The Possession

by Jennifer Armintrout

  Max stretched on the couch, trying valiantly to read something handwritten. His eyes flitted occasionally from the pages to the woman on the floor.

  Cyrus wanted to urge caution. Love was fleeting, and it could be taken so easily. But he didn’t care enough about either of them to impart this knowledge, and if they were smart, they would have known it on their own.

  Instead, he gestured to the book in Max’s hands. “What is that?”

  “The Big Book of None of Your Business.” He frowned at the lines as if he’d been concentrating on the words and not the object of his obvious desire.

  The rejection rolled off Cyrus like water. “It looks like a journal. A book of shadows?”

  Max didn’t look up. “It is a journal, and you can stop talking at any time.”

  “I’d like to know what I’m supposed to be looking for. Unless you’d just like a comprehensive report on the entire text?” Cyrus closed the book with a loud snap that sent up a puff of dust. Emblazoned in cheap, gold ink across the cover were the words Vou Dou Spells of Possession and Control.

  Lovely.

  Max finally deigned to glance up, cold fury etched in every line of his face. “You’d know better than we do what he’s up to.”

  “He?” Cyrus shrugged innocently. “If by that you mean my father, you are mistaken. I haven’t heard from him since before I died, and he wasn’t happy with me then.”

  “Right, and we’re supposed to believe that. I suppose you have no idea why he brought you back from the dead?” Like a shark circling a reef in search of dying fish, Max stood and paced around the room.

  It wasn’t quite intimidating enough. In fact, the absurdity of the situation brought a bubble of laughter from Cyrus’s throat, which he quickly suppressed. “No, I do know that. Carrie told me. He’s trying to become a god. But you’re not going to find anything in here to stop him.”

  “Where would we find it?” Her attention finally captured by the conversation, Bella sat up. Cyrus would have found her attractive, if not for the fact she was a dog, but he didn’t believe it would be wise to make a pass in front of her boyfriend, especially when he was so obviously besotted with her.

  Instead, Cyrus gave her an answer simple enough even the caveman vampire could understand. “I don’t know. As I discussed with Carrie, my father was obsessed at one time with the quest for an ancient spell that would help him achieve such status. But I have no idea if he found that spell in particular, or if he did, where. And I would certainly have no idea how to stop it. If it’s anything like most of these ancient rituals, it will require some impossible undertaking to stop it once he’s begun. Which he must have, if I’m here. Father sticks to a very rigid schedule when it comes to any occult business. Things run more smoothly that way.”

  “We are trying to find a way to help Nathan. We think your father may have done something to him,” Bella volunteered, ignoring Max’s glare.

  “Oh, he’s absolutely done something to him,” Cyrus agreed. Turning to Max, he admonished, “Isn’t it amazing what you find out when you ask civilly?”

  “Shut up and tell us what you know, asshole.” Max leaned against the frame of the doorway that led, presumably, to the kitchen.

  Cyrus’s stomach rumbled. “I’m hungry. Does Nolen have anything to eat that isn’t blood?”

  “Get him something,” Bella ordered Max. The vampire gaped at her in rage, but turned to do her bidding.

  Oh, yes. God save us all from a vampire in love. Only when Max had left the room did Cyrus begin to speak. It was an intentional slight, to put Max in his place.

  “If my father is using the ritual I believe he is using, he’ll need to purify the souls of all those he’s turned. The only way to do that is to consume them, at which point he’ll perform another part of the ritual. I’m not sure what exactly that entails. But after it’s done and all the souls are destroyed—”

  “Destroyed?” Bella’s eyes widened in shock.

  It took Cyrus a moment to remember how barbaric that should sound. A soul was all a mortal creature had—did he have one now?—and humans prized theirs very highly.

  “Yes. Once the impurity has been obliterated, he’ll be able to finish the ritual as written.” Cyrus laughed, shrugging. “That will be the best way to stop him. Keep him from collecting the souls he needs.”

