Sanctifying Grace (Resurrection) (25 page)

A slight shift in the vampire’s stance was the only thing to warn me of Roman’s presence on the farm. Jeremiah sensed the other man long before I could ever hope to, and he manoeuvred his body into position behind the door.

Distressed, I could feel my heart rate escalating and the warning glance from Jeremiah didn’t help. My heartbeat was not something I could conscious
ly control, but I took hope Roman would hear the fast, thready pulse and wonder what was causing my panic.

I let out a strangled scream of fear when the window flew inwards, Roman barrelling through it, scattering glass and wood over the floor and my bed. I twisted my face away from the shower of debris, trying to avoid being cut by the raining glass.

Then all hell broke loose.

My mother’s scream was abruptly cut off, and faster than I could track them
, the two vampires were a blur of motion, snarls and growls shredding the air. They broke apart for a second and neither of them appeared to be hurt. Roman was nearest to me, trying to keep his body between Jeremiah and I, but I was more concerned for my mother. Terrified for her, I tried to lift my head to see past him, but I couldn’t move a muscle.

Jeremiah launched himself at Roman and the bed was buffeted and pushed to the side of the room with the force of his attack. I squealed in fright as the whole thing was overturned, spilling me onto the floor in a tangle of useless arms and legs, the mattress almost completely covering me.  My body refused to respond to any command I gave it and all I could do was lie there and pray.

The sounds of the two vampires fighting was horrific: deep guttural snarls, the snapping of teeth, and a belly-churning growling filled my bedroom and, above all that, I heard the frantic yells of my father and brother outside the door until these, too, were abruptly silenced.

Oh God, please let them be alright, I prayed.

A small room is not the best place for two enraged vampires to try to kill each other, and I feared the worst as the wall next to the window exploded outwards. I saw a brief flash of Roman as he shot through it. I had no idea where Jeremiah was, but I hoped he was out there with him and not still in this tiny room. I could only see the window, the hole in the wall and a corner of the chair my mother had been sleeping in, but I couldn’t see
her
.

‘Muh,’ I called but the only sound was the now-distant unearthly noise of two vampires fighting to the death.

The silence was abrupt and awful.

I let the tears come, hot and burning down my sunken cheeks, dripping on the floor, trying to hold in the hiccupping sobs as best I could, trying to listen.

Was one of them dead? Is that why I couldn’t hear the fight any more? I gulped back a howl of anguish as I thought of Roman lying injured or worse, and the thought of him dead made my already faltering heart tremble and flicker in my chest. I couldn’t stand the thought of his death, and not just because of my love for him but because if he no longer existed then it would be mere moments before Jeremiah would follow through with his threat to kill my family. I hadn’t warned Roman, but he had known of Jeremiah’s presence anyway, and Jeremiah didn’t seem the type to accept I’d had nothing to do with that.

The butterfly-flutter of my heart, quick and erratic, was loud in the silence, and I th
ought for one awful minute I was going to have a heart attack and die without knowing the fate of those I loved. I was being torn apart from the inside by fear and anguish, but then the mattress was lifted away from me and I shrieked, a guttural sound of terror. Jeremiah had come for me.

A sudden hiss in the preternat
ural stillness convinced me it must be Jeremiah and not Roman: Roman would never hiss at me, and I cried out again, soft and weak, as helpless and vulnerable as a newborn kitten. I could smell the hot stink of furious vampire, all burnt wood and molten metal, and underlying it was the new-penny reek of spilled blood.

I closed my eyes, and turned my head, feeling the crunch of glass under my cheek, not wanting to see the inevitable. He couldn’t make me watch as he killed my family. He
couldn’t
.

‘Don’t move.’

Viktor! That was Viktor’s voice. I would know it anywhere! I turned my head slowly until I could see his boots, then I tilted my neck back and my eyes crawled up his legs, up his torso until they reached his face. Viktor. I almost fainted with relief, holding on to my senses by the thinnest of threads.

‘Ro
–?’

‘He lives.’

I needed more of an answer than that, but Viktor was preoccupied, and then I realised what was distracting him. My right hand was covered in blood, little nicks and cuts from the glass and the vampire was having difficulty tearing his gaze away.

He licked his lips, showing his fangs. I shuddered and dragged my hand to my side. Once it was out of his line of sight Viktor seemed to shake himself like a dog and returned his focus to me.

‘Roman has defeated Jeremiah. He is disposing of his body as we speak.’

‘Mu?’ God! I was so frustrated, only being able to speak in garbled one-syllable grunts.

Viktor put the bed to rights then threw a sheet over my bloody arm. He picked me up and placed me on mattress.

‘Your mother is unconscious
, but breathing. She hit her head during the fighting, but her pulse is strong and she has sustained no serious damage. Your men-folk are in the hall. I had to deal with them.’

I fixed him with a stricken look.

‘Enthralled,’ he said. ‘Not killed.’

Then Roman was by my side and he gathered me up and held me to his chest. I breathed in the scent of him, his unique smell filling my soul. He was safe.

‘Roman, she does not have much longer. You need to do this now.’

Do what now? I faintly heard the warning in Viktor’s voice. The world was retreating, and slowly and steadily it was growing dimmer and quieter. I could no longer feel my body, couldn’t feel Roman’s arms around me, or his
skin against my cheek, and it saddened me.

‘Listen to me, Grace. Grace! Stay with me. You need to understand what I am going to tell you. Grace!’

I opened my eyes and gave him one slow blink. It would have to do.

‘Grace, I am going to try to resurrect you,’ he said.

I blinked again. I must be hallucinating now: there was no way he could ever resurrect me. It simply wasn’t possible.

