Read Online The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause - Free Book Online

laugh; a sound dark and cursed. The blow he landed snapped the boy back and smashed him against the car. The boy started to slide to the ground, but slim white hands reached for him delicately and slammed him once more against the car. The third blow rendered him unconscious and flooded Simon with the sweet warm pleasure of the kill.
    â€œCall me nobody?” he whispered, and his fangs slid from their sheaths. “Call me nobody?” he screamed as if in pain. He hoisted his victim up and tore the boy’s wrist open with a savage scissoring of teeth. He raised the boy’s arm and, with the pulsing blood, wrote wavering letters on the dingy primer of the car’s roof, I AM .
    The dark, raw smell of blood intoxicated. He found himself embracing the boy and pulling the damaged wrist up to his mouth. Faintly, somewhere, he felt disgust. A distant echo cried for him to stop. But the blood call was too strong. He had almost placed a reverent kiss upon the hand when sirens screamed too close.
    He pushed the limp body from him, but it seemed to cling. For a moment he felt trapped. Then it slid to the ground. But in the midst of panic a perverse whim took hold. He began to strip the jacket from the huddled form,struggling with the boy’s inert bulk, bloodying the lining, ripping a seam until it pulled free. Black and glittering, he had his prize. He clutched it to him, leaving its owner his life.
    Then he was running. He fled past his first assailant, now staring with white-faced rictus fear, through the rubble of lost homes, out into the night, on and on through the streets, until he arrived in the quiet yard of a house with a dark green door.
    He wrapped the bloodstained jacket about his shoulders and sank down beneath an azalea bush. He stared at her window until dawn.

5

Zoë
    Z oë froze in the doorway, her clenched fist to her mouth. Her teeth dug into her knuckles. Anne Sutcliff sprawled over the side of the chaotic hospital bed. Her shoulders heaved. The sounds were unmistakable.
    â€œDad.” Zoë turned and clutched her father’s arm. “She’s throwing up.” The disrupted IV regulator beeped furiously.
    Mom’s friend Carol, who’d come with them, squeezed Zoë’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, hon. I’ll get a nurse.”
    Zoë’s father pushed by her and raced the few strides that took him to his wife’s side. “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right.” He smoothed back the hair from her face rhythmically.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she moaned between retches.
    When her father reached impatiently for a button at the bedside, Zoë saw that a few strands of dark hair still clung to his fingers. He shook them into the trash can, which was half full with needle covers and stained gauze.
    The smell of the room was overpowering. She backed out of the door, the bile rising in her own throat. Her heart pounded. She wanted to run to her mother, but she couldn’t bear to stay and see her that way. Mothers are supposed to be strong, she thought. She’s supposed to take care of me.
    A nurse bustled by her.
    Zoë knew the treatment made her mother sick, but she’d never seen her this bad, so weak she couldn’t even make it to the bathroom. Zoë felt awful, embarrassed, like she was spying on something private.
    Carol tried to put an arm around her, but Zoë shook her off.
    I should go to Mom, Zoë told herself. She needs me. But she couldn’t go back into the room and face that sick woman. She leaned against the wall of the corridor in a cold sweat, shaking. Carol hovered close by, looking hurt and anxious.
    This is stupid, Zoë thought. You wanted to help, to prove you belonged. Here’s your chance. Her mind argued logically, but her body refused to move. Finally, she began to edge toward the door. I could hold her hand, at least, she thought, and comfort her. I owe it to her.
    But before she got there,