Light Me Up Read online

  “Benja,” his grandmother greeted him first, coming close to hug him. “We waited do to the blessing for you, but it became too late.”

  “I’m sorry, Grandma, the plane was delayed due to some kind of weather condition over Chicago.”

  “Well.” His grandmother moved back to look at him. “I suppose you don’t control the weather.” She frowned. “You look tired.”

  Out of the whole family, Ben’s grandmother knew

  the least about how serious his condition had gotten. It seemed cruel to worry her. When the inevitable came, she would find out like everyone else. Not like he’d be around to see that personally.

  Unless he became a ghost.

  He gulped at the thought. It was one thing to be so blasé about it outside in the presence of the undead. Now, inside his grandmother’s kitchen, he could admit to himself the last thing he wanted to do was wander the earth aimlessly, haunting people for eternity…

  His mother hugged him next, holding on a little too long, the only visible sign that she acknowledged what his looking “tired” meant. Then his father took his turn. Always emotional, his father excused himself to use the bathroom afterward, and Ben supposed it was to regain his composure.

  “I’m sorry I missed the lights. I’ll get to see them lit tomorrow though.”

  The doorbell rang and he turned around.

  His mother frowned. “Is it that man again, mother?” “What man?” Benjamin glanced between them.

  “Some man has been coming around the neighborhood every night. He claims to be a Vampire hunter. Of all the nonsense.” She pushed open the door to the kitchen. “Rob, make him go away if it’s that man again.”

  Ben’s insides went cold. A Vampire hunter?

  His grandmother shrugged. “He’s always polite. He’s mostly harmless. It takes all types in this world, even the crazy ones. How was the flight, Benja?”

  Someone was hunting Ruth? Did she know? Benjamin wasn’t certain why, but he felt sick at the thought. After one conversation, Ruth had become his Vampire.

  He was going to have to warn her.

  Ignoring his grandmother, in two strides he moved faster than he had in a year and walked out in the living room to regard the man at the door. Rob was chatting with him, even as he made the movements to get him off the front porch.

  Rather unassuming, the man stood stick straight at six feet tall, with blond hair trimmed close to his head and blue eyes. As if seeing Ben’s gaze on him, he nodded as he turned to leave.

  Ben shivered. It felt like someone was walking on his grave. Even moments from inhabiting it himself, he didn’t like the feeling.

  Chapter Two

  In her dream —she had to be asleep since that was the only time she saw daylight— Ruth walked down the main street of the town in which she’d grown up. Nodding to one person after another, she knew she needed to get to her location quickly. He waited for her.

  Rounding the corner, she saw him ahead. His back was to her, and he was bent over a cart looking at the woman’s wares. Ruth rolled her eyes. He always tried to be so subtle, and she almost always caught him in the act. Her sweet husband, Ben, loved to buy her flowers.

  When he stood up, he held two red roses in his hand. Nodding to the flower woman, he turned and, for a moment, looked absolutely stunned to see her. Then he smiled and laughed as he walked in her direction, holding up the roses.

  He shook his head. “You caught me again.” She knew they were in Poland, and yet they both spoke English. She shrugged. This was pleasant. She needed to focus on what was happening so it didn’t go away.

  “Why do you always wait until I am just about to arrive to do these things?”

  She took the roses from his hand and leaned up to kiss him. Everything about him was familiar. It was like coming home to be in his presence, and she was grateful every moment of every day to be with him. Life without Benjamin would be intolerable, and she felt thankful she didn’t have to know what that was like.

  “What would you like to do this afternoon?”

  “Go home.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Go home?”

  Just like that, they were back at their home. Since she was asleep, she didn’t have to wait during travel. They could simply be there.

  She lay back on the bed and Ben posed above, looking down at her. In his dark eyes she saw such love she had to swallow the lump in her throat. This had never happened to her in real life. She’d been unmarried when she died and had never known carnal pleasure. As a Vampire, she’d indulged with other Vampires. Eternity was long, and she had to pass the time somehow. None of her undead partners had ever looked at her like this.

  “When I make a fantasy up, I really make one.” He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean,

  Ruthie?”

  Ruthie? She closed her eyes. No one had called her that in so long. It had been her family’s nickname for her, said only by those who loved her. Tears burned her eyes.

  It was hard to speak around the lump in her throat.

  “Do you love me?”

  He leaned down, holding his body over hers with his arms and kissing her square on the mouth. His lips were soft, and the slight stubble on his cheeks rubbed her skin. It was a familiar sensation, like they’d done it a million times before, and yet she was sure she would never get sick of it.

  Finally, he pulled back, his gaze that much more intense thanks to how close their eyes were to each other.

  “You know I do.”

  She did. In that moment, she felt his love for her, and she wanted to dive inside that feeling, swim around in it, and never resurface to the place where it didn’t exist. She swallowed her emotions. Why couldn’t this be the type of dream where she was unaware she was asleep?

  Lifting her legs, she wrapped them around his waist, wanting to be closer to him.

  “Are you in a hurry? We have all afternoon.” His eyes lit with amusement as he planted small kisses on her cheeks, her nose, and her neck, causing shivers to travel down her spine. She could feel them everywhere like his mouth touched her entire body.

