I expected an outburst, but all she did was watch Cyrus. The full realization of his words—that I was usurping her place—hadn’t yet dawned on her. I didn’t want to be around when she made the connection.
Returning to my side, Cyrus slipped the vial into the palm of my hand. I stared hard at it. This was the price of my freedom. I could smash it on the floor and never have to come back.
“But you won’t.” He arched a knowing brow at my thought. “Your word means too much. You’ll take this to Nolen, see him safely recovered and return to me tomorrow night after sunset.”
“How do I know this won’t do him more harm?” I called to Dahlia. I don’t think she even saw me, though she looked right at me.
Cyrus drew my attention back. “It won’t. She knows what will happen if she’s lied.”
She broke then, her back shaking with muted sobs as she covered her face with one hand. I’d never seen anyone cry so gracefully, and I’d seen plenty of tears in my life. But Cyrus didn’t seem to notice. He kissed my forehead and gave me a push toward the door. “Go now, the sun will be up soon.”
He didn’t follow me. I hesitated as I passed Dahlia. I don’t know if I meant to offer comfort or rub salt in her wounds, but when she looked up with hate-filled eyes, I kept walking.
The foyer blazed with light as bulbs crackled and shattered with the force of Dahlia’s anger.
“Sunset,” Cyrus called after me. “Don’t make me come get you.”
Nine
Antidote
I left the house as a shower of sparks exploded from the electric fixtures in the foyer. This time, I did run down the lawn, but only to buy us a little time. With no knowledge of how Nathan would react to the antidote, I wanted to get him to a safe place before it took effect.
Ziggy had left the driver’s seat, presumably to tend to Nathan. I pounded on the back doors and stepped away as they flew open. Ziggy crouched over Nathan’s body, a wooden stake aimed straight for my heart.
When he recognized me, he dropped the weapon. “Sorry. Can’t be too careful.”
“It’s all right,” I grunted, pulling the doors closed behind me as I climbed into the van. “How is he?”
“Alive, but that’s not saying much. What’d you find out?”
I showed him the antidote, which gleamed a muddy blue in the glass vial. “Drive. I’ll pour it down his throat, and hopefully it won’t kick in until we’re back at the apartment.”
“What do you mean?” Ziggy pulled the canvas partition back and slid behind the wheel.
“Because I have no idea what it’s going to do to him.”
As the engine sputtered to life, I carefully made my way to Nathan’s head. The van lurched away from the curb, tossing me flat across his chest.
The contact was sudden and startling. Even unconscious, with no blood tie connecting us, I was still attracted to him. Despite the fact he’d lied about his identity. Or that he didn’t tell me he was vampiricly related to my sire. I reminded myself of what I’d sacrificed for this favor.
I opened the vial and poured the contents into his half-open mouth. I hope it tastes terrible, I thought with a petulant frown. Then I rocked back on my heels and waited. Why had I done this? When I’d set out to help him, I’d felt I’d been doing it for a friend. And when I found I barely knew him after all, I still plowed on ahead.
I didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that Cyrus might have been right. Nathan’s—or Nolen’s—predicament could have been handled by the Movement, but my first instinct had been to run to my sire.
I knelt over Nathan and felt for a pulse. Nothing. No breath. No reflexes.
Defeated, I lay down next to him, out of necessity more than familiarity. My body ached with fatigue. My emotions were a mess. The one person I’d thought I was safe with, well, not safe exactly, but safer, wasn’t who I’d believed him to be. That he was dead was icing on the worst cake in history. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I tried to cry without Ziggy hearing me.
Then, like a miracle, Nathan groaned and mumbled something that sounded like “get off” as he swatted at me. He gagged and choked, sputtering a little of the antidote over the front of his shirt. But he’d swallowed enough. He was alive.
I sat up in shock. “I thought you were dead!”
“I wish I were,” he said when he could finally speak. He rose on his elbows and clutched his head. “What happened?”
“We were…” I paused. “Um, what’s the last thing you remember?”
