Night World 1 (6 page)

“Yeah, I was just realizing that. Sort of like getting a new identity from the FBI, huh?”

“More than that. You'll be living in a new world, the Night World. And it's a lonely world, full of secrets. But you'll be walking around in it, instead of lying in the ground.” He squeezed her hand. Then he said very quietly and seriously, “Do you want to start now?”

All Poppy could think of to do was shut her eyes and brace herself the way she did for an injection. “I'm ready,” she said through stiff lips.

James laughed again—this time as if he couldn't help it. Then he folded the bed rail down and settled beside her. “I'm used to people being hypnotized when I do this. It's weird to have you awake.”

“Yeah, well, if I scream you can hypnotize me,” Poppy said, not opening her eyes.

Relax, she told herself firmly. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how awful it is, you can deal with it. You
have
to. Your life depends on it.

Her heart was thumping hard enough to shake her body.

“Right here,” James said, touching her throat with cool fingers as if feeling for a pulse.

Just do it, Poppy thought. Get it over with.

She could feel warmth as James leaned close to her, taking her carefully by the shoulders. Every nerve ending in her skin was aware of him. Then she felt cool breath on her throat, and quickly, before she could recoil, a double sting.

Those fangs, burying themselves in her flesh. Making two little wounds so he could drink her blood…

Now it's
really
going to hurt, Poppy thought. She couldn't brace herself anymore. Her life was in the hands of a hunter. She was a rabbit trapped in the coils of a snake, a mouse under the claws of a cat. She didn't feel like James's best friend, she felt like
lunch.
…

Poppy, what are you doing? Don't fight it. It hurts when you resist.

James was speaking to her—but the warm mouth on her throat hadn't moved. The voice was in her head.

I'm not resisting, Poppy thought. I'm just ready for it to hurt, that's all.

There was a burning where his teeth pierced her. She waited for it to get worse—but it didn't. It changed.

Oh, Poppy thought.

The feeling of heat was actually pleasant. A sensation of release, of giving.

And closeness. She and James were getting closer and closer, like two drops of water moving together until they merged.

She could sense James's mind. His thoughts—and his feelings. His emotions flowed into her, through her.

Tenderness…concern…caring. A cold black rage at the disease that was threatening her. Despair that there was no other way to help her. And longing—longing to share with her, to make her happy.

Yes, Poppy thought.

A wave of sweetness made her dizzy. She found herself groping for James's hand, their fingers intertwining.

James,
she thought with wonder and joy. Her communication to him a tentative caress.

Poppy.
She could feel his own surprise and delight.

And all the time the dreamy pleasure was building. Making Poppy shiver with its intensity.

How could I have been so
stupid
? Poppy thought. To be afraid of this. It isn't terrible. It's…right.

She had never been so close to anybody. It was as if they were one being, together, not predator and prey, but partners in a dance. Poppy-and-James.

She could touch his soul.

Strangely enough,
he
was afraid of that. She could sense it.
Poppy, don't—so many dark things—I don't want you to see
…

Dark, yes, Poppy thought. But not dark and terrible. Dark and lonely. Such utter loneliness. A feeling of not belonging in either of the two worlds he knew. Not belonging anywhere. Except…

Suddenly Poppy was seeing an image of herself. In his mind she was fragile and graceful, an emerald-eyed spirit of the air. A sylph—with a core of pure steel.

I'm not really like that, she thought. I'm not tall and beautiful like Jacklyn or Michaela….

The words she heard in answer didn't seem directed toward her—she had the feeling they were something James was thinking to himself, or remembering from some long-forgotten book.

You don't love a girl because of beauty. You love her because she sings a song only you can understand.
…

With the thought came a strong feeling of protectiveness. So this was how James felt about her—she knew at last. As if she were something precious, something to be protected at all costs….

At all costs. No matter what happened to him. Poppy tried to follow the thought deeper into his mind, to find out what it meant. She got an impression of rules—no,
laws
…

Poppy, it's bad manners to search somebody's mind when you're not invited.
The words were tinged with desperation.

Poppy pulled back mentally. She hadn't meant to pry. She just wanted to help….

I know,
James's thought came to her, and with it a rush of warmth and gratitude. Poppy relaxed and simply enjoyed the feeling of oneness with him.

