Light Me Up Read online

  Light Me Up

  Rebecca Royce

  Dedication

  To my Nana and Popop, with love.

  Chapter One

  Ruth stood on the roof of the building across the street and watched them. It had been sixty-five years since she’d heard the words spoken, and yet she still knew them as she’d known them as a human, which surprised her.

  Most of the time, she wasn’t easily astonished.

  In terms of time, it had been sixty-five years since the Nazis had found her family’s hiding place in the fake bottom of a barn in rural Poland and taken them all away to be killed in the nearest concentration camp.

  The Nazis had taken her — but they hadn’t killed her. No, the Vampire had done that. And then he’d changed her so she would never draw another breath, never see the sunlight, and needed to feed off the blood of others to survive. In this day and age with the cinemas showing love stories about young girls and glowing Vampires, it wasn’t a story that would shock and awe anymore.

  She was a Vampire, and while she was now a creature to be worshiped in the church of Pop Culture, she would live forever and knew that sometime in the future she would be feared as a monster again.

  It didn’t matter. Only the blood mattered most of the time.

  Tonight was one of those rare exceptions.

  The chanting of the children as they lit the Hanukah candles mattered because it made her remember things she’d long ago ceased wasting time thinking about.

  Needing to be closer, she dropped off the roof with one easy step and landed on the ground in front of the house which had drawn her attention.

  Three children spoke in unison.

  Borukh Ato Adoynoy Eloyheynu Melekh Ho-oylom Asher Kiddeshonu Be-mitsvoysov Ve-tsivonu Lehadlik Neyr Shel khanuko.

  Silently, she translated the blessing into English.

  Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by His commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah.

  Her father had made them learn it both ways. He’d been so sure that someday they’d come to America. He’d told her stories, tons of them, about what their life would be like when they did. He wanted them to be able to pray in the language of the country he told them would be their home.

  She didn’t think of her family often, and when she did it was as if she remembered someone else’s life. Her mother with her round, soft face and gentle voice had been the keeper of all the traditions in their lives. She made sure they got to synagogue on Saturday for services; she made sure they went again on Sundays to study. Even the women, she had told them, had things to learn.

  Her brothers would make Bar Mitzvah, well, some of them would. The ones who had lived to be thirteen. The others had studied but never had their turn to perform the ceremony. At least, she didn’t think they had. It was possible some of them survived the Holocaust, although it wasn’t likely. She’d thought it best she not find out if they lived as she was technically not alive, and her undead arrival might cause them stress.

  They’d been a big family. Five girls, six boys. She could no longer remember all of their names. One by one, they had slipped away into the oblivion where her mind put her human memories. So few coherent thoughts about those dead children remained. She was the oldest. Twenty-two when she’d had the blood drained from her body, replaced by the Vampire venom that had made her a creature of the night.

  Her father, grey-haired, stooped over from sewing all day, was a tailor; a highly respected member of their community.

  He had never gotten to the United States. His little Ruthie had, but not in any way her dead Papa could possibly have imagined.

  The three children whose voices beckoned her from

  her darkness stood in front of the window of the house facing the night. Ruth hunted for blood on this block a lot. Beautiful colonial houses that had seen better days lined the quiet street. The neighborhood was called ‘run down.’ The elderly tended not to report aches and pains or strange bite marks they found on their bodies, dismissing most things as just being part of old age, which made it an ideal hunting ground for her.

  All blood tasted the same to Ruth. It didn’t matter if it came from a baby, a marathon runner, or a person on death’s door. All she cared about was that she got to feed.

  This particular house, the ones with the shutters she thought of as yellow, and even then that was a guess because she hadn’t seen that shade in sixty-five years, was home to an old woman who seemed to reside by herself. Tonight, however, and maybe that was because of the holiday, it was filled with people. She could hear their heartbeats inside. At least four adults accompanied the three children who stood by the window.

  Ruth looked up at the sky. Darkness had won its nightly battle with the sun, and once again the world around seemed dark and devoid of light. They’d said the prayer late. When she’d been a child, it had always been done at sunset. Apparently it was her lucky night. If they’d done it when they should have, she wouldn’t have seen it.

  Being a Vampire meant staying hidden until complete darkness, unless you wanted to die.

  So far Ruth had no interest in that.

  She heard the cab approach seconds before any regular human ears would hear it. Ducking back into the shadows, she smelled the two humans —both male— inside the car. The driver, an older gentleman, took the money from his passenger, a man she would guess to be in his mid-thirties, and left him out on the curb.

  He stood with his back to her, so she couldn’t see his face. His posture, however, spoke volumes. His shoulders slumped, and his head hung low. As he stood facing the house, his back started to shake. A low sound caught her attention, and she slid forward.

  The man sobbed on the side of the road. Each silent step she took gave her new pieces of information about him. First and foremost, there was something very wrong with his heart. At first it beat too fast, and then it skipped a beat, resuming its struggle again too slowly. There was no way he wasn’t aware of it, and for a second Ruth wondered if he would expire as he stood there on the street.

