Blood From a Stone Page 9

  He was certain he must be losing his mind. After all in a few weeks he would be pretty much dead and gone so did it really matter? He wouldn’t be around to see her cry if he hurt her. He’d just be some guy she’d met in a bar who dumped her and that would be the end of it. She would certainly get over it.

  But for some reason, he wasn’t so sure he would get over it. He was going to have a long, long time to remember and think back on his choices with this one after he woke up again next time around, and for many times beyond that, because this woman was not someone he would be forgetting any time soon. The reality of it both enchanted and angered him at the same time. He didn’t want to feel the way he did, but he was powerless to stop it apparently!

  He finally reined in his senses, and decided that he wasn’t going to do anything stupid….like trying to bed her right here and now. But, he figured there was no reason not to at least make the kiss one she wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon. He was going to savor every last drop of it. And well, okay…maybe just a little more if she‘d let him get away with it. He smiled wickedly as his lips left hers and he trailed a wet path down the curve of her neck with his tongue and all the way down to the crease between her soft breasts before working his way back up to pick up where he’d left off.

  The memory of this short moment in time would be all he had to hold on to later down the road if he never saw her again after tonight, which was the right thing to do, if he could just bring himself to do it. And in the event he was able to get his shit together and just walk away, he figured if there was nothing else he would leave her with, it would be that she’d never forget ‘the guy she met in a bar’ who kissed her goodnight in the hallway of her house…and just maybe made her feel a little differently than she‘d ever felt.

  He smiled before capturing her lips and tongue with his own again, seeming to steal the breath from her body and drowning her in an intoxicating rush.

  Willow felt like she was sinking into a pool of warm honey…slow, sweet, and sultry. His lips were like soft pillows enveloping her own and his strong hands lifting the back of her shirt and trailing softly down her skin felt so……right. Like they belonged there. His body was pressed in close to her own and she could feel his hardness against her thigh. He wanted her, but she doubted it was any more than she wanted him!

  Her mind was having trouble focusing on anything other than the image of her legs wrapped around his muscular body as he lay her back on the bed and how his skin would taste on her lips and tongue.

  He seemed to sense her urgency and his hands traveled from her back around to the front, and up her stomach to the side of her breasts. He lightly ran the pad of his finger over one of her nipples before stopping himself, not wanting to sour the moment by taking things further than she might want to allow. But, damn…. he was dying to leave off from the kiss and run his tongue down the length of her collarbone, into the crease of her cleavage and finally to pop one of those sweet, pink confections into his mouth.

  He felt her flinch as his hand slipped down and away. She reached up to put it back, but then thinking better of it, simply rested her hand on his. Just breathe…don‘t want to take this too fast, or he’s going to think you are too easy, she thought to herself.

  A few breathless moments later, they came up for air and he placed his lips gently to her cheek and brushed the hair back from her face. He pressed his forehead to hers, and before she could say a word he said, “I won’t, you know.”

  She pulled back slightly and looked at him like he was crazy. “You won’t what? What are you talking about?” she smiled as she traced the shallow laugh lines next to his mouth with her finger. He closed his eyes for just a second, savoring the feeling of her fingers on his skin.

  “Make you regret letting me know that you at least sort of like me. You asked me not to make you regret it when we were in sitting in Chico’s.” His arm tightened slightly around her waist as he spoke.

  She stared at him for a moment, leaned in and placed another gentle kiss on his lips. “Promise you won’t make me regret this either.”

  He hesitated for just a second and looked her in the eyes weighing the words he was about to say.

  “I promise,” he whispered.

  He stole one more quick peck before he forced his arms to let her go, opened the door and slipped out. He quickly slid into his car and backed out of the driveway.

  Hard as it was for him to believe….he meant what he said. He wasn’t exactly sure what the hell was wrong with him because he knew better than this. He was well aware of the consequences of feeling anything for anyone beyond casual or making any kind of promises.

  He wanted to kick his own ass…and yet, he’d do it all over again in a second. And, he made up his mind right then and there that come hell or high water he was going to do everything in his power to make sure she didn‘t regret one second she‘d spent with him and that any promises he’d made would not be counted among the broken.

  C HAPTER NINE

  He was running and yet his legs wouldn’t move. Fighting against the icy cold feeling that was surging in his veins that was traveling up his legs toward his heart. That old familiar feeling that he knew would come as his body slowed, his organs began to lose function and he would strain to hoist his body up to its perch before he turned into a solid block of stone.

  He fought it harder this time…he had promised her that he wouldn’t make her regret the kiss they’d shared earlier and now here he was already breaking it. But wait! It wasn’t time.

  This couldn’t be happening. Not now. It had only been one day! Then again he’d recalled feeling a strange chill more than once in the past 24 hours. Perhaps The Change was coming for him sooner than he expected.

  He began to run…knowing full well there was no running from it. Where he was going, he didn’t know. Only that he needed to get far away from here…far from himself if that were only possible. And yet…if he didn’t make it back to his perch what would become of him when he awoke the next time? He didn’t care. His legs took off running of their own accord….running from his pain, running from his frustration. Running from what he felt for Willow. And yet they wouldn’t move. Suddenly he felt a searing pain creeping through his muscles…but then not so much pain as heat. He looked down to see the ground opening up beneath his feet and the fiery pit of hell yawning widely to scoop him down into its depths. His lungs burned with every breath of his exertion as he ran, trying to escape.

