Darkness of day, p.21
Darkness of Day, page 21
Jelani watched as she looked around. She muttered under her breath, but he could hear her perfectly.
“How the hell did I end up on the ground?” the woman thought aloud. She ran a hand through her sandy brown hair and turned around, looking in every direction till she found her bearings and turned east. At first she was shaky, holding her head. With a bit of guilt, Jelani surmised it was because he’d taken as much of her blood as he had. On somewhat shaky legs, the woman started toward the nearest exit to the woods.
His physical attraction to Saaya forgotten, Jelani leaped from branch to branch, following the woman from above.
Several moments passed when the jogger appeared again. She cleared the woods and turned right, running in the direction of the brightly lit tennis courts.
They stopped at the edge of the woods and watched till she reached the courts, continuing past and turning left onto a residential street.
Watching her go, Jelani found that he wanted to kill one more vampire: himself.
32
Jelani fingered the leather wrapped hilt of the silver blade in his belt. He could do it quickly, before he managed to stop himself.
“Think it through, Jelani,” Saaya said from behind.
He looked over his shoulder at her. “What?”
“Do not be so harsh with yourself,” she said.
He was incredulous. “I nearly killed that woman and I still fed on her. I’m totally out of control.” He shifted his weight and turned on the branch to face her. Saaya looked below them, then signaled for him to follow.
They dropped to the ground and made their way back into the more heavily wooded areas where there were no paths. In the dark of the night it was like a forest in the middle of nowhere instead of a large park at the edge of downtown. Even now, with his mind filled with grim thoughts, Jelani couldn’t help but marvel at the majestic beauty of Stanley Park. And now, traveling off the paths, he saw yet another dynamic to the park he’d never seen before.
In front of him, Saaya made her way through the shrubs and fallen trees as though she was a part of it. He didn’t want to, but Jelani couldn’t help but admire the captivating dampeal. She appeared uncaring for humans, more concerned with how they amused her. But that wasn’t the whole truth. There was another angle to her personality that he wasn’t sure even she knew was there.
Saaya turned to face him when they finally stopped.
“Tell me what good could possibly be served by my remaining alive?” he asked her. “I have to subsist on blood. I don’t know how that sits with you, since you’re half human, but for me having been born a human, it’s a little upsetting.”
“It takes time. You will adjust.”
“Adjust to what, exactly? Will I become numb to killing people?” He shook his head. “Better to die while I still have most of my humanity intact.”
“Humanity?” She tilted her head at him. “No other species has such a difficult time defining itself. What is humane to a human here may not be exactly the same someplace else.”
“Please don’t wrap this issue up in semantics, Saaya.”
“Very well. You are adjusting quickly, considering the circumstances of your re-creation. You were turned by a vampire that was not only hunting you, but those you love as well. Before and after your re-creation, you had a vested interest in Remy’s demise. Typically, a human has no knowledge of the existence of a vampire before they are turned.
“You’ve been dealing with a lot of anger and frustration at your situation, which is understandable. In one night you killed more shaquora than most Hunters do in a year, and the thirst has only been upon you three times since your reawakening.”
“Oh, that’s a relief,” Jelani said. “Instead of being a full-fledged demon, I’m just a hell spawn, then. Not quite as bad.”
A shadow passed over Saaya’s face that chilled Jelani to his core. It passed just as quickly as it appeared, but he knew that he was pushing a line, here. He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry.”
“Aside from your little rampage at the dark rock,” she continued, “you have been remarkably stable. And most newly turned vampires would have ripped their lover apart in the heat of passion, yet you did not.”
Despite the possibility of him doing such a thing to Alisha, Jelani couldn’t help but be curious about Saaya’s detailed knowledge of his whereabouts.
“Really?” he said, staring at her. “And how do you know who I was with?”
“I have some of your essence in me as you have some of mine in you. For lack of a better term that you can understand, we are linked. To a degree, I can feel what you feel.”
Jelani’s features twisted into a look of horror. He knew she was privy to his mind, but this? “You feel what I feel? So … when me and … you can feel …”
Saaya held up a hand to stop him. “Yes, I can feel it, and no, I am not a telepathic voyeur. I block out most of what you are feeling.”
“But not all,” Jelani said, thinking. “That’s why you knew to find me back there.” He pointed in the direction of his attack on the jogger.
“It’s difficult to explain, but I’m not constantly tuned in to your thoughts and feelings. For now, I am more conscious of you because I’m trying to help you in your transition—”
“My transition,” he yelled. “I fucking hate this. My transition! I didn’t ask for any of this shit. I’ve had Hunters on my back, random bloodsuckers eyeing me like a meal, my friends in danger, now I’m the same danger as the ones who’ve been hunting us.”
He punched a fallen redwood, leaving a considerable hole. “Months running from monsters, now I’m one of them, and the only reason why I didn’t murder someone tonight is because you were in my head enough to come stop me. So in addition to being a dangerous monster, I also have no privacy.”
