Then I take the blade and stumble over to Solon, feeling drained and weak and with nothing left to live for. I fall to my knees before his lifeless body.
Then I give saving him one more shot.
Jeremias told me that I could create vampires that aren’t mad.
It’s time to put that to the test.
I lean over Solon, and then run my blade over my wrist, a deep cut. Blood flows out onto his mouth, splattering onto his face, into his still unblinking eyes that stare up at nothing. I reach out, saying a million silent prayers in my head, and gently open his mouth, making sure the blood drips in there.
Can you recreate a vampire? If a vampire dies, can you bring them back again? Does it count if they died by witch’s blade? Will I be enough for him?
Will he still go mad, forever a beast?
Was Jeremias lying?
“Come on, Solon,” I whisper to him, keeping his lips open, my wrist pressed against his mouth. “Come on, Solon, please. Please wake up, please wake up.”
But nothing is happening.
“No, please,” I plead. I remove my hand when his mouth fills with so much blood it starts to spill out down the sides of his face.
This isn’t working.
He’s dead.
You can’t bring him back from the dead.
I look over at his chest, at dark open wound that looks like the marks of an electrical fire spreading across his white skin.
His heart is beneath it.
His strong beautiful heart, the heart of a man, a vampire, a beast.
I bring my wrist to the wound, cut myself again before I start healing up, and watch as the blood flows down onto his wound, into his heart. Jeremias had fixed me by doing something similar, but he used black magic blood. I’m using my blood, full of life and light.
And love.
The blood is love.
“Solon, can you hear me?” I whisper. “Come back to me, please. I’m here. I’m waiting for you.”
I let the blood run.
I let it fill the wound.
I watch it run over, spreading across his chest, running over the edges onto the snow and the pebbles of the beach below.
And still nothing.
I close my eyes, tilting my face up to the sky, letting the tears fall.
A ray of light hits my face.
I squint and realize that the clouds are parting, showing blue patches of sky underneath.
Blue.
Not a hint of red anymore.
And then beneath me he stirs.
I gasp and move back to see Solon twitch, his chest rising.
Oh my god!
“Solon,” I cry out, placing my hands at his face. “Solon.”
He blinks.
Staring up at the sky that matches the blue in his eyes.
Then his eyes widen and he rolls over, coughing, the blood pouring out of his mouth before he chokes on it.
“You need that,” I tell him, and I’m so elated that I feel like crying and laughing at the same time. “You need to drink from me.”
He collapses back down on the ground, too weak to talk or keep himself up and I quickly slice my other wrist and hold it against his mouth, my other hand going to the back of his head and cradling it as I lift it up a few inches.
“Drink,” I tell him. “You need my blood. It’s the only way you’ll survive.”
He bites my wrist, soft at first as he drinks, then his fangs grow against my skin piercing deep out of habit. His gaze is a little lost, both ravenous and out of it, which I would expect when you’ve come back from the dead like this.
Then, as time goes on and I feel myself losing power and energy, a clarity comes into his eyes.
I died, he says inside my head, still feeding hungrily. I died. You brought me back. Am I mad?
I shake my head. You aren’t. You’re you.
Am I hurting you?
I close my eyes. No. You can’t hurt me anymore, Solon. The beast is gone, but you are here. So am I.
What if I can’t stop?
I feel like life is slipping out of me. You’ll find a way, I whisper.
Then everything goes black.
I wake up to water washing up against my legs. For a moment I feel like my brain is being rewound, that I’m finding myself back in the past of not so long ago, that I’m still stuck in the depths, forever drowning, forever being kept at the bottom of the ocean in another world.
But then I slowly open my eyes, staring down at dark grey pebbles with intricate pale patterns on them, like there are maps and messages hidden within the layers. And beyond the pebbles is the crisp white of ice-crusted snow and beyond that is…blood.
So much blood. It’s splattered along the pebbled beach and the white snow for as far as the eye can see. Suddenly I remember all the mayhem and death and carnage and I’m lifting up my head as panic starts to take over, stealing my breath.