by Nicola Rose
“Fine, it’s done,” Emory flapped his hand, eager to move forward with the show.
Zac took a breath and ran his finger along the flat side of the blade in his hands. To my surprise, Alex still remained mute.
“Do you need a reminder of the words to be spoken, or the ritual required?” Beatrix offered.
“Fuck off. You know it’s been etched into my mind from the moment the mark appeared,” Zac snarled.
“I didn’t know that, actually. It’s been so many years since the mark materialised on anyone. We’ve sired thousands of twins and… nothing. The magic is weakening, but with your help I’ll make it stronger than ever before.”
“Sounds like a blast,” Zac quipped, just as he slid the blade deftly over a wrist and dripped his blood into the font. I felt Emory shift with excitement beside me.
“Sanguis ut sanguis,” Zac spoke and dipped an index finger into the blood. Then he took that red finger and held it to Alex’s mouth. I watched in horror as Alex licked it, lapping at his brother’s blood like it was frosting on a cake, all the while staring into each other’s eyes. Hatred and anger burned in the space between them.
“Anima ut anima.” This time Zac took the blade to Alex’s wrist and opened up a gaping wound with a violent slash. Blood poured into the font. Zac swiped his finger to Alex’s wound and hastily sucked the blood off.
“In tenebris, trans lux,” he continued, this time placing his whole palm into the font and pulling it back, covered in slick red…
My vision spun. Everything went fuzzy around the edges.
“Omnis virtus noster.” He pressed the bloodied hand to his arm. His skin was a patchwork of tattoos, but I knew instinctively where his hand had gone – to the Legacy mark. He’d shown me before. It looked like a sun with symmetrical swirls, next to the words Fiat Lux – let there be light. Was that intentionally ironic? I’d asked him that, the first time I saw it, before I knew what he was. It wasn’t even remotely funny any longer.
The tension increased as Zac stepped back from the font and they waited.
For what? That was it? All the fuss and it was over and done with like that?
I couldn’t understand all the words he’d spoken, but I knew some Latin and the gist of it was blood, darkness, light and power.
A shriek drew everyone’s attention as a woman was marched through the hall.
The set of Zac’s shoulders changed. His head bowed, but his breathing quickened. I could tell by the intense rise and fall of his chest.
With one vicious snarl he was upon the woman, burying his face into her neck. In the next second Alex had joined him. Her screams didn’t last long, but mine did. I cried, and screamed, and I didn’t shut up, even when Raze smashed my face into the floor. His boot remained on my cheek, pressing me down, but I could glance up enough to see Zac dragging her limp body to the font and holding her so that whatever blood was left dripped into the stone bowl.
“This sacrifice symbolises my loyalty to my new family. I am an Elwood, today and forever. Ego autem nox,” Zac’s voice deepened with every word, and then he dropped to his knees with a terrifying roar.
The room fell silent. Expectant.
I couldn’t breathe. Magic hammered angrily in my core, thrashing against a cage. I longed to set it free and burn this whole place to the ground. Raze had removed his boot from my face and I found myself halfway between sitting and standing, frozen in fear, paralysed by indecision.
Zac and Alex were both hunched over on all fours, heads bowed, shoulders still heaving with panting breaths, or was it growling? Yes, it was definitely changing; a visible rage building inside them. Honestly, I wondered for a moment if werewolves were a thing. Were they about to morph?!
It turned out they weren’t wolves, but whatever Zac was, when he slowly raised his head and his eyes met mine – I could tell immediately that he wasn’t himself any longer. He zoned in on me and I recoiled, my heart jumping into my throat. I didn’t know those eyes, so full of venom. Truly satanic. Fire danced inside the amber irises – no longer ablaze with passion, but the with flames of hell.
His lips twisted back like a rabid animal, drool spraying as he let out another growl, ferocious enough that I felt the dais tremble. With the next snarl he shot to his feet and glared at the font. It exploded, sending blood and stone fragments flying.