  They didn’t have all afternoon. She wouldn’t tell him that. It might make the dream end faster.

  “Yes, hurry. I need you.”

  He stroked her forehead. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head. God, she was spoiling her own dream. “I just want you, need you, please, before it’s too late.”

  “Ruthie.”

  She pulled down her legs, and he rolled off her until he lay next to her on the bed. Picking her up in his arms, he tucked her neatly next to him. “You don’t have to be afraid. They aren’t coming to get us here. We’ll be safe, you’ll see.”

  Now he sounded like her father. Huffing, she sat up and pulled herself away from him. The joy of the dream was over. There’d be no finishing what they’d started now.

  She glared. “You’re wrong about that. They are coming. They are coming here, and when it’s over we’ll all be dead. Well, except for you, because you never lived in this time.”

  He jolted up and ran his hands through his hair.

  “What are talking about?”

  “I’m talking about blood, Benjamin. Rivers and rivers of blood. So much the stain will never come out.” She felt her fangs elongate in her mouth. Ben’s eyes widened. The love she’d seen in them swept away by another emotion she knew quite well: fear.

  He backed up on the bed and held out a hand as if to ward himself from her. “Ruth, what’s going on?”

  “It’s time for me to feed.”

  She lunged forward, hunger propelling her every move.

  Ruth darted up in her bed. Sweat beading down the side of her face, her hands shaking. “Damn, I need to eat.”

  The clock on the wall read half past eight. No wonder she was famished, she’d slept an hour later than usual. Well, that’s what she got for having sex dreams that turned into violence.

  Trying her best to sh
ake off the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach, she moved fast. Making her actions deliberate and not wasting time, she dressed and hurried out the door.

  Her makeshift apartment at the bottom of a mausoleum, two towns over from where she hunted, was good enough for her needs. Eventually, she’d have to leave it and her hunting grounds for a new residence. She always did. It was how she’d ended up in America to begin with. If she wanted to live as a Vampire, and not seek the sun to end it all, then she needed to keep going. Maybe she’d try some place in the South next. Shrugging, she acknowledged it didn’t really matter where she went — ultimately they were all the same.

  Striding into the darkness, she quickly travelled the distance between her home and the streets where she found food, too fast , in fact, for any humans to see her. If they saw anything it was a blur that disappeared before they could remark upon it. It was a gift. Her kind, she supposed, couldn’t survive if they were constantly spotted.

  Minutes later, she stood in the four-block radius of homes that had become her comfort zone. Exhaling, she smelled her first blood donor of the evening; an old man taking out his garbage three doors down from where she stood. Perfect.

  Within two seconds, she was before him. “Hello.”

  He startled but, moments later, was under her enthrallment.

  “I want you to bend your neck like this.” She demonstrated what she wanted him to do. It was easier than having to constantly repeat her demands or explain them over and over.

  Obeying her —as they all did except Benjamin— he put his neck into her desired position. She moved closer, embracing his body against hers.

  “This won’t hurt much.”

  Piercing his neck with her fangs, she drank fast. The sooner she got done the better. If he were to come out of his temporary enthrallment while she still sucked on his neck, he would be terrified and most likely scream.

  She could hear his pulse in her ears. It seemed strong; she hadn’t taken too much. The blood tasted sweet, like the chocolate drinks of her youth, and she moaned slightly at the pleasure. It wasn’t sexual, not any more than a fine meal had been in her human youth, but it still made her feel satisfied. Just a few more tugs with her fangs, and he would be dead.

  Knowing this, she pulled back and licked the wound over his pruned skin until it closed. A quick glance into his eyes told her he was still under enthrallment, so she took him by the arm.

  “Walk with me.” In three slow steps, she placed the man on his front step. “Sit here. You’re going to be a little dizzy for a few minutes. When it passes, get up and go inside.”

  She patted him on the head like she might a dog.

  “Thank you. I feel much better now.”

  Not really, but it seemed polite to say it. If she’d had any sense of humor left, she might have laughed at herself as she walked away from her meal. When had she decided she needed to keep her human manners when feeding? Actually, she couldn’t remember. Most of the things she did and did not do had been determined in her first weeks as a Vampire. Now everything was just habit.

  Abruptly, she stopped as she realized where she had wandered. It was the house again. The candles lit the window like a homing beacon had pulled her to their presence. She exhaled as she stared at the sight. Three of them tonight. Two represented the night, and one called the Shamash stood in the center to light all the others.

  In her family, they’d rotated whose turn it had been to light the candles. Her mother always lit the Shamash candle, even when it had been Ruth’s turn later in her life, when she handled matchsticks perfectly well. She smiled at the memory. Her parents worried about the wrong things. Shrugging, she let the memory fade. They’d only been human. They hadn’t known better.

  She moved closer to the house, watching the orange and red hues of the flames on the other side of the window dance. It was probably the air conditioning that made it do that.

  “I hoped to see you again.”

  Ruth jumped a foot off the ground in surprise and swung around as she focused on the first person to take her off guard in sixty-five years. Benjamin Fox, the subject of her late afternoon fantasies, had screwed up her eating schedule. He was proving to be quite a problem to her.

