Blood Ties Omnibus

by Jennifer Armintrout

  Once we’d taken off and I was reasonably sure we weren’t in imminent danger of plunging into the sea while burning to death, I unbuckled and stood. “I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well yesterday. Mind if I crash?”

  “Not the best terminology to use on a plane, but knock yourself out.” Max shook his head, his mouth turned down and his gaze still fixed on the television. “Nine hundred channels. I think I’m good here.”

  “Great.” Truth be told, I was more tired of the Spanish variety show he’d been watching during takeoff than I was actually tired. “Wake me before we land, if I sleep that long.”

  “Will do.”

  I briefly heard the staged moans of an over-enthusiastic porn actress blare from the television as I headed to the bedroom. At least he’d have something to occupy his time.

  Not that I’d been on a lot of private jets or anything, but the beds were more comfortable than I’d expected. The sheets had a thread count equivalent to Egyptian cotton butter, and the incessant whir of the machinery around me created a womblike environment, or at least what I’d imagine the womb to be like. I should have been able to drop off immediately, but my brain kept replaying the horror of my circumstances. I didn’t have a clue where Nathan was or if he was even alive. When I tried to communicate through the blood tie, all I got back was crippling pain. Did that mean he was dead? Just imagining it intensified the agony, so I shielded myself from his thoughts…or the void where they once were. All I wanted was to feel Nathan’s arms around me, to hear him tell me that everything would be all right. Instead, I cried, grateful for the mechanical noises that would keep Max from overhearing my sobs.

  I wasn’t sure when I crossed the line between conscious and asleep, so it was quite a shock when I opened my eyes and found myself in Cyrus’s bedroom in his palatial mansion. The mattress beneath me was soft, the linen sheets as cool and crisp as I remembered.

  Clarence has really kept the place up.

  “You’re awake.”

  I hadn’t heard the voice of my former sire, even in dreams, since the night I’d killed him. I’d seen him many times, but always through a murky blue filter. We’d never spoken. Still, I remembered his cloying praise and manipulative words. His gentle tone should have put me on my guard, but I somehow knew I dreamed, so he could do me no harm. I had no reason to resist him. Not that I’d ever been able to in the past.

  I rolled onto my side to face him. His long, white-gold hair covered his shoulders and the pillow beneath his head. A smile formed slowly on his beautiful mouth, and I ached to touch him.

  “I’m not awake.” I couldn’t force the sadness from my voice. “I’m on a plane. I’m sleeping.”

  He nodded and reached for me. His hands weren’t the clawed nightmares they’d been after five hundred years of living death. They were smooth and strong when he brushed my hair from my eyes. They slid down my neck to the scar he’d left on the night he’d changed me, and a shudder of longing passed through me at his touch. In reality, Cyrus would have been pleased with that reaction. In my dream, regret softened his usually cruel face. “You’re right. You’re not awake. But now your eyes are open.”

  I leaned forward and kissed him. There was none of the need for control or power in it that there had been when he was alive. I surrendered completely, willed him to do the same with my mind. In my dream, I could have him again, the parts of him that I’d loved and not feared. The parts of him that had seduced me into questioning whether my humanity was truly worth keeping.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was awake, and a very startled Max was pulling away.

  “I was trying to—to wake you up,” he stammered, rubbing his chin as though I’d hit him. The look in his eyes was just as accusing. “And you kissed me.”

  “Sorry.” I resisted the urge to wipe off my lips. “I was dreaming.”

  “Must have been a hell of a dream.” He slid his hands into his jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels while looking at anything but me. “There was something on the news I thought you should see.”

  In the other room, Max had CNN on the television. The picture-in-picture function displayed MSNBC. I dropped onto the couch. “No porn? This must be important.”

  “Shh, it’s on again.” He gestured to the screen. “It’s been coming on after the ‘top of the hour’ shit.”

