Books by Maggie Shayne (205 page)

Chicago, 1928

There were only a handful of cops in the area.
 
Just the few who'd been lose enough to hear the gunshots.
 
Officer Michael Gray stood in an alley between two buildings his gun drawn but basically useless, as rival gangs, fired at each over from opposite sides of the street.
 
Toy guns spat fire in the darkness.
 
Windows shattered, and people ran for their lives.
 
A car sped past, only to stop short as its windows exploded and the driver slumped over the wheel.

That was when he saw the boy.
 
He must have been seven or eight years old, and scared half to death by the noise.
 
He came out of nowhere and ran right into the street—right into the crisscrossing storm of bullets.

Michael reacted on sheer instinct.
 
He ran out of the alley, shoving his gun into his holster as he went, knowing he would need both hands.
 
He dove on the kid, pinning him to the pavement, covering him with his own body.
 
Sheer adrenaline drove him, and he didn't even feel the pain until he was lying still, holding the kid underneath him.
 
And then it hurt.
 
It hurt like hell, from a dozen places on his body.
 
But not for very long.

*
   
*
   
*
   
*
   
*
   
*

When Michael woke he was in a hospital bed, in some kind of a daze.
 
He didn't feel anything.
 
He couldn't seem to speak, but he could see and hear what was going on around him.
 
He heard a doctor saying there was nothing that could be done.
 
He saw a nurse shake her head and dab at her eyes, but then she slid a sideways glance in his direction an gave him a wink.
 
As if she knew something he didn't.
 
What the hell?
 
He was laying here, dying, and the nurse was winking at him?
 
What kind of a hospital was this?

That thought fled, though, when he saw his wife, Sally, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, pale as a ghost, shaking.
 
Then the doctor took her arm, pulled her to her feet and led her from the room.

As soon as they were gone, the flirtatious nurse hurried to close the door behind them.
 
Then she closed the windows curtains tight and came to his bed.
 
"About time," she said.
 
"It's damn near morning.
 
I thought they'd never leave.
 
Listen, they'll be back soon.
 
We don't have much time."

She was cute, with short dark hair and huge eyes.
 
He tried to move his kips, to give voice to the questions swirling in his mind, but he couldn't get them out.

"Don't try to talk," she said.
 
"Just listen, okay?
 
I'm not a nurse.
 
My name's Cuyler Jade.
 
I saw what happened in the street, and the way you saved that kid, and I followed the car that brought you in.
 
Then I sneaked in borrowed this uniform from some nurse's locker."
 
She turned in a little circle, arms out.
 
"Nice fit for a quick grab, isn't it?"

He blinked slowly, wondering if this was all some kind of hallucination.

"We have to make this quick," she said.
 
"You're a hell of a guy.
 
A hero.
 
You don't deserve to die, but you're going to.
 
Probably a few minutes from now.
 
You've got more holes in you than Swiss cheese, and I'm not whistlin' Dixie.'

Was this information suppose to comfort him somehow?

"I can see to it you don't die, Michael Gray.
 
I can see to it you live.
 
You won't be like you were before, but you'll be alive.
 
You'll be strong.
 
Healthy.
 
But different.
 
Very different.
 
Do you understand?"

He blinked, thinking the woman was insane, and shook his head slightly, side to side.

"Hell, of course you don't understand.
 
And I don't have time for the full rundown.
 
Just suffice it to say I went out the say way you did.
 
Cross fire, lots of bullets.
 
And look at me.
 
I'm okay.
 
You can be the same.
 
So lemme ask you this.
 
Do you want to live?"

He managed to nod.
 
Barely.

"Okay then.
 
It's gonna feel odd at first.
 
You need to just lie still, just like you are now, no matter what you feel.
 
Within a few minutes, the sun will be up, and you'll sleep ore soundly than you've ever slept in your life.
 
You'll sleep all day.
 
I'll be there when you wake up.
 
Understand?"

Again he nodded.

Then the woman pulled the curtains closed around his bed, bent over him and sank her teeth into his neck.

*
   
*
   
*
   
*
   
*

It happened just the way she'd said it would.
 
He felt power zinging through him—as if he'd been struck by lightning.
 
Every nerve ending tingled, and right on the heel of that sensation came another:
 
excruciating pain.
 
Every bullet hole in his body burned like fire.
 
He hurt a thousand ties more than when he'd first been shot.
 
His entire being screamed in agony, and blood rushed from the wounds, soaking the bed.

The woman, whatever, whoever, she had been, was gone.
 
The doors burst open, doctors and nurses rushed into the room.
 
Beyond them he saw Sally, biting her knuckles and weeping, and beyond her, the first rays of the morning sun peered through a distant window.
 
Then the pain faded, and everything went black.

Vaguely he felt a hand on his wrist, and heard a doctor's voice saying, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Gray.
 
He's gone."

But he wasn't gone.
 
Not really.
 
When he woke again, hours later, in the hospital morgue, he felt more alive than he ever had.
 
Like magic, the bullet holes had vanished.
 
And the woman, Cuyler Jade, explained to him what he was now.
 
What he had become, and what that meant, as she led him out the back doors of the hospital and into the night that was to be his home from then on.

He really cared very little for all the things she told him.
 