A lavender glimmer passed across Saaya’s eyes, and Jelani was thrown backward into a tree and pinned against it. Saaya casually closed the distance between them until she stood in front of him. He knew she was strong, that she had some sort of mind powers, but the sheer force of her will pressing on him felt like it could crush him and the tree.
“You have enjoyed your little rant, now listen to me.”
Jelani stared into those glowing eyes with a mixture of awe and trepidation. The dampeal was amazing and fearsome, beautiful and terrifying.
“You are a newly awakened vampire, child. You have not yet begun to learn what it is to walk among immortals, and it will be some time before you do. The concepts of life and creation within the scope of your new existence are outside your current ability to conceptualize, and you would do better to try to understand than to react.”
Saaya moved closer until her breasts brushed against his torso. “Up to this point, you’ve been a newly turned immortal functioning with the mentality of a human. That will not do, but it is understandable. You have a new world to discover, and endless time to do it so long as you do not let your residual human impulsiveness rule your actions and lead to an untimely death.”
She released him and he stumbled forward, but recovered quickly. She walked a few paces away then turned back, and the tension dissipated. “You attacked that woman, yes. You possibly would have killed her. Why is this?”
“Because I’m this thing that I cannot control,” Jelani ventured, bracing himself for another backward trip into a tree.
“Wrong,” came the reply. “You reawakened a short time ago, and have gone for nearly three days since your last feeding. Then you visit and merge with that girl, someone you share love with.” Saaya shook her head at him. Her expression said that he was a fool.
“Physical passion leads to many different appetites, Jelani. You managed not to kill her in the heat of passion, a feat in itself, even for an older vampire. Then you expected to awaken not with the thirst upon you? Foolish child.”
“So,” Jelani said, “back there?”
“You attacked that woman because you were driven mad by the thirst. If you had not the strength of will that you do, I would not have made it in time—”
“To stop me?”
“To offer you an option.”
“Option?”
Saaya looked as if she was on the verge of laughing at him. “But a child, you are. I cannot stop you from becoming the immortal you choose to be, jaan. I can only guide you to the intersection in which your path led, in one direction or another. “If you had drained that mortal woman, you would have walked a different path that led to becoming a predator of humans. There are many vampires who travel that path. You chose the path that is more shrouded in ambiguity.”
“I still fed on her,” Jelani said. “There’s no telling what’ll happen now. She could wake up tomorrow a vampire, and it would be my fault.”
Now Saaya did laugh at him, and the soft tittering made him grind his teeth. He remembered his collision with the tree a few minutes ago and held his tongue.
“Oh, my love. You still know nothing. Your human lore is mostly incorrect. It takes more than a simple bite to turn a human. You must make an active decision to do so, and it involves injecting your vampiric essence into them. What you did instead was focus on extracting just enough of her blood for you to be sustained, then you healed her.”
“Is that what I did?”
She nodded. “You will find that your mind is so much more powerful when you learn to focus it, while your body is equipped with tools to aid in your survival.” She smiled. “We cannot have humans walking around with tiny puncture marks in their necks, can we?”
“So, what you’re saying is …”
“That you did what is called sipping. You extracted just enough to survive, then healed her. She will remember nothing of the encounter.”
“You did something to her,” Jelani said, remembering the dampeal waving a hand over the woman’s face.
Again, Saaya nodded. “I made her sleep. It is the combination of the anesthesia and healing fluids you injected into her that will fog her memory of the experience along with the pain.”
“How the hell is that even possible?”
Saaya waved a dismissive hand. “Why must you know everything? Suffice it to say that the brain indicates pain, so the fluid you inject goes through the bloodstream to the brain, counteracting pain signals to that area. It also clouds the short term memory of the encounter. Now, I am not going into the scientific explanation because I do not care to do so. Become a scientist and study it if you choose.”
“Alright, alright I get you.”
“You haven’t got me yet.” She looked him up and down. “But the night is still here. There is time.”
Jelani closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You never stop, do you?”
She stepped close to him again, and placed a hand on his chest. “Do you wish me to stop, Jelani?”
He swallowed. The rain had long ago soaked through the thin material she wore, causing it to hug her body like a second skin. Even her hair, wet and pressed tightly to the sides of her face, seemed to beckon to him. His heart said yes, his body said no. “Yes.” He found that it hurt him to see the look of disappointment marring that perfect face.
“Still you choose that human girl over me?”
“I’ve been in love with her for longer than even I knew, Saaya. You know that.”
“Do not my charms entice you?”
“You know they do, but would I be nearly so desirable if I just flip flopped? How genuine would my love for her be if I betrayed it like this?”
“I don’t care about your love for her.”
“I do.”
“Why? She will be dead and gone before you realize it.” Saaya spread her hand out to encompass all around them. “They are so short lived. Some of the trees in this park have seen more than five generations of a single human family walk through here. Do you truly want to endure love with a woman who is subject to such ephemerality?”
“That’s what love is,” he replied, but a tiny voice in the back of his mind wondered if indeed he could endure it. Watching the woman he loved age and eventually pass from this life while he remained ever the same. But could he stand the thought of not being with her for the years she was here, short though they may be?
