Born in the Shadows (In the Shadows Series Book 1) (4 page)

              She smiled up at him, soft and serene and then closed her eyes. He could sense her faint heartbeat and he knew that she wouldn’t make it. Even if he got her to the hospital in the next minute, there was nothing they could do for her. She was going to die.

              It wasn’t fair. She didn’t deserve to be murdered. She was young and healthy; she didn’t deserve to be cut down like this and then left to die alone.

              As he stroked her hair, she turned her head and nuzzled her cheek into the palm of his hand. That peaceful smile was still there. She knew what was happening and she accepted it, just content to know that she wouldn’t be alone when she went. He couldn’t let her die. It wasn’t her time. He had to give her back her life. She deserved it.

              The problem was that he had never done it like this before. He had always given the humans the chance to decide for themselves if they wanted to become like him. It was not a decision to be made in haste or due to coercion. For some the thought of eternal life was scarier than natural death. He had to give her the chance to say no and accept death.

              He reached out to her mind and quickly sorted through her memories. Her name was Cordelia. No husband, no children, estranged family and few friends in her life. That was good. There would be no one for her to leave behind.

              He lightly slapped her face until her eyes opened. “Cordelia, can you hear me?”

              Her eyes rolled around a bit before focusing on his and she furrowed her brow as she looked at him.

              “Cordelia, do you know what happened to you?”

              She stared at him for a moment before looking down where the angry steel was poking out of her chest. She looked back at him and nodded her head weakly.

              “You are dying.”

              Her eyes closed briefly, as if she could not look at him as she acknowledged the truth of his words. Her thoughts were a raging storm but he could make out one thought in the centre of it all:
It’s too soon
. When her eyes opened, he saw the tears that gleamed there and the hopelessness that reached to her very soul.

              Nicky cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing away a falling tear. “I can offer you life again but it will be at a cost. You won’t be the same.”

              Her brow furrowed in confusion and he struggled to find a way to explain it as best he could in the short time that was left.

              “You won’t be a human anymore. You will be like me.”

              He let his teeth lengthen and bared his fangs for her. She studied his mouth for a moment, her eyes clearer than they had been since he found her. She reached up to the hand on her face and he worried that she was going to push him away. Instead she grasped it in her own and squeezed. 

              “Do you want me to change you?” he asked, his voice just above a whisper.

              She nodded her head weakly and squeezed his hand again. 

              “Close your eyes and it will be over in a minute.”

              She did as he instructed and Nicky sat back on his heels, studying her body and the rebar. He needed to drink from her and then feed her the mixture of his blood and her own for it to work. If he pulled her off of the rebar, she would bleed out before he got a chance to drink enough. If he left her on it during the change, there was the chance that her body would not revive properly with the metal still inside her.

              He quickly evaluated possible actions, creating a workable plan in his head. It would take finesse and exact timing to work. He prayed he had it in him.

              He lifted her hair off her neck, exposing the jugular vein that fluttered faintly with her rapidly fading pulse. He had to do this now and he had to do it fast. He bit her neck, gulping down her blood and listening to her heart beat slow down until it stopped. He let go of her throat and put his wrist to his mouth, using his fangs to tear it open. He held the wound over her mouth and their mixed blood flowed between her lips.

              As the blood dripped down her throat, he whispered prayers in his birth language. He felt the faintest flutter as her lips quivered against his wrist. He held his breath as he waited, finally letting it out when the tip of her tongue tickled his skin. He stroked her throat firmly and she moaned weakly as she automatically swallowed in response. After a moment of stillness, her mouth latched on firmly to his wrist and he felt her begin to draw deeply from his veins.

              He smiled and felt a lump form in his throat as he watched her drink. “That’s a good girl, drink it down.”

              As she continued to feed from him, he wrapped his other arm around her and carefully pulled her body off the rebar. She didn’t register it at all, focused on consuming their blood. He eased her down to the ground, careful to keep his wrist firm against her lips.

              When he began to feel light headed, a sign that he had accomplished his goal, he pulled his wrist away from her mouth. She whimpered a bit, her mouth blindly seeking for more but she soon settled down and went still. He looked down at the tear in her shirt where the rebar had pierced through. The wound had stopped bleeding and he could see that it had already grown smaller. It was working.

              He placed one hand on her shoulder, the other going to her face where he stroked her cheek softly. He had not expected this when he had come out tonight. He had just wanted to go for a walk to clear his head and now he had another child. Though it wasn’t the best of circumstances, he could already feel his love for her growing. He hadn’t realized until this moment that his family had been lacking but holding Cordelia, he now felt like it was complete. Yes, not the best of circumstances but the best of outcomes. Now it was time to take her home.

              The shadows of the parking lot began to shimmer, moving like ripples of black ink towards Nicky and Cordelia. They were bathed in a darkness that seemed to absorb the faint light around them, a shadow that blacked out everything around it. There was a rush of wind that kicked up from nowhere and when the streetlights clicked on a few seconds later, the parking lot was completely empty.

Chapter 3

              The first thing Cordelia noticed as she came awake was that she was hot. Really hot. A heavy weight covered her and it took her a moment to realize that a couple of thick blankets were pulled all the way up to her chin. Why in the hell was she under blankets in the middle of June?

