I chuckled. So that’s what they were calling it these days. A drink? The poor thing had no clue that I could read her every nefarious thought. “I’d love to.”

***

I stood under the spray of the shower with the water as hot as it would go and let it wash the signs of my depraved night away. I’d had a brief moment with Anna where the urge to show her what I was was so tempting, her blood calling to me so loudly, that it was a miracle that I was able to leave her alive and very well satisfied. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for me. None of the women ever slaked the need that rode me. And as for alive…well, I hadn’t been for more years than I cared to count. Though…there had been a time when she’d given me back some semblance of my life.

I threw on my navy robe and poured some leftover deer blood, heated it up, and sat at my piano. The same damn thing I’d done last night and the night before and countless other nights. My fingers automatically played her song. Each note shredding through my dead heart more effectively than any vampire ever could.

A trick of the light showed a face in the lacquer of my piano startling me so that I faltered mid way through the song I knew so well. I picked up where I left off after quietly listening for signs of an intruder. For one hopeful second, I thought maybe my family had decided to ignore my wishes and decided to visit me, but I’d burned that bridge long ago.

“Edward.”

My head snapped up and my mother’s face was reflected in the window across the room. Her long bronze hair flowed around her as though the wind had caught it and her emerald eyes sparkled like the most perfect jewels as she stepped out of the window and floated to the middle of the room.

I’d snapped. Too long by myself brooding and my mind had finally snapped.

“Oh my dear, dear boy. What have you done?”

I shook my head and closed my eyes and began playing. Playing to drown out the familiar notes of her comforting voice and the Christmas carols that droned on and on endlessly in the surrounding apartments.

“You always did play beautifully, my boy,” she whispered against my ear.

“What is this? You’re…dead.”

She nodded looking so sad. “I am.” She reached out and skimmed my cheek with her weightless, insubstantial hand. I hadn’t expected to feel anything, but there was an almost imperceptible tingle where she’d grazed me. “Edward, you must listen to me. You’re wasting the life I gave to you.”

She fluttered away, her gaze taking in all the charcoal sketches of my vampire family and one human. “You had so much and you’ve turned your back on it. On all of them.” When she turned back to face me she looked the way she had on her death bed as she used up the last of her strength to take care of me.

I gasped at her withered form growing older and nearer to death with each passing second.

“You must right the wrongs, Edward.”

I shook my head knowing how futile it would be. She had moved on with her life just like I’d told her to and I’d hurt my vampire family too badly to ever hope that they could forgive me. “There’s no going back,” I mumbled pressure building in my chest from the overwhelming emotions the conversation was dredging up.

“To help you see what is so plain to see, three ghosts will be visiting you this night. Listen to them, my boy. Heed them well.” She kissed me gently on the cheek. “You will regret it for all eternity, otherwise.”

And as quickly as she’d appeared, she vanished leaving me standing in the middle of my barely furnished living room wondering what the hell had just happened.