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Twilight’s Last Gleaming
Disclaimer: Characters and situations from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.
Part II
“In some of the legends,” Jack said, striding quickly along the sidewalk, “the bite wounds disappear once a vampire’s victim dies. The only place I ever saw it mentioned was in Dracula — the book, not any of the movies — but I think Stoker did a pretty comprehensive roundup of the vampire myths popular in his time, so we have a precedent for what happened to you. The bite marks vanishing, that didn’t play a major part in the book, but for us …”
Loryn, struggling beside him, gasped, “Jack, can we please slow down? I … I think I’m going to be sick.”
“You need to be as active as possible,” Jack explained gently, supporting her by the elbow. “Anything that, well, expresses life, acts to reinforce your humanity. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. That’s why I made you eat, and why I didn’t pick one of the closer parking lots.”
Still, he reflected, this might be overdoing it. He had fared poorly in Army basic training, barely meeting the minimum physical requirements; stung by the humiliation, he had embarked on a dogged self-improvement program, building steadily on previous progress, and still (along with other activities) ran five miles each morning, a minimum of five days a week. Even without her current weakness, Loryn might have had trouble matching the pace he set. He slowed a bit, and continued, “Anyway, it wasn’t important in the book, but to us it means a lot. In fact, I think it points to the best chance we have.”
Loryn snatched a breath and said, “I don’t understand.”
“Well, the puncture marks show that you were infected by another vampire, which so far follows the ground rules as we understand them. But then your case jumps right up and starts breaking rules.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “You rose as undead the night you were killed; it’s supposed to be at least one night later, usually three or more. You seemed to have your own mind, with no vampiric influence on your personality.” (At least, none he could be sure of. Those eyes …) “And you’re human in the daytime, which doesn’t match anything I ever heard. Vampires are reanimated corpses; even if they could move around during the day, they’d still be dead.”
Loryn nodded at each point, and he realized he had unconsciously slowed further while talking. “I suppose that’s all true,” she said, “but how is it significant?”
“Well, keeping in mind that this is all theory — until last night I had no idea vampirism was anything more than interesting legend — I think the basic process got thrown off track by your mind being away when you were, uh, killed, and then returning afterward. Your soul, your self, wasn’t possessed by vampirism because it was somewhere else at the time.”
“I’m not sure I agree,” Loryn replied. At a quick glance from Jack, she went on, “I know, I was messed up last night and I said something about being soulless, but … this supposition that a person’s soul is corrupted when he’s killed by a vampire, it doesn’t feel right. Souls just don’t work that way, at least not according to Presbyterian Sunday school. I may be forced to believe in vampires, but I can’t accept that people can be turned evil by a physical transformation.”
“Maybe they’re not,” Jack said. “Maybe you’re right about the soul being off-limits, and when someone is killed by a vampire his soul takes off on whatever path God laid down for it, and the unsouled body gets jump-started by some infusion of vampire energy.” Loryn frowned, considering, and he continued, “Looking at it that way, you’d wind up with the original body, remade according to some kind of hell-blueprint; even if it retained its original memories and a sort of template of the original personality, there’d still be a completely new pilot in the cockpit.”
“That makes sense,” Loryn acknowledged. “At least, my mind doesn’t rebel at the concept. You may think I’m being silly, arguing definitions this way, but … well, it just matters, that’s all.”
“Whatever the definition,” Jack said, “I’m convinced you short-circuited the process. Your consciousness was separated from your body, so it wasn’t affected when the body was killed. Your body, now, it was dead, but not completely, vampirism put it into a kind of neutral state, unliving but undeteriorating, so that when you returned you were able to get back inside. So your body’s been, oh, programmed for un-life, but the conscious side of vampirism hadn’t set in yet. Now you had your own mind inside an unliving but not-totally-dead body … and when you were exposed to sunlight, the vampire nature turned dormant, so that your human life had a chance to come back into play.”
