Hotblood

by Juliann Whicker

  I sighed and turned to him nodding. “Of course. I don’t think I can do much, but I’ll try.”

  He held up a bag, and I smelled the faint blood stench and took a step away from him, revolted. “It’s only a mouse.”

  I took the bag with one hand while holding my nose with the other. “I’ve smelled a little too much blood lately,” I said, my voice coming out funny.

  He grinned for a second, and I smiled back at him, before we both sighed and I followed him down the long white hall, trimmed in dove gray instead of the usual black. The ceilings were high, lightened by tall windows on either side of the building. We went to the top of the stairs and started down. The first flight was a little wider than my mother’s house, the second flight was more wide and fancy and by the time we got to the bottom floor it had attained truly grand dimensions in gray flecked white marble. It would really hurt to hit your head on those steps I thought and wondered about Snowy.

  “Do you know what happened to my friend?” I asked him, my voice echoing in the hall.

  “The white-haired girl?” He nodded. “After she got stitches in her scalp I heard her complaining about what the bald patch did to her hairstyle.”

  I felt a little loosening in my chest. Someone would be all right after this. We followed a long hall to a paned glass door. He grabbed my arm and pulled me through, shutting the door behind us quickly. I looked around the greenhouse, the glossy green a magnificent foil for the jungle flowers that bloomed profusely. He kept walking through the room. “Don’t touch anything,” was all he said.

  I tightened my grip on my mouse bag and my nose, studying the back of his shirt. Jackson was so much like Devlin, if I hadn’t lived with him for so long I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. I wondered what my mother thought of him. I sighed, which is difficult to do with a plugged nose.

  “Is my mother around?”

  He stopped at another glass door and nodded while he grabbed me and we made the same hurried exit we’d used to go into the greenhouse. “You missed the trial. I heard it was pretty intense. Oh, I guess I may as well tell you. The ruling was her choice, either join the brothers in their destruction of Bliss, or take me in while they’re all away. It was a tough decision, but in the end I’m going to stay with you guys for awhile.”

  “Oh. You look so much like Devlin. That might be a little bit hard on my mother.”

  He grimaced and nodded. “Yeah. Hard on you, too.”

  I shrugged and followed him across the small lawn, around a hedge and through a graveled garden with a pond in it. Under the low branches of a beautiful old tree was a small cottage. I heard squawking from inside followed by a crash.

  “All right, are you ready?” he asked.

  I nodded and he opened the small door and pushed me in, slamming it behind me. I dove into a head roll and felt wings brush my shoulders. Spinning, I dodged to the side and tripped on an overturned table, scrambling to my feet, but not fast enough to miss the talons that scraped my arm. I twisted and caught the claws in my fist, jerking the bird upside down where I swung it back and forth. I stumbled backwards, the weight of the bird throwing me off balance for a moment while I struggled in the near darkness through the maze of overturned furniture to the sack with the mouse. Still swinging the bird, I fished out the mouse, and holding it gingerly by the tail, swung it to the beak while releasing the claws. It grabbed, and landed awkwardly on the ground, pinning the mouse while it eyed me suspiciously. I kept an eye on it while I pulled the table upright, then moved to a chair and fixed its cushion in place. I picked up a portrait and in the dim light could barely make out a small boy surrounded by a beautiful woman on one side, and Stephen on the other, his face smooth and handsome, with genuine happiness in his smile. Something about his smile reminded me of Lewis, and I put it face down on the table looking up in time to bring up my fist for the bird to land on. I didn’t make a sound when its talons dug into me, I smiled at it, gritting my teeth, and put his claws on the back of the chair instead. He settled calmly, preening his feathers as though he hadn’t been bent on destruction a moment before.

  “Jackson didn’t give me any gear,” I said, stroking the soft feathers, the softness reminding me of Lewis’ hair and I pulled back then forced myself to resume. I felt more settled after a few minutes, the repetitive motion reminding me of something, ocean waves I’d once seen as a child, crashing down to be swept away, then come crashing down again.

