The Becoming asc-1

by Jeanne C. Stein

  "Do you know his blood type?” he asks in perfect, unaccented English.

  I nod. I've seen it on company medical records. “O positive."

  "Good.” He turns to the refrigerator. “Universal. I have a good supply. Do you know how much blood he's lost?"

  "No. I know he's been fed from for at least two days."

  He draws a bag of blood from the refrigerator, sets it on the counter. He crosses to the cabinet and retrieves another bag, this time with a colorless liquid. “It's as important for us to restore his body's fluid levels as it is to restore the blood,” he explains. He moves to David as he talks, arranging needles and tubes as he goes. I wince a little as he sticks one of those needles into a vein on the back of David's hand. It brings back my stay in the hospital and the beginning of all this.

  But I push that out of my head. I don't want Culebra to pick up on it. Instead I watch the “doctor.” He's obviously American, tall, six-something, thin. He has blond hair and blue eyes and when he reaches over David to secure one of those tubes to the side of the gurney, I see track marks on the inside of one of his arms.

  Gets high on his own supply.

  Explains his presence here. He may not even be a real doctor, but he seems to know what he's doing. He doesn't say anything else to me until he's finished, and the two tubes running liquids into David's body are secure. The he turns to me.

  "Now it's just a matter of time. He'll either pull through or he won't."

  Not very encouraging. “How long before we know?"

  "A day or two. I'll keep a close eye on him."

  Culebra steps beside us at David's bedside. “You have done all that you can."

  Have I? David lies so still and pale on that gurney. He hasn't moved, hasn't made a sound. If he dies—

  The doctor is examining his neck wounds now, and he turns to look at me. “Did you do this?"

  A rush of cold fury. “No. I didn't. Can you fix it?"

  He shakes his head. “Only one way to heal vampire bites. I don't have the proper equipment, so to speak."

  Culebra touches my elbow.

  I know immediately what he is trying to convey. A vampire bite can only be healed by another vampire. But to do that, I'd have to reopen the wound. I'd be tasting David's blood. I've only fed from other vampires before this, never a mortal.

  The doctor has stepped away, giving me a clear shot of the ravages inflicted on David's neck. The wound is open, weeping, the skin torn away in jagged slices. If I don't do it, he'll bear the scars for the rest of his life—an open declaration to any other vampire that he has been fed from. Like Avery's maid.

  Culebra senses my decision and motions to the doctor to follow him. He pulls the drape over the door and leaves David and I alone in the cubicle.

  Can I do this?

  I move to David's bedside. Physically, I know how it's done. I've done it to Avery. But with Avery it was all bound up in sex and excitement and the safety of knowing I couldn't go too far. This is David, and I don't know if the taste of mortal blood will send me into some kind of uncontrollable frenzy.

  But what choice do I have? And time is running out. I have only two hours until Avery sends that car to pick me up.

  And so I bend over David, gather him up and lay my lips gently against his neck. I don't have to tear at his skin, the vein is right there, close to the surface. When I break in, his blood is warm and sweet and full of the vitality of life. But I don't allow myself to drink, the puncture is only to start the healing process. My saliva mixes with his blood and tissue and I feel it begin. Sinew and vein reattach, torn skin becomes elastic. The wound closes.

  When I sit back, all that's visible now is a flush of color at his neck. And even that fades as I watch. I lean down once again and kiss David's cheek.

  "Are you staying the night?"

  The doctor has moved back into the room. I have no idea how he knew that I had finished with David, but he is examining the wound and nodding as if finding it acceptable.

  "No. I can't stay. Not tonight. But I will be back tomorrow morning."

  I hope.

  I feel Culebra's eyes on me. He, too, has reentered the room. I turn to face him. We have a deal?

  He nods and holds out a hand. His grip is dry and firm.

  As I return the handshake, I realize if I don't come back tomorrow, I must make arrangements for David. Culebra is the only one I can trust now.

