Evernight (17 page)

* * *

"Look at this," Lucas said, as we walked out on
the edge of the grounds the weekend after. As I watched, he jumped for the
lowest branch of a nearby pine and grabbed it, hanging easily from the
branches. Then, slowly, he pushed his legs upward, changing his grip on the
branch as he pulled himself up and up, curling around the branch and finally
stretching into a handstand, his feet up straight above his head.
"I don't guess you're actually an Olympic gymnast," I joked,
uneasily.
"Aw, damn, my secret life is out."
"Thought I saw you on a Wheaties box one time."
"Seriously, I'm in shape, but there is no way in hell I ought to be able
to do this. And coming back down should hurt, but"—Lucas curled downward,
dropped, and landed solidly on his feet—"it's not a problem."
"I can do that, too," I confided, "but only right after I've
eaten. My parents could do stuff like that anytime."
"So you're saying this is vampire power." Lucas didn't like the sound
of that, I could tell. "That I'm stronger than a human—maybe even stronger
than you now—even though I'm not a vampire."
"It doesn't make sense to me either, but—maybe."

* * *

As January turned into February, we made other discoveries
about the changes in Lucas. We would run together through the countryside, and
I didn't hold back. We ran faster than any human could, sometimes for hours. It
tired us both out, but we could do it. At nighttime, we slipped out onto the
grounds or onto the roof, and I quizzed Lucas on what he could hear. He could
pick up the hooting of an owl half a mile away or the snapping of a twig. His
hearing wasn't quite as acute as mine, and neither of us felt anything as
vividly as we had right after I'd drunk his blood, but it was still superhuman.
We didn't make another trip up to the room at the top of the north tower.
Although I wanted to be with Lucas as badly as ever, and I knew he felt the
same way, we were both cautious. We had enough trouble controlling my hunger
for blood as it was; if something had changed deep within Lucas, there might be
other dangers if we started kissing and got too carried away. So you can guess
how much I wanted to finally get some answers.
One evening, I decided we ought to try the ultimate test.
I met Lucas at the gazebo with a thermos in my hands. "What's that?"
he asked, obviously unsuspecting.
"Blood."
"Oh." His expression was strange. "If you're hungry, just—you
know, don't mind me." As he shifted from foot to foot, Lucas avoided
meeting my eyes. Apparently Lucas still wasn't comfortable with the idea that I
drank blood, which didn't bode well for the experiment I was about to try.
"It's not for me," I began. "It's for you."
Appalled, he retorted, "No way."
"Lucas, let's face it. When I bit you the second time, something changed,
down deep, maybe forever. If I've made you part vampire, or a vampire-to-be
like me, then we have to know."
He looked pale and drew his long coat more snugly about him. "You really
think that's what happened? Because—Bianca, I can't face turning into a
vampire. Not ever."
His blunt rejection of the idea hurt; I'd already begun to dream about us going
through the centuries together, vampires forever young and beautiful and head
over heels for each other, just like my mother and father. Lucas obviously
hadn't gotten that far yet. It was disappointing, but I remained focused on the
test. I wore fingerless gray gloves, so I was able to unscrew the lid on the
thermos easily. "We have to find out how you react to blood. You know it's
true. Just take a drink and get it over with."
"This isn't, like, from a person, right?"
"No! It's cow blood. Superfresh."
Lucas looked like he would rather have stripped naked in the freezing night
air. But he took a deep breath, accepted the cup, and managed not to make too
much of a face as I poured a rivulet of blood. I only gave him a sip; that
would be enough to tell. With a grimace, Lucas lifted the cup to his mouth,
slowly tilted it back, and drank—
—and then spat blood all over the ground. "Ugh! Jesus Christ, that's
disgusting
!"
"That answers that." Grimly I screwed the thermos cap back on. I'd
heated the blood and sampled it myself, so I knew it was delicious. If Lucas
didn't like that, then he still had no appetite for blood at all. "You're
not what I am. You're something else."
"How are we supposed to figure that out?" Lucas was busily wiping his
mouth with the back of his hand, trying to remove every last trace of the
blood. "We don't have reference works; and it's not something either of us
has ever run into before. And before you ask, no, they don't have anything on
this on Wikipedia. I got so desperate, I checked. Nothing. There's
just…nothing."
I wished Lucas would stop talking like he knew something about vampires; it was
sort of annoying. Still, he'd just tasted something really gross, so I figured
I'd let him off this time. "I have a suggestion. You won't like it, but I think
that if you consider it, you'll realize it's the best thing to do."
"Okay, tell me this suggestion I won't like."
"Let's ask my parents."
"You were right about my not liking it." Lucas ran his hands through
his hair, like he wanted to rip it from its roots in frustration.
"Just…tell them? Tell the vampires what's wrong with me?"
"Stop thinking of them as 'vampires' and think of them as my
parents." I knew it would take Lucas a while to make this transition, but
that didn't mean I wasn't going to push. He'd learned to see me for myself,
given time. Eventually he could do the same for Mom and Dad. "They'll hear
you out, and if they can help, they will." Lucas shook his head. "If
they're going to be mad at someone, that's going to be me. I'm the one who bit
you again and started all this."
"Then we shouldn't get you into trouble."
"If you need help, then that's what's important. Nothing else." I faced
him squarely. "Think about it, Lucas. Once they know, we can talk openly.
Get answers to all your questions and mine, too. If you're destined to be a
vampire—"
He shuddered. "We don't know that."
"
If,
I said. You need to know all about us, don't you? Even the
history and powers that I don't know about yet. We could learn all about it
together." And perhaps Lucas would like what he heard and decide to join
me as a vampire forever. I could hope, couldn't I? "Once you're one of
us—in whatever way—then they can talk to you openly. You can ask whatever you
want. And maybe this will make my parents realize that I'm old enough to hear
the whole truth now. We won't be confused or lost anymore. We'll learn what we
need to learn; we'll learn everything. Don't you see?"
Lucas froze. For the first time, he seemed to understand what I'd been
saying—that whatever had happened to him would, in some way, let him become a
part of Evernight. Despite his dislike of the school, I sensed that he wanted
to know more about it, so much so that it surprised us both. Maybe Lucas needed
to belong to something after all.
Or maybe he was starting to think about becoming a vampire and staying with me
forever.
"Don't ask me to do this," Lucas said quietly. "Don't give me
that chance."
"Are you afraid you'll like what you hear?" I challenged him.
Lucas didn't answer. Finally, slowly, he nodded. "Let's talk to them
now."