“It’s logical to a point,” Loryn said, “but you still aren’t making a clear distinction between the physical and psychological …” She stopped, and laughed. “There I go again!”
Jack smiled back at her. “Okay, so I’m working it out as I go. We know you were a vampire last night, but with the original you still in charge; we know you’re human today. Those are the things that are important, and we’ll build what we can from there. Oh, great, now what?”
They had reached the college’s library, but the main entryway was roped off and a paper banner stretched across the doorway: PLEASE USE OTHER ENTRANCE. Past it Jack could see scaffolding and stacks of building materials, and the chirrr! of an electric drill sounded from some point outside their view. “Renovation,” Loryn sighed. “I don’t know what they’re thinking, it’s a waste of money. The library has been too small for years, what we need is a whole new building.”
“I don’t really care what they do, I just wish they could have picked a different time.” Jack made his way to the side entrance, still automatically towing Loryn by the elbow, and moments later they were inside.
It was true that the library was too small; even at this early hour nearly half of the tables and study carrels were already occupied, and Jack realized that he had taken it for granted that they would have to check out the texts they wanted and do their study elsewhere. He looked quickly through the card catalog and made a list of likely-looking titles: the Annotated DRACULA; In Search of Dracula; Vampires, Werewolves and Other Night Creatures; the Immortals; A True History of Vampires and Vampirism; Hell’s Offspring; Balkan Legends; and a half-dozen others that looked as if they might have some material of tangential interest. Three of the books were out at present, but Jack carried the rest to the checkout counter.
The woman at the desk, a long-faced redhead Jack remembered as a graduate assistant in one of his introductory sociology classes, gave him a side-tilted, quizzical look as she stamped his selections. “Vampires?” she said.
“Folklore and literature,” Jack told her briskly. “Theme paper.” And tried to keep himself between the woman and Loryn; the last thing he needed was for her to notice the Band-Aid on Loryn’s throat and leap to some asinine (and all-too-accurate) conclusion.
“We’ll need most of the day just to skim through these,” Loryn observed as they left the library.
“We might,” Jack agreed. “That’s why I figured we’d double-task, do our studying at the beach.”
Loryn glanced at him in momentary puzzlement, then said, “Oh. Sunlight.”
“Right,” Jack said. “It brought you back to life this morning, so I’d like to give you as much exposure as possible while we still can.” He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead and continued casually, “In fact, it isn’t really legal but I’ve heard there are sections of Dodson’s Beach where nobody really cares about a little nude sunbathing. I think it’s worth considering.”
Her laughter was instant and genuine, and loud enough that several heads turned in their direction. “In your dreams!” she told him between giggles.
Well, that could have gone better. “All right,” he said, shrugging. “Then we’ll stop by your place and get the skimpiest swimsuit you have. It probably won’t make that much difference. We’ll take lunch, too, a big one: see if you can handle solid food, fresh fruit, meat, that kind of thing. If not, more soup. And exercise, lots of activity, I want to cover as many bases as I can.”
He paused a moment, concentrating. Had he forgotten anything, was there some promising line of approach that had escaped him? “I guess that’s it,” he decided. “Come on.” He took Loryn’s arm again and quickened his pace.
* * *
Jack sat cross-legged on the sand, scanning the section of the Immortals devoted to the undead. A few feet away Loryn lay prone on a blanket, propping herself up on her elbows to read another book. Her dark hair was tied up to expose more skin area to the sun, and her swimsuit left her almost as effectively naked as she would have been without it.
“Damn it!” Jack slapped his hand down on the open pages of the book. “Of all the absolute crap …!”
“What’s the matter?” Loryn asked, boosting herself up to a sitting position.
“This.” Jack gestured in disgust at the book. “The Greeks — ancient Greeks, I guess — believed that if a cat jumped over a corpse before it was buried, the dead person would become a vampire.” He smacked the book again, viciously. “How can we dig any useful information out of all this garbage? We never know whether something is legitimate or mumbo-jumbo.”
