* * *
I stood outside the cave, inhaling the aromas of plants and herbs and pine trees, while staring at the lightening sky. Yet another sunrise. How many had I seen after working all those hospital night shifts? I was busy calculating the answer when Jakob appeared behind me. Before I could say anything, he startled me when he spun me around and held me tight in his arms.
I steadied my voice. "Where've you been, Jakob? The Equinox is here, and it's almost dawn."
"Feeding." His voice sounded rough in my ears. When he sniffed my neck, I felt my pulse beat against his lips. I stifled a scream when his fangs slid out of his mouth. His expression reminded me of a cobra preparing a lethal strike.
"It's almost time." He slid the lethal canines along my jugular. I waited for the painful tug of punctured skin, but it never came.
I'd been around my vampire lover long enough to know something was going on.
"What's happening to you, Jakob?"
"The Equinox is . . . it's changing me." He struggled to get the words out.
Right before my eyes, he transformed into a monster: red eyes, hideous blue veins crisscrossing his forehead and cheeks, stringy hair. The works.
"Don't touch me!" I screamed when I glimpsed the repulsive bony claw resting on my shoulder.
In full panic mode, I squirmed out of his reach and ran back inside the cave. Jakob pursued, hot on my heels. By the time I reached the fire, I realized my mistake. I should have run for the safety of the approaching daylight instead of rushing headlong into a dark dead end. I wheeled around, but the Jakob-thing, hunched over and wheezing, blocked the path to my freedom.
We faced each other across the fire pit. He looked angry. Mad. "Jakob?" I pleaded. I ignored the blood-red eyes fixed on me as I continued to shuffle sideways, maneuvering myself closer to the entrance.
He suddenly roared like a lion, and I jumped. Whatever this animal was, it did not recognize me. For the first time since hooking up with him, I considered that he might attack and hurt me. Maybe Dr. Jakob Farkas loved me, but this drooling creature wasn't my dear Jakob. Another roar attacked my ears before he took a menacing step forward. With his hair plastered on his sweat-soaked face, I couldn't recognize the mild-mannered doctor who had once sat behind an oak desk, joking easily as he counseled me.
He suddenly lunged at me, those yellow claws extended toward my throat. I froze, unable to move a toe, much less my whole body. But before Jakob could get closer, his legs folded under him and he collapsed to the ground. His tormented cries scarred my soul with their shrillness. I screamed as he writhed in the dirt, fighting against some internal force threatening to tear him apart. I got lightheaded and chilled when he snapped his jaw, the long fangs slicing through the full lower lip. Twin strings of thick blood dripped from his wounded mouth, spotting the dirt floor.
"Please," the Jakob-thing begged, his gray face awash in sweat and tears. Crimson splotches smeared his lips and face.
The desperation in his animal eyes broke my heart. "What can I do?" I asked.
He convulsed, violently slamming his face onto a stone.
"Stop! Stop hurting yourself!" As if the demons twisting his body would obey my cries.
He couldn't stop, and his face thudded dully again and again against the bloodied rock. A stream of curses in languages I'd never heard before issued from his bruised mouth and raised the hair on my neck.
Loud snarls tore loose from his chest, ending in throat-wrenching screams. If I could only get outside into the sun, I thought, looking beyond Jakob toward the cave entrance. His deafening growls matched the spreading daylight as dawn broke. Paralyzed with fear, I remained torn between escaping this nightmare and wanting to stay, in the hopes of helping Jakob.
With the lightning-quickness he'd playfully displayed before, Jakob grabbed my leg, his claws slicing through my pant leg and sinking into my calf.
I screamed.
With a swift, powerful motion he pulled me down, and I landed hard, raking my knees on sharp stones. The Jakob-thing tore at my clothes, wrenching another cry from my mouth.
"Jakob! Stop!" I kicked blindly and scrambled to my feet when his hand released me. Clad only in my underwear, I ran for the sunny outdoors. At this point I didn't care about modesty. I was grateful I still had the skin on my back and welcomed running into anyone that could help me.
I never made it to sanctuary. I reached the mouth of the cave, and, as I considered which path led to the sunnier spots in the field, Jakob captured me. I struggled, but he pulled me backwards with ease. We landed on the ground and the impact knocked the wind out of me.
Using what feeble strength I still had for kicking and punching, I continued fighting to free myself. But Jakob had recently fed, and he effortlessly deflected my weak blows as he picked me up and carried me back inside to our lair. He dropped me to the ground like the proverbial sack of potatoes and tore the remaining scraps of clothing off my trembling body, his fingernails leaving long red streaks on my skin.
