Amanda Ashley (2 page)

“Where are you, Kara Crawford?” he murmured. “Is your spirit still trapped within that feeble tabernacle of flesh, or has your soul found redemption in worlds beyond while you wait for your body to perish?”

He stared at the blood dripping from a plastic bag down a tube and into her arm. The sharp metallic scent of it excited a hunger he had long ago suppressed. Blood. The elixir of life.

He frowned as he glanced down at his arm, at the dark blue vein. He had survived for two hundred years because of the blood in his veins.

“If I gave you my blood, would it bring you back from the edge of eternity,” he mused aloud, “or would it release you from your tenuous hold on life and send you to meet whatever waits on the other side?”

He let the tip of one finger slide down the soft,
smooth skin of her cheek and then, driven by an impulse he could neither understand nor deny, he picked up a syringe, removed the protective wrapping, and inserted the needle into the large vein of his left arm, watching with vague interest as the hollow tube filled with dark red blood.

In two hundred years, he had gleaned a great deal of medical knowledge.

Withdrawing the needle, he inserted it into the section of latex tubing that was used to add antibiotics and pushed the plunger, mixing his own blood with the liquid dripping into her vein. He repeated the procedure several times, and all the while he thought of the little girl with curly blond hair who had come to him looking for a miracle.

Alexander smiled grimly as he left the girl's room and headed for the emergency exit located at the end of the hall. He glanced down at his arm. A spot of dried blood marred his skin.

Dark blood.

Inhuman blood.

Mingling with the girl's.

He wondered what madness had possessed him to mingle his blood with the girl's. Would it kill or cure, he mused. Had he been savior or executioner? Unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps, he would never know.

He did not linger over the other very likely consequences that would result from his rash action if she survived.

It was near dawn when he stepped out of the hospital. Drawing in a lungful of cool air, he gazed up at the brightening sky for a long moment. He yearned to stay and watch the sun rise, to feel the blessed heat of a new day, to listen to the world
around him come to life, but he dared not linger. He had given Kara Crawford almost a pint of his blood, and it had seriously weakened him. In his present condition, the sunlight could be fatal.

With a strangled cry, he hurried toward home.

Kara climbed up out of the darkness that engulfed her. Gradually, she became aware of voices: Nana's voice lifted in urgent prayer; Gail's voice, filled with heartache as she begged Kara to come back, please come back.

A man's voice, sounding startled as he exclaimed, “She's coming around!”

A woman's voice, filled with disbelief. “It's a miracle!”

“Miss Crawford? Kara? Can you hear me?” This from the man as he bent over her.

She tried to speak, but no words passed her lips. She tried to nod, but didn't seem able to move. So she blinked up at the white-coated man bending over her.

“Kara?” Gail slid under the doctor's arm and grabbed her sister's hand. “Kara, you're awake!”

“G . . . Gail?”

Her sister nodded vigorously. “I knew you wouldn't leave me. I knew it!”

“Stand aside, Gail,” the doctor said. Withdrawing a flashlight from his pocket, he checked Kara's eyes, noting their response to the light. “Do you know your name?” he asked.

“Kara Elizabeth Crawford.”

“Do you know what year it is?”

“Nineteen ninety-six.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital?”

The doctor nodded. Lifting her right leg, he ran his thumb along the sole of her foot, grunting softly as he watched her toes curl.

“We'll have to do more tests, of course,” he said, replacing the covers over Kara's leg, “but I believe she's going to be all right.”

“Thank God,” Nana murmured. “Thank God.”

When Kara woke again, it was dark and she was alone. Four days, Nana had said. She had been in a coma for four days. Where had she been during that time? She had often wondered where a person's spirit went when the body was in a coma. Did it just lie at rest inside the body? Did it roam over the earth like a lost soul? Try as she might, Kara could remember nothing at all, except . . .

