Afterlife (6 page)

“Do you think there’s an afterlife for vampires? Do they — do
we all go hell, if there’s a hell?”

“Don’t say that!”

“Holy water burns me. I’ll never be able to set foot on
consecrated ground again, “Lucas said. “God’s made it pretty clear where he
stands, don’t you think?”

I cupped his face with my hands. “I know you hate this, but
there are ways to go on, to enjoy the years to come. Think about it: We’re
immortal now. We lost each other once, but at least we never have to again.”

Lucas pulled away, breaking contact between us. Slowly he
pushed himself to his feet. He walked a few steps farther into our makeshift
apartment in the wine cellar, studying it as though he were seeing it for the
first time: the hot plate, the air mattress on a bed frame, the cardboard
drawers that held our things. There were times in the past few weeks when I’d
thought this was the most perfect, romantic place on eartth. Now it seemed
shabby and small, its beauty just our last shared illusion.

He said, “Bianca, I don’t know ifl can do this.”

“You can.”

“You’re saying that because you want to believe it. Not
because you do.”

“You’re giving up without even trying.”

Lucas turned to me, his eyes anguished. “I’m going to try.
Jesus, Bianca, do you think I wouldn’t try for you? As much as I hate this — this
hunger inside me, this cold, disgusting, dead feeling — if it means being with
you, I’ll try.”

“You’ll make it. You’ll learn how to handle the hunger. I
promise.”

“How is that supposed to happen?” He gestured at the empty
blood containers on the floor. “That’s, what, three pints of blood? It’s as
much as I can do right this second not to tackle that bag and drink the rest
immediately. Already when I think about Vic outside — it’s not about Vic
anymore, it’s about the fact that he’s alive and he’s got blood I could drink.
In
another
few minutes — ”

“We have more blood. Drink as much as you need. We can get
more.” But that was a purely temporary solution, and we both knew it.

He needed hope, and only one suggestion gave us any hope. I
laid aside my own objections and fears about my parents; Balthazar’s plan was
the best we had.

“Classes start in two weeks, “I said. “At Evernight. You’re going
to go back there.”

Lucas stared at me for a second, then thumped his head
against one of the wine racks so that the bottles rattled. “Great. I’m already
hearing things. Halfway to crazy.”

“You’re not hearing things. You’re enrolling in Evernight
Academy again as a student, a vampire student this time, and they’ll take care
of you.”

“Take care of me
?
Bianca, the last
time I was there, I rode with the guys who burned the place down.”

I remembered what Balthazar had said and clung to it. “You’re
a vampire now. If you ask for sanctuary, Mrs. Bethany has to give it to you.
They might not be friendly, exactly, but they’ll give you a place to stay, and
plenty of blood to drink, and advice about how to deal with the hunger. For
weeks or months, however long you need.”

“Or years,” Lucas said. “Balthazar’s kept coming back for
years.”

Balthazar had attended Evernight Academy for different
reasons, ones more focused on the school’s true mission: helping young — looking
vampires pass for human by keeping them up — to — date with the modern world. I
wasn’t about to point that out to Lucas, though. The last thing he needed to
hear was how well all the other vampires could manage.

Lucas added, “Besides, it doesn’t matter how much they hate
me. We’re not going to Evernight Academy because it’s dangerous for you.”

“For me
?
” I had hardly had a moment
to consider this, but Lucas was right. We knew from the events at school last
year that Mrs. Bethany was no longer merely the headmistress at Evernight; she
was also using the school as a means of finding — and perhaps capturing — ghosts
like me. Why she was doing this remained a mystery, but there was no doubt that
she loathed the wraiths. Whatever she was up to couldn’t be good for us.

Seeing realization dawn on my face, Lucas nodded. His
expression had become truly grim. “I’vealready screwed things up so badly that
you died,” he said. “No way am I ever going back to the one place where that
situation could get even worse.”

What else could we do, though? I forced myself to be brave.
“We’ ll figure it out.”

“Don’t ask me to go there without you. I couldn’t take it.”
Lucas said it simply, like it was obvious; if he was parted from me, the thin
tether of will that kept him going would snap.

“You’re going to Evernight Academy, and I’m going with you.”

