The Wicked: A Love Story

Loreal shrieked when she opened the door and gathered Laurie to her.

“You must think I’m the biggest idiot because it’s only been a few days, but I’m so glad to see you.”

She closed the door behind him and said, “You have to understand. I’m so glad to see you.”

She stopped, looking at him sideways, and Laurie said, “What?”

“Lawrence Malone, you’re… Something’s happened to you. You look different. Younger. But sadder too. You look… like a little boy. Something’s happened to you.”

“I was almost killed by a gang of vampires,” Laurie said. “But yes, something has happened to me.”

Loreal blinked and shook her head, then said, “Are you going to tell me?”

She gestured for Laurie to sit on the bed, and then he said, “Firstly, you need to hear something. You need to hear that I love you. I know that’s what it is. Not lust or not just lust, not just a fascination. A love. I am close to you. I dream of you. I know I belong with you. Let’s stay the night together. I don’t mean sex. I don’t even mean that. I mean, I want to lie beside you and talk with you all night. I want us to be together all night.”

He was so earnest, earnest in the way that boys were before they got dull and afraid and became men, earnest and happy and something had happened. He was in love with her, but there was a love in him that had little to do with her. She sensed this and she said, “Laurie, you have something else to tell me.”

“I do,” Laurie said, “and I have to tell it to you gently, and slowly, and explain it, and when I’ve told you, you may not want me for your man, but I still hope you will.”

Loreal looked into Laurie’s face which was the face of a killer, to be sure, and of a man with great complications, but which was shining with love for her, and she said, “I do want you to be mine. I don’t think anything’s easy with you. I don’t guess. We can talk about it all tonight, if you wish.”

Laurie nodded seriously and took her hand.

“Lynn is dead.”

“I’m sorry,” Loreal said. She was sorry. She had wanted him to stop dating her. She had not wanted the woman dead.

“Was it natural?”

She had to ask.

“Evangeline,” Laurie said. “Or one of her people.”

“Oh… No. But, they wanted her. They wanted the baby.”

“She chose not to have the baby,” Laurie said. “Once she did that….she was no good to Evangeline.”

Chose not to have the baby…

“Did you know?” Loreal asked. “Did she tell you?”

“She told me after it had been done,” Laurie said simply.

“Oh,” was all Loreal said.

Laurie said, “It is done now. “There is no need to speak of it anymore.”

Loreal was not about to.

“The others are going to see the Stausses. I’m staying behind. I feel like I could be a bit much for them.”

“Too much?” Loreal said as she sat on the bed, her legs folded under her.

“It’s enough they have one vampire,” Laurie said, as he sat beside Loreal, folding his trousered legs under him as she had done.

“I don’t think Chris said he was a vampire, and I don’t think I’m going with them to see Grandpa, or at least not for long.”

“What’s that?” Laurie raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the whole reason you came?”

“The reason we came was to find truth,” Loreal said. “It was the truth about this family, the Strausses, but what if there is a truth to be found about my own family? I’d rather not think about it now.”

“Leave it for tomorrow,” Laurie suggested.

“I will,” Loreal said. “But as sad as what happened to Lynn is, that wasn’t what you came to tell me. Now it’s time for your business. That’s going to be what we talk about tonight.”

That night there was a sharp wrap on his door, and Peter was pretty annoyed because it was much too late for company, but if company was coming, far too late for it to be so rude. Madder stuck his head out of the twin’s room, and Peter, pulling his housecoat over his pajamas, said, “Go back to bed. Dad’ll be right back up.”

The kids never crossed Dad. He didn’t have to worry about that. He came down the old wide staircase that had been his grandparents’ and before that his great grandparents’ and down to the foyer of the old house. He peered through the white door curtain and saw Myron, scowling, and he shrugged, then opened the door.

“Myre—”

Just like that Myron punched the shit out of him, and sent him skidding down the hallway, past the doorway to the living room.

Myron kicked the door closed with his foot.

“You mother—fucker.”

Peter, on the floor, rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“I feel like Marabeth is at the bottom of this.”

Myron pulled the wheel of pills out of his pocket and tossed them at his cousin.

“Marabeth,” Peter shook his head, frowning, as he got up.

“Marabeth doesn’t have shit to do with this. I didn’t learn any of this from Mara. Apparently she just found out herself. But you knew, you son of a bitch. You knew. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t fucked in the head. I was… a fucking werewolf.”

“If Marabeth didn’t tell you, then who did?”

“Is that really the most important thing?” Myron said. “Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you? You and your little vendetta with Mara, and we’re… what we are. That’s what’s important.”

Myron was furious and Madder had come down the steps. Both men stared up at him and Peter said, “Madder, what did I say?”

“Are you guys fighting?’

“No, little man,” Myron was still breathing heavily, but he had made himself smile. “Me and your old man are just… you know how it is with brothers.”

“Yeah,” Peter grinned. “Sorry we gotta little loud. Go back to bed. Love you.”

Madder nodded. “Love you dad. Love you, Uncle Myre.”

They both looked after Madder, smiling, murmuring they loved him too. But when he was gone, Myron pulled Peter by his neck, squeezing his throat. Peter had tested letting himself become the wolf, and he was the oldest in his generation, Myron had always been his goofy, affable cousin, so he had never counted on what was clear when the blue eyes were staring into him.

Myron is stronger than me.

Myron let him go.

“You want to know how I found out?”

“Yes,” Peter rasped, rubbing his throat.

“A vampire told me.”

Peter frowned at Myron.

“You’re trying to figure out if I’m fucking with you, but I’m not. There is, even now, talking with Marabeth, a witch’s coven, a real witches coven—”

“The Dunharrows.”

