Eternal: More Love Stories With Bite (6 page)

And
she
realized
she
felt—relief.

There
was
no choice
to make
now, no compromise.
It
didn't
matter
how much
Charlie
loved
life;
it
didn't
matter
whether
he
would have chosen to become a vampire
or not. He was
dying.
The only chance
he
had now was
to change,
and to
join
Patrice
in
immortality.

She
briefly
remembered
the conversation she'd had with Mrs. Bethany at Evernight. This, Patrice knew, was the real glory of war for vampires.
In
a time of bloodshed, there were so many opportunities to kill without guilt.

For humans, too, she supposed. But they didn't matter now.

Patrice leaned over Charlie and gave him a quick kiss. "Don't
be
afraid,"
she
whispered,
in
case he
could
still hear. "I'm going
to
make
it all
better."

As her fangs slid into her mouth, she thought for an instant of what it had been like to dance in Charlie's arms at the USO canteen—to lean against his chest and hear his heart beat.

Then she bit into his throat again, knowing him prepared for the change, and silenced that heartbeat forever.

* * * *

"I'm still hungry," Ivan complained. "But you won't think of me any longer, will you?"

"You hush. You've eaten plenty. Remember how it is when you first wake up?" Patrice had not left Charlie's side throughout that night. A few more Nazi patrols had come out searching for their lost comrades, which was why Ivan really had no business complaining about hunger pangs. And while she was grateful for his help, she wished he would have the decency to leave them alone for a few minutes.

Morning was dawning. Soon Charlie would rise.

He lay, still and dead, in the center of the ivy cottage. The ivy's life despite the winter's cold seemed to echo Charlie's coming resurrection. Although the air was bitterly cold, they didn't dare build another fire. Smoke against the gray morning sky would reveal their location, if any soldiers were fool enough to still be searching for them.

"He looks like your long-lost Amos," Ivan said lazily. "How predictable of you."

Charlie did bear a strong resemblance to Amos, but it wasn't so unremarkable to prefer a certain "type," was it? "I love him for himself."

"You love him for the illusion he represents. I look forward with great interest to seeing the two of you confront each other's reality."

Enough of his nonsense. "Don't you want to check the edge of the forest again? There could still be soldiers out there. If you're so hungry."

"You think Charlie will awaken and you will share a rapturous reunion. And if it is like this, I will accept your suggestion and gratefully miss the romantic scenes that will take place. But it's not always so easy, is it?"

"It was for me."

"And for me. But not for all."

Patrice was about to tell Ivan to stop his Russian doom- saying for once, but that was the moment when Charlie's foot twitched.

Both she and Ivan went very still, and he took a couple of steps backward. While he might mock her newest love affair, Patrice knew that Ivan understood the importance of this moment.

Slowly, so slowly, Charlie's eyes opened. He remained very still, as though he did not trust the new sensations and powers flowing through his undead body. When he glanced at Patrice, she smiled at him gently, but made no sudden moves. If he remembered his death clearly, he might at first feel some illogical fear of her. She wanted him to understand that he was safer than he'd ever been. Nothing could hurt him now.

Then his gaze flicked toward the corner, where the last of the Nazi soldiers who had pursued them slumped against the wall. The soldier was unconscious but alive. Charlie's expression hardened, and he worked his jaw, no doubt feeling the first emergence of his fangs.

"Are you hungry?" she whispered. "Then drink."

Charlie vaulted from the floor so fast Patrice could hardly see him, ripping at his first victim so savagely that blood spattered wastefully on the falls. He hunched over the body, more monster than man, and there was nothing of Charlie in
him.
Nothing at all.

Don't be stupid,
she told herself.
He just rose. There's nothing like that first hunger.
But next to her she could sense Ivan becoming wary.

When Charlie had sucked all the blood he could from the
corpse,
he threw it against the wall so hard that bones crunched. He turned back to them, his face a mask of anger. "More."

"Good hunting awaits you," Ivan said, calm and pleasant. Patrice felt a surge of gratitude. "We can go into the forest now, look for foxes and deer. And tonight, we can revisit your German captors, if you would like. They would not like, I assure you."

"Now," Charlie growled.

"Get a hold of yourself." The sharpness in her voice shocked her. "You're still you, Charlie. Just a vampire now."

The word vampire seemed to snap some sense back into him. Charlie rose from his crouch, his bloodied prison clothes hanging from him in rags. "I remember ... I remember you bit me."

