Christabel
I felt horrible.
Too horrible to move or even to open my eyes. I wanted water. I was so thirsty that my lips were peeling and cracked, but I didn’t have the energy to swallow. There were people moving around my room, standing by my bed, talking in the kind of hushed whispers that are laced with fear.
I was lying on a bed. Was I lying on a bed? Hadn’t Connor and I been running through the woods? When did we stop?
“If she doesn’t get better by sundown, I’ll have to call her mother,” Uncle Stuart said. He smelled funny. Not like mushrooms, but like sweat and worry and the coffee he’d been drinking. I shouldn’t be able to smell the coffee on his breath, should I? “She’ll want to know. She’ll want to be here.”
I tried to move, but I felt like spikes were pinning me to the soft mattress. I didn’t want anyone to call my mom. She was busy getting better. If she knew I was sick, she’d leave rehab. And if I didn’t get better, she might slide back into her addictions. I didn’t want that. I struggled again but nothing happened.
“I was supposed to take care of her,” Uncle Stuart said roughly. “Damn it, Liam!”
“I know,” Liam murmured. “So were we.” He sounded like he was pacing.
“I’m not a violent man, Liam,” my uncle said. His tone said something else entirely.
Liam nodded. I could actually hear his head move, his hair brush against his collar, his lips tighten. Was that normal? I couldn’t remember.
“Helena’s counting swords even as we speak.”
“Is my niece going to turn into one of those things? And how the hell am I going to explain that to her mother?”
“Christabel won’t be Hel-Blar,” Liam assured him. “But she will turn, Stuart. We can’t stop it. If we try to, she’ll die.”
Uncle Stuart swore and wiped my forehead with a cold, wet cloth. It hurt. I practically felt the sizzle of the water hitting my hot skin and evaporating. I whimpered in my head. No sound came out.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t call a doctor? She’s burning up. And her veins are so blue.”
“Geoffrey’s been here,” Liam reminded him. “He’s seen this sort of thing before. And Connor told him everything he knew about Aidan. He’s her sire now. We’ll have to deal with the implications of that later.”
“You did this eight times?” Uncle Stuart must have buried his face in his hands because his voice was muffled. Or my hearing was blurry. Could hearing go blurry?
“Yes,” Liam said grimly. “It’s a little different in our family, but essentially yes.”
I wanted to cringe away from the hot sunlight falling across my pillow, nearly stabbing me. I felt it there, as threatening as the fire that tore through the maze.
Is the night chilly and dark? The night is chilly, but not dark.…
I tried to say it out loud, but I couldn’t. Still, the rhythm of a poem I knew so well was soothing. I could only remember snippets, though. The stanzas didn’t make sense out of order. He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon; And out o’ the tawny sunset, before the rise o’ the moon, When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor, A red-coat troop came marching—Marching—marching—
That wasn’t even Coleridge. It was someone else and not the poem with my name. But who? Why couldn’t I remember?
“She’s got Aidan’s blood in her veins,” Liam said. “All we can do now is wait.”
I floated in and out of consciousness, as if I were being tossed about on a dark ocean. It was all poetry and fatigue and blood. Bram Stoker was there again, but Saga ran him through with a cutlass and buried his head in a wooden chest on a sandy beach. It was confusing.
Just when I felt so feverish I might burn up like a human candle, the sun set. I could feel it, between the parched dreams. I sighed with relief, barely.
“Did you hear that?” It was Connor. “She made a sound.”
I tried to lift my eyelids and managed only a small slit, not enough really to see. Everything was washed out in red.
“She’s weak,” Geoffrey said sometime later. “Her veins are so prominent that she looks as blue as any Hel-Blar I’ve ever seen.”
“She’ll be fine,” Connor protested fiercely. “She can do this. Christabel,” he whispered to me. “You have to fight.”
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Ever and aye, by shine and shower, Sixteen short howls, not over loud; Some say, she sees my lady’s shroud.
I didn’t realize I was muttering aloud until Uncle Stuart spoke. “What’s she saying? What does that mean?”
Connor answered, because I couldn’t. “I think it’s a poem. She does that.” He sounded close. I thought I might be able to feel his hand holding mine. Only it wasn’t as cold as before. Or maybe I was cold now, too?
“Coleridge,” I answered. My lips moved, I was sure of it. There was barely any sound, but Connor had vampire hearing.
“Coleridge?” he repeated. “You’re quoting Coleridge now?”
I tried to smile. I must have faded away again because the next person I heard was Liam.
“She’s past the worst of it,” he said. “Stuart, you can put the phone down.”
“She’ll want to know.”
“She won’t believe you over the phone. Best to let Christabel tell her. After.”
I felt a glass vial at my lips. I recognized the smell, coppery and strange.
“Drink it, Christa.” Connor was holding the vial. I recognized his smell right away, all licorice and soap. Blood trickled between my lips. I could barely swallow. He angled my head back so that my throat opened. The blood was vile tasting and it tingled as it traveled throughout my body.
I didn’t have a heartbeat. I thumped my chest, panicking. It didn’t help.
“It’s okay,” Connor said as I thrashed in the bed, dislodging pillows and blankets. A glass of water on the table fell to the floor and shattered. The sound elongated and scratched along my nerves. I wasn’t breathing. I wasn’t breathing.
“She needs more blood,” Geoffrey said, and suddenly there was a bottle where the vial had been. Unrelenting rivulets of thick blood filled my mouth. I gagged. It was like chewing pennies. It coated my teeth and tongue.