              She thrashed around to dislodge the covers and sighed dreamily in relief as cool air floated over her.
Much better
. She rolled onto her back, kicking away the last of the blankets and opened her eyes.

              Since when was her bedroom ceiling red? She blinked a few times to get rid of the last dregs of sleep and stared up. Yep, still red. What the hell? It was a red velvet canopy and she certainly did not have one over her bed. She stretched out her arms and realized that this bed was much bigger than her own. Like three times as big.

              She turned her head to the left and looked at the room. Two large windows were covered with heavy velvet drapes the color of merlot and an antique desk was against the wall between them. A large mahogany armoire was across from the foot of the bed, two doors flanking it. One was closed and the other was only slightly ajar, revealing a white tiled floor. On her right was another closed door and to its right, a blood red sofa with a cedar chest as a coffee table.

              There were oil paintings with heavy ornate frames on the walls. Crystal sconces were strategically placed around the room. There was a Tiffany lamp in the centre of the desk. And she was pretty sure that the sheets beneath her were silk. Yeah, this definitely wasn’t her apartment with its cheap Ikea furniture and motel art. Where the hell was she?

              Cordelia tried her best to remember what had happened before she had gone to sleep. She remembered being at work late and then locking up the trailer but she couldn’t remember anything after that.

              Oh God, had she gotten into a car accident on her way home? She looked down at herself but her body appeared whole. No IV lines, no casts, no stitches, nothing. She felt fine too as she stretched and sat up in the bed. No bruising or muscle aches. She felt completely refreshed in fact. 

              No, if she had been in a car accident she would be in pain. Plus, she would be in the hospital and what kind of hospital had silk sheets? And dressed their patients in a black, over-sized men’s button up shirt.

              She stared down at the shirt that came to the middle of her thighs. Jesus Christ, whoever owned this shirt sure was a big boy. The question of who had put the shirt on her screamed to the forefront of her mind. Revulsion filled her at the thought of someone touching her body while she slept.
Oh God no, please no, not that
.

              She reached for the hem of the shirt and drew it up her thighs. She was slightly relieved to see that she still wore her own panties and a quick check down the front of the shirt showed her bra still in place. She sighed in relief. She still had her underwear on, that had to be a good sign.

              There was still the matter of where the hell she was and how she got here. She slid over to the side of the bed and stood up. As she stretched and cracked her back, she felt a twinge of pain in her chest. She unbuttoned the shirt and found a small pink mark, about the size of a dime, between her ribs.

              She traced her finger over the mark and an image flashed in her mind. A piece of bloody steel sticking out of her chest. She remembered now.

She had been in the parking lot at work and Sampson was there. Next she was on the ground, her body aflame with agony and then the boy had come to her and everything went dark.

              Oh God, she died. She was dead. Was this Heaven? The rich furnishing made it seem like it. Then again, the entire color scheme of the room seemed to be based around red, which seemed like more of a Hell motif. Jesus Christ, what had she done to deserve to go to Hell?

              Okay, maybe taking the Lord’s name in vain wasn’t much of a testament to her piety but it wasn’t as if she killed anyone. Weren’t there supposed to be levels of sin and God took that into consideration? She had never been very religious in life so she wasn’t too clear on how this worked.

              She began to move around the room, evaluating her surroundings more closely. She peeked through the door to the white tiled room and realized it was a well-appointed bathroom. Large vanity with double sinks, a deep Jacuzzi tub and a glass door shower in the corner. Who knew the afterlife would have plumbing?

              She walked over to the armoire and opened its doors. There was a nice plasma screen television, a DVD player and a stereo system inside. Well, that was odd. They had electricity here too. Now that just seemed too unbelievable.

              She wasn’t dead and this wasn’t the afterlife. This had to be some sort of dream. Was Sampson attacking her in the parking lot a dream too? No, that felt very real. Which meant she had been injured but not dead.

              Oh man, she must be in a coma. That explained the room, her clothes, and the mark on her chest. Her real body was probably hooked up to a million machines in a drab hospital and all of this was in her head.

              She felt better knowing that she was in a coma. At least it was better than being stuck in Hell. Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to wake herself up. Well, obviously it wasn’t figuring out that this wasn’t real. Maybe it was like in the movies, she had to figure out something life changing about herself before she woke up in a hospital bed.

              If that was true, she certainly wasn’t going to figure it out in this room. She went to the door next to the armoire and discovered a large walk-in closet that was completely empty. Maybe this was a metaphor for her life.

              Screw you, subconscious
, she thought as she closed the door with more force than necessary. She was well aware that her life was empty; she didn’t need a metaphorical reminder.

              She walked over to the other closed door but before she could reach for the doorknob, it turned and she jumped back as a woman entered the room.

              She was around the same height as her but she had the kind of body that Cordelia would die to have. She was all long limbs and lean muscle in her yoga pants and fitted tee. Her hair was black and straight as a pin, cut in a chic bob that brushed her chin. Cordelia was startled by her eye color, it matched her hair and from this distance, there was no way to tell the difference between iris and pupil. Her face was narrow with a high forehead and well-defined cheekbones. Her lower lip was fuller than the upper one and gave her mouth a lushness that most women paid plastic surgeons a lot of money to achieve.

