The Possession

by Jennifer Armintrout

  A more refined person would accept his apology and let the matter rest, but Cyrus would never accuse Mouse of being refined. She swung her legs, bare under the hem of the T-shirt, over the edge of the bed, her arms braced against the mattress. A slash of brown hair covered one of her eyes. “What was it about?”

  “I couldn’t tell you, in good conscience.” But a voice in his head mocked him. You protect her from your deviant nature now?

  “It was just a dream. Telling me about it won’t hurt me.” Her clearheaded logic was apt to drive him mad.

  He sat beside her, not close enough that she could touch him. The last thing he needed or wanted was her pity. “When I became a vampire, my father cut out my heart.”

  She gasped at his words, from his casual phrasing of the horror, no doubt. But she had asked, so he continued to oblige her. “I don’t know how it comes to pass, but after turning, vampires grow a second heart. The first heart, the human one, is the heart to drive the stake through. So my father cut it out of me.”

  “So you couldn’t be killed?” Her innocence was charming.

  “So I couldn’t betray him. He kept my heart for seven centuries.” The familiar, sickening guilt crept over Cyrus. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply to regain his composure, but all he got was the scent of soap from Mouse’s freshly washed skin.

  “But you don’t have to worry about that now. You’re human again,” she said, the declaration like a prayer from her lips.

  His gaze wandered to the toes on her dainty feet, which rested on the cold, tile floor.

  “For the time being.” He didn’t know why he would say such a thing, when he knew it would bother her. Perhaps he wasn’t as changed as he’d imagined in the past few days.

  But she had changed. Only a day before, she would have trembled at the prospect of his impending transformation. Now, she stood and faced him, her arms folded tightly across her chest. The motion made the hem of the T-shirt hitch up, exposing the fronts of her creamy, white thighs. The sight was painfully arousing, and he closed his eyes in shame as he remembered what he’d done to her on that first night.

  “Why would you say something like that to me?” Her lower lip trembled, not in fear, but anger. Seemingly oblivious to his distress, she tightened her arms around herself, lifting the shirt a critical inch higher.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted, unable to face her or look anywhere near her. “I’m sorry.”

  It was the first time he’d said those words in earnest to anyone. The realization shocked him, almost as much as if he’d been struck by lightning.

  He said it again, for the reprehensible way he’d forced himself on her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured over and over, for every harsh word she’d had to endure from him. And for the fact that she was caught up in his father’s treachery, and it would ultimately cost her her life.

  And she would die. There was no way to stop it. He couldn’t stand up against the might of his father’s adoring cult. Cyrus was nothing, no one, with no power to offer them or riches to seduce them with.

  That’s when he appreciated the full horror of his humanity. They were at the mercy of fate, he and his Mouse, as he had been at the mercy of his father’s whim for centuries.

  There was one way he could make what he knew of his father’s plan work in his favor. When they turned him, he could turn Mouse.

  Cyrus remembered his wives, how he’d loved each of them and lost them to his father, and how they had died hating Cyrus. But then, they’d never really loved him to begin with. Perhaps as humans they had held some affection for him. After he’d changed them, they’d become different. The first had become a mindless harlot, seeking her pleasure wherever she could find it, but never returning to Cyrus’s bed. Two had prayed fervently that the Lord would take pity on them and spare their souls. Both had taken their own lives, one by exposure to sunlight, the other by bathing in a basin of holy water. The others, including his beloved Elsbeth, had been lost to his father’s appetite for power.

  Cyrus couldn’t allow Mouse to meet such an end.

  Still, his mantra of apology wouldn’t stop, nor the stinging tears that rose in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Kneeling beside him on the bed, she transformed from the demon of lust that had unwittingly tormented him to an angel of compassion as she wrapped her arms around him.

  None of them had ever comforted him this way. The closest to come to it had been wretched Carrie, just before her blade had split his heart. He let Mouse stroke his hair, and leaned against her at her gentle urging. It was a disgraceful thing, crying like a woman in front of one. In the past, he would have killed her, when he felt better. Now, her death was the only thing he feared, and it frightened him more than the prospect of his own.

