What Kills Me (12 page)

“Zee has done nothing wrong,” Noel
said.

“That is not for you to decide. Stand
down.”

“I can’t allow you to touch her,” Noel
said. “You won’t take anyone else from me.”

“Then you leave us no choice.” The
general signaled to his men. “Kill them.”

The soldiers attacked. Lucas pushed me
aside and reached back for his swords. He spun away as the first
soldier thrust a sword at him, the blade grazing his ribs. With one
motion, Lucas unsheathed his swords and slashed the soldier across
the face. Two more came at him from different sides, moving so
swiftly I gasped. As Lucas fought them, the soldier with blood
seeping from his face vaulted over a chair toward me. I stumbled
back against the fridge, the lantern against my chest as my only
weapon. The cut on his face sealed up before my eyes.

I screamed as he approached me.
Suddenly, two blades appeared on either side of his neck. It was
Lucas. He scissored off the soldier’s head, which popped off and
thumped to the floor. Still screaming, I kicked it away.

Noel had destroyed the other vampires;
their headless corpses were sprawled in the living room among
broken furniture. With a roar Noel charged the general. The general
waited, motionless. At the last second, he pivoted his body to
avoid Noel’s falling sword and then punched him in the face. When
Noel stumbled back, the general drew his own weapon.

“Father!” Lucas yelled. He moved to
help Noel but more soldiers rushed toward him.

Noel licked the blood from his cut
lip.

“You’re no match for me, Swordsmith,”
the general said.

“We’ll see.”

Their blades clashed, and the force of
the general’s strike threw Noel off balance. He ducked the
general’s sword and rolled across the floor, trying to slice the
general’s shins. But the general jumped, his weapon raised like an
ax. He slammed the blade down, missing Noel’s face by an inch. The
strike broke through the wooden floor, leaving a huge pit. The
house quivered. Noel leaped to his feet. He kicked the dining table
at the general, who split it in half with his sword.

They hunted each other around the
living room, a faint smile on the general’s lips. Then Noel rushed
at him, slicing the air with his blade, but the general deflected
his blows. As Noel raised his sword above his head, the general
lunged forward and grabbed Noel’s elbow with one hand. With the
other, he rammed his sword through Noel’s chest.

NO.

Noel’s sword fell. The tip of the
general’s sword stuck out of his back.

“Father!” Lucas screamed. Three
soldiers converged on him. He bent backward, fanning his swords out
and beheading two warriors behind him.

The general tore his blade from Noel’s
torso. As Noel started to fall, the general swung his weapon at his
neck. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Lucas’s cry of anguish filled the
house.

Lucas stabbed both of his swords into
a soldier’s eyes and then lobbed off the top of his skull. He then
glared across the room at his father’s killer. His face was
wild.

More soldiers were converging on the
house. The general smirked and slid his sword back in its sheath.
His warriors formed a line in front of him. My eyes darted from
Lucas to the soldiers.

“Drop your weapon or suffer the same
fate as your father,” the general warned.

“Go to hell,” Lucas said.

He’s going to be killed.
We’re going to be killed.

Desperate, I searched the room. The
back door was open, but we would never make it. Then my eyes found
the plastic bottle. I had left it by the sink.

Fire.

“Cut him down,” the general
ordered.

I inhaled, summoning courage and
shoved myself away from the cabinets. Before Lucas could advance, I
snatched up the container and threw it in front of the general and
his men. It slid on its side, spilling its liquid across the floor.
The general and I locked eyes. His mouth started to open. Then I
tossed the lantern at them.

Grabbing Lucas’s arm, I bolted for the
back door. From the corner of my eye, I watched the lantern’s
twirling descent. I had one foot outside when it
exploded.

I felt the heat against my back, but
in an instant the rain was on me. The cries of the vampires inside
the house grew faint as Lucas and I ran. We ran into the darkened
forest in a frenzy, destroying shrubs and branches in our path. I
followed Lucas as we wove through the trees, skidded down hills,
and sailed over creeks. The ground gave way under our feet, our
heels tearing up the sod and grass. I was sure the soldiers were
right behind us. Lucas did not look back. I kept blinking water out
of my eyes; some of it streamed into my mouth and it tasted like
blood. I realized then that I was crying.

Lucas made a sharp left and I
struggled to follow. We streaked across a clearing and through a
thick mass of short trees toward a low, rumbling sound. We burst
through some bushes onto a gravel road. Ahead of us a truck was
speeding away. In seconds we caught up to it and grabbed the back.
Lucas pulled back the tarp covering the cab. I jumped inside first,
my wet body rolling in between wooden crates of leafy green
vegetables. Lucas hopped on, landing in a squat
position.

Our eyes met. Lucas looked crushed and
turned away. There were no words. None existed to describe such
horror.

***

The storm passed. Or else we outran
the clouds. More than an hour had elapsed since the truck had
veered onto a paved, busy road. We rumbled along, curving around
mountains, the smell of rain, earth, and greens in my nostrils.
Lucas sat with his elbows on his knees, the backpack by his side.
He stared straight ahead, his face stoic. I hugged my knees to my
chest; my clothing was still damp but I didn’t mind the cold. I
took a breath to indicate that I was going to break our
silence.

“Lucas,” I said softly. “I’m so sorry
about your father and Jerome.”

He didn’t even blink.

“I know that if I had never come, none
of this would have happened. I’m not asking you to ever forgive me.
I just want you to know how sorry I am.”

I didn’t expect him to answer. I
stared at Jerome’s runners. He had tied the laces so tight that the
shoe looked as if it had a waist.

