Born in Twilight (Wings in the Night #5) 6

I had wandered alone for three nights. Hiding out in the very filthiest, vilest parts of the city, for I felt this was all I deserved. I was a filthy, vile being now, wasn't I? Violated by a monster, and made into one just like him.

And I knew it was my fault. Because there had been a moment, one single moment in time when I could have said no. I could have chosen death and salvation over life-unending life and damnation. I didn't have to drink when he pressed my face to his throat. I didn't have to drink. But I had. I had. I'd been filled with an incredible, powerful urge not to die. I'd wanted to live! And so I had.

God had seen fit to test me before I pledged myself to Him. No doubt He had sensed my misgivings.

My flawed faith. And I'd failed that test. Failed it miserably.

But there was one thing I would not, could not do. And that was to prolong this life by feeding on the living. The innocent. Lambs of God, flocks of them outside, even now. And I, the wolf, hungering for them. Starving for what was the very essence of them. God, how the hunger burned in me! I writhed with it. When one of them passed by the windows of my hovel, and the wind sharpened, I caught the scent of their blood, and my mouth watered. My eyes filled with tears. My flesh tingled and my nerves came alive, singing, and then screaming with need. With every part of me I wanted to take one of them, take them the way I'd seen that monster do it. Gorge myself at their soft throats and taste their salty skin against my lips. Sink these newly elongated, razor-sharp fangs deeply into them, and drink.

Something, some small part of the person I'd once been, remained alive in me, and it was that part I clung to, and drew on to sustain my resistance.

That part...and the crucifix I wore around my neck. The symbol of all I believed in. I ran my hands over the smooth grain of its wood, and studied the grimace on the face of the Christ, the one too tiny for me to have even noticed before. Those things kept me going. Though they did not keep me sane. Like a rabid dog at the sight of water, I do believe I was quite mad that night.

And then he came.

I smelled him, as I had the others. No. No, that's not quite true. It wasn't the same. His scent came to me more powerfully than theirs had. It tantalized my senses to an even greater extent, so that I curled into the corner, drawing my knees to my chest and hiding my face against my legs, and praying he would pass by. Quickly, before that succulent scent drove me completely out of my mind.

He didn't, of course. His scent came stronger and more delicious with every second. And then there was a sound. A small sound, his steps coming nearer across the littered floor. I looked up, and he was there, his breaths making little clouds of steam in the dark. Staring at me as if he'd never seen anything quite so pathetic as the picture I made there in the filth. And I wanted to scream at him. Get away! Can't you see what I am? Don't you feel the danger you're in?

"Don't be afraid," he said to me. I wanted to tip my head back and scream with laughter, but I hadn't the strength. This man, this poor, innocent mortal man, telling me not to be afraid of him . Such irony!

But I didn't laugh. I didn't make a sound, but simply sat there, staring at him. His beauty amazed me. I saw it-as I saw everything now-in greater detail than I'd ever done as a mortal. Even in the darkness of that wreck, I could see him. For I saw very well in the darkness now. His eyes-not coal-black. But dark, velvet brown. With blacker stripes, wavy stripes surrounding his pupils like rays around the sun.

He was like the sun...the sun I would never look upon again.

His hair was thick and he wore it long. I could see, even from this distance, its luster, its richness. It would feel like silk, that raven mass of unruly curls. His skin wasn't chalk-white and sickly like mine, but bronze, as if his body had been coated in honey just for me.

I licked my lips as my eyes feasted on the bit of flesh exposed at his muscled throat. And then I lowered my eyes, closed them. I wanted him. I wanted his blood, and I wanted his body. I, a virgin, whose intent had been to pledge myself to Christ, and to remain chaste until I died. I craved him with a hunger so carnal it shocked me. Was this yet another aspect of my new character? Was I to become a harlot as well as a demon and a murderess?

"Go away," I croaked. "You're not safe here."

But the man came closer, towering over me, and frightening me, until I recalled that I was stronger.

Despite his size-and he was a big man, broad across the shoulders and very tall-I had nothing to fear.

He stood over me, staring down, those tiger-striped eyes of his soft with pity when they should have been wide with revulsion. "You're starving, aren't you?"

Yes, I was starving. And I could hear the strong, and steady thrum of his pulse now. The rushing river of the blood running through his veins. I could hear it!

