Poppy was aware, vaguely, that Phillip was walking out of the room. The fan of light contracted as he half-shut the door behind him. James's face was partly in shadow.
"I could never tell you how I felt about you," James said. "I couldn't even admit it to myself. Because it puts you in terrible danger. You can't imagine what kind of danger."
"And you, too," Poppy said. It was the first time she'd really thought about this. Now the idea emerged from her muddled consciousness like a bubble in a pot of stew. "I mean," she said slowly, puzzling it out, "if it's against the rules to tell a human or love a human, and you break the rules, then there must be some punishment for you... ." Even as she said it, she sensed what the punishment was.
More of James's face went into shadow. "Don't you worry about that," he said in his old voice, his cool-guy voice.
Poppy never took advice, not even from James. A surge of irritation and anger swept through her-an animal surge, like the feverish restlessness. She could feel her eyes narrow and her fingers claw.
"Don't you tell me what to worry about!"
He frowned. "Don't you tell me not to tell you-" he began, and then broke off. "What am I doing?
You're still sick with the change and I'm just sitting here." He rolled up a sleeve of his windbreaker and drew a fingernail along his wrist. Where the nail cut, blood welled up.
It looked black in the darkness. But Poppy found her eyes fixing on its liquid beading in fascination. Her lips parted and her breath came faster.
"Come on," James said, and held his wrist in front of her. The next second Poppy had pounced and fixed her mouth on it as if she were trying to save him from a snakebite.
It was so natural, so easy. This is what she'd needed when she was dispatching Phil to get Popsicles and cranberry juice. This sweet, heady stuff was the real thing and nothing else was like it. Poppy sucked avidly.
It was all good: the closeness, the rich, dark-red taste; the strength and vitality that flooded through her, warming her to her fingertips. But best, better than any mere sensation, was the touch of James's mind. It made her giddy with pleasure.
How could she ever have mistrusted him? It seemed ridiculous now that she could feel, directly, how he felt about her. She would never know anyone the way she knew James.
I'm sorry, she thought to him, and felt her thought accepted, forgiven, cherished. Held gently by the cradling of James's mind.
It wasn't your fault, he told her.
Poppy's mind seemed to be clearing with every second that went by. It was like waking up out of a deep and
uncomfortable sleep. I don't ever want this to end, she thought, not really directing it at James, just thinking it.
But she felt a reaction in him-and then felt him bury the reaction quickly. Not quickly enough. Poppy had sensed it.
Vampires don't do this to each other.
Poppy was shocked. They would never have this glory again after she changed? She wouldn't believe that; she refused.
There must be a way....
Again, she felt the beginning of a reaction in James, but just as she was chasing it, he gently pulled his wrist back. "You'd better not take any more tonight," he said, and his real-world voice sounded strange to Poppy's ears. It wasn't as much James as his mental voice, and now she couldn't really feel him properly. They were two separate beings. The isolation was awful.
How could she survive if she could never touch his mind again? If she had to use words, which suddenly seemed as clumsy as smoke signals for communication? If she could never feel him fully, his whole being open to her?
It was cruel and unfair and all vampires must be idiots if they settled for anything less.
Before she could open her mouth to begin the clumsy process of verbally explaining this to James, the door moved. Phillip looked around it.
"Come on in," James said. "We've got a lot to talk about."
Phil was staring at Poppy. "Are you . . ." He stopped and swallowed before finishing in a husky whisper. "Better?"
It didn't take telepathy to sense his disgust. He glanced at her mouth, and then quickly away. Poppy realized what he must be seeing. A stain as if she'd been eating berries. She rubbed at her lips with the back of her hand.
What she wanted to say was, it isn't disgusting. It's part of Nature. It's a way of giving life, pure life. It's secret and beautiful. It's all right.
What she said was, "Don't knock it till you've tried it."
Phillip's face convulsed in horror. And the weird thing was that on this subject James was in perfect agreement with him.
Poppy could sense it-James thought sharing blood was dark and evil, too. He was filled with guilt. Poppy heaved a long, exasperated sigh, and added, "Boys. "
"You're better," Phil said, cracking a faint smile.
"I guess I was pretty bizarre before," Poppy said. "Sorry."
"Pretty is not the word.,,
'qt wasn't her fault," James said shortly to Phil. "She was dying-and hallucinating, sort of. Not enough blood to the brain."
Poppy shook her head. "I don't get it. You didn't take that much blood from me the last time. How could I not have enough blood to the brain?"
"It's not that," James said. "The two kinds of blood react against each other-they fight each other. Look, if you want a scientific explanation, it's something like this. Vampire blood destroys the hemoglobinthe red cells-in human blood. Once it destroys enough of the red cells, you stop getting the oxygen you need to think straight. And when it destroys more, you don't have the oxygen you need to live."
"So vampire blood is like poison," Phil said, in the tones of someone who knew it all along.