All he cared about was getting back to Sally.
 
Taking away her pain.
 
Showing her that he was still alive, that is was okay after all.

Cuyler told him that was a very bad idea, but he didn't listen.
 
He didn't believe her when she said Sally wouldn't understand, that she wouldn't accept him now.
 
He
couldn't
believe it.
 
It was something he had to learn for himself.

And he did, hours later, when he finally convinced the woman to leave him alone, let him do what he had to do.
 
He went home.
 
Where else would he go, besides home?

Sally was lying in their bed, but she wasn't sleeping.
 
She was wide-awake, weeping.
 
She hadn't even locked the house that night, so he was able to walk inside, just as if he were coming home from a hard day's work.
 
It felt good to come home.
 
And while his mind was still reeling from early dying and from the day's revelations, from all the impossible things Cuyler Jade had told him and his myriad new sensations racing through his body, he couldn't digest any of it, of even begin to explore what it all might mean.
 
Not until he talked to Sally.

God, he missed her.

He slipped into the bedroom.
 
She sat up in bed, with a little shriek of alarm, and he said, "It's okay, honey.
 
It's me.
 
I'm here.
 
I'm all right."
 
He found the light switch, turned it on so she could see for herself.

Her eyes widened as they skimmed down his body, and it was only then that he stopped to think abut what he must look like, still dressed in the bullet-riddled uniform that was stiff with dried blood.
 
"Look it's okay.
 
I didn’t really die.
 
I'm all right."

She slid up in the bed, pressing her back to the headboard.
 
He thought she would have backed right through the wall if she could.
 
"You're dead," she said.
 
"I said with you for hours.
 
I held your hand while it went cold as ice.
 
You're dead."

"No.
 
No, there was this nurse—not a nurse, really.
 
She said I could live.
 
And she did something and—I'm not the same anymore, she says.
 
But I'm still me.
 
I'm still Michael, still your husband."

"You get away.
 
Get away!"

He shook his head slowly.
 
"Honey, it's okay.
 
Look the bullets holes are all gone."
 
He lifted his shirt to show her.

"Get out!"

"But—"

"My Michael died
 
I don't know what you are—a walking corpse.
 
A ghost."

"A vampire," he said, an then wished he could take it back when he saw the sheer horror on her face.
 
"It's not like in the books, honey.
 
It's not.
 
It's nothing like that."

"My husband is dead," she said.
 
But her voice and eyes looked more dead than anything he could ever imagine being.
 
"Now I want you to leave."
 
In a burst of motion she rolled to the side and yanked something from the nightstand.
 
His gun.
 
His revolver.
 
She pointed it at him
 
"Go.
 
Get out—now—and don't even come back!"

He held up his hands palms toward her.
 
Cuyler had told him bullets would hurt like hell, pain, she said, was magnified in his kind, just like every other sense.
 
But bullets wouldn't kill him—unless he bled to death from the wounds.
 
Still, he didn't have any urge to try it out.

"Honey, don't.
 
Look, I'll go okay?
 
I'll go if that's what you want.
 
But you have to believe me, I'm all right.
 
And it really is me.
 
It's me."

She shook her head hard and thumbed back the hammer.

"I'm going."
 
He backed toward the door, his mind racing with ways to prove to her that he was who he said he was.
 
And then it hit him that he knew things no one else would know about her.
 
So he kept backing up slowly, but talking all the while, needing her to believe him and to accept him in a way he'd never needed anything, ever.
 
"Your maiden name is Litchfield.
 
You wore a white satin nightgown with tiny pink rose at the shoulders on our wedding night.
 
You collect seashells.
 
You hate green vegetables, except for peas, but only baby peas, and...

Tears fell from her eyes.
 
"If you're not dead Michael, then you're damned.
 
And I can't live with that, either."

"No, no, honey, you have it all wrong.
 
Just listen to me and I can—"

She turned the gun quickly, pressed the barrel to her head and pulled the trigger.
 
Just like that.
 
She was gone.

Cuyler Jade appeared beside him even as he stood there, paralyzed with shock.
 
"Oh, God," she said.
 
"Oh, God, I didn't think she'd react that badly.'

Michael grabbed her arm.
 
"Bring her back!" he shouted
 
"Do what you did for me.
 
Bring her back."

The little vampire looked up at him, her huge eyes wet, and shook her head slowly.
 
"I can't Michael.
 
Only certain people can become what we are.
 
It's something to do with the blood.
 
You'll know when you see one.
 
You'll feel it right to your toes.
 
She doesn't have it."
 
She glanced at the beg again.
 
"And besides, she's already dead."

He closed his eyes, regret drowning him.
 
"It should have been me.
 
If I'd stayed dead, she would still be alive.
 
This is some kind of punishment.
 
I cheated death, so it took her instead.

Cuyler shook her head slowly.
 
"You're missing an awful lot, for a cop.
 
Why do you think she had that loaded gun in here in the first place, Michael?"

Frowning, he looked more closely at the bedside stand.
 
He saw the glass of wine, the photo of him in his uniform—an the sheet of paper with her handwriting on it.
 
Trembling, he moved closer, until he could see what she had written there
 
"Don't mourn me, I've gone to join Michael."