Sweet Last Drop

by Melody Johnson

  Morgan pierced me in their parents’ guest bedroom. He had me lay on a padded table that I suspected his mother used for massage therapy, he wore surgical gloves, and he sterilized the needle and ring. He was quietly professional and well-mannered, and his shyness, combined with the loudness of his tattoos, drew me to him. I remember being both embarrassed and excited to reveal my stomach for the piercing, but as his little sister’s friend and a customer, he was very efficient. He pierced my belly, charged me five dollars, and reminded me that I was still too young to legally consent to the piercing. He didn’t know it because he didn’t know me, but he didn’t have to worry. Even as just a member of high school newspaper club, I knew to protect my sources.

  Morgan was one of the piercers at I.P.P. (Inked Pierced & Proud) by the time Nathan wanted a nose ring. He was fourteen at the time, and frankly, I was surprised that he hadn’t come to me earlier. I took Nathan to see Morgan, and being eighteen, I pretended to be Nathan’s legal guardian. Morgan knew I was lying, but he also knew that I could keep a secret. He pierced Nathan’s nose, charged him fifty dollars, and I complimented Morgan on how well his career was progressing.

  He smiled, and by the way his eyes lingered, I suspected that he didn’t see me as his little sister’s friend anymore. But I was leaving for Berkeley in the fall. I wasn’t interested in keeping permanent ties in New York City because once I left, I wasn’t ever coming back.

  I returned his smile anyway.

  When our parents saw Nathan’s face, his nose ring like a glittering F.U. on display, they threw a fit. Nathan promptly threw me under the bus, asking them to explain the difference between his nose ring and my belly ring when he knew damn well they hadn’t known about my belly ring. He accused them of being unfair and sexist and closed-minded, but in the end, when they demanded he tell them who had pierced him, a minor without parental consent, his mouth was a steel trap. He’d known when to keep a secret when it mattered.

  Later that week, when he’d finally groveled enough for me to speak to him again, I thanked him for not ratting on Morgan like he’d ratted on me. I’d never forget his response. He shook his head and said, “I didn’t rat on you. I threw them a bone.” He gave me a look. “You’re welcome.”

  That was a skill Dominic had also mastered, but even after twelve years, I was still learning—how to give a little to throw someone off the scent of something more important. To me, everything seemed important and everyone needed protecting. Although I could appreciate the benefits of prioritizing, lately, my biggest priority was just surviving.

  * * * *

  The house was quiet as I left, making the creaks and yawning cracks of the floorboards under my hiking boots seem deafening in the silence. All the other good little night bloods were asleep in their beds, but I couldn’t sleep. Despite having been thoroughly mentally and physically drained, memories of Nathan kept me awake. After three hours of tossing and turning on the twin bed in my guest room, I’d finally given up on the pretense of sleep and decided to explore the area. If I couldn’t do what I wanted, which was rest, I may as well do what I’m good at: snooping into business best left alone.

  I’d decided to find Ronnie’s abandoned childhood home.

  According to Ronnie, the search wouldn’t be difficult: due south through the woods. From habit, I’d packed my silver spray along with my recorder and phone. We still had a few hours until sunset, but I’d never regretted being over prepared. Thanks to the balmy May weather, I forwent my jeans in favor of fitted cargo shorts and the hiking boots Walker had insisted I pack for the trip. I owned multiple pairs of flats, boots, heels, sandals, sneakers, and slides, but little did he know, his request had actually required me to buy hiking boots.

  Navigating the woods was far easier than I expected, and not because Ronnie’s house was due south. It wasn’t. To give Ronnie a little credit, the house was in a southerly direction, and I probably wouldn’t have missed it following her instructions. The house was unmistakable, even hidden in the thick of the woods, because the path between it and Walker’s house wasn’t as overgrown as Ronnie had claimed. I followed the winding trail for a quarter mile and it led me right to the house.

