Gathering Darkness: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Anna Zaires

  “You'd make a lousy salesman.”

  “Immortality tends to sell itself.” He smirked. I rolled my eyes and chewed on a French fry. “Can't you just tell me what I need to know so I can leave?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “It takes a bit more than a crash course and a few hours to teach you what you need to know.”

  I stared at him impassively. “How am I supposed to know who to believe? As far as I’m concerned, this is your fault. And I wish I had stabbed you better.”

  He extended his hand across his uneaten nachos. “Give me your hand.”

  I didn't.

  “Oh, come on, I won't hurt you,” he said impatiently. “It's not a trick. Here.”

  I reluctantly rested my palm on his. “Now what?”

  “Just relax. Close your eyes and open your mind. Let me show you.”

  “I can't see anything,” I complained. But no sooner had I finished my sentence, that something slammed into my head like a ton of bricks and I had to grip the table with my spare hand to keep from falling off my chair.

  Suddenly, I could see everything I wanted to know, or almost everything. I saw the small village in Italy where Ryan was born. I saw how he had been Turned into a vampire by Caleb one night in Venice, how he had left his homeland and travelled with his new–found vampire family to Spain. I felt the searing rage that his newborn bloodlust entailed, saw the faces of those he killed. I tasted their blood and the energy it contained in the back of my throat. There was a massive palace where he lived with many other vampires, led by Caleb. Hundreds of years later, I saw the beautiful blonde Spanish princess he fell in love with. Ivy. I saw her changed into a vampire, how something had gone wrong, how she had almost been killed. I saw a girl who had been beaten and drained almost to death, a girl who had changed his loyalties and made him abandon the only life he had ever known, and I realized with a shudder that that girl was me.

  I tore my hand away if it had been burnt and struggled to catch my breath.

  I tried to think of something to say. “Are you really that old?” I managed finally.

  Ryan smiled and nodded, taking a bite of his nachos like the psychic–link thing hadn't just taken all the energy out of him. Me, I was exhausted from the mental novel I'd just been subjected to.

  “You regret it,” I said. “I believe that. But how am I supposed to trust you that this isn't just another game? I mean, you've moved me from one jail cell to another, but I'm still your prisoner.”

  “I understand you're wary.”

  “That's an understatement, don't you think?”

  His cell beeped. He stared at the screen for a moment.

  “Our ride's here soon,” he said. “Better wait in the room. We don’t want to blow our cover before we even get out of the country.”

  “Wait, where are we going?” I eyed him warily over bottles of ketchup and mustard.

  “Home.” He stood up and threw a twenty down on the table.

  “Where is home?” I didn’t move from my seat.

  He sighed. “Not New Jersey.”

  I cleared my throat. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  He eyed me suspiciously. “You can go back at the room.”

  I shook my head. “I’m about to burst. I’ll just be a minute.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, whatever. Hurry up.”

  I stood and made a beeline for the bathroom, feeling heat at my back. “You’re coming to watch?” I guessed, disappointed.

  “I’ll wait outside the door. Pee fast.”

  I entered the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind me. There were two stalls and a rusting basin bolted to the cinderblock wall. I immediately entered the furthest stall and locked the door behind me. It was like my luck had suddenly turned for the better. A giant window, as wide as the stall and two feet tall, hung over the toilet. I put the lid of the toilet down and stepped up as quietly as I could onto the plastic, levering the window open with such ease, it could have been a set–up. Without looking back, I shimmied feet–first through the window and landed with a satisfying crunch onto the gravel ground outside. I was in the parking lot of the diner, the motel at my right and the busy highway a couple hundred feet away. The rain had stopped, making things even easier.

  “Well, fancy seeing you here,” a voice drawled, and I swore under my breath as Ryan sauntered around the corner, a smug smile plastered across his conceited face.

