She began to wander aimlessly along the trail, wishing her mother could have experienced this place of peace. Poor Maggie. Young. Irish. On vacation for the first time in her life, she had met a dark, brooding stranger, one who had used her and discarded her. Shea shook her head, tears welling up; she refused to shed them. Her mother had made her choice. One man. He had become her life to the exclusion of everything else. To the exclusion of her own flesh and blood, her daughter. Shea had not been worth the effort of trying, of living. Only Rand. A man who had deserted her without thought, without warning. A man who had passed on a disease so vile, his daughter had to hide it from the rest of the world. And Maggie had known. Yet Maggie hadn’t bothered to research it or even to ask questions of Rand to find out just what her daughter would be facing.
Shea stooped to grasp a handful of soil, then let it trail through her fingers. Had Noelle, the woman her mother had named as his wife, been as obsessed with Rand as Maggie had? It sounded very much as if she had. Shea had no intentions of ever taking a chance that she shared her mother’s failings. She would never need a man so much that she would neglect a child and eventually kill herself. Her mother’s death had been a senseless tragedy, and she had abandoned Shea to a cold, cruel life without love or guidance. Maggie had known her daughter needed blood; it was all there in the diary, every damning word. Shea’s fist clenched until her knuckles turned white. Maggie knew Rand’s saliva carried a healing agent. She had known that, yet she had left it to her daughter to find out on her own.
Shea had healed herself countless times as a child while her mother stared dully out a window, half-alive, never once hearing a toddler’s cries of pain when she fell learning to walk and run, learning everything alone. She had discovered the ability to heal small cuts and bruises with her tongue. It had taken a while before she realized she was unique in such a thing. Maggie had been an emotionless robot, caring for the barest minimum of Shea’s physical needs and none of her emotional ones. Maggie had killed herself the day Shea turned eighteen. A low sound of sorrow escaped Shea’s throat. It had been terrible enough to know she had to have blood to exist, but to grow up knowing her mother couldn’t love her had been devastating.
Seven years ago, a kind of madness had swept Europe. It had seemed so laughable at first. For eons uneducated, superstitious people had whispered of the existence of vampires in this region her father had come from.
It now seemed probable that a blood disorder, perhaps originating here in the Carpathian Mountains, had been the basis of the vampire legends. If the disease was indigenous only to this region, wasn’t it possible that those persecuted down through the ages had suffered from this condition Shea’s father and she shared? Shea’s excitement had set in at the prospect of studying others like herself.
Then the modern-day “vampire” killings had swept through Europe like a plague. Men mostly, murdered in ritual vampire style, stakes through the heart. It was sickening, repugnant, frightening. Respected scientists had begun to discuss the possibility of vampires being real. Committees had been formed to study—and eliminate—them. Evidence from some earlier source, combined with samples of a female child’s blood—hers, Shea was certain—had raised further questions. Shea had been terrified, certain those murdering in Europe might try to find her. And now, indeed, they were attempting to track her down. She had had to abandon her country and her career there to pursue her own line of research.
How could anyone in these educated times believe in such nonsense as vampires? She identified with those murdered people, certain she shared the same blood disorder. She was a doctor, a researcher, yet up until now she had failed all its victims, fearful of the discovery of what she thought of as her loathsome little secret. It angered her. She was gifted, brilliant even; she should have unlocked the secrets of this thing long ago. How many others had died because she hadn’t been aggressive enough in her search for data?
Her guilt and fear now fed her wild, exhaustive sessions of study. She accumulated everything she could find on the area, the people, and the legends. Rumors, supposed evidence, old translations, and the latest newspaper articles. She rarely ate, rarely remembered to give herself transfusions, rarely slept, always searching for that one piece of the puzzle that would give her a trail to follow. She studied her blood endlessly, her saliva, her blood after animal intake, after human transfusions.
Shea had reluctantly burned her mother’s diary; she would never forget a single word, but she still felt the loss of it deeply. Her bank account, however, was substantial. She had inherited funds from her mother, and she had made good money in her profession. She even owned property in Ireland that rented out for a sizable amount. She lived frugally and invested wisely. It had been easy enough to move her money to Switzerland and lay a few false trails through the Continent.
From the moment she had entered the range of the Carpathian mountains, Shea felt different. More alive. More at peace. The unrest, the sense of urgency in her grew, but she felt as if she had a home for the first time in her life. The plants, the trees, the wildlife, the very earth itself felt a part of her. As if somehow she was related to them. She loved breathing the air, wading in the water, touching the soil.
Shea caught the scent of a rabbit, and her body stilled. She could hear its heartbeat, feel its fear. The animal sensed danger, a predator stalking it. A fox; she caught the whisper of fur sliding through the underbrush. It was wonderful to hear, to feel things, to not be afraid of hearing things others couldn’t. Bats wheeled and dipped, diving at insects, and Shea raised her face to the heavens, watching their antics, taking pleasure in the simple show. She began to walk again, needing the exercise, needing to put the weight of responsibility from her shoulders for a time.
She had found her cottage, the barest bones of a home, and over the last few months had turned it into a sanctuary. Shutters blocked out the sunlight during the day. A generator provided the lights and necessary power for her computer. A modern bathroom and kitchen had been the next priority. Slowly Shea had acquired books, supplies, and everything needed for the emergency care of patients. Though Shea hoped never to have to use her skills here—the fewer people who knew of her existence, the better off she was and the more time she could devote to her valuable research—she was, first and always, a doctor.
Shea entered the thick forest of trees, touched their trunks reverently. She always kept a supply of blood on hand, using her hacker skills when necessary to tap into blood banks in ways that allowed for payment but preserved her anonymity. Still, that required monthly trips, alternating among the three villages within a night’s travel of her cabin. Lately she had grown so much weaker that fatigue was a major problem, and bruises were refusing to heal. A craving in her was growing, an emptiness begging to be filled. Her life was drawing to a close.
Shea yawned. She needed to go back and sleep. Normally she never slept at night, saving her down time for afternoon, when the sun took the heaviest toll on her body. She was miles from her house, in deep forest, high in the remotest part of the mountains. She came this way often, drawn inexplicably to the area. She felt restless, an almost overwhelming sense of urgency. She needed to be somewhere, but she had no idea where. When she analyzed how she felt, she realized that the force urging her onward was almost a compulsion.
She had every intention of turning around and going home, but her feet continued along the uphill path. There were wolves in these mountains; she often heard them singing at night. There was such joy in their voices, such beauty in their song. She could touch the minds of animals when she chose, but she had never attempted such a thing with a creature as wild and unpredictable as a wolf. Still, their nightly songs almost made her wish she might encounter one now.