"That's right. I bit you. I changed you, so you wouldn't die."

"You're a vampire, too," he said. Charlie didn't sound shocked or horrified. More . . . angry. "You always were?"

"For almost one hundred years." Patrice glanced briefly at Ivan. "The two of us, Ivan and I—we were changed by the same vampire. That means we can always find each other. Just like you'll always be able to find me, because I'm your sire."

Charlie frowned. "Sire?"

"There's a lot to understand. We'll explain everything, and we'll get you all the blood you need. It's easy in wartime."

"You lied to me," Charlie said.

Patrice winced, but she was not one to back down easily. "Soon you'll be lying, too, and you'll understand why it's necessary."

He was starting to smile—a smile she didn't like. Ivan took a step closer to her. But now Charlie was laughing. "It's all been a lie. Everything they ever taught us in school or in church. Nothing but lies."

"Stay calm. You need to remember who you were, to decide what you want to be," Patrice said, but he didn't seem to care.

"Monsters are real!" Charlie shouted with glee. "You can rise from the dead without any help from Jesus. You can live by killing other people, and nothing's ever going to punish you. What's hell? We never have to worry about it, do we?"

"You can make a hell of earth easily enough," Ivan said. "I don't advise it."

"All my life, I studied and worked. Never took a drink. Never took a girl to bed until I thought it might be my last chance before I died, and even then I meant to marry her." Her, Charlie said, as though Patrice weren't there in the room. "And
it
was for nothing!
Life
begins after death—the preachers didn't lie about that. But heaven can't be as sweet as drinking that Nazi's blood."

"Charlie!" Patrice cried. But he was lost
in
a wild, thrilled delight that didn't include her. Not yet, anyway—when he calmed down he'd probably be more interested in company. But already she knew that Ivan had been right. She'd loved an illusion, and the memory
of
Amos; she'd never really known Charlie at all. Nor had he known her. They had just been two more enchanted lovers at the canteen, mesmerized by war and the romance of the forbidden.

"I'm going hunting," Charlie said. He didn't ask for a teacher, and why should he? She knew his instincts would guide him. "Don't try to stop me. Nothing is ever going to stop me again."

He ran for the door. For one last instant he was silhouetted against the pale dawn sky—then Charlie was gone. All of him: body, soul, life, love, illusion. There was nothing left for her.

"If he doesn't recklessly get himself slain in the next few days, someday Charlie will come looking for you," Ivan said. "He'll be able to find you.
I
cannot yet
tell
whether he'll come out
of
love or hate. Or perhaps merely desire. You do have this effect on men."

"I'll deal with it when it happens." Patrice couldn't look Ivan in the face. "So. You were right. Don't pretend you're not happy about it."

"As with many things, the possibility was more enjoyable than the reality. Do you think
I
enjoy seeing you hurt?"

And that—the knowledge that he could see her pain, that her beauty and her coolness had been inadequate to hide that wound—was what brought Patrice to tears. She could bear anything—even death, even loss—but she could not endure being exposed before anyone.

Patrice crumpled against the wall, hands covering her face so Ivan couldn't see any more. But the sobs wouldn't stop coming. At least he knew her well enough not to try to hold her.

"Patrice. Don't do this to yourself," he murmured as she wept. "You're too strong to mourn the loss of a mere dream."

Did Ivan never have any dreams of his own? What had Julien taken from him, when he changed Ivan into a vampire? Patrice didn't know. Didn't want to know. She'd wanted to be out dancing again, with her hair done just so and a pretty dress on, ready to dance and flirt and play the part of the silly young girl she'd never been. The haze of the cigarette smoke in the USO canteen had helped to hide her true nature—even from herself—for a time.

Ivan said, "If I could understand one thing, I would want to understand why you only love the ones you can't keep."

"Stop it," she sobbed. "Just stop it. If you can't give me something better to think about, then don't say anything. Or go. Maybe you should go."

Ivan didn't go. He stood there, a slender shadow in a long gray coat, pale against the faded ivy leaves that covered the wall.

Maybe it was Amos she had been chasing, the shade of the man she'd lost too soon, too long ago. Or maybe it was her own humanity she'd sought. Either way, what a fool she'd been.

Although it took her many more minutes to collect herself and stop crying, Ivan said nothing else until Patrice had dried her eyes. As she straightened up, still disheveled but at least something like herself again, Ivan finally took a step toward her.