“You think we’re wasting our time, then?” Loryn wanted to know.
Jack sighed. “No. Frustrating or not, we need to find out whatever we can that might help us. We just don’t know what it is yet.” He tossed the book aside and selected another. “I think we should stick mostly to the Eastern European stuff, though; so far that’s what corresponds best to what we know from last night. There are all kinds of variations and contradictions, but at least it gives us a place to start.”
“What about this, then?” Loryn indicated her own book. “It’s supposed to be a psychological analysis, I think they’re theorizing that vampirism is a perversion of the suckling instinct.”
“I don’t know, there might be something to it.” Jack stood up, stretching muscled arms. “What is a vampire but a perversion of human flesh, anyhow? They work with the material they have, memories and inborn instincts. For instance, I’ve always thought there was a lot of sex mixed up with vampirism. Ever notice that vampires usually go after victims of the opposite gender? And some of the fictional scenes of women succumbing to vampires are practically flat-out seduction.”
Loryn nodded agreement. “I’ve seen those, but I’d say that tells us more about the storytellers — or their audience — than it does about the facts.”
Ouch. “Probably,” Jack acknowledged. “Even if you discount for cultural bias, though, there are still stories of vampires acting as literal incubi or succubi.” He grimaced. “Sounds a lot more unpleasant than the standard ‘demon lover’ setup, and I can’t see what it has to do with your situation; in fact, I don’t even remember how we got onto the subject. Let’s take a reading break and get you some exercise.”
This late in the year the water was too cold for swimming to be practical, but Jack led Loryn up the beach and back in an easy run, then moved her through a series of calisthenics, using the warm-up exercises from his judo club workouts as a model. He kept it light — the aim was to stimulate and extend her humanity, not to exhaust her — and called a halt when she began to stumble in the sand. While she caught her breath he looked her over, evaluating not only her current condition but how it compared to this morning’s. Her color was better, he was sure, and she didn’t seem as thin as before. The lines of her body were clean and full, and she moved with a new sureness. Nice, very …
He pulled his eyes away. “Feel up to lunch?” he asked her.
She looked up at him, smoothing damp hair and perspiration from her brow. “Why, yes,” she said, sounding surprised at the fact. “Yes, I think I do.”
Eating slowly, pausing frequently to wash it down with fruit juice, Loryn ate a sandwich and two oranges, then another sandwich. The last obviously took an effort, but she kept doggedly on until she finished. Jack, watching, was pleased that she appeared no worse for it. Her previous feedings had left her almost white with nausea.
“Back to the books?” Loryn asked when she was done.
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “Let’s take another run, but then I’d like to head back into town. I’ve changed my mind about the sun,” he explained. “You’ve gotten a good dose already, and if you get sunburned it’ll just leave you weaker. Not much, but still the opposite of what we want.”
After the run, they gathered up the books and lunch basket and carried them back to the car. The return drive was quiet, with practically no conversation. Loryn had started on In Search of Dracula, and Jack was occupied with his own thoughts. They stopped briefly at a mini-mart to pick up more food that fit his notion of life-reinforcing; including, as an afterthought, salami. For the garlic.
It was past one o’clock when they arrived back at Jack’s apartment. “I’ll put up the groceries,” Loryn volunteered as they went in.
“Okay,” Jack answered abstractedly. He carried the double armload of books into his bedroom and dumped them in a corner. Opening the curtains at the window, he adjusted the blinds so that they threw a barred rectangle of sunlight onto the bed. He surveyed the result, then leaned back against the wall, wondering if he was crazy.
Food. Exercise. Sunshine. He had subjected Loryn to all of these, trying to force extra strength into her humanity, hopefully at the expense of any possible lingering taint of vampirism. During their discussion, however, another concept had come into focus: if vampirism was in fact a distortion of the sexual drive, as some claimed and his own logic led him to believe, then might not sex itself be another and quite potent expression of humanity?
