Resurrection (27 page)

He strode to the door and opened it to find James outside explaining to a group of anxious looking nurses and the casualty consultant that Mrs. Twyfford had died and been removed to the mortuary. Ged added his powers of persuasion to James's, and soon the medical team dispersed about their other more pressing duties.

"Serena took Janey home to Roseworth. I'll be there soon, but first I wanted to visit the baby unit."

"Do you want company?"

"No, I'm fine. But Serena might need you. When Jane comes round she's going to take a lot of managing."

"Okay. See you soon." He, too, disappeared into the ether.

Ged opted to make his way to the special care baby unit the hard way. He pressed the bell seeking entry and was admitted by a middle-aged nurse in a plastic apron.

"A baby girl was brought in a few minutes ago. She's very tiny..."

The nurse seemed to know exactly who he meant, though as Ged reflected on his words he realised all the patients here were tiny. The nurse led him to a glass enclosed incubator which contained his minuscule baby daughter.

"Here she is, baby Twyfford. Do you have a name for her?"

Ged shook his head as he gazed in rapt wonder at the perfect little girl before him.

"She's beautiful. But so tiny..."

"She weighs almost two pounds. She's small, but not the smallest I've known, not by any means."

"Is she... I mean, will she...?"

"She's early. Very early and she can't breathe on her own yet. We wouldn't expect her to in any case, not for a couple of weeks or so. Other than that, she's doing well. We have to hope she doesn't develop any infections, and no other underlying complications appear. But as long as they don't, she has a decent chance.”

The nurse took a few moments to scuttle around the incubator, checking dials and jotting notes onto a clipboard. When she finished she offered Ged a reassuring smile. “My name's Abigail and I'm the nurse assigned to take care of this little one. I’ll be with her almost all the time and you can contact me whenever you like." She handed him a small card with the phone number of the unit and her personal mobile number on it. "You're welcome to come here too, spend as much time as you like with her. You'll be able to feed her if you like, change her nappy."

"Oh." Ged grimaced. "Now?"

"No, not yet. But soon, I expect."

"I see. Thank you."

"Would you like me to find you a chair, Mr. Twyfford?"

"It's Ged. And no, not this time. I can't stay. My wife..."

"Ah yes. I know what happened. You two are going to need each other. I'm very, very sorry for your loss, Ged. You go, and don't worry, I'll look after this little one here."

Ged met Abigail's steady, competent gaze and he considered his options. He'd have no hesitation in turning the baby too if her condition seemed to warrant it, but he was mindful of Serena's warnings. The younger they were, the more hazardous the transition. Right now it seemed his daughter's best hope lay here, in the skilled hands of Mr. Baring-Jones, this nurse and others like her. He instinctively trusted Abigail with the care of his tiny infant daughter.

He could tell Janey her baby was in good hands. Better still, he could show her. He pulled his phone from his pocket.

“
Is it all right to take a picture?”

Jane felt awful. Her head ached, her throat was raw. One moment she was shivering, the next sweating. Every limb ached, every joint throbbed, she felt as though her body was being torn to pieces.

She was conscious, she could work that much out. Her eyes were closed though, and she had no desire to change that happy state. She lay still and listened to the sounds which surrounded her, the hushed, unfamiliar voices, footsteps coming closer then receding, the clink of a cup, the swish of a newspaper page turning.

How odd. Ged doesn't like newspapers.

She really would need to open her eyes at some stage soon, but Jane put it off for as long as she could as her thoughts tumbled around in her head.

Something was wrong, different. Something had happened, something momentous, terrifying, life-changing. She had only to think a little harder, concentrate a fraction more and she would remember.

She tried to move, and was both relieved and a little surprised to discover that she could, after a fashion. Her limbs were stiff, uncoordinated, as though her body no longer belonged to her. With some effort but obeying the timeless instinct among pregnant women, she succeeded in lifting her hand to caress the gentle swell of her rounded stomach—and let out a cry.

She was flat. Her belly was tender, sore, but undeniably flat. Her baby was gone.

She had expected this. Somewhere, deep within, she had known, yet still the reality of it now crippled her. Jane moaned, tears already spilling. She had lost her beautiful baby girl before she ever got to meet her. She had hoped, almost believed that this time… this time...

"Hush Jane. It's okay, you're safe. You're at home, at Roseworth. Ged will be here soon."

The soft female voice penetrated the fog of gathering grief. Jane didn't care where she was, or if she was safe or not. She only cared that her baby was gone—lost—another tiny body to bury in the soft Roseworth earth beside the brothers who died so long ago.

She shook her head, as though by willing this disaster away she could make everything right again.

"Can you open your eyes, Jane? Can you look at me?"

