Blood Ties Omnibus

by Jennifer Armintrout

  “You heard me.” Across the blood tie I felt a wave of shame at the way he was acting, but his anger was too great to suppress.

  “That is enough!” Cyrus shot to his feet, and for a moment I thought he would try something stupid, like punching Nathan. Instead, he swallowed audibly, unclenched his fists and spoke in a calmer tone. “We are not in an ideal situation. I will seek to rectify that as soon as I can get my house back from my formerly human former girlfriend. But we have larger problems at hand than the issue of your romance with Carrie.”

  My heart ached at his words. I did love Cyrus, now that I was morally free to do so. But I loved Nathan, as well, and I hated causing him pain after all he’d been through for me.

  Cyrus shot me a cold look. You’ll never know what you want. Now is not the time.

  Nathan looked from Cyrus to me and sighed. “What’s our next step, then, oh wise one?”

  Thankfully, Cyrus let the jibe slide. “We go back to our only source of information. My father.”

  “Oh yes. Your father. The one who controlled you for how many centuries? Let me drive you right over there.” Nathan laughed.

  “Nathan!” I clutched my head, unable to bear another moment of this pointless bickering. “Max and Bella are clearly in danger. We need to find out where they are, so we can keep the Soul Eater from getting his hands on the baby. We know him well enough to know whatever he wants with it probably isn’t good. And what he’d do to Bella and Max wouldn’t be good, either. Can we all at least agree on that?”

  “Of course we can,” Nathan grumbled. “But I’m sick of sitting around talking about it. We’ve been stuck here for days just reading and researching and waiting, while they’re off getting killed.”

  “That was what we agreed on.” But I could definitely sympathize. I’d felt helpless for the past few days, as well. It was hard, after being so active in our past dramas, to be a bit player in this one. “We don’t have anything else to go on. We don’t know where the Soul Eater is. We don’t know where Max and Bella are. All we can do is wait.”

  “You’re half-right.” Nathan looked as tired as he sounded. “I know where Jacob—” He stopped himself, grimacing. “I know where the Soul Eater is. He’s coming back. For Dahlia.”

  Her name forced my hands into fists. Jealousy and anger burned through me. Yes, I was still jealous of her, after all this time. “Fine. I’ll go and find out what we need to know.”

  “Are you insane?” Cyrus actually laughed at me. “My father will kill you. Dahlia will kill you before he gets the chance.”

  I shook my head. “Clarence will help me. He talks a tough game, but he hates vampires. He’ll do anything to get them out of the house.”

  “He can’t help you, Carrie. As long as my father’s name is on the deed, Clarence can’t do anything that will directly harm him. He—”

  “Comes with the house, I know, Cyrus,” I interrupted. “But I have to try. I’m the only one who isn’t blood tied to him, vampirewise or through genetics.”

  “Absolutely not!” Nathan shook his head vehemently. “It’s ridiculous and dangerous.”

  I tossed up my hands, though I knew I didn’t sound one hundred percent reasonable. “We have a chance here to do something. I’m the only one in this room who hasn’t been manipulated or enslaved by the Soul Eater. We think he wants Bella, for the baby. So, why don’t we do more? Why don’t we go over there, to the mansion, and find out what he’s up to? Why don’t we do something—”

  “Something suicidal!”

  “But something!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “I’m sorry if I can’t think of exactly what you want to do, but we have to do something!”

  Nathan’s hands clenched to fists at his sides. “You’re sorry? Since when do you care about what I want?”

  I drew a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. It took great effort. “You’re right. I’ve never done anything with your best interests at heart. I never traded your life for mine. I never risked myself to protect your son. Never let your dead wife’s soul invade my body to free you from an evil spell.”

  “Not without throwing the facts back at me over and over,” he snapped. “If you want to go get yourself killed, fine.”

  “Who says we’re going to get ourselves killed?” Cyrus asked, leaning to pick up Dahlia’s grimoire from the table. “I’m sure she has something in here we can use as protection.”