As a working proposition it seemed plausible, but putting it into practice was another matter entirely. Their personal history together … not only had it never taken the path to sexual intimacy, the nature of its end made any such action now difficult at best. Loryn was unlikely to welcome any sudden attempt at seduction, and he didn’t relish the idea of trying to explain to her that he thought she needed sex as a matter of therapy.
She appeared at the door, startling him. She had not yet changed from the bikini. “The groceries are all stowed away,” she said. “What should we do now?”
The question, posed in total innocence, caught him so completely off-guard that he was momentarily incapable of clear thought. And as he struggled to formulate a reply, he realized there was no way he could go through with it; the bitter truth was that he would risk her death and diabolical transfiguration, rather than risk looking like a fool.
As great as a fool as she had been to rely on him …
“I think I should get some sleep,” he heard himself saying. “I only had a few hours last night, and tonight may not work out any better. I won’t be much use to you if I can’t stay awake, so better to do something about it now.”
“All right,” she said. “How much sleep?”
He glanced at his watch. “If I drop off pretty quick — and I think I will — I can get nearly four hours and still be up an hour or so before sunset. The way I feel right now, that might make a big difference.”
“I see.” Loryn lowered her eyes for a moment, then looked back to him. “Do you think I’ll … change again, when night comes?”
“I don’t know.” Jack shook his head. “You have a couple of meals inside you, you’re stronger now, and … well, there’s an idea I’ve been kicking around, I may be able to stack the deck a little more in our favor before then. But I don’t know.”
“I see,” she said again. He had been afraid his uncertainty would shake her, but she simply stood in the doorway, regarding him with grave, steady eyes. “Jack, if I should turn — completely — I mean, with not even a daytime life …”
“It won’t come to that,” he broke in. Too insistent, overdefensive, he could hear it himself. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You’ll do your best, I know,” she said. “And I’m not giving up. But we have to face the truth: we could lose. We could lose. And if we do …”
He didn’t want to hear this, but he couldn’t find his voice to protest. There was something about her just now, a force, an inevitability. “If we do,” she went on, “will you kill me? Can I trust you for that?”
He blinked, but didn’t look away. Couldn’t. “Yes. I will. I promise.”
It won’t come to that. It won’t come to that.
* * *
The bedside alarm snapped him awake at five o’clock. He had slept in his clothes, but he felt so grubby that he allowed himself a two-minute shower, then donned a fresh pair of slacks and a sports shirt. He found Loryn in the kitchenette, papers and open books before her, sipping a cup of chicken broth. “I heard your alarm, and the shower,” she said. “How do you feel?”
“Half-dead,” Jack replied without thinking; then, cursing himself, went on quickly, “But I needed it, I’d be in a lot worse shape if I’d just tried to keep going. What do you have there?”
“Notes,” she told him. “I thought I’d try to pull together the things that seemed to fit my … experience. And then I remembered what you said about my case breaking rules, so I just started looking for common elements. Here, you can see for yourself.”
Jack took the page she turned toward him and studied it. Loryn had compiled a list of some of the characteristics vampires were traditionally supposed to possess:
-- no reflection
-- no shadow
-- can’t enter a home without invitation
-- aversion to crucifix
-- aversion to garlic
-- aversion to sunlight
-- ability to change form (bat, wolf, etc.)
-- ability to command some animals (wolves, rats, etc.)
-- ability to mesmerize prey
-- enhanced strength
-- dormant during day (sleep in earth of their native land)“I think I see what you mean,” Jack said. “It’s like a checklist, what’s true of you and what isn’t. Okay, we know you had no reflection, but what about a shadow?”
“I don’t remember,” Loryn said. “I wasn’t watching for it at the time. You had to invite me in, so we know that one is a YES. I definitely had the strength, and when the sun hit me …” She shuddered in remembered pain. “Out of the total list, then, we have four that we know apply to me, and six that have never been tested.”
