Secret Vampire (9 page)

She looked a question at James, which he an
swered with a barely discernable shake of his head.
He didn't know what the problem was, either.

But they both knew what it meant. James was
going to have to leave. Poppy felt cheated and frus
trated. All she wanted was to talk with James, to
revel in their new discovery of each other-and she
couldn't. Not with Phil here.

"How come you're here, anyway?" she asked him irritably.

"I drove Mom here. You know she doesn't like driving at night. And I brought this." He swung her
boom box up onto the bedside table. "And these."
He put a black CD case beside it. "All your favorite
music."

Poppy felt her anger draining away. "That was
sweet," she said. She was touched, especially since
Phil hadn't said "All your favorite
weird
music,"
which was usually how he referred to it. "Thank
you."

Phil shrugged, shooting a glare at James.

Poor Phil, Poppy thought. Her brother actually
looked disheveled. And his eyes were swollen.

"Where's Mom?" she was starting to say, when her mother walked in.

"I'm back, sweetie," her mother said, with a very
creditable cheery smile. Then she looked surprised.
"James-it was nice of you to come."

"Yeah, but he was just leaving," Phil said signifi
cantly. "I'll show him the way out."

James didn't waste energy on a fight he couldn't
win. He turned to Poppy and said, "I'll see you
tomorrow."

There was a look in his gray eyes-gray, not silver
now-that was just for her. A look that had never
been there before in all the years she'd known him.

"Goodbye, James," she said softly. "And-thank
you." She knew he understood what she meant.

It wasn't until he was out the door, with Phillip
on his heels like a bouncer after a rowdy customer,
that a thought occurred to her.

James had said that she would be in danger if she
didn't get enough of his blood. But they'd gotten interrupted almost immediately after that. Had Poppy
gotten enough? And what would happen if she

hadn't?

She herself had no idea, and there was no way to
ask James.

Phil stayed right behind James all the way out of
the hospital.

Not tonight, James thought. He just couldn't deal
with Phillip North tonight. His patience was gone,
and his mind was occupied in calculating whether
Poppy had taken enough of his blood to be safe. He
thought
she had-but the sooner she got more, the
better.

"You'll 'see her tomorrow'-well, you're
not
going
to see her tomorrow," Phil said abruptly as they
walked into the garage.

"Phil, give me
a
break."

Instead, Phillip stepped in front of him and stopped dead, forcing James to stop, too. Phillip was breathing
quickly, his green eyes burning.

"Okay,
bud,
"
he said. "I don't know what you
think you're doing with Poppy-but it's all over now.
From now on you stay away from her.
Understand?"

Visions of breaking Phillip's neck like
a new pencil
danced in James's head. But Phil was Poppy's brother,
and
his green eyes were surprisingly like hers.

"I would never hurt Poppy," he said wearily.

"Give
me
a
break. Are you going to stand there
and tell me you don't want to move in on her?"

James couldn't come up with an answer immediately. Yesterday he could have truthfully said no, he
didn't want to move in on Poppy. Because it would
have meant a death sentence for him and Poppy
both. It was only when Poppy had received a death
sentence of her own that he'd allowed himself to
look at his feelings.

And now
...
now he'd been close to Poppy. He'd
touched her mind, and had found that she was even
braver and more gallant than he'd thought; even
more compassionate-and more vulnerable.

He wanted to be that close to Poppy again. He
cared about her in a way that made his throat ache.
He
belonged
with Poppy.

He also realized that that might not be enough.

Sharing blood forged a powerful bond between two
people. It would be wrong of him to take advantage
of that bond-or of Poppy's gratitude to him. Until
he was sure that Poppy's mind was clear and her
decisions were her own, he should keep a little dis
tance. It was the only honorable thing to do.

"The last thing I want to do is hurt her," he re
peated. "Why can't you believe that?" He made a half-hearted attempt to capture Phil's gaze as he said
it. It failed, just as it had in the hospital. Phillip
seemed to be one of those rare humans who couldn't
be influenced by mind control.

"Why can't I believe it? Because
I
know you. You
and your-girlfriends." Phil managed to make the word sound like a curse. "You go through six or
seven a year-and when you're through with them,
you dump them like trash."

James was distracted briefly by amusement, be
cause Phil was dead on. He
needed six
girlfriends a
year. After two months the bond between them became dangerously strong.

"Poppy's not my girlfriend and I'm not going to
dump her," he said, pleased at his own cleverness.
He'd avoided an outright lie-Poppy
wasn't
his girl
friend in any normal sense. They'd merged their
souls, that was all-they hadn't talked about dating
or anything.

