“Charlotte, I think you need to see a doctor.” Pike crouched beside his wife and rubbed her back. “Maybe you’re pregnant?”
She lifted her head from the rim of the toilet and looked at him bleakly. “No, I just had my period. Highly doubtful. I probably just ate something that didn’t agree with me.”
“Want a glass of water? Or some Ginger-ale?”
“Yes, to both. Just let the pop go flat a bit, would you please?” She leaned her head back down onto the cool edge of the porcelain bowl.
Pike went to the small bar fridge and took out an aluminum can and a bottled water. He cracked the top of the can just as the sounds of retching came again from the bathroom. Pressing his lips together, he filled a small glass with golden liquid and set it aside to let the fizz dissipate.
“We had the same meal for supper, and it doesn’t seem to be affecting me,” he thought aloud. “You were tossing and turning all night. At one point, I think you actually hit me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not mad, just concerned for you, honey.” He returned to her side, holding out the bottle, just as she was flushing away the sick.
“I hate that you’re seeing me like this.” Her skin was grey and her lips were pale, but her hand was steady when she took the water from him. “Not exactly sexy right now.”
“I love you. For better or for worse, right?” He found an elastic on the counter and gently pulled her hair into a ponytail. “Do you think you can make it back to the bed? You need to rest. Maybe I can get you something to help you sleep more soundly, without any bad dreams.”
Charlotte sighed. “Yes, I think my stomach is pretty empty now. I can’t even remember what I dreamed last night. Just something incredibly frightening, sickening. I remember a feeling of being completely out of control, but it wasn’t really me.” She paled and gripped the toilet again. “I can’t think about it. It’s making my stomach turn.”
“Then don’t think about it.” Pike carefully pulled her into his arms, letting his body take her weight. “Just rest. When you’re ready, I’ll help you lie down, maybe put on a movie to take your mind off of it. You don’t have to do anything but sleep for the rest of the day, sweetheart.”
* * * *
The weak predawn light coloured Rayvin’s bedroom in shades of grey.
The small, red-headed woman stirred in her bed, but did not awaken.
Grant stood in the doorway, watching her.
She sighed in her sleep. Muttered something that should have been inaudible, though Grant heard every sound when he concentrated. He could hear the blood rushing through her veins. The faintest whisper of her lashes, as her eyelids fluttered with dreaming. Perhaps, if he focused hard enough, he could hear her dreams. See with her eyes. Find out why she had given herself to the nightmare in a man’s clothes.
The gentle thud of cat’s paws on the floor startled him.
Looking down at the sleek black animal winding around his ankles, Grant was taken aback. Samantha shouldn’t have been coming near him, and yet she was climbing his leg without fear or animosity. Her green eyes blinked up at him, expressionless. With his enhanced hearing, her purr was as loud as the engine of his motorcycle. Obediently, he crouched down to stroke her fur, ruffling the densest patch behind her ears.
“What am I, cat?” He kept his voice low, and relaxed his ears. Samantha arched her neck and closed her eyes with evident delight. He rubbed under her chin, sighing heavily. Evidently, she still thought he was good inside.
As much as he wanted to avoid remembering the events of the night, his mind kept returning to them. The cop in him wanted to focus on the details and make a report. But the rest of him could not bear the memories.
She had betrayed him.
But did he have the right to feel betrayed?
He’d never told her how he felt. He had thought there would be time.
And then he had been changed. And she had slept with a vampire. De Sade had claimed her, body and soul. Grant would live forever, dependent on the blood of innocents for his existence, forced to watch her produce children for him.
Half-human, half-vampire children with the powers of magick.
Hybrids.
A new breed to wreak havoc on the world. As if humanity didn’t have enough problems.
Sometime during the night, his shame and self-loathing at failing to be her hero had twisted itself into something much worse.
She sighed again, rolling slowly onto her side. Grant let the cat go and rose. Rayvin would awaken soon, and he couldn’t face her. Not yet.
He would come to her later, before the bloodlust took hold of him.
