"I don"t know. Something drew me here." I wasn"t sure whether telling him the truth was a good idea or a bad one, but the words spilled out of me without my permission all the same. "When I saw this place from the distance, I felt compelled to come here. I knew it would be safe." Blinking twice, I lowered my eyes, unable to hold his as I whispered, "Is it?"
"I"m no threat to you, unless you"re one to me."
I hadn"t realized I"d been holding my breath until his answer let me release it. "How could I be a threat toanyone? I told you, I don"t even know who I am."
"How can that be?"
A sob rose in my throat. Stupid, that his one obvious question would be enough to send me beyond the edge of control, but it did. Suddenly I just couldn"t take any more. I wrapped my arms around myself and lowered my head, ashamed of my tears. Of showing him such weakness. I sensed that it wasn"t something I did easily, and it angered me, but not enough to give me the power to stop it. "I don"t know.
I don"t remember."
Sighing deeply, he stared at me for a long moment, and then, as if making a decision at last, he quickly took off his shirt and held it out by the collar, offering it to me.
My hand trembled as I took it, never looking up very far. "Thank you."
"You"re welcome, Lilith."
I had been pulling the shirt around me when he said that, and the name, Lilith, made something tickle deep within the core of my brain. It brought my head up, made my eyes narrow and strain, as if I were trying to look through his skin and bones to see into his soul.
"What did you call me?"
He"d seemed to wish he could bite the word back as soon as he"d said it. I could tell by the way he"d quickly averted his eyes, leaned the pitchfork against the wall and begun to fidget with some harnesses that hung from a peg. "I have to call you something," he muttered. "It seemed as good a name as any."
I pulled the shirt the rest of the way on and b.u.t.toned it. Then I scooped my hair out of the collar. His shirt came to my upper thighs. It was only slightly longer than my hair.
"You said you were drawn to my house from the distance. Do you remember anything prior to that?"
I nodded, allowing him to believe he had distracted me from the matter of that name. A name that felt familiar. "I remember a little. And I have no reason not to tell you all of it. But I"m tired, and I"m incredibly hungry."
"All right." He nodded twice, and said it again. "All right. Come on to the house. I"ll get you something to drink." As he said it, he turned and started walking, taking my arm lightly as he did.
"I need a meal, not a drink," I told him. My stomach was growling. "I need meat. A nice rare burger or a steak or"
He stopped walking and stared at me. "You said you don"t know who you are. Do you know what you are?"
I frowned at him, having no idea what he meant. "I"m a woman. An amnesiac, A" I couldn"t think of anything else, and I could tell by the look in those brown velvet eyes that I hadn"t said what he"d wanted me to say. "What?" I asked softly. "What am I?"
Even then, though, I think there was some inkling. I could outrun a deer. I could see for miles. I could hear things no ordinary person could hear, smell things only a bloodhound should be able to smell. Ibegan to shake, and I lowered my head, looked at the mark on my wrist, felt tears welling up in my eyes.
My knees seemed to weaken as I whispered the question again. "What am I?"
My legs turned to water, and his arms came around me, fast and sure, to keep me from falling.
"I feel so weak."
"I"m sorry. I should have seen it sooner. Come on, Lilith, I"ve got you now."
He scooped me up as if I were a child, and I gave in to the weakness that was overwhelming me and let my head rest on his st.u.r.dy shoulder. I closed my eyes. Softly, I said, "I don"t even know your name."
"Ethan," he told me. And that, too, caused a powerful ripple in the still waters of my mind.
"Ethan," I repeated. "Thank you, Ethan."
"You may not be thanking me later," he said.
I frowned and searched his face, but he kept his eyes forward as he carried me out of the barn into the darkness of the night, and then along a winding path toward his house. Soon enough we were inside. I felt the comfort of warmth enveloping me as he closed the door behind us. I smelled a wood fire and looked around for the source, but we were only in the entry hall. He kicked off his shoes without putting me down, then continued through into a modest living room that welcomed me like a hug. The furniture needed only b.u.t.ton eyes to resemble a family of teddy bearsplush and soft and brown. Green and gold and russet throw pillows littered each piece like the fallen autumn leaves outside. The fieldstone fireplace held a dancing blaze that painted my face in heat and light, and above its gleaming oaken mantle, there was a painting.
I stared at it, unblinking, my tired eyes suddenly finding the strength to stay open.
