by M. Leighton
“He would’ve liked you.” When Bo finally spoke, the thick walls absorbed the words as soon as they left his lips. Behind the music, the room was an eerie kind of quiet, almost tomblike.
“What was he like?”
Bo leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes on the low ceiling, a sad smile curving his lips.
“He was great. He taught me everything,” he said. “He always said he wanted to prepare me to do anything I wanted to do, to ‘take the world by storm’, he’d say.” He laughed, a bitter bark of a sound, and then his eyelids drifted shut. “He didn’t deserve the death they gave him.”
“What happened to him?”
“As far as I can remember, there were two guys at his throat. They attacked him so viciously, they almost decapitated him. He was nearly drained of blood. The coroner’s report said he was dead within seconds.”
“And you had to watch?”
Bo’s eyes opened to meet mine. They were fathomless pools of agony. “They were stronger than you can imagine. Even after years of playing sports, of football and weightlifting, they held me easily. There were two more guys holding me and a girl was watching. She said she wanted me to watch, that she wanted my heart pumping for her. Pumping hard.”
I covered my mouth with my fingers. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to cry or be sick. Probably both.
“Then what happened?” It was so gruesome, I could hardly stand it, but I had to know what happened to Bo and to his father, what had caused this need for revenge that was costing him his life.
“When they were finished with Dad, they held me while she bit me. She went wild when she tasted my blood, said that it was sweet, that she could taste the power in it.
“The other two started complaining about wanting to feed, but she wouldn’t let them. My guess is that she decided to keep me for herself, but the two guys holding me didn’t like the new plan. One of them attacked her, just let go of my arm and pounced on her.
“The other one held on, but he was distracted by the fight. I guess my adrenaline was jacked up, so I was finally able to get away from him. I went to check on Dad,” Bo said, closing his eyes again, this time in remembered pain. “But he was already gone.”
Bo shook his head. “Anyway, I looked back and they were tearing each other apart, blood and spit flying everywhere. I took off, ran as fast as I could to an old cabin in the woods, one I’d seen several times when we’d been hunting. I remember banging on the door, but no one answered. I knew I needed to get away, but I didn’t have the energy to go any further. I remember falling against the door and sliding down to the ground. I guess I passed out there. That’s all I remember until I woke up like…this.”
“Bo,” I breathed, my heart breaking for him.
“When she bit me, she must’ve injected me. I found out later that she did it on purpose. She wanted to keep me as some sort of weird drinking buddy, almost like a mate.”
“How do you know that?”
Bo paused, giving me the strangest look before he answered. “I saw it in her memories when I drained her.”
I tried to remain calm, not to get all judgmental about Bo talking so casually about murder. All I had to do was remind myself what they’d done to his father and it didn’t seem quite so bad anymore. I’m sure, for Bo, it was more than adequate justification for killing them.
“Who was she?”
“Her name was Jolene Turner.”
I remembered the name. I’d heard the news report about her death a couple weeks ago.
“That was you?”
Bo nodded solemnly.
“They thought it was the...the…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t get the name Southmoore Slayer past my numb lips.
CHAPTER TEN
A number I’d heard in the news report kept running through my head like a ticker tape. Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven.
“No,” Bo said, casting his eyes down.
“No what?” My breath was coming in short, quick pants.
“No, I didn’t kill all of them.”
I closed my eyes and a sigh of relief blew through my lips. “Thank God,” I whispered. “How—”
I stopped myself from asking how many Bo had killed. Information like that would only make things harder, and I didn’t need things to get any harder.
“Never mind,” I said. “So, you still haven’t been able to find the one who killed your father, right?”
“No.”
“And you won’t stop until you do?” I couldn’t keep the bitter edge from my voice.
“There’s no point. I’m dying. Nothing can change that. If I give up now, it will all be for nothing,” he said, pushing himself off the wall and stepping toward me. “My death and the life I’ll never have with you will have been for nothing.”
My chest squeezed painfully. I couldn’t bear to think about it, much less talk about Bo dying.
As I looked into his eyes, I could see that demons were eating away at him on the inside, and I doubted things were going to get any better. He’d started down a path that he couldn’t come back from. He’d chosen a fate that he was locked into—no way out, no going back. And now, like it or not, I was traveling that road with him. My fate was going to be just as ugly, at least for my heart. I could see that our epic love story was going to end badly. And there was nothing I could do about it.
In an effort to avoid bursting into tears like an emotionally unstable psychopath, I looked back to the framed pictures dotting the shelf to my right. I saw the smiling, happy faces of Bo’s parents.
“What does your mom think about all this?”
Bo shrugged. “She’s devastated, of course. But even though she’s not at all pleased with my choice, she understands it. She’s tried to help me as much as she can. She gets me bagged blood to help me keep my strength. She’s been taking samples of my blood to the lab, trying to find a cure, or at least a way to slow the effects of the poison. She’s been great.”
A cure? My eyes darted back to him. I latched on to the mere suggestion of hope with both hands and I held on tight. “Has she found anything?”
Bo shook his head in defeat. “No. And I don’t think she will. Not in time anyway.”
“Is that why she seemed kind of…sad to meet me?”
Bo’s grin had a hint of irony behind it. “Yeah. In school, I guess I was a pretty typical guy. You know, string of semi-serious girlfriends, lots of texts from lots of different people in between, all that. She was always after me to settle on one.”
He chuckled at some memory. “She used to complain and say I left a trail of broken hearts that she had to clean up. They’d all call and cry on her shoulder.”
When Bo looked at me, his expression changed. The look on my face must’ve plainly indicated my displeasure. I wasn’t liking the Bo I was hearing about, the one I hadn’t met, and I doubted very much that I would’ve wanted to know him.