“Bianca, no. It’s too dangerous.”

“Lucas, yes.” He always wanted to protect me against every
risk, but it was time for a reality check. “Is it more dangerous than my being
a vampire in a Black Cross cell? I made it through that, and I’ll make it through
this. Besides, there are wraiths who managed to be at Evernight without being
destroyed by Mrs. Bethany. Maxie’s one of them. It can be done. At least I know
to be careful.”

Lucas didn’t look convinced. “We could do something else.
Lock me up someplace until I — “

“Until you stop wanting blood?” I kept my voice low, to
soften the impact of my next words. “That’s not going to happen. And I’m not
turning you into a prisoner in some basement somewhere. I’m telling you, we can
do this. We can because we have to.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t either, but I’ll be all right. You’ll have a
structure there, a blood supply, other vampires who can help teach you how to
handle this. Ranulf and Balthazar will go with you,” I promised. “And Vic’s
going back, too, remember?”

His dark green eyes widened, and I knew that Vic wasn’t a
source of comfort for him; he wasn’t a friend. He was prey.

Hurriedly, I added, “You’ll be able to be around Vic while
others are there to help you. Eventually it’s going to seem easy.”

Lucas stared down at the floor, and I hated myself for being
so glib, so casual. Maybe he would learn to bear it, but it would never be
easy. It didn’t help either of us for me to pretend that it could.

I remembered what Balthazar had said, about vampires walking
into a fire rather than going on. Lucas knew better than most how to destroy a
vampire’s body.

“Okay. It won’t be easy,” I said. “It never has been. And
that’s never kept us apart.”

He held out his arms, and I ran into them. Already his
embrace had cooled, but it was still Lucas, still us. Into my hair, Lucas
whispered, “Will I only see you in my dreams?”

“As long as you have my brooch, I can get to you.”

He frowned, then pulled the brooch from his back pocket. The
Whitby jet flower, ornately carved, had been a gift from him to me when we were
first dating. He’d taken it with him when he went into the fight, to die; that
was the only thing that had allowed me to reach him. “Why the brooch?”

“Things that wraiths bonded to strongly in life, meaningful
things — like this brooch, or my bracelet, or the gargoyle outside the window
of my old room — well, we can use them to travel. They’re like stops on a
subway line; I can travel to them, just sort of appear wherever they are. The
coral bracelet and the jet brooch are especially powerful, because they’re made
out of materials that were once living creatures.” I closed his hand around the
brooch. “So as long as you keep this with you, I’ll always be able to find you.
See, you’ll still have a way to make sure I’m safe.”

“Evernight,” he said. “Okay.” I could tell I hadn’t
convinced him as much as worn him down. He remained more frightened for me than
for himself. But we truly had no other place to turn.

We hugged again, more tightly this time. How badly I wanted
to believe that Lucas had found a reason to hope. Even as we embraced, though,
I could tell he was looking over my shoulder, staring at the blood.

“REST,” I SAID AS WE STEPPED into one of the hotel rooms in
downtown Philadelphia that Balthazar had paid for. It was ridiculously
luxurious, with white cotton quilts on high platform beds — too clean for
undead creatures smeared with dried blood. “We both need to rest.”

“Can you sleep?” Lucas asked. He’d eaten again on the way
over, several pints, and now had the half — dazed look that I recognized as a
result of overfeeding — like Mom and Dad on Thanksgiving. We’d had to give him
as much as he could take; it was the only way to ensure he could get through
the hotel lobby without snapping. Soon he’d crash.

Tm not sure ghosts need to sleep. Sometimes I need to sort
of …
fade out, I guess. But it’s not quite the same
thing.”

“Where do you go? When you fade out.”

I shrugged. There was so much I still didn’t know about my
new wraith nature. “Someplace I can get back from. That’s the only thing that
matters.”

He nodded wearily. Through the thin hotel walls, I could
hear Balthazar roughly throwing down his gear in the next room. We ‘d decided
to spend the last days before the new semester in the hotel because Vic’s
parents were due to return from Italy. He was going to be in enough trouble
about the torn — up front lawn without his mom and dad discovering an
infestation of vampires in the basement.

