A wave of mixed warmth and cold moved outward through his body from where her mouth touched him. He shivered in pleasure and moved just a little, straining toward her mouth.
Presently, though, he wondered if maybe she should. He felt very weak. He needed to sit down before he collapsed. His knees buckled, but her hands caught him under the arms and held him against the wall. She must be very strong, came a languid thought…certainly stronger than she looked, to be holding up someone of his weight so easily. The maiden was powerful, just like
But with that thought lassitude disappeared. Fear rose up through him like a jet of ice water. Two men the singer knew had died of blood loss. Now she kissed his neck in the very spot where the other men had punctures and bruises and he felt himself weakening, too! With a profound shock of horror and revulsion, he realized why. Lane Barber was sucking his blood!
He shuddered and tried to pull loose, pushing at her shoulders with his hands. His body obeyed only sluggishly, however, and when she noticed his effort, her body pressed harder against his, pinning him to the wall.
But her hand easily kept him from reaching it.
Abandoning pride in favor of self-preservation, he opened his mouth to yell for help. Her hand clamped across his mouth, silencing him.
Garreth’s breath caught in fear. He no longer had the strength to fight her. Only her weight against him held him upright. She was killing him, as she had killed Adair and Mossman — were human teeth really sharp enough to bite through skin into veins? Where had she learned such depravity?
In desperation, he bit at her hand to make her let go of his mouth. He sank his teeth in deep, using all his fading strength. Skin gave way. Her blood filled his mouth, burning like fire. Convulsively, he swallowed, and his throat burned, too…but with the fire came a surge of new strength.
Lane jerked the hand to free it, but he bit harder, making the most of the opportunity to hurt her. More blood scorched down his throat. He managed to bring both hands up to her shoulders and push her back.
But it was too little effort coming too late. She tore loose from him, her hand from his mouth and her mouth from his throat. He felt her teeth rip through his flesh. As she backed away from him, he fell, collapsing to the ground.
The pain of striking the ground barely reached him. He only saw, not felt, the blood streaming from his torn throat to make a crimson pool around his head. A suffocating fog muffled all sensation…touch, sound, and smells.
“Good-bye, lover,” a distant, mocking voice said. “Rest in peace.”
Her footsteps receded into the darkness. Garreth tried to move, to drag himself to the mouth of the alley where he might find help, but a leaden heaviness weighted him down, leaving him helpless. He could not move, only stare into the growing pool of blood draining from him. He cursed his stupidity…for coming after her alone, for not letting someone know what he had found out, but most of all, as his breathing and heartbeat stumbled, faltered, and faded, he cursed himself for underestimating her…just what
Passage
1
Rest in peace. Like hell. Death was not peace. It led not to Marti, nor to any kind of heaven. . not even to oblivion. Death was not that kind. Death was hell.
It was dreams…nightmares of suffocation and pain, of restless discomfort, of aches impossible to ease, of itches impossible to scratch. It was hallucination invading the void, playing blurrily before half-open eyes unable to focus or follow…imaginary hands on him, patting him, then lights, footsteps, sirens, voices.
Death was hell, and hell was dreams, but mostly, hell was fear…panic-stricken, frantic. Were all the dead aware? Did they remain that way? Was this to be eternity…lying in twilight and nightmares, throat aching with thirst, body crying for a change of position, mind churning endlessly? Did Marti lie like this in her grave, insane with loneliness, begging for peace, for an end? No, not for her…please, no.
He hated giving up life, but accepted that in the jungle, death was the price of carelessness, of error, and he errored badly. Surrendering life to rejoin Marti would be welcome. He could even accept oblivion. This, though…this limbo? The thought of having to endure it for eternity terrified him.
He screamed…for himself, for Marti, for all the dead trapped sleepless and peaceless and tormented in their graves. He screamed, and because went unvoiced, it echoed and reechoed endlessly down the long, dark, lonely corridors of his mind.
The horror escalated. A sheet over him blocked the vision of his eyes; temperature had become all one to him, unfelt; and the lack of breath prevented him from smelling anything, but he knew he lay in the morgue. He had heard its cold echoes on arriving, had felt them park the gurney, and heard the freezer door close. Now he heard, had lain listening for countless time, the hum of refrigeration units while he dreamed nightmares and wished Lane had thrown him in the bay, too. Better to be fish food than lie in this hated purgatory of cold and steel. He prayed for his parents to be spared seeing him here.
That was when he thought of the autopsy. His heart contracted in fear. What would it be like? How would it feel to lie naked in running water on cold steel, sliced open from neck to hips, shelled out like -
Heart?
His mind held its breath…waiting. Yes, there it was! His heart squeezed again. A slow ripple moved outward from it along his arteries. He felt almost every inch of them. A long pause later, his heart squeezed again, then again…settling into a slow but regular rhythm.
He listened in wonder. If his heart beat, he could not be dead. His body lay leaden, held unmoving on the stainless steel the surface beneath him, but a silent cry of joy banished the darkness inside him. Alive!
He drew a breath…slow, painfully slow, but a breath nonetheless. He swore his breath and heart stopped in that alley. He had felt — how he had felt! — the silence of his body. What miracle caused the heart and lungs to resume function? He could not imagine, and at the moment, overjoyed with the sound and feel of them, he did not give a damn why.
But he remained in a morgue freezer, naked under the sheet. Unless he found a way out, the cold would kill him again. Could he attract attention by pounding on the gurney? Calling out?
He tried, but the weakness that held him motionless the past — how many? — hours persisted. He still could not move. Could not speak.
Could he survive until they came to take him out for the autopsy? He felt less cold now. Perhaps if he kept alert, he could fight off hypothermia.
He wished, though, that he could change position. His body consisted of one continuous, unrelenting ache, stiff from neck to toes. By concentrating and straining, he finally managed to move. Like the first heartbeat and the first breath, it came with agonizing slowness. Still, by persisting, he managed to shift his weight off his buttocks and
