Resurrected

by Kim Faulks

  My head dropped, but it wasn’t in acknowledgement. I clenched my jaw, trying my best to still the god-awful gnashing of my teeth. A breeze kicked up the fallen leaves on the ground, but all I could smell was the biting scent of alcohol and the sickening stench of disease.

  The tiny red sensor above our heads flared and the automatic doors opened. Kol’s voice was flat, lifeless, unable to hide his own disbelief. “Say the word and we’ll go home. We’ll figure out another way, a better way to test this…gift of yours.”

  Gift. He may as well have spat the words. No matter how hard he tried, I could hear the doubt. I could see the conflict in his hunched shoulders and shattered gaze. He’d barely looked at me. One minute he was ready to stand by my side and the next he was backing away.

  And still, this unrelenting call inside urged me forward. I couldn’t save my own mom. But maybe…maybe I could save another? I took a step toward my own reflection, ready to meet it head on as the glass doors shuddered and slid open. “No. I’m ready.”

  Footsteps echoed in my wake. Kol’s presence was more comforting than anything he might say. Red and blue lights illuminated the way to the ER. I side-stepped doctors barking orders and stared into the packed waiting room. The redolence of death lingered in this place, somewhere under the sharp sting of disinfectant and bitter scent of fear.

  I knew the stench well.

  A hand brushed my back. A tender touch. “You okay?”

  The doors to the waiting room swung shut. I nodded and kept on moving, passing the crammed hallways and tired nurses toward the rear of the building. Double doors barricaded the way, Hematology and Oncology on the left, Albany Street on the right.

  Even after all these years, my reflexes took over. An ache speared through my chest. If I closed my eyes I could almost hear her.

  Last one, pip squeak… last one, and we’re home free. I’ll be better before you know it. We can go on a holiday, how would you like that? Her words turned warped and strange. Be careful out there, Nova…monsters are real and you’re the worst kind.

  “Hey, you okay?” Kol touched my shoulder. “I lost you there.”

  I turned my head and forced a smile. “I’m fine. It’s just this place.”

  “Oh, shit…Nova—” His arms snuck around me, pulling me against his chest. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “It’s okay. This is why I’m here, right?” I mumbled, burying my face into his neck. “This has to be worth it.”

  His fingers tangled in my hair, molding me around him. “We can leave. We can turn right around and never come back. Just say the word.”

  I shook my head and pulled away. “I’m doing this, Kol. No matter how much it hurts.”

  Albany Street waited. I shrugged from his hold and grasped cold metal. The latch sprang free. The door scraped, shoving outward. A brutal gust whipped hair into my eyes. Behind the blur, white lights lit the walkway all the way to the end, reaching the building across the road. Lights lit up the helipad as I took a step toward it, then I stopped to confront Kol.

  “Something happened to you, today, something you won’t talk about.” I dropped my gaze and stared at my feet. “You’re scared, and I get that. Believe me, I get that. I don't know what’s going to happen, not in an hour, not in a day. So, this is me giving you an out. No tears, no break downs. Just me loving you for everything you’ve done, and understanding that no matter how sweet the ride was, that ultimately it’s over. This is the best I can do, Kol. So take it.”

  “That’s not fair.” His deep voice broke. “You think I’m that shallow? That when things get tough, that I’m the kind of man who just walks away?”

  I didn’t want to look at him, couldn’t stand to see the hurt. “None of this is fair. Not for me, and not for you. You didn’t sign up for any of this…But it doesn’t have to be a life sentence, not for you. I love you. I love you for saving me, for trying your best to protect me. And somewhere deep down I love you for turning me into…this.”

  I raised my head and held his gaze. His head whipped back and forth, as though he could shake off my words.

  Pain shattered my chest. I followed the splinter, like the shatter lines on fractured glass. I inhaled hard, holding the shards together. Just a little while longer. Just a little… “But it’s time to let me go. It’s time for me to figure this out on my own.”

  “Never,” he growled.

  I took a step, head down, bracing for the impact as I left him behind. I never stopped, never turned. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other while inside the glass shards crumbled and fell.

