Reckoning Read Free Page A

instead. Swallowing my frustration, I agreed.
    We wandered, arm in arm, along the dark, cobbledstreets. The touch of her seemed to impart some dark energy, infusing my flesh, heightening its awareness.
    “How quiet and empty the town seems,” I breathed.
    Rebecca gave a low laugh. “Appearances can be deceptive, Quincey.” She tightened her grip on my arm. “Behind all those college walls are warm, slumbering bodies, softly breathing, gently pulsing with fresh, sweet blood.” She gave a little shiver and licked her lips. I could sense that she was nearly as aroused as I was by her words.
    I felt a thrust of overwhelming longing for her. I pulled her fiercely against me. For a few brief moments, she yielded to my embrace—and then she gently pushed me away.
    “Soon . . .” she whispered. “Very soon . . .”
    She took my arm and started walking once more, steering me across the street toward the entrance of the churchyard opposite. I looked at her, confused, as she led me through the gate. I felt an instinctive loathing at the sight of the church towering in the darkness above us and wondered why Rebecca had brought me here.
    Silently she led me between the elms, among the graves, and eventually stopped beside a low stone plinth. She reclined upon it, curling and stretching like a cat. She began to stroke the gravestone, and I watched as her long fingers traced the name inscribed there.
    “This is the grave of a murderer,” she told me. “He killed his wife, yet was not condemned for it, because she had beenunfaithful to him. He lived out his years unjudged by his peers, but once he died, his soul received its just reward. Come. Touch. Can you feel the suffering contained within?”
    I bent to run my fingers across the mossed and weathered stone. They prickled at the feel of its surface and a new, quite thrilling sensation began to pulsate through my veins.
    “Is it not delightful to find such evil lurking amid godliness?” Rebecca murmured. She closed her eyes and leaned back on the stone, her coat falling open to reveal the dove grey satin dress she wore beneath.
    I cannot say what excited me most, the sight of Rebecca’s satin-clad body, shining silver in the moonlight—or the energy that my body seemed to draw from the grave she lay upon.
    Rebecca slid her hands under my coat and pulled me down to her. She raked her silver-lacquered nails into my back. The violent tearing against my flesh only heightened my passion. I kissed her fiercely and she responded with equal force, pressing her open mouth against mine.
    And then, I felt her kisses slide away from my mouth. I shuddered in anticipation. With utter rapture, I saw her lips part to reveal two beautifully pointed white fangs. She rolled me over and leaned down over me, her long hair cascading onto my chest. I felt her mouth upon my throat—and then gasped as two needle-sharp points gripped my throat and pierced my flesh, bearing down hard, stretchingthe surrounding skin until I felt it might split. But I didn’t care. Pleasure and pain had become one. Rebecca drank and drank, the beating of my heart and her drawing of my blood in perfect, rhythmic unison.
    I felt my heart flicker . . . and then stop.
    Darkness closed around me.

C HAPTER 2
    Journal of
Quincey Harker
    7 TH N OVEMBER (CONTINUED)
    My next awareness was of a slow, languorous awakening. I had no notion of whether seconds, minutes, or even hours had passed. I opened my eyes to see the moon still high in the sky. Rebecca was gazing down at me, her lips ruby red, glistening with my own blood.
    “So . . . Quincey Harker . . .” she breathed. “It is done.”
    I inhaled a deep lungful of the cold night air, feeling a surge of energy that seemed to possess my very being. This time it was I who pulled Rebecca to me.
    The reddish glow began to return to her beautiful eyes. “I’m so glad it was I who was chosen to awaken you,” she murmured, tracing a fingernail over my chest.
    A new and