Blood To Blood

by Ifè Oshun

  “You're asking me out on a date?” I asked in disbelief.

  “May I cut in?” Justin interrupted. Markus emitted a low snarl before reluctantly giving my hand to Justin.

  “Haven’t I shown I can take care of myself, Justin?” I whispered angrily, resenting his possessive attitude.

  His answer was to press my body into his as we swayed together. “No one knows you better than me,” he said in a low voice. He was right. He was the only person who knew about the angels. And he was the only one I could tell about Star. He wore an Armani suit that Wardrobe happened to have hanging around in their surplus stock. His five o’clock shadow brought out the blueness of his eyes. I had to admit; he looked good. The small army of women checking him from the sidelines seemed to think so, too.

  “I once wondered if it were the blood obsession that made me feel the way I do about you,” he continued. “But then I remembered the first time I laid eyes on you. I walked to you, to be in your service, and had already fallen under your spell.” He held me even tighter. I felt every angle, every crevice of him. “I wish you were hungry now,” he said longingly. “I really do.”

  “Justin, I think you need to find a girlfriend.” I glanced suggestively at one woman in particular who couldn't stop staring at him. He followed my glance.

  “As if I am so simple-minded that any girl would do?” he whispered angrily. “Angel, you're a goddess. Who can compare?”

  I felt bad for suggesting he was easy. “Sorry,” I stammered, “didn't mean it that way.” We danced in silence for a few moments.

  “When you go back into the mortal world,” he said, “you'll see how much you've changed. You'll see it in the faces of everybody who you thought you knew. You’ll see they don't know you at all.”

  He dipped me deeply as the music came to a climatic end. I felt his breath in my ear. “When you feel alone, call me,” he whispered. “We don't need the waiter anymore. You don't even need a phone. All you have to do is feel me. And I'll be there for you.”

  26. LAYING IT DOWN

  Justin’s insight into my imminent alienation proved prophetic. I’d survived my Mahá, but back in Boston, the day-to-day reality set in.

  I was a freak.

  Instead of feeling like a card-carrying member of the immortal club, I felt like an outcast. Even some of my own family looked at me sideways. The twins avoided me, Adrian stopped sneaking up behind me, and Aurora and Roman were on pins and needles. Mortals were acting weird, too. Since the press came out on the Garden gig, kids at school who used to leave me alone now treated me like some sort of celebrity. Smiles were a little too big and enthusiasm seemed a little extra when I walked into a classroom. Even though it was months away, guys were asking me to the junior prom. People even let me cut the cafeteria line, though no one seemed to notice I never ate the food on my tray.

  Thank goodness Jules and LaLa were the same. “Giiirrrl, we missed you!” LaLa exclaimed.

  “You definitely seem more relaxed,” Jules added. “You were looking mad stressed.”

  “I’m straight now,” I said, knowing they could never understand how true that was. More than ever, I needed the everyday realness of my girls. I spent every waking moment with them: catching up, shopping with money we’d earned from the gig, and honing our vocals for the Sawyer tracks in prep for our upcoming recording session.

  “He kept asking about you,” LaLa confided. “He wanted to know if you were okay.”

  So he’d been thinking about me, too. Maybe what happened between us was real after all. The idea made my heart jump into my throat, and it took all I had not to pick up the phone. Jules looked at me with a knowing glance. “Our session’s tomorrow,” she reminded me. “You’ll see him then.”

  Even though a mortal tomorrow was insignificant to me now, it still felt like forever before I’d see Sawyer again.

  # # #

  We entered Omega Blast, the professional studio where we were scheduled to record, as if we were walking into a sacred shine. Literally around the corner from Sawyer’s studio, it was a place where many top acts had laid down tracks. We looked around in awe at the pictures and awards decorating the walls. Despite the demo CDs we put together in the past, the recording process was still relatively new to us. More than the adoration of the fans, I craved the respect of my peers, and the recording studio was the place where that respect was earned.

  Nina had warned us the session could go all day before Sawyer felt like he had everything he needed, so I'd prepared myself by packing over twenty thermoses. I may have been in control of my voice and time-freezing ability, but when it came to being around Sawyer, I couldn’t take any chances. Just the thought of seeing him again made me want to jump out of my skin.

  We received a ton of spam from people who wanted to work with us, but the number of people we’d invited to record with us were few. We recruited Elio's bass player, Joy, and their drummer, along with the backup-band guitarist who had kept up with me so well the night of the Garden gig. The rest of the instruments, keyboards, percussion and such, were to be covered by Sawyer.

  We also invited Markus to come over and drop eight bars. LaLa was ecstatic about this. She screamed when I asked her and Julietta if it would be okay to let him sit in on our session.

  “What! Are you crazy? Little Wolf! Of course, it's okay with me!”

  In a strange role reversal, Julietta was the more reserved one. “You never mentioned you knew him,” she said in an accusing tone. “How’d you manage that?”

  “Who cares?” LaLa said while bouncing around the studio. “Whoo hoo!”

  I felt like I’d stepped into the Twilight Zone.

