Blood Reaction A Vampire Novel (4 page)

Honey-colored hair hung down, cutting off my line of vision. I breathed in the sweet scent of apples emanating from the shoulder-length locks framing a heart-shaped face. Her forehead against the bridge of my nose, a small mouth planted a kiss on mine then pulled away so I could see her almond-brown eyes staring back at me. A giggle escaped her cupid mouth and little hands cupped my cheeks.

“Mommy, come make me some eggs.” Happiness spread through me at the sound of her voice. I started to get up and follow her as she bounced towards the kitchen, but the aching in my head cut through my dreams and brought me back to reality.

Lying on the living room rug, I found myself staring up at the dimmed lights. It was night outside and I could still see a piece of the moon through the window from where I was.

I reached up to touch my forehead and noticed I was covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Dizziness with even that small movement nearly overwhelmed me, followed by a wave of nausea. If I thought I had been sore before, I had absolutely no idea. I attempted to lick my lips, but couldn’t find enough moisture.

Listening to the tick of the grandfather clock, I lay where I was, unwilling to move. The clock chimed 1:00. That meant the night was only half-way over and I was still alive.

The chimes an hour later brought me back from the restless sleep state and I realized that I had lost another hour. Rolling over to my side, I managed to lift my upper body up onto my elbow. Winded, I lay there for another couple of minutes before making it to my knees and another couple of minutes until I managed to pull myself to my feet using the divan for support. Bile rose in my throat and I choked it back just in time. My knees buckled, but I ended up in a sitting position on the divan rather than back on the floor.

Sitting there, I began to search the room for my captor. He was not in my line of vision and straining my ears, I couldn’t locate a sound out of place. The hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the clock were all I could make out until the heating unit began its cycling.

Still trying without success to find the moisture to lick my lips, I knew I had to get off of the divan and try to make it to the kitchen and get something to drink. I needed fluid so I leaned as far forward as I could to gather momentum more easily, then pushed off with everything in me.

Somehow, I made it into the kitchen and to the refrigerator without going to my knees again. Pulling the refrigerator door open was like an Olympic feat and I had to stand there a moment holding on to the door to recoup for a minute before I went any further.

Looking through the disorganized shelves, the orange juice and peanut butter seemed the most likely choices because of their iron content. I made the mistake of grabbing them both at the same time, and they slipped out of my fingers and landed on the floor. Using the refrigerator as a brace, I slid down it to sit on the floor and picked up the orange juice. Tilting the container up, it was like the nectar of the gods on my lips and I drank several gulps before I cautioned myself not to drink it too fast. I slowed down and tried to sip it. I desperately needed the fluid volume, but knew it could come back up just as easily.

Needing some solid food to settle my stomach, I set the juice down beside me and reached for the peanut butter jar. Thankfully, I had not screwed the lid on too tightly or I wouldn’t have been able to open it. Scooping it out with my fingers, I ate it as quickly as I could, not bothering to waste the energy to get a spoon.

Hypoglycemia and dehydration were making me tremble, but after finishing off the carton of OJ, I started to feel better and best of all, still no sign of the vampire. He must have left me for dead and I smiled at the thought.

Vampire. Hearing the word echo in my mind made it seem all the more ludicrous, but I was at least five units of blood short by looking at my nail beds so I knew I wasn’t crazy. Tell that to the police, I thought to myself.

Laughing out loud with a slight hysteric tone at the thought of calling the police; the idea of notifying them suddenly took on a new urgency. I began to crawl towards my cell phone, which of course was on the other side of the kitchen. It was less risky than standing up and I was more likely to make it if I crawled.

Hesitation hit me half-way across the floor. What would I tell the police? That my house had been broken into while I was making spaghetti and I had been held captive by a vampire?

It crossed my mind to not call the police because what could they really do to help me? I quickly dropped that idea. I had bruises, I had the gash in my arm. My dog was dead. I certainly looked as though I had been attacked so I would leave the story there.

The police could take me to a hospital tonight and tomorrow I could start looking for a new place to live. He was probably long gone, but I wouldn’t take any chances.
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Vampires couldn’t come out in the sunlight, right? At least I didn’t think so. All I needed to do was to survive the night. He would never find me again.

I resumed my slow crawl across the floor with a little more energy. I had about eight feet to go to make it to where my cell phone sat on the counter. The rough tile was wreaking havoc on my knees, but I labored on till I made it to the counter.

Reaching up with both hands, I pulled myself up on my knees, my right hand inches away from my cell phone. One more second and I would have had it in my hands.

Coming seemingly out of nowhere, he wrapped a hand in my hair and with a quick jerk of his wrist, he pulled my head around and threw me backwards. I landed about ten feet away, hard on my back. I felt his hand lace through my hair again as he dragged me from the kitchen and into the living room. With a sudden release of his hand that I wasn’t expecting, the floor came up to meet my head very hard.

Bright lights exploded in my vision and a hard wave of nausea hit me, but still I didn’t pass out. Searching vainly in my peripheral vision, I looked for him but didn’t see him. Intertwining my fingers in the carpeting, I managed to pull myself up to where I was resting on my forearms.

About four feet away directly in front of me, he sat stock still, staring at me intently. He held a pose that for most men would have been uncomfortable. His right leg was partially stretched out to his side, his left leg bent and supporting most of his weight on the ball of his left foot. He looked halfway crouched and halfway poised to leap, but he simply stayed there and so I simply rested as well, waiting for my head to quit spinning and for the lights to stop flashing behind my eyes.

