Count On Me

by Abigail Graham

  When I step back out in the bedroom I can’t help but glance at the empty bookcase. I wonder if he would give me something to read if I asked. There’s no television in here, nothing to do. Finally, I end up lying down. I stare up at the ceiling and my eyes drift closed.

  It’s warm in here. I tuck the covers up around my chin and look over at the fire. It burns steadily, but it’s shrinking now. I hate fire, I don’t know why I don’t try to put it out, but I can almost feel the warmth soaking into my skin. Maybe it’s my imagination.

  I close my eyes.

  I sleep.

  Then I wake up.

  It’s different this time. I have to drag my eyes open and I feel groggy when I sit up and run my fingers through my hair. I’m alone when I wake up. The fire is out, but I can still smell the smokey tang in the air. I don’t need to look to know it’s dark outside. I’m just getting up when the knock comes at the door. I freeze, and wait. The knock comes again.

  Naturally, I go over and open it.

  He’s waiting outside.

  “Can I come in?”

  I tilt my head to the side and bite my lip.

  “What if I say no?”

  “I’ll leave.”

  I weigh my options. The dead fireplace. The empty bookcase. I step back and let the door swing open. I hear music drifting faintly down the hall, but I can’t hear it well enough to identify the song. A man’s voice, that’s all I can make out before the door swings shut. I reach for the door before I stop myself, feeling the weight of the collar around my neck. I retreat to the bed while he sits down and opens his notebook, subtly but covetously keeping the contents from me.

  “Can you go out in daylight?”

  “I haven’t asked you any questions yet. That’s not how our game works.”

  I sneer and put on my best old man voice. “Quid pro quo, Clarice. Yes or no.”

  Startled, he looks at me in silent shock for a moment and I see the ghost of a smile whisper across his face before he looks down.

  “Yes, I don’t fear the daylight, but it makes us… me weaker.”

  “Us?”

  “That’s two questions. I’ve given you a freebie in good faith. Now you’ve got to answer one of mine.”

  With a huff, I lie back on the bed and look at my fingers.

  “Okay, what?”

  “What happened after he turned you?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t want to remember that.”

  His chair creaks as he leans forward.

  “You have to. You need to come to terms with it.”

  “Why? It hurts. I can’t do that again. It’s like… it’s like I’m there again. I don’t know what you did to me, but I want it to stop. I don’t want to remember these things. Just let them go.”

  He sighs in exasperation.

  “I can’t explain why right now. I need you to trust me. What we’re doing here is very important. If it works, I can set you free.”

  “Free? Free from what? I asked you if there’s a cure and you said no.”

  “I can’t undo the curse, but,” he sighs, “Christine, you’re very… vulnerable right now. I can protect you, but I need your help.”

  “Protect me? Who’ll protect me from you?”

  He sinks back into the chair and cradles his head in his hands. I catch a glimpse of that notebook. There’s something wrong about it. When he realizes I’m looking he snatches it up and leans back so I can’t see.

  “I want to help you,” he says, and his voice is even but I can feel him fighting to keep it that way. “If you cooperate, I can help you get better, and I’ll make things more comfortable for you here. I’ll bring you some books to read, you can watch movies. I’ll keep you fed.”

  “You make it sound like you want me to be some kind of pet.” I pluck at the collar and look him in the eye.

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what’s it like? What do you want from me?”

  “If I tell you, I’ll never have it.”

  What the hell does that mean? Damn it, whatever, who cares.

  “He ripped my throat open with his teeth. Then he bit off part of his wrist and made me swallow it. Blood, too. Then I died. It got worse from there.”

  6

  I woke up like I’d never woken up before.

  My eyes popped open. I didn’t feel groggy or sleepy, and I had no real sense that I was sleeping. When I sat up and moved, I was sure I was in a dream, the way dreams just start and stop with no logic or continuity. I was lying on a cold tile floor in a dark room, completely covered in blood. Old blood that turned to rust, crusted my clothes and stuck to my skin.

