Wake Me When the Sun Goes Down (6 page)

In a blur I was dragged away from the sweet oblivion of my feeding frenzy, barely conscious of being hauled over muscular shoulders and tossed onto my bed like a sack of potatoes.  I opened my mouth to lash out at my attacker with my newfound weapon
,
but a co
ol
hand clamped over my lips before I had time to even finish thinking about it. 

Bishop’s scowl appeared before me, fairly sparking with annoyance as he held me to the bed.  The hand was instantly replaced by the butt end of a stuffed animal that tasted like moldy socks
,
and I thrashed violently, attempting to spit it out.   In that moment
,
I wanted to tear him limb from limb for taking me from my feast.  There was no recognition that what he was doing was for my protection or
Bridget
’s
.
I had no thoughts for consequences
,
the call of the blood was too strong. 

Call of the blood… I’ve often thought about the sway that it has over vampires.  Even now it’s hard to resist its pull
,
but back then at the first taste, I was little more than a ravening beast.  There was no Anja,
only
a sharp, burning need to feed.  I didn’t give a damn about Bridget or what she must be going through.  She could have been lying bleeding to death on the bathroom floor for all I cared
,
I
only
knew I wanted more. 

While I was doing my best impression of a hell-cat trying to scratch his eyes out, Bishop retained that icy calm exterior, easily keeping me in place with one hand while he searched for what he wanted, making do with what was at hand.  To my growing indignity, I found myself trussed up on my own bed, the stuffed animal bound to my mouth to keep me from making any sound.  My eyes shot him daggers, the only defense I was allowed, and his
face
lit with a trace of amusement at that
.  I never wanted him more dead than in that moment, but he seemed only vaguely amused at my fury.

“There… now sit still, I have to go clean up your mess.”  His scowl was firmly in place as he looked down at me, surveying his handiwork. 

My mess… he meant Bridget.  The realization that he might truly leave me trussed up like that all night fueled my rage.  I screamed impotently into the stuffed animal, my wrists and ankles straining against the clothes that bound me. 
All the while I wondered,
who was this psycho and what
would he do with me when he was done with Bridget
?
 
Did cleaning up my mess mean killing her? 
All my struggles did was make my wrists and ankles painfully raw.  Soon that became the l
e
ast of my problems as I began to shake uncontrollably from head to toe, my skin burning like it was on fire. 

I lost some of my anger as fear began to set in.  Maybe if I had known what to expect I might not have felt so out of control, my panic fueling the growing sensation that I was truly dying.  I screamed against the gag
in agony instead of rage,
as I grew increasingly sensitive, painfully so.  Sweat ran down my body in rivulets from the exertion of the transformation
,
and I began to wonder if it was possible to actually set my bed
ding
on
fire if my skin got hot enough.
 

And then he was there, gathering me into his arms.  I shivered at the touch of his cool limbs, wondering if he was coming to kill me now
,
take care of this mess as he called it.  At the time I didn’t even care, I wanted the pain to stop
.  E
ven death would have been a blessing in the face of th
e
all consuming f
ire that burned me from within.

My eyes grew blurry and unfocused as I shivered weakly in his arms, my body trying desperately to create even more heat to fight off the infection of vampirism.  Dimly
,
I registered that he lifted me from the bed and carried me somewhere
,
and then I heard the sound of running water into the bathtub.  All at once I felt him lower me into the cold water, clothes and all.  I hadn’t the presence of mind to object, all I could feel was the immediately soothing effects on my burning limbs. 

Gradually I became aware that I was no longer tied up and the gag had been removed.  Bishop
spoke soothing
words of comfort
I couldn’t quite make out
,
b
lended together all soft and sweet as he held me in his arms, bringing water to my brow.   At one point I could have sworn that I heard him call me Carissa, but I was too tired and worn out to object.  My whole world was the cocoon of his arms and the blessedly cool water that bathed my fevered flesh.  I whimpered in response to his gentle murmurings, no longer having the strength to struggle or scream.

“Am
I dying?
”  My voice was little more than a whisper.

“
No, you’re being reborn
.”

“I
don’t want to be reborn
.
”
  N
ot if it meant I’d have to keep feeling like that.

“
You should have thought of that before you chose to become a vampire.
”  I thought I heard a smile in his voice, and I wanted to hit him in the worst way, even though he was helping me. 

How long I la
y
in the shelter of his arms I’ll never know
, b
ut at one point I looked up in wonder to see his cheeks wet with tears.  Or was I mistaken?  Had he merely rubbed his face with wet hands?  Once Bishop noticed me looking at him, his expression
unfathomable
, I began to have my doubts. 

“Welcome back,” he said softly, and I fancied I saw a bit of relief behind
his
eyes. 
H
e looked different to me now, in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  He looked… more.  More everything
,
more
handsome, more tired and drawn
, as if everything about him was exaggerated
.  He’d always been an appealing man, but t
here was an irresistible lure to him now that made the air whistle softly through my teeth at my quick intake of breath
.

