The Stroke of Midnight: A Supernatural New Year's Anthology
Page 23
"No, only defeated," I answered with my head hung low.
"I have hope." She bounced on the balls of her feet and threw herself closer into me.
"Hope for what? That I'll not be 'collected?' That everything is going to be okay?" I huffed, holding her tighter.
Her heartbeat sped up and perspiration broke out in the palms of her hands. She sucked in a deep, purposeful breath. "Mortimer, I love you. I have always loved you."
"And I you, my love." I closed my eyes to stave off the waterworks. Hearing her shaky voice proclaim her love wasn't making things any easier.
"Listen to me. I'm not willing to let you go. I won't let you go. I have never known tenderness and love like you have shown me. You've made me feel safe when I was afraid, and beautiful when I felt ugly, and smart when I felt stupid." She paused a moment, licking her lips. "Mortimer, I want to be with you in every way—"
I cut her off right there. "Heidi, that's not possible. You're meant to be part of this world and I need to go back to mine to keep you safe. As much as I'd like to believe differently, we were not made for each other."
She put her finger over my mouth to quiet me. "Do you believe in me?" She asked simply.
"Yes, I believe in you—"
"Then listen and know these simple facts: I love you, I want you, I need you and I believe in you." At that moment fireworks lit up the night sky outside the window. She grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me to her, pressing her lips up against mine. My entire body trembled with excitement; I've never known a feeling like this. Parts of me were awakened in ways they had never been before. The room began to spin as she continued to kiss me, holding on for dear life and whispering, "You've always been exactly what I needed."
A blinding light filled the room and my skin began to burn. The pain was unbearable, and I cried out in agony. Heidi held onto me and would not let me go. She covered my mouth with hers once again, tears streaming from her eyes as she whispered into my mouth. "I love you, Mortimer, and I'll never let go."
The light in the room burst into a million points of brilliantly shining, hot white jewels that seeped from her body. I could no longer see Heidi, yet I could still feel her embrace. I looked down to find that the light was emanating from her, leaving her. Then she was gone from my embrace.
My entire body ached from the burning light, but that pain was nothing compared to the pain of her absence. They took her from me. She's gone. Now I will die, whether they put me to death or not.
I collapsed on the floor and held my head in my hands, weeping at the loss of my only true love. A strong claw gripped my shoulder. This must be it, and I will go quietly. I have nothing left to live for.
I turned to look into the eyes of the monster standing before me, a bolt of electricity shot through my body. There was something familiar about the eyes. There was also a wonderstruck look in their gaze.
"Mortimer?" Heidi's soft voice came from the monster.
"Heidi?" I moved quickly toward her, touching her face. Her eyes were no longer milky. They were clear and shining blue.
"Yes, it's me, is that you?" Confusion took her over a moment and she lifted her hand to my face and stroked my cheek. "You're beautiful."
My head was spinning, was this my Heidi in the body of a monster? What kind of cruel trick was this? "You cannot fool me."
She moved in quickly and wrapped herself against me the way she always did. I could smell her. The scent was unmistakably Heidi's. "Mortimer, I can see you."
"What do you mean? I don't understand. Why do you look this way?" My arms wrapped around her tight, though I still questioned whether it was really her. She was acting as though she had never seen me before.
"Before you came to me, I wished every night that I would someday be able to see. I thought that if I wished for it long enough my wish would come true." She took a breath and I interrupted.
"What do you mean, be able to see?"
"Mortimer, I was blind. I've never laid eyes on you until this moment. I thought you knew," she answered with a half smile.
"No, because it's always dark when we are together I assumed…" It was all clear to me now and I was dumbfounded.
"I didn't need the light...I had you." She looked down, capturing my gaze again with her softness. "When I knew that I was in love with you, I stopped wishing for my eyesight to come back. I started wishing that we could be together forever. I would rather be blind than be without you."
I pulled her into me and threw my wings around her still-tiny frame. "But now you're a monster."