I wish it could last forever, she thought—and just then it stopped. The warmth at her neck disappeared, and James pulled away, straightening.

Poppy made a sound of protest and tried to drag him back. He wouldn't let her.

“No—there's something else we have to do,” he whispered. But he didn't do anything else. He just held her, his lips against her forehead. Poppy felt peaceful and languid.

“You didn't tell me it would be like that,” she said.

“I didn't know,” James said simply. “It never has been before.”

They sat together quietly, with James gently stroking her hair.

So strange. Poppy thought. Everything is the same—but everything's different. It was as if she'd pulled herself up on dry land after almost drowning in the ocean. The terror that had been pounding inside her all day was gone, and for the first time in her life she felt completely safe.

After another minute or so James shook his head, rousing himself.

“What else do we have to do?” Poppy asked.

For an answer, James lifted his own wrist to his mouth. He made a quick jerking motion with his head, as if tearing a strip of cloth held in his teeth.

When he lowered the wrist, Poppy saw blood.

It was running in a little stream down his arm. So red it almost didn't look real.

Poppy gulped and shook her head.

“It's not that bad,” James said softly. “And you have to do it. Without my blood in you, you won't become a vampire when you die, you'll just
die.
Like any other human victim.”

And I want to live, Poppy thought. All right, then. Shutting her eyes, she allowed James to guide her head to his wrist.

It didn't taste like blood, or at least not like the blood she'd tasted when she bit her tongue or put a cut finger in her mouth. It tasted—strange. Rich and potent.

Like some magic elixir, Poppy thought dizzily. And once again she felt the touch of James's mind. Intoxicated with the closeness, she kept drinking.

That's right. You've got to take a lot,
James told her. But his mental voice was weaker than it had been. Instantly Poppy felt a surge of alarm.

But what will it do to you?

“I'll be all right,” James said aloud. “It's you I'm worried about. If you don't get enough, you'll be in danger.”

Well, he was the expert. And Poppy was happy to let the strange, heady potion keep flowing into her. She basked in the glow that seemed to be lighting her from the inside out. She felt so tranquil, so calm….

And then, without warning, the calm was shattered. A voice broke into it, a voice full of harsh surprise.

“What are you
doing
?” the voice said, and Poppy looked up to see Phillip in the doorway.

J
ames moved fast. He picked up the plastic tumbler on the bedside table and handed it to Poppy. She understood. Feeling giddy and uncoordinated, she took a healthy swig of water and licked her lips to wash any traces of blood away.

“What are you
doing
?” Phillip repeated, striding into the room. His eyes were fixed on James, which was good, because Poppy was trying to position herself to hide the side of her neck that James had bitten.

“None of your business,” she said, and in the same instant she knew it was a mistake. Phillip, whose middle name was Stability, was looking distinctly unstable tonight.

Mom told him. Poppy thought.

“I mean, we aren't doing
anything,
” she amended. It didn't help. Phil was clearly in a mood to see everything in the world as a threat to his sister. And Poppy couldn't really blame him—he'd walked in on the two of them in a strange embrace on a rumpled hospital bed.

“James was comforting me because I was scared,” she said. She didn't even try to explain why James had been cradling her head to his arm. But she glanced at James's arm surreptitiously and saw that the wound there was already closed, the mark fading.

“Everything's all right, you know,” James said, standing to fix a mesmerizing silver gaze on Phillip. But Phil hardly gave him a glance. He was staring at Poppy.

It's not working, Poppy thought. Maybe Phil's too mad to be hypnotized. Or too
stubborn.

She looked a question at James, which he answered with a barely discernable shake of his head. He didn't know what the problem was, either.

But they both knew what it meant. James was going to have to leave. Poppy felt cheated and frustrated. All she wanted was to talk with James, to revel in their new discovery of each other—and she couldn't. Not with Phil here.

“How come you're here, anyway?” she asked him irritably.

“I drove Mom here. You know she doesn't like driving at night. And I brought this.” He swung her boom box up onto the bedside table. “And these.” He put a black CD case beside it. “All your favorite music.”

Poppy felt her anger draining away. “That was sweet,” she said. She was touched, especially since Phil hadn't said “All your favorite
weird
music,” which was usually how he referred to it. “Thank you.”