  Nathan regarded him for a moment with icy contempt. He softened a bit as he took the book from him. “These spells are far too advanced for a beginner. There’s no way you’ll pull it off.”

  “What about you?” Cyrus demanded. “You own that shop downstairs. Do you mean to tell me you don’t know any…hocus-pokery?”

  I snorted, despite the tension in the air. Both men glared at me.

  Nathan shook his head. “I don’t actually practice witchcraft. I’m only in the New Age business to take advantage of the rampant consumerism.”

  I looked at the book in Nathan’s hands as though it were a deadly viper. “Well, what could it hurt? I mean, we’ve looked through it. She has all sorts of things we could try.”

  “Hexes, counterhexes, invisibility spells.” Cyrus rattled off the list. “That last isn’t a bad idea. I know she had one.”

  “Invisibility spells are rarely literal,” Nathan protested. “Often, they’re just to help keep a low profile.”

  Cyrus stepped forward and took the book back, flipping pages with a frown. “Ah!” He jabbed his finger at the top of one page and held it up so we could see “Invisibility Spell (Literally)” scribbled across the top.

  There was a long moment where no one spoke. I have no doubt we were all considering the implications. It would take a lot of nerve to try and sneak into a witch’s house cloaked by an invisibility spell, if it even worked. It would be dangerous.

  Of course, no more dangerous than what I’d already done. “I’ll do it.”

  They looked at me as if I’d suggested I would make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

  “How?” Nathan folded his arms across his chest as if daring me to prove him wrong. “Do you even know the basics of spell work?”

  “No,” I reluctantly admitted. “But I did participate in the ritual to get you back from the scary side. And I used to play that light-as-a-feather game at slumber parties.”

  Nathan actually smiled a little at that. “I quiver in fear.”

  “From what I understand, our options are fairly limited. We can either charge in, guns blazing, so to speak, or try and sneak in to gather the information and then go rescue your friends.” Cyrus tapped the book. “I think we should try the one where my father doesn’t kill us all, and we have a chance to save their lives as well.”

  Nathan watched us, his expression tight. “What about me?”

  “What about you?” Cyrus asked offhandedly.

  He rolled his eyes. “I have a blood tie to your father, you stupid bastard! He’ll know we’re coming!”

  “There’s no need for name calling,” I interrupted. “You’ve closed him off for years. He won’t suspect anything.”

  “That’s not true,” Cyrus said quietly. “Nathan’s absolutely right.”

  I turned to Cyrus. “So, it’s just you and me, then?”

  “The hell it is!” Nathan roared. “I’m not letting you go in there with him!”

  “If she can’t go with me, she has to go alone. You’ve already made it clear you don’t like that option, either.” Cyrus sighed. “Neither do I. But it is our best option.”

  “Cyrus—” I began, but he cut me off.

  “I’m still susceptible to him.” He looked down, as if ashamed. “He’s a very…charismatic man.”

  “She managed to fight off your charms for a while, anyway. Maybe she has a chance against him.” Nathan sounded resigned and very, very unhappy. “I’ve got to go downstairs and open the shop. If you promise not to be trouble, the two of you can come down and help me find the ingredi
ents for these spells. Carrie, you’ll have to practice.”

  He sounded like a music instructor. Practice! As if I could practice for something so dangerous. In fact, the less I thought about it, the less likely it would be that I would back out.

  “Fine. You two see what you can do. I’ll rejoin you shortly.” Cyrus issued his proclamation with the air of someone who knew exactly how to order people around.

  “What are you going to do? Wish us luck?” I planted my hands on my hips.

  “No, I’m going to take a shower. Unlike others in this apartment, I don’t let personal hygiene fall by the wayside when catastrophe strikes.” He nodded to Nathan and me and disappeared down the hallway.

  Nathan said very little as we walked down to the shop. He unlocked the door, and I stepped inside and waited for him to turn on the lights. I never touched the switches behind the counter. They always gave me static shocks.

