Pulse. Part 7

An awkward silence filled the car.

"So," Jaegar said, clearing his throat. "Aaron a was he around a lot? Did he ever just...vanish?"

"Are we still on Aaron?"

"Whatever happened to him a you're our biggest clue towards finding out."

"He'd be gone, sometimes. I always thought he was drinking. I found this matchbox from a bar he went to, once a Nox a all the way in San Francisco. I got so angry a he'd promised that he'd stopped drinking! We broke up over it. Over a stupid matchbox."

"Do you still have it?"

"Yeah," Kalina gave a weak laugh. "I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. It...I kept it in my purse. To remember him by."

She handed him the matchbox.

Jaegar's eyes widened. "Nox," he said. "Our winery supplies them a it's a vampire bar." He put the matchbox in his pocket. "This could be a clue."

"What are you, a detective?"

"I was," he said. "In the days of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. I was hot on the trail of Jack the Ripper a for a time."

Her eyes brightened. "Really?"

"What, does that frighten you?"

"Are you kidding a that's awesome! " Kalina sat up straight. "I want to be a history major...when I go to college. I mean a I love, love history. What was it like?"

"What was what like?"

"Victorian England."

"Oh. Smelly."

"Smelly? That's it?"

"Well, it's not the sort of thing one reads about in history textbooks."

Kalina leaned her head on her hand. "When were you born?"

"During the Black Plague in England. Early fourteenth century." He leered at her. "Does that shock you?"

"I think it's fascinating," said Kalina. Her eyes lit up. "I should sit you down a interview you. You'd have the most incredible insights."

"Sit me down any time you like, darling."

"Do you miss being human, Jaegar?"

"Sometimes," he said, upon reflection. "Not often. Not like Stuart does. Now and then."

"Jaegar."

"What?" he said, a bit too roughly.

"What's Life's Blood."

Who told you about that?"

"Stuart a and then that girl I...staked. They said my blood was special. What did that mean?"

Jaegar sighed. "We're not sure."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a legend," he said. "About a special carrier. A special line of carriers a whose blood makes vampires impossibly powerful. And a the vampire she loves a she will be able to restore to human form."

"That can't be me..."

"We believe it is." Jaegar nodded.

"The vampire I loved a is that why Aaron was with me? To get my blood?"

Jaegar shook his head. "I believe he only got an inkling a later. Did you love him a like that?"

"He loved me," Kalina shrugged. "But...it was a high school thing, you know? It wasn't true love. I cared for him very much. And maybe I would have loved him, one day. But...not just then."

"I see." Jaegar cleared his throat. "I loved him, you know. As a brother. Stuart and I both did. We had been turned together a we are true brothers, you see. Our father, Gerard, was turned too a a vampire. And then he fell in love with a human. About ten years after the Gold Rush a a beautiful young woman called Marilee. She got pregnant when she was still a human a and then he turned her. He couldn't bear to lose her to old age. And the son a Aaron a was born a Dhampir. A rare breed. Half human, half vampire. So he could grow up."

"But then..."

"Marilee turned him, yes. She couldn't let her son grow older than she was."

"Where are Gerard and Marilee now?"

Jaegar's face darkened. "I don't want to talk about it," he said. "They're dead. That's all that matters."

"I'm sorry."

"Stuart," he said, "may try to tell you some things about their deaths. Do not believe it. He was always weak a governed by his emotions. It is a a point of contention between us. Do not believe anything he says on the matter. He is honest in everything else, but in this...he isn't to be trusted. But Aaron, no, he wasn't part of that. He was always an innocent a a good boy, a kind boy, even as a vampire. He even convinced me to turn to Vampire Wine, for a time."

"So, you're just a big softie after all," said Kalina.

"There is no shame in loving one's family," said Jaegar, sharply. "And Aaron was well-loved by all vampires. If that trio that attacked us tonight was behind "There is no shame in loving one's family," said Jaegar, sharply. "And Aaron was well-loved by all vampires. If that trio that attacked us tonight was behind Aaron's death, their family's lives are forfeited."

