Hourglass

“What do you mean, stupid?”

“Drug dealers. Prostitutes. Guys getting drunk. Or people trying to rob all of the above.” Lucas shrugged. “Occasionally it’s more innocent than that. It might be some homeless man looking for a place to lay his head or a couple on a stroll. Or a guy who thinks he can save on cab fare by cutting through the park. Regardless, they all make pretty easy pickings for bloodsuckers.”

I looked up at the ring of tall buildings around the park, like a ring of light that seemed to hover above the border of trees. It was weird to think that there could be a vampire hunting ground in the middle of so much activity and noise. “So why is it only new vampires who come here?”

“Because the ones with any experience know Black Cross will be on patrol.”

That made sense. “So how do we start?”

“We follow the humans.” Lucas started walking along the edge of the park, his eyes scanning the horizon. “Keep ’em safe. See if anybody of the undead persuasion takes an interest.”

Any vampires we find here really will be trying to attack people, I thought uncomfortably. There wouldn’t be much chance for me to warn the innocent, or much reason either.

I wished I could’ve talked to my parents about all this. Really talked, not the half-truths we’d too often told each other. Their lies still hurt me deeply, but I couldn’t be as angry with them any longer. I missed them too much.

Then an idea hit me, sudden and—in my opinion—brilliant.

At first I opened my mouth to blurt it out to Lucas; I felt certain he would approve. But I also knew that what I was about to suggest was against the rules. Better not to make Lucas break his promises. I’d take this responsibility myself. Luckily, I had a few bucks on hand, not much, but enough for what I needed to do.

Casually, I said, “I’m hungry.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lucas looked uncertain. “Well, I guess there’s squirrels and stuff around here.”

“Yeah.” I honestly did need more blood than I’d been getting, and my mouth watered a bit at the thought of it. But that was secondary to what I really had on my mind. “I’ll just grab something, I guess. If it’s okay for me to leave you for a second—”

“We’re gonna be on patrol until about two A.M.,” Lucas said. “We can take quick breaks if we have to.”

“Be right back.”

On tiptoe, I kissed his cheek, then walked away. Once I knew I was out of sight, I left the park and walked into the city itself. The crush of traffic—honking horns and car alarms—was slightly overwhelming, but I had a mission. I’d thought I might not be able to find what I sought, but New York was a city big enough to supply any need. Sure enough, within a couple of blocks, I saw the sign I was looking for: INTERNET CAFÉ.

Once I was inside, I signed into my e-mail account. The dozens of boldface new messages at the top of the screen startled me, and the names of the senders seemed to lash me, one by one: Dad. Mom. Vic. Balthazar. Ranulf, who had apparently figured out enough about modern life to get a gmail account. Even Patrice, my sophomore-year roommate, the one I thought didn’t care about anybody but herself, had reached out to check on me.

If I began reading those e-mails, I knew I’d start to cry. Instead I opened up a new message, addressing it to my parents at their Evernight Academy account, the only one they had.

Mom and Dad,

I’m sorry it took me so long to get in touch with you. This is honestly the first chance I’ve had to tell you that I’m okay. I know my running off like that had to scare you, and I wish there had been another way.

Had there been another way? Could I have chosen something else? I didn’t know anymore.

I’m with Lucas. The people in Black Cross don’t know the truth about me, so I’m safe for now. Soon we’ll leave and set out on our own. He loves me and will take care of me no matter what.

I know things weren’t right with us before we left. For however much of that was my fault, I’m sorry. And if we could talk sometime soon—really talk, without more lies and secrets—I’d be so happy. I miss you guys more than I ever knew I could.

Now I was in danger of crying anyway. Blinking fast, I concluded:

Please let Balthazar and Patrice know that I’m all right. I’ll write again sometime soon.

I love you both.

That wasn’t all that needed to be said, not by a long shot, but I knew this wasn’t the time to say it.

Blinking fast, I hit Send.

After I logged out and left, I wanted to run straight to Lucas’s arms. Instead, I decided to grab a couple of pigeons first. In the darkness of the park, nobody would see me.

Besides, I thought, you have one advantage. You’ll be the only vampire there who knows where all the hunters are.

