Flesh and Blood

‘You may both be fools,’ Chrysabelle said. ‘The sun will be up in minutes. You should have left when Tatiana did.’

‘Cara mia, would I be so careless as to put myself in such danger?’ Dominic reached into his pocket and retrieved two stoppered metal tubes. He tossed one to Mal. ‘Drink it.’

Mal eyed the tube suspiciously. ‘What is it?’

‘My own version of SPF.’ Dominic wrenched the top off, tipped the contents back, and swallowed. ‘It will protect you from ultraviolet light for twenty-four hours. Should you wish to end the protection sooner, which you may, you have only to drink blood.’

‘What’s the catch?’

‘For every minute of the twenty-four hours the potion is in your system, you’ll age one day. If you partake of mortal sustenance within that time, you will become irrevocably mortal. The aging, however, will continue.’ He pulled out a third vial. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I must gather Ronan and be on my way. I have no wish to age any more than necessary.’ He left, but his footsteps halted after the screen door swung shut. ‘Ronan?’

After a few seconds without a response from Ronan, Dominic yelled again. ‘Malkolm!’

Mal downed the tube’s contents and tossed it aside. He jerked his head toward Creek as he addressed Doc. ‘See to Creek, would you? I have a feeling Dominic isn’t happy about the way I left Ronan.’

‘Sure.’ Doc went to unpin Creek, but Chrysabelle went after Mal.

‘What’s the problem?’ Mal asked, pushing through the door. He held it open for Chrysabelle. Fog clung to the swamp’s surface, making the land look like the mythical home of the fae. She expected to see Mortalis or Solomon walk out of the mist at any moment.

‘Where’s Ronan?’ Dominic asked, his gaze suspiciously probing Mal.

Doc and Creek came out behind them. Creek limped slightly and looked angry enough to kill. She squeezed his hand and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring and calming smile. His wounds appeared to be healing already.

Mal shrugged. ‘Last I saw, he was getting friendly with the locals.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about.’ Dominic peered over the railing and down through the haze.

Mal, Doc, Creek, and Chrysabelle joined him. Mal pointed toward the dock where the airboats were moored. ‘He was right there.’

The fog shifted and the dock came into clearer sight. There was nothing on the boards but a streak of blood.

By the time they’d ditched Creek, who, despite his injuries wouldn’t let Mal closer to his apartment than a few blocks, dropped Doc off at the freighter, and were headed to Chrysabelle’s house, nearly three hours had passed.

The sun blazed in the amazingly blue morning sky, a sight Mal had not seen in almost five centuries. He knew in his gut that the fiery ball had not changed. It only seemed brighter. More brilliant. More frightening.

He’d found a pair of Doc’s sunglasses in the car and appropriated them. The darkness comforted him in a way that made him ache. He had been nocturnal for so long, just the warmth of the sun on his skin made him anticipate pain.

The car provided enough shade that he could almost ignore the oddness of the situation. Almost. The effects of Dominic’s potion weighed as heavily as the smell of rotting plant life clinging to him and Chrysabelle after recovering her swords from the muck.

For nearly five hundred years, he’d been ageless. Now aging a hundred eighty days in such a short span of time felt like being reborn.

And that wasn’t the half of it. Based on his body’s response, he wasn’t entirely convinced aging was the only side effect of Dominic’s SPF. Mal’s bones, muscles, and joints ached with the sudden press of time. It reminded him of human illness. Being warm without the ingestion of blood was wrong. His stomach growled with the hunger for food, a feeling he’d not had since the night he’d been sired. Even his heart beat sluggishly, something that never happened without a draught of comarré blood.

Worst of all, he’d begun breathing.

Chrysabelle glanced at him from the passenger’s seat but turned her head away quickly when he tried to make eye contact. Her mouth quirked in a strange way.

‘What?’ He was in no mood for another argument.

She looked back at him, and he realized the strange expression was an attempt at not smiling. ‘You should see yourself.’

‘No thanks.’ If he looked as bad as he felt, he would pass.

‘Well, in case you were wondering, you’ve gotten a little … shaggy.’ She bit her lip, then laughed.

He pulled down the visor and reluctantly checked the mirror. His hair hung well past his shoulders, and a thick beard covered his face. More startling was the face under the beard.

His human face. No sign of the fanged demon that dwelled within. Come to think of it, the voices had been silent since he’d drunk Dominic’s potion.

‘Sidewalk!’ She grabbed the wheel and jerked it. ‘Pay attention, please. I’d hate to survive Tatiana just to die because you’re a bad driver.’

He nodded and tried to refocus on the road, but his eyes kept shifting to the mirror. ‘Something isn’t right.’

‘Besides your driving, you mean?’ She sighed. ‘Yes, you look like a mountain man.’

‘Besides that.’ The lack of voices, the beating heart, the breathing, seeing his human face reflected back … an eerie prickle crawled up his spine as he slowed the car at Chrysabelle’s front gate. She held still while the facial-recognition scanner did its thing. The gates swung open. He parked the car on the inside curve of the drive and got out. He waited while she retrieved her swords from the trunk, then followed her to the door, lost in the possibility of what it all meant. Velimai opened it as they approached. She stared wide-eyed at him before looking to Chrysabelle for an explanation as to how he was daywalking.