Bring Me to Life

by Scarlett Parrish

  "Something I've regretted ever since," Will says.

  "But you had to get him off me somehow, so you mustn't blame yourself. Adam put us both in that position."

  "True, true, but..." Will's eyes fade out of focus for a moment, then he comes back to us. "I checked on Nathan, and he didn't respond, so I told Adam to get the hell out of there."

  "And I never saw him again," I put in.

  Will glances at me, and I wonder what he's thinking. "Adam scarpered while I tended to Nathan. I did my best to seal the wound but made a hash job of it. When the bleeding began to slow, I realised he was dying, and..." He looks down at the ground, pacing slowly back and forth over a narrow section of the carpet, as if he's on the narrow beam at the Olympics, careful of where he treads. "I did what I had to do."

  "Which was?" Kieran prompts. "I mean, I know you changed him, but what does it involve? Does it hurt?"

  "Ordinarily, no," I reassure him. "Look, what you have to realise is, my change was exceptional. It was painful and violent and against my will. Will, however, did what he could to make sure he wasn't left with a corpse on his hands. Well, one that couldn't walk or talk, I mean. What happens is, you drink from the person until they're almost unconscious and close to death. Only close, mind you. Not with the Grim Reaper breathing down their bleeding neck." I smile, trying to lift his mood. The poor guy might be in love, but he's scared as all hell about what lies ahead of him.

  If I agree to do this.

  Which I won't.

  "But wait." Kieran points at me then Will, frowning. "Almost unconscious? But you were out of it completely, so how did Will...?"

  "I tore my own wrist and bled into his mouth. And into the open wound. I'd never heard of anyone doing that before but thought it was worth a try." Will gives a wry smile. "I'm a pioneer--- managing to change someone by bleeding into their open wound as well as into their mouth. It doesn't normally happen because the neck wounds aren't so open as Nathan's was. Not so much a wound as a fucking war zone." He shrugs, his body language apologising for his spoken words. "Nathan drifted in and out, which he assures me he doesn't remember, but from time to time, I managed to get him to drink. I doubt he knew what he was doing, and I was scared he'd hate me for it later, but it was either that or let him die properly, and I wasn't prepared to do that. Never mind leaving it on Adam's conscience; I didn't want it on mine."

  "So after that, what?" Kieran asks.

  "I left him there and went out to a safe house. I got another vampire I knew at the time to help me get Nathan there."

  "And when I came round, I begged Will not to tell Adam I was still alive. I'd much rather have him believe I was dead permanently than know his attempt to force me to change had been successful."

  "And you agreed to this?" Kieran looks up at Will from his seat on the settee, watching as he paces.

  "I had to. It was Nathan's right. He'd been through enough. I insisted on occasional contact, though. Personal ads in the newspaper, progressing to post office boxes, and in the modern age, e- mails and texts make it so much simpler. I wanted to make sure he was all right."

  "But I was at a safe house. They looked after me. We let it be thought I was killed in a bombing raid. Wartime. Easy excuse, ready-made, really." I shrug. I know I make it sound oh-so-simple, but how else am I supposed to cope? To deal with it?

  "It's not a story I ever wanted to repeat, but..." I gesture at them both with one hand sweeping through the air before me.

  "Sorry." Kieran's almost pouting.

  "Don't worry about it. You're here now."

  "And what about Adam? What happened to him?"

  "I maintained contact," Will says. "In the same way as I did with Nathan, only he didn't know about Nathan, of course. I said it would be better if we limited contact with each other for the sake of not being found out, keeping it covered. You know."

  "But how did you explain Nathan? I mean, what did you say you'd done with his---" Kieran glances at me, apologising with his eyes "---body? If Adam thought he was dead, what did you tell him?"

  "Nothing. He didn't ask." Will raises his palms in a perfectly-executed Gallic shrug. "He didn't want to talk about it on the rare occasions we spoke or communicated after that, and I didn't volunteer anything. I assumed guilt kept him silent.

  So I said nothing."

