Valley of the Shadow Read online

  “Just…” Natalie tried shaking her head, but her pupils were abnormally dilated. She blinked. “Dizzy. I just got dizzy. I lay down on the floor so I wouldn’t fall. That’s all.”

  “Have you eaten today?”

  “Had breakfast with the kids. Snack an hour ago. Something like that.”

  That should have been enough. He performed a basic physical exam. She didn’t have a fever. Her skin was cool and clammy. “Jake, take Sarah into the family room.”

  “I wanna stay with Mama!” Sarah wailed.

  “Sarah.” Baojia gave her a steady look. “Mama is going to be fine. She’s just a little sick. Remember when you got the flu and threw up last winter?”

  Sarah stuck her thumb in her mouth and nodded.

  “Mama is sick like you were.” Mama was not sick like Sarah had been. Natalie had no fever. Her pulse was normal. Something else was going on. “I know it’s scary when Mama gets sick,” he continued, “but Uncle Lucien is going to come over and give her a checkup, so you and Jakey need to go play so there’s room in the kitchen.”

  Ariel held out her hand. “Come on, guys. Let’s go do a puzzle, okay?”

  Jake was giving him suspicious eyes.

  “Jake,” Baojia said, “I need you to take care of Sarah.”

  “Okay.” His voice was small. He stood and held his hand out for his sister. “Come on, Monkey. Dad’ll take care of Mom.”

  “Can I get up now?” Natalie’s lips were pale. “I’m not dizzy anymore.”

  “Stay put.” He put a hand on her cheek and spoke quietly. “Just… give me a break, okay, Red? Stay here until Lucien can examine you.”

  Red like firecrackers. Like chili peppers. Like her hair. Natalie didn’t look like her nickname just then. She looked tired and wan and unwell.

  Baojia clamped down on the creeping terror that lived in his heart. Every night he had to control his fear and pretend the world was a safe place. That he could keep the monsters at bay. That his children would be protected. He had to, or he would go insane. But as he knelt next to Natalie in the middle of the kitchen, the fear crept out and would not be contained.

  Something was wrong with his wife.

  Chapter Two

  “Okay.” Natalie stared at the paper Lucien had handed her. “So that debate is over.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lucien said. “I’m very sorry.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her eyes never leaving the top page of the report. “This was always the plan. The debate has just been about when.”

  “It needs to be sooner,” he said, “rather than later.”

  Natalie finally looked up into the face of the vampire who was her doctor and her friend. “How long?”

  Lucien rubbed a thumb along his jaw. “Weeks, not months.”

  The reality of those words hit her right in the chest. She let out a hard breath, and the tears she’d been holding at bay started to leak out of her eyes. “Weeks?”

  “New Year’s at the very latest. Waiting any longer could mean that you’re not in optimal health when you make the change.”

  “I’m not in optimal health right now, Lucien.” Natalie rubbed her eyes and wiped her cheeks. “I have…” She took a breath. “I have breast cancer.”

  “Yes, you do. You also have options. Traditional treatments for breast cancer are very good,” he said. “The five-year survival rate for this type and stage is nearly ninety percent. If you want a referral to an oncologist, I will find you the very best. Money would be no object.”

  Because Lucien was the son of Saba, who was basically the queen of the vampire race and also richer than Croesus, which meant Lucien was rolling in money too. And with no human family left after thousands of years, he’d chosen Natalie, Baojia, and their kids as his own.

  “Ninety percent success?”

  “My best guess would be surgery followed by chemotherapy. But I’m not an oncologist.”

  Natalie looked back at her report. Two tumors hidden in the dense tissue of her left breast, right over her heart. “But after that? After five years, what are the chances the cancer will come back?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Is it genetic?”

  “I don’t know that either, but it might be worth taking a test. You’re young.”

  Her mother hadn’t lived much past forty, and Natalie was approaching that.

  “I know what I want to do.” She reached for his hand. “I want to go with plan V.”

