Dark Desire (4 page)

Shea shoved at her hair, felt the little beads of perspiration gathered on her forehead. For a moment she experienced the strange disorientation she always did after the dream, as if something held her mind for just a heartbeat of time, then slowly, with great reluctance, released her.

Shea knew she was being hunted. Where the dream was not reality, the fact that someone was stalking her was true. She could never lose sight of that, never forget. She would never be safe again, not unless she found a cure for herself and the handful of others who shared the same rare disease. She was being hunted as if she were an animal with no emotions or intelligence. It didn't matter to the hunters that she spoke six languages fluently, that she was a skilled surgeon, that she had saved countless lives.

The words on the paper in front of her blurred, ran together. How long had it been since she had really slept? She sighed, swept a hand through her thick, waist-length, silky red hair, shoving it away from her face. She pulled it back
rather haphazardly and, as always, secured it with whatever happened to be handy.

She began to review the symptoms of her strange blood disease. To catalog herself. She was small and very delicate, frail almost. She looked young, like a teenager, aging at a much slower rate than a normal human. Her eyes were enormous, vividly green. Her voice was soft, velvety, often called mesmerizing. When she lectured, most of the students were so enthralled by her voice, they remembered every word she spoke. Her senses were far superior to others of the human race, her hearing and sense of smell extremely acute. She saw colors more vividly, registered details most humans missed. She could communicate with animals, jump higher and run faster than many trained athletes. She had learned at an early age to hide her talents.

She stood up, stretched. She was dying slowly. Every minute that ticked by was a heartbeat less in the time she had to find the cure. Somewhere in all these boxes and reams of paper, there had to be a solution. Even if she found the answer too late for herself, she could prevent those like her from the terrible isolation she had felt all her life.

She might age slowly and have exceptional abilities, but she paid a high price for them. The sun burned her skin. Although she could see clearly on the darkest night, her eyes had a hard time in the light of day. Her body rejected most foods, and worst of all, she had to have blood every day. Any blood. There was no blood incompatible with hers. Animal blood kept her alive—barely. She desperately needed human blood, and only when she was close to collapse did she allow herself to use it, and then only by transfusion. Unfortunately, her particular disease seemed to require oral transfusions.

Shea flung open the door, inhaled the night, listened to the breeze whispering of fox and marmots, of rabbits and deer. The cry of an owl missing its prey and the squeak of a
bat sent blood rushing through her veins. She belonged here. For the first time in her lonely existence, she felt a semblance of peace.

Shea wandered outside to her porch. Her snug blue jeans and hiking boots were fine, but her thin T-shirt would not stave off the cold of the mountains. Snagging her sweatshirt and hiking bag, Shea hurried out to the beckoning land. If only she had known of this place earlier. She had wasted so much time. Just a month ago she had discovered the healing properties in the soil here. She had already known of the healing agent in her saliva. Shea had planted a garden, vegetable and herb. She loved working in the soil. Quite by accident she had cut herself, a rather deep and nasty gash. The earth seemed to ease the pain, and the cut was nearly closed by the time she finished working.

She began to wander aimlessly along the trail, wishing her mother could have experienced this place of peace. Poor Maggie. Young. Irish. On vacation for the first time in her life, she had met a dark, brooding stranger, one who had used her and discarded her. Shea shook her head, tears welling up; she refused to shed them. Her mother had made her choice. One man. He had become her life to the exclusion of everything else. To the exclusion of her own flesh and blood, her daughter. Shea had not been worth the effort of trying, of living. Only Rand. A man who had deserted her without thought, without warning. A man who had passed on a disease so vile, his daughter had to hide it from the rest of the world. And Maggie had known. Yet Maggie hadn't bothered to research it or even to ask questions of Rand to find out just what her daughter would be facing.

