Walking next to her, hands clasped behind his back, was Oliver. He looked much older than her, but I didn’t think he was; she’d died young, he’d died at late middle age, but they were both ancient. He had his long, graying hair tied back, and was wearing a black leather jacket and dark pants. He was scowling, but then, he usually was.
Weird, seeing the two of them together like this. They were usually polite enemies, sometimes right at each other’s throat (literally). Not tonight, though. Not here.
Amelie glowed in the moonlight, ghost-bright, and when she smiled, she didn’t look cold at all. She inclined her head to us. “Michael. Eve. Thank you for doing the little demonstration today. It was much appreciated.”
“Ma’am,” I said, and returned the salute. Eve waved. We would have kept on walking, but Amelie stopped, and Oliver was a solid block in front of us, so we stopped as well. I said, “Hope you’re enjoying the walk. It’s a nice night.”
Lame, but it was all I had for small talk. I was aching to keep moving. I couldn’t keep still, in fact, and I drummed my fingers against the side of my leg in a nervous rhythm. I saw Oliver notice it. His scowl deepened.
“It’s turned quite cool,” Amelie said. Like Oliver, she was zeroing in on my trembling fingers. “I heard you sampled the new product today.”
“Yeah, it’s great,” I said. “I got another one to go.” The can was heavy in my pocket, and I’d been thinking about it the entire evening. I’d found myself actually wrapping my hand around it inside my pocket, but I’d managed to stop myself from pulling the tab. So far. “Very convenient. You ought to think about selling them in six-packs.”
“Well, the modern age seems to demand convenience.” Amelie shrugged. “But we’ll see how the single-can sales go. So many wanted access to the blood bank at odd hours that automation seemed the most logical solution. You don’t mind the taste of the preservatives?”
“No, it’s good stuff,” I said. I remembered that I hadn’t liked it at first, but now, for some reason, it seemed like that memory was wrong—as if it had actually been delicious, but I hadn’t been ready for it. “It tastes better than the bagged stuff.” I almost said and better than from the vein, but Eve was right there, and that would embarrass her on two levels, not just one. First, that I was telling people she was letting me bite her, and second, that somehow her blood wasn’t good enough. I was able to stop in time, barely. “Has anybody else tried it?”
“Really, Glass, do you think we put it out for public consumption without testing?” Oliver snapped. “It’s been tried, analyzed, and tested to death. I cannot imagine a more boring process. Two years, from concept to actual delivery. Half the vampires in Morganville have been involved in taste tests.”
“Have you tried it?” I asked him. “You should. It’s really—” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, once I’d started it. “Fierce,” I finally said. An Eve word. I wasn’t sure I even knew what it really meant in the way she used it, but it seemed right.
Evidently, Oliver didn’t really understand the usage either, because he gave me a long stare, one that could have melted concrete. “Our major difficulty seems to be in convincing the elders to use it,” he said. “Most of them are not familiar with the concept of identification cards, much less credit cards, and machines confuse them.”
“I’ll bet,” Eve put in. “Not much call for Cokes among the fang gang, I guess.”
“Well, I like Coke,” I said.
Amelie smiled, very slightly.
“As do I, Michael. But I fear we’re in the minority.” There was something guarded in her eyes, a little worried. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Great,” I said, probably too quickly. “I feel great.”
Oliver exchanged a fast glance with her, and gave an almost invisible shrug. “Then we should be going,” he said. “Matters to discuss.”
It was a dismissal, and I was happy to grab Eve’s hand and walk on while the other two headed the other way. Oliver always bothered me; partly it was his eviler-than-thou attitude, and partly it was that I could never quite shake the memory of how I’d met him . . . how he’d come across as a nice, genuine guy, and turned on me. That had been before anyone in Morganville knew who he was, or how dangerous he could be.
And he’d killed me. Part of the way, anyway; he hadn’t left me much choice in becoming what I was now. Maybe he thought of that as a fair trade.
I still didn’t.