              Cordelia immediately felt intimidated by this stranger. She didn’t feel like she was in danger but this woman had a regal air to her. It made her feel inferior standing in front of the woman, half-naked.

              “I’m sorry if I scared you, I thought you were still sleeping.”

              The woman’s voice was low and raspy but it worked for her. There was a slight accent there and it reminded Cordelia of the cosmopolitan femme fatales you would see in the old black and white films.

              Cordelia tugged at the hem of her shirt, feeling incredibly uncomfortable standing in front of this beautiful woman. She probably looked like a total mess. Someone’s borrowed shirt showing off her ugly pasty thighs and her hair was probably a rat’s nest around her shoulders. She reached up to try to pat down her hair but was surprised to find it smooth against her head. That was weird. Her hair was always a giant frizz ball when she woke up.

              Which lead her back to remembering that everything had been weird since she woke up here.
Ah yes, the coma.
Now she had someone who could tell her why she was here in this room but she was too busy worrying about her hair to ask the millions of questions that had been racing through her head.

              “I’ll be happy to answer all of your questions,” the woman said as if reading her mind, “But first I should probably introduce myself. My name is Mary.”

              Cordelia stared at the hand that Mary had offered for a moment, considering the possible dangers. She was still on edge from recalling Sampson’s attack. Then she remembered that this world wasn’t real. This woman didn’t actually exist; she was just a figment of her comatose brain. She took Mary’s hand and shook it.

              “My name is Cordelia.”

              “It’s nice to meet you, Cordelia.”

              Mary went and sat down on the sofa, casually crossing her legs and resting her hands on her knee. “Now, what would you like to ask me?”

              Cordelia eyed the other seat on the sofa but she didn’t quite feel comfortable enough to sit down. Her body was twitchy with adrenaline and trying to relax would be a useless venture. Instead, she walked over to stand in front of Mary, keeping the cedar chest between them.

              “Where am I?”

              “We’re in a home about an hour north of the city. This manor is owned by my father Nicky and I live here with my brother Remy, my sister Anne and my nephew Demetri.”

              What a weird collection of names for her subconscious to create. She didn’t know anyone with those names and she wondered if they were the names of clients that had become lodged somewhere in the back of her brain.

              “How did I end up here?”

              “Nicky brought you here last night after you were injured.”

              “He brought me here? To his house instead of a hospital?”

              “There was nothing the hospital could do for you.”

              “And how do you know that? Are you a doctor or something?”

              Maybe Mary was her doctor in the real world. She had read about coma patients picking up details from the world around them in the hospital.

              “No but Anne is,” Mary said. “It doesn’t matter though. There was nothing a human hospital could do for you.”

              “
Human
hospital?”

              “Look, to be honest with you, I’ve never done this before. Nicky went to handle some things and he thought he would be back before you woke up but he’s still MIA. It would be much better for you to wait for him but I get the feeling that you won’t want to wait.”

              Cordelia shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. Mary sighed and uncrossed her legs, rubbing her palms over her pants, her nerves obviously getting the best of her.

              “You’ll have to bear with me; there isn’t exactly a script for this situation. I just hope I don’t screw it up,” Mary said, before taking a moment to collect her thoughts. “Okay, do you remember when you were attacked?”

              “Yeah I remember. Sampson pushed me, I got shishkabobed and then he left me there.”

              “Do you remember seeing someone else? A boy, looked about sixteen with gold eyes and light brown hair?”

              Cordelia thought back to the attack and the aftermath. She remembered the stars coming out in the sky and then the face hovering over her with the gold eyes. She had thought it was Death coming to take her.

              “I do.”

              “That was Nicky.”

              Wait, didn’t she just say he was sixteen?

              “Nicky, as in your father?”

              Mary nodded.

              “Nicky, your father, is sixteen years old?”

              Mary nodded again.

              “Christ, my subconscious is screwed up.”

              “I’m sorry?” Mary said, confused.

              “It’s just that inventing a teenage father with a daughter in her twenties, that is beyond weird. That has to be some sort of psychological problem. Like the opposite of Oedipal Complex or something. If I get out of this coma, I’m so seeing a therapist.”

              “Coma?” Mary repeated her voice bewildered.

              “Yeah, you don’t have to keep up the act; I know that I’m in a coma. So since I figured it all out, can you just tell me what the epiphany is that I’m supposed to have so I can wake up?”

              Mary blinked a few times before understanding seemed to dawn on her and then her face became sympathetic. “Cordelia, you aren’t in a coma. You are very much awake.”

              “Nice try but like I told you, I remember the attack. You don’t just walk away from something like that. Since there aren’t any angels with harps or little devils with pitchforks, a coma is the only other possible way this is happening.”

              “There is another way.”

              “And what’s that?”

              “You been changed into a Shadow Walker.”

              Cordelia paused at that. Definitely not the answer she was expecting. She didn’t even know if that was an actual answer to her question. “A what?”

              “A Shadow Walker. The name you might be more familiar with is vampire.”