Blood Crescent

by S. M. McCoy

  Something soft entered my ears. It filled me with warmth.

  “I hear something…” and I looked at Aislin to confirm that I actually did hear something.

  She nodded.

  “Nonsense, doll.” She waved her hand more dismissing the idea.

  The feeling disappeared and Aislin looked at Cerise curiously for the umpteenth time. She grabbed her necklace tight and glared across the coffee table.

  “Crystal, would you join me in the other room?” Damien stood, continuing to hold my hand.

  Looking up at him he assisted me to a stand, and escorted me out of the sitting room, down the hall and into the underground ballroom.

  “It’s almost like a replica of the actual mansion. If there were vaulted ceilings, actual windows and the same furniture, I wouldn’t know the difference.” The ballroom seemed so much smaller without the balcony holding the piano, the high ceilings and the big windows looking out at the green grass and the water in the distance.

  It felt so closed off with the fake windows covered with thick drapery, the flat ceiling, and no balcony. How would someone stay down here for long? It was very spacious for an underground dwelling, but I still felt like there wasn’t enough air. Like I was buried alive.

  “Being what we are…having a form of seclusion helps in the transition from one generation to the next.” He made a motion to our surroundings like he knew that it would be on my mind, living in an underground mansion.

  “Is it difficult?”

  “To lose everyone you know and start over…yes.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “Sadly, you won’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You already know, must I explain it again?” His face looked pained and he turned away from me.

  “I’d like it to be verbalized…solidified. Not just an assumption.” I urged him on to tell me what I already knew.

  “When I said what we are I was not referring to Cerise and myself. I was referring to us. You and I.” He reached out to me, his fingers lightly grazing my own. He surprised me again, saying what I didn’t expect. Looking at me with those smoldering violet eyes.

  “I think you are mistaken.” I snapped my hand back and held it against my chest. “Damien…I don’t feel like you. I can taste the blood from my gums bleeding, my ear was bleeding, and my own energy isn’t enough.”

  “Is there a difference? Being what we are and death. You need to feed, by yourself, without my help.” Damien held on to my arms and squeezed them, assured of what he thought was just the beginning. Then looked behind him at the vastness of the ballroom, and all I could think about was the dirt and bars of cement that seemed to be surrounding it.

  “In my case, yes, there is.” It was the end.

  He looked back into my eyes, they were soft now, waiting for any sign from me of a positive future.

  “I feel like I’m dying. I can feel it. My mind is telling me I am like you, but my body is telling me I am human. It’s like I was in self-destruct mode; it was only a matter of time before I destroyed myself in another burst of energy.

  “I can see the blades of grass like they were energy connected to the air, connected to the earth, connected to me. I can still hear Aislin in the other room prying Cerise for information. But I can also feel my heart slowing down to only a few beats, and how when I breathe the air it burns my lungs. Everything is equally full of life and also painfully full of death.”

  “That’s not possible…” His grip on my arms loosened, and his eyes closed, while his whole body just seemed to slump at my words.

  “Anything is possible. If I’ve learned one thing from this adventure it’s that. I am sorry to put you through yet another loss in your life.”

  “Something must be missing… What have I missed?” He ignored me and his hands dropped from my sides. Damien rushed away and paced the room.

  “You’re no different from Aislin. You’re both trying to complete me, make me whole again. You’re wanting me to be like you, and Aislin needing me to be the way I was. But that’s not me, I’m not whole. I won’t be either and I won’t survive if you make me. But maybe I am not meant to survive. Maybe I am meant to use what time I have left to make sure you give Victor a second chance, giving you both a second chance, and meet my mom just once. Or maybe I can change my fate and free both myself and my mom from the shit show the fates signed us up for. I don’t know, but I need the time to figure that out.”

  “Giving me a second chance…?” he questioned.

  “Yes. Help you both start again. A new canvas to paint a new picture.”

  “You know Cerise knows how to find your mother. She’s one of the best there is at the craft of Porte; there are many forms of this magic, but this one is a skill not every Shifter can control. She’s stolen memories from many generations of creatures, knitted together many more, and even created some for herself. There isn’t much she hasn’t seen, and she’d know how to find your mom. She’d know how to help you transition, it’s why I struck a deal with her. She’s agreed to help you.”

  “Yes, but she doesn’t seem very reliable at the moment.” At least that’s only part of the reason I needed Cerise. She could help erase Damien’s memory of Victor, and Victor’s memory of Damien. They never had to fight each other again.

  “Dear, I can hear you from here.” Cerise’s voice carried to the ballroom.

  “What are they saying?” Aislin asked.

  “Well they’re talking about me, of course, my pet.” I could imagine the smug look and quip of a smirk on her face.

  “Well, you really don’t seem very reliable. You couldn’t even tell me why we needed your help, and I am sure Damien must have told you.”

  “You heard her…” His pacing stopped abruptly. He didn’t believe me before when I told him I could hear them in the other room.

  “Of course I heard her, you did too.” I looked around the large ballroom for a sec before I realized Cerise wasn’t in the room. She sounded a whole lot more clear than she did before.