  The roof crested behind the rise as I hiked. Once I reached the top and could see the house in its entirety, I took a moment to catch my wind and enjoy the view. The structures of the house that had survived the fire were lovely, from the wide, wrap-around porch to the gabled roof dormers. Ronnie’s house was smaller than Walker’s, but what it lacked in square footage it made up in charm; she had lived in a veritable gingerbread cottage. The stone chimney was still standing, and even after all this time and weed overgrowth, the matching stone landscaping for flowerbeds and garden walkways were intact. One walkway in particular led to a tree swing. Woodchips were laid under the swing, and I imaged Ronnie as a little girl, her parents pushing her on the swing, her legs pumping strong and high. I felt my throat tighten from my own loss.

  Like Two-Face, with his handsome left profile and grotesque right, the quaint beauty of the house was tainted by the devastation of the fire. The roof had collapsed into the front porch awning, so the awning lay smashed under its weight. The half-exposed second floor siding and walls were nothing but charred skeleton beams on one side. On the other, they’d collapsed, reduced to rubble.

  I didn’t visit my parents’ apartment after the fire. Everything during that time had been a whirlwind of grief and preparation for the viewing and funeral, and after those formalities, going through the motions of normal life—returning to work when I wanted to curl inside myself, eating when I felt nauseated, and speaking when I wanted to alternately scream and cry and punch someone—consumed my energy. Their apartment had been repaired over time, and another couple lived there now. The light had been off the few times I’d passed their building, but a new name was labeled on the outside intercom. With the rubble cleared and new tenants occupying the space, the only remnants of my parents were memories, pictures, and a few pieces of jewelry. The firemen had recovered Mom’s crucifix and Dad’s cufflinks, but other than those few items, everything had been lost.

  The thought of those damn cufflinks threatened to overwhelm my composure. I felt my throat contract around the burn of tears.

  No one had cleared the rubble here for Ronnie and no new tenants were likely to take root anytime soon. I wondered which was worse: watching as new life filled my parents’ apartment even as my heart remained a hollow shell or living with the physical reminder of her parents’ deaths for a lifetime.

  Taking deep breaths to regain my composure, I continued toward Ronnie’s house, forging onward, as usual, despite the pains in my hip and in my heart.

  I shuffled down the rise toward the house carefully, avoiding the prickly vines and thick undergrowth with high, methodical steps. My joints ached. Tripping down the rise would hurt my hip much worse, so I clenched my teeth and bore the pain until I reached the embankment at the bottom.

  Hesitant to actually enter the house in its state of disrepair, I circled around it. I’d walked over the cobbled driveway to the collapsed roof when I noticed something rusty smeared along the base of the awning. I stepped over some of the rubble for a closer look and froze. The rusty smear was blood. That particular smear was old, browned, and crusty, but I could also smell the metallic sweetness of fresh blood nearby, and inexplicably, the smell made me irrationally and undeniably thirsty.

  When had I gained the ability to smell blood? I thought, followed by an even more disturbing question. Why did I want to drink it?

  I searched for the source of the smell and sure enough, fresh blood was splashed along the base of the house near the garage. Turning away from the sight, I eyed the house speculatively. It had withstood the elements for over ten years; it would hold for another ten minutes. A combination of curiosity and nostalgic kinship with the burned house finally got the better of common sense, and I decided to peek inside.

  I had to climb o
ver fallen planks, step on crushed rubble, and cross the line of fresh blood to enter the house, and it took more willpower than I’d like to admit to pass the blood without stopping. I didn’t want to analyze why I wanted it or what I wanted to do with it. I could feel the answer to that second question scrape the back of my dry throat, so I walked on, fastidiously ignoring the blood as I stepped into what had once been a very homey living room. Doilies, now soot-stained and charred, decorated some of the wood end tables. Picture frames that had once propped on those doilies or had hung from the walls were smashed on the ground, their glass like the glitter of snowflakes across the floor. They crackled and popped under my boots as I stepped.