Shea stooped to grasp a handful of soil, then let it trail through her fingers. Had Noelle, the woman her mother had named as his wife, been as obsessed with Rand as Maggie had? It sounded very much as if she had. Shea had
no intentions of ever taking a chance that she shared her mother's failings. She would never need a man so much that she would neglect a child and eventually kill herself. Her mother's death had been a senseless tragedy, and she had abandoned Shea to a cold, cruel life without love or guidance. Maggie had known her daughter needed blood; it was all there in the diary, every damning word. Shea's fist clenched until her knuckles turned white. Maggie knew Rand's saliva carried a healing agent. She had known that, yet she had left it to her daughter to find out on her own.

Shea had healed herself countless times as a child while her mother stared dully out a window, half-alive, never once hearing a toddler's cries of pain when she fell learning to walk and run, learning everything alone. She had discovered the ability to heal small cuts and bruises with her tongue. It had taken a while before she realized she was unique in such a thing. Maggie had been an emotionless robot, caring for the barest minimum of Shea's physical needs and none of her emotional ones. Maggie had killed herself the day Shea turned eighteen. A low sound of sorrow escaped Shea's throat. It had been terrible enough to know she had to have blood to exist, but to grow up knowing her mother couldn't love her had been devastating.

Seven years ago, a kind of madness had swept Europe. It had seemed so laughable at first. For eons uneducated, superstitious people had whispered of the existence of vampires in this region her father had come from.

It now seemed probable that a blood disorder, perhaps originating here in the Carpathian Mountains, had been the basis of the vampire legends. If the disease was indigenous only to this region, wasn't it possible that those persecuted down through the ages had suffered from this condition Shea's father and she shared? Shea's excitement had set in at the prospect of studying others like herself.

Then the modern-day “vampire” killings had swept
through Europe like a plague. Men mostly, murdered in ritual vampire style, stakes through the heart. It was sickening, repugnant, frightening. Respected scientists had begun to discuss the possibility of vampires being real. Committees had been formed to study—and eliminate—them. Evidence from some earlier source, combined with samples of a female child's blood—hers, Shea was certain—had raised further questions. Shea had been terrified, certain those murdering in Europe might try to find her. And now, indeed, they were attempting to track her down. She had had to abandon her country and her career there to pursue her own line of research.

How could anyone in these educated times believe in such nonsense as vampires? She identified with those murdered people, certain she shared the same blood disorder. She was a doctor, a researcher, yet up until now she had failed all its victims, fearful of the discovery of what she thought of as her loathsome little secret. It angered her. She was gifted, brilliant even; she should have unlocked the secrets of this thing long ago. How many others had died because she hadn't been aggressive enough in her search for data?

Her guilt and fear now fed her wild, exhaustive sessions of study. She accumulated everything she could find on the area, the people, and the legends. Rumors, supposed evidence, old translations, and the latest newspaper articles. She rarely ate, rarely remembered to give herself transfusions, rarely slept, always searching for that one piece of the puzzle that would give her a trail to follow. She studied her blood endlessly, her saliva, her blood after animal in-take, after human transfusions.

Shea had reluctantly burned her mother's diary; she would never forget a single word, but she still felt the loss of it deeply. Her bank account, however, was substantial. She had inherited funds from her mother, and she had made good money in her profession. She even owned property in
Ireland that rented out for a sizable amount. She lived frugally and invested wisely. It had been easy enough to move her money to Switzerland and lay a few false trails through the Continent.

From the moment she had entered the range of the Carpathian mountains, Shea felt different. More alive. More at peace. The unrest, the sense of urgency in her grew, but she felt as if she had a home for the first time in her life. The plants, the trees, the wildlife, the very earth itself felt a part of her. As if somehow she was related to them. She loved breathing the air, wading in the water, touching the soil.

Shea caught the scent of a rabbit, and her body stilled. She could hear its heartbeat, feel its fear. The animal sensed danger, a predator stalking it. A fox; she caught the whisper of fur sliding through the underbrush. It was wonderful to hear, to feel things, to not be afraid of hearing things others couldn't. Bats wheeled and dipped, diving at insects, and Shea raised her face to the heavens, watching their antics, taking pleasure in the simple show. She began to walk again, needing the exercise, needing to put the weight of responsibility from her shoulders for a time.