“Hey…” I replied, my
voice
sounding strange to my ears.  Not hoarse as I might have expected from all the screaming, but low and throaty, almost… sexy. 
I cleared
my throat
and
scooted
up higher in the tub, noticing I could tell how cold the water was, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.  There were no goosebumps on my skin and I wasn’t shivering at all.
 
“How long…?” 

“Less time than you might think
,
” he interrupted, disengaging himself to reach for a fluffy blue bath towel. 

It had felt like an eternity, but I have often observed that as fleeting as pleasure can be, conversely
,
torture can go on endlessly.  Stepping out of the bathtub
,
I allowed him to wrap me up as I dripped onto the bath mat.  “Am I…?”

“Yep, you made it through the worst of it,
welcome to the vampire club
.”  A half smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he rubbed at my wet skin with short efficient movements. 

“The vampire club
,
” I
murmured dazedly.  W
ould membership have its privileges? 
It was ironic that this happened to me
. 
I was never a night person at heart
, s
o you can see right off the bat why a vampire was the very last thing I would have chosen to be.
 
All at once I realized I’d completely forgotten about my attack on Bridget, I was so wrapped up in my own drama.  “Is she…?”

“She’s fine.  Dead to the world, as in sleeping the sleep of the innocent, not actually dead.  She won’t remember a thing in the morning
,
”
h
e assured me. 

I waited for a moment to see if there was more forthcoming, but he seemed content to remain mute as he finished toweling me off.  There was a curious sense of surrealism as he lifted one of my feet to gently dry off my toes.  Here was this complete stranger, drying off my little piggies so I wouldn’t slip and fall and break my neck.  Not that it would have killed me anymore… 

I cleared my throat again, pulling my foot from his grasp, a little unnerved by the innocent touch.  “Will anything like that happen to me again?” I asked
,
with not a
small
amount of
trepidation.  If that was
going
to be a regular occurrence
,
I might as well go find a stake and be done with it. 

“Like I said, the worst of it is over.  You’ll have an adjustment period while you get used to your new abilities.  Your senses might go a little haywire from time to time
,
but nothing like what you went through tonight, I promise
.
”

That was comforting.  I wasn’t sure I had the strength to go through something like that again
.
I didn’t know how I would have survived without Bishop to bring me through it.  Did all vampires experience such a thing?  The way he’d known exactly how to care for me seemed to indicate they did. 

“So
,
what happens now?” I asked, wringing my shirt out into the sink. 

“
Y
ou
find your Sponsor,
and
g
et
me your license and registration
.  T
hen you and your
S
ire can feast on your friend all you want, as long as you clean up your own mess from now on.”  He gave a half shrug, tossing the towel carelessly aside and leaning against the counter. 

Ugh,
there
he went about the license and registration bit again.
And what was that about my
S
ire?  I was about as well read on vampires
as the next girl, maybe moreso.  I knew he meant the vampire that turned me into one,
but I really had no idea
who
he was talking about. 
“I told you, I don’t know who did this to me.”

“He hasn’t tried to contact you at all since we talked last night?”

“No, not a word.  Honestly, you’re the only one who keeps popping up in my life.  Well, besides the police.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”  Bishop paced the length of the narrow bathroom.  “Why wouldn’t he show himself?  You could have ended up feral if I hadn’t happened to
be here
, or dead if you hadn’t fed before sundown.  Why go through all the trouble to turn you if he’s willing to let you die?”

The news that I might have died if I hadn’t tasted Bridget’s blood eased
some
of the guilt, but I wish someone had told me that beforehand.  “Maybe he would have
shown up
if you weren’t here?”

“That’s possible, he probably wou
ldn’t have
come
if he knew t
he Order was involved,” he allowed.

“Why not?”

“Because he obviously has something to hide.  I’m guessing he didn’t have the proper license for turning you or he wouldn’t have run off like that.  Letting you go to the morgue without intervening was a pretty serious infraction.  He’s either stupid and careless, or considers himself above the law.  The Order takes that sort of thing pretty seriously.” 

I felt like I was only grasping half of the conversation.  “What is this Order you keep mentioning?”

“The Order of Jacari.  We uphold the laws, not that there are many between vampires.  Our greatest duty is to ma
sk our existence from the world
and punish those that threaten to expose us.”

So he
was
a cop of sorts…  I guess my instincts hadn’t been that far off, only
it all
was sounding more dangerous by the moment.  “By punish you mean…”

“Exterminate.”

I swallowed past the uncomfortable lump that rose in my throat.  “So ah, what happens now?” I repeated, starting to grasp why the paperwork was so important to him.  Paperwork I didn’t have. 

“Look
,
I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take you into custody until we can straighten this out.”  He didn’t sound happy about it, but it was nothing compared to the anxiety that twisted my stomach into knots.

“Are you serious?  You’re taking me in to vampire jail?”  I’d been a model citizen my entire life, I’d never so much as littered before, and now I was going to jail for something completely out of my control?