Zen and the Art of Vampires

He bent a look upon me that implied I was a moron, which at that moment was probably deserved. "Alec is older than me."

I stared at him, my brain trying to come to grips with the fact that the man sitting next to me, the perfectly normal-looking man, was, in fact, the evil undead. "What does that have to do with anything?"

He spun the wheel, sending us careening off the main road and down a winding track that led into the small fishing town. "You can't expect me to believe you're that naive."

I gasped, really gasped as his meaning struck me. "You're not saying Alec is one, too?"

"I just told you he's older than I am. I was born in 1623. He has at least eighty years on me."

My jaw dropped again, so stunned was I that it only dimly filtered through my brain that Kristoff had stopped the car in the shade of a squat stone building that was perched on top of a cliff that overlooked the small fishing village. "But… a vampire? Alec? No. I don't believe it. You're just trying to scare me."

"If I wanted to scare you, I'd tell you what I was thinking at this moment," he said dryly.

"Alec is no more a vampire than I am," I told him, absolutely confident in what I said.

Kristoff raised an eyebrow.

"Answer me this, then, Mr. Fangs—vampires drink blood, right? So if Alec is a vampire, why didn't he drink my blood?" I asked in tones of indisputable reason.

"I have no doubt that he did."

"A feeble answer at best," I said smugly. "I'd know if someone was drinking my blood."

Kristoff suddenly leaned over me, turning my head to examine the side of my neck farthest from him. "I thought so," he said after a moment's silence, releasing my chin and sitting back in his seat. "You are mistaken. You bear a mark."

"What?" I pulled down the overhead sunshade, examining myself in the mirror contained on its back. Sure enough, there was a small bruising on the side of my neck, right where I remembered Alec nuzzling me. "That's not vampire teeth marks. It's a hickey."

I could swear that Kristoff was having to fight to keep from rolling his eyes. "It is the same thing."

I touched the spot gingerly, eyeing it before turning to him. "I always thought vampires left two little teeth marks."

"You watch too much TV."

"Are you saying you always leave a mark when you bite someone?"

"Not always. It takes much concentration, however, and generally we're… distracted."

"By what?" I couldn't help but ask. "Garlic?"

He did roll his eyes now. "Hardly. The act of taking blood can be very… intimate."

"Oh, that sort of distracted." I touched the spot again. It didn't hurt, just felt somewhat numb. "So drinking someone's blood is sexually arousing?"

"It can be, yes. Not always, but it can be so, depending on the subject."

I flinched at his term, casting my mind back to the events of the evening. There had been a moment when Alec was nibbling my neck, and I thought he'd bitten me a smidgen too hard, but that had eased up almost immediately. "And the person you're biting doesn't know you're doing it?"

"That depends," he said, consulting his watch.

"On what?"

"On whether or not there is a shared sexual attraction."

Well, there had definitely been that last night. So perhaps the hickey wasn't so much a hickey as it was an indicator that Alec was more than he seemed. But if that was true, then he'd be no better than Kristoff.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I don't believe it. Alec is good. He's not evil, like you."

Kristoff turned his teal eyes on me, the look of scorn in them so strong it stung. "Your people kill mine ruthlessly, without prejudice, conducting the most obscene rituals they can think of, and you call me evil?"

I clawed at the seat belt, ripping it off as I jerked open the car door, desperate to escape the dangerous Kristoff.

He snarled something and leaped after me, slamming me up against the stone wall of the building. We were on the shaded side, the sun not having yet warmed the stone, but it was not for that reason that I shivered against the cold wall.

"The Brotherhood purifies people—" I started to say, grabbing at my memory of what Anniki had told me the evening before.

"Purifies." He spat the word out like it was poison, leaning close to me, so close I could feel the warmth of his body, but it was the rage and hatred in his eyes that left me paralyzed with fear. "Do you know how your precious reapers purified Angelica? They started with a crucifixion, draining almost all of her blood, leaving her racked with pain and almost unbearable hunger. After that, they called down their cleansing light. Do you know what that is, Zorya?"

I shook my head, tears blurring my vision.

"Complete immolation. They used to simply burn people at the stake, but now they use a form of electricity to burn her body from the inside out."

My stomach lurched, a horrible vision rising in my mind. I closed my eyes, tears burning paths down my cheeks.