The Silver Kiss (16 page)

“It was years until my senses began to come back, and I made my way into the world of men again. By that time I was used to the killing, but never to the disgust afterward. As my memory returned, I swore to avenge myself on Christopher, for my mother's sake—for mine.

“I have followed him for many years.”

“How did you trace him after all that time?” Zoë asked.

Simon smiled sadly. “It was easy, really. I followed
reports of a certain type of violence—girls disappearing or found mutilated. Three times I even came face-to-face with him. I almost had him in London in the eighteen eighties, but he got away.”

“How did you get here?”

“I came over in the thirties. An ocean-liner murder reported in the paper tipped me off. I was terribly sick all the way.”

Zoë shook her head, “No, I mean this town.”

“Oh.…There was a mysterious spate of deaths at an orphanage. I had lost Christopher's trail a year before. He had left such a disquietingly obvious trail of child pornography, it was as if he were taunting me, but suddenly there was no more evidence; the trail dead-ended just when I was getting close. The orphanage was the first clue since then.

“I went there. I had trouble at first, but because of my resemblance to Christopher, finally one of the administrators talked to me. I didn't know what story he'd told, but I said we were separated by the courts, and he'd run away from a foster home. I explained that he wasn't always very truthful, but that if I could just see him, I was sure we could set everything straight. She was kind but firm. This was impossible; he had gone to a home, and without any papers to prove my claim, there was nothing she could do. Why didn't I have my social worker contact her? I don't know what she thought I was up to, but I don't think she believed me one bit.

“I left as if crushed, but she had invited me into her office, so I could go back. I returned that night, through a crack in her window frame, and read her files. I found out where he was, then I came here.

“I've been watching him, Zoë. I've seen what he does. You don't want to let him roam free in your town. He drinks their blood, Zoë.”

“Like you?”

“But, Zoë, he doesn't have to kill them. Not like that.”

“You've never killed anyone?” Her eyes were piercing.

Simon picked up his T-shirt and twisted it in his hands. “I told you I did. You know I did.” Then he grabbed her hand. “But I don't have to. I can control it. He doesn't even try. He enjoys the kill.”

Zoë took the T-shirt from him and smoothed it on her lap. “You can control it?”

“Yes, I've done it. I've lulled them into a gentle mist and sipped them slowly, then left them with breath.”

He didn't mention the times he'd failed, when it had been so long since he'd tasted human blood that he couldn't pull away, and had fallen into that mist along with his prey, and floated there, awakening ages later with a cold empty shell in his arms. It was always more satisfying to the end, and he'd often wondered if his kind fed as much upon the dying as upon the blood. Christopher seemed to relish it more than the blood.

“What about that crucifix?” Zoë asked. “Was it hurting you?”

“Oh, no.” He rubbed at his arm guiltily, as if it itched, an excuse to avert his eyes. “Just an old wives' tale. You can't believe everything you read. It was tasteless, that's all.” What's wrong with me, he wondered. I thought I'd decided to trust her. Still, it felt frighteningly stupid to give someone a weapon against him.

“Simon?” Zoë touched his arm. “Where are your fangs?”

She looked as if she pitied him. Did she still think him a mad, hungry boy from the streets? “They can't just appear. They have to be stimulated by the smell or the promise of blood. Shall I show you?” he said half jokingly.

He reached for her and saw a spark of fear in her eyes. It excited him and urged him on. Ah, she believes just a little, he thought. Yet she folded into him and laid her head on his shoulder. She stroked his arm. Sweet warmth. Sweet, searing heat.

“Poor Simon. What can I believe?”

Her throat throbbed with life near his mouth, and the gentle, warm smell of her made him giddy. He fought it briefly, but it was no good; she was too near, too inviting. The fangs slid from their sheaths. “Believe this,” he whispered, and kissed her neck softly. “And this, and this.” Then he kissed her with the sharp, sleek kiss, the silver kiss, so swift and true, and razor sharp, and her warmth was flowing into him. He could feel it seeping through his body—warmth, sweet warmth.

She uttered a small, surprised cry and fought him for a second, but he stroked her hair and caressed her. I won't hurt you, he thought. Little bird, little dear. I won't hurt you. And she moaned and slipped her arms around him. It was the tender ecstasy of the kissed that he could send her with his touch. It throbbed through his fingers, through his arms, through his chest, like the blood through her veins. It thrummed a rhythm in him that he shared with her. She sighed, her breath came harder, and he felt himself falling. I must stop now, he thought. But I can't stop. He held her closer still, as if he could never let go. He couldn't let go.

Yet he did. Gasping, he firmly pushed her away. They stared at each other muzzily.

“I can stop if I want,” he whispered hoarsely.

She blushed, then touched her neck and looked at the droplets of blood on her fingers wonderingly. “But it was … I mean, it wasn't terrible. It was … I don't know.”

He wanted to kiss her again. “It can be terrible. He makes it terrible. I can make it sweet.” He took her hand, and the throbbing began deep inside him once more. I can stop, he thought as he reached for her.

The phone rang. They both jumped.

Zoë pushed him away and went to answer it. “My mother,” she said, almost apologizing.

