Blood Claim

by Laura Baumbach, Angela Fiddler, Jet Mykles

  The right side of his face was full of broken teeth, and flecks of them hit Luke in the mouth as Lathe laughed. “Pathetic. This is all you got? A Duracell commercial and a piece of white picket fence? You were going to take me out with this?” Lathe ripped open Luke's shirt, but Luke didn't feel the cold on his bare skin, just the smooth-cut end of the stake. “Beg me not to kill you."

  "No,” Luke said. Lathe raised the stake high over both their heads, and Luke couldn't stop himself squeezing his eyes shut.

  "Beg me!"

  "Go to hell!"

  Lathe reversed the stake and smashed it down into Luke's shoulder. The pain was muted with the adrenaline in his system, but he knew he'd be feeling it later. It still stole the thought from his head and left him broken. In the trees, a bird cawed, and for a second it sounded like Cory. Lathe picked him up by the throat. “I should feed you to Brutus and laugh as he finishes the job he started last night,” he said. “But maybe I would like to drink from you until there's nothing left to bleed first."

  Something black landed on the grass, and a moment later Cory stood up. “Leave him alone,” he said quietly.

  "Oh, Cory. How good of you to join us. I thought you'd at least wait until after I slit your ex-lover's throat."

  "Get out of here,” Luke managed, though it hurt to take the breath necessary to form the words. “What are you doing?"

  "Saving you,” Cory said. “Let him go, Lathe."

  "You've got to be kidding me. I let him go, you fly away, and I'll have nothing."

  Cory stepped into the light. He picked up the flashlight, turned it off, and then reached into the car a second later and killed the headlights. Brutus returned with a snarl and backed Cory away from where Lathe stood with his nails still digging into Luke's throat. “Now you hold all the cards. Please. I'm here. You can do what you want with me. Just let Luke go."

  "I could have you both,” Lathe said.

  "But that was never the plan, now was it?” Cory said with an easy smile. He was so good at this. He even reached up and took Lathe's arm, the one that was holding Luke down. He tugged on his glove with his teeth, putting his marked hand over Lathe's. “Let him go. Please."

  "You swear on his life that you will not try to escape?” Lathe snarled, baring his fangs.

  "On his life,” Cory said, tracing lines down Lathe's arm. “I swear."

  "What are you doing, Cory?” Luke demanded, once Lathe backed away enough for Luke to breathe. He grabbed Lathe's wrist, but Lathe was stronger than he was and just used Luke's grip to pull him up and throw him aside. Brutus was on him in the next second, his teeth inches from Luke's throat, and his tissue remembered how cold it had been. He didn't want to, but his arms came up to protect his throat. “I told you to let him go,” Cory snapped.

  "Once you go inside the house,” Lathe said. “Step past the threshold, and I'll let him go."

  "Swear on your life,” Cory said.

  "Cory, don't,” Luke called, and Brutus growled more. “Don't do this. Please.” Luke didn't dare move, not with the great beast over him, so he rested his head on the frozen ground.

  "You should have let me handle it,” Cory said, voice flat. “I have your word?"

  "You do,” Lathe said with a bow. “After you."

  "After me,” Cory repeated. The restaurant's front door glowed a sickly blue, and even from where Luke was lying he could see the former occupants—the weeping woman, the suicide victim, the man with the razor blade, all beckoning Cory inside. “No!” Luke shouted, and cried out as Brutus put one of his huge paws squarely onto Luke's chest. He felt the bones bend with the weight.

  "I'm sorry, Luke,” Cory repeated. He turned, face hard. “Those things I said to you this evening, I want you to know that I meant every single word of them.” He stepped backward into the light. There was another pulse of brilliant light, and then the front door slammed shut. Brutus growled again, waiting for permission from his master to tear Luke's throat out, and Lathe left him flat against his back for a very long moment.

  "Isn't that sweet,” Lathe said mockingly. “I should kill you regardless."

  Luke closed his eyes again. In that second, it didn't really matter anymore, and if Lathe was looking for more of a reaction, Luke at least took pleasure in that. “If you're going to do it, do it,” he said.