His answering grin made my face grow hot.
“Well, you just suddenly sort of passed out.”
He rubbed his temples. “Why would I go and do something stupid like that?”
“You didn’t. Dahlia did.”
He flopped back onto the goldenrod shag carpeting and closed his eyes. “We’re in the van?”
“Yeah, we had to get you out of the building. It was kind of…” I trailed off as I tried to tell him his livelihood was gone.
“On fucking fire!” Ziggy supplied from the front seat. “Oh, man, am I glad you’re awake.”
An angry car horn pulled his attention back to the road as the van swerved violently. I sunk my fingers into the dirty carpet. It was the only thing to hold on to.
“Ziggy! Eyes on the road!” Nathan commanded, though his voice was still a little weak. He turned back to me. “The building is gone?”
I shifted uneasily. “Maybe not. The fire trucks were showing up just as we left.”
“Great. Just great.” He covered his face with his hands, and I saw the hard muscles of his stomach shake beneath his T-shirt. I really hoped he wasn’t crying. But in the next instant, delirious laughter poured out of him.
“What’s so funny?” He was taking this far too well.
“Nothing, nothing.” He rubbed his hands down his cheeks, stretching the stubble-dusted skin. “You know, up until about a month ago, things were completely normal in my life. All it takes is one fax from the Movement, and I’m knee-deep in chaos again.” Nathan sighed. “So, Dahlia attacked me. She’s never done that before.”
“She was trying to do Cyrus a favor,” I told him.
“Okay, folks,” Ziggy called as the van squealed to a halt. “The sun is just below the tree line. I suggest you run like hell.”
Within seconds, the back doors burst open. The dim morning light stung my eyes. Nathan recoiled.
“Take the keys!” Ziggy shouted.
I grabbed them and jumped out.
To my monumental relief, the building still stood. The flames had been extinguished, and soot covered the firemen that milled around their truck. Two police cars with whirling lights blocked off the sidewalk. It looked as if the bookstore took the extent of the damage.
A young, cocky-looking police officer swaggered over when he caught sight of us. “Getting in a little late, are we?”
Before I could respond, Ziggy stepped from the rear of the van, Nathan leaning heavily on his shoulder. “Whoo, we need to get him upstairs before he ralphs again. Oh, my God…what happened to the bookstore? We live right upstairs.”
As I watched, Nathan lolled his head to the side like a passed-out drunk. The cop scowled at him. “There was a fire but we were able to put it out. Is your friend there gonna be okay?”
He’d aimed the question at me. Too tired to think of a lie, I opened and closed my mouth and made a few vague noises. Ziggy’s urging stare burned into the back of my skull. It must have transmitted some connection in my brain so I could speak again, because words began to pour from me. “He’ll be fine. I should know. I’m a doctor.”
“O…kay.” The officer reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a notepad. Apparently I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. “I need to ask some questions.”
The skin on the back of my neck began to blister from the sunlight. I heard Nathan do a bad impression of someone about to throw up. I turned, and Ziggy gave Nathan a shove, propelling him toward me.
“It’s yo
ur turn to deal with the puke this time. I’ll stay and talk to the officer. If he needs to ask you anything else, I’ll bring him upstairs.” Ziggy flashed a big grin at the policeman. “If that’s okay with you?”
Nathan wretched again, this time more convincingly, and the cop moved back. “Yeah, get him out of here before I have to cite him for drunk-and-disorderly conduct. It’s safe to go up. The fire marshall has cleared the building of any structural damage, and the apartment has been cleared, too.”
With Nathan hanging awkwardly on my shoulder, we hurried for the door. As soon as it was closed, Nathan rushed up the stairs and headed straight for the bathroom.
Apparently he was a method actor.
“Holy hell,” I said with a whistle as he clutched the toilet bowl and vomited. I pulled a hand towel off the rack and wetted it under the faucet. “That’s a lot of puke.”
I knelt beside him and held the compress to his forehead, putting one arm around his quivering back. “Don’t fight it.”
