by Atha, DL
“Screw you,” I said.
“Poor choice of words, dear, because that could be arranged. Now understand that you’re not going to anger me enough to kill you. But I’m quite willing to torture you until you talk, so ask yourself if your display of autonomy is worth the price.”
I’d fought my fair share of fights for lost causes, but I had no penchant for pain, and I’d already spent a week on my back. I could think of no reason not to answer. “Fine,” I answered. “Asa said that he thought about keeping me but decided a companion was just not his style. Surprise was my only advantage, and I staked him before he realized that I’d been turning. I’d been changing for days, but he never noticed.”
“Any regrets?” he asked, searching my face. “Yeah. Of course,” I said.
His eyes widened slightly. He was waiting for the wrong answer, I knew. Only I didn’t know what the wrong answer was. “I wished I’d just let him kill me.”
He sighed heavily. “Back to that nonsense again.”
I guess that wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. I’d had my fill with games. I tried to look relaxed lying beneath him. “Look, seriously, if you want to kill me, then I suggest you just do it already because I’m tired of hearing about it. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m still standing, despite all the death threats and a week of being a blood bag. I certainly have no interest in crying on your shoulder. I’m a survivor, and I don’t need a vampire shrink for moral support.”
He smirked. “Actually, you’re lying on your back in a hole in the ground. A truly amazing feat,” he said, moving his foot from my chest.
“Whatever,” I said, pushing to my knees and shoving past him as I climbed out of the shelter. My house loomed out of the darkness, looking as dejected as I felt. Still, I walked towards it since I had no other place to go. Mentally, I hesitated to put my back to him, but I figured he could dispatch me just as easily to my face if he’d wanted, so I kept walking.
“How did you find me?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
It was his voice at the other end of the line when I’d dialed the number I’d found in Asa’s bag. How many nights back had I made the call? Time was beginning to run together.
“You called me. Since I had your number, it was easy to trace the call back to you. When did you last feed?” he asked, switching subjects.
Ignoring his question because of my embarrassment, I just kept walking. “So you get a hang‐up call, and you automatically know its Asa. How’s that work exactly?”
“Asa was my brother, but he was very aberrant, even for a vampire. I only met him once, and that was by complete coincidence. I was living in Denver when he roamed through. As you may or may not know yet, all vampires take the scent of their maker. It’s how we’re marked. Imagine my surprise when I smelled my own scent too strongly in a bar that I hadn’t been in for days. Our father had never mentioned him, and it didn’t take long to figure out why. Asa was very broken. I gave him my number on the off chance that he might want to assimilate better into the human world. Since I only give my number to other vampires, it wasn’t a great jump in logic to think the phone call was connected to him. What I didn’t understand when I traced the number was how you were involved. It seemed unlikely he’d made a child. Since I doubted he’d call in the first place, and if he did, he’d have answered, I suspected he was dead. And so here I am now with my dead estranged brother’s helpless child, who just so happened to stake him.” His tone held that threat again. It was like he just couldn’t get past what I’d done.
I stopped and faced him again. “What are you? The vampire police? Like I said, just kill me already. I’m tired of the innuendo, and I’ve been dying every night anyways.”
“I remain undecided about your fate. Vampires are an ungoverned society, but killing your blood maker is the one offense that we hold each other accountable for. The cardinal sin you might say. But I am willing, for the moment, to give you the benefit of the doubt, as I witnessed firsthand the broken nature of my brother.”
“Benefit of the doubt. Such a human expression,” I said under my breath.
“We did start out that way. Human, each one of us. But we’ve ended up so much more. Which is why the blood bond is so sacred. The blood is what pulled us from the bland herd of humanity,” he said.
I looked back at my house, remembering what he’d said about the search warrant. Benefit of the doubt was not a luxury I had with the Madison County Sheriff’s office. He’d said there were six patrol cars here this morning, but at the moment, I could detect no one other than myself and my visitor. I guess the authorities had pulled the cop who’d been stationed a ways up the road last night.
The house was quiet and devastatingly dark—abandoned looking. The back door had been left cracked by the police, and the yellow police streams fluttered from the deck. Just like a crime scene, I thought. Oh right, it was a crime scene.
“Have the hallucinations begun yet?” he asked from beside me.
I feigned a lost‐in‐thought moment while I tore the yellow DO NOT CROSS ribbons down. This was one question I didn’t want to answer. I hadn’t seen Asa since I’d taken the detective down, and I preferred to keep all of that safely tucked away.
“We’ve all had them. You’re not alone,” he said.
I nearly snarled. “Yeah, I kind of am alone. So what’s with all the Mr. Nice guy now? You were ready to stake me a few minutes ago, and now you’re all concerned about when I fed. So I guess I’m not really buying the family love you’re selling.”
He moved into my personal space; I took a step back for balance, the yellow streamers floating out of my hand and across the porch. “Make no mistake; if I decide you’re a saboteur, I will carry out the traditional sentence. But for now, you need to feed.”
“Traditional sentence?” I asked. He said nothing, just pointed one graceful finger to the east.
