the morning. He couldn’t quite make out the words, but the man speaking
them was obviously in a state of near-hysteria.
“What the hell is that?”
“Dunno,” said Dr. Greene. “Shall we check it out?”
“Sure. Why not?”
A small crowd had gathered around a group of five young men—
punks, Rafael thought, of the highly questionable type he’d hung out
with in his previous life. One of the punks was talking while the other
four nodded emphatically and occasionally chimed in to agree with his
story.
“I’m tellin’ ya, this bitch’s got, like, smallpox or something. We
gotta get outta here. That stuff’s, like, contagious extreme.”
A frown creased Dr. Greene’s forehead. He approached the crowd
at a half-trot. “Excuse me!” he called over their heads. “I’m a doctor.
Please let me through. I need to find out what’s going on.”
The crowd obediently split, letting him into the inner circle. Rafael
followed.
“You a doctor, man?” the kid asked.
“Yes, I am. Can you tell me exactly what you saw?”
“This woman, she, like, busted out all over all of a sudden with
these blisters. Man, it was nasty, like pus ’n shit.”
The other four kids, who looked genuinely terrified, nodded. “I
think she was gonna die,” one of them chimed in.
“You say this happened very suddenly?” the doctor said, and suddenly
Rafael realized where he was going. His stomach went cold.
“What did she look like?” he demanded before the kid could answer.
The kid gave Rafael an angry look. “Yeah, it was, like, all at once.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Not that long. Like, ten or fifteen minutes, I guess. The sun was
just coming up.”
Rafael grabbed the kid by the shoulders and shook him hard. “What
did she look like, you damned little punk? You were shaking her down,
weren’t you? Gonna mug her?”
“Jesus, get your hands off me, ya psycho.”
Dr. Greene said, very quietly, “Answer his question.”
“Damn, she didn’t have no money, and we didn’t do nothin’ to her.
Whatever happened to her, we didn’t do it.”
“I meant the other question. What did she look like?”
“I dunno, like, some skinny bitch with black hair, I guess.”
Rafael’s fingers tightened on the kid’s arm, until he felt the bones.
“Did this happen right at sunrise?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
He wanted to know if it been just these punks after her or if
vampires had been involved. His heart contracted at the thought that
she might have fallen prey to Ialdaboth’s assassination squad.
“Take me there. Now.”
“Man, I ain’t goin’ back there. I ain’t catchin’ no smallpox.”
“It’s not smallpox,” said Dr. Greene. “Take us to the woman,
please. I might be able to help her.”
“Forget it, man—”
“Take us there, or we call the police and you get into deep shit for
that knife you got stuffed in your pants,” said Dr. Greene, still quietly.
The kid stared at him.
“Yeah, punk,” the doctor went on. “I ain’t stupid. Now get moving.”
The kid jerked himself free from Rafael’s too-tight grip, gave them
both hard looks, then led the way back down the sidewalk.
A “skinny bitch with black hair” could have been just about anybody,
Rafael thought, but the cold, sinking feeling in his gut made him
more certain with every step that the woman was Sasha. If she’d been
out in the sun, Dr. Greene probably wouldn’t be able to do anything for
her. They might not even find anything left of her body. But if she’d
somehow been able to find shelter . . . It was a long shot, but it was all
he had to hold onto at the moment.
The kid led them to an alleyway not far from the park that dead-
ended against the back wall of a warehouse. There was no one there.
“She was here,” the punk said. “I’m tellin’ you, she was right here
on the ground, all screamin’ and shit.”
Rafael looked frantically around the alley and saw another door
along the left wall. He ran for it, shoved it open.
At first, he saw no sign of Sasha. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he
made out a foot, protruding from underneath haphazardly arranged
pieces of plywood. She had pulled them over her, for protection.
He ran to her, dragged the wood off her, making sure she was still
protected by shadow. She lay on her side, her knees drawn up to her
chest, her fists clenched in front of her face. And her face was streaked
with wide, blackened burns.
“Dr. Greene!” he shouted. “In here!”
The doctor appeared at the door and hurried over. “Holy shit,” he
muttered, crouching next to Sasha’s motionless body. She was barely
recognizable under the brutal burns.
“She got caught outside,” Rafael said, his voice sounding strange,
unreal. All the fear, all the anger, had sunk to a cold lump at the bottom
of his stomach. He reached toward her face, then drew back, afraid to
touch her.
The doctor, of course, had no such compunctions. He laid fingers
to her throat, checking her pulse, then took one of her hands, trying to
uncurl the clenched fingers.
“Is she dead?” Rafael ventured.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell in this state. She could just be in the
Sleep.”
