Author: Molly Harper

So, after years of relative inactivity, the idea that I had participated and possibly been videotaped in some drunken one-night stand with an overdecorating stranger was upsetting. The most print-friendly version of my first undead words was: “What did I do?”

I sat up and found that I was wearing clothes, which was good. But I was wearing striped cotton pajamas that were not my own, which was bad.

My brain, my throat, my mouth, everything above my shoulders felt swollen and detached. Swallowing was an effort. I struggled to get my feet over the edge of the bed. I took some solace in the fact that I had been debauched in a well-appointed bed. I rolled off the marshmallow of a mattress and flopped facedown on the floor. (Ow.)

“Misery, thy name is Mudslide,” I groaned.

I braced myself against another tasteful piece, a cherry dresser with a high, narrow mirror. My considerable height allowed my head to rest just below the frame, against the soothing cool of the glass. As my eyes slowly came to focus, I thought it must have been an old mirror or some sort of carnival trick, because I was…stunning. My skin was clear, lineless, even iridescent in the low light. I was practically a Noxzema girl. My teeth were straighter, somehow, and a bright, unnatural white. My eyes, usually a muddy hazel, were pure amber. My hair had gone from plain straight-as-a-board brown to long waves of glistening chestnut with undertones of honey and auburn. And if I wasn’t mistaken, my butt looked smaller…and higher.

“She finally did it!” I screeched, clutching my cotton-covered rear. “Mama tranquilized me and booked me on Extreme Makeover!”

I opened my shirt to see if there was any change to my breasts. I’d always secretly hoped for a slightly fuller C cup. “No luck.”

“What’s Extreme Makeover?”

I made a sound not quite human and ended up clinging to the ceiling, my fingernails dug into the plaster like a frightened cartoon cat. And I was looking at an inverted version of Gabriel the Tequila Sunrise drinker.

“You!” I hissed.

“Yes?” Gabriel asked, making himself comfortable in a handsomely upholstered wing-back chair.

“Date rapist!” I yelled, wondering how to tumble off the ceiling and find the mace in my purse in less than three strides.

Clearly, this was not the response he was expecting. “I beg your pardon?”

“What the hell did you give me?”

Gabriel arched an eyebrow. “Give you?”

“Must have been some pretty powerful drugs to make me forget an entire night and then cling to the fricking ceiling!” I shouted. Some little voice in the back of my brain wondered exactly how my hands and knees were sticking to the ceiling, but since I was far more interested in whatever illegal substances might be in my system, I demanded, “Now, what did you give me?”

“I think it would be best if you came down from there before I explained that.”

“I think I’ll stay right where I am, thank you,” I said. “And you, you stay where you are, or I’ll…I don’t know what I’ll do, but it will really hurt. You, I mean.”

He grinned. It was not a friendly smile, more of a “poor pitiful creature whom I’m about to devour, you amuse me” sort of smile. A very white, very pointy smile, set in an unnaturally pale face. This was when it dawned on me that I was dealing with a member of our less-than-living population.

“You’re a vampire!” I exclaimed. Not the most original or astute of observations, I’ll admit, but I was hanging upside down. I can’t emphasize that enough.

Gabriel offered that disturbing grin again. “Yes, and so are you.”

I’m not sure how long I hung there, staring at him. Eventually, I found my “talking to preschoolers” voice and drawled, “No, I’m a librarian. Or at least, I used to be, before I got fired today, or yesterday, whatever day it is. You stay right there!” I cried, scrambling back across the ceiling as he leaned forward. I had to admit, despite the weird wooshy feeling in my head, that was pretty cool.

“I wouldn’t dream of moving,” he said, sitting back again. “Perhaps you’d like to come down?”

“No, I—whaaa!” Whatever tentative grip I had on the plaster failed, and I landed safely on my feet. I straightened my pajama top. “I think I will get down, thank you.”

“So glad you could join me.” My undead host motioned for me to sit across from him. I plopped down in the seat, pulling anxiously at the pajama top to make sure everything was covered. “You’re a very unusual young woman.”

“You’re not the first person to say that.”

“I’m sure that’s true.” He nodded.

“I was just hanging from the ceiling, right? That wasn’t a PCP-induced hallucination?” I asked. He shook his head. “How exactly did I do that?”

“You’ll be surprised what you’re capable of, particularly when you’re startled.” He smiled warmly. “You know, your mind is a fascinating instrument. It’s jam-packed up there. Even now, in the throes of panic, you’re observing, cataloging the information for later. I find that intriguing.”

“Well, thank you for noticing,” I said, standing up. “I am going home now and pouring every drop of alcohol in my house down the drain.”

In a flash of movement, he was at my side. His cool fingers stroked my forehead. I wanted to move, to dodge those long, elegant hands. Instead, I sat transfixed, letting him stream his fingers down my cheeks. His lips hovered near my ear, and he whispered. “Remember.”

I was watching movies in my head again. I saw it all, remembered everything in a hot rush of oily color. I watched lights fade away as I lay dying in the ditch. Gabriel was there, cradling me in his arms. I was drifting in that gray, misty world bordering on unconsciousness, but I could hear. I could see. He asked if I wanted to die. I shook my head, so weak, too weak even to manage “Duh.”

