Night World 1 (5 page)

The way he was standing? The fact that she couldn't see his face? All she knew was that James suddenly seemed like a stranger.

He turned around and very slowly closed the heavy door.

Darkness. Now the only light came in through the window. Poppy felt curiously isolated from the rest of the hospital, from the rest of the world.

And that should have been good, to be alone with James, protected from everything else. If only she weren't having this weird feeling of not recognizing him.

“You know the test results,” he said quietly. It wasn't a question.

“My mom doesn't know I know,” Poppy said. How could she be talking coherently when all she wanted to do was scream? “I overheard the doctors telling her…. James, I've got it. And…it's bad; it's a bad kind of cancer. They said it's already spread. They said I'm going to…” She couldn't get the last word out, even though it was shrieking through her mind.

“You're going to die,” James said. He still seemed quiet and centered. Detached.

“I read up on it,” James went on, walking over to the window and looking out. “I know how bad it is. The articles said there was a lot of pain. Serious pain.”

“James,” Poppy gasped.

“Sometimes they have to do surgery just to try to stop the pain. But whatever they do, it won't save you. They can fill you full of chemicals and irradiate you, and you'll still die. Probably before the end of summer.”

“James—”

“It will be your last summer—”

“James, for God's sake!”
It was almost a scream. Poppy was breathing in great shaking gulps, clinging to the blankets. “Why are you doing this to me?”

He turned and in one movement seized her wrist, his fingers closing over the plastic hospital bracelet. “I want you to understand that they can't help you,” he said, ragged and intense. “Do you understand that?”

“
Yes,
I understand,” Poppy said. She could hear the mounting hysteria in her own voice. “But is that what you came here to say? Do you want to
kill
me?”

His fingers tightened painfully. “No! I want to save you.” Then he let out a breath and repeated it more quietly, but with no less intensity. “I want to save you, Poppy.”

Poppy spent a few moments just getting air in and out of her lungs. It was hard to do it without dissolving into sobs. “Well, you can't,” she said at last. “Nobody can.”

“That's where you're wrong.” Slowly he released her wrist and gripped the bed rail instead. “Poppy, there's something I've got to tell you. Something about me.”

“James…” Poppy could breathe now, but she didn't know what to say. As far as she could tell, James had gone crazy. In a way, if everything else hadn't been so awful, she might have been flattered. James had lost his consummate cool—over her. He was upset enough about her situation to go completely nonlinear.

“You really do care,” she said softly, with a laugh that was half a sob. She put a hand on his where it rested on the bed rail.

He laughed shortly in turn. His hand flipped over to grasp hers roughly; then he pulled away. “You have no idea,” he said in a terse, strained voice.

Looking out the window, he added, “You think you know everything about me, but you don't. There's something very important that you don't know.”

By now Poppy just felt numb. She couldn't understand why James kept harping on himself, when
she
was the one about to die. But she tried to conjure up some sort of gentleness for him as she said, “You can tell me anything. You know that.”

“But this is something you won't believe. Not to mention that it's breaking the laws.”

“The law?”

“The laws. I go by different laws than you. Human laws don't mean much to us, but our own are supposed to be unbreakable.”

“James,” Poppy said, with blank terror. He really
was
losing his mind.

“I don't know the right way to say it. I feel like somebody in a bad horror movie.” He shrugged, and said without turning, “I know how this sounds, but…Poppy, I'm a vampire.”

Poppy sat still on the bed for a moment. Then she groped out wildly toward the bedside table. Her fingers closed on a stack of little crescent-shaped plastic basins and she threw the whole stack at him.

“You
bastard
!” she screamed, and reached for something else to throw.

J
ames dodged as Poppy lobbed a paperback book at him. “Poppy—”

“You jerk! You snake! How can you
do
this to me? You spoiled, selfish, immature—”

“Shhh! They're going to hear you—”

“Let them! Here I am, and I've just found out that I'm going to
die,
and all you can think of is playing a joke on me. A stupid, sick joke. I can't
believe
this. Do you think that's
funny
?” She ran out of breath to rave with. James, who had been making quieting motions with his hands, now gave up and looked toward the door.

“Here comes the nurse,” he said.

“Good, and I'm going to ask her to throw you
out
,” Poppy said. Her anger had collapsed, leaving her near tears. She had never felt so utterly betrayed and abandoned. “I hate you, you know,” she said.

The door opened. It was the nurse with the flowered blouse and green scrub pants. “Is anything the matter here?” she said, turning on the light. Then she saw James. “Now, let's see; you don't look like family,” she said. She was smiling, but her voice had the ring of authority about to be enforced.

“He's not, and I want him out of here,” Poppy said.