The voice was insistent, a timbre of steel running beneath the velvet surface. Jane prised her eyelids apart.

The woman leaning over her was striking rather than beautiful. Tall, slender, her ink-black hair cut into an intricately layered style which fell in soft sweeps around her even, porcelain features. Her eyes were a curious shade of turquoise, or was it lavender? Her mouth was full, perhaps a little too full for real beauty, but she made an arresting vision and a sight quite incongruous here in Ged's bedroom at Roseworth.

"Who are you?" croaked Jane through parched lips.

The woman offered her a soft smile. "My name is Serena. I'm a friend of Ged's."

"Are you... like him?"

The woman nodded. "I am a vampire, yes. I have known Ged for a long time. We are friends as I have told you, and he asked me to assist him because you had an accident. Do you remember what happened?"

"An accident? No, I... Where is he?" Jane struggled and tried to sit up but failed utterly. The pain which had permeated every nerve and fibre was fading, but still she felt weak as a kitten.

The woman, Serena, reached for Jane's shoulder and helped her to sit, then propped pillows behind her. "There, is that better?"

"Thank you. My baby...? " Jane did not want to hear it, the truth was too awful, yet still she had to know.

Serena squeezed her shoulder in an age-old gesture of comfort. "Ged will explain everything when he gets back. Do you remember what happened to you in the stable? The horse had become agitated, according to Ged."

"Yes. He was startled by the thunder, terrified of the storm. He reared up, I remember that." She frowned and rubbed her forehead as though the friction might conjure up the memory, like a genie from a bottle. "Is Cassius all right?"

How could that matter? How could anything matter to her ever again if her baby was gone? Still, she had asked and this Serena seemed inclined to answer.

"If Cassius is the large, chestnut stallion we found cantering around the meadow by the lake, then yes. James rounded him up and took him back into the stable."

"James?"

"My husband. He is downstairs now. So, the horse kicked you?"

"It was an accident. Cassius is gentle, but he panicked. I should never have gone in there, and when he started to become agitated I should have left. I thought I might help, I believed I could calm him..." Jane's voice broke. It had been an act of kindness, with such cruel consequences. "How can I tell Ged? I lost our baby, our precious, beautiful baby girl."

"No, you didn't." Ged appeared in the doorway. How long had he been standing there?

Jane held out her arms to him. "Our baby. Our baby died."

Maybe he didn't blame her for the loss. He never had in the past either, or if he did, he never said so. He didn't need to. Jane could blame herself quite well enough for the pair of them.

He came to sit on the edge of the bed. "She isn't dead. She was born very early, but she's still alive."

Jane couldn't believe what he was saying. Was she hearing things in her delirium? She might wish it, but this was impossible.

"She can't be. It was too soon..."

"If we were still in the fifteenth century, certainly. Much too soon. But here, now... our bab
y
i
s
alive, Jane. I just saw her a few minutes ago. Look." He extracted his phone from his pocket and found a picture on it, then he offered the device to Jane. "See, there she is."

Jane gasped, horrified at the sight before her. She saw a baby, small and spindly, surrounded by tubes and seemingly encased in a glass box. The infant lay on her side, asleep.

"What is this? Where is she? She's so… so..."

"She's in an incubator. That's the glass cot you see. It keeps her warm, and the gadgetry is to help her to breathe and check on how she's doing. She's being very well cared for by people who know how to look after tiny babies like her."

Jane thrust the phone back at him and made to leap from the bed. "I need to see her. She needs me—"

"She does, and you will. But not yet. First... first we need to talk."

"Talk? What is there to talk about? I want to see my baby. Now."

Ged and Serena exchanged glances. Jane looked from one to the other, mystified.

"Why will you not allow me to see her? Something is wrong. I knew it. I knew it—"

Ged hauled her to his chest as she started to weep again. "The situation is... unusual, I grant you that. I will take you to see the baby, I swear I will. And soon. But first we do need to talk. A lot has happened, things you're not aware of."

"I was hurt, I know that. Cassius kicked me. I must have been unconscious when you found me because I don't remember you bringing me back inside."

Ged settled himself against the pillows and draped his arm over her shoulders to hold her to his side. "You
wer
e
hurt. Badly hurt. Cassius kicked you in the head, and might have trampled you too. It was very serious, sweetheart."

"Oh. Oh, but..." Jane tested her forehead with her fingertips. "My injuries must not have been too grievous. I am quite recovered now."

"It
wa
s
serious,” Ged repeated. “I didn't bring you back in here, I took you to the hospital."

