Welcome to the Darkness (Darkness Trilogy) (8 page)

“Constance,” the Queen barked
and snapped her fingers. “Fetch this young woman a new bag for her . . . numerous beauty items.” Constance hurried off to carry out the Queen’s bidding and the Queen leaned over to retrieve the can of hairspray from the floor. She turned it in her hands, regarding it carefully.

“Do you find this product useful?” the Queen addressed Sarah with seemingly genuine curiosity.

Sarah stopped scooping up her belongings to answer. “Um . . . yes, it works quite well.”

“Perhaps I should try it,” the Queen replied,
setting the can down on the arm of her throne. “My hair can be so unruly at times.”

I tried not to look panicked, but not knowing how the can of “hairspray” actually worked, I had no clue whether it was about to blow up at any second. Sarah seemed remar
kably calm though, so it must not have been that easy to set off by mistake.

Constance returned, and helped us put everything into the new bag.
We stood back up and the Queen addressed us once again.

“I must apologize for what will seem inhospitable, however, I require you both to remain in one of our cells momentarily. We vampires are a suspicious lot by nature, so it will take some time to gain our trust, but I do assure you that we will find better accommodations for you in the near future.”

Dominic and another vampire that I didn’t recognize came toward us then, to usher us to the door leading to the cell area. I stole one last glance at the hairspray sitting innocently on the throne as we passed through the door
.

The slight creak of the door opening at the top of the stairs broke Nathaniel out of the mindless trance he’d been in for the last several hours. He had nothing to do in his cramped little cell, and only his daily feeding from a cold bottle broke the monotony. Despite his boredom, he felt certain he couldn’t have been in the cell for more than a day or two at most.

The soft tread of footsteps heralded the arrival of Reed, two vampire guards, and . . . what was this?
Nathaniel inhaled deeply, savoring the delectable scent that wafted into the room. His eyes widened at the lovely human female at Reed’s side. She was about medium height, slender in an athletic way, with shoulder-length golden brown hair and brown-flecked green eyes. In a word, scrumptious!

The human female in question glanced at Nathaniel in alarm.

The guards guided Reed and the woman into the neighboring cell. With the door securely shut once again, the two vampire guards departed. Nathaniel turned to observe his new cell neighbors.

“Hey, Nathaniel,” Reed said, breaking the silence. “How’ve you been?”

It was such a simple greeting, yet Nathaniel could not remember the last time anyone had asked after his well-being. Indeed, the boy was eyeing him from head to toe as though searching for injuries or signs of abuse.

“I am well,” Nathaniel replied. “I suppose I am fort
unate that my greatest complaint is the unrelenting boredom I have experienced while you were elsewhere. Are you going to introduce me to your companion?”

“Oh, yeah . . . sorry,” Reed apologized
and stepped aside to give Nathaniel and the young woman a better view of each other. “This is Sarah. Sarah, this is Nathaniel.”

He bowed his head.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He couldn’t help taking one more little whiff of her delicious scent, though it made his gums tingle in anticipation. He needed to tamp down his appetite, but he thirsted terribly for a “real” meal.

A frown creased the brows of her lovely face
and she spoke for the first time. “You know, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop looking at me like a roast beef dinner.”

Oh, these feisty modern women:
so bold despite being so much weaker than himself. Was it his imagination, or did her frown increase when he finished his last thought? “My apologies, Mademoiselle,” he said in an effort to placate her. The scent of her rising anger began to intermingle with the sweet smell of blood pumping through her veins.

“By the way, Nathaniel,” Reed said, “she can read minds, so try to keep a lid on your nasty thoughts.
If you can.”

Understanding struck him with a jolt. This human po
ssessed unique capabilities that would be of great interest to the Queen. “Indeed,” he said, his voice controlled to hide his surprise.

Reed studied him for a moment. “You didn’t know about Sarah, did you? So I bet you don’t know what they’re planning to do with her.
With us.”

“No.”

“But, do you think they might, you know . . .” Reed paused, stealing a quick glance at Sarah before continuing. “Turn her into a vampire too?”

Sarah stiffened, but remained silent, waiting to hear Nathaniel’s reply.

“I doubt that,” he answered. “Firstly, the transformation could destroy her ability, and secondly, it is as likely as not that she would survive the transition. A great many do not, especially women.”

The door opened at the top of the stairs and they turned in unison to look. The vampire guards had returned carrying two capped bottles and a small paper bag. Dominic typed in the code to open the door to Nathaniel’s cell, and the other vampire handed him one of the bottles. After r
esealing his cell door, they repeated the procedure with the second cell, passing Reed the second bottle and the bag to Sarah. Then the vampire guards left. Dinner was served.

Reed observed
his bottle with a grimace of distaste while Sarah peeked inside the paper bag. Then Reed leaned over to look at the contents of the bag as well.

“Nathaniel?” Reed said. “Do I
really have to drink this? Why can’t I eat normal food? I mean, that sandwich,” he pointed, indicating the paper bag, “looks way more appetizing than this.” He eyed the bottle again with disgust.

“You must consume blood every day, or you will lose control of your thirst. Your body is no longer capable of i
ngesting regular food.”

“But . . . what would happen if I tried to eat something? If I took a bite out of a sandwich and chewed it up and swa
llowed it, seriously, what’s gonna happen?”

“I do not think you would manage swallowing such fare, however, if you did manage to choke it down, you would most certainly vomit it back up immediately.”

“Guys,” Sarah said, cutting into the conversation. “Please. Do you have to talk about throwing up right before eating?”

