Authors: Clare Willis
Just beyond the bars he could see his friend, surrounded by the other vampires. Enzo’s breath came in slow, ragged gasps. He turned to the side and gazed at Jacob with no rancor, just infinite sadness. Jacob rammed his forehead into the ground and stayed there, the cold earth scraping his skin. He wished more fervently for death now than he ever had, even when he was standing outside the house containing his wife and children and knowing he could never enter it again. He felt wetness on his face. When he touched his cheek his hand came away red, stained with his own blood tears.
The vampire was distracted by her blood. She could feel a laxity developing in his limbs as he siphoned the life force out of her veins. If she had been human she would already have been unconscious by this point, there would be no need for Richard to remain vigilant this long. But she wasn’t human, she told herself. Richard was underestimating her. She had powers that every vampire she’d met was afraid of—to one degree or another—she just needed to harness them.
But Sunni was also distracted. The pain from her lacerated back, her contused head, and the wounds in her neck, compounded by the blood loss, were all serving to turn her into a quivering lump of jelly rather than the killing machine she needed to be. There were only seconds left before she died, she understood this on some deep cellular level. She had to find her focus. She concentrated on Richard, testing every point of connection between them, trying to find the weakest link. His grip on her head was the tightest; his neck was like a bar of iron pressing her to the ground. His legs were likewise unmovable, trapping her own legs underneath them. His right hand held her arm fast, but there was some looseness in the grip of his left hand.
That was all she needed, one tiny weakness. She concentrated all her strength into her left arm and pulled it out of his grasp. She felt for his face, and then shoved her fingers deep into his eye socket. She felt something soft but resistant pop under her fingertips, like puncturing a sheet of Saran Wrap covering a bowl of Jell-O.
Richard let out a loud, inarticulate shout of pain and pulled away, covering his face with his hands. She knocked him over and slid out from under his body. She backed far enough away that he couldn’t grab her legs and then she dared to look. He was still clutching his face, but she knew a vampire as powerful as he would recover enough within seconds to reach for her again. She considered attacking him while he was down, but her vision was blurred and her limbs were shaking violently. She was so weak she could barely stay upright. So she made the decision to leave him there and run for the door.
She took the fire escape stairwell, stumbling and almost pitching headlong several times, yet moving at a pace that no human could match. Richard entered the stairwell when she was several floors down, his footfalls echoing in the empty space. She doubled her efforts, taking the stairs a flight at a time, until she was out on the sidewalk. Dodging the cars and buses as she darted across Fifth Street, she hoped she was moving fast enough that no one would see her wild hair and blood-soaked clothes. She wished she could cloak herself, but she would have to stop and concentrate to do that and it wouldn’t help hide her from Richard. She didn’t dare turn around and look for her pursuer, because it would waste precious seconds.
She ran three blocks down to Market Street, and then turned right. She was in a tiny alley, too narrow for cars, redolent of piss and garbage. It came to a dead end in front of a set of padlocked iron doors with an overfull Dumpster in front of them. She crouched next to the Dumpster and waited. At least she’d see him first if he came this far.
Interminable minutes clicked by but the alley remained empty. Sunni tried to stay alert, to think about what to do next, but every time she blinked, her eyes stayed closed for a second longer than the last time. Her shirt was soaked with sticky, copper-scented blood. Her head had become unbearably heavy, and her chin bobbed against her chest.
“It’ll be okay.” She pushed the garbage bin forward a few inches and lay down on the slimy sidewalk behind it, cushioning her head with her arm.
“Just need to rest a few minutes,” she mumbled.
The garbage bin and the sidewalk faded away. She was lying in a field of soft spring grass, the sun shining overhead, and a soft breeze rustling her hair. The scent of Jacob was all around, and when she looked up he was leaning over her, stroking her cheek. The sun glowed like a halo behind his head, and his blue eyes sparkled. He leaned close and kissed her, his lips as soft as velvet. His arms encircled her in a warm embrace as he lifted her to her feet.
