BloodStar

by Montoya, Cassidy

  The burly cop gargled a muffled yelp of surprise, and then went slack in the front seat, sleeping the deep, unconscious slumber of the heavily sedated.

  "Come on," said the female agent, opening his door from the outside. She pulled wire-snippers from the fanny pack riding atop what Solis was sure was a perfect ass, and cut the zip-tie cuffs from his wrists. "We need to hurry. You got a partner out their already in pursuit?"

  "Yeah," confirmed Solis, exiting the patrol car. He begged her pardon, and reached past her through the driver door and over sleeping behemoth to scoop his weapons from the floor.

  They ran into the forest, Solis holstering and securing most of his artillery save the stake-gun in his hands. It was a new moon, and he could barely see. Jesus, Halac must be fighting blind. The woman, a few paces ahead and never slowing, handed something to him—night vision goggles. Hers were already on.

  They ran another quarter mile, and practically hurdled Halac who was hunkered behind a downed tree.

  He stood up, and said, "I think he’s gone."

  "Was it Jonas?" she asked.

  "Yeah, it was Jonas," said Halac cautiously. "Who the hell are you?"

  That night Solis’s hatred of Highway Patrol was born. That was also the night they first met Franky. Solis wanted to fuck her—could have laid down his jacket right their among the ferns and pine needles and gone to town that first night, but Halac was a different story. Halac wanted to interrogate her, pick her brain for everything she knew about the BloodStar. From that first night in the woods, it was pretty clear Franky was off limits. Halac would have skewered Solis if he did anything to jeopardize the professional relationship Halac was trying to forge.

  Good old Halac. He didn’t admit he wanted to fuck Franky for months, and by that time, he wanted more than just a fuck.

  Solis was jolted back to their current clusterfuck as he came up fast behind a snowplow doing twenty, max. His knuckles bled white with frustration as he gripped the Expedition steering wheel. There was no mirth in his tone, no nostalgic good humor.

  "At least it’s not snowing anymore," said Teichmann.

  Solis ignored this one all together. Halac better bag the BloodStar after all this.

  Anya presided like a Supreme Court Justice, minus the impartiality, as Sam rearranged himself in his pants and Marley zipped up.

  "Oh, my God." Marley was over the initial shock of being interrupted right as she was about to dig in to the delicacy of Sam's flesh, had just given her senses access to the child.

  "What?" asked Sam, following Marley’s eyes to the prize.

  "This is so much better than I hoped for," said Anya. "I was worried you might try to resist, but I guess the Hunter has handled that problem for me."

  Marley’s eyes were closed, nose in the air. "Oh my God," she said again.

  There was something different about the child’s blood, a freshness, a vitality independent of the chemicals that flooded the blood of the terrified. This sample was bursting with life, coursing with everything that made living worthwhile. It was virgin blood on steroids.

  "Do you like your gift? I brought it just for you; a child for my childe." Anya winked at Sam. The girl trembled, but did not scream.

  Oh, God, Marley was so parched her body twitched in anticipation of the kill, energized and desperate for this girl’s life force. It was positively overwhelming.

  Sam said, "Marley, don’t give up. Don’t let yourself slip away. Who do you want to be? She’s just a kid."

  "Samuel, if I want her to drink, she’d obey even if I brought an eighty-year-old leper," said Anya. Marley’s tendons coiled to pounce, and Anya moved the girl behind her. "Not yet."

  Sam ignored Anya. "Marley, you can’t take a child. You’ll lose yourself. Her blood is too pure." His voice was tense and he reached down to touch Marley’s back. She reared back and actually snapped at him. Sam yanked his hand back and took a step away.

  "Marley, don’t listen to Samuel. He doesn’t have any idea how it feels, how you feel. You were made for this."

  Then Anya looked at Sam. "Don’t waste your time, Hunter. Sabian will know the moment he arrives about you two, and he will have you tonight." She kneeled down and brought the girl to her side, brushing the child’s hair from a tear-streaked face. "How interesting this is about to become. Maybe we need to recreate the mood for him, perhaps find a way to include the girl."

