Copyright 1996 by Anne Fraser and M.J. Gardner

Chapter Seven

Jake flatly refused to talk about his night to Max, who was deeply worried about him. Rebuffed and feeling a little pissed at his friend, the slim med student took himself off to classes and resolved to let Jake get out of the mess he was in himself.

Jake also went to classes, but his heart wasn't in his work and he kept worrying about last night. His fangs had descended. He had, however momentarily, contemplated drinking blood.

I am not a vampire, he told himself. I am a human being.

Shit, he was doing the Elephant Man.

When he got home that evening, there was a message on the machine from Grace.

"Hi," she said blithely. "It was pneumonia this time. As if. Mom's healthier than I am, and we all know it except her. I missed you. Everything okay? Meet me at The Mugg at 8. Love you." Click. Buzzz.

There were no messages from Evelyn, but Jake hadn't expected any. It wasn't quite dark yet, for one thing.

He knew he should talk to Adrian, but the thought of seeing another vampire, of admitting his sudden urge for blood, was just too overwhelming. Jake needed normalcy. He needed Grace.

He changed into clean jeans and walked over to the Mugg. This was a chain restaurant, but a small chain, and was a step up from the Mad and other student pubs. The bar was smaller, there was only background music that barely intruded into the booths hidden behind shrubbery, and the food was better. Jake just wished that it wasn't in the Annex.

Grace was in one the booths, looking fresh and very human. She was wearing a new flowered skirt with a plain white blouse and her hair was caught up in one of those scrunchies. A scarf that matched her skirt was neatly tied around her throat. She wasn't exactly pretty, but neither did she stop clocks. She and Jake suited each other, and had been getting pretty serious in their relationship lately. Grace seemed to be taking it well that her boyfriend was a bloodling, or perhaps it hadn't really sunk in to her what that meant. Whatever, Jake was glad she hadn't deserted him.

"You look good," he told her sincerely.

She smiled. "So do you. What a weekend!"

He grunted. "You said it."

She started spinning out a resume of her weekend with her hypochondriac mother. Jake, who'd heard this all before, knew when to nod and when shake his head. He found his attention wandering, and his eyes were focusing on the pulse point in Grace's temples. He could smell her blood, and it was making his teeth ache.

Holy shit.

With an effort, he concentrated on the menu and ordered a rare steak. Grace frowned at him.

"You're eating too much red meat," she said. "Your cholesterol levels must be sky-high."

"I'm fine," he said hollowly, eyes averted from her throat. The scarf helped hide her pulse there, but there were so many other pulse points on the body ....

"You don't look very fine to me. Jake, has something happened?"

Oh, if only you knew... he thought. "No, it's nothing," he lied out loud. "Go on with your story. Did your Mom con the doctor out of any drugs this time?"

"It isn't nothing," Grace persisted. "Have you had more changes?"

"I'm just getting more nocturnal," Jake said, since he had to tell her something. "The sun's going down, it makes me feel more energized. Don't worry about it, grad students live at night, anyway."

"Okay," Grace said doubtfully, but the flow of conversation stopped.

They ate mostly in silence, and Jake left a great deal of his food untouched. It wasn't what he wanted. The thin blood in the meat only made him thirstier. This had to stop! He forced himself to eat the vegetables so that Grace wouldn't worry about his nutrition, and actually managed to keep them down. Maybe he could become a vegetarian vampire? Rare steak was obviously no longer the solution.

"Let's go back to your place," he suggested when they left the restaurant. "Max is kind of pissed off at me. We need a time out."

And her place wasn't anywhere near the Annex or Evelyn's hotel, but he didn't say that. He wanted to avoid both Adrian and Evelyn tonight, if possible. Though no telling where either or both of them might be hunting. Shit, was T'Beth in town, too? Downtown would be crawling with vampires, like Santa Carla in The Lost Boys. He hoped they didn't all run into each other. T'Beth would kill Evelyn without any compunction if she knew what the other vampire had done.

Grace agreed to Jake's suggestion about going to her apartment, so Jake drove there. They sat in his parked car for awhile, staring up at the building and the glowing Toronto night sky.

"I wish ..." Grace sighed, then her voice trailed off and she snuggled up to Jake.

"What?" he asked, distracted by her warmth and closeness. Lured by the steady rhythm of her heart, the bloodsong under her skin. BA dump BA dump BA dump....

"Nothing. I just wish things could be what they used to be."

"Don't we all? Grace ... do I make you uncomfortable? Being what I am?"

There was a long silence. He could almost hear her thinking, hear the blood beat slowly through the veins in her brain.

"Yes," she admitted. "I ... I can't help it, Jake. You're not who you used to be. You've changed. It's scary."

BA dump BA dump BA dump....

"Everyone changes, Grace. It's life. You grow, you learn new things, nothing stays the same. If you don't change, you die." Jake stroked her hair, smelling the shampoo and the city grit and the faint sweat and the stale office air and the blood just below the scalp ....

"Not everyone becomes a vampire, Jake."

BA dump BA dump BA dump....

"I'm not a vampire." But shit, he was getting closer. Her bloodsmell was making his fangs itch and descend, he was fighting to keep them sheathed and out of sight. So far he was winning. So far.

"Not yet." Grace pulled away from him a little. That hurt. He was losing her, losing Max. Losing the humans.

Had Adrian gone through this? Had Evelyn? No wonder vampires were in so damned much pain.

"I love you, Grace," he said, and he meant it. If only she didn't have that pulse.

BA dump.... STOP it.

"I love you, too, but it's Jake I love, not whoever else is in there." Grace took his hand in hers, sighing when it felt cold, hurting that he didn't squeeze or otherwise respond. "You are the classic split personality, and the Bloodling is winning over Jake."

"How do I stop it?" he whispered, agonized, knowing she was right.

"I don't know." She kissed the hand she held, then leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.

Jake reciprocated, all thoughts of Evelyn and last night banished, his body responding to Grace's overture in various exciting and disturbing ways. He found himself kissing her neck, hands reaching up to untie the scarf she had bound there, fangs suddenly descending of their own accord...

Jake was so borne up in the desire to sink his new baby fangs into the rhythm of Grace's blood that he ignored her gasp, her attempt to pull away from him, and the recoiling horror in his own gut. Only when his hand, brushing away the last wisp of her scarf and strands of her honey-blond hair, encountered something hard and cold ... only when a sudden flare of fire along his fingers made him howl, only when his fangs shrank back into his gums so quickly that it made his eyes water ... only then did he realize what the scarf had hidden.

A necklace, a tarnished antique, a thick band of solid silver, fastened around Grace's throat.

Silver.

The cold pain of it ran along his fingers like a frightened spider.

She was wearing the silver collar that Sofi had discarded when she had decided to trust Adrian. Sofi had, with her own hands, unfastened the clasp, handed the necklace to Jake, and asked him if Grace would like it. He'd had no difficulty handling it then, and Grace had been pleased with the gift.

The irony of it all hit Jake at about the same time as Grace's hand.

He blinked at her, his hand going slowly to the mark of her fingers on his cheek.

"Shit, Grace..."

"I don't want to hear it," she said icily. "Don't tell me you're sorry, that you had no control over it, that it won't happen again, or that Professor Talbot can make it all better. You are a vampire, Jake, or as good as. No more bloodling bullshit. Those are fangs! You tried to bite me." She was sitting rigidly, cold fury held on a tight rein but tugging on the corners of her eyes. "I think that's a bit over the top for any relationship." She quietly opened the car door and got out.

"Grace?"

"Good luck, Jake," she said, and closed the car door.