THIRTY

I turned to Kalia, not sure what Jose Luis was talking about. She shrugged. “Now is the time, Lily.” She pulled his pajama shirt off and tossed it aside. Turning his face to face her, she nodded to his neck. “If you want to save him, it’s now or never. Once his heart stops beating on its own, it may not work.”

Taking a deep breath and willing my body to stop shaking, I gathered what strength I had left and leaned over his neck. The vein there was still visible, though it pulsed irregularly. Kalia’s tender touch on my back encouraged me. I allowed my mind to call upon my thirst hoping my fangs would emerge. When they did, I took another deep breath. Picturing Christian’s face brought me the courage I needed at the moment. My fangs grazed Jose Luis’s neck before sinking through the tender flesh.

As his life force filled my mouth and ran down my throat, images of his life flashed before my eyes. His loving parents doted on him and his sister, leaving them all too soon to be ripped from their home and from each other. Bits and pieces of his life with the hunters flashed in my mind, out of sequence and making no sense. The longing for his little sister, whom he was told was missing and then possibly dead, kept him going on a daily basis. He never gave up hope that she would return to him. His love for me and Christian ran through my body, warming my limbs and giving me the strength I needed to continue the process of turning him. As images of his days with us in the apartment filled my mind, his heart beat faintly in my ears until the thumps grew farther and farther apart.

“Lily, that’s enough now,” Aaron said as he stood from kneeling at his bedside. “His heart is almost completely stopped. You need to release him.”

Reluctantly, I backed away from his neck, licking the blood at the corner of my mouth as I sat up. Kalia nodded when I held my wrist out to her, questioning with a raise of my eyebrows. Holding my wrist at my mouth, I bit down until blood flowed into my mouth. I placed my bleeding wrist over Jose Luis’s partially open mouth. “Nothing’s happening. Is he dead?” I asked when panic ran through me.

“Not entirely,” Aaron answered. “Just let the blood flow into his mouth. If you start to clot, bite again.”

“Try squeezing your arm a bit, make it flow faster,” Kalia coached at my side.

I squeezed my wrist with my fingers at both sides, the open wound burning as I tried to ignore it. As I turned my head to tell Kalia it wasn’t working, Jose Luis’s hand pushed my hand away. He wrapped both his hands around my wrist and held on while he gulped at my flowing blood, filling his mouth as if starved. “That’s it, my love. You’re doing great,” I said. I wasn’t sure if this was exactly what was supposed to happen but my instincts told me I was on the right path.

“Just a little more and you have to pull away, Lily. He will fight you, but you must,” Kalia said and stood as if ready for his fight. “He will think he cannot stop, but he can, and he must.”

It was my life flashing in front of my eyes as I listened to Kalia, as if he were pulling those memories from my mind. Ninety years’ worth of memories, good and bad, ran through my mind until Aaron pulled me away from him, the flesh on my wrist burning as it tore out of Jose Luis’s teeth.

“That’s it,” Aaron said and wrapped his arm around my waist, holding me tight against his body. I hadn’t even realized until he squeezed me that I was trying to fight his grasp, trying desperately to give Jose Luis my wrist back. “The process is done. All we have left to do it wait.”

“Why don’t you come with me and wash your arm off before it heals,” Kalia said as she took my other hand and walked me out of Aaron’s arms and toward the door.

“No. He wants more. He needs more. I can’t leave him,” I yelled though she continued dragging me out of the room.

At the bathroom sink, Kalia ran the water and wet a wash cloth. She leaned me over the basin and let the water from the cloth run over my neck. “Splash some water on your face.”

“I thought we were washing my wrist,” I said in a huff.

“It’s already healing. I just wanted you out of there so you could catch your breath and calm down,” she said and continued soaking the back of my neck. My shirt was now also wet.

“What did I do?” I said as I stood and grabbed a towel from the rack, drying my face. “I just drank from an innocent child.”

“Lily, listen to me,” Kalia replied. She led me to sit on the closed toilet while she sat on the edge of the tub, taking my hand in hers. “You did what you had to do to help him.”

“Yeah, but,” I lifted my head to look at her. The softness in her eyes calmed me more than the cold water had. “I just turned a child into a vampire. I condemned him to exist forever, never aging, never changing.”

“Yes you did do that, but,” She leaned in closer so she could whisper. “It was what you both wanted. He knew the consequences he would have to live with. You were kinder than most when you gave him the choice and explained it all to him. It was ultimately his decision and this is what he chose.”

“But he’s so young,” I argued, still feeling guilty for what I’d done but relaxing more as her compassion and understanding radiated from her hand and into me.

She laughed. “That’s only his body. His mind will continue to age the way it is meant to do. He will be an adult at the same age as anyone else. Besides, don’t you think he will enjoy staying young and handsome forever?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her comment, picturing the smug look on his face when he told me about the girl he met at the movie theater and the fact that it was not his first date. “Great. So I will forever be fighting the girls off him. That’s just what we—I mean—I needed.” The thought of Christian not being here for this important step in our lives saddened me. Kalia squeezed my hand, pulling me out of my runaway thoughts.

