Authors: Kelley Armstrong
Talia tensed. “How much is this—”
He cut her short with a small laugh. “My apologies if that sounded like a sales pitch. I’m an academic, Ms. Lyndsay, and I deal only in the currency of knowledge. Yes, I will keep notes on Adam for my research, but he will remain an anonymous subject, and I promise you that it will be strictly observational. I’ll never subject him to any test or experiment for the sake of my work. My career is established. I’m not seeking to conduct groundbreaking studies, but simply to learn and to help others do the same.”
“Learn about what? Does that mean you know what’s—” She stopped, realizing she’d been about to say
what’s wrong with Adam
. “You know what’s happening with Adam? If you’ve seen this before—”
“If you’re asking for a label, I can’t provide one. I don’t believe in them. What matters is that you have a very healthy, very special young boy and that none of that—his fascination with fire, his special abilities, those anomalies they found in his blood tests—is a cause for concern. We can continue to meet like this to monitor Adam’s progress and make him comfortable with his skills.”
She looked Vasic in the eye. “Do people buy that bullshit?”
He blinked and sat back.
“You said you’ve met other children like Adam. Do their parents fall for that? You pat them on the head, tell them everything is fine, and they go away happy?”
“A child’s welfare is paramount—”
“I didn’t need you to tell me that my son is fine. I
know
he is. What I want is an explanation. Not a label. An explanation.”
“There’s no need—”
“—to raise my voice? I’ve been searching for an answer for months, Doctor, and now you have it and you think you can just tell me everything is fine and I should be happy with that?” She paused, reining in her anger. “You said you wanted to meet Adam?”
Again, Vasic blinked, as if surprised by the change of tone and subject. Then he smiled and his eyes gleamed with barely contained enthusiasm. “Yes, certainly. I would very much like to meet him. He sounds … remarkable.”
“He is.” She took out her business card. “Here’s my number. When you’re willing to tell me what’s going on, I’ll bring him by your office.”
She let the card flutter to the table, and strode from the coffee shop.
When a week passed with no word from Vasic, Talia began to second-guess herself. Maybe he hadn’t been as interested in Adam as he’d seemed. Or maybe he really didn’t know what was happening, only that he’d seen similar abilities before.
No, he
was
interested. There had been no mistaking the way his mild gaze had lit up when she’d asked whether he wanted to meet her son.
As for what was happening, he knew that, too. He wasn’t just fishing with his questions, like the other doctors and specialists who’d randomly tossed out queries. He’d known exactly what to ask, including about Adam’s father.
Especially
the questions about Adam’s father. Nothing she’d said had shocked or surprised him … because he’d expected it.
After nine days with no call, Talia decided to light her own fire under Robert Vasic. First, she sent Adam to visit his great-great-aunt Peggy. Peg was like a second mother to Adam, and a fairy godmother to Talia. When Talia had been choosing colleges, her mother pushed her toward Berkeley, where her aunt Peg lived. Peg had offered to let Talia stay with her but had understood when Talia had wanted to try dorm life instead.
After Adam came, though, her aunt had been adamant that Talia would live with her. She would stay in school, while Peg—a retired schoolteacher—looked after Adam. When Talia had graduated, she hadn’t left the area. After all Peg had done for them, Talia wasn’t about to wrest her son away from the old woman.
Once Adam was at Aunt Peggy’s, Talia made the call. Then she waited. Less than thirty minutes later, someone pounded at the front door. Didn’t ring the bell or knock politely, but pounded. She opened it to see Vasic on her stoop, bareheaded in the rain, water streaming off his hair and beard, panting as if he’d run from the car and was unaccustomed to the exertion. Seeing him like that, she felt a little bad about what she’d done. But only a little, and only for a moment.
“Are you all right?” His eyes were dark with concern, and she felt another slight pang of remorse.
“I’m fine,” she said.
As he searched her face, she knew she should try to seem more upset, even be crying, given what she’d told him on the phone. But making that call had drained her limited acting abilities.
“You should sit down,” he said, taking her arm to guide her.
He thinks I’m in shock
. She gently pulled from his grasp and led him to the kitchen.
