“Pixies!”
“Craig vowed that a wish would be granted on his behalf. We placed those pixies into the stones to ensure you came to us. You will be the receiver of that wish.”
Jill’s eyes clouded as she looked far away and recalled the tragic story of the little boy Doc had saved so many times, until finally the child begged not to be saved. She knew based on what Charlie had told her that Craig’s death had stiffened Doc’s resolve to end his own life.
“I don’t understand,” Jill whispered, so much emotion was welling up within her that she didn’t think she could breathe. “I never even met Craig. How can he want me to have a wish?”
Báisteach nodded, “Craig was my son. When he chose to remain in your world, it was as a perpetual child. I tried to convince him to return to the faery realm.” She paused, looked away a moment and her eyes turned grey and whorled like a stormy sky. “He had an affection for humans. He was what is known as a Seelie faery and as a child he was able seek out and find people needing help. His benevolence was his downfall because when the Org found him, they realized what a boon they’d uncovered. His magic was stronger than any they’d ever encountered. They had no idea it was faery magic. Craig suffered for a long, long time at the hands of his vampire keeper. And your Allen not only took pity on him, but cradled him in death so that his spirit could find relief and freedom.
“Craig desired his wish for your Allen, but alas he could not hear our calls to him. Allen was broken, closed off, and perpetually in the darkness; we could not permeate his prison. But you did break through and you touched his heart. He died for you, Jill and when his life passed away, his wish passed to you–his one true love.”
Jill fell to her knees and Devan reached a hand to comfort her friend, but Báisteach flashed her cloudy eyes at her, freezing her in place.
“Pain, hurt, joy, death, life magic, Devan,” the crying Woman told her. Devon nodded in understanding.
Jill dropped her face into her hands and wept a moment. When she looked back up again she gazed back at the Woman and shook her head. She wanted to speak, but no words would come.
“You have a choice to make, Jill. We can return you to your former self, reverse the vampire’s magic so that you will live as a human again. We can bring your Allen back to you as he was, a vampire. Or you could forfeit the wish and pass it to someone else.”
“Please,” Jill choked. “Don’t make me do this. Please, I can’t.”
How could she choose? If she gave up the vampirism, became a person again the darkness would be gone, but she’d be alone. Allen wouldn’t be here and how could she forgive herself for receiving the gift that was meant for him. But she also didn’t want to live without him. Her life now was bland, routine, lacking the companionship that gave her to will to keep going.
She could give the gift to Langston and carry on with her plans to end her life and free herself from the darkness.
Or she could bring Doc back. They could be together again. If she brought him back could they stay here in the faery realm? And even if they could, would he find the same peace here that she felt? If not, then she’d be sentencing him to the ugly twisted feelings that had plagued him all of his many years as a vampire.
“I don’t know what to do.” She sobbed to the Woman, pleading to her with glittering lavender eyes. The world began to spin around her in dizzying affect. She reached for something to hold her steady, but found only air…
The Past– Living on the Edge
As the months passed by, Doc was Jill’s constant companion. They’d managed to fall into a “normal” life. “Normal” for two vampires who refused to give in to their natural vampire tendencies.
“Doc, I don’t want us to keep secrets. What’s this about?” Jill pleaded, tugging back his hand even as he pulled her along with him.
“It is not a secret. It is a surprise. They are two entirely different things.”
She let him hold the Jeep door open for her while she hopped inside, rolling her eyes at his chivalrous behavior, but deep down touched by it
She wasn’t good with surprises. “Are you taking me out dancing?” They’d danced quite often in the evenings at the hospital, and almost always to his music. She couldn’t seem to get him to understand the concept of her type of dancing, “the random gyrating with abandon” as he called it. They rarely went out and Jill found that her longings to stalk for blood in the night became weaker and weaker as the time had passed. Sometimes, she didn’t even remember the longings at all.
“We are not going dancing. I worry you’ll tire of that anyway.”
“Yeah, right. You just know I kick ass at dancing. So where are we going?” she said the words in a mocking sort of whine, leaning in toward his neck and sliding her fangs along his skin to tease him.
“Would you sit still?” He slapped at her leg while he pulled out of the parking lot. “I am not going to tell you where we’re going so you might as well sit back.”
Jill chattered nonstop, as was her previously normal habit during the drive. After a while she stopped chatting long enough to raise her eyes and catch the sight of bright, multicolored lights up ahead. Some of the lights she saw were flashing and blinking in a circle on the edges of a huge Ferris wheel. She giggled and clapped her hands, “A carnival!”
Doc’s smile was huge and genuine, something he was doing more and more now that he had his Jill back. “And this isn’t even the surprise yet.” He told her in a dry tone even though a glimmer flashed in his crystal blue eyes.
A child-like Jill took over once they entered the fair; ooh-ing, ah-ing and enjoying each sight and sound. Doc felt relief surge through him. He’d been worried about taking her into public since she’d sworn off fresh blood. It could be a very difficult thing to be amongst so many people; to smell them and sometimes to catch the sound of their hearts pumping the sweet blood through their veins. He’d found that in small doses he could maintain control and he hoped she could as well.
