A pretty young woman beamed at me from the photograph. She wore a simple white blouse and a long tartan skirt. She clutched a bouquet of wild flowers tightly to her chest. A young man in a plain-looking suit stood next to her. The couple posed on the stone steps of a small country church. I squinted at the man. He bore a remarkable resemblance to…
I flipped the frame over and carefully removed the photograph. There were no names, but someone had recorded the date. June 23, 1924.
I stared at the picture. Nathan, just twenty years old, stared back.
“Carrie? Sorry I took so long, but you wouldn’t believe how that woman can talk about her cats.”
I put the photograph back into the frame, replaced it on the top shelf and slammed the closet doors shut.
“Wow, this place looks great,” Nathan called from the living room, veritable appreciation in his voice. He came into the bedroom and laughed when he saw me. “You’re making the bed, too? Do I have to pay you?”
“And I flipped the mattress. That’ll be twenty bucks.” I eyed the shopping bags he held. “Or whatever’s in that Victoria’s Secret bag.”
He laughed, a tight, embarrassed sound, and dumped the bags on the bed. “I didn’t know what size you are, so if these don’t fit, we’ll return them.”
Nathan had thought of everything. There were sweaters and T-shirts in safe, neutral colors from Old Navy, jeans, and pretty silk panties courtesy of Victoria’s Secret. “I saved some of your clothes from the fire, but they were so full of smoke, I didn’t think they’d ever come clean.”
A lump formed in my throat. “Nathan, you didn’t have to do this. I—”
I didn’t realize I was crying until my voice grew too thick to speak.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just thought you could use some stuff.” He cleared his throat and handed me another bag. “If I give you this, do you promise to stop?”
I snorted through my tears. “I’ll try. When did you buy all these things?”
“When I got back from the fire. You were gone and I was pissed off, so I went shopping.”
“You went shopping because you were mad at me?” I took the bag from his hands. “Remind me to stay on your bad side.”
He chuckled at that. “Must be some lingering feminine influence from a past life. If you ever catch me watching The View, go ahead and kill me. I just figured you might come back, and I wanted to make you feel really guilty.”
“Don’t worry, I do,” I said, reaching into the bag. It was plastic, stamped with the logo of a local grocery chain. I froze when my fingers closed on a familiar object. “Nathan… what?”
With trembling hands, I pulled out the small framed photo of me and my parents on graduation day. It had been on my dresser when I’d last seen it. “Oh, thank you.”
Appalled at the sight of my fresh tears, he backed away. “Whoa, whoa. I thought you were going to stop doing that.”
“I’m sorry. Nobody’s ever done anything so nice for me.” It wasn’t a lie. I’d been raised to believe that nothing came easy, nothing was free, and the only person I could depend on was myself. I reached into the bag again. “Is this my…this is my diploma.”
“I figured you might want to keep it, for nostalgic purposes.” He scuffed his shoes on the carpet. “You know, this fire might be the perfect way to break ties with your former life. People die in fires all the time.”
Former life. My photo album. My journals. Everything I’d valued as irreplaceable was gone. My father used to say our society puts too much value on the past. I wished I could scream his words back at him now. My past was all that was left of you. Now that it’s gone, so are you.
“Let’s not talk about this right now, okay?” I said as I dabbed my eyes on the back of my hand. Before Nathan could protest, my stomach growled loudly.
A look of concern crossed his face. “How long has it been since you’ve fed?”
I cringed at the memory of the dead girl. “Cyrus offered, but I couldn’t…feed. Not the way he did.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. He headed to the kitchen, and I followed.
“So, did you get The Sanguinarius back?” I watched as he pulled a bag of blood from the refrigerator and poured it into the teapot on the stove.
He shook his head. “I didn’t have time to look for it.”
Surprisingly, I found myself savoring the metallic smell of the warming blood. “But you had time to look for my diploma, and the picture of my parents?”
