Hannah stood up and peered out the window. Outside was dark and peaceful. The trees, skeletal and bare of branches, stood still in the snowy field and against the frozen water. Moonlight cast the view in a cold, blue glow.
"I don"t see any- Oh!" She stepped back as if she"d been stabbed. She had seen something. A presence. Crimson eyes and silver pupils. Staring at her from the dark. Outside the window, it was hovering. A dark ma.s.s. She could feel its rage, its violent desire. It wanted in, to consume, to feed.
Hannah . . . Hannah . . .
It knew her name.
Let me in . . . Let me in . . .
The words had a hypnotic effect. She moved toward the window and began to lift the latch.
"STOP!"
She turned. The boy stood at the doorway, a tense, frantic look on his face.
"Don"t," he said. "That"s what it wants you to do. Invite it inside. As long as you keep that window closed, it can"t come in.
And I"m safe."
"What is it?" Hannah asked, her heart pounding hard in her chest. She took her hand away from the window but kept her eyes on the view outside. There was nothing there anymore, but she could sense its presence. It was near.
"A vampire too. Like me, but different. It"s . . . insane," he said.
"It feeds on its own kind."
"A vampire that hunts vampires?"
The boy nodded. "I know it sounds ridiculous . . ."
"Did it . . . do that to you?" she said, crossing to him and brushing her fingers against the scabs on his neck. They felt rough to touch. She felt sorry for him.
"Yes."
"But you"re all right?"
"I think so." He hung his head. "I hope so."
"How were you able to come inside? No one invited you," she asked.
"You"re right. But I didn"t need an invitation. The door was open. But so many doors were open on all the houses, and I couldn"t enter any of them but this one. Which made me think that I"d found it. My family"s house."
Hannah nodded. That made sense. Of course he would be welcome in his own home.
The rattling stopped. The boy sighed. "It"s gone for now. But it will be back."
He looked so relieved that her heart went out to him.
"What do you need me to do?" she asked. She wasn"t scared anymore. Her mother always said Hannah had a head for emergencies. She was a stoic, dependable girl. More likely to plant a stake in the heart of a monster than scream for rescue from the railroad tracks. "How can I help?"
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her with respect. "I need to get away. I can"t stay here forever. I need to go. I need to warn the others. Tell them what happened to me. That the danger is growing." He sagged against the wall. "What I ask you to do might hurt a bit, and I don"t want to ask unless it"s freely given."
"Blood, isn"t it? You need blood. You"re weak," Hannah said.
"You need my blood."
"Yes." The shadows cast his face in sharp angles, and Hannah could see the deep hollows in his cheeks. His sallow complexion. So perhaps some of the vampire legends were true.
"But won"t I turn into . . . ?"
"No." He shook his head. "It doesn"t work that way. No one can make a vampire. We were born like this. Cursed. You will be fine- tired and a little sleepy, maybe, but fine."
Hannah gulped. "Is it the only way?" She didn"t much like how that sounded. He would have to bite her. Suck her blood. She felt nauseous just thinking about it, but strangely excited as well.
The boy nodded slowly. "I understand if you don"t want to. It"s not something that most people would like to do."
"Can I think about it?" she asked.
"Of course," he said.
Then he disappeared.
The next night, when he returned, he looked even sicker than he had before, as if he were fading-deteriorating right before her eyes. His cheekbones were so sharp and his skin stretched so tight, Hannah thought she could see the outline of his skull. He looks half dead, she thought, and wondered if someone who was undead could look half dead.
"You"re not half wrong." He smiled.
"You read minds as well." It was a statement, not a question.
"I can when I want to-but I didn"t even have to-I can tell from the way you"re looking at me. I look that bad, huh?" She nodded. "I"m sorry."
"I"m so stupid," the boy said, putting clenched fists up to his eyes as if he were trying to block out a horrible memory. "I should have known from the beginning-I"m so very stupid. . . ." He removed his fists from his face and looked down at his dirty fingernails.
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
The boy continued to rant in a furious whisper. "I should have known it was her. I did know, but I forgot. . . . I think she used me or something . . . inside her did . . . everything"s so muddled in my mind . . . I mean, I remember what happened but sometimes I can"t believe it did happen . . . and I feel like I"m the one who should be out there. Sometimes I feel like I am out there." He wasn"t making any sense, and Hannah was starting to feel as confused as he sounded. "Who"s she?" But he didn"t have to say it.