“You should have been a nurse instead of a doctor,” he wheezed. His body trembled with the chills that inevitably follow vomiting. “Or a mom.”
I laughed out loud. “Yeah. I’m not sure that was in the cards for me.”
“Didn’t you want to have kids?”
This didn’t sound as accusatory as it might have coming from someone else, like someone who was pushing a stroller at the time for instance. I’d always been the woman explaining why she had no desire to have children. I was about to tell him this, when he spoke again.
“It’s a moot point, anyway, since you can’t now.”
An icy pain knifed through my chest, stealing my breath. I stood and leaned against the sink. “What?”
His face went even greener, if that were possible, but I knew it had nothing to do with the potion. “I’m so sorry. I assumed you knew.”
“No, I didn’t. It’s just…it’s okay.” I waved a hand in the air, hoping to look blasé. “I hadn’t really thought about it. I never planned on being a mom. I probably wouldn’t have been very good at it.”
But now that the choice was taken away from me, I grieved for the loss of the possibility. You’re being ridiculous, Carrie.
“I think you would have been a great mother.” His words sounded pained, but it could have just been from the violent nausea.
“Yeah, well. Tell that to my last boyfriend.”
Nathan sat back against the wall for support. Sweat beaded on his skin, but he didn’t look as gray as he had moments before. His eyes searched my face. “Why do you say that?”
Turning to rewet the cloth, I shrugged. I shouldn’t have mentioned Eric. Even though we’d broken up nine months before, the wound was suddenly incredibly raw.
To my surprise, I started blabbing the whole stupid story. “Because he dumped me for not being a good-enough mom for his hypothetical children.” Despite the painful truth of it, I could still manage a chuckle. “Basically, he seemed to be under the impression that when we graduated from med school, I was going to stay home and bake cookies or something while he had the career. He decided he was going to buy a house near Boston, I told him I was coming here for my internship, and he gave me an ultimatum. When I told him my decision, that I was going to go through with my internship, he said it was for the better. He wanted children, and he couldn’t imagine me being a good mother. So that was it.”
I’d been looking at my hands, the shower curtain, the towel rack, anything to avoid the sight of Nathan’s face. But he stayed silent too long, and my eyes were drawn to his.
He didn’t look away. “He’s an idiot.” Nathan said the words as though he actually believed them. And his eyes showed the truth of it.
I’d forgotten what it was like to feel valued by another person. It was nice, even if I didn’t quite understand what had prompted such an emotional reaction from Nathan. Still, it was a feeling I wasn’t used to. I cleared my throat. “Did you ever want kids?”
He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his response was carefully measured, as if he’d calculated how much to tell without giving anything away. “Yes, I did. Having children of my own wasn’t in the cards for me, either.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Behind his mask of forced cheerfulness, his eyes were hollow and tired, and the agony I saw in them caused my heart to ache.
As quickly as I’d glimpsed his inner sadness, it disappeared behind Nathan’s granite wall of self-control. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I have Ziggy. I always did want a son.”
It was the first time he’d acknowledged his true feelings for the kid. The look on Nathan’s face told me he wasn’t used to revealing so much. The angry panic that flashed across his features in the next instant told me exactly why. I recognized the expression because I’d seen it staring back at me from my own reflection too often to count.
Nathan truly believed that if he cared about something, it would eventually be taken from him.
I turned away. Unfortunately, I looked right into the vomit-splashed toilet bowl. “If I didn’t know you were a vampire, I’d say you had an upper G.I. bleed. But I’m going to assume that was your dinner.”
Nathan stood, still a bit wobbly, and rinsed his mouth under the tap before answering. “Tasted fine on the way down. Usually stale blood tastes like nail polish remover.”
“You’re familiar with nail polish remover? Did they have that in the thirties?” I dropped the toilet lid and flushed. I wasn’t going to tell him about the antidote, or how I’d gotten it.