Alex regained his feet. He wasn’t snarling, he didn’t look like he was about to rip the world to pieces. In contrast to Zac, his face was unnervingly calm, but his fists clenched. That was the only indication that he felt anything other than bemusement. As if realising this, he flexed his fingers, marvelling at his own hands like he’d never seen them before. What was he feeling? Newfound strength?
Ruben groaned and Zac shot to him. From the corner of my eye I noted that Emory was nodding in approval. For what, I didn’t know. The speed Zac moved? The exploding font? Or perhaps simply that he finally had what he desired.
Zac stared at Ruben for what seemed like forever. Then Ruben’s head exploded. Blood, flesh and brain splattered around Zac. From the shoulders up, there was nothing left of Ruben’s face, just a bloody stump of neck.
I watched Beatrix. Had she done that? Surely not Zac? But she was just looking at Zac with an anxious pride, as a mother watches her child learn to walk.
I focussed on Alex. I couldn’t watch Zac flicking bits of gore from his shirt. Alex stared me down. I wished I knew what message he was trying to convey with his eyes. It was either that he wanted to kill me, or that he wanted to save me; the glare was too cold and deep, and I was shaking too much…
He held out his hands and my face crumpled. He wanted me to go to him? Now? Was he serious?!
I was still in a weird half-standing position. I went to straighten up, and someone knocked me as they barged past. It was Raze, but I realised quickly that for once he hadn’t shoved me intentionally. He was fighting against an invisible force, one that was drawing him down the dais and across the floor, straight to Alex. He hadn’t been holding his hands out to me, he was using power to move Raze.
Throughout all the carnage a sense of satisfaction brushed over me as Raze cried out in frustration. Alex spun him round so that he was facing the dais.
A crunch drew sidelong glances from everyone as Zac went about dismantling what was left of Ruben’s body, currently yanking off his left leg from the hip joint.
“Look into Jess’s eyes while you die,” Alex said, bringing the attention back to his own show.
Raze stared at me, eyes wide with terror. He looked like he was fighting to move, every muscle tense and bulging, but he was rooted to the spot. Alex tore off Raze’s t-shirt and ran a hand over his bare chest. Then he stepped behind him and rested his chin on Raze’s shoulder, so that he too could stare at me.
Raze made a choking sound, blood escaping his lips.
A faint line appeared on his chest. It grew darker, and wider, and then fractured into several lines. Seeping, bleeding.
Alex smiled. Raze garbled something and spat out blood.
The skin on his chest completely split apart and his heart fell from the cavity, dangling down to his navel, held there by strips of artery, or whatever they were.
Zac was suddenly there, shoving Alex aside with territorial rage.
“This is my home,” Zac’s voice was so alien it made my own heart shrivel up in fear. “Run along, brother, you are now an official enemy of the Bael. Cross paths again and you’re dead blood.” He snapped his fingers and Raze’s entire chest erupted in a fountain of blood and bits.
Emory clapped his hands slowly in appreciation, applauding the freak show.
Someone screamed Zac’s name. I looked around the room and everyone was staring at me. I clasped a hand to my mouth, not to stop from screaming again, but to try and hold back the vomit. The stench in the room was unlike anything I could describe. It was death, and animal; primal.
“This is your fucking fault!” Zac was suddenly upon me, pinning me to
the ground with a crushing hand to my throat. “All you’ve brought me is pain and anger. I’ve never loved you, I fucking hate you. You’ve done this. What happens next is on you.”
8
Jess
Something woke me with a start. It wasn’t something bad or out of place, and that’s why it made me uneasy – I’d awoken with a feeling of rightness, of being in the right bed, but that couldn’t be?
Yet, it was. I was right there, in my apartment on Port Isabel, tucked up under my duvet. If the past few days had all been a dream, I’d get down on my knees and praise the Lord. I’d even start going to church again if it would help. Please. Please let it all have been a dream.
I made a move to get up and the pain rushed at me, in my core first, then the rest. My arms were bruised, my ribs battered. Everything felt like it had been crushed. I cried out in agony and fear, my heart getting tighter by the second, breathing shallow.