  “You can’t be dying.” He smiled.

  “I don’t understand.” I kept thinking Cerise and Aislin were probably in the other room, or in the hallway, or this place was a bit more prone to echoes than the mansion above.

  “A human’s hearing wouldn’t have been able to hear into the sitting room from here. You’re changing slowly.”

  “They don’t have to be in the sitting room still.”

  “But they are.”

  “Hearing is the mind’s interpretation of vibrations; it doesn’t mean my body is changing too.” I tried to shrug it off, but those eyes of his just glittered with hope, and I damned him that it was starting to rub off on me as well.

  “But your body would have had to feel the vibrations for you to interpret them.”

  “Wishful thinking can lead to disappointment if your wish doesn’t come true.” My heart throbbed at the thought of a full life, living beyond sixteen. His excitement was contagious, and I could feel myself wishing.

  Wishing for a second chance to start over, wishing for the opportunity to meet my mom, wishing for wishing and magic to come true without the probable tenfold opposite reaction of evil in response to an equally magnificent good. Let’s face it, I wanted to push against my fate, but part of me still saw the waning crescent in my mind, and the Dragon didn’t seem very sure that I’d live long enough to fulfill my side of the bargain.

  “I am not wishing.” He squeezed my hand gently.

  “You think too much.” I pouted trying to keep what semblance of reality I still had left in my brain still fresh and active. This wasn’t a time to smile, it was time to accept that my body was dying. I ran my fingers through my hair to pull it across my face to hide it. The strands fell to the ground, dissolving to ash.

  I choked at the sight.

  “It’s a consequence of having the time to think, but if it leads to your recovery I will continue to ‘think too much.’” P
art of me hoped he was right, that his thinking would be the catalyst to my survival.

  “I hope you’re right. But if you aren’t, I am going to forget you said anything until you have an antidote.” I tried to pull away toward the hallway; toward the sitting room.

  His hand held me in place and like a yo-yo my initial tug triggered an equal and opposite reaction of rolling into his arm, ending with me pressed against his chest. With his free hand he laced his fingers through my hair and held my head to him. My heart skipped. Blood pumped through my body and I could feel the ache of fresh muscles stinging and the dead sensation of feeling nothing in others, like a phantom.

  My feelings were mixed and confused. Like eggs I wasn’t sure if I wanted the whites or the yolk, so I scrambled them up in my indecision. Now that they were both scrambled, I may have never know which one I truly wanted until I had the chance to look at an uncooked egg again. But when I’d have the chance to discover the truth, I did not know. I may never have the chance again or I may find out too late.

  What are you to me? Damien…

  Are you my whites?

  Are you my yolk?

  Or are you as scrambled as I am?

  “I feel weak…” I looked at my fingers clutched against his chest and some of them were a dark purple, like some of my veins burst and spidered up my arm.

  I could hear him take in a deep breath.

  Certainly not to breathe but maybe to smell. But why?

  Was he like Cerise? She waved her hands to absorb energy. Did he breathe in the surrounding energy? Like humans needed food, they needed energy. Maybe he was just as tired as I was now. Aislin told me once; there was energy in everything. From a rock to a person.

  Maybe even in a feeling.

  “I am sorry. I should have realized you’ve had a long journey and needed some rest.” He lifted me into his arms then walked out of the ballroom, with me pressed against him a bride crossing over a threshold. Except I wasn’t a bride and the threshold was a territory I didn’t know enough about to feel comfortable.

  “Is that how you feed?” I needed to know…was he feeding on me?

  “How I feed?”

  “Smelling… Breathing it in.” Breathing me in…

  “I hadn’t paid any particular attention to it, but I assume so. There are many ways I am able to, but I suppose that is one that comes more naturally to me than the others. Though my kind normally use touch.”

  “Like Cerise waves her hands?”

  He raised his eyebrow and smiled at me, like we were both in on a secret.

  “Yes, I suppose you would notice that as well.” He stopped and pressed his cheek to my forehead. Slowly his lips turned in and lightly kissed my forehead. “What else have you noticed?”

  “She feels upset.”

  Damien nodded.

  “She was hoping you wouldn’t notice. It’s one of those things that we aren’t too keen on remembering. We try to forget as much as we can that we aren’t normal.”

  “I doubt that’s why she’s upset with me.” I scoffed.

  “Under different circumstances you guys would’ve probably been friends.” He tried to comfort me, but thinking of Cerise as a friend made me cringe. I could understand why Cerise hates who she is, she uses people and gallivants around like the queen of Sheba. Pausing that thought process was difficult, but I didn’t want to think about Cerise. I had two outcomes for myself that I could see: living as one of them, or dying as an ‘it’ between worlds, neither human nor vampire. Why do you dislike what you are? You don’t harm anyone.”

  I looked up at him, searching his face.

  He pulled away from me, his arm muscles tensed up. I looked up to see a frown cross his face momentarily then he smiled again.

  “It’s a trial not to. Anything in excess can be harmful. The constant hiding, moving, and the passing of lives is a hardship on the soul. But in human life there is death, a natural part of existence.”

