BloodStar

by Montoya, Cassidy

  Roman placed his hands atop Sabian’s shoulders, and gave him a little shake. "Yes. You, Sabian."

  Sabian turned to his left shoulder, and stared at Roman’s silvery hand as though it were infested with maggots. He looked back to the eyes of his sire. Roman’s features were almost servile—something the old spook would have been sickened to see in himself. Sabian wished he had a mirror. He’d carry a mental snapshot of the moment forever, but it was tainted, embarrassing.

  "Are you so much like the herd now, father?" The term of endearment left his lips on a hiss. "Desperate for one of the BloodStar to unite the covens, or just desperate for the celebrity of your claim as sire to a savior?"

  Roman was not to be engaged. That was his specialty, and as the master of instigation, he enjoyed immunity when others tried the same tactics against him. "Say what you will, son. It doesn’t change what you are."

  Sabian moved to the back and sank into buttery Italian leather. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. A vintage vamp named Ivan, turned when he was no more than twelve years old seven centuries before, made a silent retreat from his end of the sofa, reverence written all over his face. Sabian knew Ivan, not well, but well enough to know that other than Roman, there were few Ivan respected, and even fewer he yielded to. The obeisance of Ivan’s retreat was the last thing Sabian needed to see just then.

  Roman followed to the couch, and so seasoned were his movements that he actually appeared to glide.

  "I don’t want to be special." Forgotten again was the glow of his blood outside the warehouse, his tolerance of sunlight, the influence he carried with Elders, his way of breaking the vault of truth with even the stodgiest and talented of Kindred.

  Roman sat down beside Sabian, and said, "It isn’t a lifestyle choice, Sabian. You just are."

  "Then why can’t I will my own childe into focus? If I’m so fucking special, how did I lose my Marley?"

  First confusion, and then understanding washed over Roman’s face.

  "Marley. She’s with you again."

  "Yes."

  "What’s happened?" There was genuine concern in Roman’s voice, and Sabian couldn’t stop the avalanche if he tried.

  So Anya had herself a toy, and now she wanted to gloat. Marley was essentially a trained circus animal, but fuck that. Even those precious white tigers took a chunk out of their masters’ asses every now and again. Just ask Siegfried and Roy. Even though Anya scared the piss out of her, the tiger was about to poke the bear.

  "How about you quit patronizing me. What do you want? Is it Sabian? You want to fight for him? Let’s go."

  Finally, her words and behavior matched her feelings. It was stupendous. She was done walking on Anya’s eggshells.

  Anya, still a portrait of serenity although Marley expected at least some reaction, smiled genuine satisfaction. There was nothing sinister or calculated behind the expression. Just contentment, the kind that comes when you’re curled up next to a warm fire with your favorite book and a steaming mug of hot chocolate.

  Or blood. You know, vampires, and all.

  "Oh, well well," said Anya. There was more than just satisfaction; there was surprise, too. "So, finally you have stumbled upon your gift, and you don’t even know it. It’s only one of many, pet."

  The fucking pet thing was getting old. "What are you talking about?"

  "I’m talking about how you are begging me to rip your fucking face off." Her voice was blasé, almost monotone. "You wouldn’t, unless you have finally figured it out."

  Anya waited, but Marley was at a loss, her confidence ebbing. Anya was playing cat and mouse again, only it didn’t feel authentic anymore. Marley agonized as she felt her advantage slipping away.

  Anya ended Marley’s torment. "Really, Marley, I just don’t understand why he is so enamored of you. You become boring more quickly than any other creature I have ever encountered."

  Another reference to Sabian, and just as before, Marley was ready to brawl. This time, however, she did not allow her body to express her emotional state. She couldn’t stop her fangs from liberating themselves, though, the lengthening and subsequent venom fountain they became an autonomic function fully independent of her consent. But the rest of her anatomy waited for word from headquarters. She was learning control.