A tremor of adrenaline surged through me . . . hunting instinct. It took me a second to realize that there was a complicated mixture of things happening inside of me: hatred boiling up for Oliver, well beyond what I normally felt; hunger, although I shouldn’t have been hungry at all; and last, most unsettlingly, through our clasped hands I felt the steady, seductive pulse of Eve’s blood.
It was a moment that made me shiver and go abruptly very still, eyes shut, as I tried to master all of those warring, violent impulses. I heard Eve asking me something, but I shut her out. I shut everything out, concentrating on staying me, staying Michael, staying human, at least for now.
And finally, I fumbled in my pocket and popped open the aluminum can of O negative, and the taste was metal and meat, soothing the beast that was trying to claw its way free inside. I couldn’t let it out, not here, not with Eve.
The taste of the blood silenced it for a moment, and then it roared back, shockingly stronger than ever.
I dropped the can and heard it clatter on the pavement. Eve’s warm hands were around my face, and her voice was in my ears, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying.
When I opened my eyes, all I saw was red, with vague, smeared shapes of anything that wasn’t prey. Eve, on the other hand, glowed a bright silver.
Eve was a target, and I couldn’t resist her, I couldn’t. I had to satisfy this hunger, fast.
I gasped and pushed her backward, and before she could do more than call my name in alarm, I spun and ran through the dark, red night.
I didn’t know where I was headed, but as I ran, something took over, guiding me more by instinct than design. When I saw the shining, warm targets of human beings out there in the dark, I avoided them; it was hard, maybe the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I managed.
I stopped in the shadows, not feeling tired at all, or winded, only anxious and more jittery than ever. The run hadn’t burned it off; if anything, it had made things worse.
I was standing in front of the Morganville Blood Bank. This was the entrance in the front, the donation part, and it was closed for the night. Blessedly, there weren’t any people around for me to be a danger to, at least right now.
I turned and ran down the side alley, effortlessly jumping over barriers of empty boxes and trash cans, and came around the back. Unlike the front, this part of the building was hopping with activity—human shapes coming and going, but none of them had that silvery glow I’d become so familiar with. All vampires, this side, and none of them were paying attention to me until I got close, shoved a few aside, and made it to the withdrawal area.
The vending machine stood there in the center of the room. A few people were doubtfully studying it, trying to make up their minds whether or not to try it, but I shoved them out of the way too. I swiped my card; when it didn’t immediately work, I swiped it again and randomly punched buttons when they lit up. It took forever for the mechanism to work, and the can to be delivered.
Working the tiny pop-top seemed impossible. I punched my fingers through the side and lifted the can, bathing in the gush of liquid. It no longer tasted like metal. Warm from the can, it tasted like life. All the life I could handle.
“Michael,” someone said, and put a hand on my shoulder. I turned and punched him, hard enough to break a human’s neck, but it didn’t do much except make the other vampire step back. I grabbed my card again and swiped it, but it was slippery in my fingers, damp with the red residue from the can, which had gotten all over me. I wiped it on my jeans and tried it ag
ain. The lights flashed. Nothing happened. “Michael, it won’t work again. You used all today’s credits.”
No. That couldn’t be true, it couldn’t, because the rush hadn’t lasted, hadn’t lasted at all this time, and I felt bottom-lessly empty. I needed more. I had to have more.
I shoved the other vampire back and slammed both hands into the plastic covering of the vending machine. It held, somehow, although cracks formed in the plastic. I hit it again, and again, until the plastic was coming apart. I shoved my hand through, heedless of the cuts, and grabbed one of the warm cans.
That was when someone hit me from behind with an electric shock, like a Taser only probably five times as strong, and the next thing I knew, I was limp on the floor, with the unopened can of AB negative rolling on the carpet beside me.
I tried to grab for it, but my hands weren’t working. I was still reaching for it, fumbling for the fix, when they picked me up and towed me out of the withdrawal area, into a steel holding cell somewhere in the back.