  “That’s what we plan to do.” Max returned from the kitchen, a crumpled bag of some snack food in his hands. “Here. Kitchen’s closed.”

  Though they were stale and horrid tasting, Cyrus pretended to enjoy the “cheese puffs,” as the bag proclaimed, with gusto. “Well, I’m assuming Father has simply used his blood tie to Nathan to call him back.”

  “Blood tie?” Max smirked. “I’m pretty damn familiar with that, and it couldn’t make me carve myself up and go on a killing rampage.”

  Cyrus shook his head. “No, but perhaps you’d go a little mad if you spent most of your time trying to block it out. I know my father. He used to torment me day and night with visions of—”

  No. He wouldn’t share those horrors with these strangers. “With visions of unpleasant things. He’d do that until I gave him what he wanted.”

  “Whatever he’s doing, it’s a lot worse than a scary picture show.” Max shook his head. “If we could just figure it out…”

  “We will keep looking,” Bella said, lifting another book. “Nathan has an impressive collection. We will find something.”

  As the hours ticked by, Max on the couch glancing furtively at the werewolf while she pretended not to notice, Cyrus feigning interest in the dusty text cradled on his lap, he felt a bizarre peace. Though his companions didn’t accept him, he felt involved in their single-minded task and the hope that fueled them. He might not die this week, or the next. He might live a whole year, maybe even two. As long as he had this optimism afforded only to the good guys.

  I’m a good guy now, Mouse, he thought, believing with all his heart she could hear him. I think I might stay this way.

  Chapter 21

  The Dark Night of the Soul

  I woke before sundown. Drugged into oblivion by whatever potion he’d been given, Nathan didn’t stir when I eased from his side. It hadn’t been a restful day. Every time I’d dozed off, I’d come dangerously close to falling off the bed. I’d jerk awake, disturbing Nathan in the process, and have to assure him I was not leaving him. I made a mental note to ask Bella to double his dose tomorrow, so I could get some sleep.

  In the living room, Max lay sprawled on the couch, an old-looking book over his face. I sincerely hoped the thing didn’t have paper lice. Bella lay in a pile of blankets on the floor, whimpering like a dog having a nightmare. There was no sign of Cyrus, but my bedroom door was open a crack.

  I leaned against the frame and gently eased the door open, hoping to avoid the creak of the sticky hinge. Inside, everything was as I had left it, with one notable exception.

  Cyrus lay curled in the fetal position on my bed, the blankets twisted artistically across his nude body.

  He was too bizarre, too out of place there. My stomach pitched as though I’d just gone over a particularly nasty hill on a roller coaster. I grabbed the doorjamb for balance.

  There had always been a neat division between my current and former lives. The apartment I’d lived in as a human had burned down, so there was no tie left to that time. My only encounters with Cyrus had taken place at the hospital, where I no longer worked; at his home, which I assumed now belonged to Dahlia and therefore I was in no danger of visiting; and in the alley outside the bookshop, where he’d cut my heart out, a place I strenuously avoided. In my mind there were Cyrus Spaces and Nathan Spaces, and they rarely overlapped. To have the two collide so violently and under such stressful circumstances was…well, it was just plain creepy.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jumped at the sound of Max’s voice and turned to see him stretch sleepily and scratch his stomach.

  I nodded to the open do
or. “Visiting the scene of my nightmares.”

  Max chuckled. “Aw, the little asshole’s all tuckered out.”

  “You were supposed to be nice to him,” I admonished. Though I shouldn’t care how they treated Cyrus, so long as they left him alive, every time I tried to make myself indifferent to him I remembered the dead girl in the desert and the pain her death had caused him.

  Max didn’t have that problem. “Well, he was supposed to be dead. If he can’t return common courtesy, why should I?”

  “He’s different now.” I wondered if he really slept, or if he was just faking it, and listening to every word we said.

