Throat (29 page)

“The cabin had been looted and burned. It was by pure chance that they did not come upon the cellar. When we came out, just after dark, we staggered into a nightmare world of flame, the sound of gunpowder discharging, the whistle of minié ball shot. We had stumbled onto a Civil War battlefield. Valentin took my hand and we fled. I could hear his heart pounding.…

“I saw the flash first, a huge outpouring of flame—it was a cannon. In my memory it made a sound like a mountain breaking open. We had passed directly in front of the Union lines. I do not even know the name of the battle. Probably a minor one. For me, however, it was everything. We were so close to the lines, even with Valentin’s speed …”

Lena dropped her head, then raised it again.

“The cannonball … it took everything above his shoulders—he was taken from me just that suddenly. I was pitched into the mud by the blast and soaked in Valentin’s warm blood.

“My life has never been the same since meeting him. Not a day goes by that I do not grieve for him in some way. Though it has a certain … crystalline … feeling to it now. An emotion captured in amber.”

“Don’t be fooled,” Anton said to me. “Just listen to her sometime when she sleeps.”

Donne seemed very far away. I wondered what she was thinking. As if hearing my thoughts, she spoke up.

“Tell her, Lena.”

“Tell me what?” I said.

Lena stared at Donne as if deciding whether or not she should. “I suppose it would have come up sooner or later,” she said, exhaling.

“What?”

“Valentin … wasn’t just any old vampire,” Donne said. “Was he, Lena?”

“No,” she said, almost whispering. “He wasn’t. He was French Creole, but he was more than that. He was … 
Verloren.
”

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “You’re telling me you fell in love with a
Verloren
guy? Wow. So I guess not all of them are so easy to pick out on sight. Not all of them are monstrous.”

“Oh no,” Lena said. “For you see, Emma … I was
Verloren
too.”

I won’t lie. The thought blazed through my mind that I might have been tricked. That I had wandered right into a nest of
Verloren
and Wirtz was waiting right around the corner. Or maybe there were no such creatures as
Verloren
or
Sonnen
, and the three vampires were just toying with me. They had all that time to kill.…

But looking at Lena’s eyes instantly dispelled that thought. Vampire lore is full of tales about the suggestive powers of the vampire stare, but what I saw in her eyes reflected nothing but pain. Pain and loss and years of getting over it.

“But …” I didn’t know what I was trying to say.

“Let me help you,” Donne said to me. “You’re wondering if this is all just crap, aren’t you, Emma? The
Sonnen
. Explosions on the sun. Cures. Fasting. Admit it.”

“But I saw what you did on the Blood Hunt,” I said. “It was all so … different … from what I experienced. You care about the people you … drink from.” I looked at Lena again.

“So … are you … both?”

“I was
Verloren
for a long time, Emma,” Lena said, sounding tired. “It was the only way I knew. The only way I could survive.”

“Did you … did you kill people?”

“Yes. Yes, I did. It is no excuse, truly, but I was … so broken. I felt I had been betrayed by the God I had grown up worshipping. First Pastor Orton, then the way He took Valentin away from me. The only happiness I had ever known. I was angry at the world.
Most of all, I was angry at the world of men. It was their fault entirely, the sufferings of humanity. I felt justified. No, I felt … righteous.

“I became almost like a … demon. There were stories told about me. There may be stories still, I don’t know. I was called the Gray Lady. I was brutal, did not care whom I hurt or how. Then one night I barged through the doors of a church.… I do not even remember what kind of church it was. I was voracious, blood-driven. I only cared that there was someone inside, someone warm, whom I could … take.

“There was a man there.… He was … very young. He was kneeling in the front of the sanctuary, his hat placed beside his feet. His clothes were tattered and shabby. His back was to me. He had no chance. I flew to him the way a storm would fly across a continent.…

“Just as I was about to descend upon the man … I saw he was kneeling over a child in a small white casket. A little girl, perhaps about four years old. I had landed so lightly, I do not believe he ever knew I was there. I backed away from him and the dead child. Backed all the way out into the street. I flung myself down upon the steps and wept bitterly over what I had become.

“I wanted it all to be over. I waited for the sun, but when it came, I did not have the courage. I hid myself in the basement of a nearby home. An elderly woman lived there all alone. I could have taken her anytime I wanted. But I learned that I could fight against the hunger. One night the hunger was so strong, I fled into the darkness. I found shelter where I could, taking as little blood as possible from the people I encountered. Still, I felt I was an abomination.

“I could no longer tolerate what I had become; I was desperate to somehow make amends. By chance I traveled into Washington,
D.C., where there was a great need of nurses due to the war. I had no training, but they were short-staffed and required none. And so I became a night nurse in a war hospital.

“I was given the most repugnant tasks, owing to my lack of experience. My ward had eighty beds. The stench, in particular to my vampire senses, was unimaginable. I steeled myself each night by sprinkling my clothes liberally with lavender water. But do you know what frightened me the most, Emma? Attending those poor men, fresh from battle, with wounds so grievous, they spouted blood. My blasphemous hunger would become so intense at such moments, I thought I might be driven mad with shame at my ravenous desire. And yet, even as I fought to gain control over my cursed appetite, the struggle made me feel … better about myself. That I was not only becoming stronger in my willpower, but also somehow helping. I could feed them, bathe them, provide comfort, even attend amputations without being overcome.

“Then one night I was attending a dying man who had been grievously wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and it came to me … I could become an engine of release for men who were suffering terribly. As he sank in and out of consciousness, I sang softly to him for a time, then fastened my lips to his throat and drank deeply to the last poundings of his heart.

