Survivor (24 page)

He
clenched and unclenched his fists, at a loss.  What had he done to her?  Would
her indomitable spirit be enough to let her overcome whatever was troubling her,
or had his decision to turn her somehow caused her to snap?  He had never felt
so helpless in his life.

Melody
stopped at the entrance to the park.  Her wide blue eyes were luminous in the
moonlight.  He caught her to him fiercely, feeling that he could somehow shield
her from the forces that were driving them apart.  “I love you,” he whispered
into her sweetly scented hair.  He inhaled, breathing her deep, pulling her in.

She
wrapped her arms around him and planted a soft kiss on his throat.  “I love you
too.”  But her eyes were closed, and he could smell her sadness.  He kissed her
eyelids, her cheeks, her nose, her chin, her bowstring mouth, trying to erase
her fears.  Slowly, by degrees, she relaxed against him and her tension eased. 
Her eyes fluttered open to meet his and, for a moment, there was nothing there
but love. 

“What
is it you fear,” he whispered against her lips. 

She
turned her head and her soft breath whispered across his neck.  “Me.”

*****

Peter lounged in the waiting room with a cup of coffee
and a newspaper while I made my way back to Dr. Walton’s office.  The old man
met me at the door.  His warm brown eyes crinkled at the corner, and his
genuine smile went right through me.  He gestured to the soft leather couch and
I took a seat.  I swear the thing had magical qualities.  I sank into the
sumptuous seat with a sigh and rested my elbows on my knees, all of the energy
going out of me.  Was there a company of wizards somewhere that made furniture
just for psychologists?

He sat in his chair and busied himself finding a
pen.  He rattled through the silver pencil cup as if he were looking for just
the right one.  “How are you?”  His voice was pleasant and calm.  I knew that
he knew that I was struggling.

“I’m fine,” I lied, automatically.  “Never better.”

He pulled a pen from the cup and clicked it
experimentally.  “Peter is worried about you.”  His voice was light.  “He says
you’ve been sleeping.” 

The absurdity of the statement pulled a half smile
from me.  Typically, your shrink worried when you
weren’t
sleeping.  Dr.
Walton smiled back.  “He says you don’t talk much anymore, you aren’t eating
the way you should, and that you have a strange look on your face most of the
time.”  I raised my eyebrows at him and he grimaced.  “I think his exact words
were…‘creepy grin.’”  Okay, so maybe I’d been trying a little too hard.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.  He
couldn’t very well learn how to help new vampires if his first and only patient
wouldn’t let him.  “You’re sure you want to hear this?”  I wasn’t sure what he
could actually do for me. 

He kept his unfazed shrink face in place.  “Do you
want to tell me?”  I narrowed my eyes at him, as he used his tricks to make me
feel like I was in control.  One corner of his mouth lifted in response.  He
knew I was on to him.

I rolled my eyes.  “I have bad dreams,” I said
softly.  “Dreams where everyone is dead.  People I know, people I don’t know…
even me.”

He nodded and I continued.  “They’re getting worse. 
At first it was only when I slept.  Now I see things when I’m awake.  I think… 
Doc…”  My eyes watered and a sense of panic crept in.  “I’m starting to think
everyone is going to die.”

He drummed his fingers on the desk.  “How often is
this happening?”

I shrugged.  “It used to be just once in a while,
now it’s getting more and more frequent… several times a day, maybe more.”

I leaned forward and looked into his eyes.  “Did you
watch the news last night?”  He nodded, looking perplexed.  “Some guy and his
family were killed.  It actually happened three days ago, but they weren’t able
to put it on the news until last night.”

He took a deep breath.  He knew where I was headed. 
He wasn’t stupid.  “How do you know when it happened?  Did they say so in the
report?”

I shook my head.  “I dreamed about that guy a week
ago.  But in my dream, he didn’t die the way they said on the news.  He wasn’t
shot.  He was a vampire, and he got in a fight with another one of us.”

Dr. Walton sat back in his chair and slipped off his
glasses.  He studied my face.  “You aren’t by any chance pulling my leg?”

