15 Things every vampire must do (preview)

Chapter 1: Bloodthirsty hunger claws at the night

When I was sixteen, I was convinced that by embracing a goth lifestyle that antagonized the societal order of my small hometown, I made myself special. My coven was comprised of equally clueless teenagers. We donned black clothes and accessories we could barely afford. We prided ourselves on listening to bands so obscure that only the vocalist’s grandmother and we knew of their singles. We sat at the back of the classroom, feeling too important to pay attention to our lectures. All this nonsense was an expression of our uniqueness.

Being in the same class since kindergarten had made us a tight pack—except for Lone Willow, who had joined us in middle school. San Miguel de Allende wasn’t a place where you could form long-lasting relationships, as people came and went on a yearly basis. That’s why when Lilu showed up mid-semester, she wasn’t expected to gain as much importance as any other person coming from abroad. But Lilu sure knew how to make a first impression.

It was Tuesday. Our homeroom teacher entered our classroom during physics class. She interrupted the lecture to introduce a new student. Usually, newcomers weaseled their way to an empty seat and brooded in silence until someone took pity and struck up a conversation. No one was important enough to warrant an introduction; but Lilu wasn’t just anyone, apparently. The homeroom teacher referred to her as a visitor from far away and pronounced the name of a city that had an umlaut on the letter ‘e’.

Mr. Hoary asked her to remove the sunglasses indoors. The girl said she had lived in a place where night was almost permanent, making her eyes prone to injury under the light. No one questioned it. The girl was albino pale, like the vapid heroines of 18th-century romance novels. Her appearance was guaranteed to fuel our coven’s goth imagination. Silent Crow leaned forward from the seat behind me to whisper, “She’s a vampire.”

I crossed gazes with the Crimson Knight, who was sitting next to me and didn’t appreciate my eagerness. He warned me that if we accepted that weirdo into our coven, it should be only to pick on her. At first glance, making her days miserable seemed tempting. While the rest of us mortals couldn’t even aspire to have hair highlights in this prude Catholic school, she boldly came to class with electric blue dyed hair and a nose piercing. However, instinct told me we’d better not mess with her.

Lilu didn’t wait for us to decide if we wanted her in. She went straight to claim the empty seat right next to Lone Willow with the nonchalance of a rock star inside a room full of groupies. Five minutes into the lecture, she reached out to caress the hair of Crimson Knight as if they were sleeping together.

“Hey, what gives?” Crimson Knight jumped to his feet; his face contorted in rage.

“It’s so smooth. What product do you use?” was her unfazed answer.

Mr. Hoary asked if everything was okay. Crimson Knight lied, claiming Lilu had pulled his hair, and the girl didn’t deny it. On the contrary, she explained she had done it because physics was boring. The professor’s face turned a hue of red rarely seen in nature, and he sent her to the principal’s office on the spot. She hitched her vintage postman bag over her shoulder and strolled away, not before shooting a sardonic victorious smile at us.

The next day, she picked the same seat just to spite us. Again, wearing sunglasses in class and her surreal hair color. But not a single teacher, not even Mr. Hoary, dared to antagonize her. The witty witch had prepared a fake prescription. She told the staff that she suffered from Circadian Rhythm Disorder—a fancy way of saying she had plain jet lag. This allowed her to doze off in almost every class.

She ignored Mrs. Garcia’s lecture. She rubbed layer upon layer of sunblock on her sensitive skin. She explained she would turn into a boiled shrimp under the warm Mexican sun in less than half an hour.

“Yup. A vampire,” Silent Crow confirmed, having Lilu out of earshot.

“I’d bet she’s a half-vampire,” Crimson Knight interjected.

“She has a skin condition, guys,” Lone Willow justified, rolling her eyes. As a Jehovah’s Witness, she had to endure snide comments here and there for the way she dressed; hence, she didn’t appreciate our gossip. She was already hanging on a thin thread by simply being our friend.

My heart raced. I suggested to the coven to invite her to have lunch outside, mostly because I wanted to see her combust under the Bajio sun. Lilu agreed to join us as if she was doing us a favor, and attended with a big, thick black umbrella, and a wide-brim black sun hat.

We sat on a little bench in the garden to eat whatever we had bought or our parents had packed for us. This was a private high school after all, and nobody was allowed to go outside before the end of classes. The mysterious milkshake she produced from a metallic silver thermos left me in awe. She pulled the straw and sipped, listening absentmindedly as our coven discussed Chicago Blood PD, a vampire cop show that had started airing on TV the night before.