  As she crept closer, his heartbeat regulated itself sounding more normal although still off. She might expect this kind of thing from an older person, but the unknown male who still could be her dinner for the evening was only in his thirties. What a shame, she thought distantly, it was never nice to see a person cut down in their prime by human weakness.

  Suddenly, the man ceased his crying and whirled around. Ruth stopped her approach and regarded him. How had he known she was there? She hadn’t made a sound he would be able to hear.

  Shrugging, she decided she didn’t care. She’d wanted to see him, and she was going to. He wouldn’t remember his encounter unless she wanted him to. Being a Vampire was convenient in that way.

  Pitch-black hair fell around his eyes, covering up the top half of his face so his chocolate-brown eyes were barely visible. His frame looked thin, even with welldefined muscles shaping his expensive clothes. Only the dark circles under his eyes gave any outward evidence of the illness within.

  “Hello.” She spoke first because she knew he would not. Prey never did.

  “Hi.” His voice was low and musical. She wondered if he sang.

  “What is your name?”

  Ruth spent so little time speaking to others, truly less and less as the years went by, that she still held the accent of her human youth. Anyone who listened would think she was a Polish immigrant. This suited her fine. She never stayed in the company of anyone long enough for them to care.

  “My name is Ben.” He cleared his throat. “Benjamin Fox.”

  “Hello, Ben.”

  She stared into his eyes for a moment, and a strange longing hit her stomach. How nice wo
uld it be to be just a girl meeting this young man on the street? But longings were for people with futures, something she did not have, since she was dead, and something she suspected he had run out of.

  “Are you aware you are sick?”

  “I am. I have been nearly my whole life. I was born with a heart defect. It’s gotten worse. There isn’t much time left.”

  Well, that answered her question. She reached up and touched the side of his face. This period of time, the moments when she could speak to him, ask him questions and get the answers to anything she wanted to know, she thought of this as the ‘enthralled time.’ It didn’t last forever.

  Eventually, his human mind would push through, and his fight or flee response would take over. Most Vampires didn’t bother to speak to their prey. They ate, decided whether or not to kill the subject, and moved on.

  Usually she didn’t talk much either, but since she wasn’t going to feed off Ben —it most certainly would kill him considering his health issues— she thought one conversation wouldn’t hurt anything. Tonight was such a different experience for her from start to finish. She might as well make it a doozy.

  “What are you doing here tonight?”

  “I came to see my grandmother. The whole family is gathering. It’s going to be my last holiday. I have weeks left at best.”

  Not that long, but she wouldn’t tell him that. As a giver of death, she was acutely knowledgeable on the subject. Benjamin Fox had days.

  “Do you celebrate Hanukkah for all eight nights or just the first few?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not very observant, wasn’t raised that way, but Grandma does. I wanted to make sure I saw her this year.” He paused. “Do you?”

  Startled, she wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. “What?”

  “I asked if you do all eight nights?”

  “No.” What had just happened? He shouldn’t be able to think clearly enough to ask her questions, not while he was enthralled. “Not since I was a human.”

  He raised a black eyebrow before he snickered.

  “Since you were a human? What are you now? A snake that walks instead of slithers?”

  “No, a Vampire.”

  Ruth couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. In sixty-five years no humans had ever asked her any questions about herself while they were enthralled.

  Why was this dying, dark human so different?

  The smile dropped from his face, and his mouth became a thin line. “You know even two years ago I would have thought that was either really funny or really dumb. Now, I know firsthand that evil things come out at night.”

  She heard the air coming in and out of his lungs, the blood rushing too slowly through his veins. What she didn’t hear was fear, something that should have been present if he wasn’t enthralled.

  “You’re different.” It wasn’t a question. She didn’t make it one.

  “Because I’m not running away from you?” He was perceptive too.

  “That’s correct.”

  “I have fought back death so many times since I was a child. Part of the reason I know that this time it’s the end is because I can see things I never could before. Just last week I thought I saw a Vampire crossing the street in front of my house. Ghosts walk among us. I’ve seen them and things in the shadows.” He turned briefly to look at the house behind him. “My sweet grandmother has no idea.

  These ideas would shock her.”

  “But you know they’re not ideas, they’re truth.”

  He nodded and ran a hand through his hair. Tired, his body language screamed out to her. This man was so tired.

  “And yet you came to light candles and celebrate a children’s holiday with your family?”

  “What else is there in life? I’ve learned the hard way there isn’t much else.”

  He had a good point. What else was there? Humans lived for such brief periods of time. As she never aged and would look twenty-two years old for the remainder of her days, until she walked out into the sun or died by fire, she never had to face getting older. Neither, it seemed, would Ben.

  He spoke again. “Are you going to kill me before I make it through the door?”

  “No.” It was an easy answer. As far as Vampires went, she was a relatively harmless one. It had been a very long time since she’d taken a life. She didn’t need to kill in order to survive, even if it always left her a little bit hungry. Like all things you could learn to ignore a small amount of discomfort.