  Remembering the feeling of teeth pressing into my flesh until it burst and tore, I clutched my throat, but felt only smooth skin. Cold, smooth skin, as cold as ice. I stood up, and my bare feet slipped on the floor. With a start, I realized it was dark. Pitch black, but I could still see. Everything was painted in off-color silvery hues, like an old picture. When the door swung open I hissed through my teeth and covered my eyes from the painful intensity of the light.

  Then he walked in. Clean, white, perfect. Like a statue. I lowered my hands from my eyes.

  “Kneel,” he said.

  “What?”

  His movement was casual, almost lazy, but so fast I could barely see his arm move. His hand whipped out and he backhanded me so hard I heard a crack in my jaw and spun around. I hit the concrete wall hard and went down in a heap, clutching my throbbing head.

  “You will not speak unless I give you leave. Kneel.”

  Shaking and clutching my head, I shifted onto my knees and rested my palms on my thighs despite my throbbing jaw. I started to look at him but quickly shifted my gaze to the floor and held it there, staring at his feet. His shoes were made of white leather and he was wearing spats, also white. They looked out of place on the grimy tile floor. The more I looked the more I noticed the crust of filth in between the tiles. It wasn’t mildew or regular scum, it was the same rusty brown as the dried blood soaking my shirt. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat and pain surged through me again. I thought I was going to throw up.

  I didn’t want to find out what would happen if I puked on his shoes.

  “That’s better. Know your place. I am your master. You are my thrall.”

  He reached out and I flinched, but I didn’t dare move. He brushed the hair out of my eyes and touched my cheek- the other cheek, as gentle as a lover. My skin crawled from his touch. As pale as stone, his skin was just as cold. Cold, cold and dead. I trembled as his hand drew back and he moved closer.

  “You are wondering many things. What are you. Why you. I will answer the second one. Because you were there.”

  He touched my skin again. His nails were sharp. I could feel them dragging over my skin, like a blade touching just lightly enough to be felt, but not cut. There was a power in his hands, a hint of crushing physical strength that would make that slap feel like nothing. I kept my eyes on the floor and prayed silently to myself.

  “You’re wasting your thoughts,” he said. “Your prayers will not be answered. When I took you, your name was unwritten from the book of life and written in the black book of death.”

  Could he read my mind?

  “Yes. I can read your mind.”

  I flinched and sucked in a little gasp.

  “Your mind is mine to use as I see fit. Feel it.”

  He traced his nail down the side of my face.

  A barrage of images assaulted me. Sights and sounds, feelings and tastes, sensations. It came on all at once, and it was a name. A man’s name, someone important. Some dear to me.

  Then the cold. It felt like having my arm ripped off. I screamed and writhed on the floor.

  Gone.

  I couldn’t remember.

  I whimpered.

  He… he took something.

  He pulled memories to the front of my mind and ripped them right out of my head. I could feel the hole, a hollow place. When
I tried to look back, all I could remember was a few hints, a vague suggestion of what used to be there. The clearest thing I remembered was lying in the dirt with his teeth sinking into my throat and the words he spoke to me after.

  “What did you do to me?”

  He grasped my throat in his hand and pulled me to my feet. I grabbed his wrist, gurgling and choking as his fingers dug into my flesh. He raised me bodily from the floor, my feet dangling a few inches above the tiles, and looked me in the eye.

  “You will not question me. You will not speak unless you are spoken to. Understood?”

  I nodded as much as I could with a death grip on my throat.

  “You signal understanding but you still hold hope in your heart. I had hoped for such. I discard my thralls when they provide me too little amusement. Come now, time to break you.”

  He dropped me and I almost fell before he had me by the hair and was dragging me out of the little room into a utilitarian hallway with concrete walls, lit by bare bulbs. Again I locked my hands around his wrist, trying to soften the pull on my scalp as he dragged me down the hall to another room. This one was bigger, but not by much. The defining feature was a shallow tub, full of cloudy brown water.