The car sputtered up to Kalina's home.

"Thanks for the ride," said Kalina, getting out of the car.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" Jaegar looked up at her. "I can't enter a house otherwise."

She smiled at him a a genuine smile, free of their banter, their arguments. "You're not so bad, Jaegar. When you're not trying to hit on me, you can be surprisingly decent. Why don't you keep it that way?"

"Kalina!"

"Goodnight, Jaegar." She smiled as she closed the door.

chapter 9.

Kalina slept soundly for the first time in months. It may have something to do with knowing she was being protected or at least watched over by Aaron's brothers or that she has the power to keep uninvited vampires from coming into her safe haven of a house.

Ever since Aaron's death, she had been plagued by nightmares that gave way to waking dawns, pacing up and down the stairs of her house at the witching hour, tossing and turning that left her sweaty and hot in her comforter. She had never been able to sleep through the night, no many how many remedies she tried a chamomile tea, hot chocolate, even her brother's warily prescribed sedatives. But now at last she fell into a deep and dreamless slumber, the sort she had been wishing for for so long. She thought at first that it must have been the exhaustion a in the s.p.a.ce of hours, she had met two vampires, fought off another three, killed one, and uncovered too many secrets about herself and her ex-boyfriend to count. But somehow it made things easier. She was no longer wondering, no longer blaming herself or Aaron, no longer trying to piece things together, knowing that they didn't make sense. She had answers a as strange and unbelievable as they were. The idea of her being special intrigued her. It had seemed ridiculous at first. She had often, as a child, imagined what her birth parents were like, fantasized that they might be fairies or kings and queens from a distant land. She loved her adoptive parents a they were, until their deaths, her true parents in every biological sense a but having the nebulous figures of her biological parents in the back of her mind made it easier to fantasize, somehow, that she was different a set apart a that she was special. She had never really fit in, after all. She had spent her entire high school career focused on the next thing a the next big test, the next cheerleading rally, her SATs, her college scholarship, getting out of Rutherford, making it big. Rutherford had always seemed too small for her; high school had always seemed too easy for her. She had wanted to make it out, to find a new challenge, something bigger, something that could contain all her pent-up energy. Had she wanted to be the carrier of a special Life's Blood gene? Perhaps not. But at the same time, it explained so much. Why she never fit in. Why she always wanted more a why nothing in Rutherford had ever satisfied her a until Stuart and Jaegar Greystone had turned up on her doorstep, promising a world filled with so much more she wasn't sure she could stand it.

When she left for school the next morning, Kalina was filled with a new kind of confidence. She walked straighter. She held her head higher. She strutted a just a bit a down the hallways before meeting up with Maeve in front of her locker. She had a stake in her bag. She had killed a vampire yesterday. She had a life so filled with excitement a and Rutherford High seemed even duller to her by comparison.

She ran into Stuart in the hallway. His smile a his warm hazel eyes, the color of milky coffee a warmed her; there was a kindness in his eyes that touched her far more than Jaegar's cold flirtations. He was a bit awkward, a bit stiff a a thousand years of practice hadn't cured him of his romantic ideals of women a but she could see behind the shyness that his feelings for her were genuine.

"How did you sleep?" he said.

"Well," she said. "Really well." She tossed her head. "I'm sure Jaegar knows that already, though."

Stuart looked concerned. "What?"

"What with him stalking me and all." She slammed her locked shut. "Promise me you'll never do that, okay? I don't think I could deal with two of you."

"You need to be protected," said Stuart, quietly.

"Don't worry," said Kalina. "I won't invite any strange vampires into my house."

"Jaegar?" His attempt to mask the jealousy in his voice was unsuccessful. It started a flutter in her heart.

"I told him he could stay outside a thanks. He's not so bad, you know."

"He can be charming," Stuart conceded.

"He's a bit of a creeper, sure," Kalina said. "But he's not nearly as bad as I thought at first. You just need to know when to stand up to him."

"He could kill you," said Stuart, without smiling. "He could kill me. With a flick of his wrist."

