Many Bloody Returns Part 12

He shoved the open book in my face. "Forget the sale. Explain the rest of it. You had nothing scheduled all week. You had no excuse. You didn't forget. You didn't get distracted." His voice dropped as he lowered himself to the edge of the tub. "You have no intention of taking a life."

"You...you think I'm trying to kill myself?" I laughed, the sound almost bitter. "Do you forget how I became what I am, Aaron? I

chose it. I risked everything to get this life, and if you think I'd throw away one minute before my time is up-"

"How you came into this life is exactly why you're h.e.l.l-bent on leaving it like this." He snagged my gaze and held it. "You cheated death. No, you beat it-by sheer G.o.dd.a.m.ned force of will. You said 'I won't die.' And now, when it's coming around again, you're d.a.m.ned well not going to sit back and let it happen. You chose once. You'll choose again."

I paused, looked away, then back at him. "Why are you here, Aaron?"

"I came to fix your wall-"

"At no prompting from me. No hints from me. You came of your own accord, correct?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Then, if I'd planned to let myself die, presumably you wouldn't have seen me again." I met his gaze. "Do you think I would do that? Of everyone I know in this world, would I leave you without saying good-bye?"

His jaw worked, but he said nothing. After a moment, he pushed to his feet and walked out.

I lay in bed, propped on my pillows, staring at the wall. Aaron was right. When the time came, I would leave this vampiric life as I'd come into it: by choice. But this was not that time. There was no doubt of that, no possibility that I was subconsciously trying to end my life. That was preposterous. I had no qualms about suicide. Fears...perhaps. Yet no different than my fear of death itself.

When the time came, yes. But I would never be so irresponsible as to end my life before my affairs were in order. My estate would need to be disposed of in advance, given to those I wished to see benefit. Of equal concern was the discovery and disposal of my body. To leave that to chance would be unforgivably irresponsible.

I would make my peace with Aaron and make amends for my betrayal or, at the very least, ensure he understood that whatever I

had done to him, the reason for it, the failing behind it, had been mine.

Then there was the council. Aaron was already my co-delegate, but I had to ready him to take my senior position and ready the vampire community to accept that change. Moreover, as the senior overall council member, it was my duty to pa.s.s on all I knew to Paige, the keeper of records, something I'd been postponing, unwilling to accept that my time was ending.

Ending.

My stomach clenched at the thought. I closed my eyes and shuddered.

I had never lacked for backbone and never stood for the lack of it in others. Now I needed to face and accept this reality. I was

dying. Not beginning a lengthy descent, but at the end of the slope.

I now knew how a vampire died. A rebirth date came and we discovered, without warning, that we could not fulfill our end of the bargain. Not would not, but could not.

If I couldn't overcome this, I would die. Not in decades, but days.

Panic surged, coupled with an overwhelming wave of raw rage. Of all the ways to die, could any be more humiliating in its sublime

ridiculousness? Not to die suddenly, existence snuffed out as my time ended. Not to die, beheaded, at the hands of an enemy. Not to grow ill and fade away. Not even to pa.s.s in my sleep. Such deaths couldn't be helped, and while I would have raged against that, the injustice of it, such a fate was nothing compared to this-to die because I inexplicably lacked the will to do something I'd done hundreds of times before.

No, that wasn't possible. I wouldn't let it be possible.

I would get out of this bed, find a victim, and force myself to drain his blood if I vomited up every mouthful.

I envisioned myself standing, yanking on clothing, striding from the room....

Yet I didn't move.

My limbs felt leaden. Inside, I was spitting mad, snarling and cursing, but my body lay as still and calm as if I'd already pa.s.sed.

I pushed down the burbling panic.

Consider the matter with care and logic. I should have taken Aaron's victim, while I still had the strength, but now that I'd missed my opportunity, I couldn't chance waiting another day. I'd rest for an hour or so, until Aaron had retired.

Better for him not to know. I wouldn't let him pity and coddle me simply because it was in his nature to help the sick, the weak, the needy. I would not be needy.

I'd stay awake and wait until the house grew quiet. Then I'd do this-alone.

I fixed my gaze on the light, staring at it to keep myself awake. Minutes ticked past, each feeling like an hour. My eyes burned. My body begged for sleep. I refused. It threatened to pull me under even with my eyes wide. I compromised. I'd close them for a moment's rest and then I'd leave.

I shut my eyes and all went dark.

I awoke to the smell of flowers. I usually had some in the house, so the smell came as no surprise, and I drowsily stretched, rested and refreshed.

Then I remembered I hadn't replaced my last flowers, and I was seized by the sudden vision of my corpse lying on my bed, surrounded by funeral wreaths. I bolted upright and found myself staring in horror at a room of flowers...before realizing that the fact I was sitting upright would suggest I was not dead.

