Giver of Light

by Nicola Claire

  One of the original attacking vampires landed on me in an instant, making any breath I was attempting useless. His body weight crushed me into the concrete, his arm across my throat cutting off all further thought of breathing, but made me at least think a bite to my neck was going to be slightly delayed. Of course, there are other veins to target and the second vampire grabbed hold of my wrist and sank his fangs in there, not making any attempt to soften the sting. I screamed, unable to stop the noise escaping and number one vampire clamped a hand across my mouth and growled.

  I felt another vampire take my other wrist, his fangs causing unbelievable pain as he ruptured my vein there and the pull of blood doubling from both points on either side of my prone body. I was pinned above, held down at the wrists, unable to move. If they had wanted to return me to Jonathan, they were making sure I would be barely capable of conscious thought or movement when it happened. Or perhaps, now that they had a taste for my blood, they couldn't stop drinking, because I knew the two sucking were starting to lose themselves to bloodlust. Their sucking becoming urgent, no longer content to just suckle at my vein, they had started worrying there instead. The pull of my blood now coupled with the pull, from side to side, of their fangs in my flesh. I whimpered, still unable to scream, but the vampire above me just held his forearm against my throat firmer, making it impossible to swallow and soon all sound was out of my reach.

  “Are you going to get on and feed from her?” A voice over the shoulder of the vampire crushing my throat said quietly. I was guessing it was the vampire controlling the mist and keeping the humans at bay. He had obviously drawn the short straw tonight.

  The vampire above me grunted in reply, nodded to himself and then swiftly removed his throat-crushing arm and struck with his fangs in my neck, on the opposite side of the gauze and dressing from Jonathan's earlier munch. Pain shot down through the puncture site, coursed red-hot through my veins, snaked out along my nerve endings and made the world around me turn red. Sweat began to grace my skin, trickling down my neck and between my shoulder blades. My heart leapt inside my chest, as though the sudden increase in beat was enough to escape the pain. I felt hot tears run down my cheeks, but they didn't register. I knew they were there, because I knew I was crying. But I couldn't feel them. All I could feel was pain.

  So great, so consuming, so complete. My entire body was one ball of blazing fire and pain. These vampires didn't care for glazing their meal. They didn't care to alter their bites from a mild sting to something more pleasant. They wanted to feed the lust for blood that had consumed them, that had made them rogue. They wanted little else but to consume all of me and if, in the process, they made it painful, so much the better. Darkness lurked within their souls. A Darkness I recognised but couldn't name. It was familiar and frightening and yet, at the same time, it felt like home.

  I shuddered at that realisation, that I could be so in tune with a Dark soul. That it would feel, not exactly welcome, but at least accepted. I struggled through the haze of pain to determine why I was kin to Dark, but the answer was tantalisingly just out of my reach. What on Earth had I been before this, to be so accepting of Dark? I didn't want to be that person. These vampires were evil and although I knew not all vampires were the same, these ones, these rogues, were part of what I was.

  The tears increased, my silent sobs of pain morphed into despair. How could I be this close, this familiar with such evil, such Dark? How could I feel connected to it in such a way? Lack of blood had made me dizzy, but it was the thoughts of Dark's familiarity that made my stomach clench and nausea roll through me. I hated that I felt an affinity towards these vampires who were now intent to drain me dry, to take my blood as though it was their right, to harm me, to kill me, without a second's pause.

  I hated them, I hated this and those thoughts alone allowed me to find myself again. I didn't know why the Dark inside these vampires felt familiar, but I did know I didn't condone it, like it. Even if a part of me accepted it, I knew a bigger part of me detested it.

  I held onto that thought and fought the threatening blackness that engulfed me. I breathed through the pain that racked my body from head to toe, not a single inch of my flesh was free from that pain. But my mind, my thoughts, were. I was good, these vampires were bad. And if I had to die tonight, I would reach Heaven, my soul pure and light. I may not be able to stop what was happening and although the futility of my situation depressed me beyond words could convey, I clung to the fact that I was Light and these vampires were Dark and somehow that would set my soul free.