She turned toward the window and stared out into the darkness of the night. She seemed to remember a man, a tall, dark man who had seemed more shadow than substance as he hovered near her bedside. But surely he had been just a fever dream, a figment of her imagination. No flesh-and-blood man could possibly have eyes so dark, so ageless.
So haunted. No earthly man could move with such soundless grace.

And his voice, deep and resonant and filled with suffering. His voice, speaking her name, communicating with her soul.

If he had been nothing but a dream, it was a dream she would welcome each night of her life.

“Come back to me,” she whispered. “Come back to me, my angel of darkness.”

Alexander's head snapped up as a faint voice whispered inside his mind.
Her
voice. He knew it was hers though he had never heard it.

“Kara.” Her name slid past his lips, unbidden. “What have I done?”

As though he had no will of his own, he found himself rising from his chair, walking out into the night, following the narrow, twisting path that led to town.

Night creatures fell silent at his passing. He was a shadow among shadows. A darkness deeper than the night.

He stood on the sidewalk across the street from the hospital, staring up at the window he knew was hers. She had called him here, the faint lure of her voice more powerful than his will to resist.

He got past the nurse on duty using the same ploy he had used the night before.

Inside Kara's room, he stood beside the narrow bed, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest as she slept. There was a hint of color in her cheeks now. Her lips looked soft and pliable, their color like pale pink roses. Her lashes were thick and dark.

So beautiful, he mused. So fragile. Lightly, he traced the curve of her cheek with his forefinger.
She smiled at his touch, turning her head toward his hand, as though inviting his caress.

With a curse, he drew his hand away.

She came awake between one breath and the next, and he found himself gazing into a pair of dreamy blue eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment.

“How are you feeling, Miss Crawford?” Alexander asked.

“Better.” She squinted up at him, trying to see him more clearly in the room's dim light. “Are you one of my doctors?”

He hesitated only a moment before answering, “Yes.”

“You saved my life.”

“So it would seem.”

Kara frowned, wishing she could see his face better. He seemed so familiar.

“You must rest now, Miss Crawford,” Alexander said. He took a step backward, hiding in the dark. His blood had saved her. He knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the east.

At his words, she was overcome with a sudden weariness. “Wait. I want to know your name. . . .”

Her eyelids fluttered down as sleep claimed her.

Kara turned her head away while Dr. Petersen examined the stitches in her leg. “Where's the other doctor?”

“The other doctor?”

“The one who came to see me last night.”

“What was his name?”

“I don't know. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with long black hair. He . . . he had a deep voice.”

“There's no one on the staff who answers that
description.” Dr. Petersen smiled indulgently. “No doubt you were dreaming.”

“But it wasn't a dream!” Kara glanced at Nana and Gail. “I saw him. I spoke to him.”

“There, there,” Dr. Petersen said, patting her hand. “No need to be upset.”

“I'm not upset. I just . . .” Kara sank back against the pillows. Maybe she
had
dreamed the whole thing.

“I'll stop in to see you tomorrow,” the doctor remarked. He paused at the doorway and glanced over his shoulder. “Don't stay too long, Mrs. Corley. She needs her rest.”

“I understand,” Nana replied.

“I didn't imagine him,” Kara insisted after the doctor left the room.

“Now, Kara, if the doctor said there's no one on the staff by that description, I'm sure he's right.” Nana glanced around, her keen blue eyes taking in every detail. “It's a nice room,” she decided.

“It should be, for what it's costing,” Kara grumbled. “Did they say when I can go home?”

“Not for several days.”

“But Dr. Petersen said I was making remarkable progress.” Indeed, every doctor in the hospital had found an excuse to come by and see the miracle patient whose internal injuries had healed overnight.

“That's true,” Nana agreed, “but you've had a bad bump on the head. Dr. Petersen wants to keep an eye on you for another day or two.” Nana took Kara's hand in hers and held it tight. “We almost lost you, child.”

“I know.” It was frightening, to think how close she'd been to death. It was something she didn't
like thinking about, and quickly changed the subject. “Gail, how are you doing in school? Did you pass your history test?”

