by Lissa Kasey
“Are you fucking insane?” I demanded. Not only were they underage and couldn’t consent, we were in the middle of a fucking crowd. “We’re done here. It’s time to go home.”
Gabe rose slowly, eyes looking like pools of fresh blood instead of his normal green. He grabbed me by the throat, and slammed me against the wall, teeth bared. That was okay. I was pissed too. He could kill me if he wanted, and legally that was his prerogative since he was officially listed as my sire. He could just tell the authorities that I’d gotten out of control. Even if he was the one out of control. But I wasn’t alone in my own head.
He began to squeeze my neck like he was going to take off my head. I closed my eyes to wait for the end. At least Seiran would know. He could put an end to this fight since he was still with me.
And Seiran was pissed. His rage fueled my own, his as hot as lava building in my core. “You guys always forget about the witch,” I said and put my hand on his arm and Seiran poured power through us. I just let it flow, had practiced it quite a bit with Kelly’s power, letting the energy slide through me, amplifying with my own power before being directed elsewhere. Gabe’s arm sprouted branches, leaves, and flowers, the earth eating away at it. His grip crumbled with his strength as the muscles dissolved into fine particles of earth.
He growled and pulled away, dropping me, cradling his injured and disintegrating arm. I sucked in a deep breath and sighed at the feeling of my ribs being broken once again. It was sad when you recognized that sensation because it happened so often. “We’re done,” Gabe said.
“Yeah, we are,” I agreed. I was so done, with him and every other abusive bastard who decided I was prey.
“The Tri-Mega will kill you. The Dominion will kill you,” he said.
I shrugged. “They’ll have to get in line.” I pulled myself up, using Seiran’s offered strength to heal my ribs. It hurt and I bit back the cry of pain, but it eased fast enough. It’s something he should have been able to do for Gabe too. Except Gabe was completely closed to him.
“I revoke my mentorship of you, leave you adrift, and unrestrained,” Gabe said. I didn’t really think much about those words in that moment, instead I left. Turning my back on him as my mentor and my friend. I couldn’t save him, I reminded myself and Seiran who was sobbing. I could feel Kelly’s arms around him even though they were across the city. At least he wasn’t alone. Gabe was now, or what was left of Gabe. Was there any other way to fix a revenant? Could going to ground bring him back or was he too far gone?
It was the first trickle of red easing over my vision that clued me in on the change. Subtle for a few seconds, the rage and hunger began to fill my stomach. I swallowed back the urge to scream.
Chapter 18
One of the groups of soldiers approached as Gabe backed away, vanishing into the crowd. “That guy is a vampire,” I told them. “He was after those girls.” I pointed in the direction Gabe had gone. They scattered around the group, searching it with weapons pointed. It was unlikely they’d catch up with him, but they’d be keeping a better eye on the crowd.
The clarity in my head began to fuzz, and soon I wasn’t seeing straight anymore. I stumbled, trying to find my footing through the red haze. What had he done to me? Revoked his mentorship? No longer my sire? Is that what he meant? I hadn’t realized it was much more than a title as he’d been telling me since I’d been brought over that Roman was technically my sire.
Hunger poured into my gut. A mindless bloodlust filling every ounce of my being like a cup of water overflowing. Rage snapping through my veins with weight I couldn’t ever recall feeling. It made me sluggish and heavy, slow and disoriented. The world pulsed around me, no longer living beings, but food and outlets for rage, the rational part of my brain drowning under the onslaught.
I found my way back out to the main street where I caught a cab, one thing on my mind. The anger and bloodlust needed to be redirected. I could have gone back and beaten the shit out of Gabe. He probably would have killed me, so that wasn’t the wisest course of action for release. Going home to Con and Luca was out of the question. They didn’t need the red eyes or vampire rage that Gabe had brought back to the surface, or the well of energy still pooling in my veins from Seiran’s power.
