The man lunged at Simon, plunging the knife toward his chest. Simon stared down in disbelief. Everything seemed to be happening very slowly, as if time were stretching out.
He saw the point of the knife near his chest, the tip denting the leather of his jacket—and then it sheared to the side, as if someone had grabbed his attacker’s arm and yanked. The man screamed as he was jerked up into the air like a puppet being hauled up by its strings.
Simon looked around wildly—surely someone must have heard or noticed the commotion, but no one appeared.
The man kept screaming, jerking wildly, while his shirt tore open down the front, as if ripped apart by an invisible hand.
Simon stared in horror. Huge wounds were appearing on the man’s torso. His head flew back, and blood sprayed from his mouth. He stopped screaming abruptly—and fell, as if the invisible hand had opened, releasing him. He hit the ground and broke apart like glass shattering into a thousand shining pieces that scattered themselves across the pavement.
Simon dropped to his knees. The knife that had been meant to kill him lay a little way away, within arm’s reach. It was all that was left of his attacker, save a pile of shimmering crystals that were already beginning to blow away in the brisk wind. He touched one cautiously.
It was salt. He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He knew what had happened, and why.
And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.
So this was what sevenfold looked like.
He barely made it to the gutter before he doubled over and vomited blood into the street.
The moment Simon opened the door, he knew he’d miscalculated. He’d thought his mother would be asleep by now, but she wasn’t. She was awake, sitting in an armchair facing the front door, her phone on the table next to her, and she saw the blood on his jacket immediately.
To his surprise she didn’t scream, but her hand flew to her mouth. “Simon.”
“It’s not my blood,” he said quickly. “I was over at Eric’s, and Matt had a nosebleed—”
“I don’t want to hear it.” That sharp tone was one she rarely used; it reminded him of the way she’d talked during those last months when his father had been sick, anxiety like a knife in her voice. “I don’t want to hear any more lies.”
Simon dropped his keys onto the table next to the door. “Mom—”
“All you do is tell me lies. I’m tired of it.”
“That’s not true,” he said, but he felt sick, knowing it was. “I just have a lot going on in my life right now.”
“I know you do.” His mother got to her feet; she had always been a skinny woman, and she looked bony now, her dark hair, the same color as his, streaked with more gray than he had remembered where it fell around her face.
“Come with me, young man. Now.”
Puzzled, Simon followed her into the small bright-yellow kitchen. His mother stopped and pointed toward the counter. “Care to explain those?”
Simon’s mouth went dry. Lined up along the counter like a row of toy soldiers were the bottles of blood that had been in the mini-fridge inside his closet. One was half-full, the others entirely full, the red liquid inside them shining like an accusation. She had also found the empty blood bags he had washed out and carefully stuffed inside a shopping bag before dumping them into his trash can. They were spread out over the counter too, like a grotesque decoration.
“I thought at first the bottles were wine,” Elaine Lewis said in a shaking voice. “Then I found the bags. So I opened one of the bottles. It’s blood. Isn’t it?”
Simon said nothing. His voice seemed to have fled.
“You’ve been acting so strangely lately,” his mother went on. “Out at all hours, you never eat, you barely sleep, you have friends I’ve never met, never heard of. You think I can’t tell when you’re lying to me? I can tell, Simon. I thought maybe you were on drugs.”
Simon found his voice. “So you searched my room?”
His mother flushed. “I had to! I thought—I thought if I found drugs there, I could help you, get you into a rehab program, but this?” She gestured wildly at the bottles. “I don’t even know what to think about this. What’s going on, Simon? Have you joined some kind of cult?”
Simon shook his head.
“Then, tell me,” his mother said, her lips trembling. “Because the only explanations I can think of are horrible and sick. Simon, please—”
“I’m a vampire,” Simon said. He had no idea how he had said it, or even why. But there it was. The words hung in the air between them like poisonous gas.
His mother’s knees seemed to give out, and she sank into a kitchen chair. “What did you say?” she breathed.
“I’m a vampire,” Simon said. “I’ve been one for about two months now. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I didn’t know how.”
Elaine Lewis’s face was chalk white. “Vampires don’t exist, Simon.”
“Yes,” he said. “They do. Look, I didn’t ask to be a vampire. I was attacked. I didn’t have a choice. I’d change it if I could.” He thought wildly back to the pamphlet Clary had given him so long ago, the one about coming out to your parents. It had seemed like a funny analogy then; now it didn’t.
“You think you’re a vampire,” Simon’s mother said numbly. “You think you drink blood.”
“I do drink blood,” Simon said. “I drink animal blood.”
“But you’re a vegetarian.” His mother looked to be on the verge of tears.
“I was. I’m not now. I can’t be. Blood is what I live on.” Simon’s throat felt tight. “I’ve never hurt a person. I’d never drink someone’s blood. I’m still the same person. I’m still me.”
His mother seemed to be fighting for control. “Your new friends—are they vampires too?”
Simon thought of Isabelle, Maia, Jace. He couldn’t explain Shadowhunters and werewolves, too. It was too much.
“No. But—they know I am one.”
“Did—did they give you drugs? Make you take something? Something that would make you hallucinate?” She seemed to have barely heard his answer.
“No. Mom, this is real.”
“It’s not real,” she whispered. “You think it’s real. Oh, God. Simon. I’m so sorry. I should have noticed. We’ll get you help. We’ll find someone.A doctor. Whatever itcosts—”
“I can’t go to a doctor, Mom.”
“Yes, you can. You need to be somewhere. A hospital, maybe—”
He held out his wrist to her. “Feel my pulse,” he said.
She looked at him, bewildered. “What?”
“My pulse,” he said. “Take it. If I have one, okay. I’ll go to the hospital with you. If not, you have to believe me.”
She wiped the tears from her eyes and slowly reached to take his wrist. After so long taking care of Simon’s father when he’d been sick, she knew how to take a pulse as well as any nurse. She pressed her index fingertip to the inside of his wrist, and waited.
He watched as her face changed, from misery and upset to confusion, and then to terror.
She stood up, dropping his hand, backing away from him. Her eyes were huge and dark in her white face. “What are you?”
Simon felt sick. “I told you. I’m a vampire.”