Do not freak out. Do not go having a panic attack now that you’re back here safe.
“Zac!” I screamed, lunging from the bed and ignoring the fresh, blinding wave of pain. No pain in my skin could be as bad as the pain that was threatening to tear my heart from my chest.
The door opened and Leon stood before me. He looked terrible.
“Leon.” I rushed over and wrapped my arms around him. He held me awkwardly, patting my back until I let go. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Leon refused to meet my eyes.
“So why aren’t you out there finding him?” I pulled Emory’s blue dress over my head and tossed it aside like it was poisonous. I’d burn it for real later.
Leon coughed and looked away as I stumbled to the closet in my underwear and found fresh clothes. I stank like shit but I’d shower later. If I got in there now I might collapse under the warmth and never come out again. First, I would find him.
“Jess, stop,” Leon urged as I rallied around him, gathering my purse and bike keys. “Jess! Please!” He took my arm and pulled me to a halt.
“What? I can’t sit around here, I need to find him.”
“You won’t find him, but Eva is trailing him. I’m going to join her now that you’re awake.”
“How did I get here? What happened? I don’t remember, after… after… he…” My knees gave out. Leon caught under my arms and helped me to a chair. Visions swam before me; Zac so feral, so hateful, not only in his physical attack on me, but in his words. He’d attacked me, but then Emory said something and he disappeared. The last thing I recalled was Emory shoving me out of the mansion, into the waiting arms of Leon.
“Jess, you’re a mess. You’ve been through a lot, and you’ve been unconscious for days. I can’t stay any longer, but you need someone to look after you. I called Danny, he’s on his way,” Leon kept his gaze out the window, down onto the hustle of the busy street below.
“You did what?” I shrieked. “Are you fucking crazy?! I can’t see him now!” A fresh surge of nausea settled in my gut.
“He’s your friend, he can help you.”
“I thought you were my friend, and Eva?”
“We are.” He finally turned to look me in the eyes. Fuck. He looked like he needed ten years sleep. The strain, the pain, the look of helplessness – these things didn’t belong on his boyish face. “Zac needs us – me and Eva. He won’t allow us near him, but we won’t leave him. We’ll follow him. I can’t be in two places. I wish I could stay here for you. That’s what he ordered me to do… but I can’t. I can’t leave him—”
“Take me with you,” I interrupted. “He needs me too, and fuck, I need him. I’ll be alright—”
“No. That’s a strict order I can’t break. It’s not safe for you to be around him. He’ll hurt you.”
“He needs me—”
“He doesn’t!” Leon raked a hand through his blonde curls. “He needs to be away from you. He’s gone dark, he can’t get a hold of himself. Everything that he didn’t like about you has all been magnified. Everything he didn’t like about everything is fucking magnified. Add to that your scent, the sanguine pull… Jess, you’ll break him. And he’ll destroy you in return.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t tell if I was crying, or screaming, or both. That seemed to be happening a lot. I heard the door buzzer and then Danny was scooping me into his arms.
“You motherfuckers!” he yelled. “What have you done to her this time?”
I was back in bed, again.
Would people stop putting me into fucking bed!
I thrust myself up and a delicious smell made me salivate. Storming through to the kitchen, I found Danny making soup.
Fucking soup!
“I’m not sick,” I grumbled. “I don’t need nurturing with duvets and soup.”
“That’s it? That’s the first thing you’re going to say to me after you disappeared and didn’t bother to let me know you were still alive, or dead like Anna?”
“Don’t say her name,” I whispered.
“What about Zac? Am I allowed to say his name?”
I started crying again. Fucking stupid tears. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to walk over to Danny and slap his face. Instead, I stumbled into his safe arms and let him mumble into my hair.
“I’ve got you, Jess. You know I’ve always got you.”
He held me until I’d finished crying an ocean.
He didn’t push me, didn’t force any answers. He just held me, and cooked, and let us sit in silence. And when he said he needed to go to work and I broke down, he called in sick and held me for longer.
