“Buonasera, Jonathon.”
Amelia. All lazy smiles and bright dark eyes, hands buried in the pockets of the red coat, and muffled up in a creamy woollen scarf.
“It was you. Talking to Kane.”
“Of course. Love playing with your friends, darling. The Brix boy on your doorstep last Halloween – he’s been so suggestible and obliging. And that little blonde of yours… though we didn’t play for long. And then our Py, bless his vengeful little heart. Always arriving just a bit too late for games though, isn’t he?”
The circle of Roman sky above turns black, and ignorant tourists still careen gently around us. Just two more teenagers. Two people talking. Two ancient monsters orchestrating horrors for their endless amusement, who could make these holy drains in this sacred floor run with blood rather than rainwater before one of these holidayers could even snap a photo to document their own death in progress.
They do not know who this pretty girl child and her companion are – what she… I… we are capable of. No. You – I mean, they – wheel in a foolish music-box danse macabre.
“What now? What do you want, Amelia?”
She unpockets a hand and smoothes over the place where one might expect a heart, but would find the hollow sun-scar. My enduring gift to her.
“I’ve already told you. See – you have so many friends, love. You should share. I want one. I want one to keep. For always.”
For always? The world is black, then red, then light again. I realize my own hand is mirroring hers, holding the hollow place in my chest closed. Amelia blinks – bites her lips a little. A tendril of hair uncurls from behind her ear.
“But I’m not greedy, sweetness. Or unreasonable. Just give me one – you pick. And now my little Jonathon has got all independent, I promise having a new infant terrible will keep me immensely busy and absent for a nice long time. So choose.”
“Choose?”
“All good choices come in threes. Who can I have? Your latest ‘brother’ – my romantic conquest? This new girl of yours, who I must meet? Or my little helper and your favorite foe?”
Kane.
Harmony.
Brix.
Fuck. Fuck. Brix. Brix, obviously. But an immortal enemy made immortal?…
Harm – remember what she first said to me when we met. Condemn her to her horror then – an eternity of living death…
Kane. Kane and I for forever. But when he is what I am, he’ll know what I let happen to Carly. Unforgivable, then – for forever.
“Ciao, dear heart.” Amelia is smiling like a medieval madonna. “I’ll meet you in Venice on Saturday – yes, see, I know the itinerary. Our place then – and our night. All Hallows’ Eve.”
She leans in, kisses me on both cheeks, Italian-style.
She smells of copper and fresh kills.
“You can tell me which one then.”
Musings of a High School Vampire 