Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) (3 page)

Well, fuck that.

I was his mother. I carried him in me for
nine months, I stayed up with him countless nights, bathed him, fed
him and worried about him daily. I loved him so much that it hurt.
I loved him so much that I would kill for him. I loved him so much
that....

I would give my life, my soul, my eternity
for him.

I was his mother, and I was
ordaining—declaring, dammit—that he would live. And lord help
anyone who tried to stop me.

I knew I could be damning him forever. I knew
this, understood this, but I also knew there was a glimmer of hope.
The medallion. Reputed to reverse vampirism. I had always figured I
would seek its answers for myself.

But not anymore.

Now I would seek its answers for him. At all
costs. I would devote my life to finding a way to turn him mortal
again, to give him back his normal life.

And in the meantime, how would I explain to
him what I had done to him? I didn’t know, but I would think of
something.

Later.

For now, though, time was wasting. My son was
growing dangerously hot. I reached down and touched his narrow
shoulder.

“Anthony,” I whispered, leaning down,
speaking directly into his ear. “Wake up, baby. Mommy’s here...and
everything’s going to be okay.”

Chapter Five

It took a few more tries to awaken him, but I
finally succeeded.

He emerged slowly from wherever he’d been. I
suspected that place was the blackest of depths. Then again,
perhaps not. Perhaps he’d been in heaven. Perhaps he’d been playing
on streets paved with gold. Or, more likely, playing Xbox with
Jesus.

Only to return here, with me, sick as hell in
a hospital and ready to die. Perhaps had I let him be, he wouldn’t
have suffered. Perhaps he would have slipped out of this world and
into the next with ease and little pain.

Perhaps.

He awakened slowly. As he did, a part of me
screamed to let him sleep. If a nurse came in now, she would have
been mortified.

What am I doing?

“Mommy?” He squirmed under my arm.

“Hi, baby.”

“What’s happening, Mommy?”

I’m saving your life, I thought. I’m saving
it the only way I know how.

“How would you like to feel a little better,
baby?” I whispered, and it was all I could do to keep my voice
steady, to keep it from cracking with fear and uncertainty.

Anthony turned his sweating face toward me;
his eyes focused on me for the first time. As they did so, I was
surprised by their strength and ferocity. Despite the darkness, he
seemed to look deeply into me.

It was hard to imagine that this
strong-looking boy was dying, but the black halo hadn’t retreated;
indeed, it was thicker than ever, and I saw his impending death as
surely as I was seeing him now.

“They’re waiting for me, Mommy.”

I started shaking my head. “No, don’t say
that.”

“It’s okay, Mommy. I’ll always be with you.
Forever and ever.”

“No, baby, please don’t say that.”

“I’m supposed to go soon, Mommy. They’re
waiting for me.”

I was still shaking my head, crying,
whimpering, rocking, holding him tightly. Too tightly. “Stop
talking like that, baby. We’re going to get you better. I have some
medicine for you.”

His eyes narrowed, studying me in the
darkness. He then turned his head and looked to the right. I
looked, too, and saw something I wasn’t prepared to see. The light
energy near the window seemed somehow brighter, more frenetic, more
alive. Something was there, something had materialized, but I
couldn’t see what. At least, not clearly. Whatever it was, it
wasn’t a human spirit, that much I knew. It was somehow brighter
and it radiated a warmth that I could feel from across the
room.

“He wants me to tell you something,
Mommy.”

I was crying now. I couldn’t stop my
emotions. I wanted to be strong for my son, but I couldn’t. I just
couldn’t. This was too much for me.

“Who, honey?”

“The man in the light.”

I tried to speak but I couldn’t. Sobs burst
from my throat. Finally, I said, “What...what does he want to
say?”

But I knew what he was going to say, didn’t
I? That my son was only here on earth for a brief time. That he was
meant to pass on at a young age, a death that was meant to help
others grow. That he was here to fulfill some cosmic karma
bullshit. I didn’t want to hear it. What mother wanted to hear
that?