  The front door opened a crack, “Dariana,” Jackson whispered and I sighed, turning to him. The bird tugged on my hair, and I scooped it up, holding it under my arms, where it could easily peck my eyes out, but instead it tucked its head down in its wings.

  “Jackson, the mouse is eaten. Now what?”

  “Now I’ll call Willis. He worked with my dad at the aviary. He thought he could get the bird if someone settled it. You didn’t want to keep her, did you?”

  I shook my head no, but there was a reluctance in me to turn over the wild creature. “Can we set him free?” I asked, and Jackson looked surprised, like he’d never thought of that before.

  He shrugged. “I guess we could. It would have to be in the wild though; he’s been trained to attack people.”

  I nodded. “The woods by my house are wild. We’ll take him there.”

  We walked back to the house slowly, neither one of us wanting to leave the little gravel garden, to return to the black and white world.

  “So, my mother was on trial. What for?” I asked looking in the depths of the pond in time to see a flash of gold.

  “Mayhem,” he said with a grin. “It’s ridiculous, but anyone who’s not a Slide can’t cause destruction in the city without prior consent. Your mother destroyed that building without getting a permission slip.”

  “My mother destroyed a building?” I asked and noticed how vaguely interested I sounded as I kept my eyes focused on the koi.

  “Well, no one else can bring up a tornado like that, and the parts she destroyed were as far from you and the Brothers as she could get, so, yeah. I’d say it was her. From what they say, you missed that part. What is it like?”

  “What? Killing people? Watching helplessly while those around you die? Or being related to my mother?”

  He raised his eyebrows staring at me. “I meant what is it like being so angry that you don’t feel anything else. How could you ever stop?”

  “Old Peter stopped me.” I said flatly, not sure what I felt about that, whether I really felt anything anymore. The koi were beautiful. I didn’t mind the water dripping down my face, soaking the throw, it was very soft, I wondered for a moment what kind of yarn it was, then knelt with my elbows on the rim of the pond, watching the koi go around and around and around as the rain fell.

  “Jackson,” it was Grim’s voice. “The bird man is here.”

  “We’re going to set it free in the woods.” Jackson sounded unsure of himself and I looked up, noticed the way he didn’t look directly at Grim, like there was something horrible about him that he couldn’t bear to see. I studied Grim, but I didn’t see anything particularly horrific about him. There was nothing more terrible about him than there was about me.

  Grim nodded. “You’d better tell him then.” Jackson took off at a run, not looking back while Grim put a foot on the rim of the pond and looked down, as though the water was as fascinating for him as it was for me. “Do you have any questions?” His voice was low, dead.

  “I guess you could explain what happened,” I said without sounding particularly interested. I didn’t feel interested.

  “There were some Wild Houses, you know about this already, that were allying against Slide. They bought a blood worker with your brother, arranging Devlin to fall into his hands. The blood worker stole a cache of Axel paintings, and it was a perfect lure to pull us into the setup. It was by chance that the blood worker was at the gallery when you found your Axel, and thought something like that would work to lure you in. He already had the paintings;
I think his original scheme was to sell them on the black market before he was brought in by Bliss.” Grim sighed deeply. “So that’s what Axel was doing in the area; tracking down his stolen paintings. It was sheer chance he met you and the whole soul… anyway, his body wasn’t found, so either he escaped or… he didn’t.”

  “He didn’t,” I said calmly. “Jason stuck a knife through his neck, down his heart, it was a death strike. I knew it when I saw it.”

  “Dari,” Grim said gently. “It isn’t your fault that he died.”

  “My soul flinched from killing,” I said flatly. “His soul wouldn’t have hesitated, wouldn’t have died. I know because of all the people I slaughtered without a second thought. I killed him the second I took his soul.” I shrugged and felt… nothing.

  “I suppose you’re responsible for Stephen as well,” he said thoughtfully.