  With a deep, pained sigh, Max shook his head. “What is it with you and this guy, Carrie? I mean, I know he’s your—was your—sire, but he’s not anymore. And after the stuff he did to you, and what he’s doing to Nathan now…why can’t you just let him go?”

  Whatever hackles are, mine were raised by that comment. I knew I was being overly defensive, but I couldn’t help it. My feelings for Cyrus, no matter how convoluted, were something I protected like a cherished family heirloom. I closed the door as quietly as I could and faced Max. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Explain it to me in a way I would. We’ve got nothing but time.” He leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, daring me in his cocky, silent way to defy him.

  I could have brushed him off with a simple refusal, but that would have closed off a part of me to him, and that was something I was unwilling to do. Max was a friend, and it wasn’t as if I had those in spades these days.

  “When I lived with him, Cyrus played so many mind games I had a hard time sorting out what feelings were mine and what ones he manipulated me into feeling.” I took a deep breath. I didn’t like talking about personal matters to anyone, even Nathan. At least with him, he knew what I was feeling before I did, and our “conversations” were little more than telepathic exchanges of emotion. “I didn’t get it quite sorted out before he died, and now that he’s back, some of those feelings are back, too.”

  “Do you love him?” The question was so blunt and naked, it sounded perverse.

  “No. I don’t love him. Not in a romantic sense.” At least I could deny that much.

  “What about other senses?” Max’s tone implied his bullshit detector was reading off the charts.

  That was one of the main problems with men. They couldn’t accept the concept of love unless it applied to sex.

  “I don’t love him. But I see the potential in him to become a good person, and I have a lot of admiration and yes, affection, for the man he is when he lets his guard down. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to run off with him or anything.” I thought of Nathan lying in the other room, and what might happen if we couldn’t save him. Was I ready to live a lifetime alone?

  “But I didn’t ask you to go easy on him because of any feelings I might have for him.” It seemed almost cruel to betray such private information about my old sire, but Max needed to understand my pleas for sensitivity where Cyrus was concerned. “Something happened in the desert. Not between him and me, but it was my fault. He wasn’t the only human being held by the Fangs. There was a girl—I guess they were keeping her alive to watch him or care for him. But they were…intimate. And I made a stupid mistake and got her killed. Max, I think he really loved her. She managed to reach some place inside of him I knew existed but had no clue how to unlock. Now that she’s gone, I’m afraid he’s closed that part of himself off again, and that’s going to make him susceptible to anything the Soul Eater might offer. I don’t want him to be a monster again.”

  Max didn’t speak. What could he have possibly said? Of course, before we could say any more, my bedroom door opened and Cyrus, clad only in the black slacks he’d worn on the trip, stepped out. “Whispering sweet nothings in the hallway? How romantic.”

  Max straightened instantly, looking a little disturbed by the implication. “No.”

  Cyrus laughed, and I flinched at the sound. It was too much like the monster who’d sired me. “I was joking. I know you’ve got your eye on the werewolf,” he stated.

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “Of course he does. He’s Max, and she’s female.”

  A patient smile formed on Cyrus’s mouth, and Max looked away, rubbing his neck in a classic gesture of social discomfort.

  “Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I’m impressed, Max. I was beginning to think you were always going to be the love ’em and leave ’em type.”

  He let out an exasperated breath. “Hey, I am the love ’em and leave ’em type. And I don’t love her. It was just…boredom fucking.”

  I exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Cyrus, the ocular communication equivalent of “thanks but no thanks for the details.”

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Cyrus announced, striding purposefully toward the bathroom. “I’ll leave you to your awkward moment.”

  I followed Max into the kitchen, where he rooted in the fridge for blood. When he reached for the teakettle, I offered, “I can do that.”

  He shook his head. “Nah. I need something to keep myself busy, or I’ll be in there waking Nathan up by worrying over him. How’d he do?”

  “Fine.” I sat at the table, apologizing for the loud scrape the chair made against the floor.

