I walked past the beach and reached a highway. I crossed to the other side, where there were lines of restaurants and shops. I looked up and down the stretch of road, wondering which place was best to start. Then something caught my eye. A sign for a hospital.
Even in my current state, I wasn’t far gone enough for that to not mean something to me.
I was about to condemn someone to a lifetime of servitude to a group of bloodsuckers I knew nothing about. I ought to at least try to put some thought into whom I chose.
A hospital, on the other hand, would have sick people. Perhaps even terminally ill people. People who would do anything to be given another chance at life.
I still didn’t know all the symptoms that would come with being a half-vampire. But Jeramiah had said that their lives are preserved as vampires’ are. Whether that life would be worth living was another matter entirely. But I felt a strong sense of wanting to take someone who had already given up on life. It would make the act I was about to commit feel at least a little less monstrous.
So I began heading in the direction the sign was pointing. I sped up to a run, following sign after sign, until I eventually found myself standing at the foot of a tall, glass-windowed building. This was it.
I was grateful that I’d had the presence of mind to change into clean clothes back in the submarine. Going in covered in blood would have made me look more like a patient or a serial killer than a visitor. Taking a deep breath, I strode through the doors.
Fluorescent lighting beat down on me as I walked up to the reception desk. Two dark-skinned women sat behind it, filling out medical forms. One of them looked up at me and spoke in Spanish.
“How can I help?”
I felt grateful for the Spanish I’d been taught in school.
“May I have a floor plan, please?”
She reached into a drawer and handed me one.
“Are you here to visit someone?” she asked.
I nodded, but didn’t give her a chance to ask me whom I was here for. I stepped back and began to study the map. My eyes settled on the plan of the top floor—for long-stay patients, according to a helpful note.
I didn’t have time to figure out how to get there legitimately. My body was still an alien to me, and for all I knew it could suddenly decide that it was thirsting for blood again. I had to make this quick. I tucked the leaflet into my shirt pocket and walked back out of the exit. Staring upward, I began to circle the building. It was almost completely sheer except for narrow ledges sticking out beneath each row of windows.
I finished scoping the building and decided that climbing up the back would garner less attention. Tightening my belt around my waist and pulling my hood over my head, I leapt up and began to climb.
I’d thought that even as a vampire it would be a challenge. So I was shocked to leap from one ledge to the next as though I’d done it a thousand times before. As I reached the top level, I dared look down for a second. My stomach flipped. I wasn’t sure that even I would survive that fall if I didn’t land just right.
I forced my focus back on the task at hand. Since none of the windows were open, I climbed onto the roof. Less attention would be drawn to a door being forced open right at the top of the building than a whole window smashing open. Possibly into an operating room…
I lifted myself onto the roof and looked around. There was indeed a door in the center of the roof. I approached it and pulled at the handle. It was locked, as expected. Gripping the handle, the metal crushing beneath my fingers, I yanked it off. That would draw less attention than kicking the door down.
I pushed the door open to find myself at the top of a dark staircase. Keeping the hood of my cloak over my face, I closed the door again before hurtling down the steps. Light streamed through a pair of glass doors as I reached the level beneath. I pushed it open to find myself in some kind of storage room. There were shelves upon shelves of medical equipment. I crossed the floor and reached the door. Opening it led me to another storage room. I was about to open the door when my eyes caught sight of a pile of white overalls and visitor cards. I put an overall over me and attached a visitor card around my neck. Perfect.
When I opened the door, the scent of human blood was stronger. Nurses and doctors passed through the corridor. I waited until they’d disappeared before stepping out. I kept my eyes fixed on the floor as I tried to walk at the speed a human would. I didn’t want to make eye contact with anyone.
Now that I’d reached the level I needed to be on, it was a matter of finding the right patient. The scent of human blood was filling my nostrils—both sweet, healthy blood and also a more sickly, stale scent of dying blood. The latter was the type I needed. One that wouldn’t be so appealing. I would have a better chance of not killing the human if his or her blood tasted disgusting.
I walked in and out of rooms, looking for a bed that had few people around it and was almost empty.
As it turned out, my victim found me.
As I was walking along a particularly empty-looking ward, plastic curtains rustled in the bed a few yards to my right. I whirled around to see curious eyes looking at me, an emaciated hand holding open the curtains. It was a young man. It was hard to tell his age—he looked so thin and sickly. But I guessed he was no older than his mid-twenties.
“Hey,” he called out in a frail voice.
I approached him cautiously, raising a brow.
His face contorted with pain. “I need help.”
I was surprised that he spoke to me in English.
“What’s wrong?” I said, stopping at the end of his bed.
He scowled, his breath hitching as he reached for his chest. “The drug you gave me earlier isn’t working.”
I bent closer to him, looking at where he was touching, and as I did his eyes seemed to come into focus.
He swore. “It wasn’t you. It was someone else… I’m in so much frickin’ pain I can barely see.” Given my white overalls he obviously thought I was a doctor.
“That’s all right,” I said. “I can help you.”
