Anne Brontë Nightwalker

Chapter 55

The sun is rising. I smell it like blood. I am safe, but not Santos, not Emily. Santos shakes violently, confusion breaking across his face, breath scrambling on the edge of panic. His turning came too fast, too rough. I grab him by both arms and force him to look at me.

"Hold it together. You are still yourself and we're not done here."

Emily lies broken in the moonlight, gazing toward the sky, waiting for death. Her breath is unspooling. Her jagged femur gleams through torn denim like wet ivory, but worse is the blood loss.

"Vander is waiting by the road. Take her to him. Quick."

Emily flinches from Santos as he moves toward her.

"My God, your throat," he groans. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Gently he slides his arms beneath her and picks her up. "I didn't mean to. I couldn't stop."

She takes a ragged breath. "I know," she whispers, then rests her head against his chest and closes her eyes.

Hold on, sister! This time I can save you. Don't let go!

William's hand is cold in mine, but his breath is warm against my cheek. I kneel by his side. He looks at me grimly. "You always were the strong one."

"We are all strong." I place his good arm over my shoulder and raise him to his feet. "There are supplies ahead. I can fix this."

"I don't want to be turned," he says. "I'd rather die."

"I wouldn't." Hurt rings in my voice. "Never without your consent."

My mind turns to Santos. No one asked his consent. How will his ancestral spirits frame his rebirth? Who will they tell him he is? I don't know much about Santeria, but I know how it feels to believe your god has turned against you and thinks you evil. Fallen.

Oh brother, forgive me.

William and I begin the slow walk back. The forest is full of sounds I've long heard only in my dreams. Life is awakening. I hear the glide of a bat, a squirrel's breath, snow melting, the sun being born. Heat radiates from every tree I pass, each one with its own distinct signature: oak, pine, fir, maple and dogwood. Poplar. The earth smells radiant with fox and bear, snow and sun. The night softens on its way to dawn yet still the stars blaze like beacons.

Despite the horror, life is beautiful.

I look back.

Savannah lies on her back, staring into the forest. A small tender hand reaches out, open, and her hair spills like a flaming cloak upon the snow. In this world of grey and white, it sears the image upon my mind like a torch thrust at me out of the dark. She is whiter than the snow. Almost transparent.

Drained.

There is no happily ever after.

Yet if by some miracle heaven exists, I pray for my sisters Maria and Elizabeth to meet Savannah at the gates.

I will look at her and remember.

I will not turn away from what I've done.

I will face the darkness and own it.

***

In Vander's Beast, I treat my patients as he drives us back to the Biltmore. Emily is too weak to feed. She lies on a narrow surgical table, drifting at the edge of consciousness while I give her a transfusion. Santos stands close, face tense. On an ebony dining table, William waits stoically. He too has lost a lot of blood. We are all alive yet he remains resolutely silent, caved over himself, an arm braced against the table, grimacing with every breath he takes. There is no joy in his face. No relief. He doesn't whisper sweet endearments or take me in his arms. His countenance is stone cold. Though he struggles to conceal it, I sense a repressed fury simmering beneath the facade.