It was a woman, a nude woman, with coppery curls like ribbons draping down her body. Twined around her was a giant snake, and she looked as if she adored the thing. She had more curves than I had, and I had no idea whether her face bore any resemblance to mine. The t.i.tle, Lilith, was written un.o.btrusively across the bottom, and beneath that the name of the artist, John Waterhouse.
"Is it the hair?" I asked.
"Is what the hair?" Ethan lowered me onto the teddy-bear sofa, which was every bit as soft as it looked.
Then he opened the antique trunk that served as a coffee table and pulled out a blanket.
"In the painting," I said, and I pointed. "Is it because our hair is alike that you called me by her name?"
"Partly that." He draped the blanket over me, then turned to gaze at the picture. "But there"s a lot more to Lilith"s story than her hair. Legend has it that she was the first woman, created by G.o.d alongside Adam. His equal. She refused to submit to him, was too independent to be tamed, much less owned or commanded. And so she left him, and G.o.d was forced to make another companion for him. That time he made the woman from Adam"s rib, so she would know her place."
"And that was Eve?"
"So the story goes. And even then, poor submissive Eve got blamed when things went to h.e.l.l Didn"t doher much good to behave, did it?" He faced me again.
I frowned, unsure what he was getting at. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I sense you"re a lot more like Lilith than Eve. Your spirit is like hers, indomitable."
"I don"t feel very indomitable just now."
"You are. Trust me."
"How do you know?" I tried to see whatever was hiding behind his eyes, because I was sure something was. "Do you know me, Ethan?"
He lowered his head quickly. "How could I?" As he said it, he was crossing the room, and then he left entirely.
I rested my head on a russet pillow, listening as he rummaged around in the next room. When he returned, only moments later, he brought with him a huge ceramic stein. He pressed it into my hands. It was warm.
I smiled, thinking of hot cocoa, and immediately brought it to my mouth for a long drink. And yet the moment it hit my tongue, I knew it wasn"t cocoa. But it was exactly what my body needed. What I craved. It was rich, thick, tasting slightly of sulphur and salt, and yet I found it irresistible.
He stood watching me as I tipped the stein upward, drinking and drinking and drinking, until I"d drained it all. I lowered the stein and wiped the back of my hand over my lips.
It came away red.
Blinking down at my hand and then up at him, I asked, "What was that?"
"Just a favorite of mine. Call it aprotein shake."
"What did I just drink, Ethan?"
"Close your eyes and relax, Lilith. There are things I have to tell you, and you"re going to need that inner strength you don"t know you haveyou"re going to need all of it."
I didn"t close my eyes, and I didn"t relax. I sat up straighter on the sofa instead, planted my feet on the floor and held the blanket around me like a cloak, watching Ethan as he paced away from me.
"You said you"d tell me," he said. "Everything you remember."
"I hope you don"t expect that to fill the evening." My attempt at levity fell flat, and I drew a breath, wished to h.e.l.l he would stop pacing and lifted my head.
To my surprise, he did stop pacingjust when I thought it. He met my eyes and moved to the overstuffed chair beside the sofa. As he sat, I organized my thoughts, going back as far as I could remember.
"I woke up on a hillside underneath a bridge. It was raining. I didn"t know who I was or what I was doing there. I still don"t. A car came along, and I ignored my instinct to run and instead stood therewaiting, hoping they would stop and help me. It did stop. And then the window went down a little, and someone poked a gun out of it and ordered me to get in."
His expression grew tighter, more troubled, with every word I uttered.
"Man"s voice? Or a woman"s?" he asked.
"Man"s."
"Would you recognize it if you heard it again?"
I lifted my brows. "I don"t know. Maybe."
"What about the car? Would you recognize that?"
I swallowed, closed my eyes, tried to remember. "It was a big, black, SUV. The windows were tinted so darkly that I couldn"t see who was inside. But I know it was a Cadillac. A black Cadillac Escalade,"
"That"s very good."
I smiled slightly in response to the praise and opened my eyes. He still looked troubled. "I want you close your eyes and relax, and just think about when you first woke up under the bridge."
I leaned back in the sofa, letting my eyes fall closed, relaxing my body. "I remember waking up."
"Do you remember sleeping?"
My brows drew closer. "I was exhausted. I"d been running and running andit was almost dawn, and I remember thinking I had to find a place before then." I frowned and squeezed my eyes tighter. "What an odd thing."
"It"s not so odd," he said. "Do you remember anything before you started running? Do you remember what you were running from?"
