Blood Revealed

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Jake held his hands out, not in surrender, but as if he could bail the thing up. Then she realized what he was doing. He was stopping the creature from going after Simone.

  Fear speared her and drove power through her legs. As she launched herself at the thing, a sound came out of her that was almost primordial. She was venting all her fear and panic and rage. At the same time she bought her fist swinging up and around. She aimed high, for the facial features that must surely be as vulnerable as a human’s.

  She never connected. The thing raised its arm, not with its fists up like a human would have. Instead, its elbows projected out. It swung the elbow which connected with her arm in a glancing blow that only just barely redirected her swing.

  That was all that was needed. Hot agony clamped her arm and a sharp pain ripped along the tender flesh of her inner forearm. She cried out and staggered backward. Her whole arm went numb and she just barely caught the keys as they fell out of her fingers. She gripped the keys in her right hand and tried to shake life back into her left. She couldn’t even move it.

  She moved back, away from the thing.

  It hissed and she knew it was measuring her.

  This close to it, she grew aware of the stench that rose from its hide. It was a mix of rotting meat and ancient dust that clogged her nose and made her gag. She gripped her jaw tightly against the reaction and studied the elbow of the creature. There was another bony projection sticking out from the back of the elbow, like a point or a claw. There were more of the claws on the back of what would’ve been its knuckles—the joints at the end of long fingers, which look like they had an extra joint.

  She glanced past the Summani and saw that Jake had shaken off his paralysis and had almost reached the end of the alley. Simone was nowhere to be seen. Relief touched her and she looked up at the dark creature speculatively.

  The Summani gave another short squawk. She wondered if it was some sort of communication. She couldn’t remember if the vampires had said they could talk or not. Perhaps this was talking for this thing.

  It took a step back. Then another.

  It was retreating.

  Blythe made herself stand still and look into its eyes, daring it to move toward her again. She understood as clearly as the creature did that if she backed down at all, it would leap on her. Perhaps this was the first time it had come across any sort of human resistance. She didn’t know and would find out later. For now she had to hold her ground.

  It took another step back. There were fifteen feet between them now. Then it turned and started taking long, loping steps that might have been its version of running. Because of the dark color of the hide, the creature blended in with the shadows, until she could no longer see it.

  Blythe immediately turned and sprinted for her car, her teeth chattering as delayed panic set in. She fumbled the keys with her one good hand, because it wasn’t her dominant one. She got the car going and wheeled it around in a hard circle and screamed back to the street.

  Jake and Simone were clinging to each other again, standing under the full light of the streetlamp, their heads turning as they looked for her. Simone spotted her first and pulled Jake into a run toward her. They tumbled out onto the street and Blythe stamped on the brakes long enough for them to open the doors and fall into the car.

  Then she got the hell out of there.

  On the way back to the house she dialed 911 and reported what had happened. There was a long silence at the other end of the phone, then the woman’s professionalism kicked in and she took the details down without a quiver.

  “The Summani didn’t feed,” Blythe told the woman.

  On the seat behind her, Simone drew in a quivering breath of horror.

  “If it’s hungry,” Blythe continued, “it will continue to hunt until it finds food. There are kids, families, all over this neighborhood. You have to warn them.”

  Then she disconnected and tossed the phone onto the seat next to her, because she needed that hand to drive. Using just the side of her wrist and her knee didn’t lend to accurate driving.

  Simone and Jake were silent until they reach the house. Still driven by fear and shock, they ran into the house. Blythe checked the front and back yards, the keys held firmly in her hand, then secured the house. Everyone helped her check all the doors and windows and when they were finishing, Simone looked at Blythe with big eyes. “Won’t they be able to just break the windows and come in?”

  Jake jerked, like he had been touched with a live wire.

  Blythe considered and discarded a dozen different reassuring answers. Pleasant lies would not serve them now. So she looked all three of her kids in the eye. “They won’t break windows to reach us because there’s too much food just walking around out there.”

  Simone began to cry silently, her tears rolling down her cheeks. Eloise hugged her, while Jake stared out the window, his shoulders square. He was shaking, too. He was very white.

  There was one patent cure for shock that worked on everyone Blythe had ever administered the cure to. She turned toward the stairs. “Hot chocolate for everyone,” she declared.

  She put lots of sugar in the mix and insisted everyone drink up. By the time they had all finished their mugs of chocolate, she was starting to feel some life come back to her hand. The arm was still mostly useless. It was good to know that the toxin was not a permanent one.

  Even though it was still relatively early, Blythe insisted everyone go to bed. Sleep was another restorative.

  She tucked all three of them in, even though Jake protested that he didn’t need to be tendered to like a three-year-old. Then he yawned mightily.

  Blythe kissed him, anyway.

  Then she made herself another hot chocolate and sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop to catch up on blog posts.

  Now she was staring at a blank screen, wondering what to write.

  It had been Jake’s suggestion that she tell everyone about the Others and how to fight them, that first night when the vampires had come out.