"Please!" I cried, burying my face in my hands. "Get away! I can't stand it!" And then his hand came to stroke the hair from my face. It slipped down to cup my chin, lifting my head until I stared up at him again. I could feel the warmth of that hand, suffusing my face. I could feel every line in his palm. "You're just a fledgling, aren't you?"

But my eyes had found the spot where his pulse beat in his throat, and for the life of me, I could not look away.

"I can help you," he told me. "It will be all right, you'll see."

"Go, please..." But my voice lacked conviction now as I thought of the taste of him. My mouth on his skin. The warm rush of his blood as I-

"I can't just go away and leave you here. You're suffering, I can see that." I moaned low and deep in my throat, and the tears rolled from my eyes. Sobs tore at my breastbone, shaking my body, racking me. I wanted to take him more than I wanted to draw another breath. And yet I couldn't. How could I? He'd done nothing wrong. Tried to help me, even.

But my crying was the wrong course of action, because the big, beautiful fool put his strong arms around me, and I could feel every curve of the muscled firmness beneath his clothes. He drew me close, holding me gently, rocking me a little. Saying, "Shh, it's all right. I have friends who are like you. They can help you. I'll take you to them. It's going to be all right."

He went on like that, stroking my back and my hair. I had no idea why. But his movements made me insane with this unnatural need. Insane with lust for him, body and blood. And the two desires seemed to intermingle until I couldn't distinguish the carnal lust from the unnatural hunger. They became one. My face rested in the crook of his corded neck. My lips even touched his warm, salty skin, as he held me there. And it was the end. All I could stand. There was no shred of humanity left in me at that moment. I was simply a hungry animal, and he was my meat.

I slipped my arms around the beautiful man, opened my mouth and sank my sharp new fangs deeply into him. Skin, and muscle, and then the pop as I pierced the jugular. He gasped. But didn't fight me very hard at all. In fact he leaned closer, held me tighter, and I felt a shudder work through him. He groaned and threaded his fingers in my hair, and pressed his hips against me. I felt his arousal, the hard shape of him nudging me between my legs, and like a common whore, I arched against him.

I think, perhaps, he didn't realize that this would be the end of him. Not until I'd nearly drained him dry.

That was when he began to twist in my arms, and pull. But as starved as I was, it was useless. He couldn't break my hold on him. Already, he was weakened from the loss of his luscious blood.

"No more," I heard him whisper, so close to my ear. "Please, no more." But I held him tighter, and bit down harder, and sucked at the wounds in his throat all the more. His strength surged through me, filling me, warming me, bringing me to vivid, sparkling life again. And he said,

"Damn you...you're...killing me," in a barely audible whisper.

That voice, that same silken voice that had been music to my ears, pleading now, for his very life, and reduced to this harsh whisper. I was horrified, and shoved him away from me. But he collapsed on the floor like a rag doll, and lay there, his eyes no more than glazed slits, staring up at me. And then they fell closed.

"Jesus, Joseph and Mary, what have I done?" I whispered, and I turned to run away.

"Hold it right there."

This voice had no music. No silk. It came harshly, cruelly, from just beyond the doorway. A voice that held authority, command and menace. I froze there, panic trying to chill my body, so recently warmed by my victim's blood. This newcomer couldn't see the man I'd just killed. Not from here. I hoped he wouldn't. I couldn't bear for anyone to know what I'd done, what I'd become.

He stepped into my range of vision, and he was pointing a weapon at me. A gun, of sorts.

"There's a tranquilizer in here," he said. "You come along peacefully, and I won't have to use it." I eyed the gun, and then the man. "Come along...where?" I asked him. And then I licked my lips, and I could still taste that handsome one on my tongue. Shameful pleasure filled me at the taste of him.

"You're very young, aren't you? When did those bastards change you?" Suddenly the voice was filled with sympathy.

"Three nights ago," I told him quite honestly, seeing no reason to lie. The light the man held shone in my eyes, then, and glinted from my crucifix, and illuminated my tattered habit.

"For the love of Christ," he muttered. "You're the missing nun."

"Novice. Not nun. Not yet." I closed my eyes, averted my face from his light. "Not ever."

"I can help you," he said, and he clicked off the flashlight as if it were a sign of good faith. "I work for DPI-the Division of Paranormal Investigations. It's a government agency, Sister. We're doing research, and-"

"Don't call me 'Sister,'" I said. "Don't ever call me 'Sister."