Maybe I could work it off. My hands itched with the need to rip something apart while my mind seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Which way was up? And why did everything look so goddamned red? Life everywhere, pulsing, screaming for me to release it with the ripping of a vein.
Fuck!
Would there still be fights? Luca said Max had been busy with business stuff. Luca had been fighting before I came back. It was my only hope now. Maybe they had a vampire I could fight. Someone to remind me of Gabe while I worked out all the aggression taking control.
And how angry did that make me to learn things tonight that I should have known right away? Saliva created a bond that could change a person into a vampire. Vampires used to go to ground every night. Vampires could mind rape a group of people with little effort. Vampires had blood sex clubs where people died and no one cared. The sire bond was some sort of magic. Vampires were monsters.
I’d known the last. Thought I’d embraced it. How dumb I’d been.
Don’t go, Seiran said through our bond. I’ll come get you.
I was too lost in the rage to see anyone fragile right that moment. I needed violence like I never had before in my existence. Something had to die. Maybe that would be me, and in that moment, that was okay too. Better me than Seiran.
I’m Father Earth, or so you keep reminding me, I’m not fragile.
But he was. Still breakable, and I really wanted to break something. It’s just a fight, I told him, as I arrived at the club and was let in by the same bouncer. Inside I found Riley, the guy who scheduled the fights and said, “I need to fight, anyone strong enough to match me?”
He looked at me, then at his list. “Hart said he’ll fund all your fights. We have a few other vampires in tonight, but none I’ve seen fight before. I can put you with one of the shifters.”
“No. A vampire.” I could pretend it was Gabe and smash them to bits.
“We have rolling rounds tonight. Beat the champion and we keep sending you another fighter until you get beat and they become the champion or we run out of challengers.”
That sounded like heaven. “No one fragile?”
“All level five and up fighters. They know what they are signing up for when they step in the ring. But you have to beat the champion first.”
“Done, point me in his direction,” I demanded. My skin begged for the fight, muscles aching, energy still rolling through me as I remembered Gabe’s arm almost disintegrating under Seiran’s power. I absently pushed the energy back at him. Put a lock on it, Ronnie. I don’t need your help to fight.
I staggered for a minute from the loss of Seiran’s energy laced over my own. The last grounding force, I realized as I blinked through the red haze. Someone was going to die. “If I kill someone?”
“It happens with vampires. A lot lately.”
“If someone kills me?” I wondered. Would someone tell Luca, Con, and Seiran at least?
“Your friends will be notified.” Riley pointed toward the dressing room. “Get changed. I’ll put you in rotation. They’ll call your name when you’re up.”
I found a pair of shorts and didn’t bother with anything else. Blood would ruin it all anyway. It didn’t take long before my name was called, though long enough that my vision was completely gone. Someone said something I didn’t quite understand but they led me to the cage. I could smell blood everywhere and once the door clanged shut behind me, the rank odor of another vampire filled my senses. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see him, or that his stillness meant he was old. I envisioned Gabe and how he had failed Seiran. Him tossing me away like worthless trash wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t like I was worth much. He’d only saved me because Kelly had asked. Matthew and Roman had taught me the truth o
f vampires, they were selfish, heartless, and utterly ruthless when it came to power. I was probably the shittiest vampire on the planet because none of that appealed to me. But Seiran, who had embraced me as a friend despite everything I’d done to him, deserved better.
The bell rang. Pain came first. A blow to my head that sent me careening into the cage. People cheered. Another hit exploded my nose and sent black tendrils of oozing unconsciousness into my brain. That was okay too. The rage, hunger, and need for self-destruction would go silent if I was knocked out, or at least I hoped it would.
Only it didn’t feel like unconsciousness, instead it was something else that took over. The other. He opened his eyes to briefly glimpse the crowd and the monster looming overhead, but in that instant, as he leapt to his feet, he shut me down. The rational, moral, and human side of Sam Mueller going dark as the revenant took hold. It was a strange thing, being locked inside my own body, unable to see, hear, or really feel anything. It was a lot like that dark place Seiran had given me a glimpse of, death without being truly dead. I fought it, trying to tear free of the abyss, but nothing seemed to help.
