ristian stood speechless as he realized that he wasn’t daydreaming and that Sage and the others were all vampires. She shook with fury. “Eres celoso,” she said angrily. Pedro shook his head “no.” “That’s not true,” he said. He looked at Cristian who was too stunned to speak.
“Este hombre no es digno de confianza. Él va a traicionar a usted,” he reasoned. “Stop it, Pedro,” Lisa yelled.
Sage saw the horrified look on Cristian’s face and realized that he now knew her secret, much to her chagrin. “Can you leave us alone!” she commanded, as the coven slowly filed out the room one by one.
Anna gave Sage a look, asking if she was sure. She nodded her head. Pedro crawled down from the ceiling and looked over at Sage to say something, but she turned her head away completely appalled by his actions. He silently left the room, leaving Cristian and Sage alone as she wrestled with how to explain to him what he had just witnessed.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this,” she said trying to read his eyes. “I didn’t want you to find out at all.”
“I knew somehow in the back of my mind that you were a vampire,” he said. “I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.” Sage stared at him with surprise. “How did you know?” she asked. Cristian sighed. “When you came to the loft and you asked to be invited inside,” he said.
“The biggest clue was when you didn’t cast a reflection in the mirror or a shadow in the light. But it was what I saw here tonight that confirmed it,” he said. He stared at her, puzzled. “I have a question,” he said. “How are you able to move around in sunlight? I thought vampires imploded in sunlight.” “I use a lot of sunscreen,” she said sarcastically.
“Actually, we can move around in daylight despite popular belief of the opposite. But our powers are diminished, so we have to be careful.” “Rafael Pearson said you’re a queen,” he said. “Are you?”
Sage walked over to the window, staring out, gathering her thoughts. “Yes,” she replied.
“I am a queen.” She looked at him, forlorn. “My parents were vampire royals, and when they died, I became the heir to the throne.”
“How did they die?” he asked. Sage drew a heavy breath. “They were staked in the heart when we were trying to flee from the hunters.”
“So this guy Rafael Pearson is a vampire hunter?” he asked. She nodded her head “yes.” “He is a hunter coming from descendants of hunters,” she said dryly. “In fact, it was Pearsons who killed my parents,” she said, flinching from the memory.
“Look, Cristian,” she said, “I didn’t want to be a vampire. I wanted to have a normal life, and I was forced to become a vampire to continue the lineage.”
“This is a lot to process,” Cristian said, taking a seat in the antique chair.
She approached him cautiously. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” she said.
He looked at her, still trying to comprehend what was happening. “So you’re a vampire,” he repeated in disbelief of what he was uttering. “That means that you can change into a bat, grow fangs, drink blood, and never grow old,”
Sage chuckled. “I think you’ve watched too much television,” she said. “I don’t watch TV,” he said. “So do crucifixes or holy water repel you?” he asked.
“It depends,” she replied, remembering a long-ago, faded memory of when she was a spiritual person and how the thought of being a vampire repulsed her. “How so?” he asked confused.
“A crucifix or holy water can only repel me if there is faith behind it,” she mused. “Ok, you just lost me,” he said.
“What I mean is that if the person holding the crucifix or holy water has no faith, they have no power.” “Are you a religious person?” she inquired. “I was raised Catholic,” he replied. “But I’ve dabbled in Buddhism.” She nodded her head, intrigued. “So tell me what it’s like to be a vampire?” he asked, captivated by the thought of eternal life and youth.
“Well, it’s hard to explain,” she said. “Each vampire isn’t the same.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, completely fascinated. “Some vampires have powers, others don’t.”
“With your being a vampire queen, you must be very powerful,” he said, remembering how with just a flick of her hand, she sent Pedro hurling through the air. “I have power,” she said hesitantly, sensing his interest in her supernatural power. “But I don’t like to put it all on display.”
Cristian found himself more and more intrigued by Sage and the power she possessed.
“Can you show me some of your power?” he asked. She sighed, closing her eyes, sensing that once he got a foretaste of her power, he’d want to be a vampire. “Please?” he asked, sensing her apprehension.
She reluctantly took his hand and they glided together to the window. She pushed the window open as they looked out toward the city. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.
“Yes,” Cristian replied, not understanding her hesitation. In less than a blink of an eye, they were standing on the window ledge. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” she asked.
Cristian nodded his head “no.” “Keep your eyes focused on me,” she said. She took his hand, and they began to soar through the air, whirling around holding each other as they gazed into the other’s eyes as if they were slow-dancing, landing on the Brooklyn Bridge, looking down at the traffic speeding by below.
“This is magnificent,” Cristian said, taking in the scene and the night air, his skin tingling with the feeling of pins and needles. “This is amazing,” he said.
“The power can be addicting,” Sage said. “But there is a dark side. There is the endless darkness, the constant hunger, the running from vampire killers,” she shuddered.
“But you get to live forever,” Cristian said excitedly. “You never die or grow old. As long as you avoid being staked in the heart,” she cautioned.
“I still can’t believe that vampires don’t implode in sunlight,” he said.
Sage chuckled. “That is a myth that began in the 1920s,” she said.
Cristian looked at her in wonder as they watched the traffic, realizing that she’s lived for centuries. “You’ve lived for a long time,” he said, staring into her glowing eyes looking out toward the skyline. She nodded her head. “You’ve seen so many things. So what decade did you prefer?” he asked, his mind racing with questions about her life.
She looked at him, puzzled. “I mean we know that Billy loves the eighties—don’t even get me started on the pirate shirt,” he said. They both started to laugh. “I knew from his whole glam look that he loved the eighties.” “So what was your favorite?” he asked like an eager student about to get a history lesson from his teacher.
“I don’t have a particular preference,” Sage said wearily. “Some decades were better than others.” She wrinkled her brow. “However, there always seems to come a time every so often that there’s an uprising.” “A revolution,” she said. “I saw it happen in the sixties and again in the eighties.” She sighed. “It’s also happening now. It only takes one person to light the flame. Not all change is a bad thing,” she mused.
Cristian nodded his head silently in contemplation. “My long life also reminds me of the passage of time,” she said sadly, thinking of her many years that she’s been a vampire and the death and destruction she had seen.
“It reminds me that even after this generation passes, I’ll still be here.” She looked at Cristian with sadness in her eyes. “The reason why I feel so drawn to you is because you remind me of someone that I loved and lost so long ago.”
“You have such an uncanny resemblance to him,” she said. “Maybe we were meant to find each other again,” he said. “To get it right this time.”
He took her hand. “And spend eternity together.”
“Cristian please,” Sage said. “You don’t know what you’re saying.” “You’re looking at the romanticism of being a vampire,” she said. “But it’s a cursed life. A life I didn’t want,” she said, shaking her head. “You will never again walk in the light, and I’m not talking about sunlight. You would live in eternal darkness.”
“Hear me out, Sage,” he started.
“The last thing I ever want to do is to curse you with this life too,” she said interrupting him. “I won’t do it.” “I’d die first.”
Rafael arrived back at the motel room to find John eating potato chips and looking for a place to plug in his laptop.
“Today was a productive day,” he said grinning. “Did you find the vampire queen?” John asked. “I found the person that’s going to lead me to her,” Rafael said. “Well, in that case you’re going to need this,” John said, taking off his tennis shoes and opening a drilled hole in it and taking out the silver stake. “So that’s where it was,” Rafael said impressed.
“Clever.” John grinned. “I could tell that that artist knew the vampire,” Rafael said.
“And he‘s going to lead me straight to her, and when he does,” he sliced the stake through the air in a stabbing motion, “she’s dead.”