Blood Type

by Melissa Luznicky Garrett

  I stood up then and moved behind him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and lowered my head so that my cheek lay flush against shoulder. I felt him take a great breath and release it slowly. “But you were right when you said I need you,” I said in a much calmer voice.

  He covered my hands with his, and then he slowly turned me around and cradled me against him. Then he pulled back a little and touched my chin with the tip of his index finger, raising my face to his. I closed my eyes in anticipation of his soft, warm lips against mine, my heart beating like a kettledrum my chest.

  “But what if I no longer want you?” he whispered in my ear.

  My eyes snapped open. I tried to take a step back, but he held me firmly in place. “W-what did you say?”

  “You betrayed Ian, Blake. You betrayed me.”

  My palms went immediately ice-cold and slick with sweat. For as long as John had been telling me he wanted me, I never imagined he’d go back on his word. I never imagined he might reject me. All of a sudden, I felt alone in this and more afraid than ever.

  “I never meant to hurt you, John. It was an accident. I’m sorry!”

  “But you meant to hurt Ian. Isn’t that so?”

  “I-I was mad at him! Can’t you understand that, John? I was just so angry.”

  John cradled my face in his hands and bent close so that his breath came out hot against my cheeks. He had a predatory spark in his eyes that made my scalp tingle. I tried to break free, but his hold on me tightened.

  “You never meant to hurt me,” he said in an angry whisper, giving me a slight shake. “It was an accident. You’re sorry.” He let go then and his top lip curled into a sneer. “Do you hear yourself, Blake?”

  It was only then that I realized he was throwing back at me the same excuses he’d made for Ian; the very ones I had refused to listen to or accept. Each word that came out of his mouth was like a vicious twist of a knife in my gut. And if he meant to cut me deep, he had succeeded.

  “But I am sorry,” I said, pleading for him to believe me. “Please, John. I don’t want to die. I want you to change me!”

  John had me in is arms in the same breath and had whisked me off to the adjacent room before I knew what was happening. He laid me on the couch and knelt next to me, and I cried out at the sight of his extended fangs and the sudden bloodlust in his eyes. I shrank back against the pillow in automatic reflex and thrust out my hand.

  “W-wait! I didn’t mean now, like right this very second!” My voice sounded loud and hysterical in my ears.

  John hovered over me for a few seconds longer, the features of his face twisting in the agony of denied pleasure. He finally sat back on his haunches. His breath came out in a measured exhale, and the crazed look that had momentarily overcome him began to slowly disappear. I breathed a sigh of relief to see his fangs shrink back to their normal size.

  “I have questions, John.” I sat up, making sure to keep a wary eye on him. “There are things I need to know before I go through with this.”

  John nodded and raised himself to the couch. “Of course,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “What would you like to know?”

  “For starters, why me?”

  He raised his eyes to me then, which held a look of genuine confusion. “What do you mean, why you? Don’t you know how I feel about you?”

  I closed my eyes and counted to five before opening them again. I couldn’t lose my temper. “All right. Answer me this question: Why were you at that party, the one by the lake? It was supposed to be a party for my cheerleading squad, and yet you were there. With Jill.”

  John looked at his lap. “I was at that party because I had to be.”

  “You had to be?” He nodded, still not looking at me. “I saw the way you were watching me,” I said. “Why?”

  John sat back and put his hands over his face. He shook his head and then blew his breath out hard through his mouth. “Why, you ask?” He lowered his hands and cut his gaze to me. “Because it was my job, Blake.”

  “Your job?” I said. That was the last answer I’d been expecting. “What does The Marauder’s Cove have to do with anything?”

  A faint smile showed on his lips, but he didn’t directly answer my question. Instead he said, “Do you have any idea what your blood type is?”

  Of course I did. I’d spent the past two months having the insides of my arms skewered like kabobs just so doctors could find out what was wrong with me. “O negative,” I said without hesitation.

  “And do you know what is so special about humans with O negative blood type?”

  I shrugged. “It’s pretty rare, right? One of the doctors told me that only about seven-percent of the population has it.”

  He nodded. “That’s right. And while you can only receive blood from other O negatives, you can give blood to anyone. Care to take a guess what my blood type is.”

  I rolled my eyes. “How about you just tell me?”

  “O negative. Same as yours. Same as every other vampire’s in this world.”

  I got up and went to stand at the fireplace, holding tight to the mantle for support. I drew in a breath as I tried to wrap my head around what he was telling me. Finally, I turned to look at him. “I don’t think I like where this is going.”

  “For vampires to actually survive,” John said, “we must consume blood that is compatible with our own. But because so few humans have blood that matches ours, we have to actively seek them out.”

  “And that’s what you were doing,” I said, understanding dawning on me at last. “You were seeking me out?”

  He shook his head. “You’d already been . . . found . . . by the time I first met you freshmen year. I couldn’t do anything about it then because you hadn’t come of age.”

  I ignored the coming of age comment and instead asked, “Found by whom?”