"I'm sorry. Listen...come with me. We're working on a cure. There's a chance we can help you." I narrowed my eyes and studied his face. "Where?"

"Our headquarters. InWhite Plains . It's not far, really. Come on, come with me. Let me help you. You want to be human again, don't you?"

I blinked, searching his face. Was it truly possible? Could I regain my mortal self, and with it, my immortal soul?

No! Don't trust him!

I went stiff as, very clearly, that satinlike voice rang in my mind. The voice of my victim. Not wandering through my head like a stray thought or a daydream. But speaking, weakly and breathlessly, in my mind.

His voice. It was real.

I glanced behind me, and his eyes, though barely open, met mine, held them. Don't go with him! Don't go ...

I snapped my head around, ignoring the dying man. Surely he was not the one I should be listening to right now. He'd admitted to me that he had friends who were...like me, as he'd put it. Other vampires.

Was I to trust a friend of those creatures, those leeches in human form, those predators of the night? No.

I hated them. All of them, and I hated myself for being like them. I wanted it to end! I could not exist as a monster. I could not.

"I'll go with you," I said. And the stranger took my hand.

Fool. I kept hearing his voice in my mind as I went with the stranger. Though it grew weaker and weaker. Traitor. You're a traitor to your kind. And you deserve whatever they do to you there !

I closed my eyes, tried to block out his voice.

I could have helped you. You'll wish you'd let me...I swear you'll wish ...

And then nothing. Nothing at all. Had he finally died then? A heaviness like none I'd ever known filled my heart. I'd killed. Twice now, once for no more reason than to preserve my own life. I was damned, but perhaps the road to salvation was not entirely blocked to me. Perhaps this was simply a test, or a lesson I had to learn, before I could take my final vows. Perhaps there would be forgiveness for me still.

The stranger opened the door of his automobile, and I got in. And as we pulled away, I heard him again, that musical voice, perhaps its dying breath.

You were right, Tam. Dammit, I need help...I...I...

There was no more. Not another hint of life from that condemned building. A large tear rolled down my cheek as we rounded a corner and drove out of sight.

"Jameson? Can you hear me?"

"He's going to be all right, Tamara. We got to him in time."

"But Eric..."

"Shh. Let him rest. He's going to need all of his strength when he wakes. It won't be easy for him to deal with this. He wasn't ready, you know."

"I know." A hand stroked Jameson's face. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "But we just couldn't let you go."

Jameson opened his eyes, and then blinked, because something was wrong with his vision. Everything was too bright. Too vivid. He quickly closed them again, startled. "What happened?" he whispered, searching his memory.

"You were attacked," Tamara said softly, and he was amazed that he could hear the very vibrations of her vocal cords as she spoke to him. The perfect hum of her voice. Like music. "You called out to me for help. We found you in-"

"Wait...I remember. That crumbling ruin." It all came back to him then, but as he held up a hand to stop Tamara from speaking, he turned it slowly, eyeing the white bandage on his wrist. When he looked at his other wrist, he saw another. "What's going on?" he said slowly, eyeing each of them, one by one.

Rhiannon sat in a chair on his left. She closed her elegant hand around one of his much larger ones.

"Some renegade bastard drained you to the point of death, Jameson. We had no choice." He shook his head, but even as he did, the truth was making itself a home in his mind. He couldn't deny it. Even without their worried, slightly guilty expressions he'd have known. He was feeling things. Every wrinkle in the sheet. His skin was alive, tingling, and he could hear the way the breeze outside fluttered over the single dead leaf that still clung to that flowering maple. How many stories below was that skinny tree, planted in a perfect circular opening in the concrete? Twenty-four?

Again, he looked at the bandages. "I don't understand," he said.

"You were unconscious," Tamara whispered. "Too weak to drink."

"So?"

"You were dying, Jamey-Jameson," she went on. "I thought..."

Eric turned toward the windows, gazing out at the night, not looking Jameson in the eye. "I had to rig up some tubing," he said. "For the transfusions."

"Trans...fusions?" He looked at Eric's back, staring until the man turned. "Eric?" Then he swung his gaze to Roland, who stood silently in a corner of the room, saying nothing, just watching, listening.

"Roland? Jesus, are you saying that I'm..."

