He throbbed, all of him, aching for more, his stamina barely tapped. There were good things about being a vampire.
The night was young, and the banquet had just begun.
When Holly woke it was to an afternoon light. The question was which afternoon, which day.
She was spooned against Alessandro, one of his arms a heavy weight across her side. She expected to feel pain, but did not.
What she did feel was the mix of their powers woven like a cord between them, twining through their sex, through their blood. Her magic had somehow blended with his vampire energy, fused in a crucible of lust. Above that, his venom sang in her veins, a barely banked wash of heady desire. Venom. I'm trapped. Oh, Goddess.
But, strangely, she wasn't afraid. Is that the venom lulling me? Or do I really have nothing to fear? Holly had never felt so thoroughly sated. She wriggled under the weight of Alessandro's arm, turning so she could face him. He was in the deep, deep rest of the Undead, pale but peaceful, his hair a tangled mass on the pillow.
Strange clarity pushed away the fog of sleep and sex. She had lost blood, but she felt strong. She knew she was under his influence, but she felt oddly free. What's happened to me?
Was it just the outstanding sex? They said it was the bite that trapped a person, ruined them for human lovers, but she was willing to vote for vampire endurance. After that kind of lovemaking, how could anything else compete? She subsided onto her back, snuggling beneath Alessandro's arm. Energy hummed between them, mildly erotic.
Goddess, she was relaxed.
At times, when she was deep in meditation, she could see the webwork of the house's magic. She could see it now, shining ribbons of power bright in her mind's eye. It flowed like a tangle of roots, branching and branching again, a myriad of tiny golden threads of energy. Holly let her mind float along and through them, aimless, drifting. Comfortable.
There was an unexpected lurch of disconnection, so sudden there was no time to struggle. While Holly's body stayed behind, her soul slid into the darkness like the slow drip of molasses out of a cold bottle.
What's going on? Hello?
For a moment it felt as if she floated backward out of her skull, rising higher and higher into an airless void. The house, the bed faded from sight, melting into a swirling gray soup with no horizon. Holly's stomach rolled, reminding her of late-night drinking sessions and bad seafood. Should I be panicking?
Holly's eyes snapped open. She was standing upstairs on the same floor as the nursery, but was down the hall near the back bedrooms.
How did I get here? Wait a minute.…
The doors to the rooms were open, early evening sunshine slanting at a low angle through the dust motes. But it was afternoon a moment ago.
A hamper stood in the hall, overflowing with laundry awaiting attention. Strains of teeny-bopper radio sugared the air. Automatically Holly picked up one of the shirts that had missed the hamper. Familiar pink-and-white cotton draped over her hand, limp with too many wearings. Years and years ago it had been her favorite.
Fear flooded her mouth with a metallic tang. Those rooms had been shut up since she was a child That shirt had fallen apart and been cut up for rags. I'm in the past.
This early summer evening, with the sun just like that, was one of the last things she remembered before the hole in her memory. Her hands began to shake. She stuffed the shirt in the hamper and crept into her old room. The sight of the baby-aspirin pink walls set the hair on her neck crawling with apprehension.
I was here right before the terrible thing happened.
It all looked so mundane. Magazines and more clothes littered the shaggy throw rug. Unicorn posters were taped to the closet doors. A math workbook was open on the faux-French provincial desk, the pages held open by a plush bear. Holly remembered, with a pang for her lost younger self, wishing Teddy knew how to do fractions. Problems had been simpler then.
She found the source of the saccharine pop music—her old clock radio—and switched it off.
"Holly? Hol?"
Her hand froze on the radio button, her whole body clammy with dread.
"Holly? C'mere."
She tried to swallow, but the frantic beating of her heart interfered. "Ashe?" she said, but the reply was no louder than a whisper.
This night, the one about to start. She had forgotten it, forced it away, buried it, but it was still there, etched deep inside like the serial number of her soul. Turning toward the door, she followed the sound of her sister's voice.
"Ashe?" she said again, stronger this time. The sight line through her sister's doorway was blocked by a blue dresser piled with feminine detritus. There were posters of heavy metal bands on her ceiling—men writhing in explosions of artistically lit sweat.
"I need your help," Ashe said in her pseudo-adult voice, the words confident and clipped.
"It'll cost you ten bucks." Holly's words came out automatically. It was what she had said the first time this scene had unrolled.
"Holllleeeee," Ashe wheedled, a momentary lapse into the little girl she had been a summer or two past. "Please. I'll give you five."
"What do you want?" Holly rounded the corner of the dresser. Part of her already knew what Ashe would ask, but the details floated just outside her conscious grasp.
Whatever it was, it was something to do with big-M magic.
Ashe was kneeling on the floor, facing Holly. She had spread out a white cloth on the hardwood, as if setting out a picnic. Pretty china candlesticks sat in the center, their white tapers already lit. Feathers. Salt. Their mother's hairbrush. One of their father's ties. A dish of incense that smelled like the sweet, stale crumbs from the bottom of a chocolate box. She was planning a ritual. Ashe Carver was a talented worker of magic.
She looked up, not seeming to notice Holly's grown-up body. At this moment in time Ashe was sixteen; Holly was eight.
Girl-slim and long-legged, Ashe wore a sundress and mauve plastic sandals. Her hair was blonder than Holly's, ironed straight, with wispy bangs. She had too much makeup around her huge green eyes, a sure sign she was meeting her boyfriend later.
"I need to go out, Hoi," she said, smoothing a corner of the cloth. "I just have to. Glen's got tickets to Blue Murder."
Did something so small, so petty, cause everything that came after?
Holly's reply came, sulky and petulant. "You can't leave. You're supposed to stay here with me until Mom and Dad get home." Grandma, she remembered, had been visiting family in Halifax.
"This is more important." Ashe flicked some of the incense smoke around the room with a feather. "You're a big girl. You can manage."
Holly felt a glob of nausea working its way up her throat. No, no, don't do this. The next line in the script left her tongue. "They'll kill you."
Ashe gave Holly a look of green-eyed contempt. "Not if they don't find out. I just need to delay them until the concert's over."
"They'll be home long before that. You'll be toast," Holly said with gory, kid-sister satisfaction.
"Not if they have a flat tire."
She turned and picked up a white shoe box. Blithely she pulled off the lid. "Remember these?"
Sweet Hecate. Holly remembered everything.
A wave of heat seared through her, followed instantly by cold sweat. Holly scrambled out of Ashe's room and down the hall to the bathroom. Barely making it, she threw up in of the old pedestal sink. She vomited over and over until her ribs ached with it and nothing came up but scalding bile.
Last time Ashe had opened the box, Holly's soul was innocent. She had known no terrors. Now she saw it all with adult eyes. After a long moment she washed out her mouth, her skin taut with drying perspiration. Outside the open window, a robin chirruped in the apple tree.