Rafael swallowed. “How do we find out?”
“We have to get her out of here.” He let go of Sasha’s uncooperative
hand. “The other door in the alley is an old entryway into the
Underground. That must be where she was headed. But it’s been closed
off for a long time, so she wasn’t able to get through.”
“How do we get her home?”
“We can’t. There’s no way to take her out of here without carrying
her through direct sunlight. If I could get through that door . . .”
“So what do we do?”
Dr. Greene put his face in his hands for a moment. “Lucien.”
“What about him?”
“We have to get him out here. He can teleport or something—I’m
not sure how it works.”
“But how long will it take to get Underground and bring him back?”
Rafael had a scream inside him, growing huge just beneath his diaphragm.
“That might not be necessary.” Dr. Greene closed his eyes. “Think.
Think hard. Think, ‘Lucien, get your ass here right now. We need you.’”
“And that’ll work?”
“I don’t know. It’s an awfully long way from here to there, and
he’s still not back to full strength. But maybe that doesn’t matter.” He
looked at Sasha again, peering more closely at the streaky burns on her
face. Rafael could barely stand even to watch him looking.
“Go out,” the doctor said suddenly. “See if there’s any way to get
through that door.”
“But—”
“Just go. If Lucien doesn’t make it, or can’t, it might be her only
hope.”
Rafael went, trying to force from his mind the picture of Sasha
lying there still as death, her fa
ce marked with angry red burns. If she
was dead . . .
But when vampires died from exposure to sunlight, weren’t they
supposed to turn to dust or something? It occurred to him he’d never
seen a vampire die that way. He’d never seen a vampire die, period.
He went to the Underground entrance and pulled at the door. It
refused to give. And he’d lost his preternatural vampire strength. But
Sasha still had hers yet apparently hadn’t been able to open it, either.
Lucien, if you can hear me, we need you. He thought it as
loudly as he could, making the words feel big and bold and black inside
his head. Not that it seemed to do any good, at least not as far as he
could tell.
They couldn’t count on Lucien. Sasha needed to get out of that
warehouse as quickly as possible, and that meant her best chance lay
with Dr. Greene and himself. He stood still for a minute, thinking.
If brute strength wasn’t the answer, maybe something else was.
He slid his fingers along the doorframe, questing. If there was a trigger,
perhaps it was only detectable by vampires
He heard a click—or thought he did. He pushed against the door,
but it still wouldn’t open. It did, however, move.
A sequence, then. He’d have to find one more click, or two, or
ten. Whatever it took to get the door open. He tried again, fingers
sliding all along the doorframe. Nothing. Okay, so it didn’t really make
sense for all the levers to be in the same place. He moved away from
the door, questing between the seams of the wall’s panels.
Another click. He turned immediately and shoved his shoulder
against the door. It gave, but not all the way. Screw the third click. He
shoved it again, hard, putting all his weight behind it. The door came
open, slamming backwards into the room beyond.
Just a warehouse. His heart sank for a moment, then he saw the
mark on the back wall. He wasn’t certain what the mark’s origin was—
it was sort of a cross, sort of a whirligig—but he knew he’d seen it in
the Underground, near exit doors. Finding the latches, he activated
them, yanked the door open. Then he backed out, fast, half-running to
the other building.
The doctor had found a tarp—a very dirty tarp—and had wrapped
Sasha in it, covering her completely. He looked up as Rafael barreled
in.
“Come on,” Rafael said.
Dr. Greene scooped Sasha up in his arms and followed, no questions
asked. Wrapped in the tarp, her skin was protected from the few
feet of sunlight they had to pass through. The doctor carried her into
the second warehouse, then set her gently down on the floor next to
the entrance to the Underground. Turning toward the alley door, he
closed it, cocking his head to listen as a series of clicks indicated the
locks had reengaged.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The actual entrance to the Underground was small, barely large
enough for Rafael to slide through sideways, on his knees. Dr. Greene
eased Sasha through feet first, and Rafael carefully positioned her on
the floor just inside.
Dr. Greene was halfway through when Lucien appeared, out of
nowhere. The doctor wormed the rest of the way through and bent to
pick up Sasha.
“Sorry,” Lucien said. “I heard you calling, but I couldn’t quite zero
in on your location. It’s hard to navigate from the Underground to outside.”
Rafael suspected the navigation problems might have more to
do with Lucien’s recent injuries. The right side of his face still looked
like somebody had branded it with irons.
Lucien caught hold of the doctor’s arm, helping him to his feet.
Then he grabbed Rafael with his other hand and said, “Hang on.”