I tipped my head to one side as images a.s.saulted me in tiny, insignificant bits that told me nothing. "I remember a tall fence. I remember thinking, "Don"t touch." I remember jumping it." I smiled a little and shook my head. "That part had to be a dream."
"Maybe. Go on. What about before the fence?"
I saw another flash, but it was brief. "A white room. Like a hospital room. And I I have a blade. I"m" My eyes flew open as shock jolted through me at what I had seen. The blade. My flesh. A spurting stream of blood.
"I cut my wrist!" And even as I said it, I turned my hands palms upward and stared at my wrists in search of the scars. "I must have been in some sort of of asylum! I tried to kill myself. And then I ran away." I searched his face. "I"m an escaped lunatic, Ethan. And where are the scars? There should be scars on my wrists, where are the"
"You didn"t escape from an asylum. And you didn"t try to kill yourself, Lilith." "I didn"t?" I shook my head, looking again at my wrists. "But why would I cut myself like that? And where are the marks?" Meeting his gaze again, I said, "I"m not an ordinary person, am I, Ethan?"
"No. You"re like me."
"I"m not like you. I"m not like anyone. I can outrun a deer. I did, when I ran away. I can see perfectly in the dark, and over vast distances. I can hear so well I think I can hear the gra.s.s growing. Seriously, sometimes I hear things that aren"t audible."
"Like thoughts?" he asked.
I nodded. Then I blinked. "How do you know that?"
"Because you and I are the same, Lilith. We"re not exactly human." He came to me, sat beside me on the sofa, and took both my hands in his. "And there"s more about your new nature that you don"t yet know.
Bigger things than you"ve had a chance to figure out yet. It"s going to be hard to understand, but I want you to hear me out and just try to keep an open mind."
"All right."
He nodded, licked his lips and held my hands more tightly. "We don"twell, we don"t age, Lilith."
I frowned as that statement sank into my brain and I tried to understand what it meant. A simple phrase.
We don"t age. And yet it couldn"t mean what it seemed, on the surface, to mean.
"We only die if we bleed out, or if we"re burned. Our bodies are extremely flammable. Open flame is dangerous to us. The sun, too, will roast us to death."
"The sun?" I sat up straighter, pulling my hands free of his and letting the blanket fall from my shoulders.
"That"s ludicrous."
"Any wounds we may suffer heal during the daytime. That"s when we sleep. It"s not by choice, mind you.
We just lose consciousness when the sun comes up. We have to sleep where we"re protected from it."
I blew air through my teeth, relieved as I realized he was joking. It wasn"t very funny, but maybe he just had a twisted sense of humor. I shook my head and smiled. "Next you"ll tell me we subsist on human bloo" I broke off there, as my eyes shot to the empty stein on the table. And I knew. I knew. I gagged and clapped my palm over my mouth.
"Don"t," he said. "You won"t throw it up. There"s some part of your mind that"s repulsed by the notion, Lilith, but it"s the part you let go of when your mortal life ended, the night you slit your wrists and let yourself bleed nearly to death before ingesting the blood of one of us to replenish you. To transform you."
"That"s insane. Where would I get the the blood of one of you?"
"Some sort of labnot from a living being, or you wouldn"t have had to cut your own wrists or go on the run on your own. Of course, I"m only guessing. How you got this way, I can"t be sure. But I know what you are, Lilith. You, the woman you are now, is not sickened at the thought of drinking blood. You need it. You crave it. You relish it.
"You"re a vampire, Lilith. And so am I." A vampire. It was insane. It couldn"t be real.
But even as he said it, he pulled something from one of his pockets and held it out to me. It was a small round mirror, with a little wire hanger on it. He must have gotten it when he"d been in the kitchen getting me my beverage.
I didn"t move as he offered it to me.
"Go ahead. You"re not going to believe me until you see proof. So take a look, Lilith. You cast no reflection. And while you"re at it, feel your incisors. Or just take a look at mine."
He bared his teeth, and I sucked in a sharp breath and jerked backward. But even as I did, my tongue was exploring my own teeth and finding the same thing I"d seen in him. My eye-teeth were slightly elongated, pointedand razor sharp. I met his eyes and had the feeling he knew what I had just discovered, and then I reached for the mirror with a trembling hand.
I held it away from me and looked into it to be sure it reflected other things. The throw pillows, the dancing flames, the painting of Lilith above the hearth. It did.