Crimson Born

by Amy Patrick

  Looking at his open, sincere expression I felt bad. But I didn’t know him—or Imogen—or have any idea what a Bloodbound was or what this Bastion place was all about.

  Until today, the bonfire at the Miller’s farm—which I now regretted attending—was as far away as I’d ever traveled from my small village. I’d never been to Virginia and had no desire to go there now.

  I didn’t know what I wanted actually, but I couldn’t make any decisions until I’d seen my friends laid to rest. I owed them that much, and frankly, I needed the closure. I was still sort of in a state of disbelief.

  “I’m sorry,” I told the big blond vampire. “I don’t want you to get into trouble. But this is my home. These are my people. I’m not going with you.”

  His crestfallen expression was followed by a resigned nod.

  “I’ll be at the Travelers Inn if you change your mind. And Abigail... you will.”

  After he drove away, I found a spot near the Yoder’s buggy to sit and wait and begin the death watch for my friend.

  7

  Strong for the Both of Us

  Three days later, Josiah went home.

  I knew because I’d shifted my surveillance to his family’s farm. There were no sheltered hiding places near the hospital, and I’d nearly incinerated myself when I’d accidentally rolled out from beneath an SUV where I was sleeping.

  But there was a large barn on the Yoder’s property with an empty, shaded loft. It was much safer and gave me a perfect vantage point of their house and yard.

  During daylight hours, I slept in fits and starts, waking and shading my eyes to peer outside whenever I heard a wagon roll by. At night I sat awake, watching, and listening, and anticipating the once-and-for-all end of my life as I knew it.

  Hannah and Aaron’s services had taken place two days ago. I’d been able to hear the words just fine from a safe distance and had added my own prayers to those of my former community members.

  My family had been there, standing close together at the simple graveside service. Once my mother had lifted her handkerchief to her eyes, and I’d wondered if any of those tears were for me.

  Observing them and the rest of the people I’d known my whole life moving on without me triggered the deepest loneliness I’d ever experienced. I was on the verge of just giving up and leaving.

  That’s when I saw the Yoder’s buggy pulling into their driveway.

  It was dark, but I saw Josiah clearly. He sat in the front seat next to his father, his posture straight and tall. In fact, he looked taller than he had before, which was strange.

  He also looked incredibly healthy. His bruises and swelling were gone. His shattered limbs were once again intact.

  I did it.

  A weird mixture of elation and dread filled me at the realization I had succeeded in turning him.

  He’s alive. This is a good thing. He’ll thank me.

  Or hate me.

  How I hoped that wasn’t the case. The fact that he was returning to his home with his parents meant they were handling the change in him much better than my own parents had handled my unexpected transformation.

  Once again, the ache of loneliness swamped me.

  I need to talk to him.

  It had been days since I’d talked to a person. Josiah had to be filled with questions. I probably didn’t have many more answers than he did, but we’d figure this thing out together. The ache eased just a touch.

  Moving in the shadows, I watched mother, father, and son unhitch the team of horses and go into the house without a word. The windows glowed to life, first downstairs and then in the upstairs bedroom.

  Since I knew his parents’ room was on the first floor, I felt safe in assuming Josiah was alone up there.

  It wasn’t hard to get to his window. A large White Oak grew beside the house on that side. I climbed it and walked out on the branch that jutted nearest his window. There inside it, Josiah sat on the end of his bed, shirtless.

  My face went instantly hot. I’d never seen him—or any of the boys I knew—like that before.

  He wasn’t reading, not praying, not even getting ready for bed. He was holding out his arms, staring first at one then the other and flexing his muscles in apparent amazement.

  When he stood and started unfastening his suspenders, I decided I’d better go ahead and announce my presence before things got even more embarrassing.

  At my knock on the windowpane, Josiah whipped in my direction, moving faster than I would have thought humanly possible.

  Thankfully his pants were still on.

  When he spotted me, a pair of pointed teeth emerged from beneath his top lip.

  Fangs. Josiah has fangs. It was almost too strange to believe.

  He brought a hand up to touch them and frowned before walking to the window to open it.

  “Abigail. What are you doing here?”

  Though the answer seemed fairly obvious to me, I said, “I came to check on you, to see if you’re... okay?”

  He stepped back, making room for me to climb through the window. Then he turned away from me, crossing the room to stand on the other side.

  “No. I’m not. I should be dead. You should be too. My parents said you were at the hospital. I thought for sure you’d been injured in the accident too, but they said you looked perfectly well. Now that I see you... I know it’s more than that.”

  “You look good too,” I said with a sheepish grin.

  “No, I don’t. I look freakish.”

  He gestured toward the fangs then swept his splayed fingers in a downward motion in front of his body.

  “Did you do this to me? I heard the nurses talking when they didn’t realize I could hear them. I shouldn’t have been able to hear them, Abigail—they were all the way down the hall and whispering. They said the word ‘vampire.’ Is that what you are? Is that what I am?”

  I nodded, eager to explain.

