Page 38 of Felonies are Forever

My mother, born human, has the same power. She effectively stopped ageing at the moment my father turned her, and it will be many years before there’s any noticeable change. It’s all very odd and subjective as well, so the same as humans, vampires are not all the same as many assume.

As for me, nobody knows. Half-vampires, born to a human and a vampire, are extremely rare. The few Anna remembers aged normally like a human to maturity when the process slowed to a near standstill, just like my mother and father. Once I reach maturity, however, all bets are off. I may not be an elder pure-blood like Anna, but since I’m the “moon child,” that may not make any difference.

Who knows, maybe I’ll start ageing backwards, like that film, or turn into a python and slither off into obscurity or something.

“Thank you, Papa.” I take the final step onto the marble floor, bowing in a small curtsy the crystals on my shoes catching the light as I lift the hem of my dress and they cast stars around the room. “The dress is beautiful. As always, your taste is impeccable and your choice more perfect than I could have found for myself. Thank you.”

“You are welcome, my angel.” He steps forward, places his hand on the side of my head, and kisses the part in my hair before straightening his ruby and diamond cuff links, which are a perfect match for the teardrop earrings I’m wearing tonight. “Only the best for my girls.”

I can’t help but smile. I love when he calls my mother and me his girls. He dotes on us. Spoils us and it brings him joy to see us happy. He loves my mother; I see it flow between them even as I suffocate any idea that I will have anything similar in my lifetime. No matter how long that may be.

I glance around, scanning for any sign or scent of Mama. It’s unusual for me to be ready before my mother. My relationship to time is fluid, and I often become lost in my own mind, in my own world. Like Anna, a minute can seem like an eternity to me while hours feel like split seconds.

“Where’s Mama?” As I glance down the hall, I see the painting hanging. “Oh, it came!” I brush past him wanting a closer look. “Somehow it looks more wonderful than it did in the photograph.”

“Well, naturally.” I can hear the smile in my father’s voice. “No photograph could do it justice. Your mother was just as thrilled when the delivery van arrived earlier, but we didn’t want to disturb you. She’s almost ready, to answer your other question.”

“Just look at the detail...”

The painting is from the Picasso’s Blue Period, a piece not seen on the open market since it was painted in 1903. My father bought it for my mother’s birthday—the day of her human birth—last month on a trip to New York. It was since cleaned, packaged and shipped via an armored, guarded transport.

“I see you noticed our new addition.”

I turn to see my mother emerge from the hallway to their master suite. Her emerald-green gown trimmed with gold is a perfect match for her unnatural eyes.

White silk gloves extend above her elbows as she holds out her own diamond and ruby necklace to my father. He takes it from her as she spins, holding up her blonde hair for him to secure the million dollars’ worth of gems around her delicate neck.

She’s beautiful. Classic and poised. We share many similarities, our hair for one. We are often mistaken for sisters, of course, when we are out in the world, and we’ve taken tosimply nodding in agreement instead of trying to explain how she could possibly be my mother.

She turns, hands on her hips, giving us both an appreciative smile. “Well, if we are not the best-looking family out there tonight, you can butter my butt and call me a biscuit.”

Papa and I give each other a glance and chuckle at one of her classic euphemisms, my mother’s voice and stance hinting more than usual at her Savannah roots. It’s where they met and conceived me twenty-one years ago, when my mother was still human. Most people wouldn’t believe that vampires take vacations at all, let alone to the Georgia coast, and the truth is some can’t. But my father has an unusual tolerance for sunlight and a love of the ocean.

“You are as stunning as the day we met.” My father takes her hand kissing the back.

“Like yesterday.” Mama gets that wistful look in her eyes whenever she talks about how they met. “I still wonder, in that split second it took you to decide whether or not to save me, or kill me.”

My father leans in to kiss her cheek. I’ve heard the story a hundred times but the joy in their eyes when they wander back in time makes it tolerable.

“You are here, I am here. So, clearly saving you was the decision.”

“Yes my love. It was difficult, I’m sure. A naïve young southern girl, lying there bleeding in the back alley, two heathens standing over me ready to have their way…”

“It was the fight I saw in your eyes.” Papa looks at me. “They underestimated the sweet girl taking the short cut behind the local tavern.”

“My Daddy didn’t raise a coward.” Mama looks at my father like it’s the first time. “When they threw me down in that alley and I landed on the broken bottle, I knew if I was sheddingblood, so were they.” She smiles then looks at me. “I just never expected what happened next.”

“The scent of your blood was the sweetest perfume. The taste of their blood, the sweetest revenge.”

“Oh Rudolf. You’re such a romantic.”

“We’re going to be late.” I gently ease the conversation back to reality.

“Well, ladies.” My father holds out his hands to us. “Shall we?”

My mother and I reply in unison. “We shall.”

As we approach the front door, it swings back, opened by my father’s telepathic power, and we exit into the crisp late October air where the Bentley is waiting, engine running. As the door quietly clicks shut behind us, the scent of the man across the street hits me hard, and I suddenly find it difficult to catch my next breath.

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