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I stared at it for a moment anyway, even after I’d identified it, because I suddenly found that I didn’t want to look around anymore. Didn’t want to see something more substantial than a shadow. Didn’t want to know what might have come through that gap.
Because something sure had. And given what the wall probably stood for in my not-so-original brain, it wasn’t hard to guess what. And even though that was kind of the point of this expedition, now that it came down to it, I found that I wasn’t so keen on meeting that other part of me. That baleful, warped, diseased part that I’d done my best to ignore and avoid and generally suppress the hell out of all these years.
And I was pretty okay with maintaining the status quo.
But my brain, my so-messed-up yet so-helpful brain, had other ideas. It kept showing me glimmers of something slouching through the mist, flickering at the very edges of my vision but staying low to the ground. Hiding. Taking cover, but still visible in glimpses, like the light post’s shadow. Hunched and misshapen glimpses that watched me with terrible, demon red eyes.
I couldn’t see it very well, since I couldn’t seem to force my eyes to focus. Or my head to turn; it suddenly seemed to like this patch of ground just fine, thank you. But what I could see didn’t look human.
Of course it doesn’t, I thought, feeling sweat drench the body we shared, and my skin start to ruffle. I wanted to scream and flinch and gyrate like someone who had had a horrible insect land on her arm. Only this insect wouldn’t come off because this insect was me, was part of me, was crawling through the mist like it usually crawled beneath my skin. Always stalking, never leaving, never letting me just live, just be, like a normal person because I wasn’t a normal person and thanks to it I never would be and I hated, hated, HATED—
“Augghh!”
I threw out an arm when something reached for me out of the fog, sending it staggering back.
And then belatedly recognized Louis-Cesare.
“Are you…all right?” he asked me warily.
“Of course I’m all right,” I snapped, staring around, angry because I wasn’t. Not enough, anyway. I could feel it, a warm, red tide simmering away somewhere in the back of my mind—or what was left of it. But it couldn’t reach me, couldn’t help, couldn’t even get close.
Because there was something in the way.
Something that was chilling my flesh and making my breath come faster.
Something that felt a lot like fear.
And I couldn’t afford that. Anger was heat and light and split-second, adrenaline-fueled timing. But fear was not. Fear was cold and dark and debilitating and paralyzing. People who were too angry in fights sometimes lost, but people who were too afraid always did. Curling up into a ball instead of attacking, begging for their lives instead of fighting for them.
And I wouldn’t go down like that. I wouldn’t lie down and just be absorbed by this…this thing. Just like I hadn’t centuries ago.
I wouldn’t let it win.
I’ll die first, I whispered viciously, too low even for a vampire’s ears. I’ll die and I’ll take you with me.
Louis-Cesare had glanced around again. But now he was back to looking at me. “I am not,” he told me flatly.
“What?”
“I am not all right. There is something wrong here.”
A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it, high and a little crazed. “You think?”
He frowned. “Yes, I think. I also think that I am taking you out.”
“You know what’s at stake.”
“I also know what is at stake for you.”
“How?” I demanded, bewildered. “I don’t even know.”
And I didn’t. I didn’t know what would happen if—when—I and my other half had a long-overdue reunion. Didn’t know what would change.
Maybe nothing. Maybe it would just be a repeat of that whole scene in the garden—scary for a few minutes, because yes, yes, I could admit now that Louis-Cesare had been right, I’d been scared to death that night. But I hadn’t died, hadn’t changed, hadn’t gone any more crazy—not that I’d noticed.
But then, I wouldn’t, would I?
Of course, that had been all of a few seconds, and this was likely to be a lot longer, but the idea was the same. If the other hadn’t hurt me, maybe this wouldn’t, either. Maybe I was getting all worked up about it for absolutely nothing.