Jakob stripped off his own clothes too, as if the material was scorching his skin and he couldn't bear the pain any longer. His shredded jacket landed in a heap somewhere in the darkness. He roared again as he removed his shirt and kept me pinned.
I squirmed beneath his weight, gasping for breath.
Before he could recover from convulsing, Jakob's face began to slowly change. Whatever had possessed him earlier was already waning.
His body glowed, bathed in the bright sunshine creeping steadily further into the cave.
His eyes turned the deep dark that I knew and loved. "Jakob? Is it really you?"
"Yes, Abigail," he said, his voice returning to a soft baritone. "The Equinox. The cure. We have to mate during the Equinox, in the sun." He struggled to say the words.
Mate? I admit the thought made me feel sick after what I had just witnessed.
He'd warned me that he didn't know what the Equinox would do to him. Well, now we knew.
Whether this was due to the approaching Equinox or some supernatural phenomena, Jakob continued the transformation toward his normal self. As his jaw retracted, his lips also lost their animal sneer, smoothing out and quickly healing to an attractive fullness. He whispered foreign phrases in my ear as he took me in his arms and embraced me. I abandoned myself to the moment, until his tender words became a slur of incomprehensible babble as he wrapped me in sacred ritual.
His knowledge became my knowledge, so that what he knew and what he felt was transferred to me. We were one consciousness, shared between two bodies.
Pale hands, no longer bony and yellow-clawed, lightly caressed my body as he drew complex patterns on my skin. I became a living altar upon which Jakob performed an ancient, mystical ceremony. My mind flooded with images of primitive men and women, mating in the cave, as Jakob and I would be doing. My very soul became the playground of beings that once roamed the world, primordial natures of day and night, black and white, good and evil. I wondered to which side Jakob's love would carry me.
As time passed, most of his cuts and lacerations healed, and his masculine beauty manifested itself once again, leaving his face pale and sweaty, but unblemished. He kissed my throat, the spot burning long after his lips had moved on.
The cave overheated, and ticklish perspiration ran down my back. Flames consumed my body from within and I feared for my soul.
When Jakob licked tiny runnels of sweat off my neck, I was seized by fear and I pounded my fists on his back, demanding he stop.
He didn't listen.
The heat of our passion rose until my body dissolved in pulsing waves of light, of love, of lust. Dizzied, I squeezed my eyes shut. In my new universe I was transformed into love, happiness.
My eyes flew open when sharp needles stabbed my neck.
My eyes focused on Jakob, licking fresh blood from his lips. My blood, which he'd taken from me without even asking.
"Trust me," he said as he bent down to suck more of my blood.
I
wanted to trust him. I really did.
But as I considered his sweat-matted hair, the long fangs sunk in my neck, busy siphoning my blood, a load of questions surfaced in my mind. Who was this man? What was he doing, biting me, drinking my blood as if I meant no more to him than nourishment, like some alley rat? Would this be my fate, to die, my body discarded in the field once I'd quenched his appetites?
He finished feeding and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Maybe Jakob had gotten carried away. Didn't they call it blood lust? I'd previously raked my nails down his back a couple of times in my amorous enthusiasm.
He murmured incoherent words and resumed drawing symbols on my body, using my own blood and his finger.
I forgot all about the burning in my neck. Transported outside of myself, I became a bystander in my own body. No mortal man could've make a woman feel this way without resorting to some magical spell. Light passed through the cells of my body and I floated along, loosed like a dust particle in a tornado. With my eyes closed it felt like there were ten of him, all touching, caressing, or kissing some part of me.
I don't know how long we stayed locked in this union. Time didn't stand still, it disappeared altogether.
The dawn's blinding rays fell directly on the two of us as we lay on the cavern floor. Only then did I understand his insistence that we had to be in this cave for the Spring Equinox. Only this one faced due east for maximum exposure to the rising sun.
He kept his eyes tightly closed against the rays as a scream, a stream of incomprehensible words issued from his mouth.
Jakob writhed in agony but I was too exhausted to do anything to help him. Eventually I collapsed, resting my face against the glistening curls of his heaving chest. Maybe I could shield him, somehow.
He settled down and seemed to lose consciousness. The sun warmed our sweat-soaked bodies as dust motes orbited us in the morning light. He had succeeded in bridging the gulf between light and darkness, and I had felt the immense power of the universe as he'd pulled me along with him. Drowsy, weak and dying, I fell asleep wrapped securely in Jakob's embrace.