* * *
I awoke with a start, swallowing the scream rising in my throat. I mistook the inky darkness for the bleak woods of my dream. Then I spied Jakob beside me and I let out a sigh. The cave. We were still in Lascaux. He stirred and lightly kissed my neck. His lips were soft and tender, full and expressive. He seemed back to normal. Everything would be all right now.
"Jakob? How are you?" I refused to acknowledge the nightmare. Those fangs, ready to rip out my throat. I knew whose they were.
"I'm very thirsty. We have to go," he rasped, pulling away from me and rising to his feet.
I stumbled when I stood up. Lights flashed in front of my eyes as if I suffered from a bad New Year's Eve hangover. Dressed in our dirty rags, we walked past the dead fire, the odor of singed wood strong in the air.
We emerged from the cave into gray twilight. A thin blood-orange line ringed the western edge of the open field. In a sky the purple color of bruised skin, a creamy full moon rose. A few sparkling stars already braved the vast darkness; pinpricks of hope for the eternal wanderers of the world.
I sighed, suddenly content.
Since traveling with Jakob, sunrises—once my favorite part of the day and my personal reward at the end of all those night shifts—had mostly been replaced by sunsets and moonrises. But I didn't mind. I could happily watch the night sky for the rest of my life, as long as Jakob shared it with me. In fact, I'd even begun to learn the names of the constellations.
Before I could point out Cassiopeia a cramp inflamed my belly. Hot tears rolled down my face, and I barely managed to keep the sour bile in my throat. I sank heavily down to the muddy ground and waited for the agony to abate.
"It will soon pass, Abigail," Jakob said, his face contorted as if he could actually feel my pain. His hand caressed my matted hair.
He was right. The torment eventually did subside, but I held my breath, dreading, waiting for another cramp to strike. Something alive and angry twisted inside me. Wetness trickled down my neck and snaked down my torso. I absentmindedly scratched at the itch, and my fingers glistened in the moonlight. It took me a moment to realize that this was my blood, and it was flowing from another one of Jakob's bites.
He stood too close, a solid mass of black shadows absorbing all the surrounding light. The cold fear that had consumed me earlier hit me like a bad dream remembered. I shivered and scrambled weakly to my feet.
Darkness hid Jakob's face. "Shall we finish your cure, Abigail?"
With those words I understood, in a way I had never let myself see before, that in order for this miraculous cure to work, I would have to die. Even though I had known this fact from the start, from the moment he'd told me about being a vampire and performing the turning to heal me. The full realization hit hard.
Jakob was proof that non-living things could exist after death and that they could even love, if I was to believe his words and actions. But what about me? If I let him kill me, would I be brought back? Would I ever love again? Or would I simply be another midnight snack for him, a blood bag as he referred to his victims, the shell of my lifeless body left to rot in this French field? I wanted to have faith in him, but no one else that he'd fed upon had ever been cured of anything except old age.
He extended his hand, bridging the small gap between us. "Trust me," he repeated, the long fangs denting his lower lip.
Trust schmust. I wasn't ready to die alone out here in the middle of nowhere. I shrieked as loud as I could.
No one came running to my rescue. Jakob just stared at me.
"Don't." I whimpered as I fell to my knees in a last ditch appeal for compassion. If anything, my pleading made him grow impatient with me.
"Don't worry," Jakob repeated in his lover's voice.
He turned on the full force of his powers, and I felt his presence in my head. Those dark eyes mesmerized me, anesthetized me, and pushed the fear away. To show that he meant me no harm, Jakob gently cradled my face in his hands as he tenderly kissed me. When the kiss deepened and our lips parted to receive each other, the tips of his fangs raked my tongue. I gasped and tried to pull away. Undeterred, he slid his mouth to the side of my neck.
The fight for life is strong—I'd seen it displayed at the hospital so often—and I writhed frantically, struggling to free myself from his tightening embrace. But his grip was sure and strong, and I was caught in his snare.
Jakob tongued the flowing blood from my freshly re-opened wound. I trembled in his arms, and tears flowed when he sucked harder, his jawbone digging painfully into my tense neck muscles.
The world spun, and lost much of its color, until the night sky exploded with bright fireworks. A profound weariness possessed my entire being, and I went limp.
In my mind, however, I laughed at my gullibility. Jakob had obviously lied to me. He'd simply read my mind and told me everything I'd wanted to hear, merely so that I would help him. Traveling. Europe. Love! Cure! But there would be no cure for me.
Then everything went black.