She looked down and saw that she was dressed in a simple white dress, the fabric so light and airy that it floated on the breeze like milkweed, and in her arms was a bundle of yellow tulips tied with a white ribbon. Jacob was dressed in white linen pants and a loose shirt. A circle of their friends and family surrounded them. Dennis was there, magically restored to life, and Isabel was standing straight and strong by his side, no crutches in sight. Delia and Sherman stood arm in arm with happy smiles on their faces. There was someone next to them, someone achingly familiar, but the sun was in her face and Sunni couldn’t quite see her. She took a step forward, still holding Jacob’s hand.
“Mama?” she whispered.
Rose looked exactly as she had the last time Sunni had seen her; thin and lithe, with long ebony hair falling in a gleaming curtain down her back. Her mother glided forward and took Sunni into her arms. Sunni put her face against her soft neck and breathed in a sweet floral scent that she’d almost forgotten, but knew immediately was her mother’s alone.
“Mama, am I dead?” she asked.
Rose stroked Sunni’s hair. “You are at the doorway, my darling, that’s why you see both the living and the dead here.”
“Which way should I go? ”
“That’s my Sunni, always wanting to be in control.” Rose stepped back, laughing quietly. “We can’t tell yet. So just enjoy this moment.”
Still holding one of her hands, she turned Sunni gently around, to where Jacob was standing patiently. Sunni gave him her other hand, closed her eyes and lifted her face to the warm sun, the soft breeze, and the sweet mingled scents of the two vampires she loved.
Richard stood in the stairwell, his back against the wall, the railing pressing into his tailbone. He took one deep breath and, as he exhaled, pushed his dangling left eye back into its socket. The pain was intense but brief. In another thirty seconds he could see out of it again. He looked down the stairwell, where he could hear Sunni leaping like a gazelle. He smiled, despite the anger that still bubbled in his gut like witch’s brew. The dhampir had such determination, such strength. If only she wasn’t so damnably obstinate.
He straightened his clothes as best he could, given the ripped seams and popped buttons, as he considered his options. Certainly he could go after her. She was dripping blood like a piñata drips candy; she’d be easy to track. But if he was honest, he didn’t really want to catch her. He hadn’t wanted to kill her back in her apartment. He’d let the heat of the moment overtake him. He probably would have killed her had she not stalled him by removing his eyeball, but if she’d died he would have been very sorry.
Jane’s death was the greatest regret of his long life. He had tried to convince himself that it wasn’t his fault. She had died by her own hand, how could he be responsible for that? But he loved her enough to know that by ruining her life, by taking Jacob away from her and forcing her to live without ever knowing what had become of him, he had killed Jane as surely as if he’d wrapped the noose around her tender neck and kicked the chair out from under her feet himself. He would not do it again, he would not kill Sunni, no matter how much she provoked him.
He still had Isabel; he still had every advantage that he’d had before he came to Sunni’s apartment. Sunni’s wounds were grave enough that she might die without his intervention: even a dhampir couldn’t survive more than an eighty percent blood loss. But if she lived he was sure she’d come back to him again, try another time to avenge her foster father and retrieve her best friend, she was that stubborn. And every time she returned she was more powerful, more worthy of being his partner. He still believed he had a chance to win her love. He smiled to himself and started down the stairs. This game was far from over.
Sunni’s eyes felt like they were glued shut. Something hard was pressing into her back, as if she’d fallen onto a large, sharp-edged rock. Her left leg was numb and the right was full of pins and needles. She didn’t know where she was but she smelled garbage and cold night air. Of the voices that had woken her up, two were familiar, but she couldn’t place them.
“You’re cute,” said a voice she didn’t recognize, but from the brogue and the slur she could tell it was a drunk Irish man. “Who’s the old man? Your grandfather?”
“Excuse me, let me past. We are looking for someone.” This was the old man the Irish one was referring to.
“Gimme your wallet, old man,” the Irish voice said.
Somebody laughed, maybe the old man. Sunni tried to lift her hands but they felt as heavy as lead.
“Listen,” the elderly voice said urgently. “We are looking for a woman. She might be hurt, maybe dying. She’s somewhere around here.”
“What’s she look like?” asked a female voice, raspy and cigarette-burned.
