Blood Ties

by Gina Whitney

  “I know Grace. We have a mutual friend—Julie.” In reality Naisha thought Julie was a lesbian too, and had a serious crush on her. But Naisha had backed off when she’d found out Julie and Grace were living together; she’d assumed they were lovers.

  Naisha said, “You won’t find either of them here on campus, or even in their apartment. They just got up and left all of a sudden. A moving van picked up their stuff the other day.” Naisha knew this because of the many hours she spent driving past their apartment and looking through their windows. “You said you’re a close friend of Grace?”

  Catherine could see Naisha was starting to get suspicious. After all Catherine had walked into some random washateria with no clothes to launder, asking a stranger for information about someone who was supposed to be a friend. She opted for the blitzkrieg approach. “Do you know where they are?”

  If Naisha was anything, it was compliant. She immediately got on her computer and pulled up a campus directory. “Don’t tell anyone I have this. I got it from an informant in student admissions. He comes in handy when trying to get the scoop on a story.”

  The computer screen came back with Julie’s last known address—the apartment. “You don’t want that. They don’t live there anymore,” Naisha said as she searched for Grace’s information. She pointed at the screen. “Here it is. Grace’s home address. I’m sorry. It’s in Massapequa. I guess you won’t be able to surprise her.”

  “Massapequa? That’s no problem. I love Massapequa,” Catherine said, trying to contain herself. “What’s the address?”

  Naisha tore a piece of paper out of the legal pad and wrote down the address. “Sorry I couldn’t do more.”

  Catherine stared at the paper and said, “This is just fine. Thank you.” She knew she would have to kill Naisha, just in case the girl decided to run her mouth about this encounter— that whole six degrees of separation thing. As Catherine’s fangs started to pop out, however, the owner of the vehicle with the flat tire came in. He had a bottle of Fix-A-Flat in his hand and proceeded to make his way to his dryer.

  As Catherine tried to escape out the door without the young man noticing her, Naisha shouted, “Tell Julie I say ‘hi’!”

  Damn it, Catherine thought as she looked at the young man. But he was so absorbed by his clothes, he didn’t even look up.

  Good. Then I only need to kill one.

  Later Catherine sat in the Mercedes with Chetan. She saw Naisha putting her scorching-hot clothes into the trunk of her car. The car with the flat was gone.

  “Go get her,” Catherine said, sending Nick to retrieve the girl.

  To Naisha, Nick’s hand was like some big, hairy paw coming out of nowhere and covering her mouth. He picked up the frail-boned young woman and tried to drag her to the Mercedes. But Naisha had some fight in her. She managed to bite Nick’s hand, causing him to drop her on the concrete. She noticed his blood didn’t taste right. It didn’t have the normal metallic undertone; it was more like soured milk.

  “Nick, really, you can’t capture one little girl?” Catherine yelled.

  Naisha tripped and scraped her knees as she tried to run back into the washateria. With her on the ground, Nick took the opportunity to grab her again, this time breaking her arm in the process. He threw her into the back of the Mercedes. Naisha screamed bloody murder, but the soundproof windows prevented anyone from hearing it.

  Chetan looked at her like she was steak and a baked potato. The protégé was too young to have developed his hunger yet, but Chetan was starving.

  Catherine slapped Naisha across the face. “Dear, you really do need to shut up.”

  “What are we going to do with her?” Chetan asked. He expected Catherine to say they were going to eat her. Instead Catherine stuck a pencil through Naisha’s temple, killing her. Then she directed Nick to drive, and they wound up in a heavily wooded area, at a rickety bridge that had not been used in decades.

  “Nick…Chetan…toss her,” Catherine said from inside the Mercedes.

  Chetan grabbed Naisha’s legs while Nick held her arms. They lifted the body over the rail, but Chetan had to ask Catherine, “Why aren’t we eating her? Isn’t this just a waste of meat?”

  Catherine put her sunglasses on and said matter-of-factly, “I’m not in the mood for Indian food.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.