  "A century of hiding out, protecting your little ‘life,’ as it were, and that's the most self-preservation you have? Frankly, I am disappointed."

  A sliver of drool from Brutus's teeth dripped onto Luke's skin and ran down the curve of his jaw, burning his flesh with the cold. He didn't swallow. “And I would be disappointed if you didn't kill me. Just do it."

  "No,” Lathe said, as though he'd just come to that decision. He probably just had. “I won't. You'll survive, and you can take with you the memory of what your little lover did for you when you couldn't be half arsed about him."

  Luke snorted. It showed what Lathe knew, and he didn't bother to correct him. Brutus let him go, and when Luke sat up, things shifted in his chest that never should have been able to move. He went to his car, the keys still in the ignition, and every step he took he still expected to feel Brutus's teeth on him.

  "Just so you know, Luke, if you had staked me the moment you put the flashlight on me, you would have taken me out,” Lathe said.

  "If you hurt him,” Luke said, but his words felt flat even to him.

  "I'm not going to hurt him,” Lathe said, and smiled for the first time. “I'm going to kill him. Go now, boy, or you'll be joining him."

  Brutus snarled. “I can't leave him,” Luke said, even as Brutus snapped at his leg. He jerked back.

  "Get in the car and drive off. This is your last warning. I go back inside, Brutus will have his fill. Corbin made his choice for you. Are you just going to throw it away?"

  Luke got into the car, put it into reverse, and drove away. The car bounced as it drove over the curb He couldn't quite believe he was driving away, but when he looked up, he saw Cory staring out the second-story window. He wasn't dead; surely there wasn't time for that to have already happened. But his face was stony. Luke stopped the car, staring up, but Cory shook his head and motioned him to go on. “I can't,” he said, knowing Cory couldn't hear him, but he was shaking his head again.

  You have to.

  There was no arguing that. He put the car into drive and rolled off.

  * * * *

  Cory thought that Lathe would have been right behind him going into the restaurant, but he wasn't. Cory's naked hand, the glove dropped somewhere along the yard, ached here, especially now that he was so close to Lathe, but he ignored it. Part of the main floor had been gutted by a fire, and half the tables and chairs were missing, but from where he stood it could have been any restaurant in any converted house.

  That was until he heard the crying on the second floor. The staircase was two flights, and he found himself on the second floor before he even really thought about it. Something was up here; he felt that for certain. Luke would have felt it right away. Luke himself was standing by his car in the lawn, battered and bruised, but still alive, and Cory willed him to just get into the car and drive. Luke refused, however, until Brutus was practically over him again. Then he reluctantly got into the driver's side. If Cory could have put the car into gear from where he stood, he would have. It wasn't until Luke had actually done it and driven off the grass that he looked up to the window where Cory stood. Their eyes met, Luke telling him even from where he was that he didn't want to go, but Cory shook his head. “You have to,” he said to the empty room.

  Luke drove away, slowly, and Cory watched his taillights until they crossed the river. Then Luke pulled over to the side of the road. Cory touched the window, which should have been freezing; the upstairs didn't have any heat, and he'd been cold when he was outside. His bare skin touched the glass, something he wasn't really used to, but it was hot, almost too hot to touch. The iron brand on the back of his hand flared up, hotter
than it had felt with the actual iron, and he jerked his hand back.

  "Your boyfriend is quite something,” Lathe said, stepping up into the room. “He's been out of the game for so long, he forgets what he is, and yet he would have given it all up for you. That must have been a disappointment for you."

  "Not at all,” Cory said, turning around. His hand burned, and he still felt cold. It wasn't quite fair, but he kept his face neutral. His father had taught him that, even if he was breaking inside. And he was. If he'd known ... Stop it, he told himself. He would have done the same thing. Going back to Luke's house the night before had been his first mistake. Staying had been his second. Sleeping with Luke was his third, and letting Luke play with his body was his fourth. It would have been a clean separation. He'd been staking out the house since the fire, having tasted Lathe's influence in the burning smoke, but when he saw Luke down by the water, he just couldn't stay away. Cory cleared his throat. “He did what he was supposed to."