It wasn’t that comforting.

But the night passed without incident. Other hunters kept coming by to check on Lucas and me, so we didn’t get much privacy; that was disappointing. Still, I’d finally had plenty to eat, so I felt more reassured as we went back to HQ at three in the morning, exhausted despite not having seen another vampire the whole time. But as soon as we walked in, we learned that the Black Cross cell was on alert.

“That’s not lockdown, is it?” I asked Lucas.

“No, but they’ll be watching us.” He clasped my hand as we walked deeper into the tunnel. Everyone seemed to be awake, and the lights remained on. The lieutenants on watch that night were talking animatedly to Eliza, who didn’t look thrilled.

“What is it?” Raquel asked, nervously fiddling with the tawny leather bracelet she always wore. “Did something go wrong with our hunt?”

“Five boring hours in the park? That’s not the crisis.” Dana’s eyes were narrow as she studied the uneasy crowd. She had a crossbow slung over one shoulder, and she rubbed Raquel’s back absently, trying to settle her down. “Sure would like to know what it is.”

Eliza overheard our whispers and turned toward us. Traffic overhead made the ceiling shiver a bit, and the strings of lights swayed back and forth, casting her lined face in shadow, then in light. “We might have vampires staking this place out.”

Raquel brightened—like that was good news, not reason to freak. “You think they’re going to try to come down here and take us on?”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Eliza replied, with a proud toss of her braid. “But somebody might be watching.”

Mrs. Bethany, I thought with a shiver. She would get revenge for the damage to Evernight Academy if there were any way possible. “Why do you think that?”

“We keep finding dead birds near the building. Like something’s killing them. At first we were making jokes about bird flu, but today Milos checked out the corpses, and sure enough, they’d been drained of blood. We’ve got a vamp around here, and we’ll all be watching the roof and the nearby area to get a glimpse of our visitor. Then we’ll ask a few questions of our own.”

Lucas and I shared a glance. No vampires were watching the HQ; I had left the birds. Why hadn’t I thrown them away more carefully? I had tried, but there hadn’t been many options.

From this moment on, my blood supply was cut off—and that meant our time to plan our escape was running out.

Chapter Five

THAT NIGHT, AS I TRIED TO GO TO SLEEP, I KEPT telling myself, You have five days. You were able to last that long without blood when you first left Evernight Academy. That means you can last that long again.

Besides, Black Cross has put me on patrols. I’ll be able to get out, nearly every day, and surely I’ll have chances to eat then. Everything will be okay.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

First of all, my hunger for blood had grown. I’d spent only a month in Black Cross, but my body was continuing to change. The vampire inside me was growing stronger as the human grew weaker.

After I had drunk Lucas’s blood for the first time, my mother had warned me: You’ve turned over the hourglass. What she meant was that my vampire nature had been awakened by the taste of living human blood. Where, before, I’d been a mostly normal teenage girl—albeit one who drank a glass of O positive with her dinner—I wasn’t so normal anymore.

My hearing had become so acute that I could hear people whispering several car cabins down from mine and Raquel’s. My skin had become so pale that a couple of people had remarked on it, though mostly jokingly, like Dana saying that this was what happened when white people tried to live underground. Occasionally the Black Cross patrols crossed the East River bridges to guard areas in Brooklyn or Queens; the mere thought of crossing running water made me nauseated. I felt grateful that the makeshift bathroom in Black Cross headquarters had no mirror, because I suspected my reflection was beginning to fade.

My parents had warned me what happened to vampires who didn’t drink blood. Their appearances continued to change, warping until they looked like the monsters of legend: white, bony creatures whose fingernails jutted out almost like claws. Their hair fell out. Constant hunger caused their fangs to show at all times. Worst of all was the madness; when vampires truly hit the point of blood starvation, their minds went. Instead of behaving more or less like human beings, they became like wild animals, immune to conscience or restraint. Even a good vampire could become a killer if deprived of blood for that long.

Yeah, this is how your parents get you to clean your plate when you’re a baby vampire. The old stories were definitely scary enough to get me to drink my whole glass of O positive back in the day. Now that childhood horror had returned as I wondered every day, Can that happen to me, even though I’m not a full vampire yet? How am I different? How am I the same? How am I supposed to go on, not knowing?