Phil shrugged, shooting a glare at James.

Poor Phil, Poppy thought. Her brother actually looked disheveled. And his eyes were swollen.

“Where's Mom?” she was starting to say, when her mother walked in.

“I'm back, sweetie,” her mother said, with a very creditable cheery smile. Then she looked surprised. “James—it was nice of you to come.”

“Yeah, but he was just leaving,” Phil said significantly. “I'll show him the way out.”

James didn't waste energy on a fight he couldn't win. He turned to Poppy and said, “I'll see you tomorrow.”

There was a look in his gray eyes—gray, not silver now—that was just for her. A look that had never been there before in all the years she'd known him.

“Goodbye, James,” she said softly. “And—thank you.” She knew he understood what she meant.

It wasn't until he was out the door, with Phillip on his heels like a bouncer after a rowdy customer, that a thought occurred to her.

James had said that she would be in danger if she didn't get enough of his blood. But they'd gotten interrupted almost immediately after that. Had Poppy gotten enough? And what would happen if she
hadn't
?

She herself had no idea, and there was no way to ask James.

Phil stayed right behind James all the way out of the hospital.

Not tonight, James thought. He just couldn't deal with Phillip North tonight. His patience was gone, and his mind was occupied in calculating whether Poppy had taken enough of his blood to be safe. He
thought
she had—but the sooner she got more, the better.

“You'll ‘see her tomorrow'—well, you're
not
going to see her tomorrow,” Phil said abruptly as they walked into the garage.

“Phil, give me a break.”

Instead, Phillip stepped in front of him and stopped dead, forcing James to stop, too. Phillip was breathing quickly, his green eyes burning.

“Okay,
bud,
” he said. “I don't know what you think you're doing with Poppy—but it's all over now. From now on you stay away from her.
Understand
?”

Visions of breaking Phillip's neck like a new pencil danced in James's head. But Phil was Poppy's brother, and his green eyes were surprisingly like hers.

“I would never hurt Poppy,” he said wearily.

“Give
me
a break. Are you going to stand there and tell me you don't want to move in on her?”

James couldn't come up with an answer immediately. Yesterday he could have truthfully said no, he didn't want to move in on Poppy. Because it would have meant a death sentence for him and Poppy both. It was only when Poppy had received a death sentence of her own that he'd allowed himself to look at his feelings.

And now…now he'd been close to Poppy. He'd touched her mind, and had found that she was even braver and more gallant than he'd thought; even more compassionate—and more vulnerable.

He wanted to be that close to Poppy again. He cared about her in a way that made his throat ache. He
belonged
with Poppy.

He also realized that that might not be enough.

Sharing blood forged a powerful bond between two people. It would be wrong of him to take advantage of that bond—or of Poppy's gratitude to him. Until he was sure that Poppy's mind was clear and her decisions were her own, he should keep a little distance. It was the only honorable thing to do.

“The last thing I want to do is hurt her,” he repeated. “Why can't you believe that?” He made a half-hearted attempt to capture Phil's gaze as he said it. It failed, just as it had in the hospital. Phillip seemed to be one of those rare humans who couldn't be influenced by mind control.

“Why can't I believe it? Because I
know
you. You and your—girlfriends.” Phil managed to make the word sound like a curse. “You go through six or seven a year—and when you're through with them, you dump them like trash.”

James was distracted briefly by amusement, because Phil was dead on. He
needed
six girlfriends a year. After two months the bond between them became dangerously strong.

“Poppy's not my girlfriend and I'm not going to dump her,” he said, pleased at his own cleverness. He'd avoided an outright lie—Poppy
wasn't
his girlfriend in any normal sense. They'd merged their souls, that was all—they hadn't talked about dating or anything.

“So you
are
telling me you're not gonna try to put the moves on her. Is that it? Because you'd better be
sure.
” As he spoke, Phil did what was probably the most dangerous thing he'd ever done in his life. He grabbed James by the front of the shirt.

You stupid
human,
James thought. He briefly considered breaking every bone in Phil's hand. Or picking Phil up and throwing him across the garage into somebody's windshield. Or…

“You're Poppy's brother,” he said through his teeth. “So I'm going to give you a chance to let go.”

Phil stared into his face a moment, then let go, looking slightly shaken. But not shaken enough to keep quiet.