“Rising sun. How could I forget?” I got the heebie‐jeebies just thinking about it. “The hallucinations come and go,” I answered, deciding I had no reason to keep it from him. “But I’ve had none in the last twenty‐four hours.”
“They’ll get worse and stronger. Real enough that the thoughts can control you. When did you last feed?”
Shrugging my shoulders at him, I responded dejectedly, “I got the most amount of blood last night when I nearly killed a police detective. But since he shot me full of holes, I suspect most of it poured out on the ground. Before that, I’d say about three days back, and it was more like drinking alcohol straight from the tap.” “Drunks do not make for the best choices. Neither do policemen. They tend to complicate things. And before that?” he questioned.
“The night I killed Asa, I drank from him.” “And when was that?”
I shrugged. Losing track of time had gotten worse each night that passed. “I’m not sure. Several days back.”
“Did you drain him?” he asked.
I nodded my head, afraid to put the confession into actual words. He took a deep breath, one hand flexing at his side. “That explains why you’ve made it this long. Asa’s blood was potent. I’m certain he wasn’t a fan of discretion, and he drank often, but you won’t make it much longer on what you got from him.”
“You mean I won’t survive it? I can die from not feeding?”
He looked at me skeptically. “No, you can’t. But you will wish you were dead because it’s very painful. Feeling guilty?”
Obviously, he took this blood maker thing very seriously. It reminded me of the obligations of doctors to other doctors in the Hippocratic oath.
“Look, it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m not wanting to die over some soul‐racking guilt over Asa. I have no guilt over him at all. But I’m probably going to be brought up on first‐degree murder charges. My mom’s taken my daughter. I’m no longer gainfully employed. So maybe my mom is right. Maybe I’m better off dead.”
His body language changed at my words and I had an “oh shit” moment. How c
ould I have been so dumb to have mentioned Ellie and my mother?
“You have a child?” Even his tone was different, sad sounding but resolute. “I mean … I did. I had a daughter. I don’t now because my mom took her and left. She cleaned me out. Took her clothes, her favorite toys.” My voice cracked. I could say nothing else. I turned away and walked into the house, jerking more police streamers down with me as I went.
The house was as straight as a pin as a result of Mom’s anxious energies. The “my daughter’s a psycho‐killer‐monster of some sort, so I might as well clean the house” type of energy. I could have eaten dinner off the floor. If I ate dinner that is. As it was, I simply sank down in the comfortable leather of my favorite chair. Asa’s brother joined me in the matching recliner; the one meant for a husband that had taken off a few years back.
“Where did she take her?” he asked.
“Do you have a name or should I call you ‘Uncle’?” I asked, hoping for a subject change.
He frowned. “Definitely do not call me ‘Uncle’. It’s Levi.” “That’s a nice name; I’m Annalice,” I said by way of introduction.
“Yeah, I know. Got it off of the mailbox, remember? Where did your mom take your daughter?”
I hoped he’d forgotten this line of questioning. I tried again. “Is there a family name? Does your last name change to take into account the new vampire surname?” I asked.
He wasn’t easily distracted. “Where did your mom take your daughter, and don’t try to change the subject.”
There was silence while I tried to think of an answer. “I don’t know,” I finally said.
“Annalice, that’s a lie.” “Oh, and why is that?”
“Do you love your mother?” he asked.
“What kind of question is that? Of course I love her.”
“And you don’t think she feels the same about you? If the situation was reversed and your daughter was the one who’d been turned, would you take her child and not tell her where you were going?”
“She said I was better off dead.”
His smile was gentle. Understanding. “She didn’t mean it.” I shook my head at his naivety. “She’s not here, is she?”
“And neither would you be if the roles were reversed. You can’t blame her for trying to protect her grandchild.”
“Yes, I can,” I answered harshly. But he was right. I’d have done the exact same thing.
“Where is she?” he asked again.
“I don’t know,” I lied again. “If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you.”
“You’re sitting here with me because you don’t know of anything else to do. You have no plan, no strategy. You don’t want to hurt her, and you don’t want to leave her, which leaves you in a frozen state.”
The laughter came out of me dark and soft. “No plan. No daughter. No future.”
“If I want to find her, I will. You must know that.”
I bristled, and our talk went deadly in an instant. “Asa threatened my daughter. Look where it landed him.”
It was a quiet but deadly hiss. Not overstated and boisterous. The sound curled my toes, but I meant what I’d said, and I wasn’t backing down. Weak, starving. It didn’t matter. I would die protecting her.
He knew exactly what I was thinking. “You can’t protect her if you’re dead.”
“And you can’t kill her if you’re dead,” I responded.
“You’re like a cat defending against a Rottweiler. You make a lot of noise. You try to look ferocious with your hackles up, and you mean the words, but you’ve no way to back them up.”
“Asa thought the same.”
A subtle intake of air, and he leaned back into the chair. “And that’s where I get stumped in this whole affair. You had nothing but show, a small but loud Banty rooster, against Asa as well, and yet somehow you managed to best him. Logic would say he trusted you, and you betrayed him.”
“I told you what happened.”
He lifted dark eyebrows at me, his full lips coming together in a sensual pouty face. “Maybe you’re a better liar than I give you credit for. If you were human, I would know in a second. With vampires, it’s much harder to tell.”