“I am ashamed to admit the satisfaction this gave me, both physical and spiritual. I served in that hospital for the remainder of the war. I have no idea how many poor suffering men I helped spirit away while slaking my thirst. It was more than a way to survive. As odd as it sounds, it was a way to remain … human.”

Lena put her arms behind her, leaning back against the wall.

“After the war, I stayed on as long as I could. But soon even the positions for night nurses became scarce, and I was forced to move
on, because they wanted me to work daylight hours. I was so afraid the madness of my former time would return.… Then I heard the first inklings of the
Sonnen
, and I recalled the way I had been able to resist my hunger before coming to the hospital. I joined them and began fasting, and I have been with them to this day,” she said.

My head was spinning with questions. Washington, D.C., during the Civil War? I had to ask.

“Did you ever see him?”

“Him?”

“You know … the president?”

“Oh.” Lena smiled. “Yes, I saw him. Once, that was all. One night he made a tour of inspection of our hospital ward to cheer the troops, and I was there.”

“You saw him. You saw Abraham Lincoln.”

“Better than that … I spoke with him. The president touched my arm.…”

“Oh. My. God. What was he like?”

“Emma, he was a man. To me he was a man. Not the statues you see. He had the saddest, most serious face … but when one of the men made him laugh, telling him a joke about a Johnny Reb who was half mule, he was so different … so alive.

“He was wearing a black coat and a dark blue bow tie. His eyes were light gray. His face was creased, hair mostly dark, but peppery with gray; I remember wishing I could take a comb to it. His voice was slightly high-pitched for so tall a man. He was thin, but gave a sense of great physical power. His fingers were so long … when he touched me … I …”

She stopped and her gaze wandered over the Stone House Hotel, then out at the darkened horizon of the valley below.

“You know, I could have turned him, Emma. I do not like to
think about it, but I could have. It was a possibility. Just think of that … he could still be with us today. That haunts me, I must admit.”

I was pretty much stunned into silence now. I just sat and looked at her and soaked it all in. I was thinking about the things she must have done, all those years … and what it all meant for me. That I could be sitting in this very same spot a hundred years from now … two hundred … and not be a day over seventeen. Ever.

It was too much to take in. Especially at night. Especially after talking to Papi. What would I remember about him a hundred years from now? Or Manda? Would I even remember her face? Mom’s? I struggled not to cry. My mood must have been catching. I had never heard the three vampires so quiet.

“Can I ask you something?” I said finally. “All of you?”

“Of course,” Anton said, leaning back.

“Living … so long … you must have learned a lot of things? Had a ton of experiences?”

Donne snorted. “That’s what you would think, wouldn’t you? Being the freshest Fresh I ever saw.”

I bristled a little. “I don’t know what I think. It just seems Like …”

Lena waved her hand as if trying to get us to chill. “What Donne means to say is that so much of the knowledge we acquire ends up being useless, out of date, as time marches on,” she said. “Imagine a college degree acquired in 1891 or even 1932; how useful would that be in the twenty-first century?”

“But the biggest thing is, you get sick of it,” Donne said.

“Sick of what?” I said.

“People. Sick of being around people. Sick of working so hard to still be associated with them, still be a part of what they are. Human. Trying to hang on to the old life …”

“She is right; it’s too much trouble,” Anton agreed, lacing his arm around her waist. “All the hiding, lies, the close calls. And everything, everything has to be done in the dark. How many great experiences happen after dark? Truly?” He laughed again, and this time Donne punched his arm.

“But it is more than that,” Lena said. “We do not have much contact with people. Hardly any, actually. It is … uncomfortable … if you have any kind of conscience at all. That is one of the great sacrifices forced upon us. We are quite limited in our experiences because we are limited in our relationships. Can you imagine spending a great deal of time with beings who are destined to become … your food?”

My scalp prickled. I felt so comfortable with them now, but every once in a while a shocking wall popped up between us. A wall that always reminded me that no matter how close we became as friends, they were trapped in a place where I could never go. I would never have to feed on anyone to live.

“And now … is there something you would like to share with us?” Lena said, breaking me out of my reverie. “We are so … curious.”

I knew what she meant. I was holding back the story of my own transformation. Everything about Wirtz. My epilepsy.
The Call
.

“I … I want to tell you,” I said. “You have all been so up-front with me. And I will. I promise. I just need … a little more time, okay?”

Donne started to say something, but Lena cut her off by lifting her hand.

“We understand,” Lena said. “Speaking of such a horror when it is still so fresh and new is … trying. Take all the time you need.”

I needed more than time. I needed a way to tell them what I was—a half-vampire human girl who was drawing a monster closer and closer to us all.

*    *    *

I woke up late the next morning feeling down. Today was Monday. Sagan had classes all week, but his schedule was especially full on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It seemed like an eternity before I would see him again. Before the night would come.

Funny, I had never been a night person … now I couldn’t wait for darkness to fall. Was I becoming something … different?

I took out the pocket watch he had given me. First block, English with Ms. Rose. That’s where I should be right now. We were reading a book I couldn’t stand, only now I might never know how it came out. Because I would never choose to read a book like that for myself.

After that, Chem II with its smells and sinks and test tubes. Then the project I was working on in history with my group. I didn’t particularly like any of the kids, but we had been just that … a group. Algebra II. Whatever they learned this afternoon would be forever missing from my brain.

What if I never could go back? If I had to live like this basically … forever?

I would never find out my final averages in anything. Never attend another stupid pep rally. No more homecoming chatter, no brawny football guys beating some old junker to pieces with sledgehammers in front of a bonfire. No lunch line. People banging into you at the lockers. Guys saying crap about my boobs.