Blood Vivicanti (9780989878586) Read Free Page A

Dark
Man.
    You could call him my Jean
Valjean, my Lex Luthor.
     
     
     
     
    Beside him was my bread and
my kryptonite. Her name was Nell.
    I recognized her instantly:
She was the girl who had been kidnapped from my fifth grade
class.
    Lowen had been her
kidnapper, and she had been with him for all those terrible years,
although I did not know that right then.
    I would learn that when
Nell tricked me into drinking her black blood.
     
     
     
     
    Nell looked like a girl.
Sometimes she acted like one too. She was petite like me. Her skin
was very white like mine, but mine is snow-white porcelain, while
hers was pale and sickly.
    Her features were sunken.
Around her eyes were dark rings, like two hollows. Her lips were
blue, as if she had fallen into a frozen river and
drowned.
    That night, her black hair
was short and cut across her chin. She wore a black shirt, black
Converse high-tops, black knee-high socks, and a short
skirt.
    She could have been
adorable. But she looked like a twisted version of the girl I had
been only a year earlier, a girl defeated by life and
loneliness.
    Yet the more I recognized
her, the more she was unrecognizable. She was no longer the young
victim from fifth grade. To me, she was now only known as the Pale Girl .
     
     
     
     
    Lowen the Dark Man had
almost no scent at all. No sweat. No pheromones. The faint scent I
caught of him was an odd mixture of Tennessee whiskey and Franken
Berry cereal.
    Nell the Pale Girl smelled
like death.
     
     
     
     
    Lowen never looked at her.
He was leering at me. He never spoke with her, only to her, the way my parents used to
speak to me.
    His voice was deep and
gruff. “you’re right. She is powerful. But our plans have
changed.”
    Nell had a new
task.
     
     
     
     
    The Ferris wheel swung me
up and away. For a second I lost sight of them. Lost all sense of
them too.
    When the Ferris wheel
looped back around, I sensed that they had gone.
    I got off the ride and
searched for them in the crowd. But even their scent and sound had
vanished entirely.
    At that time, I didn’t
think too much of it. My mind was on Theo.
     
     
     
     
    The old man was much
happier now. He walked his dog back to his car with a lighter
step.
    Theo wondered off. He liked
being alone after drinking blood, especially if the Blood Memories
were the kind he really enjoyed, the kind that made him not merely
remember, but also think.
    He was off to journal about
his experiences. He’d never journaled before. The old man’s Blood
Memories were showing him the importance of keeping a journal. It
helped him work out the problems of his mind. It helped his heart
fondly recall good times. The old man had much wisdom to share with
Theo. His Blood Memories were a good choice.
     
     
     
     
    Theo left me. I didn’t see
him for the rest of the night.
    I walked along the beach
alone. I let myself be hungry. The pain of hunger was better than
the pain of heartache.
    The rollers of the Pacific
Ocean crashing on the shore sounded like a pride of lions
roaring.
    The storm was coming
closer.
    I’d never swum before. I
didn’t know how to swim. I had to plunge into Theo’s Blood
Memories. He knew how to swim. His Blood Memories gave me the skill
to leap into the ocean.
    I swam out to the storm. It
was miles out to sea. I swam faster than fish and sound.
     
     
     
     
    The storm was loud and
violent and wonderful. The giant waves were like muscles. I let
them lift me up. It felt good to be lifted up. I let them slam me
down. It felt good to be slammed down.
    The power of the waves
thrust me far underwater. For a moment I wondered if I would drown.
But being a Blood Vivicanti meant that water would never drown me
again.
    The pressure in the depths
of the ocean felt good. It was the most powerful hug I’d ever had.
And I needed a good hug right then.
     
     
     
     
    I let myself be picked up
and thrown down numerous times. I let myself be hugged by the
mighty black sea. Down in the deep,