  The anchorwoman, who’d previously reported a story about a toilet-trained horse, put on a more somber expression. “Police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, are searching for a suspect in a brutal slaying that took place in front of several eyewitnesses Monday night.”

  “That was last night—” The words stuck in my throat. I grabbed one of the throw pillows and hugged it tight to my chest.

  The anchorwoman continued. “The victim, whose name has not been released, was jogging down a public bike path when an unidentified man tackled her to the ground and cut her throat.”

  A teenager appeared on the screen, her face blotchy and red from crying. “It happened so fast, no one could do anything. His face was all messed up, like it got burned up or something. It was like he just ripped her whole neck out.”

  “We’re following up with witnesses and pairing them with police sketch artists, and we’re hoping to get an arrest as soon as possible.” I recognized the middle-aged police officer on the screen as the one who’d given me a speeding ticket earlier that year. He looked a lot more forgiving of the psycho killer than he had of my measly eighty in a fifty-five.

  Back in the studio, the anchorwoman fixed the camera with a somber gaze. “Police artists have compiled this drawing….”

  Though it was hastily sketched in pencil and the jagged snout of his feeding face had somehow translated to a larger nose and whorled burn scars, there was no denying the man in the picture was meant to be Nathan. The reporter’s voice continued. “Police say the suspect is Caucasian, in his midthirties, with facial scars and several tattoos. He should be considered dangerous.”

  “Tattoos.” I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger. “The sigils. Of course.”

  “Hopefully, the Movement will have more information on this when we land,” Max said softly.

  “They’re going to kill him, aren’t they?” I couldn’t remember ever feeling so tired. This was where Max was supposed to say something to comfort me. He remained silent.

  I covered my face with my hands. “I hope they do kill him. Because if they don’t, he’ll never forgive himself.”

  4

  A Rabbit Hole

  I f the dead priest hadn’t owned a television, Cyrus might never have known what was happening.

  Not that he felt he owed the Father any gratitude. Cyrus hated television. Since its horrible birth, the blasted thing was all humans could talk about. In this wretched captivity, though, Cyrus needed something to occupy his mind, and he wasn’t about to take up Bible study.

  The Mouse still slept. After she’d finished crying and he’d rested long enough to manage sitting upright again, he’d demanded she bring him a first aid kid to bandage her bruised and bloody neck. He’d let her sleep in the bed. He had no use for it. The care and, God help him, nurturing, he’d displayed had unsettled him. There’d been no chance of sleeping after that.

  For the first few hours, he’d busied himself ripping pages from the Bible on the shelf to make paper cranes. He’d worked through the first half of Genesis when he grew bored and flipped on the television. It helped him cover the sounds from upstairs. Though any sensible vampire would have been sleeping by now, the Fangs seemed content to blast pounding, repetitive noise that barely qualified as music.

  There were three channels, and only one showed anything of interest. The local news anchorwoman wore too much rouge and her hair looked like one perfectly molded plastic piece. Exactly the kind of woman Cyrus liked to charm, then torture to death. He leaned forward in his chair.

  “Authorities in Louden County are calling off their search for three people who were reported
missing after a church fire in Hudson.” The picture cut to three photos. The dead priest and nun, and a pretty girl with a bright smile wearing a cotton sundress.

  The Mouse.

  The anchorwoman’s nasal voice continued. “Police say Father Bartholomew Straub, Sister Helen Jacobs and Stacey Pickles were working at Saint Anne Catholic Church on Friday when the fire broke out, but the three have not been seen since. Footprints leading away from the building suggest they may have attempted to walk to safety, but with desert temperatures reaching record highs over the weekend, they are presumed dead.”

  Cyrus eyed the girl on the bed, shaking his head. “Pickles?”

  More disturbing than the Mouse’s ridiculous name—though barely—was the matter of the fire. Why would the authorities believe the building had burned? And if the weekend had passed…

  “Get up.” He stood, glad of the little strength sleep had returned to him, and shook her. “What day is it?”