  His fear transformed into a landslide of gut-wrenching desperation, and he clung to her, knowing his fingers bruised the fragile skin beneath the T-shirt. She said nothing. The tone of her voice never rose above a gentle murmur as she soothed him with mindless words of reassurance.

  Her tenderness only amplified his despair. She didn’t deserve this. There were so many people he would love to see die in her place, but it wasn’t to be.

  He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. He needed to see that she understood. “If we survive this, I will give you everything you’ve ever desired.”

  Taking his hands in hers, she gently lowered them to his knees. “You won’t have to.”

  She said this to placate him, he knew, because she did not believe him. Or perhaps he’d frightened her. He grasped her shoulders and pulled her forward, trying to communicate the depth of his feeling with an urgent, clumsy kiss.

  She didn’t resist him. She didn’t return his kiss with as much enthusiasm as he’d hoped for, either, but her warm mouth parted beneath his as a sound of surprise reverberated in her throat.

  This was exactly what he’d been seeking. Acceptance. Not for what he could give her, but for the intention behind it. He had what he wanted, and he wouldn’t need to ask for more.

  Mouse looked confused when he pulled away. Cyrus kissed her cheek to reassure her. “Let’s go to sleep.”

  Perhaps if he pretended that the new day on the horizon wouldn’t bring them one day closer to the end, he would eventually believe it.

  Chapter 10

  March

  I was in Cyrus’s bed again. Candlelight flickered on the cream-colored walls. Gauzy curtains floated on a cool night breeze. It was a dream, I knew, because I’d gone to sleep in the back of the increasingly unpleasant van. Also, because Nathan lay beside me.

  He touched my face, and I leaned into his palm. “You’re dead.”

  That wasn’t what I had meant to say. I knew he wasn’t dead. His terror and pain assaulted me every moment through the blood tie. It had been so overwhelming I’d had to pull to the side of the highway and concentrate on blocking his voice from my head. Then I’d driven the rest of the night in tears, praying he didn’t think I’d abandoned him.

  In my dream, he smiled. “I’m not dead. I’m right here.”

  His voice echoed in my brain, pleading for help. It had a weird, stereo effect, and the sound waves visibly distorted the air around us. “Did you hear that?”

  Of course he heard it. He’d said it.

  But Nathan just smiled, oblivious to my distress. “Where are you running?”

  The tortured screams rent the air again. “I know I’m not dreaming that.”

  I wasn’t sure he’d heard me, so I tried repeating the words, only to find the screams now came from my own mouth.

  Nathan pulled me into his arms, and he felt exactly the way he would have in real life, solid and cold.

  “You don’t have to run,” he whispered against my hair. “Please, don’t run from me.”

  A drop of crimson splashed against the pale sheets.

  “You’re bleeding.” I noted the detail with disinterest. The whole scene was boring and loud and annoying. I sat up. N
athan flopped on the mattress, now soaked with red as he bled from the arcane symbols carved into his flesh.

  “Carrie, please.”

  I turned away. Through the magic of dreaming, I was on my feet. A single step carried me far enough from the bed that I couldn’t hear Nathan and could barely see him. Cyrus waited for me at the other side of the impossibly long room, and I went to him.

  “He needs you,” my former sire said without the usual mocking in his tone. “Are you going to go to him?”

  I shook my head. “It’s out of my hands now.”

  Cyrus’s arms enfolded me, but his hands turned to claws that tore my flesh. I looked into his eyes, and his face transformed grotesquely, then shifted into Nathan’s. He screamed, so loudly and long I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand it.

  When I feared I’d go mad from the sound, I woke. My cell phone rang at my side. Still drunk with sleep, I reached for it.

  “We should pull into Nevada tonight.”

  Byron. “Thank you for the update.”

  He chuckled. “I thought you might like to know, so you can get a jump on us. Show up before we get your man.”