The nurse fluffed up Poppy's pillows, put a gentle hand on her forehead. “Only family members are allowed to stay overnight,” she said to James.

Poppy stared at the TV and waited for James to go. He didn't. He walked around the bed to stand by the nurse, who looked up at him while she continued straightening Poppy's blankets. Then her hands slowed and stopped moving.

Poppy glanced at her sideways in surprise.

The nurse was just staring at James. Hands limp on the blankets, she gazed at him as if she were mesmerized.

And James was just staring back. With the light on, Poppy could see James's face—and again she had that odd feeling of not recognizing him. He was very pale and almost stern looking, as if he were doing something that required an effort. His jaw was tight and his eyes—his eyes were the color of silver. Real silver, shining in the light.

For some reason, Poppy thought of a starving panther.

“So you see there's nothing wrong here,” James said to the nurse, as if continuing a conversation they'd been having.

The nurse blinked once, then looked around the room as if she'd just awakened from a doze. “No, no; everything's fine,” she said. “Call me if…” She looked briefly distracted again, then murmured, “If, um, you need anything.”

She walked out. Poppy watched her, forgetting to breathe. Then, slowly, moving only her eyes, she looked at James.

“I know it's a cliché,” James said. “An overused demonstration of power. But it gets the job done.”

“You set this up with her,” Poppy said in a bare whisper.

“No.”

“Or else it's some kind of psychic trick. The Amazing Whatshisname.”

“No,” James said, and sat down on an orange plastic chair.

“Then I'm going
crazy
.” For the first time that evening Poppy wasn't thinking about her illness. She couldn't think properly about anything; her mind was a whirling, crashing jumble of confusion. She felt like Dorothy's house after it had been picked up by the tornado.

“You're not crazy. I probably did this the wrong way; I said I didn't know how to explain it. Look, I know how hard it is for you to believe. My people
arrange
it that way; they do everything they can to keep humans not believing. Their lives depend on it.”

“James, I'm sorry; I just—” Poppy found that her hands were trembling. She shut her eyes. “Maybe you'd better just—”

“Poppy,
look at me.
I'm telling you the truth. I swear it.” He stared at her face a moment, then let out a breath. “Okay. I didn't want to have to do this, but…”

He stood, leaning close to Poppy. She refused to flinch, but she could feel her eyes widening,

“Now, look,” he said, and his lips skinned back from his teeth.

A simple action—but the effect was astonishing. Transforming. In that instant he changed from the pale but fairly ordinary James of a moment ago—into something Poppy had never seen before. A different species of human being.

His eyes flared silver and his entire face took on a predatory look. But Poppy scarcely noticed that; she was staring at his teeth.

Not teeth. Fangs. He had canines like a cat's. Elongated and curving, ending in delicate, piercing points.

They were nothing like the fake vampire fangs sold at novelty stores. They looked very strong and very sharp and very real.

Poppy screamed.

James clapped a hand over her mouth. “We don't want that nurse back in here.”

When he lifted the hand, Poppy said, “Oh, my God; oh, my
God.
…”

“All those times when you said I could read your mind,” James said. “Remember? And the times when I heard things you didn't hear, or moved faster than you could move?”

“Oh, my God.”

“It's true, Poppy.” He picked up the orange chair and twisted one of the metal legs out of shape. He did it easily, gracefully. “We're stronger than humans,” he said. He twisted the leg back and put the chair down. “We see better in the dark. We're built for hunting.”

Poppy finally managed to capture an entire thought. “I don't care
what
you can do,” she said shrilly. “You can't be a vampire. I've known you since you were five years
old.
And you've gotten older every year, just like me. Explain
that.
”

“Everything you know is wrong.” When she just stared at him, he sighed again and said, “Everything you think you know about vampires, you've picked up from books or TV. And it's all written by humans, I'll guarantee that. Nobody in the Night World would break the code of secrecy.”

“The Night World. Where's the Night World?”

“It's not a place. It's like a secret society—for vampires and witches and werewolves. All the best people. And I'll explain about it later,” James said grimly. “For now—look, it's simple. I'm a vampire because my parents are vampires. I was
born
that way. We're the lamia.”

All Poppy could think of was Mr. and Mrs. Rasmussen with their luxury ranch-style house and their gold Mercedes. “Your
parents
?”

“Lamia
is just an old word for vampires, but for us it means the ones who're born that way,” James said, ignoring her. “We're born and we age like humans—except that we can stop aging whenever we want. We breathe. We walk around in the daylight. We can even eat regular food.”

“Your parents,” Poppy said again faintly.