He pressed his face to my throat. I cried out as his teeth pierced my skin. I ripped the seams of his shirtfront as my whole body clenched. I dully registered the sound of his buttons plinking against the gravel. There was an insistent pressure as he drew my blood to the wound. After Gabriel took a few long drinks, it didn’t hurt anymore. I couldn’t even feel the gash in my side. I was floating. I was warm. I was safe.

Gabriel pulled away from me, leaving me cold, exposed. I whimpered, lamely trying to pull him back to my neck. That was embarrassing to watch, and it was also the point where it got weird.

Snarling, Gabriel bit into his wrist and held it over my mouth. Even in memory, I was disgusted. The feeling of his cool, coppery blood dripping past my lips was repulsive, but I couldn’t stop it. I knew, at a primal, instinctual level, that I needed it to survive. He whispered encouragements in a watery language I couldn’t understand. I swallowed, thinking of what was flowing over my tongue as medicine. And soon I didn’t care. I claimed his wrist, pressing it to my mouth and devouring. I was drowning, filling the crushing void that threatened to take me down with it. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t draw enough breath no matter how hard I tried.

Gently, Gabriel pried me away from his arm. He murmured against my forehead as I writhed, my brain screaming for air. I screamed noiselessly, hot tears streaming down my cheeks. Gabriel’s eyes held me, cradling me in their sympathy. In English, he whispered that this part was never easy, but it would be over soon. My heartbeat slowed to nothing. One last shallow gasp rattled in my chest. Everything was dark.

I was ripped out of the vision and into reality. I tumbled to my knees. If there was anything in my stomach, I would have gladly tossed it up onto the carpet.

“What did you do to me?” I whispered, shaking away the memory and wiping at my mouth.

“You know what I am. You know what you are,” he said quietly, as if we were talking about being Episcopalian. “I offered you a choice, and you took it.”

I shot him what I hoped was a truly scathing glare. “Some choice. I was dying. Some drunk shot me from a pickup. Why couldn’t I have just woken up with gonorrhea like every other girl of loose moral fiber?”

He barked out a laugh. “You’re very funny.”

I chose to accept that as a compliment and move on. “Thanks. Well, I’ve got to go.”

I’d taken about half a step toward the bedroom door. Gabriel was blocking my path. How did he move like that? It was really irritating.

“You can’t leave,” he said, closing his hands around my wrists. He seemed to enjoy the contact, judging from the way his eyes darkened and flashed. It was an epic struggle to ignore the drool-worthiness of the man currently stroking my cheek. Remembering that he’d just given me what amounted to an eternal hickey helped considerably. “You need to feed, soon. It’s been three days since you’ve taken anything at all.”

“I’m not taking anything from you.” I shoved him back even as my mind raced. Three days? He couldn’t be serious. No one can sleep for three days. Oh, right, I was dead. New rules.

“You must drink, Jane.”

“I won’t!”

“This could be much more difficult. I’m trying to make it easy on you,” he said, advancing on me.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said, pressing my hand against his chest to keep him away. It was like touching a brick wall. Hard, immovable, and lifeless. There was no heartbeat beneath my palm, no breath.

This was not good.

“You have to feed, and there are things we need to discuss,” he murmured. He moved closer, running the tip of his nose along my hairline. That worried me, considering the three-day bathing hiatus. But my general odor didn’t seem to bother him. Quite the contrary. He pulled my hand low, dragging me against him. I desired nothing more than to lean into him, let him wrap me in those long arms, and drink from him until I couldn’t care anymore.

And then my stupid logical brain piped up. I didn’t know this guy. I didn’t even know where I was, really. For all I knew, I was having some sort of bizarre allergic reaction to the GHB he’d slipped me. And now I was going to let him slobber all over me? Um, no.

“Stay away from me!” I threw him into a wall. Hard. Hard enough to knock some attractive watercolors off the plaster and to the floor.

I grabbed my purse, which was conveniently placed by the front door. Gabriel was such a considerate abductor/host. He even left the front door unpadlocked.

The sun had just set, leaving a muggy late-summer evening in its wake. The scent of growth, quiet and green, hung heavy in the air. I heard everything. I saw everything. I could count the craters on the moon. I could count every mosquito buzz past, bypassing my tender skin out of respect for a fellow bloodsucker. I heard the rustle of every leaf on every tree. I could feel animals in the woods, scuttling through the grass. Dark things feeding, running, feasting—and I envied them.

“Jane!” Gabriel was framed in the front door. He did not seem happy.

I’m not a “spring into action” sort of girl. And yet I was dashing headlong into the woods like an overcaffeinated gazelle. I bounded through the trees, sensing animals stop and watch me as I sprinted by. I laughed into the wind, amazed at this new freedom. I broke into an easy lope when I could no longer sense Gabriel behind me. I stayed away from the main roads, vaulting over barbed-wire fences and through pastures. I disturbed Hank Yancy’s cattle enough to send him running to his front porch with a shotgun.

It took about two miles before it registered that my feet were bare and stinging, but even that felt good. I’d never felt so alive, so aware, so ravenously hungry. I finally understood those crazy people who talked about runner’s highs.

I bounded up the front steps of River Oaks, the 147-year-old pre-Civil War farmhouse I inherited from my great-aunt Jettie, and threw myself on the living-room sofa, dazed and laughing. I had to figure out what the hell to do next. First order of business, I was starving. Where did a vampire get her very first breakfast?