  He tilts his head as if listening to some internal dialogue. He probably is. Mine.

  After a moment he says, I will look after him if you don't return. You have a friend here in Mexico who knows him, do you not?

  A jolt. Max. But how does Culebra know?

  He shrugs the question off. If something happens, I will notify him.

  I stare at him in confusion and alarm. Who are you?

  But he simply takes my hand again. “Vaya con Dios,” he says.

  Go with God. I turn away. A strange benediction from a devil.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The dress is made of silk, woven so delicately its touch is like a whisper against the skin. It has a band of jewels that crisscross the bodice, hugging and accenting each breast, and a sweeping skirt that falls to the ankles. It's bright red, the color of blood, the color of life. It's a dress that is worn naked underneath—a dress meant to invite sex and fashioned to facilitate it.

  Avery has chosen carefully. Whatever he has in mind for tonight, there's no doubt how he envisions the evening will end. And why shouldn't he? It's the way almost every evening has ended since I first met him.

  Won't he be surprised that tonight is so different?

  But this is not going to be easy. I have to scrub my mind clear of worry for David, of this morning's explorations, of the hate hardening like concrete in the pit of my stomach. Avery must think I'm the same woman he bedded at the beginning of the day. If he suspects anything else, I have no doubt he will kill me.

  I run my hands along the contours of my body. I don't know how I look in Avery's masterpiece of seduction. There are no mirrors in the house, and even if there were, I couldn't use them. I can't apply make-up either, or do anything with my hair except comb it.

  So I use my fingers to fluff shower-wet hair and smooth gloss onto lips dry with impatience.

  I want to get this over with. It's ironic that it's Avery's own strength I will use against him. He has given me his power. That's what Williams felt when I attacked him, which is why I was able to defeat him. I understand that now.

  I glance at my watch. It's seven fifty. The car should be here any minute. Will Avery be inside? Somehow, I doubt it. I think he wants me to make an entrance, to glide down some gilded staircase maybe, or appear like a vision in a garden backlit by candles.

  He is a romantic, after all.

  And I certainly fell for it.

  I blow out a breath and slip into four-inch ankle-tie come-fuck-me-pumps by Manolo Blahnik. Avery thought of everything. I found these at the bottom of the garment bag.

  Promptly at eight, a black Mercedes limousine turns up the driveway. I open the door to greet the driver, and no surprise, I sense immediately that he is a vampire. He's young, mid-twenties, his lean body draped with a black tuxedo. He gives me a two-finger salute and smiles. I read in his thoughts that he likes the dress, thinks the woman in it is “hot.” He doesn't seem to care that I'm reading his reactions as they occur, even the more physical ones.

  The impudence of youth.

  But I don't care either. I just want him to take me to Avery.

  "We're on our way,” he says with a grin.

  When I'm seated in the back seat, he takes his place behind the wheel. As soon as he does, his thoughts are closed to me. I look around the car, see speakers, hear the gentle shushing sound. Avery has outfitted this car with his own personal security shield, too.

  It's a relief, really. It means I don't have to be careful of my thoughts.

  The driver turns to look back at me. “My n
ame is Robert,” he says. “And Dr. Avery told me to tell you to sit back and relax, enjoy the ride. There's chilled champagne in the refrigerator."

  "Where are we going?"

  Again the smile. “It's a surprise."

  Then he turns his attention to the front, pushes a button that activates a privacy screen between us, and I'm left alone in the back seat with only my thoughts and a bottle of 1962 Dom Perignon for company.

  The night is moonless, the air still. I watch through the windows as we head up the coast. In Del Mar, Robert turns onto a side street that winds up and away from the coastal highway and into the foothills. I lean back and sip champagne from a crystal flute, savoring the sweet excitement of the havoc I will wreak on Avery's world. The same havoc he has wrought on mine. The vision of his house in flames warms me and sustains my resolve.

