My heart stopped pumping. There was nothing to pump. I was dry on the inside.
I was dry and John Smith was dead.
I shoved the rest of his body into the sunlight, and watched him burn.
CHAPTER 63
John Smith didn’t burn up all at once, of course. His hands turned to ash, while his neck, no longer protected by his head, burst into flame and vanished.
The fire eventually moved to his shirt and as that burned up, more skin and bone was revealed and charred.
Eventually, all that was left was some burned cloth, some zippers and buttons, and the melted rubber from his boots.
Even though I couldn’t eat human food, I still kind of craved a marshmallow.
I wanted to feel something in that moment but with no blood to pump through my veins, my emotions were even more muted. I had done the right thing. A Good Thing.
And all I could think about was eating.
Except, of course, I couldn’t leave until the sun went down.
I found an old tarp, covered my body with it, and went to sleep.
What seemed like moments later, I woke up and saw that the sun was gone, though the pile of ash remained. I scooped some up in my hand and put it into my coat pocket.
It was messy but that wasn’t much of an issue. I was already scraped up, missing much of my hair, and also the top three layers of my scalp.
I walked to the front door and caught my first real break of the day. The chain that was supposed to hold the door closed had been snapped off. I found it lying in the snow outside, and mentally gave the homeless person who’d sought shelter here a thumbs up.
At least, I felt that way for a second until I realized that John probably had been hiding out here for a while. These warehouses were a carefully conceived trap.
I wondered if John had broken in. Or if he came here, found the broken chain, and made a meal of the man inside.
I decided to stop thinking about it altogether.
I went through the hole in the wall of the other warehouse and took stock. Two nearly-dead vampires, lying on the floor.
Wash was right where I had put him.
Emma, on the other hand, wasn’t on the platform anymore. She was lying on the floor. Throwing me had pushed her off-balance and she had fallen the same three stories I had.
Only she had been without healing abilities. So she lay on the ground in a tangle of shattered limbs.
She tried to speak and her throat gave off the same metal-on-metal screech Wash had offered up before.
“Feed.”
CHAPTER 64
I felt surprisingly serene as I left the warehouse in search of some kind of meal. I was hungry but not yet starving.
I knew that would happen soon, though.
Every step I took was using fuel I didn’t actually have to burn.
I had grabbed Wash’s hat out of his coat pocket and stuck it on my head, and brushed vigorously at the dust on my coat. A person with a kind disposition would assume I had taken a bad tumble into some dirt.
A person with a less-than-kind disposition would start looking for a cup to stuff a dollar into.
As I walked, I glanced at the buildings around me. I was heading back in the direction of the assisted living place where Wash had been headed. I didn’t have any real plan but if I was lucky, the woman watching the front desk would let me walk in without question. I would feed and…
Then what?
I didn’t know.
Wash and Emma were badly hurt and I didn’t know how to help them. What they needed was some kind of vampire Meals On Wheels program, and as far as I knew, that didn’t exist.
I could have gone back to Wash’s shelter (the humor of it being called Sundown hit me in that moment) and told everyone that the bad guy was dead, and that they were free to go out and sleep in the cold and snow if they wanted to.
Perhaps one of them would have pneumonia.
I sighed. I wasn’t sad. Or upset. Or angry at the unfairness of what was happening. I knew there had to be a solution. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
I passed by a coffee shop and idly glanced in the window. Maybe I could get one of those mugs that kept beverages warm, take some blood from someone, and bring it back warm to my friends?
That’s when I saw them.
Chuck, my mom’s ex-boyfriend.
And Lindsey, whose alcohol-fueled party had turned me into a vampire-slaying vampire.
Even though I could feel the warmth inside the building from out on the sidewalk, Chuck had a woolen cap on his head. He appeared to have shaved his hair off.
Lindsey, naturally, was wearing a sweater that was probably too thin to save her from the sub-zero temperatures. Even the coat thrown over the back of her chair appeared to be more adorable than warming.
They were in the middle of something serious. Lindsey had a look that was halfway between furious and weepy. Chuck had that look people get when they’re in an argument and they want nothing more than to be out of that argument, no matter what it takes.
Lindsey said something and then got up, grabbed her coat and stormed out the door. She walked right past me without looking, thereby missing her chance to solve The Case of the Missing Lucy.
Chuck, however, did see me. His eyes widened a bit. He stared at me.
I stared back.
Mostly at his hat.
I knew what I had to do. I walked into the coffee place and sat down. “We need to talk, Chuck,” I said.
CHAPTER 65
Chuck kept staring at me. I watched his eyes twitch as he tried to come up with what to say. He finally went with, “You know, your parents are freaking out. They’ve been looking for you since…I don’t know. Whenever you vanished.”
I nodded. “We’ll come back to that,” I said. “Right now, let’s talk about you. Cancer, right?”
Chuck’s features contracted. He coughed softly and cleared his throat. “It’s got some kind of fancy name I don’t think I’ve ever pronounced right but yeah. The big C.”
