Blood Pact

steel coffin still enclosed him, wrapped him in the stink of death perverted and the acrid odor of his own terror. He couldn't prevent the first two blows that slammed up into the impervious arc of padded metal, but he managed to stop the third and the fourth. With full consciousness came greater control. He remembered the futile struggles of the night before and knew that mere physical strength would not be enough to free him.

    His head swam with images, the young man, strangled, newly dead; the older man, long dead, not dead, not alive; the young woman, pale hair, pale skin, empty eyes. He swallowed, tasted the residue of blood, and was nearly lost as the Hunger rose.

    It was too strong to force back. Henry barely managed to hold the line between the Hunger and self.

    He had fed the night before. The Hunger should be his to command. Then he realized his struggles had tangled his arms in the heavy folds of his leather trench coat. Someone had removed both it and his shirt and not bothered to replace them. Bare to the waist, he found the marks of a dozen needles.

    And I no more want to be strapped to a table for the rest of my life than to have my head removed and my mouth stuffed with garlic.

    He'd made that observation, somewhat facetiously, just over a year ago. It seemed much less facetious now. Over the course of the day someone had obviously been conducting experiments. He was helpless during the oblivion of the day. He was captive in the night.

    The panic won and a crimson tide of Hunger roared free with it.

    Consciousness returned a second time that night, bringing pain and an exhaustion so complete he could barely straighten twisted limbs. His body, weakened by blood loss, had obviously set a limit on hysteria.

    Can't say . . . as I blame it. Even thinking hurt. Screaming had ripped his throat raw. Bruising, bone-deep on knees and elbows, protested movement. Two of the fingers on his left hand were broken and the skin over the knuckles, split. With what seemed like the last of his strength, he realigned the fractures then lay panting, trying not to taste the abomination in the air.

    They've taken so much blood, I have to assume they know what I am.

    The Hunger filled his prison with throbbing crimson need, bound for the moment by his weakness. Eventually, the weakness would be devoured and the Hunger would rule.

    In all his seventeen years, Henry had never been in a darkness so complete and, in spite of Christina's remembered reassurances, he began to panic. The panic grew when he tried to lift the lid off the crypt and found he couldn't move. Not stone above him but rough wood embracing him so closely that the rise and fall of his chest brushed against the boards.

    He had no idea how long he lay, paralyzed by terror, frenzied need clawing at his gut, but his sanity hung by a . . .

    "No." He could manage no more than a whispered protest, not quite enough to banish the memory. The terror of that first awakening, trapped in a common grave, nearly destroyed by the Hunger, would reach out to claim him now if he let it. "Remember the rest, if you must remember at all.”

    . . . he heard a shovel blade bite into the dirt above him, the noise a hundred thousand times louder than it could possibly have been.”

    "Henry!”

    The Hunger surged out toward the voice, carrying him with it.

    "Henry!”

    His name. It was his name she called. He clutched at it like a lifeline, the Hunger a surrounding maelstrom.

    "Henry, answer me!”

    Although the Hunger tried to drown him out, he formed a single word. "Christina . . .”

    Then, the nails shrieking protest, the coffin lid flew back. Pale hands, strong hands, gentle hands held him in his frenzy. Rough homespun ripped away from alabaster skin and a wound in a breast reopened so he could feed again on the blood that had changed him, safe behind a silken curtain of ebony hair.

    He couldn't free himself.

    Four hundred and fifty years ago, a woman's love had saved him.

    He couldn't surrender to despair.

    But it had taken Christina three days . . .

    Vicki, come quickly. Please. I can't survive that again.

    The halls had always been empty when she walked them, empty, echoing, and dimly lit. And they are no different tonight, Aline Burke told herself firmly, placing one foot purposefully before the other. They are still empty. I am making the only sounds. Shadows are merely absences of light.

    But air currents moved where she'd never felt air currents