In the Dark

by Melody Taylor

  There were lights on in my place; Amanda was home. Safe from her trip out to eat. I hadn’t realized I’d been worried about her until I saw she was home. Maybe that was the reason I wanted to head home so bad. Just to check on her.

  I got out of my car, watching Josephine, thinking about my sister in the house and one of my vampire friends outside. This could get interesting.

  “Hey Josephine,” I called as she got out of her car.

  She waved back, close enough that I could see the smile on her face. It made me smile, too. “Hello,” she called. “Busy?”

  I waited in my drive for her to join me before I answered, watching her graceful movements. She offered me a hand and squeezed mine when I took it.

  “A little busy,” I answered. “I’m going out, and my sister is here visiting. I just stopped by to – change,” I covered my mother hen routine as fast as I could.

  Josephine smiled. “Check up on her, you mean. I know what it’s like when you first start hanging around mortals.”

  I didn’t blush, but only because I couldn’t. Instead I shuffled my feet and nodded.

  “I’d like to meet her, if you don’t mind.” The way she pitched her voice told me more: she was lonely. She didn’t want to intrude on us, but she wanted to be around people for a while.

  “Yeah,” I said immediately, thinking that I couldn’t just ditch her after what we’d been through. And that she might even help with talking to Amanda. “Yeah, it’d probably be good for Amanda to meet others besides me.”

  Her eyebrows twitched. “You’ve told her, then?”

  I watched for signs of approval or disapproval, then nodded. Carefully.

  “Well, of course.” Josephine touched my arm. “What else could you have done?”

  I nearly melted into a little puddle of relief. “I’m not sure how much she believes.”

  “Well, then I’d definitely like to meet her.”

  “Sure,” I said. “C’mon in.”

  I turned and let myself into the house.

  It hit me like a wall.

  The smell.

  Red everywhere. On my wall, on my furniture. Dripping bright, bright red. And the smell. Sweet-salt metallic blood, the smell of someone on the inside, a smell that was never meant to be outside –

  And Amanda, sprawled in the middle of the living room floor, smeared with red, eyes wide, her throat torn. Leaking still, spilling onto her shirt.

  “My god,” Josephine murmured, miles behind me.

  Amanda’s eyes rolled to meet mine, glassy, barely seeing.

  “Jen?”

  I scrambled in the door, fell to her side. Part of me was looking for the cause of all the blood, sure it couldn’t be her. The other part had already seen and knew the damage was bad.

  “You’re gonna be okay,” I said senselessly. I was supposed to say that, so she didn’t freak out and die of shock. “You’ll be fine, you’ll be just fine, don’t worry.” Then I saw the rip in her throat more clearly. It had to be recent, very recent. It was deep. Bleeding awfully. If she’d gotten it more than a minute ago, she’d be dead by now. Whoever did this had to be nearby – but that didn’t concern me as much as Amanda. She couldn’t possibly hold out for more than another minute.

  I pressed both hands over the wound. “Call an ambulance!” I screamed at Josephine. I looked up to scream at her again, but she had her cell out, her lips pinched together, her eyes locked on the wall. I turned to look at it –

  CAIN.

  In big, red letters. Dripping letters.

  “Jen.” I looked down at Amanda, but her eyes didn’t see me. “Doesn’t hurt anymore . . .”

  Oh, no, no, hell, no!

  “Stay with me!” I yelled at her. I pulled my green blanket off the couch and threw it over her, keeping one hand over the wound to apply some pressure – not too hard, that would suffocate her brain – my fingers were slippery with blood that wouldn’t stop coming.

  “Sebastian?” I heard Josephine say behind me. “I’m at Ian’s. We need you now.”

  Sebastian?

  “Ambulance!” I screamed. Yeah, great, maybe we could sic Sebastian after whoever had done this, but not until we saved my sister!

  “Jen,” she croaked, her voice fading. “Jen . . . don’t . . .”

  She relaxed suddenly, limp as a rag.

  “Amanda?” I gave her a shake. She didn’t respond. I shook her again. Still nothing. “No, no, no, no.”