  “Good luck to you, Benjamin Fox. I hope you cheat death again.”

  Knowing she needed to leave, that she could spend no more time staring at lit candles in a window of a home she would never enter, she turned and moved away. Both

  Benjamin Fox and Hanukkah were things long lost to her.

  Benjamin walked unsteadily through the front door of his grandmother’s house. Immediately the smell of latkes and brisket assaulted him. He smiled, all malaise pushed aside by the familiar aromas of his childhood. It was much warmer inside than it had been out. He was used to balmy California. Upstate New York felt arctic to his thin skin.

  Not that it mattered if he was hot or cold anymore.

  What was there left to worry about, really? He’d just conversed with a gorgeous Vampire on the curb outside his grandmother’s house and lived to tell the tale.

  Thinking of the dark-haired beauty with her large brown eyes and long face made him hard, which was, admittedly, really weird. Not only had it been a long time since he’d gotten it up for anyone but there had to be something sort of perverse about the fact that when it finally happened again it was for someone who was, technically, no longer alive.

  Adjusting his pants, he moved forward. No sooner was he spotted by the group gathered in the living room than squealing children leaped upon him. Opening his arms, he hugged his sister’s three children tightly. He hadn’t spent enough time with Anna, Margot, and Steven over the years. Even as a person who should have known better since he’d essentially been dying since birth, he’d focused on career for too long.

  “How are you guys?”

  Anna spoke first. She was the oldest, and she looked just like his sister with the same blond hair and hazel eyes. “Did you bring us any presents?”

  “I did not.” Their faces fell, so he kept speaking. “Because I had them sent ahead a few weeks ago. They’re already here.”

  The children squealed, and he hoped the two dolls and the t-ball set he’d purchased would be worth the anticipation.

  His sister walked in the room, followed by her husband, Rob. When she saw him, she hurried over and pulled him into her embrace. She smelled like soap and baby lotion. In his wildest dreams he couldn’t have imagined that Jenny would turn out so maternal. The wild child in the family, she’d made their parents nuts with her antics when she’d been a teenager.

  “Ben.” Her voice held a hitch, and he knew she stopped herself from crying only by sheer force of will. “I hope the children aren’t pestering you for gifts.”

  “They are.” He laughed as he moved back to stare at her. It had been a year since he’d seen her. They spoke on the phone, and e-mail let them be in constant contact. Still, there was nothing like seeing your loved ones in person. The lines by her eyes hadn’t been as distinct before, but other than that she looked exactly the same. His older sister had grown into a beautiful woman. “But they’re supposed to. That’s what six, four, and two is all about, right? That’s exactly what we did.”

  Letting her go, he turned to Rob. Holding out his hand, he expected his brother to shake it. Instead, Rob pulled him into a tight embrace. Ben would have laughed, if it hadn’t been so odd. How did you know when you were dying? When your stiff brother-in-law, who never went for the Fox family’s displays of public affection, grabbed and hugged you like he never wanted to let go.

  Ben cleared his throat. “Good to see you, Rob.”

  “You too.”

  Rob finally released him, and Ben
actually found himself without words. What should he say?

  He opted for simple. “Happy Hanukkah. Where are

  Mom, Dad, and Grandma?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “I think I’ll go say hello and then I’m going to need to sit down for a while.”

  Jenny frowned. “Are you tired?”

  He smiled. “I’m dying, Jen.”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  Shaking his head, he realized as much as he needed this, to see all of them for the last time, in some ways it was going to be a trying few days. “I am dying whether I say it or not.”

  Jenny’s eyes welled up with tears. “Please, Ben.

  Please don’t.”

  He sighed. Hell.

  Rob finally spoke. “Look, Jen, Ben can handle this anyway he wants to. We don’t get a say in what he talks about.”

  Snapping, she practically hissed at Rob. “He’s my brother.”

  Now that side of Jenny he knew, having been on the wrong side of her anger more than once as a child.

  “I’m aware that he’s your brother.”

  Turning around, Ben decided he wasn’t really needed for this conversation. It was more about them than it was about him, and if Jenny was going to cry, he didn’t want to see. It wasn’t like he’d chosen to have a short life or done it out of some kind of wish to cause his family pain.

  As he rounded the corner to the kitchen, he peered out the window where the menorah sat facing into the darkness. Somewhere out there was a Vampire who used to be Jewish. During the few minutes he’d spent with her, he hadn’t felt any pain at all —emotional or physical— and it had been bliss.

  Pushing open the swinging door to the kitchen, he stepped into an all too familiar scene. His grandmother dished potato latkes onto plates while his bother squirted the brisket with a turkey-baster. His father sat on the counter looking bored with the whole thing. He always did that. Cooking didn’t interest his father at all, but at Ben’s grandmother’s house, Ben’s dad never left his wife’s side.

  “Hi there,” he called out upon entering.