Even while out on the Black Cross patrols I didn’t have a chance to eat. Time and again, I was partnered with people other than Lucas; night after night, we went to locations that offered me no chance to hunt for food. I was never forced to see a vampire being murdered, which was a small mercy, but by this time I was hungry enough to become selfish. I only wanted to drink, and I couldn’t.

Within five days I was desperate. That was the night Lucas and I finally got to patrol together again.

“We have got to come back here once we get some free time again,” Dana said as our group began patrol. The June heat radiated up from the streets, even though it was twilight; sweat beaded the small of my back. “Because this looks like a good place to party.”

All around us were nightclubs and bars—some of which looked seedy to me, while the others looked sleek and expensive. There didn’t seem to be much middle ground. “I think I’d get carded.”

“Slap some makeup on you and Raquel, and y’all would be set,” Dana insisted. “Hey, are you all right?”

“Just tired. They had me do the climbing wall twice today.”

Dana thumped my shoulder. “They’re making you tough.”

Lucas glanced at our leader for the night—it was Milos, one of Eliza’s lieutenants, a rangy guy with white-blond hair and beard. He said to Milos, “I’d like to take Bianca along the east side of our zone. Okay?”

Please say yes, please say yes. Lucas can help me get something to eat, I know he can—

“Suit yourselves,” Milos said. His smile had a knowing quality—almost a smirk—but I didn’t care. Let him think we were sneaking off to make out. I only wished we had that kind of luxury.

Some of the others murmured and giggled, but nobody stopped us as I took Lucas’s hand and we walked together into the dark.

As soon as we were alone, Lucas said, “You look like hell.”

“Maybe I ought to be mad at you for saying that, but I know you’re right.” He was towing me along the sidewalk, beneath a few small trees that had been planted in open squares in the pavement. From the apartments around us, I could hear snatches of salsa music at different tempos, like competing heartbeats. “I have to get something to eat. It’s making me crazy.”

“There’s a hospital not far from the HQ. I was thinking I could break into the blood bank, almost like we did last year, remember?”

It was a good idea for the future, but I needed a faster solution. “Lucas, I can’t wait any longer. I mean it. I have to have blood tonight.”

He stopped, and for a few seconds we simply stared at each other on the sidewalk. Sweat marked the collar of his white T-shirt, and his bronze hair had darkened to the color of night. His thumb brushed my cheek. I was startled by how much warmer his flesh was than mine.

Haltingly, Lucas said, “I’m going to take care of you.”

“I know you will.” My trust in him was absolute. “But how? Is there a place around here we could hunt?”

“Come on.”

Faster, driven by purpose, Lucas towed me along the sidewalk. After a couple of blocks, the neighborhood quieted down a little—we were far from any of the main streets now, closer to the water.

We reached a storefront with windows newspapered over from the inside, and signs that read FOR RENT. Lucas stopped there. “I’m guessing this is bone empty,” he said, pulling a thin metal lock pick from his jeans pocket. “Which means there’s probably no alarm system activated either.”

“Why are we breaking in?”

“Privacy.”

Lucas jimmied the lock in about four seconds flat. I remembered my own feeble attempt at burglary, almost a year ago, and envied him his sure touch.

We ducked into the store, and Lucas immediately shut the door behind us. Streetlights shone through the newsprint, casting a muted golden light. The hardwood floors beneath us were old and unpolished, and an abandoned bar lined one wall. A mottled mirror hung behind the bar, and I stood in front of it to see myself. I was only a shadow—a pale silvery outline of myself. Like a ghost.

This is how Patrice used to look when she wouldn’t drink blood for a while, I thought. I never believed this could happen to me. Why didn’t I understand what it meant to be a vampire?

“Okay,” Lucas said. He seemed nervous. “We’re alone.”

I smiled at him, though I felt sad. “I wish we could do something with this chance besides feed me,” I said. His kisses were so far away; they were a memory almost too beautiful to belong to my real life any longer. “What are we going to do? Do you have a plan?”

“Yeah. You’re going to drink from me.”