He reached for a clipboard at the side of his bed and shoved it toward me. “This is my medical file. Read it before you start meddling.” He glared at me. “This damn hospital. They wouldn’t be able to figure out how to assign me just one doctor even if it was my last request.”
I flipped to the first page of his file and my eyes fell on the first words written on the form at the top of the page.
“Tobias Cole. Bronchial cancer. Stage four.”
That’s good enough.
I pretended to be studying the file for a few more minutes before taking a seat next to his bed. I reached over and felt his pulse.
He squirmed away from me. “Christ, you’re cold.”
“Sorry,” I murmured, withdrawing my hand.
I swallowed hard, staring down at the man. He looked up at me expectantly, tears forming at the corners of his eyes from the pain.
Jeramiah’s last words rang in my ears.
“The trick is to stop before you feel you’ve started.”
What the hell does that even mean?
Tobias was growing impatient. I didn’t have much time to figure it out. I just had to hope that his blood was disgusting enough to aid me in pulling this off. He certainly smelt of death. I grimaced.
“What?” Tobias croaked.
“Nothing.” I assumed a stoic expression and stood up, pushing him down flat on the bed. “I will make the pain go away. But first, I want you to close your eyes. Can you do that?”
He looked confused, but he didn’t argue. He nodded and shut his eyes.
Drawing the curtains, I bent down and, covering his mouth with my hand to stifle his struggling, dug my fangs into his neck. He was too weak to make much noise anyway. And the noise he did make was hardly distinguishable from the other moans of pain echoing through the halls of this level of the hospital. I felt the blood begin to rush into my mouth and breathed out through my nose in relief that it
tasted as stale as it smelt.
Stop before you feel you’ve started.
Again, I found myself wondering what that meant. Hell, I didn’t even know how to inject venom into someone. I knew how to suck blood, but I’d never released venom. I tried to recall the way my father’s fangs had looked when he’d turned me. I spread my lips to give my fangs as much leeway into his flesh as possible. And then it happened—a flow of ice-cold liquid shot from them and injected into the man’s bloodstream.
I jerked my head away from him. It felt like I might have stopped too late. Quite a bit of liquid had already entered his bloodstream. I just had to hope that I hadn’t released too much.
He began convulsing on the bed. Now that his transformation—or hopefully semi-transformation—was beginning, I had to figure a way to get him out of here and back to my submarine as soon as possible.
Wrapping him up tightly with the sheets so that his face was covered and his limbs restrained from convulsing too wildly, I picked him up in my arms and raced toward the exit of the ward. There was no point trying to hide my speed anymore. Someone was going to notice I was carrying a writhing patient away from his bed, so I might as well travel so fast they wouldn’t have a chance to even register what they’d seen until I was already well out of reach.
I whizzed through the halls, and Tobias’ struggling stopped. My speed had likely knocked him breathless. I crossed corridor after corridor, ignoring the shouts that were becoming louder and louder behind me. As I reached the first storage room, an alarm began ringing throughout the hospital. I sped across the room and entered the next. I didn’t let up until I reached the double glass doors leading to the staircase leading up to the roof. I sped up to the top, kicked open the door and ran out onto the roof. A light drizzle had begun to spray the night air.
I rushed to the edge of the building and looked down.
I swore beneath my breath. I hadn’t really considered how I’d get the two of us down alive. Tobias was certainly in no position to be holding onto me. And he was a tall man—not that much shorter than myself. With him squirming like this, there was no way I’d be able to hold on to him while also getting us both safely to the ground.
I ran around the circumference of the roof and was relieved to spot what I’d hoped to see. Another roof about fifteen feet away. This was the more sensible option. I could jump that without difficulty.
I stepped back away from the edge a few yards and, gripping Tobias more tightly, gathered speed and leapt through the air, landing on both feet with ease on the roof parallel to the hospital. This building was lower, about two stories lower. Still high, but at least I’d made some progress in getting down to a level from which I could just jump to the ground without risk of injury to either myself or, more importantly, Tobias.
Once I’d landed on this lower building, I ran around the edges once again. While the building next to it wasn’t any lower, there were ledges that looked much thicker and easier to handle. So I leapt again onto this second roof and, taking it slowly, managed to climb down to the ground on the overhanging balconies.
Now that I was on the ground, I lost no time in lurching forward. I took a wrong turn a few times, but it wasn’t long before I found myself back on the promenade before the beach. I ran across the sand and entered the water, holding Tobias up and kicking with my legs, propelling us toward the submarine I’d anchored about half a mile away from the shore. I dragged him up to the submarine roof, opened the hatch and slid in with him. Breathing heavily, I placed him down on a bed in one of the cabins and locked the door behind me. Wiping sweat from my brow, I walked into the control cabin and picked up the phone Jeramiah had given me.
I flipped it open, expecting to need to go up to the roof to get a signal, but there was clearly something different about this phone. It had a full signal already even in the thick walls of this submarine.
