Darkness Comes (4 page)

The same hollow voice from before spoke over the intercom, “Please remain in the vamp ward until a responsible party arrives to sign you out.”

Ah; she was in a hospital. But how did she end up at the hospital in the middle of a post-feeding salvage operation? Only idiots and those with death-wishes went anywhere near the vamps, and she was definitely no idiot. And why did it hurt to think? She must still be dreaming, that was the only explanation for how she ended up at the mall in the middle of an open feed, for the man with vibrant green eyes and a heartbeat, a warm body; fangs….

It was one heck of a dream; it even included the antiseptic smell that was associated with sickness. And the bed she was lying on was hard, the sheets crisp and smelling of bleach. Her sheets back home were flannel and smelled like lavender. She somehow managed to lift her weighted arm and rest her hand against her forehead. Did her skin feel a little cool to the touch?

“Vamp bites are so much better than sex; there is nothing like cold passion,” a breathy voice sighed in rapture. Malorie groaned her protest, realizing once more how very parched she was. She hated it when she was thirsty in her dreams; no amount of water ever quenched her thirst. It always turned to dust.

A glass was placed up to her lips and cool water slid down her throat; it didn’t turn to dust. A stranger was holding her head up and she flinched. The water dribbled down the front of her, soaking the thin cloth of her shirt. Sputtering, she pushed the glass away and when it was gone her thirst wasn’t as bad as it was before. Still, she could probably use another two or three glasses.

She forced one eye to open, letting her hand shield it from the fluorescent lights. Everything kind of had a hazy cast to it and she could see that she was in a partially-curtained off section of an emergency triage area. There was another bed immediately next to her; the person on it was sitting up and laughing with someone else. A colorful bandage looked out of place against the girl’s pale throat, her monochromatic ensemble: black hair, black clothes, black make up, white skin. Her blood red lips were pulled back in an ecstatic smile.

“Wh…” Malorie cleared her throat and tried again, “Where am I?”

“Vamp ward,” the black and white vamp-wannabe said with a knowing grin. It had been her voice rhapsodizing about the vamp bites earlier. Closing her eyes and sighing, she continued, “Wasn’t it everything you hoped it would be?”

Before Mal could reply, the girl’s eyes focused on Mal, widening with some emotion; fear? Awe? Hesitantly, the girl reached out towards Mal but didn’t quite make contact. “My God; you’re… shining; it’s so pretty.”

Mal tried to tell the girl that she was imagining things but she was at the limit of her conversational abilities. She could almost convince herself that this wasn’t real, that she hadn’t been bit; all she had to do was close her eyes and pretend that she wasn’t lying on a hard bed with a cotton-filled head.

More laughter rang out through the ward and she finally acknowledged that she wasn’t still dreaming, that the entire thing hadn’t been a dream. She had finally let down her guards a bit and nearly died at the hands of a vamp. Worse; she was eager to let him drain her dry and devour her whole. She could still feel the heat of his body.

The pleasure had been so intense, like nothing she had ever felt before. The black and white girl was right, it was better than sex. It was better than just about anything she could imagine and it was killing her to admit it. His bite was pure ecstasy, hot and vital. But vamps were not living; their bites were supposedly cold climax. Her theory had been that the brush with death was what made vamp-wannabes so eager to be bit; that it was the bliss of surviving that flushed their bodies with euphoria; was it death or was it rapture? And how could she explain the heat, the heartbeat?

How much time had passed since she was bit? Hours must have surely passed; was it still Christmas Eve? With her head finally clearing, she knew that she had to get out of there, no matter how much her body might protest. She needed to get home to Toby; she needed to wrap her arms around her little boy and hold him, breathe him in.

With a grimace, she started to swing her legs over the edge of the bed but her legs weren’t very cooperative; they sort of stayed where they were. She was determined to get out of there; to get home and hold her little boy. Concentrating, she tried to roll onto her belly, to use gravity to her advantage to get her legs to the ground. Keeping her eyes closed seemed to help her focus.

