He dropped his eyes, and she was glad he hadn’t given her a glib and easy answer, glad that he appeared to understand that she meant the question in a deeper way. She didn’t want to hear that he did it because they were friends. Or because he felt responsible for her and anything that happened. He wasn’t her father. He wasn’t even a friend in the way that Mark had become a friend, brotherly and concerned. There had to be something more. He had to be something more.
He raised his eyes to hers. “I love you, Promise,” he said.
She was surprised by a sudden flare of anger, and she looked away from him. Isn’t this the answer she’d needed? Isn’t this what she’d wanted to hear?
“Promise?” he said. His tone was cautious, as though he was afraid of her volatility, as though she were unstable, and that made her even angrier.
She shook her head without looking at him, and annoyance made her hands twitch on Ash’s rein. He snorted and bent an ear back toward her, and she patted his neck. Then she sighed. “I don’t understand you, Peter.” It was so basic, so fundamental…she didn’t understand him. All the confusion between them seemed to stem from that one, sad, maddening fact.
He was silent for a long time, and she felt her eyes wanting to close again. Then he spoke.
“I don’t understand me, either. Not since, really not since the plague and the night I lost Trish and the baby. The grief I had–still have–over losing them overwhelmed me, but the disease, well, in a way, it was even worse than losing them. Because it changed me. It has changed my…” he trailed off. Promise felt a pull at the misery in his voice, but she kept her gaze forward. He continued. “It changed my humanity. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s not just that I don’t feel like myself, it’s that I don’t feel human. Promise, most of the time now, I feel like a monster.”
She finally looked at him, and his eyes were on hers, and deep down, she saw the fiery glow associated with the vampires. What was it like? That torment? That burning? It must be a living hell.
“Peter,” she said, “I’m sorry if I–”
“No,” he said, and his voice was harsh. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I was attracted to you the minute we met; when I saw you walk past leading Ash, I felt drawn to you. But then as I got to know you and saw how brave and smart and determined you are, how much you’ve risked for your brother, then I started to love you. But things kept happening, things that stopped me from letting me move forward in my feelings for you and how–how I would have liked to express them. Especially after the base.” He stopped, and now his eyes had grown distant and thoughtful. “Way back in the beginning, when things were complicated but not yet as complicated as they’d become, we said we’d be friends. Do you remember that, Promise?”
For a second, she misheard him, thought he meant that they’d made that as a promise to each other. Then she understood he was addressing her. She nodded, unable to look away from him. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and her face felt warmer…was she blushing?
“I think we have this one last chance, this one last thing to do, and then we can…” He trailed off again, and this time was silent for so long that Promise thought he had finished speaking. She waited, anyway, patiently listening to the wind shuffle the tops of the trees way, way over their heads. It was a lonely sound, but she didn’t feel lonely right now.
“When I’m normal again, really myself, and you’ve got Chance back, then it can, then we can see what we have between us. I know it will be something good, something amazing, but we have to wait,” he said and took a breath. “Can we do that, Promise? Can we wait just a little bit longer to see…?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice. He was right. Nothing was easy, but maybe, just maybe, some things were worth it.
Like finding Chance.
Like finding love.
Promise found the stream, and by just after three, they were at the downed tree where she and Chance used to play. Colored by her new melancholy, even this spot looked sadly abandoned. In the summers, these woods teemed with life, and the cacophony of that life’s noise was nearly deafening at times. But now all was silent, save the wind, and even that seemed to be keeping its distance as it tumbled along the tops of the trees.
Promise dismounted slowly, not wanting to rush, not wanting to hope. But she did hope; she longed to find Chance curled up in that cave created by the canopy of roots, dirt and the accumulated leaves of countless seasons, safe from the sun and waiting for her to find him.
And what would she do if she found him there? She touched the vial under her coat. There was a fresh needle rolled in the cloth with it. But now she felt uncertain again, and she cursed her uncertainty. Shot or no shot? Would it cure him or make him even worse? Might it kill him?
She swallowed and leaned back against Ash. He cocked an ear toward her, then turned his big head to nudge her shoulder. ‘Get on with it,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘You don’t even know if he’s in there or not.’
“You’re right,” she said, whispering and pressing her face to his neck. “Smart horse.” Then she straightened and looked at Peter who had dismounted from Snow.
“Want me to check?” he asked. He dropped Snow’s rein to the ground. “See if he’s–”
She shook her head, and as she did, a hard wind blew down the streambed, roaring hollowly as it pushed a fall of dead leaves before it. She covered her face against the wind, surprised by its ferocity. It felt like a bad omen.
Once it died away, she looked to the cave again. It was eight feet or more at the top of the disc of shattered and reaching roots. The tree itself had stood against a declivity that further hollowed the space beneath it, strengthening the illusion of a cave. It was, in fact, only about five feet in at its deepest point, but that was deep enough to hide a nine-year-old. The plant life at its sides and top had grown up and over it, creating the ‘cave’ mouth. Promise kneeled at the outermost edge, her knees sinking in the loam of countless seasons of leaves. Her breath hitched in her throat. “Chance?” she said, and it was barely a whisper. She swallowed and leaned further into the opening, her hand gripping a thick, protruding root. “Chance? Are you in there? It’s me, Destiny.” She used the family name that would trigger her more surely in his mind.
