Bring On the Night

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “Well, there you have it.”

  “What?”

  “If a picture’s worth a thousand words, a stained glass is worth a million. Dracula, devils, vampires, St. Michael the righteous warrior.” He cast a mournful glance around us. “We don’t belong here. We never will.”

  The rational part of my brain reminded me that the Romanian prince Vlad “the Impaler” Dracula wasn’t really a vampire, but rather a power-hungry ruler who put the “evil” in “medieval.” Bram Stoker just recycled the name because it sounded cool. So this image had nothing to do with us.

  But my gaze fixed on the thwarted dragon struggling beneath the angel’s boot. The bright light from St. Michael’s halo seemed to blind the creature. Light like the sun, something Shane and I would never see again except as a pale, cold reflection in the face of the moon. Or just after our last breath, when the world became too much for us.

  Banished from the sun. Burned by holy objects. Filled with the urge to kill.

  Maybe we were evil.

  I backed up, fast enough to stumble, unable to tear my gaze from the pain and rage in the dragon’s eyes. Dizziness swamped my head. Thirst cramped my stomach. At that moment, I was little more than a mindless monster.

  My heel hit something solid. I jerked my chin down to see a marble pedestal. The sudden motion spiked my vertigo.

  “Whoa.” I wavered, hands splayed for balance.

  I reached out to grasp the pedestal’s reassuring solidness. My left hand slid forward over a slick shiny surface and down into—

  “Ciara, no!”

  The hiss of singed flesh mingled with Shane’s shout. Steam rose from the steel bowl atop the pedestal.

  Under the clear water, my hand turned black.

  Shane yanked my elbow, pulling my hand from the holy water. Drops flew in all directions, singeing my face. He howled my name again.

  I stared at my hand. My teeth gnashed as my lungs seized, trapping my scream of agony.

  Impossible. Holy water had no power over me. I wouldn’t let it—not then as a human, not now as a vampire.

  Not ever.

  “Ciara…” Shane’s words came in gasps. “Oh God… what have you done?”

  “It’s only water. It’s not real.” I clutched my wrist and focused my mind on the charred skin and twisted fingers. By now it had stopped hurting. My hand was permanently dead.

  No. I gritted my teeth and tried again. “It’s. Only. Water.”

  The healing began at the edges of the burn. Pink crawled over my flesh, obliterating the black. Like a leather glove disintegrating to reveal the hand beneath, the burn shrank as I coaxed my mind and body to deny centuries of vampire truth.

  In less than half a minute, my fingers were whole and clean and smooth.

  “It worked.” I touched my cheek, where I’d felt the water hit me, then turned to Shane. “Is it gone from my—”

  My breath stopped when I saw his face. He was staring at my hand with one eye open.

  The other eye was welded shut. Melted black flesh formed an oozing patch over his left socket.

  “Shane…” I took a step forward, stumbling. “What did I do?”

  He touched his eye. “Uh-oh.”

  I shoved up my sleeve. “Drink from me.” I’d healed his holy-water burns before, as a human. I didn’t know if my blood still worked that way, but we had to try.

  “Not here,” he said.

  We dashed out of the church’s front door. Regina was in the driver’s seat, in getaway position, so she couldn’t see us until we got in the car.

  “I’ll handle her,” Shane told me as he opened the back door and pushed me in.

  “What the fuck were you thinking, Ciara?” She turned to Shane. “And what was all the— Holy shit!”

  “Just drive,” he said. “You can freak out when we’re home safe.”

  She pointed a long black nail at me. “You’d better fix this.”

  I strapped on my seat belt (habit) and kept silent all the way to the station, afraid to look at Shane. He didn’t reach for my hand—in fact, he sat as far away from me as he could.

  My thoughts ran in a circle. If I could heal myself, maybe I could heal Shane. Maybe my blood hadn’t changed when I died.

  But when I was human, holy water hadn’t turned my fingers into matchsticks. Standing in that church, looking at the angel and the dragon, had I let myself believe the hype? Was I finally ready to see vampires as evil, now that I was one?