  I had no time to protest before he heaved me up over the side and shoved me down into the filthy water. I screamed and air bubbled around my lips until I clamped them shut again. I closed my eyes and pressed my mouth tightly shut, and held it, and held it, until I couldn’t stand it anymore and gasped for air, and the filthy water came pouring down my throat, tasting of filth and chlorine at the same time. I gurgled and gagged, thrashing.

  He pulled me up and I heaved the water out in a long stream and gasped for breath, drawing in a deep ragged gasp, but there was no time to catch my breath before he shoved me down again. I could feel it pouring in, the cold filling my lungs, choking me, heavy in my chest before he pulled me out again and once more I expelled it and clawed for air, writhing and thrashing.

  “You learn slowly,” he noted.

  Then he shoved me down under the water again. This time I felt the water sliding down my throat as I tried to swallow rather than inhale, but then I choked for a breath and felt the water filling my lungs, choking the air out of me. I went still.

  I was just aware of it. I wasn’t feeling it.

  He lifted me up. This time I didn’t expel the water. I just hung there by my hair and waited. He dropped me on the floor and I crawled to the tub to heave the water out, careful not to take a breath. The longer I held it the more I realized there was no burning, no need to draw in more air. After a few seconds I wasn’t even holding my breath.

  I’d simply stopped breathing, and I began to feel how utterly wrong my body felt.

  “Feel it,” he murmured, standing beside me. “Feel the stillness in your lungs, the frozen heart in your chest, never again to beat. You no longer breathe, you no longer consume food, you no longer sleep. These things are of the living, and you are no longer of the living. I have done you a great kindness this day. The person you were is no more. You are a newborn, an infant in a strange new world, and I am your father. Remember that.”

  “You’re not my father. My father is…” I couldn’t remember who my father was, if he was alive or dead.

  I could feel him. I couldn’t remember him.

  “I will forgive your insolence this once,” he said. “I am your master, and you are my thrall. Now, say it. What are you?”

  I backed away. “I’m not… I’m not yours, I’m…” I clutched my head.

  I couldn’t be his. I’d already given myself to somebody else. I just couldn’t remember.

  Something on my hand, digging into my skin. I looked at it. A ring.

  An engagement ring.

  He noticed it.

  Again, he was so fast he blurred. He had my hand in a crushing grip and seized my finger, and it felt like it would twist it off as he removed the ring. No, rings. There was a red-gold band with a diamond set in between a pair of emeralds and there was a cheap silver ring, barely better quality than costume jewelry, with a piece of glass for a stone. He tore them off my finger and closed his fist, and when he opened his fingers again there was a gnarled mass of metal slivers on his palm, and the stones had broken out of their settings. He flicked his hands and tossed them aside.

  With a whimper, I threw myself, trying to catch the pieces, but he had me by the wrist and dragged me out of the room and further down the hall. He came to an elevator, stabbed the button with his finger and the doors slid open.

  When he threw me inside I blinked and stared. The top half was all mirrors, and the bottom was richly paneled in mahogany. The floor was marble and the handrails running around walls were gilded with real gold. I was scared to touch anything as he stepped in and turned a key at the bottom of the panel. A light lit up that read PENTHOUSE and the car started moving.

  I huddled in the corner, biting my lip rather than ask where we were going or where we were. He looked at the gold mirrored doors, not at me.

  “My name is Vincent. Remember that.”

  The doors opened and he dragged me out.

  It looked like an advertisement, or a spread in an interior design magazine. Everything was white or gold, from the white marble floors to the gilt ceilings. A fire flickered in a hearth set in the wall, in front of a cluster of white leather sofas and chairs. Tucked up in the corner of one chair, working on a tablet computer, was a woman. She looked up and I felt a push, like a physical force striking my chest.

  “Vincent. What did you do?”

  “I made a new one.”

  “Why?”

  “It amused me.”

