I waited until the waitress had moved away before asking, “But, if your mother was mortal and your father was a Vampire…how…I mean…” Words failed me. Discussing procreation probably wasn’t considered polite dinner conversation, especially on a first date, but everyone knew the Undead couldn’t create life.
“My father was brought across by an ancient Vampire,” Raphael explained. “He was still new in the life when he met my mother. Apparently, he retained enough of his humanity to sire a child. Two in fact. I have a twin brother, Rane.”
“Is he a Vampire, too?”
Raphael nodded. And then, apparently seeing the unasked question in my eyes, he said, “Until we hit puberty, Rane and I were no different than any other teenage boys, but once we turned thirteen…” He shrugged.
“Did you know it was going to happen? That you’d become Vampires?”
“No. Neither did my parents.”
“It must have come as quite a shock.”
He grunted softly. “You have no idea.”
I tried to imagine how I would feel if I woke up one day and discovered that I was a Vampire. What would it be like, to be human one day and a blood drinker the next? All the Vampires I had ever heard of had been made, not born, and once made, they were no longer alive, but Undead. But if Raphael had been born a Vampire…I frowned. “So, you never died?”
“No. One day I was like any other teenage boy, and the next…” He made a vague gesture with his hand. “The day after I turned thirteen, I didn’t wake up in the morning. Later, I learned that my mother had tried to rouse me, but to no avail. I woke with the setting of the sun, plagued by a thirst that I didn’t understand.”
“And your brother?”
“It was the same for him. Our parents weren’t sure what to do, but that night my father took me and Rane outside. He told us what he thought was happening, though he couldn’t be sure, since no other Vampire had ever sired children. After explaining things to us as best he could, he took us hunting with him. He mesmerized a young woman and took a bit of blood from her. As soon as I smelled it, I knew what I wanted, what I needed. Rane and I both fed from her, and that apparently completed our transformation. We were full-fledged Vampires from that night on.”
“What happened to the woman?”
“Nothing. After we fed, my father sent her on her way.”
“Just like that?”
“Not quite. He wiped our memory from her mind first.” He looked at me for the space of a heartbeat. “You thought we killed her, didn’t you?”
I had always heard that Vampires killed their prey, and said so.
“Some do,” Raphael said. “The craving for blood, the thrill of the hunt, the power of holding a life in your hands, it’s hard to resist, especially for the young ones. Sometimes they get carried away.”
I nodded, as if I understood. I didn’t, of course. The idea of craving blood was repulsive, the idea of taking a life reprehensible. I reminded myself that he hadn’t killed the woman in question. Of course, that didn’t mean he hadn’t killed others. I would be wise to remember that.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Go on.”
“Are you sure you want to hear this?” e asked somewhat dubiously.
“Yes, it’s fascinating.” And it was, in much the same way any gruesome accident catches and holds our attention.
“Since we could no longer go to school, our parents hired a tutor for us. As long as we lived at home, my mother treated us as though we were no different than we had been before the change.” He smiled faintly. “It was a unique experience. We slept by day and met with our tutor in the evening. Because our class held its graduation ceremony after sunset, Rane and I were able to attend. We moved out of our parents’ home the next day.”
“Just a happy Vampire family,” I murmured, intrigued by the story he had told me. I tried to imagine being married to a Vampire, having Vampire children, but it was a concept totally foreign to my way of thinking, to everything I believed in. Try as I might, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. And then I frowned. “What happened to your mother?” I supposed there was a slim chance she could still be alive, but if he was eighty-five, she would have to be well over a hundred.
“She’s one of us now,” Raphael said. “My father brought her across when Rane and I reached adulthood.”
“Did she want to be a Vampire?” I had never heard of anyone asking to join the ranks of the Undead.
“Of course. My old man wouldn’t have turned her against her will.”
“Was she the same, you know, afterward?”
“Pretty much.”
“And she was never sorry?”
“Not that I know of. And you have to remember, her parents, her husband, and her sons were all Vampires. We made the transition easy for her.”
“Did you watch it happen?”
“No, although I wanted to.”
I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to see such a thing, all that blood. Yuck!
“It’s not such a bad life once you get used to it,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, right.” Drinking blood, living only at night, giving up all my favorite foods, not being able to enjoy a sunny day or take a walk in the rain on a pretty spring morning. I was surprised the whole world wasn’t clamoring to join the ranks of the Undead. Not!
“Sure, you have to give up some things,” he admitted, “but I’m never sick, never tired, I don’t age, all my senses are enhanced. And,” he said with a grin, “I don’t gain weight.”
It would have been a good selling point if Vampires could eat anything they wanted. “Vampires don’t eat,” I muttered, trying to imagine a life without chocolate or cookies or ice cream. “Of course they don’t gain weight.”
Rafe laughed. “True enough, but, like I said, it’s not a bad life.”
Technically, he wasn’t alive at all, but I didn’t say that. “And now you’re the leader of the North American Vampires,” I remarked. “How did that happen?”
He shrugged. “My godmother arranged it.”
“You have a godmother?” I wouldn’t have been any more surprised if he had told me that he was related to Cinderella.
“Yes.” He grinned, no doubt amused by the stunned expression that was surely on my face. “Her name is Mara, and she’s the oldest living of our kind. When we went to war with the Werewolves, our people decided we needed a leader. She was the obvious choice. She appointed others to positions of authority in various parts of the world. I was given North America, and my parents were given South America. My grandparents are looking after things in Europe. Last I heard, they were in France.”
“What happened to your brother? Do you see him very often?”
A dark shadow passed behind Cordova’s eyes. “I don’t know where he is.”
I heard the knife-edge of pain in his voice, a soul-deep sorrow that went beyond tears.
“No one in the family has seen Rane, or heard from him, in the last fifty years.”
“What happened? Did you have a fight?”
“No, nothing like that. Not all who are made Vampires react the same way. Some seek it and embrace it. Some are turned against their will. Some accept the change and move on. Some can’t adapt to their new lifestyle