Winter's Touch (Immortal Touch Series) (4 page)

“My boy, you’d be surprised
what
you’re capable of doing.” He released his hold abruptly, and Eva fully expected the kid to turn tail and run. But he didn’t. He just stood there.

Reaching f
or the boy’s left arm, he inspected it in the moonlight, then turned his attention to his timid protégée. “Come here. Put your fingers right there, where mine are. Do you feel his pulse?”

She
touched the warm skin, felt the rhythmic tempo that meant life. It seemed so delicate, such an inadequately fragile link to survival. Nodding, she pulled her hand away. And retreated a few steps.

From
her place behind the vampire she saw little of what happened next. She did perceive that his mouth was fixed on the boy’s wrist, but Shawn didn’t appear to even notice. He simply stared dreamily ahead, as if the trees in his line of vision fascinated him. His eyes were brown, she noticed, and for some reason wished she hadn’t.

When he was finished,
the man turned to smile at the girl behind him. His perfectly straight teeth and the lips around them were faintly tinged with red. “Very nice. O-negative. A bit pedestrian compared to yours, but acceptable nevertheless.”

“Doesn’t it hurt him?”
Eva wanted to know. It seemed strange to her that the boy never so much as flinched.

“
He doesn’t feel a thing,” he assured her. “Now come closer, dearest. You won’t want to miss this part.” Laughing under his breath, he pulled a straight razor from his pocket and unfolded it.

“What are you going to do?”

“Look there, on his wrist. Here, let me wipe the blood away. Can you see those two marks?”

“Sort of.
What made them?”

“Well, have you ever seen a
rattlesnake?”

“Yes.”

“It’s something like that. Only my fangs are folded up behind my regular teeth.”

“Can I see them?”

“Some other time. Now pay attention. I’m going to cut directly over the punctures...” He lined up the razor exactly where he wanted it, then applied pressure and began to slowly pull the blade along the boy’s wrist. “Across his radial artery, like so.”

Dropping
that hand, he reached for the other one and made a slit along that wrist as well. Still in a stupefied trance, Shawn began to sway.

“You’d better have a seat
, dear boy - you don’t look at all well!”

The
pallid boy dropped to his knees, eyes fixed lethargically on nothing in particular, blood running down his fingers to drip on the cold ground.

Mr.
Winter pressed the razor into one of Shawn’s crimson hands, then pulled off his gloves while smiling gaily at his young novice. “All done. Any questions?”

She stared at the boy, watching the blood cascade onto the autumn leaves beneath him until he
slowly toppled forward. “Why...why didn’t he run away? Or scream?”

“I simply
tranquilized him somewhat. I am able to manipulate some emotions to a degree. I suppose you’d call it a form of hypnotism. Unfortunately I cannot compel someone to act on something they are averse to, therefore I’m forced to commit the deed myself most of the time.” He dropped the gloves into a Ziploc bag he’d produced from his coat pocket. “You’re a bit desensitized yourself right now. I wanted to keep you calm. You probably think you’re dreaming, don’t you?”

Eva pulled her eyes away from the wet leaves that were beginning to smell like rusty metal. She felt queasy. “Can we go home now?”

“What makes you so sure you’re going home tonight? Are you not afraid I’ll leave you out here to die as well?”

Her reaction was unexplainable, even to herself. Despite the
emotional numbness penetrating her mind, after what she’d witnessed she most certainly should have been fearful of her life. And yet, every instinct she possessed assured her that he had no intention of killing her.

“You won’t hurt me.”

“And how could you possibly know that?”

She shivered. “
I’m cold.”

“Very well.”
They headed back down the empty road in silence, leaving behind the shell of Shawn Matheson to be discovered at some later time. Eva felt as if she was sleepwalking through a fog. She was back at home in her own bed, of course. She’d wake safe and secure and the chestnut-haired boy would never have existed. He wasn’t real. None of this was really happening.

“If I hadn’t already gone to all the trouble of securing
that
one, I might have killed you instead,” he said as soon as they were in the car. He popped a piece of gum in his mouth, then wadded the wrapper into a tiny ball while gazing through the windshield into space. “You’re such a confounding little nipper. What will I do with you?”

She pulled the seat belt across her chest and buckled it
quietly.

“It wouldn’t do for you to disappear. There would be too many questions.” He started the engine and glanced over at her.
“You’ve put me in quite a precarious position, do you know that?”

“
You never talked to me before. In the other dreams,” she announced suddenly, taking him by surprise.

“Do you mean to tell me you’re still having those?”

“Yes.”

He was silent for a while as he turned this information over in his mind.
“Tell me about them, Eva.”

“You’re hurting people. I think it’s you. It looks like you.” None of the other nightmares had the clarity of this one. They were much more vague.
You’re not asleep, you know,
a spiteful voice inside her head reproached her.
This is real. It’s really happening. You know that very well.

“I’m asleep, aren’t I?” Her confused mind
desperately craved reassurance.

“Why yes, of course you are. This is just a nightmare.
Nothing more.”

Comforted, she rested her head against the car door and drifted away.

He roused her two miles from home on a quiet, deserted stretch of road. She peered out at the night, disoriented.