  "Whatever," Marley growled. "Fine by me." Who cared about Sabian? He damn sure didn’t care about her. Couldn’t even come up with new pick-up lines, shoveling her all the same shit he’d pitched at Anya. And furthermore, who cared about Sam? Anya was probably right. If Sabian had seen what they were about to do, would have done if not interrupted, there would have been hell to pay. But all of that was a distant second to what really mattered: the child—she had to take the child. She had to have her now.

  Once upon a time, the little girl’s leaking eyes and whimpering would have inspired protectiveness, but now they whipped Marley’s thirst into a frenzy. She wasn’t even aware she was advancing until Anya growled. "Back off," and moved in front of the girl again.

  Marley froze and Sam shrank back from the senior vampire who had lengthened her limbs to full on menace-mode. He stumbled backward when he reached the couch and landed in an awkward huff on his ass.

  "Don’t worry, Marley," said Anya. The infrequent use of Marley's name instead of some condescending term meant to dehumanize was always an attention grabber, even with a virgin child in the room. "Soon enough. You don’t feel him? He’s close now, coming to save his precious Marley from the spawn he so fiercely regrets."

  Marley shook her head, unable look at Anya; right now she only had eyes for the sobbing, steaming girl. God, her blood must be boiling with fear, and Marley didn’t have the strength to hold on much longer. She was so desperate to rip the child’s throat out and guzzle euphoria that once again she moved without awareness. She crouched down in a blatant attack position, growls and snarls erupting from the pit of her stomach and forcing their way out of her mouth through clenched teeth. She let her fangs unfurl to full length, as had Anya, only Anya was smiling widely in anticipation as Marley growled like a provoked dog.

  "Now, don’t be impatient. It’s almost time. Wait for him."

  "Leave him out of this," panted Marley. "None of this matters to him. He’s never going to want you, so shut the fuck up, and just let me do this." Marley was jacked up like an electric chair with no one to service, inert and pulsing. Even as she spoke, her eyes remained on the child hiding behind Anya.

  "You really don’t feel him, do you?" cooed Anya.

  "I can make you feel my foot in your ass," said Marley, now looking her sire square in the eyes. She’d decided there was only one way to get that blood onto her tongue, and that was through Anya. So be it.

  But Marley’s words must have turned Anya’s crazy-dial to the holy-shit setting. "You will learn some respect, or I swear I’ll kill you and LEAVE YOUR HEAD ON YOUR FUCKING PILLOW FOR HIM TO FIND!" Anya’s voice reached unfathomable decibels, and Marley and Sam shoved their hands to their ears. The little girl squirmed out of Anya’s backhanded grasp, and fled to a corner, shrinking into herself and no doubt pulling a Matryoshka on the various levels of her psyche.

  "If you’re right," said Marley, lowering her hands and smiling, "you’ll be dead by tomorrow. Because he’ll have a shit fit if you do anything to me, isn’t that right?"

  "Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you. He can’t." Anya’s voice almost sounded regretful. "Won’t, actually."

  "She’s right," Sam said. "If she dies, you die." Marley cocked hear ear back toward Sam on the couch. "When a vampire is killed, all their childer die, too. It’s the blood, Marley. Without a living sire, your own vampire blood cannot remain potent. It dies. You die."

  "But that doesn’t make any sense," she cried, taking a step toward the girl’s corner refuge.

  "Like it makes sense that you’re a vampire in the first place?"
Sam’s voice was almost hysterical with disbelief at her naivety.

  Anya finished inspecting her nails, obviously amused at Marley’s indecision. "So, you really don’t feel him? Isn’t he supposed to be the love of your life? Your soul-mate, right?" She turned around, and reached for the girl, arms seeming to stretch beyond their normal expanse to clutch the kid by the hair.

  "You should at least be able to feel your own kind coming. I mean, unless you’re just too stupid to know what you’re feeling. True, you won’t ever have the connection he and I will always have." She punctuated the last part, driving home the point that Marley could never sever Anya’s relationship with Sabian, not if Marley wanted to live to have her own. "You know, because his blood lives inside me," continued Anya. "He is my maker. I always know when he is near, just as he always finds me, if he wants to. If he really wants to. Interesting, isn’t it, that it’s taken him so long? I wonder why."