She’d just bummed a few bucks from him so that she could try her hand at a milk-bottle game when a young girl called out to her by name. Doc watched her expression, enjoying each nuance: surprise, delight, sadness and the finally complete and utter joy.
“Tee! Abby!” The girls were ecstatic to see their big sister, climbing all over her with hugs and kisses. Doc backed away just a few paces. He wouldn’t leave her entirely, but he wanted them to have as much private “catch-up” time as possible.
Charlie had purchased the tickets for him and he’d mailed them to Jill’s mother. He’d taken a chance, but based on what he’d heard about the woman he surmised she would jump on the chance to get a hand full of cash. He wasn’t wrong and though Doc was several hundred dollars poorer, the two girls were here. Looking at Jill’s face he thought it was perhaps the best money he’d ever spent.
Hours later on the drive home, Jill put her seat back and rested her head against the little stuffed bear she’d won. She gazed up at Doc with a mesmerized look. He glanced at her, smiled, then reached a hand out to caress her blonde curls from her face.
“Thank you. And you’ve made your point,” she told him.
“You’re welcome. And what point was I making tonight?”
She closed her eyes and squeezed the teddy bear, “Not just tonight. For months you’ve been trying to convince me that everything will be all right.”
“And you’re convinced?”
Considering things a moment she paused, then sighed. “I can do this if you can, Doc. You’re not going to give up on me are you?”
“Hmmph,” he muttered, “You’ve been talking to Charlie.”
Jill waited for his response. Finally after a few moments that felt longer to her, he peered down at her and nodded with a serious pinched looked to his face.
“I want to take care of you, Jill. I feel for you in a way that I would not have believed I was capable of caring for anyone. But I do and I love you and I have a reason not to give up. Do you und
erstand?”
“I understand, Allen,” and as she spoke she reached over and took his hand, entwining her fingers with his. “I understand.”
A car Jill didn’t recognize was parked at the hospital when they arrived. She was still holding Doc’s hand in hers and could feel the tension ripple through his body in waves. Sitting up straight, she glanced from the two men standing in the light of the glass doors, then back to Doc, but he said not a word as he parked and then exited the car.
“Hiya, Doc. Aren’t you going to introduce me to our new changeling?”
Jill edged up close to Doc but he didn’t speak. His demeanor was that of the man she’d first met. Cold, stony, unreachable. Her lavender eyes cut toward the man who’d spoken. He was barrel-chested and wide-shouldered and when he moved toward her it was with a force she could almost feel on the air.
“Allow me to introduce myself then. I am Lucas, and I am your sire.”
“Doc?” Jill asked, staring at him until he focused his crystal blue eyes on her. “What’s going on?”
The barrel-chested guy laughed. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Lucas, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. What are you doing here?”
The man beside Lucas was darker skinned and appeared Hispanic, he raised his nose in the air and sniffed, then smiled in a lascivious manner at her. “She’s a good-looking little bonita.”
Jill glanced around them and saw Charlie pacing just inside the glass doors. He tried to smile at her, but the expression died on the vine before he could muster it. An intense feeling of foreboding overwhelmed her but Jill stuffed it down and stepped forward, “Why don’t you just go ahead and explain this to me already? Doc made me this way. You’re not my sire.”
Lucas stepped toward her and reached a hand toward her cheek, but she jerked away from his touch. “How’d you miss that one, Doc. There are rules you know. And one of them says that when a vampire is still beholden to a sire he isn’t allowed to create a changeling of his own.”
“It wasn’t like that!” Doc insisted, forcing his shoulders between Lucas and Jill. “She was dying and I had to save her. I didn’t do it because I wanted a changeling. I’d have given anything not–”
Lucas cut him off with a cold look, displaying his fangs for Doc to see. Doc stood pat. He kept himself between the two of them and Jill and raised his lip to display his own lengthened teeth.
Jill felt Lucas’ eyes on her, skimming up and then down her body. She felt the darkness well up in her. She understood that this vampire wouldn’t satisfy her wants, but she could smell the recent fresh blood feeding on Lucas’ breath and a tremor of want passed through her.
“She belongs to me now, Doc. Don’t you forget that. I’m not here for her now, but I will come. She’ll have to put in her part just like you do. She’s beholden to me, Doc.”
* * *
Doc refused to allow them to live in fear after Lucas left that night. Despite that refusal, he started training for a fight. He took up every form of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat one could learn from a book or a video. She participated with him since she was the only one strong enough to provide any sort of resistance when he needed a partner. Charlie urged them to leave town and run, but Doc insisted they would only be hunted and tracked down.
They dropped their guard little by little as the months passed and Lucas failed to make good on his promise. When those months turned to years, Jill convinced herself it had been an empty threat and that he’d never return.
She felt safe and content in her new home with Doc and Charlie. They continued to rebuild the hospital, to treat the children, to proceed with their dhampir project and from time-to-time they visited her sisters as well. Life was all that she would have ever hoped it could be, especially for two people who still had to restrain the darkness that skulked deep inside them.
