Lust for Life (6 page)

Hmm, that’s the second time Lanham has referred
to Agent Codreanu-Petrea by her first name. I wonder if they’re friends, or if he’s
just saving time and syllables.

Lanham pulls my personnel folder in front of him on the desk, signaling subject change.
“Now, for the reason I called you both here to meet me.”

I eye my folder, which looks four times as thick as the last time I saw it, then glance
at his nameplate.
AH SNOWMAN LINT
. “You said it was urgent.”

“Yes. Several months ago I alluded to preliminary conclusions our research division
had drawn about the blood you donated when you were a human. Your ‘anti-holy blood,’
as you call it.” He opens a long envelope and pulls out a sheet with charts and figures
on it. “The results were inconclusive at first, so we ran several series of tests.
It was unfortunate that your death prevented us from collecting more blood.”

Right.
That
was unfortunate about my death. “Sorry I inconvenienced you.”

I expect Lanham to reprimand me for interrupting him, but instead he nods. “I apologize.
That was ill put. Your death was a personal tragedy for everyone who . . . who has
an interest in you.” He swallows and shifts the folder an inch to the left.

Whoa. This is the first time I’ve seen Lanham show a speck of human feeling about
my death. I’m not sure which bothers me more: the fact that he might care about me,
or the fact that I sort of care whether he cares about me.

I steal a glance at Shane, who’s gripping the arms of the chair like the sides of
a lifeboat.

Lanham clears his throat. Moment over.

“I know it has always pleased you to think of your
heathen self as anti-holy. When a vampire drinks your human blood, their holy-water
burns heal instantly. You were able to heal your own holy-water burn—and that of your
maker—with the power of your mind alone. But your power, such as it is, is not specifically
anti-holy. Holiness is just one form of magic.”

“Magic, sir? Can you define?” He can’t mean like a dude onstage sawing a lady in half
or making the Statue of Liberty disappear. Those are mere illusions.

“Any sort of supernatural occurrence or being. A vampire, for instance, exists because
of blood magic. To look at it another way, all forms of magic are a manifestation
of the divine, whether or not they reside in overt religious forms. This is why simply
being a vampire is enough to qualify you for the Immanence Corps.”

“Okay.” I have no idea where he’s going with this. My breath quickens and I take one
last peek at his nameplate.

SHALT MAN WIN? NO.

“Sorry, sir, I just have to . . .” I reach out and turn his nameplate so I can’t see
the letters. “There. Thank you.”

Colonel Lanham eyes the nameplate, two vertical lines appearing between his brows.
Then he closes my file and folds his hands atop it. “We have reason to believe that
your blood—and, in fact, your entire being—is not anti-holy. More broadly, it’s anti-magic.
Anti-supernatural.”

“Is it genetic?” Shane asks. “Some of her family has anti-holy blood, too.”

“We’re not certain. There’s an inherited component but also a more, shall we say,
philosophical one.”

“My skepticism.” I love the idea that this ability is
partly under my control—as much as beliefs or lack thereof are under anyone’s control.

“Exactly,” Lanham says. “Your anti-magic abilities are part of your essence, you might
say.”

“Cool.”

“Not entirely cool.” Lanham shifts a pen from the left side of my personnel folder
to the right side, for no apparent reason.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about your experience as a vampire, and you need
to be completely honest. It’s the only way we’ll be able to help you.”

My hands fumble for the ends of the chair’s armrests. “Help me what?”

“Survive.”

Shane takes a short, shallow breath. Every muscle frozen, I can’t turn my head to
look at him. It feels like my tongue has descended into my throat.

“Huh?” is all I can manage.

Lanham holds my gaze as if to hold me up. “How long did it take for your fangs to
manifest?”

“A day or two.” For most vampires, it’s a matter of minutes.

“Have you experienced a decreased sensitivity to pain?”

I latch onto this. “Yes! I heal fast now. A zombie broke both my legs and I was back
on my feet in less than a minute.”

“That wasn’t my question. I asked about the pain, Griffin. The pain.”

“A headache, for instance?”

“A vampire bite, for instance.” He lowers his voice,
as if that will change anything. “I apologize for the personal nature of these questions.”

