Taboo (A Tale of the Talhari Book 1) (10 page)

He shrugged. “I suppose there have been a few changes over the centuries. I wasn’t born so pale. I was born brown, just a few shades lighter than you, as a matter of fact. But the curse lightened my skin and my eyes, made me look like a dead thing. But I am far from dead. Other than that…” he shrugged again. “…I am me.”

Her mouth fell open as she put it together. But it couldn’t be right? There was no way.

“I see you’ve come to it,” he said, closing the distance between them.

His smile was terrifying. He was beautiful, but darkness emanated from him like a physical force.

“Saul?” she asked, her voice quavering. “You’re Saul, first king of the Israelites. You’re the master,” she said, suddenly remembering what the creature had said to her in the building today. She’d been so angry with Alaric she’d completely forgotten. “Those creatures are yours.”

His smile broadened. “I knew you’d figure me out. Now,” he settled himself on her bed and crossed one leg over the other, “have you any idea why I’ve come?”

She stared at him. Was he real? Could she really be face to face with the first king of Israel? It didn’t seem possible.

“Yes, I’m real. Come closer and touch me.”

She moved forward, then realized what she was doing and stopped. “I’m fine where I am.”

“You’re beautiful. I hadn’t expected that,” he continued. “But I suppose if you caught Alaric’s eye there must have been something special about you. He’s a dodgy one, that one. Like a monk, if you get my meaning.”

“What do you want with me?”

He stood and sighed heavily. “I had come to kill you. Alaric and his team of troublemakers are making my life difficult. I can’t have those kinds of distractions, so I thought it prudent to provide Alaric with a distraction of his own. Nothing personal, you understand.”

“Alaric isn’t here. Neither are his team.”

“Oh, I know that. But he was here.” He laughed now. “Had stationed himself here to protect you. I’ve lived so many lifetimes, you can’t imagine, but one thing I’ve seen in my time that remains true no matter the century is that nothing distracts a person better than the death of a loved one.” He pointed at her. “In this instance, your death.”

To get to the door, to get out of her bedroom she’d have to run past him, something she didn’t think he’d allow. But he just said he was going to kill her. She didn’t have a choice, she had to do something.

“But that won’t work,” he continued. “You’re far too lovely a thing to kill. So much like her. I hadn’t realized how much until I entered your room.”

“Who?”

“Alaric’s one true love,” he said, waving his hands in the air as though it were obvious.

“You killed her.”

“Yes.”

“It’s you he’s been hunting.”

“Indeed.”

“If I were you, I’d leave. He’s not going to be happy to see you.”

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to kill you…not permanently at least. I have something better in mind. A better distraction by far than your death would have been.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “Look, I’m an innocent bystander. I have nothing to do with this.”

“You didn’t, until you survived last night. Had you died, all would be well right now for you.”

She charged toward the door, determined to run through him if she had to. But suddenly, she was on her back on the floor on the other side of the room.

She hadn’t seen him move, yet he’d been fast enough to grab her mid-run and throw her across the room.

“You’ve got spirit, I’ll give you that.” He approached, the smile in place. “Yes, I think this will work so much better.”

She tried to scramble to her feet, but he was too fast. Before she could get a hand under her he straddled her hips. She collapsed back to the floor beneath his weight. She tried to punch him but he clasped both of her hands in one of his larger ones. She tried to kick, to free herself, but it was like battling a statue. His strength was immense. He was unmovable.

She stared up at him. She’d never felt so helpless. Her struggles were nothing to him. On the contrary, they only seemed to amuse him.

“I know,” he said, “you’re overcome by my strength. But I respect you for putting in the effort.”

“What are you gonna do?”

He forced her head to the floor then pushed it to the side, exposing her throat.

“You know what I am, you know what I do, do you really need me to spell it out?”

She realized she didn’t.

She screamed and kicked in earnest. But it did no good. One moment he was staring at her, smiling that repellent smile, the next he’d bent to her throat and sank his fangs into her.

The pain was immediate and seemed to spread over her entire body. It wasn’t like in the movies or TV where getting bit by a vampire sent women into spasms of orgasmic joy. This hurt. This hurt like hell.

The press of his lips were cold against her skin as he sucked the life out of her.

An eternity seemed to pass as he drank from her. Black spots danced above her eyes. Fatigue washed over her. Her body was suddenly heavy, too burdensome to move. She could barely keep her eyes open. Every breath was a struggle.

When she thought she only had a few seconds left, he released her.

He didn’t bother holding her hands down, she was too weak to move them. All she could do was lay there, frustrated in her weakness and terrified of what would happen next. If he didn’t mean to kill her, what was he going to do to her?

“If I were to leave you here like this,” he said, “you would die.”

The truth of his words stung.

A tear pooled in her eyelid, then slid down her cheek.

“But I’m not going to leave you like this,” he went on. “And we’ll see what Alaric does with you; see if he still finds you so desirable, so irresistible, when he learns I’ve turned you into the thing he hates the most.”

At those words she knew what he was going to do to her. And she was too weak to fight him. Had been too weak to fight him from the moment he’d entered the room.

He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit into it. Blood spilled from the wound.

“I’ve only been successful at making three others,” he said, conversationally, “I’m the first so my blood is pure. It was too much for the others. It is my sincerest hope that you are the fourth survivor. If you live, you’ll be strong.”

He pressed his bleeding wrist to her mouth, forcing the blood to her lips.

