Bloodline (3 page)

“The bus should be there any second, Serena. Don't miss it. There's money in the same pocket where you found the phone.”

“But—”

“Your baby's alive. Now go. Catch that bus. I'll explain the rest once you're safe.”

The phone cut off. But Serena had heard the only words she really needed to hear. “My baby's alive,” she whispered. A smile pulled her dry lips, feeling alien. “My baby's alive,” she said again, and she began walking again just as the giant bus lumbered into sight and pulled to a stop. She was running for the bus stop as the air
brakes hissed and the door cranked open. She tucked the phone into the backpack and slung it over her shoulder as she got aboard, pausing at the top of the steps to fumble in the backpack for money. She found a wad of bills and a handful of change, dropped some coins into the receptacle and then made her way to the first empty seat and sank into it.

As soon as the bus lurched into motion, she felt a rush of relief, relief that grew with every bit of distance she put between herself and the hospital. The relief of knowing that her baby was alive was making her almost giddy. And the fear of being pursued was gone, as well.

She wondered what was behind all this. It must be some sort of baby-stealing ring. They were probably planning to arrange an expensive adoption to some wealthy couple and make a small fortune by selling her child. The doctor must be in on it. But all her nervousness was probably overkill, wasn't it? And the nurse was no doubt just being dramatic. After all, it wasn't as if they would want to hurt her, was it? Why would they lie to her if they were just going to…kill her or something?

She was okay. She was free. Maybe once she started digging, started getting close to finding her baby, maybe there would be danger then. But surely not now. She was away from the hospital. She was meeting with the one person who might be able to tell her what was going on. She was fine. And she was going to get her baby back.

The bus stopped. Serena went back over that phone call in her mind. The third stop. She was to get off at the third stop. So there were two more to go. She used the time to examine the contents of the backpack more carefully. The file folder contained medical records—her
baby's time of birth, weight, length, head circumference, blood type.

Blood type—marked with a star. She read the notation beneath it.
Child possesses the Belladonna antigen. Extremely rare. Government notification mandatory.

She frowned, not knowing what that meant, then felt eyes on her. Glancing up, she saw the man in the seat across from her look away quickly. She closed the file folder and thrust it back into the bag just as the bus stopped again. The man got off.

Serena took a surreptitious look around as the bus began moving again, saw no one paying her undue attention, and again pawed through the bag. There was a set of keys, with a tag on them, like a luggage tag. The address on the inserted card read
72 Montgomery Ave.

Finally the bus stopped for the third time. Serena zipped up the bag, got up and slung it over her shoulder, then made her way to the front, down the steps and onto a sidewalk in the suburbs. The bus pulled away as she looked up and down the neat, unlined road. And then she spotted it. A little red VW Bug, parked across the street alongside a playground. It was a convertible, and the top was down, giving Serena a clear view of the woman behind the wheel. As it was no doubt meant to do.

It was the nurse she remembered, Maureen Keenan, no longer in uniform or wearing a name tag. She lifted a hand in a friendly wave as she saw Serena.

Smiling in relief, certain she was about to get some answers, Serena looked both ways, then began to cross the street. Just as her flip-flops hit the pavement, the little red car exploded.

The Present

T
here was something about the man who stood across the tack room, staring at me. Something that made things deep inside me begin to stir and tingle and…
ache.

Did I know him?

I saw surprise in his eyes, followed by suspicion and a hint of fear, though why he would be afraid of me, I couldn't begin to imagine. I hadn't expected that reaction. I thought he would either try to kill me, as that other person had, or offer to help me. That he would fear me made no sense.

I let my eyes move up and down, inspecting everything about him and wishing something would elicit a memory. I felt a longing—and something else—and I wondered why.

He was tall, and his rolled-up shirtsleeves revealed hard, hairy forearms that my fingers suddenly yearned to touch. His shoulders were wide and strong. Strong enough to hold my tired head quite easily, I imagined. Strong enough
to ease my worried mind, too. Why would a man like this one be afraid of me?

And yet, that was what I felt.

My gaze ran over him again and again, as if drinking him in, and the more I looked, the more relieved I felt, though it made no sense. My attention lingered on his face, because I was suddenly helpless to look elsewhere. He was a beautiful man, with eyes as dark as melted chocolate and moodier than a storm cloud. So much in those eyes—restless, reckless things, but hidden just enough that I couldn't identify a single one. His hair was gleaming black and long, its natural waves captured and bound in a leather band behind his head.

And again, that flash. My fingers burying themselves in hair just like that.

His
hair? Was this the man I was kissing in the one and only memory remaining to me? But there must have been millions of men with hair like his in this wide world.

And yet it was to this one I'd been inexorably drawn.