"So you are
telling me you're not gonna try to put
the moves on her. Is that it? Because you'd better be
sure."
As he spoke, Phil did what was probably the
most dangerous thing he'd ever done in his life. He
grabbed James by the front of the shirt.

You stupid
human,
James thought.
He
briefly con
sidered breaking every bone in Phil's hand. Or pick
ing Phil up and throwing him across the garage into
somebody's windshield. Or
...

"You're Poppy's brother," he said through his
teeth. "So I'm going to give you a chance to let go."

Phil stared into his face a moment, then let go,
looking slightly shaken. But not shaken enough to keep quiet.

"You have to leave her alone," he said. "You don't
understand. This disease she's got
it's serious. She
doesn't need anything messing up her life right now.
She just needs
. . ." He stopped and swallowed.

Suddenly James felt very tired. He couldn't blame
Phil for being upset-Phil's mind was full of crystal
clear pictures of Poppy dying. Usually James got only
general images about what humans were thinking,
but Phillip was broadcasting so loud it nearly deaf
ened him.

Half-truths and evasions hadn't worked. It was
time for Outright Lies. Anything to satisfy Phil and
get James away from this.

"I know that what Poppy has is serious," he said. "I found an article about it on the Net. That's why I
was
here,
okay? I feel sorry for her. I'm not interested
in Poppy except as a friend, but it makes her feel
better if I pretend that I like her."

Phillip hesitated, looking at him hard and suspi
ciously. Then he shook his head slowly. "Being
friends is one thing, but it's wrong to mix her up. In
the end, pretending isn't going to do her any good.
I don't even think it makes her feel better now-she
looked pretty bad in there."

"Bad?"

"Pale and shaky. You know Poppy; you know how
she gets overexcited about things. You shouldn't be
fooling around with her emotions." He narrowed his eyes and said, "So maybe you'd better stay away from her for a while. Just to make sure she hasn't got the wrong idea."

"Whatever," James said. He wasn't really listening.

"Okay," Phillip said. "We have a deal. But I'm warning you, if you break it, you're in trouble."

James wasn't listening to that, either. Which was
a mistake.

In the darkened hospital room Poppy lay and lis
tened to her mother's breathing.

You're not asleep, she thought, and I'm not asleep.
And you know I'm not, and I know you're
not....

But they couldn't talk. Poppy wanted desperately to let her mother know that everything was going to
be all right-but
how?
She couldn't betray James's
secret. And even if she could, her mother wouldn't
believe her.

I have to find a way, Poppy thought.
I
have to.
And
then a great wave of drowsiness overtook her. It had
been the longest day in her life, and she was full of
alien blood already working its strange magic in her.
She couldn't ...
she just couldn't
...
keep her eyes
open.

Several times during the night a nurse came in to take
her vital signs, but Poppy never really woke up. For the
first time in weeks, no pain interrupted her dreams.

She opened her eyes the next morning feeling con
fused and weak. Black dots swarmed through her
vision when she sat up.

"Hungry?" her mother asked.
"They left this
breakfast tray for you."

The smell of hospital eggs made Poppy feel nause
ated. But because her mother was watching her anx
iously, she played with the food on the tray before
she went to wash up. In the bathroom mirror she
examined the side of her neck. Amazing-there was
no trace of a mark.

When she came out of the bathroom, her mother
was crying.

Not floods of tears, not sobbing. Just dabbing her
eyes on a Kleenex. But Poppy couldn't stand it.

"Mom, if you're worried about telling me ... I
know."

The whole sentence was out before Poppy could
even think about it.

Her mother's head jerked up in horror. She stared
at Poppy with more tears spilling. "Sweetheart-you
know
... ?"

"I know what I've got and I know how bad it is,"
Poppy said. If this was the wrong strategy, it was too
late now. "I listened when you and Cliff were talking
to the doctors."

"Oh, my
Lord."

What can I say? Poppy wondered. It's okay, Mom, because I'm not going to die; I'm going to become a
vampire. I hope. I can't be sure, because sometimes
you don't make it through the transformation. But
with any luck, I should be sucking blood in a few weeks.

Come to think of it, she hadn't asked James exactly
how long it would take to change her.

Her mother was taking deep, calming breaths.
"Poppy, I want you to know how much I love you.
Cliff and I will do anything-anything-we can to
help
you. Right now he's looking into some clinical
protocols-those are experimental studies where they
test new ways of treating people. If we can just
.. . buy time ...
until a cure
. ' .."

Poppy couldn't stand it. She could
feel
her mother's
pain. Literally. It carne in palpable waves that seemed
to echo through her bloodstream, making her dizzy.