“In that way, what’s happened to me hasn’t been all bad. I met you,” he said, tucking my hair behind my ear. “Being…this has changed me in ways that I can’t describe, but not all of them are bad.”
Needing to hear something positive, I asked, “Like what? What good has come of it?”
“You,” he said, as if that was enough.
“What else?”
“Besides you?”
I nodded.
“I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. I don’t need much sleep. I heal almost instantly. I can hear and smell and see things a thousand times more clearly and farther away. I can run fast, jump high, move more quickly than human eyes can see. I can be invisible if I need to be,” he said, adding that last with a sardonic smirk.
“Huh,” I said, at a loss as to how to respond to that. Tossing my hair over my shoulder dramatically, I said, “Well, little did you know, but I can do all of those things, too.”
Bo’s grin widened and he reached out and set his hands at my waist.
“Is that right?”
>
“Oh, yeah. You didn’t know I have super powers?”
“Oh, trust me. I knew you had some kind of power.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I’ll bet.”
“What about aging. Do you age?”
“Not really. You?”
I pursed my lips. “Occasionally.”
Getting into the spirit, he countered, “Can you grow limbs?”
“No, but my sister’s pet lizard could drop his tail off and grow a new one.”
He smiled at that. “Touché.”
“See, you’re not so special.”
“Well, do you have venom that can kill a bear and turn a human into a vampire?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Surely you’re not counting that as a positive.”
“Only if one of us is getting mauled by a bear.”
“So what about all that stuff you see in the movies, like garlic and sunlight and crosses? Is any of that true?”
“Only the part about a stake through the heart. Anything through the heart would kill me, just like it would a human.”
His venture into the subject of his “abilities” had me thinking. “So, if you bit me, would I turn into what you are?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Well, I’m old enough now to where I have pretty good control over my fangs and how much, if any, venom I excrete with a bite.”
“These others, the ones you’ve been…taking care of, have they turned humans?”
A guarded look came over Bo’s face, like a thick curtain dropping down into place behind his eyes.
“Some, yes.”
“But why? Why would they want to do that?”
“That’s another question I’m trying to get an answer to.”
“Would you ever consider turning someone?”
“Never,” Bo declared with a resolute shake of his head.
Even though it wouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen—and if it could, I wasn’t even sure I’d want it—I was curious about one thing.
“So if you weren’t dying and I wanted you to turn me, you still wouldn’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Bo stepped back and pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “The venom, it does something to you. It makes you crave things, think things, things that aren’t good, aren’t right.”
“But you’re fine.”
“I’m living with the pain and the constant reminder of what someone like me did to my father. If it weren’t for that—for that consuming vision of them tearing his throat out—I don’t know what I would focus all this energy, all this hunger and thirst on.” He paused, looking away from me, toward the dying light that was streaming through the door. “But I’m afraid it wouldn’t be good. And I could never subject another person to that. It would be like issuing a death sentence to possibly hundreds of people, potential victims.”
“You’re sure the only reason you’re strong enough to resist it is because of your dad?”
He bit his lip in thought then looked back at me. “Probably not entirely. I’d say it has a lot to do with the amount of vampire blood I take in and what it’s doing to my body. I’m degrading, more and more every day. I think it’s affecting my thirst.”
I didn’t want to go down that depressing road again, so I completely changed the subject.
“When can we leave to go to see Lucius?”
Bo glanced back at the door, as if when he’d been staring out it only moments before, he hadn’t really seen anything.
“Any time now. Do you want to go now?”
“Maybe we should, so we don’t get back too late.”
Bo shut off the stereo and headed toward the door. I walked out and started up the steps while he cut off the lights and relocked the door.
“Do you mind if we take your car? I usually run, but that’s not really an option for you,” he said with a quirk of his lips.
“How far is it?”
“About thirty miles or so.”
“Just thirty?”
“Yep. Just a hop, skip and a jump,” he teased, his grin maturing into a smile that made my knees weak.
When Bo reached the top of the steps, I asked, “How do you know that’s not one of my super powers?”
Bo looked deep into my eyes. “Because I know what your super power is.”
“What?”
“It’s to drive me crazy.” The soft way he said it made my stomach flip over.
I laughed nervously. “Ya think?”
“I know,” he said, winking at me and taking my hand. “Come on.”
Once we were in the car and on the road, my apprehension started to kick in.
“So, this Lucius, how will he feel about a strange human paying him a visit?”
“He’ll be fine. He’s…old school in many ways.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He was born in the days when women were still treated like fragile princesses and people still had manners.”
“Ah, the stone ages,” I quipped.
“Close,” Bo replied.
“How old is he, really?”
“Just over four hundred years I think.”
“Four hundred years? Lucius is four hundred years old?”
Bo nodded. “He’s one of the oldest ones left.”
“Why is that?”
“He’s managed to stay hidden from the younger ones, the ones that kill and turn without thought for human life. Like the ones that killed my father.”
“Why would he be hiding from other vampires?”
“According to Lucius, hundreds of years ago, vampires were mostly found in Europe and they lived in peace, adhering to a very strict code of conduct. They rarely turned anybody and they sort of had a policy about killing humans.
“But then, some time ago, apparently one of the elders broke the rules and turned a few humans just for fun, a few ‘bad seeds’. None of the newer ones respected the code. They were like animals. They craved the thrill of the kill, the power of being higher on the food chain. When the other elders realized that they couldn’t control the new turns, they set out to terminate them.
“They started a war that ended up killing most of the vampire population. The younger ones killed many of the elders, and evidently still hunt them today. Because of that, the elders scattered to the four winds. That’s when Lucius came here. He says that this country was his salvation, and that it’s been a peaceful refuge until recently.”
“Does he know who’s doing it now? Turning people, I mean?”