  "How about you shut your mouth?" said Marley. "I can’t change what you’ve done—I’ll do whatever you tell me because I have to…but Sabian doesn’t, and that’s it. That kills you, right? You taunt and provoke me about him, but the truth is you are the fool, not me. You are the one following him around like some pathetic little freak all these years, and he hates you. You hear me? He loves me, and hates you. Isn’t that right?"

  Anya’s snide veneer faltered and she severed eye contact with Marley, instead looking to Sam. Marley wasn’t done. She would capitalize on that momentary loss of poise, and go for the jugular, figuratively for once since the literal had become all too...literal.

  "And here you are, just a bully, trying to be something you’re not. You’ll never be important to him, Anya. You’ll never be me."

  Anya’s self-satisfaction, evident to Marley since the Change began as any expression on the vampire’s face, twisted into sadistic fury. And something else…pain? Or maybe heartbreak?

  Good. Fan-fucking-tastic. Let the bitch suffer.

  Marley opened her legs shoulder width apart, bent slightly forward, and prepared to defend herself. Anya moved slowly, her body contorting with ease into attack position, every muscle ready and quivering despite the terrifying laziness of her movements. The entire room became charged with menace so potent, the bulb in the lamp flickered.

  A moment before, Marley was sure, absolutely positive, that Anya would let her live at least until Sabian arrived. She had that goddamn purpose she was supposed to be thankful to serve, after all. But Marley wasn’t so sure now. Anya sure as fuck looked like she was about rush her, and she felt the intent right in the middle of her frontal lobe.

  Oh hell, was that an A-Ha moment?

  Fucking-A, it was. She got it. Marley knew what Anya had been trying to tell her. She was tapped into intentions. It was why she'd known that no matter what she did, Anya would wait to kill her until her lunatic-plan unfolded, and that couldn’t happen until Sabian made his appearance. But just now, with just the right amount of fuel for the fire, Anya's intent changed. In the moment that was fading away, Anya had every intention of tearing Marley limb from limb. But the fury was draining from Anya, who now looked as bored as she had murderous a moment before when she’d been ready to rush Marley like a freight train with no brakes.

  And there was something else. Marley could feel that it took conscious effort on Anya’s part—it took intent—to become calm, and somehow it was artificial and genuine at the same time.

  Marley had never in her life felt so smug, so accomplished. Anya’s Achilles’ heel was her own jealousy (not a surprise). Marley knew now that she could catch her sire off guard and at least for a moment, compromise Anya’s poise and plans. It wouldn’t be entirely effective, wasn’t a huge chink in the armor, but it might give her (or Sabian) enough time to change the momentum of the game.

  Cat and Mouse just got an overhaul. The rules had changed, and Marley was prepared to exploit them for all she was worth.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Roman shook his head in synch with the music. "So unfortunate. And bizarre, you not being able to track them." The statement was laced with ambidexterity, deceitfulness as painfully obvious as a decaying rodent swept under the rug. Still, Sabian was unable to interpret the motive. His sire was crafty and aged and Sabian had no energy for reindeer games.

  "That’s it?" he asked.

  "What do you want me to say?" asked Roman.

  "That you’ve heard something, someone knows where they are. That you know what I should do, that you know why I can’t feel them."

  "But…" Roman cocked his head at this childe quizzically. "But it’s obvious." He shook hi
s head at Sabian as if to imply Sabian should know this.

  "What’s obvious?" Sabian was losing patience. "The reason I cannot track? Tell me how to fix it, and I’ll leave right now."

  "Not the tracking. I suspect your childe has inherited some of your talent for evasion. I’m talking about what you need to do. Oh, my son. For all your talents, you remain as naïve as the day I made you."

  "Skip the dramatics," breathed Sabian. "What do I do?"

  "Tell me of your childe."

  "Tell me how to find my childe," Sabian roared, shaking the delicate glassware.

  The entire room stared, this time with no attempt at disguising their curiosity. Ivan, who had pulled the blinds open and was looking at the crowd below, only glanced over his shoulder, and returned his attention to the party.

  "Take ten minutes, son. Five. You need blood; I could see that when you came in. You’d adore Caitlyn." Roman gestured to the naked woman standing beside Ivan at the windows, the same woman who’d been with the vampire in the corner playing good-dog.

