07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

look up into the face of her mother.
“No!” cried her father again. He choked.
“La sangre!” gasped her mother, covering her eyes. “The blood!”
“Querida—” her father sobbed, and went to her.
“Dad!” Meredith went after him and shook his arm. “You’ve ruled out all the
possibilities! I don’t understand! Who was drinking blood?”
“You! You!” her mother almost screamed. “From your own brother! Oh, el aterrorizar!”
“Gabriella!” moaned her father.
Meredith’s mother subsided into weeping.
Meredith’s head was whirling. “I’m not a vampire! I hunt vampires and kill them!”
“He said,” her father whispered hoarsely: “‘Just see she gets a tablespoon a week. If you
want her to live, that is. Try a blood pudding.’ He was laughing.”
Meredith didn’t need to ask if they had obeyed. At her house, they had blood sausage or
pudding at least once a week. She had grown up with it. It was nothing special.
“Why?” she whispered hoarsely now. “Why didn’t he kill me?”
“I don’t know! We still don’t know! That man with his front all dripping with blood—
your blood, your brother’s blood, we didn’t know! And then at the last minute he grabbed for the two
of you but you bit his hand to the bone,” her father said.
“He laughed—laughed!—with your teeth clamped in him and your little hands pushing
him away, and said, ‘I’ll just leave you this one, then, and you can worry about what she will turn out
to be. The boy I’m taking with me.’ And then suddenly I seemed to come out of a spell, for I was
reaching for you again, ready to fight him for both of you. But I couldn’t! Once I had you, I couldn’t
move another inch. And he left the house still laughing—and took your brother, Cristian, with him.”
Meredith thought. No wonder they didn’t want to hold any kind of celebration on the
anniversaries of that day. Her grandmother dead, her grandfather going crazy, her brother lost, and
herself—what? No wonder they celebrated her birthday a week early.
Meredith tried to stay calm. The world was falling to pieces around her but she had to
stay calm. Staying calm had kept her alive all her life. Without even having to count, she was
breathing out deep, and in through her nostrils, and out through her mouth. Deep, deep, cleansing
breaths. Soothing peace throughout her body. Only part of her was hearing her mother:
“We came home early that night because I had a headache—”
“Sh, querida—” her father was beginning.
“We got home early,” her mother keened. “O Virgen Bendecida, what would we have
found if we had been late? We would have lost you, too! My baby! My baby with blood on her mouth
—”
“But we got home early enough to save her,” Meredith’s father said huskily, as if trying to
wake her mother from a spell.
“Ah, gracias, Princesa Divina, Vigen pura y impoluto…” Her mother couldn’t seem to
stop crying.
“Daddy,” Meredith said urgently, aching for her mother but desperately needing
information. “Have you ever seen him again? Or heard about him? My brother, Cristian?”
“Yes,” her father said. “Oh, yes, we have seen something.”
Her mother gasped. “’Nando, no!”
“She has to learn the truth sometime,” her father said. He rummaged among some
cardboard file folders on the desk. “Look!” he said to Meredith. “Look at this.”