  This scene was so surreal, but pain the only thing I could feel or sense and my thoughts of Light the only thing I could hear. Suddenly, the vampire at my neck burst into dust and I woke up, pain no longer so intimate, but still clinging to my body like a glove.

  It was a minute or two before I noticed just one vampire at my side, his hand brushing the hair on my face aside, his voice unable to reach me. The fact that he was licking all my wounds closed and the small amount of release from pain that provided, just a tickle on the edge of my consciousness.

  When he simply lifted me in his arms, I let him, my own going around his neck, clinging to what I saw as my salvation from pain and the Dark. He cupped my face with his free hand and stared into my eyes as he ran us away from from the scene at such speed I couldn't see anything other than flashes of light and dark shadows passing by alternately.

  His voice reached me this time, his dark brown, almost black eyes dancing with flecks of amber and ochre holding me captive.

  “Be still and sleep.” His accent thick and rich, maybe Spanish, but so beautiful, so warm, so full of concern.

  Within a second, maybe two, blissful, languid sleep engulfed me and I allowed myself the luxury of thinking I was finally safe.

  Chapter 9

  Homeward Bound

  I woke lying on a leather couch and immediately recognised my surroundings. I sat upright and caught the glint of something shiny on a small table to my side. I snatched the stake up and held it reverently before taking in the scene before me.

  A jet plane, not too dissimilar to the one Jonathan had spirited me away in and across from me sitting in a leather armchair sat the vampire who had rescued me from the Union Station courtyard. His gaze watched me intently, but he didn't move or speak.

  I fingered the stake in my hand and felt a familiarity with it that shot through to my core. I don't think he could have gifted me anything that would have accomplished the sense of peace this bit of sharpened and honed silver did. He was either confident he could hold off any attack with it from me, or confident I wouldn't attack him at all. Either way, he was letting me take some control of my surroundings back and I reluctantly appreciated it.

  “Enrique?” I asked uncertainly.

  “Si, Señorita.” He nodded his head slowly towards me, but didn't shift any further in his seat. “I am sorry, I was not quick enough. I let you down.” His eyes darted away, but the mention of his rescue just reminded me of all that familiar Dark. A shudder rushed over my body and I swallowed back a little bile.

  His eyes shot back to my face taking my response in. He smiled a sad smile, that made him seem so much more human than I thought a vampire should be.

  “Well,” I said, then cleared my throat. “I'm alive, so you must have done something right.”

  He cocked his head to the side, no doubt sensing my need to change the subject, but all I could see in his deep brown eyes was compassion, mixed with a hint of concern. He was trying to hide the concern and the thought that he could fool me, with a vampire's skill at schooling their features to show only what they wanted shown, made me a little uneasy. But, I wasn't scared of this vampire. I knew somewhere in my returning memories that I knew him and I could trust him, at least to some degree.

  “There is a bathroom on board.” He indicated where it was with his elegantly dressed arm. “Also a change of clothes, more suited to your normal attire.” He kept his gaze resolutely on my fa
ce. I knew he was trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. I did appreciate it, but also felt a little like a victim right now and that did not sit well at all.

  I glanced down at what I was wearing and cringed, there was blood and dirt all over my sleeves and top. Not nice. But, the thought of what attire would constitute something more suited to me had me curious, so I stood, a little unsteadily, stake still clasped in my hand. He didn't move to offer assistance, just watched me with those slightly concerned eyes.

  I was relieved to find the door had a lock, although nothing would really stop a vampire from breaking in if he really wanted to, save from silver lined titanium of course. I found a pile of black clothes neatly folded on the bench and hesitantly picked them up. A short, almost mini, skirt, a tight fitting black T-Shirt and a fitted jacket with a pocket ideally suited to fit the stake. Also a change of underwear and tights. I stared at the clothes spread out on the bench before me and willed myself to remember wearing something similar in the past.

