Possibly Sam
Chapter 9
The usual disclaimer, but I feel for the Moonlight characters. They deserve to be loved.
Both Francis and Josef knew at once what Sam and I had done. To their highly developed senses, we reeked of one another. With two less mature, more territorial vampires, I might have been in trouble. Francis smiled benevolently. He would excuse anything his beloved did, but Josef was a different story. He looked at me in surprise. "Mick is going to help. It was needed," Sam said firmly. "I told him to do it."
"Then, I'm glad for him," Josef said. "He was feeling left out. We can't have that." Bless Josef's sense of the ironic. "With Mick smelling from Sam, he'll be that much more tempting to me."
"Oh?" I asked. Did he want to drink my blood again? Sam's was the more potent now with some of Francis' blood inside him.
Josef's love for Sarah is what came first this night. He'd never attempted to get physical with me except when he drained me of my human blood to re-turn me. Because of my second turning, he had become my sire. I was his to do with as he chose, but I didn't think I had cause for worry. Josef had always been drawn to females, as was I most of the time. Sam was the only exception, but I think that had less to do with his gender than his soul. Over the years, it had been both male and female. Francis loved him either way. I felt the same.
Josef looked at me once more. "Mick. You know where my will is and the number of my lawyer?" he asked. Josef was always the businessman.
"Why?" I said. The truth of what we were attempting finally penetrated my sluggish brain. This was serious.
"If I don't make it through this, you, my friend, are going to be a very wealthy vampire. You'll have to start reading the wall Street Journal yourself."
"What do you mean, you might not make it through this? Don't you dare leave me!" I didn't even try to keep my voice low.
Instead of replying, Josef turned to Sam. "Let's get this show on the road."
"Kneel," Francis told Josef. The word brought back a flash of memory and it was not a pleasant one. This one was better. When Josef knelt, Francis rested both hands on Josef's head. The two looked like a painting I'd once seen in museums - an ancestor blessing his descendent. It was no more than the truth. I cursed myself for never thinking that my brilliant idea could pose a danger to Josef. What would I do without him? The tubes that fed Sarah blood had been disconnected. She looked so very young and vulnerable with her auburn curls spilling over the pillow. Her cheeks were rosy, like a child that came in from playing in the snow, and she was just as cold.
When Josef stood, he thanked Francis. "No matter what happens, whether this works or not, thank you, Sam, for trying, and Francis, thank you for your blessing and your help. I won't forget you, either of you." Sure. He'd just blame me. "What next, Sam?"
Sam pointed to a chair. "Mick, sit there." The guitar was waiting for me. I picked it up and held it on my lap, sliding the pick onto my finger and waited for Sam's instructions. "Francis, would you bring over my drum and drumsticks, please?" He set them down next to him. Sam did not take them up yet. "What did you learn from examining Sarah and what did you do to her while I was in the other room with Mick?"
Francis gestured toward the body on the bed. Sarah remained as beautiful as she was on the day she submitted herself to her vampire lover. "As we know, she's in a death sleep. I freed her tongue and moistened her eyes. I flexed her muscles and bathed her. If her soul or her ghost is willing to rejoin and reanimate her body, it is as ready as medical knowledge can make it. The rest is up to you."
"No," Sam said. "Not me. I have no power of my own to perform miracles. It's up to the Creator." Sam approached Sarah and passed his hands over the surface of her body using his shaman senses. "I don't sense her soul within her."
"Then, where is she?" Josef was exerting tremendous control not to cry or give way to an uncontrollable rage, but I felt the tears in his voice.
""We'll soon know. If not her soul, her ghost will answer my summons." He held out his arms to Josef in invitation. "For you to see and hear her, you must share blood with me. You may have to die again for a short time yourself. Are you willing?"
"I'll do anything," Josef said simply.
"Then come to me, Josef," Sam said. "You know what we have to do." I had supposed he would take Josef to a different part of the house to perform their exchange in private, but it seemed this was a part of the ceremony. Josef had never been ashamed to feed before me, but Francis was here, Sam's lover. The elder seemed like the god of vampires, as much as I once scoffed at the idea. He had been born into that ancient time and culture when men worshiped us as protectors. He had given Josef his blessing. Now, he sat with his hands resting on his knees, as unmoving as a carved pharaoh in the temples of ancient Luxor, except for his living and intense eyes.
They stood facing each other. Sam was a little shorter than Josef, as Josef was an inch or so shorter than me, but Sam's power made him seem the taller of the two. He said, "Let the Creator accept our sacrifice on behalf of this woman, Sarah Whitley. Do it now, Josef." Because of what I took from Sam, I felt his feelings. I experienced the sharpness of Josef's fangs as they entered Sam. Sam never cried out. He only sighed as he had done with me. Josef paced himself carefully, waiting for Sam's mental command to stop. When it happened, he released Sam and stepped back. Sam's wounds closed in moments. It must have been Francis' blood working inside him.
