her.

What else?

That’s it.

Dig deeper.

I thought, concentrating on the image of the hunter. I tried to wipe the greasy, sweat filled images away for a clearer view. She was small. Slender. Long dark hair. Beneath the cloak her bare, alabaster skin was brilliant in the sunlight and fog.

It hit me suddenly. I know why her voice was so familiar in the dream. I waited for my other self to respond, but it waited idly. It was Veronica. My other self still said nothing; waiting for me to finish my revelation. It didn’t come…

I waited….

 

 

and waited…

 

 

floating…

 

 

I thought my other voice had completely gone, and was about to give up when suddenly I was sucked back into the dream.

[“I can be merciful Gaspard. I usually am. But I am quite hungry and you smell delicious. I don’t know if I am strong enough to be merciful.”

“Please don’t kill me,” I begged. “I am not ready to die.”

“But you want the option. That I can understand. I will try my hardest not to kill you then.” And then with a feral snarl she lunged, slamming right into my chest.”]

I sucked in a deep breath, pulling in the Epsom saturated water deep into my lungs. I sat up too fast, coughing too hard, choking on my epiphany cracking my head against tank lid.

 

I flew from the room into the too bright, afternoon filled sauna.

Jetta was sitting on a bench waiting. “Did you get your answers?”

 

I was sucking in lungful after lungful of the too warm air.

“Holy fuck,” I exclaimed. “It can’t be true!” My hands were on my knees, my chest fighting for air.

“And what would that be mon fils?” she asked calmly.

I shook my head, still trying to catch my breath. “Not now, I choked out.”

“Dinner then?”

I nodded, hands still on my knees. “Dinner.”

 

Day 9: Dreaming in color, Part III

I hit the floor with a thud, her laugh still filling my ears. No, not her laugh. Jetta’s laugh. I glanced up from the floor to see her sitting legs crossed giggling like a little girl.

“Bad dream?”

“Strange,” I said as I rolled to my knees and helped myself back up onto the bench. “ooph…I hit the floor hard.”

She laughed again, “care to share?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I’m not really unfogged yet. What are you doing out here at such an early hour of the day?”

“Early? It’s after two.”

“Shit,” I said sitting up and rubbing my eyes, “really? Wow. I can’t believe I fell asleep in here.”

“What time did you get up and come in?”

“I don’t know. Around four I guess…I couldn’t sleep.”

“I figured as much…” Jett a got up and poured another ladle full of water on the hot stones. I had come out to the steam house to try and relax. It must have worked. Jetta must have built up the long extinguished fire when she came looking for me.

“How long have you been in here?”  I asked. I can’t imagine what I must have looked like, sweaty and thrashing around in my boxers.

“Actually I have been in there since about three in the morning.”

I stared at her in shock. “You were here when I got here?”

“Yeah, so?”

“What were you doing? I didn’t see you.”

“Floating.” Ah…the isolation tank.

“When did you come out? I didn’t even hear you.”

“Vous étiez dehors comme une lumière, mon fils…out like a light. I came out around noon.”

“Nine hours! How could you be floating for nine hours? What on earth happened?”

“Nothing happened. I woke up, wide awake and knew I need answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? If you don’t know what the hell were you doing in there for nine hours?”

“I told you. Getting answers.”

“Did you get them?”

“Yes.”

“Well then,” I said waiting for her to explain.

“Well then, what?”

“Explain.”

“There is nothing to explain.”

“You said you got answers. What were they?”

“It doesn’t matter right now.”

“What?” I was completely confused. “How can it not matter right now?”

“Well, an answer is no good with out a question,” she replied indifferently. She was poking at the fire.

“What are you talking about?!?” I was irritated.

“There is always an answer to every question, if you know what question to ask. Now I have all the answers. I just need to ask the right questions. You’ll see.”

“You are making no sense.”

“I will. What are your plans for the rest of the day?” she asked changing the subject.

“Um, I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“I’m going to go in, drink a huge glass of water and have some lunch. Go float.”

“I don’t think I want to.”

“You need to. If nothing else you need to figure out that dream buzzing in your warm little brain.” She walked over, kissed my forehead, and walked to the door. “You’re at a better advantage for floating than I was anyways. It shouldn’t take you nearly as long; you already have the question.” And with that she was gone.

Maybe she was right. I stripped down to my birthday suit and headed into the dark.

Day 8: Dreaming in Color, Part II

The sun beat down on the rainforest as I ran as fast as could away from the monster. I knew that it was faster than me, could have caught me, and was just toying with me for now; enjoying the chase, the sound of my labored breath, matching it’s pace to the erratic beat of my heart rather than my speed. It was hard to tell if I was even still being pursued, the sound of the beast’s feet soundless against the rainforest’s floor.

I stopped to wipe the sweat from my forehead, and take in a few desperate breaths. “Why are you running?” I asked myself “You are immortal.”

“She could kill me, I know she could, no matter what the rules of immortality say.”

