The Eternal Kiss: Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire

“You shot her!” the witch screeched.

“She was trying to—”

“You were waiting for an excuse. You …”

She kept shouting as Marguerite dropped beside me, tears plopping onto my face as I lay on the pavement and all I could think was, I didn’t know vampires could cry.

“… like Davidoff’s going to complain,” the man was saying. “I gave him the excuse to test his secret experiment …”

The voices drifted away again. Or maybe I drifted. I wasn’t sure. The next thing I knew, I was sitting up with Marguerite’s arm around me, her face buried in my hair, tears wet against my scalp as she whispered, “I’m sorry, mon chaton. I’m so sorry.”

“… just get the body in the van …” the woman was saying.

Body? I jerked up at that, looking around wildly, reassuring myself I was alive. I could still see them, could still hear Marguerite telling me it would be okay, everything would be okay.

Marguerite had me on my feet now, her arm still around me as she whispered, “We’re going to run, Kat. We must run. Do you understand?”

Run? Was she crazy? I’d been shot. I couldn’t—

Everything went black. Then, suddenly, I was on the sidewalk, running as she supported me. The pain in my chest was indescribable. Every breath felt like a knife stabbing through me. Marguerite had one hand pressed to the hole in my chest, trying to keep it closed, but it didn’t matter. The blood ran over her fingers, over my shirt, dripping onto the pavement. Yet somehow we ran.

As we stumbled onto the road, a truck horn blasted. We kept going. The truck tried to stop, brakes and tires squealing. We raced past it, cutting so close that the draft as it passed nearly toppled us. The truck screeched to a halt. The driver shouted. Our pursuers shouted back, but they were stuck on the other side of the vehicle, out of sight.

We ducked into the first alley and kept going.

As we ran, the ground tilted under my feet. I tried to focus, but could see only a haze of dull shapes. Then I heard something. Water. The thunder of the dam, growing closer with each step. I heard Marguerite too, on her cell phone. Emergency. Shooting. The dam. Ambulance. Police. Please hurry.

What was she doing? I couldn’t go to a regular doctor. I’d been told that all my life, even before I went away with Marguerite. In an emergency, call home. Don’t let them take you to a hospital. My parents said it was because they wouldn’t understand my condition. True. They just hadn’t mentioned that the condition was being a genetically-modified supernatural whose blood tests would make the doctors call the guys in the Hazmat suits.

I guess that didn’t matter now. I needed immediate medical attention. We’d deal with the fallout later.

The roar of rushing water grew steadily louder. Then another sound cut through it. The wail of sirens. I remembered seeing the police cars downtown. That’s why Marguerite had asked for the police—they’d get here quickly, and that would scare off our pursuers. In an emergency, she always said, cause a scene and get the humans involved. No supernatural would risk doing anything with them around.

Marguerite lowered me to the ground, my back brushing against a metal railing. A cold mist of water sprayed my neck. When I blinked, I could focus enough to see we were at the dam. Police lights strobed against the buildings, the sirens deafening now.

There was no sign of our pursuers. This trapped them worse than the truck. They couldn’t approach. We were safe.

“Mags,” I whispered. I tried to say more, but could only cough, pain ripping through me, bloody spit splattering my clothes.

“Shhh, shhh.” She kissed the top of my head, tears raining down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, mon chaton. So sorry. I should have told you, should have warned you. You are so young. So young.”

Told me what? Young? Too young for what? To die? No. She couldn’t mean that. I was fine. The ambulance was coming. I could hear the siren.

Doors slammed, and a police officer shouted for Marguerite to step back. Her trembling fingers fumbled around my neck, finding my necklace. A Star of David. I wasn’t Jewish, but we always said I was. Just part of the cover.

When she found it, she breathed a sigh of relief, murmuring, “Bien, bien.”

Why good?

“Step away from the girl,” another officer shouted.

“I love you, Kat. You know that, don’t you?” She kissed my forehead again. “I love you and I’ll never leave you.”

She stood then. I tried to call out to her but couldn’t. The fog was descending again and it took everything I had just to focus, just to see her, a faint shape in the grayness as the mist from the dam and the fog from my brain swirled together.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” she whispered. Her fingers grazed my chin as she stepped back.

I twisted my head to watch her as she climbed onto the railing. The police shouted. I shouted, too, but only in my head, shouting her name over and over, telling her to stop, to come back, not to leave me …

She blew me a kiss and mouthed, “I’ll see you soon,” then back-flipped off the railing. The last thing I saw was Marguerite plummeting down, out of sight, into the river a hundred feet below.

And then …

Nothing.

* * *

I woke up cold, a chilled-to-the-bone kind of cold, with only a thin sheet pulled up to my chin. Under me, my bed was rock hard. I stretched and my muscles screamed in protest.

Damn, I really needed a workout.

I laughed at the thought. I’d been shot in the chest. Something told me it’d be a while before I was training again.

I inhaled, and resisted the urge to gag as my nostrils filled with the stink of antiseptic and chemicals. The smell of a hospital, bringing back old memories. I shivered. At least I wouldn’t be going back to that hospital again. Almost worth being shot.

I wiggled my fingers and toes. God, everything ached and I was freezing. Did they have the air-conditioning on? My bed was so cold it was like lying on a marble slab.

I rubbed the bed … and my fingertips squeaked across the surface. I stopped. Mattresses didn’t squeak. Was it covered in plastic? Did it need to be? Had I pissed myself?

I lifted my head. It took some effort—my head was flat on the bed. No pillow? I looked down and caught the flash of my reflection. I was lying on a metal table.

I jumped up so fast I nearly tumbled to the floor. I looked around. Metal. All I saw was metal. Metal table. Metal equipment. Metal trays covered with metal surgical instruments.

Had I woken up in surgery? Oh, God. Had they finished? My fingers flew to my chest, finding the spot under my left breast where the bullet had—

There was no bullet hole. No stitches. No bandages.

And no heartbeat.

I shook my head sharply, and pressed my fingers to the spot and closed my eyes, trying to feel …

There was nothing to feel. My chest didn’t move at all. No heartbeat and no breathing.

As I turned, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the bank of metal berths behind me. I saw me—just me, same as always, tanned skin, brown hair, green eyes, gold pendant gleaming on my chest.

I caught the pendant and ran my fingers over the points of the star. The Star of David. Now I knew why Marguerite had been so happy to see me wearing my pendant. So they wouldn’t embalm me.

I heard the words of the man who’d shot me. Like Davidoff’s going to complain. I gave him the excuse to test his secret experiment.

An excuse to test whether their genetic modification had any effect on my supernatural blood-right, my destiny. To die … and rise again.

“Katiana.”