“Of The Becoming,” he says. “The first stage is lust. The second stage is bloodlust.”
“Lust? What does that even mean?”
“You’ll see. You might even enjoy it…if I’m feeling charitable. If I’m not, you’ll be in pure agony, begging me to end it.” Then he flashes me a smile and tips his chin to me. “Take care, Lenore.”
He leaves the room, keeping the lights on this time.
I take a moment to try and take stock of the situation, to try and make sense of everything that just happened.
But I can’t.
It’s too much, too unbelievable, too fantastical.
The only thing that does make sense is that my parents have left me here to die.
And they might not even be my parents.
Chapter Seven
Red moon rising over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Me, in the back of a car, staring out the window, feeling so much wonder. Not at the moon, which is singing me a song, but at the bridge, at the cars, at seeing the ocean from this height, moonlight gleaming on the water.
I turn forward in my child seat and look at the people in the front seat. There’s a man with kind eyes and a funny laugh, he’s driving. Then there’s a woman with long blonde hair pulled back into a braid, her arms wrapped in bandages.
They are not my parents.
But I know they will be.
“What’s your birthday, Lenore?” the woman asks me.
I’m too young to speak, too young to know.
But I say, April 17th inside my head and the woman nods.
“Then we have nineteen birthdays together before you must die,” she says, turning in her seat to smile at me. “You know you have to die, right? A girl like you shouldn’t exist.”
A girl like me.
“Until then, we will love you,” she adds. “And you will love us. And we will pretend that we are happy, even though deep inside, we know the clock is ticking.”
“Okay,” I say in a small voice.
I glance up at the rearview mirror.
And now Absolon is driving the car.
He grins, with fangs that glint in the moonlight, and with one smooth movement, he brings the car over the lanes, accelerating, and then the car is bursting through the guardrails, and we plunge down, down, down.
Falling.
Dropping.
Into icy water.
The last thing I see are the lights of San Francisco.
* * *
“Should we wake her up?”
A calm, elegant voice answers. “She’s awake. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
I am awake, but barely. My mind keeps drifting off into darkness.
Except it’s not total darkness. There are images there.
Of blood splattering on walls.
Of cells flittering within veins.
Of a pumping heart.
There are images of orgies, cocks hard and erect, plunging inside people, the cries of pleasure and agony, the writhing bodies beneath bodies on bloodstained satin sheets.
There is a feeling of something inside me, a beast, that wants to break free of my skin and run and fuck.
There’s another being too, one born of moonlight and darkness, who wants to hide myself, to shrink, to sink inward.
I don’t know what I am anymore.
I don’t think I ever did.
I am changing.
“Lenore.”
It’s Absolon’s voice. To my detriment, it’s now a familiar one.
I open my eyes, expecting to see the basement ceiling.
But it’s not.
It’s lace.
A canopy of lace high above me.
I blink and try to move.
I can’t.
Story of my life.
I lift my head.
I’m on a four-poster bed, on top of black satin sheets.
I’m in only my bodysuit now, my skirt gone.
My wrists and ankles are wrapped in ropes that connect to each corner of the bed, spread eagle.
At the foot of the bed stand Absolon and Wolf, both staring at me with interest. Absolon is in a tailored navy shirt that shows off his shoulders, arms, slim V tapering to black pants, his skin luminous. Wolf is in a leather jacket, Henley shirt, jeans. The dark one and the light one.
I should be terrified.
I should be screaming.
But I’m not.
It’s not that I know these men don’t mean me harm. I know Absolon means me harm. He’s warned me plenty of times. I’ve felt his harm bleed from my throat to his finger and down through his lips.
But I don’t think this is what it looks like.
What it feels like is a different story.
I’ve seen The Exorcist.
This is what they do to someone who might become uncontrollable.
I’m changing.
Into what?
How can I be changing into anything except the shadow of the person I once was?
“Good morning, Lenore,” Absolon says in a clipped voice, hands behind his back as he walks over to the side of the bed, staring at me like a doctor would a patient. “And how are we feeling today?”
I stare at him, trying to ignore the rising anger that’s making my blood seethe. How the hell does he think I feel? Not only do I have no idea how I got from the basement to here, this strange room, but he let me know how much my parents don’t want to find me. Worse than that, they’re covering for my disappearance, like they had something to do with it.