  She stared at him in bleary confusion. “Tuesday or Wednesday. I lost track. You’re standing.”

  Tuesday or Wednesday. Which meant he’d been raised on Monday. But they’d been here since Friday. “What happened when people showed up for Mass on Sunday?”

  “I don’t know. No one came. When Father Bart mentioned it to…” She wet her lips. “That’s when they killed him. He tried to tell them people would be coming soon for services. They laughed at him and said no one was coming to help us.”

  Cyrus turned away from her tears. They might spark that dangerous human guilt in him, and he had no time for it now. “Did they tell you why?”

  “No. They just started killing.”

  “But they kept them for two days before they killed them. Why?” The timeline didn’t make sense. If he’d taken hostages, he would have dispensed with the useless ones right away.

  When he turned to face the Mouse, her eyes were wide and rimmed with red. “They were doing things. Occult things. Satan worship.”

  “Impossible. The Fangs think Satanists are pussies.” When she flinched at his coarse language, it buoyed his mood. “What, exactly, were they doing?”

  She curled her legs beneath her and toyed with the hem of her dress. A perverse memory of the night before came to his mind. He expected guilt, and when it didn’t come he found its absence far more disturbing than its presence would have been.

  As if sensing the change in him, she wrapped her arms across her chest, hugging herself. “I don’t know what they were doing. They didn’t tell us. But I heard them say the time had to be right, they had to be sure it was him. And they needed Father Bart’s hand.”

  “He had to take part in the ritual?” It made sense. Though Cyrus didn’t believe in all the Catholic tripe he’d been made to swallow as a child, the power of a priest was similar to, if not greater than, that of a practiced magician.

  “Not him. Just his hand.” The words left her in a whisper. “The rest of the stuff they did to them, that was for fun.”

  “Why did they spare you?” Cyrus sat beside her on the bed, ignoring the sting of shame he felt when she cringed from him. “Why not use you and feed from you like they did the nun?”

  “Because I wasn’t as fun.” She trembled as she spoke. A tear slid down her cheek. “I didn’t scream or pray. That’s what they wanted. They wanted her to pray while they did it.”

  The thought would have amused Cyrus in the past, but it didn’t now. Not when this girl was so visibly traumatized by what she’d seen. “Why didn’t you?”

  For the first time, the Mouse looked him in the eye. He saw no life or hope in those dull brown depths. Her body steadied, and her voice was strong. “Because no one was listening.”

  She sounded so like him centuries ago. He tried to keep the emotion from his tone as he spoke. “That is the most important thing you’ll ever learn. Because no one is listening, and no one is looking out for you.”

  She broke down then, gulping great lungfuls of air as she sobbed.

  He stood and walked to the tiny kitchenette, trying to ignore the trembling in his legs. He would not abide becoming so weak again, so fast. “We’re out of milk.”

  “What’s happening?” Her face was swollen and red from crying, contrasting starkly with the white gauze at her neck. “What are they doing?”

  “I have no idea.” He limped to the refrigerator and opened it, then sniffed a potentially suspicious carton of orange juice. It seemed safe enough. But his balance was not. He slammed the carton on the counter, grabbing the edge for support, but tumbled to the floor. The Mouse was at his side in an instant, helping him to his feet and guiding him to a chair.

  “I don’t need your help,” he sniped, but accepted it anyway.

  The Mouse took a glass from the cabinet, then, almost as an afterthought, grabbed another. Her hands shook as she poured the juice.

  He considered offering some comfort to her, but dismissed it. He’d already been kind to her, and he didn’t want it to become a habit. “On the news, they said they’ve called off the search for the three of you. And the church has burned down.”

  “That’s impossible.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “They must have been talking about something else.”

  “Stacey Pickles?” He watched the recognition flash in her eyes before he continued. “They think you died in the desert.”

  “They’re looking for me?” Hope, then bleak terror crossed her face. “Why do they think this place has burned down?”