  “If I hadn’t been stupid enough to go running into such an obvious trap, he’d be alive.”

  “Well that does make matters simple. So long as you’re taking all the blame for the incident, you should know that my left femur hasn’t quite been the same since we came through the ceiling.”

  I looked at him and saw a spark of humor underneath his unflappable expression. “Sure. One tweaked femur to add to the list. No problem.”

  “You seem to be holding up rather well under the burden of the world’s troubles. How do you do it?”

  I shrugged. “So how did you guys find me when you did?”

  “Satan actually noticed you were missing and called around. He talked to Snowy’s mother and heard about the party, then called for a ride. We picked him up on the side of the highway, no doubt his hunk of metal has been towed away by now, he won’t like that, and came to your rescue. We all expected your friend to tell us before you went to the city. Of course, no one expected her to be carrying either.”

  “That was weird.” I said and felt a vague rush of an emotion that died instead of growing into anything.

  “It was weird to hear that the nice boy in town who was rumored to be your soul mate was Axel.” He shook his head.

  “So you’d heard of him before this? You don’t really seem like you’re into art.”

  He made a face. “I’m not. Axel’s aren’t exactly art though. Anyway, Axel wasn’t just a painter. He was a hybrid like you, only half Wild and half Hot. His father, a Wild, was the most brutal killer during the Hollow Wars. He was…” he got a far off look in his eyes. “Truly terrifying. His son was raised by a Wild house out west. Your Lewis, the Axel, was notorious for his house in a different way than Devlin was. His House sent him on the most dangerous missions without compunction for how many people he killed, and then one day he got bored with playing assassin and decided to try his hand at being a Hotblood.” He smiled slightly. “There are more stories about him than could possibly be true.”

  “So he never was anything like the person he pretended to be.”

  “No, probably not.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “But who is?”

  I trailed my fingers in the water. “I suppose you’re right. I never told him about my dad, the need I have for hunting, and tasting death.” I shook my head as the sensation of death, still so fresh from so many deaths, overwhelmed me. I lunged forward and buried my face in the water, only for a moment before I came out, shaking my hair and blinking in the gray light.

  Grim’s hand was solid and reassuring on my shoulder. His words weren’t. “Welcome to the House, Daughter of Slide.” With that he pushed against my shoulder and rose to his feet. I watched him walk away, feeling like there was something here, a big piece that I should know, but I didn’t call after him.

  The drive home was very quiet, except when the bird, perched on my arm where I was now wearing a leather cuff over the bandage, would shriek every now and again. I hushed her absently as I stared out the window, watching the woods pass in an unending line until we pulled over and released the eagle. I felt something when I let her go, watching her circle higher and higher in the air, but the feeling passed as I sat in the car and resumed watching the endless scenery.

  Jackson holed up in the basement like Satan had done, only coming up for meals, which he tried valiantly to cook, and together we made some truly terrible dishes. He was the best part of our house. He was still a basically cheerful person and my mother had stopped trying. She sat in tense silence when she wasn’t pacing, and I wasn’t sure which was worse. After a week of school, of mostly numbness, my mother started watching me. I knew what she wanted, what she was waiting for. She was waiting for me to have the mental breakdown, to show my terrible grief. The weather got colder, the rain changing to sleet, then to snow, the town got dumped on, swirling flakes made it hard to tell when it was snowing or not. I almost liked school; it got me away from my mother.

  I sat in my classes and looked out the window at the snow, or studied the pattern of wood on my desk, or counted the hairs on my arm, Entire days passed without my feeling anything. I smiled and chatted with Snowy, relieved that she seemed to find the whole episode over and not worth talking about. Osmond practically disappeared. Every time I thought I saw him, he’d be heading in the opposite direction.

  I was actually curious enough about it to ask Snowy one day. “I never see Osmond anymore; how did he get so busy?”

  She raised her immaculate eyebrows. “He’s upset about the Halloween thing. He thinks it’s his fault because he… well, that’s all.”

