Sanctifying Grace (Resurrection) (26 page)

‘This must be quick, but I will try to explain what has happened. Leticia is gravely damaged. Jeremiah attacked her without warning after trying to gain information of my whereabouts. He staked her and left her for dead. One of the other members of the research group found her, gave her blood, and brought me to her. She told me what Jeremiah had done, and she also told me her idea. ’

So that’s why Roman had come in through the window and not the door: he had anticipated Jeremiah’s ambush. And that’s what Leticia had meant when she said she’d had an idea.

I watched in fascination as his teeth extended and I tried to swallow with a sand-dry mouth. Roman stretched out a hand and found the jug of water on the chest of drawers. The glass had been smashed but the jug was intact. He picked out a leaf and held the jug to my lips, letting me take a small sip, just enough to wet my throat.

‘I don’t want you to swallow anything other than blood,’ he said, then continued, ‘Jeremiah is no more. The spines of a fork-lift saw to that.’

I shuddered mentally, envisaging Jeremiah being impaled on one of the blades that picks up the massive bales of silage.

‘Leticia pointed out something which had not occurred to me: you can be, and have been enthralled. But not by me. I, alone, cannot enthral you – but, perhaps I, alone, can resurrect you.’

Then he took my blood for the third and final time, and I took his.

I was aware, yet not aware, conscious yet not conscious. I could hear everything and see nothing. My ears, worked but my eyes refused to open. There was the sweet, metallic taste of Roman’s blood on my tongue, but I couldn’t swallow. I could feel the cool sheet underneath my palms, but my fingers wouldn’t move. I was shut inside my body, this inert shell, with my mind becoming increasingly more alert.

I panicked, kicking and thrashing, twisting and jerking, screaming and howling in terror, but I didn’t move so much as an eyebrow and I didn’t make so much as a murmur.

After several long seconds, I calmed a little, then freaked out once more when I realised I wasn’t breathing and I had no heartbeat. Inside me was all stillness and silence.

After several long hours
, that were really only seconds, I calmed enough to take stock and remember what Viktor had told me. He had said that, for a while, I would be aware of what was going on during the time the vampire blood entered my system, and the time it began to take effect and alter my insides. This is what must be happening to me now. If not, then this was death and my soul was still trapped in my body – and I didn’t want to take that line of thought any further. No indeedy!

I concentrated on what was happening outside my motionless, lifeless body. My mother was crying. I could hear her sobbing like her heart was breaking and understood she thought me to be dead. And I was – to her.

Then my dad’s voice. ‘I’m sure she knew us at the end. She squeezed my hand just before she –,’ his voice broke and I cried inside for their pain.

I wondered where Ianto could be, then I heard him clearing his throat, a strange gulping noise, and I knew it to be the sound he used to make when he was little and was trying to hold back tears. Let it out, little brother, I thought, let it out.

‘Hilary’s on her way. She said she’ll bring a local GP to call the death in, then we can call Maplins,’ Ianto said.

Maplins was the undertaker who
had dealt with all the bereavements in our family ever since I could remember. I had left a will and a set of instructions: no black, no wake, a party instead, no funereal music. And cremation, not burial.

Then I had another panic attack as I envisioned my mind, still entombed in my now-dead body, going to feed the flames, fully aware of what was happening to me. It didn’t matter that at this moment I could feel nothing, see nothing: I
had the horrible certainty once the doors of the industrial sized crematorium oven clanged shut, I would be able to feel every little wisp and lick of flame, and I would come to hideous, agonising life, dancing a horizontal jig of searing pain as the fire scorched the flesh from my bones and rendered fat to liquid.

I screamed and screamed.

‘She looks as if she’s just sleeping, doesn’t she, David?’

The springs squeaked slightly as my father sat on the bed. I didn’t feel his breath on my face or smell his aftershave, but I knew he had kissed me, either on the forehead, or the cheek, or the tip of my nose. Oh, how I wished I could feel his last kiss.

Ianto, again, was dealing with his grief by doing things. ‘I’ve phoned the insurance people. They’ll send an assessor out tomorrow.’

‘Good,’ said my father, who sounded as if he didn’t care one way or the other. Not really. Then he rallied. ‘As soon as they come for Grace, I’ll get some tarpaulin and try to keep the wet out.’

‘Should we move her?’ Ianto said.

‘Why, love? She’s dead.’ Mum replied.

‘I know, mum, I know.’ Ianto’s voice cracked. ‘I was thinking of you. You’re getting wet.’

I realised I could hear the gentle patter of raindrops hitting the leaves still attached to the massive branch.

‘It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. My baby is dead.’ My mother howled her loss to the universe. ‘My baby has left me!’

Oh, God, mum, that’s so unfair! I howled myself: it was not as if I had any choice in the matter! I raged at God, at fate, at the unfairness of life. I didn’t
leave
you, mum. I didn’t want to go! Please don’t blame me. Please don’t.

My mother’s cries shredded my un-beating heart and tore me in two. I never wanted to witness this: I used to imagine how it would be for them, for all of them, when I died, but my imagination could not compare to the reality of it. Her grief was turning me inside out and I cried along with her, for all that she had lost, and for all that I had lost – my family, my life, the promise of children, of old age, of seeing my own
grandchildren grow and thrive. So much sorrow, so much anguish. I didn’t know if I could survive this. I didn’t know if I wanted to.

I lay there and listened to the misery of my family and as dawn turned into morning
, the machinery of death began to churn. Hilary arrived and took my non-existent pulse, then an unknown doctor did the same. They both declared me dead.

