Te Iubsec...Forever.

7. Te Iubesc (I Love You)

"Nick, I brought you here to learn about me."

"I know enough about you to know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me, Franceska?"

She sucked it up, took a deep breath, and wiped her tears. I held her tight, waiting for my answer.

"Nick, I know you are thinking and feeling many things right now. Many may not even be thoughts of your own. I am a Strigoi. It is not a lie; nothing I made up to scare you. Nick, this was my home. I have lived in many places all over the world at different times, but this is where I was born; the year was 1445. In 1461 the Ottomans marched through and laid waste to everything; many were killed, but many joined King Vladislav's army. The village was never resurrected."

She looked off into the darkness as if she saw something she remembered from long ago. She did, in fact, and was seeing what she was describing, a time long forgotten by most.

"I remember my mother and some of the others meeting at the well house before we left. They all decided it best to disperse and keep our secrets with us. We would eventually find one another again. I wondered if I would ever see Andrei again. I saw him last as he left for Saxony with his horses and carts. He looked only once back at me."

She was whispering, but she might as well have shouted through a megaphone. Still, I held the soft skin of her back with my hands, moving them occasionally to warm another spot. So, if she was telling the truth, she was a little over five hundred and fifty years old. What the fuck?

"Nick, I will live a long time more. I will outlive you by many lifetimes, but I want to spend this one with you, that I know."

I couldn't comprehend the bullshit I was hearing. I had been blown off before, but this was ridiculous and out of character for her. She had always been so forthright. She began talking again, determined to get out everything she had come there, to that dark and crumbled place, to say.

I became a doctor years ago to learn about it. Everything passed down is circumstantial and of minimal value. I had found out. Even after years of work, the best I can come up with is an extraordinary virus that is dormant once it invades the body. It changes the DNA and slows down your metabolism and everything else, including aging. One day I will show you my samples you can see under the microscope. I will explain them all to you. It is a lot to explain here; we have time later."

Franceska looked at me sympathetically. And for the first time, my thoughts, every damn one of them, became more clear. Whatever fog had been clouding my mind for days had lifted. I was sitting naked in a tent with a beautiful, no, THE beautiful Romanian woman I had been staying with for a couple of months. I had hiked with her to this remote location and asked her to marry me. Oh, she had also told me she was five hundred years old and was a vampire. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. It wasn't the freeze-dried chili mac either; it was the mess I was in. Off the rails, I should have seen it coming. She was in full belief mode, so I let her keep going. I didn't have anything else to lose.

"Nick, I brought you to me. I wanted you; I desired you. In my mind, I pictured you and I together, happy in love. It is what I have wanted in my life for a very long time. I had to release you to see if you would come to me, and you did. I brought you here."

She explained how she had been alone for years, most of her life in fact, a terrible thought if she really was as old as she insisted. Franceska was convinced that just believing in something could make it not only possible but probable. I had to gently remind her that, in fact, the train brought me to Constanta as I sought the abandoned Casino Royale. In fact, my entire trip to Romania and points beyond had been predicated on seeing old abandoned structures. It had nothing to do with her. Still, she wouldn't budge. Really, who was I to argue with her belief in powerful manifestation? If it was true, it certainly had done me no harm; if I could get her to shut up and answer me, it may have netted me a wife!