She had found her cottage, the barest bones of a home, and over the last few months had turned it into a sanctuary. Shutters blocked out the sunlight during the day. A generator provided the lights and necessary power for her computer. A modern bathroom and kitchen had been the next priority. Slowly Shea had acquired books, supplies, and everything needed for the emergency care of patients. Though Shea hoped never to have to use her skills here—the fewer people who knew of her existence, the better off she was and the more time she could devote to her valuable research—she was, first and always, a doctor.

Shea entered the thick forest of trees, touched their trunks reverently. She always kept a supply of blood on
hand, using her hacker skills when necessary to tap into blood banks in ways that allowed for payment but preserved her anonymity. Still, that required monthly trips, alternating among the three villages within a night's travel of her cabin. Lately she had grown so much weaker that fatigue was a major problem, and bruises were refusing to heal. A craving in her was growing, an emptiness begging to be filled. Her life was drawing to a close.

Shea yawned. She needed to go back and sleep. Normally she never slept at night, saving her down time for afternoon, when the sun took the heaviest toll on her body. She was miles from her house, in deep forest, high in the remotest part of the mountains. She came this way often, drawn inexplicably to the area. She felt restless, an almost overwhelming sense of urgency. She needed to be somewhere, but she had no idea where. When she analyzed how she felt, she realized that the force urging her onward was almost a compulsion.

She had every intention of turning around and going home, but her feet continued along the uphill path. There were wolves in these mountains; she often heard them singing at night. There was such joy in their voices, such beauty in their song. She could touch the minds of animals when she chose, but she had never attempted such a thing with a creature as wild and unpredictable as a wolf. Still, their nightly songs almost made her wish she might encounter one now.

She continued to move forward, pulled toward an unknown destination. Nothing seemed to matter but that she continue moving upward, always higher, into the wildest, most isolated area she had ever been in. She should have been afraid, but the farther she got from her cabin, the more important it seemed for her to go on.

Her hands went up absently, rubbing at her temples, her forehead. There was a curious buzzing in her head. Strange
how hunger gnawed at her insides. It wasn't normal hunger; it was different. Again she had the strange feeling that she was sharing her mind with another being and the hunger was not really hers. Part of the time it seemed as though she was walking in a dream world. Tails of mist wound around the trees, hovered above the ground. The fog was beginning to thicken a bit, the air temperature dropping several degrees.

Shea shivered, ran her hands up and down her arms. Her feet picked a path, missing rotting logs. She was always astonished at how silently she could move through this forest, instinctively avoiding fallen twigs and loose rocks. Something rippled in her mind.
Where are you? Why do you refuse to come to me?
That voice was a venomous hiss of fury. She stopped, horrified, and pressed both hands to her head. It was her nightmare, the same voice calling to her, echoing in her mind. The nightmares were coming more often, haunting her sleep, disturbing her waking hours, creeping into her consciousness at all hours. Sometimes she thought she might go mad.

Shea approached a rippling stream. Stepping stones, vibrant splashes of color, flat and welcoming, paved her way across the crystal-clear water. The stream was icy cold when she bent to idly trail her fingers in it. The feel was soothing.

Something compelled her forward. First one foot, then the other. It was madness to go so far from her cabin. She was too many hours without sleep. She even considered she was sleepwalking, she felt so strange. Shea paused near a small clearing and stared up at the starlit sky. She didn't even realize she was moving again until she had crossed the clearing and was in a thick grove of trees. A branch snagged in her hair, forcing her to stop again. Her head felt heavy, her mind clouded. She needed to be somewhere desperately, but she didn't know where. Listening didn't help.
With her acute hearing, she would have heard if any person or creature was hurt or in trouble. Shea sniffed the night air. She would probably get lost and be caught out in the open and the sun would fry her. She would deserve it for this stupidity.