For the first time since the day Josef drained me and fed me his blood, I felt Josef's feelings, by way of Sam. Hope and fear were so tightly knit in him, I became dizzy with it. We in this room were all connected through blood and love. There was a power here that Sam alone had the resources to harness. He was the only human, and young to boot, but in this, he was stronger than any of us.
Sam's voice was weak. Josef had to support him. "Give me yours now," Sam directed softly, "as I told you it must be done." Josef withdrew a knife in his pocket and unsheathed it. It was silver. I drew back from the poisonous metal, but Josef took the onyx handle and drew the blade in a line over his heart. It must have been painful, but the silver would keep the wound open long enough for Sam to take in a good quantity of Josef's blood. I saw the agony on Josef's face, but he hardly flinched. He dropped the knife and brought Sam's lips to his wound.
Sam seemed to absorb Josef's strength with his blood, standing straighter while Josef grew weaker. Josef began to tremble and sway with the effort of standing up. When Sam had taken as much as he could, I thought Francis or I would help him lift Josef, but he did it himself. He was strong enough, having inside him the blood of the two most powerful vampires I knew.
He lowered Josef to the bed beside Sarah. Josef's skin had turned the color of ash and he shivered as if he were cold, or old and infirm. I'd never seen him like this. In a few moments, Josef's pained eyes closed and he was as still as death.
My brain was racing with fear for my friend, but I could not speak. Is Josef dead? I thought the question.
He's been dead for a long time, came the answer from Sam's mind. He's in death sleep now, like Sarah. Sam sat, then lifted his drum to his knees and began to play the summoning beat I had heard twice, once when he summoned me to him, and the second time, when he summoned a shaman with twice his own occult strength. My blood had increased Sam's power that time. This time, he was immeasurable more powerful.
Sam chanted the words to the beat of his drum, first in Mohawk and then in English so I could understand. I heard him all the way through both, before I fit my fingers to the strings of my guitar to follow the pattern of his beat. "Creator," Sam chanted in translation, "let the two souls of these lovers unite. Give them the ability to see and hear and feel each other. Sarah Whitley, ride the winds of love and memory back to the body you once inhabited. See the soul of the man who loves you and who killed you. Remember him."
He repeated the words several times in both languages. The music was putting me into a strange state of mind. I felt like this when I first heard Sam. I might have been under water, not needing to breathe, but even I froze for a moment when Sarah sat up. Keep playing, Mick, Sam's voice commanded in my head. She yawned. "Charles?" she asked.
I felt Sam's confusion at her question. He went by that name when they knew each other, I sent. I forced my fingers back to the strings of my guitar and continued the slow, steady beat of Sam's drum. I was riveted at the sight of the two on the bed. Josef sat up.
"Yes, my darling," he said. "I'm here with you."
"Charles? Where am I?"
Josef didn't know how to answer at first. He paused to listen to Sam's directions. "In New York in our house. We chose it together. You've been here all along. I tried to turn you in 1955. This is 2008."
Sarah sighed. "I haven't been here. I'm home in bed. I'm married with children. I dreamed you, Charles, and you were like something out of a novel. Now, I'm dreaming you again."
"But you're real. We're together again. You're Sarah Whitley. I love you."
Sarah rose from the bed and walked in front of the mirror. She stood up on her toes and twirled, beautiful as ever in her silk nightgown, not a living corpse on a bed. "I must be dreaming again. I dreamed I was in love with a vampire names Charles. How strange to see you as if you were real! My father warned me."
"You remember your father?" Josef asked in a rush.
"In my dream of you, I had a different father, a rich man who gave me everything I could want. I was ready to give it all up to be with you. Do you remember how we loved each other, Charles?"
"Yes! Yes! I still love you. You love me. Please remember me, my darling. Be alive again." She smiled and stroked his cheeks and lips. Josef stared at her. His non-beating heart was breaking and I felt it shattering within him.
"My silly dreams. You're nothing but a fantasy, Charles. You're a fantasy that thinks he's real. You're my handsome dream lover, but I have a real husband. I have to wake up soon and get my children ready for school. It was lovely seeing you again." She took another glance at herself in the mirror. "In my dreams, I'm always slimmer and younger." She sighed. "But, real life beckons. It will be morning soon. I'll have to wake up and make the coffee. Goodbye, my sweet Charles. I'll always remember you."
She closed her eyes and seemed to fall back into her undead sleep, but there was a difference. Her eyes, closed as they were, grew flat, and her skin became pale as candle wax. She was truly dead this time, no longer the sleeping beauty in suspended animation.
Josef made a sound like a man strangling, starved for air that he did not need. He took a deep breath and screamed. His agony cut through me more than the silver. At last, he closed his eyes and became very still. They were like Romeo and Juliet in the play. I looked at the two star-crossed lovers. There was nothing I could do.
Sam played his drums in another tone now, the tone of comfort and peace he once played to make the warring factions in his own village reconcile and come together in peace. I followed on my guitar as well as I could while tears dripped down my cheeks, hoping and praying that Josef would not take the place of the sleeping beauty on the bed, to lie for years in an unending sleep.