Page 82 of Now Comes the Mist

He gets up at once. “Of course.” He glances at my door, fearful that Dr. Van Helsing will come storming back in, but no one appears and we can hear the others murmuring in low voices across the hall. Very quietly, Arthur pushes one of the windows open. He looks back at me, his face worried, and he does not see the mist slipping into the room.

“Come here to me.” I stretch my arms out and make room for him on the bed, and he lies down beside me, his head on the same pillow, all thoughts of propriety gone. I hold him tight, feeling his solid, reassuring warmth envelop me, so different from Vlad’s arctic embrace.

The mist thickens. It pours through the window and pools onto the floor. I think of it surrounding Arthur and me, hiding and protecting us, and it rises at once at my silent command. Arthur relaxes against me, and his arms slacken as his heartbeat slows.

“Sleep, Arthur,” I breathe. “Sleep here beside me.”

“I love you, Lucy,” he says drowsily, and then he is gone, lost to slumber. His face is so young and innocent and trusting in sleep, his lashes dark against his cheeks.

I hold him, tears scalding my face as I lift my hand to push the mist out the door. The conversation across the hall continues, low and alert; allthree of the men are listening for sounds of struggle from my room. But they will not hear anything for hours. I will make sure of it.

I hear Jack’s head droop against the back of the sofa, Dr. Van Helsing’s suit rumple as he goes limp in his chair, and the thud of a heavy body hitting the floor—Quincey, who must have been standing. I whisper an apology and reluctantly pull out of Arthur’s arms as the mist slides throughout the house like a somnolent cloud, putting every living being to sleep.

My knees quiver as I stand, gripping the bedpost for support.

I am alone, a monster in a house full of sleepers.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Time is hurtling toward sunrise as I move to the open window, stumbling and weak. The mist on my face seems to give me a few precious fragments of energy. It smells of soothing earth and dew, and every step I take feels easier than the last. I gasp as it helps me, lifting my feet so that I am floating inches above the floor, my long white nightdress fluttering around my ankles. I do not feel afraid as the mist gently carries me out the window.

I fly along the side of the house, light as a feather, breathless when I realize how far the ground is below me. I want to see my mother, and through the windows of her room, I do. Despite the shock of her death, her lovely face is serene on her pillow. I press my hands longingly against the glass, watching the candlelight flicker over her closed lids, pale and veined with blue. I want to stay there all night. I want to hold vigil and to grieve, kneeling by her side.

But there is a powerful, gnawing void at my core, impossible to ignore. I am starving. My body is screaming out for the blood that will render my transformation complete. I have no time to linger, for the sunrise is inexorable and the sky is already lightening from the darkest hours of the night. I drift downward in the arms of the mist, my long black hair floating behind me.

I fear for these empty streets, and for whoever will encounter me first. Myprey.

The word makes me physically ill, and for a moment, I am forced to lean against a lamppost, heaving at the thought of killing someone. Of taking an innocent life. But I remind myself that I did not hurt Arthur. Even in my ravenous need, I had summoned the presence of mind to push him from me, and I will not hurt anyone else. I take deep, calming breathsas my ears pick up sounds from every direction: owls hooting, rats scurrying, foxes slipping through bushes. I will drink from an animal, I decide, and allow its blood to finish what I have begun.

“You stupid girl,” I hear Vlad say in my mind, mocking and hateful.

“Curse you,” I whisper.

“You’re a fool.”

I plug my ears with my fingers, a childish gesture that does nothing to keep his voice from my thoughts. I run through the mist, my bare feet making soft sounds on the pavement, and through sheer force of habit, I find myself at the churchyard gates once more. But this time, I have not sleepwalked there. This time, I lift the mist with my hands until it churns like the sea, making phantasmagoric shapes in the light of the gas lamps. I smell blood everywhere, pulsing through small animals. It is not as tantalizing as human blood, but it is blood nonetheless.

And then I hear it.

A strong, young heart beating. The rushing of fresh, hot blood.

I pause, listening. My newly sharpened senses focus on a creature behind me. There is an odd note to its smell, something I cannot place. No matter. The mist swirls around me as I stroll along the gate as though I have not a care in the world. I hear myself singing a soft lullaby, my low sweet voice lilting through the heavy silence of the dead. Why am I walking like this? From whence comes this music? I sing with a joy I do not feel, but I am as compelled to do it as I am to take air into my lungs. It is bait, I realize. I am setting a trap without even knowing how.

The animal approaches. The intoxicating scent of its blood strokes my nose, rich and savory. Everything slips from my mind but the bone-deep need to taste it. To feed. I continue to walk and sing, soft and blithe, but my muscles are already tensing, preparing to lunge and seize the prey that comes to me so willingly. Somehow, I know I could descend upon it in the blink of an eye, and that I am faster and stronger than anything within a hundred-mile radius. I could tear this creature limb from limb before it even had time to draw its next breath.

I turn to look at my prey, and my breath stops within me.

It is not an animal. It is a little girl.

She is about six or seven years old. She wears a long, shapeless coat too big for her, and her mousy brown hair hangs limp around her thin face.Thatwas the odd note I had detected. I had been smelling the innocence and the fresh, tender skin of a child. Her enormous dark eyes never stray from my face as she stands there looking at me.

No, I think, recoiling.No! I cannot.

“I’m scared,” she says in a small voice. “Will you help me, miss?”

The smell of her blood is overpowering. I am like a lost sailor seeing land or a thirsty man discovering an oasis in the desert. My ferocious hunger roars as the little girl scurries forward. My prey ishurryingtoward me.

The new and evil instinct inside of me has me kneel with a smile, bringing my eyes level with hers. “Hello, little one,” I hear myself croon, warm and kind, the way I have heard other women speak to children. “How did you come to be here all by yourself?”

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