“Where’s Adam?” he asked.
“Staying at his aunt’s.”
A brief frown, as if surprised she wouldn’t have him right there, at her side, after such a traumatic event.
“And the other boy?” he asked. “Is he all right? The burns … second-degree you said?”
She stared hard at Vasic. “Does that surprise you?”
He blinked.
“It doesn’t, does it? You knew this could happen. These changes you mentioned, that’s what you meant. That it would get worse. That he’d start inflicting real burns.”
His gaze went to the patio doors. The rain beat against them, the harsh patter backlit by lightning and the rumble of distant thunder. “May we …?” He gestured at the doors. “Another room, perhaps. Less … distraction.”
She took him into the living room. “You knew this could happen,” she repeated before he could change the subject.
“Someday, yes. But not at this age. He’s so young. I’ve never …” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Ms. Lyndsay. That sounds inadequate, but I made an error in judgment, and I feel terrible about it. I knew Adam was displaying his pow—abilities at an early age, much younger than I usually see, but I misjudged the speed at which he could progress. I did intend to contact you, in a few months, after you’d had time to …”
“Calm down?” she said, crossing her arms. “Stop being such a demanding bitch?”
He flinched at her language.
She moved to the couch, subconsciously getting distance before letting loose the bomb. “Adam didn’t burn anyone, Dr. Vasic. I just wanted to hear you admit that he could.”
Vasic straightened sharply.
“You’ve just told me that my son could—will—someday be able to inflict serious damage with these ‘abilities’ of his. Now I think I have the right to know what’s going on. If you refuse that, I can make things very unpleasant for you at Stanford—”
“There’s no need to resort to threats, Ms. Lyndsay,” Vasic said, his voice taking on an unexpected edge.
“I don’t want to, but this is my son, and I need to know what he’s going through.”
He met her gaze. “What good will that do, Ms. Lyndsay? A label isn’t going to give you a cure. There is none. It won’t help you look after him and keep him safe, no better than you can do—and are doing—now. What will a label do for you? How will an explanation help?”
“It will help me understand my son.”
“Will it?” His gaze bored into hers. “And what if this ‘label’ changed the way you saw Adam, changed your feelings for him?”
She met his gaze. “Not possible.”
They argued for another hour. Three times Vasic said he was leaving. Once he got as far as the front stoop. But when Talia showed no signs of backing down and letting him help Adam without an explanation, he led her into the kitchen to stand by the patio doors.
For a minute, he just stared out at the storm. The look in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. It was the same look Adam got when he stared into a fire.
“Do you like storms, Ms. Lyndsay?” Vasic asked softly.
“I … guess so. I’m not afraid of them, if that’s what you mean.”
“But they can be things to fear. Incredible power for destruction. Like fire. Beautiful from a distance, but devastating if uncontrolled. That’s the key, to storms and fire. Control.” He glanced over at her. “I can teach Adam to control his powers. As for the source of that power …” He looked her square in the eye. “I think you already know what it is; you’re just too rational to believe it.”
“I don’t know what—”
“I’m talking about? Good. It’s better that way. Safer. For you. There is absolutely no need for you to know the source of Adam’s powers, Talia. You don’t need to know that to help him. Knowing will change …” He looked back out the window. “Everything.”
“I don’t care.”
He opened the patio doors and stepped outside. When he reached the far side of the plant-choked patio, he beckoned to her. She looked up at the rain.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Just step out.”
She did, bracing for that first splash of rain. But it didn’t come. She took another step. Still nothing. She made it to the middle of the porch and was still dry, while rain beat down all around her.
She looked up. There was nothing over her head. Nothing to shelter her. She turned toward Vasic.
“Put your hand out,” he said softly.
She did, and felt the hard sting of the fast-falling rain against her palm. Then the rain softened, and turned cold. Ice-cold. Snow covered her hand. She stared at Vasic.
“Do you still want to know?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then come inside and I’ll tell you.”
A
nother life taken. Another year to live.