‘Do you understand? I am going to try to resurrect you,’ he repeated. ‘Leticia,’ (his beautiful face twisted in pain as he said her name), ‘had an idea. I have to attempt it.’

Viktor stated the obvious. ‘If it doesn’t work, you will be dead by daybreak anyway. You have nothing to lose.’

Roman laid me flat on my back and I saw his canines lengthen in his mouth. Never had they looked so long and sharp, tiny daggers capable of wielding death or life. I wondered which I
would get. And it appeared I wasn’t going to have any say in the matter of whether I wanted Roman to try resurrecting me.

The bite, when it came, was a muffled echo of the pleasure I had once felt, but the drawing, dragging sensation at my neck was intense, and I marvelled I could feel anything at all: the rest of me was like lumpen, misshapen clay – ashes to ashes, dirt to dirt…

Viktor was speaking and I tried to focus on his words.

‘Roman will drain you almost completely of blood, then he will try to replace it with his own. You will need to drink from him. You will need to suck as hard as you can.’

I could tell from his tone that he didn’t expect me to have the strength. I agreed with him. This was all going to be in vain.

‘Once he has given you his blood, it will enter your system, rapidly. You may be aware for some time afterwards
, of what is going on around you, but that will not last. The process takes three days and three nights – seventy two hours, roughly.’

My heart was pounding harshly in my ears, a rushing, whooshing sound that was frightening in its irregularity. I don’t know how much blood Roman had taken so far, but I was getting short of breath and my chest hurt. I gasped in air, mouth wide open, my eyes starting from my head.

‘When your body begins to change, when Roman’s blood takes effect, you will know no more until shortly before you are reborn. Do not be afraid,’ he urged. ‘You will be safe. Roman will be with you.’

Roman withdrew his fangs, reluctantly, as Viktor pulled
on his shoulder.

‘Enough. You have taken enough for the moment. Now replace it.’

Roman rolled up the sleeve of his tattered and bloody shirt but Viktor stayed his hand. ‘She is not strong enough to suck from your wrist. You will need to use your jugular vein.’

My lover didn’t think twice: he bared his neck and with one swift, sure slice Viktor cut it open and Roman’s blood gushed in a ruby torrent. He leaned over me once more, lifted my head and positioned my lips over the wound. His blood poured into my mouth and I gagged as the hot stream hit the back of my throat
. I swallowed convulsively and had to keep swallowing to prevent the liquid going into my lungs.

Viktor pulled Roman up and clamped a cloth over the wound. The fabric was quickly soaked, but even as I watched
, the river turned to a trickle.

‘This will take all night,’ Viktor said. ‘The process will be repeated until you have no more human blood left. We have to give Roman’s blood time to enter your veins and arteries before he takes any more from you. We cannot risk your heart stopping.’

Too late, I thought, as I passed out.

I awoke to the sounds of rubble being shifted. It was night, the same night
, I guessed. My body was still useless and I was still in my hospital bed in the dining room. I felt no better and no worse than I had just after I had been force-fed Roman’s blood. It hadn’t worked: I wasn’t resurrected. 

This was no surprise. I can be enthralled
, therefore I cannot be resurrected. What on earth had Roman been thinking of?

My mother was in her chair, her duvet tucked round her, and I could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Tears pricked painfully at the back of my eyes – she was going to be
alright and I was grateful to Roman and Viktor for taking care of her. With huge effort, I turned my head an inch or so to the right and saw what the two vampires were doing. Roman noticed I was awake.

‘Eryres.’ His voice was soft and full of love. He was next to my bed in an instant, holding my hand and examining my face. He turned to Viktor
, who was busy hauling a branch wider than he was through the hole in the wall. Viktor heaved it into position, dusted off his hands (so human…) and came over to check on me.

‘Normal,’ he pronounced. ‘Time for the next session.’

As Roman drew my blood once more, Viktor carried on talking, and I realised it was more to calm me rather than my needing to know. I concentrated on his words, desperately trying to ignore the horrid fluttering of my heart as it struggled to pump what little blood was left around my decimated body.

‘There is no time to return this room to its former state,’ he was saying, ‘so we arranged for the branch of one of those trees outside to break off. It will explain the damage to the other humans.’

Other –? Oh, he meant my parents and Ianto.

I was gasping for breath again and
, this time, Viktor had to physically pull Roman off me.

‘Every time he gives you his blood, he weakens his own, and it makes him thirsty, though he is drinking from you. It will be even harder for him next time. That is why I am here. It is no easy thing,
the creation of a new vampire.’

Roman force-fed me once more, and
, yet again, I lost consciousness afterwards.

When I came to there was a faint hint of dawn in the sky.

‘Hurry,’ Viktor urged. ‘This must be completed before daylight.’

Roman was looking gaunt and snowflake white, in spite of the copious amounts he had drunk from me. This was taking its toll on him, and not just physically. The relief on his face when he saw I was awake was almost comical.

I felt no different, but at least I was no weaker.

The room was stage set: huge tree branch broken off from one of the trees in the stand that shielded the farm house from the prevailing westerly winds, bricks, wood from the window pain and glass, scattered convincingly over the floor and the bed, leaves everywhere. The dining room looked like a tornado had been through it.

The vampires were waiting for me.

‘This will be the final exchange of blood,’ Roman said. ‘It is good that you are still alive. The old tales tell that a human who cannot be resurrected will die during the first exchange. That you have not done so bodes well.’

I had so many questions, I didn’t know where to start.

‘Leticia?’ I mouthed, or at least I thought I did: I wasn’t sure if my lips formed the word.

Roman and Viktor swapped significant looks and Roman was elected to speak as he once more gathered me up to him, my head lolling back to expose my neck.