Guilty Pleasures

I felt the vampire's weight heavier against my legs. His voice sounded hoarse, but calm. “May I get up now?”

His face was human again, pleasant, handsome, but the illusion didn't work anymore. I had seen him unmasked, and that image would always stay with me. “Get off me, slowly.”

He smiled then, a slow confident spread of lips. He moved off me, human-slow. Jean-Claude waved him back until he stood near the curtain.

“Are you all right, ma petite?”

I stared at the bloody silver knife and shook my head. “I don't know.”

“I did not mean for this to happen.” He helped me sit up, and I let him. The room had fallen silent. The audience knew something had gone wrong. They had seen the truth behind the charming mask. There were a lot of pale, frightened faces out there.

My right sleeve hung torn where I ripped it to get the knife.

“Please, put away the knife,” Jean-Claude said.

I stared at him, and for the first time I looked him in the eyes and felt nothing. Nothing but emptiness.

“My word of honor that you will leave this place in safety. Put the knife away.”

It took me three tries to slide the knife into its sheath, my hands were trembling so badly. Jean-Claude smiled at me, tight-lipped. “Now, we will get off this stage.” He helped me stand. I would have fallen if his arm hadn't caught me. He kept a tight grip on my left hand; the lace on his sleeve brushed my skin. The lace wasn't soft at all.

Jean-Claude held his other hand out to Aubrey. I tried to pull away, and he whispered, “No fear, I will protect you, I swear it.”

I believed him, I don't know why, maybe because I had no one else to believe. He led Aubrey and me to the front of the stage. His rich voice caressed the crowd. “We hope you enjoyed our little melodrama. It was very realistic, wasn't it?”

The audience shifted uncomfortably, fear plain in their faces.

He smiled out at them and dropped Aubrey's hand. He unbuttoned my sleeve and pushed it back, exposing the burn scar. The cross was dark against my skin. The audience was silent, still not understanding. Jean-Claude pulled the lace away from his chest, exposing his own cross-shaped burn.

There was a moment of stu

They thought I was a vampire, and it had all been an act. I stared at Jean-Claude's smiling face and the matching scars: his chest, my arm.

Jean-Claude's hand pulled me down into a bow. As the applause finally began to fade, Jean-Claude whispered, “We need to talk, Anita. Your friend Catherine's life depends on your actions.”

I met his eyes and said, “I killed the things that gave me this scar.”

He smiled broadly, showing just a hint of fang. “What a lovely coincidence. So did I”