Shrugging his shoulders, he poured me a mug and left the rest on the stove. “I had priorities.”
Why was I a priority? Nathan had only known me a handful of days. “Your priority should have been getting the book.”
He turned to the sink and began halfheartedly washing the dishes. “The book can be replaced. Memories can’t. I know if I lost all those pictures I have of Ziggy… See, one time, when he was eleven, I took him to Disney World. We could only go out at night, of course, but we went in December, so the sun set earlier—”
“I hope you don’t think I’m going to sleep with you just because you’re being nice,” I blurted.
There was a crash and Nathan hissed. When he pulled his hand from the water, he was bleeding. He looked from his torn thumb to me, his gaze murderous. “What the hell, Carrie?”
The logic I’d used to work the accusation up to a full-fledged fear in my head suddenly seemed incredibly silly. Still, I soldiered on. “Well, you bought me clothes, you rescued my diploma from a burning building at the expense of your precious book, you’re feeding me…what am I supposed to think?”
“Maybe you’re supposed to think I’m an idiot for doing all that shit for someone who clearly doesn’t appreciate it!” He stuck his thumb in his mouth and sucked away the blood, his face contorting into the freakish features he’d displayed the night we’d first met.
I cringed, fervently hoping he didn’t notice. “People don’t just do things for other people without wanting something in return. Sorry if that offends you, but it’s a fact.”
“Is it?” He watched me for a moment with an expression of bitter amusement. “How on earth did you get so jaded?”
“Hey, you’ve lived on earth longer than I have, buddy. You can come up with a better answer than I can.” I took a swallow of blood.
Nathan chuckled and turned back to his dishes. After a long pause, he spoke without looking at me. “You can stay here as long as you need to. I don’t mind. But don’t think I expect anything because of what happened downstairs. It was just one of those weird things we can forget about.”
“Thanks,” I said softly. I managed to drink more blood without dwelling on the repulsive things I’d seen that night, like Cyrus’s choice of cocktail olive replacement. Unfortunately, all that was left to dwell on was Nathan’s comment. I didn’t consider myself the hottest tamale in the enchilada, but almost kissing me was something he could just forget? I couldn’t help but be insulted.
He continued. “And I’m sorry about what I said. And I shouldn’t have fought with you. We don’t know each other very well, but what I do know of you, I like. I want you to make good choices so we don’t have to be enemies.”
“Nathan, I’m not like him. That’s what I found out tonight.”
“Good.” He didn’t look up.
I stood next to him so he couldn’t avoid me. “He didn’t have anything I wanted. I’m not interested in that kind of life.”
When he looked at me, his gaze burned through me. “And what kind of life is that, Carrie?”
“A life without consequences.” I turned away and went to sit at the kitchen table. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve made a decision. I won’t spend my life trying to prove myself to some shadowy organization because they think they can choose whether I live or die. The only person with power over my life is me.”
“I respect that. But it doesn’t change anything.”
I sighed. He would never bend, and I knew it. W
e were five days from being mortal enemies, and I’d come to rely on him as a friend. An incredibly touchy, downright rude friend, but the only one I had.
I didn’t want to think about it tonight.
Nathan finished the dishes without further conversation. When the last one rested in the drying rack, he washed his hands and wiped them on the dish towel. I handed him my mug with a sheepish smile, and he made a face in good-natured annoyance as he dropped it in the empty sink. “Feel like a drink? A real one, this time?”
“I could definitely use one.” I followed him to the living room where he ordered me to sit.
He pulled a large book from one of the shelves and opened it. It was hollow, the pages carved out to form a niche for a gleaming metal flask.
“Here I thought you were a bookworm, and you’re really just an alcoholic.” I yawned. “So the shop is just a clever front for a bootlegging operation, right?”
He handed me the flask. “Scotch. Aged thirty years. I only hide the good stuff.” He motioned for me to drink. “Ziggy helps himself to the liquor cabinet and replaces what he takes with water. He thinks I haven’t noticed.”
