Blood Awakens

by Jessaca Willis

  She gawked up at Zane. For some naïve reason, she hadn’t expected this. Or, at the very least, hadn’t prepared herself for it.

  If she thought the initial stabbing was the threshold, she was sorely mistaken. Zane jerked his arm back, taking the blade along with it. Her eyes bulged from their sockets as the blade left its hole. It was like Zane had severed another one on top of the old. Her core started to turn cold, rather than hot, and Graciela noticed the current of red fluid pouring to the ground.

  Graciela made a noise that not even she could place. Her fingers hovered gingerly over the wound, unsure of whether to try to stop the bleeding or if what she was seeing was real. As she gaped at the opening, the blade cut across her vision and pierced through her again.

  He brought her in close, the hot metal pulsating inside. “Should’ve taken the quick death I offered earlier.”

  Desperation brought her gaze up to meet his. She wanted to beg him to let her live, wanted to take over his body, to kill him with one sharp whistle as Bram had done to the other man. But none of those things happened. Instead she stared helplessly into the eyes of a man taking pleasure in her fleeting life.

  He plucked the knife free again, and she could’ve swore her stomach came along with it because of the nausea that followed.

  Before the bile rose much higher, Graciela caught sight of Zane’s knife, a small pocket blade now streaked in red. He raised it over his head. It was like the world was in slow motion, and all she could see was him and what came next.

  The knife was angled. A direct path lay between the sharp point of the blade and her heart. There was nothing left to do but let her instincts kick in. Just as Zane plunged his weapon down to her collarbone, Graciela pushed against his chest. She’d hoped it would send him flying backward, but instead it had the opposite effect, and she found herself to be the one tumbling to the ground as a result. It did have the desired effect though, at least to some extent. She’d evaded the blade’s impact. But she hadn’t distracted Zane enough to break Sean free. In that, she had failed.

  Whatever small shred of pride she’d felt spark bled from the two slashes in her gaping abdomen when she hit the ground. It sent a ripple of ice to her shoulders and down her legs. The world seemed to spin around her. Graciela couldn’t bring herself to move, blinking in a daze as she felt again for her wounds. She knew she needed to stop the bleeding, especially given how much blood she’d lost earlier.

  Bleary-eyed, Graciela saw Sean in the same predicament he’d been in from the beginning. “Sean…” Her throat was dry, and her voice was like granules of sand when she tried yelling louder. “Sean!”

  Before she could see his reaction, darkness enveloped her.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Sean

  In some distant cavern of echoes, someone cried ruefully, the sound so out of the ordinary, it was enough to invoke a flicker of control in Sean. He closed his eyes and recited the things he always thought of when he was struggling, “The people of Hope need me. I can’t afford to lose control. I have control. I’ve had control for years. I am strong, for myself, for Samson, for my friends and for Hope.”

  “Sean!” the voice rasped again. The pitch was feminine, delicate, a pleasantry to the ears, aside from the crack it endured on the highest note. She was clearly in distress.

  The laughter that followed triggered something primordial within him. It was a sound that he’d recognize, even from within a blood daze. Zane. “It’s too bad she didn’t last longer. I would’ve enjoyed playing more.”

  Without a second to spare, Sean released a raucous roar and each bead of blood circling around him retreated in fear. His non-dominant hand came up to pinch his nose, not trusting himself to be able to refuse the intoxicating beckon of blood again on his own.

  With the red veil lifted, he noticed Graciela on the ground almost instantly. Drenched in blood, she lay in a pool of red forming between the crook of her hips and stomach. She wasn’t moving. There wasn’t so much as a rise and fall to her chest, but he could feel her heart gingerly pumping the last ounces of life through her veins.

  Zane squatted over her to dip a finger and then his entire hand, into the lake of blood before bringing it to his face and letting it drip onto his tongue.

  For the third time that day, Sean found himself fueled by rage. Running faster than he’d run his entire life, he cut the distance between them in bounds.

  But the Sanguinatores had other plans.

