Jeanne Stein - The Watcher

Too late.

It occurs to me that she may have one or two more of those magic syringes in the pockets of her skirt—or another knife. Since I'm sure she has no intention of letting Max or me go, I doubt I'll find anything to help him. But maybe something to use against her when the time comes.

I move quickly, before she "awakens" even more. I hold both her hands in one of mine. With my free hand, I pass it over the contours of her body, even lifting the hem of her skirt to skim her thighs and between her legs. I dip my hand into the pockets of her skirt and lift the curtain of hair that falls to the middle of her back. I find nothing. Her eyes follow my hand but she doesn't try to pull away. She's quiet and resigned.

It makes me very nervous.

I want to bind her hands. But if I did, how would that look to the pilot and her friends downstairs? The ruse is only going to work if they think Marta is in control.

It's now or never.

I pick Max up and turn away from the cot.

A sound like static over a telephone line interposes itself in my head.

I almost drop Max, I'm so startled.

I listen closely.

The sound comes again. Only this time, the static is a garbled message. Gibberish. As if someone is trying to say something but the connection between brain and speech has been disrupted.

Or severed.

My stomach churns.

I lay Max back down and take a step toward the cot where Martinez' body is resting. Martinez' eyes are open. His head, barely connected by strings of flesh to his body, is stirring.

I think I'm going to be sick.

I look at Marta. She is watching, too, with another of those appalling smiles on her face. And I know. Her son did ingest enough of my blood to become vampire.

Marta lied.

I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER FELT SUCH DISGUST FOR any creature, human or otherwise. Martinez either did drink at Marta's urging, or there was blood transference through our injuries. With such devastating injuries, though, she could not have been sure that it would work. That's why she tried to make me turn her.

In any case, I can't leave him like this. Vampires have great powers of healing, but a nearly severed head reunited with a body ? And what kind of vampire would an infamous drug lord make? I have to kill him—really kill him— before it gets any worse.

I rub my hands over my face in an effort to clear my head. I've killed rogues. But up until now, they have had at least a fighting chance. This will be like murdering a baby.

Almost instantly, cold, hard reality chases that thought out of my head. Martinez is not a baby. He was a killer in life. He will be a killer in death, too. Worse, because should he survive with vampire powers, he would be practically indestructible.

I feel Marta's eyes on me. She is watching to see what I will do. I have no doubt she will try to stop me if she regains greater mobility. I have to do this now.

This room is furnished only with the metal cots. The room across the hall held nothing more, either. What can I use to inflict the second death? There is no wood to use for a stake.

My eyes fall on Marta's knife.

As soon as I bend to pick it up, she begins moaning. She tries to take a step toward me, but her legs aren't quite strong enough. She stumbles and falls to her hands and knees.

Should I push her out of the room? She's as despicable as her son, but forcing her to watch as his body disintegrates into dust seems harsh even to me.

I don't give her a chance to make any other attempts to communicate. I drop the knife, pick her up and carry her through the door to the room on the other side. She squirms in my arms like an angry child. I deposit her on the cot, and tear another strip off the piece of sheet I'd left there. I tie her good hand to the leg of the cot. I doubt she can untie it with her wounded arm and she certainly isn't strong enough to pull the cot through the door.

Her guttural moans follow me as I step back into the hall and pull the door shut.

I have to steel myself to go back to Martinez. If I could call up the animal, this would be easier. But it's a human decision I'm making and the human Anna has to handle it.

My hand shakes as I turn the doorknob. The knife is where I dropped it when I took Marta out of the room. I pick it up and approach Martinez, praying that he does not realize what I'm about to do. I remember that Avery, the vampire doctor who treated me when I was first attacked, seemed to be able to read my thoughts from the very first. I know I must do this, but inflicting terror first seems unnecessarily cruel.

Martinez' eyes are still open. They are focused on a point to my left Quickly, before I lose my nerve, I move behind his cot, raise the knife and sever the tendrils of skin that hold his head on his shoulders. The head separates from the body, his eyes roll back. He projects a sigh that remains in my head long after the body has disintegrated into dust.

"Anna."

This time the voice is definitely outside my head.

I whirl toward the sound.

Max has raised himself up on his elbows. He is awake, suddenly, completely. His face is contorted with confusion and something else.

Fear.

His eyes are on the cot that until seconds ago, held Martinez' body. They shift away finally, to catch and hold mine.

"God, Anna," he whispers, voice raw and choked with undisguised horror. "What did you do? What have you become?"

MY FIRST IMPULSE, TO THROW MY ARMS around Max in relief, is stifled by the expression on his face. He's afraid. I see it, I smell it. I don't know how to alleviate that fear so I do what I always do when cornered.

I crack wise.

"What did I do? I think I saved your ass."

There's no smile. The lines around his mouth harden, shift from being afraid of me to something worse, revulsion.

"What are you?" he asks again.

I think he knows the answer, or suspects it. He's spent enough time at Beso de la Muerte. When I don't reply, he lets his head drop back onto the cot. "I don't believe this," he says.

His voice breaks and with it, something deep inside me shifts. I know my relationship with Max is over. Vanished into dust with that stroke of the knife as utterly as Martinez' body.

Why do I feel such despair? Haven't I known all along there was no other possible outcome? Wasn't I prepared to break it off with him as soon as I could? I know now that even if I had told Max at the beginning, his reaction today has shown me that he wouldn't have accepted what I am. How could he?

There's a shuffling sound from across the hall. It snaps my attention back. There'll be plenty of time to wallow in misery when we're safe.

"Can you stand up?"

Max heard the noise, too. He's looking at the door and for an instant, the old Max is back. He looks like a cop again. He draws himself into a sitting position, stretching limbs, testing. When he tries to straighten his right leg, the pain hits.

"Your ankle looks broken." I step close and put out a hand to roll up his pant leg.

He starts to cringe away. I know it's not from fear that I'll hurt the wound on his leg. He doesn't want me to touch him.

"Damn it, Max. We've got to get out of here. That bitch Marta is going to give us trouble if we don't move fast. She's drugged now, but she's coming out of it. We don't have time to waste."

In an instant, he's weighed and accepted the validity of what I've said. "We need to make a splint." He looks around the room. "The legs of one of these cots. Can you break one off?"

Easily. The cot comes apart in my hands as if it were made of papier-mâché. Ripping the canvas into shreds to make a binding acts as a welcome release to the pent-up emotions surging in my gut.