  "And all that time, Nathan was still alive, in a way, and Adam didn't know? Still doesn't know?"

  Kieran stares at us both, wide-eyed.

  "That's right." I lean back in my armchair, glaring at Will, who by this time has stopped pacing. "He still doesn't know."

  "Please, Nathan." Will reaches out to me with both hands, cradling my face in a way so tender, it reminds me of someone else who loved me once. Or claimed to.

  Kieran's asleep on my settee; poor human man with his poor, human frailties.

  "You have to. For me."

  I lift my eyebrows and repeat, "Have to?"

  "I..." Will's fingers tighten in my hair. "I did something for you. I kept your secret all this time, even though it was difficult. I've lied to Adam for decades; we never spoke about you, but I could tell he was hurting."

  "It was his own fault. He only had himself to blame."

  "Yes, yes, I know that, but the guilt must have torn him up---"

  "Don't do this, Will. Don't lay a guilt trip on me." I can't stand what he's doing to me, but I can under stand it. He loves Kieran, Kieran loves Will, and if I don't do what I can to help them be together, I'm as selfish as Adam Locke. "Why can't you do it yourself? Like you did with me?"

  "Because with you, it was an emergency. I would never normally do it that way." He relaxes, takes his hands out of my hair, and rests them on my shoulders. We lurk in the kitchen while Kieran sleeps in the other room, not because we want food or drink, but because we want to talk without risk of disturbing Kieran or being overheard. Some things, he doesn't need to hear.

  "You expect me to drink your lover's blood until he's nearly unconscious?"

  "Yeah. Well, I don't expect it as such. I'd like it if you did."

  "You know you're capable of changing someone on their own. I'm living proof. If you'll pardon the pun."

  "But it was touch and go. I wouldn't want to take that risk with Kieran. Nathan, I love him. And I don't want to watch him grow old and die."

  Like I should have. "You're worried you won't be able to stop."

  Will's entire body flinches, and he steps back, breaking contact with me. I know I've hit home. "Yes. What if I am?"

  "You're not like Adam. You'd be able to stop."

  "Please, Nathan." He screws his eyes shut. "I can't do this myself. And you're the only one I trust enough to ask."

  "I drink? I break him, then what? You take over?"

  Will's eyes flick open. He obviously hears agreement in my voice, wants to so badly that he'll leap on any chink in my resolve. "I take over, cut myself, let him drink from me, and the job is done."

  "Really, Bosworth. I'm surprised you didn't s a y Bob's your uncle. And the job wouldn't be done. He'd have to be taken to the changing rooms at the local safe house." Changing rooms; what a ridiculous term for what amounts to an infant vampire hospital.

  "Which I'm hoping you'd help me with."

  "I can't drive."

  "Call a cab."

  "Jesus, Will. How can you ask me to do this and lay the but I love him guilt trip on me? I hate the thought of---"

  "You'd be trying to preserve a life, not kill him."

  I don't say a word, merely standing there and biting my lip. I know what he's doing. Will's saying I'm better than that, that I'm moral enough to do this for the right reason---the only right reason: love.

  "I think it's just your horror at your own transformation, the trauma of that, which stops you from saying yes. Ultimately, you trust yourself. I think so, anyway." Will's hand is on my shoulder again, giving it a friendly squeeze this time.

  "And you're asking me because...what? You don't trust yo
urself? What?"

  "I don't want to go through this alone, watching the man I love die. Like Adam did."

  Fuck.

  I agree. Ultimately, I can do nothing else.

  "It'll hurt," I tell Kieran. "Not as bad as I did, because Will loves you, and he'd kill me properly this time if anything happened to you." A quick, watery, weak laugh. "I'll be your original pain in the neck. Expect to fight it. You'll weaken as you begin to lose consciousness. And that's when Will steps in. Ever seen that film, There Will Be Blood ? It wasn't written for you, but it might as well have been."

  "Black humour, huh?" Kieran asks. "Gallows humour. Whatever they call it. Okay, I get it. I understand that." He stands and rubs his hands together, either in eagerness or to get himself into a state of preparedness. "When do we do this?"