  I stared at her, wondering if she was joking for a second, but no, that was her serious as fashion face. I found Osmond in the boys locker room. I hesitated for a minute before going in, well, I actually waited for all the guys in football to leave first, but he stayed behind. It was dark in the room, only lights on here and there, illuminating the beigy tile and wooden benches. I heard a shower on and stopped, seeing a figure emerge from the steam. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that he was wearing a towel. He didn’t see me, but went to his locker instead, not noticing me where I hovered near the door. I spoke quickly before he took off the towel.

  “Osmond, it’s not your fault.” There, I’d said it; I could leave now. Except when he looked up at me, he looked so angry, but not at me, at himself. I knew that feeling, I knew that feeling better than any other feeling in the world.

  “Sure, Dari. No problem.”

  I hated to see Osmond like this, the one person in the world who was truly nice, truly good, truly what he seemed to be. I went over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, noticing the wetness, the steam that still came off the skin. His muscles were impressive. He could have been a Hotblood the way he looked right then. I found myself feeling a little bit funny, more awkward than before. “What’s wrong?” I asked looking up at him, trying to see how I could fix this, how I could save somebody.

  He took my hand off his shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze before he dropped it and turned away. He grabbed a shirt out of his locker and put it on without bothering to dry off properly first. I could see the water soaking through his shirt in places.

  “Osmond?” I asked again.

  “Look, let’s talk over burgers okay? I’m going to get dressed and you should wait outside.”

  I nodded relieved that he was sounding more like himself, more in control and certain.

  I waited for long minutes before he came out, looking slightly like an overstuffed marshmallow in the puffy coat he already had on. We took his truck, and I warmed up my fingers on the heater, feeling stupid for only bringing the light jacket. We went through the drive-in and then parked by the woods to eat. I chewed slowly, glad not to be eating anything Jackson cooked. It made me miss Satan.

  “So what exactly made you come into the boy’s locker room today? I think that sort of thing could get you expelled, or at least sent to detention,” he said before cramming another bite in his mouth.

  “I miss you.” He looked skeptical and I sighed. “I feel like you’re avoiding me and Snowy says you feel guilty for Halloween, whi
ch is so stupid. I really don’t see how a smart guy like you could fall for something like that, but, I don’t know, is she right?”

  “I enacted that whole scene on the roof. I lost my temper. I’m not allowed to even have a temper, and I lost it. I should have been the person that you called when you needed help. I should be the next thing to a big brother. It should be me with stitches in my head.”

  “Oh.” I sighed and fished a fry out of the bottom of my sack. “Well, avoiding me isn’t really brotherly.”

  “I failed,” He said flatly.

  “Look, the next time I go on a suicidal mission you’re the first person I’ll call. Okay? Osmond, you are too nice to feel bad about something like that. People make mistakes all the time. Devlin, who was, you know, practically perfect, made a huge mistake. If you can forgive me for not trusting you, for running after someone who you knew better than I did, I’d appreciate it.”

  He scowled at his hamburger, then slowly his face smoothed and he asked me quietly, “So you’re not grieving for him?”

  I felt my chest tighten, like everything inside of me got frozen for a second before I exhaled. “The person who I thought I knew doesn’t exist. How can I mourn an illusion?”

  He sighed and patted my shoulder awkwardly. I leaned over and put my head on his arm, and we stayed like that for some time. It was true, I wasn’t mourning. I couldn’t move past the ice to feel anything like grief. It was all right though. I didn’t need to feel, not when I had snow to watch, not when I had Jackson to make dinner with in silence that neither one of us noticed. Not when I had Osmond, Snowy, Smoke, and Ash to sit with at lunch time, laughing at their jokes, watching Snowy and Smoke get closer and closer together.

  “We have to have a sleepover,” Snowy said one day, and I nodded easily. “I mean, we can stay up late doing manicures and pedicures, and the whole thing.”

  I nodded again and noticed the look she gave Osmond when she thought I wasn’t looking. “What?” I asked.