  Samson opened his eyes, sweat soaked and gasping as he bolted upright on the couch where he’d been sitting watching tv just a few short minutes ago after driving back to his place from Willow’s. Or so he thought. He looked at the clock. Nearly two hours had passed and he’d drifted off to sleep. Sleep!

  He sucked in a deep breath, dragging his hair back from his damp face and struggled to digest the enormity of it. What the hell was going on?

  He had not known the sensation of sweet slumber or of dreaming for five hundred years, and he had to swallow back the emotion that was burning in his throat at the realization.

  Something was definitely wrong…or maybe right, and he had no idea what. Christ almighty! How had this happened? What had he done that was so different?

  Was it the kiss? Couldn’t have been that, because he’d kissed plenty of women since he’d become a block of stone. Love? Well, he’d had feelings for some of the women he’d taken up with in other Awakenings. Now granted, Willow was something else, but he’d certainly known some fairly intense feelings of passion since he’d taken on this curse, and assuming it might have been love, it had never saved his sorry ass before. Not even a little. So what the hell was it?

  He slid his legs forward to get up and was overtaken by a wave of weakness that forced him to sit back for a few moments. It passed quickly and he stood and headed to the bathroom. He leaned over the sink splashing cool water on his fevered face. He felt so thirsty and gulped down several large handfuls of water, before finally shutting
off the faucet, grabbing the towel and drying off.

  He stared at his face in the mirror and noted the flush at his cheekbones as if he’d been burned. Puzzling. He couldn’t be getting sick because obviously, he never got sick! Then again, he never slept either, so maybe that certainty was out the window now too.

  He pulled his sweaty shirt up over his head and walked to the bedroom to grab a dry one out of the dresser. He tossed the damp one in the laundry hamper and slipped the fresh one over his head as he plunked down on the bed he’d had delivered yesterday evening along with all the other furniture in the house. More miracles of this decade he’d discovered. ‘Rent-a-Room & More’ as they called it. Great place. You walk in with cash, rent or buy what you want, and they would deliver next day guaranteed.

  Then he’d hit a couple of chain stores and bought some sheets, blankets, dishes, toiletries, a few clothes and stopped by a grocery store to stock up on food. He was set up enough…at least for now.

  He crossed his arms behind his head, as he shifted to get comfortable on the bed. His mind was moving at breakneck speed, sifting through events of the past day to see which of them may have caused this unexpected shift.

  Sleep. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to go to sleep and dream. To know that you would wake up a few hours later and feel refreshed and alive. And yet, he couldn’t exactly say he felt refreshed. He’d felt a wave of weakness that almost dropped him to his knees when he tried to stand a few minutes ago. Then again, he noted, that he was indeed feeling much better now. Stronger somehow.

  And then there were those strange chills at Chico’s. Twice or three times now he’d felt that sensation and a feeling of ‘electricity’ and he suspected they must be connected with this new development.

  He got up from the bed, padded to the kitchen, opened the fridge and yawning, grabbed some juice and poured a glass. Yawning. What the hell? He shook his head in disbelief. He swigged the juice and marveled at how…human he felt. Remarkable. He smiled to himself and headed to the living room. He plunked down on the couch to see if he could put it all together.

  Let’s see. Woke up. Got dressed. Stopped by shops in center of town. Went to nightclub. Met Willow. No..wait. Before he actually met Willow he had saved her and Sasha from the rabid dog.

  Rabid dog. The words echoed in his mind. He stopped cold, remembering the sensation when the dog bit him. The ’electricity’ and the chills that had shot through him on impact and the way the dog had suddenly calmed down and become a different animal. Come to think of it, Cisco seemed to regenerate overnight.

  His fingers tapped lightly on the coffee table next to the couch. He held up the forearm that bore no trace of the wound that had punctured his flesh nearly down to the bone as his blood had poured out in a torrent down his sleeve, onto the pavement and into Cisco’s angry jaws….and of course the look of peace that crossed his features as he changed before their eyes into the sweet animal that begged for treats in the kitchen and slept at Willow’s feet on the chaise.

  His brows knit together as the memory of it all played back in his mind and he let out a deep breath as recognition dawned on him in that moment. It could be only one thing. His blood. The dog had tasted his blood.

  His mind traveled back and in all this time over the centuries that he’d been Awakening, never once had any creature or human being tasted his blood or gotten a blood transfusion from him. Nothing of that sort. It was the only thing that was different in the here and now.

  But what did it mean exactly? Was having his blood tasted by another living creature or giving blood the solution to the puzzle? That seemed way too easy. And was that also why he was able to sleep? And was it just a one-time deal? And of course, he had to wonder also if he was still a gargoyle….beyond death or illness. After being essentially immortal for so long the thought of being completely human intrigued, relieved and terrified him all at the same time.

