Blood Ties Omnibus

by Jennifer Armintrout

  “So, you’ve got a giant heart-lung machine back there, pumping blood?” I squinted at the tank.

  Anne nodded and shrugged. “Pretty much.”

  As the lights grew brighter, the shape came into focus. A figure, nude and obviously female, floated in the blood. What appeared to be intravenous lines and electrode wires connected to her slender limbs and bald head. Her face was relaxed, eyes closed as if in sleep. She was perfect, except for the three pointed horns protruding from her skull.

  I thought back to Cyrus’s New Year’s party, and the creatures I’d seen there. “Is she part demon?”

  “No. The Oracle is pretty old, one of the oldest we know about. The horns are a natural consequence of the aging process. We get twisted when we age.” Anne held out her arm and pushed her plastic bracelets aside, revealing the faint beginning of what could only be described as a dew claw. She covered it again with a shrug. “She’s also the most psychically gifted vampire we know of.”

  “You’ve got that memorized like you work at the Smithsonian,” I said, leaning over the rail. “So, she’s sealed up in there, or what?”

  “Yup. She’s been held in various methods of containment since her capture in 1079, Common Era, and was given to the Movement in its first year of inception by King George the II in 1765.”

  “The Movement is that old?” I asked, my awe diverted for an instant from the Oracle. “I thought back then it was the Order of the Brethren?”

  Before Anne could answer, the blood in the tank surged, pounding the glass with a wave that created a thunderous echo.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Anne assured me. “She’s responding to your voice because you’re new.”

  Much in the way a big, scary dog is “just playing.”

  “She has a staff of round-the-clock caregivers who administer sedatives. That’s why she’s not all vamped out in the face area. The drugs they give her keep her in a light coma. It’s safer, and more conducive to her visions. And her specialists monitor her psychic readouts. We can accurately monitor major world events days in advance with the information she supplies us. You know, if she chooses to supply it.”

  It might have been a trick of the changing light, but I could have sworn the Oracle’s eyes opened.

  “Weird,” Anne whispered. “I’m gonna page them, let them know she’s awake.”

  So, it wasn’t just an eerie illusion. Neither, apparently, was the voice in my head. Carrie, it called softly. The chill tone paralyzed me. Carrie, he has come back.

  “Who has?” I asked out loud. But I knew. I knew in my heart who she meant. Two months of horrible nightmares flashed through my mind. No! I shouted back at the Oracle through my mind. Cyrus is dead. No matter what bizarre scenario you try and come up with, nothing can bring him back!

  You doubt me, vampire?

  I’m fairly sure that’s exactly when things started to go wrong. The Oracle’s voice filled my head, and she was angry. What do you want, vampire? Why do you come to me?

  You told me he’s come back, I pressed. I need to know who you’re talking about.

  You’re afraid I speak of the one called Simon. But I do not. Another wave of blood rocked the tank and pounded against the glass. Anne, who’d run to the intercom, shrank against the wall. I don’t know if she’d called for help or not.

  “Simon?” I asked aloud. My thoughts were so scrambled, it took me a moment to remember Cyrus’s real name. “I’m not afraid of Cyrus.”

  You shouldn’t be. Though he lives again, he lives. I speak of the one who devours the essence of my blood kin. Another wave rocked the tank.

  “The Soul Eater?” But another part of her statement demanded my attention. “What do you mean, Cyrus lives?”

  Raised by the toothsome ones in the land of the dead. As the first rises, the second falls. Both will be devoured.

  Anne edged closer, keeping to the wall. “We need to go. She’s not safe when she’s agitated like this.”

  I couldn’t leave yet. Not when I was getting the first real answers I’d received since we’d arrived. “The Soul Eater possessed Nathan?”

  The waves of blood came faster and faster now. I felt like a fish in an aquarium someone kept tapping on, and I struggled to keep my mind focused. From the corner of my eye, I saw Anne cover her ears.

  You have your answer. Seek the toothsome ones in the land of the dead. The flesh and blood of the destroyer.