  “I don’t know. There are spells, called glamours, that make a person see what the caster wishes them to see. But to make a whole building disappear, and do it convincingly to fool many people…that takes power I don’t believe exists.” He shook his head. “Are you going to give me any of that juice?”

  She came forward slowly, like a wild animal unaccustomed to humans, and set the glass carefully before him. “They brought you back from the dead. They must know something you don’t.”

  The very notion that she would speak to him so boldly struck him as ridiculous. He laughed and took a long swallow from his glass. The juice was as thick as blood, but cold and with an unpleasant texture. “I can’t get used to this.”

  “To what?” She didn’t sound as if she cared.

  That alone made him wonder why he’d spoken to her at all. The solitude, he guessed, not only of the last few days, but his long death, as well. It was enough to keep him talking. “Living like a human. It’s been so long since I’ve had to fuel my body with food and liquid. It’s unpleasant.”

  “No. What will be unpleasant is starving to death when the food runs out.” Her expression was grim.

  “That won’t happen. At least, not to me,” he said by way of reassurance. “Your life depends on it, remember. You’re supposed to be caring for me.”

  She looked insulted. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about me. They’re not going to worry about keeping me alive after they’re done with you.”

  He pulled one of the chairs from the flimsy Formica table and sat. “And what, exactly, is it they’re going to do with me?”

  “I don’t know.” She chewed her lip. “Something bad.”

  “Madame, your powers of perception astound me.” He closed his eyes, mind working furiously. What he needed was a plan, some currency to bargain with the Fangs for information. What he needed was—

  “You talk funny. Where are you from?”

  What he needed was for the Mouse to stop talking. “England. But most recently I was confined to a watery blue purgatory. I don’t remember the address.” He paused. “Were you there? When they did the ritual?”

  Her eyes grew hollow and faraway again. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Yes.”

  “What did they do?” Cyrus pulled another chair from the table and motioned to her to sit. “Were there specific words they said? Did they read them from a book?”

  She remained frozen in place, staring blankly at the tabletop. There was a ring from a cup th
ere, and she seemed to have fixated on it. “I don’t remember.”

  He tamped down his impatience. It wouldn’t do to frighten her again, not when she’d begun to communicate like a rational human being. “It wasn’t that long ago. I’m sure if you take a moment, you’ll remember—”

  “I don’t remember!” She spun toward the counter, where a small stack of dirty dishes and utensils waited to be cleaned, and she swept them to the floor. The shock of her action outlasted the clatter it created, and she stood, her face a mask of disbelief as she stared at the broken shards on the tile floor.

  There were two ways he could react, Cyrus realized. He could lash out at her in anger and impatience, destroying any scrap of trust she might have left and any chance he might have to learn more about his dire situation. Conversely, he could ignore her until she was finished with her tantrum, and reserve his feeble strength for more important matters. He chose the latter, as his actions had caught up with him and he hadn’t the stomach nor the energy to do further violence to her.

  “Clean it up,” he said casually as he rose and headed for the bed. He settled in and pulled the blankets over himself, but found it difficult to sleep with the sun from the small, high window illuminating the room and the sound of the Mouse’s pathetic sniffles invading his ears.

  As soon as the sun set, Max and I stepped off the private jet and onto the still-warm tarmac.

  “I love this time of year. Not too hot at night, not too cold. If you were ever here in July or January, you’d know what I mean,” Max said, full of vim and vigor as he carried both our bags toward the sprawling, futuristic building that was the airport.

  I hadn’t slept well during the day. My dreams had been full of weird symbols I was sure I’d never figure out, the least of which being a weird trip into the woods bearing a pig under each arm. I was in no mood for Max’s crap. “We’re not here for a pleasure trip. We’re here to figure out what’s happening with Cyrus.”

  Max halted and dropped his duffel bag. “With who?”

  “With Nathan.” I stopped and glared at him. “We don’t have time to monkey around. Let’s go.”