Double Trouble

During the time that she knew him as a vampire, the one thing Savannah never did get a clear understanding of was the blood thirst. Not once had she ever seen him drink another living creature’s blood. She knew he fed off animals—swearing not to kill humans because of a vampire’s blood thirst—but never once saw it occur. It was the only vampire mystery Savannah never solved, one she now had the opportunity to figure out. “Toby, how can you be so sure?” she asked.

Toby bit his lip. “I never did explain this to you, did I?” Savannah shook her head. “That’s right. I never expected that I’d ever have to explain this to you. I was never around you for it to occur. Well, I guess now is a good a time as any for me to explain exactly what’s going on. At first—when we were young vampires—the blood thirst came every few hours. The longer we were alive, the longer amount of time we could go before feeding was necessary. I could go twenty-eight hours without needing blood.” He paused briefly and looked at Savannah a scared look in his eyes. “When you revived the vampire curse, things were supposed to return to the way they were before I was turned mortal. The injection Iyana thrust into my body is causing my blood thirst to return earlier than expected.”

“Meaning what?” Savannah asked.

“Savannah, you know exactly what,” Toby replied.

She gasped, realizing exactly what her husband meant, and understanding exactly what Iyana had done to him. “I can’t believe they would go so far as to destroying their entire family,” she said softly. “Don’t they have any scruples?” Her husband gave her a pointed look. “Yeah, yeah, I know; stupid question. Iyana, Calarasi, and your brothers would do absolutely anything in order to destroy us; you especially. You’re the black sheep of the family because you actually seem to care about other people. None of them are even willing to help out a fellow human being. It’s despicable and I’m extremely glad that they’re dead.”

“So am I,” Toby replied. “However, a problem still exists.”

“But, how exactly are we supposed to deal with something like this?” Savannah inquired of her husband. “We can’t exactly walk you out of the hospital; not only have you not been discharged, but its daytime. The only reason you’re even up now is because Eli and I made sure that the windows remained shut in your room; we were not about to allow you to die after everything I’ve done to prevent it. There was no way in hell that I wanted to lose someone yet again because Jason and Justin Evermore stepped into my life.”

Toby eyed her. “Yet, that’s exactly what happened.”

Savannah frowned. “Yes, the irony of that situation astounds me; the fact that I would go through all this trouble just to save someone I love, only to have a completely different person I care about die in my arm and there be nothing I could do to stop it. Did you know that Eli told me it was a vision that led him and Dawn here and ultimately led to her death?”

“So, your gift killed her?” Toby asked.

“Exactly,” Savannah replied. “Now you understand why I’m so upset over Dawn’s death. The fact is that it was a power she inherited from me that ultimately caused her death. I must live with that fact for the rest of my life since we named her after me. We named her in order to protect her, something that proved to be fatal for her in the end. So, I might never be able to fully get over Dawn’s death with all that happened about. Now, about the blood thirst; what are we going to do to curb the blood thirst while we figure this out?”

“Not a clue,” Toby shrugged.

Before Savannah could give a suggestion about what they could do, Eli came into the room. Savannah spun around and gave him a questioning look. “I was sitting outside when I heard you two talking about the vampire stuff. Dad’s with Reuben and Keith getting breakfast,” he assured them when Savannah and Toby realized the possibility of what was going on. “Uncle Toby, Aunt Savannah, what’s going on? You seemed troubled.”

“Troubled is putting it mildly,” Toby remarked.

“How so?” Eli inquired.

“Because your mother injected Toby with something so that he can’t contain his blood lust,” Savannah explained. “We need something that will curb that blood lust until tonight when we can discharge him and safely get my husband out of here. There must be something we can do keep this vampire curse at bay until he’s healed and all of this ends.”

“I think there is,” Eli replied.

“What is that?” Savannah asked.

“One of us,” Eli explained.

Savannah’s eyes lit up at the possibility of something like that. It would be a good idea, but she doubted that Toby would go for the idea. “That could work,” Savannah replied. “As much as I don’t want to put our lives it danger, it might be our only shot at this.”

“No!” Toby insisted. “I am not about to risk your lives merely to sustain myself while I’m trying to heal. I thought I made that quite clear all those years ago when I first told you what I was.”

“Yes, you did. However, this is entirely different situation altogether,” Savannah reminded him. “It’s daylight and we don’t really have a choice in the matter. Eli’s suggestion is all we can do in order to protect you until tonight when we can deal with the situation for real. We’ll be able to fix what Iyana did and return to our lives, at least after you’ve completely healed.”

“So, I really have to do this?” Toby asked.

“I think you must, Uncle Toby,” Eli said.

From the tone in his voice, it was evident to Savannah that he was not really willing to deal with the fact that this was his only option. He was obviously trying to come up with another solution, one which did not exist. And, it would be best if Savannah was the one to do this; there was no need for Thomas, Eli, or her sons to be subjected to this. “Okay,” Savannah replied, sitting on the side of her husband’s hospital bed. “I think it best if we do this now, before anything else can happen that might throw things out of whack.”

Toby eyed her. “You sure about this?”

Savannah nodded. “Positive.”

“Okay,” Toby shrugged. “But, I still say that we’re making a major mistake in doing this. There has to be another way to do all of this; there must be something more we can do before resorting to such measures. We can avoid all of this by going another route.”

“Noted,” Savannah replied, tilting her head towards him. “But, you are going to do this. For now, this is the only way to deal with our current situation. Of course, you already know that.” This time, there were no protests; Savannah merely felt the vampire fangs sink into the right side of her neck. For the next few minutes—as Toby sucked her blood—Savannah began to feel faint and light-headed, possibly from her blood getting drained by Toby. He felt her body go slack in Toby’s arms, losing consciousness as she helped her husband.