Anne Brontë Nightwalker: A Brontë Blood Chronicle (Brontë Blood Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “You said he was more bark than bite. I wish Santos were here.”

  “I thought you were ‘done with him,’” I say, baffled by how easily modern women shrug off their lovers.

  “I am, but he’s still a cop. It’s nice to have backup when you’re driving alone to a violent bootlegger’s shack in the middle of the woods. This has Night of the Living Dead written all over it.”

  I look at her blankly.

  “The zombie movie? You’ve got to pay more attention to culture. For someone so smart, you have absolutely no idea what’s going on in the world.”

  “Zombies are not an issue here, I assure you. And you’re not alone. You’re with me.”

  “Really, Anne. I know how strong you think you are, but forgive me if I’d rather have a pissed-off Army Ranger cop by my side.”

  Through the mist, a modest log cabin appears. The porch is sagging, yet it holds a broad Confederate flag, faded and tattered. Rangy dogs bound down the steps, barking vociferously. Beside the front door, two wooden rifles form an X. A hand-painted sign beneath them reads, “A Man’s home is his castle and I am King.”

  I step out first and shoo the dogs away. In a flash, they vanish. I grab the med box and hand Dana the airway bag, then take the lead as we head to the house. Although I’m ostensibly ageless and impervious to disease, I’m no superhero. My body heals preternaturally fast, but not quick enough to repair a gaping hole in my heart before I bleed out from a bullet wound. Massive trauma can still kill me.

  The front door swings open. “Took you long enough,” a ropy man in his 30s says.

  I give him a nod— “Mr. Granger” —and stamp my old boots against the porch to shake off the dirt before stepping inside. It’s time for a new pair. I’ve worn these far too long, but despite their disparity with my uniform, I just can’t let them go. Their soft caramel leather reminds me of when I was a girl running across the moors under a low grey sky, Em by my side, wild as an untamed falcon. Yet no matter how often I oil and resole them, they look outrageously out of date. Although in the Granger home, you’d hardly notice.

  Children of various ages dot the room and a cat scurries off. The house has been shut tight against the cold and is permeated with the odors of animals and sweat, urine and dirt. Dana, still unaccustomed to poverty after six months on the job, wrinkles her nose.

  “Oh, it’s you, thank God.” A young woman emerges from the back room cradling a bundle of blankets. Mrs. Granger is visibly pregnant. It seems just yesterday I delivered her last child. “She stopped breathing,” she says, throwing the bundle in my arms.

  I can smell her. It’s the little girl I ushered into life, kicking and screaming like a hellcat. Now she’s still, but I can feel her breathing in my arms. Heat burns through the blankets.

  “She has a fever,” I say. “She’s burning up. You mustn’t swaddle her so tightly. She needs to cool down.”

  The mother brushes a strand of wheat-colored hair off her face. “But it’s so cold in here.”

  “Seizures like this aren’t unusual in little ones,” I say. “They’re not like adults. When a baby gets too hot, it’s common for her to seize. You must cool her down.” I loosen the swaddle. “What have you given her for the fever?”

  “Nothing. It all happened so fast. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “How many kids do you have?” Dana asks.

  “Six,” Mrs. Granger says, bewildered.

  “You’d think you’d have this figured out by now.”

  I give Dana a sharp look. Rudeness will not be tolerated on my truck under any circumstances. “Let’s go,” I say to Dana, who shoulders all the equipment with a groan.

  “Mr. Granger, Mom needs to come with us. Can you handle the kids?” I search his face for signs of intoxication, but tonight he is sober. He’s blocking the front door with a group of lean children huddled around him, one clinging to his leg. His face is drawn and hard, creased with worry. His family is all he has and I can tell he doesn’t know whether to shout or cry.

  His oldest, a lovely girl of 12 with long flaming-red hair and tawny-colored eyes, touches my arm as she peers at her baby sister. I’m startled. People rarely touch me. The girl, Savannah as I recall, looks up at me with a distressed expression.

  “She’s going to be okay,” I say, rocking the babe in my arms. I’ve unwound the blanket and already the coolness of my body is reviving her. For once, the chill of my skin is a boon. “I promise.”