  I repeated to myself she wasn’t too cold, not too still, she was hurt but alive, she had to be – but she didn’t move, not when I shook her, not when I yelled.

  “Ian,” Josephine said quietly. I ignored her.

  I clamped my mouth down over Amanda’s, tilted her head back, remembered everything my CPR teacher had shown us like I’d taken the class yesterday, one, two, three, breathe.

  “Ian,” Josephine said again, while I pounded Amanda’s chest. “Ian, they drank her.”

  One, two, three, breathe . . .

  “Ian!”

  I ignored her, kept pumping Amanda’s chest, kept breathing for her, I didn’t have to worry about passing out, just had to keep breathing, one, two, three, breathe . . .

  It went on forever. She had to be gone. But if I kept at it long enough, refused to give up, maybe she’d be okay. Maybe.

  A hand on my chest as I went to breathe again, stopping me. I tried to fight, tried to get my air to her – the hand held me back.

  “Ian, they drank her. She has no blood.”

  I stared at Josephine. Her eyes were damp. Sebastian stood behind her. I hadn’t noticed him come in. How long had I been trying to do CPR on Amanda? Sebastian’s face looked dark, his eyes troubled. Sad.

  “No blood?” I said.

  Josephine shook her head, but I wasn’t asking her. I was remembering.

  No blood.

  I have to replace it. First there has to be no blood, then I have to replace it. Kent told me that, to prepare me, before he did it, drank me dry and gave me his.

  I can still save her!

  I grabbed my wrist in my teeth and pulled. They sliced in deeper than I thought they would. I got scared, then remembered it would heal while I slept. Sliced skin hung loose from the wound I pressed to Amanda’s mouth.

  A hand grabbed mine away from her.

  “Ian, think about what you’re doing.”

  Sebastian.

  “When it’s your goddamn sister you can stop and think!” I screamed at him. Wrenched my hand away from him. He let me, watching me with flat, dark eyes. I shoved my wrist to her mouth again, holding my arm so the blood would trickle down. It would only drip until she sucked it.

  I felt a drop fall, felt it leave me and heard it plop onto her tongue.

  Nothing.

  Another drop worked its way out, splatting against the first. “Come on,” I muttered. Got up high on my knees so more blood would work its way down.

  Another drop. Another. Plop. Plop. Plop. I could hear it pattering on her tongue.

  Had her lips twitched?

  Plop. Plop.

  Again. Her tongue moved, a swallow, definitely a swallow. Her lips did twitch this time, barely closing on my skin.

  “Yes, come on!” I whispered. “Come on!”

  More blood left me, drop by slow drop. She swallowed again, a tiny flash of her throat.

  “Amanda, please,” I begged. “Drink, please!”

  Her lips closed harder on my wrist and she sucked. A pathetic movement, but a suck that brought a few more drops out. She paused. Took a breath. The second suck was not so pathetic. The third, painful, pulling blood out of me so that my arm tingled. My stomach opened up in hunger. Her hand raised and clamped over my arm, pressing it to her mouth. I hissed through my teeth.

  Her green eyes flicked open, watching me, no hint of recognition in them. Animal. Had I looked like this? Glaring up at Kent as if he meant nothing but food? I shivered.

  “Ian,” said a soft voice. Josephine. She he
ld her own slit wrist for me. I met her eyes, asking if she meant it – she nodded. I took it gratefully and let Amanda have mine. It didn’t exactly solve the problem – as fast as I could swallow, so could Amanda. But the sharp edge faded from my own hunger.

  With no warning, Amanda let my arm go with a gasp. Before I could feel relief, she screamed. Her back arched, her head thrown back. I dropped Josephine’s wrist and held my sister until the sound stopped. Remembering the pain.

  Her scream trailed off into an agonized groan, then fell quiet. I held her close.

  And then I waited. For what, I didn’t know. A motion, maybe, or a whimper. Some sign it had worked. Amanda stayed still.

  No one else moved either. I didn’t know if I should worry or not. I reached to feel for her pulse – stupid. What pulse?