  Lucien nodded. “That would be my first choice, but you know he’ll be unhappy.”

  She sniffed. “Uh, he’ll be happiest with me alive and still around for my children.”

  “You know you won’t be able—”

  “I know.” She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the time she’d have to spend away from Jake and Sarah. “But treatment would mean I’d be sick and maybe gone too. Hospital visits. Nausea. And with all that, the odds of something going wrong and permanently damaging my health are greater, aren’t they?”

  “Chemotherapy, at its core, destroys your body to destroy the cancer. Radiation and surgery—”

  “They all have risks.” She closed the file. “This isn’t a debate anymore. It’s not a debate, Lucien. This just needs to happen.”

  Lucien nodded. “Unfortunately, I agree.”

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath and flexed the knee that still ached first thing every morning. “I guess I’ll be dealing with that for eternity.”

  “We don’t know how turning would affect your mobility or your joints.”

  She waved a hand. “Not important.”

  Natalie mentally began to construct how she’d present this to her husband.

  Her husband, the man with the stubbornness of an ox and the protective instincts of a bear. Her husband, who’d been superexcited the week before when she mentioned trying for kid three. Her husband, who would keep a single hair from falling off her head if he could manage it.

  Baojia didn’t like change. Their plan had always been for Natalie to wait until the kids were in their teens before she turned into an immortal. She was only thirty-eight. She had plenty of time. Another ten years would mean little for an eternity, but missing a year of her children’s young lives while she was learning to control vampire instincts felt like a lot.

  “Life doesn’t always go according to plan.” She placed the report on the table and looked at the man who was her doctor, her friend, and soon would be her immortal sire. “He’s going to have to see that.”

  His face was implacable. “Ninety percent survival rate after five years is very good.”

  “But why?” Natalie leaned forward. “That means a ten percent chance of not surviving. Have you thought about it that way?”

  His jaw was set. “And if it doesn’t look like the treatment will be successful, then we have the conversation then.”

  “So I’d be risking my immortal health to save my mortal health?”

  “If it will give you another five years, yes.”

  They were in their bedroom and the kids were in bed. Baojia had paced for ten minutes straight before leaning against the door and crossing his arms over his chest in his most stubborn pose. His expression hadn’t cracked since they’d walked to Lucien’s office at nightfall.

  Natalie shook her head. “Why are we fighting over five years?”

  “You wanted another baby,” he said. “So did I.”

  “So we have two amazing kids instead of three,” she said. “We’re already lucky as hell.”

  “Five years…” He took a deep breath. “Five years gets Sarah to nine. She’ll be able to better understand—”

  “She already does.” Natalie felt tears well in her eyes. “It’s not going to be any easier to do it in five years than it would be now. I’ll miss things now when I’m healthier or I’ll miss things later when I’m possibly still trying to recover from cancer treatment.”

  He rubbed a hand on his temple. �
�We shouldn’t decide anything right away. We should investigate your options and—”

  “Lucien said weeks, not months.”

  “Dammit, Natalie!” He exploded from the door and came to kneel in front of her. “You don’t understand how much this is going to change everything. You won’t be able to see your children. Your friends. Your father—”

  “I already know that.” She put a hand on his cheek and swallowed the lump in her throat. “Don’t you think I’ve thought about it a hundred times just today? And before that?”

  His dark eyes pleaded with her. “You won’t ever see the sun again. You won’t be able to take the kids to the beach. Or go hiking in the redwoods when it’s warm.”

  She whispered, “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

  He stood. “I’m going to make it harder because I want you to think. I want you to think about everything you’re going to give up if you change right now, and I want you to consider traditional medical treatment to give yourself more time.” He walked to the door. “I’m going to talk to Makeda. She’ll understand.”

  “Baojia—”

  “Let me talk to her.” He raised a hand. “I just… I want us to do the best thing. For you and for the family.”

  He walked out the door, and Natalie put her face in her hands and cried. She hid in the bathroom and cried into a towel so he wouldn’t hear her. She cried until she was wrung out. Then she reached for her phone.

