Black Blood - By Christopher Pike Page 0,62

used to go searching for Popsicles in the middle of the night. I am so weak-Eddie drags me by my hair. Yanking the fat white door open, he throws me inside, into the foggy frost, the cold dark, where his eyes are not as sharp as mine, and both our aversions to cold will stand or fall in critical balance. Landing on my ass, I quickly stand and find Eddie staring at me in that special way. I do believe he is not even going to give me a chance to fully undress. Tossing my head and hair to the side, I raise my right hand and place it on my left breast. One last time, just before I speak, I whistle the note.

"I do so prefer the dark," I say. "For me, it makes it that much more dirty."

Eddie-he has many buttons. This one makes his leg lash out. Behind him, the door shuts. The over-head light either doesn't work or doesn't exist. All is dark, all is cold.

I hear him coming toward me.

More than that I can distinguish a faint outline of him, even in the total absence of light. And I can tell by the lack of focus in his movements that he cannot see me at all. Also, already I can tell the cold has dulled his vampiric blood. This is both good and bad. The slower he is, the easier he will be to handle. Yet the same effect applies to me as well. My only advantage is that I know the dullness is coming. Unfortunately, snakes never mate on a winter night. The freezer puts a hold on his reckless passion just when I need it most. Before I can sing another note, he pauses in midstride, and I see that he realizes he has been tricked. In a flash he turns for the door.

I trip him. He falls to the floor.

In the event a large freezer door gets jammed and a person is locked inside, it is required by law that an ax be kept inside at all times. That way, if need be, the unfortunate individual can chop his way out In Eddie's freezer the ax is strapped to the inside of the door, which is normal. As Eddie falls, I leap onto his back and over his head and grab that ax. It is a big sucker. Raising it over my head, feeling the weight of its sharp steel blade, I know true happiness.

"What's your favorite flavor, little boy?" I ask.

Eddie quickly goes up onto his knees, searching for me in the dark, feeling with his hands, knowing I'm near but not realizing what I have in my hands.

"Huh" he says.

"Cherry red?" I shout.

I bring the ax down hard. Cut off his goddamn head. Black blood gushes out and I kick his amputated coconut into what could be a box of ice-cream sand?wiches. Dropping the ax, I rumble in the dark with the door, barely getting it open. My strength is now finished. Even with the ax, even being a vampire, I would not have had the energy to chop my way out.

I find Joel dying on the couch. He has a minute more, maybe two. Kneeling before him, I lift up his sunken head. He opens his eyes and tries to smile at me.

"You stopped him?" he whispers.

"Yes. He is dead." I pause and glance at the needle still in my arm, the tourniquet and the plastic tubing. I twist the latter to keep it from leaking my blood onto the floor. Searching Joel's face, I feel such guilt. "Do you know what I am?" I ask.

The word comes hard. "Yes."

"Do you want to be like me?"

He closes his eyes. "No."

I grab him, shake him. "But you will die, Joel."

"Yes." His head falls on his chest. His breath is a thing of resignation, a settling of ripples on a moun?tain pond that prepares for a winter's frost Yet he speaks once more, one sweet word that pierces my heart and makes me fed he is my responsibility: "Sita."

The seconds tick. They always do. The power of an entire sun cannot stop them even for a moment, and so death comes between the moments, like a thief of light in the dark. Eddie had brought a spare syringe. It sits on the dining room table like a needle that waits for me to poke in the eye of God. Krishna made me promise to make no other vampires, and in return he would grant me his grace, his protection. And even though I did make another when I changed Ray, Yaksha believed I still lived in that grace because I gave Ray my blood to save him, only because I loved him.

'Where there is love, there is my grace."

I believe I can save Joel. I feel it is my duty to do so.

But do I love him?

God help me, I don't know.

Stumbling into the dining room, I fetch the extra syringe. It fits snugly onto the end of the plastic tubing. Because I still wear the tourniquet, the pres?sure is on my veins and my blood will flow into his. Like Ray, six weeks ago, Joel will be forever altered. But staring down at his unconscious face, I wonder if any creature, mortal or immortal, has the right to make decisions that last forever. I only know I will miss him if he dies.

Sitting beside him, cradling him in my arms, I stick the needle in his vein. My blood - it goes into him. But where will it stop? As I sink into the couch and begin to pass out, I realize that he may hate me in the morning, which from now on will always come at night for him. He told me not to do it. He may even kill me for what I have done. Yet I am so weary, I don't know if I even care. Let him carry on the story, I think. -- Let him be the last vampire.

TO BE CONTINUED ...