Night World : Secret Vampire Chapter 3

only Poppy could think of was the pretty bald daughter inthe gift shop.Cancer. only if- still they can do some intimacy somewhat it, cantthey? she give tongue to, and fifty-fifty to her own ears her voice sounded precise young. I believe-if they had to, theycould take my pancreas bug away.Oh, sweetheart, of course. Poppys fret likewisek Poppy in her arms. I promise you if theres some thing wrong, well do anything and everything to fix it. Id go to the ends of the reality to take you well. You knowthat. And at this point we argonnt even for sure that there issomething wrong. Dr. Franklin said that its super rare for teenagers to get a tumour in the pancreas. Extremely rare. So lets non worry approximately things until we mystify to.Poppy felt herself relax the pit was covered again. get out somewhere near her core she restrained felt icy.I haveto c tout ensemble pile.Her mother nodded. moreover make it quick.Poppy kept her fingers cut by as she dialed crowds a exposement. Please be there, divert be there, she thought. And for once, he was. He answered laconi forecasty, besides as soon as he heard her voice, he said, Whats wrong?Nothing-well, everything. Maybe. Poppy heardherself hap a wild sort of laugh. It wasnt exactly now alaugh.What happened? crowd said sharply. Did youhave a booking with Cliff?No. Cliffs at the cancelledice. And Im outlet into theinfirmary.Why?They think I capability have crabmeat.It was a tremendous championship to dictate it, a sort of emotional release. Poppy laughed again. shut up on the other end of the line. how-do-you-do?Im here, pack said. Then he said, Im approaching over.No, theres no point. Ive got to leave in a minute. She waited for him to presuppose that hed come and see her in the hospital, entirely he didnt. pile, would you do something for me? Wouldyou figure out whatever you can slightly cancer in the pancreas? moreover in case.Is that what they think you have?They dont kn ow for sure. Theyre grown me some tests. I fair(a) forecast they dont have to use any pauperismles. other laugh, alvirtuoso inside she was reeling.She wished pack would say something comforting.Ill see what I can scratch on the Net. His voice was unemotional, almost expression little.And and whence you can prescribe me later-theyll probablylet you call me at the hospital.Yeah.Okay, I have to go. My moms waitinTake wield of yourself.Poppy hung up, ruling empty. Her mother wasstanding in the doorway. settle on, Poppet. Lets go. crowd together sat very still, expression at the ph wholeness withoutseeing it.She was scared, and he couldnt ease her. Hed neer been very good at inspirational small talk. It wasnt, he thought grimly, in his nature.To give comfort you had to have a comfortableview of the origination. And crowd had seen too much of the world to have any illusions.He could brood with cold facts, though. Pushingaside a pile of motley clutter, he turned on his wash away top and dialed up the Internet.Within legal proceeding he was using Gopher to try theNational Cancer Institutes CancerNet. The first filing cabinet he found was listed as pancreatic cancer-Patient.He scanned it. Stuff about what the pancreas did,stages of thedisease, treatments.Nothingtoo gruesome.Thenhewentinto PancreaticcancerPhysiciana file meant for doctors. The first lineheld him paralyzed. Cancer of the exocrine pancreas is rarely curable.His eyes skimmed vote down the lines. boilers suit survival lay metastasis poor chemical reaction to chemotherapy, ra diation therapy and surgery pain in the ass Pain. Poppy was brave, but facing constant painwould crush anyone. especially when the outlook for the future was so bleak.He looked at the top of the article again. Overallsurvival rate less than three portion. If the cancer had spread, less than one percent. there must be more in assortmentation. crowd together went peeping again and came up with several ar ticles from newspapers and medical journals. They wereeven worse than the NCI file.The whelm majority of patients will die, and dieswiftly, experts say. Pancreatic cancer is usually inoperable, rapid, and debilitatingly ugly. The averagesurvival if the cancer has spread can be three weeks tothree months.Three weeks to three months.James stared at the laptops screen. His chest andthroat felt tight his great deal was blurry. He tried to control it, telltale(a) himself that zip fastener was certain yet. Poppy was being tested, that didnt mean she had cancer. just now the words rang hollow in his mind. He had known for some period that something was wrong with Poppy. Something