Crimson Groves (5 page)

I remembered the words, recognized the voice. Blood? I drank blood? Panic seized me. I gasped. Tried to sit up, couldn’t get up yet. My body felt heavy and warped like it was filled with lead balloons. Time plummeted around me. Memories punched me in the face, stinging, burning, surreal. I met a guy at work. Bronx. That’s right, Bronx was his name. He walked me home but never took me there. He brought me somewhere else. A house. He kissed me. No, I kissed him. He was gentle at first, but then so aggressive, so vicious. He bit me. He sucked my blood. He killed me, didn’t he? I blinked a few more times. My vision was finally crystal clear. Bronx was standing above me, smiling, and I was still in the room he’d brought me to.

My face was wet and sticky all around my mouth. I drank something! What was it? I wiped my lips, looked down at my hand. There was blood smeared over my fingers. I drank blood! His blood! “What have you done to me? Who in the hell are you?
What
…are…you?” I glared up at him; my body was trembling all over.

“Abigail, Abigail, please calm down and I will tell you everything you want to know, but you must calm down first.” His voice was still, very still.

I swallowed hard. Took a deep breath, but nothing seemed to happen. “I can’t breathe,” I gasped, my hands pressed against my chest.

“Do not worry. Your body no longer requires air. It is simply acting out its old breathing pattern. In time it will stop.” He smiled, big and brilliant, flashing sharp oversized canines. Fangs!

Shaking my head from side to side, I said, “Your teeth aren’t human! Wh-wh-what, are you?” My voice trembled uncontrollably.

“I am a vampire, a very lonely vampire. My partner dismissed me after spending two decades together. It would have broken my heart if I had one. She was bored with me. She wanted a new partner, one that could bring her the excitement of passion that we no longer shared. I did not feel the same. I pleaded with her not to send me away.” He closed his eyes for a few moments. I kept silent.

“One night while we were hunting, two Enforcers jumped me. Enforcers are very old vampires with special gifts in addition to being exceptionally strong. One of them had the ability to freeze the body, preventing it from moving at all. I could not stop them from taking me away from her. She laughed at me as they did. The other Enforcer could move at the speed of light. All vampires move extraordinarily fast but nowhere near as fast as that. That Enforcer brought me here to this house. He threatened that if I ever returned they would kill me but not without torturing me first.” His smile was gone, eyes like black holes in space, threatening to suck me inside.

My stomach tightened. Lumps formed in my throat.

Bronx kept talking. “It has been seven lonely years since that happened. I did what they asked and remained here, searching for a new partner. None of the other vampires I have run into have been good enough, all of them lacking some quality that I need and most important, the connection of me to her that will bind us together for eternity. Then I saw you through the window at The Beacon. You were so beautiful. For months I walked by and watched you while you worked, waiting for the perfect time to come inside and meet you. Tonight was that special night.”

When he sat down beside me, I sunk toward him. He reached over and took my hands inside his. I didn’t move, didn’t fight him. My body was frozen, numb. He stared at me. I met his eyes. “Abigail, you exceeded all of my expectations. After you spoke just a few simple words, I knew you were the one. The woman I have searched for. Your beauty exceeds far beyond your physical appearance. Your heart was full of compassion unlike anything I have ever seen or felt. I needed you to be mine forever. But you were a mortal human, and our love would never work if I left you that way. There was no choice but to transform you into one of my kind.”

My mouth got dry like there was an invisible sock stuffed in it. My tongue scraped the insides of my cheeks trying to find anything wet. He stared at me, eyes full of expectation. I didn’t know what to say. So I said nothing.

Eerie minutes passed by. He watched me like he was waiting for something—a reaction maybe? Well, he wasn’t going to get one just yet.

“Abigail, you are a vampire now. You are the one who will stand by my side as my eternal partner. I brought you back to life with my blood to complete the transformation.”