  —George MacDonald

  I looked down my red nose at the thermometer that dangled out of my mouth.

  My whole body was fatigued and heavy, like it was being crushed. I had a mad case of the chills, complete with blueberry-colored lips and icy fingertips. My mind was totally disconnected from my body, and I couldn’t seem to remember how to properly move it. It just kind of laid there in a lump, making reflexive, erratic movements like a sleeping newborn does.

  James knocked on my door and stuck his head in. I quickly stashed the thermometer under my pillow, not wanting to alarm him.

  “Hey, sleepyhead. Ready to get the day going?” He actually had a tiny bit of cheer in his voice for a change. Then he entered the bedroom and gasped at the death mask called my face. “What’s wrong?”

  I was glad to see James and welcomed him in—until Julie’s words popped into my head: Don’t trust him. He’s a Bolingbroke. My face instantly transformed into the embodiment of spite. James halted in his tracks, and he looked at me with the most bewildered expression on his face. For a second he went back into his mental file to see if he had done something to offend me.

  I sucked my teeth and said, “I’ll be down in a minute.” I knew I was a bitch, but until I knew his true intentions, that attitude seemed to be the most appropriate way to deal with him.

  “Alright. I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” he said cautiously as he backed out the door. He never took his eyes off me, just in case I decided to pounce.

  I pulled the thermometer from underneath my pillow and read the mercury through bleary, crusted-over eyes. The shitty way I felt, I knew my temperature had to be way past 100 degrees.

  “Ninety-one,” I said, shaking the thermometer, sure it was a mistake. I thought about retaking my temperature, but felt too much like dung to do it. I wanted to go back to sleep, but for some reason my stomach had other plans. I was hungry… No, starving… No, ravenous. I had to eat something.

  Slow as a snail, I moved my heavy legs to the side of the bed, finally ending up on my hip with my arm hanging off the side. With a forceful thrust, I somehow managed to sit straight up for a few moments. But the room started spinning, and I found my face buried in my sweaty palm. As I looked at the backs of my eyelids, even though I did not want to I thought about James. I wondered, Can I trust him? And if I can, should I trust him?

  I had somehow managed to make it to the kitchen without actually lifting my feet off the floor. Dragging—the new walking.

  James was at the stove frying up some breakfast. The smoky smell of applewood bacon and the sizzle of fried eggs made my salivary glands go berserk. But I wasn’t going to let breakfast and James’s handsome face win me over.

  “It’s just us two for breakfast this morning. The others went into town,” he said, flipping the hard-cooked egg like he was an expert chef. I didn’t respond, determined that he wasn’t going to get to me. James plated the food and brought it over to the table where I was.

  “Voila, Madame. Breakfast is served.” He waited for me to take a bite. I did, and it was delicious. But I couldn’t let him know that. He joined me, and we ate in the most horrible silence ever known to mankind. I wished the others would hurry back so they could break the seal on that vacuum of quiet. Regardless, my funky attitude toward James did not diminish my appetite in the least. In fact after the slab of bacon and a dozen eggs, I started to feel a little better. But my stomach was still queasy. I didn’t feel that total sense of renewal I had the other morning when I’d scarfed down every part of the hog. What was wrong with me today?

&nbs
p; I scooted my chair back across the chipped linoleum and started to go get some Pepto-Bismol. As I was about to disappear out the door, James hurried over and gently took my arm. “Is there something wrong?” he asked, getting his face close to mine to stop me from avoiding his gaze.

  I shook his hand off me. “There’s nothing wrong with me. Is there something wrong with you?” I noticed that the angrier I felt toward James, the sicker I got. And I was getting quite used to feeling like shit. After all I had become the undisputed queen of puke over the last few days.

  For the day’s training, James and I ended up at the large, manmade pond at the edge of Aunt Evelyn’s property.