  “I’d say you should ask for a second opinion,” Dez said. “But it’s Lucien. He would have already double- and triple-checked before he said anything.”

  Natalie tore shreds from the tissue in her hand. “B?”

  “Agreed,” Beatrice added. “There’s no way Lucien would give you a diagnosis unless he was sure.”

  “So I definitely have cancer.” Natalie had her phone on speaker and sat on the floor by the soaking tub in their bathroom. “And Baojia and I already agreed that I was going to turn when the kids were older. So why is he making an issue of this now?”

  Both Dez and Beatrice made low muttering noises.

  “Men don’t like change,” Dez said. “Especially when it comes to their wives.”

  “Unless it’s like… sexy new lingerie or something,” Beatrice added. “That kind of change is okay.”

  “That’s where I went wrong,” Natalie said. “I should have put on a negligee to tell him I had breast cancer.”

  Beatrice snorted.

  Dez said, “Somehow, I think that would have gone worse.”

  “Ya think?” It was nearly three in the morning, and they’d been talking for an hour. Baojia hadn’t come back in the house. Dez was fully awake now, and Beatrice…

  Well, Beatrice never slept. She was the absolute best girlfriend in the world, because if she was in the country—and even if she wasn’t—she pretty much always had time to talk you through a crisis.

  “Take the kids out of the equation,” Dez said. “Why do it now and not wait to try treatment?”

  “I can’t take the kids out of the equation,” Natalie said. “How is that even possible? This has everything to do with the kids.”

  Beatrice said, “True.”

  Dez sighed. “Okay, you’re right. I can’t argue with that.”

  Both Dez and Beatrice were mothers. Dez’s daughter, Carina, was nearly ten, and Beatrice and Giovanni had adopted a toddler the Christmas before. Sadia was two and a half, but Beatrice and Giovanni had quickly adapted to the challenges of parenting her, with lots of help from Dez, Matt, Natalie, and Baojia.

  Beatrice said, “At the end of the day, it’s your choice. Just like it was mine. Giovanni was pissed at me—”

  “You didn’t even tell him you were going to do it,” Dez said. “I mean, he kind of had a point.”

  “I’m not saying he didn’t, but the fact remains. It’s Natalie’s decision. She doesn’t have to ask for permission,” Beatrice said. “Right, Nat?”

  “Lucien and Baojia have always had an agreement. And Lucien is fully on board with doing it this way. He doesn’t like chemotherapy if I have other options.”

  “I can see that,” Dez said. “And you know you’ll have lots of support to help with the kids.”

  “I’m sure Ariel and Olivia will want to stay around,” Natalie said. “But would it be safe?”

  “You could come down here,” Beatrice said. Both Beatrice and Dez lived in Southern California, where Baojia and Natalie had met.

  “Can’t. Baojia would be in Ernesto’s territory, and even visiting is kind of tricky. Plus, I don’t think superconcentrated urban areas are a great idea when you’re a newly turned, still-bitey vampire, you know?” She looked around her bathroom. “We’re pretty isolated out here.”

  “Then we can come up there,” Beatrice said. “Just know that no matter what, you don’t have to do this alone. You will not have to do any of this alone.”

  The tears came fast and sudden. Natalie clamped a hand over her mouth to keep a sob from coming out.

  “Natalie?” Dez asked.

  She couldn’t speak. She grabbed another tissue and tried to get control of her emotions, but everything seemed to come in a flood.

  It’s cancer.

  Weeks not months.

  You won’t ever see the sun again. You won’t be able to take the kids to the beach. Or go hiking in the redwoods…

  You won’t have to do this alone.

  “Natalie, talk to us,” Beatrice said. “Do we need to fly up? I’ll get Giovanni to get the plane right now. We can be there in an hour.”

  “Honey, tell us what’s going on,” Dez said. “Dammit, I wish I was there.”