  “Don’t worry about waking her up, she sleeps like the dead. At least, like the dead who aren’t currently possessed.” Max winked at me as he set the kettle on the burner. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “None at all. So, what’s going on with you and Bella?” At his pointed look, I raised my hands helplessly. “I’m sorry, I’m a doctor. We’re supposed to ask questions.”

  “About people’s personal life?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Squirming under his knowing gaze, I shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  “You’re not that kind of doctor.”

  “And what kind of doctor is that?” For a second I thought he’d respond with a smart-assed answer about venereal disease.

  Instead, he took the other chair and rested his big forearms on the cracked Formica tabletop. “A head doctor. A shrink. Just admit you have a case of nosy frienditis.”

  “Fine. I have a case of nosy frienditis. Now answer the question.” It wasn’t a command, but gentle urging.

  Something was warring inside Max. I could see it in his boyish, blue eyes. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I have no idea. One minute we hated each other, the next I’m finding her split open like an overcooked hot dog. I bring her back here and bam, we’re all involved.”

  “That must have hurt for her,” I observed sagely.

  He gave me a look that suggested I keep my mouth shut lest I enrage him further. “It wasn’t like that. I had to finished stitching up her wounds first. Thank God you have so many boring medical books.”

  “I live to serve.” I drew patterns on the table with my fingertip, trying to figure out a way to delicately phrase my next question. “So…does this mean you’re…her mate or something?”

  “Well, we did ‘mate,’ so to speak. And I owe you guys for some broken dishes—”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah.” He shook his head. “The thing is, she thinks I’m in love with her.”

  “I take it you’re not?” I chuckled. “Max, you could save yourself a lot of trouble if you just kept your pants zipped.”

  “It’s not like that, this time. She thinks I love her, and she doesn’t love me, so she thinks she’s hurting my feelings or something.” The teakettle’s whistle sputtered, and Max jumped up to turn off the burner. Once blood boils, it burns, making for an unpleasant, scorched-pot-roast taste.

  “Well, you’ve really got no problem then, right?” I moved past him to snag a couple mugs. “If neither of you love each other, then you’re free and clear.”

  “And she walks away thinking she dumped me?” He swore, though I couldn’t tell if it was at the idea of being rejected by another sentient being, or i
f he’d made contact with a hot part of the kettle.

  “Is that the worst thing in the world?” I knew Max had a major pride problem, but I hadn’t realized it went so deep.

  He poured the blood into the mugs and set the remainder on the back burner. I assumed he left that portion for Nathan, and his thoughtfulness brought unexpected tears to my eyes. I quickly shooed them away, blaming my overemotional state on the fact I hadn’t had any sleep.

  “It’s not the worst,” Max conceded as he returned to the table with our breakfast. “But it’s not good. I got a rep to uphold.”

  I reached across the table to slap him lightly on the shoulder. He laughed, but the levity was brief. “Besides, I couldn’t be with her permanently. I think of that, then I think about Marcus—”

  “Your old sire?” I asked for clarity.

  He gave an affirmative nod. “I think about the fact that he’s gone, and all I’ve been carrying around is this yearning for him, wanting to feel what I felt with him. You know, in a totally not gay way. But then I think, wow, love. That’s a thing I have no power over, and it might feel good to know I’m not alone, and it’s like I’m betraying him.”

  “You’re not betraying him by moving on.” I spoke so vehemently the sound of my own voice startled me. Embarrassed, I cleared my throat and continued more softly. “What is it with you men, you think you have to hang on to everything.”

  “What do you mean?” He took a swallow of blood, his eyes meeting mine in a silent question over the rim of the mug.

  “You know exactly what I mean.” And if not all the details, well, it wasn’t my place to spill Nathan’s personal beans. “Nathan thinks he has to carry around a sack load of guilt over Marianne, and because of that, he can’t just get over it. You’re doing the same thing. Your guilt over the way your sire died is so precious to you, you refuse to give it up for even a second in case you might actually get over it and move on.”