My son was quiet for a moment, cocking his
head slightly, listening. Then he smiled broadly. “He says that he
loves you, Mommy. That he has loved you from the beginning of time,
and will always love you. Forever and ever.” He paused, smiling at
me serenely, and now I saw now a golden light around his face. The
light shone through even the blanketing darkness. My son looked
beautiful, angelic. He cocked his head again, and listened some
more. “He wants me to be strong for you.” My son’s face turned
somber, and now he was nodding...a very sad and solemn nod. “He
says you are making the best choice you can. He wants you not to be
so hard on yourself.”

“I don’t,” I gasped, my words strangled, “I
don’t understand what’s happening.”

My son reached out, took my hand. I could
barely see him through the blur of tears. He said, “Mommy,
sometimes it’s okay not to understand.”

The words came from my little boy, but they
were not his own. They were from someone older and wiser, and I
felt again that I was speaking directly to his soul.

“But I don’t want to lose you, baby. I can’t
bear the thought. I couldn’t live. I wouldn’t know how to live. But
I can help you. I know how to help you. You can stay here with me.
Is that what you want, honey?”

He squeezed my hand, and now he stroked my
hair gently, his little fingers running through my matted locks
before they gently turned my face toward him. “Of course,
Mommy.”

I sensed that he was making a great
sacrifice. I sensed that he was postponing heaven to be here with
me now.

“He’s telling me there are many paths a life
can take, Mommy. There are many alternate routes to the main road—”
Hearing my little boy say alternate was just surreal— “We are going
to head down an alternate route, a longer route. But we’ll still
get there, Mommy, eventually.”

My son paused, looking over at the warm
source of light. He squeezed my hand.

“He’s going now, Mommy. He wants you to know
there are no wrong choices. Do what you have to do to be
happy.”

Now the light near the window began to fade,
and as it did so, my son turned somber. A moment later, his eyes
shut tightly.

“Anthony!” I cried, suddenly terrified. But
he was still breathing. Barely.

“Mommy?” His voice sounded weak, tiny. It
wasn’t the same voice I had just heard.

What the hell was going on?

“It’s me, honey,” I said, sounding weak
myself.

“I feel sick, Mommy.” He was hotter than
ever.

“I know, baby,” I said, as I pushed up the
sleeve of my sweatshirt. “I know, and I have some medicine for
you.”

I brought my exposed wrist to my mouth,
paused briefly, and then bit down.

Chapter Six

The hospital was nearly silent. The hum of
machines. Light murmurings. Beeping somewhere. Actually, lots of
beeping.

But now another sound filled the air. This
one had been barely distinguishable at first, but now it was
growing louder. And not just louder. More frequent, too.

It was the sound of drinking, slurping,
swallowing.

At first, I had let the blood from my wrist
drip freely into his mouth, although a lot of it didn’t actually
make it into his mouth. Some of it had spilled down his chin, and I
had acted quickly with tissues from his bedside table to catch the
stray droplets before they stained his sheets and gown, and led to
unwanted questions.

But as more blood passed through his mostly
closed lips, he began to react. First, his tongue appeared, swiping
at the blood. Then his lips parted.

And then he swallowed.

He made a noise then, a strangled gasping
noise, and as he did so, I saw something remarkable. A soft white
light issued from his mouth, briefly hovered before the bed, and
then faded away.

And just as it faded away, my son reached up
and gripped my wrist with surprising strength, and held onto it
tightly as he drank from my wound.

And he drank and drank.

My blood. My tainted blood. I’m horrible. I’m
a horrible mother. I’m a ghoul. I should be locked away. But you’re
saving him, dammit. You’re giving him a chance to fight another
day.

I was a wreck. My mind was a wreck. My heart
was a wreck.

As my son suckled from my wrist—reminding me
briefly of the babe who had suckled at my breast so long
ago—something else amazing happened, something that made me realize
there was no turning back.

The black halo began to recede...to be slowly
replaced by a faint silver shimmering, emanating perhaps an inch or
two from his body. My son’s beautiful natural golden and red aura
was nowhere to be seen.

