Christmas Consort

Santa's Vampire Elf

Kylie woke with a start to sunshine. The shutters in her room were open and daylight streamed over the bed. She took what she needed to the bathroom and emerged twenty minutes later to the smell of bacon. Her stomach gurgled and compelled her to the kitchen where Silas worked in an apron decorated as if he were Santa's favorite vampire elf.

Without turning he said, "Good morning. Did you sleep okay?"

"Fine. Thank you."

"Well, let's get a hearty breakfast into your system and make some phone calls." He brought over a plate of bacon, eggs, and hash-browned potatoes. Juice and a basket of rolls were already sitting on the table as was a place setting for one.

"There's a lot of food. Are you joining me?"

"I may have gone overboard. I was actually having fun. Did you see the living room?"

Kylie shook her head. She avoided glancing at the growing profusion of Christmas cheer when she slipped into the kitchen. She was the one who used to wear antlers and elf hats with ears. She'd always wondered if that was why the Mayo Man took notice of her in the first place.

"Ah well, maybe later. The food does smell good, doesn't it? I can't eat a bite. Well, I could do it in a pinch. Later though there would be discomfort and problems. Not enough to knock me out of commission, but food is unpleasant in a body that only digests..."

"Blood," said Kylie. He was so strong that he restrained Lara without effort, yet he was also very gentle. The way the vampires had consorted, lightly biting each other seemingly without pain got her to considering. He would be so different from Lara, she thought and let her curiosity loose.

"Maybe after I have breakfast, you could--have some too."

He shoved away from the table. "My heavens, you musn't say such things to me." His eyes were white hot and his fangs seemed more deadly than even Lara's.

Why is he so mad?

"You have got me all wrong. Do you think I live with Lara out of my own great magnanimity? I need her. I need her blood to keep me straight, to keep me on the straight and narrow as it were. I live here, within the borders of a territory policed by a knife wielding enforcer because I need to know he will come to take my head if I step out of line. I have to have that accountability. You think Lara's out of control when actually she seldom makes a single move without calculation. I am the one who needs all these boundaries to keep what's left of my human decency from draining into a pit to never emerge."

She watched wide-eyed as he excused himself and strode from the room. Kylie ate more of her breakfast than she expected and kept thinking about how the mention of tasting her blood set him off. This was a side of Silas she didn't suspect existed. He promised to protect her from Lara. What if she needed protection from him? Kylie choked down the regret of not going with Franco, and pushed her plate away. COULD BREAK SECTION HERE

Silas returned with something clutched in his hand which he pressed into hers. She regarded the swirling growth patterns in the wood of the letter opener. Olive wood maybe?

"This is small enough to hide on your person and strong enough to take down any vampire with a solid thrust." He turned the makeshift stake in her hand so the point pushed against his chest. She tried to pull it back but he kept it there.

"Here or here are best. Anywhere in this area will probably work. You only have to knick the heart, not puncture. Shove straight and hard. This is your best defense."

"I don't think I could do that. And besides Lara would simply knock it away before I could-"

"Keep it hidden till..." he swallowed, his face completely vampire again.

Standing so close to him, to his broad chest, and witnessing the vampiric eyes, the barely discernable fangs, Kylie knew she was not afraid of him no matter what he said.

"Hide it till after we've bitten down for a few seconds." He stared at her neck and placed a hand there the way he did before. Her body warmed and tingled at the same time. Her toes felt an electric charge that coursed up her legs.

"The thirst may be strong or weak until the--till we get going--then the taste takes over--I hardly ever go out in public, Kylie." He looked into her face as if recognizing who she was for the first time that morning. "Kylie." He pleaded, "I have such a hard time stopping. You must tell me you will do this," he jerked the point forward stabbing it into his chest.

"You're bleeding!"

"Doesn't matter."

He exhaled near her face and her mind grew foggy. She needed to lean on him, against him. He spoke sharply though.

"We get you close and relax your judgment with this exhalation."

"Uh-huh." She felt like relaxing all over, like she might let her head loll loosely to one side and give up her fears, give up her body, her concerns, give up her nightmares in order to sink into an empty peace in his arms.

"Then you must strike--hard," he jerked the point out of his skin and stabbed it in again deeply on the other side of his chest.

She pushed away. Staggered by the wood sticking out of him. "Stop it. Stop doing that." She tried to reach for it, to tug it back.

"Good, good. But as you shove off drive the stake deeper, over here, as deep as you can. Promise me, Kylie. Promise me you will do this exactly as I say."

She nodded dumbly, crying now, reaching for the letter opener. He let her take hold and pull out the bloodied wood. She tore back his shirt to reveal his smooth chest, no sign of the injury. She patted at him and let out a jagged breath.

"That definitely won't launder," she tweaked his shirt.

"The wound won't heal that way once it's in the other side." He slouched back and returned to himself. Only Silas with his fathomless gray eyes said, "Go clean it up, hide it, but keep it close."

Kylie went to the bathroom and saw her reflection, standing there holding what was essentially a bloody knife. In spite of everything she felt more comfortable with the gun. She pretended to draw the knife from behind her back, stab at the chest in the mirror. She jabbed hard and hit the flat surface unintentionally. She wiped the reddish brown residue away with her hand and stepped back to practice again, imaging it was Lara. With Lara she could find the will.

After a couple times she wiped at her face and picked up a faint odor. She held her hand up to her nose and then the letter opener. The olive wood had no scent of its own to speak of. Silas's blood, however, was distinctive and elusive. She couldn't really figure out what the spice or sweetness was like, though later she latched onto her mom's oatmeal cookies and could not rid her mind of them until she connected memory of them with the odor on the wooden knife.

In that moment she wished she had tasted his blood instead of washing it all down the sink.