by L. J. Smith
Life. What she needed. She didn’t think, she simply acted. With one motion she threw the car door open and plunged out.
She heard Phil’s shout behind her and James’s shout in her head. She ignored both of them. Nothing mattered except stopping the pain.
She grabbed for the man on the sidewalk the way a drowning swimmer grabs at a rescuer. Instinctively. He was tall and strong for a human. He was wearing a dark sweatsuit and a bomber jacket. His face was stubbly and his skin wasn’t exactly clean, but that wasn’t important. She wasn’t interested in the container, only in the lovely sticky red stuff inside.
This time her strike was perfectly accurate. Her wonderful teeth extended like claws and stabbed into the man’s throat. Puncturing him like one of those old-fashioned bottle openers. He struggled a little and then went limp.
And then she was drinking, her throat drenched in copper-sweetness. Sheer animal hunger took over as she tapped his veins. The liquid filling her mouth was wild and raw and primal and every swallow gave her new life.
She drank and drank, and felt the pain disappear. In its place was a euphoric lightness. When she paused to breathe, she could feel her lungs swell with cool, blessed air.
She bent to drink again, to suck, lap, tipple. The man had a clear bubbling stream inside him, and she wanted it all.
That was when James pulled her head back.
He spoke both aloud and in her mind and his voice was collected but intense. “Poppy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have made you wait so long. But you’ve had enough now. You can stop.”
Oh…confusion. Poppy was peripherally aware of Phillip, her brother Phillip, looking on in horror. James said she could stop, but that didn’t mean she had to. She didn’t want to. The man wasn’t fighting at all now. He seemed to be unconscious.
She bent down again. James pulled her back up almost roughly.
“Listen,” he said. His eyes were level, but his voice was hard. “This is the time you can choose, Poppy. Do you really want to kill?”
The words shocked her back to awareness. To kill…that was the way to get power, she knew. Blood was power and life and energy and food and drink. If she drained this man like squeezing an orange, she would have the power of his very essence. Who knew what she might be able to do then?
But…he was a man, not an orange. A human being. She’d been one of those once.
Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted herself off the man, James let out a long breath. He patted her shoulder and sat down on the sidewalk as if too tired to stand up right then.
Phil was slumped against the wall of the nearest building.
He was appalled, and Poppy could feel it. She could even pick up words he was thinking—words like ghastly and amoral. A whole sentence that went something like “Is it worth it to save her life if she’s lost her soul?”
James jerked around to look at him, and Poppy could feel the silver flare of his anger. “You just don’t get it, do you?” he said savagely. “She could have attacked you anytime, but she didn’t, even though she was dying. You don’t know what the bloodlust feels like. It’s not like being thirsty—it’s like suffocating. Your cells start to die from oxygen starvation, because your own blood can’t carry oxygen to them. It’s the worst pain there is, but she didn’t go after you to make it stop.”
Phillip looked staggered. He stared at Poppy, then held out a hand uncertainly.
“I’m sorry….”
“Forget it,” James said shortly. He turned his back on Phil and examined the man. Poppy could feel him extend his mind. “I’m telling him to forget this,” he said to Poppy. “All he needs is some rest, and he might as well do that right here. See, the wounds are already healing.”
Poppy saw, but she couldn’t feel happy. She knew Phil still disapproved of her. Not just for something she’d done, but for what she was.
What’s happened to me? she asked James, throwing herself into his arms. Have I turned into something awful?
He held her fiercely. You’re just different. Not awful. Phil’s a jerk.
She wanted to laugh at that. But she could feel a tremor of sadness behind his protective love. It was the same anxious sadness she’d sensed in him earlier. James didn’t like being a predator, and now he’d made Poppy one, too. Their plan had succeeded brilliantly—and Poppy would never be the old Poppy North again.
And although she could hear his thoughts, it wasn’t exactly like the total immersion when they’d exchanged blood. They might not ever have that togetherness again.
“There wasn’t any other choice,” Poppy said stoutly, and she said it aloud. “We did what we had to do. Now we have to make the best of it.”
You’re a brave girl. Did I ever tell you that?
No. And if you did, I don’t mind hearing it again.
But they drove to James’s apartment building in silence, with Phil’s depression weighing heavily in the backseat.
“Look, you can take the car back to your house,” James said as he unloaded the equipment and Poppy’s clothes into his carport. “I don’t want to bring Poppy anywhere near there, and I don’t want to leave her alone.”
Phil glanced up at the dark two-story building as if something had just struck him. Then he cleared his throat. Poppy knew why—James’s apartment was a notorious place, and she’d never been allowed to visit it at night. Apparently Phil still had some brotherly concern for his vampire sister. “You, uh, can’t just take her to your parents’ house?”
“How many times do I have to explain? No, I can’t take her to my parents, because my parents don’t know she’s a vampire. Right at the moment she’s an illegal vampire, a renegade, which means she’s got to be kept a secret until I can straighten things out—somehow.”
“How—” Phil stopped and shook his head. “Okay. Not tonight. We’ll talk about it later.”
