What Kills Me by Wynne Channing Page B

heard you go outside,
which is inconceivable. Then I heard you making all sorts of racket
up here. What the hell were you doing?”
    I wrested my shirt from his grip. “I’m
sorry. I thought you were sleeping. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I
was cleaning.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I wanted to surprise your
dad.”
    “Are you crazy, or just stupid?” He
stared at me. “How did you avoid the sun?”
    “I…”
    The stairs creaked as Noel emerged
from the basement.
    “Whoa!” He exclaimed. His face
brightened. He rested his hands on his hips and took a tour. “Look
at this place. It looks like people live here.”
    Jerome closed the trapdoor behind him
and smiled at me.
    “And you even picked flowers,” Noel
said.
    Lucas scowled at me with narrowed
eyes. “You went outside to get those flowers?”
    “Yes.”
    “In the day?”
    “Yes.”
    “How is that possible?” he
asked.
    All three turned to me. No one said
anything.
    “I don’t burn in the sunlight,” I
said.
    Still no one reacted. It was as if I’d
spoken in a foreign language.
    “I don’t know how,” I continued. “I
just don’t burn.”
    Jerome appeared frightened. He looked
at Noel, but Noel couldn’t reassure him because he also wore a
bewildered expression.
    “You’re lying,” Lucas said. He scanned
my body and then the living room. “How did you survive? Did you
have some sort of armor, or…”
    His mouth kept moving but he was at a
loss for words.
    “I don’t have a magic cape or
anything,” I said.
    You have to tell them
everything. You have to explain or they’ll keep looking at you like
you’re a creature from outer space.
    “What are you?” Lucas said, his tone
suddenly shifting.
    “I’m not sure. I don’t think I was
supposed to be a vampire.”
    “Then what were you supposed to be?”
he said.
    “Dead.”
    I started the story with Paolo. The
air in the room grew dense and humid. I told them about the church,
the well. About Uther, the soldiers and the Empress. Then I told
them about escaping and meeting Noel in the woods.
    When I was finished, I sat on the
sofa, trying to interpret the expressions on their faces. The only
one who looked calm was Noel. He spoke first.
    “That is quite the story,” he
said.
    Please believe me. And if
you do, please don’t deliver me back into the hands of
evil.
    “Thank you,” he went on, “for trusting
us with this information. I know that you’ve been through a lot and
it must have been difficult to explain.”
    “I didn’t mean to deceive anyone,” I
said, looking at Lucas.
    “We understand,” Noel said.
    He came around the coffee table and
sat next to me on the couch. He stared into the bouquet of flowers
for a minute. “This cleric that rescued you, did he say how this
could have happened?”
    “He just said that this had never
happened before and that the well was filled with vampire
blood.”
    “I’ve never heard of anyone becoming a
vampire without the Monarchy’s blessing, without the ritual
process.” Noel looked thoughtful. “Only elders are able to create
new vampires.”
    “Why?” I asked.
    “It’s to ensure the purity of the
race. As well, a dying human needs to drink a lot of vampire blood
to change. Only elders are strong enough to withstand that much
blood loss.”
    “I thought vampires can’t
die.”
    “When we’re drained of too much blood,
we risk falling into a state of perpetual weakness. But sunlight
will kill us—well, it kills most of us—and it’s hard to survive a
beheading.”
    “If Zee is special, maybe she can
survive even that?” Jerome said.
    “Why don’t we test that theory,”
grumbled Lucas.
    Noel shot him a look. “Did anyone see
you escape?”
    “No. I don’t think so,” I
said.
    Noel stood and paced the room. Outside
rain began to fall. “It won’t take very long for the Aramatta to
find her. They’ll search the entire coastline. They’ll track her
here.”
    “What’s the Aramatta?” I
asked.
    “The