“Ha ha ha.” Her phony guffaw took the entire coven aback—Crimson Knight had planned on slapping the thermos from her hand earlier, but the opportunity was lost.

“What is so funny?” Crimson Knight asked, up to the eyeballs with her attitude.

“Oh, I thought you were telling some kind of joke. Do you think the laugh was off?”

Crimson Knight grunted and kicked a rock on the ground to vent his anger. Perhaps it was our cue to leave her be and give her the cold shoulder, but we were a bunch of self-centered idiots.

“Why did you think it was a joke?” I should have been pissed for the way she had mocked Crimson Knight, but I was genuinely curious.

“You said the victim’s neck had been sliced open, but they couldn’t find a single drop of blood, even in the clothes. What did the assassin do? Undress the girl, do the laundry, and dress her up again?”

“Vampires can suck you to a dry husk.” I considered myself an expert in everything vampirism. “Actually, there are some that have control—”

“What does it have to do with vampires? Have you tried to remove bloodstains? It’s a pain in the butt.” She shrugged, derailing my chance to drone on about vampires. On the other hand, this gave me an opportunity to speak openly.

Once Lilu started talking, she was a good conversationalist. She was an encyclopedia of philosophical essays, religion, world history, and all sorts of magic, rituals, demonology, astral travel, and mythology. When she wasn’t a conceited smart-arse relating to Nietzsche as if he had been her neighbor, we had engaging discussions. Yet I wouldn’t have been surprised if she told us she had been a hermit living under a rock for the past decade.

She seemed unaware of trends, blockbuster movies, or best-seller books. Even though our group of friends considered those the vagaries of simpletons, at least we had a bit of general knowledge! She confessed she had painstakingly made her wardrobe out of hand-me-downs from friends. She never realized she was following a goth style. This opened a door for something we wouldn’t ever dream of: recruiting someone into our misfit’s lifestyle.

Silent Crow lent her some of his most obscure Asian horror cult movies, while Lone Willow made accessories for her. Lilu was on the verge of tears after receiving a silver choker with a cross pendant from her. She saw our gifts as proof of our unyielding friendship. Even Crimson Knight lent her CDs of classic goth punk bands.

My collection of vampire literature impressed Lilu. I had almost every piece of literature related to vampires in Spanish or English, from the classic tales to the Asian legends, even those shitty young adult series packed with good-for-nothing metrosexual vampires. She devoured any books I lent her. It was hard to believe a more hardcore fan of the bloodsuckers than me existed. It was refreshing to share my passion with someone else. This was aside from my coven, who had heard me fangirling ad nauseam about vampires ever since I was nine.

In exchange, the ungrateful girl never revealed anything about her origins, making herself more of an enigma.

⁂

Sometimes I think my life would have been better if I had ignored my curiosity and stopped pestering Lilu to reveal her origins. But again, I was a very stubborn.

One of those lazy days where we were laying on the grass, under a tree in the park near our high school. I was once again talking about the B movie I had watched last night. I was particularly entranced from a scene where the vampire had mesmerized two virgins in a cemetery—the direction of photography was a jewel. 

“Do you like vampires?”

If anything, she could have just spat in my face. I mean, I wore goddamn fake fangs during our roleplaying sessions of ‘The Mascarade.’ Lilu was nonplussed by her hurtful ignorance. She seemed to be wired differently.

“My legal guardian has been pulling off all-nighters for his finals, but today I think he will have some free time. I want to introduce him to you.” She sat up on her elbows, staring dignifiedly at me. What she said next, in the same dull tone as if she had run out of milk, became the ambrosia that was soon to change my life. “He might be a vampire.”

I told her to invite him to “The Nightmare’s Den”, the goth club I had set up years ago in my garage. The club was so exclusive that only the coven attended, and we could stay late, listening to our music without worrying our parents. It had also the perk of being free.

Lilu was reluctant to allow anyone else besides me to meet her tutor. Keeping the secret from my peers would mean breaking our oath, so I delicately requested the coven to postpone our night meeting. However, Crimson Knight and Silent Crow weren’t having any of it.

They arrived to the Den demanding to stay for the evening, in a last puny attempt of meeting the vampire. Despite the pleas and subsequent complaints, I kicked my childhood friends out of my house.

Once I verified that they were gone for real, it was just Lilu and me in the abode. I dimmed the lamps to give the place a suitable ambiance. I wanted to light the candles, but Lilu made a fuss out of it.

