Moon Child (Vampire for Hire #4) Read Free Page B

more.
     
     
     

Chapter Four
     
     
    I stood by his side.
    Opposite his bed, rain began pattering
against the hospital window, lightly at first and then
stronger.
    Something wants my attention, I thought.
    I ignored the rain, even as a strong gust of
wind now shook the window, which was hidden behind the closed
blinds. I ignored the rain and the wind and reached down and
stroked my son’s hair. My narrow fingers slipped through his hot
tangled locks. He was too hot. He was too sick. He wasn’t going to
make it. I knew it all the way to the very depths of my being. His
vitals hadn’t registered anything yet, but they would.
    Soon.
    I continued stroking his hair. He seemed to
be getting hotter by the second. He also shifted toward my touch,
moving toward me imperceptibly, making a small, mewing sound.
    The rain picked up, drumming now on the
window.
    My heart was racing, and for me that’s saying
something. I continued standing by his side, knowing that this was
my one chance to turn away. To not do this thing. I had been
advised that he had fulfilled his life’s mission, and that it was
time for him to move on. I had been advised by a very powerful
entity that my son was meant to die. That it had been ordained so,
or some such bullshit.
    Well, fuck that.
    I was his mother. I carried him in me for
nine months, I stayed up with him countless nights, bathed him, fed
him and worried about him daily. I loved him so much that it hurt.
I loved him so much that I would kill for him. I loved him so much
that....
    I would give my life, my soul, my eternity
for him.
    I was his mother, and I was
ordaining—declaring, dammit—that he would live. And lord help
anyone who tried to stop me.
    I knew I could be damning him forever. I knew
this, understood this, but I also knew there was a glimmer of hope.
The medallion. Reputed to reverse vampirism. I had always figured I
would seek its answers for myself.
    But not anymore.
    Now I would seek its answers for him. At all
costs. I would devote my life to finding a way to turn him mortal
again, to give him back his normal life.
    And in the meantime, how would I explain to
him what I had done to him? I didn’t know, but I would think of
something.
    Later.
    For now, though, time was wasting. My son was
growing dangerously hot. I reached down and touched his narrow
shoulder.
    “Anthony,” I whispered, leaning down,
speaking directly into his ear. “Wake up, baby. Mommy’s here...and
everything’s going to be okay.”
     
     
     

Chapter Five
     
     
    It took a few more tries to awaken him, but I
finally succeeded.
    He emerged slowly from wherever he’d been. I
suspected that place was the blackest of depths. Then again,
perhaps not. Perhaps he’d been in heaven. Perhaps he’d been playing
on streets paved with gold. Or, more likely, playing Xbox with
Jesus.
    Only to return here, with me, sick as hell in
a hospital and ready to die. Perhaps had I let him be, he wouldn’t
have suffered. Perhaps he would have slipped out of this world and
into the next with ease and little pain.
    Perhaps.
    He awakened slowly. As he did, a part of me
screamed to let him sleep. If a nurse came in now, she would have
been mortified.
    What am I doing?
    “Mommy?” He squirmed under my arm.
    “Hi, baby.”
    “What’s happening, Mommy?”
    I’m saving your life, I thought. I’m saving
it the only way I know how.
    “How would you like to feel a little better,
baby?” I whispered, and it was all I could do to keep my voice
steady, to keep it from cracking with fear and uncertainty.
    Anthony turned his sweating face toward me;
his eyes focused on me for the first time. As they did so, I was
surprised by their strength and ferocity. Despite the darkness, he
seemed to look deeply into me.
    It was hard to imagine that this
strong-looking boy was dying, but the black halo hadn’t retreated;
indeed, it was thicker than ever, and I saw his impending death as
surely as I was seeing him now.
    “They’re