Bring On the Night (19 page)

“Ciara, breathe,” Shane whispered, his thumb caressing the side of my hand. I focused on the pressure of his warm skin, and on the rhythm of my breath.

In, one, two, three, four. Out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
A distant yoga class memory told me the exhale should be twice as long as the inhale. Was my life flashing before my eyes? If so, why not any of the fun parts?

The stabbing pain subsided as Monroe withdrew his fangs.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“No, I’m sorry,” I told him. “You’re doing fine.”

Everyone seemed to find this funny, or maybe they just really needed a laugh.

“Shh.” Monroe motioned to the rest of them, who silenced instantly. Then he wrapped his arm around my waist and raised my torso. His other hand slid behind my head, supporting my neck, and just like that, I was suspended in his embrace. He lowered his mouth to my neck, where the blood
flowed in a hot, steady trickle.

He drank. I closed my eyes and dropped Shane’s hand.

The room fell silent, and my world shrank to nothing but me and Monroe. I clutched his back until I had no more strength, then let my hands fall where they would, onto his right hip and the crook of his left arm.

The pain in my neck was a pinprick next to the bellowing agony of my swelling brain. The virus had stepped up its attack, as if realizing something else might have the privilege of stealing my life. It felt like my carcass was being tugged in half by two wild beasts, and I had to choose which would win.

You won’t take me, you itchy little bastard.
I tried to bleed harder.

But Monroe’s swallows were slowing. Blood was escaping his lips and running down to the back of my hairline.

Finally he let out an exhale and pulled his mouth away, holding me in the same position, head below my heart.

“Why y’stop?” I slurred.

“A belly can only take so much. You have to do the rest on your own.” His thumb grazed the wound, making me hiss with pain. “It’ll come.”

So I wait to bleed to death
, I thought.
This is happening. It’s happening now.
My heartbeat and breath slowed as my body tried to delay its decline. “When?”

“Not long, child.”

Shane choked back a sob. Under his breath, he began to recite a Hail Mary, the words tumbling over one another. In a far corner I heard Noah praying, too. Their faith felt like a shield between me and permanent death.

I let Shane get through a few more Hail Marys, a couple of Kyrie Eleisons, and an Our Father before using my last bit of strength to touch his hand.

“Play for me,” I whispered. “Anything.”

He cleared his throat as if struggling to speak. “My guitar’s back at the apartment.”

“Use mine,” Monroe said.

I heard a collective gasp around me. No one ever touched Monroe’s guitar.

Shane didn’t wait for a second invitation. “Thank you.”

A few moments later he was back at my side. I heard the rich wooden echo of the guitar as he sat down. I could picture the instrument’s polished crimson surface.

Shane took a few tentative strums, then let out a breath of quiet admiration. He started with my favorite song: Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Otherside,” then moved on to “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead. Finally he played my song: Luka Bloom’s “Ciara,” the first thing he’d ever played for me on the guitar, on our first date, which seemed like a pile of eternities ago.

By the end of the song, my vision had turned black, and the room was filled with weeping. Monroe’s tears fell hot on my neck as he held me.

I drifted for minutes that seemed like hours. My body felt warm in its core but cold on the surface. With each passing moment, the surface thickened.

At the end of the dark tunnel of my vision, I glimpsed a bright white light.

Well, I’ll be damned
, I thought.
Or not.
Peace swept aside the feeling of foolishness. It was nice to be wrong, or at least wrongish. All in all, this whole dying thing hadn’t been too bad.

Until the convulsions.

They started in my lungs, gripped by a sudden icy fist. Then the shudders spread all over, seizing every muscle. I bit my tongue and tasted blood.

“This ain’t right,” Monroe said.

Shane dropped the guitar with a hollow
dong!
“What’s happening to her?”

A palm splayed across my chest. “She’s dying,” Spencer said in a shaky voice, “but not the way we want her to.”

Inhale, one, two, three, four.
It wasn’t happening. The words “respiratory arrest” bounced around my brain, fed by the tale of Aaron’s death.

An arrest, for sure. Cop, kneeling on my chest, shoving a nightstick against my windpipe. Tasing the ever-living breath out of me.

