Myrnin's brows came together as he stared at Amelie's apparent obliviousness to what had just occurred. She raised a brow at him expectantly.
"Well?" she asked impatiently. "Do I have to get the blood myself?"
Myrnin shook himself and rose from his place on the floor. "No. No, I'll get it," he said. "I haven't anymore O negative, so—"
"Yes," she replied, "AB positive will do. As you probably already knew."
"Right," he confirmed. "Fine."
Myrnin gave Amelie one last glance before leaving the lab and going into a back room that held a refrigerator and several cabinets stored with miscellaneous items he'd collected over the decades.
As he searched through the cupboards for a decent cup to drink from, he remembered the strange trance Amelie had gone into. Certainly, she had not realized the... message she'd relayed to him. But what—besides the obvious—had it meant?
Those who play in my court shall perish. Be warned, my foolish children. One who touches the Underworld will be forever cursed.
Whose court were they playing in? Who had the authority to call Myrnin and Amelie their 'children?' And what kind of curse would plague the person who tampered with the dead?
Myrnin was rummaging through the refrigerator and finally found a bag of AB positive when he felt the burst of energy that told him a portal was being called upon in the lab. Dash it all.
He rushed back to where he had left Amelie (foolishly unattended) and found the place was empty.
Sam could only remember a strange tugging sensation and then something grabbing at him, pulling him upward while another being tried to haul him the other way. And then suddenly gasping for breath in the dark. In a coffin. The air had been stale and cold while darkness wrapped around his body, as if reluctant to let him leave.
But Sam clawed at the lid of his coffin and pushed, finding he still had his vampire strength. The lid eventually gave way and then dirt covered his body, getting in his eyes and nose and mouth. He dug upwards until his hand broke through to cool night air, sprouting up from the ground like some strange new species of plant in desperate need for sunlight.
Now, having pulled himself from the ground and emerging from it in an odd kind of rebirth, Samuel was sitting at his grave that was soaked with blood, his head in his hands as he cried.
What is this, he thought to himself, over and over again in his mind. What have I been brought into?
Sam knew it must be earth. Morganville. The cemetery.
It was like emerging from a deep sleep into a world of unknowns. This couldn't be real. It just couldn't.
He could not be back.
Suddenly, the air before him seemed to shimmer and he felt something pass through the silence like a ripple in still water. A portal.
And then— Then she stepped through.
Like an angel, she seemed to glow in the dark cemetery, her silver hair shining in the slight moonlight. The skirts of her dress billowed in the wind that swirled her hair around her face.
"Amelie," he breathed.
She was beautiful.
A stolid expression was upon her weary face as she made her way toward him, but when she saw that he was there, sitting next to his grave, her expression softened. Tears appeared in her eyes and she smiled as best she could at him through her pain.
Amelie fell to her knees when she was a foot from him, burying her face in her hands and weeping. Her words were a jumble of loving phrases and the beginnings of apologies mixed with the sound of her sobs, emerging from her lips as incoherent mutterings.
"Samuel, I can't believe I ever— I'm so sorry— I've missed you. I—"
Before she could make another sound, Sam wrapped his arm around her crumpled frame and brought up her chin with his forefinger. For a moment they were both silent as they gazed into each other's wet eyes until Sam pressed his lips against hers.
This kiss lasted a long time and filled Samuel with emotions he felt he had forgotten. But love stirred in his heart, a bird with fluttering wings taking residence in his chest. He studied the feel of her hair with his hands as he kissed her while memories flooded back to his mind, blurry and faded, but undeniably his own.
And then he seemed to remember something, as if this thought had been somewhere in the back of his mind.
"I didn't think I'd see you again." The words slipped from his mouth without a conscious thought from Sam. Something was tugging at his thoughts, but he ignored it. Whatever it was could wait.
How senseless love could make out of one so sensible.
Myrnin paced about in his lab, a ceaseless walk that he thought might rid him of his anxiety. He wouldn't chase after Amelie into the cemetery to interrupt her and Samuel's reunion; it was too late to stop it anyway.
Amelie would never listen to him now.