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to forces greater than yourselves. I knew, but not on that gut level that
really rings home."
I glanced up. Chase and Morio were playing dumb, but it was obvious they'd
been listening to us. "What about you? Chase, is there something you can't
control, that you answer to besides your conscience?"
Looking startled at being included in the conversation, he frowned. "I'm not
sure. Humans like to think we control our world, but truthfully, we can't
direct even a fraction of it. I don't think I have anything that quite
compares to what you're talking about, but there are some people who seem
driven by forces beyond understanding religious fanatics, criminal psychotics&
a number of things."
Delilah looked at him curiously. "Do you believe in the gods?"
Chase shrugged. "I won't say there aren't higher forces at work, but do I pray
to any of them? No. I learned the hard way that nobody looks out for me but
myself. My father was a dope fiend who disappeared when I was a kid. My
mother's a fruitcake. We lived on welfare most of my childhood because she
couldn't hold a job." He glanced up at Delilah and their eyes locked. I had
the feeling they'd been down this road before.
"Who took care of you?" I asked.
"Me. By the time I was a teenager, I was managing to stay in school while
working at McDonald's in the afternoons, running a paper route before school
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in the mornings, and late night I delivered takeout for Hunan's Dragon Palace.
Somehow I scraped up rent every month. My jobs at Mickey D's and Hunan's fed
me."
"And your mother didn't do anything to help?" I could hear the resentment in
his voice. No wonder he avoided talking to her as much as possible. Delilah
had told me Chase was constantly getting hounded by his mother for not
calling. This was probably the reason.
"She was too busy trying to find Mr. Right to care much about me. Her
boyfriends bruised me up now and then because I'd mouth off to them. They gave
her money for food for her. She collected AFDC, but wasted the money on
clothes and booze. I spent all my spare time working. It was either that or
join a gang. And I'm not gang material."
"AFDC?" Camille asked.
"Aid to Families with Dependent Children," Chase said.
"Oh, did your father ever come back?" Camille frowned.
He shook his head. "No. Haven't seen him since I was a little kid. My mother
finally got married, but by then I was in the police academy." He shrugged.
"Water under the bridge, now."
A sudden noise put a stop to our conversation. Erin was starting to stir. We
had, at best, five minutes. "Fuck. Oh fuck, where are Roz and Tim?"
"Right here," a voice said from the hall. Roz and Tim pushed their way into
the room. Tim looked pale, as if he'd been yanked through a wringer. Or maybe
Roz had dragged him here on a magic carpet. Either way, they were here and
that's all that mattered.
"Tim, listen to me. There's no time to explain. Erin's going to wake up and
she's going to be hungry. If you still want to go through with it, I'll be
here for you. She'll need to drink enough to keep from passing into a coma,
which means you're going to be giving her enough blood so that you'll feel
woozy. You don't have any problems like anemia or anything that could
compromise your health, do you? Viruses, infections won't affect her, but
blood loss might hurt you."
He shook his head, eyes glazed over as he stared at Erin's wan form. "Will I
become a vampire?"
"No, not as long as you don't drink from a vampire's vein. But listen things
could go wrong. I'm much stronger than she is. I can keep her from killing
you. Or at least, I'm ninety-nine percent sure I can. I won't give you a
blanket guarantee." I didn't add that she still had the chance to go rogue,
that she could choose to turn toward the dark side of vampirism. If she did,
I'd be forced to stake her and end her life forever.
Tim yanked off his shirt. "How much will she drink?"
I stared at his bare chest, which was hairless and ripped to a tight six-pack.
"Man, you take care of yourself," I blurted out without thinking.
He smiled, ducking his head. "Jason likes me fit."
"Does he know that you're here?"
"Nah," he said. "He wouldn't& I don't think I'm going to tell him."
"Right." From the few times I'd met Jason, I could guarantee that Tim would be
single if his fiancé ever found out what he was up to. "Here's the rundown.
Your best bet is to offer her your wrist. That way she can't accidentally
break your neck in her excitement and I'll have better access to control her.
Don't be surprised if she doesn't recognize you. Don't let her scare you when
she first wakes up she'll be frightened and hungry. Eventually she'll remember
who she is."
"Menolly!" Camille's voice held an urgency that immediately caught my
attention.
I whirled. Erin had gone into convulsions. "Everybody but Tim and me get out.
Wait in the main room. Don't come in until I tell you to."
Chase and Morio obeyed immediately, but Delilah and Camille hesitated. "Now,
damn it! Get out! Let me focus on helping her instead of having to worry about
your butts." That got them moving. They shut the door behind them.
I turned to Tim. "Stay in the corner until I call for you. And you'd better
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decide now, for real, if you want to go through with this. Because if you
chicken out, I'm going to have to stake her and it would be more merciful to
just get it over with before she regains consciousness."
Tim blanched. "Erin took me in when my wife found out I was gay and kicked me
out. She yanked me out of the closet and forced me to be honest with Patty and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]