Sunshine

I couldn’t quite bring myself to say, “You’re welcome.” I moved far enough away again that while I was still mostly in the shade, the sun was touching my back, and sat down. The band of sun-warmth was a little like having a friend’s arm around me. “You could have just taken it.”

“No,” he said.

“Well. Ordered me to give you some.”

“No,” he said.

I sighed. I felt irritated with this treacherous, villainous, mortally dangerous creature. The weight of irony might smash what remained of my mind into pieces before he did, in fact, kill me.

He said slowly, “I can take nothing from you. I can only accept what you offer. I can at most…ask.”

“Oh, please!” I said. “I can refuse to let you kill me! Vampires have never killed anyone who hasn’t said ‘oh yes please I want to die, I want to die now, I want you to drink all my blood and whatever else it is that vampires do so that even my corpse is so horrible that after the police are done with it I will be burned instantly and the ashes sterilized before they’re turned over to the next of kin!’ ” I would never have said such a thing while it was dark. Daylight was my time. For a few more hours I could forget that the nightmare would come again too soon. I was tired, and half-crazy with what I had already been through, and at some level I didn’t care any more. I had seen the sun once more—it was a beautiful day—and if I was going to go out now, I was going to go out still me.

“If you have the strength of will you can stop me or any vampire,” he said. Again the words came slowly, as they had when he had first spoken to me in the night. The curious thing was that he seemed to want to speak. He’d also used the word vampire. Well, so had I. “These signs,” and he gestured briefly at his ankle. “They are…effective signs. They will do what they are made for. They will—contain. As Bo arranged for them to do here. They will also prevent inhuman harm to a human. But they can only do that if the human who bears the warding holds against the will of the one who stands against. Vampires are stronger than humans. Rarely can any hold out against our will. Why do you think you should not look in our eyes? We can…persuade you anyway. But looking into a vampire’s eyes is any human’s doom.”

In horror I said: “Then they do ask you to kill them. They do beg you to…”

“Yes,” he said.

I whispered: “Then, is it…okay, at the very end? Do they…like it, at the end?”

There was a long pause. “No,” he said.

There was a longer pause. I jerked away from him, stood up, stood in the sunlight again. I pulled the bodice of the dress away from my body so the sun could pour down inside. I pushed my hair back so the light could touch all of my face, and then I turned round and pulled my hair up on the top of my head so that it could warm the back of my neck and shoulders. I was not going to cry again. I was not going to cry again. I could look at it as practical water conservation.

I looked at him as I stood in the sunlight. His eyes were closed. I stepped out of the sunlight, still watching him. His eyes half-opened as soon as I was in shadow. “How long can you hold out?” I said sharply, my voice too loud. “How long?”

Again his words were slow. “It is not hunger that will break me,” he said. “It is the daylight. The daylight is driving me mad. Some sunset soon I will no longer be myself.” His eyes flicked fully open, his face tipped back to stare at me. I averted my eyes, looked at the weal on his forearm. “I may…kill you then. I may kill myself. I don’t know. The history of vampires is a long one, but I do not know of anyone who has had…quite this experience.”

I sat down. I heard myself saying, “Can I do anything?”

“You are doing it. You are talking to me.”

“I…” I said. “I’m not much of a talker. Our wait staff are the ones who know how to talk, and listen. I’m out back, most of the time, getting on with the baking.” Although several of our regulars hung around out back, if they felt like it. There was also a tiny patio area behind the coffeehouse that Charlie always meant to get done up so we could use it for more seating, but he never did, maybe partly because it had become a kind of private clubhouse for some of the regulars. When the fan wasn’t going but the bakery doors were open I listened to the conversations, and people came and leaned on the threshold so I could listen more easily. Pat and Jesse’s more interesting stories got told out back.

“The worst time is the hours around noon,” he said. “My mind is full of…” He paused. “My mind feels as if it is disintegrating, as if the rays of your sun are prizing me apart.”

Silence fell again, and the sun rose higher.