Barb Hendee - Hunting Memories

"No, roll over," she murmured.

He obeyed her, and then she was sitting on top of him. She was so light he could barely feel her weight.

"My name is Jessenia," she said, "and you are my other half."

She leaned down, and he expected her to kiss him again. But she moved her mouth to his neck, and before he realized what was happening, she drove her teeth into throat. The pain was blinding, and he bucked hard to throw her off. But she held on, gripping him and draining his blood.

His mind went blank.

Then he was lost again in the glorious images of rocky beaches with saltwater spray, new cities to explore, ancient churches, lush forests, mountains… and Jessenia always beside him, always smiling and laughing or lost in wonder or offering ideas for the next place to go. The pain in his throat vanished. The beating of his heart slowed and slowed. So lost in the lovely visions, he was only dimly aware of his heart. He saw himself sitting with Jessenia at a fine inn, and she offered him a goblet of red wine. He drank deeply. It was delicious.

Then he opened his eyes and found himself lying on his back with her on top, leaning over him… and her torn wrist was in his mouth. He was drinking her blood. He was gulping in mouthfuls.

Shock hit him like cold water.

"Don't stop," she whispered. "Not yet."

And he couldn't stop. She caressed his face and murmured in his ear. A few moments later, everything went black.

When he next woke, he could hear all the insects of the forest.

He turned his head and saw Jessenia sitting near him. She crawled closer and smiled.

"You're awake. I did not know how long you would sleep."

He felt different. The fire was long out, but he was not cold. Memories came rushing back, and he knew he should be horrified, enraged. He should want to kill her.

But he didn't.

With her face leaning close to his, he only wanted her to wash those perfect images of their journeys through his mind again.

"Can you walk?" she asked. "We should go and stay at an inn until you've completely finished the change and you're ready to feed. But you cannot feed without me along at first, not until you've learned how."

"Feed?"

"Just come."

She drew him up to his feet, and they untied their horses, leaving the dead fire behind and the small patch of ground where Robert lost one life… and began another.

The first weeks of his undead existence passed quickly, but he never forgot them.

He was a not a fanciful man, and he took no stock in myths and superstitions.

So this new reality-clearly no myth-was something he accepted as an event he could not change.

He might have questioned more, even regretted more, had Jessenia not been at his side, helping him every step of the way, or as much as he allowed her to help. He never realized how alone he had been before her.

She was just a slip of a girl. A gypsy sprite.

Yet she bubbled over with life to a degree that left him in awe. He would have died for her.

Not long after the night by their campfire, he began growing uncomfortable, hollow and agitated.

"We need to go out," Jessenia said.

They left their inn and walked among the people of the village. He wasn't even sure which village.

"Where are we?"

"It doesn't matter yet," she answered, looking around. She spotted a smithy with a red glow coming from somewhere inside. "This way."

When they reached the front doors, she stopped him. "Just try to watch me, but don't come all the way in until I call for you."

He frowned in confusion, but the hollow feeling inside him was growing worse, and she had always known what to do before. So from the side of the doorway, he watched her go in. She approached a young man standing by brazier with a steel mallet in his hand.

The young man looked up in surprise, but Jessenia smiled.

"Sorry to bother you so late, but my horse has gone lame, just down the street. He's bad enough that I didn't want to try to make him walk. Could you come take a look? I can pay you."

The man laid down the mallet and took off his apron. His face was sweating. "I don't mind. I could use a rest from this anyway."

But Jessenia did not move to leave. Instead she looked around the smithy. "Are you here all day?" she asked. "Do you ever wish to go someplace else, someplace far and strange?"

Robert heard the change in her voice, and he was beginning to recognize the difference between her voice for dreams and her voice for communicating. The blacksmith's eyes glazed over almost instantly, and he sank to his knees as Jessenia continued talking, lowering her voice to a soft pitch.

"To walk along the shores of Italy, with the blue sky and blue sea…"

Robert was hit by a stab of jealousy so strong he almost walked in and grabbed her by the throat. What was she doing? Sporting with another man right in front of him?

"You see a ledge jutting from the rocks. You walk over and lie down beneath it, breathing the warm air. You fall asleep."

The blacksmith lay down in the straw on the floor.

Jessenia looked up. "Robert," she said softly. "Come now."

Confused, he walked in, still angry at her, but uncertain what she was doing. She knelt down on the floor.

"Like this," she said, picking up the blacksmith's wrist. Carefully, she sank her teeth into his veins. Something on the edge of Robert's awareness told him he should be shocked, but he wasn't.

Jessenia pulled her teeth out. "Come and feed. I'll keep him asleep."

He walked over and knelt on the other side of the sleeping man. Then he took the blacksmith's wrist and bit down, drinking blood as he'd once swallowed ale from a wooden mug.

"Be careful," Jessenia said. "Listen for his heart. You can't take too much."

The blood tasted sweet and salty at the same time. He could feel the life and strength growing in him. Images of the man's life passed through his mind, of work and family and spending holidays in the north. The hollow ache vanished. He gulped in more mouthfuls.

"No!" Jessenia pushed him away. "You never kill to feed. You can kill to protect us. You can even kill for money, but not to feed. Else you'll endanger all of us. Do you understand?"

He did not understand.

She placed one hand on the blacksmith's head and closed her eyes. Then she opened her eyes again, took a small knife from her boot, and turned the bite marks on the man's wrist into a straighter line.

"I've altered his memory," she said. "He won't remember me at all. When he wakes, he will remember cutting himself on that sword lying halfway off the table. Then he will remember fainting."

The sense of this was beginning to dawn on Robert, but he still didn't grasp what she meant by "altered his memories." How?

"Don't worry," she said. "You'll be doing this on your own soon. We should go." She smiled. "Tonight we set out. Where shall we go first?"

Feeling strong and filled with anticipation, he followed her.

Robert decided upon France, so he and Jessenia made their way to the coast and found passage on a ship to cross the Channel.

The ship sailed about an hour before dawn.

"Tonight, we'll go up and watch the water racing past the bow," she said.

Huddled in their cramped quarters belowdecks, Robert thrilled at even the prospect of this crossing. Jessenia made every moment enticing.

The air was still dark outside, and he felt wide awake. Somehow, she'd seemed different to him tonight. She kept studying his face almost as if she was hungry.

She came to him, sitting beside him on his bunk. "I can feel your gift," she said. "It's getting stronger."

So much she said was still a mystery.

"I love your gift," she whispered. "As you love mine."

For the first time since that night by the campfire, she reached up and kissed him. He pushed her back to lie on the bunk, and he pressed his mouth down hard over hers, running his hands down her slender waist as she moved her hands up to grip the nape of his neck.