Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

away at a big, beautiful wedding? Damn your stupidity. I hate that you make me think of this now.”
    “Why? Why can’t you at least think of it?”
    “Why? Why? What is it I do?” she asked, more of herself than of me. She rose and went to my bedroom window to look out for a moment. I thought she wasn’tgoing to say anything else. “I’ll tell you what I do and what you will do,” she said with her back still to me. “I make Daddy happy.
    “I keep Daddy alive.
    “I ensure my own survival and my own happiness and pleasure.
    “I participate and will continue to participate in the most exciting adventures and travel and see things few young women my age see and always in the most luxurious style.
    “I serve lustful, arrogant men a platter of just deserts.
    “I grow more beautiful every day, and that beauty gives me more power.
    “What is it I don’t do?” she continued, now turning to me. “You may have noticed, Lorelei. I don’t have or make any lasting friendships.
    “I don’t think of a career for myself or think about the future much beyond tomorrow.
    “And yes, Lorelei,” she added, “I don’t fall in love with anyone. And all this is and will be true for you as well.”
    “But shouldn’t we be sad about that?” I asked softly. Even during these past few weeks, I had never heard her sound so intense, so revealing about her own thoughts and feelings.
    “Sad about it? Ha,” she said. “You make me laugh. Like we have the privilege of being sad, ever.”
    “How can sadness be a privilege?”
    “It leads to other things, things that will be very destructive.”
    “I thought Daddy was in love once.”
    “Yes, and what did it bring him?” She thought a moment and shrugged. “Actually, I thought about these things, too. I once asked Mrs. Fennel about love.”
    “What did she say?”
    “‘Love,’ she said, ‘is an unnatural attachment to another living thing. It’s the root cause of most personal problems people have. From this egg is hatched jealousy, which you will learn is the green-eyed monster that mocks the meat it feeds upon.
    “‘Also hatched from this egg are unrelenting passion and a drive toward possession. Men and women of high intelligence will do the most foolish things in pursuit of passion. Because their passion is so all-consuming, they will want to possess the object of that passion. It will drive them to sell out their own family, their own children, in fact, and it will motivate them to steal and to kill, to lie and deceive, to connive and reject their other basic needs.
    “‘Love, in short, is the most dangerous emotion humans can experience. But,’ our Mrs. Fennel added, offering me one of her infrequent slight smiles, ‘you will use it as a fisherman uses his bait.’ That’s exactly what she said, and as you can see, I not only never forgot it, I memorized every word.”
    “How did that make you feel?” I asked, and held my breath. Would she keep talking, keep telling me these most intimate things about herself?
    “I remember I didn’t understand most of it at the time, but I did understand enough of it to feel sad. It did sound as if the world was a treacherous and unmerciful place. Flowers, blue skies, lakes, and mountains, as wellas beautiful birds, were then all deceptions. To survive in such a place, one had to be good at being false.”
    “Be good at lying?”
    “Exactly. I asked Mrs. Fennel about that, too, and she said truth was quicksand. Once you step into it, you have to stay with it, and it will bring you down. ‘If you’re honest, you’re naked,’ she added, and laughed. Yes, our Mrs. Fennel actually laughed.
    “As you can imagine, as you know from your own experiences out there, this wasn’t exactly what everything and everyone else would preach to me.
    “Maybe I thought I was being cute or smart, but I asked her about all those romantic greeting cards lovers sent each other. ‘Postcards from Satan,’ Mrs. Fennel said. ‘Touch them. They’re still hot.’
    “The next day, I went to a greeting-card store and felt them. They did feel hot. Power of suggestion or some truth only our kind could know? That wasn’t hard to believe. After all, what was the primary thing I had been taught about myself and the primary thing you’re being taught about yourself?”
    “What?”
    “What? That you’re special, of course. There are only a few selected to be what we are, Lorelei.”
    I didn’t feel special, not in the way she