Мелисса де ла Круз - Keys to the Repository

Delphine, the Temptress Art Dealer. Who knew.

But whatever sorrow the divorce had brought to her life paled in comparison to what this boy was going through. He radiated fear, trembling in her arms. She didn’t really understand what he was telling her, but she could tell that he was running out of time.

Something thumped on the window hard, making them jump away from each other. Hannah took a sharp breath. The glass vibrated, but held and didn’t shatter. That vampire thing was back. It was out there. It was close. It wanted to feed.

And so did he.

The boy needed her blood, the strength and life force within it. He needed her to survive. He would die without her. Maybe not the kind of death humans experienced, but an emptiness nonetheless. A defeat. He would give himself up. He was growing weaker and weaker, and one day he wouldn’t be able to resist the monster’s call. He would walk out to meet his doom.

All he needed was to sink his fangs into her skin and drink her blood.

Hannah felt a shiver of revulsion at the thought. He was a monster, too. There was a monster in her bedroom. She moved away from him, her eyes wide and frightened as if seeing him for the first time. A stranger. A dirty, incoherent, and unwelcome stranger.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I think you should leave now.”

“It’s all right,” he said mournfully. “I didn’t expect you to. It’s a lot to ask.”

The light blinked off, and he was gone.

Hannah’s mother got up early the next morning to make her breakfast. Banana pancakes with maple syrup that came from the can with the Canadian flag on it. Hannah twirled the syrup around before taking a bite.

“Not hungry?” Kate asked. Kate had been the kind of person who ordered the housekeeper to make breakfast, who had made lists on Post-it notes, a litany of orders for the staff to take care of for the day. Hannah had never seen her mother cook anything aside from the random scrambled egg or the rare serving of pasta. Kate made one dish and made it well —spaghetti with meatballs. Now she cooked and cleaned, and her hands were dry and cracked from wiping down the bar at work. In the winter, Kate was a souschef at the attached restaurant, chopping carrots and boning chickens.

“Not really.” Hannah shook her head. She had never wished for the kind of relationship with her mother that meant they could talk about boys and crushes; she was almost glad that her mother didn’t jibe with the current intense befriending of her children. Kate was Mom. Hannah was Daughter. There was no girlfriend gossip between them, and that had suited them both fine.

“You look tired, hon. Please don’t read with that dim light up there. It’ll ruin your eyes.”

“My eyes are already ruined.”

Her mom drove her to the school, a few blocks away.

Hannah trudged in the snow. The whole day she thought about him. She remembered his words, his desperation to get away from the creature in the night that was hunting him. How alone he had looked. How scared. He looked like how she had felt when her father had told her he was leaving them, and her mother had had no one to turn to.

That evening, before going to bed, she put on her cutest nightgown—a black one her aunt had brought back from Paris.

It was silk and trimmed with lace. Her aunt was her father’s sister and something of a “bad influence” (again, her mom’s words). Hannah had made a decision.

When he appeared at three in the morning, she was waiting for him, sitting in the armchair next to her bed. She told him she had changed her mind.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to do. I’m not that kind of vampire.”

“Yes. But do it quickly before I chicken out,” she ordered.

“You don’t have to help me,” he said.

“I know.” She swallowed. “But I want to.”

“I won’t hurt you,” he said.

She put a hand to her neck as if to protect it. “Promise?”

How could she trust this strange boy? How could she risk her life to save him? But there was something about him— his sleepy dark eyes, his haunted expression—that drew her to him. Hannah was the type of girl who took in stray dogs and fixed birds’ broken wings. Plus, there was that thing out there in the dark. She had to help him get away from it.

“Do it,” she decided.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded briskly, as if she were at the doctor’s office and had been asked to give consent to a particularly troublesome, but much-needed operation. She took off her glasses, pulled the right strap of her nightgown to the side, and arched her neck. She closed her eyes and prepared herself for the worst.

He walked over to her. He was so tall, and when he rested his hands on her bare skin, they were surprisingly warm to the touch. He pulled her closer to him and bent down.

“Wait,” he said. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

She did. She stared at into his dark eyes, wondering what he was doing.

“They’re beautiful—your eyes, I mean. You’re beautiful,” he said. “I thought you should know.”

She sighed and closed her eyes as his hand stroked her cheek.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

She could feel his hot breath on her cheek, and then his lips brushed hers for a moment. He kissed her, pressing his lips firmly upon hers. She closed her eyes and kissed him back. His lips were so hot and wet.

Her first kiss, and from a vampire.

She felt his lips start to kiss the side of her mouth, and then the bottom of her chin, and then the base of her neck. This was it. She steeled herself for pain.

But he was right: there was very little. Just two tiny pinpricks, then a deep feeling of sleep. She could hear him sucking and swallowing, feel herself begin to get dizzy, woozy.

Just like giving blood at the donor drive. Except she probably wouldn’t get a doughnut after this.

She slumped in his arms, and he caught her. She could feel him walk her to the bed and lay her down on top of the sheets, then cover her with the duvet.

“Will I ever see you again?” she asked. It was hard to keep her eyes open. She was so tired. But she could see him vividly now. He seemed to glow. He looked more substantial.

“Maybe,” he whispered. “But you’d be safer if you didn’t.”

She nodded dreamily, sinking into the pillows.

In the morning, she felt spent and logy, and told her mother she thought she was coming down with the flu and didn’t feel like going to school. When she looked in the mirror, she saw nothing on her neck—there was no wound, no scar. Had nothing happened last night? Was she indeed going crazy? She felt around her skin with her fingertips and finally found it—a hardening of the skin, just two little bumps. Almost imperceptible, but there.

She’d made him tell her his name before she had agreed to help him.

Dylan, he’d said. My name is Dylan Ward.

Later that day, she dusted the plaque near the fireplace and looked at it closely. It was inscribed with a family crest, and underneath it read “Ward House.” Wards were foster children.

This had been a home for the lost. A safe house on Shelter

Island.

Hannah thought of the beast out there in the night, rattling the windows, and hoped Dylan had made it to wherever he was going.

VENATOR RECORDS:

MARTIN

KINGSLEY MARTIN

Araquiel, Angel of Vengeance, the Angel with Two Faces

Birth Name: Kingsley Anderson Martin

Origin: Silver Blood Enmortal

Known Past Lives: Tiberius Gemellus (Rome)

Bondmate: None

Assigned Human Conduit: None

List of Human Familiars: None

Physical Characteristics: