A Wind of Change(25)

He had shown me enough.

These people were vampires.





Chapter 7: Ben





I’d been trying to keep my head down as much as possible. Jeramiah had consulted with Michael and Amaya, and he’d given me a few other jobs—mostly menial tasks like tending to the lily pond. I did them dutifully. My plan was to do as I was requested until I felt the time was right to propose that I accompany them on one of their hunts.

I had to gain their trust first. It seemed like the most obvious thing that a vampire would ask if he wanted to escape—to accompany them beyond the boundary. I needed to be patient and show Jeramiah that I was committed to being a good citizen of The Oasis.

I was invited to join more parties at night, but I declined. I just told them I was a recluse and had never been one to party. Nobody seemed to raise much objection to it. Marilyn didn’t bother me again either. Nobody other than Jeramiah sought me out, and even then just when there was a specific task he wanted to talk to me about, or to deliver more blood. There never seemed to be any shortage of it—indeed, he encouraged me to drink as much as I wanted. Though I didn’t, of course. I just drank the minimum required to survive without climbing the walls from hunger. I was just grateful that I hadn’t needed to do any killing myself. The moment I did that again, I’d be plunged back into the same black state I’d been in while drifting in the submarine.

When there was a knock on my door in the early hours of the night, I assumed it would be Jeramiah. I was right.

“Jeramiah,” I said.

“Would you come with me?” he said.

“What is it?”

“It’s easier if I just show you.”

“All right.” I wasn’t wearing a shirt, but I just went with him as I was. I doubted he’d keep me long, whatever it was.

He was silent as we walked along the veranda. He stopped eventually outside the door of an apartment.

He knocked on the door. “Michael,” he called.

So this is Michael’s apartment. I wondered why he was bringing me here of all places.

There were footsteps and the door opened. Michael appeared behind it, his lower lip stained with blood. Perhaps we’d interrupted him during a meal. The traces of human blood on his mouth made my stomach lurch, even though I had already downed three glasses earlier this evening.

“Come in,” Michael said—more to Jeramiah than to me. He opened the door wider and stepped aside as we entered.

I still didn’t understand what Michael found so objectionable about me—I’d never done anything to insult or harm him. Not that I gave a damn.

“Through here,” Michael said, leading us along the long corridor. He took a left down another hallway and stopped outside a door at the end of it. He drew out a small key from his pocket and opened it. Before I even realized what was happening, Jeramiah had stepped behind me and pushed me through the door into what turned out to be an unheated sauna room. Following closely behind me, he slammed the door shut after us.

I was confused at first as to Jeramiah’s hurry to get me in the room, but then I was aware of nothing but the scent of hot human blood overwhelming me. As I laid eyes on a young woman cowering in one corner of the paneled room, puncture wounds in her neck still bleeding, I realized that agreeing to come here with Jeramiah had been a terrible, terrible mistake.





Chapter 8: River





My head was still spinning.

Vampires.

They exist.

Did this mean that other creatures my mother and I had seen reported on TV existed too? Witches? Dragons?

I felt like I’d gone insane even entertaining the thought.

And yet here I was locked in this sauna room with fang marks in my neck.

I was past hoping that I would wake up.

This was no dream.

When the door opened, I was terrified that it would be Michael back for more of my blood. The sight I was met with was no less terrifying: two vampires—Jeramiah, and another young man who looked over six feet tall, with deep green eyes and dark, almost black hair.

My first thought was that this must be the Joseph person Jeramiah and Michael had been talking about earlier.

Now I wondered whether it would have been better for me if Michael had shown up again.

I was expecting one of them, perhaps both of them, to launch on me and inflict more pain, perhaps even end my life. Instead, the green-eyed man jerked backward the moment he laid eyes on me and darted toward the door. Jeramiah reached it before him and blocked his exit. Joseph’s shoulders were heaving as he kept his back facing me.

“What’s wrong?” Jeramiah asked.

“I’m willing to serve The Oasis, but not like this,” Joseph said, his voice deep and strained.