was-disturbed-inside her.Hed sensed that the rhythms of her body wereslightly off he could tell she was losing sleep. Andthe pain-he ever knew when the pain was there.He just hadnt realized how serious it was.Poppy knows, too, he thought. Deep down, she knows that something very bad is divergence on, or sh e wouldnt have asked me to find this out. unless whatdoes she expect me to do, walk in and tell her shes going to die in a few months?And am I suppo layious to stand around and watch it?His lips pulled backrest from his teeth slightly. Not anice smile, more of a savage grimace. Hed seen a lot of closing in seventeen years. He knew the stages ofdying, knew the diversion between the moment breathing stop and the moment the brain turnedoff knew the unmistakable spiritual pallor of a freshcorpse.The way the eyeballs form out about five proceedings after expiration. Now, that was a detail most people werent familiar with. Five legal proceeding after you die, your eyes go smooth and filmy olden. And then your body starts to shrink. You in truth get smaller.Poppy was so small already.Hed always been afraid of psychic trau importantg her. She lookedso fragile, and he could hurt somebody much stronger if he wasnt careful. That was one reason hekept a certain length between them. One reason. Not the main one.The other was something he couldnt put intowords, not even to himself. It brought him mature up to the abut of the forbidden. To face rules that had been ingrained in him since birth.none of the wickedness People could fall in love with ahuman. The sentence for breaking the practice of law was death. It didnt matter. He knew what he hadto do now.Where he had to go.Cold and precise, James loggedoff the Net. Hestood, picked up his sunglasses, slid them into place. Went out into the merciless June sunlight, slamminghis apartment door canful him.Poppy looked around the hospital room unhappily.There was secret code so awful about it, except that it was too cold, but it was a hospital. That was thetruth buttocks thepretty pink-and-blue curtains and the dosed-circuit TV and the dinner menu decoratedwith resume characters. It was a place you didnt come unless you were passably Darn Sick.Oh, come on, she told herself. Cheerup a little.What happened to the king of Poppytive thinking? Wheres Poppyanna when you need her? WheresMary Poppy-ins?God, Im even do myself gag, she thought.But she found herselfsmilingfaintly, with selfdeprecating humor if vigor else. And the nurses were nice here, and the bed wasextremely cool.Ithad a remote control on theside that bent it intoevery thinkable position. Her mother came in while shewas playing with it.I got hold of Cliff hell be herelater. Meanwhile,I think youd purify change so youre ready for the tests.Poppy looked at the blue-and-white striped seersucker hospital robe and felt a bitter spasm that seemed to reach from her stomach to her back. And something in the deepest part of her said Please, not yet. Ill never be ready.James pulled his Integra into a place space on Ferry highway near Stoneham. It wasnt a nice part of town. Tourists visiting Los Angeles avoided this area.The building was sagging and decrepit. Severalstores were vacant, with unlifelike taped over broken windows. graffiti covered the peeling paint on thecinder-block walls. til now the smog seemed to hang thicker here. Theair itself seemed sensationalistic and cloying. Like a poisonous miasma, it change the brightest day and made everything look vain and ominous.James walked around to the back of the building.There, among the pack entrances of the stores in front, was one door unnoted by graffiti. The signabove it had no words. Just a picture of a shockingflower.A black iris.James knocked. The door opened 2 inches, anda skinny kid in a wrinkled T-shirt peered out with spangly eyes.Its me, Ulf, James said, resisting the temptationto kick the door in. Werewolves, he thought. Why do they have to be so territorial?World. I dont hope to break any laws. I just wanther well.The slanted blue eyes were searching his face. Areyou sure you havent broken the laws already? And when James looked determined not to understand this, she added in a lowered voice, Are you sure youre not in love with he r?James made himself meet the probing wish directly. He spoke softly and dangerously. Dont say that unless you want a fight.Gisele looked away. She played with her ring. Thecandle burn dwindled and died.James, Ive known you for a long time, she saidwithout looking for up. I dont want to get you in trouble. I believe you when you say you havent brokenany lawsbut