I crested three times, coming briefly back to myself in a glut of blood and screams. Nothing hurt. In fact all I could feel was hunger, anger, and a need to destroy. I fed, over and over, though it did nothing to satiate my bloodlust. Too much blood as I spewed each time, spitting out gallons of the noxious stuff, only to be rewarded with more hunger. What was taking them so long in sending me the next challenge?
The scent of others tickled my senses. The blood around me was old, stale, and dead. Vampire blood, I realized. It couldn’t satisfy me, no matter how much I might want it to. But there was living blood in spades nearby. I could smell the stench of shifters, a few others I couldn’t identify, and witches…
I licked my lips at the thought of tasting a witch right then. Drinking down the power of someone like Seiran Rou might satisfy the monster. I took a step in their direction, but met resistance. A wall of some kind, though I still couldn’t see straight. It looked like some sort of mesh, dripping with gore. It didn’t taste like anything living so I shredded it with my claws. The wail of metal tearing hurt my ears, but at least now I could continue my quest for that delicious scent.
What was that again? The familiar delicacy of smells that lit my senses and tried to pull back the weak side…the human side of my brain. I refused, too far gone in need to pursue the link. They weren’t moving, and I could hear their voices, though not make out their words.
Someone stepped in front of me, forcing a pause in my movement. That someone died a second later. I felt their blood run over me in a cold rush. Another vampire. Useless.
I needed real food, not this dirty mess of rot.
Yet another stepped in front of me. I reached for them, only they smashed me into the floor with so little effort it took a few extra seconds for the monster to realize we’d been temporarily immobilized by magic. But the real blood was so close.
The one who held me was a vampire too. Strong, yet weak. Made powerful by magic that wasn’t his own, instead it was layered over him, like unmatching condiments on a slice of toast. There were gaps in his magic, holes as though something had been ripped out of the grid. I could feel the pulse of his energy, recognized it vaguely as someone I’d met before, but couldn’t place. The monster didn’t care. It struggled against him. Reaching out now with something more than just physical energy. Little fingers of magic wove through him, finding a light inside, a different sort of energy than blood, digging into those little tears. It was a sort of unrestrained magic, old and unfamiliar, a shadow of change that brought the flash of my one flight as a bird, then a roll of people through my spotted vision. Some familiar, others just a crowd of faces.
He wanted me to come to him. Accept him. Like I knew at all what that meant. He tried to force more of that vile dead blood into my mouth, but I refused it, needing something more vivid, living, and terrified, beneath my jaws.
He tried to drink down my power, pulling at it like he could peel it off of me and wear it as another skin. Only the more he tugged, the more his own power stuck to mine, ripping away from him in chunks when he tried to break free.
The glow engulfed us both. He fought me, trying to hold me down as I fed on the power that he’d stored away for years, only daring to use with an occasional illusion. So much power, almost like Seiran…
Seiran, who I thought I heard somewhere nearby. Seiran, who I remembered I had hated, but now…wanted to eat? This was a different sort of lust, not for blood or sex, but energy and power. Not my power, the one who held me, said. His, and I was using it to destroy him. Borrowed and amplified, I drank him down, swallowing the light, illusion, and electricity like it was water. It burned through me, flashing a word of pain and dizziness, but I couldn’t stop.
The noise around me of cries, screams, and pleas, all meshed into a hum of white noise. I fed at the source of him, eating away that supernatural liquidity of magic until there was nothing left. He struggled against me, trying to push me away until he became too weak.
I caught a glimpse of blond hair and thought briefly of triumph that I’d destroyed Gabe. That he could never hurt anyone again. He couldn’t abandon Seiran or strip away my control. He couldn’t leave everyone floundering for a way to save him from himself by putting him back in the grave. Only the taste of him was unfamiliar. Gabe had a power, stored away and barely touched, a part of my subconscious brain recalled. This wasn’t his power. And that was okay. I took it in anyway, rending apart the last of the energy and devouring it.