The cat followed him down the stairs. Grant paused at the threshold, then turned and went to the kitchen, fiddling with the piece of paper in his hand. As he’d figured, her food dish was empty. “Typical,” he muttered, folding and dropping the paper on the table. He measured out the dry nuggets from the bag on the floor. “No wonder you’re not afraid of me. You’re hungry. Sucking up for your chow, right? Use me and lose me. Well, don’t worry, kitty. I’m used to it.”
“You think I used you.”
Grant didn’t turn around. He picked up the few bits of food that had fallen on the floor, tossing them onto the dish as the cat began to eat.
“Grant, I—”
“I was trying to leave before you got up,” he interrupted. He gestured toward the table. “I found Charlotte’s email, and Pike’s contact information. Other than that, I’m not sure what I want to say to you.”
“I’ll go in the other room, then.”
Grant looked up, praying for control. He caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window beside the counter. Without her tumbling locks, he almost didn’t recognize her. What was left stood up in tufts about her head, spiky and bent from the pillow. She was wearing a bathrobe, hugging herself. But the glass was old and watery, warped and stained; he could not see her expression. He was torn with the need to see her face, and the fear of what he would see.
Finally, she turned away.
“For what it’s worth, Grant, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
His hands curled into fists. At his limit, he pivoted and followed her to the hall.
“Yesterday, I was falling in love with you, Rayvin!”
She stared up at him. Her eyes were dry, and her skin was pale.
“Two days ago, you hated me.” Her voice was flat. Did she not care, at all?
“Yesterday, I was human!” He spat the word at her. “What was I to you? Did we mean anything, at all?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“The hell it doesn’t. I fought for you, Rayvin! And you gave up!”
Her cheeks reddened. “Is that really what you think?”
“It’s what I know. You belong to him, now! And so does Andrea, so does Jason, and Matt, and Suzie. Two more people are dead. It’s over, and we’re all done, but now every day, for the rest of my life, I have to watch you with him, knowing you’ve been with him, that you’ll have his bastard blood-sucking children, and you could have had so much more. We could have had more.”
“You’re right.” At last, his venom had provoked a reaction. Tears were brimming in her eyes, spilling in clear rivulets down her face. “It’s my fault. I wasn’t strong enough. And I can’t make it right.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll have an eternity to try.” Grant couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice, no matter how much he hated himself for making her cry. For hating her, and making her believe that his love for her was dead.
She buried her face in her hands.
He let himself out.
It was a good thing he had walked over, from Andrea’s house. He wasn’t in a state to drive.
Grant ran.
His legs pumped as he pushed himself to his limits. Or, what had been his limit yesterday. His feet flew over the ground, yet his heart rate barely increased and his breathing remained steady. He pushed harder, needing the distance. The release.
He passed the town limit in a quarter of the time it should have taken him, and kept going.
After de Sade had announced his victory, he had ordered Matt and Grant to ‘assist’ Jason to his feet. Without delicacy or care, as they had supported him, the bastard had ripped the knife out of his lieutenant’s eye socket, and just as callously, tossed the weapon aside. Then, they had separated to feed. The coven leader had released them with a wave of his hand, dismissing the group with an admonishment to do what “came naturally.”
Instead of the thirst he expected, Grant had only felt sick to his stomach.
Who would be exposed to Jason’s now hideous face? Would his body regenerate after he fed? Dully, Grant realized how little he cared. The man he knew, or thought he knew, was gone. It was possible he’d never really existed. He could only hope that death had come quickly to Jason’s victim, though after witnessing his sadistic nature, he couldn’t be certain.
The trees were a blur as Grant ran.
Sick in body and in mind, he had gone to Andrea’s house. His mind was made up to wait for her, to see if she had been sincere. And if so, to say goodbye. Rather than exist on the blood of others, he had decided to wait until the dawn, and then let it burn him to ashes.
Their last conversation still rang perfectly in his now gifted ears.
“Grant! What are you doing here?”
Andrea rushed toward him, leaving the door open behind her.
“Please, you have to leave, he’s coming!”
He looked at her.
“Who did you feed on, Andrea? Who did you kill tonight?”
Her chin trembled.”I can’t help it. I tried not to, Grant, I really did, but— oh, God, please help me!”