  I searched around for a weapon, anything I could strike him with. Bingo. A rusted tire iron lay half buried in the gravel near my feet, thorny weeds growing around it like chains. I leaned down and pulled it free, brandishing it like a sword in front of me. Ryan charged me as I brought the tire iron up in a wide arc, slamming it against the side of his head. Dark blood exploded from his cheek and he crashed face first into the loose road base. I slammed it into the back of his head again and again, as he tried to crawl away.

  “I’m trying to help you!” he yelled as his mouth hit gravel. “Stop it!”

  I laid one final, spectacular blow on the back of his skull and dropped the tire iron, making a run for the highway. He might have been an old and awesome vampire, but I was a state track runner, and I was fast.

  Not fast enough. I felt a hand latch around my ankle and I landed awkwardly on my ass so hard, the shock went all the way through my tailbone and up to my head. I scurried backwards on my hands and heels, when Ryan landed on me from where he stood, effectively pinning me to the ground. I thrashed about, nails gouging at flesh and feet kicking blindly.

  “Stop.” I eventually did stop, wearing myself out all too quickly.

  “You tricked me,” I said sullenly, panting.

  “It was a test,” Ryan said, hauling me to my feet and pressing me against the wall. “You failed. Or passed. You did exactly what I thought you would do.”

  “You’re an asshole,” I said, humiliated. He had played me again.

  “Listen,” he said urgently, his fingers biting into my shoulders. “I can never go back there, do you understand? Centuries of loyal service, of being at the top of the chain, all gone. My friends? All gone. My house? Gone. I got you out of there because I didn’t want you to die like that.”

  “How would you prefer me to die?” I shot back, shoving him in the chest. He relaxed his fingers but didn’t let go of me.

  “I don’t want you to die at all,” he rephrased. “I want to help you. I was going to help you escape before you jumped out of the window, you stupid girl.”

  His look was so genuine, his frustration so heartfelt, that I couldn’t help but trust him a little bit. Not much, but enough to stop struggling.

  “Why me? Why not any of the other people you’ve helped him kill?”

  Ryan seemed to deflate a little bit, and he looked to the highway for inspiration.

  “I guess … I’m tired,” he said finally. “I don’t know why it was you. Maybe because – because once someone forgets their human life, it gets easier. But you, you wouldn’t forget, and I’ve never seen that before.”

  I felt my eyes go all watery. “I want to go home,” I said stubbornly.

  “Jesus Christ, you’re like a broken record!” Ryan said, letting me go. “Fine. Go. Hitch a ride with the next trucker. I guarantee you, you’ll be dead before nightfall.”

  I stood there dumbly, having just been given my freedom and maybe not wanting it any more. I swore under my breath and looked out to the cars going by, ordinary people oblivious to my plight.

  “You’re the one who started all this,” I accused, turning on him. “You are the sick bastard who followed me to my car and beat the living shit out of me, more than once. There is something fundamentally wrong with you, do you get that? You are a bad person. You’re a fucking psychopath!”

  Ryan studied me for a moment. “There is something very wrong with me,” he agreed. “Over the years, I’ve let the darkness inside me rule my life. I’ve killed countless people just like you.”

  “Way to make a girl feel saf
e. I’m done here.” I stormed towards the highway, resisting the invisible ribbon that pulled me towards Ryan like a magnet.

  You made me want to be a better person, he said in my head, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

  Wanting it isn’t good enough, I replied.

  You’re the reason I’m leaving that life behind. I want to help you. It was a pleading, more than anything else.

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  What about everything that I have? I demanded. What about MY life?

  Three months. He pleaded. Three months for me to teach you what you need to know. To make sure you don’t kill someone if you get hungry. To make sure you can hide what you are. Three months for me to make sure Caleb isn’t a problem for either of us. Then you go home to your boyfriend and your family and your life and forget all about me.

  I turned to face him, and his sad kid face tore at my heart. I’d always trusted my gut instinct, and it had never let me down. The only time I had ever ignored it, I had been kidnapped. My head told me to run. My gut told me he was right, that I should stay.

  Three months is a long time, I said across the lot.