Before she had a chance to
clear her head, he put a finger underneath her chin and looked deep into her eyes. “I must admit that the world would be infinitely more dull without you in it. So we’ll try this one more time. I do apologize for leaving you out here like this, but I have no other choice. You mustn’t be seen with me. Now then Evangeline, I want you to pay close attention. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl. Now I want you to eradicate from your memory every single thing that happened tonight. You never saw me. You were never with me. You’ve been asleep all night. You’re to simply walk home, enter your house and go straight to bed. Do not deviate from these instructions in any way. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“And one more thing. Listen
very carefully.
You will experience no more nightmares involving me.
Ever.
You’ll have only the vaguest recollection of me as your neighbor and nothing more. Are we clear?”

“Yes.”

“Very well then. Get out of the car and start walking.”

She did as he instructed.
And then he drove away, leaving her standing there all alone in the road, the BMW’s bright taillights gradually fading into the darkness.

Eva remembered nothing until she reached the street where she lived. The glare of a
humming streetlight caught her directly in the eye, and she stared at it for a full thirty seconds before blinking. And waking.

And then she began to scream.

~*~*~

Three days
later, a realtor arrived to plant a
For Sale
sign in the yard of the house next door.

CHAPTER THREE

The
Devil Returns

Among the most common disruptive sleep disorders of primary parasomnias in children are nightmares, sleep terrors, somnambulism, confusional arousals and enuresis. Although the majority of cases are a result of external factors such as sleep deprivation, stress and fever, in rare instances persistent and prominent cases can be the direct result of repressed trauma.

“Honey? Are you home?”

“Back here, Mom.” Eva clicked
save
and turned from the keyboard as her mother appeared in the doorway. “What’s up? How was your day?”

Abby
rolled her eyes and shook her pretty brunette head as she sorted through the day’s mail. “Oh, it was a real winner. I had to come home around ten for clean shoes after that Brower kid threw up on the ones I was wearing.”

Eva couldn’t help but laugh. “Ew! What did you do with them?”

“I chunked them in the garbage and drove home in my stocking feet, what do you think? God, I hate these rotaviruses.”

“You threw out a pair of sixty dollar nursing shoes?”

“You weren’t there. Trust me, there was no salvaging those bad boys. It’s a good thing I kept the old ones I had. You know, sometimes I seriously question my decision to work as a pediatric nurse.” Sighing, she unclipped her long hair from its restraint and shook it out. “I could be in a nice neat office full of grownups where everyone wears three-piece suits and nobody hands you their pre-chewed gum when you try to look at their tonsils.”

“Oh, you know you love it.”

“Keep saying that. Maybe eventually I’ll believe it.” She paused, still standing in the doorway as if there was something else on her mind.

Eva recognized that look. After so many years together, her mother’s face
had become an easily translatable book to her. Abigail Spencer was a sweet, altruistic woman who wore her heart on her sleeve. It was just a shame she was so easily taken advantage of because of it.

After a moment she
commented, “So, I heard some interesting news today.”

“What’s that?”

“Michelle’s pregnant again.”

Michelle
! Aka
The Tramp
. How long was this woman planning to continue populating Colorado? Already she and her ill-gotten husband had four children, none of which Eva had even met though technically they were her agnate siblings. It wasn’t as if Colorado Springs was that far away. Edwin (she stubbornly refused to call him Dad anymore - that was a title he simply
did not
deserve) chose to keep his former family separate, in a crass attempt to dismiss their existence as much as possible. Truth be told, it was highly likely the children had been kept in the dark regarding their older half-sister. Not that it mattered.

Her
green eyes narrowed. “Figures. She never could keep her legs closed. I think they’re spring-loaded or something.”

“Can’t argue with you there.”
Abby bit her lip thoughtfully.

Her daughter gave her a suspicious look. “Th
at doesn’t bother you, does it? After all this time you shouldn’t even give that asshat a second thought.”

“Honey, he
is
still your father. I wish you wouldn’t...”

“
Father!
Some father! I’m supposed to be thrilled to pieces if he takes time out of his busy schedule to call me twice a year. I can’t believe you would actually defend him after the way he treated you! Treated
both
of us.” She didn’t try to disguise the disgust in her voice.

“All right, point taken.
”

“I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just...you
know you didn’t deserve what he did to you. Eight years of marriage, and he shows his loyalty by running off with a cheap pole dancer.”

“Dental hygienist.”

“She
looked
like a pole dancer.”

“Well, maybe that’s what your father saw in her. It certainly wasn’t the stimulating conversation she provided.”
Abby caught her daughter’s eye and they both began to laugh. “Have you started dinner, by any chance?”

“I
stuck some Jamaican jerk chicken in the oven. I didn’t make anything else yet. Hope it’s not burned to a crisp - I started researching and lost track of time.”

“What are you working on?”

“Just getting an early start on my psych paper.”

Abby
leaned over her shoulder and read the title on the monitor screen. “
Primary Parasomnias as the Result of Dissociative Amnesia.
Heavy.”

“Yeah, well, Professor Baumgartner
doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being lenient when it comes to term papers.”

“What’s somnambulism?”

“Just a fancy word for sleepwalking. You’re a nurse - you’re telling me you didn’t know that?”

“
Hm. Do you remember the time
you
walked in your sleep?”

“Only vaguely. What was I, like
eight or nine?”