I took a cautious sip. It was smooth and warmed me almost as much as the blood I’d drunk.
My thoughts strayed to the mystery woman in the picture. Obviously, it was a wedding photo. But Nathan didn’t wear a ring. He didn’t even have a tan line from one. Now, that’s a stupid thought, I scolded myself. He can’t go out in the sun.
There had to be some way to bring up the subject, an innocent question I could ask that would lead him to spill the whole tale.
He sat on the couch next to me, and his thigh brushed mine. I didn’t move away. Neither did he.
“Do you ever get lonely?” It seemed the best way to get the conversation started.
It was also intensely personal, judging from the look on Nathan’s face. He took the flask and swallowed deeply. “Nah. Ziggy’s here, and when he’s not, I like being alone.”
“I meant, does immortality get lonely?” I reached for the flask, deciding the best way to kill the sour aftertaste was with another shot of the stuff.
“Well, after the first decade or so, time seems to fly by. I have to admit, it gets boring every now and then. And yeah, lonely, I guess. Especially when I read about someone having his hundred and eighth birthday, or something like that. It drives home the fact I’m really, really old. I’m just not getting any older.” He gave a little laugh and looked over at me. “I’m not making sense, am I?”
“You are,” I assured him. “Though it might be because I’m slightly tipsy.”
He smiled sadly. “It’s hard to believe one day I’ll be the only person left who remembers what it was like to be alive in my time. Sure, people will remember the major things. They’ve got them written down in history books. But only I’ll be left to remember the price of eggs and milk in 1953. I’ll be the only one who remembers what Mrs. Campbell’s blackberry jam tastes like, or that Mrs. Campbell ever existed.”
I had no idea how old my sire was. Had Cyrus endured too many years of that kind of solitude? Is that what made him so desperate for a companion? My heart ached at the thought, and the tender emotion surprised me. “So it stands to reason you’d want to find someone to be with when the people you love die.”
He nodded. “I suppose. But I haven’t felt that way for a while. Maybe because Ziggy’s so young I feel like I have some time before I have to think about it again.”
I could tell from his tone that this was as close as I was going to get to the bottom of this particular subject. “So, where are you from?”
“All over.” He took another sip of Scotch. “I was born in Scotland, lived there until…” His voice trailed off for a second. “I went to Brazil in 1937. That’s where I was turned.”
“Oh?” I wasn’t sure how I should respond.
“From there, I moved to London, then Canada when the war broke out—”
“You were a draft dodger?” I interrupted.
“No.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “The Second World War. Eventually, I ended up here.”
“That’s a lot of moving.” I wondered if I would have to move that much. The idea didn’t hold any appeal.
He sighed. “That’s what happens. If you live too long in one place, never getting any older, people get suspicious. Believe me, it’s a real pain in the ass getting a new birth certificate and social security card.”
I mimicked a redneck drawl. “Especially when you’re obviously not from round these here parts.”
He chuckled, then did a pretty fair imitation of a Midwestern accent. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. I was born in Gary, Indiana, in 1971.”
“Seriously, though, how do you do it?” I took another swig of Scotch.
He leaned back, resting his long arm behind me on the back of the couch. “It’s not hard, especially in a town like this. There are a lot of illegals running around, so there are plenty of connections for forged documents. It’s all about networking. Once you’ve got the birth certificate and the social security card, you go down to the Secretary of State office and say, ‘I’m here to apply for a driver’s license, please.’”
He’d finished the last part of the statement with his ridiculously good Midwestern twang. I frowned. “Don’t do that.”
“What?” He half lifted his arm.
“The voice. I like your accent.”
Nathan looked at me as if he’d never seen me before. His eyes searched my face but provided me no clue to what was going on in his head.
“In the bookstore tonight…if I had kissed you, would you have let me?” His voice sounded deeper than usual and rough from the alcohol.
