Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(67)

And neither of the boys was prepared for that.





ELEVEN





MYRNIN




It was so dark. Dark dark dark dark dark dark. Darkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkcan’tbreathedarrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkk…

I gained control of my clattering, chattering mind with an effort that left me trembling. Had I been still human, still breathing—as I was sometimes in dreams—I thought I would have been drenched in the sweat of fear and gasping. I dreamed that sometimes, too, the sticky moisture on my skin, dripping and burning in my eyes, but in the dreams it wasn’t dark; it was bright, so bright, and I was running for my life, running from the monster behind….

So many years running blackness turning red nothing nothing safe no havens no friends lost all lost until Amelie until this place until home but home was gone gone dead and gone…I gagged on the taste in the back of my mouth, the excruciating spike of hunger, and sagged against the wet, slick wall. Don’t remember, I told myself. Don’t think.

But I couldn’t stop thinking. Ever. My mother had beaten me for fancies when I watched the stars and drew their patterns and forgot the sheep while wolves ate the lambs and my sisters with their cruel and petty wounds when no one saw and my father penned up like an animal as he howled all the thinking never stopped never never never a howling storm in my head until the heat burst through my skin and devoured me.

Stop. I shouted it inside my head until I could feel the force of it hammering against bone, and for a blessed moment, I gained the space of silence against all the pressing weight of memory and terror that never, never went away for long.

There was time enough to think where I was and to remember my present situation…not my past.

The prison was familiar to me, familiar not from Morganville but from ancient and heavily unpleasant years past…. My enemy was still a great fan of the classics, because he had dropped me into an oubliette—a round, narrow hole in stone that was deep enough, and smooth enough, to thwart a vampire’s attempts to jump or climb. In less civilized times, one would be dropped in to be forgotten entirely. Humans lasted only days, generally, before the confinement, darkness, hunger or thirst—or simple horror—took them. Vampires…well. We were hardy.

It’s a sad thing for a vampire to confess, but I have always hated the bitter, choking dark. It’s useful to us to hide and stalk, but only when there is a hint of light—a glimmer, something that will define the shadows and give them shape. A blood-hot body glows, and that, too, is a comfort and a convenience.

But here, there was no glimmer, no prey, nothing to relieve the inky and utter black. It reminded me of terrible, terrible things like the grave I had dug my way out of more than once, the taste of dirt and screams in my mouth, vivid and sour, and that taste never went away, leaving me gagging on it, gagging and unable to fight past the choking, awful sense of burial only blood could wash out, blood and searing light….

DarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkdarkohmyGodwhy…

When I came to myself, I was doubled over and retching, my hands flat against the wall. I was on my knees, which was even less pleasant than standing. I sagged back and found the cold, wet stone of the wall only a few inches behind me. I could sit, if I did not mind waist-high filthy water, and my knees to my chin. Well, it made for a change, at least.

It was my fault that I was here, entirely mine. Claire always chided me for my single-mindedness and she was right, right, always right, even Frank had told me to go but poor, surly Frank, starving for lack of nutrients no one to change out the tanks and care for him properly, and Bob, what to do about Bob, I couldn’t leave him behind all on his own how would he catch his flies and crickets and the occasional juicy beetle without assistance he was so very much my responsibility and Claire Claire Claire vulnerable now without Amelie without pity kindness mercy no no no I could not go should not…

Chilly skeletal Pennyfeather, with his acid eyes and killer’s smile…

Frank warned me warned me warned me…

Pennyfeather dragging heretics to the flames, hunting me, digging me out of my last safe nest and into burning sunlight where Oliver laughed and then the oubliette the darkness dark darkdarkdarkdarkdarkdark…

I opened my eyes again, eventually, with my screams still ringing back at me from the stone walls. What a noisy chorus I was. It was still complete and utter darkness—the rock I leaned on, the water, my hand in front of my face, all bleak and black, not even a spark of light, life, color.

That was because I was blind. I remembered it with a sudden, guilty shock; it was odd that one would forget something that significant. But in my defense, one doesn’t tend to wish to remember such things (Pennyfeather’s awful pale grin, the flash of the knife, the pain, the fall).

You’ve healed from worse, I told myself sternly. I pretended to be someone clear, someone practical. Ada, perhaps, in her better days. Or Claire. Yes, Claire would be quite practical at a time like this.

Blind blind three blind mice see how they run who holds the carving knife where is the cat Dear God in heaven the cat and I am only a mouse, a blind and helpless mouse in a trap cheese if only someone would drop down a bite of cheese, or another mouse…

The oubliette, I was not a mouse, I was a vampire, I was a blind vampire who would heal, of course, eventually, and see again. Stop, I told myself. I drew in a deep breath and smelled ancient death, crushed weeds, rotting metal, stone. I had no idea where the oubliette was located. I was simply at the bottom of it, standing in cold, filthy water and thinking that this time, my favorite slippers were well and truly ruined. Such a pity.