Anne Brontë Nightwalker

Chapter 14

I stay deep in the truck as Dana makes the patient transfer. "Please hurry," I plead as she pulls out the stretcher with the help of the flight medic. Behind her the sky shifts from dark grey to soft smoky violet, a color I haven't seen in so very long, yet one that now terrifies me. I push deeper into the truck.

Dana gives me a concerned look and shuts the door. I know she has always thought my so-called disease purely psychological. Most people do. XP is so rare and my skin so flawless, they think it a figment of my imagination. Few of those acutely afflicted, as I claim to be, live past twenty. Yet we are kin, perpetually exiled from humanity.

In our world, the sun does not bring life; it takes it.

By the moment, the heat grows more intense. I reach for my backpack and the silver UV blanket I've placed inside for this sort of emergency. I have not been in a scrape this tight since I was young. The door flies open and I throw myself against the furthest wall, huddling like a trapped beast beneath the blanket.

Santos stares at me with eyes of black fire.

"Close the door," I hiss.

He doesn't move, only hovers there watching, waiting, I suppose, for my skin to erupt in lesions as I have claimed it will when touched by the sun's rays. My blood burns. The truck is filling with heat, leeching me of strength as if I am in a small stone oven being cooked alive. I'm faint with sweat and growing more exhausted by the second.

Behind Santos, my own black Mini Paceman races up, windows covered in dark tint far beyond legal limits. The car slides to a stop beside the ambulance, causing Santos to whip around. The passenger door flies open. Fellow EMT Lucien leans over from the driver's seat and says, "Need a ride?"

I flash through the truck, take a running leap past Santos and throw myself into the passenger seat, the blanket billowing out behind me like great silver wings. I slam the door closed, shutting out Santos and throwing down the lock.

Lucien stares at me, wide-eyed. "Hope you don't mind I took your car, but I thought you might be ready to go home."

He's not yet 20, sleek and with a glow beneath his deeply black skin as if lit from within. His eyes are a luminous jet black and when he smiles, he is dazzling.

He's never been late for me once.

"Lucien, you're my guardian angel," I whisper, breathless. "Now get out."

He smiles and slips out the door with a graceful spin. I slide to the driver's seat, throw the car into first and shoot toward home like a comet. My turbo Mini is a shield, custom designed with UV protection on all sides. It hugs the mountain as I flee past the death scene. Police cars and a fire engine line the road. Men stand on the lip of the mountain, gazing down. As I fly past, they crane their heads to watch me.

Flashing lights appear behind me and a squad car comes up fast. Santos. He can't see me through my tinted windows, but I see him. His jaw is set and he pulls up dangerously close. Briefly, I wonder if he is pursuing a subject and wants to pass, but then it occurs to me, I'm the one he wants. Who knows why?

I stomp on the pedal and leave him in a cloud of frost.

My Mini grips the road like a race car and is just as fast. In town, I dart across the river and hightail it to historic Montford while deftly avoiding the occasional cat or early morning runner. Past old Riverside Cemetery, I tap my garage door opener. Arts and Crafts, Queen Anne, and Colonial Revival homes flash by in whips of blues and greys and greens as I dash past down Pearson Street. Once more, I push the garage remote, this time to close it. I gun for my house. The door jerks and begins to lower. I may have miscalculated. It's closing faster than I'm covering ground. If I'm too late, I'll have no choice but to crash through my garage door.

I haven't been this scared in decades.

I downshift and press my foot against the gas; the Mini jumps, kicking into higher gear as my house looms up, a dark Victorian violet. I love this house entirely too much. Past the Great Oak perched on the edge of my drive, I pull the emergency brake, spin my car a quarter turn and punch it for the garage at the back of the house. I slam my foot on the brake, afraid I may shatter the pedal as I slide beneath the door. Mere inches from the inside wall, I screech to a stop while the acrid smell of burnt rubber reminds me of young women burned alive at the stake.

The door descends, bathing me in blessed darkness.

My breath comes fast and jagged. My heart is lurching in my chest, trying to break free. I'm so hot, I feel fried. Despite the cool darkness, the sun's heat clings to me like a leech. It singes my veins. My skin is on fire. I'm burning alive!

Throwing myself out, I stumble to the passage leading off the garage. My keys feel like dripping metal in my hands, and when I drop them, I curse God.

When the door is finally open, I run for the bathroom and turn the shower on to full cold. Ice-cold water pours out of the freezing pipes. I scramble beneath the water, falling to my knees, and rest my head against the cool tile. For minutes I stay like this, trying to catch my breath and cool myself. Slowly, with shaking hands, I strip off my clothes and push them out into a wet heap on the floor.

Ivanhoe appears in the doorway, vivid as a flame. The cat gives my drenched boots a disdainful sniff and looks up at me, unaccustomed to such dramatic behavior.

Standing, I let the icy water stream over my face and skin. It hisses with steam when it touches my flesh. I run my hands over my body, hard as polished granite. There are no lesions or burns, only cold white skin gleaming beneath the water. Somehow I've survived this wretched shift. The winter, with its dim pale sun, has spared me.

A powerful banging at my front door shakes the wooden frame. I know it's Santos. From the sound of it, he's on the verge of punching through with his bare fist.

Suddenly all falls silent. I turn off the water to listen. A hinge moans like a hungry ghost and a heavy footstep falls on my hundred-year-old oak floors.

He is inside.