  “I know,” Savannah says. “I knew you’d come.”

  Mr. Granger nods and gently pulls his daughter aside. “God bless you, miss. Keep ’em safe.”

  Chapter 3

  Inside the ambulance, I reluctantly turn the child over to Mrs. Granger while Dana maneuvers the truck out of the yard with the precision of a soldier negotiating her way through a minefield. Her driving skills impress me and, coupled with a highly predaceous sexual nature, I sometimes wonder if she isn’t a man masquerading as a highly attractive female.

  Mrs. Granger sits on the stretcher with the tiny child in her arms. The babe is flushed and damp with perspiration. I long to pick her up and cradle her against my breast. To breathe in the sweet smell of her tender flesh. It is one of the greatest joys of my profession when I am able to hold a child in my arms.

  “What’s her name?” I ask.

  “Lily. Lily Anne Granger. We chose her middle name for you, miss.” I look at her, surprised. “If you hadn’t been there with her breech and all, she wouldn’t have made it. You were so calm and steady. If she has half your nerve I can rest easy knowing she’ll survive this world.”

  I crouch at the side of the stretcher and take Lily Anne’s tiny foot in my hands. Thirst hits me so hard, I almost swoon. Gently, I rub my trembling thumb against the delicate ankle, looking for a vein. Nothing is apparent. She is so dehydrated her veins are invisible.

  “You, Mrs. Granger, are the strong one. Bringing so much life into the world. You truly are a blessed woman.”

  “Thank you. Most people wouldn’t say so. That’s real kind of you.”

  “Most people are blind to life’s gifts.” If I had a baby like this, I’d be the happiest creature in the world. How I envy Mrs. Granger, to hold a physical manifestation of love in her arms. And I envy Lily Anne too.

  They say I was too young to remember my mother and her long, painful death, but I do. I remember her clasping me, holding me close to her hot, moist body. I remember the sound of her racing heart, the panting breath against my face. Mostly, I recall the agony of being torn from her trembling arms. And I don’t know how, because this happened before I knew the words, but I remember someone strong holding me, bringing me to her and Mama’s anguished cry, “No, take it away. I cannot bear to look upon her!” A ragged sob bursting forth, a door closing, and the sudden coldness that came with being whisked from the warm-sickened room, away from her. Forever.

  A child is meant to be cradled by her creator as surely as a man is made to unite with a woman. To be withheld from one another is unnatural punishment.

  What pains me is that my presence increased Mama’s suffering. She knew what she was leaving behind—six small children and a love-grieved husband. We needed her! And oh, how she knew it! After she died, Charlotte claimed to see an angel by my cradle. I like to believe it was Mama watching over me.

  I glance up at Mrs. Granger, struck by how young she looks. Mama was not far from her in age, nor I from Lily Anne’s, when God stole my first love. But I am no longer so powerless. I will protect Mrs. Granger’s family so that she will never know an inkling of my pain. I will be their guardian angel.

  Lily Anne would be a hard stick for other medics but I’ve been starting IVs for over a century, many on men left virtually bloodless on the battlefield. It’s as if, like a divining rod, my body can sense where the blood lies. Quickly, I slide in a needle and secure the catheter, then reach for a box of slender tubes beside the seat and begin drawing the babe’s blood for the hospital.


  I fill vials with the pungent liquid, my throat tense with thirst, and set them safely aside on the seat for the ER. Now it’s my turn, and I reach for the three secret tubes I keep deep in my pocket. Blood from a child this young would sustain me for days. The younger the being, the greater the life force. This is how I survive. By sipping on the injured. Grazing like a fawn. It doesn’t take much to keep my heart beating, for our lives are tenacious as weeds. Even in life, I ate little. Always, my sisters would tempt me with treats, fearing my weakness was a result of anemia, but even back then I worshipped self-control.

  I have not taken a human life in half a century and did then only as a matter of absolute necessity. Only in the early years of my new birth did I feed upon humans with any regularity, following the wars, taking mostly killers, but still never free from shame.