My chest ached from the impact of the tile, my head pulsed with a probable concussion, and every muscle in my body felt as though it had been torn away from the ligaments that were holding me together. I shook from fear and sheer physical exhaustion. My body surely couldn’t survive this much longer.

It is interesting the things that go through your mind during a crisis. During my nights as an emergency room physician, patients had often recounted small details that their brain had noticed during car accidents or other life-threatening events. Always fascinating to me, I would wonder if they remembered these minute details only after the fact when their mind had a chance to reenact the event, or did they really take such quick notice when the event was occurring.

Now I had answered my own question. Because even though I sat facing the physical manifestation of death, I was able to focus on his every feature.

Physically speaking, he was not terribly imposing except for that half-crouched position he was holding, and despite everything, I realized he was very attractive. Reasonably tall, he was probably just a hair over six feet. Dark brown wavy hair, with what looked light sun-streaked highlights, fell in long locks to the base of his neck. It swept back off of a smooth forehead, except for three or four locks that strayed down to partially cover his eyes. Intense green eyes, evenly spaced, with dark, thick arching eyebrows stared back at me. The whites were clear and the pupils exceedingly dark, which even though it sounds like a cliché really did remind me of the old well at my family farm back home.

Glistening and dark, his pupils mesmerized me, threatening to pull me over the edge and into him. Dilated and wider in diameter than human pupils, I couldn’t help but stop and stare at them. His skin was light and smooth and his red lips, full in the extreme, almost leapt off his face. The contrast between their color and his skin was sharp. On a woman, it would have been considered garish, but he carried it well. He was not slight but not heavy either and his arms underneath the thermal he was wearing were corded with lean muscles. The denim that encased his thighs also showed the notching of hard muscles.

He was wearing light gray and black tennis shoes with a lot of wear to the point that most of the tread had given way to a smooth rubber sole. He was handsome and in some ways beautiful, but not so much that he looked feminine. He was all male, not human, but all male.

Lifting my gaze back up to his face, I could see he knew I was appraising him. The corners of his mouth lifted in a sardonic smile that wrinkled his skin only slightly and I wondered how many other women had stared at this same man and saw that humorless smile before he ripped them to shreds. My heart rate picked up a little at that thought.

“Your name.” His voice was so quiet as to almost be a whisper and the innocence of the words coming from him after the previous mocking threats caught me totally by surprise. It was not a question, more like a command though not threatening, but even so I sat there dumbly for a few moments. Never looking away from his face, I watched as he lifted one eyebrow up in surprise that I dared to withhold the information he wanted. I gathered my wits up before he could speak again.

“Annalice,” I found myself whispering back, unable to lift my voice above his.

“Hello, Annalice. What a lovely old-fashioned name you have. It matches your house. I spent some time upstairs looking around. Hope you didn’t mind.” His voice was low and almost calming and I didn’t know what to say so I just continued to sit there staring into his dilated pupils. Doubtless mesmerizing, but not hypnotic like in the movies. No loss of free will, but definitely hard to look away from.

He sat back at that point and stretched out both legs in front of him, leaning casually back against my couch without breaking eye contact. “Do you accept what I am now?” he asked quietly.

I nodded very minimally, my subconscious subduing my movements, suspecting that sudden or large gestures might bring him hurtling across the small distance at me. I knew I had to die to protect my daughter, but since my previous attempt had failed, I just couldn’t seem to find the strength at the moment.

“You know how our encounter will end. You have proven that, but I do hope the time of prayer and theatrics is over. You cannot force my timing as I am in control of myself. Your blood will not control me and spilling it will not bring this to a quicker or different ending.”

His words hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt a black cloudy haze of fear for Ellie’s life form in my mind. It clouded my vision and left me nearly paralyzed, hampering my ability to breathe let alone acknowledge the creature sitting across from me. My eyes glazed over and I dropped my forehead into the carpet as I  focused on breathing in and out. Other than that action, I had yet to acknowledge his words, but instead lay there in silence.

Finally looking up at him, I found that he had looked away and was staring at something to my right. Out of curiosity, I followed his gaze and with a sickening realization saw he was staring at Ellie’s picture.

“She is beautiful.” His voice was icy now and held a perverse undertone. I noticed then that he had a slight southern accent. Those pretty words wrapped up in that slight drawl only added to the effect.

I felt his gaze on my face, but I hadn’t been able to tear my eyes away from Ellie’s face. Her innocence stood out like a beacon to me. Surely there must be something he wanted, something I could use to bargain with. But was it possible to bargain with the devil? “Let’s make a deal,” ran through my head but I had nothing to offer except my death and I couldn’t even control that.

As I sat there, my mind grasped at straws. Was there no way out for Ellie? My mom would never bring her here if she were unable to get a hold of me. That I knew for certain. And she would call. She always did, frightened that I, her only daughter, lived in what she considered the remote parts of the world surrounded by dark forests. Mom had imagined every kind of evil lurking in those woods. Well, probably not this kind, I admitted to myself but she was not far off since the outcome would be the same. She would never dream of driving to the house without a definite game plan and so he would never get her or Ellie.

Unable to stop it, a slight smile of satisfaction spread across my face and with a little defiance, I met his eyes.

“I can find her. I will find her. That is what you were thinking about, right? Stupid human to think I cannot track down one insignificant child.” His voice held some anger now and his face went hard. “I already know so much about you. Give me twenty minutes in a house and I can tell you almost everything about a human. So naïve to think your home is really that private. I know where your mother lives. Or at least I know the general direction.”