I think wed both better forget this conversation. Just walk out now and Ill pretend itnever happened.And the spell?Theres no such thing. And if there was, Iwouldnt help you. Just go.James went.There was one other scuttle that he couldthink of. He drove to Brentwood, to an area thatwas as different from the last as a diamond is fromcoal. He position in a covered car port by a quaint adobe building with a fountain. Red and purplebougainvillaea climbed up the walls to the Spanishtile on the roof.Walking through an archway into a courtyard, hecame to an office with gold garner on the door. Jasper R. Rasmussen, Ph.D. His pay off was a psychologist. earlier he could reach for the handle, the dooropened and a cleaning lady came out. She was like mostof his experiences clients, forty-something, patently rich, wearing a designer jogging suit and high-heeled sandals. She looked a little dazed and dreamy, and therewere two small, quickly healing puncture wounds on her neck.James went into the office. There was a waitingroom, but no receptionist. Strains of Mozart came from the inner office. James knocked on the door. pappa?The door opened to reveal a handsome man withdark hair. He was wearing a perfectly tailored gray suit and a shirt with cut cuffs. He had an aura of power and purpose.But not of warmth. He said, What is it, James? in the same voice he utilize for his clients thoughtful, deliberate, confident.Do you have a minute?His father glanced at his Rolex. As a matter offact, my next patient wont be here for half an hour.Theres something I need to talk about.His father looked at him keenly, t hen gestured to an overstuffed chair. James eased into it, but found himself pulling forward to sit on the edge.Whats on your mind?James searched for the right words. Everything depended on whether he could make his father under stand. But what were the right words? At last hesettled for bluntness.Its Poppy. Shes been offensive for a while, and nowthey think she has cancer.Dr. Rasmussen looked surprised. Im sorry to hearthat. But there was no sorrow in his voice.And its a bad cancer. Its incredibly painful andjust about one hundred percent incurable.Thats a ignominy. Again there was nothing but mildsurprise in his fathers voice. And suddenly James knew where that came from. It wasnt surprise thatPoppy was sick it was surprise that James had made a trip just to tell him this.Dad, if shes got this cancer, shes dying. Doesntthat mean anything to you?Dr. Rasmussen steepled his fingers and stared intothe ruddy colorize of his mahoganydesk. He spoke slowly and steadily. James, weve bee n through this before. You know that your mother and I are worried about you getting too dose to Poppy. Too . . . attached to her.James felt a surge of cold rage. Like I got tooattached to lack Emma?His father didnt blink. Something like that.James fought the pictures that wanted to form inhis mind. He couldnt think about Miss Emma now he needed to be detached. That was the only way to convince his father.Dad, what Im nerve-wracking to say is that Ive knownPoppy just about all my life. Shes useful to me.How? Not in the obvious way. Youve never fedon her, have you?James swallowed, savor nauseated. Feed onPoppy? Use her like that? Even the thought of it made him sick.Dad, shes my friend, he said, abandoning anypretense of objectivity. I cant just watch her suffer. I cant. I have to do something about it.His fathers face cleared. I see.James felt featherbrained with astonished relief. Youunderstand?James, at times one cant help a certain feeling of . . .compassion for humans. In ge neral, I wouldnt encourage it-but you have known Poppya long while. You feel pity for her suffering. If youwant to make that suffering shorter, then, yes, Iunderstand.The relief crashed down around James. He stared at his father for a few seconds, then said softly, Mercy killing? I thought the Elders had put a banon deaths in this area.Just be reasonably discreet about it. As long as itseems to be natural, well all look the other way. There wont be any reason to call in the Elders.There was a aluminiferous taste in Jamess mouth. Hestood and laughed shortly. Thanks, Dad. Youve really helped a lot.His father didnt seem to hear the sarcasm. Gladto do it, James. By the way, how are things at the apartments?Fine, James said emptily.And at school?Schools over, Dad, James said, and let himselfout.In the courtyard he leaned against an adobe walland stared at the splashing wet of the fountain. He was out of options. Out of hope. The laws ofthe Night World said so.If Poppy had the disease, she would die from it.