She tried to spit it out, to refuse to swallow, but it was like an elixir. Her skin tingled where it touched, as though it were awakening her. There was life in his blood and despite herself, she wasn’t ready to die. She found herself lapping at the blood, sucking it in. And he, that monster, cradled her head, crooning to her all the while.

Too soon he took the blood away.

For long moments he stared down at her, smiling.

“How do you feel?”

She glared up at him, incapable of speech.

“Ah well, too soon for speech. I always forget.” He smiled then. The first genuine smile she’d seen. “If you survive, you’ll be magnificent.” The smile turned sinister again. “And deadly.”

She wanted to say something. Beg him to reverse what he’d done to her.

“You’re immortal now. And you’ll be strong and even more beautiful than you were before. You’ll be irresistible to humans, just like me. And Alaric will hate you; and he’ll hate me. And he’ll renew his vendetta to destroy me, which is exactly what I want. Distraction at its finest. He’ll try to stop you from feeding, but I think with my blood running through your veins you’ll be too strong for even him to stop. So feed. Embrace what you are.”

He got to his feet.

She felt herself lifted. He’d lifted her from the floor. He carried her to the bed and laid her gently across the comforter.

“For now, you will sleep. When you wake, the world will be a different place. Until we meet again, Sydney. And fear not, we will meet again.”

Chapter Nine

Sydney sat up. She was breathing heavily. She’d had a dream. An awful dream.

She looked around and saw that she was in her bedroom, in her bed as she had been when the dream had started.

Relief washed over her. It had been a dream. Just a dream.

She’d started to lay back, then paused. Something was different. Her vision was blurry. She rubbed her eyes, opened them, but the blurred vision remained. She rubbed again, so hard that her left contact lens popped out. When she opened her eyes, saw the contact lens on her knuckle, she swore. Now she’d have to get out of bed to put it back in.

She paused. Oddly, her left eye’s vision wasn’t blurry anymore.

She removed her right contact lens and gasped. She could see perfectly.

What was going on?

She scanned the room. Everything was crisp and clear.

On her nightstand was a bag of trail mix. She’d only registered it because as she scanned the nightstand she’d begun reading the fine print on the back of the package that listed the ingredients. How was that possible?

“Peanuts, sesame sticks, wheat flour…” she read, stunned.

She could see perfectly. Scratch that. Her eyesight was better than perfect. How was that possible? She had a minus seven point five prescription.

Alaric appeared in her doorway, bringing her upright again.

“You’re back,” she said, relieved.

“You’re awake,” he said, at the same time.

Behind him, Joshua, Trina, Rhonda, and Paul appeared.

“You brought the whole team back with you?” she asked, staring from face to face.

Alaric came deeper into the room. “Do you remember what happened?”

She continued to look at their faces. Gone were the smiles she’d seen earlier. There weren’t any remnants of the determination she’d seen on their faces as they worked, either. Determination had been replaced by worry.

Why were they worried?

“What’s going on?” she said, still looking from face to face. “Something’s going on. I don’t have my contacts in and I can read the ingredients on the back of my trail mix. I shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Do you remember what happened?” Alaric asked again.

She thought of the dream.

“It really happened, didn’t it?” she said, maneuvering in her bed so she could lean against the headboard.

“We’re not sure what happened except that you were bitten by a vampire.” Alaric came further into the room and sat on the edge of her bed. “And were turned.”

He stared into his lap at his hands.

“What happened?” Rhonda asked.

Again, Sydney looked from face to face. “Saul is here in Lynchburg,” she said at last. He came as soon as you left, Alaric. He came to kill me, but when it came down to doing it he changed his mind. He said it would hurt you more if he made me into the thing you hate most.”

Still, he didn’t look at her.

“So he bit you,” Trina said.

Sydney nodded. “Then forced me to drink his blood. I tried to fight him, but he was so strong. I felt like a toddler trying to fight a grown man. I was no match for him.”

Rhonda came and sat beside her on the bed. “Of course you weren’t. He is the first.” She put an arm around Sydney’s shoulder.

Sydney couldn’t help wishing it was Alaric who was trying to comfort her. Instead, he was sitting at the foot of her bed, not looking at her.

“He said his blood is pure, so I’d be strong…if I survived. And he said Alaric would hate me. And I can see it’s true. He can’t even look at me.”

At that, Alaric looked up. “He set a trap and I walked right into it. He wanted me to leave. He created that diversion precisely to get me to leave. I should have stayed with you.”

“How could you know?” Trina said. “We didn’t even know he was here.”

Alaric sighed. “Now…” he sighed again. “…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this.”

“But we don’t need to fix this,” Trina said. “She’s not like him, not yet.”

Joshua stepped into the room. “Trina’s right. Sydney isn’t a true bloodsucker until she makes her first kill, you know that. After that, there’s no going back.”

Sydney sat up, hope springing within her. “Is this true?”

“Yeah.”

“But how?”

“It’s simple,” Trina said. “As long as you don’t murder, your soul remains intact. You keep your humanity and your connection to God.”

“But after you make that first kill,” said Joshua, “all bets are off. By killing you give the demon power. It will take you over. The Sydney you are today, the Sydney you are at this moment, would be lost forever.”

“But that’s fantastic,” Sydney said. “All I have to do is not kill anyone. That’s easy. Does Saul know about that provision?”

“He does. And he knows that it’s not so easy,” Alaric said. “You’re not human anymore, Sydney. Your body has died. To live you need blood. In the same way you used to get hungry for food, you will get hungry for blood. Food no longer gives you strength, you find strength in blood. But the hunger is far more intense. It’s not so much a hunger as it is a need. That need will drive you to kill.”