  Cold fear gripped me. “What if I can’t find him? I don’t understand!”

  The Oracle’s eyes snapped open again. In the same instant, Movement guards charged into the room, followed by Max. “Carrie, get away from her!”

  The Oracle opened her mouth. Waves of sound rippled through the blood around her as her scream filled the air and my head. “He will become a god!”

  “No, no, no!” Anne cried, clawing at the wall as if seeking a handhold. A second later, I knew why. As if she were nothing more than a feather in a breeze, her small body flew across the room. Feathers rarely make such a sickening crunch when they collide with walls, though. She crumpled to the floor in a deathly still heap. I tried to run to her, but my feet were immobilized.

  “Anne!” Before Max could move, an invisible force pinned him to the wall.

  Oddly, my fear fled. The Oracle’s voice blocked out the sound of Max’s frantic urging for me to run. She insisted I come closer, and I couldn’t find a good enough reason not to.

  I slid under the brass rail and crossed the space to the tank. Each step reverberated through me like a thunderclap. As I drew nearer to the glass, the Oracle began to move, taking long, lazy steps through the blood. Suspended, she looked as though she walked through air.

  The Oracle reached for me. I pressed my palms flat against the tank, expecting the glass to be cool and feeling slightly sickened when I realized the blood behind it was body temperature. I thought she would bring her hands to meet mine on the glass. Instead, she twisted them into claws. At the same time, my throat crushed closed.

  I wouldn’t die from not breathing, but I was fairly certain I’d die from having my head twisted off my neck.

  No! I pleaded in my mind. I’m not going to die like this. Why would you give me this information only to let it die with me?

  Her hold was broken. The lights flared up in the room and darkened in the tank. Max’s arms were suddenly around me, pulling me from the room. Vampires in white coats rushed in to tend Anne.

  “What the hell was that?” Max repeated over and over at my side as we raced down the hallway.

  I couldn’t answer him. The voice of the Oracle echoed in my memory.

  He will become a god.

  Cyrus jerked awake screaming.

  The Mouse sat up beside him and put her arm around his bare shoulders. Her skin felt too hot and dry, magnifying the slick, cold sweat coating his body.

  “You had a nightmare,” she said. There was no emotion, just a matter-of-fact statement.

  His first instinct was to slap her, but the now-familiar shame washed through him, and he restrained himself. He rose from the narrow bed they’d shared. He’d reveled in the feeling of holding her as she’d slept. It was a sensation he couldn’t compare to anything in his vast, lurid experience. Now, in the harsh light of day that streamed weakly through the small basement windows, the night seemed dirty somehow.

  He’d been a centuries-old vampire with unlimited financial resources and powerful charm at his disposal. There had never been a time when he could not have what he wanted, and he’d certainly never wanted to comfort a sobbing woman through the dark hours of the night.

  You would have for Carrie.

  He grabbed his—no, the dead priest’s—shirt from the end of the bed and pulled it on, reminding himself to be annoyed with the cheap fabric. He didn’t remember taking it off, had only a dim recollection of shrugging out of it and turning over to enfold Mouse in his arms. She called after him as he stalked into the bathroom, but he ignored her and slammed the d
oor, needing space and peace and a way to block the horrible dream from his mind.

  But he’d dreamed of her. As in all things where Carrie was concerned, he couldn’t so easily forget. In the dream, he’d held her. Not a salacious embrace. He’d actually held her. She had let him stroke her hair and kiss her. She had told him she loved him. When Carrie had been his fledgling, she’d always hovered on the edge of revulsion when she’d touched him. In his dream, she’d loved him the way he’d wanted to be loved.

  When he’d opened his eyes, he’d held the bleeding, heartless corpse of his beloved Elsbeth. He’d shaken her, as desperate to revive her as he had been the night she’d died. Her auburn curls and delicate features had morphed quickly into Carrie’s pale blond hair and strong-boned face. That’s when he’d woken, screaming, to find the Mouse beside him, and for a horrible moment, he was certain he’d killed her, too.