“That’s what love is,” Saaya echoed. “Another concept you do not begin to understand.”
To his amazement, she faded from his vision till she was gone entirely. He stood there, the rain falling around him and pattering on his clean-shaven head.
“Forgot she could do that.”
33
Daniel stood in the middle of the room, watching the two women on the couch. Wen sat with her arm around Alisha, who stared down at the throw rug under her feet. He and Wen had come home from an early dinner to find Alisha on her hands and knees trying to sweep up a mess of food on the floor. At first they didn’t think anything of it, until they saw that her hands were shaking and tears were running down her cheeks.
“It’s not his fault,” she said. “I made him stay. I didn’t want him to go.”
Daniel didn’t know what to think. The thumb-sized bruise on her neck didn’t escape his notice, but neither did the fact that she had no apparent puncture marks in her neck.
“Shh,” Wen said, hugging her friend tightly. “You’re okay, that’s what matters.”
Alisha gave Wen a pat on the leg and straightened. “I’m okay because he didn’t kill me.”
“Looks like it nearly came to that,” Daniel said in a voice harsher than he meant.
Alisha looked up at him. “He’s still your friend, isn’t he? Your best friend?”
Daniel held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Alisha. I just don’t know how to deal with this.” He held his hand out to indicate herself. “And it looks like he hasn’t figured all this out either.”
“Where do you think he is now?” Wen asked.
Alisha shook her head. “He didn’t say. He ran out so fast I barely realized he was gone. He was in a lot of pain.”
“I’m glad you’re alright,” Daniel said, not sure what else to say. He sat down on the opposite couch. “Maybe we shouldn’t have left.”
Wen looked at him, and her expression said that that was the wrong thing to say.
“I hardly think you should have stayed, Daniel,” Alisha said. Despite the situation, she smirked a bit. “We needed the time, even if it almost ended in disaster. I love him. He loves me. She saw the concerned look her friends exchanged, and laughed.
“Quit worrying, you two. This isn’t a battered girlfriend talking. I know he nearly killed me. I know it was a risk being with him alone last night, but it is what it is.” She looked at each of them. “I’m not planning to do anything crazy, okay? The next time I see him, I’ll make sure I’m more careful.”
“And how do you plan to do that, lady?” Wen asked.
Alisha shrugged. “For one thing, I’ll make sure he’s … had plenty to eat, or drink,” she frowned, “or whatever it is he does, before we meet again. And maybe we’ll meet in a public place next time.”
“What do you two plan to do together?” Daniel said, putting his head in his hands. “Are you going to try to make some kind of life together around this situation?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Part of me says that I’m crazy and I should run away as fast as I can. But the larger part of me that knows him, knows his heart, wants to find a way to help him.”
“I’ve been thinking about that for a while,” Daniel said, “and I’ve come up with nothing.”
“There has to be something we can do for him,” Wen said.
“Like what?” Daniel replied. “Donate blood.” Both women wrinkled their noses at the idea.
“That’s just weird,” Wen said. “Besides, it’s not like you can just go to the hospital and get blood drawn and take it home.”
“And I am not doing a home syringe thing,” Alisha said, “and packing my blood in a container in the fridge. That’s going way too far for me.”
“No arguments here,” Daniel agreed. “So what, then?”
“I wouldn’t spend the rest of my short life on questions like that, if I were you.”
Wen yelped, Alisha gasped, and they jumped from the couch, darting around the coffee table. Daniel was on his feet placing himself between the intruder and the women.
“Aw, isn’t that brave. Placing yourself between the big bad vampire to give the,” Remy glanced around Daniel at Alisha and Wen, and winked at them, “no doubt delicious, damsels a chance to escape.”
“Dude, seriously. Why the fuck do you keep coming here? Do you truly believe we’re going to go talking about all this? You have to know by now that’s the last thing we’re gonna do. If you’d just leave us alone—”
The Hunter was in his face in an instant. His hand snapped up and grabbed Daniel by the throat in an iron-like grip.
“Let me tell you something, human,” the vampire snapped, lifting him from the floor. “Your lives mean absolutely nothing to me. I don’t care who you are or what you do, I don’t even care that you might or might not go running to your stupid little police, or anyone else. I’m here because your friend has been out of my reach, and you,” again he looked around Daniel, whose feet dangled several feet above the floor, “all of you, are the worms I intend to hang on the hook to bring him back from wherever he’s hiding.”
The vampire’s hand squeezed and Daniel was sure his neck would be crushed, slowly. Through the growing haze in his thoughts, he heard a voice that sounded far away.
“Put my friend down.”
Remy released him and Daniel fell to the floor, coughing and wheezing as he struggled to get air through his bruised windpipe.
“Oh ho!” Remy said, casually turning to face Jelani. “That didn’t take long at all.”
“You’re not very smart,” Jelani said. The sound of his voice sent shivers down Daniel’s spine even as he struggled for air.
