To Kill An Angel (4 page)

When I pulled into the driveway, I sat in the car for a few minutes, reassessing the situation.  I didn’t want to make a mistake.  Blunders at that point could be very costly, if not outright deadly. 

No other car in the drive meant that Mom wasn’t home, which was good in a way.  I could get into my room and lock myself away before she got there.  Then maybe when she came in, she’d bypass me completely as she so often did.  I could only hope.

After letting myself into the house, I closed the door behind me and stopped in the foyer.  It was as if I was observing my home for the first time. 

The unique smell that had always made the structure feel like a sanctuary was there.  It was strong and soothing in a way I’d never noticed.  But beyond that was a plethora of other scents that I’d never been able to pick up on before. 

I could plainly smell alcohol.  Very plainly.  I could also smell a sour odor, reminding me that the trash probably needed to be taken out.  I smelled hints of Dad’s cologne and Mom’s perfume, but there was another fragrance.  This one I could detect much more strongly now that I was a vampire.  It was the smell of my dead sister’s perfume.    

Over the more than three years since her death, Izzy’s scent had all but faded from her room and her belongings.  But now I could smell it as if she’d been gone only days rather than years. 

With a smile, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.  Maybe there really were a few upsides to this whole vampire thing.

As I made my way back to my room, I began to feel a strange weariness come over me.  I assumed that since I would no longer feel fatigue in the same way that this was how I’d experience being tired or emotionally drained.  More than sleep, however, I felt like I needed a shower. 

I headed straight to the bathroom.

I turned on the shower to let the water warm while I gathered clean clothes.  I thought it best to stay fully clothed rather than put on pajamas, just in case I needed to flee.

I closed and locked my bedroom door and opened the window so that I could smell the fresh night air rather than the myriad bothersome scents saturating the air of the house.  After shedding my blood-splattered clothes and burying them in the bottom of the hamper, I gratefully stepped beneath the hot spray of the shower.

Bathing turned out to be yet another new experience.  I’d never noticed the way the jets of water stimulated different nerve bundles beneath my skin.  I’d never noticed the way the smell of chlorine hung in the air.  I’d never noticed the different berry notes in my shampoo.  I’d never been able to see each tiny water droplet that drifted in the steam.

I don’t know exactly how long I marveled over the spray of the water and the feel of it on my skin before I actually began to bathe.  Long enough that I knew my body was impervious to scalding temperatures.  Long enough that I knew that time no longer meant the same thing as it had that morning.  Long enough that I knew I could not wash or rinse away the events of the day. 

Finally—reluctantly—I made myself turn off the water and get out of the shower.  I tried not to get too wrapped up in the phenomenon of toweling off, but it wasn’t easy.  It seemed as though the rasp of the towel could be heard in the next room and felt all the way to my bones.  It was a very perplexing and absorbing experience.  I didn’t understand how sensation could be so dramatically heightened yet pain be so dramatically dulled.  It was a paradox for sure, but one about which I would not complain.  I would simply be grateful. 

I’d gotten dressed and was running a comb through my tangled hair when an amazing scent filled my nostrils.  It seemed as though, for a moment, it held me completely captive. 

I stood in the bathroom with my feet glued to the floor.  But for the deep breathing—my body’s instinctive efforts to pull the delicious aroma into my mouth and lungs—I didn’t move a muscle.

As if I’d touched the tip of my tongue to something decadent, my mouth was filled with the barest hint of ambrosia.  That trace, however, was all it took for my senses to converge on the source with an all-consuming, pin-point focus. 

With a mind-blowing speed and a frightening intensity, hunger stole over me.  It was so powerful I was unable to fight it.  I could think of nothing else, nothing but sinking my teeth into whatever carried that scent and draining it until there wasn’t a drop left.  I didn’t care that it would inevitably mean death for the human or that there might be fear or tears or pain on the other person’s behalf.  I only cared about quenching the thirst, the overwhelming, painfully potent need.

Before I could identify what it was or even give it a second thought, I was on my way out of the bathroom and headed toward my bedroom door.

A voice gave me pause.  It lasted for only a fraction of a second, but that was all it took to save her life. 

It was my mother.

“Ridley, I’m home.  How did it go at Sebastian’s?”

In the deepest part of my brain, I recognized her and it registered that I didn’t want to hurt her.  That’s the thought that stopped my feet from moving forward.

My only truly coherent notion was that her blood was not saturated with alcohol.  On some level, I was both surprised and confused.  Unfortunately, those emotions weren’t strong enough to dull the intense yearning I had for her unpolluted blood.  My body didn’t care that she was my mother.  My body didn’t care that my heart didn’t want to hurt her. My body only felt, and at that time, one feeling ruled all—thirst.

As I was reaching for the door knob, ready to remove the only obstacle between me and my prey, another scent caught my attention and dragged it away from the door.  I whirled around to find Bo standing inside my room, right in front of the window.