On the third day I started talking. Once I started I couldn’t stop. I told him everything. All of it. From the beginning to the end. No, not the end. This is not the end. Zac will be back.
At first, when I started babbling about vampires, he looked at me with pity – like he’d already decided to call the shrink when I was done. But gradually an understanding washed over him. It made sense, and he knew it. He flew into a rage when I got to the part about what really happened to Anna. It took him hours to stop trembling with anger. I joined him, letting the anger take a ride through my soul. We raged together. It was somehow purifying. I’d never let myself deal with her death, there hadn’t been the chance.
After we’d calmed down we went through old photos and messages that she’d sent us. We laughed, and remembered, and drank in her memory.
“You didn’t even come to her funeral.” He scrubbed at the silver stubble on his cheeks. “I had to deal with that shit alone. Losing her, and losing you at the same time.”
“I’m sorry,” I croaked, fighting back fresh tears. “It wasn’t safe with the Bael looking for us, I couldn’t stay.”
He shook his head and let out a heavy sigh.
“You really never suspected what they are?” I asked.
“Of course not! Who in their right mind would imagine they could be vampires? I just thought they were freaks with some serious fetishes and power issues. I mean, I knew they were dangerous, and that they bribe authorities and get up to illegal shit, but, fuck…” He shook his head again.
“So, what now?” I hardly dare ask. It felt good to talk to someone about it, finally. I wasn’t so alone. But I knew he’d have more questions and he wouldn’t take Zac’s return lightly.
Because he would return.
He had to.
“Now, we get you happy and healthy again. Whatever it takes,” he said, scooping me into his arms once more.
9
Alex
I sat and stared at the cocksucker before me, wondering if would be worth the effort to end his existence now and have a little feast on the clientele whilst I was at it. Glancing around, I studied the scrawny girl slithering up and down a pole, waggling her ass in my direction. She didn’t do much for me, nor did the other six girls gyrating to the encouragement of a crowd of men.
‘Tempest Titty Bar’ - the meeting place couldn’t have been any more stereotypical. I’d have expected better taste from Sincl
air Beaumont. Then again, he wasn’t here, so…
“Tell Syn I talk only with him.” Why had he sent his underlings? I had zero patience for this crap.
“You’re an Elwood. He has no interest in dialogue.”
“I’m not a threat, not to him, anyway. I may be bonded now, but I’m not with the Bael. We have a mutual enemy, one that we both wish to see destroyed.”
The grunt eyed me with distrust, as if he had the power here. It took all my restraint not to pull his eyes from their sockets. I could snap my damned fingers and watch him disintegrate.
“Are you suggesting the Unaligned are working toward revolution? Because that kind of talk—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I blasted him from his seat and pinned him to the wall without moving a muscle. “I suggest you set up the meeting by tomorrow, else there won’t be anything left of you for them to find.”
He spluttered, nodded.
A tugging in my mind drew me away from the notion of obliterating him, for now. I’d give him one chance to get what I wanted before destroying him. They could send another grunt and I’d keep butchering them until Syn gave me some respect. I released the hold on him and strolled through the smoky gloom to exit the bar, acting far more casual than I really felt. This bonding was a total head-fuck.
Finding myself a quiet spot in a side alley, I shrugged back the craziness and took a breath. These psychic conversations with my brother were so few and far between, they were to be savoured. The connection felt stronger now.
I opened the door and his beautiful darkness surged into my head.
“Well then, Zachariah, this is a pleasure. You feel positively satanic.” I shuddered as his blackness ran through my core. Linked. Bonded. His darkness was mine, and mine was his. Except he was the marked twin, yet his control over it was, quite frankly, fucking pathetic. He didn’t control the Beast, it was controlling him. A fine feeling indeed, but still, it sat inside me with a dose of distaste. The Bael’s little bitch. Thank fuck they’d agreed to Zachariah’s demand to cut me loose. It might take me longer to get amongst their ranks and destroy them, but that day was coming.