  Sawyer, looking like he hadn't slept for days, introduced us to Don, the recording engineer. It was clear from the coffee cups, empty mineral water bottles, and various empty food packages strewn around that they had been at work for some time. They were now ready for us.

  “Angel, you go first,” Sawyer said from his seat at the boards. “I need your vocals laid down so I can build out the other vocal tracks around them.”

  Carrying my hot lemon-honey tea, I made my way into the main recording booth and put on the headphones.

  “Sing into the mic, need levels.” His grunted request emphasized the dark little cloud around his head and the deep frown above his red-rimmed eyes. In the soundproofed booth, I could smell the exhaustion coming off of his skin and it made me want to take away whatever was weighing on his mind. Complying with his request, I sang an F note. The sound of my voice fed back into my ears through the headphones as I placed my wishes into that note and directed it exactly where I wanted it to go. Straight to Sawyer's heart.

  Sure enough, his frown became less deep, and I could see the space between his brows again. He was relaxing. “That's good, Angel,” he said into the intercom. The beginnings of a small smile played around the corners of his mouth.

  I felt victorious. I’d actually done that. But soon my joy turned to doubt.

  Was it right? To purposely manipulate someone's emotions, even if it was, supposedly, for their own good? After all, if Sawyer, or anyone, wanted to be in a nasty mood, did I have the right to decide otherwise? As the implications sank in, I remembered what Star and the others had said about the importance of free will. No, I had no right to do that. I had no right to force my will on an unsuspecting person, no matter how right it seemed to me.

  Relax, sis.

  I looked down and sure enough my feet floated slightly above the floor. I took a deep breath and immediately touched down, vowing to never manipulate him, or anyone, again.

  The morality thing’s complex, huh, Angel? The more you explore your abilities, the more dilemmas pop up.

  “Let's start with No. 8,” Sawyer said to Don, who began hitting buttons and sliding do-hickeys. Sawyer turned to speak into the intercom. “We'll start with No. 8 Angel.” Of course, he didn’t know I could hear everything outside of the booth.

  I nodded and resolved to ne
ver manipulate him, or anyone, again. The music started to play in my headphones. No. 8 was one of my favorite tracks. Musically, it was straight pop, but Sawyer had managed to incorporate a classical cello that captured the mood I was in when I'd written the lyrics during one of those mind-numbing history classes. The song was about the uncertainty of a new journey, and the longing of wanting to share the trip with someone who understood me. They were my insights right before The Change happened. I marveled at how far I'd come since writing them.

  Closing my eyes, I put all the emotion stemming from those revelations into the sounds coming from my mouth.

  “Is there anyone who understands?”

  I belted the high note and held it, remaining conscious of the level of intensity and the fact there were mortals within feet of me.

  I continued to hold the note and opened my eyes. The first and only thing I saw through the window was Sawyer, and I sang to him:

  “I know the road is winding/

  I know that it's mine alone.

  But I know you'll be there to hold my hand/

  Until I get back home.”

  His eyes bore into me like lasers. The music stopped and the spell was broken. He gestured for me to leave the booth. When I emerged, LaLa and Julietta were all smiles, high-fives, and complimentary pats on the back. Don winked at me before turning back to his soundboard. But Sawyer didn’t even deign to look in my direction. I blinked back the red sting of angry tears.

  “Julietta, let's do this,” he said in a clipped tone.

  “I'm not ready,” she squeaked. LaLa and I instantly recognized the deer-in-headlights look: Jules was having an anxiety attack. She had them, too, every now and then, especially in situations where she felt inadequate. Despite her lovely voice, she didn't feel capable in this new professional recording environment.

  I passed her a hot cup of tea with large squirts of lemon juice and honey. LaLa rubbed her back while whispering an encouraging pep talk. “I'm sorry,” Jules said.

  “Just give her a few minutes,” I told Sawyer and Don.

  “We need to take a break anyway,” Sawyer said in a monotone. And with that, he left the studio and went outside.

  We all looked at each other in confusion. Sawyer never left the studio, especially in the middle of a session. It wasn't my imagination. He was acting bizarre. After making sure Jules was all right, I excused myself, grabbed my knapsack, and went outside, too. It wasn’t until I isolated his scent and followed it that I realized I was instinctively tracking him.

  His scent led me to his apartment. The door was unlocked, so I walked in. His studio was uncharacteristically dark. I sat in the unlit space and drank down several thermoses while listening to him upstairs, pumping dogged push-ups. After a minute, I made my way up the stairs—something none of us had done since meeting him. The second floor was a long hallway, off of which were a number of closed doors. Each door had a number on it.

  Cici picked up on the growing feeling of trepidation I was experiencing. Angel, what are you doing?

  I had to find him. Intrigued, I followed the strongest trail of his scent, and it led me to one closed door in particular. Number five.

  This must be his bedroom, Angel, maybe you shouldn’t—

  I ignored her and knocked on the door.

  “Come in, Angelika,” he whispered from behind the closed door. How did he know it was me and why would he think I could hear him whisper? For one second, I considered heeding Cici's warning. But I knew there was no turning back down the hallway. There was no turning back from him. I slowly opened the door.