She thought she heard a mewling, a lost kitten sound, from within the opening, and she leaned in even further, adjusting her grip on the root. “Chance? Is that you, honey?”
“Promise,” Peter said. She jumped a little because he was right behind her, much closer than she’d expected. A shattering of soil rained down where she’d twisted the root in her hand.
“I hear him,” she said, excitement slipping into her whisper. “Did you hear it?”
Peter nodded, but his eyes were troubled. “I want you to let me look. Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” Impatience and pain flared across her voice, and he laid a hand on her back.
“Just in case this doesn’t go the way you want it to.”
His eyes were steady on hers, and there was only a hint of that desperate fire deep in his irises. He was very calm, almost all the way himself. And he was right. She nodded and backed away, sending small cascades of dirt falling into the opening.
He reached in first, feeling around with his long arms. He glanced back at her. “It seems empty.” Then he brought his legs around so he was more or less sitting on the edge. He glanced at her once more and smiled. Then he lifted himself down and into the dank opening.
She drew in a long, shaky breath, but he was out again before she had exhaled. He had a streak of muck across his forehead, and his eyes were grim. He shook his head at her. “He’s not in there.”
She nodded, upset but not completely surprised. “We’ll wait,” she said. “I know he’ll come. If he can.”
Back at her old house in Willow’s End, Mr. West had not advanced the theory that Deidre might well have opened the laundry room in the daylight thus burning Chance. The degree of his illness
would determine the degree of hurt the sun could cause, but in most cases, the advanced vampirism Chance displayed would mean death, if not immediately then certainly over time. Unless he’d found an immediate and safe haven. Mr. West had not advanced the theory, no, but it had occurred to Promise as soon as she’d seen that gaping laundry room doorway. It was what had contributed to her emotional storm.
Peter looked up. Gray clouds still churned above the trees, and the afternoon seemed a few shades darker. It had to be close to four. Real sunset would come in just over an hour, but the woods would be dark long before then.
“We could go back to the safe house tonight; we have just enough time to get there. Then come back for him tomorrow,” he said. “Or we could wait for him here.” He kept his eyes skyward. He didn’t want Promise to read a bias into his statement. She had to decide for the both of them. But he was afraid for her. He would only be able to do so much if the vampires were to find them.
“Stay,” she said, and the word was barely audible, more breath than sound. He looked at her. Her eyes were shining with tears, but they were not tears of determination…she was fatigued and worn, and it was a tired sort of resignation in her eyes. She was afraid, too. Afraid for herself and him and even the horses, but she was more afraid of not finding Chance.
Peter thought back to the mall, the night he’d gone to take Trish to dinner during her break at the Woolworth’s. So young, they had both been so young. He felt ten years older now, or more, a hundred. He’d been wild with grief to find her dead, their baby dead inside her. It had been too late for her, but what would he have done if it hadn’t been? What would he have stopped at?
Nothing. He would have stopped at nothing to save his wife and their child.
He took Promise’s hands in his. He wanted to say something that would soothe her nerves and calm her, he wanted to tell her that everything was going to be fine. But as he looked into her eyes, he saw that she, too, had aged well beyond her years. She needed support of a more practical nature.
“Let’s get the horses behind the tree, out of sight of the opening. If something goes wrong, they’ll have an opportunity to run. The vampires won’t be interested in the horses if we aren’t on them.” He glanced at the woods nearby. “Then I think we should try and take some kind of cover. Chance might be leery if he sees us, especially me. He doesn’t know me at all, and other vampires seem to have something of an aversion to me.” He saw the dawning gratefulness in her tired eyes and did not acknowledge it beyond a kiss to her nose. “Then we wait,” he said and mustered a smile.
They led Ash and Snow up the small incline and tucked them well out of sight next to the trunk of the fallen tree. Promise wrapped her arms around Ash’s neck. She whispered to him, and his ears swiveled intently, listening. Peter wondered what she was saying to the big horse, but decided it was none of his business. He ran a hand down Snow’s neck and patted her thick shoulder. Snow had been Trish’s horse, and Peter had found Snow to be an exemplary companion since he’d been reunited with her. He understood better now why Trisha had loved this animal without reservation. He glanced again at Promise who had stopped whispering but now leaned her whole body against the comfort of Ash’s steady bulk. His head had come around to rest on her shoulder, and his black mane flowed into her black hair, and they seemed almost one creature, inextricably linked.
Peter longed for the day he could love her without reservation.
“There was a tree with big, low branches on the far side of the stream,” he said. “Let’s see if there’s an easy way across, and we’ll climb up there to wait.” A perch in the tree would also afford them a view of the surrounding woods. Not a great one, the trees were too dense, but they would at least have a little warning if vampires should attack.
Promise extricated a compact, flatly black crossbow from a saddlebag at Ash’s haunch. She took a pouch of metal arrows from the other bag–the ones the Guard soldiers called ‘bolts’. The arrows were a good match for the bow: flat black, short and thick. Deadly looking.