“Don’t light that crap, you embarrass me.” Her warning meant it was also a no for the incense, so I gave up on the idea altogether.

I couldn’t stop rubbing off the sweat from my hands on my black silver buttoned jacket. Walking back and forth in the ten-yard length of my garage like a caged lion. My head was already spinning with anticipation.

What if her guardian was the Nosferatu kind of vampire? Or what if he was rather a repulsive zombie than a vampire, like in the Chinese tales? I would be putting my life on the line.

“Can you stop wandering around.” Lilu grumbled putting her phone down on the center table. “I texted my guardian, he’s on his way from work. Give him a few minutes to arrive.”

“Oh yeah? You had mentioned he was studying. Does he have a part-time job? What does he do? Does he work during the day?”

She nodded.

“He’s a physician doing his medical internship in the General Hospital. He just started this semester.”

Somehow knowing people had seen him, reassured me he was not a butt ugly stark monster. Besides, it was quite fitting for him to work at a hospital.

I imagined medical blood disappearing from the shelves. He volunteering to clean the rooms after surgery to lick on the metallic surfaces medical tools with his pale long tongue. Some patients complaining from odd mosquito bites on their necks and senior patients’ anemia worsening overnight.

The thoughts were so exciting I was getting wet.

“Please don’t wear that lewd smile when you see him.” Her nonchalant comment, non-even lifting her sight from the goth clothing catalog that Silent Crow had left next to my spells book, took me down from cloud number nine.

I was this close to telling her to go suck a railroad spike and get out of my club, but she kept going.

“And it’s all established you are horny for the vampires, but you are not his type. Please, just don’t.”

My face heated up. If she could read me as easily as one spot the differences in an image pair on a children’s activity book, I was sure her guardian could fool me into submission in a matter of seconds.

The wait was becoming unbearable, then Lilu’s cellphone rang. She spoke briefly, then hung up. Cheshire cat smile was painted on her features. 

“He’s here.”

And as on cue after the breaking of the seal, the doorbell sounded like the first trumpet.

It made me leap off the couch faster than our last year’s chemistry teacher did the day she found someone had spilled soda on her chair. Eagerly, I reached the entrance in two strides.

But then I stopped, staring at the wood, my trembling hand at inches from the doorknob and unable to twist the handle. Mom peered from the second floor asking if it was a friend of mine. I said yes in autopilot, hoping it was true. I breathed in and out twice, trying to settle my nerves and pulled the door open in one go.

It was the most anticlimactic meeting in my whole life.

Before me, there was an ash blond man, in his late twenties, a head taller than me. He was wearing a loose formal deep blue coat, a pale blue shirt underside and casual mustard trousers, the tight belt gave away his slim shape.

Considering Lilu was wearing dark glasses even though it was seven in the evening, it was to expect the man would have sensitive vision, hence the green tinted dark glasses.

No sexy paper-white allure. His skin was nowhere near as pale as Lilu’s. No enticing gaze, no mature wisdom from centuries, and thankfully no blood thirst.

The urge to close the door on his moronic nose ticked at the tip of my fingers. I wished he had knocked on the wrong house, and we could go back to wait for the vampire.

“Good evening, is Lilu here?” He smiled good Samaritan style, and his teeth were more even than a horse denture.

I babbled, braving out my disappointment. I glared at the bushes on Mom’s garden expecting for Crimson Knight and Silent Crow to jump out of them, filming on their cellphones. If it was a prank, it had gone too far.

The guy in front of me didn’t acknowledge my presence initially. My phony friend came to my side. I shot daggers through my eyes, but she didn’t break a sweat. Instead, she curled around my arm in a loving gesture.

“Did you have problems finding the address?” She smiled and he mimicked her while shaking his head energetically. “Tesla, let me introduce you to Metztli.”

“Nice to meet you, my name is Niccolo Lionello. Not Tesla.” He said, seeming a bit annoyed, as if it were an inside joke.

“C’mon, only your mom calls you like that.” She rolled her eyes and clarified, mischievous. “We call him Tesla because he is from Thessaly.”

At which the important and respectable vampire pouted! Lilu proceeded to explain the Coven called me Dark Moon, because no one could pronounce my real name. Then his attention fell on me.

“Lilu likes you a lot.” He stretched his hand towards me. He was a pretty average guy. He could have looked more attractive with some facial hair, but as he was, big eyes and a stubby nose, his allure was too innocent.