  The world around me glowed red. I blinked away bloody tears, and hunched my shoulders. There were no steps echoing behind to comfort me. Only the wind screamed his name.

  I slowed at the end and turned, making my way down to the helipad. The spotlights overhead lit up the asphalt. I hugged the shadows to the empty car park and stopped.

  Windows were alight on the second floor, everything else was dark, the workers already gone home. A shadow passed behind horizontal blinds before moving back. I scanned the rest of the building and then the empty car park. An industrial bin sat outside a set of double doors. That had to be my way inside.

  I made for the edge and gripped the handle. Tortured wheels squealed as the metal container rolled forward. I tried the lock, then bore down. Vampire strength was no match for the metal. The cylinder snapped with a clunk. I speared my fingers into the jamb and yanked the door open. The green exit lights above the door colored my feet with a ghostly hue, giving me little to go on.

  I turned my head, taking one last look at the empty car spaces behind me and slipped inside the vacant building. A light glowed somewhere under the reception desk. I turned left and started down the hallway. A wooden cross hung off-center along the corridor.

  The need rose to touch it—to right a wrong—but it wasn’t this wrong I wanted to right. The pungent scent of alcohol drifted from the end of the hall. Fear scraped along my spine, and doubt invaded my thoughts like a sickness. A low creak behind me stilled my steps. I spun, scanning the darkness and stared through to the front of the building and the wide glass windows. An oak leaf hit the glass and stuck, like a palm print in the dark.

  No. Stop. This was wrong. Hadn’t these people been through enough?

  But what if this wasn’t the end?

  What if they had another chance?

  Would I want that for Mom? Wouldn’t it be worth the risk to try?

  I closed my eyes, resurrecting the alley where I brought the boy back to life. I thought that spark inside me was something special…hope, life maybe. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

  “Yes you are special, Nova.”

  I spun at the sound of Kol’s voice. My chest tightened and twisted as he stepped out from the shadows.

  “Did you really think I’d leave?”

  A wild sob broke free from my chest. I shook my head and stumbled, slamming into him. His arms were around me, holding me tight.

  “I know you thought you were saving me, but we’re a team. We do this together, we’re stronger together. I don’t want an out, as you put it. I don’t want anything but to be with you. No matter the cost.”

  His hands slid to my shoulders, pushing me away far enough to hold my gaze. “If you’re ready to do this, then let’s do it.”

  Sobs caught like a lump in my throat. I tried to swallow, forcing the ache into my stomach, and nodded.

  “You are mine, Nova. There’s not a damn prophecy in the world that can ever change that. Besides, there’s the whole bonded love thing and if you haven’t worked this out yet, vampires are very territorial.”

  A bark of laughter tore from my lips. “Yeah, kind of had that impression.”

  His fingers trailed down my arm to capture my hand, His voice a growl in my ear. “Then are you ready to find out just how powerful you are?”

  The answer echoed like the beat of my lifeless heart. “Yes.”

  Low light hug
ged the hard line of his jaw as he craned his head. The brush of his lips was sweet, comforting. In him I found my center…my strength. I found answers to questions I never knew existed, and somewhere in the empty corners of my mind the spark glowed, shining brighter than it ever had before.

  I followed him to the end of the hall and the morgue. He dropped my hand. A loud snap and the door swung free. Sterile air swallowed me with a rush. A sour taste filled my mouth. I dragged each step as the emptiness hit me like a fist. Kol was a blur, leaving my side for a second before the light buzzed, flooding the room with white.

  Long stainless steel shelves covered the walls from top to bottom running left to right. Yellow plastic bags crammed the spaces. I stared around the room, finding myself drawn back to the bulges under the coverings, mapping the valleys of feet, then legs and thighs, torsos and heads.

  “Not what you expected?”

  I shook my head and tried to speak, but there were no words, not for something this—real.

  “We’re not here for us, remember? When we meet our final death there’ll be no morgue, there’ll be nothing but ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

  I tried to nod, tried to shove the fear from my mind as Kol walked along the rows of bodies, picking up clipboards at the end of the body and read.