“Whoa, miss; not so fast.”

Startled to realize that someone was right next to her, Malorie jerked her head to the right and opened her eyes. Darkness crept along the edges of her vision and she had to squeeze her eyes shut until the dizziness faded once more. Before she managed to twist any more, a hand landed on her stomach, holding her steady. Not that she had gone very far; she was still flat on her back. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at the person holding her down.

A large, dark-skinned woman met her gaze with a mix of condescension and concern in her wide nearly black eyes. Lines of wariness bracketed her mouth as she pressed her lips together; silently going about her job of patching up fools. Sticking a thermometer under Mal’s tongue, she asked, “How ya feeling, honey?”

Malorie couldn’t answer with the stick under her tongue, but she managed to frown and shake her head. As soon as the machine beeped and the nurse removed the thermometer, she rasped, “What happened?”

“You’ve been pretty out of it for a few hours, hon.” The answer was not what she was looking for but she wasn’t able to ask anything else since the woman was preoccupied with whatever measurements she was taking. “We weren’t sure you were gonna make it.”

“I didn’t know they were going to be there tonight.” She didn’t know why she wanted the nurse to understand, but she felt that it was important. With an earnest expression, she met the woman’s eyes, “I never heard anything.”

The nurse’s face visibly softened and she laid a gloved hand on Malorie’s cheek, “Oh, hon; I knew you weren’t like the rest of these idiots.” She chuckled, deep and hearty, glancing around the crowded corridor. “Even though you came in with a pretty severe bite.”

“Hmm.” Malorie touched her neck with the pads of her fingers and felt a rather large bandage. It couldn’t have been that bad; after all, she was still alive. She was still human. “How bad was it?”

The woman’s brow furrowed and she appeared to be debating what to say. “Well, Miss….”

“Smith,” Malorie murmured, tracing the edges of the bandage, knowing better than to give her real name. The vamps had… pets in hospitals, especially the vamp ward. She heard enough myths and rumors about what went on in the vamp ward after an open feed, of doctors and orderlies who were under the influence of older, more powerful vamps. One legend told of pets that sometimes took the blood of patients, offering the samples to their masters to show what was currently available with the implied promise of acquiring more if desired.

It made little difference whether or not the stories were true; Malorie had a healthy distrust of hospitals instilled in her a long time ago.

“Miss Smith,” the nurse paused again, pressing her fingertips to the inside of Malorie’s wrist, which was awkward since it was so close to her chin. The antiseptic smell was stronger coming from the woman’s skin and Malorie wrinkled her nose. “It would seem that the vamp that bit you got a little carried away; we figured it was probably a youngling, lacking all control.

Malorie’s eyebrows drew together as she remembered the figure from her dreams; he had been hot, and not just in appearance. He had burned with life, like the other two, and he had been even more devastating in real life than he had ever appeared in her dreams.

Shaking her head to clear it, she looked at the nurse and forced a smile, “Probably.”

On the other hand, maybe the nurse was right; Mal had been thinking about her dream lover and when the vampires descended her mind simply substituted her fantasy for what was the youngest, least disciplined vamp out there and the heat she felt was… what? Maybe the heat and the heartbeat were figments of her imagination and by the time she saw him she had already lost a lot of blood so it was entirely conceivable that her brain had been playing tricks on her.

Either way she had failed.

“It’s pretty incredible, Miss Smith,” the nurse continued, jotting something down in the chart and reading over the notes already recorded, her brow drawing together. “It looks as if you were slated to get a blood transfusion but the order was cancelled. Odd.”

“Why is that odd?” Malorie asked, trying to twist her neck and see what the chart said.

“Blood doesn’t replenish itself fast enough to warrant the cancellation of an emergency transfusion.” The nurse’s voice trailed off as she read further, her brow creasing in bewilderment. “Hmm.”

“What?” Malorie didn’t care for the consternation or the silence.