  "Spare me,” Lathe said. He looked down to Cory's naked hand, stark white in all the black, and then back up to Cory's face. His smile was a bloody maw, his broken human teeth ragged and cutting. Cory saw his throat sliced open on them and himself bleeding out in this room. But it was Lathe's eyes he couldn't look away from. He was falling forward, dizzy suddenly, and Lathe pinned him against the wall to keep him on the floor.

  "Can you hear me?” Lathe asked, but he wasn't speaking with his mouth of broken teeth. He was inside Cory's head, and Cory couldn't push him out. He was so tired all of a sudden. It would just be so easy to fall forward and let Lathe take what he needed. But he couldn't. Even the dumbest mark could see deception if it was present, so Cory kept his brain perfectly empty.

  "You need your glove to turn, don't you? You can't do it if your hand is exposed. That's how it works, isn't it? That's how you figured it out?"

  "I need black to turn into a raven, yes,” Cory said, the words forced from him. “Won't work, otherwise."

  "Good,” Lathe whispered. And that was spoken. Blood and spit hit Cory's face, and he couldn't raise his hands to wipe it off. “Strip down completely."

  "It's cold,” he protested. But it wasn't, not really, not by the window. As long as he wasn't touching it with his bad hand.

  Lathe grabbed his tee-shirt with one hand. “Did you hear me?"

  "Yes, sir,” Cory whispered. He used his good hand to pull Lathe's hand free, finger by finger, but kept his bad hand clenched behind him. He'd had to learn how to do most things one-handed while the burn was healing, so it didn't take much to strip his jacket off. He let the clothes stay where they landed, but Lathe shook his head and collected each article of clothing as it fell. His shirt was next, then his shoes, and finally jeans, which took more work. He kicked them free, too. Lathe picked them up as well, smiling at him.

  "If you're trying to humiliate me, you'll have to work harder,” Cory said. He stood, his feet apart, and brought his right hand down his throat, to his chest, and then down to his belly. “For fifty bucks, I'll give you a happy ending first."

  Lathe had him up against the wall, again, his groin next to Cory's. “Do you really want me to try harder?” he demanded and grabbed Cory's chin. He forced his head up, and try as Cory might to look away, Lathe dragged it out of him. “Do you know the things I could make you do?"

  And Cory knew he was supposed to look into Lathe's eyes and see the hell waiting for him. Instead he pressed his bad hand against the window. He winced, but not because of Lathe. “Yes,” he hissed. The pain lancing up and down his arm wouldn't let him form any other word. Lathe let him go, and Cory broke contact from the glass. He felt the cold sweat on his body, and he took a moment to rest with his hands on his knees.

  "Luke—was that his name?—was a stroke of genius. He seems the type that rabbits pretty far down into his safe den. Where did you find him?"

  "Around,” Cory said. Lathe took a step forward, and Cory knew Lathe could draw that story from him if he had to. He lifted his hand, giving up, but asking for a second to find his ability to breathe first.

  Lathe touched his forehead, allowing it. He put his head down, gathering up his thoughts. “He hadn't completely rabbited,” he said, when he could. “He had his small group of feeders downtown. I just looked for the throat marks. When I found them, I staked them out until he found me. Then it was a simple matter of getting myself chosen."

  "Ingenious,” Lathe allowed. “I wouldn't have thought it possible."

  "Thanks,” Cory said bitterly. “The best marks are the marks who think they can't be taken. Luke didn't think he could be. We were together almost a year before he even told me what he was, and then it took another year for him to turn me."

  "I suppose it was your bad luck. I could think of a dozen different vampires who would have been thrilled to turn a grade-A piece of ass like yourself."

  "I know,” Cory said, his lips twisting back in a hard smile. You arrogant fuck, he thought, then quashed the thoughts before they fully formed. It had taken Luke that long to show him there were more kinds of relationships out there than tricks and marks, and like the dumbest of all rubes, Cory himself had fallen for it. He'd been happy with Luke, even hidden away from the rest of the world. He saw that now. He'd been at a pub with Luke downtown the night they'd stepped out onto the street and he smelled the fire.