  She studied him closely. How had he done that? He sat on a tree stump just feet from the window. How long had he been there? “You’re much more than you seem, Benjamin. No one has snuck up on me since I was changed.”

  “I didn’t sneak. You just didn’t hear me.” He coughed. “And it’s Ben, not Benjamin.”

  She raised an eyebrow. His heartbeat was weaker than yesterday. It was part of why she hadn’t heard him. The other part was foolishness brought on by a yearning caused by some silly candles.

  “Are we to be friends?”

  “I don’t know if I’m going to be alive long enough to develop a friendship with you.” He shrugged as he stepped forward, his eyes on the night sky. “I still don’t like to be called Benjamin.”

  “Fine. I suppose everyone should get to determine what they want to be called.”

  Somewhere in the back recess of her mind, she heard her father’s voice calling her Ruthie. She’d loved it. And she’d thought it fabulous when Ben had said it in the dream.

  She cleared her throat. “Did you want something?”

  “Do you? I keep finding you staring at my grandmother’s house.”

  “It’s the candles actually. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen Hanukkah candles. I’m a bit like the moth to the flame, I’m afraid.”

  He sighed, and she heard his heart beat too fast. If such a thing were still possible, she was sure her stomach would turn at the thought of how much sicker he was today.

  “They are nice. I sat around and watched the kids play. They were so excited to light them so they could open their gifts.”

  “The gift giving is really an American thing. Or maybe it was simply something my family did not do.”

  He laughed, showing perfectly straight white teeth.

  “I keep forgetting that you’re a Jewish Vampire.”

  “It’s okay. You shouldn’t remember me at all, so that alone is enough of a surprise.”

  Looking at him, even in his tired, ill state, made her remember her dream. She wished his eyes danced like they had at the beginning of her fantasy. What was the point of being human if it all ended like this?

  Her gaze found the glowing candles again before she turned back to him. “To answer your question from earlier, the one that had two meanings —when you asked me what I was doing here— I will never kill any member of your family. Even if I sit out here every day for the rest of eternity. I don’t kill. Not since I learned how I could feed without doing it.”

  He narrowed his eyes and unsteadily stood up. “You

  don’t end lives?”

  “No.” She took two steps back and then abruptly stopped. She hadn’t retreated since she’d been made a Vampire. Why was she doing it now?

  “Ruth, I have to tell you there’s someone looking for you. He’s a Vampire hunter of some sort. My family thinks he’s a nut.”

  She nodded. “I have seen him.”

  “What?”

  “I told you, I have seen him before. I know this man.”

  “Then you shouldn’t still be here. You should run and hide.”

  She smiled. Perhaps she should let her fangs drop down and show him exactly why she never did those things. “I’m fine. He won’t catch me.”

  “But he knows you’re here.”

  Shaking her head, she moved toward him again. “No, he suspects I’m here. He’s never seen me.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “You are the first human I’ve ever met who can see me, communicate with me, without becoming enthralled. He wouldn’t get within two feet of me before I would convince him he didn’t want to do what he thought he wanted to do.”

  “Oh.” She watched the muscles in his neck work as he swa
llowed. “Then I guess I worried for nothing.”

  “You worried?” She moved to stand right in front of him. “Why?”

  “Because I thought he could hurt you.”

  “I’m already dead.”

  He touched her cheek. “You feel pretty alive to me.”

  “I’m warm because I just fed.”

  He didn’t remove his hand. “What do you feel like when you haven’t?”

  “Cold.” She moved his hand to press it to where her heart should have been beating. “See? No heartbeat. I’m not alive. I just exist even as I should not.”

  “Well…” His smile was wry as he took her hand and pressed it to his heart. Its beat faltered beat beneath her hand. “Mine doesn’t work so well either.”

  She smiled at his joke. “At least it’s still beating.”

  “It’s not even mine. I had a transplant when I was fifteen.”

  “When they put it in your body, it became yours.”

  Taking her hand, he kissed it, and she gasped. It was such a formal gesture. Something men had done in her day but did not do now.

  “You’re awfully sentimental for a Vampire.” He

  smiled. “I suppose it is my heart, and it’s failing.”

  “It’s so unfair that humans live and die as they do. You go through your days with the end encroaching with every breath you take.”

  He nodded. “I take it back, you’re a pessimist.”

  “Maybe I’m a sentimental pessimist.”

  His smile faltered. “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask. I don’t promise to answer.”

  Ruth couldn’t believe this was happening. What was she doing, standing on this lawn talking to this dying man as if she was like him?

  “Who did this to you?”

  She was not confused about what he meant. In her long years, she had only told other Vampires. It was a bit like sharing old war wounds. Everyone had a story. Almost no one was happy that it happened to them, but neither were they upset. Those sorts of feelings about vampirism disappeared almost immediately after the change. You were what you were. You accepted it as your condition.

  But, as was evident by the fact she existed, some Vampires did have the strange desire to share their state of existence with others. They couldn’t seem to control themselves. She’d asked one once why he made other Vampires. He’d shrugged and told her that every few years he was absolutely compelled to make another Vampire.