  I stood at the end of the narrow pier, looking into the water. Light penetrated the sparse water hyacinths enough that I could almost see the bottom. The pond was stocked with fish that jutted in and out of an underwater forest of Anacharis. Along the edge Aunt Evelyn had created a stone garden filled with statuettes of angels and frogs, and she had hung some her famous wind chimes made of lightning glass. I was mesmerized by the absolute beauty and peace of this place. For a minute I forgot I was out there alone with a potential threat named James. I came back to reality when I heard him clanging around the battered rowboat.

  “Come on,” he said, waving me over. I walked slowly down the pier, wondering if a double agent was waiting for me. I was watching my back, all the while pretending to go along with the whole thing. I didn’t want to tip him off. Man, where was Julie when I needed her?

  “Be careful. It’s slippery out here,” James said, coming toward me. He seemed like he was going to help me walk down, but how could I be sure? I reluctantly let him put his warm hand on the small of my back and guide me to the other end of the pier. And damn, wouldn’t you know, James’s touch, soft and sensual, still felt good to me. I so had a split personality when it came to this guy.

  He stepped into the boat, steadied it, and reached his hand out to me. The thought still ran through my head: Can I trust him? But I took his hand, got into the boat, and sat on the slightly wet bench—all pouty lipped. James untied the rope from the pier. He sat opposite me and started to paddle. He tried to make light conversation, but I just stared at him, scrutinizing his face for any sign of betrayal—seeing if he was a friend or a foe. But his eyes, those big, blue eyes, kept drawing me in. And the only response to that was to be an ass.

  “Why are we out here anyway?” I snapped.

  “To see if you can walk on water,” James joked, trying unsuccessfully to lighten the mood. When he saw I wasn’t laughing, he said, “Ookaay.”

  He was totally perplexed, but he went on with the lesson. “Since you’re having trouble with telekinesis, we’re going to try to move water instead of a solid object. It’s lighter and should be easier manipulate than something with compacted mass. Once you master that, we’ll gradually increase the density of your practice objects.”

  We made it to the middle of the pond, and James said, “Grace, now move the water.” I made a half-assed attempt at it. My mind was too preoccupied.

  I said, “Why are you here? I don’t understand why a Bolingbroke would decide to help me—a Valois heir—to overtake the Council. That would keep you and yours underneath us. And no one likes to be on the bottom if given the choice.”

  James finally understood. “Oh, that’s what all the attitude is about. You don’t trust me.” He rested the paddle across his lap. “Grace, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you’ve backed me into a corner.” He paused, searching for the words to make his revelation less shocking. “I’m not a Bolingbroke by blood. I was adopted. All I know about my real mother was that she was an extremely close friend of your mother, Ilan. For some reason I had to be adopted out. It had to be kept very quiet, and much subterfuge was used to cover up my real identity.”

  I listened intently, using anything and everything I had to ferret out whatever lie he might have been telling. And so far I hadn’t been able to pick up on anything that would have caused a spike on a lie-detector test.

  James continued, “I grew up in the Bolingbroke house not fitting in—a misfit. I always felt out of place with them, I just didn’t know why. Even before the religious bigots killed members of our coven and the invocation of the Ancients, the Bolingbrokes were well on their way to becoming a greedy, power-hungry group. In that family those traits run on a sliding scale from mild to pathological, with Catherine at the far end. But that’s who they are at the core of each of their beings. It’s in their blood. They can’t help it.”

  I still had questions. Some things still needed explanations. “And what about you? When they invoked the Ancients, you went along with it. Did you not?” I asked, sure he would trip himself up with the answer.

  “Regrettably, when the decision was reached, I sided with my family. Now, my body is possessed by some spirit—I know not what. But my soul isn’t. It’s pure, and I still carry the blood of my genetic lineage, whoever they are. Grace, you’ve got to believe me when I say I did not agree with the Bolingbroke agenda. I sympathized with Ilan and her cause. That was why she chose me. And if you can’t trust that, there’s nothing more I can do. ”

  My instinct told me he was telling the truth. And at that moment, I learned a valuable lesson: It wasn’t James I had to learn to trust. It was me. I needed to trust my own gut reactions. I could no longer depend on someone else’s observations or opinions to be my guides, even if they came from well-meaning friends like Julie.