  Maybe the anti-holy wasn’t in my blood anymore. Maybe it was only in my mind. And what lurked in the depths of that mind? Years of sitting primly in an itchy white dress while my father preached fire and brimstone. It didn’t matter that I’d grown up to figure out the scam. That fear would always be a part of me.

  You can take the girl out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the girl.

  Regina skidded to a halt in the middle of the station parking lot, sending a spray of gravel onto the grass.

  “Go!” she said without putting it in park. “Suck her dry if you have to.”

  Shane and I sprinted around the station and through the back door. As we passed the studio, Spencer gaped at us through the glass wall from his seat in the booth. My misery spiked as I realized he was covering Monroe’s shift, which meant my maker still wasn’t home.

  When we reached Shane’s room, I tore off my coat, then scrambled to unbutton my sleeves, trying not to stare at the monstrosity of flesh that was once his left eye.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, though I knew it would never be enough. “It was an accident.”

  “I know. I saw you stumble.” He ripped off his jacket. “But why weren’t you careful? Why were you so close to the font in the first place?”

  “I didn’t see it! I’ve never been in a Catholic church before. I didn’t know they kept weapons out on display.”

  He hurled his jacket into the corner. “You could’ve lost your hand. And then what? How would you pass for a human with a blackened stump at the end of your arm?” He grabbed my shoulders. “It could’ve been the end of everything.”

  “But it wasn’t. I fixed myself, and I can fix you, if you just believe. Or stop believing.”

  Shane let go of me and took my hand, the one that had burned. His own hand trembled, but his touch stayed gentle.

  He shook his head as he examined my unblemished skin in the light. “Fuck.” From his mouth, the word sounded like a prayer.

  I brushed my healed hand over his burned eye. This was what separated us. He couldn’t stop believing any more than he could stop breathing. Which meant I couldn’t heal him with words alone.

  “Hurry,” I whispered. “Drink.”

  Shane yanked me against his chest, slid his arm around my back, and gripped the back of my head. Before I could breathe, he pressed his mouth to my neck. I stiffened in his grip, though I knew it was safe now. No embolism could stop my heart.

  His breath came warm against my skin. “It won’t hurt now that you’re a vampire. I promise.”

  His lips moved down my throat. I took a deep breath and rested my weight against him, sinking into his strength.

  A sharp pain pierced my neck. My hands clamped onto Shane’s shoulders, but I couldn’t catch enough breath to cry out. He groaned and clutched me tighter, lifting me off the floor. My feet kicked helplessly with the instinct to flee.

  Shane’s fangs withdrew, but his mouth burned my skin. Every twitch of his tongue sent another wave of pain through my body, straight to my toes and out, like an electric shock.

  My head started to swim. With my last scrap of consciousness, I gasped his name.

  Then it all went black. Again. Damn it.

  My ears woke before my eyes. I heard voices near the end of whatever surface I was lying on—the bed, I presumed, from the scent.

  “It’s very odd, her fainting.” Noah’s voice was full of concern. “Perhaps she is some type of half vampire?”

  Regina scoffed. “Half-a
ssed vampire is more like it. I could kill Monroe. If he were here taking care of her, she’d be strong enough to handle a little bite without passing out.”

  I whimpered at the sound of my maker’s name.

  “Ciara?” Shane sat on the bed next to me and laid a cool cloth on my forehead. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now.” I rubbed my eyes, then forced them open.

  Shane was gazing down at me.

  With one eye.

  “Oh, no.” I flailed my hand to touch his face, but he grabbed it and set it on the bed.

  “I thought of a solution,” he said.

  “A pirate patch?”

  “No. Well, yeah, that’s Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan A?”

  He pressed my cell phone into my palm. “You’re Plan A.”

  * * *

  This was the call I’d dreaded more than any other. To the person who would be most dismayed with my change in metaphysical status. The human with the most power to make my unlife miserable.

  His middle-of-the-night voice was as crisp as midday’s.