Well, that was going to get a reaction. I was literally about to blow. I jerked back, pulling my hands free, and the sofa conformed around me like soap in a tub. Did the sofa just break? I shouldn’t have been able to go that deep into the cushions. I got up, moving fast, too fast. Everything around me was a blur. I stopped moving, got very still. Everything was okay again. I looked down at Bronx. His lips were curled in a smile, concealing his oversized teeth. “What a load of freaking crap!” I yelled, my voice sounding hysterical. I was. This guy was crazy and he must have drugged me with something. I’d heard about drugs that could get you into a euphoric state, and I’d also heard of ones that made you see visuals. He’d dosed me with both.

“No. It is true. All of it.”

“
You’re a liar,” I screamed, voice high-pitched, raw. “I’m getting out of here, now!” I turned around, started to run. Bronx was there—I never saw him get up off the sofa. He was just there, holding my arm. I couldn’t budge. It was like being stuck in concrete. He pulled me into him in a dizzying whir of movement. His arms wrapped around my chest like an anaconda suffocating its prey. I sidestepped him, trying to get free, but I wasn’t going anywhere. My breathing was still slow. It should’ve accelerated. I couldn’t feel my pulse. My heart should have been pounding out of my chest. I wiggled my fingers up to my neck, pressing down hard just under my chin. Nothing. No heart beat. I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. So I started crying like a baby. Hey, we all have our breaking points.

I finally calmed down, or rather got the crying down to a minimum. Bronx’s hold loosened up just enough for me to pull away from his chest. I instantly smelled something bloody, salty. My face, it was coming from my face. The scent grew sharper, more pungent and tasty. Wait! Tasty? How could I possibly like the smell of blood? My mouth watered. I got thirsty, hungry. This couldn’t be happening. I pulled away from Bronx, and he let me go. But there was nowhere
to
go. I was consumed with the unthinkable. I touched my face, and then lowered my hand in front of me, staring at my red fingers, mesmerized.

Loud noises shrieked in my ears, distracting me from those horrible, bloody thoughts. Everything was so much louder than it should’ve been. There were crickets chirping their nightly chorus as if singing into a microphone. Birds were flying somewhere close by, and their wings swished in to add percussion to the choir of crickets. Low thuds vibrated as the neighborhood entrance gate swung to open or close, adding the missing subwoofer to the band of crickets and birds. How was I hearing this? This was crazy!

The room started to pulsate, wobbling and groaning. I frantically placed my hands over my ears, using them as earmuffs, trying to keep the noise from getting in. Nausea tickled my stomach and shivers jumped down my spine like ants. I crouched down to the floor, grabbing my ears more tightly. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I’d be safe at home. Nope, that didn’t work. I was still here with this lunatic.

He spoke, voice ramming through my ears. My makeshift earmuffs weren’t working. “I can tell you are starting to experience the enhanced senses that you now have as a vampire. Seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and most of all tasting. The taste of blood is what you thirst for above anything else, and you will need to feed again before daylight. My blood transformed you and will be enough to hold you over for a little while longer, but you will need more of it soon.”

Oh my God, what was happening to me? A vampire? Could I really be a vampire? A make-believe being that created best-selling books and sold out movies with almost every story imagined about them. It didn’t seem possible. But then again, neither did any of the crap happening to me. I was unable to move, completely frozen, immobilized by fear.

The new desires of my body were instinctive but foreign. The blood cravings, super-sharp vision, hearing so clear it was as if there was a souped-up hearing aid in my ear, and I was so much stronger, more powerful than before. It’s like I’d taken steroids—from what I’d heard about them anyway. All of these facts led me straight back to Bronx’s crazy story. He
is
a vampire. I am a vampire too.

“Are you doing this to me? Are you making me sick? Is that your gift?” I peered up at him, and his eyes were still locked on me.

In a swish of cloth he was holding me, cradling me in his arms like a baby. I didn’t see him pick me up, never saw him move. He sat me back down on the sofa. He sat beside me, close, too close. He held my hand, gently squeezing. His touch, our closeness, made my insides burn. I tried to pull away. His grip tightened. I was stuck. My body felt exhausted, and I didn’t want to fight him anymore. I swallowed hard. “I don’t feel right. What’s happening to me?” The words sounded strained.