This time, it was written all over the anguish on his face. Hannah felt a quick stab of jealousy. There was another girl involved. There always was. You didn"t get to look like him-weary and handsome, with those sad black eyes-and not have some kind of girlfriend baggage.
"She was very special to me," he murmured. "But I think I"m going to have to get back . . . so I can. G.o.d. So I can kill her." Then he broke down into gasping, choking sobs. "I have to . . . but I don"t know if I"ll be able to. . . . I might just let it have me. . . . It would be easier in a way."
Hannah got up from her bed and embraced him. She was not a touchy-feely kind of person but she wanted to do something to make him feel better. When her parents first separated, she was a zombie, an empty sh.e.l.l, devoid of feeling, but aching with a great and furious need for comfort. Her mother had tried to help, to reach out, but Hannah had resisted accepting succor from the person who was partly to blame for her misery. After all, maybe if her mother hadn"t been such a hard person to live with, her father would never have left her for Delphine, the Temptress Art Dealer. Who knew.
But whatever sorrow the divorce had brought to her life paled in comparison to what this boy was going through. He radiated fear, trembling in her arms. She didn"t really understand what he was telling her, but she could tell that he was running out of time.
Something thumped on the window hard, making them jump away from each other. Hannah took a sharp breath. The gla.s.s vibrated, but held and didn"t shatter. That vampire thing was back. It was out there. It was close. It wanted to feed.
And so did he.
The boy needed her blood, the strength and life force within it.
He needed her to survive. He would die without her. Maybe not the kind of death humans experienced, but an emptiness nonetheless. A defeat. He would give himself up. He was growing weaker and weaker, and one day he wouldn"t be able to resist the monster"s call.
He would walk out to meet his doom.
All he needed was to sink his fangs into her skin and drink her blood.
Hannah felt a shiver of revulsion at the thought. He was a monster, too. There was a monster in her bedroom. She moved away from him, her eyes wide and frightened as if seeing him for the first time. A stranger. A dirty, incoherent, and unwelcome stranger.
She shook her head. "I"m sorry, but I can"t help you. I think you should leave now."
"It"s all right," he said mournfully. "I didn"t expect you to. It"s a lot to ask."
The light blinked off, and he was gone.
Hannah"s mother got up early the next morning to make her breakfast. Banana pancakes with maple syrup that came from the can with the Canadian flag on it. Hannah twirled the syrup around before taking a bite.
"Not hungry?" Kate asked. Kate had been the kind of person who ordered the housekeeper to make breakfast, who had made lists on Post-it notes, a litany of orders for the staff to take care of for the day. Hannah had never seen her mother cook anything aside from the random scrambled egg or the rare serving of pasta. Kate made one dish and made it well-spaghetti with meatb.a.l.l.s. Now she cooked and cleaned, and her hands were dry and cracked from wiping down the bar at work. In the winter, Kate was a souschef at the attached restaurant, chopping carrots and boning chickens.
"Not really." Hannah shook her head. She had never wished for the kind of relationship with her mother that meant they could talk about boys and crushes; she was almost glad that her mother didn"t jibe with the current intense befriending of her children. Kate was Mom. Hannah was Daughter. There was no girlfriend gossip between them, and that had suited them both fine.
"You look tired, hon. Please don"t read with that dim light up there. It"ll ruin your eyes."
"My eyes are already ruined."
Her mom drove her to the school, a few blocks away. Hannah trudged in the snow. The whole day she thought about him. She remembered his words, his desperation to get away from the creature in the night that was hunting him. How alone he had looked. How scared. He looked like how she had felt when her father had told her he was leaving them, and her mother had had no one to turn to.
That evening, before going to bed, she put on her cutest nightgown-a black one her aunt had brought back from Paris. It was silk and trimmed with lace. Her aunt was her father"s sister and something of a "bad influence" (again, her mom"s words). Hannah had made a decision.
When he appeared at three in the morning, she was waiting for him, sitting in the armchair next to her bed. She told him she had changed her mind.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "I don"t want you to do something you don"t want to do. I"m not that kind of vampire."
"Yes. But do it quickly before I chicken out," she ordered.