  Not when you have eternity, he replied. Two months.

  I let that offer hang in the air between us.

  Two months, I agreed reluctantly.

  The bastard just smiled.

  I stared out to the highway, trying to figure out why the hell I had agreed to stay, when my skin started to burn.

  I yelped, pressing my hands to my hot face. I shied away from the sun’s overpowering rays, covering my face with my arms. I felt a hand on my wrist as Ryan pulled me towards shelter.

  “What’s happening to me?” I gasped.

  A firm grip steered me towards the motel room. We stopped for a moment in the shade created by the verandah that was attached to the diner entrance.

  “It’s just the sun. New vampires are very sensitive.”

  “Well, shit!” I said. “Am I going to burst into flames?” The mental image was horrific.

  “No. That’s a ridiculous myth propagated by television shows and novels. But,” he paused for dramatic effect, “You’ll probably feel like you are burning alive.”

  “Awesome,” I muttered.

  FIFTEEN

  Ten minutes later, I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub in our motel bathroom, gritting my teeth as Ryan laid strips of cold, wet gauze across my face and neck. The sprint across the parking lot had been nightmarish – though I had tried to cover my face with my shirt, it hadn’t been very effective. The sun is pretty good at burning newborn vampire flesh, something I’ve since seen first–hand.

  My arms were raw and a couple of blisters had already popped up. In comparison to how fast my cut finger had healed in the shower, this seemed contradictory. Heal immediately from one thing but fall prey to something as innocent as the sun?

  “Can I ever go in the sun again?” I asked anxiously.

  He wrapped a wet towel around my right arm. “Of course. It’s just an initial reaction. Once you build up a tolerance, you’ll be fine.”

  “So I have to feel like this for how long?”

  He stopped fussing with my arm and sat on the edge of the bathtub beside me. “That depends. If you take my blood, you’ll heal pretty much straightaway. And you’ll have less problem the next time you go out in the sun. My tolerance will help you.”

  “And if I don’t drink your blood?”

  He stood and went over to the sink. “A couple of weeks, maybe more. And if you go back in the sun during that time, you’ll be even worse. The sun’s about the only thing that can scar a vampire’s flesh. More than, say, a broken wine bottle to the head or a stake to the chest.” A warm, metallic scent wafted across to me. It didn’t smell all that bad, to be honest. It smelled good. Which was, in itself, A Very Bad Thing.

  I groaned. “Okay.”

  He smirked.

  “Well,” he said, “don’t be so appreciative.”

  “I would have stayed in here,” I complained. “You’re the one who took me out in the fucking sun.”

  He presented me with a small glass tumbler, filled with fresh, warm blood. I stared at it apprehensively, slightly disturbed by the fact that not two minutes ago it was pumping around Ryan’s circulatory system.

  I pinched my nose shut and threw the medicine down my throat, gulping and gasping and trying not to throw up. I took one of the sugar packets that I’d jammed into my pocket at the diner and ripped the top off, pouring it over my tongue.

  “I wanted to see what your tolerance was like. And I’m also the one who saved your fucking life a few days ago, remember?”

  “You’re also the one who fucking kidnapped me,” I shot back, but between the words kidnapped and me, tires squealed close by and Ryan’s gaze switched to the window.

  I felt the color drain from my face, and a voice inside my head told me to stay silent and still. I did.

  Ryan looked at me, putting a finger to his lips as he handed me a stuffed calico bag about the size of a deck of cards. It smelled like cat pee. He motioned for me to keep holding it, and he did likewise with an identical bag.

  Footsteps echoed like machine gun bullets across the parking lot. I realized that if I concentrated hard enough, I could figure out approximately where people were in the parking lot. I could even hear how many cars were out there and the heartbeats of the people who were presumably searching for us. I could also hear my heartbeat. It was fast, and it was afraid. I looked at the empty tumbler I’d just drank from, an oily red smear still coating it, and wondered.