His clothes were nothing special. The pants were olive green with numerous pockets. The shirt was a tan button-down. He wore a wristwatch with a wide silver band. I caught a glimpse of something beneath it—something blue on his skin, and my eyes focused there, as I tried to see more.

He turned his hand, just slightly. Just enough so that I couldn't see the mark. But even as he did, I turned my own hand palm up at the mark on my inner wrist. Blue ink, in a series of short lines, some thicker, some thinner. A bar code. Could his wrist bear a similar mark?

“Tell me what you're doing here, in my stable,” he said.

His voice touched my nerve endings, rubbing roughly
over them until they quivered and stood erect and expectant. The sound of it, and the feelings it elicited, drew my eyes back to his. “I'm hungry,” I said. My voice sounded plaintive and weak, like that of a small orphan child, begging for crumbs. I felt irritated by that, so I spoke again, my tone deeper and stronger, deliberately so. “I need shelter and a place to rest, and…”

“And?”

“I don't know. Something…drew me here.” I wasn't sure whether telling him the truth was a good idea or a bad one, but the words spilled out of me without my permission all the same. “When I saw this place from the distance, I felt compelled to come here. I knew it would be…safe.” Blinking twice, I lowered my eyes, unable to hold his as I whispered, “Is it?”

“I'm no threat to you, unless you're one to me.”

I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath, until his answer let me release it. “How could I be a threat to anyone? I told you, I don't even know who I am.”

“How can that be?”

A sob rose in my throat. Stupid, that his one obvious question would be enough to send me beyond the edge of control, but it did. Suddenly I just couldn't take any more. I wrapped my arms around myself and lowered my head, ashamed of my tears. Of showing him such weakness. I sensed that it wasn't something I did easily, and it angered me, but not enough to give me the power to stop it. “I don't know. I don't remember.”

Sighing deeply, he stared at me for a long moment, and then, as if making a decision at last, he quickly took off his shirt and held it out by the collar, offering it to me.

My hand trembled as I took it, never looking up very far. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome, Lilith.”

I had been pulling the shirt around me when he said that, and the name, Lilith, made something tickle deep within the core of my brain. It brought my head up, made my eyes narrow and strain, as if I were trying to look through his skin and bones to see into his soul.

“What did you call me?”

He seemed to wish he could bite the word back as soon as he said it. I could tell by the way he quickly averted his eyes, leaned the pitchfork against the wall and began to fidget with a harness that hung from a peg. “I have to call you something,” he muttered. “It seemed as good a name as any.”

I pulled the shirt the rest of the way on and buttoned it. Then I scooped my hair out of the collar. His shirt came to my upper thighs. It was only slightly longer than my hair.

“You said you were drawn to my house from the distance. Do you remember anything prior to that?”

I nodded, allowing him to believe he had distracted me from the matter of that name. A name that felt…familiar. “I remember…a little. And I have no reason not to tell you all of it. But I'm tired, and I'm
incredibly
hungry.”

“All right.” He nodded twice, and said it again. “All right. Come on to the house. I'll get you something to drink.” As he spoke, he turned and started walking, taking my arm lightly as he did.

“I need a meal, not a drink,” I told him. My stomach was growling. “I need meat. A nice rare burger or a steak or—”

He stopped walking and stared at me. “You said you don't know who you are. Do you know…
what
you are?”

I frowned at him, having no idea what he meant. “I'm…a woman. An amnesiac. A…” I couldn't think of anything else, and I could tell by the look in those brown velvet eyes that I hadn't said what he'd wanted me to say. “What?” I asked softly. “What am I?”

Even then, though, I think there was some inkling. I could outrun a deer. I could see for miles. I could hear things no ordinary person could hear, smell things only a bloodhound should be able to smell. I began to shake, and I lowered my head, looked at the mark on my wrist, felt tears welling up in my eyes. My knees seemed to weaken as I whispered the question again. “What am I?”

My legs turned to water, and his arms came around me, fast and sure, to keep me from falling.

“I feel so weak.”

“I'm sorry. I should have seen it sooner. Come on, Lilith, I've got you now.”

He scooped me up as if I were a child, and I gave in to the weakness that was overwhelming me and let my head rest on his sturdy shoulder. I closed my eyes. Softly, I said, “I don't even know your name.”

“Ethan,” he told me. And that, too, caused a powerful ripple in the still waters of my mind.

“Ethan,” I repeated. “Thank you, Ethan.”

“You may not be thanking me later,” he said.