  Sawyer lay, shirtless, on the floor in the middle of his room. On his chest, a thin sheen of perspiration glistened in the muted sunlight fighting its way through heavy black curtains. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. There was a king-sized bed covered with a mussed black and gold comforter with black sheets. The headboard was a massive antique. A treadmill lived in the opposite corner, and bushy potted trees hinted that sunlight was allowed into the room after all.

  And then there was the altar.

  His voice was soft. “I can't hide who I am from you anymore.”

  I was so absorbed in the altar, and the implications, I didn’t know he was standing a few inches behind me. “You practice magic.” I said in disbelief.

  “I'm very much a novice.” He paused before continuing. “And…to reference a popular phrase, I see dead people. They’ve been telling me things. About you. I know you're different.”

  Panic arose. When I took a deep breath to calm it, the scent of him traveled deeply into my very core. Warning bells set off in my mind. But it wasn't because I was hungry. It was because he was weird like me and I wanted to rejoice. My impulse was to hug him, kiss him. But instead, I fought against the urge until my face felt like stone.

  “They won't tell me why you're different, though,” he continued.

  I knew I had to turn around and face him. But my feet seemed glued to the floor.

  “Angel. Is this a deal breaker?”

  Where was my voice? I couldn't speak.

  “If it is, I'd understand.” His voice was like velvet behind me. “My mom more or less denounced me because of it.” I listened to his footsteps and the subsequent groan of the hardwood floor as he walked back to the middle of the room and sat down. “When I was little...things used to happen around me,” he said. “They still do.”

  I finally turned around to face him. He looked so upset. I wanted to soothe the frown that had again settled on his brow, but I knew if I moved toward him I might not be able to control myself. Knew that if I touched him, I wouldn't, couldn’t stop. So I waited. When he continued, it was in a gush, as if he were exhaling after a long moment of holding his breath.

  “My parents were both sixteen when I was born. My Dad was an angry, racist alcoholic who hated everybody. He beat her everyday that I can remember.”

  His Georgian accent came out the more he talked. I was completely enthralled.

  “He even beat her when she was pregnant. She lost that baby, and even though I was only four, I knew she lost it because of me. You see, when my parents went at it, I got angry and scared, and things would break. Dad would get injured. And one day, he just disappeared.”

  “Literally?” He nodded while eyeing me closely.

  “I finally told him, ‘I wish you would just disappear.’ He did.”

  Whatever he saw on my face made him feel comfortable enough to continue. “The older I got, the more these weird things would happen to the people around me. Like Mom's boyfriend. He drank and did meth. I was nine when he started hitting me. One night he hauled back to punch me again, and just dropped dead. I knew something was really wrong with me when he came to me afterward and thanked me, but no one else could see him.”

  I wasn't sure which part of Sawyer's story was more disturbing: the abuse, the destructive emotions, his communication with the dead, or that after hearing all of this, I found him even sexier than before.

  “Shortly after that, Ma discovered the church. There was a music teacher there who taught music theory and piano. It all helped me feel normal. But the more normal I felt, the more spirits I would see. I had no friends. Instead of going out to play, I shut myself in my room and played my guitar and an old beat-up keyboard the teacher gave me.”

  I imagined a young, isolated Sawyer, lonely and in his own world of music and unexplained magic. My heart ached for him.

  “Eventually, Ma met my step-dad at church. Never treated me bad. But when he found out I was different, she became afraid something would happen to him, too. Said she'd seen it, my way of being, in the family before. Her Mom; my Nana. She begged me not to hurt Mick the way I'd hurt the other two.

  “I knew then that I had to visit Nana to understand what I was and what I was capable of. Sophomore year, I got her address and traveled over three counties away. It was the best thing I could have done.”

  He smiled and my heart melted.

 
“She told me that when I have strong feelings toward someone—anger, hate, fear, love—it causes magic to happen, sometimes in dangerous ways. Every summer I stayed with her and she taught me how to control my way of being so I wouldn’t hurt, or kill, anyone else. Since then, I've worked at it.” His hands balled into fists. “I thought it was under control.”

  I wanted to know more about his grandma, but his tortured eyes stopped my questions. I remained silent and he continued.

  “Then I met you. And my world turned upside down. Heist. The shooting at the house. The fights at your concert. People were dying and getting hurt again. And it’s because I...have strong feelings for you.”

  My heart was beating out of control and I wondered if his ever-steady heartbeat was a result of his learned self-control. It was all starting to make sense. His moodiness and his insistence that my getting shot was his fault. All the things he listed were a result of my lack of control, but he'd thought it was his doing. How could I tell him he was wrong? That it wasn't him, that it was actually me? How could I tell him the truth without doing further harm to my family or to him?

  Angel, don't you dare...

  I'm not going to expose us, Cici. But I have to say something.

  I walked over and sat down on the floor in front of him.

  “I could never shun you, Sawyer. Anymore than I could shun myself.”

  We sat there for a while, breathing and exhaling together. Watching each other with cautious, excited eyes. I wondered how intense his “manifestations” were. What would happen to me if he didn't concentrate? The air of danger that always seemed to surround him now made sense. And it made me want him even more. It felt like there had been an unspoken agreement between us that only now was coming to the surface.