With a deep sigh, I looked around. Flowers did indeed fill my room. There were at least a dozen bouquets, each a riot of blooms, with no unifying theme of color, shape, or type. I smiled. Aaron.

My feet lit on the cool hardwood as I crossed to a piece of paper propped against the nearest bouquet. An advertis.e.m.e.nt for flights to France. Beside another was a list of hotels. A picture of the Eiffel Tower adorned a third. Random images of Parisian travel littered the room, again with no obvious theme, simply pages hurriedly printed from websites. Typically Aaron. Making his point with all the finesse of a sledgehammer wielded with equal parts enthusiasm and determination.

Should I still fail to be swayed, he'd scrawled a note with letters two inches high, the paper thrust into a bouquet of roses. Paige had called. She was still working on that case and needed my help. In smaller letters below, he informed me that today's paper carried another article on the palliative-care patient who wanted to die.

I dressed, then tucked two of the pages into my pocket, and slipped out the side door.

I didn't go to the hospital Aaron had suggested. It was too late for that. If I was having difficulty making this kill, I could not compound that by choosing one that would itself be difficult.

So I returned to the alley where I'd found-and dismissed-my first choice two nights ago. The drunkard wasn't there, of course. No one was. But I traversed the maze of alleys and back roads in search of another victim. I couldn't wait for nightfall. I couldn't risk falling asleep again or I might not wake up.

When an exit door swung open, I darted into an alley to avoid detection and spotted my victim. A woman, sitting in an alcove, surrounded by grocery bags stuffed with what looked like trash but, I presumed, encompa.s.sed the sum of her worldly belongings. Behind me, whoever opened that door tossed trash into the alley and slammed the door shut again. The woman didn't move. She stared straight ahead, gaze vacant. Resting before someone told her to move on.

Even as I watched her, evaluated her, and decided she would do, something deep in me threw up excuses. Not old enough. Not sick enough. Too dangerous a location. Too dangerous a time of day. Keep looking. Find someone better, someplace safer. But if I left here, left her, I would grow more tired, more distracted, and more disinterested with every pa.s.sing hour.

She would do. She had to. For once, not a choice I could live with, but the choice that would let me live.

There was no way to approach without the woman seeing me. Unlike Aaron, I didn't like to let my victims see the specter of death approach, but today I had no choice. So I straightened and started toward her, as if it was perfectly natural for a well-dressed middle-aged woman to cut through alleyways.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her look up as I pa.s.sed. She tensed, then relaxed, seeing no threat. I turned, as if just noticing her. Then with a brisk nod, I took a twenty from my wallet.

A cruel ruse? Or making her last memory a pleasant one? Perhaps both. As expected, she smiled, her guard lowering even more. I reached down, but let go of the bill too soon. As it fluttered to the ground, I murmured an apology and bent, as if to retrieve it, but she was already s.n.a.t.c.hing it up. I kept bending, still apologizing...and sank my fangs into the back of her neck.

She gave one gasp before the sedative took effect and she fell forward. I tugged her into the alcove, propped her against the wall, and crouched beside her still form.

As my fangs pierced her jugular, I braced myself. The blood filled my mouth, as thick, hot, and horrible as the drug dealer's the night before. My throat tried to seize up, rejecting it, but I swallowed hard. Another mouthful. Another swallow. Drink. Swallow. Drink. Swallow.

My stomach heaved. I pulled back from the woman, closed my eyes, lifted my chin, and swallowed the blood. Another heave, and my mouth filled, the taste too horrible to describe. I gritted my teeth and swallowed.

With every mouthful now, some came back up. I swallowed it again. Soon my whole body was shaking, my brain screaming that this wasn't right, that I was killing myself, drowning.

My stomach gave one violent heave, my throat refilling. I clamped my hand to my mouth, eyes squeezed shut as I forced myself to swallow the regurgitated blood.

Body shaking, I crouched over her again. I opened my eyes and saw the woman lying there. I couldn't do this. I couldn't- One hand still pressed to my mouth, I tugged the pages from my pocket. I unfolded them and forced myself to look. Paris. Aaron. Paige. The council. I wasn't done yet. Soon...but not yet.

I squeezed my eyes shut, then slammed my fangs into the woman's throat and drank.

Her pulse started to fade. My stomach was convulsing now, body trembling so hard I could barely keep my mouth locked on her neck. Even as I pushed on, seeing the end in sight, I knew this wasn't success. I'd won only the first round of a match I was doomed to lose.

The last drops of blood filled my mouth. Her heart beat slower, and slower, then...stopped.

Another life taken. Another year to live.