Days passed. They took me off of the canned stuff and put me on bags again, and finally, the frenzy passed. I won’t lie, it was awful, but what was worse was slowly realizing how bad I’d been. How close I’d been to becoming . . . a thing. A senseless monster.
I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted them to let me out, actually.
Music was the only thing that helped; after they got me stabilized, the woman who delivered the blood also delivered my guitar. I didn’t feel like myself until I was sitting down with the acoustic cradled in my lap. The strings felt warm, and when I picked out the first notes, that was good, that felt right. That felt like me, again.
I don’t know how long I played; the notes spilled out of me in a frantic rush, no song I knew or had written before. It wasn’t a nice melody, not at first; it was jagged and bloody and full of fury, and then it slowly changed tempo and key, became something soothing that made me relax, very slowly, until I was just a guy, playing a guitar for the thrill of the notes ringing in the air.
From the doorway, a voice said, “You really do have a gift.” I hadn’t even heard him unlock it.
I didn’t look up. I knew who it was; that voice was unmistakable. “Once, maybe. You took that away from me,” I said. “I was going somewhere with it. Now I’m going nowhere.”
Oliver, uninvited, sat down in a wooden chair only a few feet away from me. I didn’t like seeing him here, in my space. Music was my personal retreat, and it reminded me of how it had felt when he’d turned on me in my house, in my house, and . . .
. . . and everything had changed.
He was looking at me very steadily, and I couldn’t read his expression. He’d had hundreds of years to perfect a poker face, and he was using it now.
I kept on playing. “Why are you here?”
“Because you are Amelie’s responsibility, and it follows that you’re also mine, as I’m her second in command.”
“Did you take the machine out?”
Oliver shook his head. “No, but we changed the parameters. The testing was done on older vampires, ones who’d had centuries to stabilize their needs. You are entirely different, and we’d forgotten that. Very young, not even a full year old yet. We didn’t anticipate that the formula would trigger such a violent response. In the future, you’ll only receive the unprocessed raw materials.”
“So it’s because I’m young.”
“No,” he said. “It’s because you’re young and you refuse to acknowledge what you are. What it means. What it promises. You’re fighting your condition, and that makes it almost impossible for you to control yourself. You need to admit it to yourself, Michael. You’ll never be human again.”
Last thing I wanted to do, and he knew it. I stopped playing for a few seconds, then picked up the thread again. “Fuck off,” I said. “Feel free to take that personally.”
He didn’t answer for a long moment. I glanced up. He was still watching me.
“You’re still not yourself,” he eventually said. “And you’re speaking like your scruffy friend.”
He meant Shane. That made me laugh, but it sounded hollow, and a little bit desperate. “Well, Shane’s probably right most of the time. You are an ass.”
“And even if you think it, you rarely say it. Which rather proves my point.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you? Because you’ve not asked a thing about your girlfriend, whom you left on her own in the middle of a vampire district, at night.”
That sent an electric jolt of shame through me. I hadn’t even thought about it. I hadn’t spared a single thought for Eve all the time I’d been in here; I’d been too wrapped up in my own misery, my own shame. “Is she okay?” I asked. I felt sick, too sick to even try to keep on playing. The guitar felt heavy in my hands, and inert.
“She’s becoming annoying with her repeated demands to see you, but yes, otherwise, she’s as well as could be expected. I made sure she got home safely.” Oliver paused for a few seconds, then leaned forward with his elbows braced on his knees, pale hands dangling. “When I was . . . transformed, I thought in the beginning that I could stay with those mortals I loved. It isn’t smart. You should understand this by now. We stay apart for a reason.”
“You stay apart so you don’t feel guilty for doing what it is you do,” I shot back. “I’m not like you. I’ll never be like you. Best of all, I don’t have to be.”
His eyebrows rose, then settled back to a flat line. “Have it your way,” he said. “The canned blood had an effect on you, yes, but not as much as you might believe. That was mostly you, boy. And you need to find a way to control that, because one day, you may find yourself covered in blood that doesn’t come from a punctured can.”