  I look across the room at Will. He stares back at me. Without looking away from him, I say, "No time like the present."

  I agree because, ultimately, I can do nothing else. And there is blood. And I hate every damn second of killing Kieran for Will's sake.

  He doesn't have to go through this alone, watching the man he loves die.

  Like Adam did.

  Chapter 9

  DESPITE GIVING IN TO WILL on all counts days ago, I still can't quite believe I'm doing this, and I'm--- against my own will and better judgement---half- admiring of Will's persuasive powers. I never wanted to see him again, and yet, I agreed to do so.

  I never wanted to change anyone, and I did. Not alone, but I certainly helped in the transformation.

  And I never wanted to let Adam know I was still alive, but here I am, on a night train, travelling to do just that.

  And to think I'm only doing it to distract Adam from the fact that Will, his long-time friend, or should I say guardian, now has a love interest who's also a vampire. My mission, should I choose to accept it: pull Adam away from destroying the world out of anger and bitterness by telling him I'm not dead after all.

  Just possibly setting myself up for suffocation or to be the focus of his legendary anger.

  I've always found train rides relaxing. The rhythmic thunk of each carriage over the tracks would lull me into an almost-sleep as a young boy; trains always meant adventure, but the sort where I assumed, with child-like certainty, that no harm would come to me, hence the sleepiness. As a grown man, trains promised work, meetings, business. Off to war. And now? I haven't come up with the word to describe it properly, but stupid, foolhardy, or idiotic come pretty close to fitting the bill.

  I attempt to settle back into my seat. I'm facing the direction of travel, leaning on the narrow window ledge with one elbow, cradling my jaw in one hand. Mine is the only seat in this set of four occupied, but that's no surprise.

  Someone as pale-faced as me travelling on a night train has got to be a goth, a nightshift worker, or a vampire. No eyeliner or black clothing for me, so neither goth nor emo. I give the appearance of someone in his late twenties, early thirties, so that rules out such a childish pursuit anyway. As for working nights? In a way, one could say I do. But I'm too smartly dressed for most work scheduled at night. Immaculately-pressed shirt, smart trousers, matching jacket. If these were work clothes, I'd be an accountant or something equally respectable and well-paid; therefore, I'd be able to afford my own transport. And I'd be travelling through the day.

  All of which leaves one option more likely than any other: that I'm undead.

  Years ago, I met someone. Not Alyssa, not the librarian who was so into Russian novels. A man who deserves to rest in peace, without his name being brought into the equation. A rarity, a male, living human who was the one to approach me and say flat out, "You are, aren't you?"

  I said nothing, merely quirking an eyebrow and waiting for him to show off his deductive powers.

  "A vampire."

  I said nothing in return but made sure to look him up and down. Discreetly, or so I'd thought at the time.

  "Thought so." He nodded and stood back. We were in a bus station at the time, and it was well after midnight.

  I can't even remember what I was doing there. Waiting for someone's arrival or my own departure, it doesn't really matter now.

  "And?" I finally said. "What makes you say that?"

  "I was expecting you to say 'how did you know?'"

  "I'm not going to give you the victory so easily."

  "You're very pale."

  "So are a lot of people."

  "You're out at night."

  "So are you."

  "There's something about you."

  I raised my eyebrows expectantly, wondering if he meant it as a compliment. I took it to be so; after all, if he thought I was physically repulsive, he wouldn't have approached me in the first place.

  But a bus station was an unusual place to be picked up, if indeed, he was trying to pick me up.

  A pub would be more understandable. This? It had certainly never happened to me before.

  "You're dressed too smartly."

  "You think I'm a vampire because I'm dressed too smartly?"

  "I think you're one of those who tries to stand out."

  "Listen, friend."

  I looked him in the eyes, and the tragic thing is, now, I can't even remember what colour they were.

  "I just want to get by. I'm not trying to stand out at all."

  "Okay, maybe that was the wrong phrase. Not stand out. But you're certainly apart."