  It had never occurred to her that her family would be among the first humans to deal with the Summanus. She had managed to tuck the knowledge about the Others into the far recesses of her mind and for the last two weeks have been living a perfectly normal life. This was despite having told the kids that they were on a war footing. Now she was paying for her lack of discipline.

  The problem was, she hadn’t been able to take any of it very seriously, even though intellectually she understood that this was not a hoax.

  Well, now she knew better.

  And it just happened that she had a platform that others would listen to. Jake was right. Not only must she tell everyone what she knew about the Summanus, she had a moral obligation to shout it as loudly as she could.

  She resettled her hand so her fingers were lined up on the keyboard properly. She thought for a moment, then began to type.

  The Summanus are not like anything you’ve ever seen before. They look like animals that have been put through some mad scientist’s laboratory experiment and have emerged at the other end as some ungodly creature that has an appointment with the devil. They are not animals the way that you and I think of them. They are smart. And they know how to fight.

  They have defense mechanisms you’ve never seen before. They will use them against you if you try to fight them. So let me tell you about them….

  Chapter Eight

  Los Angeles, three weeks later.

  Dominic trailed after the other three as they all walked into the big living room. As usual the room was filled with light, the sun streaming through the big windows. Dominic wasn’t sure why he’d ever thought the room was attractive. All he knew as he dragged himself one foot after another behind the others was that he didn’t want to be here.

  Where the hell would he go?

  Nial, Sebastian and Winter had been forced out of their house by a combination of media frenzy and hypocritical neighbors who had used all their considerable financi
al clout to pull strings and have them removed.

  A lot of legal precedents had been quoted. What Dominic understood was that Nial, Sebastian and Winter were not wanted.

  Perhaps Nial had understood that just as clearly, because he had not tried to fight the injustice of being turfed out of a home that he owned and a neighborhood in which he had lived peacefully for years. When Roman, who had been a lawyer in a lifetime some years ago, had glanced over the writ, he had shaken his head. “There’s all sorts of room to argue the point here,” he had told Nial. “This is very close to being a nuisance suit. They’re really stretching it. You could argue it and I think you might win.”

  “There’s no precedents, because vampires have never been processed as themselves in the eyes of the law,” Nial pointed out.

  Sebastian had been steaming. “So you will be the precedent.”

  Nial curled his fingers around Sebastian’s neck. “I know this is hard,” he said softly. “We knew that this sort of thing might happen. For now, we give way. This is not the time to argue civil rights, not when the Others are out there.”

  “So where are we going to go? What people will accept us?” Winter had asked, voicing the question in Dominic’s mind. As he had been living in the big house for over a year, he was as interested in the answer as they were.

  He had assumed that Nial would try to reach some arrangement with Garrett, Roman and Kate. Garrett, however, killed that prospect from the get-go. He had been frank. “I’m being forced out of my own corporation and they’re talking civil suits, too. So I’m going to be setting up permanently here in LA. I’m sure that Kate and Roman would want you to stay with us, but we just don’t have the room. It’s a small house. We never planned for anyone other than us three to live here.” He shook his head a little. “Although if this goes on, we may have to think of a more permanent arrangement for everyone. Living as humans in individual living quarters may become impractical.”

  “Communes?” Kate asked, looking amused.

  “Don’t laugh,” Nial had told her. “Even human lifestyles are being reinvented at the moment. Garrett may be right. Living together in big groups may be our only defense against the Summanus, particularly if they get together with the Ĉiela and the Elah.”

  “I don’t think things have gone nearly that far yet,” Patrick had said from the corner of the room. They had been all sitting around Garrett’s big kitchen at the time. Dominic noticed that Patrick tended to pick a far corner in any room he happened to be in. He would stand back and keep his mouth shut. It seemed to him that Patrick had been subdued for weeks. Since the revelation, really. But then, the man’s career had imploded, so that was understandable. Now, though, Patrick was speaking up and what he was saying was quite unexpected. “I have a huge house. There are seven bedrooms and just as many bathrooms. Why don’t you move in with me, at least until things get settled?”

  Winter had protested. What had decided the matter was the strength of the security surrounding Patrick’s house. The media had not forgiven him and the paparazzi hung around outside the house all hours of the day, hoping for a glimpse. Which meant that Patrick didn’t move out of the house very much, unless he could be smuggled out to avoid the paparazzi. The increased security sold Nial on the idea.

  Now it was a week later and they were all moving into Patrick’s house. Dominic was distinctly uneasy at the idea. He had proposed finding himself an apartment somewhere in LA. Nial had refused to consider the idea.

  “We need you close by, Dominic,” he had told him. “And I think you need us, too. You’re vulnerable out there on your own.”

  Which was quite true. Dominic had no trouble accepting that. He was not a fighter, even though he had done his fair share of fighting in the last few years. It looked like he would be doing a lot more of it, too. The Summanus had invaded Los Angeles with the thoroughness of a rat invasion. No one went out at night anymore. Humans were adjusting to the idea that after sunset, all life came to a screeching halt.