He opened his arms. The tall blonde collapsed into them, sobbing. “It’s my fault, it’s all my fault . . .”
“It’s not your fault,” Grant hushed her, smoothing her hair. He tried not to think about a smaller woman he’d held and soothed like this, not long ago. “He’s a predator. You’re not to blame, honey. He made a choice, and you’re paying for it. It’s not fair.”
She pulled back, looking up at him with such despair that it wrung his heart. “I tried to kill Rayvin. I treated her like . . . like . . .” She swallowed, unable to go on.
“Don’t think about it.”
“And I drank her blood. I liked it.” Her voice was a whisper, her eyes haunted.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m trying . . . I went to the hospital, to the ward with the terminal patients. I thought . . .” She looked at him beseechingly.
Grant closed his eyes. Her arms gripped him tighter. He didn’t need to know anymore. “Oh, Andy . . .”
She wailed, burying her face in his chest. “I can’t help myself, I can’t, but I don’t know what to do . . .”
Grant held her, and spoke slowly. “You could end it.”
Her shaking eased. “I’m too afraid.”
“But it would be over. You wouldn’t have to hurt anyone else.”
Andrea shook her head, unwilling to face the idea. “I’m a coward, Grant. I can’t do that. What if we’re damned, and we go to hell?”
“Isn’t that what this is?”
“I can’t.”
“I’m going to.”
Andrea looked up, and took his face in her hands. “You can’t do that either, Grant. Think of Rayvin.”
He brushed her aside, getting up. He had to move. “She made her choice. I can’t help her now.”
“She did it for you!”
“Did she, now?” He turned, baring his teeth.
Andrea stood also, on a level with him. “Yes. To save you from a fate worse than . . . she didn’t want this for you!”
“Then I had better grant her that wish. The sun is coming up. I’m not waiting for the urge to feed.”
She made as if to stop him as he passed, then dropped her arm. “I always thought well of you, Grant. Even when you were stupid and pigheaded, just like you are now.”
He laughed, a little grimly. Reaching back, he squeezed her shoulder, once. “Stay beautiful, Andy.”
As he left, he thought he heard her whisper, “Always.”
Grant reached the highway. He wasn’t even winded.
He walked the streets of Talbot as the sky lightened, making his way one last time along the paths of his childhood. He considered calling his father in Florida, but rather than risking more confusion in the investigation which was sure to follow his disappearance, decided to leave it. That pain was as sharp as any he’d felt in the last twenty-four hours. Eventually, he found himself on the bridge. He leaned against the eastern railing. He thought about what Jason had said, the horrible things he’d said he’d done to Rayvin. How many other girls had he assaulted? Rayvin had been able to defend herself, as uncontrolled and reflex as it had been. But if Jason was the predator that his vampiric nature had revealed him to be, perhaps Rayvin’s action had spared other potential victims from his cruelty.
Until now.
A prickling started on his scalp and ran down his spine—somehow, his body knew the sun was rising before his eyes saw it. The first golden line appeared on the horizon, below a low bank of grey clouds. A last flock of geese passed overhead, calling their greeting to the morning. The wind swept his face as he slowed to a walk, and then stopped, closing his eyes. He turned to face the east more fully. The slight warmth of the light was pleasant on his face. Impatiently, he waited there for the warmth to burn, for his skin to flake and crumble, and his torment to end.
And waited.
He opened his eyes. Why wasn’t this working?
Grant no longer had a goal. He would simply run. Maybe, if he went north . . . where there were fewer people. Further still, to the ice. If he wouldn’t burn, maybe he could freeze.
* * * *
Rayvin stared at the ruin of her perfect backyard sacred space.
Her body was aching. Her eyes were sore and dry; she’d wept until she had no more tears to cry.
Samantha had offered what comfort she could, meowing and chirruping, bumping her velvet nose against Rayvin’s chin. But her fur carried the faintest trace of Grant’s personal scent—peppermint, musk, leather.
Rayvin had been wrong about her heart. She had thought there was nothing left to break.