That was what I had been sensing. His insides sounded…sludgy, I guess was the best way to refer to it. Something was wrong inside him and my vampire senses had been screaming it at me.
I had an offer for him but I had things I needed to know first. “How long do you have?” I asked.
Chuck sat back in his chair. He was offended but his eyes never left my face. Something was different about me and he wanted to figure out what it was. “Weeks. Maybe a couple of months. We caught it late, because I was stupid and thought that I was young and that this kind of thing couldn’t happen to me. Plus, I didn’t have any insurance because I was working in a gym. They might have covered me if I pulled a hammy while showing one of their clients a move but they don’t think cancer is their problem. So by the time I went to the doctor, it was all over but the dying.”
I nodded, acknowledging his words. “Is that when you started spending time with Lindsey?”
“You’ve gotten nosy since I last talked to you.”
I shrugged. “You don’t have to answer.”
Chuck looked at his tea. Sitting this close, I could tell it was something herbal. Chuck had been a coffee drinker. A fancy coffee drinker. His body probably couldn’t handle the brew anymore.
“You really want to know?”
I nodded, and leaned forward a tiny bit. “I do.”
“I was just starting to feel wrong, I guess, when I met your mom. But like I said, I thought something bad couldn’t happen to me. My friends were young and healthy, I was a personal trainer, and we know all the tricks of the trade to keep ourselves in top form.
“I’m not going to be humble about it. I know I’m good looking. You don’t spend all those hours at the gym and not end up looking like a male model. I did well. I did well with girls my own age, and I did well with women who look like your mom.
“That was the thing, really. She was unreal. Lawyer, good pay, nice car. The first time I met her, she was
n’t wearing her wedding ring. She told me later she took it off because she didn’t want to catch it in something and tear off a finger. Might be true, might not be true.
“Point is, from my perspective, after living with a guy I barely liked so I could work at the gym and avoid living with my parents, she was like this prize.
“And she was so gorgeous. She came in on that first day, saying she wanted to stay in shape, telling me this sob story about watching her dad just fall apart physically. A lot of people come into the gym when they see that. They think that there might be some way to push off being old forever. A better diet, some time on a treadmill, you get the picture.
“I mean, she looked good when I met her. Clearly ate right, didn’t do stupid stuff like tanning or smoking. She started working out, and unlike ninety-nine percent of the people who come into the gym and say they’re going to take care of themselves, she did it. Even when we were together.
“Even after we broke up.
“I mean, she started out looking great but now she’s got these abs, you know?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Is this part really important? I’m glad my mom is in good shape and all but this is bordering on creepy.”
Chuck smiled. “I got carried away, I guess.”
“In a myriad of ways.”
“Yeah, about that. I came on to her. But that was just kind of what I did, if you understand me. I worked with women, I flirted with women. It kept some of them coming back to me. Didn’t cost me anything. Probably made me some money.
“I’ll spare you the details but somewhere along the line your mom decided that she didn’t need your dad. She had a job, almost had an empty nest and life was too short. She gave me a lot of excuses and I was just this young and stupid guy who saw a woman who could be in her twenties who wanted me and had the money to get me into the lifestyle I wanted.
“So I moved in. And you were there for that so you don’t need a play-by-play.
“That whole time, I’m not feeling right, and it’s getting worse.
“I go to the doctor, and he wants to run some tests. I don’t have insurance but I’ve got some money saved up because your mom is paying for everything. I get the tests.
“It’s cancer. Maybe they can do something. But probably not. And it’s going to cost.
“Cancer will make you think about your life. I see myself lying in a casket or in an urn and who’s going to cry for me? Not you. Maybe your mom but I think she knew that what we had wasn’t love. My parents weren’t too happy with what I was doing.
“I sat around, not making a decision about what to do. Tell your mom? Not tell her? Tell my family? I have to do that. I decided to go to my family gathering and I’d let everyone know what was happening to me.
“Didn’t invite your mom but she found out about it. I told her she wasn’t coming and we had a fight and I used that fight to end our relationship.
“Told my family what was going on. Moved back in with my folks. My mom had already turned my room into a craft room so now I sleep next to an old sewing machine she hasn’t used in years. I guess that’s it.”
“Lindsey?” I asked.
Chuck glanced over at the door, as though speaking her name would cause her to appear. “Happened after I moved in with my parents. I was selling my car to pay some medical bills and she stopped by the house to ask about it. She remembered me from when I was getting it fixed.
“Found out I was a cancer patient and I turned into something like a project for her. She made her parents buy my car and insisted on paying more than I was asking for it. Because I had cancer, you know.
“Then she started dropping by every day. Texting me. Telling me she had looked up some articles on cancer and that I should talk to my doctor about some new treatments.”