  “He’s not my man.” The denial escaped before I could stop it. Wincing, I cleared my parched throat. “I mean, I’m looking for him, but—”

  “I don’t care, either way.” Byron sniffed. “Have you fed?”

  “No. Some of us sleep in.” Truthfully, my blood supply had run so low I’d begun to ration, and my energy had begun to wane. I didn’t know what shape I’d find Cyrus in. If they’d turned him, I’d have to keep him alive until we got back to Michigan. With what I’d managed to save, we still might both starve.

  “There’s a place just over the Nevada border that caters to your kind.” The way he stressed the last words of the sentence begged questioning.

  Rolling my eyes, I shifted the phone from one ear to the other and groped for my jeans in the tangled sleeping bag. “My kind?”

  He chuckled again. “Lady vampires. There’s a brothel about twenty miles past the state line. All pretty men, female clientele only.”

  “It’s a donor house,” I accused.

  “It’s a brothel. But if you pay them extra, they’ll bare a little neck.” He gave a sigh of nostalgia. “Lucky you.”

  “Sorry, I don’t feed from humans.” I’d done it twice, once on Dahlia, once with Ziggy, and both times had provided more than adequate doses of guilt.

  “Really? Where do you get the blood you drink, then?”

  I bristled at the monster logic that was sure to follow, the same rationalizations Cyrus had used to manipulate me. “Where I get my blood is none of your—”

  “Hey, I’m not judging. I’m just trying to give you some pointers. Surviving in the harsh, untamed West is a lot different than your posh, midwestern life. At least, that’s what Road Dog has been telling me.”

  “Road Dog?” I remembered his hirsute companion. “For some reason I can’t imagine him saying that.”

  “Well, I read it from his body language. When he was eating a trucker.” Byron paused. “So, do you want the address?”

  Eyeing the cooler, I sighed. “Can I get it in bulk there?”

  “With dry ice.”

  “Fine. Tell me the directions.”

  It was almost sunup when I reached the elegant, redbrick manor. Despite the fact it was located on a barren back road in the middle of the desert, the lawn surrounding the house was lush and green. At least, from what I could tell between the slashing bars of the tall iron fence surrounding the place. There wasn’t a neighbor for ten miles, but I knew their security concerns didn’t extend to simple burglars.

  A sleek intercom console was posted at the gate. I pushed the button to ring the buzzer.

  A voice crackled over the speaker a second later. “State your business.”

  I recited the password Byron had given me, feeling dirtier by the second. “Withdrawal.”

  “Enter.” At once, a loud, mechanical whir set the gate in motion. It opened wide, allowing me to drive up the long, cobblestone driveway. I left the van in the care of a bored-looking valet and jogged up the marble steps to the dark wood door.

  When Byron had said “brothel,” I’d imagined an Old West style whorehouse, with red, flocked wallpaper, old-time lamps with beaded fringe and prostitutes draped over velvet chaise longues. When a uniformed butler opened the door, I was pleasantly surprised. Despite the stodgy English exterior, the inside was decorated like a home from Architectural Digest. Long, white runners protected the hardwood floors and sweeping staircase. The walls were painted in very modern white, and track lighting highlighted the hanging artwork.

  “The madam will be with you in a moment, madam,” the butler informed me. I almost expected a rim shot to follow his repetitive statement. His face remained humorless, as if he didn’t recognize his pun.

  I refrained from pointing it out, and walked slowly through the foyer. To my left and to my right, huge double doors blocked me from further exploration, but the hallway that extended behind the curling staircase seemed to be public property. I strolled leisurely, perusing the artwork. A tall, gilded painting in an ostentatious frame stopped me in my tracks.

  “Klimt.”

  The rough voice startled me. I turned toward the source of it, a short, generously curved woman with long, springy gray curls cascading over her shoulders.

  “Yes, I know,” I said, recovering quickly from my fright. “It’s not the original, is it?”

  “You’re damn straight it is.” I couldn’t tell if she was upset by my question or enthusiastic about her property.