  She cocked her head to the side in a way that reminded me of a close-up of a praying mantis on television. Her features were severe, cut from stone, but with a feminine softness that was almost entirely lost in her masculine clothes, a white suit that matched his, and the tight bun where she wound her silvery-white hair.

  “This is Victoria, my sister. You will obey her in all things, unless her orders contradict mine. Is that understood?”

  I nodded, and looked down at the floor before I made her angry at me.

  “Is the other one still in the bedroom?”

  Victoria shrugged. “Penning up your cattle is not my concern, Vincent. The union is demanding a new contract-“

  “Deal with it,” Vincent snarled, and shoved me through the room.

  “Did you have to bring it up here all wet?”

  “I’ll clean her,” Vincent sighed, waving his hand. “We have staff to clean the floors.”

  “I abhor filth,” said Victoria.

  She ignored me as Vincent dragged me to the other side of the room and down a short hallway. The windows on the far side went from floor to ceiling, and normally my jaw would have dropped from the view of the Strip. We must have been in a casino-hotel, and on the top floor. The lights were like a galaxy of their own beneath the dead black sky, the real stars eaten away by the light from below.

  Vincent shoved me through a door and closed it behind him. I found myself in a richly appointed bedroom, with no windows. Someone was lying on the bed, sleeping, her chest rising and falling slowly.

  He pushed me forward and I recognized her as I saw her face.

  Andi.

  “What is she doing here?” I said. “You’ve got me. Let her go.”

  Vincent ran his hand up the back of my head.

  “Do not presume to order me, thrall. I will again indulge you, but only because this is your first feeding.”

  “What?”

  Oh.

  Oh no.

  Oh, God, no.

  Andi stirred. She sat up, clutching her head. She was still dressed in her outfit from earlier, for the show. She blinked a few times and looked at me.

  “Chris? What’s the matter with you? You’re all pale. Who’s that guy? Where are we? What… what’s happening?”

  Vincent looked at me. “Kill her and drink her blood.”
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  He locked the door behind him.

  “No,” I said, backing away.

  I felt heat behind me. There was a fireplace in here, too.

  “I’ll give you one chance,” said Vincent. “Do as you are commanded or you will learn who is master.”

  I didn’t just say no. I threw myself at him, screaming. I moved so fast I could barely understand it. I went for his throat with both hands, and he caught my wrist with casual ease, his face flickering between contempt and annoyance. Andi came at him from the side, swinging a lamp. It cracked apart against the side of his head and he gave her a flick of his fist, hitting her right in her belly. She flew backwards and her head thumped against the nightstand by the bed.

  “I liked that lamp,” Vincent sighed.

  He picked me up off the floor by the neck and studied me for a moment with his lifeless rust-colored eyes.

  Then he threw me in the fire.

  My head hit the mantle but the pain came from the flames. When the fire touched me, I burst into flames with a hollow whump. The heat licked over my body in raw, scorching agony. I screamed, Andi screamed, and I felt ash in my mouth. I pushed away from the fireplace and rolled on the floor, batting out the flames, but the damage was done. I looked up at the ceiling and saw what happened to me, but something else was happening, too.

  My fingers were longer. My hair was brittle, like straw, falling out in scorched handfuls onto the floor. When I breathed it burned, like sucking fire into my lungs, and a throbbing, razor sharp agony sliced through my veins at a million miles an hour, like my blood turned to razor blades. I was aware of what was happening, but it was like I was standing behind myself, watching. I wasn’t sure if it was the mirror or if I could really see myself from outside, but my charred, smoking body heaved towards Andi.

  She shrieked in terror and kicked at me but her feeble blows did nothing. I wrenched her away from the bed and the nightstand and licked the blood off her forehead, where her skin split from hitting the edge, and when my tongue touched it, it was like dunking my body in ice water. There was a feeling to it, an immediacy that I’d never experienced before. Andi screamed and screamed and beat at me with her fists.