  I’ve got to get out of here, he told himself as he turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. I’m losing my mind.

  He shook the thought off. Too much had occurred in his past, too much horror, too much death, to lose his mind over a simple girl like the Mouse. If he was going to lose his mind over anything, it would not be her.

  Not if I have anything to say about it, that is. His own voice sounded like his father’s in his head, and it pleased him. Finally, he was becoming like his old self again.

  Why did that thought sicken him? Why wouldn’t he want to reclaim that part of himself his traitorous, human body wanted to erase?

  Stupid boy, you never learn. He leaned his forehead against the mirror. Had it been his father or the Soul Eater, the creature who’d evicted Jacob Seymour’s sanity, who’d said those words to him time and again? It had been Jacob, at first, after his dear Moll had walked into the sun and burned to ash, and again, one hundred years later, when lovely Francesca had plunged herself into the bathing tub full of holy water. But by the time Elsbeth’s blood had cooled and congealed on her marble skin, Jacob Seymour was long dead, and it had been the Soul Eater who’d come to Cyrus. And when Carrie had sunk the stake into his heart, he’d heard Jacob’s voice in his head, taunting him with those same words.

  Cyrus opened the medicine cabinet. There he found shaving soap, a razor and scissors. Morons. He couldn’t help his utter contempt for his captors. They’d been too busy playing at torture with the Mouse and her holy friends to think of removing potential weapons from his cell. The vampires upstairs were either stupid or so out of touch with their humanity, they didn’t realize how easy it would be for him to slit his own wrists and end the waiting.

  Or would it? Everything about him was so…mortal. Would he really be capable of taking his own life, when the very thought of it, even in the abstract, sent a shudder of revulsion through him? No. He would not go back to that ghost world. Not if he could help it.

  He should kill her, he decided. He would prove to himself he had learned something. He would prove to himself he could still be the vampire his father had wanted at his side, and hopefully his father would feel the same.

  Cyrus’s total dependence on the Mouse for his day-to-day activities would be a hurdle. It was easy enough to overcome. If he learned to live a mortal life, just for a while until his father found him, he could be done with her.

  He availed himself of the priest’s toiletries, pleased at the thought of returning to his former state. With each stroke of the razor, he hardened his resolve. Though his servants had always taken care of running the modern appliances in the kitchen, he considered himself a smart man and was fairly confident in his ability to figure things out for himself. When he was finished grooming, he would simply go out and kill the Mouse. With his hands, if necessary; with a knife, better. Either way, she would be dead.

  Before she can hurt me like the rest of them. See, Father, I have learned something, after all.

  He could do it. She made him weak. Killing her would make him strong.

  The thought brought on a frown. He didn’t like the way it contorted his face, so he forced his features into an impassive mask.

  Using the flimsy, plastic comb he’d found in the medicine cabinet, he worked to untangle his long hair. It took only a few painful snarls for him to realize the sad truth. It would have to be cut.

  You’re making excuses not to kill her.

  There were scissors in the medicine cabinet. He could use those to stab her. He’d once cut a man’s fingers off with hedge clippers, and that had been a pleasant-enough experience.

  The memory turned his stomach, and he focused his attention on cutting.

  Cyrus expected the blades to be rusty, but was pleasantly surprised to find they were sharp. A few ragged snips left his hair shoulder length. From there he clipped it shorter, mimicking the generic style he’d seen his former bodyguards wear. It took longer than he’d expected to finish the job, and his arms ached by the time he was done.

  Beyond the door, a game show host inquired as to the price of dishwashing liquid, and the Mouse’s voice preceded the contestant’s answer.

  Cyrus wetted his hair and parted it on the side. His own perfectly good eyes stared him down in the mirror. He no longer resembled the monster he once was.

  For a frightening moment, he found he liked it. Then he picked up the scissors once more.