* * *

I'd
predicted that Mom and Dad would be upset with me, but I hadn't guessed the
half of it. First Mom read me the riot act about ignoring all their warnings.
Then Dad wanted to know just what Lucas was thinking taking a young girl to the
top of the north tower alone.
"I'm almost seventeen!" I shouted at one point. "You keep
telling me to make mature decisions, and when I make one, you yell at me!"
"Mature decisions!" My father was so outraged that I half expected
him to grow fangs any second. "You reveal all our secrets because you
like
a boy
and you want to talk about mature decisions? You are on thin ice,
young lady."
"Adrian, calm down." Mom put both her hands on his shoulders. I thought
she was sticking up for me until she added, "If Bianca wants to spend the
next thousand years looking too young to get a job or rent a car or do any of
the basic things that make life manageable, then we can't really stop
her."
"That's not what I want!" I couldn't even imagine getting carded for
all eternity. "I didn't kill him. I didn't change. Okay?"
Dad retorted, "You came damn close to it, and you know it."
"I don't know that at all! You never explained to me what would happen if
I bit a human and didn't kill him! You never explained to me what humans would
or wouldn't know the next day! There's a whole lot you never explained to me,
and now I finally realize how stupid you've kept me all these years!"
"Excuse us for not knowing exactly how to handle this! There's only a
handful of vampire babies born a century. It's not like we had anybody to turn
to for advice, you know." Mom looked mad enough to pull her hair out.
"But, yeah, Bianca, at this point, I agree with you. Clearly, somewhere,
we screwed up. If we hadn't, you'd be behaving sensibly now instead of carrying
on like this!"
From his place on my parents' couch, where he had been forcefully told to
remain, Lucas attempted to defend me. "This is mostly my fault—"
"You keep quiet." Dad's glare could have melted metal. "I intend
to have a long talk with you later."
Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, Mom said, "We'll have to tell
Mrs. Bethany."
"What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Lucas's eyes opened
wide. "Mom, no!"
"Your mother is right." Dad stalked toward the doorway. "You've
told a human the secret of Evernight. We have to explain that to Mrs. Bethany,
which you should have realized from the start."
As the door slammed shut behind him, Mom added, more quietly, "Our secrets
protect us, Bianca. Someday you'll understand that."
It felt like I would never understand any of this. I sank down beside Lucas on
the sofa, so that at least we'd be together when the boom fell. All three of us
sat in sullen silence for several minutes, until footsteps began to echo on the
stone staircase outside. The sound made me shiver. Mrs. Bethany was near.
She swept in as if she owned the place and the rest of us were merely
intruders. My father, behind her, might as well have been her shadow. Lavender
fragrance followed her, changing the space subtly from ours to hers. Her dark
eyes focused instantly on Lucas, who faced her steadily but said nothing.
"So much for your promised self-control, Miss Olivier." Her long
skirts brushed along the floor as she stepped closer. Tonight she wore a silver
bar pin at the collar of her blouse, so bright that the light glinted off it.
Her long fingernails were painted the darkest imaginable purple, but it didn't
hide the deep grooves in each nail. "I suspected it would come to this
sooner or later. Sooner it is."
"This isn't Bianca's fault," Lucas said. "It's mine."
"How very gallant of you, Mr. Ross. But I think it's rather obvious who
was the active party here." She tugged his collar open, a weirdly intimate
gesture from a teacher toward a student. Lucas tensed, and I thought that if