  John got up from the couch and began pacing in front of me. “You’d be surprised how many vampires there are living in the human world. You have to understand that humans have this preconceived notion that vampires are nothing but bloodthirsty monsters with indiscriminate appetites. Worse, they think we go around killing without regard for the value of human life. To them, we are the things that go bump in the night, the stuff their nightmares are made of.”

  “Aren’t you?” I said, my voice coming out in a choked whisper. “I mean, you do prey on people for their blood.”

  He shook his head. “Not like you think we do. True, there are vampires out there, like Ian, who will bite anyone no matter their blood type, but it’s like a crack-head getting high.”

  “What do you mean?”

  John sighed. “If I were to go after Olivia, for instance, I would receive a certain amount of pleasure from drinking her blood, but only for a while. It would not sustain me. Vampires who engage in that sort of lifestyle are unstable and pose a threat to us all. Not to mention they leave evidence behind in the form of human bodies.”

  “And we’d be walking around with a bunch of crazy, strung-out vampires on our hands,” I said.

  “Essentially. That’s why all Donors must be O negative.”

  I made a sound of disgust in the back of my throat and leveled my gaze at him. “You never answered my question, John. Who discovered me?” I inserted air-quotes around the word “discovered.”

  I saw the Adam’s apple in his throat bob as he swallowed. “Andrew Larsen.”

  My stomach plummeted to the floor, and black dots danced in front of my eyes. I hurried back to the couch and sat down, putting my head between my knees as I took a series of deep, cleansing breaths. Finally, I looked back up at John, who’d wisely kept his distance.

  “Andrew Larsen . . . is a vampire?” It was too ludicrous to believe, and yet was it any weirder than John being a vampire himself?

  “Andrew is what’s called a Seeker. I guess you can say he’s got a nose for different blood types.” He laughed at his own joke, but gave up when he saw that I hadn’t joined in. He cleared his throat. “He�
�s also my employer.”

  “Your employer? But I thought you worked at The Marauder’s Cove? I thought Josiah—”

  My voice broke off as something suddenly occurred to me. “Oh, God. The Marauder’s Cove. Is that, like, a vampire hangout?”

  “Something like that,” John said. When he saw that I was too stunned to go on he added, “I do work at The Marauder’s Cove, but I don’t work for Josiah. He’s only there to keep the Donors safe.”

  I shook my head in an attempt to clear away the mental fog. “Wait. What are you talking about?”

  John put his hands behind his neck and looked up at the ceiling, groaning. “Gah. This is getting too complicated.”

  “So simplify,” I said, the tone of my voice sharp.

  John turned to face me again. “I work for Andrew Larsen, who is a Seeker. When he discovers a healthy human with O negative blood, it is my job, as a Compeller, to persuade him or her in to becoming a Donor.”

  “And how does Andrew Larsen go about seeking out new humans?” I said, and then promptly answered my own question. “My mother’s real estate business. Oh, God. A vampire works for my mother and preys on potential clients. All those parties she throws. All those people!”

  John held up a hand to stop me. “They are not helpless, and they are not victims.”

  My stomach roiled, and I had to swallow down the rising nausea. “So let me get this straight. Andew Larsen, who until a few minutes ago I thought was just another creepy pervert, thought I would make a tasty snack and sent you to woo me in to joining the ranks of other Donors?”

  John replied with a helpless shrug.

  “Did he think I’d just willingly sit back and let a bunch of vampires suck me dry?” I said, my voice rising.

  “It’s not like that,” John said. “People give blood all the time at blood banks. It’s the same concept. I’ve got a refrigerator full of blood that I bought, and all of it was legally obtained. You even have to be seventeen years old, just like at a human blood bank.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to digest what John was telling me. “You said that Josiah hangs out at The Marauder’s Cove in order to keep the Donors safe.”

  “Yes.”

  I remembered people—vampires—coming and going through that dark curtain. “So there are people there who are,” I swallowed hard, “willingly giving their blood?”

  John nodded. “Sometimes vampires want it fresh and direct from the source. It naturally tastes better that way.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, placing a hand over my mouth.

  “Other than the Donors, most of the patrons are not human at all. Sometimes humans do get in, like you did, but they leave with no desire to ever return. That many vampires in one place make humans uncomfortable for reasons they can’t even explain. They just know it’s not a place they ever want to return to again.”

  “The Donors,” I said. “Aren’t you worried they’ll blab to the rest of the world about what goes on there? Aren’t you afraid the secret of your existence will get out?”

  John smiled, revealing a set of gleaming white, and perfectly human-looking teeth. “That’s where I come in. Persuading humans to become Donors is what I do, but keeping them quiet is also part of the job. Take Jill, for instance.”

  “She was a Donor?”

  “She still is. You see, humans are especially susceptible to the power of suggestion, some more so than others. I condition the Donors to believe that they are simply doing a good deed by donating blood every eight weeks.”

  I sat quiet for a moment, chewing my bottom lip. John didn’t ask what I was thinking or rush me to talk. There was something I had to know, but I couldn’t bear to look him in the face when I asked.

  “If I was just a prospective Donor, was anything between us even real? Or were my feelings for you because you put the idea of us, together as a couple, in my head?”