I slumped down into the chair, wiping sweat from my brow. I navigated to his contact number and pressed dial. I put the phone to my ear, listening to the rings. The first. The second. The third. He picked up after the fourth.
“Yes?”
I swallowed hard. “I think I’m ready to take you up on your offer.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line. “You were successful in creating a half-blood?”
“He’s in transformation now. I’ll know in a few hours.”
“Call back then.” Jeramiah hung up and the line went dead.
I placed the phone down on the dashboard, staring at it as I chewed on my lower lip.
Tobias Cole. I just had to hope that he would wake up as a half-blood and not a vampire. I didn’t need a mad vampire for company. I already had myself to contend with.
Chapter 7: Caleb
My brain was in a fog. I found it hard to fix my mind on anything but the memory of Rose’s body burning into ashes by the lake. It replayed over and over in my mind, a nightmare I couldn’t escape from.
I didn’t know how much time had passed since I’d last rested my eyes. But even as Annora settled down to sleep, I should have known better than to drift off myself. I should have suspected that she’d try something.
I sat bolt upright the moment I tasted it. Warm blood. Annora’s blood. I hacked and spat, but it was too late. Its sweet taste took hold of my senses and sent them into overdrive.
I staggered to my feet, gripping hold of the side of the boat as I glared at Annora. The sight of her blood spilling from her palm only served to hasten my descent.
I lurched toward her, gripping her waist and slamming her back against the side of the boat. I tugged roughly on her hair, pushing it away and giving me clear access to her neck. She didn’t flinch as I broke her skin and dug my fangs deep into her neck. She welcomed it. Wrapping her arms tightly around my waist, she pulled me closer as she moaned my name.
At first, I didn’t understand why she didn’t scream or struggle. I didn’t realize why she moaned with pleasure when I could have been moments from ending her life. It wasn’t until I’d downed my fifth gulp of her blood that it dawned on me. It was because she knew. She knew what was happening.
She knew that with each gulp of her blood I took, the pain of losing Rose was ebbing away and being replaced with a burning, blind desire for Annora.
Chapter 8: Rose
“I want to go for a walk.”
I placed my hands on my hips and looked sternly at Bella. The ogress sat in the corner of the room, knitting what looked like a thick scarf.
I’d already tried to open the front door while Bella had been busy washing up in the kitchen, but it was locked fast. And since one glance out of the windows told me that climbing out of them wasn’t an option, I had no choice but to resort to asking the ogress.
Bella rolled her eyes and gestured around the room. “You can go for a walk here. It’s a big room.”
“No. I have claustrophobia. I need a more open space to stretch my legs. You can escort me.”
She stared at me, then shook her head. “Not allowed,” she said, smacking her fat lips together.
“What kind of maid are you who won’t even take her mistress for a walk?”
“Master’s orders.”
I scowled at her and slumped down on the bed. Her answer to everything was, “Master’s orders.” She still refused to tell me exactly where I was, and what exactly that bastard Anselm or the older man I’d come across had in store for me.
My eyes settled on the ring of keys fastened to her huge waist. Then they raised to her face. It had gone back to being full of intense concentration as she continued working on her knitting. I stood up slowly and walked over to her. I pulled up an ottoman and sat down next to her, pretending to adopt a sudden interest in her knitting. I was trying to gauge how difficult it might be to unfasten the keys from her belt once she finally fell asleep—assuming she was to stay with me in my quarters.
“You like knitting, don’t you, Bella?” I said, trying to keep her distracted.
/> She nodded enthusiastically. “Love it.”
Once I was satisfied that I’d gotten as close a view of the keys as I was going to get without actually removing them from her, I stood up and walked back over to the bed. I looked out of the window. The overcast sky was becoming even darker. I supposed that meant that night was descending on this place.
I let out a yawn, causing Bella to raise her eyes to me.
“You are tired?”
“Yes,” I said, yawning again. “I think I need to sleep. Aren’t you tired too? It seems to be getting late.” I looked again out at the sky, hoping that it was indeed getting late.
Bella looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe a little tired. But I need to eat first.”
“Okay,” I said. “Why don’t you eat and then we can both go to sleep for the night.”
The chair creaked as she stood up and set her knitting down on the table. She plodded toward the kitchen. I lay back on the bed, listening to pots rattling and a fire starting up. She returned to the room about ten minutes later with a huge saucepan full of stew. She placed a plate on the floor so as to prevent stains, brandished a giant spoon and began swallowing down the stew.
So that’s why she cooked so much.
It didn’t take her long to finish the whole container. Wiping her mouth, she let out a thundering belch. Then she made her way back into the kitchen to wash up.
I waited patiently for her to return to the room. I expected her to curl up in the corner of the room and go to sleep, but to my horror she headed straight for the front door.
I leapt from my bed and stood in front of the door before she could reach it.
“Wait. Please don’t leave me alone all night. Stay with me. We can get some cushions and a blanket and you can sleep in the corner on the thick warm rug.”
She shook her head. “Want my own bed,” she mumbled, her eyelids drooping. I guessed that all that stew had knocked her out.