The Silver Kiss (17 page)

But why was Simon afraid of Christopher? What could Christopher do to Simon that Simon couldn't do to him? Why was Simon giving up? Stop being a wimp, she wanted to shout at him as anger flashed through her. You can
do
something about
your
problem.

She eased her clenched fists. God, it was so dumb getting mad at someone who wasn't even there. But then, she'd been angry a lot lately. “Uh-oh,” she breathed softly. She'd forgotten to call Lorraine back. I'll have to do it tomorrow, she thought, then sighed. She'd be wiped out tomorrow if she didn't get some rest. She rubbed her eyes and tried to feel sleepy. I better go back to bed, she decided.

She pulled the curtains against the disturbing light.

A steady gray rain beat down on the taut skin of Zoë's umbrella as she splashed her way to the bus stop. Each puddle caused the damp to creep farther up the legs of her corduroys, stiffening them against her calves. Cars hushed by, their drivers oblivious to the spray of water they sent splattering the sidewalk, their rear lights leaving streamers
of red in the slick black street. Over the sidewalk the streetlamps misted the air with fractured light.

Her mother mustn't have known it was raining this hard. She never would have called if she knew Zoë would have to rush outside on a night like this, but the phone call had come, the one Zoë longed for but seldom received nowadays. “Come visit me,” the husky voice had said. “Your dad's working tonight. I'll be lonely.” Zoë had flung on her mother's London Fog raincoat, grabbed the red umbrella from the hall stand, and ran out into the night, barely taking time to check if she had bus fare in her pants pocket. Who cares about rain, she thought, grinning. She felt like a different person, miles from the girl who had been too tired to go to school today.

Then a spatter of footsteps from behind echoed someone running. They drew closer, fast. She stopped before she could help it, more curious than fearful. She turned just as the runner reached her.

“Zoë,” Simon said, pulling up short, and he held out his hand.

A detached part of her wondered at his not being out of breath, while she took his hand automatically, as if she had been doing it for years. They continued walking, and she shifted the umbrella to cover him, too, but he didn't seem to notice.

“Where are you going?” He flipped his sopping-wet hair back from his eyes, scattering drops down her cheek.

“The hospital.”

His eyes registered surprise, concern perhaps. “You are ill?”

“No, my mother's there.”

“Oh.”

They stepped off the curb to cross the street. She saw him wince as he hopped across the stream in the gutter. “You all right?”

“Flowing water,” he explained. “It's a problem to me.

“What do you mean?”

“Water rejects the dead. A corpse floats to the surface, no matter how long it takes.”

I can't believe I'm having this conversation, she thought. It's creepy.

“I am at odds with nature,” he continued. “And the whole natural world tries to remind me of this. The sun burns me; and when I cross running water, I can feel it trying to heave me off the face of the earth. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

No wonder he was sick on that voyage from England, she thought. If it's true. She squeezed his hand, and that made him smile.

They reached the bus stop, and he took in the red-and-white transit sign. “Can I come?” He dropped her hand to search his pockets but seemed to find nothing that satisfied him.

“I have enough for you too,” she said. Let him come. It felt right.

His hands stopped searching and relaxed into the side pockets of his jacket. “You don't mind sharing the time with her?”

“No.” She was touched by his insight. “It'll be good for her. She doesn't get out much nowadays. She likes unusual people. She'll have a wonderful time trying to figure you out.”

“You love her very much.” It wasn't a question. “It's a difficult time for you.”

“Understatement.” Her lips twisted wryly.

“I haven't seen much of natural death. What is it your mother is dying of?”

Zoë bristled. How could he sound so cold? “She has cancer. I wouldn't call that natural.”

“Sorry, I didn't mean to sound callous, but next to the death I've seen dealt, it seems much more natural. I mean, within the laws of nature at least.”