I shook my head.  “But that can’t happen, right?”

He pursed his lips.  “Have you talked to Peter about
this?”

I clenched my fists.  “No.”  I wanted to make up
excuses, but I couldn’t.  I knew the real reason I was hiding this from Peter. 
It wasn’t normal.  Something was wrong with my injured brain.  Something hadn’t
healed when he turned me.  I would be like this forever now- and he would blame
himself.

Dr. Walton stood and began to pace.  He muttered to
himself and pulled his chin.  He paced to his bookshelf and ran a finger over
the bindings of his medical books.  I noticed that he never actually opened any
of them.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he had them all memorized.  Finally, he
went to the door.  “Sue,” he called pleasantly, “please send Mr. Marcellus
back.”

I frowned at him.  Peter joined us, and I could see
the worry on his face, though he tried to hide it.  I felt my fake smile start
to pull at the corners of my mouth and quelled it, realizing that I probably
did look rather psychotic.  Dr. Marcellus gestured to the couch and Peter
gracefully sank down next to me.  I took his hand and gave it a light squeeze. 
“Don’t freak out.”

He shot me an offended look.  “I do not freak out.”

Dr. Walton was pacing again.  “Peter, do you know
how the brain heals after an injury?”  At a blank look from Peter, he waved the
question away.  “Once a neuron is destroyed, it will not grow back.  That
neuron is lost forever.”

I glanced at Peter.  “But people can get better.  We
go to rehab and learn to do things again.”

Dr. Walton nodded.  “The brain can’t re-grow its
lost cells, but it does have what we call plasticity.  It can be… remolded.  We
can’t make new neurons, but we can make new neuronal connections.  If
information needs to get from point A to point B, but the road there is
disrupted, we learn to use a different route.”

Peter nodded.  “So different areas of the brain
learn to take over the tasks from those that were damaged?”

Dr. Walton nodded, pleased at his pupil’s quick
conclusion.  “You see, a person with a brain injury uses their brain
differently than before.  Maybe they even use different areas of the brain than
they were using before.  Maybe those areas of the brain become more sensitive,
more powerful…we have only begun to scratch the surface in our knowledge of how
the brain works.”  He stopped pacing.  “Maybe, if a brain injured person is
given increased reflexes and abilities- if the turn magnifies their function- maybe
they are able to tap into these areas of the brain that are dormant in the rest
of us.”

He stopped and cleared his throat.  “You’ve told me
before that Melody is really coordinated.  She has excellent awareness of her
body.”  His hands danced in the air as he talked, giving away his excitement. 
“I think something similar is true of her brain.  Possibly there was a recess
of her mind that she began to use after her brain injury, and with her
vampirism, this ability was heightened.”

Peter turned his sharp green gaze to me.  “What is
going on?”

I took a deep, bracing breath.  “I think….”  I
glanced at Dr. Walton.  He closed his eyes and nodded.  “Peter, I think I’m
psychic.”

Peter didn’t say anything.  In fact, for a moment he
went completely and utterly still.  He didn’t breathe or blink.  Then, he grinned. 
“This is why you’ve been struggling?”  He sounded relieved.

I shook my head in disbelief.  I had been
hallucinating for weeks, and he was relieved.  “It’s not pleasant you know,” I
said tightly. 

He was still smiling.  “I’m sorry, Melody, but it’s
just that… well I thought that you were…”

I nodded.  He had thought I was going mad.  Or that
I couldn’t stand being around him anymore.  Being a tad bit psychic was nothing
to worry about- you know, except for the fact that it meant people were going
to die.

Dr. Walton’s next client arrived and we had to end
our session.  I hesitated as Peter preceded me down the hallway.  The Doctor
stopped me with a hand on my arm.  “I think you should tell him,” he said
seriously.  I glanced at the doctor in surprise.  I hadn’t told him that Peter
was one of the dead people.  The old man nodded toward Peter’s departing back. 
“I don’t think you are crazy.  I don’t think this is some kind of delusion or
hallucination.  I believe what I said just now.  And if that’s the case, you
need to act.”