“Are you ok now?” she asked as she stood and took the towel from my hands, folding it and hanging it back on the rack.

“Yes, thank you. I know this is what we both wanted. It’s just that this was my first time, knowingly anyway.” I thought of the time I had turned Christian into a vampire and how different it had been. That had been totally unintentional. My blood tears had flooded into his mouth as I cried over him when Ian took his life and I had taken Ian’s.

“Lily, back to the present, please,” Kalia said as she heard my thoughts. “Jose Luis needs you here and now as he goes through the process of death and rebirth.”

“Right,” I said jumping to my feet. “I’m ok. Let’s go.”

Entering his bedroom was bit disconcerting as I did not hear his usual melodic heartbeat. Aaron had pulled up and chair and sat next to the bed, Jose Luis’s hand in his. He stood and motioned for me to take his place and I did so gladly. This child, my son, would be feeling the same horrible pain I felt when I was turned and ninety years later still remembered as if it had been yesterday. I would not let him suffer through it alone as I had. The slam of the front door snapped me from my thoughts again. Footsteps running up the spiral stair case followed.

“May we?” Aloysius asked as he poked his head in the doorway.

“Of course,” Aaron said and ushered him and Fiore in.

“What happened?” Fiore asked as she looked down and mimicked Jose Luis’s scrunched brows.

“Not long after you all left, Paco came running down to get us. Jose Luis got up to use the bathroom and collapsed. The time had come. Even he knew it. So, it’s done,” I explained and looked at his pained face. “Kalia, can you please get me a washcloth and basin with cold water?”

She nodded and rushed out of the room. Aloysius looked at Jose Luis and nodded before taking his place next to Fiore. “He looks good,” he said.

“Are you kidding? Look at his face. He’s in severe pain,” I snapped.

“That is what is supposed to happen. Everything is progressing as it should,” he explained.

Though I knew what the actual process involved, I couldn’t stand to see him in pain and not be able to do anything about it.

“You are such a mother, Lily,” Mateo said as he entered the room and came to the side of the bed. “Just remember, this pain is only temporary. It will pass soon enough and then he can be pain-free forever. He suffered more from his illness.”

“You’re right,” I said and went to work on wiping the sweat of his head and neck. “How was Paco when you left him?”

“Sound asleep,” Mateo assured me. “I stayed with him until then. Lucia went back to bed since she plans on going to the hospital early. We get Alegría in the morning. I plan on taking the children to the zoo for the day, keep them away, if that’s ok with you.”

“That is probably best,” I looked up at him and saw the distress on his face. “I guess this will be you soon, huh?”

He swallowed hard. “Guess so.”

Everyone laughed. Aloysius looked at him with amused eyes. “Wimp,” he said before leaving the room.

Mateo and I exchanged looks of surprise. Neither of us had ever heard a joke or a snide remark come out of Aloysius’s mouth. It was nice to know he could be a smart ass if he wanted, instead of always so prim and formal.

Everyone left the room and gathered downstairs to await Jose Luis’s reawakening. I stayed by his side, wiping him down with cool water every few minutes and keeping him as comfortable as I could. As I sat by his side, I couldn’t help but think about Christian. The pain of his leaving seemed as fresh now as it did the day I discovered him gone. Though I had tried my best to keep it under wraps for everyone else’s sake, now that I was alone, I cried until I felt I could cry no more. Jose Luis died without him by his side and would awaken the same way. Whatever it was that Jose Luis and I, and hopefully Leilani, would do in the future, we would do it without Christian. Whatever decisions we made no longer affected him.

For the duration of Jose Luis’s transformation, I decided to keep Christian out of my head. I needed to think about how we would get Leilani back and where we’d go after that. The three of us would be a family. We’d need a place to call home, especially since Leilani was so young. Leilani also needed to go to school. Jose Luis could go to school or choose to be homeschooled. That would be his choice to make, whether we stayed in Peru or settled somewhere else. We would have to make that decision together, as a family.

The next morning, Jose Luis started moving his legs and I jumped from my seat. Looking at his face, it was obvious his pain was not as severe as it had been last night. Everyone had checked on us throughout the night. Aaron and Kalia both commented on how quick his transformation was progressing and assured me that it was not that uncommon. Everyone was different and everyone took the amount of time their bodies needed. There really was no specific time frame for the transformation from human to vampire. Though Jose Luis was gravely ill and dying on his own, it seemed to be easier for him than it had been for me or Christian, for that matter.

The smell of smoke invaded my nostrils and I chuckled, wondering who was attempting to cook breakfast for the humans. I could just imagine Fiore at the stove wearing an apron, her sculptured fingernails dripping with egg as they punctured through the shells.

All hell suddenly broke loose as the sound of chaos trailed up the stairs, along with footsteps running up the stairs. I jumped from my seat as the door flew open, banging against the wall.

“Fire!” Aloysius yelled, followed by a panic stricken Aaron. “The building’s on fire!”