Roland nodded, just once. "Yes. Your mortal life ended last night, Jameson. There was nothing we could do to save it. The one thing-the only thing we could do for you, was give you another life to replace the one that bastard stole from you. A lift of...unending night." Jameson closed his eyes and swore. He heard Tamara's soft crying, felt Rhiannon's hand tighten on his.

"I can't believe it," he muttered. "God, I can't believe it." Then he searched their faces. "Which of you did this? Whose blood is running in my veins now? Yours, Roland?" Tamara sniffed. "All of us," she told him, drawing his gaze to her tearstained face. "We all gave to you, Jameson."

He closed his eyes, shook his head, expelled his breath in a rush. "Dammit," he said. "I didn't want this.

Not yet. Maybe not ever. Dammit-"

"Enough!"

His mouth snapped closed at Rhiannon's harsh command. She rose from her chair, leaning over him, eyes narrowed to slits, reminding him sharply of the way Pandora looked just before she pounced on an unsuspecting rabbit.

"We gave you life, Jameson. The alternative was death. You should be thanking us." She bent even closer, so her long, glistening black hair trailed over his face. "Unless, of course, you'd have preferred the second option. And if that's the case, it's not too late."

"Rhiannon!" Tamara shouted, jumping to her feet. "How dare you-" Rhiannon straightened, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. "I dare, Tamara darling. I dare anything.

You know that. And frankly, I'm a bit weary of this one's constant lack of gratitude." As she said it, she nodded toward Jameson.

He couldn't believe Rhiannon was this angry with him, but she was. Her eyes blazed with it, and when Roland came forward to slide his hands over her shoulders, she shrugged him off and walked away. She paced back and forth at the foot of his bed. "We took care of you when you were a child, Jameson," she said, her voice deep and smooth as black satin. "Saved your life for you on more than one occasion, risked our necks for you more often than not. Found your father for you. And yet all you've done is complain. We treat you like a child! We call you by the wrong name! You don't have enough space !" Jameson sat up in the bed, pushing the covers aside, lowering his feet to the floor.

"And then," she went on, "you bumble your reckless way into still more trouble, and as you lay dying, with what could have been your very last breath, Jameson, you call out to us for help. What in the name of the pharaohs were you expecting us to do? We can't raise the dead! You asked for help, and we gave you the only help we could give. And still you complain."

"That's enough, Rhiannon," Roland said, and he said it sternly. She glared at him, but he didn't back down. "You know nothing about what Jameson is feeling right now."

"And you do?" she shot back.

Roland nodded, turning his gaze on Jameson. "I do. Rhiannon, and Tamara too, you both sought this life.

I did not. It was forced on me, Rhiannon, when you found me near death on that battlefield in bloodstained armor."

"And on me," Eric said softly. "When Roland came to me in that filthy French cell, the night before I was to face the guillotine." He met Jameson's eyes. "I was terrified, then, of what I'd become. And though you know us, know us well, I imagine you're a bit frightened, too. You think that now you're a monster like we are."

A lump came into Jameson's throat, and his eyes stung. "I have never thought of any of you as monsters, Eric. You have to know that. It's just that...all of this..." He shook his head. "I thought I'd have time to get used to the idea. I thought I'd be the one to decide if and when I was ready for this." He lifted his head, met Rhiannon's haughty stare. "You're right, Princess. I'm being an ass, and I'm sorry. If it hadn't been for all of you, I'd be dead right now, and I was even less ready for that." He could see her softening. Rhiannon liked it when he addressed her by her proper title. She was a pharaoh's daughter, after all. Not that she'd ever be likely to let any of them forget it. Jameson lowered his head, closed his eyes. "So I'm here. It's done. Can't be changed. I guess I might as well get used to the idea."

"You're going to be just fine, Jameson," Tamara told him. "I promise." He lifted his head, met her eyes and thought this wasn't all bad. He'd be even more able to take on DPI with his new abilities. He flexed his hand, wondering just how strong he was now. Strong enough, perhaps, to go back to that towering facility inWhite Plains and tear it down, brick by brick? Strong enough to make the bastards tell him what this last round of tests performed on him had been all about?

And then kill every last one of them?

"I imagine the first thing we'll need to teach you is how to guard your thoughts," Roland said, looking him squarely in the eye. "Although when they're as foolish as that one was, it might be better that we all know about them, hmm?"