"You don"t have to help me," he said.
"I know." She swallowed. "But I want to."
"I won"t hurt you," he said.
She put a hand to her neck as if to protect it. "Promise?" How could she trust this strange boy? How could she risk her life to save him? But there was something about him- his sleepy dark eyes, his haunted expression-that drew her to him. Hannah was the type of girl who took in stray dogs and fixed birds" broken wings. Plus, there was that thing out there in the dark. She had to help him get away from it.
"Do it," she decided.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded briskly, as if she were at the doctor"s office and had been asked to give consent to a particularly troublesome, but much-needed operation. She took off her gla.s.ses, pulled the right strap of her nightgown to the side, and arched her neck. She closed her eyes and prepared herself for the worst.
He walked over to her. He was so tall, and when he rested his hands on her bare skin, they were surprisingly warm to the touch.
He pulled her closer to him and bent down.
"Wait," he said. "Open your eyes. Look at me."
She did. She stared at into his dark eyes, wondering what he was doing.
"They"re beautiful-your eyes, I mean. You"re beautiful," he said. "I thought you should know."
She sighed and closed her eyes as his hand stroked her cheek.
"Thank you," he whispered.
She could feel his hot breath on her cheek, and then his lips brushed hers for a moment. He kissed her, pressing his lips firmly upon hers. She closed her eyes and kissed him back. His lips were so hot and wet.
Her first kiss, and from a vampire.
She felt his lips start to kiss the side of her mouth, and then the bottom of her chin, and then the base of her neck. This was it. She steeled herself for pain.
But he was right: there was very little. Just two tiny pinp.r.i.c.ks, then a deep feeling of sleep. She could hear him sucking and swallowing, feel herself begin to get dizzy, woozy. Just like giving blood at the donor drive. Except she probably wouldn"t get a doughnut after this.
She slumped in his arms, and he caught her. She could feel him walk her to the bed and lay her down on top of the sheets, then cover her with the duvet.
"Will I ever see you again?" she asked. It was hard to keep her eyes open. She was so tired. But she could see him vividly now. He seemed to glow. He looked more substantial.
"Maybe," he whispered. "But you"d be safer if you didn"t." She nodded dreamily, sinking into the pillows.
In the morning, she felt spent and logy, and told her mother she thought she was coming down with the flu and didn"t feel like going to school. When she looked in the mirror, she saw nothing on her neck-there was no wound, no scar. Had nothing happened last night? Was she indeed going crazy? She felt around her skin with her fingertips and finally found it-a hardening of the skin, just two little b.u.mps. Almost imperceptible, but there.
She"d made him tell her his name before she had agreed to help him.
Dylan, he"d said. My name is Dylan Ward.
Later that day, she dusted the plaque near the fireplace and looked at it closely. It was inscribed with a family crest, and underneath it read "Ward House." Wards were foster children. This had been a home for the lost. A safe house on Shelter Island.
Hannah thought of the beast out there in the night, rattling the windows, and hoped Dylan had made it to wherever he was going.
VENATOR RECORDS:.
MARTIN.
KINGSLEY MARTIN.
Araquiel, Angel of Vengeance, the Angel with Two Faces Birth Name: Kingsley Anderson Martin Origin: Silver Blood Enmortal Known Past Lives: Tiberius Gemellus (Rome) Bondmate: None a.s.signed Human Conduit: None List of Human Familiars: None Physical Characteristics: Hair: Dark brown Eyes: Blue Height: 6"1"
One of the Conclave"s most trusted and skillful Venators, Kingsley Martin has a complicated past. He is a reformed Silver Blood-one who has been Corrupted by the Dark but continues to serve the Light. He was turned Croatan by Lucifer himself during Lucifer"s reign as Caligula in ancient Rome. Kingsley was Tiberius Gemellus, the true heir of Caesar Tiberius, but Caligula, his adopted cousin, was favored and became emperor. Still, Gemellus loved Caligula like a brother, and the emperor returned his love by dooming him to eternal d.a.m.nation.
Gemellus came back into the Blue Blood fold, repenting his actions and learning to control the Abomination inside of him.
He was forgiven by Michael, and it is the Repository"s belief that he was made the guardian of the Gate of Time. He has been a Venator at the service of the Regis ever since.