“I don’t—” Finally I turn to Shane, with my whole body instead of just my head.

The look in his eyes sinks my soul. It’s not disbelief or bewilderment. It’s
oh-God-I-knew-it.

My mind races. I want to get this over with and hear the truth.

“I hate being bitten.” I stare at the blank side of his nameplate. “It feels like
being stabbed.”

“I see. Have you also—”

“I’ve had a word obsession since the day I was turned. I make anagrams from everything.
I can’t pass a drugstore without buying a word puzzle book.” I give him a pleading
look. “Can you help me?”

Lanham gives a nod that somehow isn’t a nod. A nod that says,
I hear you, but no.

“We’re not sure how to remedy your unique situation. But rest assured the Control
is doing all we can to keep you around as long as possible.”

My brain cells feel like they’re playing leapfrog. “Keep me . . . around? Like in
the Control? I just started my contract and you’re already talking about extending
or renewing it?” Please let that be what he’s talking about.

“I mean, in this world. The blood magic that makes you a vampire is having trouble
taking proper hold in your body and soul. Your essence puts up too much resistance.”

I spring out of my chair. “But I believe I’m a vampire! I’m not skeptical about that.”

He shakes his head. “This power isn’t completely under
your control, any more than breathing or blinking are. Based on what you’ve told me,
I conjecture that you will fade faster than most vampires—than
any
vampire.” He swallows again. “I’m sorry, Ciara.”

I sit down hard, barely registering the fact that he called me by my first name.

“This is bullshit,” Shane says. “If her essence resists magic, why did she become
a vampire in the first place? Why didn’t she just die?” His voice shudders over the
last word.

“I almost did.” I choke back the panic. “You thought I wasn’t coming back, remember?
I went all the way into the white. The other vampires said that when they died, they
only saw a white light from a distance.”

His face shadows. “Or not at all.”

Shane thinks he was on his way to hell when he turned, because he saw only darkness
before Regina brought him back from his suicide-by-vampire attempt. So we’ve both
had anomalous vampings: mine of complete light, his of complete dark. This does not
calm me.

He turns back to Lanham. “There’s got to be something we can do to make her stronger.”

“Agent McAllister, I believe she will strengthen physically just like any vampire.”
He speaks to me again. “It’s your mind that concerns us. We believe it will age more
quickly. Your compulsions will intensify and your temporal adhesion will be more rigid.
You’ll lose vitality.”

Vitality. My mind seizes on that word. It comes from the Latin
vita,
meaning life.

As in, I don’t have much.

“So I have the vampire version of a terminal illness? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Essentially, yes.”

The world feels like it’s floating. “I just died. I don’t want to die again.”

“You won’t.” Shane puts his hand over mine. “We’re going to stop this.”

I want to cry and beat my fists against the floor, against the walls, against my own
body. I want to go full tantrum, denial and anger.

I’ll do that later, safe in Shane’s arms. For now, I need to fight.

I reach forward, take Lanham’s legal pad and fancy-pants fountain pen. “What do I
have to do?”

•  •  •

On the drive home, Shane and I fill the fear space between us with chatter and task
lists.

“The easiest part is music.” I gesture to the stereo. “I already listen to the satellite
alternative station, but I could switch to the indie station. They discover new bands
sooner.”

“I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Shane says, “except my ears.”

“Hey, a lot of it’s good and you know it.” I check the list. “I’ll get a new hairstyle
every year, even if the old one looks better on me.”

“Don’t forget fashion.”

“Right. I’ll buy the new seasonal lines from all the cutting-edge designers, even
if I hate the clothes and can’t afford them.”

“And technology. Get a new cell phone before you’re eligible for an upgrade.”

“Ooh, good one. Same with my laptop and software. And I’ll start Contemporary Awareness
training next week. That’ll be so boring. They’ll probably teach us how to tweet.”

“Then you’ll get an A.” He taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “You need more
direct donor blood, less bank blood.”

That was on Lanham’s list, too. “Is this one of those good-nutrition-is-the-foundation-of-good-health
talks?”

“I know it still bothers you to drink from a human.”

