Four rules undying book.., p.5
Four (Rules Undying Book 1), page 5
She walked straight to the counter and plopped her wallet down. “I’ll take a number two and the blood-sausage special to go.
Actually, make that two sausage specials.”
- 4 -
“It started with takeout?” Gail asked incredulously. “And they can actually eat blood sausage?”
“It’s basically the vampire equivalent of popcorn or rice cakes, but yes, they can eat cooked blood or meat,” Georgia said as she paused to pick at more chips and cheese dip. “You just have to liquefy it first.”
Gail set her chip back in the basket. Georgia continued to blissfully scoop up some guacamole. “Half the job is meal planning,”
she said. “You aren’t grossed out by raw meat or a little blood?”
“Meat . . . no . . . liquefied meat . . . a little,” Gail confessed.
“And you know this blood. It’s not, um—”
“Human?”
Gail nodded.
“At times, but it’s not like you’re going to be asked to kidnap people and shove them in a closet to be human juice boxes. I would get you in touch with some of my medical suppliers. You would be amazed what a little creativity and leverage over a phlebotomist can get you in this town. We’ll get to that, though. You should probably focus on the first real rule of dealing with vampires.”
“And that is?”
“You need to know their rules.”
“But I’m still imagining liquefied meat,” Gail said while fixating on the little red pool of tomato juice left in the salsa bowl.
“It’s easy to get focused on the gory details. Yes, part of the job may involve scrubbing goat guts up after a wild kegger, but the day-to-day isn’t so dramatic. Mr. Lambley likes a Morcilla Mojito every holiday with an extra wedge of lime and insists on a live chicken on Sundays. Don’t worry; we have a supplier out of Super 88 who just
makes the delivery without question. Asian markets are brilliant for finding whatever you need.”
“I never thought about that,” Gail said.
“Yes, you can get liter bags of pig’s blood surprisingly cheap,”
Georgia said. “Pretty much every ethnic butcher in town knows me as the blood sausage queen of Boston. I even had to write a blog entry on it.”
“Oh, I guess you’d have to explain why you always needed a bunch of blood,” Gail said.
Meanwhile Georgia tapped away at her phone until she managed to pull up a picture of herself in a head scarf and bright white apron proudly showing off a plate full of dark brown sausages on a bed of glistening roasted beets. The tagline read “Bloody Good Recipe.”
“I got some stalkers from this,” Georgia said. “Also one person commented that it tasted like disgusting, overworked dog crap, and I’ve always wondered just how he knew exactly what that tasted like.
Anyway, I digress. Did you need another drink?”
Gail nodded.
“Just remember that if you take this job, you will be surrounded by a whole bunch of creatures that regard you as little more than this plate of tasty sausages. They may look human. Some of them even act human, but never make the mistake of humanizing them, Gail,”
Georgia warned. “I’m lucky, their perfume doesn’t work on me, but they all have different powers that I can’t do a damn thing to stop.
You need to understand how they think and how they work if you want this job.”
“And they have rules?” Gail asked.
“Four to be exact,” Georgia said. “If you know the four rules, then you never have to be afraid of a vampire ever again.”
“Four?” Gail asked, making a bit of a face. “That just seems like an odd and arbitrary number, doesn’t it?”
Georgia looked off toward the blonde’s table. “A friend of mine once said that four was the number of death, so it’s only appropriate that their kind had exactly four laws.” She quickly took another drink to cover up the catch in her voice. “Vampires are a persnickety lot.
Why would they stop at three rules or stretch it out to Ten Commandments anyway?”
Gail shrugged and starting sipping on another tasty beverage.
“So one rule is that they have to be invited in, right?” she asked.
“It’s actually rule number three,” Georgia noted. “But it’s the rule that saved me for a while.”
“And rule number one?” Gail asked.
Georgia put down her drink and continued, “Of course, I asked that too . . .”
Georgia perched uneasily on a musty wingback chair as her strange new companion paced back and forth in front of his now snuffed fireplace. She leaned toward him and asked again, “So, what’s the first rule I need to know?”
Geoffrey continued to chew on his lip. Although he claimed to be toothless, he somehow managed to crack open the inside of one corner, causing a distracting feather line of red against his icy white skin.
“Well, the first rule doesn’t really apply to you, but to us it’s the most important of all the rules,” the vampire noted as his pace increased. He kept gesturing wildly to the corners of the room as if he was searching for something to say or for confirmation from a shadow.
“Is someone else here, Mr. Lambley?” Georgia asked as she squinted to see anything in the corner.
“No, I guess not,” he said. “I suppose I’ve been alone so long that I started talking to myself. I’m not entirely certain that you’re real, Miss Sutherland.”
She held out her arm and pinched it. “I feel pretty real to me,”
she said with a little smile. “I’ve been wondering if I’m actually awake. After all, I am talking to a vampire in Brookline.”
Geoffrey paused to ponder the concept. He then let out a very sad little laugh. “Please, if you were dreaming of a vampire, why would he look like me?” he asked.
“Good point, and if you were dreaming of a girl to end up in your clutches, why would she be as hard to get as me?” she countered.