The bus came. Zoë climbed the steps, folding her umbrella, and slammed enough change for both of them in the slot. He talked as if her mother were a specimen. She didn't bother to check if he followed her. She sat halfway down the almost empty bus, opposite the rear door, and laid the wet umbrella on the floor. When she sat up, she saw him grab the back of the seat in front and swing in gracefully beside her. He looked worried.

“I didn't mean to trivialize your mother's death. I know it matters. Every death matters.”

They were silent for a while, as the bus lurched through the night.

“At first,” he finally said, “you think—no, hope—it might be a dream. That you'll wake up, and it will have been just a nightmare.”

Zoë turned sharply to look at him. Was he mocking her? But his gaze was far away, not even on her.

“You think she'll be there,” he continued, “pulling the curtains to let in the sun, wishing you good morning.

“Yes, how did you know?”

His eyes snapped into focus, catching the light like broken glass. “What kind of a son would I be, not to know?”

She blushed stupidly and couldn't seem to find a natural position for her hands to settle in. He'd lost his mother too. “Yes, of course.”

“You forgot,” he said in a gentler voice.

She nodded, embarrassed. “But I felt that way, too, or like maybe it was a cruel joke, and everyone would confess to it real soon.”

“And then the anger,” he said, as if it were inevitable. “Anger at her for going away.”

“For ruining our lives,” she joined in.

“At God, “he said.

“At everyone around, for not understanding, for not having it happen to them.”

Simon nodded. “At myself, too, for not having been old enough at the time to understand, or perhaps to save her.”

“I thought sometimes, I'm being punished,” Zoë said, “but I didn't know what for. I started looking for things to do to atone.”

A woman near the front of the bus turned to look at them, and Zoë realized the conversation had gotten louder. She lowered her voice. “Now I think, there's no payoff, no matter how good you are. No one's going to reward you. It's not like getting good grades in school—there's no logic, no prizes.”

He sighed. “It pains me to hear you speak like that. So young, and so bitter.”

She was surprised. “But what about you? After all this time, after all you've been through?”

“Yes, I suppose, but I've had much longer to become that way, and even then, isn't the point to do what's right for its own sake, even if there is no reward?” He gave a short snort of laughter. “But what am I talking about? What do I know of right and wrong? I've had to rationalize the wrong for so long, I'm not sure I could know the difference. It appears self-preservation is the strongest motivator of all—for everyone.”

Zoë noticed that they were passing the hospital. “Damn!”
She leapt for the bell cord. The bus ground to a halt at the stop by the farthest entrance, and they scrambled to get off. At least the rain had stopped; a piece of luck, since she'd forgotten the umbrella.

On the way up the long driveway he put his arm around her. He should be dead, she thought, three hundred years ago, and yet he's here comforting me. It doesn't make sense.

“Zoë,” he said when they were halfway there, “don't let the anger make you push people away. Don't take it out on the people who love you. I cut myself off from my father, and look what happened to me. It tortures me to think of how it could have been. I should have recognized the form his grief took and comforted him. We could have stood against Christopher together. We could have won. I was a fool.”

Zoë hugged him closer to her. “We don't ever have the benefit of hindsight in our decisions, let alone three hundred years' worth.” Secretly she thought, Am I pushing them away? No, it's them. But his words nagged at her; she still hadn't phoned Lorraine.

As they neared the building, Simon slowed down. He tipped his head to examine its height like Jack facing the giant. She hesitated at the large glass doors. Would anyone really want to sit at the deathbed of someone he didn't even know? “Are you sure you want to come in?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, but he looked frightened, unsteady.

“You could wait outside.”

“No.”

It didn't look as if he was going to move, however, so she went in ahead of him. He followed her and kept close like a child at the dentist. His eyes flicked rapidly here and there. She was sure a sudden noise would give him a heart attack—if that was possible. He almost flinched when someone passed him in the corridor. They drew a few curious stares, but this
was
a hospital. They probably think I'm taking him to the psych ward, she decided.