  I glanced up at the mirror and blinked in shock at what I saw. This was me? I looked so pale, so gaunt, so fragile, as if a breeze could blow me over and snap me in half. My cheeks were hollow, my collar bones jutting out vividly, dark smudges under my eyes. And those eyes, the hazel seeming flat and dull, no sparkle, not very much life. I had been to hell and back, but I was alive. I took solace in that thought - a little of the victim leaving - and ran a hand through my thin long and limp hair, feeling how brittle it was, how full of muck and gunk it had become, just like my body, polluted with chemicals, not of my doing.

  I suddenly felt nauseous and only just made it to the toilet before I dry retched into the porcelain bowl. I coughed and spluttered through another couple of waves of nausea and dry retching, then collapsed on the tiled floor and hugged the loo.

  “Lucinda. Do you need help?” Enrique, just on the other side of the door. I flushed the toilet even though I hadn't managed anything else other than a spit or two and wiped my face with my filthy sweatshirt.

  “I'm fine,” I whispered, then stronger, louder, “I'm fine.”

  I could tell he hadn't moved from the door, but he didn't say anything, didn't open it up and come storming in. I heard him slowly slide down the partition between us and come to rest on the floor on the other side.

  “I am sorry.” His slightly muffled, accented, voice managed to penetrate the thin door wall. “I was too late to save you from those rogues." He said the word rogues with what sounded like bitter contempt. "I should have been faster. I am sorry." His voice had gone whisper quiet, full of remorse and perhaps a little shame at not having rescued me sooner.

  I didn't know what to say. But I did know, that him being supposedly late to rescue me was not what had made me sick just now, neither was the fact that the rogues had fed from me to such a degree. Although that memory was going to be etched in my mind forever and the thought of another vampire feeding from me right now did make me feel a little ill. No, the dry retching into the toilet bowl had all been about Jonathan and what he had injected me with.

  “It wasn't you,” I finally answered. “I wasn't sick because of you or them.”

  I heard him sigh on the other side of the door. Followed by the soft thump of something coming to rest against the wall between us. His head? His hand?

  “We have been searching for you for weeks. Michel has been beside himself. You have no idea how many people are thrilled at the news you are safe and coming home.”

  He paused, the silence stretching out between us. It was me who broke it first.

  “I don't remember any of them.” Even to me it sounded hollow, defeated.

  “It is all right, you will. I tasted Benzodiazepines and other substances in your system when I closed your wounds, all of which have an amnesic effect, blocking short term memories, but they will return. You will remember.”

  I reached up and touched my neck, noting not only had the most recent wounds been healed, but the dressing over Jonathan's also removed and the wound there healed too. That was the extent of what Enrique had done to me it would seem, I was still dressed in my original clothing, I was still covered in dirt and blood, bruises and cuts and grazes still graced my skin. Only the vampire marks were gone, but what they represented wouldn't be cleared away so easily.

  “Have your shower, little Hunter, you will be with your kindred soon.”

  I heard him get to his feet swiftly and smoothly and then nothing more, just the sound of the plane's engines thrumming through the fuselage, droning away in the background. I stood carefully and turned the shower on. Once the water came up to temperature I couldn't get in there fast enough. Under the hot sharp spray I scrubbed and rubbed and scoured my skin, despite the pain it caused on the injuries blooming all over me. I washed my hair four times, then conditioned it twice. I covered myself in soaps and body washes and repeated it again and again and again. And I cried. I cried for the ordeal I had endured. I cried for the memories still so lost. And I cried for the vampire who had been beside himself at the loss of me. My kindred. Michel.

  I could picture him. I knew how handsome he was. But I couldn't really remember much more than that. Which only made me cry more.

  By the time I came out of the shower and dried myself off, dressing in robotic movements, I was all cried out. Empty on the inside. Blank. The clothes fitted well, although slightly loose and did feel familiar, a small spark of memory igniting within. Not enough to make me dance a jig, but enough to make me feel a little warmer inside, to make me feel lighter somehow.

  I crept out of the bathroom and tried not to shuffle to the couch. The silver stake was quietly resting inside my jacket. I smelt of lavender and vanilla in abundance, my hair now lank, but clean, running part way down my back, my breath minty fresh.