That is the bargain that rules our existence. We feed off blood, but for three hundred and sixty-four days a year, it is merely that: feeding. Yet before the anniversary of our rebirth as vampires, we must drain the lifeblood of one person. Fail and we begin the rapid descent into death.
As I sipped white wine on the outdoor patio, I watched the steady stream of passersby. Although there was a chill in the air—late autumn coming fast and sharp—the patio was crowded, no one willing to surrender the dream of summer quite yet. Leaves fluttering onto the tables were lauded as decorations. The scent of a distant wood fire was willfully mistaken for candles. The sun, almost gone despite the still-early hour, only added romance to the meal. All embellishments to the night, not signs of impending winter.
I sipped my wine and watched night fall. At the next table, a lone businessman eyed me. That was the sort of man I often had the misfortune to attract—middle-aged and prosperous, laboring under the delusion that success and wealth were such irresistible lures that he could allow his waist and jowls to thicken unchecked.
Under other circumstances, I might have returned the attention, let him lead me to some tawdry motel, then taken
my
dinner. He would survive, of course, waking weakened and blaming it on too much wine. A meal without guilt. Any man who took such a chance with a stranger—particularly when he bore a wedding band—deserved an occasional bout of morning-after discomfort.
He did not, however, deserve to serve as my annual kill. Yet I found myself toying with the idea more than I should have, prodded by a niggling voice that told me I was already late.
I stared at the glow over the horizon. The sun had set on the anniversary of my rebirth, and I hadn’t taken a life. While I would hardly explode into dust at midnight, I would weaken as I began the descent into death. I could avoid that simply by fulfilling my bargain.
I measured the darkness, deemed it enough for hunting, then laid a twenty on the table and left.
A bell tolled ten. Two hours left. I chastised myself for being so dramatic. I loathe vampires given to theatrics—those who have read too many horror novels and labor under the delusion that’s how they’re supposed to behave. I despise any sign of it in myself, and yet, under the circumstances, perhaps it could be forgiven.
In all the years that came before this, I had never reached this date without fulfilling my obligation. I had chosen this vampiric life and would not risk losing it through carelessness.
Only once had I ever come close to my rebirth day without fulfilling the bargain, and then due to circumstances beyond my control. It had been 1867 … or perhaps 1869. I’d been hunting for my annual victim when I’d found myself tossed into a Hungarian prison.
I hadn’t been caught at my kill—I’d never made so amateurish a mistake even when I’d been an amateur. The prison sojourn had been Aaron’s fault, as such things usually were. We’d been hunting my victim when he’d come across a nobleman whipping a servant in the street. Naturally, Aaron couldn’t ignore such an injustice. In the ensuing brawl, I’d been rousted with him and thrown into a pest-infested cell that wouldn’t pass any modern health code.
Aaron had worked himself into a full-frothing frenzy, seeing my rebirth anniversary only days away while I languished in prison, waiting for justice that seemed unlikely to come swiftly. I hadn’t
been concerned. When one partakes of Aaron’s company, one learns to expect such inconveniences. While he plotted, schemed, and swore he’d get us out in time, I simply waited.
We were released the day before my rebirth anniversary. I compensated for the trouble and delay by taking the life of a prison guard who’d enjoyed his work far more than was necessary.
This year, my only excuse was that I hadn’t gotten around to it. As for why, I was somewhat … baffled. I am nothing if not conscientious about my obligations. Yet I’d been content to watch the days slip past and tell myself I would get around to it, as if it was no more momentous than a missed salon appointment. Even now, it was only an oddly cerebral concern. No matter. I would take care of it tonight.
As I walked, an old drunkard drew my gaze. I watched him totter into the shadows of an alley and thought,
There’s a possibility …
I am usually quite finicky—refusing to feed off sleeping vagrants—yet as my annual kill, this one might do.
Every vampire deals with our “bargain” in the way that best suits his temperament and capacity for guilt and remorse. I cull from the edges—the sick, the elderly, those already nearing their end. I do not fool myself into thinking this is a just choice. There’s no way to know whether that cancer-racked woman might have been on the brink of remission or if that elderly man had been enjoying his last days to the fullest. I make the choice because it is one I can live with.