“No, ‘we’ won’t,” James said harshly. “You’re not a part of this anymore. It’s up to Poppy and me. All you need to do is go back and live your normal life and keep your mouth shut.”
Phil started to say something else, then caught himself. He took the keys from James. Then he looked at Poppy.
“I’m glad you’re alive. I love you,” he said.
Poppy knew that he wanted to hug her, but something kept both of them back. There was an emptiness in Poppy’s chest.
“Bye, Phil,” she said, and he got in the car and left.
CHAPTER 13
“He doesn’t understand,” Poppy said softly as James unlocked the door to his apartment. “He just hasn’t grasped that you’re risking your life, too.”
The apartment was very bare and utilitarian. High ceilings and spacious rooms announced that it was expensive, but there wasn’t much furniture. In the living room there was a low, square couch, a desk with a computer, and a couple of Oriental-looking pictures on the wall. And books. Cardboard boxes of books stacked in the corners.
Poppy turned to face James directly. “Jamie…I understand.”
James smiled at her. He was sweaty and dirty and tired-looking. But his expression said Poppy made it all worthwhile.
“Don’t blame Phil,” he said, with a gesture of dismissal. “He’s actually handling things pretty well. I’ve never broken cover to a human before, but I think most of them would run screaming and never come back. He’s trying to cope, at least.”
Poppy nodded and dropped the subject. James was tired, which meant they should go to sleep. She picked up the duffel bag that Phil had packed with her clothes and headed for the bathroom.
She didn’t change right away, though. She was too fascinated by her own reflection in the mirror. So this was what a vampire Poppy looked like.
She was prettier, she noted with absent satisfaction. The four freckles on her nose were gone. Her skin was creamy-pale, like an advertisement for face cream. Her eyes were green as jewels. Her hair was wind-blown into riotous curls, metallic-copper.
I don’t look
like something that sits on a buttercup anymore, she thought. I look wild and dangerous and exotic. Like a model. Like a rock star. Like James.
She leaned forward to examine her teeth, poking at the canines to make them grow. Then she jerked back, gasping.
Her eyes. She hadn’t realized. Oh, God, no wonder Phil had been scared. When she did that, when her teeth extended, her eyes went silvery-green, uncanny. Like the eyes of a hunting cat.
All at once she was overcome by terror. She had to cling to the sink to stay on her feet.
I don’t want it, I don’t want it….
Oh, deal with it, girl. Stop whining. So what did you expect to look like, Shirley Temple? You’re a hunter now. And your eyes go silver and blood tastes like cherry preserves. And that’s all there is to it, and the other choice was resting in peace. So deal.
Gradually her breathing slowed. In the next few minutes something happened inside her; she did deal. She found…acceptance. It felt like something giving way in her throat and her stomach. She wasn’t weird and dreamy now, as she’d been when she had first awakened in the cemetery; she could think clearly about her situation. And she could accept it.
And I did it without running to James, she thought suddenly, startled. I don’t need him to comfort me or tell me it’s okay. I can make it okay, myself.
Maybe that was what happened when you faced the very worst thing in the world. She’d lost her family and her old life and maybe even her childhood, but she’d found herself. And that would have to do.
She pulled the white dress over her head and changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants. Then she walked out to James, head high.
He was in the bedroom, lying on a full-sized bed made up with light brown sheets. He was still wearing his dirty clothes, and he had one arm crooked over his eyes. When Poppy came in, he stirred.
“I’ll go sleep on the couch,” he said.
“No, you won’t,” Poppy said firmly. She flopped on the bed beside him. “You’re dead tired. And I know I’m safe with you.”
James grinned without moving his arm. “Because I’m dead tired?”
“Because I’ve always been safe with you.” She knew that. Even when she’d been a human and her blood must have tempted him, she’d been safe.
She looked at him as he lay there, brown hair ruffled, body lax, Adidas unlaced and caked with soil. She found his elbows endearing.
“I forgot to mention something before,” she said. “I only realized I forgot when I was…going to sleep. I forgot to mention that I love you.”
James sat up. “You only forgot to say it with words.”
Poppy felt a smile tugging at her lips. That was the amazing thing, the only purely good thing about what had happened to her. She and James had come together. Their relationship had changed—but it still had everything she’d valued in their old relationship. The understanding, the camaraderie. Now on top of that was the new excitement of discovering each other as more than best friends.
And she’d found the part of him that she had never been able to reach before. She knew his secrets, knew him inside out. Humans could never know each other that way. They could never really get into another person’s head. All the talking in the world couldn’t even prove that you and the other person both saw the same color red.
And if she and James never merged like two drops of water again, she would always be able to touch his mind.
A little shy, she leaned against him, resting on his shoulder. In all the times they’d been close, they’d never kissed or been romantic. For now, just sitting here like this was enough, just feeling James breathe and hearing his heart and absorbing his warmth. And his arm around her shoulders was almost too much, almost too intense to bear, but at the same time it was safe and peaceful.