He looked at her. “Yeah. My parents. Look, why do you think my mom does interior decorating? Not because they need the money. She meets a lot of people that way, and so does my dad, the society shrink. It only takes a few minutes alone with somebody, and the human never remembers it afterward.”

Poppy shifted uncomfortably. “So you, um, drink people's blood, huh?” Even after everything she'd seen, she couldn't say it without half-laughing.

James looked at the laces of his Adidas. “Yes. Yes, I sure do,” he said softly. Then he looked up and met her gaze directly.

His eyes were pure silver.

Poppy leaned back against the pile of pillows on her bed. Maybe it was easier to believe him because the unbelievable had already happened to her earlier today. Reality had already been turned upside down—so, honestly, what did one more impossibility matter?

I'm going to die and my best friend is a bloodsucking monster, she thought.

The argument was over, and she was out of energy. She and James looked at each other in silence.

“Okay,” she said finally, and it meant everything she'd just realized.

“I didn't tell you this just to get it off my chest,” James said, his voice still muted. “I said I could save you, remember?”

“Vaguely.” Poppy blinked slowly, then said more sharply, “Save me how?”

His gaze shifted to empty air. “The way you're thinking.”

“Jamie, I
can't
think anymore.”

Gently, without looking at her, he put a hand on her shin under the blanket. He shook her leg slightly, a gesture of affection. “I'm gonna turn you into a vampire, kid.”

Poppy put both fists to her face and began to cry.

“Hey.” He let go of her shin and put an awkward arm around her, pulling her to sit up. “Don't do that. It's okay. It's better than the alternative.”

“You're…freaking…crazy,” Poppy sobbed. Once the tears had started, they flowed too easily—she couldn't stop them. There was comfort in crying, and in being held by James. He felt strong and reliable and he smelled good.

“You said you had to be born one,” she added blurrily, between sobs.

“No, I didn't. I said
I
was born one. There are plenty of the other kind around. Made vampires. There would be more, but there's a law against just making any jerk off the street into one.”

“But I
can't.
I'm just what I am; I'm
me.
I can't be—like that.”

He put her gently away so he could look into her face. “Then you're going to die. You don't have any other choice. I checked around—even asked a witch. There's nothing else in the Night World to help you. What it comes down to is: Do you want to live or not?”

Poppy's mind, which had been swamped in confusion again, suddenly fixed on this question. It was like a flashlight beam in a pitch-black room.

Did she want to live?

Oh, God, of
course
she did.

Until today she'd assumed it was her unconditional
right
to live. She hadn't even been grateful for the privilege. But now she knew it wasn't something to take for granted—and she also knew it was something she'd fight for.

Wake up, Poppy! This is the voice of reason calling. He says he can save your life.

“Wait a minute. I've got to think,” Poppy said tightly to James. Her tears had stopped. She pushed him away completely and stared fiercely at the white hospital blanket.

Okay. Okay. Now get your head straight, girl.

You knew James had a secret. So you never imagined it was anything like this, so what? He's still James. He may be some godawful undead fiend, but he still cares about you.
And there's nobody else to help you.

She found herself clutching at James's hand without looking at him. “What's it like?” she said through clenched teeth.

Steady and matter-of-fact, he said, “It's different. It's not something I'd recommend if there was another choice, but…it's okay. You'll be sick while your body's changing, but afterward you'll never get any kind of disease again. You'll be strong and quick—and immortal.”

“I'd live forever? But would I be able to stop aging?” She had visions of herself as an immortal crone.

He grimaced. “Poppy—you'd stop aging
now.
That's what happens to made vampires. Essentially, you're
dying
as a mortal. You'll look dead and be unconscious for a while. And then…you'll wake up.”

“I see.” Sort of like Juliet in the tomb, Poppy thought. And then she thought, Oh, God…Mom and Phil.

“There's another thing you should know,” James was saying. “A certain percentage of people don't make it.”

“Don't make it?”

“Through the change. People over twenty almost never do. They don't
ever
wake up. Their bodies can't adjust to the new form and they burn out. Teenagers usually live through it, but not always.”

Oddly enough, this was comforting to Poppy. A qualified hope seemed more believable than an absolute one. To live, she would have to take a chance.

She looked at James. “How do you do it?”

“The traditional way,” he said with the ghost of a smile. Then, gravely: “We exchange blood.”

Oh, great, Poppy thought. And I was afraid of a simple shot. Now I'm going to have my blood drawn by fangs. She swallowed and blinked, staring at nothing.

“It's your choice, Poppy. It's up to you.”

There was a long pause, and then she said, “I want to live, Jamie.”

He nodded. “It'll mean going away from here. Leaving your parents. They can't know.”