At first I couldn’t believe I’d heard him correctly. Of course, I had drunk Lucas’s blood before—twice, so far. Both times, the experience had been intense, to say the least. Drinking blood was sensual, even sexual. I’d only ever drunk the blood of one other guy, Balthazar, and that was the closest I’d ever come to making love. But what happened between Balthazar and me was purely physical. With Lucas, the emotion made it more powerful.

So I should’ve leaped at the chance, right? Wrong.

Before, when this had happened between us, I’d been well fed. My loss of control with Lucas had been because of my passion for him, not because of hunger. The same love that drove me to bite him had also compelled me to stop before I hurt him. Now that I was governed by this wild craving, the one that clawed at me from within—I wasn’t so sure I could stop.

“It’s dangerous,” I said. “We should try another way.”

“There isn’t any other way.” Lucas slowly lifted up the edge of his T-shirt and peeled it off. I knew he did that because he didn’t want to get blood on his clothes, but the nearness of his half-undressed body hit me like a blow. The golden light behind us outlined his firm, muscled form. “I trust you.”

“Lucas—”

“Come on.” He stepped closer to me. “This is the only way I have to take care of you. Let me take care of you.”

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. It’s different now. I’m so much hungrier.”

“You only bite me when you’re not hungry?”

I remembered the two times I’d fed from him—once, after the Autumn Ball, when we’d been kissing passionately for the first time, and again when we were alone together in one of the high towers of Evernight, lying in each other’s arms. “That was different.”

“Doesn’t have to be.” He took me in his arms and kissed me.

It wasn’t like any of our other kisses. This was rougher, almost demanding. Lucas opened my lips with his and pulled my body against him. I couldn’t push him away; I couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but kiss him back. I’d missed this so much—the taste of his mouth, the scent of his skin, and the feel of his broad hands.

When he moved down to my throat, kissing me along the line of my jugular, I whispered, “You’re going to make me lose control.”

“That’s the whole idea.”

“Lucas—don’t—”

“If you have to get carried away to bite me, then I’m gonna make you get carried away.” His hand cupped the curve of my breast. “How far do I have to go?”

My instincts took over. I pulled him to the floor, the old wooden boards creaking gently beneath our weight. Lucas lay beneath me, pressing kisses on my forehead and cheeks as I raked my hands through his hair and breathed in the scent of him. I could hear his heart beating faster. I could smell his blood. More animal than human, I arched my body against his, so that I could feel his warmth all over me.

“Come on, Bianca,” he whispered into my ear. “Come on. I know you want to. I want you to.”

Stop, stop, stop. I’ll have to stop in time, I don’t know if I can stop, I don’t want him to let go of me, not ever, I don’t want this to stop—”

I bit down on his shoulder, and blood rushed in.

Yes. This was what I had needed, what I had craved. I heard Lucas groan, and I didn’t know if that was from pain or pleasure. My body quaked as I sucked in harder, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of his blood. It was hot and sweet, purer than anything else in the world. It was life. I could feel my body transforming, gaining strength, as Lucas’s life flowed into me.

My hands pressed his against the floor, and our fingers intertwined. “Bianca,” he whispered, his voice shaky.

I drank even deeper. This was perfection—hunger and satisfaction at once, inseparable. How could anyone want anything else?

“Bianca—”

Stop, stop, stop!

I pulled away just as Lucas’s head lolled to one side. Shocked into sanity, I shifted off him and patted his cheek. “Lucas? Are you okay?”

“Just give me—a sec—”

“Lucas!”

He tried to prop himself up on one elbow but ended up flopping back down beside me. His breaths were coming too quickly, and his skin was now more pallid than mine. Of course, I had become rosy and flushed with the life I’d stolen from the guy I loved.

Guilt descended on me. “Oh, no. I should never have done this.”

“Don’t say that.” His voice was slurred. “We had to—save you.”

I sat up and pressed two fingers to his throat. His heartbeat was steady, if rapid. I hadn’t gone too far, but I could have. I knew the danger even if he didn’t.

“We can’t do this again,” I said, as I cradled his head in my lap. His shoulder oozed a few trickles of blood, but I resisted the urge to lick his skin. “We’re going to find another solution, and soon. Right?”