“And only one definite NO,” Jack added, for he had heard the unspoken acknowledgment in her tone. “But that one is major-league: you don’t hibernate during the day, you’re human. That’s our biggest discrepancy and our best hope. You’re human during the day, and we just have to expand that to full-time.” He scanned the list again, and repeated to himself, “Four YES, one NO, six undecided.”
Though she had kept her composure, Loryn seemed to have paled at his summation. “Four to one … I guess I have to hope some of the other six fall out in my favor.”
“Or we’ll force them to,” Jack said, keeping his tone firm and determined. “Put on your shoes, we’re going out.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked as he unlocked the passenger door of his car for her. “Or am I not supposed to know?”
“Let’s just say it’ll be something new for both of us.” He grinned at her. “Allow me a little mystery, okay? I don’t get to do this often.”
She accepted it with a nod and a sigh, saying, “Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t take long. It’ll be dark in another hour.”
“That’s part of it,” he told her cryptically. “Don’t worry, we have enough time.” He eased the car out into the street.
Fifteen minutes later Jack pulled into a parking lot and turned off the ignition. “Here we are,” he announced.
“I can see that,” she said. “A church.”
“A Catholic church,” he corrected her. “St. John of the Cross. A lot of things vampires don’t like are directly connected to the Catholic Church: crucifix, holy water, sometimes the communion wafers. It occurred to me that if we came here to wait for sunset, the church might act as an insulator to keep out your … other side, come nightfall.”
They left the car and approached the church. “There’s a service at six o’clock,” Loryn observed, pointing to an announcement board at the sidewalk, movable letters behind a glass front. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have people around me when the sun goes down.”
“No argument from me,” Jack said. “But there’s a little chapel at the side that they use for morning services, and we should have that pretty much to ourselves.”
“How did you find out all this so quickly?” she asked.
“I pass by here during my morning runs, I’ve seen the people coming out of the chapel. And there was a feature on the news when they finished restoration of the main building and it reopened for evening services.” He shrugged. “Also, I checked the Yellow Pages in my bedroom after I finished dressing.”
She followed him inside the little building at the side. As he had predicted, no one else was there. He stopped just within the doors, nodding with satisfaction as he dipped his fingers into the water of the small font set into the wall.
“Holy water?” Loryn ventured.
“I think so. At least, that’s how it seems to work in some of the movies I’ve seen.” He used his dampened fingers to cross himself (forehead, chest, each shoulder) and then motioned for Loryn to do the same. She complied — he held his breath as her fingers broke the surface of the water in the font — and when she finished the brief ritual he relaxed and sighed.
Loryn tilted an eyebrow at him. “What did you expect?”
“I wasn’t sure.” He gave her a little half-smile of apology. “Sometimes people who’ve been infected with vampirism, even while they’re still alive they can’t tolerate contact with blessed articles. They get burned or shocked. Point for our side, I guess.” He sat in a pew two rows from the front, and she took a place beside him. “Now we wait.”
From the morning newspaper he knew that sunset would come at six twenty-six tonight. At ten after six Loryn shifted uneasily. Jack glanced at her. “Something?” he inquired.
“I don’t know.” She gestured vaguely. “I feel … closed in.” He opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind and closed it.
By a quarter after six she couldn’t sit still, and her face was taking on a panicky look. “What’s the matter?” she asked him frantically.
“What’s it like?” he asked her in turn.
“Claustrophobia,” she said, her hands tugging at each other in her agitation. “Pressure. An … oppressive feeling. Jack, I’m scared. Something is going to happen here, and it won’t be good.”
It was twenty after. “What you’re feeling is conflict,” he told her evenly, eyes fixed on her. “Two things fighting each other. That’s good, it means there is something.” His voice quickened. “Hang on, Loryn. For God’s sake, hang on!”
