Time's Convert Extract - Phoebe’s first Proper meal as a vampire...

EARLY EXTRACT

Early extract. . .

10 Phoebe’s first Proper

meal as Three a vampire...

15 M AY

Miriam dropped off the cat early in the morning on Phoebe’s third day of being a vampire. It was black and substantial of build, with a white nose, four white feet, and a white‑tipped tail.

“It’s time you fed yourself,” Miriam said, putting the carrier next to the bed. Inside, the cat made plaintive mewling noises. “I need a break from this relentless motherhood. Freyja, Charles, and Françoise are here, but they won’t answer calls for food or drink.”

Phoebe’s stomach growled at Miriam’s words, but it was more out of sympathetic habit than hunger. Where Phoebe now felt the gnawing sen‑ sation of want was in her veins and in her heart. Like her center of gravity, her appetite had moved up from her belly in a way that seemed impossible based on her study of biology.

“Remember, Phoebe. It’s best not to talk to your food. Don’t dote on it. Leave it in the cage until you’re ready to feed,” Miriam instructed in the schoolmarm tone that sent Marcus and Matthew scurrying for their test tubes and computers when she was managing their Oxford biochemis‑ try lab.

Phoebe nodded.

“And for God’s sake,” Miriam added as she went out the door, “don’t name it.”

Phoebe released the door to the cage immediately after she heard the front door snick closed. The terrible twos were lingering, and her rebel‑ lious streak showed no signs of disappearing.

“Come here, kitty,” Phoebe crooned. “I don’t want to harm you.”

The cat, which knew better, plastered itself against the rear of the

102

deborah harkness

carrier and hissed, its back arched and its teeth—sharp, white, pointed— exposed.

Impressed by the cat’s display of ferocity, Phoebe drew back to study her first proper meal. The cat, sensing an opportunity for escape, ran out from the carrier and wedged itself behind the wardrobe.

Intrigued, Phoebe settled down on the floor and waited.

Two hour s l ater, the cat decided Phoebe meant no immediate harm and ventured to the rug in front of the closed door to the hallway, as though planning to escape at the first opportunity.

Phoebe had grown bored waiting for the cat to make its next move and spent the intervening time examining her own teeth in the cracked win‑ dowpane. There were only a few hours when this was possible, Phoebe discovered, when the light hit the glass just right. Everything else that was shiny had been taken away last night for fear that Phoebe would become mesmerized by her own reflection and, Narcissus‑like, find it impossible to break the fascination.

Phoebe ached for a mirror again almost as much as she ached for Mir‑ iam’s blood. The window glass provided some reflection, but she wanted to study her teeth in detail. Could they really have become so sharp that they would be able to bite through fur, skin, fat, and sinew and reach the cat’s life source?

What if my teeth aren’t up to it? Phoebe wondered.

What if one breaks? Do vampire teeth regenerate?

Phoebe’s active vampire mind skittered to life, hopping from question to question.

How do vampires feed without teeth?

Are they like infants, dependent on others for their sustenance?

Is pulling teeth a death sentence as well as a mark of shame, like taking a thief ’s hand so that he can’t steal again?

“Stop.” Phoebe said it aloud. The cat looked up and blinked at her, unimpressed. It stretched, kneading the plush surface of the carpet before returning to a wary knot.

“You still have claws.” Of course, Miriam had not stooped to provid‑ ing her with a defenseless cat. Along with the sharp teeth that the cat had

t i m e ’ s c o n v e rt

103

already displayed, the claws were proof that this cat needed to be taken seriously.

“You’re a survivor. Like me.” The cat was missing the tip of one ear, no doubt lost in some alley fight. It was no great beauty, yet something in its eyes touched Phoebe’s heart— a weariness that spoke of struggle and a longing for home.

Phoebe wondered whether, one day when Freyja and Miriam finally allowed her to have a mirror again, she would see the same look in her own eyes. Would her eyes have changed? Would they continue to do so, grow‑ ing hard and haunted, looking older even though the rest of her did not?

“Stop.” Phoebe said it loudly enough this time that the word echoed slightly in the sparsely furnished room. After two days of having people run to her aid whenever she so much as sighed in disappointment, Phoebe found the lack of response from the household both disconcerting and strangely liberating.

Miriam and Marcus had assured her, weeks ago, that her first attempt at feeding from a living creature would not be tidy. They had also warned that whatever unfortunate being Phoebe fed from the first time would not survive. There would be too much trauma—not necessarily physical, but certainly mental. The animal would struggle in her grip and probably frighten itself to death, its system flooded with so much adrenaline that the heart would explode.