“It makes me feel pathetic. I keep seeing myself from the outside, on my knees like
a dog, lapping up scraps.” Using my toe, I smooth a wrinkle in the floor mat. “Now
I can’t even drink from Lori, since she’s pregnant.”

“What about the donors you’ve been sharing with Monroe and Regina?”

“Those are the worst. I don’t know them, they’re just walking veins. I feel like an
intruder—like they want to be with the ‘experienced’ vampire and they’re only feeding
me to be polite.”

“There’s still Jeremy. You’re due to drink from him this weekend, right?” When I nod,
Shane adds, “It’s time for you to bite someone. Might as well be him.”

I stare out the side window at the highway lights whizzing past, keeping my eyes away
from the green signs with their irresistible white letters. “I guess. If I bite too
hard and it hurts, he won’t care.”

“No, he’ll enjoy it.”

“Ugh.” I look down at my list. There’s only one item left. “Lanham wants me to resist
my compulsion.”

“I can help you. I’ll put tape over all the labels in our
kitchen. I’ll be more careful about using correct grammar.” He hesitates. “I’ll recycle
your stash of puzzle books.”

I thought I’d hidden them. But there was that time—okay, several times—I shoved a
puzzle book under the sofa cushion when Shane came home early.

“Okay.” My voice is as tiny as my resolve. “Maybe I could just cut back? Not stop
cold turkey?” My palms are sweating at the mere thought—and it takes a lot to make
a vampire sweat.

Shane sighs. “What if you just finish the ones you have and don’t buy more?”

My fingers curl around the door handle. I have only two puzzles left in my current
book. The rest are all completed.

I think of a guy on
Mission: Organization
(Shane’s favorite Home & Garden Network show) who broke down in tears at the suggestion
he throw away stacks of old magazines. Am I that sick?

“I don’t know if I can do that. I can’t just stop thinking about words.” My throat
closes up. I try to breathe and swallow at the same time, and next thing I know I’m
hiccuping.

A vampire. With hiccups.

“Hey.” Shane clicks on his blinker and pulls onto the shoulder, the tires rumbling
over the grooves designed to wake drowsy drivers. He puts the car in park, slaps on
the hazard lights, then draws me into his arms.

“We’re going to fight this, Ciara. I don’t care what we have to do. We’ll keep you
whole and bright for a long time.”

I cling to his shoulders, my lungs tightening from the
pressure inside and out. He’s not in denial like he was when I was a dying human.
He’s stronger now. And with his strength, I can tell inevitability to fuck off.

He strokes my hair and starts to sing. Tears flow down my cheeks as I recognize the
song he wrote for our engagement, back when I was alive and we thought our future
together would be short and sweet. Before we were given a form of forever.

In his song, he vowed to love me when I’m an old human, weak in body and mind. And
now, in his embrace, I know he’ll love me when I’m an old vampire, strong of body
but not of mind.

Still I weep, at the injustice of false second chances.

6

Trouble Me

Funny thing about dying, either slow or fast: the world doesn’t stop while you mourn
yourself. Bills must be paid.

Just after midnight Friday morning, I sit alone at my desk in the radio station’s
main office, making myself useful. Ever since I “changed my work shift”—i.e., became
a vampire—my job has absorbed all the duties that don’t require being awake at the
same time as the rest of the world. Lori’s taken over many of my sales clients, and
in turn I now do most of the accounting.

There was a day when I’d sooner dig ditches than keep books, but being a vampire makes
it easier to focus on mundane tasks. Perhaps it’s the predator’s patience, or the
obsessive-compulsiveness.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opens. A head of golden-brown hair appears.

“Hey, Ciara.”

“Adrian. How’d your first show go last night? Sorry I missed it. I was . . .”
Absorbing my accelerated mortality.
“Out of town.”

“I only screwed up the lead-ins to commercials four or five times.” He tilts his head
back and forth. “Possibly six or seven.”

“The equipment must be different at every station.”

“It’s similar enough to lull you into a false sense of competence.” His smile fades
when he sees Franklin’s office empty. “I was on my way out downstairs and saw the
light on under the door.”