  Man, Marley had to hand it to the vampire. She would have preferred to shut Anya’s mouth by way of sledgehammer, but at this point, most of her words were only background noise. Marley cared for one thing—the little girl. At this point, she was ready to rake the kid open at the bowels to taste the hot, sweet, copper blood.

  "Wait," said Anya, eyes taking on a wild look, like an emaciated pilgrim at the sight of an apple tree. "You feel that? You hear that?"

  Anya, frenzied, jerked the little girl in front of her by the hair. She grabbed the kid’s hand, palm up, and sliced a two-inch gash with her thumbnail. The little girl let out a yowl of pain as blood began to flow immediately, ruby-red thickness dripping along the child's hand. Time slowed down, stretched across Marley’s living room as each drop crashed to the carpet with a thunderous silence.

  "Catch!" Anya thrust the little girl at Marley. The girl steadied herself and looked up into Marley’s feral eyes.

  Bloodlust—instant junkie.

  Marley’s fangs shone as she reared back, and the kid let out a blood-curdling scream. Marley ripped into the child's tiny throat, guzzling, slurping, ending the child’s screams forever.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Sabian had them. The connection with his childe had been tethered and secure since he breached the Continental Divide. There had never before been relief when Anya’s substance reached for him, but this time he could have sung a hymn to the heavens. Even after decades of separation, Anya’s beacon called to him when he allowed his mind to be its receiver. Was that it? Could it have been so simple all along? Had he tuned her frequency out for so long his mind no longer received her signal?

  Christ, was he ready for this confrontation? He psyched himself up, mentally rehearsing how he would play his part as guest of honor. And so what if everything fell apart? He would not live long beyond Marley’s death, that much was decided. It didn’t matter what it took. There were old friends from long ago adventures, perhaps Roman. Hell, he could even turn himself in to old Sam Halac from the Vanguard. Why not throw his old nemesis a bone? So there were ways, and it was a comforting thought because he was dog-tired of walking through this world without Marley.

  And if everything fell apart, and Anya did take Marley, she would be back. She always came back to him, and his allegiance was hers across any expanse of time.

  It was late, after one o’clock in the morning when he finally approached Marley’s door, and on this side of the Rockies, clouds shrouded the city from the celestial showcase. The streets were almost as dark as Marley’s walkway, but there was light inside the condo. He approached the door slowly and paused for a moment, eyes closed, surveying the situation through his heightened senses.

  Something was wrong.

  Solis was cooked. He’d been tearing ass through the snow packed mountains for three hours; add seven to that from the laser trail he made from Vegas to Glenwood (making unbelievable time even considering the trucks and unpredictable roads), and he was a zombie.

  Teichmann asked several times if Solis wanted him to drive, and more often than not, silence was all he gave the big Hunter. Hell no he couldn’t drive; Solis wasn’t always sure Teichmann could find his asshole before he shit himself let alone pilot the Expi without wadding them both down some Rocky Mountain cliff.

  They’d finally made it onto Interstate 25, and Fort Collins was literally a straight shot north. As long as he didn’t have any Officer Cuntfaces to deal with, they would be there in less than forty minutes. The other commuters honked their horns and executed several savory gestures—nobody likes the asshole doing ninety on a snow packed highway—but Solis couldn’t give two shits. This was it. He knew the BloodStar would be there, was probably arriving right now with a little bow wrapped around his neck just for Halac.

  "What do you think?" It was the first thing he’d said to Teichmann since the Eisenhower Tunnel. Solis guessed it was actually the Johnson Tunnel since they’d been heading east. What fucking genius gives the same tunnel two different names? Whoever that poor bastard Johnson was must have known he’d never get any play. Who wants to be named for the eastbound route? No one ever headed east in the history of the country. It was always west for the good old U.S. Except for tonight, of course, and even this was shit detail.