  As he bolted for Zane, a blonde, dreadlocked woman rammed into his side. They fell to the ground with a bounce, and she grabbed Sean’s armed wrist.

  With his unrestricted hand, Sean reached for the woman’s hair and pulled her head back. Holding back nothing, Sean slammed the thick of his skull into her nose. A bubbled cry escaped her, the hold on Sean’s wrist breaking. He crawled from under her as she made a futile attempt at repairing the damage done to her face with a few gurgled whistles.

  Resituating his grip on the machete, Sean felt the roughness of the unfinished wood under his hand, the fraying of splinters brushing his palms.

  Both hands clamped as tight as they could. With ruthless resolve, Sean hammered down at the blonde woman’s neck. Blood gushed from an exposed vein, spraying Sean directly in the face. Hysterical, the woman pawed at the grave wound, a slice that perfectly fell between her neck and collarbone. They locked eyes. The woman pleaded for a saving that Sean could no longer grant.

  Sean struck again. This time, the blade unintentionally met the blonde woman’s cheek. A hollow sputter emitted as the machete cracked through both flesh and then bone, a sound that would haunt him for the rest of his life. As would the image before him. A tuft of blonde hair fell to the ground, severed by his hand where he’d struck just above her jaw. It hung crooked in disfigurement.

  Sean had to close his eyes. With exerted force, he jerked the weapon from her skull and listened for the soft thud of a body falling to the ground.

  He didn’t dare look back at her, didn’t dare look at anyone. All around him, he heard others as they administered their final deadly blows. In whose favor the battle was ending, Sean wasn’t sure he had the stomach just yet to find out.

  The weakening scent of Graciela’s blood brought Sean’s attention back to the cavity of the crag. With gleeful hunger, Zane still loomed over her unmoving body. Another finger prodded at her, finding a hole somewhere along her stomach and bringing the red fluid he retrieved up to his snakelike mouth.

  Sean clamped his teeth tight.

  Machete raised, Sean plowed through the space between them. A Sanguinatore charged at his flank, but Sean heard him from so far away that he was able to simply sidestep the thrashing body of blubber and send his momentum into a nearby spike. Another seemed to rise from the dead right underneath him, but with a quick uppercut, the man was sent back to the ground. Sean wouldn’t be so easily detoured by Sanguinatores so desperate to die.

  He noticed then that Zane wasn’t using his power to drink Graciela’s blood. Instead he was pawing at it like a kitten drinking milk. It was like he didn’t have the power to command blood, which Sean new was false, considering he’d just witnessed it firsthand. The only way Zane would be unable to use his power on her was if he was using it on someone else.

  Or something else.

  The wall of blood. Sean didn’t have to look back to confirm that the curtain that had entrapped him was still standing. It could only mean that Zane wasn’t aware he’d broken free yet. Sean was no fool. He knew how powerful Zane was, but maybe with the element of surprise, he’d be able to defeat him.

  One final step brought him to his mission. Sean’s shoulder ached, ready to fall, to bring an end to this once and for all. With Zane on his knees before him, internally Sean decreed justice on behalf of the world and all those who’d been harmed by Zane, and let his blade swing like a pendulum down to his enemy’s skull.

  It missed.

  A spray of red painted Sean’s arm, but somehow Zan
e’s bald scalp remained the same.

  The body of some unknown martyr sputtered between the two of them as Zane rose to his feet to face his attempted assailant.

  The pit of Sean’s stomach lurched. He couldn’t believe it. Everything hinged on that moment, and he’d been robbed of it.

  “Pays to have goons, people who would rather die for you then see you fall, because they believe in you with that much conviction.” He didn’t watch Sean’s machete as he stalked closer. There was no need to. They both knew that Sean was no match for someone like him, even with the advantage of a weapon. They’d fought this fight before. “Would these people do that for you, Seany-boy? Do you give them something worth living for?”

  He liked to believe he did, though he didn’t give Zane an answer.

