"But this is something you won't believe. Not to mention that it's breaking the laws."
"The law?"
"The laws. I go by different laws than you. Human laws don't mean much to us, but our own are supposed to be
unbreakable."
"Jam es," Poppy said, with blank terror. He really was losing his mind.
"I don' t know the right way to say it. I feel like somebody in a bad horror movie." He shrugged, and said wi thout turning, "I know how this sounds, but ... Poppy, I'm a vampire."
Poppy sat still on the bed for a moment. Then she groped out wildly tow ard t he bedside table. Her fingers closed on a stack of little crescent-shaped plast ic basin s and she threw the whole stack at him.
"You bastard!" she screamed, and reached for something else to throw.
CHAPTER 5
James dodged as Poppy lobbed a paperback book at him.
"Poppy”
"You jerk! You snake! How can you do this to me? You spoile d, self ish, immature-"
"Shhh! They're going to hear you-
"Let them! Here I am, and I've just found out that I'm going to die, and all you can think of is playing a joke on me. A stupid, sick joke. I can't believe this. Do you think that's funny?" She ran out of breath to rave with., James, who had been making quieting motions with his hands, now gave up and looked toward the door.
"Here comes the nurse," he said.
"Good, and I'm going to ask her to throw you out, " Poppy said. Her anger had collapsed, leaving her near tears. She had never felt so utterly betrayed and abandoned. "I hate you, you know," she said.
The door opened. It was the nurse with the flowered blouse and green scrub pants. "Is anything the matter here?" she said, turning on the light. Then she saw James. "Now, let's see; you don't look like family," she said. She was smiling, but her voice had the ring of authority about to be enforced.
"He's not, and I want him out of here," Poppy said.
The nurse fluffed up Poppy's pillows, put a gentle hand on her forehead. "Only family members are allowed to stay overnight," she said to James.
Poppy stared at the TV and waited for James to go. He didn't.
He walked around the bed to stand by the nurse, who looked up at him while she continued straightening Poppy's blankets.
Then her hands slowed and stopped moving.
Poppy glanced at her sideways in surprise.
The nurse was just staring at James. Hands limp on the blankets, she gazed at him as if she were mesmerized.
And James was just staring back. With the light on, Poppy could see James's face-and again she had that odd feeling of not recognizing him. He was very pale and almost s tern looking, as if he were doing something that required an effort. His jaw was tight and his eyes-his eyes were the color of silver. Real silver, shining in the light.
For some reason, Poppy thought of a starving panther.
"So you see there's nothing wrong here," James said to the nurse, as if continuing a conversation they'd been having.
The nurse blinked once, then looked around the room as if she'd just awakened from a doze. "No, no; everything's fine,"
she said. "Call me if ..." She looked briefly distracte d again, then murmured, "If, um, you need anything."
She walked out. Poppy watched her, forgetting to breathe.
Then, slowly, moving only her eyes, she looked at James.
"I know it's a cliche," James said. "An overused demonstration of power. But it gets the job done."
"You set this up with her," Poppy said in a bare whisper.
"No."
"Or else it's some kind of psychic trick. The Amazing Whatshisname."
"No," Ja mes said, and sat down on an orange plastic chair.
"Then I'm going crazy. " For the first time that evening Poppy wasn't thinking about her illness. She couldn't think properly about anything; her mind was a whirling , crashing jumble of confusion. She felt like Dorothy's house after it had been picked up by the tornado.
"You're not crazy. I probably did this the wrong way; I said I didn't know how to explain it. Look, I know how hard it is for you to believe. My people arrange it that way; they do everything they can to keep humans not believing. Their lives depend on it."
"James, I'm sorry; I just---" Poppy found that her hands were trembling. She shut her eyes. "Maybe you'd better just-"
"Poppy, look at me. I'm telling you the truth. I swear it." He stared at her face a moment, then let out a breath. "Okay. I didn't want to have to do this, but ..."
He stood, leaning close to Poppy. She refused to flinch, but she could feel her eyes widening.
"Now, look," he said, and his lips skinned back from his teeth.
A simple action-but the effect was astonishing. Transforming.
In that instant he changed from the pale but fairly ordinary James of a moment ago-into something Poppy had never seen before. A different species of human being.
His eyes flared silver and his entire face took on a predatory look. But Poppy scarcely noticed that; she was staring at his teeth.
Not teeth. Fangs. He had canines like a cat's. Elongated and curving, ending in delicate, piercing points.
They were nothing like the fake vampire fangs sold at novelty stores. They looked very strong and very sharp and very real.
Poppy screamed.
James clapped a hand over her mouth. "We don't want that nurse back in here."
When he lifted the hand, Poppy said, "Oh, my God; oh, my God...." ,
"All those times when you said I could read your mind," James said. "Remember? And the times when I heard things you didn't hear, or moved faster than you could move?"
"Oh. my God."
"I t's tru e, Poppy." He picked up the orange chair and twisted one of the metal legs out of shape. He did it easily, gracefully.
"We're stronger than humans," he said. He twisted the leg back and put the chair down. "We see better in the dark. We're built for hunting."
Poppy finally managed to capture an entire thought. "I don't care what you can do," she said shrilly. "You can't be a vampire. I've known you since you were five years old. And you've gotten older every year, just like me. Explain that."