Secondhand Shadow

CHAPTER 2-2

“She’s hurt,” Damon murmured, and I realized he meant me. I had almost forgotten the wound on my neck, despite the burning pain and sluggish rivulet of blood. “Mom. Take care of her.”

The woman glanced at me again, looking worried. “I will. Go with your father.”

Dr. DiNovi was stumbling up the hallway, fighting his way into a plaid bathrobe. “Gabriel? You’re hurt? Here—” He extended an arm toward Damon in what I thought was a peculiar way.

“Not in here,” Damon said. He grabbed his father’s arm and towed him back down the hall. Dr. DiNovi gave me a single startled glance and followed obediently. I heard a door close.

“Where’s your shadow?” Damon’s mother asked.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I tried to rub my eyes and realized my hands were covered in blood. “I think I need to sit down.”

She caught me as my knees gave out, lowering me to the floor. I got a real close look at the rug I had tripped over, and then nothing.

DAMON

I couldn’t stop touching her. Fortunately, I didn’t have to yet; she was still asleep, curled up in the blankets of my childhood bed as peacefully as if she hadn’t nearly died just hours before. Just thinking about it, remembering how close Peter’s teeth had come to her jugular, made me shiver and grasp her hand tighter. Don’t wake up. I can’t let go of you yet.

I wanted to. I wanted to walk away from her and never think about her again. The fact that I didn’t have the strength of will to do it kept a hot river of anger running beneath my skin. I didn’t care about this girl. I didn’t even know her. To me, Damon, she meant no more than any other human. This consuming obsession belonged to someone else, someone I would never be again. Just a few more days. We’ll breach and go back to our separate lives. Assuming I, and my sanity, survive.

My parents had figured it out. I could hear them arguing about it, just down the hall.

“Helen, you’re the one who said she’s a Lumi. I wouldn’t know, but you said—”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean she’s his Lumi!”

“Where’s her Shadow, then?” Dad asked. “Look at her. She nearly died. No Shadow that ever lived is going to be away from her right now. And who’s sitting there holding her hand?”

“Maybe she sent her Shadow away, told him not to come back. Gabriel has several orphans like that, not breached but still separated. Maybe he’s mediating. Anything makes more sense than assuming he’s covanted again. That’s not possible. Frank, the idea is obscene.”

I knew I should go settle the argument. But it would mean leaving Naomi, and I couldn’t do that right now.

This was my own fault, that was the worst thing. I had let myself go to pieces without taking the time to think. There was a brand-new Lumi in my territory; I knew she would draw vampires like moths to flame. Or would have known if I had thought. I could even have pegged Peter as the mostly likely to lose his grip, if I had thought. If she could have this effect on me—could fill my eyes with the pure white glow of her, like a clear place in fog—could hypnotize me with the bright promise that she was different, that she was special, that safety, healing, and surcease of pain could come with a single swallow—stop it Damon!

Peter didn’t stand a chance against that, and if he had killed me, it would have been exactly what I deserved. Instead Peter was dead, and Naomi was hurt, and every bit of it was my fault.

I realized I was stroking her cheek and made myself stop. It wasn’t easy. She was so warm. And I had come so close to losing her.

You want to lose her, I reminded myself. You just don’t want her to die.

Mine was, unfortunately, the only extra bed in the house. I wondered what she would think of the room when she woke. Baby blue walls, stuffed puppies and spaceships, tin soldiers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… This room still belonged to a boy who wanted Mommy to tell him a story and buy him pajamas with feet in them. I was sixteen when I covanted, but Shadow youngsters don’t generally “do” adolescence. And although I hadn’t literally worn footie pajamas for some time, I hadn’t wanted to change anything in my room, knowing I’d be covanting soon and leaving…

My parents had kept the room exactly as I left it, like many do when a child has died.

I didn’t like the idea of Naomi seeing it. I didn’t want her knowing any more about me than she had to. She would have to know some, now; I couldn’t expect her to quietly accept that she’d been attacked by a monster that had turned to dust, and rescued by a weirdo who disappeared from elevators. I had put her in this situation, and I owed her an explanation. Whether I liked it or not.

“Helen, couldn’t this be a good thing?” came Dad’s voice down the hall. “He can have a life again, be with someone he loves. He won’t have to wander the Earth feeding on homeless people. He won’t be always half-starved and half-mad with pain. He can be happy again.”

Mom didn’t answer. She understood. And for a moment I hated her for it. Why couldn’t Dad be right? Why couldn’t this be the best thing that could happen to me, instead of the worst? However long I lived, and it could be a long time, I would be alone, and cold, and hungry, and in pain. I couldn’t let myself hope for anything different, not for one second, because losing that hope would definitely kill me.

It was an unsettling moment to realize that, for the first time in thirteen years, my hands weren’t cold.

It doesn’t matter. I chose this path. My life may be all kinds of pathetic, but it’s mine. I will not trade it in to be someone else’s toy, warm hands be d—

Naomi opened her eyes.