  And he'd known Lathe was back. Waiting for the first cold, so that Brutus could form, but in the city and looking for him. He remembered how helpless he'd felt, how he'd almost collapsed against the hood of the car over how stupid it was, how much he'd wanted to believe that his pretend life with Luke was the real reason he was there. But of course he couldn't. And didn't. They'd had their first fight that night, over something he knew Luke would be completely defensive about, and that was the beginning of the end.

  It had all been so perfectly planned on his part until he saw Luke by the water.

  Lathe smiled, lifting his chin. “And now tell me, my little bird, did you think that just being turned would save you? Give you an edge over me that you thought you needed?"

  Cory didn't answer that. Lathe wasn't quite finished. “Did you know being turned would make you predisposed to obey a stronger vampire? That it would be in your blood now?"

  I counted on it. Cory dug his nails into his burn. It didn't hurt as much as pushing it against the window, but it still cut through the fog forming in his brain. He'd seen Lathe break down humans by going into their brains and scooping out everything individual, like carving a pumpkin into a jack o’ lantern. They'd been grinning corpses for Lathe to play with, and Cory couldn't let that happen to him. He looked down.

  "Don't. Look at me.” Cory had to, as much as Lathe's smile sickened him. “Kneel."

  Despite himself, Cory sank to his knees. He placed his palms against his inner thighs, and the memory of Luke marking them brought him even more to himself. He did belong to a stronger vampire, but it wasn't Lathe. He looked up, as coyly as he could. “Now what?” he asked.

  "Now, we wait,” Lathe said. “Good night, my little bird. Don't let the bad dreams disturb you, too much."

  Cory wanted to jump to his feet, but there was no way he could, not until Lathe allowed it. “The window's wide open!” he called.

  "Then you'd better find something to block it with, shouldn't you?” Lathe called back, and with that, he released Cory. The door slammed shut, cutting him off from the landing, and although he didn't hear the lock turn, Cory knew that it wouldn't budge. Still, he tried it, and there wasn't even a quarter inch of give to it. It could have been a part of the wall with a doorknob sticking out of it for no apparent reason.

  It took him the rest of the night to move the bookcase in front of the window, and even then he had to cram the smaller of the books on it between the bookcase and the wall. When morning came, he expected the escaping rays to cut into him like a paper shredder. The bookcase had a corona like an eclipse, but the room itself stayed in perpetual twilight.

/>   * * * *

  The garage door was open. Luke remained behind the wheel in the driveway for much longer than he should have. The rays of the sun were coming; he felt them tighten the skin on his face, but he couldn't quite make himself take his foot off the brake and coast the rest of the way in.

  But his foot did come off the brake, and he did apply the gas, and he closed the garage door behind him. He snapped off the engine—the first thing he remembered actually doing—and let himself into the side door just off the kitchen.

  Mrs. Reinhart perched on one of the stools around the island. The steam from her tea brought with it the smell of chamomile. She was translucent, like she always was, but there was a hard edge to her he'd never seen before. The room was cold, despite the furnace kicking in. He watched her for a second, but for once she didn't just nod and look away.

  The voice was in his head. Her face was expectant. There were so many ghosts in the house, including his last fight with Cory. It seemed like ages since last night and their fight.

  But Cory had told him to remember what he'd said that evening. They hadn't argued that evening, they'd only...

  They'd only fucked. And Cory had told him that he was his.

  It was too late to go back. It was too late to do anything but go downstairs and wait for the sun to pass.

  * * * *

  Cory didn't go to sleep, not at first. The room was cold, and he wasn't convinced that the bookcase would hold. And when he did close his eyes, he felt whatever it was that formed blue and purple lights from in front of the bookcase reach for him. He was predisposed to let it in. Lathe might not have scooped out the pumpkin seeds inside his head, but he had done something, and closing his eyes let the light through him to fill him up.

  The light was nothing like Lathe's pressings. There was no escaping these, no hiding what happened, and what was going to happen. He hadn't been stupid, even if he was from a small town. They had the Internet and satellite television. When Lathe asked him to come, Cory had gone.