  He opened the door as quietly as he could. She didn’t look away from the television. The sunlight streaming in through the small window above her head surrounded her in a halo of shimmering dust motes. Though she looked tired, the worry had left her face.

  A contestant on the game show shouted a number, and the Mouse shook her head. “Way too high.”

  Cyrus took slow steps, not wanting her to see him until the moment he raised the scissors, the second before they fell. To see her face, serene in recognition, then drawn and pale in the briefest sliver of horror as the deathblow landed. As he imagined the beauty of it, his chest tightened and he sucked in an involuntary gasp of breath.

  She turned then, obviously startled.

  She knows, his frantic brain shouted. Do it quick now, she knows.

  The shock on her face melted into a small smile. “You cut your hair.”

  He’d never seen her smile. She wasn’t beautiful, but the unguarded expression transformed her from plain to a simple kind of pretty. It was the meaning behind it, though, that froze his lungs and made the air in the room too thick to breathe. Somewhere in the night, as she nestled against his side, her fear of him had vanished.

  If she noticed his distress, she didn’t show it. Her smile grew wider. “It looks nice.”

  Cyrus had never felt self-conscious. It had been easy to be sure of himself when he’d known he was adored. At this moment, he would have done anything to feel so confident again. He reached to touch his shorter strands, realizing too late he still held the scissors in his hand.

  Her smile faltered. Though she regained it, the expression was forced. Pained. “What’s that for?”

  Lying was not something he’d lost in the transition from immortal to dead to mortal. He casually juggled the scissors from one hand to the other. “I thought they’d serve us better in the kitchen.”

  “Good idea.” She rose slowly, and though his back was to her, he knew she followed him.

  So, she does still fear me. The thought sickened him. He had actually planned to kill her.

  Suddenly, and with shocking clarity, a vision of her slashed throat and bloody dress shot through his mind. The scissors, before a simple, common tool, seemed evil, as though his intent had somehow infused them with malice.

  I can’t do it. He didn’t want to think of why. No matter what the reason, it pointed to the same harsh truth. He was as weak as his father believed him to be.

  He slid the scissors into a drawer and closed it, resisting the urge to slam it tight. Was it possible his captors had imagined he would try to kill her, think of killing himself? Was this a planned torture?

  Behind him, the Mouse made a small
sound of relief. Cyrus turned, not sure if he was angered at her for not trusting him, or ashamed of himself for deserving mistrust. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t do it.”

  “Did you?” He wanted to grab a knife from the block on the counter and prove her wrong, but the rage died in him. Despair took its place, and he sat at the table, cradling his head in his hands. “Because I wasn’t sure, myself.”

  7

  Consequences

  “H ow on earth could you be so irresponsible?” Breton paced back and forth behind his desk, reminding me, in his self-righteous anger, of Nathan. I wondered if all Movement vampires were this uptight, or just the ones from the U.K.

  “In Max’s defense, General, it was Anne who took me to the Oracle,” I interjected, only to be met with a steely look from Breton.

  “Yes, I know. And for that, she’ll be penalized. As for you, you’re lucky I don’t call a team in here to stake you, or do it myself!” Breton threw down the sheaf of papers he’d been clutching. They hit the desk with a loud smack and skidded toward us. “Your travel information. It’s all in order.”

  “Whoa, what’s this?” Max reached for a pink, carbon-copy sheet.

  “It’s the order removing you from the Galbraith assignment.” Breton’s lips twitched, and I knew he suppressed a satisfied grin, the smug bastard.

  “General, please!” I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. “The Oracle gave me information. ‘Seek the toothsome ones in the land of the dead.’ That’s something we can go on! And it’s proof!”

  “Proof?” Breton scoffed. “And what, pray, is it proof of?”

  “That the Soul Eater is up to something!” I squinted in frustration, the gleam off the polished edge of his desk blurring my vision. How much of what I was saying came from the Oracle’s information, and how much was my own mind skewing what I’d heard? “I can’t tell you why or how, but you have to believe me. The Soul Eater is behind whatever is going on with Nathan!”