“I guess this is all too strange not to be real,” Geoffrey mused.
“I’m just not usually the one to get the woman alone in my house, and I suppose my age is showing.”
“I’m guessing your mother would not approve?” Georgia laughed.
“My human mother?” The vampire mused, “Actually I think she’d be rather thrilled for me. She did worry ever so much that I would have no real prospects. At the time I had an older brother, and I was never considered much of a catch, I must confess. My brother was far more of a Lambley than I ever wanted to be, but that is a story for another time, Miss Sutherland. We live in the present and thus should be focused on such.”
“Well, I don’t often get to talk to someone who’s seen the nineteenth century, so excuse me if I keep you digressing,” Georgia said. “Did you want me to blend you another sausage? Your cup looks empty.”
Geoffrey waved his hand. “Oh no, it’s richer than I’m used to, and it has garlic in it—” he said quickly.
“Oh my god, I didn’t even think!” Georgia cried. “Garlic and vampires don’t really mix.”
“Actually, I’ve always had a strange fondness for it,” Geoffrey confessed. “Stefano always called me a cat who craves milk for that.”
“So it makes you sick but you like it anyway?” Georgia asked.
“Exactly! You are a clever girl,” he exclaimed. “I even have garlic bread dipped in a bowl of pig’s blood on my deathday.
Something about garlic just makes me feel positively tipsy, but most of my kind want to vomit at the mere smell of it.”
“So, you’re special,” she said. “Eww, the salad they gave me has cilantro in the dressing. I can’t stand it.”
“Oh, can you add it to my next sausage shake then? It’s one of my favorites, and I never get it,” Geoffrey said, positively giggling.
“I thought you guys could only drink blood,” Georgia muttered as she dumped the remainder of her Styrofoam container onto his remaining sausage.
“Can your kind only eat broccoli and oatmeal?” he countered.
“Vegetables to me are like candy to you. It’s terrible for me, but I love it anyway. I need blood to live, but it’s the variety that gives me pleasure. I remember I once drank from a young girl from Barbados who I thought tasted just like rum and mangoes . . .” He trailed off as he watched his companion’s face tighten. “I do feed off your kind, Miss Sutherland, but I’ve never killed anyone. I don’t think it’s right.”
“Well, I’m glad you have standards,” she said softly.
“You should know that the first rule of being a vampire is that life is sacred,” Geoffrey said. “Our law of kinship dictates that no vampire can kill another. We are honor-bound to protect life, and there are even families that have extended that to humans—”
“Your family included?”
Mr. Lambley nodded vehemently. “My vampire parents taught me from the day I was turned that humans exist to give us life, to kill them is a sacrilege. I think that may have come from my prime sire’s Hindu upbringing, but I’m not sure. Still, the English clans have always been more concerned about your kind than other families.”
“So, no killing at all? That’s admirable, but you are eating a dead animal.”
“I have to, to live,” he said. “And despite what some of the more elitist families think, I do think there is a difference between a pig and a human. Killing isn’t just wrong, it’s messy, you know. If bunches of people turn up dead in a single city, it’s news and attention. Attention is the bane of our kind. In fact, that is rule number two!”
“Attention is bad is actually a rule?” Georgia asked.
“No, the second law is the law of secrecy!” Geoffrey cried. He stopped to look at the fireplace. “Are you cold? Should I put on the fire again?”
“Nope, still not cold,” she said. “Are you getting hyper again?”
“I just never know what your kind want. I don’t have to worry about my temperature, but your kind seems to need a certain range to be comfortable.”
“What my kind really needs is to stop being called ‘your kind,’”
Georgia sighed. “My name is Georgia, try it out.”
“But, Miss Sutherland—”
“Georgia,” she ordered. “Just like the state.”
“Georgia.” He rolled the word around in his mouth like an old wad of gum. “What was I even saying?”
“About the fireplace or the super-important law of secrecy that vampires seem to love so much?”
“The second law,” he sighed. “And if I am to call you Georgia, then you must certainly call me Geoffrey, though if others of my kind are around, especially the older ones, you’d want to refer to me as Mr. Lambley.”
“OK, Geoff,” Georgia said, now smiling again. “So, you like secrets.”
“We have to keep our existence a secret,” he said with a fervent nod. “Can you imagine what would happen if the world was to learn that humans weren’t the top of the food chain, so to speak?”
Georgia furrowed her brow. “Yeah, I can see where that might get awkward.”
“There have been leaks to be sure. After all, there are too many of you to not have a few notice that we exist, but the beauty of looking so much like you is that we can disguise ourselves right under your noses—”
“And as long as vampires seem like ridiculous fiction—” Georgia continued.
“Then you refuse to see us. After all, vampires are ridiculous!”
Geoffrey finished with a gleeful laugh.
“Especially when you are teen angst sparkling mumblers who stalk the most emo girl in the room!” Georgia laughed.
Geoffrey rolled his eyes and snorted, “Sparkling? What are we, a beverage? Still, sometimes the folklore and the stories get too close.”
Georgia started giggling uncontrollably as she looked at her can of soda. “So if you don’t sparkle, what has Hollywood gotten right?”
Georgia asked.
