Building From Ashes

Emily was covered with a white sheet, the formerly vibrant girl thin and sallow beneath the florescent lights. Her arms looked like twigs. Her hair was limp and uneven around her face. She appeared to be sleeping and monitors around her beeped and jumped as Brigid approached. She tried not to get too close, having no idea how she would affect the equipment that was monitoring her old friend or keeping her alive, she wasn’t sure which.

“Don’t worry.” She heard a croak from the sheets. “If you short any of it out, it’ll just make the nurses panic. Nothing’s really keeping me alive,” Emily said with a thin voice. Her eyes had still not opened. “Mum, Dad, can you let me and Brigid talk for a bit?”

Brigid could tell that Mr. and Mrs. Neely didn’t want to leave, but they measured Brigid in her work clothes, which that night consisted of black combat pants, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket, and decided not to challenge the grim-looking vampire their daughter wanted to speak with.

Emily’s mother whispered, “We’ll be right down the hall, dear.” Then she left the bedside and shot Brigid a hateful look.

She blames a vampire for this.

She was probably right.

Emily finally opened her eyes and lifted a hand. “Hey.”

“Hey, Em.”

“You can come closer. Like I said, nothing’s keeping me alive at this point anyway.”

“What happened? This isn’t drugs.”

Emily curled a finger to bring her closer and whispered, “If I speak this low can you hear me? Don’t want Mum and Dad to hear.”

Brigid nodded and leaned closer. The machines beeped and went blank for a moment before she drew back. Emily grasped her hand in a surprisingly powerful grip.

“Don’t. Don’t worry about that. This is more important. You need to listen to me, Brig.”

“What is it?” Her nose twitched and an ancient instinct alerted her. Emily was dying. The sickly sweet smell of disease emanated from her friend, and Brigid tried not to curl her lip. Her stomach twisted in the same way she remembered it had as a human when she smelled spoiled meat.

“I know I’m dying. I don’t want you to make me a vampire, but that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

Brigid was grateful that Emily wasn’t going to ask. As much as it twisted her heart to see her friend in pain, she’d been warned by both Deirdre and Cathy about humans who were too sick. They often didn’t survive turning and, if they did, were weak and unstable in immortality. Besides, Brigid had a suspicion that drinking Emily’s blood could be lethal for both of them.

“What happened to you?”

A heartbreaking smile crossed Emily’s lips. “He said it would make me beautiful forever. I was so vain. Stupid, stupid girl.”

“You’re not stupid.”

“I was.” She sighed and her eyes slipped close again. “I wouldn’t turn. He wanted me to, but I didn’t want to give up the sun. He told me… it was the elixir of life. I would live forever and be young and beautiful, just like him. And at first, I thought he was right.”

“Who, Em? Was it Axel?”

Emily nodded.

“When?”

“About a year ago, right after I quit using.”

She brushed a bloody tear from her eye as she watched her friend dying before her eyes. “Just a year?”

“I’d been having a hard time. You know how it feels. I felt years older. I looked awful. I thought for sure that Axel was going to break things off. Then, he got a shipment of Elixir from Europe. I think… maybe Germany? Said it was for humans. More like a supplement than a drug. I took it, and I felt…” She sighed as her eyes drifted closed. “Amazing. My skin glowed. I had so much energy. No more cravings… I didn’t feel high, just healthy. For the first time in so long, I felt vital. I didn’t need much sleep. Had an amazing sex drive. It was like I was me, but better.”

“What happened? When did you start to notice a change?”

“Right around the time we broke up. When I first saw you, Axel and I had just split up. I lied. We hadn’t been separated for months like I said. I knew Murphy’s people were looking for him, but I didn’t want to betray him. He had always been so sweet with me, but he’d been getting… different. Hostile. Not like himself and it seemed like he blamed me for it. I didn’t know why.”

Brigid whispered, “He was probably starting to suffer the effects from the Elixir. It wasn’t your fault.”

“He drank from me so much. He said my blood tasted sweeter. That I smelled like ripe fruit.” She sniffed. “But I was poisoning him, and I didn’t even know it.”

Brigid’s senses alerted. “Like ripe fruit?” She remembered when she had met Emily in the spring. What did she smell like? It had been fruit. Something distinctive. It wasn’t just sweet. Sharp smelling. What was it? “Did he say anything else?”

She shook her head. “He was evasive. I should have known then that it wasn’t a good idea, but he seemed so enthusiastic about it. He couldn’t keep his hands off me after I took it. It was almost as if he was high after he drank my blood. And he would say the oddest things. Probably talking about whoever he got it from. ‘He’s brilliant. We’ll make a fortune.’ Stuff like that.”

“Did he mention any names?”

She shook her head weakly. “No, nothing. Wait… there was one he mentioned when he was speaking to someone in another language on the phone once. He usually didn’t make calls in front of me, but I think he thought I was sleeping. He was speaking German, I think. But the name… ‘Jacques,’ maybe?” Emily began to sniff. “I wish I knew for sure. I’m sorry.”