  But I have to temper all that out of my subconscious now. I have to turn on a different kind of flame. He has to think I'm coming to him in love, ready now to accept the life he offers. And in reality, it's not that difficult to flip that switch. After all, the passion that ignites whenever we're together burns as fiercely as the hatred inside me.

  The car slows and stops in front of the gated entrance to a private club—or at least that's what the sign posted beside the guard shack says. A man in a uniform pokes his head out of the booth and nods at Robert. The gate slides open. I put the glass down and watch to see what Avery has prepared.

  It's very much as I imagined.

  There are luminarios lining a driveway that leads to a rambling, pillared Colonial mansion. The house floats in the night like a pale ghost ship. There is no artificial light. Only candles flickering from every window. It's a fairy-tale setting.

  Robert pulls to a stop and a liveried servant comes down the stairs to open my car door. Without a word, he steps aside as I climb out, then passes me to get to the landing and swing open the front door. I expect Avery to be waiting inside, but the only thing that greets me is soft string music floating in from open French doors just ahead. I look around but the servant is gone. I guess I'm supposed to find my own way from here.

  The doors open to a rose garden, the perfume fills the air. Still, there's no one waiting here, either, so I follow a path of flaming torches to a wide deck. It's a pool deck, the shimmering water stretching to meet the horizon in an unbroken sweep. There's a table set for two

  But still no Avery.

  I approach the table, pour myself a glass of champagne—the second this evening. But this will be my last. I need to have my wits about me.

  But why?

  The question floats across the still night air from the far end of the pool. I turn to watch Avery as he appears at the door of a cabana and starts toward me. He has a silver vase filled with red roses in his hands.

  Tonight is the perfect night to lose yourself in the moment. No thinking, no inhibitions, no “wit” required. This evening is for you.

  He comes closer, his eyes sparkling in the moonlight like the flames of the candles floating in the pool. He sets the vase on the table.

  I meant to have these on the table when you arrived. He holds out a finger, a drop of blood glistening in the candlelight. But I pricked my finger on a thorn and I can't seem to get the bleeding to stop.

  I put the champagne flute down on the table and take his hand in both of my own. I raise the finger to my lips and gently suck at the wound, letting my tongue work at the cut until I feel the skin close, much the way he did with my injured leg. Much the way I did earlier with David. I keep my mind carefully closed.

  When I look up at Avery, he has his eyes shut and he's swaying a little—whether to the seductive sounds of the music swelling around us or to the feel of my tongue on his skin, I can't tell. He pulls himself back when he feels my eyes on him. His smile is slow and sweet.

  "You are an apt pupil,” he says. “If I'm not careful, you will learn all my secrets and you will no longer need me."

  I meet his eyes with my own. “I think there are still a few secrets you are keeping from me, aren't there?"

  He takes a step back, but instead of answering, he focuses on the dress and me. “Beautiful. I knew it was perfect for you the moment I saw it. You are a vision, Anna."

  He's all dressed up himself, in a well-cut black tuxedo. He's not wearing a tie, though, and the neck of his white silk shirt is open.

  The better to get right down to business.

  He laughs at what I'm thinking. Why not? We are long past the vagaries of precoital game playing, wouldn't you agree?

  I guess the honeymoon is over.

  "Far from it.” Avery speaks the words aloud as he dips a hand into a pocket of his jacket and pulls out a small, velvet box. “The honeymoon will never be over for us."

  He holds out the box to me, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. His eyes are serious, though, as he watches me accept the box and open it.

  There's a ring inside, platinum, set with a diamond solitaire that would take any living woman's breath away. I know because it elicits a gasp from me, not an easy thing when you're undead.

  He's caught me completely by surprise. I expected seduction. I expected a display of the good life vampire style. What I didn't expect was a proposal.

  If that's what this is.

  I look up at him, letting the confusion filter through.

  He laughs. “I've rendered you speechless. A first, I think."