“You interfered back there,” Lucas
said. “You should have let me kill them all.”

“I didn’t want you to die.”

“I should have died with my
father.”

“He would have wanted you to
live.”

“How do you know what he would have
wanted?” he spat.

“I’m sorry.”
I’m saying all the wrong things.

Another hour passed before Lucas spoke
again. “Dawn will come soon,” he said, startling me.

“I can help you find some shelter, and
then I’ll leave you alone.”

“No,” he said, without looking at me.
“You’re taking me to find this cleric.”

“Uther? Why?”

“He might be able to tell us what’s
going on.”

I nodded.
Uther will know what to do.

“They sent the general and an entire
brigade for one vampire. Why would they do that? It doesn’t make
sense.” He looked at me for the first time since we got in the
truck. “What don’t I know, schoolgirl?”

I shook my head. “I’ve told you
everything. I swear.”

He turned away. “I need to know what
my family died for.”

I hung my head.
They died because of me.

He lifted the tarp and peered out.
“We’re passing a nearby town,” he said. “We can find an inn or a
hotel there. At dusk, we’ll travel to Rome.”

He gave me a nod and parted the tarp.
He jumped out as the vehicle rounded a corner.

“Wait,” I said. I scuttled
to the edge and flipped up the tarp. Lucas was standing in a
ditch.
Oh geez.
I
threw myself out. I expected to crash onto the pavement, the
concrete scraping off patches of skin. Except that time seemed to
slow while I was in mid air. Landing with one foot on the street
and letting the momentum carry me forward, I put my right hand down
and did a frontward flip. I stood and turned to look at the truck
speeding away. Then I looked back at Lucas.

“Did you see that?” I asked. I pointed
over my shoulder with my thumb.

“See what?”

“See me
not
fall out of the truck? I did
like, a flip or something,” I said.

He rolled his eyes and walked by
me.

“That was amazing,” I said, to no one
in particular.

We jogged down the street and I
glimpsed the town from above. It was on the sea, but I had heard
and smelled that from the truck. All the buildings were about the
same height and white with brown, clay-tiled roofs. Few lights were
lit.

Lucas checked over his
shoulder.

“Do you think they’re close?” I
asked.

“Perhaps. But they will also be
looking for a place to hide in the day.”

We roamed the empty streets. A tabby
cat lounging at the base of a palm tree watched us and hissed when
Lucas neared. Lucas stopped to read a sign outside of a row of
buildings. I followed him through an archway into a small, bare
courtyard. We climbed a narrow staircase to a door flanked by
planters filled with pink flowers.

A curly-haired man at the counter
removed his glasses as we walked inside. He was wearing a light
blue shirt with stains under the arms; his spicy body odor and his
woody aftershave stung my nose. I examined the valleys in his
forehead, the pits that were the pores dotting his cheeks, and the
bluish, puffy skin under his eyes. Tiny pools of oil had formed on
his bulbous nose. I was amazed at the detail I was seeing. The man
raised his bushy, triangular-shaped eyebrows, and when he smiled,
more lines ran across his face. His skin seemed to shift over his
skull like bunching panty hose.

The room filled with the man’s heavy
breathing and a deep drum beat.

Heartbeat.
The more I focused on it, the louder it
got.

I was staring. Lucas nudged
me.

“Hello,” I said. The man
flinched.

“Shh,” Lucas said.

I realized that I was shouting over
the sounds. I could even hear the squelching of liquid in this
man’s veins.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “We’d like a
room for the rest of tonight and tomorrow please.”

The man nodded.

I found his gestures to be extremely
jerky and abrupt, like a skittish bird. He turned and pulled a key
from a hook on the wall. A network of veins ran along the inside of
his arm and pooled in the fleshy part under his thumb. I became
fixated on that part of his hand; it was white, blue, and fat like
the belly of a fish. For some reason, looking at it made me want a
steak. I shook my head to clear the craving.

“You American?” he scratched his head
and it sounded like Velcro tearing apart.

“We’re from Canada,” I said, again, a
little too loudly.

The man wagged his finger at us.
“Married?”

“Oh no,” I said.

“One bed,” the man said, dangling the
key.

“Actually, can we have two beds?” I
asked, leaning over the counter.

“One is fine,” said Lucas.

I gaped at him before turning back to
the man and forcing a smile. Lucas dug into his backpack and handed
the man some cash. I made a basket out of my hands and the man
dropped the keys and some change into them.

“Goodnight,” I called.

“Buonanotte
,” he said.

We climbed four flights of stairs and
found our room. Room nineteen.

I flicked on a light switch, which
illuminated two lamps on either side of the bed. A few crushed
mosquito carcasses were stuck on the cream-colored walls. A man in
a neighboring room was snoring.

“That guy downstairs was loud,” I
said. “How do you concentrate with all of the noise?”

Lucas dropped his bag on the bed. He
spoke without looking at me. “Your senses grow more acute as you
get older but you’ll learn to block things out.”

I removed Jerome’s soggy runners and
held them in my hands. The image of his death flashed in my mind
and I fought a wave a nausea. Instead, I pictured us in the
field.

“Now it’s just Noel and
Lucas.”

“And you.”

“And now you.”

His mischievous smile.

Now it’s just Lucas and
me.

Lucas’s eyes were also fixed on the
runners. He clenched his jaw. He removed a small black satchel from
his bag and shook out a thin, flat stone. He snapped off the
harness that fastened his swords to his back. He pulled a sword out
of its sheath and began rubbing the stone on the blade.