  Now my self-control is secure. Discipline and an iron will have always been my greatest virtues and over sixteen decades I have honed them into a finely edged sword that cuts only me. Of course, there is a price.

  There is always a price.

  I am weak for my kind. We are a rare breed and I’ve known only a few, but I’m weaker than any I have ever known. This is what happens when one lives as I do, imprisoned by conscience, forced to feed on the frail.

  Lily Anne begins to cry and squirm in her mother’s arms.

  “She’s coming around,” Mrs. Granger says. She smiles, gazing at me with a look of absolute trust. “Little Lily Anne is comin’ around.”

  Now is the time to sustain myself. The child’s strong, tempered only by fever or flu. A few additional vials of blood are nothing to her. Twice that much wouldn’t be missed and might sustain me for weeks. But it’s impossible to take such a libation without raising alarm.

  My fingers close around the smooth glass tubes in my pocket when suddenly Lily Anne’s body locks up. Her breath halts. She’s having another seizure. Forgetting my hunger, I draw up medication and push it through her IV line. Mrs. Granger watches tensely until the seizure ends and her daughter resumes normal breathing. I give Lily Anne oxygen and fluids and check her sugar, all the while instructing Mrs. Granger on how to treat her children for fever, and then before I know it we’re pulling up to the hospital.

  Damn it! I’m running out of time!

  I reach for my secret blood tubes, but just as they clear my pocket, Dana slams on the brakes and sends me flying across the bench seat. I catch myself and watch in horror as the vials hit the floor and scatter across the truck. They come to a crash against the wall, breaking into pieces. Fury sparks within me. Fury at Dana for driving like a maniac and fury at myself for losing track of time.

  When you are a Night Walker, you must never ever lose track of time.

  Dana roughly throws the truck into reverse, jolting us all, and backs up to the ER entirely too fast. Mrs. Granger pulls Lily Anne close, kissing the top of her head and wrapping a free hand around her baby’s little feet as if to catch and hold her daughter’s vulnerability, shielding it from the world.

  A wave of protectiveness wells within me. Mrs. Granger need not worry. Lily Anne is my name child and I will perish before I allow a single soul to do her harm.

  Chapter 4

  Quickly, I sweep the broken shards of glass up and toss them into the trash. Dana yanks the truck’s back door open and pulls out the stretcher before I can move to help.

  Checking her watch, she says, “Let’s make this quick.”

  I look for the blood tubes I filled earlier for the hospital. My hunger is growing so raw I’ll keep them for myself, surreptitiously of course. But thanks to Dana’s driving they’ve slid across the bench seat toward the back door. She sees them before I do and picks them up.

  “You need to slow down,” I snap. “You’re driving like an escaped convict.”

  “I need to make that lecture,” she huffs. “How come whenever there’s something I need to do, we get a call?”

  “That’s why they call it a job, Dana.” I hand her the report and begin straightening the truck as she wheels the stretcher into the ER, carrying Lily Anne’s blood tubes away from me. I long to run after her and snatch them back, but that would look crazy so I stick to my routine. I never remain at the hospital for long. Too much fluorescent light, too many eyes. Dana likes to linger, especially now that there is a new ER doc in town. She must really be worried about school, because tonight she pushes through the doors without even a glance around for him.

  I’m restocking the IV kit when Rescue 7 backs in, screeching to a stop beside me. Paul, also known as Chewi for his laconic propensity to communicate through grunts, climbs out moving uncharacteristically fast. Normally, he barely picks up speed for a multiple casualty incident and I wonder what has him hustling. He shuffles to the back and throws open the door. Inside, controlled chaos reigns. A paramedic is at the head of the stretcher bagging oxygen into a patient’s lungs while a sweaty fireman performs rapid CPR. Nearby, a terrified mother crouches. Discarded ET tubes, wrappers, towels, and a bloody laryngoscope handle litter the floor.

  “Stop CPR,” Chewi says, and checks the monitor. The fireman stops. It’s Tom, Dana’s jilted lover, and I pray they don’t run into each other inside. The ECG alarm screams in the small space and the monitor commands, “Check patient” over and over with a grating robotic voice intentionally designed, I suspect, to induce stress. Tom wipes his forehead against his arm. Chewi frowns.