*****

Peter and I sat on a park bench the next night,
while I explained my nightmares.  He had sat silently though my first explanation,
not even breathing.  Then he had taken my hand and simply said, “Tell me
again.”

“At first, it was only the dead people,” I said
slowly.  “But last night, I saw one of them- the murders.”  I shuddered at the
memory of the man’s face.  He had smiled at me as he stepped out from behind
the seething, evil black cloud that always hovered in the corners of my
nightmares. 

Peter considered this for a moment.  “It could mean
something,” he said finally.  “Do you remember what the murder looked like?”

I laced my fingers though his, drawing comfort from
his calmness.  Just thinking about the dreams tended to get me all on edge. 
“He was about your height,” I closed my eyes, picturing the man’s face.  “He
had brown hair, down to here.”  I gestured to my jaw line.  “And a big scar
across the one side of his face.”

I opened my eyes to find Peter lost in thought. 
“Silly, isn’t it,” I said, embarrassed.  “What could give a vampire a scar?”

He sighed.  “A blessed blade.  Wielded by a very
pissed off priest, against a new vampire.  In full sunlight.”

I started to laugh.  Then I realized that he wasn’t
joking.  “You’re serious?  You know the man in my dreams?”

Peter stood and drew me to my feet.  We headed
toward home under the light of the waning moon.  “I need to speak with Leah. 
You’ve never met Lee; there is no way you could dream of him.  This must have
meaning.”

I followed in his wake, perplexed.  “Who is Lee?”

“He was a member of my master’s coven once, a long
time ago.”

*****

I got the call around nine o’clock that morning.  My
cell phone vibrated merrily, rattling its way across the bedside table.  I
stretched and levered myself out of bed to stop the incessant noise.  My heart
seized, and adrenaline sent my teeth shooting out the moment I heard my
mother’s tearful voice.

Chelsea.  She had been hit by a car while she was on
her way to class.  As I sat holed up in my comfortable prison, my sister lay in
the ICU.  “Please come,” Mom begged, her voice breaking.  “I know you haven’t
been happy with us, but… they… she might not….”  I closed my eyes.  She might
not live.

“I’ll be there,” I said softly.  “As soon as I
can.”  I glanced at the window, seeing the pink light of the rising sun peeking
past the shades.  “It might be a while.”  Once the sun went down, I thought,
cursing my new life.

I could tell that Mom was angry, aghast that I
wouldn’t just drop everything and rush over.  Why would I take my time at a
moment like this?  I was a terrible child- heartless.

When Peter came in a few minutes later, smelling
like dew and carrying the newspaper, I was waiting at the door.  I picked up my
purse and gave him a defiant look.  “Take me to the hospital.”

His sharp green gaze ranged over me, taking in my
general lack of composure.  “What happened?”

 My hand clenched on the straps of my bag. 
“Chelsea.”  I couldn’t say anything more.  I was distraught, but I was holding
it in check.  I pulled my lips back in a grimace, showing him that my fangs
were still retracted, that I was in control.  “Can we please go now?”

He took a deep breath and shut the door, turning the
lock with a snick.  “Melody,” his voice held weary warning.  “You know better.”

I clenched my teeth and fumed.  “My sister is hurt…
she might be dying.”  I paused and tried to get a grip on the sudden urge to
rip someone to shreds.  “I’m going to the hospital.”

He crossed his arms, his face sad and resigned.  “If
you go there, you might be the one to kill her.”  He spread his arms in
supplication.  “Sweetheart, the sun is up.  You’ll be covered in blisters. 
Besides, do you have any idea how difficult hospitals are?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, struggling to keep my
calm.  “I’ve been doing so well lately.”  Then, more forcefully.  “You can’t
keep me a prisoner here.”

He closed his eyes in a long blink.  When he opened
them, they were completely silver.  His aura wrapped around me like a blanket. 
I struggled, pulling my own aura up as a shield, but it was no use.  He had
made
me, and everything in me knew he was the boss.  I felt my will bend to his. 
“You are not going.”