  Sabian stood. "Jesus Christ, I can see this was a waste of my time."

  Roman stood too, and said to Sabian’s back, "There is a hell, Sabian, but it isn’t made of fire or ice, and there certainly isn’t a point to the pain and suffering. Atonement is nothing more than a fundraising tool devised by organized religion."

  Sabian turned to face Roman, palms out, head shaking a just-help-me-for-once.

  Roman rested one hand on Sabian’s shoulder, and poked a bony finger in the middle of his chest. "Perdition lives right here." Then the old, gnarled hands that somehow maintained their grace were on Sabian’s cheeks. "My son, if you will not feed, at least hold counsel. This is not a waste of your time. Now tell me, your childe..."

  Sabian turned his face, shrugging out of Roman’s hold. The strobe lights from below painted him gaunt and haunted. He turned his back, settling his gaze on the flow of blood ever circulating through the channels of the fountain, and began the weakest, shortest explanation he could give.

  "She was a toy, something to sully and pollute. Just because. I was lost, I needed to forget, so I used her. Every sunrise I told myself I would move on, but Marley was buried nearby. Anya knew me in that time, better than anyone else, but it wasn’t me; what she knew was my leftovers, and all the bad deeds and good intentions didn't matter. I drove Anya mad as a human girl, and gave her the Embrace just to shut her up."

  Sabian had been disappointed with Anya's savagery after the change—no regard for life or feeling, no interest in discretion. Sabian thought about how to describe what Anya had become. What she had arguably always been.

  "She got high off the power—too high. For Anya, it’s almost as potent as blood, and she will bring havoc upon anyone or anything that presents an obstacle, including her own Kindred." Sabian looked over to where Ivan was only pretending to survey the crowd. Everyone was listening, and Sabian knew it.

  "I should never have changed her. She and I have never had a connection before this lifetime, and I knew it. We weren’t meant to bind. I’ve always belonged to Marley. The day I marked Anya as Kindred was the day I doomed my Marley." He choked his words out, giving them a narrow passage past to the sob he held back.

  "We’ve all made childer who don’t fit, Sabian."

  "Yes, I know, Roman." In reality, he and his sire had never fit. "But I can’t just leave her behind like a shoe that gives me a blister. Compassion, cruelty, hiding, threats. Nothing works."

  At this, Roman let out a great guffaw. He laughed hard, and he laughed loud. For the other vampires in the room, it was nothing short of Coliseum carnage at it’s best. Two of the most well known Kindred personalities, sire and childe, no less, were locked in some sort of debate that had one on the verge of tears and the other wrapped in hysterics. The VIP’s, however, were old and disciplined enough to temper their star-struck impulses.

  Roman shook his head, and said, "But Sabian, she is your childe. It isn’t a question of permission, or whether the childe is wanted or welcome. There is no choice in the matter. They must seek their sires; the blood compels them. You have never truly grasped how truly remarkable you are, how rare it is that a childe can defy his maker."

  Roman sat back down on the couch, apparently satisfied that Sabian would hear what he meant to say.

  "I had not that strength when I was embraced, not the inclination to be apart from mine. I still find myself yearning, although we have not shared company in more than a millennium, and I am more than a thousand years your senior. When I was the age you are now, had lived your years after the change, I was still a puppy, following along at her heels, longing for the wisdom she doled out in such small portions."

  Under different circumstances, Sabian would have urged Roman to go on. The old fiend never spoke of his sire, never gave any factual information about his embrace, and never ever alluded to a specific number that might mark his years as Kindred. But this wasn’t the time, and Sabian had spent too many years with nothing more than a distant, almost disgusted fondness for his sire to indulge curiosity now.

  "Enough. Do you have anything useful to tell me or not."

  "Anya has your Marley," said Roman, crossing his legs at the knee, one dangling in an almost feminine pose.

  "Yes."

  "And if you asked her why, what would she say?"