  “I bet you think that since you give them food and shelter that they’ll all live happily ever after, praising the great and wonderful Sean. But you’re sorely mistaken. People are only truly happy with a purpose. Have you given them that? And I’m not talking about the one teacher or random doctor you corralled into your gates, but all the others. The once-upon-a-time lawyers, the grocery store owners, the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker—”

  “We all know this is the way things are now,” Sean said through clenched teeth. “We pull our own weight and make do with what we have. That old life, those old skills…” The more he spoke, the more the words knotted themselves in his stomach. There was something about them that felt insincere, even though it was something he believed full-heartedly. The world was different and therefore so was their places in it. Maybe it was just because he’d said it so many times. “Our past experiences shape who we are and what we do in this new world. Everyone knows that.”

  “Sure! But that’s not what I asked.”

  In a flash of frustration, Sean realized he’d done it again, fallen into one of Zane’s inviting conversations about nothing. Ears gaping, Sean listened for the familiar sound of Graciela’s heartbeat, for the reassurance that he could still save her and make a difference. He heard nothing but silence. Cold nothingness. Sean’s mouth went dry.

  Through a broad smile, Zane reiterated his question, enunciating every syllable. “Do your people feel a sense of purpose?”

  Although the thought of his people not having a purpose sent a pang to Sean’s heart, the idea that Graciela’s had been snuffed out altogether hurt tenfold. He tugged for the chords of her blood but felt them resisting.

  “Ah-ah,” Zane sang. “Now that you’re free, there’s no reason for me not to command her blood, so thank you for coming forth.”

  “Don’t.” It wasn’t a plea. Sean felt strength welling up inside him, the kind of strength he could only call upon when true need arose. His hands balled into fists at his waist, and he felt something prick his finger.

  An earring, the one he’d brought for Graciela. It gave him an idea.

  Before Zane could do anything rash, Sean stretched a hand in and out of his pocket and fumbled with the sharp blackened gem.

  “What do you got there?”

  Sean leaped for Zane, sending the earring into the pupil of his eye until he felt it pop into place. The scream that followed clapped like thunder, and Zane’s fist struck Sean in the ear like a mighty bolt of lightning. It left him feeling woozy, but it was worth it. It was the only way he could injure Zane, distract him, and not risk him ripping the rest of the blood from Graciela’s body. The earring left him entirely useless.

  Sean didn’t spare any time in doing what needed to be done. As Zane clung to his eyeball, Sean whizzed his machete through the air. Like a guillotine, the blade sliced clean through Zane’s neck. A mist of red fountained, and Zane’s tattooed head tumbled to the dirt, followed shortly after by his limp, twitching body.

  Sean stared in disbelief, unsure that Zane wouldn’t somehow find a way to rise up and finish the slaughter he was so focused on. No, Sean couldn’t stop there. He had to be sure. Enraged, he screamed his blood cry and demanded the trapped essence within Zane free itself. His life force was reticent at first, cowering deeper into his heart. But blood was easy to command. It wanted to see a show of power, and Sean would give it to them.

  The shriek he emitted was powerful, shaking even him to the core. Through parted lips, Sean called forth Zane’s blood, demanding an end to his life.

  In an instant, Zane became a crimson surge. Threads of red missiled themselves outward until he was no more than a red stain in the desert sand.

  “Thank you, Master of Blood.”

  “We are forever grateful.”

  “Your sin is our salvation.”

  The blood sang to Sean as it dripped from his chin to the soil below, where he too fell in a heap of exhaustion.

  Not even the power of a hundred Sanguinatores could heal the mess he left Zane in.

  With what little energy he had left, Sean pulled himself to Graciela’s side and took her hand into his own. It was already cold to the touch, but he wouldn’t give up. Not with how hard she had fought to stay alive.

  So he let a weak version of his song call forth the lake that had amassed at Graciela’s waist and the puddles spotting the crooks of her elbows. In streams and blobs, he urged them to reunite with their fallen host. Sean could think of nothing but Samson.