“I thought you wanted to die,” my brain inquired.

“I want to be able to die, when my time comes.”

“Maybe this is your time?”

“No, it’s not!” I shouted at myself.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” spoke a beautiful voice from the shadows.  I watched as a cloaked figure stepped out of the trees and into the beam of sunlight on the path. Her head was hooded, that much I could see, but her face remained a mystery, the sweat from brow dripping into my eyes, clouding vision.

“Do you want to die today Gaspard?” she asked me, tilting her head quizzically. Her voice sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I began rubbing my eyes to clear my vision.

“No I don’t want to die today,” I replied as I rubbed my stinging eyes. “I just don’t want immortality and more. I don’t want to die.” A low growl was coming from her throat. When I finally opened my eyes again she had removed her cloak and was standing in the light, her beautiful violet eyes twinkling in the sun a cloud of fog emanating all around her. I was awestruck, her beauty blinding, the strange fog rolling off her skin like sweat. She began to laugh. But still, I could not make out her face.

“I can be merciful Gaspard. I usually am. But I am quite hungry and you smell delicious. I don’t know if I am strong enough to be merciful.”

“Please don’t kill me,” I begged. “I am not ready to die.”

“But you want the option. That I can understand. I will try my hardest not to kill you then.” And then with a feral snarl she lunged, slamming right into my chest.”

Day 7: Dreaming in Color, Part I

Needless to say I had a restless night. When I did manage to sleep I dreamt of the cold, or burning pain, or colors. Lots of colors. Nothing defined though. Smears of colors in every shade imaginable; shades I don’t know that I had ever seen in my life. Colors that only exist in a God’s eyes. And voices, although I could not recall what they were saying.

I would wake up one hour so hot that I was tearing my clothes off, and then an hour or so later I would wake up freezing, needing to pull out the winter wool blankets to bring my core temperature back up. This continued all night long.

At about five a.m. I decided to give up on sleep and watch some TV.  The Scyfy channel was showing Nosferatu. Silent films were always fun and easy to fall asleep to, but in this case the story of the heart broken vampire just didn’t seem to be sitting right. At some point in my over analyzing of the situation I must have dozed off into a deep sleep, because I awoke to the rich smell of espresso and the loud spitting of the steamer on Jetta’s espresso maker. I was slightly chilled so I snagged the Irish wool afghan from the couch, wrapped it around my shoulders and waddled into the direction of the burnt aroma wafting through the house.

“Well good morning my little night owl,” Jetta said, blowing me a kiss. “Latte?”

“Americano if you please. I need it strong.”

“Yes I assumed you would, being up all night. What on earth were you doing all night? In and out of you room, banging things around with the door shut, screaming out in the dark, and then I find you on the couch with a static screen on the TV sleeping through that god awful white noise.

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a lot on my mind I guess. I was dreaming a lot and couldn’t get comfortable.”

“Well, you’ll have that after a night like last night,” She said sitting my favorite mug, the one covered in spider webs, down in front of me; the caffeinated tar so dark the little spider inside couldn’t be seen.

“Speaking of last night,” I said, taking a blistering hot sip from the mug, “what did you make of the evening?”

“Well, I found the sign I was looking for, which I assume you saw—I mean how could you miss it right? Anyways, I was to look for the dragon. The Pryces are our cure, but how…” She trailed off as she watched the cream billow up from the bottom of her mug.

“Well, I have a theory on that…”

“What would that be?”

“It’s not really a theory. I am not really sure what it is. I think my head is still foggy from last night.”

“You know what you need? You need a good breakfast.” Jetta padded her way over to the cabinet and began pulling out the griddle and frying pan and pancake mix.

“No, ma, ma, Mère!” She stopped and looked. “Please, stop fussing. I need to clear my head. I think I am going to go for a run.”

“Your loss…”

I hit the pavement at about 8:30 a.m. and started running south west on Ivory Avenue. I wasn’t really sure where I was going, I just new that I needed to get my adrenaline pumping if I was ever planning on making it through the day without a nap. My mother was right, the Pryce’s were at least the sign we were looking for, but what did it mean? I had my IPod strapped to my arm and let the less than soothing sounds of Metallica’s Black album power me as I ran up and down the city’s over abundance of hills and bridges until I was passing St. Mary’s Cemetery and then Brick’s Farm and Nursery, and the St. A’s and Most Holy Name Cemetery.

As I rounded the next bend I realized I was approaching Maple Ridge Cemetery on my right. Did my subconscious bring me here or the spell? Or maybe it’s just a coincidence. There are no coincidences, I thought. I decided to do a lap through the cemetery and then head back home, when I heard it; over the wind, over “Nothing Else Matters,” over my thoughts—over here. I snapped my head in the direction of the whisper just as a candy apple red, over tinted Mitsubishi Spyder came swinging around the bend. I stopped and looked for the driver’s face, but through the heavy tint I couldn’t make anyone out. But some how I just knew. That was Veronica Pryce’s car.