I had a feeling that one had come from my heart and not my head. Mostly because I’d never consciously asked myself that question. But there was an urgency behind my words that I couldn’t deny and an ache in my chest that grew as I waited for her answer.
“Well…” Jacqueline’s mouth twisted as she raised her teacup and took another delicate sip. “I guess we’re going to get straight to the point.”
“I mean, what are the Rites?” Why hadn’t I thought of that question first? It sounded reasonable and not at all like I’d been obsessing over Julian and marriage. I hadn’t been obsessing, had I? My heart answered with another pang.
“That’s a bit easier to answer,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning closer.
It must look like we were two women gossiping over lunch to the outside world. If anyone actually knew…
“Several hundred years ago, vampire bloodlines were starting to die out. It was about the time that they were burning witches at the stake,” she said matter-of-factly.
I blanched, thinking of history lessons from high school. “I guess that was real.”
“Sometimes it was,” she said grimly. “But they burned as many innocent people as they did witches. After all, it was never about stopping magic. It was about control.”
“You have a point.” That had definitely been part of the history lesson.
“And then, accidentally, they found a solution to both of our species’ problems. Only the oldest and most powerful vampires could still conceive purebloods. But they pretty much all hate each other. I mean, who can blame them? I don’t think any couple would want to fuck after thousands of years.”
“I don’t know about that.” I blushed as soon as I said it.
Jacqueline’s wide smile nearly blinded me. “You’re young.”
“They sound like the Greek gods.”
“Where do you think humans came up with that?” Jacqueline asked. I started to laugh until I saw the seriousness on her face. “Humans want to control what the world believes. Vampires decided to stop fighting them on that a long time ago. Witches, too. It was safer for all of us. So now our histories have been rewritten into myths and legends.”
“That sucks.”
But she only shrugged. “It did, at first. But it was easier than choosing between massacring a mob of ignorant humans or being massacred by them. Contrary to what some vampires claim, most of us have a conscience.”
“Most?” I couldn’t help noticing her careful choice of words.
“Not everyone is happy with changes in recent centuries,” she said darkly.
“Okay, so what does that have to do with the Rites?” I felt like I was sitting in Vampire 101. There was so much to learn. Not just about how things functioned in their world, but why.
“Sorry. My mind hops about.” She tapped her temple. “There’s a lot to keep straight, and I’d forgotten half my life.”
“So have I,” I said before realizing how ridiculous that sounded. I’d forgotten snatches of twenty-two years. She must have lost decades.
“There’s a whole debate as to whether vampires or witches came first and who had magic first. There were all different kinds of magic back then, but only very powerful vampires had much magic. So witches liked to say they were the only ones with true magic and that they created vampires. And vampires like to say they’re older than witches, and if witches were so powerful, they could live longer. Nobody’s really sure who’s right, but you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Like the chicken or the egg debate?”
“Exactly,” she said brightly. “So witches didn’t trust us, and we didn’t trust them. There were lots of curses and secret alliances. This was all happening when Julian and I were very young, so we didn’t know much about it. And things got out of hand. I mean, for an entire century, witches cursed vampires to burn in sunlight.”
“Oh! So that one is true!”
“In a way. Thankfully, we got that reversed.” She paused as the server appeared to ask if we needed anything else. Jacqueline ordered a fresh pot of tea and continued, “Long story short, something backfired or a witch betrayed their people–because magic was put to sleep.”
“Put to sleep?” I had no clue what that meant, but it didn’t sound good.
“It’s still there in the blood–true magic–but they can’t use it. They can cast family magic. Use potions,” she explained when she saw my face. “Nothing like they used to do. But the vampires paid the price as well. Our own magic diminished. We’ve always depended on the magic we gathered when we fed.”
“On witches?”
“All mortals have some magic in them. Some cultures call it the life force or the soul or whatever,” she clarified for me. “But once magic went to sleep, we found our own powers diminishing. Suddenly, it was harder to conceive new vampires, so more vampires were made, turned from humans. But these made vampires rarely–if ever–conceived new vampires. So to grow our families we had to turn people, and the more people we turned, the fewer humans there were. Until, for a while, there was less blood and a lot more vampires. And the new vampires didn’t always understand the old traditions–or the rules. Witches were not happy about that.”
“But something changed. Vampires and witches don’t hate each other anymore,” I pointed out.
She snorted. “There’s still plenty of hate. We marry each other as a matter of survival. You see, familiars needed vampires to hide them and protect them. Vampires discovered that witch blood made them more powerful. But more importantly, they discovered a female familiar can carry a vampire’s baby. And a female vampire can carry a male familiar’s child. Only the oldest vampire females can have children with another vampire. But a familiar can conceive or impregnate. So we were keeping each other alive. Literally. A deal was struck, and everyone agreed that the two species would come together for a social season every couple of hundred years. Vampires already host these all the time. Every fifty years, it’s just nonstop balls and dinners and orgies.”
I swallowed a laugh at her obvious annoyance, especially since fifty years seemed like more than enough time to keep them from getting stale…
“Eventually, familiars began to care more about matching their children with the most powerful vampire families for reasons other than protection,” she continued. “The better the match was, the more power or money or status came with it.”
“So why are witches called familiars?” That bit still eluded me.
“It was a subtle insult–part of the agreement. To receive vampire protection, witches became their familiars. Before magic went to sleep, witches could cast spells, and a spirit would appear to them in some form–a familiar. Their familiar would serve them in some way. Witches used to claim that they created vampires to be familiars and lost control of them.”
“Did they?” I asked.
Jacqueline’s blonde waves rippled over her shoulders as she shook her head. “No clue. Chicken or egg again. But calling them familiars reminded them that they were indebted to vampires for their survival.”
“Weren’t vampires in their debt, too?”
“Of course,” she admitted, “but we were in the position of greater power. We had the money and resources to fade into the shadows while the humans hunted both our kinds. Witches needed us. It’s worked out better than imagined until recently.”