  I fluttered anxious hands over her. How did I check? Josephine knelt beside me, answering my question by pulling back Amanda’s lips. She pressed her finger to one canine, then took it back to study the tip. Satisfied by that, she pulled Amanda’s eyes open. The pupils shrank to points.

  “It worked.” Josephine sat back. “She’s your daughter now.”

  I know I made some kind of noise in response to that.

  I still don’t know exactly what.

  OUTSIDE

  Overcome, disgusted, angry, and above all terrified – he hadn’t thought he was capable of terror any longer – Sebastian turned away. Left. Went back out to the Vector.

  He could think only one thing, one idea, over and over. If he’d known what to do the night he’d taken Sarah – no. That was vile. A nightmarish thought.

  And yet it came:

  If I’d known what to do, I wouldn’t have lost her.

  HOUSE

  Ian heaved a sigh. It was a loaded sigh, heavy with things unspoken. Sebastian turned from the word on the wall – his name – to look at her. Her skin had gone waxy and white from hunger. Her eyes remained riveted on the motionless form of her sister, sprawled on the floor, eyes closed in sleep. A sleep very close to death. Sleeping vampires moved – very little, but they did. Not so the new ones. This was the sleep of transformation. No dreams. No motion. Only this frightening stillness. Fortunately, Amanda had fed sufficiently from Ian, enabling her to fall into this sleep rather than remain conscious in order to search for blood – as he had the night of his own change.

  “What does it mean?” Josephine asked, looking at the wall. The blood had begun slowly drying to a red-brown. The metallic scent saturated the room. Overwhelming, if he cared to breathe.

  “It is my name.”

  Her green eyes stared back at him, flat, unamused. He stared back. He hadn’t meant it as a joke.

  “Why is it here?” she asked, her voice firmer. “This is Ian’s house.”

  He stared back at her, waiting to see if she realized. When he saw her eyes widen, he nodded.

  “Someone you know is here,” she said. “But why kill – I mean, Ian’s sister – I –” she paused, then shook her head. “This is humor for them. This is common, how they say hello.”

  “Not quite.”

  The sound of a car pulling up on the street silenced him. He turned to the window to watch it as it came to a stop in front of the house. The headlights went out and the driver cut the engine. Josephine watched with him, statue-still.

  It was not a car Sebastian knew. Perhaps the challenger returning to instigate the challenge? His eyes narrowed. He intended to answer this challenge, but not here, in Ian’s home. He slipped across the room to put himself beside the door, fingers touching the hilt of his sword. Ian looked up, sluggish at first, then with fear as she saw Sebastian taking position. He put a finger to his lips and she nodded, getting to her feet between Amanda and the door. She would stop no one who wanted Amanda, but he did not discourage her. It made Ian feel better – and Sebastian had no intention of letting anyone have any of the people in this house.

  Feet walked up the pavement to the door, smooth, easy steps. A man, Sebastian guessed, slightly taller than himself.

  Specter . . . ?

  Sebastian flexed his fingers on the hilt of his sword.

  The strange man gave a solid rap on the door, then started to come in without waiting for an answer. Sebastian drew his sword, slowly, silently.

  The door stopped, not yet open. The man on the stairs breathed in. Catching the scent of blood, perhaps. Noting the scent of new vampires.

  Sebastian tensed. Now the stranger would act.

  As he thought it, footsteps echoed a rush from the front door back down the drive. Not the expected response.

  Sebastian threw himself out the door, sword drawn. Leaped the stairs, landed and pelted after the stranger.

  A man, as expected, unfamiliar and in a suit, long dark hair pulled back. Sebastian memorized what he could see of him. The man reached the car he’d arrived in, dove in, started it, and pulled out with a shriek of tires. Sebastian shoved his fist through the window of the car as it peeled away, raking his hand with glass, too late.

  The strange car disappeared down the street, leaving Sebastian with a bloody lump for a hand. He shook it out, watching the car scream away. Blood drops sprayed the cement at his feet. Sebastian hissed through his teeth, then sheathed his sword and walked back up the driveway. He tore a scrap of fabric from his shirt as he walked, thinking belatedly that Ian’s neighbors might be drawn to their windows by the noise and that he should at least hide the damage he’d done himself. He wrapped the strip from his shirt around his ruined hand and rejoined the women in the house.