"Mortimer, I've always been a monster." She said it like a fact.
"Heidi, you are sweet and pure and—"
She rested her claw on my lips. "Mortimer, do you really think that was the first one they sent to collect you a few months back?"
I stopped to think for a minute, it did seem odd that it had been so many years and yet no one had come for me. "I hadn't thought about it. What happened to the others?"
"Let's just say I may not be welcome at the water cooler. But since there aren't many occult books written in brail I had to work it out on my own. So now I've become what I always have been, perfect like you."
I couldn't believe it. My Heidi had been protecting me all this time. "But how? When?"
"The stroke of midnight on New Year's, my dear Mortimer; it's the most powerful time. I had to kiss you before you were taken. I was afraid I couldn't keep you safe any longer, and I wouldn't live the rest of my life without having felt your lips against mine at least once."
Heidi and I have been together, terrorizing small children, for centuries now. We take the greatest pleasure in finding those who are unkind to other children who are different, making sure they don't sleep a wink. They will wet their beds for years to come in fear of placing one foot on the floor in the dark.
Fifteen Minutes until Midnight
An Annwn Unveiled Short Story
Kyra Dunst
-Teagan-
My skin tingled as the weak rays of sunset light touched my skin. It didn't really hurt. Not like it did when I had first arisen to my new life over eight months ago. Despite popular myth, vampires did not burn in sunlight. No, we just had highly specialized senses, and every little sensation was magnified a thousand fold. Every touch, every breeze, every ray of sunshine had the potential to be overwhelming. My ability to cope with my new senses was increasing daily, but it would be decades before I could walk in the sunlight without flinching, and centuries before I could linger in the midday sun with impunity.
I held my hand under the beam as long as I could before it became too much. I yanked my hand back into the shadows with a wry smile. Forty seconds, a new record. I rubbed the tender skin ruefully as my lover and sire, Pierce, wrapped his mocha arms around me. His skin was only a few shades darker than mine, only slightly lighter than it had been when I had been human.
His touch immediately soothed my minor discomforts, and I sighed in blessed relief.
The noise from the various occupants of the other rooms in the hotel faded, as did the rumble and flow of traffic in the city of Seattle below. The overpowering scent of fabric fibers, commercial grade cleaners and the hundreds of microscopic leavings from the room's numerous previous guests became bearable. The lights in the room were already off, but the distant headache behind my eyes from flirting with the sunbeam disappeared. My skin hadn't been damaged by the sun, but the overzealous neurons under the surface calmed the moment his skin glided over mine.
Only a vampire's sire could calm the intense sensory overload in this way. Well, I am sure other supernatural beings might be able to produce a similar effect, since anything is possible with magic, but I preferred his touch to anything else. No one knew quite how it worked, but I was grateful for the moments of numbing relief. Many new vampires had been driven mad by their new overwhelming senses. I was thankful Pierce was here to help me adjust. Not all sires were as attentive to their new progeny as Pierce was with me. Of co
urse, we were in love, so our situation was slightly different than the norm.
"I miss the beach." I whispered.
I didn't miss much from my human life, but that was one thing I used to love. That, and chocolate, which was now way too sweet for my senses. Even the dark stuff. Now, the blandest of foods were mostly unpalatable due to my heightened senses. I could almost kill for a cappuccino. Almost.
"We can visit in a few months."
"It won't be the same." I murmured wistfully.
Pierce turned me away from the window, and I let the drapes swish fully closed as he tucked me into his chest. The darkness would be fairly incapacitating for a human, but I could make out every little detail of the opulent room. I snuggled into his arms, enjoying the few moments of peace as I allowed my senses to spread away from Pierce's temporary oasis. With him acting as my buffer, I was able to allow my new senses to fully expand without discomfort. I could sense multiple Others in the hotel, and several outside on the streets and sidewalks of the city. Vampires, spellcasters, shifters and various other beings stirred as the sun set. Not all Others made the night their own, but politically affluent Devon Stuart was throwing his annual New Year's Eve celebration and the party had drawn supernatural beings from the world over.
