Crave

by Karen E. Taylor

  She reached over and wiped a tear from my face. Then she held out her finger for me to see. “Do you always weep blood?”

  I looked away from her. “It means nothing.”

  “If you say so.”

  Not very subtly, I changed the subject. “Elly? Why aren’t you afraid of me? You invite me into your house, you give me wine and friendship and counsel, you even touch me. And yet you show no fear.”

  She laughed. “Life is too short for fear.”

  “For you, perhaps. But for me?”

  “For you, most especially. Now, I should leave you to get some rest.” She walked to the door, put a hand on the knob, then turned back around. “Will you be okay?”

  I shrugged. “I will be fine. So long as I do not dream.”

  “You dream too? The same dreams? Is that possible?”

  I thought. My dreams, when I did sleep, had been confusing, filled with darkness, the dirt of the grave and a struggling toward the light. And a deep hatred toward someone who betrayed me. Could this be what Mitch dreamed?

  “It is possible, I suppose, that I share his dreams.”

  “But are they his?” She moved back into the room and sat in the chair again.

  “Who else would they belong to? They certainly do not come from me.”

  “Who else indeed? I saw someone in your cards. A woman, capable of great mischief and evil, but tied to you very closely by blood. When was the last time you saw your daughter?”

  “I have no daughter. I did have a child, once, stillborn. They took it away from me before I even saw it. I was changing, then, you see. Becoming what I am now.” I shook my head. “They buried it, Elly, damn it, I saw the grave. The child was dead.”

  My hands cradled my stomach as if I could still feel the movement within, rocking back and forth on the bed. “Poor little one,” I whispered, unheeding of Elly’s presence, “you never even had a chance. How could you escape your fate, with your father dead and your mother dying? And all of us sacrificed to the blind hunger of a vampire.”

  “Deirdre?”

  I looked up at her now and saw my anguish mirrored on her face. “The child was dead, Elly,” I repeated with conviction. “Any other option is unthinkable. And impossible.”

  She said nothing.

  “I should rest now,” I said, crawling under the covers and turning my back to her. “Please go.”

  “I’m sorry, Deirdre. I didn’t know. Of course the child is dead. The woman in the cards is someone else, obviously. And they are only cards, after all; they know nothing. Sleep well, my dear.”

  Chapter 10

  The first thing I did when Elly left was to get up from the bed and lock the door. I did not want further conversation; I did not want more questions. The ones she raised were distressing enough.

  The second thing I did was relight the candles on the shelf. I made a mental note to find out from Elly what herbs she used in their making. Sam would be greatly interested. And if they could grant me a solid day’s rest, I would be grateful. I had no audience right now, no reason to be proud or strong. I wanted sleep.

  Turning out the lights, I lay in bed and watched the flames flicker in the glass cups; their reflections danced on the paneling behind the shelf. I felt the wash of unnatural calm and comfort sweep over me again and abandoned myself to the sensation. In the back of my mind, I heard a soft purring; even the Cat was quieted.

  My last thought before I drifted off was of Mitch. “Sleep well, my love,” I whispered, and reached my mind out to him, to open the link we so often shared, but felt nothing in return. Had he shut me out? Or was he sleeping and dreaming of revenge, of killing me?

  I inhaled deeply; right now, I didn’t care. I was too calm, too tired to worry or dwell on the situation. There would be time tonight to make it right. Time was the one thing we had in plenty.

  I slept straight through until dusk, a dreamless and rejuvenating sleep. I could almost feel the sun setting as I opened my eyes; the Cat stretched and yawned, testing its claws on the edges of my mind. “We’re hungry,” it protested, “and we do not like the smell of this place.”

  “I am sure you do not, my pet, but soon we will be home.” Thoughts of returning did not worry me, as they had last night. Amazing, I thought to myself, what a good day’s sleep can do for one. I looked around the room for my clothes, but realized that Elly had left them downstairs. I hoped they were dry by now.