  “Lanham.”

  I gave Shane, Regina, and Noah a grim thumbs-up. “Um, hi, sir. It’s Ciara Griffin.”

  “I know.”

  “David told you what happened?” Relief flooded my veins—at least I didn’t have to break the news.

  “He told me nothing. I meant that I know it’s you. I have caller ID.” He exhaled, as if he were getting out of bed. I tried not to imagine what he wore to sleep. Too late—my mind formed an image of Air-Force-blue pajamas.

  In the background, I heard the click of what sounded like a ballpoint pen. “Has there been another CA sighting?” he asked.

  “No, it’s not about that. It’s about the fact that I’m sort of a vampire.”

  After a long pause, he simply said, “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”

  “Okay, not sort of.” I explained as quickly and steadily as I could. He grunted acknowledgment at appropriate intervals, and I found myself calmed by his unemotional reaction.

  “So you see our dilemma,” I said after I told him about that evening’s misadventures. “But I figured that since I gave you so many samples of blood over the years—you know, for free, so you could do vampire-saving research—that maybe I could borrow a vial so Shane can get his eye back.”

  “Borrow?”

  “Have.” I glanced at Shane straddling his desk chair, then at Regina and Noah standing in the doorway. “We could meet you somewhere for the handoff, wherever’s convenient for—”

  “I’ll think about it.” Lanham hung up.

  “What the—” I hit Send again, but my call went straight to his voice mail. “Son of a bitch.”

  “He said no?” Shane’s voice curdled with anger. “How could he say no? That’s your blood.”

  “It’s the Control’s blood. I gave it to them.” I tapped my phone against my chin. “He’s figuring out what he wants from me in exchange.”

  “They’ll experiment on you because you are different,” Noah said to me. “They’ll want to know why you could heal yourself, and why you don’t yet have fangs.”

  “I might know,” Regina said quietly. The other two vampires exchanged a surprised and worried look. “Not about the self-healing, but the fangs.”

  “Regina,” Shane said, “I’m not sure if—”

  “She should know what can happen,” she snapped. “She should have all the facts.”

  “What facts?” I pushed myself to sit up and leaned back against the wall for support. “What can happen?”

  “When I was turned, I wasn’t alone.” Regina looked me in the eye. “My husband joined me.”

  “You were married?”

  Her face hardened. “Is that so tough to believe?”

  I shut my mouth.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “Jack wasn’t the healthiest person when he died. And the vamping didn’t really take.”

  “He didn’t survive the change?” I asked her.

  “He became a vampire. But he didn’t have fangs, and he felt as much pain as a human. Like you.” She drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “He… withered, and he died permanently three weeks later. The blood didn’t nourish him the way it should have. Or maybe he didn’t get enough. I don’t know.”

  Noah laid his hand on her shoulder, and she leaned into him, just a bit.

  “I’m so sorry.” My hand clutched the pillow. “There was nothing anyone could do?”

  “We didn’t have a big enough donor base. And back then it was harder to get bank blood. I did what I could.”

  Noah took his hand off her, and Shane looked away. By their reactions, I realized what Regina meant—she’d killed people to keep her husband alive.

  “Are you saying I could still die?” I asked her.

  “No.” Shane stood and moved to my side. “We won’t let that happen. We’ll make sure you’re fed. And we’ll find Monroe and get him back here, even if we have to shoot him with a tranq gun.” He looked at the clock, then tore his jacket from the back of the chair. “Fuck it, let’s go now. We know where his donors live.”

  Regina held up a hand. “Wait a second, Elephant Man. You can’t go knocking on doors at three a.m. looking like that.”

  “You are pretty melty,” I told him.

  Noah stepped forward. “Regina and I will go.”

  “I’m coming with you.” I threw back the covers. “Maybe Monroe and I can sense each other.”

  “You should come,” Regina said. “You’re one of us now.”

  I reached for my shoes, trying not to blurt out the words I don’t want to be one of you.

  Because I wanted even less to die.