She clutched at the top of the pew in front of her with white-knuckle desperation, face drawn, literally whimpering in her distress … and then she broke. “I can’t!” she sobbed. “Oh, I can’t!” And in an instant she was on her feet, running for the door.
Jack was after her like a racing cheetah, his hands closing on her arm, her hair. “NO!” he shouted. “Stay here! Just a few more minutes, Loryn, please —!”
It was hopeless. With frantic strength she twisted from his grasp and was out the door. He followed, stumbling and cursing. He was an idiot, he should have seated her first and placed himself between her and the aisle …
It was twenty-six after six. The last touch of sun faded as he rushed outside.
Loryn was standing halfway down the block, her back to him, her head down. Tragedy was written in every line of her. Jack slowed as he approached her, his skin prickling with unease. She was thin, and very pale in the new dusk; it wasn’t really dark yet, the street lamps weren’t even on, but for an instant it seemed to him that she was basking in the coming of night, letting it wash over her, just as she had reveled in the morning sun twelve hours earlier. Then she turned to face him, her eyes dark wells of unguessable pain.
“I couldn’t stay,” she said, and the parched lifelessness of her voice was a fresh shock. “It might have worked — you were right, the church was fighting the … thing inside me — but I couldn’t stay. I wasn’t strong enough. Oh, God.” Her head bent again, and she shook with misery.
“Come on,” Jack said gently. “We’ll go back to my place, try to think of something else.” He took hold of her arm, pulled gently. “Come on.”
He had made a mistake in taking her arm. She followed him without resistance, but her flesh was cooling beneath his fingers, the touch of it unnatural and shocking. He led her to the car, black unreasoning dread coursing through him at every step, not daring to remove his hand lest it alert her to his fear. It was irrational, he had touched her the night before with no such reaction; yet now, with no warning or understanding why, he was suddenly, deathly afraid. With a terrible chilling clarity Jack realized the staggering strength of the thing walking beside him. In normal circumstances he would have been nearly three times as strong as Loryn, for almost three years he had done four workouts a week, alternating Nautilus equipment and free weights; but the arm he held was smooth and firm with contained, demonic power, and the knowledge of his helplessness was a solid knot of terror inside him.
When he reached the car he had to release her arm to open the door for her, and he thought he would faint at the thickness of the relief that flooded through him.
After that, strangely, it took no courage for him to get in the car with her. As they pulled away from the church, Loryn asked, “What do you plan to do now?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He hadn’t really recognized just how much he had been counting on this latest, failed gambit. “We’re almost done with the books, but we can finish them tonight. Study you as you are now, maybe, try to learn more about your condition.” He pondered silently for a few minutes, then offered, “Maybe if we came back to the church tomorrow, found some way to keep you there …”
“No.” Loryn shook her head. “It wouldn’t work. I can feel it. Holding me inside against my will would drive me insane and destroy me. You had the right idea, taking me there, but … no. The strength to make myself stay has to come from me, and I don’t have it. It. Just. Isn’t. There.”
There was no reply he could make to that, and they finished the drive in silence. It was full night by the time they arrived back at his apartment. He watched her as they went inside, noting and cataloguing differences in her appearance, his attention carefully clinical. She was thinner than she had been last night, he was sure of it; and, though her pallor hadn’t increased, it seemed to … fit her better, as if she had moved closer to something of which paleness was an intrinsic part. She had lost ground, there was no denying it, despite their best efforts her vampire nature was stronger now.
Resolutely he thrust away his apprehension. Loryn sat waiting by the couch while he went through the apartment turning on the lights, then came back to rejoin her. Before he could speak, however, she forestalled him: “Don’t bother with the reassurances. There’s no way we can put a good face on this.”
Instead of being taken aback, he felt a perverse obstinacy rise up inside him. “Hey, ease up a little,” he told her. “I’ll admit we’ve taken some bad breaks, but that doesn’t mean we have to look at everything in the worst possible light. Speaking of which, have you noticed that, yes, you DO cast a shadow?”