“B-plus,” Gail replied smugly. “Cherise got a C-minus, and Stephanie got a D.”

“Don't gloat,” Kara chided.

“We should go,” Nana said, rising. “We don't want to tire you.”

“But I feel fine.”

“The doctor said you should rest. So rest.” Nana kissed Kara's cheek. “It's a miracle,” she murmured, blinking back a tear. “A miracle.” She patted Kara's shoulder. “Can I bring you anything tomorrow? A book, maybe?”

Kara nodded. “Something to read would be nice. And maybe a strawberry malt from the drugstore?”

Nana smiled. “Now I know you're feeling better. Come along, Gail.”

“I'll be there in a minute,” Gail said. “I need to tell Kara something.”

“All right, but hurry along.”

“What is it, Gail?” Kara asked with a smile. “A secret to tell me?”

Gail nodded as she closed the door. “That man who came to see you last night. He sounds like the man I went to see.”

“What man?” Kara stared at her sister in alarm.

“You'll laugh.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I went out to the old Kendall house.”

“The Kendall house! Gail, have you lost your mind? Whatever made you go out there?”

Gail picked up a corner of the cotton bedspread and began to fold and unfold it. “Well, everybody says a vampire lives there, and . . .”

“A vampire! Oh, Gail.”

“I thought if a vampire really lived there, and he bit you that you'd get better and live forever.”

Kara shook her head. “Gail, there are no such things as vampires. Or werewolves. Or sea monsters, or space aliens, or mermaids.”

Gail crossed her arms, her expression mutinous. “There are, too.”

Kara sighed. They'd had this same argument numerous times in the last two-and-a-half years. “Are you saying the dark-haired man was a vampire and he came here to bite me?”

Gail nodded.

“Well, he must have changed his mind. I don't have a craving for blood, and I don't have any bites on my neck. And it's daytime and I'm wide awake.” Kara took her sister's hand in hers. “It was your prayers that saved me, Gail. Yours and Nana's. You'd better go now. Nana's waiting. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

Kara couldn't help grinning as she watched her sister leave the room. Vampires, indeed! Gail's world was peopled with all kinds of monsters—Big Foot and Nessie, aliens from outer space, Dracula and the Wolf Man. Gail loved them all.

With a sigh, Kara closed her eyes. Maybe she had dreamed him, that tall, dark mysterious stranger who had come to her in the quiet of the night.

But she didn't think so.

Alexander paused, his fingers resting lightly on the computer keyboard. She was thinking of him. He could hear her thoughts in his mind, as loud and clear as if she were speaking to him directly.
She was confused, wondering if he had been real or merely a shadow figure conjured from the depths of her subconscious.

As the night grew long, he felt her loneliness, heard the silent call of her tears.

Helpless to resist, he left the house to become one with the night. His black clothing blended in with the darkness as he moved swiftly, silently, down the pathway toward the town.

The hospital loomed before him, the big white building shimmering against the backdrop of the night. For once, the night nurse was absent from her desk. On quiet feet, he made his way down the corridor toward Kara's room. A moment later, he was standing beside her bed.

She looked much improved this evening. Most of the tubes had been removed; her color was better, her breathing less labored. Her hair, freshly washed, was spread across the pillow like a splash of red silk.

She was a part of him now, he thought, and he was a part of her in a way that no other man could ever be. In mingling his blood with hers, he had recreated an ancient, sacred bond, a living link between them that could not be broken. Her thoughts were as clear to him as his own, her need for reassurance and comfort impossible to ignore.

He stiffened with the realization that she was no longer asleep, but awake and staring up at him through those vivid blue eyes.

“Who are you?” Her voice quivered with fear—fear of the unknown, fear of his answer.

“A blood donor,” he replied. “I heard you were recovering, and I wanted to see for myself.”

“But . . . I thought . . . last night you said . . .”

“Last night?”

“Weren't you here last night?”