  "Definitely McRae’s place." Teichmann sat a little straighter in his seat, and rolled his head around, stretching his neck muscles. He gave his eyes and cheeks a vigorous rub, and then ran his fingers through his hair. It stood up on end like he’d just had shock therapy. He hit the button, and his window rolled down, the sound of the motor adding to the drone of the tires on the icy pavement. Cold air blasted the cabin of the Expedition, and both Hunters shook off the fatigue.

  "Back up you think?"

  Teichmann looked at Solis, his jaw going just slack enough for Solis to notice out of the corner of his eye. He knew what Teichmann was thinking. Solis never asked his partner for advice. Never. Something had become clear to Solis about his partner through all of this: he’d always be a stupid-ass-this or a dumb-mother-fucker-that, but the big guy was a hell of a Hunter. More than that, he was probably the only rookie who could have powered through Solis’s badditude and recovery. Halac would always be his mentor, but after all was said and done, Solis thought of Teichmann as more than a partner. He wasn’t going through all this shit because of orders or thrills; Teichmann was next to him in the front seat right now because he was a friend.

  "I can’t call it. Feels like the whole thing is slipping through our fingers. You feel it too?" asked Teichmann.

  "Feels like more than that. Like we never had it in our hands in the first place."

  Teichmann nodded, casting one more perplexed look at Solis before pulling his gun from his holster and checking for ammo. Even though the big Hunter had a hard time shutting the fuck up, Solis loved him for pulling it off tonight.

  Sabian paused for just a moment before opening the door. Too many things were wrong. First of all, there was another of his kind there besides Anya. He could feel Anya, and could feel Marley—she must be scared out of her skin because her energy was all wrong. God, was she hurt? Was she dying? His Kindred intuition also told him there were two humans. He could account for one human—Marley, and one vampire—Anya. The other human was just a child and he couldn’t imagine what role someone so young might play in this, but this kid was beyond the point of terror.

  He strode forward, and pulled the door open to find the answer. He saw Marley savaging the child, just a girl who couldn’t have been more than four years old, terrified and in the grips of a fledgling vampire with no idea the craven force she exerted.

  When Marley’s eyes finally found his, they were dead. She held his gaze as she finished with the girl. Their eyes were locked for an eternity, broken only when she finally let the body drop to the floor with about as much consideration as she might give a bag of dirty laundry. She was in a swoon of ecstasy, lit up from the mixture of death and youth in that blood.

  Marley took his breath away, even now, standing across the room and smiling
at him with blood stained lips and teeth. She seemed to have grown two or three inches. Her arms and legs had lengthened and become leaner, as had the rest of her body. Her cheeks were flushed with fresh blood from the little girl, and her long red curls now fell past her waist.

  But most remarkable were her eyes. What were once beautiful brown eyes were now black as ink, and punctuated by lashes so thick and long, anyone other than Kindred would mistake them for false. Her eyes were a dramatic statement against her ceramic skin, which had turned to freckle-dotted cream since her embrace.

  Sabian’s heart soared even as it fell. Marley had been changed, and Anya had played sire. It was his sweetest dream, and his worst nightmare, all at once. For centuries he’d yearned for this, envisioned the moment she took his blood as her own, making her his once and for all time, and now the deed was done.

  But she belonged to someone else.

  As if reading his mind, Anya crooned, "She’s mine, Sabian." She smirked and did a she-cat jig toward Marley. "And she’s been a bad girl."

  Sabian cocked his head toward the sound of Anya’s voice, but kept his eyes on Marley. He looked her up and down, over and over, his brain pulling a Ripley’s-Believe-It-Or-Not.

  Not. Absolutely.

  Finally, he turned his eyes to Anya and said, "Why?"

  He wanted to know, needed to know. This was a scenario that never occurred to him. Why hadn’t he considered this possibility? Sabian couldn’t have been more unprepared, and therefore, more vulnerable to Anya’s psychological warfare. That, he realized, was when she was most venomous.

  "Why? Of course, ever the philosopher, my sire, always questioning your own nature, always needing reasons, always wanting order." She looked at Marley as though she were nothing more than hand-me-down clothes. "Why not? What does it matter? You’ve always wanted her this way, never quite satisfied with your first childe. What do you care why? Let her serve her purpose for me, just like I served my purpose for you."