she actually put her hand on his neck, he might snap. His temper had frayed
from less. Instead, she merely glanced at the pink scars left after two weeks.
"You've been bitten twice by a vampire. Do you know what that means?"
"How could he?" I asked. "He didn't even know vampires were real
until a couple of months ago."
Mrs. Bethany sighed. "Remind me to go over the concept of the 'rhetorical
question' in class. As I was saying, Mr. Ross, you are now marked as one of our
own."
"Marked," Lucas repeated. "You mean, as Bianca's?"
"The change is subtle at first." She paced slowly around Lucas,
studying him from head to toe. "I sense it now, but only because you
called my attention to it. As time goes on, however, the change will become
more pronounced. The other vampires around you will notice. Eventually they
will be unable to ignore it. You have surrendered to a vampire, and more than
once. That has brought you to the very brink of being changed into one of
us."
Lucas interjected, "Does that mean I have to become a vampire no matter
what?" I fidgeted, unable to wholly conceal my hope. My mother shot me a
look that made me go still.
Mrs. Bethany shook her head. "Not necessarily. You might yet live a long
life and die of other causes, if that's the sort of thing you consider cause
for celebration. However, soon you'll find yourself more and more drawn to Miss
Olivier, whose lack of discipline has already been made very clear." Dad
took a step forward, like he was going to defend me, but Mom put one hand on
his shoulder to keep him back. "Other vampires will find you equally
appealing, although the taboo against hunting another vampire's chosen prey
should protect you—for a time. Eventually, Mr. Ross, you'll find the prospect
entices you as much as it does her. You will desire it more powerfully than you
can possibly guess. It is a craving no pure human can ever understand. When
that time comes, you will probably choose to join us."
If Lucas was going to lose it, I thought this would be the moment. But he
remained calm. "Does that mean I'm sort of…in between? Like Bianca?"
"Not exactly like her, but close enough." Mrs. Bethany's prim mouth
relaxed slightly, and I realized that she was almost smiling. "You are a
quick study, Mr. Ross."
"I'd like to know more," he said, seizing upon her approval. "I
want to understand these…senses. Abilities. Powers."
"And limitations, too. Those take root in humans more slowly than our
powers, but they will arrive. You cannot afford to forget that." Mrs.
Bethany considered it for a few more seconds, then nodded. "This was not
what I intended when I opened the school to human students, but I ought to have
anticipated it. I'll send over some papers that might help you. Old letters,
studies, things like that regarding those who have been in your situation and
who have chosen to follow our path. Just remember this, Mr. Ross: Our secret is
now your secret. The more you learn, the more you belong to us. You can no
longer betray the truth about Evernight without also betraying yourself. I will
be watching you very closely from now on."
"I believe you. I'm not going to say a word about vampires to
anybody." He gave me a sidelong glance. "Well, at least not to
anybody who doesn't already know."
I squeezed his hand, happy and relieved. It didn't matter what my parents said
to us now or how long I was going to be grounded. All that mattered was that
the truth was out at last, and Lucas would be okay. And he might—just maybe—be
mine forever.
Not until much later that night did I realize that Mrs. Bethany had never told
Lucas what would happen if he didn't choose to become a vampire. She didn't
offer it as an option. I wondered if that was because it was impossible for him
to choose anything else—or because he wouldn't be allowed to choose.