He heard Zoë pick up the phone in the hall. She answered as if frightened, but then her tone changed to one
of surprise. “Lorraine! Hi! You did? She told you? Uh-huh. Yeah.” There was hesitancy in her voice. “Yeah, I guess I was.” Was that relief? “No, I was busy. Yeah. Trick-or-treaters.” Her voice was warmer, as if she was ready to talk much more, but she must have remembered him. “Listen, I've got something to finish up. Can I call you back later? Okay. Bye.” She hung up.

When she came back into the room, he could see the spell of the moment was gone. But what puzzled him was why she had panicked when she answered the phone. She must have guessed his thoughts. Her lips tightened, her gaze lowered. “I thought it might be about my mother,” she said. “She's dying.”

It was a terse confession, perhaps in return for his own rambling tale. They were sharing deaths, he thought with bitter humor.

“Listen,” she said, “I think you should leave. I don't know when my father will be home. I couldn't explain you. It will be hard enough to explain this.” She pointed at the table.

“You dropped something on it?” he suggested. “Good grief, what? A bomb?”

Still, he wouldn't let her push him out so fast. “You'll let me come again?”

“Why?” Her hand went to her throat.

It made him feel ashamed. He stooped to pick up his T-shirt. “To talk,” he muttered. “Just to talk.”

“What have we to talk about?” It sounded like a denial.

He took a stab in the dark. “Death,” he said.

Her eyes grew large and stricken, but she nodded. “Yes.”

He couldn't stop the grin. He covered it by pulling on his shirt. “I'll come again—soon. Zoë, I didn't know I needed this so much.” He grabbed her and gave her a quick, fierce kiss.

But it awoke bitterness once more. He was a failure at even this mockery he'd become. He'd spent years thinking of them as mindless, stupid creatures unfit to live, to make it easier to use them; now he had let one become real to him. What am I going to do? He thought. I won't be able to hunt again. He'd shrivel and twist but never die—and always the awful hunger. The idea of himself wasted and quite mad, crawling through some back alley somewhere, made him shudder.

She touched his face, her unbearably human eyes showing more concern than he'd ever deserved.' ‘What's wrong?”

“I'll never get my revenge,” he said. “Christopher is too clever for me. I might as well run away while I can and hide from
him
. Make some kind of a worthless life for myself elsewhere. I've always been a fool. A failure. He'll keep on killing and keep on evading me. He'll win.”

“No. He can't.” He was surprised by the quick spark of fire in her.

He tucked the portrait back under his arm and flung his jacket over his shoulder. She walked him to the door. “He
will win, you know, because even if I kill him, I'll go on living endlessly, futilely, hating every unnatural second.”

“Don't talk that way,” she said. “You deserve more.”

“No, I don't.”

She let out a small cry of protest, of pain.

“Sorry. Till later, then.”

She closed the door slowly, as if afraid to trust him to his own despair; then he was out in the dark again.

He slipped through the streets to his den, trying to sort out what he felt. The scruffy youth who began to follow him near the park was a minor problem. He lost the boy fast through the dark backyards.

At the light of dawn he curled in a dusty corner, and abandoned thought for the musky sleep that tasted of blood.

11
Zoë

Z
oë sat in the moonlight that slid molten through her window. It lay pooled on the pillow where her head had been minutes before. The silver light had pierced her eyelids as if they were transparent, keeping her from sleep.

They say people who sleep in moonlight become lunatics, she thought, and smiled. But it's too late, she added. I already am.

She curled her legs up to hug them with her arms, feeling the window-seat cover bunch beneath her, cotton daisies from a long-ago spring. The lawn outside sparkled with frost, and the whole night was diamond and fairy.

She thought of Simon. He'd held her so carefully, and his kisses had been so sweet that she'd wanted more. He had laced her neck with shivers. She barely noticed it when his fangs pierced her throat; except then it felt like
silver bubbles started to rise from her breast and burst within her head like champagne, and her body responded, surprising her into quickened breath. She blushed to think of how she had pulled him close. What was I saying to him? she wondered. It was like I was drunk.

I should be disgusted, she thought. But no, it wasn't disgusting now that she thought of it, but it was frightening. You could rush into your death unknowing, inviting, enjoying the ecstasy of it, burned up in bright light like a moth. She hadn't wanted him to stop.

Was it something Simon did on purpose, she wondered, or was it part of the disease, a compensation for the victim like the numbing poison of a spider's bite? Yet Christopher liked to feel his victim's fear. My God, she thought. If Simon can control the senses like that, what does Christopher do to them? The air of the room grew icy, and she pulled her robe closer around her.

What Simon had done was hard to believe at first, but there was the blood she had wiped from her throat, and the puncture wounds on her neck that had healed so fast. They had sealed in a matter of hours to leave just a bruise. She was still groggy and weak but strangely stimulated.

He had grown hotter and hotter as he drank from her warmth, and he had trembled. That trembling had aroused her as much as anything. She'd caused it. And he had stopped, hadn't he? She could trust him. Despite her doubts it was his loneliness that convinced her of that finally. He
just needs someone to talk to, she thought, that's all, like me.

A dark shape in the yard below caught her eye, and her heart thumped. But it was just a cat, passing through. What was I afraid of? she thought. A small boy, perhaps, creeping up on my house?