  This was in the days when vampires were out and legal, if not fully accepted. Late seventies, early eighties. Men had long hair, wore indecently tight jeans, had shirts in every colour of the rainbow, sometimes every colour together in one shirt. The nineteen seventies; the decade that taste forgot.

  I frowned then and carried on looking at him, but my "are you sure you want to be speaking to me" stare softened into an intrigued gaze.

  "My last boyfriend was a vampire, you see," he said. "That's how I know what you're like."

  Then he told me his name.

  Sometimes, I can't resist falling into the past, and when it happens, I avoid the forties---or try to, that is. There's a gravitational pull centred on that particular decade, growing stronger now I'm on this train ride.

  Will gave me the name of a club where he --- Adam---goes to hang out. It passed between them in conversation a while back, during a phone conversation. Will doesn't know Adam's exact address, just the name of the town where he "lives," the approximate area wherein he's now domiciled. Of course, I now have Adam's mobile phone number, passed on by Will, but I couldn't just call him out of the blue. I'm not that cruel.

  Maybe showing up on his territory like this is crueller still, I think.

  Oh, I don't know which is the right way to do things, if I should even be doing this at all, but I've started on the journey now and keep telling myself over and over again that I can't run forever. I can't avoid him for all eternity. It's been decades so far, making me incredibly lucky.

  Someday in the not-too-distant future, I'll run into him in the street. He'll spot me in a nightclub.

  Someone I know will speak to someone he knows.

  Fate has been an absolute bitch to me, so I'm making this attempt to cheat her, out of malice. She won't get to spring a chance encounter with Adam on me because I'm taking matters into my own hands for the first time in years. I'm going to him.

  But first, I'll rest. No, I don't need to sleep, so perhaps rest is the incorrect word. I need time to brace myself, to prepare. Breathing space, as those among the still living might call it.

  Will's booked me into a vampire-friendly hotel in Adam's adopted hometown, laughingly called Shrouds. Sunlight won't kill us if it's a brief flash here and there, but prolonged exposure would be extremely uncomfortable for younger vampires, who would blister and peel. Someone like Kieran? He'd burn and shrivel in minutes.

  Shrouds (slogan: stop coffin, if you can believe it) has an extensive library and no windows, I'm told. The beds are for purposes other than sleeping. There's a curf
ew in the sense of a refusal to open its doors after sunrise or before sundown.

  "Is there a brochure I could peruse?" I asked Will after he made the arrangements over the phone. He told me to shut up. I pointed out that the place might not be suitable for my tastes.

  "You'll only be there for a couple of nights; what do you care?"

  "I'll be awake all that time; it better be comfortable."

  "It will be, don't worry," Will assured me.

  "Through the day you can sit in your room reading, or go down to the television room and watch a DVD---"

  "Is this where I make an Interview with the Vampire joke?"

  Will's assurances transformed into a scowl. I think my (bad) joke threw him; he wasn't used to me making jokes at the best of times, let alone when we were discussing Adam Locke.

  "And at night..." His voice trailed away.

  There was no need for him to offer further explanation.

  At night, I would be tracking down my ex- boyfriend, the one who was responsible for me being dead now, and letting him know, "Surprise! I'm still around after all! Aren't you shocked?"

  I shift in my seat, not for the first time. Try as I might to get comfortable, it's not happening. Oh, physically, I'm okay. It's the thought of what I'm setting myself up for that prevents me from settling.

  There's someone across the aisle who keeps looking up at me from his e-reader, glances that by their very frequency make themselves conspicuous.

  I wonder if he's reading one of those dummies' guides to spotting vampires in public. Fifty Signs Your Fellow Passenger is Undead. Or Making Conversation with a Vampire.

  Or maybe he's idly trying to concentrate on the latest John Grisham while figuring out for himself what I am; that's why my friend from decades past, the one from the bus station came to mind. Public transport, being eyed up by someone I've never met before, it being pretty clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that I'm no longer human. No wonder I was dragged back into the past.