  “Nicolas Fraser, twenty-eight, looks like a drug overdose.”

  The words came out husky and worn. “No, not him.”

  “Marie Livingsworth, eighty-nine. Died of complications in surgery.”

  I shook my head.

  “Sarah Surle. Thirty-eight years old…died of leukemia.”

  I jerked my head up. “Does it say if she has children?” Had…had children.

  Kol flipped through the pages. “No. But she’s married. Wait a moment.”

  He placed the clipboard down and took a step closer to the metal table. I turned back to the thin body in front of me, until plastic rustled, then tore in one long strip.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  He raised his hand and pointed at the woman’s abdomen. “She has a caesarean scar, so there’s a good chance.”

  Grey skin sagged around her bones. I shuffled closer as he revealed her sunken stomach and flattened breasts. Her hair stuck to the sides of her face, caught up in the curled ends of the plastic.

  My damn fingers trembled as I caught a curl and pulled the strands free. I wanted to shake her, to whisper it was all okay, and any minute she’d climb from this cold steel and walk out the door—but what if I couldn’t bring her back? What if the alley had been a one-time thing, and deep down I was nothing more than a vampire who now fed on other vampires?

  What if I had no real powers, but instead was just a burden?

  A burden on Kol.

  “You ready for this?”

  No. “Yes.”

  He captured my hand and brought it to his face, forcing me to turn. “You can do this. You can give this woman another chance at life. You can give her back to her family. That’s what this power is all about, right? Family?”

  Mom smiled inside my head, nodding as the wind slapped sand against her feet.

  Family.

  The ache in my chest was enough to crack ribs. I bowed, grasping the edge of the stainless steel shelving. There was a freckle above the bloodless slash of her mouth. A beauty mark just above the crest of her top lip, in line with the edge of her nose.

  Just like Mom. I closed my eyes and remembered my little fingers touching her nose, applying a thick smear of sky blue eye shadow to her lids as we played dress up. She was always so beautiful to me, always so…alive.

  I love you, pipsqueak.

  Those words rocked me, tearing away the stranglehold of doubt. I’d known love…real unshakable love. I opened my eyes and turned my head, finding the same reflection in the crystal blue of his gaze. Mom and Kol. Those were my two chances at happiness and I was okay with that. I swallowed that thought as though this was my moment after all these years to finally let her go.

  But if I had the chance. If I had the ability to bring her back…to play dress up and laugh and touch that mark on her face once more. I’d do anything. I’d move mountains. I’d touch the sun.

  Hope sprang eternal, flooding me with warmth.

  Tendrils of power raced, filling me like the breath of life. Kol exhaled on a shudder, taking a step backwards. My focus was all on her. Her button nose was small for her face. I bet her son, or daughter had that nose. I bet he or she looked just like her.

  “Sarah, right?”

  Kol muttered in acknowledgement, but I needed no answer. I needed nothing but that radiant sparkle. Energy coursed through my body. I hooked the edge of the plastic with my thumb and shoved the rest of the bag aside. Scars marred her body. Thick, raised scars of old. I trailed the map of her life.

  She wasn’t just a body waiting for burial. She wasn’t shattered or broken. She was a wife, a mother, a breathtaking mosaic of scars from all the battles she’d won—I brushed my finger across the bone marrow transplant mark at her hip—and even the ones she’d lost.

  The metal shelving above shuddered. The yellow plastic crackled and shook, but I was caught in the path of the sun, swept away by pull of the star. That spark inside called, shoving aside everything else in the room. All that mattered was Sarah.

  I bet she was a good mom, a caring mom. I skimmed her arm, grasping her hand. Her nails were short, brittle, crusted flakes of pink polish caught in the edges. I shuddered, just like the plastic above, and—I turned, watching the shelves to the right tremble.

  A boom shattered the silence. I spun, staring at Kol backed up against the wall. He was pale, more pale than any undead should be. His hands splayed against the steel wall, eyes wide—staring at me. The blast came again, sending a tremor through my hands. “There’s something wrong.”

