Excerpt: Dominion of the Damned

[Written as part of a character study - won't count toward my 50,000, promise!]

Hannah stood back from the exam table to study Noah. Sitting there without his clothes, he looked so tiny and frail. Under the sickly green glare of the fluorescent lighting, he looked paler than ever, his ribs and sunken chest a testament to his malnourishment. Glancing up, she almost jumped at the ghastly image looking back at her before realizing it was her own reflection in the polished steel of a medical cabinet. She didn't look much better than her brother. The chestnut hair that had once been her crowning glory had thinned and lost its luster. She was just as pale as Noah, and the visible cheekbones she had once prayed to get while making fish-faces in the bathroom mirror only made her look skeletal and tired. Add in sunken eyes with dark circles underneath, and she could almost be mistaken for just another member of the walking dead. Not a good look if one wanted to keep her head attached. She tore her eyes away from the image before the reality of it could make her cry, and gave another start to see Alex standing beside her.

His eyebrows raised questioningly at her gasp, and she looked back at the cabinet's reflective surface. She hadn't imagined it: only she and Noah showed up there. As she moved closer to the exam table and pulled Noah protectively against her, Alex followed her gaze. “Oh, yes. That. I haven't figured that one out yet.”

“Figured what out?” asked Noah, oblivious to the strangeness, the otherness of Alex.

Alex pointed at his non-reflection. “The mirrors. It's one aspect of vampirism that my science has failed to explain to me.” His gaze caught Hannah's and he smiled, briefly, before pulling a scope from the pocket of his white lab coat and bending level with Noah's head. “All right, let's have a look at you, small one.”