There is a high road
to Heaven which few people travel; Hell hath no door, but many manage to burrow
their way in.
Chinese proverb
Lev moved swiftly
through the hallways, darting in and out and around what, to him, were slowly
moving nurses and orderlies—those unfortunates working the midnight shift.
Faster than any human eye was capable of detecting, he made it to Carly’s room
in a flash. In fact, he made it there just in time, nostrils plucking the acrid
scents from the air better than any dog’s.
He sat on the bed
beside her in the dimly lit room and noticed, thankfully, she had no roommate.
The bed beside Carly was recently vacated. The scent of death still lingered
heavily.
Taking her delicate
hand in his, Lev noticed a monitor clipped on an index finger. It seemed it
measured her pulse and heartbeat. He noticed too that her heart was beating
slowly, though he didn’t need a monitor for that. He heard its throb, and it
made him think of a dying battery.
However, relief
settled on him as he realized he was the first to arrive after the accident
that had left her comatose. Carly’s family was nowhere near yet. It would take
hours for them to get here from the other coast. He had time, plenty of it.
Stealthily, Lev glanced into the hallway from his perch in the darkened
hospital room. The occasional nurse strode past, but it was late, or perhaps
the better term was early. In the wee hours of the morning, there would be
fewer staff than during the day.
With a sigh, he took
Carly in. Her blonde hair was matted and dirty, even though it looked as if
someone had tried to clean her up, perhaps finger combing her thick mane and
tucking it behind her head. Her face was still perfect. Not a single scratch
had sullied her beauty.
A knot twisted in
his belly. Why hadn’t he known? He could have saved her if only he’d known. But
even Lev couldn’t know everything. It was his brother, Alexei, who’d given him
the news moments ago.
“Brother,” he’d
said, “there’s been an accident. Go now to the hospital or you’ll never see
your precious Carly again.”
He hadn’t asked the
how, the why, the when. Alexei had dropped his mental barriers. Lev felt them
fall like a drawbridge. His brother had let him in. It was easier than
speaking—Lev was able to glean whatever information he needed in an instant.
But with the simple facts of Carly’s accident came the realization his brother
was happy for the turmoil. A hint of a smile had curled Alexei’s full lips, and
his eyes were bright. Lev was not surprised.
He pulled his
thoughts from Alexei and looked down at his beloved’s hand in his. The pallor
of it matched his own. He listened to the slow rush of blood through her veins,
willing it to grow stronger.
Moving close, he
whispered, “I can save you.” He brought her dainty wrist to his lips. She
smelled like death already—like the musk of freshly turned earth. It was now or
never. His fangs pricked at her delicate skin, drawing a bead of crimson. It
tasted of iron and copper and of her. Carly’s very essence was in that droplet.
He stopped himself,
knowing she wouldn’t want him to go through with it. They’d talked about it
many times, about the possibility of him turning her, so they could be
together, not for just the blink of an eye that was a human lifetime but for
eternity. She would be furious if he turned her, and he wouldn’t blame her. Lev
knew the pain and sorrow of being changed into a monster against one’s
will.
But at least she
would still exist. We could still be together. He shook off that small, but oh
so inviting thought. No, he would not make a monster of her.
With a flick of his
tongue, he licked the droplet away. A shudder of pleasure shot through him, and
as he pushed her wrist to his mouth, like a child ready to bite into a ripe
peach, the monitor blared a warning. He dropped her arm. Panic filled him. Carly’s
pulse rose and fell suddenly. The stagnant tone of a heart that was no longer
beating blared from the machine, stabbing sharply in his ears, but the growing
silence of blood no longer pulsing through veins and arteries seemed louder.
Hesitation had cost him. His compassion, as his brother would say, was his one
true downfall.
Two nurses and a
doctor were in the room now, buzzing frantically around Carly. Lev had
disappeared through the pane of the window unseen and watched from outside
where the moonless sky hid him. His jacket flapped in a breeze that also
tousled his long black hair. It whipped and slapped against his cheeks.
It was said
creatures like him could feel no pain. That they existed only as
predators—takers of life—but Lev’s world had just crumbled. If he had a beating
heart, it would be broken in two. Tears welled in his eyes, and he longed to
let them fall. No, more than that, he wanted to scream, wanted to rip his cold
dead heart from his chest and stomp on it.
Lev gathered himself
as best he could, pinching the tears from his eyes and staring up to the
heavens, but there would be no help for him there. For Lev Baranovsky, there
was no God, only this perpetual hell he lived in. Love may come for him again
in time, though he wasn’t sure he wanted it to. Would he ever get over losing
his precious Carly? The vicious cycle of love and heartbreak was enough to
drive him mad.
He should go now.
Carly was gone. There was nothing he could do. Even though his brother would be
at home, he needed the comfort of his own space to grieve.
He looked down at
the ground two stories below, and when he peered back up for one last glimpse
of his beloved, his brows lifted and his dark eyes grew to the size of poker
chips.
Carly was dead, but
she wasn’t gone.