"You mean the clinic? Is that where our baby is?" Jane recalled Ged and Mr. Baring-Jones insisting that when her time came she should give birth in the clinic rather than in her bed at Roseworth. The practice had seemed somewhat strange to Jane, but she would comply with their wishes.

"No. I took you to another hospital, one for people who are badly injured. They did some tests and..."

Jane twisted her neck to peer up at him. Her usually confident, assertive husband was uncharacteristically nervous. "Sir?"

"They told me you were dead, Jane."

"Dead?" she breathed. "But, of course I am not dead. I am here, am I not? I am well..."

"You are, but... you're not the same."

"Not the same?" She frowned at him, her head starting to hurt again. "In what manner am I not the same?"

He took a deep breath, then met her bewildered gaze. "I turned you. It was the only way, otherwise you would have died."

"Turned me? You mean...? " Her fingers flew to her neck, seeking the evidence. There was none.

"The puncture wounds healed, as did all your other injuries."

"But, you cannot do this. I do not wish to be... to be..."

"Dead? Or immortal?"

"Neither. I wish to be neither, Sir."

"Sorry, but that wasn't an option. I wasn't prepared to allow you to die, so I took the decision. The circumstances were dire, Jane, and maybe, if you'd been conscious and aware of the danger you were in, you might have agreed. I like to think you would, if not for me then for our baby. She'll need her mother in the years to come. And if not, I like to think you could eventually forgive me. After all, immortality isn't such a bad deal."

"Is this true?" Jane looked to Serena for confirmation. The other vampire stood quietly behind Ged, and she nodded.

Jane stared from one to the other. She was horrified, revolted, angry, but above all desperately scared. She did not doubt the truth of their words for one moment. It was there, in their grave expressions, the set of their mouths, the apology in their eyes tinged with more than a hint of defiance. They were what they were, and now, like it or not, so was she.

"I do not know what to say. What to think. I need time… I need—"

"Right now, Jane, you need to feed." Serena stepped forward, a tumbler of something red and viscous in her hand. "The turning went well and is almost complete. You still feel some residual discomfort, but that will pass quickly. The process uses a lot of energy though, and you now need to replenish the resources you expended. This is what you require." She offered the glass to Jane.

"Blood? You expect me to drink blood? Never! I shall never do such a thing."

"You will, Janey." Ged took her chin and tipped it up, forcing her to meet his gaze. "You'll feel ravenous before long and the urge to feed will be so great, so overwhelming that you'd probably attack the first human who came into your orbit. That could even be our baby, so you need to feed now, here, where it's safe. You won't have control of your fangs for a while yet, so Serena's poured your first meal into a glass for you. Actually, I prefer to take it that way too."

"I cannot. It is wicked, evil..."

"It's necessary, and that's all that really matters. Drink, Janey." He took the glass from Serena and offered it to her. "It won't seem so strange after the first few sips. Your body is designed to accept this now, and you'll find it—well, if not exactly pleasant at first—certainly palatable. It's just your head you need to convince."

"No.
No!"
Jane swiped the glass from his hand to send it flying across the room. It bounced off the wall, the deep crimson blood spattering in all directions. She glared at Ged, rebellion crackling in the air between them.

"I'm going to let that pass, given the circumstances. You've had a shock, and I appreciate you didn't choose any of this. The harsh reality is that you
wil
l
become hungry though, and soon. For us, and now you, that's an unbearable state. You'll be overwhelmed by a gnawing, cramping type of appetite and no other food will satisfy it." His tone softened, his eyes conveyed his apology that it had to be so. "You know I'm right. You know the lengths my kind—
ou
r
kind now—had to go to in the past to get the food we crave. So you
wil
l
feed. Janey, if not now, then soon. And after that, when you're calm enough, we'll go to see our baby." He turned to his friend. "Serena, would you mind bringing another glass, please, while I clean that mess up?"

Jane did drink the next glass of deep red blood. Ged was right, the hunger started quickly. It erupted from nowhere and just seemed to explode within her. She could think of nothing else but the compulsion to satisfy it, to fill the yawning, growling emptiness within. She rapidly came to understand how and why vampires would kill to feed if there was no alternative. To go hungry was not an option.

By the time she bowed to the inevitable her hands were shaking too much to hold the glass but she allowed Ged to cup his fingers around hers and lift it to her lips. Still she struggled to take the first sip so Serena brought her a straw and she found that easier to use. She hollowed her cheeks and sucked up the first tentative mouthful, and was surprised to find it more satisfying than she had imagined. The liquid was cool, chilled from the fridge, not warm as she had expected. That somehow helped to distance this act from the raw violence she associated with the taking of human blood. At some level she knew this was donated blood, freely given by the human donor, but still, the connotations were too deeply ingrained to shed easily.