  But then he was jumping ahead of himself. Time would tell exactly what this all meant, he presumed. For now, he would simply continue along his usual path and had to make plans as if he would be taken by The Change again in a few weeks. But, his mind began to play out a whole different scenario of possibilities. And none of them included Changing!

  He wanted more than anything to lay back down and see if his body would sleep again, but the excitement he felt was not going to allow anything even close to that.

  He needed to know just one thing for now. Was he still bound by the curse? He grabbed a wine opener from the drawer in the coffee table, opened it up, and neatly sliced a small cut into his palm with the pointed corkscrew. He held his breath waiting to see what happened. Within seconds the wound closed itself and began healing over. A minute later there was no trace that his skin had been cut at all. He sighed feeling both disappointed and relieved at the same time.

  Okay. At least he knew where he stood on that one. He was not free, but he’d been granted some small reprieve in that he’d slept. Well. Shit. It was a start! Perhaps it would lead to more?

  He stood, tossing the corkscrew onto the table and then headed down the hall to the bathroom, flipped on the light and turned on the shower. It was 4 am and hardly a soul was stirring out in the world. Not that it mattered…this was what he was used to, after all. Being awake during all hours of the day and night. Alone.

  As the steamy water sluiced down his body his mind wouldn’t let go of the thought of calling Willow. He’d just experienced the most extraordinary thing that had happened to him in five centuries and there was no one to share it with. But if there was, she would be the one.

  He almost laughed out loud at the thought of telling her, or anyone else for that matter, of such a thing. He could just hear it now, “Hey Willow. You’ll never guess what just happened. I fell asleep!”

  He sighed and shook his head as he flipped the water off, grabbed a towel off the rack and dried off.

  One thing he knew for sure. He had to find some way to test this theory of his blood being some catalyst for healing…and for his own possibility of returning even in some small part back to the world of true humanity. How would he do it?

  Hmmm. It seemed the simplest approach would be to buy a few rats from the pet store. Shave a patch of hair, take a lancet and do a tiny pin prick then give them a taste of his blood and see if it healed the pinhole or if the hair would grow back.

  He went to the kitchen and grabbed the phone book from the counter and flipped through the yellow pages to the pet store listings and found the closest one. It opened at 9am.

  Heading back to the couch, he sat down, flipped on the t.v. and looked at the digital clock on the cable box. He knew exactly where he’d be four hours and thirty-eight minutes from now.

  C HAPTER TEN

  Samson’s brows knit together. He stared into the two little black beads that were the eyes of the furry white critter wrapped in his hand.

  Half an hour ago, he’d left the pet store with four of them in a small cardboard container and headed back here to his apartment to begin his ‘experiment’ to see if his theory were true. He was very intent on finding some answers and very avid about his enthusiasm for giving a small drop of his blood to the rat. The rat, after enduring being shaved and poked with a lancet to create a small wound, was not cooperating.

  “Come on, little one. I just need you to take one tiny taste”. Samson rubbed the pad of his thumb to the rat’s lipsand dotted a tiny dab of blood on its yellowed front teeth. He waited in anticipation for the feeling of electricity like when the dog’s teeth had penetrated his flesh to come as he looked at the rat‘s tiny wound to see if it had closed up. Nothing. The clock ticked on like a hammer droning in the silence. He held his breath afraid to let it out, but still no reaction whatsoever.

  Finally after a few painfully long minutes, he sighed, and gently put the rat back into the box. Maybe he wasn’t doing this right. Maybe it wasn’t enough blood? He lifted another rat and sliced his thumb with the jackknife letting a lar
ge drop of blood fall out before the wound healed itself over moments later. He quickly wiped some into the rat’s mouth before it had a chance to protest, and did the same with the other two still in the box. Still nothing.

  Okay. Could he be wrong? He shook his head. What the hell else could it possibly be if not the blood? It couldn’t have anything to do with Willow. Could it? Yeah. He’d kissed the girl and had a few feelings for her. But hadn’t that happened before with others he’d met in past decades and centuries?

  He had to admit that something was definitely different with the way he felt about her, but love? No. For one thing it was too soon. Just yesterday, he’d still been toying with the idea of a good night of fun and games at a local dive, for Christ’s sake! And yet, like a fool he’d given that up to go for a cup of coffee, a kiss and a promise he couldn’t keep.

  He walked to the cupboard, grabbed a glass and filled it with water, headed back to the table and stared into the box at the rats, searching for any small confirmation of his suspicion. Still nada.

  Maybe he needed to piss the rat off and get it to bite him. He wasn’t keen on the idea of hurting the little creature to make it mad but he had to do something to make it bite him. He yanked on the rat’s tail gingerly but elicited no response.

  He sighed and then said, “Sorry little guy” before giving it one hard pull with a little twist. The rat squeaked, and sure enough reached around and nailed him hard in the side of the thumb. A drop or two of blood. No electricity…no anything really.

  He shook his head and walked over to the couch. He lay back, pulling a pillow beneath his head. He didn’t want to have hope, and yet he couldn’t push it away as it sat there like a heavy weight, squarely in the middle of his chest. Then again, maybe he was a fool for thinking there was any chance he might be freed of this wretched curse, and he should just give it up.