Now Jill opened her eyes and it took a moment for everything to focus. The missive was handwritten and addressed to “The Changeling.” It advised her that Lucas wanted her to attend an exchange of children. It would require her to “sample” the blood of the chosen child. She read the words again and again, feeling herself become nauseous to the point of dizziness.
“Maybe Doc won’t know. Maybe I can do it without him finding out,” she wondered aloud to herself.
“Hey, beautiful. Where are you?” Doc’s voice called to her from down the hall. She loved the endearments he used with her and glancing at the letter still clutched tight in her hand she felt a wave of despair wash over her.
Jill closed her eyes and sighed heavily; she knew she couldn’t keep this from him. What she and Doc had was special and although there were no formal vows between them, she couldn’t keep such a secret from him. Besides, she feared what might happen if she tasted fresh blood again.
“The Jungle Book Room, Doc!” she shouted back. When he entered the room she’d been painting she said not a word and simply handed him the paper.
As he read it she watched his face pinch in fierce anger, then he crumpled the letter in his hand, “Where did you get it?”
She pointed to the window sill, “It was just there. Waiting for me to find it. Have they been watching us?”
Doc didn’t know, but he suspected so. He had been feeling a nervousness lately, an alertness to his senses that he couldn’t seem to pin down. Part of him wanted to believe it was just his imagination.
“It won’t kill me to do it,” she told him in a soft, tenuous voice, reaching a hand to touch his chest. He grabbed her fingers and squeezed hard.
“You will not work for him. I refuse to let you.”
“But–”
Doc took her face roughly between both hands and kissed her hard. “It could kill you.”
It was true working for the Org could prove dangerous, but they both knew what he really meant. The temptation of feeding from living people again would send her down a path toward the darkness. And he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her–of losing his Jill, again.
Doc reached an arm behind her and opened the window, tossing the paper out into the night. A cool fall wind rushed into the room, rustling Jill’s hair around her face and he brushed her blonde curls aside before pulling her to him in an embrace.
The Present– Saving Memories
A fog clouded Jill’s mind as she was overtaken with memories she couldn’t seem to control. She thought she was still on the hill, but she couldn’t see Devan, the Women or anything except the images in her own mind. Someone was with her, like a shadow inside her mind but she couldn’t see who it was. That person had some power to cast her recollections to her like a video reel she couldn’t turn off. And she wanted to turn them off. She didn’t want to relive the pain of that night when she and Doc received the demand from Lucas.
“You shouldn’t litter, even on your own property.”
Jill could have jumped out of her skin she was so startled. Doc responded with more deliberation, linking his arm around her body to place her behind him. They both saw Lucas, arms crossed against the window sill, his chin resting against his palm as he watched them. A nasty glimmer flashed in his eyes.
“And you shouldn’t spy on people, Lucas. I want you off my property.” Doc’s words were restrained, but Jill knew that mentally he was seething.
“You making the changeling’s mind up for her?” the other vampire asked, his head bobbing up and down as he moved his mouth.
“She’ll only work for you over my dead body.”
Lucas laughed, “She’ll work for me then because you ain’t got a chance to win any fight you pick with me.”
Doc seemed unconcerned and just turned on his heel to leave the room and get to the nearest exit. Unable to find the words to speak, Jill followed him. She should argue, she should plead, she should go with Lucas despite Doc’s protests, but she couldn’t. They’d been through this a hundred times in the intervening years since Lucas had first shown. She knew she couldn’t sway Doc.
Vampires became stronger the longer they lived. Lucas was at least a century older than Doc. To make matters worse she knew the odds were that Lucas had been taking magical blood. There was no chance of a fair fight.
When they were outside, Lucas grinned at her, then winked once before turning his attention back to Doc. They were circling each other, arms outstretched, legs crouched, each waiting for the other to make the first move.
She watched Doc’s eyes, saw how stony and cold they were. His resolve was strong and she wished again that she’d been able to talk him out of this. As he saw it, his only choice, the only way he could free Jill and himself would be to kill their sire.
Jill gasped, she’d gotten distracted and hadn’t seen who’d made the first move. They were wrestling, rolling along the ground. Dirt flew up around them and she saw Doc take several hard punches to his gut and his chest. The air burst from his lungs in a loud wheeze.
Both men got up and Lucas looked entirely too confident. Jill’s skin crawled with terror. Doc landed a few blows and grew his fingernails so that he could slash the other vampire, but Lucas just laughed off his blows and puffed out his barrel-chest as he watched his skin regenerate before their eyes.
They continued the dance, each taking a few strikes, but no real damage done. Doc just wasn’t strong enough and Lucas was toying with him. He was wearing Doc down, thumping him just hard enough to sap more and more of his strength and his speed.
Somehow Doc didn’t seem to see that this was part of Lucas' game to beat him. He pressed ahead, with that steely look in his eyes all the while. It felt like hours were passing and Jill watched every movement, flinching each time Doc received a hard blow. He was wearing down faster and faster. She knew Lucas was taking notice of it too.
She studied the other vampire, watched each move he made to look for his weakness or anything that might help give Doc an advantage. There was a slight tick in Lucas’ eye just before he jabbed with his left hand. When he made the maneuver he leaned his head to the right. If Doc could take advantage of that…
The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set Page 32