  I opened the door to almost total darkness. The cabin had a feel of emptiness. There were no sounds, no movement and no life within, as if it had stood empty for years. I paused outside what must have been Elly’s bedroom, and peered inside. It was neat, orderly and unoccupied. When I started down the stairs, I wondered how long I’d actually slept, then laughed to myself. I might have delivered myself into the hands of a witch, but I was hardly the Sleeping Beauty type. And any Prince Charming who came to wake me up would have a definite surprise.

  “Elly?” I called out when I got to the living room, although I knew she wasn’t there. I checked all the areas of the cabin, but there was no sign of her, although she had left some herbs on the table in her workroom. Putting them to my nose, I recognized some of the scents as those she’d used in her candles. And I realized that they were picked fairly recently.

  After switching on a light in the living room, I saw that a fire had been lit, some time ago, and that my clothes were folded neatly and set on one of the chairs. I dressed by the dying flames, ran my fingers through my tangled hair, laced up my boots. Finding a scrap of paper in the kitchen, I wrote her a short note, thanking her for her hospitality. I called her name one more time with no answer, before going out the unlocked front door and closing it behind me.

  The night was clear and cold and beautiful. The Cat grew alert, waking from the stupor of the day; its senses tingled. “Let’s run,” it urged, “far and fast and wash off the scent of that place. Let’s feed. I smell blood.” I nodded; I too smelled blood. Fresh blood. I inhaled deeply and sighed. Human blood.

  We followed the scent; it led us behind Elly’s cabin and to a still, fragile form lying on the ground outside a tidy little herb garden. “Ah,” the Cat purred, “she can’t have been dead long, her blood is still fresh, we will feed well for a change.”

  “No!” I screamed it in defiance of the instinct. And with that sound, Elly moved slightly and gave a low moan of pain.

  I moved toward her. From the way her leg was twisted up underneath her, I knew that it was broken. And broken quite severely, if the smell of blood was any indication. I knelt down next to her, holding my breath, holding tight control over the Cat. “Elly?” Brushing her hair back from her face, I said her name again and her eyes opened.

  “I don’t know what happened,” she said, in a voice so soft it could have been drowned out by the rustling of leaves. “It was almost as if someone pushed me.”

  “Hush,” I said, examining her for wounds other than the leg injury. That was all there was, but it was bad enough. I poked my fingernail through the knee of her blood-soaked jeans and ripped the fabric down to the hem. Pushed her? Hell, it looked as if someone had cracked her leg wide open; shards of bone stuck out through the skin’s surface and the entire leg from knee to foot was purple. The bleeding had stopped, but not all that long ago, judging from the warm pool beneath her leg. And she was pale and shivering; she’d lost quite a lot of blood.

  “I can’t fix this, Elly. And I can’t move you, or you will start bleeding.” I brushed her face again and tried to smile, but stopped when I realized that with the scent of blood my fangs had grown. She looked at my mouth, winced and closed her eyes. “But I will get you a blanket and call an ambulance. Will you be all right here?”

  She gave a weak snort that might have been amusement, but didn’t open her eyes. “Been lying here for what feels like most of the afternoon; a few more minutes won’t kill me. But hurry.”

  It only took a few minutes to make the call and gather up some blankets from
my bed upstairs. The scent of the candles still lingered in the room and in the fabric, for which I was grateful. I had no desire to present the ambulance crew with a bloodless body to carry away.

  Elly stirred slightly as I wrapped the blankets around her. “They will be here soon.” I began to get up, but she reached up and grabbed my hand.

  “Don’t leave me, Deirdre,” she whispered. “The woods are full of evil.”

  “Hush, Elly. Don’t be silly. There is no evil in these woods. You are in shock, and it is no wonder. You have lost a great deal of blood. Your mind is wandering.”

  She gripped my hand with more strength now. “There’s nothing wrong with my mind. Just don’t leave me.”

