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Yet I didn't move.
My limbs felt leaden. Inside, I was spitting mad, snarling and cursing, but my body lay as still and calm as if I'd already passed.
I pushed down the burbling panic.
Consider the matter with care and logic. I should have taken Aaron's victim, while I still had the strength, but now that I'd missed my opportunity, I couldn't chance waiting another day. I'd rest for an hour or so, until Aaron had retired.
Better for him not to know. I wouldn't let him pity and coddle me simply because it was in his nature to help the sick, the weak, the needy. I would not be needy.
I'd stay awake and wait until the house grew quiet. Then I'd do this-alone.
I fixed my gaze on the light, staring at it to keep myself awake. Minutes ticked past, each feeling like an hour. My eyes burned. My body begged for sleep. I refused. It threatened to pull me under even with my eyes wide. I compromised. I'd close them for a moment's rest and then I'd leave.
I shut my eyes and all went dark.
I awoke to the smell of flowers. I usually had some in the house, so the smell came as no surprise, and I drowsily stretched, rested and refreshed.
Then I remembered I hadn't replaced my last flowers and I was seized by the sudden vision of my corpse lying on my bed, surrounded by funeral wreaths. I bolted upright and found myself staring in horror at a room of flowers… before realizing that the fact I was sitting upright would suggest I was not dead.
With a deep sigh, I looked around. Flowers did indeed fill my room. There were at least a dozen bouquets, each a riot of blooms, with no unifying theme of color, shape or type. I smiled. Aaron.
My feet lit on the cool hardwood as I crossed to a piece of paper propped against the nearest bouquet. An advertisement for flights to France. Beside another was a list of hotels. A picture of the Eiffel Tower adorned a third. Random images of Parisian travel littered the room, again with no obvious theme, simply pages hurriedly printed from websites. Typically Aaron. Making his point with all the finesse of a sledgehammer wielded with equal parts enthusiasm and determination.
Should I still fail to be swayed, he'd scrawled a note with letters two inches high, the paper thrust into a bouquet of roses. Paige had called. She was still working on that case and needed my help. In smaller letters below, he informed me that today's paper carried another article on the palliative care patient who wanted to die.
I dressed, then tucked two of the pages into my pocket, and slipped out the side door.
I didn't go to the hospital Aaron had suggested. It was too late for that. If I was having difficulty making this kill, I could not compound that by choosing one that would itself be difficult.
So I returned to the alley where I'd found-and dismissed-my first choice two nights ago. The drunkard wasn't there, of course. No one was. But I traversed the maze of alleys and back roads in search of another victim. I couldn't wait for nightfall. I couldn't risk falling asleep again or I might not wake up.
When an exit door swung open, I darted into an alley to avoid detection and spotted my victim. A woman, sitting in an alcove, surrounded by grocery bags stuffed with what looked like trash but, I presumed, encompassed the sum of her worldly belongings. Behind me, whoever opened that door tossed trash into the alley, and slammed it shut again. The woman didn't move. She stared straight ahead, gaze vacant. Resting before someone told her to move on.
Even as I watched her, evaluated her and decided she would do, something deep in me threw up excuses. Not old enough. Not sick enough. Too dangerous a location. Too dangerous a time of day. Keep looking. Find someone better, someplace safer. But if I left here, left
her, I would grow more tired, more distracted and more disinterested with every passing hour.
She would do. She had to. For once, not a choice I could live with, but the choice that would let me live.
There was no way to approach without the woman seeing me. Unlike Aaron, I didn't like to let my victims see the specter of death approach, but today I had no choice. So I straightened and started toward her, as if it was perfectly natural for a well-dressed middle-aged woman to cut through alleyways.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her look up as I passed. She tensed, then relaxed, seeing no threat. I turned, as if just noticing her. Then with a brisk nod, I took a twenty from my wallet.
A cruel ruse? Or making her last memory a pleasant one? Perhaps both. As expected, she smiled, her guard lowering even more. I reached down, but let go of the bill too soon. As it fluttered to the ground, I murmured an apology and bent, as if to retrieve it, but she was already snatching it up. I kept bending, still apologizing… and sank my fangs into the back of her neck.
She gave one gasp before the sedative took effect and she fell forward. I tugged her into the alcove, propped her against the wall and crouched beside her still form.
As my fangs pierced her jugular, I braced myself. The blood filled my mouth, as thick, hot and horrible as the drug dealer's the night before. My throat tried to seize up, rejecting it, but I swallowed hard. Another mouthful. Another swallow. Drink. Swallow. Drink. Swallow.
My stomach heaved. I pulled back from the woman, closed my eyes, lifted my chin and swallowed the blood. Another heave, and my mouth filled, the taste too horrible to describe. I gritted my teeth and swallowed.
With every mouthful now, some came back up. I swallowed it again. Soon my whole body was shaking, my brain screaming that this wasn't right, that I was killing myself, drowning.
My stomach gave one violent heave, my throat refilling. I clamped my hand to my mouth, eyes squeezed shut as I forced myself to swallow the regurgitated blood.
Body shaking, I crouched over her again. I opened my eyes and saw the woman lying there. I couldn't do this. I couldn't-
One hand still pressed to my mouth, I tugged the pages from my pocket. I unfolded them and forced myself to look. Paris. Aaron. Paige. The council. I wasn't done yet. Soon… but not yet.
I squeezed my eyes shut, then slammed my fangs into the woman's throat and drank.
Her pulse started to fade. My stomach was convulsing now, body trembling so hard I could barely keep my mouth locked on her neck. Even as I pushed on, seeing the end in sight, I knew this wasn't success. I'd won only the first round of a match I was doomed to lose.
The last drops of blood filled my mouth. Her heart beat slower, and slower, then… stopped.
Another life taken. Another year to live.
In Darkness, Angels by Eric Van Lustbader
Eric Van Lustbader is the bestselling author of The Ninja and the others in the Nicholas Li
Vampires are scary. And you know what else is scary? In-laws. So it stands to reason that this is going to be one scary story. We fall in love with individuals, but we don't always appreciate that in the bargain we'll be getting their family too-a whole web of relationships and past events that are unknown to us. And when those past events stretch back centuries? Let's just say that you may have been in relationships where you felt like your lover's family members were out for blood. But probably never quite like this.