  “C’mon,” he grunted, the gentle hum playing at the back of his throat. “C’mon!”

  His music guided the blood back into her orifices, but the wound wasn’t healing. He forced himself up, ripping the shirt from his back. Sean pressed it firmly against her belly. “Graciela, please. Wake up!”

  He remembered Samson’s mangled corpse and its resistance to blood. Remembered smelling and tasting the poison in the air, like a rotted peach, somehow both sweet and fetid. He couldn’t lose her, not like this.

  With his call, Sean searched frantically for nearby blood of the same kind. Panic swelled in his chest. He found a recently murdered volunteer, A-positive, just like Graciela.

  With a shrill call, he propelled the body’s stagnant streams into life and brought it into Graciela’s body. With each passing second, color and fullness returned to her skin. But still, no movement.

  “Stay with me.” Flashes of Samson’s lifeless body riddled his mind. “Please wake up!”

  His chest hollowed at the sound of her nonexistent heartbeat.

  “No,” he breathed, tears puddling.

  Lightning struck a nearby shack. Two Sanguinatore bodies flew into the air charred and screaming, and Sean was so consumed with Graciela’s life that he almost missed that the lightning hadn’t come from the sky, but from someone on the ground.

  “Diesel!” Sean poked his head up from the task to get a better view, searching frantically for the one man who could save her. “Diesel!”

  The retired military man jogged forth from the smoke, unperturbed. Whoever he’d been fighting was dealt with, and the price of lives bore no impact on his demeanor. It was easy to guess that this wasn’t Diesel’s first time on the battlefield, the way he wore his mental shields like an armor.

  At the end of the path, Diesel noticed Graciela instantly. “Stand back.”

  Sean did as he was directed. “Are you sure you won’t—”

  Sean could see bolts of lightning sprout from the tips of Diesel’s fingers. Two straight rods of it jolted toward her chest and lower abdomen.

  “Please, don’t die…”

  Graciela gasped before bolting upright. Her eyes were red and glossy, and she either had no idea where she was or was rightfully terrified by where she found herself. Sean rushed back to her side in comfort, enveloping her into his arms.

  “Thank you,” he murmured.

  “Sean?” The words scratched their way out of her throat. “Is he…gone?”

  He gave an earnest nod. “Zane won’t be a problem anymore.” And then he brought his full attention back to the man of the hour. “Thank you. You don’t know how much—”

  Diesel straightened, before
resuming a typical soldierly stance. “It was my duty and my honor.”

  With a hand on his knee for support, Sean pushed himself to his feet, and then helped Graciela to hers. “Well,” he directed at Diesel, “she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, so thank you.”

  “Truth is, she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your actions, more so than mine. I only came in at the tail end. From the looks of it”—Diesel signaled to the stains of red around them, the dried blood on Graciela’s clothes and skin— “you literally brought the life back into her.”

  The two shared a look of acknowledgment, neither of them adept at taking a compliment.

  It was Graciela who broke the silence, clutching Sean’s shoulder for support. Her gaze fell to the dying battle around them. “What about the others? Is everyone all right?” The dismal tone of her voice was unmistakable.

  Sean felt his chest collapse. He couldn’t bring himself to say it just then, but he thought it, on repeat. Two girls were dead by his command. The beloved Shifter Sisters. And likely countless others. He hadn’t had a chance to do a head count or take death toll yet, but if he’d been taught anything about war, it was that both sides experienced loss, more than either wanted.

  Across the battlefield, some of his temperals were creating handcuffs out of earth and air, while a few roider only had to grasp on with brute strength. He didn’t want to acknowledge the two shifters who were forging scrap metal into binding; it didn’t feel right that Ryka and Meeka weren’t working among them. It was then that it dawned on Sean that people were using their powers.

  He shot back to Diesel. “You and the others took out your inserts?”

  Diesel nodded. “Some of us. People needed another moment of surprise and some of us realized we could use the inserts on the Sanguinatores. I saw a few people stab Sanguinatores in the middle of the back with their insert.”