Reed looked at her
and continued. “But food still smells
good
. I don’t understand. Why does it still smell good if I can’t eat it?”

Nathaniel
sighed and shook his bottle and opened it. “Think of a vanilla-scented candle, Reed.  It smells good . . . good enough to eat, correct? However, you would not eat a candle without extreme difficulty.” He sat on the floor, preparing to lie down for his death after dinner. Without further ado, he tipped the bottle back and drank the entire contents at once.

“Well, that’s a bummer,” was all Reed had left to say.

Nathaniel sat up, and Sarah emit
ted a startled squeak of surprise.

“Sorry, you moved so suddenly you scared me for a second there,” Sarah apologized with an embarrassed half-grin. “I think I was starting to nod off.”

Nathaniel was uncertain if he should reply, and he was not one for making small talk.

Reed lay
dead on the floor. Apparently, he had succumbed to his thirst and drank his bottled blood. “Will he wake up soon?” Sarah asked.

“He should regain consciousness approximately one hour after he finished drinking his meal,” he replied. He settled into a more comfortable position against the back wall of his cell, preparing to relax in silence until the guards returned to release them.

“Do you guys dream when you’re . . . um . . .?”

“Dead?” he finished for her.

She nodded.

“No,” he answered.

Perhaps he should offer an explanation or ask her a question in return. Even this stilted conversation was more interesting than sitting quietly hour after hour.

She saved him from having to conjure up a question by continuing with her own. “Do you always, uh . . . die for an hour?” She said the word “die” as though it left a bad taste in her mouth. “It didn’t seem like you were out that long.”

“The younger the vampire, the longer the period of death they require after each feeding,” he answered. “I am over two hundred years old, therefore I require closer to three quarters of an hour myself,” he added.

“Two . . . hundred?
My God,” she gaped at him in awe. “You’re older than any human on earth. That’s incredible! Have you been in California the whole time?”

“No,
I moved here somewhat recently, about forty years ago. Before that, I resided in New York, and before that, France.”

She stared at him with keen interest. “You don’t have an accent. Do you speak French?”

“Bien sûr,” he replied.

She broke into a grin that lit up her whole face. N
athaniel tried to remember the last time he had caused someone to smile like that. A warm sensation grew inside him, thawing some of the ice.

“Can I ask you something on a completely different subject?” she said. “Are these cells strong enough to hold you? I mean, Reed forced my balcony door open like it was made of cardboard, which makes me think you guys could break out of here if you wanted to. Or am I wrong?”

“The bars are coated with silver, which our skin cannot come into contact with for even a moment.”

“Oh,” she replied, her brow furrowing as though she were confused. “Is that only true if you’re awake? If I took Reed’s hand and touched it to one of the bars right now, for example, would that still be bad?”

“Indeed, it would be very bad. Please, do not attempt such a thing.”

She leaned back and remained silent for several more minutes. Nathaniel did not interrupt her.

Eventually, Reed woke up, and they continued to wait. The occasional question or two peppered the silence between them and as time dragged on, Sarah began to yawn. She lay down at last, her head resting in Reed’s lap. Nathaniel noted with some amusement that Reed seemed mildly flustered about being in such close proximity to this woman. The scent of Reed’s attraction to her was obvious to Nathaniel’s vampire senses, but he could hardly blame Reed for that.

Despite the discomfort of their current accommod
ations, Sarah appeared to have slept the full night, waking sometime in the early morning. Even underground, Nathaniel could sense when the sun had risen for the day. The expectation that at any moment they would be released from their cells had made the night seem even longer than it would have otherwise.

Nathaniel continued to listen to the conversation that Reed and Sarah had started after she’d woken up.

“Today was my eleventh day on a new job,” Sarah said. “I was hoping to get this deal with the vampires sorted out more quickly. I can’t afford to miss more work.”

Suddenly, a deafening
boom
ripped through the air, and the room shook violently. Nathaniel fell to floor and Sarah shouted, “Holy crap!” at the same time that Reed shouted, “Earthquake!”

Cracks appeared in the ceiling and the walls around them
and the room continued to shake. A large chunk of concrete broke loose and tumbled to the floor in a cloud of dust, followed by a shower of rocks and dirt. Sarah screamed when the ceiling collapsed above them. The roof of Nathaniel’s cell came crashing down toward him and he flattened himself against the floor. Images flitted through his mind: of the bars burning into his skin while he was buried alive.

The floor shifted like the deck of a ship on a rocky sea.
“Reed!” Sarah yelled in a panic. “You have to break us out of here!”

“I can’t! I can’t touch the bars,” Reed yelled back over the sound of the walls crumbling.

“Yes you can! You can touch silver. Trust me.”

“No. I really can’t.
Nathaniel said it will cut my hands off.”

“And I’m telling you that won’t happen,” she said, choking on the dust that permeated the air, desperation clouding her voice. “I touched your skin with silver . . . in my apartment, when you were unconscious. Nothing ha
ppened. Please, just try, and hurry.” The floor beneath them rumbled with another aftershock, and the room continued to disintegrate piece by piece.

The lights went out and Nathaniel could no longer see. Even a vampire needed a little light to see in the darkness. The screeching sound of metal bending and ripping filled the air, and someone crashed and stumbled through the wreckage.

“The stairs are here. Go!” Reed’s voice carried through the dark. “I’ll be right behind you. I have to get Nathaniel.”

He couldn’t believe Reed was going out of his way to save him. Relief flooded over him as
Reed crashed through the rubble. Strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him to safety.