"I don't blame you, Jameson," Rhiannon said, and her anger seemed to have been banked, for the moment, anyway. "I've been wanting to destroy everything even remotely associated with that organization of buffoons for years. But they all fight me." She jerked her head toward the others in the room.

"For good reason," Roland told her. "If we were to do that, we'd be making everything they believe about us, true. We'd become the heartless predators they claim we are. Deadly, destructive and dangerous. And they'd have all the more reason to mount a full-scale attack against us. Can you imagine, Rhiannon, what would happen if other branches of the government became involved? The military, for example?"

She tossed her head. "Bring them on."

Roland rolled his eyes heavenward, but Jameson laughed aloud. And then Eric was stepping closer, scanning his face. "Enough of all this," he said softly. "Jameson, tell us about the beast that attacked you.

Who was he? Can you describe him?"

"Yes," Roland put in. "We can't let him go on-"

"Not him," Jameson said, getting to his feet and turning to face them. "Her." He saw the frowns on their faces as he went on. "And we don't have to hunt her down. She surrendered herself to a DPI operative right before my eyes. Turned herself over, without batting an eye. I think she bought what he was selling, about them being able to make her human again."

"My God!" Tamara got to her feet. "Who was she, Jameson? Did you know her? Had you ever seen her before?"

He shook his head slowly. "I think the agent might have known who she was, but I was barely conscious. I kind of came around when he told her to come with him, to let him help her."

"It's better he found her than I," Rhiannon said.

"She was mad, I think," Jameson went on. "Filthy, her clothes tattered. She seemed very young...and I'm certain she was on the brink of starvation. I heard her crying, so I went to her. I thought I'd bring her to you, and you could help her."

"And we would have, of course," Tamara told him.

"If I ever see her again, I'll wring her pretty neck." Jameson thought of how fragile she'd seemed...just before she sank her fangs into his throat. And then he thought a little further, and had to avert his face from the others.

She'd taken him someplace he'd never been. Shocked him at that first piercing of his flesh, but then...

Jesus, why hadn't any of them told him what it was like? Was it normal to react that way? He'd never been so turned on in his life as he'd been when she'd held him hard against her, and worked his throat with her mouth and her teeth. And he'd wanted it. Wanted her. And for a few minutes, he'd figured it would be all right. That she'd only take enough to keep her alive, and then she'd stop.

But she hadn't stopped. The bitch had tried to kill him. And he'd been hard for her right up until he'd collapsed at her feet.

Jesus.

"I'll kill her," he whispered.

"Vengeance is a wasted emotion, Jameson," Tamara told him.

"She tried to kill me."

"Perhaps she didn't know better."

"Or," Rhiannon put in, "perhaps she simply lost control of herself. It's been known to happen...in certain circumstances."

Jameson looked up quickly, wondering if they'd all been privy to his every thought just now. But Rhiannon was looking at Roland as if he were a juicy steak, and he thought he detected a glint in Roland's eye, as well. Jameson decided not to say any more about his erotic attack. He tried not to think any more about it, either, but that was far harder than it should have been.

Time to change the subject. "Look, if DPI goons are out rounding up vampires for another group of experiments, maybe it's time you guys get the hell out of the city."

"Exactly," Roland said. "But don't forget, my friend, you're a vampire now, too." Jameson frowned. Damn.

"Even should you decide to go ahead with your plans to learn what they wanted you for this last time they took you, Jameson, you have to agree, it would be better to wait. You need time to get used to your new nature. To learn to control it. To test the limits of your strength, your endurance." He had a point there. Damn him.

Roland smiled, no doubt having heard that thought, too. "There is much you need to learn about being a vampire, Jameson."

"Hell, Roland, I know more about being a vampire than you think. I've been around you most of my life."

"Yes, that's true enough. But living the life of the undead is a far different matter than just witnessing it.

You've discovered that already, haven't you?"

It was true. It was different, far different than he'd imagined it would be. His senses were altered, heightened somehow. And there were new ones to explore as well.

"All right," Jameson finally conceded. "All right, we'll all go. But I'm coming back. I'll find out what those bastards wanted with me, if it's the last thing I do." Every one of them looked worried. Except Rhiannon. She wore her Mona Lisa smile. Very secretive.

And Jameson wondered what the hell she was thinking.