Page 10 of Cloak of the Vampire
Sitting on the bed in the small room, I tried to make sense of everything. First, I tried to wrap my head around the vampire thing. Magic was an extremely abstract concept, one I hardly believed in, and the existence of any sort of fantasy race was reserved for moral-inducing fairy tales.
Yet Ragnor didn’t seem to be lying. He’d looked as if he believed every word he’d said. I raised my hands to my neck, feeling for a bite mark. Wasn’t that how people got turned into vampires? But I found nothing.
How had his eyes glowed like two beacons of light staring right into my soul? No one had eyes like that. And how could I be here now, wherever this was, when I was just with Cassidy in that alley behind the Banner Bar? How could I be seriously contemplating the existence of vampires? Andme? Did he expect me to believe I was an actual vampire too?
The door opened, and into the room walked a stunning woman carrying a stack of papers. She seemed to be in her midtwenties, with seafoam green eyes and waist-length dark-auburn curls bouncing effortlessly with every step she took. She had a voluptuous body, and she moved with the confidence of someone used to getting their way.
She kicked the door closed and sat on the bed next to me. “I’m Margarita,” she said in a slightly accented voice. “I work for Vampire Resources. I got the dry details from our Lord and fixed up some paperwork for you to sign.”
There were so many things wrong with what she just said that I didn’t know where to start. But most importantly—“Reverse it.”
She looked at me as if I had just sprouted a new head. “What?”
“The vampire thing. Reverse it,” I clarified. If I was going to buy into this ridiculous story, I wanted out. I was not going to become some mythological creature.
She cocked her head. “You newbies never cease to amaze me,” she said, her eyes narrowing with disapproval. “If it wasn’t clear, then no, it’s impossible. Once you’re given the Imprint, it’s for eternity.”
Not life.Eternity. “Am I immortal?” I asked, trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
“Yes, unless you do something incredibly stupid,” she responded and put down the paperwork on the bed. “Listen, you’re a vampire. As our Lord, Ragnor Rayne, must’ve told you, he gave you the Imprint, which is the essence that allows every human inflicted by it to transition into a vampire. This is an irreversible condition; you will be a vampire until the day you die,” she added with a sharp look.
She grabbed a couple of papers and handed them to me. “Here are some mandatory forms you need to sign before I can proceed with the briefing. Take notice that if you choose not to sign, you’ll be Leagueless.”
“Leagueless?” I asked, still trying to process what was happening to me.
When she responded, she seemed impatient, as if I had asked the dumbest question in the world. “If you’re attacked, kidnapped, tortured ... you’re on your own.”
I looked down at the forms. Vampires were the hunters, weren’t they? But then again, so were humans. Both were monsters in their own right, and both could probably become the prey.
Gritting my teeth, I said, “I want to read it first.”
“Be my guest.” She shrugged.
The title read “League System Agreement.” Below were a bunch of clauses entailing what living as a Leagued vampire meant: follow every order and rule, drink only blood provided by the League sources, work for the League in order to maintain the Leagued vampire status, attend all mandatory League events, complete the Comprehensive Newcomer Three-Month Course, and so much more that it made my head dizzier than it already was. The only thing I needed to know was that a League meant some sort of vampire community. At the bottom of the page, in big letters, it said, “By signing, you agree to all of the above.”
The next page was a Secrecy Agreement detailing that the Vampire Society was, in fact, a secret—shocking, I know—and that any violation of the agreement would result in immediate expulsion from the League ranks, rendering one Leagueless, thus doomed to fend for themselves. It was basically a standard NDA—nondisclosure agreement—only if you violated this one, they kicked you out and left you alone in the world with no protection, no home.
“Do you have legal backing for all of these?” I inquired, keeping my voice steady as, inside me, the realization, the full understanding of what was going on, was beginning to sink in, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.
“We have our own judicial system,” Margarita replied dryly. “Here in the Rayne League, our Lord’s word is the law.”
Ragnor hadn’t lied. This woman wasn’t lying to me either. On the off chance they weren’t some vampire-worshipping conspiracy theorists, if I didn’t sign the forms and then returned to my life, I might diesooner rather than later. In the myths, vampires had many weaknesses: sun, garlic, and mirrors, to name a few. Say they were telling the truth. What if those weaknesses applied now?
“I want proof,” I said, holding Margarita’s gaze. “I’ve been assaulted and kidnapped by yourLordand told some shitty fantasy story about vampires, but I have no bite mark on my neck or anywhere else, and I’m not craving human blood.” I paused, panting as I worked myself up into a prepanicked state. “So give me proof.”
Margarita studied me for a few quiet moments before giving me an annoyingly secretive grin. “Sign the papers first.”
I wanted to throw said papers in her face. I wanted to storm out of this place and go back home to my dump of an apartment. I wanted to return to my blissfully boring life, where I didn’t follow my stupid friend into a dark alley, wasn’t kissed by a stranger, and wasn’t told that vampires existed and that I was now one.
Yet I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling in my gut that told me the best route was the one I was most reluctant to take.
My situation reminded me of the poem “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. It was the last literary piece I’d studied in English class before I dropped out, so I remembered it vividly. In the poem’s case, it’s about the importance of one’s choices through life and how these choices shape one’s journey through life.
I had a feeling that in my case, though, the choice wouldn’t simply reshape my life. It would destroy everything I’d ever been and would never mend everything it broke.
“Time is ticking,” Margarita murmured, tapping her watchless wrist.
“Fine,” I said, reaching a bitter decision. Grimacing, I took the pen she’d given me and signed the damned papers.
