BloodStar

by Montoya, Cassidy

  Her body slumped to the floor, perfectly positioned for the homicide team to come outline in chalk. Blood oozed from the neck with the help of gravity, and Sabian held Anya’s head by the hair in his left hand while he put up his right hand in a stay-put to Marley. He knew what to expect. Anything was possible until it was done and Anya was unleashed. Even once she started to fail, Marley would carry enough strength to wage an assault before she expired if Anya so willed it, and Sabian could already feel it as though the head had a bullhorn attached and was screaming bloody murder.

  The body began to writhe while its feet and hands pounded a primal rhythm on the floor. It twisted and groped, trying to find purchase against the void that existed in absence of a central area of control. So violent were the movements that three fingernails were lost as permanent gouges were carved into the floor. It was trying to move toward the estranged head, and with no direction, it crept toward Sam who was still trying to keep pressure on the wound as he recovered from Anya’s onslaught. He was too weakened to stand, so he did the best he could to scoot away from the abomination.

  Meanwhile, the mouth on the head opened and closed like a big mouth bass out of water, and the eyes bulged larger and larger with every drop of black blood that fell to the floor. It argued in silent fury against this injustice. The movements of the mouth slowed more and more, finally coming to a stop in a twisted grimace.

  Sabian kept hold of Anya’s head in one hand, and with the other he ripped his shirt off, revealing a perfectly proportioned, lean physique, fed only by blood for more than three hundred years. He used it to shroud the severed head. Sabian did not want Marley to have to look into the frog-eyes of her sire.

  Sabian looked to Marley and saw that she was already beginning to fail. He didn’t dare put Anya’s head down, not because he was afraid it would somehow find the volition to roll over to it’s body and reattach itself, but because he was afraid of what Marley might do. She was still a childe to her sire and capable of anything, at least until…well, until she wasn’t. Best to just go with that.

  He was crippled, rendered immobile by a competing need to keep the head from Marley and be with her as she passed. Even now, she wilted like a parched iris on a scorching summer day, devastated by thirst. Her body cried out for the toxin still seeping from Anya’s now unmoving body, begging for her sire’s blood to hydrate her desiccated flesh.

  Sabian watched as she fell first to her knees, and then to all fours. She went from porcelain to ashen just like that, no gentle fade, no in between. Her eyes shrank into her skull, and she was more ghoul than girl now.

  Unable to hold her own weight, she became as a baby in a crib at naptime, posterior up and head down, breath coming in shallow gasps. Sabian couldn’t marshal the will to offer his physical comfort. If he touched her, he thought he might lie down and die right alongside her before he finished that which had to be done. Her soul had to be released if they were to reunite, and it was a process that would take both strength of will and flesh.

  "Do something," Sam croaked.

  "There’s nothing to do." In his helplessness, Sabian forgot his intent to flay Halac.

  "You’re the BloodStar, goddamn it."

  "Hush."

  "Christ, Sabian, do something." Sam’s voice trailed off to barely more than a whisper. "She’s dying."

  "There’s nothing to be done. It’s almost over." His entire world, the only thing that kept him going for three hundred years, was almost…over.

  "Fuck that. You love her?"

  "Quiet, Hunter." She deserved quiet, respect…if the Hunter would stop with rhetorical questions. Did he love her? Really?

  "Sabian, look at her. I know what you’re going to do to me, and God knows I deserve it. But Jesus, if I were you, I’d fight for her. You hear me?" Halac raised his hand, and hooked a finger at Sabian. "You’re the fucking BloodStar, the BloodStar. Try. Now. Or burn your dead to the wind knowing I loved her more than you."

  Sabian finally wrenched his eyes from Marley, and turned to Halac. "You really need to quiet your mouth, Hunter. I’ll burn my dead. In a minute, that's all I'll have left. But don't you ever, ever say that again. No one loves her the way I do."

  "Sabian, you dumb fuck, for once let go of the theatrics and just give her your goddamn wrist."

  "Halac, you dumb fuck, it doesn’t work that way. She’s taken a sire. There can’t be another. I thought you of all your brethren would understand at least the basics of our world."

  He turned from Halac and looked not at, but through Marley.

