The Night House (10 page)

“Um.” Her eyes are on Jeremiah, so I face him.

His gaze is firmly on the wall above my head. “Garlic. Disgusting.” There is so much disdain in his voice it feels contagious. He straightens his sleeves. “Bianca, would you please follow me? There are people who wish to meet you.”

Jeremiah walks off. I can barely stand how much I hate him. Almost as much as I want nauth right now.

I force myself to check on Alex. “Are you—?”

“I’m fine, babe. Don’t keep him waiting.” Alex squeezes my hand with an uneasy smile.

I go after Jeremiah.

He leads me into the nearest private room. It is all deep blues and smooth sharp surfaces inside. The two vamps I recognize sit idly, the male in black robes who spoke to everyone, and the female who scares me.

“This is the one I told you about. I’d like you all to meet Bianca St. Germain.”

Of course, I don’t get their names.

The woman’s face lights up like a thousand-watt light bulb. “What an honor. You know the last St. Germain I met was two hundred and fifty years ago.”

The vamp in the robes comes over to me and lifts my hand up, only to pat it gently. He is thin for a vampire, like maybe he hasn’t been feeding as often as he should. He’s almost as bad as Micah. I remember Finn’s comment about luxury. He probably fasts or something crazy like that. He meets my gaze with eerily clear eyes and, with a satisfied “Hmm,” he nods.

“You are strong for a human,” he decides. Then he turns to Jeremiah. “You take good care of her, my child.”

He leaves the room, and it feels much smaller without him.

Jeremiah advances on me, but then stops himself. “Where are my manners? My lady, would you like the first bite? I owe you much more.”

The female smiles. “You’re too kind, but don’t worry about me. She’s all yours. Do me a favor, though, and put the girl out of her misery. She’s practically drooling.”

Jeremiah narrows his eyes. “Bianca, sit down.”

I sit, hating myself for not thinking twice about it.

Jeremiah sits beside me and takes my wrist. My heart struggles in my chest. I’m so close.

“I must say, I was honored, and surprised, when I got your vote. I thought I would have been fighting you for the position.”

The female smiles. I’m about to scream, just so
something
will happen.

“Darling, you should know by now, I much prefer to be behind the scenes. You get so much more done that way.”

He nods, but his eyes are on my skin. “Well, I am in your debt.”

Her smile is utterly dazzling. “Don’t forget it.”

As she leaves the room, Jeremiah lifts my arm up. Then, finally, he bites my wrist. I hold my breath. Finally, my nauth-induced heaven. But all too soon, he lifts his mouth up from my arm. Barely any nauth gets through.

“What?” I can’t stop myself. My voice quavers in the silence.

Jeremiah lifts his head and without even batting an eye, slaps me across the face. The pain rings in my head. Tears come to my eyes, but I don’t dare let them spill.

Then he pats my face where he slapped me. “Tonight is a night of self-restraint. No excess. I will only take what I need, and I will conserve my nauth, as that is not necessary to feeding when the victim is willing.”

He gets two more quick feeds, leaving six fang marks on my arm. Each time, he manages to take enough blood to make me dizzy and leave only enough nauth to dull the pain. When he is finished, he dabs his mouth with his handkerchief.

“You know,” he says, “if you were to leave this place and work for me, this would be an unnecessary ritual. You could have nauth whenever you wanted.”

He takes my chin in his hand. “You would be cared for.”

I hate him. I hate his pointless religion and his need to impress his stupid friends. I want him to leave and never come back. I want to hurt him. I want him to feel my pain.

I want to kill him.

No.

I just wish I could stop needing him.

James

I broke my arm when I was ten years old. It was the best day of my life.

That extreme pain was so unlike anything I’d ever felt. It was completely my own. I remember trying to convince the doctor that I needed the cast for longer. They thought I just liked having it because it made me special at school. I just wasn’t ready to let go of that ache.

As long as I was in pain, I had something of my own.

Pain taught me how to focus on myself. It wasn’t long before I started seeking it out.

Foster care isn’t always as horrible as TV makes it seem. I don’t remember any of my old guardians abusing me.