“Hollywood,” Geoffrey snorted. “You should ask Stefano. He’s the one who likes all those movies. Hours and hours, he likes to talk about them. Oh, most of it is close. We don’t like sun, we drink
blood, and we don’t die. Pretty much everything else is wrong somehow.”
“You’re pale and have an accent,” Georgia added.
“You have an accent to me, you know,” the vampire sighed.
“And you are currently under my protection, never forget that.”
Georgia got quiet, so quiet that they could both hear her stomach gurgle from the carbonation. She looked at the filthy hearth, the melted-down candles and the tattered rugs. Then she noticed the old-style mousetraps in the corners.
“Did I sound threatening?” Geoffrey gasped.
She shook her head, and the vampire’s shoulders fell a bit. He too took in the general state of disrepair. Finally he shuffled to his feet and wandered off to a bookcase, where he pulled out a rather old-looking volume clad in brown cloth.
“It’s a first edition Oliver Twist,” he said. “I always loved this story. It’s from 1838, and it looks newer than most of this house.”
“You really need help, don’t you?” she asked.
Geoffrey nodded. “As long as you take my hospitality, you will be protected,” he said. “The third law is what allows us to keep certain humans safe.”
Georgia smacked her forehead with her palm. “You’ve pretty much just told me everything about vampires. You’ve broken rule number two.”
“Indeed,” he said as he shelved his book carefully among a neat row of other tomes. “And I can’t make you forget.”
“Look, you might be immortal, but I’m not, so let’s stop beating around the bush. You wouldn’t tell me all of this unless you had an angle. What do you really want?”
“Rule number four: a vampire’s oath is his bond. Once we make a promise, we are honor-bound to keep it,” Geoffrey said.
“What?” she asked, staring right at the vampire for the first time in a while.
“We can make unbreakable contracts,” he said quickly. “If we break them, our lives are forfeit. For ages we’ve used them to take on human retainers to help us in our times of need. After all, we can’t truly hide among humanity for any time without some help.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this—”
“You know, my sire always was talking about kismet . . . that there was a certain fate that governed all our lives. You came here today under the impression that you were looking for employment, did you not?” he asked.
“Oh, you aren’t saying—”
“Vampires have servants, always have and always will—”
“You don’t,” Georgia countered.
“Well, my last one died in ’72. I never found anyone to replace him. He was one hundred and two. I pretended to be his grandson.”
“I don’t think I’ll need the same job till I’m a hundred and two,”
Georgia said.
“Miss Sutherland . . . Georgia . . . I am a terrible mess, and you need a job,” the vampire said. “Will you take a position as my assistant, so to speak?”
“Define assistant,” she said, still sizing up the lumpy bloodsucker.
“Take care of my day-to-day needs, as you did tonight. Bring me food, help me dress, and bring a little life to this wretched place. If I don’t do something soon, the disrepair will attract attention. Stefano’s assistant did a little outside, but you can only be a recluse for so long before human curiosity takes over,” Geoffrey said.
“So you basically want a cook, a butler, and a maid all rolled up in one?” she asked.
“I need to understand this modern era if I am to survive. I need to present myself to society again, or I will forever be Toothless Geoff! Don’t you see how amazing this could be? I might not be destined to wallow here until the end of my days with only one Italian undead hoodlum to see me to the great beyond.”
“Yes, it all sounds magnificent . . . for you. Not to be rude, but what’s in this for me? Do I help you regain your mojo and end up as dessert?” Georgia asked. “I mean, you don’t even know me. I’ve never been any of those things that you need. I can’t even clean my own apartment, for Pete’s sake!”
“But you have kindness in you,” he said quickly. “You could have run, but you got me food.”
“I had a moment of weakness. I’m normally a bitch,” she replied flatly.
“Good! You need to be forceful to deal with the others of my kind, and I need to present some confidence if I’m ever to escape my dreadful reputation.”
“Are you just going to counter every argument I make?” Georgia sighed. She then muttered, “You remind me of my mother.”
“You know if I hadn’t been turned, I wanted to be a lawyer,”
Geoffrey said. “You can’t deny the strangeness of our meeting, can you?”
“Oh, it’s the not the strangeness I’m denying, it’s the sanity of it,”
Georgia said as she hopped to her feet and started rummaging for her purse and shoes.
“What could have brought us together, if not fate?” Geoffrey gushed.
“I rode in on the T, actually,” she sighed. “Look, you’re a fascinating old dead guy—”
“Undead,” he corrected.
“Undead guy, right, but I can’t just agree to be your assistant.
Like you said, vampires have all these rules and they think I’m lunch, so it’s not just something I can do on a whim. Plus if I stick around, I’ll need your protection, and no offense, you don’t seem like the kind of vampire who can really protect anyone.”
As she slipped her purse over her shoulder, she ended up growling out loud. “But I still know all about vampires, don’t I?” she grumbled.
“You see the delicacy of this situation, don’t you?” he asked.
“You are more devious than I thought,” Georgia said. “You told me everything, knowing good and well that you couldn’t do the Jedi mind trick to make me forget, so you’ve been buttering me up to get me to be your little slave. Ugh!”