  She just shook her head over and over. It was too much. She didn’t want to break down on the phone with her two best friends. She wanted her husband, but he was angry and confused. She wanted her kids, but she didn’t want to wake them up. She wanted the world’s biggest glass of wine.

  She sniffed and blew her nose. “I’m fine.”

  Two loud groans came from the telephone.

  “You’re not fucking fine!” Beatrice practically yelled.

  Dez said, “That’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said, and I’m counting the time you convinced me to get bangs in grad school.”

  Beatrice cackled, and Natalie let out a watery laugh. “The bangs weren’t that bad.”

  “They were awful,” Beatrice said. “Don’t lie.”

  She couldn’t seem to stop the tears. She blew her nose and grabbed another tissue. “I know this is right,” she said. “I know this is the right thing to do. I just have to convince him that I know what I’m doing, and I know this is right.”

  She heard the bedroom door open. She didn’t move. She didn’t want to talk to her husband, but she also knew she couldn’t avoid him. And she had to blow her nose again.

  “Natalie”—Beatrice was talking when Baojia opened the bathroom door—“you know what’s right for your kids. You’re an amazing mom. You and Baojia are amazing parents. You’re going to be fine. You will get through this, okay?”

  He stared at her, and for the first time, she saw the bare grief in his eyes. The fear. The uncertainty. Natalie held out her arms, and he knelt down and wrapped her in a hard embrace.

  “You won’t be alone,” Dez was saying. “None of you guys have to do this on your own. We’re going to figure out the best place to make this happen, and we’ll all take turns helping the kids get through this.”

  Natalie sniffed and Baojia pulled away to get her another Kleenex. He wiped her eyes and pressed kisses to her forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Red.”

  “It’s okay.” She hugged his neck and held on for dear life. “This is shit. It’s all shit. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

  “Nat?” Dez asked. “George, is that you?”

  Baojia managed to crack a smile when Dez used his old nickname. “Hey, Dez. Thanks for being here for Natalie while I was bein
g an idiot.”

  Natalie sniffed. “Beatrice is on the call too.”

  “Hey, B.”

  “Hey.” Beatrice sounded sad. “Think about it this way. You have a hell of a lot more options than most families do.”

  “Yeah.” He tucked a piece of Natalie’s hair behind her ear. “And I have a sexy-as-hell wife that’s gonna be thirty-eight forever. Luckiest man alive.”

  She traced the only wrinkle he had, a faint line at the corner of his left eye. “Says the guy who looks like he’s twenty-nine.”

  “I’ve always liked older women.”

  Natalie snorted and then immediately blew her nose again while Dez and Beatrice laughed.

  “Hey, Baojia?” Beatrice said. “I just had an idea. What do you think of everyone getting together for a family Christmas this year?”

  His jaw clenched, but Baojia looked into Natalie’s eyes. She nodded.

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “That gives us a few weeks to plan.”

  “Trust me,” Beatrice said. “I know the perfect place for the holidays.”

  Chapter Three

  Natalie lounged on the couch of the private jet, drifting in and out of sleep. The sixteen-hour journey from Los Angeles to the remote valley in Chile was nearly halfway over. They’d be stopping in Panama for fuel soon, then another eight hours would take them to Santiago where they’d do a quick stop to take care of paperwork before they continued on to Puerto Montt.

  In Natalie’s experience, nothing beat international travel with vampires. The few times she and the kids had accompanied Baojia on a work trip, she hadn’t had to stand in customs or immigration lines. She rarely had to pay for visas. Was bribery involved? Probably. But when she was traveling with preschoolers, bending her journalistic ethics probably served the greater good.

  Beatrice and Giovanni’s plane was even more luxurious than the private planes she’d been on before. There was one private stateroom and three narrow compartments added for vampire passengers. The windows were blacked out, and where normal planes had seats, their plane had short couches that could be extended into beds. A television had been installed on one side of the cabin, and four children were gathered around it, watching a cartoon with Beatrice and Giovanni’s nanny, Dema.