  John’s breath escaped in a rush as he seemed to belatedly realize the corner he’d back himself into. He sat down at once beside me and put his hands on my arms. “You have to understand I had a job to do, Blake. Even if—”

  I shrugged free and turned to face him. “I broke up with Zach because of you, because I thought we had something!”

  “We did have something. I mean, we do—”

  “But all of it was a lie! You, you tricked me, John. How does that make what we had real?”

  John’s mouth opened and closed in a silent entreaty as he struggled to find something to say. I turned away again, unable to watch him flounder for excuses.

  “I wanted to be with you since the first time I saw you,” he finally admitted. “You got under my skin, Blake. In all the years I’ve been dealing with humans, I’ve never fallen in love with one before.”

  I looked at him then, positive I’d misunderstood. “What did you say?”

  He closed the small space between us and cupped my face in his hands. “I love you, Blake. Don’t you see that? I could just as easily compel you to feel the same way for me, but I won’t. I refuse to.”

  “Why not?” I asked out of sheer curiosity.

  He shook his head, smiling. “I could have compelled you months ago to let me change you, but I want it to be your choice. I want what’s between us to be real as much as you do. If we’re going to share a life together, and I hope to God we will, it can’t be based on a lie.”

  He pulled me against his chest in a crushing embrace and I buried my face against his shoulder. My eyes stung with unshed tears, and I gritted my teeth against the need to surrender.

  “Will it hurt?”

  John stroked the back of my head. “Being in love hurts sometimes.”

  I closed my eyes. “That’s not what I meant. Will it hurt when you change me?”

  John tilted my face to meet his and I saw the hesitation in his eyes. “Without a doubt.” He must have seen the fear in my own because he asked then, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  I pulled back a little and wrapped my arms around my middle as I attempted to control the nervous shaking. “Josiah said I don’t have long. He said I’ll be lucky if I make it to the end of the month. If that’s true, I have less than a week. I don’t see how I have any other choice.”

  “So then we do this,” John said.

  “Yes.”

  He took my hands in his. “It’ll only hurt for a minute, and then everything will be okay. You’ll be okay.”

  “And after that?”

  “We’ll figure out the rest.”

  I gave a silent nod of the head, and John’s eyes flicked to the pillow. I swallowed hard as a ripple of fear surged through my body, making me shake and shiver as I thought about what I was about to do.

  “It’ll be okay,” he whispered as I lay down.

  He brushed aside my hair and gently stroked the line of my jaw with the tip of his index finger. Then he bent his mouth to my neck, and I squeezed my eyes shut tight as his teeth pressed against my skin. I dug my nails into the cushion of the couch, bracing against imminent pain. Then I screamed for all I was worth, and at once John’s hand clamped down hard over my mouth, muffling the noise.

  “It won’t do any good if the neighbors think I’m killing you,” he said. “And besides, I haven’t even done anything yet.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just really nervous.”

  “I’ll be as gentle as possible,” he said, and bent down again.

  I pushed him away. “How gentle can you be when you’re biting a chunk out of someone’s neck?”

  “You’re right,” he said. “Maybe I should just do it quickly.”

  I scooted a few inches away from him. “Have you even done this before? I mean, I know you haven’t changed anyone, but maybe you’ve had a lapse in judgment, or something, and have at least bitten another human?”

  A high blush crept up John’s cheeks, and I couldn’t help my nervous laughter. “You’re like a, a virgin,” I said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” I added in a
rush. “I’m a virgin, too.” I put a hand to my face. “Oh, God. I should just shut up.”

  “Shh,” he said. He forcibly removed my hand from my face and kissed my forehead. “No, I’ve never done this before, and, well, I—”

  Just then there was a pounding at the door, and we both jerked in surprise, as though we’d been metaphorically caught with our pants downs. John scrambled to his feet. “Uh, wait here.”

  I didn’t, though. I got up and followed him to the door, and my breath caught in my chest when I saw who was waiting on the other side.

  “Josiah. Nice to see you again,” I said, like a complete idiot. He gave the barest hint of a smile in response, but something told me he wasn’t here on a social visit.

  He pointed a gloved finger at John. “You and I need to talk.”

  October 27

  John held the door wide open for Josiah and made a sweeping gesture with his hand. But his voice shook when he spoke, betraying his anxiety. “Would you like to come in?”

  Josiah made no immediate move to enter. Instead, he turned to me. “Go home.”

  I took a step closer to John and linked my fingers with his. “Why should I?”

  Josiah’s eyes lighted on our joined hands. “Because I said so.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Larsen would appreciate you interfering with me doing my job,” John said. His fingers tightened around mine.

  The corner of Josiah’s mouth pulled up. “And I don’t think Mr. Larsen, or the vampire community at large, would appreciate spoiled goods.”

  “He already knows about Blake,” John said. “And besides, she’s just one of the many potential Donors I’m working with at the moment. He hardly has time to be concerned about one girl when I’ve got a handful more coming his way.”

  “And does Mr. Larsen know who attacked her?” Josiah said, at the same time I turned to him and asked, “There are others?”