The power of the other faded as the vampire did. His form becoming dirt in my arms, the earth taking him back, leaving me floundering in a blinding light, every pore of my being singing with lightning-deep pain. Like being shocked by a billion volts of electricity, I convulsed and shuddered. Still the hunger rode me; bloodlust back again, I crawled toward the smell of witches and power, despite the pain.
It didn’t matter if they all died. Not as long as I could finally rest that endless need in my gut. A small voice inside my head said it would stop when I died too, but wasn’t sure if anyone could achieve that in that moment. I felt invincible, and lost all at the same time.
Another vampire appeared in front of me, and I reached for his leg, only he stomped down on my hand, breaking every bone in my fingers, causing the lightning network of energy to crackle through me. I howled. He turned then, lifting his other foot to smash down between my shoulder blades, crushing me into the floor.
Bones broke, a lung punctured, skin broke as bones protruded through it, and I only barely felt it. Now I’d need more blood. The pulsing energy throbbed inside me, burrowing itself deep in my core like a pit of lava waiting to be released. My blood smeared the pavement, a nasty mess of useless rot just like the rest of the vampires.
I reached for the new vampire with the power, trying to find his magic, only he came up blank. Powerful, yes. His strength echoed through the hunger as danger—this was not prey—yet not from magic. No, his power was something more human, physical. His energy seemed to be from pure will rather than something tangible. Death magic coursed through him, something that my body recognized immediately, but could do nothing with. It was just something that animated us both, connected us, yet couldn’t bridge the gap.
He held me effortlessly, turned me like I was a ragdoll and forced his blood, not into my mouth, but into the punctured mess of my chest. When had that happened? I vaguely recalled the pain.
His blood was like a brand coursing through my veins. The pulse of magic faded, quieting, though it still sat hot and livid in my gut ready to be called in an instant. The bloodlust began to ease and I blinked through the red haze to stare into the bright lights of the fighting area outside the cage. The cage looked like it’d been ripped open by the Kool-Aid Man, a huge gaping hole in the center of five layers of stainless steel mesh. Inside the cage a mess of blood and gore dripped off all the sides making wet plinks
and splats.
My world tilted with nausea and I gasped for breath. Luca, Con, and Seiran stood huddled together a few feet away, kept back by a handful of shifters in fighting clothes. Everything else was carnage. Blood, gore, and the dirt of dead vampire.
My stomach rolled in disgust as my brain struggled to catch up. The revenant faded as something—someone else—took control. His strength and calm settled over me like a finely woven net.
I closed my eyes and could see a wash of memories, more than a single person should ever hold, but there were innumerable faces, lovers, friends, business partners, and even children. I caught a glimpse of a little boy my brain tagged as Luca, afraid and lonely, standing on a doorstep. I saw a man with dark hair and sapphire eyes dressed in clothes from the fifties who smiled tenderly my way, then glimpsed a raging fire as he died. I saw a thousand others cascading further into the past until it came to a pause in a time I didn’t know enough history to understand. This was an intimate embrace with another man, blond hair curling around his forehead in honey-wheat waves, eyes a bright shade of green. Handsome, and young, probably early twenties at the latest. My mind recognized him, though in a different way than the person whose memories I walked through.
Gavriil. The man was called, though I knew him as Gabe, younger in the memory than I knew he’d been when he’d changed. The image shifted, like I’d directed it somehow, to the Gabe I knew, dressed in the different clothes of a generation long dead, reaching for me, covered in blood.
The memory was shut down hard. The whole walk through places and people closed, like a door in my face. The vampire let me go, though his presence still lingered in my head, binding me like a lock on a door leading to the monster I’d become.
I gasped for breath, trying to control the influx of processing thoughts, memories, and confusion. Too much for my brain, my head throbbed, and my stomach churned. I rolled over and vomited, heaving up blood and gore like a cork had been pulled.