“According to this chart, they were prepared to bring in a state vamp to convert you.”

A wave of nausea washed over Mal and she felt what little color she had left drain from her face; bringing in a state vamp meant something really horrible went wrong. It meant she almost died. The nurse patted Mal’s hand in sympathy, “You were brought in without any identification and there was no ‘Do Not Convert’ tag on you; you were at an open feed….”

Mal understood and swallowed painfully against the lump in her throat. Licking her lips, she asked softly, “Was this before or after the transfusion order was given?”

The nurse scanned the notes, flipping through a page or two, before answering. “Actually, it happened before; when you were first brought in; they had difficulty finding your pulse….”

The folder was pulled from her hands and closed by a daunting man wearing a white coat. The doctor. He was tall and gaunt with short salt and pepper hair and wire-rimmed glasses. His voice was low and slightly raspy when he said, “That’s enough, Sari.”

Malorie wasn’t sure what to make of him and a measure of unease twisted her insides as her nurse moved onto the next patient, leaving her alone with the creepy doctor. Before Mal could ask him anything, he grabbed her wrist and looked at his watch, “Now, let’s see how our patient is doing.”

“I’m fine.” Malorie’s unease grew and she really didn’t want to be there. She didn’t like the feel of his cool fingers on her wrist, the way he watched her with eyes that were a shade too curious. Something about the man was deeply disturbing and made her physically ill. He had to be one of the fabled pets, even if the rumors were never substantiated. “I just want to go home.”

“All in good time, dear,” He wasn’t taking his eyes from her, his dark eyes dancing with unholy glee as he continued to talk to her. “There were some… curious results in your lab work; we just have a few more tests to run before we can release you.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated. This was the first time she had ever been in the hospital – and it was for a stupid vamp bite that should never have happened. As much as it pained her to have to face her father after failing so completely, she wanted to be home. She wanted to be out of the hospital.

“Of course you are.” His smile was scheming; he was practically pissing himself to get ahold of more of her blood. Or maybe she was just imagining things. “We just want to make sure there are no… complications.”

Her eyes widened in her head, warning bells pinging all over. “Complications? No, I think you’re mistaken; I was bit, that’s all.”

“Yes, of course.” But he was just humoring her.

Starting to feel claustrophobic, she glanced around the crowded corridors, watching as parents started to arrive to find their wayward children. Anger, relief, other emotions were expressed as mothers hugged their bitten daughters and sons; as fathers shook their heads, forgetting what it was like to be a rebellious teenager. Or twenty-somethinger. Where was her father?

As if thinking about him summoned him, Gustav appeared, concern and worry etching every line of his face. Turning his head left and right, searching for her, he visibly sighed in relief when he spotted her. Malorie felt the tears well in her eyes as he rushed down the hall to her side. Her lips quivered and hardly any sound came out as she cried. “Father.”

Pushing the doctor out of the way, Gus wrapped his arms around her slender shoulders, holding onto her, “Oh, Mal; I was so worried; as soon as I found out what hospital the bite victims were being taken to I rushed right over.”

“Thank God,” she sighed, breathing in the familiar scent of soap and warmth as she buried her face in her father’s shoulder. Even though her father had to be close to fifty, he looked like he was only in his late twenties; he looked more like her brother than her father. Thick, brown hair was cropped close to his head, his face was unmarred by wrinkles and his body was all lean, hard muscle. His gray eyes held all sorts of secrets and knowledge. He was just over six feet tall and extremely handsome, and completely oblivious to the women who tried to capture his attention. His focus was entirely on her and it made her feel worse. “I screwed up so badly, sir; I didn’t resist.”

He pulled back and grasped her shoulders. Looking at her with a stern expression, he growled, “You did not screw up, Mal.”

He clamped his mouth shut and looked around the busy hospital. With an arm around her shoulders, he started to help her off the bed but the doctor grabbed his arm, “Sir, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to remove her from the premises; she has lost a lot of blood and is still being observed.”