“I'm not used to the light,” he said by way of excuse.

When the elevator doors closed, she wished for his sake they had taken the stairs. She could feel his panic like vibrations in the air. Thank goodness they were in there alone, because she didn't think he could have taken a crowd.

“The problem is,” he said—and she could hear the click of his tongue in his dry mouth—“in my line of work you like to have an escape route.” He cut short a nervous giggle by biting his lip.

Zoë smiled politely at the plump nurse at the fifth-floor station. The nurse smiled back. “Which room?”

“Five twelve.”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Sutcliff. She said she was expecting her daughter.”

“That's me.”

“Well, go ahead, dear. I expect you know the way.” She looked doubtfully at Simon but held her tongue. He stared back at her, a defiant young punk, his defense mechanisms at work again.

Zoë tugged at his sleeve. “Come on.” What was he up to? Was he going to make a scene?

He broke eye contact with practiced indifference. Quite an actor, she thought, remembering his distress only moments before. She could hear the nurses in the staff room now—“It's the stress,” they'd say. “It brings out the devil in them. She's hanging out with hoods to get attention.” It made her smile. If only they knew.

The smile faded when she came to her mother's door and got no response to her gentle knock.

The lights were low, and her mother just a huddled lump in the bed. A surge of terror made her rush to the bedside, but the steady movement of breathing quelled her fears. She lowered herself to a chair. Her mother's slippers lay half under the bed, looking flat and empty. I guess there won't be any conversation tonight, she thought.

Simon, liquid with ease in the muted light, pulled a chair up beside her. He looked at her mother with interest, all the nervousness smoothed from his face. “Hence your beauty,” he said.

“But she's not like she was.”

“I can still tell.”

She wasn't sure how to answer, so didn't.

I could shake her, she thought. I could wake her up. She almost reached out, but her mother looked so peaceful. Zoë crushed beneath her thigh the hand that wanted to touch. Let her sleep, she argued. She needs it. She has to grab what she can. But Zoë's lips were tight with disappointment. Why did she call if she was tired? I thought she wanted me here.

Simon gazed steadily at her mother's face. It was impossible to guess his thoughts. They made a strange pair: the dying and the undead. Is he wishing he could die too? she wondered. Is life forced on him as much as death is forced on her?

A thought suddenly struck her. Could he change her? Could he give her his blood like Christopher had given his? Surely they could find a way to get her the blood she would need without killing anyone. She would have time for her art, time for her family, all the time in the world. But would he do it?

“Simon,” she whispered, “if a sick person became a vampire, would he heal?”

He twisted to look at her, horror on his face. “Would you wish that on someone?”

“Just tell me,” she begged.

“Since I was changed, I have remained a youth—never growing, never aging. Wounds I have sustained since then have always healed rapidly. They repair and leave me as I
was before.” He tried to keep his voice low, but anger grew as he spoke, strangling his words. “If someone were to change with cancer in his body, the body would not alter too much, I think. The cancer would still be there, but the body would heal itself as fast as the cancer ate it away. In effect, that person would probably be in pain forever. What would that do to a person's mind, do you think?”

Zoë stifled a cry with her fist. Tears started to her eyes.

His voice softened. “The change can do terrible things to a person, Zoë. It's unnatural. Look at Christopher. At least I was allowed to grow up first, but he's trapped forever in the body of a child, and has a child's anger. His body whispers to him the secrets he will never know, because he can't quite hear them. I think that's why he kills so brutally. I could never turn anyone into something like that deliberately.”

He was right. She knew he was right, but it had seemed a last gleam of hope, and now it was gone, almost as soon as she'd thought of it. And there he was, throwing Christopher at her again. “If he's so terrible, why don't you stop him?” she snapped.

It took him aback. “But I've tried.”

His urgent, hushed tones reminded her to lower her voice. “So try again.”

They argued in fierce whispers.

“He's stronger than me. He always outsmarts me.”