  I hand the box back to him. “It's a beautiful ring. I can't accept it."

  But he refuses to take it, pushing it back towards me. “You misunderstand. I'm not proposing. Not yet, anyway. I know it's too soon for you. But I want you to have the ring as a thank you."

  A thank you? For what?

  He turns away to pour himself a glass of champagne and to retrieve my glass from the edge of the table. As he hands mine back to me, he lifts his glass in a toast, his eyes bright. “To Anna. Who has brought me back from the dead. Literally. For that, no mere thank you would be sufficient."

  He takes a sip and waits for me to do the same. I study him over the rim of the glass. He really believes he's in love with me. More importantly, he believes I love him, too. He believes he's won.

  Suddenly it snaps into sharp focus.

  Everything that has happened to me. The fire, Williams, the Revengers. Avery is behind it all.

  But why?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  My heart is beating too quickly, drumming too loudly in my chest. Avery can pick up on a thing like that. I have to calm myself, literally slow the mad rush of my blood through my veins. He mustn't know what I suspect.

  How do I get the story from him? My first impulse, to rip into him, doesn't seem so practical now. He has been a vampire for three hundred years, while I, less than a week. What worked with Williams might not work with him. My strength comes from our union, Avery's and mine. Am I ready to test who is the stronger?

  I watch Avery.

  He's busying himself with the roses, arranging them just so in the vase. He wants everything to be perfect tonight. He's pleased with himself, confident that he has won me, satisfied that his life is exactly as he wishes it to be. He is not trying to hide any of this from me, nor is he prying into my thoughts. He is too full of self-congratulations to bother.

  I move toward him, placing my glass at the table's edge. I thrust the ring box into his hand.

  He takes it and raises his eyes. You have questions for me, Anna? I sense your heart is troubled. Tell me what's wrong.

  He is being simple, direct. Let's see if he will be honest. I'll start with something he might not find threatening.

  Tell me about Dena.

  Avery raises an eyebrow. My housekeeper?

  I met her today. She has marks on her neck. You have fed from her.

  He nods. Of course I have. She offered herself. Many mortals do, you know. They think it's exciting.

  You didn't hide the marks.

  She didn't want me to. It's a symbol
. Remember when I told you about how it could be with Max? Well, the pleasure is addicting to some and one host may not be enough.

  So you had sex with her, too?

  He shrugs. Before you came into my life. I haven't touched her that way since.

  But you've taken her blood since, haven't you?

  The blood was a condition of employment, the sex a perk.

  That you could withdraw at any time. Did she know that? Maybe that's why she was so frightened of me. She thought I might force myself on her, feed from her, the way you did.

  Avery shakes his head, an impatient little frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. Force myself on her? I don't see it that way.

  She came to me of her own free will. I helped her and in turn, she helped me. She can leave my employ at any time. I don't know why she acted frightened around you. Perhaps you should ask her the next time you see her.

  His cavalier dismissal of his housekeeper's distress triggers a spark of anger in me. I will ask her, Avery.

  The frown deepens. He speaks aloud, his voice heavy with disapproval. “Why do you persist in involving yourself with mortals?

  Why do you care what they want or don't want? I have tried to show you again and again that you are above all that now."

  I believe that is true, Avery.

  He peers at me, sudden distrust sparking in the depths of his eyes. “What are you hiding from me, Anna? What dark suspicions are you harboring? Tell me before you irreparably damage our evening."

  "Will you be honest with me?"

  "Haven't I always been honest?"

  "No. You haven't."

  He lets nothing project, no denial, no question. He simply nods his head and says, “Go on then."

  I move to the other side of the table. If this is to be the showdown, I want something solid between us. “Let's start with the night of your party. You alerted the Revengers that I was coming."

  "Is that a question?"

  "No. The question is why? To see if I could get away? Was it some kind of performance test?"

  He smiles. “If it was, you passed, didn't you? You got away."