Phoebe studied the cat. Perhaps she was not as hungry as she thought.

Four hour s a f ter the cat arrived, Phoebe was able to scoop it into her lap when it was sleeping. She picked it up, all four limbs hanging as if they were boneless, and climbed onto the bed with it. Phoebe dropped into a cross‑legged position and deposited the cat into the hollow between her thighs.

Phoebe stroked the cat’s soft fur, keeping her touch featherlight. She didn’t want to break the spell and send the cat, hissing, to its former re‑ treat behind the wardrobe. She was afraid her hunger might overwhelm her and that, in an effort to get to the beating heart of the cat, she might upend the wardrobe and crush the animal to death before she was able to drink from it.

104

deborah harkness

“How much do you weigh?” Phoebe murmured, her hand continuing to work along the cat’s spine. The cat started a low purring. “Not much, even though you’re being well fed.”

The cat couldn’t have much blood, Phoebe realized, and her hunger was considerable—and growing. Her veins felt dry and flat, as though her body didn’t hold enough life‑giving fluid to round them out to their nor‑ mal circumference.

The cat pushed slightly against Phoebe’s legs before forming itself into a slightly more relaxed loop. The cat sighed, contented and warm. These were instinctive gestures of nesting— of belonging.

Phoebe reminded herself that the cat wouldn’t survive what she was about to do.

And for God’s sake, don’t name it. Miriam’s warning echoed in Phoebe’s mind.

Phoebe h a dn’t been fed for twelve hours, sixteen minutes, and twenty‑four seconds. She had done the math and knew that she was going to have to feed soon or risk becoming frenzied and cruel. Phoebe was de‑ termined not to be that kind of vampire; she had heard enough stories of Matthew’s early days, told with great gusto by Ysabeau, to want to avoid such unpleasant scenes.

The cat was still sleeping in Phoebe’s lap. During the hours they’d spent together, Phoebe had learned a great deal about the animal—including her sex, which was female, her fondness for having her tail pulled slightly, and how much she disliked having her paws touched.

The cat still didn’t trust her enough to let Phoebe stroke her belly.

What predator would? When Phoebe tried, the cat scratched her in pro‑ test, but the scratches healed almost immediately, leaving no mark behind.

Phoebe’s fingers still moved, repeatedly and rhythmically, through the cat’s fur, hoping for some further signs of yielding, of friendship. Of permission.

But the contrapuntal sound of the cat’s heartbeat and the hollowness in Phoebe’s veins had gone from insistent, to alluring, to maddening. To‑ gether, they had become intertwined in a song of suppressed desire.

Blood. Life.

FROM HUMAN TO VAMPIRE‌

Marcus Whitmore was made a vampire in the eighteenth century. Over two hundred years later, he finds himself in love with Phoebe Taylor, a human who decides to become a vampire herself.

But her transformation will prove as challenging now as it was for Marcus when he first encountered Matthew de Clermont, his sire.

While Phoebe is secreted away, Marcus relives his own journey from the battlefields of the American Revolutionary War, through the treachery of the French Revolution to a bloody finale in New Orleans. His belief in liberty, equality and brotherhood challenged at every stage by the patriarchy of the de Clermonts.

What will he and Phoebe discover in one another when they are finally reunited at Les Revenants, beneath the watchful gaze of Matthew and his wife, Diana Bishop?

#TimesConvert 18 September 2018 Hardback 9781472237330 | Export and airside trade paperback 9781472237347 eBook 9781472237361 | Audio 9781472243348

A SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENON… Deborah Harkness is the author of the globally bestselling ALL SOULS trilogy. The first in the series, A Discovery of Witches, was an instant bestseller on publication and stayed in the Sunday Times Top Ten for five weeks. It has now sold a million copies worldwide with foreign rights sold in thirty-eight countries.

www.deborahharkness.com @DebHarkness AuthorDeborahHarkness

delight in the ALL SOULS

world

‘Intelligent and off-the-wall…irresistible’ The Sunday Times

‘A romp through magical academia’ Guardian

‘A bubbling cauldron of illicit desire’ Daily Mail

‘A spellbinding saga…unputdownable’ Woman & Home

‘Enchanting, page-turning panache’ Marie Claire

‘A journey of witchcraft and romance’ Sun