The Vanishing Vampire (8 page)

“Sure.”

“Now that we're older, we can handle that. But a little kid just feels the hunger and wants it to end. That's how I am right now. I just feel the hunger.”

Norman looked down at the floor for a while. Then, quietly, he said, “If you really can't stand it…”

I waited.

“You can have some of mine.”

At first, I couldn't speak. Finally, I shook my head and said, “I can't do that.”

He looked up at me. The room, without me, was reflected in his glasses. “I mean it. Maybe, if you just took a sip, you'd feel better and nothing would happen to me. And if something did, that wouldn't be so bad. We'd be in this together.”

He was a better friend to me than I ever was to him. “Thanks, but it won't come to that.”

He almost looked disappointed. Then he brightened. “I know, let's try to find something to take the place of blood. I mean, the steak helped you for a little while. Let's analyze the situation and try to determine the relevant factors that reduced your reaction. Then we can amplify the essential elements. Wait right here.”

He ran off downstairs, leaving me alone to figure out what he had just said. Below, I heard the refrigerator open and close. Then I heard the blender. He came running back, looking real proud, carrying a glass full of thick, brown glop. “Good thing Mom just stocked up for her next catering job. Here, let's start with this.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“No, no.” He shook his head. “This is like a clinical study. If you know, it might skew the results. Just try it.”

I took a sip. The hunger flickered. But it remained. I drank the rest.

“Well?”

“It helped for a minute. What was it?”

Norman grinned. He pulled out one of his yellow writing pads. “Liver. Actually, there were two elements in the test. One is the blood content. The other is the endothermic transformation.”

I felt like I'd suddenly landed in Paris. English wasn't the main language spoken here. “The what?”

“The change brought about from the exposure to heat. The steak you had for dinner was rare, but it was cooked. That has to change the structure of the proteins. So, for starters, we remove that element.” He looked like he had just discovered something important, like gravity or popcorn.

“Heat…” I let it sink in. And then I almost threw up.
“You fed me raw liver?”

Norman shrugged. “Your body should be immune to any latent bacteria. Okay, that wasn't the answer. What should we try next?”

“You fed me raw liver!” I wiped my tongue with my sleeve.

“I think we need to isolate the key components. Blood is extremely complex in some senses, but nearly trivial in others. I know! Wait here.”

He ran off again. The refrigerator opened and closed again. The blender whirred. The evening wore on. Norman tried everything he could think of, which was a lot more than the average person could think of. Much to my surprise, cat food isn't all that bad, except for the little jellylike bits and the occasional crunchy part.

None of it got rid of the hunger for more than a moment. That wasn't great. But something even more disturbing happened. At one point, as he was racing into the room with a glass of blended chicken lungs, Norman stubbed his toe hard against the leg of his desk.

I watched him hopping around in pain, and it wasn't until a few minutes later that I realized what was missing. Part of
me
was missing. I was just watching, as if the whole thing were happening on a movie screen. I didn't feel any concern. I didn't feel any need to ease his pain.

I didn't feel anything human.

It was the first clear sign that I was losing the battle.

 

Nineteen

LOSING THE GRIP

The night welcomed me as I left Norman's house. It would be so easy to slip into darkness and leave the day world. I could see myself living as a creature of the night. I would find a place where I was safe during the day, safe and undiscovered. Then I would rise with the night.

Nearby, I heard steps. I knew them. Like Vladivost, I also had an old enemy to deal with. I ran through the night. I ran toward the steps. As I started to move, I was on two feet. By the end of the block, I had dropped into the sleek form of a wolf. I moved like an arrow through the darkness, silent, speeding toward my victim.

He was ahead of me, less than a block away now. At first, he didn't even notice what was hurtling toward him. He was just leaving the park.

“Hey, doggie,” Lud said when he finally looked in my direction.

I growled.

“Nice doggie?” Lud's voice grew cautious as I rushed closer.

I leaped, hitting him in the chest, knocking him down. He rolled to his knees. I stood, growling, waiting for him to flee. He would run and I would let him run. But I'd circle him and be waiting. Wherever he ran, I would be there ahead of him. I would be his nightmare.

Run,
I thought, quivering in eagerness, holding back until he made his move.

He started to cry.

I growled again and moved a step closer. He dropped to the ground, curled into a ball, and wrapped his arms around his head. His body shook as he sobbed.

Another instant, and I knew I would tear into him. Every instinct was pushing me to attack him. But one tiny human spark inside me held me back. I turned and ran through the night. I raced the streets as a wolf. My path brought me to where I'd been headed before I heard Lud's footsteps. When I saw my home, I returned to human shape.

It would be so easy to melt into the night.

The thoughts were strong. I stood outside my house, seeing a place that was all I knew and yet so different, so strange.

Finally, I went inside. It was still home for now.

“Mom and Dad are out. I'm in charge,” Angelina said instead of hello.

Home sweet home.

Rory came running up to me. “Tell me a story,” he demanded.

“Not now.”

“Please.” He tugged at me.

“Go away.”