  CPR recommences and I move to help. When we unload the patient I see he is only a boy, about 8-years-old, wearing a “Star Wars” t-shirt and PJ’s covered in Dalmatians. I place a bare hand on his forehead and sense the current of life struggling within him. CPR is keeping him alive. For now.

  Tom looks to me as if for hope, but I can’t give any. “Electrocution,” he says. “Just a freak thing.” There is a bewildered, frightened air to him, and I wonder if he’s imagining his own child yet to be born, the potential fragility of life for which he will soon be held responsible.

  How vulnerable loves makes us.

  The little boy is whisked inside and I cannot help but follow. Just through the code room’s double doors, the new ER doc is there listening to the medic’s report and giving orders. The hospital staff takes over, but nothing they do is working. The child’s heart refuses to beat. Without a pause, the doc cracks open the boy’s chest with the ease of a linebacker tearing open a small box. The room falls silent. Stunned, I watch as his gloved hand slips around ribs slender as branches and slides beneath the boy’s heart to massage and restart it. My guts clench. The scent of young blood hits my face and I fall back, so caught off guard I can’t help myself. I press into the wall, trying to hide.

  Upon the doctor’s palm lies a tender, glistening heart.

  Gently, he pulses the heart with his hand, circulating blood to the boy’s brain and body while coolly directing his staff, who remain momentarily frozen. Even the ER’s most seasoned veteran looks strained, yet not a gleam of sweat or single strand of hair reveals the doctor’s tension. He’s impeccable under his white coat, which has somehow survived this impromptu surgery without acquiring a speck of blood. A bright suspended light hangs directly above him. For a split second, he shines like an Aryan god.

  This is Dr. Webb, our new physician.

  How I long to sink my teeth into the heart he holds and suck it dry. I squeeze my eyes closed at the shameful image. Dear God, forgive me.

  “Let’s go, people,” Webb orders, breaking his staff’s paralysis. They immediately obey.

  A sharp, animal-like yelp cuts the room and Webb looks over. It’s the boy’s mother, staring horrified at her son’s gaping chest. He gives the head nurse a quick glance of disapproval and she ushers out the distraught woman.

  Suddenly the energy of the room shifts, as if a faint electrical hum I’d barely noticed swells to fill the space. The scent of blood blooms and Webb’s breath catches. The boy is alive! Webb knows the moment of rekindled life, and I see his eyes brighten, ecstatic he mad
e the save. No one notices but me. My hunger flares. Webb contains himself and continues on, remaining methodical and concise.

  Dana appears at my side, grabbing me by the arm and once again checking her watch. Tom sees her and blushes, but she doesn’t notice. As she pulls me away, I take a last look at the doctor.

  “We have a pulse,” he says. He stops cardiac massage, letting his fingers fall open from around the boy’s heart. In awe, the entire staff stares at the red bundle of muscle beating upon Webb’s palm.

  Our new doctor has brought a boy back from the dead.

  “Get a blood pressure,” he orders.

  A nurse jumps to comply. The new respiratory tech takes shallow breaths, eyes shining with tears. Dr. Webb says something comforting, I think, but I can’t hear. Dana is dragging me through swinging doors.

  “Damn!” she says, startling the shock-stricken mother nearby. “I’m going to be late. Motherfucker.”

  Chapter 5

  We climb back into the truck and she slams it in gear. I’m certain she doesn’t drive her new Camaro this roughly, but I’m too preoccupied to scold her.

  “Did you see that?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Dr. Webb.”

  “Yeah, he’s hot. Most ER docs are total geeks. Nothing like TV.”

  “He cut through that boy’s chest like apple pudding. I haven’t seen that in a long time. You could work your entire career, Dana, and never see that.”

  “If I flunk out of school, I sure won’t see it then. Though I guess I could be a paramedic like you.” She gives me an appraising glance, then grimaces. “Oh, hell no. Navy is not my color, nor is your paycheck an appropriate amount to live on. This job is temporary.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re so worried about an English class. Can’t you retake it if you don’t pass?”