  22

  The Maker

  It was 3:15 when we arrived at the home of Monroe’s favorite donor, who lived on—swear to God—Sunshine Way. Which would have been funny if it hadn’t resulted in me getting the Brady Bunch’s “Sunshine Day” stuck in my head, along with another twinge of bitterness at the permanent loss of said shine.

  We eyed the darkened ranch home through the windshield of Noah’s car. Regina sat in the back with me. Once again, the power windows and locks were on child mode so that only the driver could control them.

  “Perhaps we should have called first,” Noah whispered.

  “And give Monroe time to run?” Regina said. “Come on, let’s hurry. He could be heading out the back door right now.”

  They each held one of my elbows as we went up the brick walkway to the porch. Regina counted rapidly under her breath, and Noah stepped carefully so that his feet fell only on the bricks that were pointing forward.

  I tried to heighten my maker radar (assuming there was such a thing), tuning my mental divining rod to find Monroe. I sensed nothing beyond the overwhelming scent of freshly turned soil. My first thought was of zombies, before realizing it was just flowers.

  “Seventeen red and twenty-nine white,” Regina said when we reached the porch. “God, that bugs the crap out of me. Why can’t they plant an even number of each color?”

  “Maybe a few red plants died,” Noah said.

  “I’ll ask her.” Regina knocked firmly on the door. The porch light winked on over our heads, and I braced myself to resist the urge to attack.

  No eating people. Not even a little. Not even at all.

  The door opened to reveal a guy in his late thirties, a gray Orioles T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. He yawned as he ruffled his short blond hair.

  “I admire your ambition.” He looked straight at me. “And since you got up so early to beat the competition, put me down for three boxes of thin mints.”

  I was confused. Troubled, even.

  What I was not, however, was thirsty, despite the fact that this guy was twice as hot as Jeremy.

  Regina glanced at her handwritten notes. “You must be Brad. Can we speak to Sandy?”

  “Is this about Monroe?”

  I quaked a little at the sound of my maker’s na
me. “Is he here?”

  Brad shook his head. “Haven’t seen him in months. He and Sandy were supposed to meet the other night, but he never showed up or called.”

  Regina shifted forward. “We really should speak to your wife.”

  I blinked. This guy’s wife was Monroe’s donor, and he was cool with that?

  “I’ll get her.” He glanced at us in turn. “Don’t be offended if I ask you to stay on the porch, okay? Have a good night. Or day, or whatever you call it.” He shut the door and turned the deadbolt.

  Once again I was struck by the creepy banality of suburban vampirehood. “Your world is so weird,” I observed.

  “It’s your world now, too,” Regina said.

  “But I totally didn’t want to bite that guy. No bloodlust whatsoever. Or maybe I’m learning to control it.” I tried to tug my arms out of their grip. “Which means you can let go.”

  Noah and Regina laughed. “What you don’t understand,” Noah said, “is that you had no thirst for that man because he—”

  The door opened, and my world turned red.

  I don’t even remember what she looked like, this Sandy person. I just remember how she smelled—like my favorite takeout dinner, chicken tenders and waffle fries.

  Okay, really she just smelled like blood. But it had the same effect as a whiff of fast food on an empty stomach—instant craving beyond all rational need.

  I lunged. Noah and Regina yanked me back like my arms were the leashes of a vicious dog. Which I guess I was.

  “Please!” I cried as the woman slammed the door. “Just a little. I won’t hurt you. I can’t hurt you, I don’t even have—”

  Regina crammed a hand over my mouth. “Shut up before the neighbors call the cops!”

  I shut up, but I kept struggling, hunger giving me super-super-super-duper human strength.

  “Noah, take her back to the car.”

  He picked me up fireman style and flung me over his shoulder. The world spun and tilted, and then we were rushing across the lawn toward the driveway, my eyes at the level of his butt. I pounded on his back and sides, hoping he would drop me so I could make one more plea to Sandy. If Monroe hadn’t bitten her lately, she must be full of blood. Hot, tangy, plasma-licious blood.