  Agony rammed a spike through my chest, razors tore through my veins…my arms. I raised my hand, purple veins lay lifeless under my skin. The thunder came once more, tearing through my chest. Almost like a—

  I dug my fingers under my shirt, grinding against bone. Under the flesh, inside the barren space, something pulsed to life, like an engine trying to catch.

  Lub…Lub…Lub.

  Images rushed to the surface, a collage of happy memories spread out like a photo album…a man and a woman kissed, overshadowed by the Eiffel Tower. Birthdays, so many birthdays, cakes crammed with candles, ice cream alight with sparklers, presents, wrapped, paper discarded, Christmas, Thanksgiving, stuffed turkeys, the snow. But mostly it was the two of them hugging, laughing, until her belly swelled. The images kept coming, and with each barrage that lifeless muscle inside my chest pumped blue blood through my veins.

  A sound filled the room, like the gnashing of tired old bones. Tearing me from the smiling woman with her stomach full of life. I inhaled hard, holding onto her hand. The button of my jeans tapped against the steel shelf, keeping time with the irritating chatter.

  I worked my tongue and flinched. “Oww.”

  The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. My teeth carved through tender flesh. I opened my mouth ending the chatter. My heart tightened, clenched. The sun. Fresh blood flooded my veins with the warmth of life.

  I gripped her hand, squeezing the bones. Heat radiated, flooding me with brilliance. This woman was there, hiding just under the surface, ready…she was so ready.

  Cascading images rushed, cramming the edges of my mind as though there wasn’t enough time. As though I had to know her, as though I needed to understand how much she was loved and how much she was needed.

  Her swollen stomach became bigger. Hands molded over the crest, faces filled with love and wonder squeezed in. A hospital, hair covered by a thin green cap, hands holding. A wheeled ride on a gurney, one last kiss. Then smiles. A tiny baby, bloodied, held by a nurse, raised in the air.

  A baby.

  Smiling eyes, tired eyes. This woman…Sarah. She looked worn. Dark circles surrounded her eyes. The spark wa
s there…the sun just under the surface.

  I focused on each sluggish beat, pouring love and warmth into the space, creating a closed circuit…infusing life with life. And slowly, something happened. One beat resurrected another, catching and falling inside me like an echo.

  Lub…lub…lub dub…

  I exhaled and shuddered…cold…I was so cold. Gravity pulled me deeper and the star slowly brightened to a sun…power rippled through the empty space where my soul came to rest.

  Lub dub…lub dub…lub dub…

  My fangs lengthened, pushing against the inside of my mouth. I gripped her hand as a tremor broke through, and at the crest of the beat I focused on her, I filled her, saturating her heart while the images slowed.

  Her baby a little bigger now, but Sarah’s sunken, tired eyes remained. Another woman took her place. I could see the closeness, the same button nose, the same brown colored hair. This woman held Sarah’s baby, pink ribbons and an array of stuffed toys occupied Sarah’s memories.

  More hospital images.

  But there were no smiles. No happiness.

  Only fear.

  Only death.

  Lub dub…lub dub…lub dub…

  The last image filled my mind.

  A cold day. A dark day. Eyes filled with tears crowding her bed, holding onto her hand…the same hand I held now. Her baby now a little girl…sitting on the bed, holding Barbie pink nail polish…the stroke of a child’s hand smothering Sarah’s nails.

  The crusted pink polish blurred under my gaze.

  The image was so fresh it could’ve been yesterday. My chest tightened. I raised my gaze, staring at the blurred writing on the clipboard in front of me…the date.

  The date.

  Yesterday.

  Her hand clenched, fingers slipped between my own. Dawn broke along her skin, casting aside the night in her world. Her pale lips blushed, and then parted. I clenched her fingers back as her lashes trembled, then slowly opened.

  Opaque eyes blinked, the surface cleared, cocoa irises stared straight ahead.

  “Jesus. Jesus,” Kol cried.

  I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. I was needed here.

  Her skin glowed, her nipples puckered under the cold. Sarah turned her head. Her matted hair falling as she focused on me.