“Most vampires do not have special gifts. That is what makes the Enforcers so powerful. Years ago I discovered that I could use persuasion at a level far more intense than any other. All vampires possess this ability but most are not very skilled at it, and none can use it on other vampires like I can. Persuasion enhances your emotions beyond the intense ones you are now beginning to feel as a vampire. It allows you to persuade people to do anything you want in a way that makes your victim feel like they are acting on their own. I used persuasion to make you feel comfortable with me earlier this evening; however, I am not using it on you at this time. It may have felt like you were hypnotized if you were even able to notice it at all. Most humans do not realize I am using persuasion until long after they have done what I wanted. Though most never notice it at all.”

The trance-like state I was in earlier must have been this “persuasion” he spoke of. Everything had felt normal, but it wasn’t. I knew something was off, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was his puppet. He was the puppet master. He controlled me—what I thought, what I felt. He got inside my head and made me love him, trust him, feel completely at ease with him, and then he lured me to this place so he could destroy me, break me, and really make me his forever.

I shook my head rapidly, trying to shake away the truth—the truth I didn’t want to know. Ignorance
is
bliss. Leave my mind in the dark. But it was too late for that. I knew this was real. I was a vampire. My body was weak, exhausted, starving. Blood. It wanted blood. I wanted blood. No! My neck was stiff. I swallowed hard, rotated my shoulders until they popped. It didn’t help. This new reality dropped down on me like an avalanche, weighing my body down and suffocating my mind. I slumped back into the sofa and closed my eyes.

“Abigail,” Bronx said, voice like a sadistic melody. “You are desperately in need of more blood, and you will continue to grow weaker until you get some.”

“How could you do this to me?” My voice was broken, small. I slowly opened my eyes and glared at him. “Shouldn’t I have had a choice?”

“I did not have a choice when I was transformed. It turned out to be the best decision for me.” There was a blur of movement and then he wasn’t sitting next to me anymore. He stood above me, smiling slightly, no show of fangs, just shiny white teeth, glistening, sparkling.

“But I have a life,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “I had a life. And you took it away from me. What am I supposed to say to my family? To my friends? They’re going to notice me missing.”

“You seem to forget that I watched you long before I decided to transform you. You have been alone for the past six months.”

“That’s not true.” I coughed to clear my throat, trying to raise the volume of my voice. It didn’t work. “I do have friends. I mean, a friend. And what about my coworkers?” Had I really let myself become such a loner? Yep. I sure had. How freaking convenient for Bronx.

“Your coworkers are hardly your friends,” he said. “A phone call to your boss explaining your absence at work should buy you time to decide on a more permanent explanation. If you shall even need one.”

“A more permanent explanation for what?”

“You will never see your human friends, or family for that matter, again. You are a vampire, Abigail. No one can know what you are. It is vital for our survival and theirs.”

“But...”

“IF ANYONE WERE TO DISCOVER WHAT YOU ARE, THEY WOULD BE DESTROYED!” His voice was so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. I cried harder, tears falling more urgently. I needed to think of something else, I needed to be somewhere else.

I wept in my hands for what seemed like hours. I peered up at Bronx. He hadn’t moved an inch, his watchful eyes on me. I looked away, squinting to see more of the dark room around me. It was much bigger than before. Wrought-iron wall hangings and tall candles with tiny dancing flames cast shadows on the deep gray walls. The dark wood floors were distressed with cracks and creases, and a large stone gargoyle sat on top of them in a corner. Two matching armchairs were across from where I sat, a rectangular coffee table of wrought iron and wood in between. What a perfect place to become an undead creature of the night.

How could this have happened? I was bombarded by “why me” and “what if” questions. Why did he pick me? What was so damned special about me? What if I hadn’t been such a loner? What if I hadn’t picked up those stupid extra shifts at work? Would any of that have even made a difference? And what about that crazy call from my father? Was it just some odd coincidence that he’d called hours before this happened?