She raised her eyes, frowning, and passed her hand between the surface of the couch and the light from the corner lamp; the shadow of her hand followed the motion. “There’s another NO on our checklist,” Jack went on, emboldened. “And if we count your non-response to the holy water, that makes the score four YES, three NO. Which is better than we had before.”
“You’re playing word games,” Loryn reproved. “If you tally the holy water in my favor, then my being forced from the church has to count against me. And we haven’t checked any of the other things yet.”
“Okay, we’ll start right now.” Jack went into his bedroom, returned carrying a black-bound book. As he approached the couch he turned the front cover toward Loryn, and now it was clear that the book was a Bible, embossed on the front with a plain gilt cross. He held the Bible out before him as he neared the couch, in the manner of a gift being offered for inspection, and Loryn kept her gaze fixed on the cruciform emblem.
When the Bible was perhaps two feet from her face, Loryn turned away with an abrupt flinching motion, and Jack withdrew a step. “Damn,” he muttered.
“That’s right,” she flung back, teeth baring in a momentary snarl. “It repels me. It makes me feel sick, angry. No, not angry: enraged. I want to destroy the thing … and you, for pushing it at me.” Her eyes met his, bitter with self-hate. “So you can count aversion to the cross as another YES on the list. That makes it six to three now. What’s next? Garlic?”
“I don’t have any,” Jack said. At the moment, waving salami slices under her nose would have been more insulting than informative. “What about any of the other things? A vampire’s special abilities?”
She turned away again. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to try. If those things are within me, then using them will only take me closer to soullessness. I won’t do that. I don’t dare.”
“So it’s …” Jack stopped, not knowing how to phrase it. “It’s worse now, you think?”
“More than I know how to say,” Loryn answered wearily. “Last night it was just the knowledge of what had happened to me, but now … now it’s inside me, too. I told you about the anger, but there’s also … hunger. Not too strong, yet, but it’s there. It’s like when you wake up after surgery and you’re still fuzzy on medication, the pain isn’t a problem yet but you can feel its presence and its mass, and you’re already thinking, Oh, boy, this is going to be bad. Well, it’ll be more than bad, I’m only just now feeling it and I can tell that much.”
“Hunger,” Jack repeated, listening for faintness in his voice and relieved to hear none.
“And awareness,” Loryn said. She looked back to him, her gaze holding his. “Did you know that blood … sings? I can hear yours, feel your heartbeat.” Her voice grew husky, her eyes seeming to expand and glow. “I can sense the traceries of veins and capillaries running beneath your skin, I can taste the richness of it floating on your breath … I …”
Jack suddenly slapped his hands together, a quick sharp clap! of sound. Loryn jerked, blinking, and Jack stepped back, keeping his eyes away from hers, shaking visibly in spite of all he could do. “Careful,” he said unsteadily. “You were hypnotizing both of us. I had forgotten that was one of a vampire’s abilities …” He tried to stop himself, but it was too late.
“That’s right,” Loryn spat. “That makes the seventh YES, doesn’t it? No, craving blood made seven, this was the eighth.” Her mouth writhed. “We’re losing. I’m losing. Why don’t we face it, and send you out for a hammer and stake? I’m not anything that can be called human any more. I’m a … night stalker.”
“No!” It exploded out of him with a violence that made Loryn jump. “You don’t belong to the night, not yet. You can still think, you can still fight for God’s sake!” He stopped, glaring at her. “You aren’t a night creature. You aren’t. Twilight, yeah, maybe … but no more than twilight, and by God we’re going to push you back into the day!”
He turned away from her, then back again. “One more thing,” he said softly. “When I get a hammer and stake, that’s when I’ve given up. That’s when there’s no humanity left in you, when Loryn is dead and there’s nothing for me to do but exterminate the thing with her face. Until then, shut up about it. I don’t want to hear you say it again.”
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