  Smiling, I sought to correct my faux pas. “My old sire owned a lot of art, but it was all fake, so I find pretty much anything suspect.”

  “Oh, shit, honey, I don’t care.” The woman came to stand beside me, pulling a pack of cigarettes from the sleeve of her flowing caftan. “If it was fake, I’d tell you.”

  “I didn’t want to offend.” Though my apology probably did offend her. Something in her body language suggested she lived within a “no bullshit” zone.

  The woman’s eyes lit up with a spark of amusement. “Did I hear you right? Did you say, ‘old sire’?”

  That was a stupid mistake. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  A knowing smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Because I didn’t give it. I’m March. I’m what you’d call the ‘pimp’ around here, but we say ‘madam’ because it’s more genteel sounding. Don’t worry about your little slip. I like secrets, so long as they don’t drag trouble onto my property.”

  I cleared my throat and glanced at the high, arched ceiling. “Your house is beautiful.”

  “Thank you. But you didn’t come here to look at the house.” She crooked her finger as she backed to the doors. “Are we on liquid lunch today, or just here for some fun?”

  “I need blood.” I spread my hands helplessly. “Whatever you’d call that.”

  “I’d call it your lucky day.” With a goofy flourish, March pushed open the doors to my left.

  I might have envisioned the decor wrong, but I’d been right on the money about the prostitutes. Everywhere I looked, gorgeous men draped themselves over ultramasculine leather furniture. My eyes boggled at the variety. Dark, fair, long-haired or neatly trimmed, some with androgynous bodies, some overly muscled.

  “Take your pick,” March said proudly. “These are the feeders.”

  “Um…” I gestured to the foyer, where the butler stood with my bag. One of Nathan’s many, stringent rules was “always be prepared.” In my bag I had all the necessities for harvesting blood from a willing donor. I don’t know how I’d planned to find one in case I needed to, but I was definitely prepared.

  “I’m not what you would call…traditional,” I told March. Chewing my lip, I scanned each of the men.

  The madam laughed. “There’s nothing you can do to shock them.”

  “No, I mean, I don’t bite.” I stepped forward and cle
ared my throat. Many pairs of curious male eyes turned to me. “I’m looking for someone who’s not afraid of needles.”

  There was a noticeable shift in the energy of the room. Some of the men looked away, as if they’d become suddenly interested in the walls. The rest looked worried or amused, or a combination of both.

  “Nothing kinky,” I assured them. “I just need blood.”

  “Why not bite us?” a tall, thin man with model looks asked.

  “Excuse me?” March placed her hands on her hips and raked an angry glare over the men. “Do I pay you to question my customers?”

  A few of them offered a grudging, “No.”

  “I can’t hear you,” March insisted, raising her hand to her ear.

  One voice rose above the chorus of resulting answers. “I’ll do it.”

  When I found the source of the voice, my stomach leaped into my throat. When I’d said, “Nothing kinky,” I may have lied. The guy was gorgeous, with long blond hair and a tan that would make Icarus weep with jealousy. He was shirtless, and his faded jeans rode low on his hips.

  My mouth suddenly dry, I gestured for him to come closer. “What’s your blood type?”

  He laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I’ve been doing some research,” I explained, feeling like a hopeless dork. Then I wondered why I cared if some random male prostitute thought I was a nerd. Wiping my suddenly damp palms on my jeans, I continued. “Vampires are able to metabolize the blood they drink more efficiently if the donor’s type matches their own, prevampire type. By metabolize, I mean—”

  “I know what metabolize means,” he said with a kneecap-melting smile. “I’m O positive. Universal donor.”

  “I think you two will get along just fine,” March announced, stepping forward to loop an arm around the man’s broad shoulders, despite the fact there was a good foot difference in their heights. “Unfortunately, we need to discuss the vagaries of payment and restrictions. Shall we do that in private?”

  “Why not?” I followed March and the demigod into the foyer, where I stopped. “I just need my bag.”