At least it was distracting me from the terror of not having a heartbeat.
Which didn’t seem to be holding me back, actually.
The revolting taste of blood was more immediate. Nausea flooded me. I made some kind of recognizable gesture, or else I’d turned green instead of blue because a plastic garbage pail was suddenly at hand. I pushed the bottle away and threw up. I didn’t feel like I was dying anymore. I felt worse.
“You need to drink more,” someone insisted.
I threw up again.
I really hoped Connor was somewhere else.
I felt a little stronger; the blood was healing me but I just couldn’t swallow any more. My throat closed up at the thought. I felt sick again. But I was aware of so many other layers to the world. I could hear a dog snuffling at the door, footsteps in the hall. I could smell blood and sweat and the rosemary in the garden outside the window. I heard a mouse in the wall behind my head.
“You haven’t had enough blood,” Liam said.
“Can’t,” I croaked.
“You have to. You’ll starve otherwise. That’s the first step to turning into a Hel-Blar.”
“I’ve got my kit.” Geoffrey burst into the room, carrying his old-fashioned black leather doctor’s case just as I was wondering how blue I’d turned. “If you can’t drink it,” Geoffrey said to me, pulling out a long needle, tubing, and a plastic bag of blood, “you’ll need a transfusion. Several, in fact.”
I turned away as he swabbed my arm at the crease of my elbow. The needle bit into my skin, sudden and sharp and as irritating as a hornet’s sting.
Still better than the alternative.
When I woke up again, the needle was gone and I was alone for the first time in what felt like days. The window was still open, letting in the garden and night-scented air and washing out the miasma of illness. Tree branches scraped the glass, rustling red and yellow leaves. The bed was an antique, piled with quilts and my salt-stained pillowcase. A small fridge hummed quietly, clashing with the faded, elegant decor. The wallpaper was silk; the fringe on the damask chair was threaded with what might have been real pearls.
I sat up tentatively, expecting to feel weak and queasy.
I felt good.
Well, better.
I went to the antique washstand and stood in front of the mirror. I was scared to look. It was an actual test of courage just to open my eyes. Which were now a light hazel, when before they’d been plain old brown. They were nearly the same shade as Saga’s grog. My hair was lank with dust and sweat, and the scratches from the cedar maze were scabbed over, nearly healed. There was mud under my fingernails. I was haggard and gross, traced with prominent veins.
But I wasn’t entirely blue and I didn’t smell like I was rotting from the inside out. I smiled.
And nearly sliced my lip open on my fangs.
I had fangs now.
I was going to kill my mother for naming me after a poem about a girl who falls under the spell of a vampire.
I poked at my teeth, which were as sharp as the needle Geoffrey had stuck in my arm. I poked them harder, trying to get them to retract into my gums, which were swollen and tender. They didn’t move. There must be a trick to it. I’d ask someone, just as soon as I’d had a shower. My stomach grumbled as I went toward the door. I was starving, but I didn’t know for what.
Well, I knew, but I was sure there must be some mistake, despite everything.
I should be craving pizza and ice-cream sundaes and grilled-cheese sandwiches. Normal stuff. But my body insisted on craving blood, even though my brain recoiled and shut down at the idea. Not to mention the empty cavern of my chest. I pressed my hand over my heart, but when I felt nothing I stopped. I could easily give myself a panic attack. How long would it take to get used to this? Would I ever? Had I really ever noticed my heartbeat when I had one?
And what happened now? I couldn’t go to school anymore, obviously. I’d have to take classes online. And did I have to stay here with the Drakes? And did I have to hang out with just vampires now? What about my family? How could I see my mother only at night? Wouldn’t she get suspicious? Especially since no face powder in the world could cover the blue veins. If I told her the truth, would she believe me? Would she start drinking again? My head whirled.
Shower now, deep thoughts later.
The bathroom was next door, with a huge shower tiled in painted ceramic. There were fluffy towels and pretty soaps. I stood under the hot water for nearly half an hour, washing away the dust of the ghost town, the dirt from the maze, the ashes from the fire, the sweat of my bloodchange. The water was brown as it circled the drain. I washed my hair again. My fingertips were wrinkly when I finally stepped out in a cloud of steam, wrapped in a towel.
I eyed the toilet speculatively. Did vampires pee? I didn’t have to go right now, but was that because I’d been dehydrated and feverish for so long?
I shook my head. I had to stop all this thinking or I’d freak myself right out. The point was, I was relatively okay, for a dead girl anyway, and I wasn’t alone. It could have been much, much worse. I could have been left to starve horribly and turned into a Hel-Blar.
When I went back into my room to get dressed, it smelled differently, like licorice. I glanced around for Connor but no one was there. There was a book on the dresser, however, and a note with his handwriting. For you, Christabel. Happy Birthday. Connor.
The book was old and lined with fabric the color of green opals. The pages were as thin as moth wings and full of poetry. I recognized Shelley and Coleridge right away. It smelled like libraries and dust. It was an antique. I sat on the edge of the bed and smiled stupidly at it until my damp towel dried and began to itch.
Just because I was a vampire now didn’t mean I wasn’t still me. And I didn’t sit around thinking dreamy thoughts about cute boys.
I made myself get dressed in the clothes and some of my stuff Uncle Stuart must have brought me. The jeans were torn and soft, the tight T-shirt had a faded Ramones album cover. I put on my combat boots, like armor, even though I was in a friendly house. Connor’s mom was scary. I remembered her from evening barbecues at the lake when I was little.
I clutched my new poetry book as if it were a shield.