I frowned and searched his face, but he kept his eyes forward as he carried me out of the barn into the darkness of the night, and then along a winding path toward his house. Soon enough, we were inside. I felt the comfort of warmth enveloping me as he closed the door behind
us. I smelled a wood fire and looked around for the source, but we were only in the entry hall. He kicked off his shoes without putting me down, then continued into a modest living room that welcomed me like a hug. The furniture needed only button eyes to resemble a family of teddy bears—plush and soft and brown. Green and gold and russet throw pillows littered each piece like the fallen autumn leaves outside. The fieldstone fireplace held a dancing blaze that painted my face in heat and light, and above its gleaming oaken mantel, there was a painting.

I stared at it, unblinking, my tired eyes suddenly finding the strength to stay open.

It was a woman, a nude woman, with coppery curls like ribbons draping down her body. Twined around her was a giant snake, and she looked as if she adored the thing. She had more curves than I had, and I had no idea whether her face bore any resemblance to mine. The title, “Lilith,” was written unobtrusively across the bottom, and beneath that the name of the artist, John Waterhouse.

“Is it the hair?” I asked.

“Is what the hair?” Ethan lowered me onto the teddy-bear sofa, which was every bit as soft as it looked. Then he opened the antique trunk that served as a coffee table and pulled out a blanket.

“In the painting,” I said, and I pointed. “Is it because our hair is alike that you called me by her name?”

“Partly that.” He draped the blanket over me, then turned to gaze at the picture. “But there's a lot more to Lilith's story than her hair. Legend has it that she was the first woman, created by God alongside Adam. His equal. She refused to submit to him, was too independent to be
tamed, much less owned or commanded. And so she left him, and God was forced to make another companion for him. That time he made the woman from Adam's rib, so she would know her place.”

“And that was Eve?”

“So the story goes. And even then, poor submissive Eve got blamed when things went to hell. Didn't do her much good to behave, did it?” He faced me again.

I frowned, unsure what he was getting at. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I sense you're a lot more like Lilith than Eve. Your spirit is like hers, indomitable.”

“I don't feel very indomitable just now.”

“You are. Trust me.”

“How do you know?” I tried to see whatever was hiding behind his eyes, because I was sure something was. “Do you know me, Ethan?”

He lowered his head quickly. “How could I?” As he said it, he crossed the room, and then he left entirely.

I rested my head on a russet pillow, listening as he rummaged around in the next room. When he returned, only moments later, he brought with him a huge ceramic stein. He pressed it into my hands. It was warm.

I smiled, thinking of hot cocoa, and immediately brought it to my mouth for a long drink. And yet the moment it hit my tongue, I knew it wasn't cocoa. But it
was
exactly what my body needed. What I craved. It was rich, thick, tasting slightly of sulphur and salt, and yet I found it irresistible.

He stood watching me as I tipped the stein upward, drinking and drinking and drinking, until I'd drained it all. I lowered the stein and wiped the back of my hand over my lips.

It came away red.

Blinking down at my hand and then up at him, I asked, “What was that?”

“Just a favorite of mine. Call it a—protein shake.”

“
What
did I just
drink,
Ethan?”

“Close your eyes and relax, Lilith. There are things I have to tell you, and you're going to need that inner strength you don't know you have—you're going to need all of it.”

I didn't close my eyes, and I didn't relax. Instead, I sat up straighter on the sofa, planted my feet on the floor and held the blanket around me like a cloak, watching Ethan as he paced away from me.

“You said you'd tell me,” he said. “Everything you remember.”

“I hope you don't expect that to fill the evening.” My attempt at levity fell flat, and I drew a breath, wished to hell he would stop pacing and lifted my head.

To my surprise, he
did
stop pacing—just when I thought it. He met my eyes and moved to the overstuffed chair beside the sofa. As he sat, I organized my thoughts, going back as far as I could remember.

“I woke up on a hillside underneath a bridge. It was raining. I didn't know who I was or what I was doing there. I still don't. A car came along, and I ignored my instinct to run and instead stood there waiting, hoping they would stop and help me. They did stop. And then the window went down a little, and someone poked a gun out of it and ordered me to get in.”

His expression grew tighter, more troubled, with every word I uttered.

“A man's voice? Or a woman's?” he asked.

“Man's.”

“Would you recognize it if you heard it again?”

I lifted my brows. “I don't know. Maybe.”

“What about the car? Would you recognize that?”

I swallowed, closed my eyes, tried to remember. “It was a big, black SUV. The windows were tinted so dark that I couldn't see who was inside. But I know it was a Cadillac. A black Cadillac Escalade.”

“That's very good.”

I smiled slightly in response to the praise and opened my eyes. He still looked troubled. “I want you to close your eyes and relax, and just think about when you first woke up under the bridge.”

I leaned back on the sofa, letting my eyes fall closed again, relaxing my body. “I remember waking up.”