“Of course they did. And I had a girlfriend in the eighties. It was about twenty years ago, but you don’t forget that chemical stench,” he asserted, suddenly defensive.
“That still doesn’t explain how you know what it tastes like. But I think you’re right, you must have gotten sick from the blood. Wait about half an hour before you drink anything else, to make sure you don’t barf it all up again.”
Nathan laughed. “Barf? Is that a technical term?” He eyed himself in the mirror, and before I knew what he was doing, whipped his T-shirt over his head. “What did she hit me with?”
“A spell, or something.” I knew I should be examining him with a clinical eye, but it was hard to do that when he was so…half-naked. My fingers flexed, itching to touch the chiseled ridges of his chest. I cleared my throat and looked away. “I guess.”
“Whatever it was, it didn’t leave a mark.” He turned his head and twisted his shoulders to examine his back in the mirror, and my mouth went dry as the muscles of his torso moved beneath his skin.
In the living room, the apartment door opened and slammed shut, followed by the heavy fall of combat boots against the floor. “You guys aren’t doing it, are you?”
Nathan gave an exasperated sigh. “Ziggy, manners!”
The young man appeared in the doorway, dark circles around his eyes. “I’m supposed to give you this.” He handed Nathan a card with a police-shield emblem printed beside a name and phone number. “The cop said the books and merchandise are trashed. And they want the owner of the building to get in touch with them because they can’t seem to locate him.”
“The owner?” I looked from Ziggy to Nathan. “I guess I thought you owned the building.”
“I do.” Nathan slipped the card into his jeans pocket. “I’ll call them later.”
Ziggy let out a huge yawn. “I’m going to bed. I’ve got a big test tomorrow and I don’t want to be involved in any other vampire shit today, got it?”
“Got it,” Nathan replied with a smirk. “But I’m gonna need your help in the shop later tonight to find what we can salvage.”
“Can do.” Ziggy shot me a sharp and knowing look. “You feeling okay now, Nate?”
“Yeah, I must have grabbed a stale bag, gotten a little food poisoning.”
His expression hard, Ziggy stared at me. “Yeah, that must be it. I mean, it couldn’t have been anything else.”
But he didn’t mention the trip to Cyrus’s place. I hop
ed he’d have the sense not to say anything. When I left, he’d believe I’d gone of my own accord. I would make him believe it.
Ziggy bade us good-night and retreated to his room. As soon as his door closed, loud rock music blasted away.
“When he gets moody like this, I just leave him alone.” Nathan yawned and strolled into his bedroom. I followed him, not sure why. His upper-torso nakedness probably had something to do with it as he moved like an R-rated pied piper.
He opened his dresser and pulled out a T-shirt. Gray, like his eyes, I thought as I watched him pull it over his head. No. I didn’t need to remember his eyes, or any other part of him for that matter.
Except for his beating heart. I could take some solace in the fact I’d added another saved life to my tally.
I tried not to think of the price that would cost me. “Nathan, who’s Nolen Galbraith?”
He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing strands that had gotten mussed from the shirt. “That would be me. Actually, I should say that used to be me. Where did you hear that name?”
“It was on the fax from the Movement. And it’s what Cyrus called you.” I placed my hands on my hips. “He said he didn’t sire you.”
Giving me a crooked smile, he sat on the end of the bed. “Why all the questions?”
Because I just traded my life for yours. “You told me your name was Nathan Grant, and you told me Cyrus was your sire. Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t lie.” He reached into his back pocket and removed his wallet. “Look.”
His driver’s license, besides having a criminally unfair good picture, bore the name Nathan Grant.
“I have to change my identity every couple of decades, remember? I like to think I can pass for forty before I have to move again.” He took his wallet back and tossed it on the dresser.
I shook my head in frustration. “But what about Cyrus? You said the same blood in my veins flows through yours. But he said he didn’t sire you.”
“He didn’t. Our blood is connected because the same vampire who sired Cyrus sired me.” Nathan cleared his throat. “I don’t normally talk about it.”
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