It’s happening, I thought.

And still my son drank from my wrist. I could
feel the blood being drawn from my arm, sucked into his ravenous
mouth. The instructions had been quite clear: You will know he’s
had enough when you begin to feel weak, as weak as you do in the
presence of the sun. The instructions had come from a fellow
creature of the night. A much older creature of the night. It was,
she said, a fine balance of giving him enough but also not
depleting myself.

In the hallway, I heard footsteps. In fact,
two sets of footsteps.

They’re coming.

And still my son drank, biting down onto my
wrist hungrily, drinking great gulps of blood from my open
wound.

The footsteps were just outside the doorway.
I could hear urgent talking now.

The weakness hit me with a shudder. I gasped
and yanked my arm away, tearing some of the flesh. My son’s
drinking had kept the wound open, kept it from healing
supernaturally, as it was inclined to do.

But now as I pulled it free, I could already
feel it closing, healing. I grabbed tissue from the bedside table
next to me, and had just wiped my son’s lips and chin when the
lights flicked on.

Doctors and nurses rushed in, and as I
stepped aside, I discreetly wiped the blood from my wrist and
pocketed the crimson-stained tissues.

* * *

The cause for the alarm had been simple
enough.

My son’s heartbeat had rapidly decreased, so
much so that the heart monitors had alerted the nursing staff.

I stood back, watching the nurses and doctors
swarm over my son, and as they swarmed over him, my son sat
motionless. Fully alert and awake.

Watching me.

Chapter Seven

While the doctors fussed with my son, I
stepped out of the room and headed quickly for the elevators.

My hands shook the entire way down, even when
I held them tightly together. As I stepped past the receptionist
and security guards, I found myself cursing God, the Universe and
everything in-between for putting me in such a shitty situation.
The security guard said something to me, but I couldn’t hear him. I
hid my face and walked quickly out into the night. Certainly, this
hadn’t been the first time he’d seen an upset mother.

Outside, I took in a lot of air, filling my
dead lungs, walking in tight circles, running my hands through my
hair. I was a wreck. The tears flowed.

What had I done? What had I done to my baby
boy?

You saved him, I thought. You saved him,
dammit.

I fished out my cell phone from my handbag
and called my rock, the man I had leaned on for so long, the man
who had been just a name until recently. Now he was a name and a
face...and teeth.

“It’s late, Moon Dance,” he said, his voice
groggy. He yawned loudly, smacking his lips a little. It was only
recently that my relationship with Fang had graduated from instant
messaging to phone conversations and even personal meetings. Even
so, I was still getting used to the gentle sound of Fang’s voice. A
mellow tenor, so different than Kingsley’s deep baritone. “How’s
your son?” he asked.

I told him much better. Much, much better,
and he snapped awake instantly. I filled him in on my night, a
night that had taken me from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, to my
son’s side, and feeding him from my bleeding wrist.

Fang said nothing at first. As he digested
this information, I realized that just by hearing his soothing
voice I had calmed down enough to stop my hands from shaking. As I
waited for Fang to speak, I saw a man standing in a nearby pool of
light, smoking and looking up towards the heavens. The gleam of
tears on his cheeks was evident. A children’s hospital in the dead
of night is not a good place for a parent to be.

Finally, Fang said, “So, you really did
it?”

“I had to.”

“I’m not judging, Moon Dance. Actually, I
think you made the right choice. A brave choice.”

“Then why do I feel so horrible?”

“Because it’s the unknown. Because it just
happened. You saved your son, honey. He’s alive because of you.
Because of his mommy.”

But I couldn’t escape the feeling of being
selfish, that I had exposed my son to something dark and horrible
just to keep him alive, just to keep me from dealing with a
lifetime of heartbreak.

“You’re not being selfish, Sam,” said Fang,
using my real name, which he rarely did. He also read my thoughts,
which was of no surprise since he and I had developed an unusual
psychic connection over the years. And meeting him recently for the
first time had only enhanced that connection. “It’s your job to
look out for your son. It’s your job to keep him safe from
harm.”