  “I was turned at the accident scene. I don’t know if they caused it or if they just happened to be there, but there was a group of them. One of them bit me. I woke up like this, though I keep changing. My sun sensitivity has gotten worse every day.”

  “Why would you bite me? Were you that... blood-crazed or whatever?”

  I gasped at his accusatory tone. “No. I didn’t bite you because I was thirsty. You were dying, Josiah. They said you wouldn’t make it through the night. I didn’t want you to die. I bit you to save your life. I wasn’t sure until I saw you tonight whether it would work.”

  He barked a harsh laugh. “Oh, it worked all right. And now I’m cursed to live like this forever because you didn’t want to be alone.”

  The remark stung—because it was partially true. It was kind of wonderful to have friends who knew you inside and out—and kind of terrible, too.

  “Cursed? Didn’t you want to live?” I asked.

  “This isn’t a life. I’m... an abomination.”

  Josiah flung his arms out to the sides then clenched his hands in his hair until they shook. “I’ll be shunned as soon as the others get wind of it. And my poor parents...”

  “Your parents brought you home. They still have a son.”

  “They have an embarrassment. They haven’t said so, but I can see it in their eyes. They’re shamed by me.”

  His words stole my breath. How could this be happening—any of it? How could our lives have changed so drastically in the space of a few days?

  “They’re probably just in shock. You recovered when they’d been told you’d die. I’m sure they’ll come to accept it and be grateful to still have you.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve led a sheltered life, but I’ve been out in the world. I work at the factory, and I hear what people think of vampires. They may be living out in the open, thanks to the Crimson Accord, but that doesn’t mean they’re accepted. Or good.”

  For a moment, shock prevented me from answering. Josiah and I had known each other nearly our whole lives. I’d always thought of him as a kin
d and accepting person. He seemed completely the opposite now—bitter and judgmental.

  “You’re good,” I argued. “I’m a good person too. We didn’t just change into different people overnight because our irises changed colors.”

  He scoffed. “It’s a lot more than a change in eye color. Don’t you feel it? The thirst? When I woke up in the hospital today, I almost lost my mind smelling the blood all around me. Even my parents...”

  Here he stopped and swallowed, his face twisted in disgust. “It was hard riding home in the buggy with them, hearing their hearts beat and the blood rushing in their veins. I wanted to bolt from the buggy and run away. It took everything in me to come upstairs and lock my door. I don’t know how I’m supposed to live this way.”

  “We’ll just... live,” I offered, suddenly hyper-aware of my ignorance on the subject. “We’ll figure it out. If you can’t stand living with your parents, we’ll go somewhere else. We’ll leave together.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” he growled, sounding angrier than I’d ever heard him in our lives. “I never wanted to leave. You know that. This is my home. This is where I thought I’d stay and spend my life.”

  Collapsing back onto his bed, Josiah covered his face with both hands, speaking into his palms. “I wish you hadn’t done this. You should have just let me die. My parents could have grieved me and moved on. Now they’ll never be able to do that. Their pain will just go on and on—like mine.”

  My belly was somehow completely hollow and simultaneously full of lead.

  He’s in shock. He’ll get over it.

  Even as the words went through my mind, I doubted them. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the turn my life had taken, but it was better to be alive than dead, wasn’t it?

  As long as you were alive, there was still a chance you could do some good in the world, find some joy.

  Apparently Josiah didn’t agree. He cried quietly on the bed, overcome by grief.

  What was I going to do if I couldn’t persuade him to come with me? I really would be alone.

  You should be with your people.

  The big blond vampire’s words came back to me, straightening my spine and replacing the lead in my stomach with something resembling fire.

  He was right. But my people weren’t somewhere in Virginia. They were here. My life was here. And I would not leave my lifelong friend behind.

  If Josiah couldn’t be strong, I’d simply have to be strong for the both of us.

  We’d stay here. We’d show our families there was nothing to be afraid of, and we’d get through this.

  This was our home, and neither one of us was leaving.

  “Josiah, listen to me,” I said. “Your parents will get over the shock—mine too. It’s painful now because it’s all so new. And there are bound to be some advantages to this situation, right? Aren’t vampires supposed to be really strong? Imagine how much more you’ll be able to do around the farm.”

  “We can’t go out in daylight.”

  “So you’ll work at night. And now you’ll be able to watch over your parents all their lives, make sure they’re taken care of.”

  “What about the church? We’ll be shunned.”

  “Other churches have accepted vampires—I’ve heard people complain about it. Ours could change too. They just need to understand. The people in this village have known us all our lives. They’ll see we’re not so different now and learn to accept what they didn’t have any reason to accept before.”

  His tone turned a shade darker. “What about eating?”

  My belly growled at the mere mention of food. And then it flipped in revulsion. Food wasn’t what it wanted.

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  How did other vampires get nutrition? The ones who lived and worked with humans every day. I knew they drank blood, but could they also eat food?

  The revulsion grew more pronounced, some new instinct answering the unspoken question.

  “Maybe we can drink from animals or something,” I said. “There are certainly plenty around here.”