  The smell of blood dissipated as I reached the middle of the room, but as I crossed to the other side of the house, the air sweetened again. My stomach cramped. Goose bumps broke out over my arms, and I felt the craving claw from inside my skin. Saliva swelled in my mouth. I swallowed, and an image of myself licking the blood from the ground flooded my mind.

  I jerked back, disgusted and sickened by my own thoughts, and tripped over the protruding leg of a broken coffee table. I hit the floor on my knees but caught myself on a couch cushion before my hands hit the ground, too. A billowing cloud of soot and dust burst into the air. I waved my hand, trying and failing to clear the soot from my face. Even holding my breath, the dust floated up my nose and down my throat. I coughed, and gasping in more soot-dusted air, I coughed harder. I leveraged myself slowly, painfully, to my feet, alternately coughing and waving my hand against the dust.

  I limped to the other side of the room and crossed back over the rubble for some fresh air. My first lungful, free of dust and soot, was laced with a tempting, salty sweetness. Identical to the side I’d entered, blood was splashed across the house’s concrete foundation on this side as well. I hunkered down—the movement more cumbersome now that I’d further stressed my hip, and pressed my fingers into the dirt. The ground was sticky and moist, and when I turned my fingers over, my prints were stamped red with blood.

  I swallowed, staring at my bloodstained fingers for a long, excruciating moment. My hand began to shake as I resisted.

  “They were arguing the night of the fire.”

  I whirled around at that deep twang, my heart stuttering and my arm elbow-deep in my shoulder bag, clutching the silver spray.

  “Walker,” I gasped. I’d recognized his voice, but the suddenness of his arrival was still a shock. My face flushed, like he’d caught my hand in the cookie jar. I quickly wiped the blood off my fingers on some rubble as I stood, but when I faced him, Walker wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the house.

  “Ronnie remembers it like a slumber party with movies and popcorn. Maybe someone had given her food as a distraction, but that’s not how I remember that night at all.”

  I crossed my arms against a sudden chill. “How do you remember it?”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael were terrified. They’d packed bags, loaded the car, and were leaving at first light. My parents were begging them to stay. They’d built their home as a fortress against the vampires, and where else do you take shelter during a war? You take shelter in your fortress.” Walker shook his head, disgusted. “But the Carmichaels wanted to run. They offered to take me with them, and my parents—” he paused to clear his throat, “—my parents hesitated. They considered for a moment the benefit of letting the Carmichaels take me.”

  I frowned. “Why did the Carmichaels want to leave? And what would make your parents consider giving you up to them?”

  Walker linked his hands behind his neck, his muscles tense. They shifted under his shirt as he mulled over my questions, the answers to which he’d likely been mulling for a lifetime. “I don’t know. But they never had the opportunity to leave, with or without me. As our parents argued, the fire ignited. By the time they realized what was happening, it was too late. The house was already engulfed in flames.”

  “But not for you and Ronnie.”

  Walker looked up sharply. “Excuse me?”

  “It was too late for your parents, but you and Ronnie escaped.”

  Walker pursed his lips. “Bex saved us.”

  He’d spoken the words so softly, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. “Bex?”

  He nodded. “Ronnie and I were screaming, trapped by the flames and coughing. I remember the scorching heat around us, like the house was an oven and we were being baked alive. The air scorched our lungs, and our screams turned more and more hoarse until we struggled to breathe. Bex was suddenly there, out of nowhere, and she pulled us out.”

  “Did you know who she was back then?”

  “I knew what she was, if that’s what you mean,” Walker said bitterly. “But at the time, despite everything my parents had taught me, she was my hero. She was the first vampire I’d ever actually met, and she’d saved my life.” Walker shook his head at the memories. When he met my gaze again, his lips grinned but his eyes were shadows. “I was such an idiot.”

  “You were thirteen,” I chastised softly. “There’s a difference.”

  Walker snorted. “Ronnie really does talk too much.”

  I nodded. “Don’t be too hard on her. It’s me after all, and as you know, I always get my scoop.” I winked, trying to lighten the oppressive mood.