The way he said it chilled me, because it wasn’t angry, it wasn’t contemptuous, it was . . . sad. And all too knowing.
I let it drop into the silence before I said, “Eve wants to see me.”
“Perpetually, apparently.”
“I think I’m ready.” Was I? I didn’t know, but I ached to see her, tell her how sorry I was.
Oliver shrugged. “It’s someone’s funeral, if not yours.” He moved fast, out the door before I could make any comeback, not that I could think of a good one anyway, and I clutched the guitar for comfort. My fingers went back to picking out melodies and harmonies, but I wasn’t thinking about it anymore, and it didn’t feel comforting.
I was afraid I wasn’t ready, and the fear was a steady, hot spike that made my throat dry and, horribly, made my fangs ache where they lay flat. I didn’t know if I was ready to see her. I didn’t know if Oliver would care to stop me, if I went off on her.
But when Eve stepped through the door, the fear slipped away, leaving relief in its wake. She was okay, and back to her fully Goth self, and what I felt wasn’t hunger, other than the hunger anybody felt in the presence of someone they loved.
The shine in her eyes and her brilliant smile were the only things that mattered.
I had just enough time to put the guitar aside and catch her as she rushed at me, and then she kissed me, sweet and hot, and I sank into that, and her, and the reminder that there was something else for me other than hunting and hunger and lonely, angry music in the night.
“Don’t you do that again,” she whispered, her black-painted lips close to my ear. “Please, don’t. You scared the hell out of all of us. I didn’t know what to do.”
I relaxed into her embrace, and breathed in the rich perfume of her hair, her skin, the subtle tingle of blood beneath. I didn’t like to think about that last part, but maybe Oliver was right. Maybe I needed to stop denying it, or I’d end up in an even worse place, in the end.
“I didn’t know what to do, either,” I whispered back. “I’m sorry. I could have—”
“Stop.” She pulled back, staring at me fiercely. “Just stop it. You could have hurt me, but you didn’t. You didn’t hurt anybody, except that stupid machine. So relax. That’s not you, Mike. That’s some B-m
ovie monster.”
But I was the B-movie monster too. That was what Oliver meant, in the end; I was exactly that, and I had to remember it. It was the only way any of this would work.
I forced a smile. “I thought you liked B-movie monsters,” I said. My girlfriend punched me in the arm.
“Like, not love,” she said. “You, I love.”
I held out my hands, and she twined her fingers with mine. Warm and cool, together. “I don’t know how to do this,” I said.
She laughed a little. “Dating? Because news flash, big guy: we’ve been doing it awhile.”
“Being this. Being me. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
She stepped closer, looking up into my eyes. “I know who you are. More importantly, I know what you are,” she said. “And I still love you.”
Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she’d never looked into the heart of the red and black tormented thing that lurked deep inside me. But looking at her now, at her utter sincerity and fearlessness, I couldn’t help but think that maybe she did, after all. Know me, and love me.
Maybe, in time, she’d be able to help me understand and love my monster too. Because, in the end, it was always Eve. And always had been.
And I bent close, put my forehead against hers, and whispered, “You make me real.”
From the doorway, Oliver cleared his throat, somehow managing to make it sound as if he wanted to gag at the same time. “You’re free to go,” he said. “Congratulations. You’ve passed.”
“Passed what?” Eve asked, frowning.
“They wanted to see if I’d hurt you,” I said. I focused past her, on Oliver. “You were my test. And I won’t hurt her, not ever. You can count on that.”
He raised his eyebrows, without any comment at all, and left.
The vending machine suffered another accident the next day. And then the next. It wasn’t just me. My best friend, Shane, took to the idea of vandalism with frightening enthusiasm. So did Claire (surprisingly), and Eve . . . but it wasn’t just the four of us sabotaging the damn thing, because at least twice when I went to enact some mayhem, I found it was already nonfunctional.