  “A natural part of existence.” My eyes closed, remembering my plot on this lifeline. I was still human and death was part of my being. Dying from the moment I started living.

  “We are not death. It is something to be observed, not experienced. It’s in our genes.”

  “Genetic.”

  It was in my DNA to die…to grow then deteriorate.

  “You wouldn’t be changing if you didn’t have the gene.”

  “But I am not changing. I was bitten. This is not natural.”

  “You would have changed eventually. The bite only sped up the process,” he defended.

  “You act like it’s nothing! Maybe I wasn’t meant to change. Maybe if I do have this gene you say I have, it might have remained dormant my whole life. I would have lived longer! Instead I only hope to find my mom before I never get another chance…”

  “But you’re not dying your extending your life.”

  I shifted my head into his chest; too weak to stand myself. Too hurt to look at him.

  “If I was like you… As it is I am hardly living at all. Once my heart beats too slow; it will stop. I stop with it. I stop…time ceases to exist.”

  He walked down the hall and entered a room opposite the sitting room. The room had a large canopy bed lavishly decorated with a cushioned trunk at the foot. My eyes grew heavy from exhaustion before I could glance around the rest of the room. I could feel the feather down beneath me as Damien placed me on the bed.

  “I will not let time stop no matter what I must do, but when I changed…my heart stopped, and I kept on living.” He brushed my hair from my face, and I felt another chunk of it leave with his hands. I was losing my hair. What was next?

  “Fate…” he whispered in my ear, but I couldn’t hear all of it.

  “What is?” I strained to stay awake.

  “Whether I…”

  “Whether you?” I repeated.

  “Just rest now.”

  My body became heavy, sinking into the covers like sand sunk beneath one’s feet. My arm hung off the side of the bed almost like I was reaching out for something. For what, I could not say. “Damien,” I called out his name waiting for that warm feeling I get when he said my name in return, only to be disappointed. I thought that’s how the bond worked: I’d say his name and get a flush of energy pulling me toward him.

  “It’s okay Sweets, I’ll fix this.” He took in a deep breath and I could hear his steps barely touch the floor as he exited the room and into the one next door. He was rushing, too quick to fully touch the ground.

  “Will you save her?” he whispered under his breath in resignation. He seemed like he was reaching his last resort.

  “Shhh.” Fumbling noises sounded from the room, muffled moans, and a fairly loud noise like something being thrown against a wall. Then a soft, slow tapping of shoes one foot in front of the other, deliberate, walked down the hallway toward the sitting room.

  “Where is Crystal?” Aislin asked.

  “In the other room, resting.”

  “I guess we’ll talk about things when she wakes.” Aislin slowly walked from the room then sprinted as soon as she reached the hallway and into the bedroom. “Men… Never know how to treat a lady.” She pulled the comforter from underneath me to cover me up then placed my arm back on the bed. Climbing onto the other side, she pulled me farther on the bed and held me to her.

  “You’re freezing, Crystal. How do you sleep when you’re so cold? What a…men—so inconsiderate. I’ll keep you safe.” She shivered and pulled the covers closer to both of us.

  I would say something, but I seemed to be only an observer without sight unable to do more than listen. Listening to the rustle of the covers, the beating of Aislin’s heart, the soft pace of her breathing, the light movements and whispers in the other room.

  “She’s dying. You said you would help her!” Damien paced the room.

  “Of course. I had not lied to you, pet. A bite mark and some blood ‘trigger’ the transformation.”

  “Trigger?”
/>
  “Yes, trigger.” She laughed.

  “She’s dying.”

  “Of course, silly. If it was as simple as biting someone then there would be too many of us in circulation. Too much demand for humans and not enough supply is bad business.”

  “What do I need to complete the transformation?”

  “Shhh, even a human can hear that shrill of yours.”

  “We had a deal.” Stern agitation vibrated through his voice.

  “It’s not beneficial to my side of the bargain if she lives.”

  “I should have known you’d lie to me.”

  “Young ones like you are easy to misguide. Like I’d tell you where they were keeping her mother and send you both on your way?”

  “Someone so old”—he paused to let her fume about his insult—“should also have known this young one planned for your betrayal.”

  “You’re bluffing. You arrogant twit,” she snarled.

  “How becoming,” he scoffed.

  “Enjoy the time you have with her while you can.” Her voice was strained.

  “How long?”

  “Oh my pet, she really should have died by now. Hard to pin how long at this point. Maybe while she sleeps.” A hearty laugh bellowed from her small frame.

  “What necklace was she talking about with Damien?”

  “Never mind that.” Irritation surfaced in her tone.

  “I don’t have that memory.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “Did you make sure that I didn’t have it?”

  “Certain memories have me at a disadvantage. Why would I let you have them? I took it from Damien a long time ago, it was too painful for him to live with.”

  “I wasn’t bluffing before.”

  A hard crash resounded from the wall and glass shattered on the floor.

  “You will remove your filthy hands from me at once,” she hissed.

  “I am stronger than you. My strength is why you needed me and it’s also the reason why you can’t betray our agreement without consequences. You will tell us how to help her transition, and find her mother, now.”