“You have to leave her alone,” he said. “You don't understand. This disease she's got—it's serious. She doesn't need anything messing up her life right now. She just needs…” He stopped and swallowed.

Suddenly James felt very tired. He couldn't blame Phil for being upset—Phil's mind was full of crystal-clear pictures of Poppy dying. Usually James got only general images about what humans were thinking, but Phillip was broadcasting so loud it nearly deafened him.

Half-truths and evasions hadn't worked. It was time for Outright Lies. Anything to satisfy Phil and get James away from this.

“I know that what Poppy has is serious,” he said. “I found an article about it on the Net. That's why I was
here,
okay? I feel sorry for her. I'm not interested in Poppy except as a friend, but it makes her feel better if I pretend that I like her.”

Phillip hesitated, looking at him hard and suspiciously. Then he shook his head slowly. “Being friends is one thing, but it's wrong to mix her up. In the end, pretending isn't going to do her any good. I don't even think it makes her feel better
now
—she looked pretty bad in there.”

“Bad?”

“Pale and shaky. You know Poppy; you know how she gets overexcited about things. You shouldn't be fooling around with her emotions.” He narrowed his eyes and said, “So maybe you'd better stay away from her for a while. Just to make sure she hasn't got the wrong idea.”

“Whatever,” James said. He wasn't really listening.

“Okay,” Phillip said. “We have a deal. But I'm warning you, if you break it, you're in trouble.”

James wasn't listening to that, either. Which was a mistake.

In the darkened hospital room Poppy lay and listened to her mother's breathing.

You're not asleep, she thought, and I'm not asleep. And you know I'm not, and I know you're not….

But they couldn't talk. Poppy wanted desperately to let her mother know that everything was going to be all right—but
how
? She couldn't betray James's secret. And even if she could, her mother wouldn't believe her.

I have to find a way, Poppy thought.
I have to.
And then a great wave of drowsiness overtook her. It had been the longest day in her life, and she was full of alien blood already working its strange magic in her. She couldn't…she just couldn't…keep her eyes open.

Several times during the night a nurse came in to take her vital signs, but Poppy never really woke up. For the first time in weeks, no pain interrupted her dreams.

She opened her eyes the next morning feeling confused and weak. Black dots swarmed through her vision when she sat up.

“Hungry?” her mother asked. “They left this breakfast tray for you.”

The smell of hospital eggs made Poppy feel nauseated. But because her mother was watching her anxiously, she played with the food on the tray before she went to wash up. In the bathroom mirror she examined the side of her neck. Amazing—there was no trace of a mark.

When she came out of the bathroom, her mother was crying.

Not floods of tears, not sobbing. Just dabbing her eyes on a Kleenex. But Poppy couldn't stand it.

“Mom, if you're worried about telling me…I know.”

The whole sentence was out before Poppy could even think about it.

Her mother's head jerked up in horror. She stared at Poppy with more tears spilling. “Sweetheart—you know…?”

“I know what I've got and I know how bad it is,” Poppy said. If this was the wrong strategy, it was too late now. “I listened when you and Cliff were talking to the doctors.”

“Oh, my
Lord.
”

What can I
say
? Poppy wondered. It's okay, Mom, because I'm not going to die; I'm going to become a vampire. I hope. I can't be sure, because sometimes you don't make it through the transformation. But with any luck, I should be sucking blood in a few weeks.

Come to think of it, she hadn't asked James exactly how long it would take to change her.

Her mother was taking deep, calming breaths. “Poppy, I want you to know how much I love you. Cliff and I will do anything—
anything
—we can to help you. Right now he's looking into some clinical protocols—those are experimental studies where they test new ways of treating people. If we can just…buy time…until a cure…”

Poppy couldn't stand it. She could
feel
her mother's pain. Literally. It came in palpable waves that seemed to echo through her bloodstream, making her dizzy.

It's that blood, she thought. It's doing something to me—changing me.

Even as she thought it, she went to her mother. She wanted to hug her, and she needed help standing up.

“Mom, I'm not scared,” she said, muffled against her mother's shoulder. “I can't explain, but I'm not scared. And I don't want you to be unhappy over me.”

Her mother just held on fiercely, as if Death might try to snatch Poppy out of her arms that minute. She was crying.