My mouth went dry. I had some more Scotch, but it didn’t help. “I don’t know.”
“Would you let me now?”
A feeble noise escaped my throat.
He took it as a protest. “No expectations. Just a kiss.”
I nodded.
His lips were soft but cold. He brushed them lightly over mine, and butterflies the size of B-52s took up residence under my rib cage. I closed my eyes. I felt dizzy, either from the Scotch or the scent of Nathan that surrounded me. Probably both.
I opened my mouth under his. The tip of his tongue slipped past my lips, and I put my arms around him, one hand resting against the soft hair at the back of his neck. Excitement tickled my stomach every time I inhaled.
Without warning, Nathan pulled away. I opened my eyes in time to see him slump sideways and fall to the floor.
Dahlia glanced over his motionless body with a surprised expression that gave way to a satisfied smile. She shrugged her round shoulders. “Just as good, I guess.”
Before I could ask her what she meant, she clapped her hands and disappeared.
Eight
A Bargain
I knelt beside Nathan’s unconscious body and rolled him onto his back. He was breathing, but just barely.
“Open your eyes!” I shouted into his face. I hoped whatever Dahlia had done was only temporary. “Nathan, open your damn eyes!” His eyelids opened a fraction and a slow smile formed on his lips. I sighed in relief.
“Marianne?” he whispered. His eyes closed again and his body went limp. As if someone had flicked a switch, my relief turned to immediate dread. I called his name again, but he didn’t respond.
Looking frantically around the room, I spotted the cell phone on the table. Ziggy.
My hands shook as I punched up the speed dial. Ziggy’s number was the only one listed. Once the call was sent, all I could do was wait.
I’d never felt so helpless in my entire life. I tried to summon the impartiality and calm I’d had when working on a patient, but I couldn’t. Not when the patient in question was someone I knew.
I sat by Nathan’s side, unable to offer anything but my presence. Was he still breathing? Did he look a little blue in the face? I was checking his pulse rate against the cell phone’s clock when Ziggy’
s call came through.
“What?” was the unceremonious greeting I got when I pushed the connect button.
“It’s Carrie. I’m at your place.” I glanced down at the unconscious body beside me, not sure how to deliver the bad news. “Listen, where are you?”
“Just about to leave the hospital. It’s a good thing I wasn’t mortally wounded. I could have died six times before they bothered to help me. What do you need?”
“Nathan’s hurt.” I figured saying it really fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid, would make it easier. “Dahlia sort of poofed in here and zapped him, then poofed out again.”
“Shit!” He was so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear.
I could only imagine the looks he was getting as he stood in the E.R. lobby swearing at the top of his lungs. “Calm down. Can you get here, fast?”
There was no answer but a dial tone. I swore and tossed the phone across the floor. If he’d stayed on the line he might have been able to tell me how to help Nathan. Now all I could do was wait for him. Again.
I didn’t want to just sit there and watch Nathan die, but it appeared I had little choice. His breaths grew more shallow, and his chest jerked with every inhalation. I hadn’t been paying much attention to my own breathing, but it suddenly seemed stifled. In fact, the air in the little apartment had become hazy.
With smoke.
“What is it with her and fire?” I wheezed. Jumping to my feet, I grabbed Nathan from under his arms and struggled to drag him. Nathan hadn’t included lack of oxygen as a potential cause of undead fatality, so I assumed smoke inhalation wouldn’t kill us, either. But even with increased vampire strength, I had no hope of getting him down the stairs if I couldn’t breathe. At least, not without dropping him and breaking his neck in the process.
I searched for an escape from the acrid smoke and I finally decided on the bathroom. The tiny, windowless room had an exhaust fan, so I flipped the switch and wet a towel to shove under the crack in the door. It kept the smoke out, but unless Ziggy hurried, Nathan and I would burn to death.
Blood Ties Book One: The Turning Page 11