And suddenly they were in the hospital wing, and the doctor was
running with Sasha, leaving Rafael with Lucien to trail behind him.
Seven
Rafael paced the corridors, waiting for news. He didn’t dare go
too far, afraid he might lose his way. Without his vampiric senses it was
harder for him to keep his bearings in the labyrinthine corridors.
It was hard, too, for him to stay focused. His thoughts were too
full of Sasha. He could think of little else, his interior vision filled with
the sight of her beautiful face, ravaged by streaking burns.
She might be dead. He thought she wasn’t, though. Surely he
would know if she was. But maybe he was deluding himself with unsubstantiated
hope. He had no reason to think they had any kind of
telepathic connection. After all, they hadn’t been lovers very long, and
he was nothing more than a useless mortal at this point.
Which led to the next question. If she wasn’t dead, would she see
him? Or would she continue to refuse to consider a permanent relationship?
He could bear even that, he thought, as long as she was alive.
“There you are.”
Lucien’s voice startled him, coming as it did a split second before
Lucien actually appeared.
Rafael composed himself quickly. “How is she?
“We’re not completely sure yet.”
“But she’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“I want to see her.”
Lucien laid a hand on his shoulder. “Then I’ll take you.”
A breath later, they stood in front of the door to Sasha’s room.
Trepidation rooted Rafael to the spot for a heartbeat. Then he pushed
the door open and went in.
IV bag with a new one full of clear fluid. Sasha lay with her face
turned away from the door. She was utterly still.
“She’s alive,” said the doctor. “Her body is processing fluids, but
very slowly.”
“She’ll be all right?”
“There’ll be scars for a while. But maybe Julian or Lucien can
help with that.” He finished with the IV bag and took a step back. “In
fact, I’d be surprised if they couldn’t.”
Rafael didn’t care about scars. She was alive. That was the important
part.
The doctor wasn’t finished, though. “It remains to be seen, however,
what will happen at nightfall.”
“Why? I mean, she’ll wake up, right? Just like always?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes when a vampire experiences this kind
of trauma, she remains comatose for a period of time—stays in the
Sleep to facilitate healing.”
“For how long?”
“Until her system revives. I’ve heard of it lasting a few days—or
ten, even twenty years.”
Twenty years? “But wouldn’t it depend on the seriousness of the
injuries?”
“It seems to depend more on the severity of the trauma.” He
poked the nosepiece of his glasses, pushing them into place. “Look,
I’m sorry to be so blunt, but there are so many variables here. It’s very
difficult to predict what a vampire will do, what her response will be to
a particular trauma or a particular course of treatment. Most of what I
do is trial-and-error and guesswork.”
Rafael nodded. “It’s all right. I know you’ve done what you
can.”
“And will continue to do so.” He hesitated, then nodded. “You’ll
stay with her awhile?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll be back.”
Rafael heard the door click shut behind him, but his focus was on
Sasha. He took a step closer, then moved toward the other side of the
bed so he could see her face.
The wounds the sun had inflicted had not diminished. Whatever
treatment the doctor had followed, it had done nothing to heal that
aspect of her trauma. Her smooth, perfect skin bore streaks of red,
brutal burns.
It would heal eventually, with or without help from Julian or Lucien.
She would be beautiful again. But Rafael didn’t care. Seeing her
lying there, still as death in the vampiric Sleep, he didn’t care about
anything but that she was alive—and that he loved her. Anything else
was inconsequential. The thought that he’d almost lost her—the immortal
in their relationship—to something as common as the sun, made
him angry and frightened at the same time.
He understood, then, why she’d left him. Because she’d imagined
him like this. Still and silent, not breathing, brutalized by violence or
illness or age. It was inevitable, now that he was mortal again.
She hadn’t considered her own weaknesses, though. Yes, she
was a vampire, technically immortal, but not invulnerable. In her own
way, she was as fragile as he. They would both eventually die—she
could just put it off longer than he could.
There was a chair by the door. He dragged it over, so he could sit
where he could see Sasha’s face. He was tired and hungry, but both
could wait. Right now, he needed to be here, with her.
When Dr. Greene returned, he had a plate with plain white bread
and a bowl of broth. Rafael’s stomach was growling, but after one bite
he stopped to look at the bread. To smell it. To analyze the taste it left
behind in his mouth. As a vampire he had been able to do none of these
things. This was Life.
And life was good. Immortality had its advantages, but eating
good bread wasn’t one of them.
The food went down smoothly. His stomach was starting to adjust
to handling digestion again. He ate the bread and the broth and
wondered if it was time yet to try that pepperoni pizza.
Probably not. He daydreamed about it, though, finally drifting off