Future Mortality
Part 15/?
By Christine Hantzopulos
christine@forevernickandnat.com
Keeping a
watchful eye on her brother was a good excuse to avoid looking directly into
Dimitri’s eyes for too long. When she did, and he smiled at her, she could feel
her face flush, and she really didn’t like being that obvious.
“I see
you’re wearing my ring,” he said, picking up her left hand. The cubic shone in
the sunlight as if it were a real diamond.
“Yeah, it’s
really beautiful. Thanks again,” she said, blushing.
“Your hands
are cold,” he said, holding them in his and rubbing them.
“Not as
cold as my dad’s were, when he was still a vampire,” she joked, wondering how
she could possibly feel cold to him when his touch sent a warm flush through
her body.
“You seem
to really like your dad a lot,” he noted, “even though you haven’t known him
for that long.”
Now she had
to look at him in surprise. “Of course I do! I love him! He’s…the best dad
ever.”
He eyed her
strangely as he asked, “What about your step-father? Didn’t you grow up with
him?”
Her smile
faded. “He was wonderful. I really loved him, and he never made me feel like I
wasn’t really his. I miss him.” She paused. “But my real dad and I have…this
sort of connection, you know? Because of the blood. We
can feel each other’s presence sometimes, and emotions. Especially
since I gave him the transfusion that brought him back across.” She
looked over to check on Richie, waving at him as he pretended to be the captain
of a boat, turning a steering wheel on the top of the jungle gym. Then she
turned back to Dimitri. “Don’t you have the same thing with your dad? That connection?”
Dimitri
looked suddenly uncomfortable as he said, “To some extent, yes. He can sense
me, and I him. But we were never really close.”
“I don’t
understand. You’ve lived with him since you were four, you said. How could you
not be close?” It was unimaginable to her, given the relationship she had
developed so quickly with her own father.
“Does a
prisoner grow close with his captor?” Dimitri asked dully.
“Come on.
It can’t be that bad. Don’t you ever do fun things together?”
He shook
his head. “No. My father is a busy man. And he’s not one to display his
emotions. I wonder sometimes what my mother ever saw in him. She was the
emotional one, the affectionate one. I know she loved him until the day she—“
His lips
could not form the word “died”. It was clearly too painful.
“I’m sorry,” Niki said
sincerely. She couldn’t imagine losing her mother.
Dimitri
seemed to be seeing the past before him as he continued, “And I never saw him
grieve for her. Not the day he saved me, and killed the vampire who had found
us. Not ever. I think it’s because he knows it was his fault. If he had only
kept her close, she would still be alive. But no! He was too important in the
community, and no one could know that he had taken a human lover and fathered a
dhampir!”
Niki
thought this over, then asked, “But when he took you
in, didn’t everyone know then that he was your father?”
Dimitri
shook his head. “No. Only those closest to him know. Others just think I am a
dhampir he decided to keep alive as an experiment.”
Niki was
beginning to understand the root of Dimitri’s resentment. His father had never
even publicly acknowledged him. Even when they had been in hiding, Nick had
loved to walk with his arm around her when they’d visited
“I’m
sure…whatever he does, is just to protect you, Dimitri,” she offered in
consolation. “I didn’t understand at first why my parents had to be apart—but
at the time, they did what they had to to keep me safe.”
“Protection,”
Dimitri scoffed. “If he truly wanted to protect me, he would grant me what I
want—and bring me across!”
“Get out of
here!” she exclaimed. “Why would you want that?”
“Do you
know how many times I’ve begged him--?”
“But why?
Why would you want to be a vampire?” she asked as if it were the most
ridiculous notion in the world.
He looked
at her in shock. “You, who have a fascination with vampires, really need to
ask?”
“I’m
fascinated by them because I’ve always thought they’re cool, and now I know
that they’re real, and it’s a part of my life. But I’d never want to be one,”
she said emphatically.
Dimitri
looked truly puzzled. “Don’t you want the power to protect yourself? You and I,
dhampirs, are their prey, even more so than humans. Doesn’t that even frighten
you?”
Niki
shrugged. “Sometimes. Yeah, it can be terrifying. But
my dad spent over a century trying to become human. Doesn’t that tell you
something?”
“That he’s
foolish,” Dimitri said, then, seeing the anger flash in her eyes apologized,
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect. But he’s put himself and his family
in danger by doing so.” Then, almost as if he said it without thinking he
added, “I don’t like the thought of you being in danger.”
His concern
for her melted away any anger she’d felt at the insult. She glanced again at
Richie, to make sure he was all right, then said,
“Look, Dimitri, did it ever occur to you that maybe your father wouldn’t bring
you across because he doesn’t want that life for you?”
“He wants
to control me,” Dimitri said, almost a conditioned response.
“No, think
about it. He’s probably spent a long time as a vampire—“
“Four
thousand years,” Dimitri told her.
“Shit.” She
swallowed. How powerful must he be. “Anyway, maybe he
wants you to enjoy being a human.”
“What is so
enjoyable about being a human?” he asked. “We’re weak. We’re mortal.”
“You’ve
been living with vampires for too long,” she said, smirking. “Let me tell you something my parents
told me. Once, a long time ago, my mom wanted my dad to bring her across
because they thought the world was going to end. He refused to do it, and at
first she thought it was because he didn’t love her. But that wasn’t it. It was
because he didn’t want to, as he put it, ‘condemn her to darkness’.”
“Is that
what you think vampires are? Evil?” he challenged.
“Not
really,” she mused. “But that’s what he believed. And he wanted to be with her
so badly. But they couldn’t; he couldn’t even kiss her without the vamping out.
He was afraid he would kill her. And they went on for years like that. Can you
imagine loving someone so much and being afraid to even kiss
them?”
Dimitri
said nothing as he considered this.
“And now,”
she told him, “it’s like a miracle for them. He’s human, and they can be
together. They are so much in love, and so happy. And now they’re even going to
have another baby. Those things can’t happen when you’re a vampire. My Dad says
he’s happier now than he’s been in eight hundred years. And it took becoming
human again for that to happen.”
She could
see by the way Dimitri’s face softened that she had gotten through to him.
Perhaps he had never seen love like that before, and had never known the simple
but vital pleasures that the vampires he’d grown up with could never
enjoy.Living with vampires had given him a disdain for humans, and it was as if
he were seeing mortality in a new light.
“So, what
you’re saying,” he said, looking into her eyes, “is that if I were a vampire, and you were a human, we could never kiss.”
“That’s
right,” she said softly as she saw him bend his face closer to hers. Then, his
lips were touching hers, ever so gently, his warmth flowing through her body.
She knew it was only for a moment, and yet time seemed to stop as her first
kiss was more than she had ever dreamed it could be.
When he
separated from her, he smiled, bringing his hand up to her cheek. “I think you
just may have convinced me.”
He was
about to kiss her again when Richie came running over. “Niki!
Can I please go to the big slide?!? The one that twists
around?!?”
“Sure,” she
said, reluctantly stepping away from Dimitri. “I…have to catch him at the
bottom…” she managed to say.
“Come on.
I’ll get him up to the top, and you can catch him,” he offered.
“Okay.
Thanks.” She smiled as they went off together across the park, Richie holding
one of her hands, Dimitri holding the other.
End part 15