  "Revenge." Sabian did not hesitate. Once again, the vamps in the room turned their direction. For Kindred, it was impossible not to eavesdrop. The boredom that enveloped them as a result of their long lives forced them to take any opportunity for entertainment, and they could hear conversations that took place in secret from a football field away. It was just too convenient not to listen, and too contrived to pretend they weren’t at this point.

  Roman smiled. "Too complicated."

  "Then what?" whined Sabian.

  "She wants what all childer want. Well, except you, of course."

  Jesus Christ, thought Sabian. Roman was determined to have his sedate histrionics. "Roman, please. She’s running out of time." And Sabian knew this in the furthest depths of his blood-loving bones.

  "Anya wants to be with her sire. Something you just don’t understand. You’ve never been controlled by blood-bonds like the rest of us."

  "Roman—"

  "No. You’ve no idea what it’s like to have your child deny you."

  This was now Roman’s moment. He would have his say, and if Sabian wanted help, he would have to listen. Roman was vampire celebrity in a different way than Sabian. Roman was one of the Elders, catalogued in print before the age of presses. Roman was the Dear Abby of Kindred. Roman knew a way into and out of every situation. And, like it or not, Roman was Sabian’s maker.

  "I am the only one of our kind who knows what it means to be denied the love of the one you made, a childe of your blood," continued Roman, well on his way to a more frenzied expression of the drama that formerly threatened a slow progression. "I know, and I know the doubt, the humiliation it brings."

  Yes, Roman would have his recompense for the advice Sabian sought, and it would come in the form of every guilt-trip a slighted mother ever gave to her ungrateful child.

  "It was never my intention to humiliate you," said Sabian softly.

  "Then why can’t you just accept what you are?"

  Sabian was done with therapy, and spat, "Because I’m not what everyone thinks."

  "Do you know another Soul Reader?" asked Roman in a holier than thou tone. "Because I don’t. You are the only Kindred who sees what you do."

  "There was another."

  "Not Kindred. And that’s beside the point. She’s dead. I’m sure you remember."

  "It’s a curse," said Sabian through gritted teeth. He saw Roman through eyes no more than slits, and in a few minutes, if the conversation kept up in this direction, he would literally see red.

  "You are the only vampire I know who isn’t crippled by a need to satisfy his sire."

  Sabian rolled his eyes, a
nd Roman shut him down.

  "No! Sabian, the sun’s rays have no impact on your skin. Few Kindred can say that, and you know who they are, don’t you?"

  "That’s irrelevant."

  "BloodStar! Only the BloodStar, Sabian."

  "Christ, Roman, I can’t do this right now."

  "Then why don’t you just let nature take its course? Marley dies, you suffer a few years, and then you’re right back where you started with her. Same soul, new body, right?"

  Gobbling rat-pot-pie would have produced less disgust than the words Sabian just ingested. "It’s a little more complicated than that. I just got her back, Roman. I won't wait another lifetime."

  Roman regarded Sabian a moment, and then relaxed back into the leather. "Okay. It’s simple." For a moment Roman said nothing, allowing Sabian to reach a climax of apprehension, and then continued. "Anya wants to be with you. That’s the why, and it’s the only why."

  "It’s more than that."

  "Is it?" asked Roman. "Don’t forget, and I mean it when I say this, you have no clue what it means to ache for your sire. You want to be with Marley. By taking Marley, she guarantees you come running. Anya knows you’d kill her if she harms your Marley, so stop worrying."

  Skepticism only mildly described what Sabian felt. "You think she won’t hurt her?"

  "I think she believes she wants to, but deep down, she knows it will cost her head, so no. She won’t hurt Marley. Go to them. Allow yourself to be vulnerable."

  "Vulnerable?"

  "A fractured mind, such as Anya’s, is incapable of thinking beyond surface impulses and desires; she’s like a toddler. She has an agenda, a show to put on, and she probably believes even herself this whole thing is about revenge—remember, impulses and surface thoughts only. But deep down, she knows the price of provoking BloodStar."

  "How can you be so sure?" It was the first time ever Sabian did not deny the title or the authority it implied.

  "Because a dedicated childe cannot stand to see her sire in pain. Period."