  And it seemed that Dominic had an advantage over most humans and vampires, one that he had acquired as a result of his deafness, which was ironic. He’d never thought that being deaf would provide such an benefit. He was able to sense the presence of the Summanus, even if they were undercover. That meant that he could tell if a Summanus was hiding and waiting for a human to come within reach.

  He had expected that once humans had seen the Summanus for themselves and the truth of what the vampires had explained to them that first time they had exposed themselves, would gain for the vampires human acceptance. Even though the humans were more than happy to use the vampires as a defense mechanism, acceptance was very far from reality.

  So Dominic had not argued very hard about finding his own apartment. And now here he was in Patrick’s house again, standing in the room where the piano was. He turned his back on it, as Patrick came into the room. Patrick was wearing jeans and a sweater in a blue color that made his eyes pop. It was the most casual clothing Dominic had ever seen him wearing. It seemed that Patrick was adjusting to his new life, too.

  “Everything’s ready, Patrick said. “Come with me and I’ll show you the rest of the house. You can pick out what rooms you want. Do you need three bedrooms, or just one?”

  Winter had pursed her lips and Sebastian just grinned.

  “Three bedrooms would be good, if you can spare them,” Nial said easily.

  “Three it is then. Come and see them.” Patrick had moved off ahead of the other three, who had followed him, leaving Dominic alone in the room.

  Dominic put his backpack and duffel bag down slowly. He couldn’t help it. He found himself turning to look at the piano even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

  While telling himself he should follow the others, he moved over to the shining instrument. He realized his hands were straightening the brocade thing lying over the top of it, straightening out the folds with compulsive movements. The touch of the black lacquer under his fingers was cool. He let his fingers slide across the wood.

  It was a simple step after that to move around the corner and sit on the bench. Someone had carelessly left the lid up and the keys gleamed crisp white in the morning sun. He stared at them.

  He didn’t make a decision to touch them, yet his hands came up, anyway. They hovered over the keys, his fingers automatically moving into position. He watched the tips descend, until they made contact with the keys.

  They were not ivory. Instead, they were a high quality resin that the better piano keys were made of. Resin didn’t stick to the fingers as plastic could, especially after several minutes of playing, when the fingers and hands could get sweaty.

  Just by touching the keys Dominic could tell that this was a very good piano. Someone had known what they were doing when they had bought it. The keys snuggled up under his fingers like old friends.

  His heart was drumming and for right now that was all he could hear because there was no one else in the room. He didn’t really hear it though. He could feel it because the beats were so hard.

  He let his fingers simply touch the top of the keys for a long moment. His mind was yammering at him to stand up and walk away. He just couldn’t.

  Finally his fingers pressed down. Wagner’s Tristan Chord, the unusual opening to Tristan and Iseult.

  Nothing.

  His heart lurch sickeningly.

  Clumsily, he pressed the chord again.

  Still nothing.

  The truth slammed into him with the impact of an anvil landing from a great height. His chest creaked.

  How long did he sit there, with his fingers hovering over the keys, while the horror circled through him, making him sick with despair? He lost track of time. His vision swam as the tears gathered.

  He did not dare touch the keys again. Yet he couldn’t take his hands away.

  When the hand settled on his shoulder, he knew it was Patrick from the unique signature of his thoughts.

  Dominic forced him
self to turn his head away. He closed his eyes and tucked his hands onto his thighs, like he was hiding them away.

  “You were a pianist, weren’t you?” Patrick’s mental voice was soft and filled with empathy.

  Dominic swallowed. He still couldn’t look at him. “You mean you haven’t looked into my background yet and found out who I am?”

  “It didn’t seem fair to do that, not without your knowledge. You don’t want to tell me yourself?”

  “Why don’t you ask Sebastian to tell you? I can’t. Not now.”

  He felt Patrick sit down next to him on the long bench. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  Dominic shook his head. It seemed impossible to say the words aloud.

  “Is there something wrong with this piano?”

  The defensive note in Patrick’s thoughts was almost funny. He thought Dominic was disparaging his very fine piano, which he had probably spent months looking for and days haggling over the price.

  “Dominic?”

  Dominic turned on him. “Don’t you get it?” He put his fingers over his ears. “I’m deaf.”

  Patrick shrugged. The line over his fine nose deepened into a frown, though. “Winter cured you. You can hear again.”

  “I can’t hear the music!” The cry tore out of him from deep inside his chest bringing pain with it. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. They hurt.

  Patrick was staring at him with gathering horror. He was starting to get it. Dominic drove the point home, anyway.

  “I can’t hear the music. I’m deaf. I can hear people because they have thoughts but a piano doesn’t have thoughts. I can’t hear the piano. I can’t hear an orchestra. I can’t follow the beat. I can’t hear the notes. Music is still lost to me.”

  Patrick’s gaze dropped away from his. His shoulders lifted and dropped in a heavy sigh. His thoughts circled endlessly around the awfulness he felt. Building up from underneath that was a sense of identity.