  Walker laughed. “Nevertheless, I should start tailing her house tours. God only knows what else she’s saying about me.”

  “Only good things, I assure you. Since she gave me a tour of your house, it’s only fair turnaround that you to give me a tour of hers,” I suggested playfully.

  Walker shook his head. “You’re incorrigible.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Does that mean I get a tour?” Anything to escape the sickly sweet smell of blood. My heart hadn’t stopped racing since I’d touched the blood, and I could feel that once familiar, now returning itch crawl beneath my skin in a tide of goose bumps and nausea.

  Walker sighed; it sounded pain-filled, but he smiled. “Yes, darlin’, you get a tour.” He stepped over the rubble, into the house, and spread his arms wide. “This once spacious room was the living room. My family would visit every Saturday to watch Syracuse games.” He walked a few steps toward the broken wall. “We grilled out on the stone porch during the summer. Ronnie’s dad could make a mean burger.”

  I smiled. “That stone porch outside is called a patio.”

  “No interruptions mid-tour,” Walker said, shaking his pointer finger at me. “Save your questions for the end.”

  I zipped my lips with my fingers.

  “And this lovely view—” Walker waved his hand through the air, Vanna White style, indicating the collapsed banister and rubble, which allowed for an unhampered view of the woods. “—was a short hallway to the upstairs.” He pointed upstairs, and we both looked up through empty air to the half-collapsed roof. “But I can’t show you that part of the house today, ma’am, as it’s currently under renovations.”

  I tried to laugh but couldn’t hide the sadness in my voice despite our mutual attempt to lighten the mood. “It’s lovely.”

  “Sorry, I’m not much of a tour guide.” He grinned down at me, his smile tinged with the same sadness in my voice, but with the sun glowing like a halo behind the sparking highlights in his curls and his velvety brown eyes crinkling at the corners, I couldn’t help but feel the warmth of his presence blanket over me.

  I smiled back. “I must confess, my request for a tour had an ulterior motive.”

  Walker gasped in mock horror. “You don’t say.”

  “Come on, darlin’, I have something to show you.” I grabbed him by the hand and showed him the smeared blood on either side of the house, both old and fresh. “What do you make of that?”

  Walker narrowed his eyes. “It doesn’t look like accidental blood spatter. Someone or something put that there deliberately, I’d say.”

  I nodded. “You’re right, it doesn’t look accidental, but why would
someone smear blood around the perimeter of the house?”

  “We’ll have to take samples to the lab,” Walker said, shaking his head.

  “Ronnie told me that this house was abandoned. That she hasn’t returned here in years.”

  “She hasn’t.”

  “Well, someone has, and if not Ronnie, then who?”

  Walker sighed. “That’s something I intend to find out.”

  A cloud shifted position in the sky, and the full light of the sun brightened the house. With the broken rafters and half-collapsed ceiling, its rays uninhibitedly poured over the living room, through what was once a doorway, onto the patio, and onto its concrete foundation. The blood around the perimeter of the living room was fresh and pungent, and as it warmed from the sun’s spotlight, it perfumed the entire house with its metallic sweetness. The sharp contrast of the bright red smear against the rough, gray concrete foundation was brilliant, ripe, and succulent.

  A thready laugh tugged at my mind, and I could feel Jillian surface. She was still suffering an unending, excruciating death, but underneath her pain, I could sense a small kernel of sadistic pleasure.

  You want to drink that blood, she thought, still laughing at me despite her pain.

  My heart slingshot into overdrive. I do not want to drink that blood, I told myself firmly, even as my throat became parched. The feeling was more than want. I desired the blood. The sensory image of those tacky, salty-sweet smears against my tongue made my breath hitch.

  I’d been losing pieces of myself and finding new ones recently, pieces of strength and fortitude and determination that I’d always thought I’d had, but when tested against the immediate danger of nearly dying and the lasting danger of my acquaintance with Dominic, those pieces of myself had a whole new meaning. I could add unnatural hunger and desire to that list now, too.

  “Is something wrong?”