  We sat there as the minutes dragged on. Finally, the footsteps seemed to retreat and the sound of skidding tires marked a hasty exit. It frightened me that someone was trying so hard to find me – us – and I didn’t want to imagine what would happen if I was captured again. I very much doubt I would be taken back alive, especially now that I was a vampire and presumably useless for Caleb’s torturous bloodletting experiments.

  Finally, Ryan took a breath and seemed to relax marginally. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Did you just hold your breath that whole time?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking about it. I guess so.”

  “Wow.”

  “Vampires get most nutrients and oxygen from drinking blood. Breathing is just a habit at my age.”

  “Riiiight. So … what’s your plan? How are we getting out of here?”

  Ryan glanced at me, apparently amused. “We’ll wait. Our ride is here very soon, and she can protect you better than just me and a couple of hex bags.”

  I eyed him warily. “You’re such a bad ass, why can’t we just steal a car and drive ourselves to wherever it is we’re going?”

  “I might be a ‘bad ass’,” he used his fingers to make rabbit ears, “but I’m no magic user. These hex bags will help us hide in here for a few hours, but if we leave now, we’ll be followed.”

  I tensed up, panicking. “I don’t want to go back there.”

  “You won’t! Just stay calm, don’t freak out.”

  “I already am freaking out.” My heart was thumping so loud I could barely think.

  “I’m aware of that, thanks.”

  “Get out of my head! Again!”

  “It’s a little hard not to hear what you’re thinking. You’re like a goddamn emergency beacon, shouting out our coordinates.”

  “And you’re a goddamn psychopath! Magic will help us get out of here? I think this is just one, big prank you assholes are playing on me before you kill me.”

  Ryan’s cell vibrated on the bathroom counter, and the screen lit up. He snatched it up and studied the screen. “Not long now,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound at all reassuring.

  “She should have helicoptered in,” I deadpanned. “Would have been quicker.”

  Ryan nodded. “She did want to bring the Apache. I told her it’d attract too much attention.”

  “Well, good for you.”
I looked around the tiny bathroom and longed for some wide open space. I studied the skin on my arms and realized it was almost completely healed. No blisters, and only a slight reddish tinge that was getting fainter by the minute.

  “Hey, it worked.”

  Ryan took my hand and studied my arm. “You’re a fast healer,” he said.

  I told him about how I had cut my finger in the shower. “Will everything heal that fast?”

  He shook his head. “I have a lot to explain, and I’ll try my best to do that on the way home. For now, yes you will heal fast, but you’re not invincible. A lot of new vampires get too cocky, think they’re indestructible, and they get themselves killed pretty fast.”

  “What’s going to get me killed?” I asked softly. “Apart from those guys outside.”

  “Well, fire’s really dangerous for vampires. It will kill you just as soon as a regular person. Bullets aren’t so bad, as long as you don’t get hit in a major artery. There are a few plants that are poisonous to vampires. None that you’ll find anywhere around here.”

  “Just one more question,” I said. “How the hell are there such things as vampires? I mean, how did you come about? Was someone bitten by a bat or something?” I scowled. “Will I turn into a bat?”

  “That’s a long story,” he smiled reassuringly. “A bat–free story, though. Let’s wait for the car ride for that one.”

  Ryan’s phone buzzed again. “She’s here,” he said. I followed him out of the bathroom and into the main room. “Grab your stuff, let’s go.”

  I stood in the middle of the room, still clutching the calico ‘hex’ bag. “Uh ... what stuff?”

  He grabbed the pile of bloodied sheets and dumped them into my arms, then gathered up his own duffel bag and that hideous glass jar. “Here. Let’s go, quickly. Don’t lose that hex bag.”

  I stumbled out into the intensifying midday sunshine, relieved to feel only a slight irritation on my exposed skin. I wanted to ask how many days we’d been here, but now wasn’t the time. Ryan walked briskly to a Ford Explorer that sat idling halfway between the motel room and the diner. I followed, tossing the sheets into the car and taking a seat in the back.