It's My Birthday, Too Jim Butcher Jim Butcher is the author of The Dresden Files and the Codex Alera series. A martial arts enthusiast, Jim enjoys fencing, singing, bad science fiction movies, and live-action gaming. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son, and a vicious guard dog.

"Hey, Miyagi-san," my apprentice said. Her jeans still dripped with purple-brown mucus. "You think the dry cleaners can get this out?"

I threw my car keys down on my kitchen counter, leaned my slimed, rune-carved wooden staff next to them, and said, "The last time I took something stained by a slime golem to a cleaner, the owner burned his place down the next day and tried to collect on the insurance."

Molly, my apprentice, was just barely out of her teens, and it was impossible not to notice what great legs she had when she stripped out of her trendily mangled jeans. She wrinkled her nose as she tossed them into the kitchen trash can. "Have I told you how much I love the wizard business, Harry?"

"Neither of us is in the hospital, kid. This was a good day at work." I took my mantled leather duster off. It was generously covered in splatters of the sticky, smelly mucus as well. I toted it over to the fireplace in my bas.e.m.e.nt apartment, which I keep going during the winter. Given that I have to live without the benefits of electricity, it's necessary. I made sure the fire was burning strongly and tossed the coat in.

"Hey!" Molly said. "Not the coat!"

"Relax," I told her. "The spells on it should protect it. They'll bake the slime hard and I'll chisel it off tomorrow."

"Oh, good. I like the coat." The girl subsided as she tossed her secondhand combat boots and socks into my trash after her ruined jeans. She was tall for a woman and built like a schoolboy's fantasy of the Scandinavian exchange student. Her hair was shoulder length and the color of white gold, except for the tips, which had been dyed in a blend of blue, red, and purple. She'd lost a couple of the piercings she'd previously worn on her face, and was now down to only one eyebrow, one nostril, her tongue, and her lower lip. She went over to the throw rug in the middle of my living room floor, hauled it to one side, and opened the trapdoor leading down to my lab in the subbas.e.m.e.nt. She lit a candle in the fire, wrinkling her nose at the stink from the greasy smoke coming up from my coat, and padded down the stepladder stairs into the lab.

Mouse, my pet Sabertoothed Retriever, padded out of my bedroom and spread his doggy jaws in a big yawn, wagging his s.h.a.ggy gray tail. He took one step toward me, then froze as the smell of the mucus. .h.i.t his nose. The big gray dog turned around at once and padded back into the bedroom.

"Coward!" I called after him. I glanced up at Mister, my tomcat, who drowsed upon the top of my heaviest bookshelf, catching the updraft from the fireplace. "At least you haven't deserted me."

Mister glanced at me, and then gave his head a little shake as the pungent smoke from the fireplace rose to him. He flicked his ears at me, obviously annoyed, and descended from the bookshelf with gracefully offended dignity to follow Mouse into the relative aromatic safety of my bedroom.

"Wimp," I muttered. I eyed my staff. It was crusty with the ichor. I'd have to take it off with sandpaper and repair the carvings. I'd probably have to do the blasting rod, too. Stupid freaking amateurs, playing with things they didn't understand. Slime golems are just disgusting.

Molly thumped back up the stairs, now dressed in her backup clothes. Her experiences in training with me had taught her that lesson about six months in, and she had a second set of clothing stored in a gym bag underneath the little desk I let her keep in the lab. She came up in one of those black broomstick skirts that's supposed to look wrinkled and Doc Martens, inappropriate for the winter weather but way less inappropriate than black athletic panties. "Harry, are you going to be able to drive me home?"

I frowned and checked the clock. After nine. Too late for a young woman to trust herself to Chicago's public transportation. Given Molly's skills, she probably wouldn't be in any real danger, but it's best not to tempt fate. "Could you call your folks?"

She shook her head. "On Valentine's Day, are you kidding? They'll have barricaded themselves upstairs and forced the older kids to wear the little ones out so that they'll sleep through the noise." Molly shuddered. "I'm not interrupting them. Way too disturbing."

"Valentine's Day," I groaned. "Dammit."

"What?"

"Oh, I forgot, what with the excitement. It's, uh, someone's birthday. I got them a present and wanted to get it to them today."

"Oh?" Molly chirped. "Who?"

I hesitated for a minute, but Molly had earned a certain amount of candor-and trust. "Thomas," I said.

"The vampire?" Molly asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Wow, Harry," she said, blue eyes sparkling. "That's odd. I mean, why would you get him a birthday present?" She frowned

prettily. "I mean, you didn't get my dad one, and you're friends with him, and he's a Knight of the Sword and one of the good guys, and he's saved your life about twenty times and all."

"More like four times," I said testily. "And I do Christmas for hi-"