What I remember is hiding. Hiding my ability, my pain, and, soon enough, what I did to cope with it.

By the time I was twelve, I had a routine. My fosters would leave for whatever reason, and I would have a certain number of hours to myself. I always knew what every hour bought me. But one day, they came home too soon.

I heard them come in from the upstairs bathroom. I flipped out. No excuses, completely unprepared. What the hell was I supposed to tell them? If I hid it, they’d suspect something. If I came right out with it, it might not seem too suspicious. So I forced myself to cry and burst out of the room. Crimson blood seeped through my fingers as I held my wrist.

“What do I do?” I screamed from the top of the stairs.

“Oh my God!” Mrs. Suller gripped her husband’s arm.

Mr. Suller broke away and took the stairs two at a time. He gingerly took my wrist from me, struggling to remain calm.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” He led me into the bathroom, and I sat on the counter. His whole body was tense like taught wires. After he wiped off all the spilled blood, he began to wrap my wound in gauze.

“What happened?” he asked in a whisper.

Mrs. Suller appeared in the doorway.

I took a deep breath. “I was shoveling snow outside.” Not a complete lie. “I slipped on the ice and cut myself on the edge of the shovel.”

Mrs. Suller let out a breath slowly. “Is that really what happened?”

My whole body felt like it was caving in. They knew. The cut was too obvious, or I looked too guilty.

I was going to try to deny it, I was building up the lie in my mouth, but my hesitation was answer enough for her. Her hand went to her mouth.

“John.”

“I know,” he said. “Let’s just get this cleaned up.”

We spent the evening in silence as Mr. Suller cleaned me up, and then took me to the ER. I got some stitches in my arm, and a long awkward conversation with the nurse about depression and the frustration of foster care. She told me I just had to stick it out, and it would get better.

Maybe things would have gotten better if it weren’t for the fact that I could feel my foster parents deciding to give me up.

I was back at the group home by the end of the week.

***

The bandage only lasted a few weeks, but I was broken.

By the time I made it to the Fieldses, causing myself pain was so deeply engrained into my persona, I didn’t know how to be myself without it. I think they sensed it in me. Obviously, not what I could do; I was too good at hiding that. But I was clearly one of the most troubled kids that had come to their home.

I think I was there about two weeks when Neil and Amanda knocked gently on my door and pushed it open. Amanda had a box in her hands.

“Hey, there, James.” Neil waved.

I already felt different in their home. It was mostly the way they spoke to me. They were gentle without coddling me, respectful without aggression. I still felt a little scared at that point, whenever the two of them approached me at once. I immediately felt like I’d done something wrong. So when I shrank away, they held their place at the door.

Ally, however, just pushed her way past them and took the box from her mom’s hands.

“It’s clay,” she said, setting it on the bed in front of me.

“We thought you might want something to do while you’re up here,” Neil said. “I always find that working with my hands helps me think.”

Amanda smiled at me then, in a way that I felt like I missed, even though I’d never had it. Maybe the Fieldses were different because they’d already adopted Ally. They treated me like
their
kid, not some foster kid. When Amanda smiled at me, I wanted to feel like I deserved it.

I didn’t open the box until later, when they left me alone again. There was a small brick of clay in every color I’d ever seen. Methodically, I peeled the plastic wrap off of every lump and placed them on the bedside table. Already, I knew I had found something I liked. After they were freshly opened, I took my time changing every square into a sphere.

Three hours went by with me and those chunks of clay. It was dark again when Ally came back in the room.

“They want you to be artists like them,” she said. “Mom paints and Dad takes pictures. They’re pretty good.”

“What do you do?” I asked her.

Her face lit up and, without asking, she disappeared and came back with a roll-out keyboard. She just sat down on the floor and started playing something from one of her music books. I felt my fingers cramping up with her motions, but I didn’t mind so much. Not with the music playing, and not with the clay in my hands.

Just like that, the Fieldses had given me something that was mine. Only this time, I could keep it forever.