I snatched my hand away from hers. She frowned at me, but turned her attention to the rounded swell of her belly beneath the covers, rubbing her hands over it anxiously.

“He’s okay,” she said after a long moment. “He’s kicking. He must be okay.”

“He is, according to my mother. She’s, um… sort of a midwife.” I’d been trying not to think about the baby much. It wasn’t going to matter in a few days that my Lumi was carrying someone else’s baby. It wasn’t going to matter whether she was married, divorced, in a relationship or out of it. It didn’t matter that the hormonal effects of pregnancy included a rosy-cheeked maternal glow that probably made everyone she met want to hug her. These were things that didn’t matter.

She reached for her throat, fingering the bandage swaddling the entire left side. “What happened?”

“You passed out. Probably just the sudden blood pressure change—you didn’t lose that much blood.”

“Oh. Good. But I meant, what happened before that. All of… that.”

I took a deep breath. “Where should I start?”

“Start with Peter.” Her voice shook. “What was he?”

“My friend.” It was hardly a helpful thing to say, and I knew it.

Naomi looked at me curiously, thoughtfully. Then she touched my hand. “I’m sorry.”

I pulled my hand back and turned away from her, biting my lip hard enough to leave a mark. My throat tightened until I could not breathe, let alone speak.

“You and he,” she said, “are not human.”

I swallowed. “No.”

She took a slow breath, color draining from her face. “Okay,” she said, her voice faint and high. “What are you?”

“We’re called Tenebrii. Shadows. We’re… symbiotes, I guess. We bond to a human. If that bond is lost, we… well, usually we die. The only thing that can keep us alive,” I took another deep breath, “is human blood.”

I glanced at her. Her eyes were like a frightened horse’s, white-ringed, and her hands clutched the blanket as if she feared floating away, or falling over. But she wasn’t screaming or running away. That was something.

“Is your father… is he a…”

“No. He’s perfectly human.”

She nodded slowly. “I would like to speak to him, please.”

A chance to escape. I took it.

I found Dad in the hallway, eavesdropping.

“Is she your Lumi?” he asked.

I nodded.

He rubbed his forehead, drew his bathrobe tighter around himself, and walked past me through the bedroom door. I leaned against the wall outside the door, listening. “How are you feeling, Naomi?”

“Your son tells me he’s a vampire.”

I could almost hear Dad shuffling different responses in his mind. We were all so accustomed to keeping the secret, it was hard to say it. “Yes. He is. Or he was. Things will be different now, with you here.”

“What?” She sounded almost as alarmed as I felt. What are you doing, Dad?

“He told you Shadows need to bond to a human,” Dad said. “He picked you. Well, he didn’t pick you consciously. But it happened anyway.”

There was a long silence.

“I’ve had a lot of weird dreams lately,” Naomi said, and now her voice was quite calm, “but this one takes the cake. I’m going home now.” I heard her sliding out of the covers.

Leaving, no, she couldn’t leave. I stepped into the doorway. “You dreamed about me last night.”

She didn’t look up, just pulled her bloodstained bathrobe off the nearby chair and shrugged into it.

“We were in front of a fireplace. Toasting marshmallows.”

She froze. “I didn’t remember the marshmallows until just now,” she said, still not looking at me. “But if you’re a figment of my imagination, of course you’d know what I dreamed.”

“It’s not uncommon for Lumii and Tenebrii to share dreams their whole lives. But the first night after they… meet, they always dream together. I dreamed the same thing you did, Naomi, because we’re linked now. I don’t like it any more than you do. But it’ll go away in a few days, and you won’t have to worry about me ever again.”

My father looked sick. “Gabriel—”

“Damon, Dad. My name is Damon.” I turned back to Naomi. “Until that happens, however, you’re going to attract every kathair—vampire—for miles around. Some of them a lot nastier than Peter. Which means I can’t leave you unguarded, not for a moment.”

“Even in broad daylight?”

“We may prefer the dark, but we’re not restricted to it. And there’s some of us too far gone to care.”

“Right. Yes. Vampire bait. I can handle this.” She sat down on the bed and hunched over her belly. “I can’t even put my head between my knees. I guess this isn’t a dream. If I was constructing my own reality, I would certainly not be pregnant in it.”

“You should eat,” Dad said. “My wife’s cooking up something in the kitchen. She says you’ll be fine, but we’ll take you to a doctor if you like.”

“Food sounds good,” she muttered at her stomach. “How does she know I’ll be okay? Damon said she’s a midwife?”

“Yes. Shadows don’t go to hospitals, for obvious reasons, so… She’s more experienced with Shadows than humans, of course, but her senses are better than yours and mine. She says your heart rate is good and the baby seems unaffected. You didn’t lose any more blood than you might have given to the Red Cross.”

“Your wife is a Shadow, too. They’re everywhere. Okay. I fainted last time I gave blood to the Red Cross.” She rubbed hair out of her face, then glanced at the sunlit window and gasped. “What time is it? I have class—”