“Shut the fuck up, Dolores,” the Irish man said. “We don’t care what she looks like.”
“Woman, look me in the eyes,” the elderly man said, his tone commanding. “You will tell us everything you know. ”
Sunni recognized the voice, and the tone. It was Sherman Wong, and he was glamouring the woman with the raspy voice.
The glamoured woman spoke in a monotone. “There’s a woman behind that garbage bin. She’s dead, though.”
“Gimme your fucking wallet, man, before I shoot you!” It was the male, now high-pitched and hysterical.
Sunni heard the hollow thumping sound of punches, then a cracking noise, like dry twigs being stepped on. The Irish man began to cry, but the cries receded down the alley and finally she didn’t hear him anymore. Footsteps approached. Callused fingers gently pressed on the side of her throat.
“Sunni, don’t worry, we’re here now. You’re going to be okay. “ Fingers fluttered over her eyelids, helping her to open them. Sherman and Delia slowly came into focus, leaning over her.
“Her pulse is very weak,” Sherman said to Delia. “I will have to give her my blood. ”
“Dad, you’re kidding! That’s gross.” Delia said.
Sherman ignored her. He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down, and then he put his wrist to Sunni’s mouth. The warm, salty blood spurted in rhythmic bursts down Sunni’s throat. At first she gagged and turned away, but he grabbed her head.
“You must drink, Sunni. Otherwise you will die.”
After a moment she started swallowing and in another moment she grabbed the wrist and sucked hungrily.
“That is the grossest thing I’ve ever seen,” Delia said.
“Then stop looking,” Sherman snapped.
Sherman gently pulled his arm away. Sunni watched him hold a finger to the wound on his wrist until it began to close.
A woman in a ragged T-shirt and short skirt approached them from behind. “Is she all right? I thought she was dead. ”
Delia spun on the woman. “She’s alive, no thanks to you. Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”
The woman raised her eyebrows and gave Delia a cynical smile. “Why ain’t you calling her an ambulance now?”
“Good point.” Delia turned back to her father. “What do we do now, Dad?”
“Hold Sunni,” Sherman said. Sunni felt Delia’s soft arms slide in to replace Sherman’s ropy ones. Sherman walked over to the woman and stared into her eyes. Immediately a glazed expression took over her face.
“Close your eyes, Dolores,” Sherman said.
Her lids fluttered and then closed.
“Keep them closed for five minutes. When you open them, all you will remember is a strange dream. None of this is real, do you hear me?”
“None of this is real,” she repeated.
As Sherman and Delia carried Sunni out of the alley the woman stayed upright, but with her head slumped, asleep on her feet.
Sherman and Delia brought Sunni back to her apartment. She rejected the idea of going to bed, opting instead to sit in the living room on the only part of the couch that wasn’t covered with broken glass. Sherman examined her neck.
“The wounds are almost gone,” he announced. “You have good healing powers.”
“How good?” Sunni croaked. Her throat felt scratched and raw, as if she’d been through the flu.
Sherman’s face wrinkled into a big smile. “Not that good. I don’t recommend that you try this again.”
“But Richard’s not dead yet. And he’s not finished screwing with me and Isabel.”
Delia leaned forward so that Sunni could see her without turning her head. “That’s why we’re here, Sunni. We’re going to help you.”
“But you said Sherman doesn’t want the Council to know he’s alive.”
Sherman shrugged. “Maybe they won’t find out, but what’s the use of living forever if you can’t help your friends sometimes?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sunni said, trying to ignore a wave of pain and nausea that was washing over her.
“You rest for a day,” Sherman said. “Get your strength back. Then come to the restaurant. Come to the back door, in the alley. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Sunni walked through the living room, gingerly skirting piles of crushed glass speckled with blood and red wine, while isolated glimpses of her battle with Richard flipped through her mind like a PowerPoint presentation with half the images missing. She retrieved her cell phone from her purse and checked the time. It had been eight hours since the fight. That was a lifetime as far as Isabel was concerned, perhaps literally. She dialed her friend’s number and chewed a ragged fingernail while it rang.
She was immeasurably relieved to hear Isabel’s groggy voice.
“Sunni? Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you. ”