  “Do Adrian and Addison know about your past?” I said, my body aching to get closer to James.

  “No, they don’t. I didn’t even know about my adoption until Ilan told me, when we were on the run. But no matter what, Adrian and Addison are still my family, and I love them. I always will. However, Ilan did tell me she would reveal my true heritage to me when you took your place on the Council. She said it was too dangerous to divulge at the time. I trusted her and didn’t press the issue. But when she died, she took that information with her. Ever since, I’ve kept my adoption a secret, and have had to deal with the knowledge that I have missing pieces. Sometimes I wish Ilan had never told me in the first place.”

  I sympathized with him. I knew what it was like not to have a parent. It was a bottomless hole that, no matter how much dirt you tried to fill it with, only seemed to get bigger.

  All of that confessing and my epiphany must have really gotten to me, because next thing I knew I was having a hot flash and rigor at the same time. Then it felt like my heart stopped beating.

  “I can’t breathe,” I managed to squeak right before I passed out.

  I woke up in a supine position, greeted by fluffy clouds that looked like cotton balls tacked onto a turquoise note board.

  “Ugh… What happened?” I said, my head consumed by grogginess. I tried to get up, but my body hurt too much, as if it had been dropped from the Empire State Building.

  “Grace, listen to me. Your heart stopped. You almost died. I brought you back with a little CPR, but you need blood,” James said as he took a small knife and sliced deep into his index finger. “Please, trust me and drink it.”

  His blood, the prettiest shade of pinkish red, squirted out. “It may taste strange, but it will help you,” he said.

  I looked at his finger and was repulsed by the thought of consuming his blood—initially. “No, I don’t want it,” I said, quickly turning my head away.

  “You don’t have a choice.” James grabbed my chin and turned my head back to him. Once my nose caught wind of his blood, I smacked my lips in anticipation. Despite my denial, I did want it—and lots of it.

  James put his finger in my mouth. I sucked it cautiously at first, not knowing what to think of this situation. The blood tasted so good to me—a cross between iron and calla lilies. I sucked his fingertip longer and harder. My cheeks sucked in as I coaxed as much blood as I could into my mouth. As I lay there, still on my back, with James’s finger in my mouth, I couldn’t help but think, Oh, the makings of a nice
hardcore porn. Bom chicka wah wah. But when something is that good, you just don’t care.

  “You’re doing fine,” James said warmly. “It seems as though your transition is having some unexpected side effects. Normally witches turn at puberty, and as we go through our teens, we naturally obtain and master our powers. We don’t get sick like you just did. Because of your hybrid status, we don’t know how this is all going to work out. I guess we’ll just have to see. Take it day by day.”

  After about five minutes of my drawing blood, James had to steal his finger back. I got so into it I drooled—a lot. But that didn’t seem to bother him, not in the least. He wiped my wet chin with the edge of his shirt, leaving flecks of blood on it.

  “How did you like it? Do you feel better? If you need more, I’ll let you keep drinking,” he said.

  I did feel better. In fact I felt great. The near-constant nausea I’d had ever since I’d met James had transmuted into an indescribable connection to him. Though we were two bodies, it felt like we were one. Up until that moment, I hadn’t believed in the concept of soul mates. But I finally knew the reason why I was sick all the time—because my soul was trying to unify with his. And until that happened, I was going to feel like puking my brains out every other minute.

  James and I didn’t need to fall in love because we had always been in love. Even the term falling in love was inappropriate. It was more like rising up to it. But I could see he regretted what he had done.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, not understanding how I could be so deliriously happy while he seemed so sad.

  “I didn’t want to do that to you. I should have asked your permission first. But you were dying. I didn’t have a choice,” he said with his head down.

  “James, I feel great, and you saved my life. What’s the problem?”