Poor guy wasn’t at fault of my broken heart, but somehow, I wanted him to pay. I rubbed my sweaty hand on the jacket I had specifically bought for this occasion and shook his limp hand. Which was dainty, no sharp nails whatsoever.

“Shall we leave?”

“Wait.” She pulled him in by the sleeve. He stumbled a bit through the entrance, but the lack of formal invitation didn’t keep him from putting out his soles on the hallway rug. “You have to see our abode.”

⁂

I allowed her to insert herself as the founder of the club because, at least, I had the decency of respecting her in the presence of her guardian. But on the inside, I was scheming how she was going to see red for this charade tomorrow at school.

I sat our guest on the abode’s couch. Mom brought soda cans for us. She embarrassed me more than ever by shoving options on the guy, who went more restless as she kept insisting on him to try them.

For once, I was glad Silent Crow and Crimson Knight weren’t there. Although Lilu was not in the category of someone I sought to impress, and I couldn’t care less about her guardian at the moment, I was engulfed in embarrassment when mom imposed the guy to take a few sips.

The man tasted the soda first and started to drink it by small sips, reassuring Mom it was good. It wasn’t until Mom had left the club that Lilu sprung out of her seat. She informed us she wanted to fetch some snacks. This left me alongside her guardian in an awkward silence.

He commented that he liked the skull decorations and spider chandelier. I replied I had made them myself. He looked all around, getting the soda can warm on his fingers.

My intruding stare prompted him to thank me for befriending Lilu—I wouldn’t say she was my friend but, he didn’t deserve to hear what I really thought. Oblivious of my inner struggle, he vindicated her saying the Coven were the first friends she had around her age. Which wasn’t an excuse for the ruse she had pulled tonight.

My fake friend came in, a bowl full of BBQ chips under her arm. She placed it on the center table before sitting sideways on her guardian’s lap—the child abuse line number popped up in my mind. But I pushed it to the bottom of my mind while stuffing my mouth with chips, praying internally for them to leave already and end my suffering.

‘Lucretia my reflection’ from Sisters of Mercy finished, I had forgotten I had put my playlist in the media player as background music —It must have been playing in loop for hours, so I busied myself finding something more ‘suitable’ for this turn of events.

“Hasn’t your work been too demanding recently?” Lilu sounded like a total mom.

“Sometimes, it depends of the patients and the doctors. But guess what, they are giving me a week off! We could go somewhere…”

“To tell you the truth, I’d feel like going back home.” Lilu sighted and the surprise in her guardian lasted a heartbeat. Then his features softened.

“Are you coming back to Sweden for a single week?” I spat from the disk rack. There was no way Lilu could dodge revealing the lying snake she was in front of her guardian.

“Sweden?” Tesla found my question amusing.

“Yes, Stockholm. And I will send you pictures.” She flipped me a bird.

“I hate you.” I said beyond belief.

Our everyday banter was making her guardian uncomfortable, but if Lilu thought she was going to paint me as an idiot in front of the Coven, she was in for a fight.

“And?” Now it was Lilu’s turn to feign offense. “I brought him here just for you. What’s your diagnosis?”

Both looked at me in expectation, except him was more confused than sly.

“Will you drop it? I can appreciate a good joke, but if you tell the Coven tomorrow how this all went, I’ll gut you.”

“Joke? Why would I joke?” Lilu frowned, and her rile morphed into hesitation. “Is this something people joke about often?”

“Lilu, what’s going on? Are you betting on me or something?” Mister Lionello raised a playful eyebrow, his face annoyingly close to hers.

I gave up. But she wasn’t getting away without a piece of the shame.

“Sir, did you know Lilu told me you were a vampire?”

The young man’s eyes opened wider than saucers. He turned a bit shocked at his protegee, and they began talking in sign language. He stood up, making the girl to slide to the couch while he paced around the room.

Judging from the speed and aggressively of the movements, the guy was mad. But Lilu, she was trembling in rage. The guy eyed me twice during their argument. What was going on? Was this plain Joe a real vampire?

My heart was racing. When I finally was able to meet the creature which I had fantasized during my darkest nights, the one that fulfilled my dirtiest dreams, I choked on a potato chip.

A coughing fit took the place of the speech I had mentally prepared. Lilu grunted I was making a scene; he patted my back while I gasped for air. He even offered his soda to calm me down. Like a subway car in rush hour, words pushed all at the same time to leave my throat. “Then it’s true? You are a vampire!”