  “Are you hungry?”

  I shook my head. I hadn't eaten in days, those two hot chips at the Irish pub in LoDo the last morsel of food I'd consumed and hardly sustaining food at that, but I wasn't hungry. I couldn't stomach food. I rested my head back on the couch and forced myself not to go to sleep.

  “You can sleep if you wish. No harm will come to you.”

  I was sure he hadn't read my thoughts, just my body language, but I shot him a glance anyway. He was in the same armchair as before, his legs crossed at the knee, a glass of dark liquid in his hands. Something strong, I was betting.

  “How long until we land?” I might as well keep myself awake with conversation. And besides, I needed the distraction from my thoughts and memories of the past few hours.

  “Two hours, or there about.” He took a sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving me. I tipped my head to the side and held his gaze.

  “How do I know you?”

  He smiled, a genuine smile, his eyes lighting up and displaying a beautiful combination of browns. Even without trying, this vampire made me feel safe.

  “I am a friend to your kindred's line. Michel and I share an accord. Do you remember the first time we met, in his office?”

  When I shook my head, he continued. “You pulled a stake on me.” He smiled affectionately at the memory, one I couldn't yet share. “You were captivating, enchanting, but clearly lost to anyone else but Michel." He laughed then, at the memory no doubt, although how me pulling a stake could make him laugh, I didn't know. "I have lamented every day since, fate's cruel hand, I had wished you were mine.” I wasn't sure I believed him, he seemed to be trying to lighten the mood, more than make a statement that he had once coveted me. His words more flippant than weighty. He took another sip of his drink. “And since that day, you have grown more and more powerful, no longer simply a beautiful, adorable prize, but a strong and commanding one too. You are set to change the world, Lucinda, the very fabric that has defined our kind for millennia. I may not hold your heart, but I am more than happy to hold your hand and aid in your fight.”

  What fight? Holy shit, what fight? Why can't I remember? I started absently scratching at my arms, through my jacket slee
ves at the crease in my elbows. A damp sweat had broken out on my skin and my knee was starting to jump up and down in small jerks. None of this even registered to me, but Enrique shifted immediately.

  “What are you feeling?” He leaned forward in his chair, still holding his drink, but almost as though he had forgotten it.

  I was beginning to feel like something was crawling under my skin, but I couldn't answer him, too busy shifting in my seat and scratching more places on my body. Through clenched teeth I did manage to say, “What's happening to me?” Before slipping off the edge of the sofa and curling in a ball as pain shot through my stomach.

  He was beside me in an instant. I had no idea where his glass had gone to, but he was stroking my back, brushing my hair and trying to calm me with both hands, so no drink then.

  “You are going into withdrawal,” he said, helping me out of my jacket, then throwing it over to a seat nearby. “There is nothing I can do to remove it, but I will try to ease your suffering. Until Michel can heal you, unfortunately you will have to ride the pain to some extent, I am sorry. The drugs you have been inflicted with are powerful and your body now craves them regardless of the danger. Lower your shields and I will try to distract you from the pain.”

  I wasn't sure how to lower my shields. What shields? Enrique had lifted me off the floor into his lap, cradling me again in his arms protectively, holding both my hands at the wrists with one strong hand of his own, to stop me from scratching myself raw. I writhed and moaned against the restraint, pain coursing through me, hot and cold and cold and hot. Sweat beginning to track down my temples, down my chest, every sensation making a fine line of hot sharp pain follow its path across my skin, searing me, burning me, sinking deep down inside me, making me cry out and whimper in distress.

  “Lower your shields, Lucinda.”

  I didn't know how, but was vaguely aware of something against my mind, something soft and warm and full of light, something nudging and encouraging and pushing in a constant pressure. I homed in on that feeling, that warmth and light and the more I focused the more I became aware of a wall like structure visible in my mind. I grabbed hold of that wall and instinctively knew it was my shields. Pushing back at first against Enrique's light didn't do a thing, so I simply tried to imagine the wall no longer existed at all.