  "Sabian BloodStar, don’t you give up. You don’t stand there and tell me you love her while you watch her die, goddamn it. Love her. Prove it. Give her your fucking wrist!"

  The Hunter was right. Either he tried now or they both lost her. Could it work? Was this false hope? The last dig his existence-long nemesis delivered (at least this time through). If he tried and failed, Halac would have really killed him, once and for all, because the pain of hope unfulfilled was the most devastating pain of all. More than that, hope was lethal.

  Sabian looked down at his hands, and willed that special magic to the surface. He had no heart rate, hadn’t for three hundred years, yet his blood pulsed beneath his skin. He tucked his chin to his chest, and looked at the skin on his abdomen; it was the same, alight with a visible aura that shone as it danced the beat under his flesh.

  This was it, the crawl under his skin that practically imploded the door-vamp’s head in New York, the current in his belly that somehow gave him strength to yank heavy artillery right out of Vanguard hands simply by thinking it had to be done.

  Had to be done.

  Inspiration born of instinct struck. His body wanted to do something, had to do something, but it didn’t compute. There was nothing to be done.

  He hesitated even though he knew deep in his vampire soul that he could make this work. Never mind that it had been tried and failed in moments of Kindred desperation a thousand times over. This time it would work.

  Because it had to.

  So he broke his chains of uncertainty and moved to Marley. Under his breath he began to chant, "I can believe for this. I can believe for you. For you. For you."

  Just as Anya had done with the dead little girl, Sabian sliced his flesh with his thumbnail. He knelt down to Marley and tried to shimmy his arm between the floor and her mouth. She was too weak now, unable to help, so near final death that she was all but embalmed.

  I am BloodStar, he thought, and lifted her head gently. He slid his shining arm into place beneath her lips. Sabian expected to lay her head down, and maybe see a slow response, perhaps a sniff or a tentative lick, but it was like he’d Pulp-Fictioned her heart with a syringe of adrenaline. The second her lips made contact with the black blood trickling from his hand, Marley sprang to life, and with all the grace of a thirteen-year old boy after a six-foot tall summer growth spurt, tore into his palm.

  The flow didn’t satisfy her, though, and she bit her way up his arm until she settled in the crook of his elbow, taking long, violent swallows. Twice it went down the wrong pipe, but unlike Sabian, Marley didn’t perceive the feeling as just a weird discomfort, but rather reacted as though her lungs still functioned as they had when she was human. She coughed brutally but these small interruptions were nothing more than speed bumps in the blind feast.

  Sabian lost himself in a fit of ecstasy—it was so seldom that he was the donor and it was easy to forget that it showcased an entirely different menu of sensation. He fought against it, trying to maintain his focus. He had to believe. Somehow, he knew he had to keep the glow, the only evidence he’d ever been able to accept of how special he was.

  He had to be BloodStar for Marley.

  He watched her work at his arm like an oil drill, rising and falling as she siphoned his darkness, until she seemed strong enough to break the bond. She was in the throes of blood lust. He couldn’t just ask politely for her to let go. He would have to force her off, he knew, other
wise it would be easy come, easy go for her new sire.

  Her new sire. Was it actually happening? Yes, one look at her and he knew that yes, for the first time in Kindred history, it was happening. Because it had to.

  Good God, did the other BloodStar know about this? It would rock the Kindred world.

  His first attempt to pull his arm away was greeted with a snarling sound that bubbled up from Marley’s throat between swallows. She moved in to protect her territory. Not relishing what he had to do, Sabian reached into her flames of wavy hair, taking hold close to her scalp, and yanked her fangs free. She took skin and sinew with, but the connection was severed, and Sabian was able to regard the miracle.

  Marley’s body took on renewed life, her skin on its way back to the color of eggshell, cheeks the rosy expression of a teenager who’d just snuck a quickie with her boyfriend in the backseat.

  Marley had taken a new sire. His status as a BloodStar was undeniable now.

  Sabian turned to Sam with the posture of vengeful royalty he’d fought so long to deny.