It was like a song, one of those sweet, wrenching songs that makes the hair on your arms stand up. That makes you want to throw yourself on the floor and just bawl. Or fall backward and surrender to the music utterly. One of those songs.
James cupped her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed the palm.
I told you. You don’t love somebody because of their looks or their clothes or their car. You love them because they sing a song that nobody but you can understand.
Poppy’s heart swelled until it hurt.
Aloud she said, “We always understood the same song, even when we were little.”
“In the Night World there’s this idea called the soulmate principle. It says that every person has one soulmate out there, just one. And that person is perfect for you and is your destiny. The problem being that almost nobody ever finds their soulmate, just because of distance. So most people go through their whole lives feeling not complete.”
“I think it’s the truth. I always knew you were perfect for me.”
“Not always.”
“Oh, yes. Since I was five. I knew.”
“I’d have known you were perfect for me—except that everything I’d been taught said it was hopeless.” He cleared his throat and added, “That is why I went out with Michaela and those other girls, you know. I didn’t care about them. I could get close to them without breaking the law.”
“I know,” Poppy said. “I mean—I think I always knew it was something like that, underneath.” She added, “James? What am I now?” Some things she could tell instinctively; she could feel them in her blood. But she wanted to know more, and she knew James understood why. This was her life now. She had to learn the rules.
“Well.” He settled against the headboard, head tilted back as she rested under his chin. “You’re pretty much like me. Except for not being able to age or have families, made vampires are basically like the lamia.” He shifted. “Let’s see. You already know about being able to see and hear better than humans. And you’re a whiz at reading minds.”
“Not everybody’s mind.”
“No vampire can read everybody’s mind. Lots of times all I get is a sort of general feeling for what people are thinking. The only certain way to make a connection is to—” James opened his mouth and clicked his teeth. Poppy giggled as the sound traveled through her skull.
“And how often do I have to—?” She clicked her own teeth.
“Feed.” She felt James getting serious. “About once a day on average. Otherwise you’ll go into the bloodlust. You can eat human food if you want, but there’s no nutrition in it. Blood is everything for us.”
“And the more blood, the more power.”
“Basically, yes.”
“Tell me about power. Can we—well, what can we do?”
“We have more control over our bodies than humans. We can heal from almost any kind of injury—except from wood. Wood can hurt us, even kill us.” He snorted. “So there’s one thing the movies have right—a wooden stake through the heart will, in fact, kill a vampire. So will burning.”
“Can we change into animals?”
“I’ve never met any vampire that powerful. But theoretically it’s possible for us, and shapeshifters and werewolves do it all the time.”
“Change into mist?”
“I’ve never even met a shapeshifter who could do that.”
Poppy thumped the bed with her heel. “And obviously we don’t have to sleep in coffins.”
“No, and we don’t need native earth, either. Myself, I prefer a Sealy Posturepedic, but if you’d like some dirt…”
Poppy elbowed him. “Um, can we cross running water?”
“Sure. And we can walk into people’s homes without being invited, and roll in garlic if we don’t mind losing friends. Anything else?”
“Yes. Tell me about the Night World.” It was her home now.
“Did I tell you about the clubs? We have clubs in every big city. In a lot of small ones, too.”
“What kind of clubs?”
“Well, some are just dives, and some are like cafés, and some are like nightclubs, and some are like lodges—those are mostly for adults. I know one for kids that’s just a big
old warehouse with skate ramps built in. You can hang out and skateboard. And there are poetry slams every week at the Black Iris.”
Black iris, Poppy thought. That reminded her of something. Something unpleasant…
What she said was, “That’s a funny name.”
“All the clubs are named for flowers. Black flowers are the symbols of the Night People.” He rotated his wrist to show her his watch. An analog watch, with a black iris in the center of the face. “See?”
“Yeah. You know, I noticed that black thing, but I never really looked at it before. I think I assumed it was Mickey Mouse.”
He rapped her lightly on the nose in reproof. “This is serious business, kid. One of these will identify you to other Night People—even if they’re as stupid as a werewolf.”
“You don’t like werewolves?”
“They’re great if you like double-digit IQs.”
“But you let them in the clubs.”
“Some clubs. Night People may not marry out of their own kind, but they all mix: lamia, made vampires, werewolves, both kinds of witches…”
Poppy, who had been playing at intertwining their fingers in different ways, shifted curiously. “What’s both kinds of witches?”
“Oh…there’s the kind that know about their heritage and have been trained, and the kind that don’t. That second kind are what humans call psychics. Sometimes they just have latent powers, and some of them aren’t even psychic enough to find the Night World, so they don’t get in.”
Poppy nodded. “Okay. Got it. But what if a human walks into one of those clubs?”
“Nobody would let them. The clubs aren’t what you’d call conspicuous, and they’re always guarded.”
“But if they did…”
James shrugged. His voice was suddenly bleak. “They’d be killed. Unless somebody wanted to pick them up as a toy or pawn. That means a human who’s basically brainwashed—who lives with vampires but doesn’t know it because of the mind control. Sort of like a sleepwalker. I had a nanny once…” His voice trailed off, and Poppy could feel his distress.