Besides, we needed to give Vic some more space. He and Lucas
hadn’t come face — to — face since the attack, by their mutual agreement. It
was obvious that Vic was trying hard to come to terms, but it was just as
obviously going to take a while.

“Why do vampires need sleep? Doesn’t make much sense.” Lucas
kicked off his boots and slid out of his jeans. Now that he wore only his
boxers and a T — shirt, I could see that his whole body had taken on the
sculpted beauty of the vampire. The T outlined every broad muscle of his chest.

Although I had lost my mortal body, I could still feel
desire.

I turned off one of the side lamps nearer the window and
pulled shut the heavy drapes that would keep out the morning sun. Lucas had fed
recently enough that sunlight wouldn’t hurt him, but he’d probably hate the
glare. “My mom used to say that she thought it was more of a habit than
anything else, like the body keeps on doing what it knows it should do. See how
you’ve started breathing again? You won’t stop, even when you’re sound asleep.”

“Though I’ll never need air again.” Lucas said it as a joke,
but it fell flat. I could tell he’d just realized that he’d never feel the
relief of a good, deep breath, or a heartfelt sigh.

He collapsed into bed, sinking back gratefully into the
feather — plump pillows. Probably he could have fallen asleep within seconds,
but I had different ideas.

Maybe Lucas’s ravenous blood hunger could be channeled into
other things. Other needs. Where being ravenous wouldn’t be a problem — quite
the opposite, actually.

Carefully, I tried shimmying out of the cloud — patterned
pajama bottoms. They weren’t so much actual clothes as they were the memory of
clothes, so I wasn’t sure whether or not they’d come off.

They would. The pajamas crumpled to the floor and just sort
of vanished. I hoped they’d come back — but later. Ideally, I wouldn’t want
them for a while.

Lucas raised an eyebrow.

As I slipped into the bed beside him, he smiled a little — the
first sign of real pleasure I’d seen from him since his resurrection. “Does
this still work?” he murmured. “You and me
?
”

“Let’s find out.”

He pulled me down into his arms; we were cold against each
other now, but it was natural to him and to me, to what we had become. Delicate
lines of frost laced the sheets around us as our lips met gently. For the first
moment, Lucas was so unsure — of his reactions, of mine — that I felt
unbearably tender toward him. Like all I wanted to do was wrap myself around
him like a blanket and shelter him from everything we’d been through.

His mouth opened beneath mine as he tangled his fingers in
my hair. The only thing I wore now was the coral bracelet that would keep me
solid, make this possible.

We made it, I thought. Every complication we faced seemed to
have faded away. We’re back where we began Death couldn’t take this away from
us.

Our kisses intensified and deepened. Lucas’s hands were
still his hands, strong and familiar. He touched me the same way. I felt
pleasure differently now — softer, more diffuse and yet all — encompassing — but
it was no less for having changed. And as Igrew surer, passion building between
us, it seemed as though my joy in him flowed through us both.

He rolled me onto my back, but then his expression changed.
Isaw his fangs, understood, and smiled. Ifelt the urge to bite, too — not as
strongly, now that I no longer needed blood, but sex and fangs would always go
together for me.

“It’s okay,” I whispered against his throat, between kisses.
“You can be hungry for this. You can have this.”

“Yes,” he said roughly. His green eyes bored into me, a
desperate plea.

“Do you need to drink?” I arched against him and let my head
fall back, exposing my throat. Lucas breathed in, a hard gasp. “Drink from me.”
With a growl, he sank his teeth into my flesh. I felt again the real pain of
having a body, and that alone was its own kind of pleasure. My hands gripped
him tightly around the back, surrendering to his hunger —
 
— until he shoved himself away from me,
shouting out in pain.

“Lucas
?
” I sat upright, clutching
the sheet to me. “Lucas, what’s wrong?”

“It burns!”

As he stumbled from the bed, clutching at his throat, he
choked and then spat. Silver wraith blood shimmered on the floor briefly before
it faded. I smelled smoke and snapped on the bedside light; on the carpet
Icould see a couple of faint singe marks. Then I realized the sheets were
scorched too — coffee — colored drops from where my blood had fallen. I put my
hand to the wound at my throat, but it was already closing. The skin knitted
beneath my fingertips.
a
ticklish sensation.