  Chapter Forty

  Sam felt like an endangered species from the moment Sabian first walked through the door. He waited for that familiar feeling he’d learned to recognize through his training with the Vanguard, expecting to feel Sabian’s fingers thumbing through the card catalogue in his brain, looking for some feeling or intention. But it didn’t come, and it kept not coming until Sam almost believed maybe the BloodStar wouldn’t notice him at all.

  But then Anya, that ratfink bitch, squealed them out. Five minutes before Sabian walked in, Sam was about to get X-rated with Marley. He knew there would have been some kind of psychic energy left floating around, some scent in the air. Sabian would have known either way, even if Anya hadn’t said anything. There was no way he was getting out of this, no matter how long the BloodStar was distracted by his crazy vampire childe.

  Now that Sabian had unscrewed Anya’s head and buried it in his shirt (leave it to the bloodsucker to find a way to disrobe), and Marley was secure, the thumbing and fiddling began.

  From his position on the floor where he was leaning against the wall, nursing a first rate flesh wound (and that fucker smarted like no other), he watched the funnel clouds forming the storm of the century on Sabian’s face, and a homicidal torpedo exploded in his gut. Sam squeezed his eyes shut and puckered his face against the force of the BloodStar.

  Jesus Christ, now that the crazy fuck believed what everyone else believed, there was a whole new flavor of hell to vamp torture, the likes of which Sam had never felt. He put his hands up, and covered his ears. "Fuuuuuuck, get outta my head you son of a bitch!"

  "Don’t worry. It won’t last long." Sabian’s voice was hushed, but no less malevolent than if he’d boomed his ominous message at the top of his lungs.

  "What are you doing?" asked Marley, sounding not quite frantic, but a might more than concerned. She sat up now, as if waking from a refreshing nap. There was something about her, something…more. Sam knew what it was immediately—she’d taken BloodStar essence as her own.

  And she was worthy of it. That was the key.

  Anya had a less cured version of the same substance two hundred years before, but the fact that Sabian was still somewhat young at the time and Anya a lunatic hellion had inhibited the blood from working its full magic. Not the case with Marley.

  Shit, it would be even harder to let go and die now, even though Sam had no choice in the matter.

  Sabian closed his eyes and raised his head skyward, inhaling through his nose and out through his mouth. He stretched his arms out to his sides at forty-five degree angles, palms faced forward.

  Again, Marley asked, "Sabian! What are you doing to him?"

  "I’m looking."

  "Looking for what?"

  "Quiet!"

  "Don’t tell me to be quiet. What are you doing to him?" This time she yelled it, and it was more than a question. Sam wondered if she actually wanted an answer, or if she was just trying to assert herself, because it hadn’t taken long for the old suckerfish to start ordering her around.

  Sam was all the way on the floor now, coiling and warping in pain. "You already know, why are you pissed at me? The only commitment I ever made to you was to cut your goddamn head off. Be pissed at her."

  Laying the blame on Marley was a weasel move. Was he really going out like this? Whining like a little girl? But goddamn, the pain was mother fucking extra-terrestrial. "Fucking parasite, get out of my head!"

  Sabian dropped his hands. He’d said a thousand times to a thousand admirers that he didn’t read minds, no matter what the throngs wanted to believe and the Hunters spouted as tales. Now that he’d done the impossible and conceded his right as BloodStar, the jack-off must have recognized his true potential, and damned if he didn’t just pull a Mentalist on Sam.

  Hell, what they’d seen Sabian do in the past (and that shit alone went way past mind-bender status) only scratched the surface. The BloodStar had a brand new bag of tricks, special for his favorite Hunter.

  Fabulous.

  Sabian shook his head once. Twice. He looked up to Marley, and said, "Is it true?"

  "Is what true?"

  "You love him?"

  "What?" Her tone was incredulous. And totally transparent.

  "He thinks you do."

  "Sabian…"

  "Just tell me. He loves you. Do you love him?"

  Sam knew the answer she withheld. Sabian was right. She loved him, but the stolen thoughts gave the BloodStar the wrong impression. It was only safe love. She could love Sam because she would never make anything out of that love. Franky was always right, Marley belonged to Sabian, and that would have been okay if only Sam didn’t belong to Marley.