Myron frowned. “Well, I guess you know every fucking thing.”

“Not about the vampires,” Peter said. “Tell me about them.”

For a childish moment, Myron thought of not telling him, of saying, Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out.But Myron was not a child.

“It turns out Friederich—”

“Great- Grandfather?”

“Yes, and for fuck’s sake, quit interrupting. Friederich’s father was killed by a group of vampires, a group of vampires which I fought yesterday. Or was it the day before Nate’s funeral? Shit start’s to blur. Is all of this sounding strange to you?”

When Peter said nothing, Myron added, “And our great-great-grandmother was some German witch who helped Friederich fight off these vampires and… it gets crazier and crazier the more I say it, but I know it’s true because I’ve met them. I’ve been with them for the last two days.”

“The… vampires?”

“Yes, Asshole, the vampires!” Myron made a mad flying gesture with his hands, “Because we’re with vampires now, cause we’re werewolves, who have witch blood, though if you think about Amy, that makes a lot of fucking sense. And, and, you know who the vampire who was supposed to tell me about this is?”

“No,” Peter said. They had come into the kitchen now, and he sat at the table looking defeated.

“Dan Rawlinson.”

“Dan!” Peter looked almost disgusted. “Dan from high school?”

“Yup,” Myron said. “Dan’s a vampire.”

“Dan is the boy with the wide dark eyes and the chocolate colored hair we left Levy with,” Loreal said.

“Yeah,” said Laurie.

“The one who likes cheesecake.”

Laurie tried to stop himself from laughing, but said, “Yeah. that’s Dan.”

“He’s sweet,” Loreal decided.

“You were about to say for a vampire.”

“I was not,” Loreal said. Then, “Maybe I was.”

They were quiet for a while and Laurie said, “You haven’t told me what you think.”

“I don’t know what to think. I know the questions I’m supposed to have. I know how I’m supposed to feel, how ordinary people would feel, how an ordinary woman is supposed to feel. But I don’t know how I feel. I don’t know if the feelings matter.”

“They do matter,” Laurie insisted, “because I want us to be together.”

“But I’ve always been alone,” Loreal said. “I have. I don’t know what to do when I have someone and, I’ve never had you to myself, Laurie. You were with Lynn and now you’re with Dan—”

“I’m not withDan,” Laurie said. “It’s different. “

“I do know that,” she said. “Only, it’s just that I don’t know how it’s different.”

The silence went on. Loreal was fine with silence. She got up and went to her mini fridge. She pulled out a juice bottle and asked if he was thirsty. He kept looking at her strangely.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Lawrence. I’m glad to see you. You’ve been gone a few days and now you tell me that Vampire Dan is your lover, but that you’re more in love with me than ever, and I don’t know what you want me to say. I can tell you want me to say something. I can even guess what it is.”

She handed him the unasked for juice and he opened it.

“You want something predictable to happen. With Lynn she knew nothing. With all the other girls they knew less than nothing. With your wife, she knew the word for what you were, but not the reality of it. For me, I know everything, even this. And I could say never see him again. Never touch him again. Just be with me. Or I could tell you how much I understand this and move on.

“But you see, I’m not a jealous person, not like that. I don’t really care if you sleep with Dan. If it makes you happy, I want you to. And it seems to make you happy, and I do get that it’s a little more than that, or a lot more than that. Or I guess I’m supposed to say I fully understand that you two are not human, or not human in the same way I am, and this means something different for you than it would if you were, and I fully accept it, and please carry on, but I don’t think I would be honest if I said that.”

“Alright,” Laurie said, “Then what would you be honest in saying?”

“The truth is, I just want to have sex. I’m tired of not having sex. I’m fighting that training in me, that little Catholic girl that’s saying I won’t sleep with you until you stop sleeping with Dan. And… that’s stupid. And then there’s a part of me that feels like, I’m not going to sleep with you until I know I have someone else to sleep with, to even up the score. And that doesn’t sound right and…”

Laurie had not spoken. He also did not stare at her. He sat quietly waiting for Loreal to work out her feelings. After all, he didn’t entirely understand his own.

“It’s like,” Loreal said, “it’s like you’re telling me that when you’re with me you’re being your human self, but with Dan you are your vampire self.”

“That’s exactly it,” Laurie said, snapping his fingers. “That’s exactly it.

“You know I was with Chris, A long time ago.”

“Yes.”

“But with my wife, with Lynn, with every woman it was different. With Veronica I was the husband and the father of her children, but with Chris, I was… the blood drinker.”

“And that’s the problem,” Loreal realized.

She stood up and Laurie looked up at her.

“With all of them, even with Veronica, you were playing a part. You were supposed to be everything before me. Not everything to me, I don’t need that. But you were supposed to be your whole self, your vampire self for me. I have to have all of you. I can’t have one part of you and Dan have the other. The vampire self has to be mine.”

“I understand,” Laurie said.

He cleared his throat, and said, “Loreal, what if I told you Dan is right here, in this room with me, right now?”

Loreal only looked at him.

“What if I told you that the more we’re together, the more we become each other? That, the way you’ve seen me, happier, lighter? Younger? That’s Dan. And he is probably getting more… crabby and fussy, poor guy. We… I meant what I said. When mortals talk about two becoming one, it’s kind of bullshit. Me and Dan are…”

“I know what you’re telling me even if you don’t,” Loreal interrupted him. “I know what you’re telling me even if the part of you that you want to be separate, that is asking me to understand and not be jealous is jealous.”

When she said it, it was then that Lawrence Malone understood, and after all, it was something Chris and Lewis were already doing.

“If I am to have the whole you,” Loreal said, “I’ve got to have Dan too.”