"I don't think he will," said Kalina. "Somehow."

"I wouldn't trust him if I were you," said Stuart. He lowered his voice. "He's a vampire, after all."

"Yes a so are you." Kalina said.

"I...I am not as enamored of the dark gift as he."

"So a I can invite you in? Is that it?" She couldn't help teasing him, just a little bit, as he grew fl.u.s.tered and tried to explain. She could still detect a hint of the English in his accent, not yet flattened by a century in his new homeland.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Trust you?"

Stuart nodded. "Listen to me a I...I respect you far too much to allow you to..."

"Allow me?" Kalina put her hands on her hips and c.o.c.ked her head. "I didn't realize you could allow me to do anything."

"Excuse me," said Stuart, visibly fl.u.s.tered. His hair, floppy and brown, disguised his consternation. "I didn't mean a let me begin again...what I meant to say was..." He sighed. "It is easy for Jaegar," he said. "Jaegar doesn't need to suppress anything. He is what he is. An animal a a realized self. He doesn't need to think, to pine. He can just be a and be a vampire. And that is seductive a and dangerous in its way. But it is different with me. I...do not wish to be what I am. There is a dark side to me, one I have not shown you, one I do not wish to show you. One I do not wish to show myself."

He could not look at her.

"If you were to invite me in a and I were to...become intoxicated by the scent of your blood, as happened yesterday a I would have little recourse. I could injure you, quite seriously. And Life's Blood does not restore the vampire who takes it, when it is not given willingly. It provides powers a but they are cruel powers. They are powers I do not want."

His strength seethed through him. It was not like Jaegar's strength a pa.s.sionate, wild, unrestrained. His very restraint, his care, his seriousness, betrayed his suppressed pa.s.sion, just visible beneath the smooth surface of his skin.

"It may seem to you," he said, "that I am not as much of a predator as my brother, because I do not advertise my vampire nature, nor my inclinations." He looked up, and there was shame on his face. "But I am as terrifying a I have the capacity to be as monstrous a as he. Within me there is a creature as bloodthirsty, as savage, as Jaegar's. Perhaps more so, for it has not been fed in centuries."

Kalina couldn't take her eyes off him. As he spoke, his intensity awed her. She could feel him straining against his natural impulses, every breath she took, every beat of her heart, tempting him with that throbbing at her throat. He was like a bow pulled taut, a muscle poised to release. In him she could see a danger she had not realized before a paired with his obsession with goodness, with morality, with respect.

It was, she had to admit, an irresistible combination.

"I trust you," Kalina said. She placed her hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of her; she could see the effect she had on him. It was intoxicating.

"I would never harm the girl Aaron loved. Aaron had nothing to do with the conflict between my brother and me."

She spoke softly. "You want to become human, don't you? You want my Life's Blood."

"I would not allow myself to think..." Stuart was straining against his desire; every ounce of his strength focused on maintaining the cool cordiality with which he spoke to her.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

His resistance failed him. He grabbed hold of her hand and pressed the palm of it to his lips.

It was a courtly gesture; even in its careful chivalry, his tongue pressed lightly against her skin revealed to her the extent of his desire. She could not take her eyes from him; she could not move; she could not breathe.

She gasped; he dropped it as quickly as he had taken it.

"I am sorry, Kalina a I shouldn't have." He turned to go.

"Stuart." She caught up with him, breathless. "I'm glad you did." She smiled at him, and took hold of his face again. "I cared for Aaron a lot a I did. But so much of my anger, my guilt, was over....not loving him enough, not protecting him enough a I thought I was responsible for his accident. I can't be responsible forever. I cared for him a but...I'm not going to mourn forever. I'm not going to move on to tomorrow. But a Stuart...I would like to ask you out on a date."

His eyes grew wide.

"I was thinking a what with all these vamps trying to kill me and all a maybe you'd want to teach me some self-defense? I can do kung fu a but I think vamps aren't quite as hard to take down as ninth-graders. It can be a like a a study date?"