My hands flopped and my fingers stretched, as if they could grasp the air and suck it into my body through the skin of my palms.

“Feed her!” Shane’s voice rang out above me. “Feed her now.”

“Shane, listen.” Spencer’s hand lay on my quaking form, rattling his words. “She ain’t dead yet. We don’t know what bringing her back will do, what she’ll become.”

“It’s the only chance she has. Feed her!”

The beam of white light, which had been sauntering toward me with the leisure of a Sunday driver, suddenly surged forward like a charging lion. It devoured the blackness until the light was all I could see. My mind shrieked one last defiance.

Everything stopped.

No screaming, no crying, no singing. No breathing, no choking, no thumping heart. No white, no black, no color in between.

It was just… over.

Dust in the Wind

I waited. I thought of nothing.

No one came to greet me—no St. Peter or Satan’s minion with a pen and clipboard to declare my eternal fate. For one long moment, I was alone.

And then, I was with everything and everybody who had ever lived. We were all held together in… something. Something good.

I reached out so It could gather me into Its eternal embrace.

Then the nape of my neck began to tickle, and I realized I had a neck with a nape to tickle. But by what? Not a finger or other solid object.

It was the music. From another world a melody curled out and called to the one within me, a song I didn’t
even know I had. Half alive, they reached for each other, blocked by the walls of this realm I’d entered.

I had to go back, unite the two melodies into one harmony. I grasped for the other’s music, but it was as thin as a thread and just as fragile. It couldn’t hold me, it could only lead me—if I found the strength to follow.

I let the song within guide me, but the journey back was
like walking through chunky peanut butter. The… something… wanted me to stay forever. It offered one last chance at this thing called peace.

I turned away.

Darkness wrapped around me again. Pain spiked my neck as someone rolled me onto my side. A hot substance filled my mouth, a liquid thick as cotton.

To keep from smothering, I swallowed.

Light and heat flared inside me, as if I’d swallowed the sun. The space blazed out, filling my bones and muscles with life. I remembered who I was and where I belonged. Here. Basement, WVMP Radio, Highway 97, Sherwood, Maryland, United States, North America.

Earth.

The pain vanished, and I became thirst.

My hand locked around Monroe’s forearm. My tongue sucked and lapped, and my teeth ground into his flesh, urging the blood from his veins. I was pure instinct, an instinct I had no strength to fight.

Under the noise of my harsh gulps and needy moans came the sound of a single guitar. As the chaotic roar in my ears quieted to a steady thrum, I discerned the lilting melody.

Shane was singing the song he wrote for me, the song that convinced me to marry him, the song that had now called me back to life. I had followed his voice straight out of… heaven? Hell? Didn’t matter. I only wanted to be here, drinking, listening, feeling. Living.

Monroe’s essence flowed into me, ancient and cold and silent, but with a glimmer of the Ciara I had been. It was like finding a better, stronger version of myself and taking it
deep, making me a part of me again.

Just as the song ended, I hit my last swallow. No one told me to stop, but I knew it was enough.

I let go of Monroe and opened my eyes. My vision was blurry, as if my corneas were coated in Vaseline. Was I going to be the world’s first visually impaired vampire?

“You’re not done yet, child.” Monroe stroked my cheek, filling my nose with the heady scent of his blood. “But we’ll be here. Don’t you forget—”

My scream sliced his words.

My bones were stretching.
Bones. Stretching!
Impossible. True. Every muscle, tendon, ligament was twisting, hardening, fusing, all grinding against the frayed ends of my pain nerves.

Imagine every weapon at the Inquisition’s fingertips: the rack, hot pokers, thumbscrews, the iron maiden. Then imagine enduring them all at once. Multiply by twenty.

I writhed on the bed, shrieking and cursing, begging for death, despising the Ciara (fool!) of ten minutes ago, the one who had turned down eternal peace and painlessness.

The vampires took turns holding me so I didn’t shatter myself or the furniture. I’m pretty sure I broke Shane’s arm, but he didn’t let go.

Finally a slow flood of relief started in my gut and oozed out into my limbs. My fingers and toes were the last to stop twitching.

