The Promise

Far from the smoky bar, far from the press of flesh upon flesh, Christine followed Isabel into the graveyard down at the end of town, a small town named Decorah firmly stamped in the state of Iowa. The iron-wrought gate opened, its metal cold and wet with dew. Had Isabel not opened it, Christine thought. Or was she more ghost than mortal, and did she walk through it without a care?

Just ahead where the streetlights fell into a zone of shadows that muffled the light's glare, Isabel turned. "Coming, Christine?" she asked, hands held out as if to ask, well? Isabel had out done herself tonight. Dressed to kill. From her heels to her cringey leather pants, to the half-cut t-shirt blazoned with a bloody rose. Talking about bruising an archetype. But who would blame her? Surely not the dead. She absently combed her dark nails through her raven-black hair, cascading it over her shoulders in the moonlight. Hell no. That was part of the calculation. Become the expectation. The tactic had worked well so far across the small college towns of America. Why stop here? Especially since they were so close to the promise.

"Coming," Christine murmured, wiping her wet hands on her jeans. She wouldn't be here if it weren't for the looming deadline of her creative writing assignment. Write a freaking story that seems to borrow its theme and energy from the Dark Romantics. What did she know about those guys? Christine was raised in a strict home that frowned upon fiction. If Sandra Evans, her mom, knew what class she was taking, well, it would be hello to waitressing for the rest of her life. "Not gonna pay good money for trash classes," Sandra often said every year. "Pre-law is your destiny or else."

"What?" Isabel asked as Christine came closer. "Not dark enough for you?" She smiled, a behavior humans prized above frowning. "You promised, remember? Or are you a going to back out now?"

"Not gonna," Christine said, trying not to let the broken tombstones chill her. Yes, corpses, or what was left of them, rested below her feet. But that wasn't going to deter her from finishing her assignment. So far Isabel had been the type of woman Christine sought out. Wise. Experienced. Visually dark. The woman had Christine's assignment in her blood. And how they met casually at the local hotel bar was the perfect beginning. Now all she needed was a climax and a freaking conclusion.

Isabel nodded, took Christine by the hand with hands that felt cold to the eighteen-year-old, and walked her to the shadows of a large oak. Isabel was packing her dagger, so getting the chick's blood to the surface of her arms wasn't going to be a chore, and Isabel wouldn't even have to bear her pointy teeth. Hell no. You scare off meals like that. Vampires were all over social media, and some of them, to Isabel's surprise, were quite real.

"OK," Isabel said in the shadows, "your promised, and here we are."

"Yep," Christine said, smiling nervously.

"Ever made a pact before," Isabel asked, unsheathing her dagger. It caught the moonlight, glimmered, winked.

"Nope," Christine said, bearing her left arm to Isabel.

"Never even cut yourself?" Isabel took Christine's arm, stroked it to ease the girl, but it only made her shiver.

"Not at all. Look, maybe this isn't such a good idea. I mean, I can't afford to go the hospital." Christine pulled slightly, but quicker than the eye could follow, Isabel slit Christine's skin. Blood began to well, winking in the moonlight.

Isabel bent over the slit. It wasn't that bad. The girl was just a bleeder. And like she promised, Isabel licked the blood from Christine's arm, and then with a slow kiss, gently sucked at the wound, slight as it was.

Christine shivered in the morning haze of Decorah's graveyard, the oak sprawling above her, limbs outstretched as if in prayer. She was cold, and it was morning. The two ideas clashed in her. And then she remembered the bar, Isabel, and the promise. Got to get back to the dorm. Get some coffee. Have a cinnamon roll. Rubbing the slit on her arm, she squinted at it. Almost healed, like nothing had happened. And nothing had happened, Christine reminded herself.

Nothing whatsoever.