  “Who was that?” Josephine asked, ignoring his hand. Pointedly, he thought.

  “Alec,” Ian said in a tired voice. She had sunk back to the floor, one hand rubbing her face. “Kent’s other . . . child.”

  “Ah,” Sebastian said. Josephine’s eyebrows lifted.

  Ian took her hand from her face, watching her sister as though she were addressing her and not Josephine and himself. “He showed up yesterday. Talked Amanda into letting him in and when I came home, he told me he was my brother.” She looked imploringly at Sebastian. “I thought – Kent has pictures of him. He seemed like he was telling the truth.”

  Sebastian nodded once, setting himself on the edge of the couch. Josephine sat beside him. With careful movements, she took his bandaged hand and started re-wrapping it. An unexpected gesture from Josephine. Something in him rose up at her touch . . . his first instinct was to take his hand away, though when he tensed to do so he found himself compelled to leave it. Curious, he watched her.

  Ian gasped as the bandage came off, though she knew better than to ask him about it. It would heal. Young, but a quick enough learner.

  He also heard her swallow nervously. Her hunger was unmistakable. She should have fed before creating a child. Of course, she would not have known that until now.

  With a soft sigh, he touched Josephine’s hands, stopping her. She took them away, head tilted. A yearning came to him, something he could almost name . . . and then it vanished.

  Consider it later, he promised himself, and offered his injured hand to Ian. He felt her tension level jump as he did. Her eyes fixed on the red mass of his hand. He did not think she realized it when she licked her lips.

  He flexed his hand once, experimentally. It felt as if he had broken most of the fingers, in more than one place. A few bones in his hand as well. Several scratches and tears in the skin, many as deep as the bone. He wasn’t bleeding. The red came from the violent manner in which he’d acquired the wound. Corpses didn’t bleed, but if one bashed them hard enough, blood did come out. All in all, it should have been more than appetizing.

  Ian looked at him instead of his hand, uncertain. He raised it an inch.

  “There really isn’t time for you to be squeamish. Either you eat now, or go hungry for the night.” He tapped the arm of her couch for emphasis and left a red fingerprint on the upholstery.

  Despite her wide eyes, she licked her lips again. He offered his han
d once more. It was quite lacerated – she wouldn’t even have to bite.

  She closed her eyes, disgusted, though her fangs showed white against red lips. He waited for her to refuse, her eyes clenched against the desire.

  She took his hand.

  He hadn’t expected it – she still had her eyes closed. He almost pulled away. She pulled his hand to her mouth, quickly, touching her lips to it here, there, until she found an open cut. Her mouth left clean spots where it touched his skin.

  It startled a smile out of Sebastian. Quick learner indeed. Food was food, and if it came willingly all the better.

  Josephine got up with a small sigh. Found her way to the kitchen sink and began rinsing the scrap she’d taken off his hand. She looked hollowed out as well, though not to the extreme that Ian did. By sunset next day, Josephine would still be able to hunt on her own terms. Ian would not.

  He let Ian keep his hand until some of the hollowness had left her cheeks, until her pull on his blood lost some of its desperation. Then he tugged his hand gently. She sucked once more, a deep swallow that made his arm tingle, before she let go. She looked away. Josephine finished rinsing the rag and came back in to wrap it on again. Her touch regained his attention with a ferocity that came out of nowhere. His stomach tilted. Although the sensation was uncomfortable, he did not wish to reclaim his hand.

  “Thanks,” Ian murmured, as if she didn’t know if she meant it. He shrugged. At least the bright glow had gone out of her eyes. He had not intended to leave her with her sister with that sheen to them.

  He let Josephine finish wrapping the bandage. When she had, he found himself reluctant to take his hand back. Unsure why this should be so, he took it and stood, nodding a thanks to her.

  Later, he promised himself again.

  “I have something I must attend to,” he said, as levelly as he could. “I trust, Josephine, that you will stay and look after Ian and her child?”

  “Of course,” Josephine said simply, though her eyes added more. Fear, they said, but it didn’t seem to be for herself.