I opened my eyes. The room had brightened, but not because someone had turned on more lights. I lay curled in the fetal position on the torn, bloodstained sheets.

“Ciara?” Shane said. “Can you hear me?”

I blinked twice for yes, then realized we’d never established an unspoken code. “That sucked.”

Relieved laughter echoed throughout the room. Noah said, “Praise Jah!”

“You ain’t kidding,” Jim added. “This calls for a party.”

My breath was still coming hard and fast, like I’d finished a triathlon. My muscles felt limp as string cheese.

I rolled onto my back. Shane was lying beside me, his gaze traveling over my broken, mended body. His hand reached out—tentatively, as if it might go straight through me, as if I were a hologram.

He touched my face, and a shiver passed between us.

“I need to explain,” I whispered. “I need to tell you why I did this without you.”

“You tried to ask me, I realize that now. But I couldn’t hear you. I wouldn’t listen.”

“I thought you’d say no.”

His eyes turned sad. “I gave you a million reasons to believe that. And maybe you were right.”

My heartbeat stuttered. Did he hate what I’d become? Had I gained my life only to lose the best part of it?

“Maybe I would’ve said no.” His whisper softened. “But then I would’ve said yes. Even if I hated myself forever for it, I couldn’t have watched you die.”

My fingers curled into the front of his shirt. Whatever happened, I’d never let him go.

“Folks, she needs some quiet time,” Spencer said. “And you’d better go, son.”

“Is she going to be okay?” came another voice, one that sounded thicker than the others. Juicier.

“You need to leave now.” Spencer’s tone was urgent. “Please.”

My new muscles tensed, jolting into tight cords. I waited for Jeremy to pass the bed on his way to the door. Then I sprang.

I was halfway through the air, launching myself over the back of the couch, on a direct trajectory with Jeremy’s neck, when a great weight tackled me. My body slammed to the ground.

Jeremy screamed as he ran. I snarled and kicked under Spencer’s weight. The steel door opened, then slammed shut.

“Ain’t no doubt now the change worked.” Spencer got off me, then helped me to my feet, where I swayed, unsteady.

“I was just playing.” The gob of drool on my chin made me a liar. “When’s he coming back?”

“Judging by the look on his face?” Shane came up behind me. “Never.”

“Ciara, we thought we had lost you.” Noah stripped the bloody sheets off the bed. “We thought we were too late.”

“Almost.” I leaned against Shane’s solid frame. “The virus was definitely catching up to Monroe in, well, killing me.” I looked at my maker, who stood at the foot of the bed, hands in pockets, already wearing a clean shirt. “I was in the light.”

They stared at me.

“What do you mean,” Spencer said, “
in
the light? You saw the white light from far away, right?”

“At first, but then it swallowed me up.” I looked at their shocked faces. “Did I do it wrong?”

They exchanged worried glances, but then Jim spoke up.

“Doesn’t mean anything. Everyone has a different
experience.” He grinned at me. “So was it a trip or was it a trip?”

“It was something.”

He put on a wistful look. “I wish I could do it all over again.”

I would never understand him.

“How do you feel?” Shane asked me.

“Alive.” My voice resonated, as if my head were an arena. “What time is it? Can we go out? I want to hunt and drive fast and hurdle cars.”

I took two steps toward the door before my knees folded. A pair of strong arms caught me. I gaped at the carpet, which was two inches from having my nose embedded in it.

“Easy there.” Bearing most of my weight, Shane helped me shuffle to the closest armchair.

Behind me, Jim snickered. “Not ready for prime time.”

The door to the hallway opened. I craned my neck as I sat, my mouth watering at the thought of Jeremy.

Regina stood there, hands pressed to her cheeks. “You did it. You’re alive.” She rushed over to take me in her arms, pressing my face to her sharp collarbone. “I’m so much happier than I thought I’d be.”

“Thanks. I think.”

She let go of me and sniffed my mouth. “You guys haven’t fed her yet? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

After a short, oddly uncomfortable pause, Spencer said, “I was just about to do that.”

Regina peered at my face. “How do you feel?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.” She touched my arm, with more gentleness than I thought she possessed. “You died and came back to life.”