  That I’m-going-to-rip-you-a-new-asshole-and-shit-backwards-down-the-hole look in Sabian’s eyes seemed like a viable option for Sam, a way out of the pain. Suicide by Vampire.

  Sam knew the BloodStar would not suffer his survival, so Sam’s bullshit broken heart wouldn’t be an issue for long. Tissue for your issue? he thought. His internal monologue meandered into goofy territory, but that was safe, too. He wouldn’t live through the night, he was sure of it, so why not go a little bonkers at the end?

  What else did Sabian see during his little mind rape? Everything? Nothing? Oh well, what the hell. Might as well wrap it all up in a tidy little package for the de facto newlyweds.

  "She does love me, just not enough, right Marley?" Sam scooted himself into a more authoritative upright position, but still leaned against the wall. He’d lost a lot of blood, and pride or no pride, he didn’t think he had the strength to stare death in the eyes on his feet.

  Marley looked between the two men, and Sam wasn’t surprised to see she was genuinely torn, but even that was bullshit. They all knew, even his highness the BloodStar, which one she would choose if forced, and this was the moment of coercion.

  A little unfair, though, to be honest. They got to walk away in love, Marley with only a tad bit of guilt to be forgotten the next time she Slurpee’d some poor fuck’s blood. For Sam, on the other hand, there was no what’s-behind-curtain-number-two, no second showcase to bid on. Nope, Sam Halac, Hunter extraordinaire, just got to die.

  Some fucking consolation prize.

  He knew it had to happen, and Sabian sure as fuck knew it. Although Marley suspected, Sam thought she might still be holding out hope. Who wouldn’t like to have their cake and eat it too? Or maybe in her case, have her bag o’ blood and drink it, too.

  "You know what, BloodStar?" Sam thrust as much rancor as he could into the label, knowing it would instigate the vampire who was already in a killing mood. "Why all the pretentious ceremony? How about you just get on with it."

  But Sabian was stuck on Marley. Jesus, was the leech about to go pansy? Sure as fuck looked like a lonesome, bloody little tear in his eye. Oh for the love. Sam just wanted the shit over with already, so he poked a little harder. "Yeah, it does burn a little, doesn’t it? That
she feels me? That she wanted to fuck me?"

  Okay, it was a little tasteless, a smidge disrespectful to Marley, but shit, he was Vanguard. If he couldn’t make his kill, he would leave whatever wounds he could.

  Now the BloodStar swung his eyes to Sam, looking down at him in a perfect metaphor for the bullshit pedestal he’d been put on all these centuries.

  "So what are you waiting for?" Sam punctuated his taunt with a smirk. Sabian almost looked like he didn’t know the answer, like his lack of inertia puzzled him as much as Sam. "Fuck Sabian, you could have taken me out a hundred times? What are you waiting for? What are you always fucking waiting for? Did you really believe it wasn’t going down like this? I mean, I didn’t believe, but shit, man, you’ve seen it before, right? I’ll always love her, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, not now, not ever."

  Then Sam let his head slide along the wall until it was tilted toward Marley. "I’ll always love you." He shrugged his shoulders, grimaced from the pain of his wound, and on the end of a long exhale, said, "It is what it is."

  It wasn’t the taunting and harassment that finally got the BloodStar off his ass, but the simple declaration of that which Sabian could never own, would never control—Sam’s soul-tie to Marley, and her inability, lifetime after lifetime, to deny the same connection to the Hunter.

  Sabian leapt through the air and landed on Sam. There was to be no torture, no slow crucifixion, not one bit of fanfare. Sabian might have been fashionably late with Sam’s demise, but the hour had come round at last. Sabian bit into Sam’s throat, and began the end.

  Sam was frozen physically, but upstairs his synapses fired a fast-forward twenty-one gun salute. Scenes from his life flashed in rapid sequence, a flipbook of drawings that made no sense here at the end of time for Sam Halac. Nothing added up. Had he honestly spent the better part of his life embracing hatred? Had he really poured so much time and energy into studying them? Creatures suspended in death instead of living a life of his own?

  Sam was already committed to death before the vampire had taken enough to pass the point of no return. Being paralyzed by fear while a maniac vampire tears your jugular open will do that.