In a movement that would be too fast for human eyes to track, Bo crossed the room to me and took me in his arms.  Quickly, he whisked me back into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.  Never taking his eyes off me, Bo reached behind him and turned on the shower spray.

My mind was spinning with vague thoughts and hazy sensations, but none of them could compete with my need.  They were slave to that one thing that was infinitely more controlling and dominant than all else.

Thirst. 

Bo stepped closer to me, his eyes bubbling black pools of excited anticipation.

“Mr. Hearst,” he whispered and then he gave me his throat.

Without hesitation, I drove my fingers into his hair and my teeth into his neck.  With the slight
pop
of penetration, blood began to gush from his artery into my mouth, bathing my tongue in the thick luscious liquid.

Bo panted in my ear as he wrapped his arms around me, his hands roving my body from shoulder to hip and back again.  As his fingers teased my skin, his blood satiated my thirst.  But as one fire waned, another was kindled.  It gathered into a storm of white hot flames that licked their way along my veins and burned inside my core.

As if sensing the new direction my body was taking, Bo slid his palms down the backs of my thighs and he lifted until my legs were wrapped securely around his waist.   In three long steps, he had my back pressed against the cool wood of the door. 

Bo leaned into me, his hips grinding into mine.  When I tore my mouth from his throat, our lips collided with a passion that I feared would incinerate us both.  His tongue lapped up the residue of his own blood where it coated the inside of my mouth and I felt an explosive heat rising inside me, pouring through me to pool where our bodies met between my legs.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Ridley, I’m home,” my mother’s voice called from behind the door across the room, the door that led to Izzy’s bedroom.

Bo stilled against me, turning his head away from mine so that I could quietly draw a huge gulp of air into my burning lungs.  It was saturated with the scent of my mother’s blood, but it no longer affected me like it had only minutes before.  Bo had seen to that.  Once again, he’d swept in to save the day.

Bo leaned back to look at me, desire still burning in his eyes, hot and smoky.  He released his hold on me and let my legs fall slowly down the outsides of his thighs until my feet touched the floor. 

I could tell that he was as shaken as I was.  It was becoming apparent that we were going to have a difficult time keeping our hands off each other, even more so now that I was a vampire.  Bo had never told me that there were other pleasures associated with drinking blood.

 “Ridley?  Can you hear me?”

I cleared my throat.  “Yeah, Mom, I can hear you.”

“How did it go at Sebastian’s?”

“Fine.”

“Did he ask you back again?  To sit for him, I mean?”

“Um, we didn’t really talk about it, but I’m sure I’ll end up going back over there.”

“Good. I’d hate for you to mess up an opportunity like that.”

His face still inches from mine, Bo grinned.  My knees turned to mush and I smiled in return.  Oh, how I loved him!

“I won’t mess it up, Mom.”

“Alright.  I’m going to bed.”

“G’night.”

“Night.”

I listened as she walked through Izzy’s room toward the door that led out into the hall.  A little pang of sadness stabbed at my heart when I heard her pause.  I imagined that she was looking around the room, painfully remembering her other daughter for the millionth time.  Finally, she moved on, her footsteps fading as she made her way down the hall to her own bedroom.

That needle of reality punctured the balloon of passion Bo and I had occupied, leaving me feeling morose and deflated.  I was still staring at the other bathroom door when Bo raised his fingers to my forehead.  He rubbed them soothingly across the deep frown I could feel crouching between my brows.

“Don’t worry.  We’ll figure this out,” he whispered, as if he could somehow sense what was plaguing me.  In his eyes was love and assurance.

“She can’t lose another daughter.”

“I know.”

“But obviously my being here is out of the question, at least for a while.”

“Maybe you could ‘house sit’ for Sebastian.  Skip school the next couple of days and see how the weekend goes.  It
will
get easier.  I promise.”

I tried to smile, but I knew that it was a weak attempt.  Truthfully, his idea did seem like a stroke of genius and I did appreciate it, but I think we both knew my enthusiasm was sub-par at the moment.

Bo drew me gently into his arms and held me—held me until the bathroom was full of steam, held me until the tremors I hadn’t even been aware of had stopped, held me until some small amount of peace had made its way back into my heart.

When it seemed a respectable amount of time had passed, he released me and stepped back to turn off the shower.

“Why don’t you pack a bag and we’ll take it over to Sebastian’s tonight.  We can come back for your car later, after you call your mom and tell her that you’ll be staying at Sebastian’s.  Sound good?”

I nodded and we exited the bathroom. Bo sat on the bed while I rifled through my closet.

My head was clear enough of the dark cloud of thirst to allow the thousands of worries that beleaguered me to swarm my mind all at once.  As I packed my things, it seemed one concern kept floating to the top, much more often than the others.

“Bo, can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he said without a second’s hesitation.

“I assume we’ll be staying at Sebastian’s together, right?”

I busied myself with folding jeans into my bag, but I knew my cheeks were probably bright red.  If a vampire could blush, that is.  That’s something I’d have to investigate later.

“Of course.  I’m not leaving your side.”