***

Despite Ally’s musical inclination, and her complete lack of shame about it, Shiloh was the one who really got me into music. It sounds weird to say—doesn’t everyone like music? But Shiloh
breathes
music. He introduced me to my favorite band. It was no small feat, being friends with me back then. I was just so scared of anyone finding out what I could do. All that fear put me over the edge one day. I wound up outing myself to him by accident.

I was having a panic attack. Or some other kid’s panic attack. That happened a lot in school; people’s extreme emotions were the easiest to feel.

Shiloh found me in the bathroom, freaking out. I tried to get him to leave, but him being the son of a nurse, he had to make sure I was okay. And, obviously, I wasn’t. He helped me. Shiloh coaxed me out of the bathroom stall, let me drink from his water bottle and sat me down on a locker room bench. Then he gave me his headphones and sat next to me. “NYC” by Interpol was playing.

Back then, he didn’t know that he was saving me. He forced me to focus on him. Through Shiloh’s relative calm, I was able to find my way back into my own head.

He’s been doing that for me ever since.

Bianca

When I wake up the next morning, it feels like I didn’t get any sleep, even though I know I passed out in a bloodless stupor. My body feels so tight, like I’m nothing but skin and bones. I have no veins when there isn’t any nauth inside them.

It’s ten in the morning, but Finn’s guys are still cleaning up from last night. They have to replace all the furniture and turn this back into the Night House we all know and love.

Finn emerges from his office at the end of the hall and spots me.

“I heard about the intruder last night. You and Alex are okay, right?”

“My God, Finn, are you worried about us?”

“It’s just that you appear sick,” he answers, eyes gone dead.

“I’m fine,” I snap, arms crossed. I know he sees the withdrawal written across my face. “But that guy last night was nuts. What was his deal? Jeremiah said something about garlic.”

“There’s a reason human mythos says garlic is the bane of our existence. Highly addictive, disorienting, and easily obtained. It’s a slow, humiliating death.”

He hangs there in my doorway for a moment more, studying my own slow, humiliating death. “You didn’t get much nauth last night, did you?”

Again, there is that messed up flash of concern.

“Like you don’t know,” I say.

“You’re stronger than this, Bianca.”

I stare at him, partially offended, and partially endeared. He hasn’t spoken to me like this in a long time.

“Finn?” I wrap my arms around myself.

“Bianca,” he answers.

“How come Jeremiah wanted me to meet those other vampires?”

“They recognize your name,” Finn says. “There was a much older St. Germain long before your time who made a bit of a splash in our world. Jeremiah just wanted to impress his friends.”

“God, do they think I’m related?”

Finn shrugs. “I think Jeremiah will jump at the chance to impress someone, whether it’s real or not. You are something for him to show off. A trophy.”

I roll my eyes. “Here I was thinking I was interesting for something other than appearances.”

Finn’s eyes scan me. “Are you sure you’re well enough to leave? There is a mark on your face.” He touches his own, where Jeremiah slapped me.

My hand flies to my cheek. “It’s nothing.”

Finn’s eyebrows rise.

“I can still leave whenever I want, remember?” I say this to comfort myself. To remind myself that I’m not tied here by anything other than my own stupidity.

He starts to turn away but stops himself. “Maybe one of these days you will take your own advice.” His cold, dark eyes are less cold and dark every day. “Be home before dark. Jeremiah will be waiting for you.”

***

I walk out into a warm morning, thinking about what Finn said. Nobody has ever remarked about my name before. I had no idea the name St. Germain meant anything. It makes me wonder whether my parents knew the original St. Germain. Maybe that’s why they decided to hunt: they didn’t want to be someone else’s trophy.

Two hours go by, and I find myself sitting on a bench in Love Park eating a soft pretzel. It does absolutely nothing to soothe my shaking body or my aching veins. I can see the entrance to Suburban Station across the street. Behind me, kids eat their lunches and play loudly in the fountain. For a moment, I close my eyes and just listen.

It’s hard to believe I’m a part of it. Sometimes it feels like I’m not really here. These people don’t exist. All of this is simply put on by the Night House to make me feel like I have some sort of freedom. But I know that being allowed to walk among humans during the day is nowhere near freedom.