The city of Seattle was full to bursting with political emissaries, dignitaries, Otherworld royalty, and their entourages. Celebrities of all kinds would be in attendance. A human would be shocked and scandalized to know just how many of their beloved idols had an alternate identity behind closed doors. Or maybe they wouldn't, if the stories in some tabloids could be believed. Hey, some had gotten it pretty close to the mark.
"We should get ready soon." Pierce whispered against my hair.
A shiver of anticipation, and no small amount of dread, slid down my spine. Out of necessity, a new vampire was cloistered away from other people, for the safety of both the fledgling and the other party, for a year or so after the change. The crowd tonight would be far more forgiving than any group of humans if I failed to blend in, but it was still nerve wracking. I had only been exposed to my best friend Lexi, the other members of Pierce's coven, and some members of the clan at the Shady Wolf Sanctuary since my awakening. If I displayed increased strength or speed around them, no one commented.
Well, no one but Lexi commented, but as my best friend, she was allowed to get away with it.
But, if I messed up in front of all the important people attending the party tonight? I didn't even want to think about it. It would reflect badly on Pierce, as my sire, and he had already been punished for turning me without prior approval.
He still wouldn't tell me what his punishment had been, but it must have been bad for him to hide it from me. Apparently, there was a covenant between the vampire community and the Council which governed the Others that determined a specific procedure for turning new vampires. The covenant prevented overpopulation, as well as protecting the rights of the newly turned. I hadn't known about the existence of vampires, or anything else supernatural, until my best friend Lexi had dragged me into it last spring. Literally. She brought the fight to my backyard, I was injured to the point of death, and I would have died that night if my boyfriend Pierce hadn't changed me.
Pierce would have offered me immortality eventually, but the choice had been taken out of both of our hands.
The elevator dinged far down the hall, and the clatter of dishes and the nearly imperceptible squeal of a cart wheel signaled the arrival of room service on our floor. With my senses already attuned, I could tell that the intruder was human. I tensed as the cart passed our door, and the human's steady heartbeat thrummed seductively in my ears. Pierce held me loosely, ready to intervene if my control should slip.
Normally, he needn't have worried. One thing I hadn't touched since my change eight months ago was human blood. The cart stopped at the door next to our room and voices murmured softly before the cart rolled again. Only a thin layer of drywall separated me from that delicious heartbeat. The scent of the human's blood, warm and rich under his skin, assaulted my nose through the ventilation system. Even with Pierce centering my senses, my instincts slammed to the forefront of my mind. My head swiveled, following the human as he moved on the other side of the wall. My fangs elongated slightly, barely peeking below my upper lip. I inhaled and held the scent in my lungs, savoring the intoxicating sensation.
I could practically taste him already.
The bloodlust was rising quickly, fighting against my crumbling resolve, tempting me to break my self-imposed dietary restrictions. The animal blood I had consumed only an hour ago was suddenly not enough. I half-stepped forward, toward the source of my torment, but Pierce's arms tightened around me. Before I had a chance to think, I turned on him and snarled as I tore free of his embrace. I took two steps toward the wall, unconcerned with things like manners as the scent increased exponentially outside my sire's calming influence. Pierce looked at me in shock for a moment before he grabbed me again, and his command to stop flooded my mind.
Unlike shifters and Fae, vampires could not speak telepathically with words, but there was an emotional link between a sire and his offspring, allowing sire and progeny a form of communication within the coven. The 'command' wasn't spoken in words, but rather a feeling of intense disapproval with a hint of concern. Normally, the sensation was enough to snap me out of my bloodlust, but this was the closest I had been to a human since my awakening. Even our journey here was carefully managed to reduce my exposure. Having Fae allies with the ability to translocate from Sanctuary directly into the hotel room was handy.
I had severely underestimated the temptation of the proximity of a defenseless human.