  I sighed and sat down cross-legged next to her. “I am here.” I pulled her hand away from mine and tucked her arm back under the comforter, but left my hand on top of hers through the fabric, so she could feel my presence. “I am here, Elly. And I will stay with you until they get here.”

  “Talk to me, Deirdre. Give me something to concentrate on. I don’t want to drift away.”

  “What should I talk about?”

  “Tell me about how you became what you are.”

  I laughed in spite of the seriousness of the situation. “Very well,” I said. “That will guarantee you won’t drift away. It is not exactly a bedtime story.”

  She gave a weak smile and began to talk.

  “It was 1860. Right before the war. I was seven months pregnant and my husband and I, oh, we were so happy. We had married late, you see, and I was old to be having a first child.”

  “How old?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  Elly smiled. “That’s a magic age. And not too old for children.”

  “Not now, no. But then? Most of my friends had been married for ten years or more, with a brood of children to show for it. It was a different time.” I sighed. “As for it being a magic age, try being twenty-eight for over a century. I would give a lot to see just one gray hair in the mirror. Or just one wrinkle. But that’s not in the story.” I reached over and smoothed her hair back. “It was cold that night. Raining. We had been at his sister’s house, and decided to take the ride back regardless of the weather and the lateness of the hour. The horse took a fright, the carriage overturned, my husband died. I went into labor. And then I was rescued.” I gave a short, hard laugh. “At first I thought it was my husband, that everything would be well. But the eyes were all wrong, the hands were all wrong and I was damned forever.”

  Elly had grown quiet; her eyes were closed, but her face was still twisted in pain. “It was not his bite that turned me, you understand. I fought him, fought him hard, knowing even amidst the pain and the darkness and the death, that what he was forcing on me was wrong. Oddly enough, the fighting both saved me and doomed me. He didn’t drain me dry and leave me dead, true, but after that time his blood was in my blood, his legacy in my soul. And he abandoned me then, to find my own way.”

  Elly made no response; she had either passed out or fallen asleep. The smell of her blood filled my head; I touched my hand into the pool below her leg and brought it up to my mouth. The little bit of blood remaining was cold and sticky and coated with dirt from the ground. Still, it was blood, and human blood at that, so I licked my hand, slowly at first, savoring the taste. The Cat howled, frustrated with this half feeding. “Tonight, my pet,” I soothed it, “we will feed tonight. But not this blood.”

  I finished cleaning my hand just as the ambulance pulled up. The two medics worked quickly and efficiently, examining Elly and getting her onto a stretcher and into the back of the vehicle. They asked me questions while they worked.

  “How did this happen?” The driver’s tone was brisk and slightly accusatory.

  I wiped my hand on the side of my pants, feeling strangely guilty for what little taste of blood I’d had. “I don’t really know. She said she fell.”

  “A pretty bad break for just a fall. When did it happen?”

  I thought for a second. “Not that long ago, I would suppose. Probably an hour or two before sunset.”

  “Where were you at the time?”

  “When she fell? I was upstairs, either sleeping or dressing.”

  “Sleeping? At sunset?”

  I shrugged. “I’m a bit of a night owl, I fear. Otherwise I would have been here when she fell. Or I would have been able to prevent it.”

  “Are you next of kin by any chance?”

  I gave him a sharp glance. “No, only a neighbor. Why do you ask? Surely her injuries cannot be that serious.”

  He shook his head. “She’s lost a lot of blood and she’s unresponsive. At the very least she’ll probably need a transfusion. I was just hoping you two were related. Makes it a bit easier, is all. No problem, Elly’s well known around here; we’ll have no trouble finding a donor if we need one. Shall we go?”

  “We?” I glanced at the evening sky. I had hoped to get back to Mitch soon, but felt an obligation to make sure that Elly would be all right. Mitch would wait. “Fine.” I began to step into the back of the vehicle.

  “Why don’t you ride up front with me?” the driver asked, “and John will ride in the back.”

  “Fine,” I agreed again. I opened the door and settled into the seat.