In a strange way, Chuck’s Lindsey story made a lot of sense to me. Back when we’d both been kids and still friends, we had seen an injured bird next to the playground at school. I said we should go get an adult. She insisted on taking off her coat in the brisk autumn air and taking the bird indoors and then going to the office and insisting that they let us call a veterinarian.
I had forgotten about that. It made me smile to remember it. “Yeah, she can be like that,” I said.
Chuck smiled for a moment. Then his face contorted. “That’s what we were arguing about. I was telling her that she needed to give up. That I wasn’t going to pursue anymore treatments. That I was going to die.”
“And what did she say back?”
“That I was too hot to die. Then she stormed out.”
I smiled. “She’s not entirely wrong.”
Chuck smiled back.
It was time.
CHAPTER 66
Chuck and I laughed on and off for almost five minutes. It wasn’t that I was all that full of mirth, it was more that I’d see him about to break up, and I’d make a laughing noise, and then he would bounce off of me and I’d bounce off of him.
He almost had it under control, until he pointed at the tea on the table, and told me that he hated it and that it had been her idea.
I offered to buy him some coffee.
“I can’t drink it,” he said. “Hurts.” He patted his way down his torso.
I told him I didn’t care and I got him a small cup of something with a rich aroma. I even added cream and sugar. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t like either of us was going to consume it.
I sat back down and he inhaled deeply, then brought it to his lips and let it touch the tip of his tongue. “Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I said. And now it was time to ask.
“Chuck, I think I can help you,” I said.
Chuck took a long sniff of his coffee and touched it to his tongue again. “You already have,” he said.
I finally understood why vampires usually approach the homeless and the elderly. When things get bad enough, they’re just cognizant enough to need help without asking too many questions. They’re ready to go and if you can offer them passage into the next world, they’re ready to listen.
“No, I mean, with your illness,” I said. I was stumbling around for the right verbiage to use.
Chuck’s eyebrows pulled together. It wasn’t disapproval. It was more like I was a little kid who had found out that his car had broken down, and offered him a toy car as a replacement. “Lucy, I’m not really sure what you’re planning on offering me but I’ve gone down the healing crystals and experimental treatments path with Lindsey already. There’s nothing I can do at this point. I’m going to die.” The word “die” caught in his throat. It might not have been the first time he had said it out loud but I suspected it was.
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “I can help you. And you can help me. And my friends. I can make it easy on you. You don’t have to spend the last two weeks of your life lying on a bed with a morphine drip while your parents cry over you. I can save you from that.”
I heard Chuck’s heartbeat increase. I was screwing this up. There was a plate on the table, where something that required a knife to eat had once been. The knife now sat on the plate, sharper than necessary, as far as a muffin was concerned.
I picked up the knife, and Chuck’s heartbeat increased again. “Watch,” I said.
I glanced around the shop to make sure no one else was looking. But it was a sketchy part of town and night had fallen. We were all alone except for the barista, who had wandered into the back of the shop some time ago.
I showed Chuck my hand. I flipped it over so he could see there was nothing on the other side.
I placed my hand on the table and jammed the knife through it.
I pulled it out and held up my hand so he could see the light coming through the hole I had just created.
His heartbeat increased again. A little more and it would have been racing but right now it was in the healthy fear zone, not quite to fight-or-flight.
I leaned towards him. “I’ve got a secret to tell you,” I said.
CHAPTER 67
Chuck could have done a lot of things.
He could have grabbed the knife and stabbed me again. He could have gotten up and run out.
On a more rudimentary level, his heart rate could have shot up.
But none of that happened.
Instead, his heart rate did a stutter-step, then slowed. And slowed some more.
He was still excited but this was something different. Not fear. Hope, perhaps.
“You can help me?”
It was strange to hear the word “help” come from the mouth of a human. In a lot of way, it still felt like a vampire euphemism up until that moment. But here was Chuck, asking for our assistance in the only way we could assist. I nodded slowly.
He tilted his head. “What do I have to do?”
I had been so concerned with getting him to agree with my proposal, I had shoved most of my other needs aside. But recalling them wasn’t all that hard.
I told him what I needed him to do and told him to come with me.
It felt strange. We were preparing to seal a contract but first we had to throw away our trash and put the knife and plate into a bin so someone could wash them.
We walked back to the warehouse without speaking. There wasn’t anything to say. Our recent intimacy aside, we still barely knew each other.
And there was no point in talking about tomorrow. For him, there was no tomorrow.
When we arrived at our destination, we went in and I removed my hat and showed him my battle damage. He nodded sagely and took off his own hat.
He pulled out his phone. I was about to tell him my mom’s phone number but it was still in his speed-dial. I couldn’t decide if that was sweet or sad.
It felt like the middle of the night out in the darkness but it was a trick of the winter. It was a little after 8:00 PM. My parents would be home, perhaps eating dinner, perhaps watching TV or talking about their day.
Assuming they were together. Assuming they were alive.
Blood Calling (The Blood Calling Series, Book 1) Page 18