  Suddenly remembering Kannon said he’d be staying at a motel in town, I said, “There’s someone I can ask. I’ll go see him. How thirsty are you? Can you wait a little longer?”

  Josiah’s hand passed over his stomach, then his fingertips clenched his pants leg. “I don’t know. I don’t think my stomach has ever felt so empty in my whole life. I might try the animal thing when I go out to milk the cows for the last time tonight.”

  I nodded eagerly, pleased to see him at least willing to search for solutions. “Okay, you can let me know how that goes. I’ll go into town and talk to the vampire I met there. I’ll be back before daylight.”

  I climbed through the window onto the tree branch, but Josiah’s voice stopped me from going farther.

  “Abigail?”

  “Yes?”

  “Maybe you should just... go. Leave me and this place behind. You’ve always wanted to leave—here’s your chance.” The sorrow in his voice matched the misery on his face.

  “No. I’ll be back—soon. I’ve been sleeping in your barn. If you find you can’t tolerate staying in the house with your parents, go and wait for me there.”

  He nodded woodenly and gave me a weak, “Okay,” before I left.

  8

  Where You Belong

  Kannon answered the door before I knocked.

  Either the walls of the cheap motel were so thin he heard me coming or he smelled me. I could certainly smell him.

  While all the humans I’d passed on my way here had smelled mostly like blood, Kannon smelled normal—like fresh air and soap and denim.

  Sure enough, when the door swung inward, he stood there in a pair of new-looking jeans and a t-shirt spotted with water droplets from his wet hair.

  “Abigail.” He gave me a wide smile. “I’m so glad you changed your mind. Come in while I put on some shoes, and we’ll get going.”

  “Oh. No. I’m sorry—that’s not why I’m here. I just need to ask you some questions.”

  “Well, training newbies isn’t really my job. At the Bastion, they’ll—”

  “I told you, I’m not going there. I’m staying in my community. There’s a boy there who’s turned too. I can’t leave him.”

  “I see.” He appeared to think for a moment. “Tell you what... I’ll come meet him and contact Imogen. Maybe she’ll allow us to bring him along.”

  “He won’t come. I know him. I’m just here because I need to find out about some things.”

  Kannon let out a long sigh and pulled on the leather jacket he’d been wearing before. “What things?”

  “Well... what do vampires eat?”

  “We don’t. Vampirism causes complete liver failure—we can’t process food of any kind. It’s blood only.”

  That made sense based on the way just the thought of food had sickened me.

  “Where do vampires get blood? You know, to eat—drink—whatever. Does it have to be human blood because I really don’t want to drink human blood.”

  What I didn’t say was how much I had enjoyed the taste of human blood. Frankly, it frightened me to even think about.

  “Afraid so,” he said. “Wait—what have you been drinking? I sort of assumed that’s what you were doing at the hospital.”

  I shook my head, not answering his question. I had consumed blood at the hospital but not from any sort of stockpiled supply.

  “Can’t we just drink from animals?”

  That didn’t seem quite so bad. My father and brothers had hunted deer and rabbit and squirrel for us all my life. At any rate, it had to be better than drinking from humans.

  “Whatever you do, don’t drink animal blood,” Kannon warned. He sat in a rickety chair beside an even shabbier table and tied his boot laces. “It’s not compatible with our systems.”

  “It kills vampires?”

  “No, but it poisons them. The ones I’ve seen who’ve tried it wound up completely insane. They h
ad to be destroyed.”

  “Oh.” That took some of the wind out of my sails. “So then we have to drink from a human.”

  “You shouldn’t do that either—not yet. For one thing, you’re brand new. You have no idea what you’re doing, and you’d probably wind up unable to stop and drain the poor soul. Blood directly from the vein is intoxicating. Besides that, the Crimson Accord expressly forbids feeding from a human unless the human has given permission. And even then, you have to make sure the person hasn’t been bitten too many times already.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll let Imogen explain the rest. Just suffice it to say—no animal blood and no drinking straight from the vein. Blood bags only—for now.”

  He got up and crossed the room to the bed where a large black duffel bag rested. Opening it, he pulled out a small, rectangular vinyl bag filled with dark liquid.

  He tossed it to me. “Here you go.”

  I fumbled it and almost dropped it but managed to hang onto the gruesome package. “It’s cold.”

  He grinned. “Just took it out of the motel fridge. You can drink it that way, but naturally it tastes better warm. Just don’t microwave it—totally kills the nutritional value.”

  “We don’t have those where I live anyway.”

  He nodded. “If you want to heat it up, put it in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes. Back at the Bastion we have warmers that bring it to a perfect ninety-eight-point-six.”

  Though I cringed at the gory thought, my stomach growled again, this time more loudly. “Thank you. I’ll share this with Josiah until we figure out how to get more.”

  Kannon huffed a frustrated breath. “I’ve already told you how. Come to the Bastion with me. You’ll have everything you need—a steady blood supply, shelter, companionship, training. Plus, it’s the safest place to be with all the changes happening in the country.”