An echoing thud reverberated inside me, as loud as a bell in a church, and I started, frightened
, until I realised what it was. My heart had beat – a single, solitary beat. And I knew I wasn’t dead. Not really. I began to believe I might survive this resurrection of mine.

Then
, my mind gradually shut down and I knew no more of the outside world for three long days and nights.

I dreamt, and thought, and marvelled at the universe.

Did the caterpillar dream and wonder as it snuggled safe in its chrysalis? Was its little insect mind still intact as its body was remade in another image? Did it relive its crawling, slow, deliberate life as an eating machine, or did it dream of bright wings and flight and freedom?

I had time to ponder these things as I lay, God knows where, helpless and lifeless, my mind disembodied and floating in nothingness. I couldn’t feel my body, it was as if it didn’t exist, and it was liberating and terrifying all at once, my mind and spirit free to trawl through the universe without the encumbrance of skin, muscle
, and bone.

I relived every moment, every thought, and dreamt of things that had passed and of things that were yet to be. And I didn’t know how much of it was dream, disjointed and surreal, and how much of it was real.

The seconds were decades and the days and nights were mere flashes in the neurons of my mind, and time trundled on.

I surfaced, very briefly, at some point during that last night, instinctively knowing the hour of my rebirth was close. I still couldn’t feel my body and couldn’t see, but I could hear again and there was that single beat, that shuddering thud, felt in my spirit, not in my flesh. My heart was still beating.

My mind was tugged back down and I prepared to dream once more. I was obviously not yet done with being transformed.  And as I sank deep within myself for the final time, the tug became a jerk and I was wrenched out of myself; I cried out with the pain of it. My essence was being squeezed and pulled and pummelled until I begged for it to stop.

I was on my knees, on all fours, head hanging down, panting and shivering, sick to my stomach and aching all over. I was naked, and it was dark, and the sense of déjà vu was overwhelming and inescapable.

And I was hungry. Very, very hungry.

I gathered myself together, rocked back onto my heels and stood up, in one fluid movement. I was cold, but the chill was internal, not external, in spite of my lack of clothes.

I wondered what year
it was, for I had no doubt I had time travelled once more. A final chance to see Roman before my resurrection was complete? Maybe, though since his time had reached the day when I was born I had not travelled back to his world.

Talking of Roman, I wondered where he could be. He wouldn’t be far away, he never was. I hoped he would have clothes for me and something to eat. I didn’t like being naked and my stomach was hollow, a gnawing hunger underneath my breastbone.

I wasn’t surprised at either condition: being bare-assed was par for the course, and I hadn’t eaten anything in days.

I glanced down at my body, awed that whatever afflictions I carried in my real life were never transported with me. In this reality
, I was always healthy and strong. I still had my tattoo, though, and I smiled when I remembered Roman’s reaction the first time he saw it.

Right! Enough fannying around, Llewellyn, I needed to get under cover, fast. Or find some clothes, then find somewhere to hide and wait for Roman.

I scanned my surroundings, surprised. It might be dark but I could see quite clearly. I was just below the high pass through the part of the Brecon Beacons where the A470 now runs. There was no road in this era, only a dirt track, deeply rutted and churned into cloying mud by the imprint of many wheels. I could smell horse, sheep, and cows, too, but predominantly horse. And blood. That rich, sweet, copper, tantalising, mouth-watering scent had me licking my lips in anticipation.

I recoiled from the thought, disgusted, then couldn’t help but scent the air once more. My mouth filled with saliva and my teeth lengthened.

I screamed!

I ran in panic, feet pounding across the grass, legs flying in a rhythm that took me up the side of the mountain and on to the ridge in only a few moments. I flew over that ridge and down the other side into a small valley, then turned for home.

What should have taken two or three hours, took mere minutes. I stood, chest heaving, gulping in great lung-fulls of air, and looked at where my home should have been. Used to be. Not even a stone was left.

I ran my tongue across my teeth, feeling the usual contours of the ename
l. There was one difference I couldn’t hide: both canine teeth, though now returned to normal size, were incredibly sharp. Little needles in my mouth.

I was vampire. In this reality, in this time, I was
vampire
.

Then the doubts began: had I really been resurrected, or was this just a dream? Is this the past (it always had been the past), or could it be some time in the future? A very distant future?

And where was Roman? I needed him now like I had never needed him before.

I wanted to run again, to escape this strange new world of mine, but I knew I could never outrun what I am. No amount of dis
tance could change the fact that I am a vampire.

I stopped hyperventilating. I stopped breathing altogether. I didn’t need to. My mind boggled at the unnaturalness of not drawing air into my lungs, and the sensation made me feel quite uncomfortable. I guessed it was a holdover in my mind of that absolute human imperative to breathe, and I didn’t care how redundant the action was. I
liked
breathing: it felt normal and natural, and I really needed normal and natural right now.

I also needed to feed. Immediately!

Growling, the rumbling sound reverberating through my chest, I turned from where the farmhouse should be and soared down the hill, avoiding trees and bushes with graceful ease. I revelled in the strength of my legs, the power surging through my body. I ran, wind-fast, shivering the leaves with my passage, yet making no noise.

And I
knew
things. I knew a badger was hunkered down in a depression behind a rowan tree – I could
smell
him! I could hear him, too, his soft breathing, the click of a claw as it struck a pebble. I could hear the scrabble of rabbits in their warren inches below my feet, the gentle calls the doe made to her kits, and the sound of them suckling. I could hear the feather-quiet rush of the owl’s wing as she hunted and I saw her glide through the trees, each speckled plume viewed in incredible detail. I could even see the flecks of brown in her yellow eyes, and the razor-sharpness of her scimitar beak.

There was something else I could smell and the perfume drew me towards it – blood. Human blood. Food.