“Well, I guess we’re at a stalemate then,” I said.
“No. I just haven’t called checkmate yet. But make no mistake, I have the upper hand.”
And he did. We both knew it. He wasn’t Asa. There was something much stronger about this man. It whispered confidence and control. But not Asa’s kind of control. He was different. I’d have no choice but to try to prove my innocence. I was going to have to play nice.
“So then how’s this going to work exactly? How do I prove my innocence and escape roasting in the sun? And is the traditional sentence ever commuted to a simple staking depending on circumstances, such as being held captive by your brother, the psychopath?”
He was all smiles now. “As it turns out, no. The sentence is always death by dawn. And if I detect any subterfuge when you are well enough to be questioned, then you will be stripped naked and hung from a suitable tree to meet the first light. Of course, there will be an audience. You see, we vampires believe in vigilante justice. It’s kind of like the old west hangings. We invite everyone we know and make a party of it.”
“Why naked?” I was appalled just thinking of the humiliation.
“It’s just more fun that way,” he answered without any hesitation at all.
“Nice to know that my new species are all a bunch of sick bastards.” If I’d been human, it would have turned my stomach. Instead, I turned my face and stared at the wall.
“For now, let’s focus on getting you fed. I won’t question you in this condition. You need to be at your best.”
“How can I think of dinner after such threats?”
A small smirk lifted his lips away from his teeth—bright red on white—and I looked away at the sight of his fangs. They did something strange to my insides. I considered leaving the room altogether, but the aroma of blood stirred the air and the sound of it dripping onto the leather of the chair brought me to my knees in front of him. This was not what I expected.
It probably would have been polite to not bite him since he had done it for me, but he made no sound of pain as my own fangs slipped into the skin of his wrist. Cool blood met my tongue where I craved hot, but still, it was like an oasis in the desert, and I drank until the fingers of his other hand wrapped into my hair.
But he’d let me get more than enough, and for a few hours, I had peace from the burn that had settled in the pit of my belly the night I awoke after killing Asa. When I lifted my mouth from his arm, my mind was clear, like waking up after going to sleep with a marvelous headache. For a rare moment, I forgot how much danger I was in. From the vampire beside me. From the police. In those moments, the memory of Asa was completely gone. No thoughts of him and no hallucinations of his face or voice. I was at peace. I let my body roll down onto the rug and closed my eyes. And for once since waking that night, my mind was empty of everything.
Levi said nothing during my cathartic moments, and I almost forgot he was there until I heard him breathe out slowly. I opened my eyes as he got to his feet.
“I’m leaving. The cellar is the safest place I can think of for the moment, and that is where you should spend the daylight hours.”
I sat up quickly. “Where are you going? You’re leaving me after all the threats?” I was dumbfounded, and although he’d spent the last couple hours trying to frighten me, his was the first contact that hadn’t felt stilted and unnatural in nearly a week.
Besides, I was scared and maybe I preferred death threats to being alone. So far, alone time as a vampire had sucked royally.
“I’m not abandoning you, Annalice, and I meant what I said, that you have major explaining to do about Asa. I’ll be back by tomorrow evening. The following morning at the latest. Either way, stay put and don’t try to run. You’ll never make it, and if by some miracle you did, the world is to
o small a place to hide. At least for immortals.”
“But why are you going?”
“To drink. The responsibility of feeding you falls to me now, at least until I have decided what to do about Asa’s second death. I must stay fed. Besides, I can’t stay here with your saliva in my veins. It will cloud my judgment,” he answered.
“What does that mean?” I asked, but he was gone before I’d finished the sentence.
Chapter 18
The next evening, I awoke the way I’d entered the death sleep. Alone. The name I’d given to what happened to me each dawn was morbid, even to me, but it was the most accurate description I could find. It was dreamless and as close to non-existence as I could imagine. I was alive one moment, thinking and feeling, craving and burning, and then I was not. But there was a definite break. Some point of time I could define as having not been around. Then the next moment, I was all of those things again. Unlike sleep, there was no “coming to.” There was no slowly becoming aware. There was existence and then there was not. It was creepy.
The bullets that had riddled my chest and belly clanked against each other as I sat up and dropped onto the dirt floor. I picked one up, the metal bullet exploded and curled backwards like a flower in bloom. “Asshole,” I whispered to myself. Rumsfield had shot me with a hollow point. No wonder he had said I was a monster. What else could survive these?
The prior night’s activities had been so insane that I hadn’t even questioned how these little reminders of my evening spent with Rumsfield would come out. I gathered the metal fragments and laid them aside. More mementos that I wasn’t human. I felt for the wounds, knowing they’d be gone, too. Levi’s blood had been rich. I could taste that much. Where is he? I wondered. Why couldn’t he stay with me last night? And more importantly, why did I care? Was I that lonely?
The hunger in my belly had returned, but it was only a warm coal, not a raging fire, so I could deal with it. I felt like myself again, which meant I had to see Ellie. Maybe Mom might even feel somewhat normal around me. I didn’t give Levi another thought.