They started walking back toward the stream. “Where did you get that crossbow? Isn’t that the kind the Guard uses?”
She nodded and smiled briefly up at him. “Miller gave it to me when we were on the road back to Wereburg. She said, ‘Every girl should carry protection.’” Her smile had become a shy grin.
Peter looked dumbfounded for a brief second, and then he laughed out loud. “Sounds like Miller.” He trailed off as they reached the stream. “Do you see anywhere to–”
“There,” Promise said and pointed down the streambed. A line of rocks stuck above the waterline like a row of accommodating turtles. They crossed and clambered into the tree Peter had seen earlier. It was an old oak, thicker around than most of the other trees they’d come across. Dead, dry leaves rattled as they climbed from limb to limb. There was little to no cover amongst the twisted branches.
They settled together in the crotch of a limb about twenty feet off the ground. Peter put Promise against the tree and himself next to her. He knew that the small reserves of adrenaline pushing her now would leave her flatly exhausted once they had started the more staid business of waiting. The residue of Mr. West’s sedative in her system would help her to sleep, even in these odd circumstances, and that would help replenish her drained energy. She tipped her head against his shoulder, and her breathing evened out almost immediately.
He wrapped his arm around her back, and she sagged against it. He had no trouble holding her because his own energy had begun to grow as the light passed out of the sky. The dark was soothing to his body but exciting to his mind. The deeper fires of the vampirism began to sizzle their way along his nerve endings, and he could almost feel his irises widen, taking in all available illumination. To Promise, the woods would now be fully dark, the trees mere shadows and the sky a leaden, purple mass. To him, each thing seemed to phosphoresce–each dead leaf, each thin limb, even the water as it flowed in the creek seemed to glow as if the rocks beneath it gave off light.
Somewhere distant, a deer stepped haltingly through a clearing, and Peter heard it. A nest of squirrels in a nearby tree gave off a pulse of heat that he could feel more than see. When the squirrels shifted, squeaking faintly, he heard that, too.
He had an awareness of the animals in these woods, but their scent, their movements, did not excite the vampiristic part of his sensibilities…but Promise’s did. Almost reluctantly, he listened to her heartbeat, the whoosh, whoosh of blood pounding faithfully through thick veins. With an effort, he turned his attention away from that pulse of life within her. It was somehow stronger than that of the animals–richer, louder, broadcasting through the air.
And he would not be the only one aware of it.
After a bit, he closed his own eyes to better hear the pattern of the night: the light rush of an owl on the wing, fish scales grating against sand where the fish had secreted themselves deep underwater, wind as it whistled and sighed through the trees and each small branch that fractured or broke before it.
It was all so exciting.
The essence of himself, his humanity, began to wane as the night worked on him. Memories of Trish and the baby, his life before, began to fade to the point where it seemed as though his first life had been the false one…the unbelievable thing. A fire burned in his mind, deep and small like a pilot light. The night was like fuel to that small flame, and it edged higher, spreading, fluttering excitedly as it pushed Peter’s essence–his humanity–before it. He moaned lightly, struggling with himself, but the flame jumped more, spreading as his feelings became more intense. He felt the body next to him, pulsing warmly, so close, within his grasp, his arm tightened across Promise’s back, pulling her tighter to him–
A branch broke sharply, and his eyes snapped open. Something was coming.
He glanced at Promise next to him and was surprised to see that her eyes were already open. She surveyed him with a long, careful glance and then turned her attention outward, t
o the woods.
“Did you hear that?” she said, whispering.
“Yes,” he said. “It came from the north.” Opposite the direction Chance would be coming from if he’d come from the development.
“Can you see anything yet?” she asked.
He shook his head, and they became still, listening.
Another small snap followed by a rustling, as of a sliding step through deep, dry leaves. Now Peter could just start to make out the figure approaching from behind them and on the opposite side of the stream. He squinted, and his arm tightened across her back.
“It’s a person…I can’t tell if it’s a vampire or a…small…it’s someone small…”
Promise tensed beside him.
“It’s a little boy, Promise, it might be him, but I can’t tell…”
She began to struggle, turning herself in preparation to climb down. “Wait,” Peter said, “Wait until we know for sure.”
“But if it’s–”
“He’s coming this way. We’ll know in a minute. Be patient. If it’s not him, then you don’t want to be down there.”
She took a deep breath and held it.
The figure drew closer, and now she could see him too. But he was in and out of the trees, it was too dark, she couldn’t make out if it was–
The moon glowed brighter as the clouds thinned, and Promise beheld her baby brother as he made his way down the small slope of the forest. It was still too dark to see him clearly, but she was at least sure that this was him. He shambled and stumbled, and her heart leapt painfully into her throat. She turned and lifted herself to the branch below.
“Wait here,” she said, but Peter shuffled over, preparatory to climbing down behind her.
“No, it’s not safe without me,” he said.
Promise put a shaking hand on his arm, and to his surprise, she smiled. “I’ll be fine. I know I will. Trust me.”
Blood Run – The Complete Trilogy – First Promise, Two Riders, Last Chance Page 38