“I hate you!” he screamed as he rushed from the room. I heard him race upstairs and slam his door. He must have been really angry to shut himself in. Deep inside, faintly, a part of me felt bad. But mostly, it was just something that didn't really matter.

“Nice going,” Angelina said.

I ignored her and left the room. I stopped in the bathroom and checked the mirror. If I could become a bat or a wolf, could I become a human? There was just the faintest hint of my reflection. I willed myself to become human.

Nothing changed.

For half an hour, I stood there, trying to become what I once had been. It would have been such a simple and wonderful solution, if it had worked. If anything, my ghost of a reflection grew even fainter.

I went to my room, pulled the poster from the window, and gazed out into the beautiful night.

I was less human.

And I was hungry—almost unbearably hungry. I was like that thirsty little kid, sitting in bed, needing a drink but afraid to leave the safety of the blankets for the terrors that lurked in the dark hallway.

And I knew that once I started, I could never stop. I was sure that the first drink would pull me forever from the human world.

That's how it would have to be. It was my fate.

I put my hand against the window. This would be easy. I could fly until I found what I craved. Perhaps Lud was still curled up by the park. If not him, there would be others. Someone would be out there for me. I thought of what Miss Clevis had said about blood. You can get used to anything. Yes. She was right. Anything. I raised the window, wondering whether to hunt as a bat or a wolf or a boy.

Rory's call broke my thoughts. “Sebastian! Help! I can't get out.”

Even now, though I was more a monster than ever, his voice had some effect on me. I went down the hall to his room. I tried his door. It was locked. “Just unlock it,” I said.

“I can't. I tried. It's stuck. Get me out.” He was starting to sound scared.

I could easily break the door with my vampire strength, but that would be hard to explain. “Look, I can get you out,” I said, “but you have to promise to close your eyes. Okay?”

“Why?”

“Just promise,” I said.

There was a pause. Then he said, “I promise.”

“Are they closed now?”

“Yes.”

“For real?”

“Yes!”

I became fog and moved beneath his door. Then I became me. He was standing there with his hands over his eyes. “Okay, you can look.”

He dropped his hands. Then his mouth fell open. “How'd you do that?”

“Magic,” I said. He'd slammed his door so hard that the latch got jammed. I fiddled with the knob until I got it working. Then I opened the door.

Angelina was waiting on the other side for me. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide, as if she'd witnessed an unimaginable sight. She must have seen me pass beneath the door. Finally, she spoke. She only said three words. But those words struck me like a stake in the heart.

“What are you?”

 

Twenty

KITCHEN CHEMISTRY

So I told them. It didn't much matter. I was pretty sure I would be gone soon. I told them everything. Rory thought it was a story. He just kept grinning and asking me to tell him more. I expected Angelina to run screaming from the house. I expected her to faint or start crying. I expected her to do almost anything but what she did.

“Maybe I can help,” Angelina said.

It was my turn to be stunned into silence. “How?” I asked, after I had recovered from the shock of her offer.

“Those things Norman made. They were all made from meat. He was trying to duplicate blood. Maybe it would work better to replace it. The right balance of proteins, certain amino acids—maybe that's what you need. Come on.” She raced to the kitchen.

I followed her.

“We could probably use him,” she said. “He's a weird little nerd, but he does know a lot. Why don't you call him.”

“Good idea.” I called Norman and asked him to hurry over. While we waited, Angelina started pulling everything from the refrigerator and from under the counters. She soon had a pile of vegetables spilling off the table.

“I thought something was wrong with you,” she said.

“Why?”

“You weren't constantly tormenting me,” she said. “When you stopped teasing me, I knew it wasn't the real you.”

“I'll just have to tease you twice as much later,” I said, though I suspected there would be no later.

Angelina smiled and started sorting through the food.

When Norman arrived, he and Angelina immediately got into a combination argument and discussion.

“How could you concentrate on meat and totally ignore other forms of protein?” Angelina asked him. “That's such typical male thinking. Meat, meat, meat. The great hunter. Hah!”

Norman shook his head. “Look, I focus on one thing at a time. I investigate, I experiment, then I move to the next step. Who made you the expert on research methods?”

“This isn't research, it's my brother.”

“Still, we have to be systematic,” Norman said.

Angelina threw her hands in the air. “But you overlooked the whole role of bioflavonoids.”

“Oh, my gosh!” Norman exclaimed, looking at me. “She's right!”

I didn't have the slightest clue what they were talking about. I wandered into the living room for the dictionary while they kept ranting about bio this and bio that. Behind me, I heard the blender firing into action. According to the dictionary, a bioflavonoid is something found in plants that helps build small blood vessels in the human body. I wandered back to the kitchen just in time to have a glass thrust at me.

“Drink,” Angelina ordered.

“What's in it?” I asked.

“All kinds of good things,” she said.

It was thick and green. But after drinking kidneys, livers, chicken lungs, and who knew what else, a bit of green glop didn't worry me. I took a sip.

“Well?” Norman asked.

I smiled. “Tastes like chicken.”

“What?”

“Just kidding.” I slugged it down. As the initial chill wore off, my tongue started to burn. “Yow! What did you put in here?”