“Wasn’t too bad.” Lucas’s lopsided smile made my stomach flip-flop in the best possible way. “Kinda nice, actually.”

There was a time when it would have thrilled me to hear him say that. But I knew more about Lucas now, and about his priorities, which meant that I was obligated to warn him: “Remember—if I ever go too far, I could kill you. And because you’ve been bitten by a vampire multiple times, you’d become a vampire yourself.”

Lucas went very still. Although I, too, no longer wanted to become a full vampire, Lucas’s revulsion to the idea was absolute. Death would have been preferable to him.

“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll see about the hospital blood bank. Or something. But you’re better, right?”

“Yeah.” And now that I had drunk human blood, I felt sure I would be sustained for a while—but not forever. He had risked his life to buy me just a few days’ time. Or did he have other reasons, too? Quietly, I asked, “Do you crave it now? Being bitten? Is this something you wanted for yourself?”

I wouldn’t blame him if it were. Balthazar had drunk my blood a couple of months ago, and I remembered the exhilaration of it. But if Lucas was getting as hooked on my bite as I was on biting him, we were really going to have to work on the self-control.

Lucas thought over the question. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Part of it—most of it—is about taking care of you. And then there’s the fact that it’s one hell of a turn-on.”

Smiling, I brushed a last trickle of blood from his shoulder. “Yeah, there’s that.”

“Every time we do this, I get stronger.” Lucas’s eyes met mine. “I get closer to being—to being what you are. To understanding, maybe. Without having to turn into a vampire myself.”

Each bite gave Lucas a little more vampire strength. His hearing had sharpened and his strength had increased—but he neither healed faster nor craved blood. The mystery of what it meant to be prepared for vampirism but not yet a vampire: That was one way in which we were truly and fully the same.

Well, not the only way.

I bent low and whispered, “I love you, Lucas.”

“Love you, too.” Tiredly he clasped my hand in his, and for a while we simply sat together, wordless, needing nobody else in the world.

Once Lucas felt reasonably steady and the bite mark on his shoulder had stopped bleeding, he put his T-shirt on again and we joined the others. We must have looked rumpled—a couple people snickered, and Dana waggled her eyebrows at us. I didn’t care if they thought we’d sneaked off to have sex. What we felt for each other was too pure to be turned into anything tacky or cheap.

Besides, I felt better than I’d felt in weeks. Lucas seemed a little bleary, and his skin was definitely pale, but he could walk steadily. He put his arm around my shoulders for support initially, but kept it there all during our long ride home.

We’ll be all right, I thought as he rested his head against mine. Taking a deep breath, I could smell the cedar scent of his skin, tinged slightly with the delicious saltiness of blood. It’s going to be okay soon.

After we returned to HQ and stowed our gear, we walked in to see that someone was waiting for us—Eduardo, who leaned against one of the cement pillars. In his hands he held a coffee can. I didn’t think anything of it, except that it was kind of weird to be making coffee so late at night. But the moment Lucas saw it, he stopped in his tracks. “That’s mine,” he said.

“You have an interesting definition of what’s yours.” Edu-ardo tossed the can upward, caught it lazily. The scars on his cheeks looked harsh in the overhead lights. “Because the way I see it, in Black Cross we have a rule. Everything we do is for the good of the group.”

Eduardo then peeled back the plastic lid of the coffee can to reveal a roll of cash.

“Hoarding money,” he said. “How is that for the good of the group?”

Oh, no, I thought. Lucas’s savings. The money he was going to use to get us out of here.

“How is going through my private stuff for the good of the group?” Lucas’s eyes blazed as he stalked up to Eduardo. As his voice got louder, it echoed off the concrete walls. “What, were you going to steal from me?”

Eduardo shook his head. “It’s not stealing if it’s not rightfully yours to begin with. And it isn’t. Money like this should be used for Black Cross purposes. Not to—take your girlfriend out on Saturday nights.”

“Since when do I ever get to take Bianca out? Since when do you guys let us spend more than ten minutes alone together?”

“Free time is something you don’t have. You’re a soldier, Lucas. Have you forgotten that?”