  John sat in the back, and the driver slammed the doors and got in behind the wheel, turning on the siren and heading carefully out of the dirt road to the main highway.

  “So,” he said to me over the sound of the siren, “who are you anyway? I thought I knew everyone round here.”

  “Deirdre Griffin-Greer. I live in the cabin next to Elly’s.”

  “Oh. The new summer folk. I see.”

  “Not exactly summer folk, since we were here all last winter. But I get your point. And you?”

  “Nope. I’ve lived here all my life.”

  I laughed. “No, your name?”

  “Oh.” He blushed slightly. “Bob Stephens. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Not such pleasant circumstances, I fear. Will she be all right?”

  “Should be. She’s a strong old bird. Strange, too. Sort of our local wise woman.” He gave me a sideways glance. “Some call her a witch. Which is nonsense, of course. There’s no such thing. But she’s highly respected; folks will be real upset if something happened to her. Are you sure you don’t know how she fell?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I didn’t push her, if that’s what you are implying.”

  “Not implying anything. Just curious.”

  We pulled up at the hospital and they rushed her inside. “Stick around,” Bob said to me. “We’ll need someone to fill out forms and such.”

  I sighed. “I’m not sure how much help I will be, but I will stay. For a while.”

  Over the many years I have developed an active dislike for hospitals. For one with heightened senses, they can be agony. The sounds of pain, the smells of sickness, death and despair are overwhelming, frightening in their intensities. This place was no different from countless other hospitals I had encountered. The accumulated scents of distress and fear hung heavy in the air, making the space feel closed and entrapping.

  Still, I sat in the emergency waiting room for a while, attempting to occupy my mind with magazines and television, but the Cat was restless and so was I.

  A woman came in, cradling a small child in a blanket. “She was running,” the mother said to the nurse hurriedly, “and fell down.” She flipped the blanket back, exposing the little girl’s knee, wrapped with a red-stained towel. “She must’ve been carrying a glass of something, I guess, and it broke when she fell. There’s a huge piece still stuck in there. I couldn’t pull it out.”

  The scent of blood and panic washed through the room and I caught my breath. This was torture, for the Cat as well as for me.

  Quickly I moved out of the room and walked up to the reception desk. “Excuse me,” I said to the nurse on duty, “if there is any news of Elly, can you let me know? I’ll be right outside the doors. I r
eally need some air.”

  She looked up at me with tired eyes. “Don’t we all, honey? Go on out. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  Chapter 11

  The rain had stopped and the sky was almost clear, but it had gotten colder.

  “Think it’ll snow?”

  I turned around and saw the ambulance driver, huddled over, smoking by the outdoor ashtray.

  “Probably,” I said, walking toward him. I glanced at the sky again. “But not for a while.”

  He laughed. “You can tell?”

  I nodded. “Usually.” Then I gestured to his hand. “Would you happen to have an extra? I hate waiting and I hate hospitals.”

  “You and everyone else in the world.” He handed me a cigarette and lit it for me.

  “Thanks.”

  We stood silently for a while until he cleared his throat. “It’s Deirdre, isn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “So, Deirdre, why were you sleeping at Elly’s place instead of your own?”

  “More questions? You should be careful what you ask, Bob.”

  He shrugged. “Can’t help myself, really. Just naturally curious, I guess. You don’t have to answer, you know.”

  “But still you keep asking. The last time a man got this interested in my life . . .” My voice trailed off. I should not have come here, I thought. I should have gone home to Mitch.

  “What happened to him?”

  I laughed. “He asked so many questions that I had to marry him.”

  “Oh. A fate worse than death, then?” He was smiling at his joke.

  “Actually, Bob, that is not too terribly far from the truth.”

  He stared at me a long time. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “No. Excuse me, I should go back inside and see about Elly.”

  “Damn, I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier, I guess, and I meant to, but it slipped my mind. Elly’s fine. You could see her if you wanted, but she’s heavily sedated right now. I suspect she’ll sleep till tomorrow morning. Probably best that you come back later.”