With Others, there was always the added benefit that they could protect themselves if I slipped up. It held me somewhat in check, even when the bloodlust overwhelmed me. But that man on the other side of the wall? He was a succulent lamb, perfectly defenseless, the ideal prey. Perhaps I would have resisted the lure better had I not been denying myself all these months, but all I wanted at this moment was to tear into the human's throat and drink deeply. The bloodlust didn't care about my disgust at drinking blood, or whether or not I killed the man when I fed. It wanted satisfaction.
Now.
The intense emotional link tightened as I felt myself giving in, and three others joined the connection to my sire. Pierce's other progeny were there, reinforcing his support with the strength of our coven. I snarled again, resenting the intrusion, but with great difficulty I was able to turn myself away from the wall. As soon as my tenuous control returned, I sped into the bathroom and slammed the door. I was ashamed of my response, and I couldn't face my lover right now. His disapproval ate at me, more intense than the bloodlust. I should be beyond losing control like this by now. Most fledglings had near perfect control by their fifth month. Only my stubborn refusal to feed properly caused my instability. Right now, I was a danger to others.
We both knew it.
I stayed hidden in the bathroom, gripping the sink with white knuckles as I refused to look at myself in the mirror. I stayed that way long after the squealing wheel faded away.
***
"Come on, Teagan. You have to feed before we go, or things will get out of hand tonight."
Pierce stood behind me in front of the bathroom mirror, stroking my arms in a calming motion. I was too agitated for it to work, and I shrugged him off. He frowned at my petulance, and I sighed.
"No. You know why I can't." I whispered brokenly.
"Teagan, what happened earlier…"
"No! You just don't understand. I was a vegan, Pierce. A Vegan! It is against everything I believe in to harm another creature, especially for food. Before this, I didn't even eat eggs. I already broke my vow when I accepted the animal blood, but I can't ever hurt someone like that, even to survive."
It was an old argument, and neither of us spoke with any anger. It had taken weeks of starvation for me to even accept consuming animal blood, and I
would only accept it then once we established that the poor creature would be kept alive after making its donation to my diet. My insistence on this fact was a source of great amusement in the community, since my 'feed animals' were cared for better than most beloved house pets. It was practically law that no vampire should ever kill a human, but to keep animal stock alive? Yeah, my coven indulged me, but not without teasing me every chance they got.
"It would be irresponsible for me to let you go tonight like this. I can feel how hungry you are, Tee. Your refusal to feed properly will jeopardize everyone at the party, not to mention the countless innocents between here and there. Besides, you do not have to kill to sustain yourself. I said I would help..."
"No." I whispered, but Pierce could tell I was slowly giving in. The months of feeding on animal blood, combined with the occasional forced feeding from Pierce to sustain the health of my aura, were wearing on me. Animal blood was not nutritionally ideal for vampires, and the lack of proper diet was taking its toll. But I couldn't make myself break my vow any further than I had.
Few could understand the vegan lifestyle, even among humans. It was more than a diet to me. It was a way of life. At fifteen, I had volunteered at an animal shelter for some community service credit toward college scholarships. I was happily working with the animals for days, until I was asked to assist in the cold room. Do you have any idea what happens to your beloved pet, your best friend, when the shelter cannot find a new home for him?
Yeah, neither did I, at the time.
My heart was already breaking for the poor animals in the shelter. Cats, dogs, and the occasional rabbit, all dropped off by seemingly remorseful humans who supposedly could no longer care for them. Oh, at first, I bought the sob stories. 'I can't have pets in my new apartment.' 'My son developed allergies.' 'He sheds too much.'
Pathetic excuses, really.
When I had opened the door to the cold room, my heart literally had stopped. Crates had lined the floor in rows, all filled with the refrigerated corpses of so many animals. I am ashamed to admit that I lost it the moment I spotted the fluffy white head of one of the peppy dogs I had admitted two days before. I had considered begging my mom to let me have this one. I had carefully prepared my pros and cons, ready to beg.