Finally, she had dragged herself once again from her bed to look for some food. She had to eat, in spite of her grief. She found a pair of clean jeans in the open box in her bedroom, a sweatshirt, some socks. Out of old habit, she had grabbed an elastic for her hair.
Who knew that losing one’s hair could be so unspeakably painful?
She couldn’t put it off any longer. She went to the kitchen, and took a deep breath.
In the clear autumn light, she could see the marks of the battle that had taken place, for her. Patches of darkened soil where Grant’s blood had been spilled. One much larger than the others, and almost black. Near that, a flat mass of shiny red that, from a distance, resembled a dead animal.
She would not let herself fall. Rayvin locked her knees and lifted her chin.
In the short time that remained before midday, Rayvin cleaned her backyard. She ignored the hunger gnawing at her stomach, focusing on picking up the scattered pages of her Book of Shadows. She lifted her altar, set the drawers straight, and brought it indoors. She vomited neatly into the bushes when she saw the mess on her athame, though there wasn’t much in her belly to bring up. She would never use it again. Instead, she dug a hole as close to it as she possibly could, used her foot to nudge it inside, and buried her mother’s ritual tool.
And then, she fainted.
* * * *
“There, now. Wake up, dear.”
Rayvin started, holding her hands up defensively.
A kindly, wrinkled face was gazing down at her with concern.
“Are you all right?”
Rayvin looked around, confused.
She was in her living room, lying on her couch, covered in her quilt. Someone had lit a fire in the fireplace. The older woman standing before her was holding out a cup of tea.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Alma, dear. My husband sold you the outdoor chimney, remember?”
Rayvin sat up slowly, accepting the tea. “Oh—oh, yes. I remember. But how . . . you . . .”
Alma gestured toward the couch. “May I?”
Rayvin hastily moved her feet. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry, I only recently moved in. There’re chairs in the kitchen—”
“Don’t you worry about that. I’ve sat on dirt floors in India, teak chairs in Brazil, and on a scaffold in the rainforest.” Alma made herself comfortable, and patted Rayvin’s blanketed toes. “We were walking by with Herbert, and I noticed the chimney in your yard. I thought we might knock and see how you’d managed, but when you didn’t answer, Bill thought you might be around back. Imagine our surprise to find you on the ground! Thank goodness, your door was open! So, Bill brought you inside, and I made some tea. Have you eaten yet today, dear?”
Rayvin sipped the hot brew gratefully. “No, I haven’t.”
Alma shook her head. “Tsk, tsk. Well, I did notice the boxes, and the empty cupboards, so I hope you don’t mind, but I sent Bill to the store to get you some basics.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to do that—”
Alma held up a hand to stop her. “Nonsense, it’s just being neighbourly.”
Rayvin felt her face redden. “It’s just that . . . I’m a bit short right now, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to pay you back.”
Again, Alma shook her head. “Let’s call it a welcome to the neighbourhood present. I believe in what goes around, comes around. You’ll find a way to pay it forward, dear.”
For the first time that day, Rayvin smiled a little. “Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it, more than you know.”
“You’re welcome, dear.”
Samantha streaked into the room and under the couch, followed by an equally quick white mop, sans handle. The mop stopped at the couch and sniffed around with a very pink nose, undeterred by the hissing sound and the aggressive black paw that accompanied it.
Rayvin surprised herself by laughing out loud. “I suppose this is Herbert?”
“Yes,” the older woman smiled fondly, reaching down to scratch at his back. “He’s made a lovely new friend, haven’t you? And so have I.”
They shared a companionable silence for a short time, enjoying their tea. After they’d finished, Alma took the dishes to the kitchen herself, refusing to let Rayvin get up. She laid her head down for a moment, accepting the moment of peace. It had been so long since she’d had anyone to really mother her . . . Fresh prickles told her that her tear ducts had filled again, but this time, the sensation was different.
This time, she was feeling . . . grateful.
Hopeful.
* * * *
Night fell.
Rayvin went to bed, with a full stomach, full cupboards, and her cat curled on her chest.
Sometime in the dark, de Sade came to her.
She welcomed him. His presence, his love-making—even though she despised him and hated herself, for the short time he brought her to ecstasy, she no longer felt so empty.
So alone.