  The banks of fluorescents clicked and buzzed, illuminating the store from the back to the front. I blinked against the changing light and headed toward the counter.

  On the floor behind the glass display cases containing gaudy pentacles and ridiculously expensive crystal wands, I spied a sleeping bag. Nathan stooped down and began rolling it up. I watched for a moment, until he glanced up and asked, “Well, are you going to give that spell a look?”

  “You’ve been sleeping here?” I winced, imagining what the hard wooden floor would have done to my back had I been in his place.

  He zipped the sleeping bag with great purpose. “It’s not permanent. I’m not going to just hand my apartment over to you.”

  “I would never ask you to.” My fingers flexed on the edge of the countertop. “I never asked you to.”

  There was a long silence. When Nathan looked at me again, his eyes were rimmed with red. “Why him, Carrie?”

  My voice caught in my throat. “Would it have been better if it was someone else?”

  “No.” He didn’t turn away, just kept staring at me with an intensity that burned. “No, it wouldn’t have been.”

  I glanced down to hide the tears in my eyes. “He loves me. Or, he wanted me to love him once, and now that’s just…enough.”

  “You wanted to love me once, too,” Nathan reminded me.

  I nodded and swallowed against my tears. “He’s different now. When he was my sire, I wanted so badly to give in to him. To let my humanity go just so I could be with him. But I couldn’t. I don’t know why.”

  “Because you’re a good person.” He smiled sadly. “So, you love him now because he deserves it?”

  “Nathan, I would never want to hurt you. But…” I closed my eyes. “But no matter what, I’m going to be with someone who doesn’t love me more than he loves a memory. He’s my fledgling. I do feel like…like I owe him my affection.”

  “I know exactly how that feels.” Nathan’s words sent a dagger through her. “Except for the bit about owing my affection. You see, I never felt I owed you anything. What little I could give you, I gave freely.”

  My chest constricted, and I couldn’t hold back my sob. “Nathan—”

  “No.” He turned away. “No, I get the last word in this one, Carrie. Read the spell. I’ll go look for a book on basic magic.”

  I slumped over the counter, resting my forehead on my palms. It would have been so nice to break down, to sob my eyes out at the unfairness of it all. Once again, I was pulled between the same two men. Once again, I would never be certain I’d made the right choice.

  But there was no time for self-pity. Wiping my eyes, I willed myself to stop crying. Time to get down to business.

  The spell was broken down into two parts, an ingredients list and various directions, numbered, renumbered, crossed out and scribbled over.

  “We need heliotrope,” I called.

  “The herb or the stone?” Cupboard doors scraped open somewhere in the back of the shop.

  “Both, actually.” I scanned the ingredients. “And a blue candle. And a bunch of stuff that is, like, way too disgusting to even consider.”

  Nathan returned and leaned over my shoulder. His closeness did nothing to calm my strained nerves. “Why would she include these things?” he mumbled, his finger pausing near the item “baby teeth.”

  “Maybe to get someone off track?” It came to me in a flash of inspiration. “If I were to look at this spell, I would think all this weird, exotic stuff was the most important.”

  The bells above the door jingled, and Cyrus strolled in casually, a carefully composed expression on his face. “So, what have I missed?” He stopped at my side, one hand possessively on the small of my back, and leaned over the book. “Do you really have all these ingredients?”

  “That’s what we were just discussing,” Nathan explained. “We have the heliotrope. Not much else.”

  “Mmm.” Cyrus squinted at the list. “Well, we’re sunk. The calf’s heart we can get from a butcher, but human toenails…I’d give mine up, only they’re not human anymore.”

  “See?” I smiled triumphantly. “I bet these are all a distraction. Whoever attempts the spell will break their back finding all these morbid components, and leave out one or two small details. Only, the small details are the only truly important ones.”

  “I have to admit, I’m impressed.” Nathan rubbed a hand over his jaw. “How did you know that?”

  “Recipes. My mother used to complain that her mother-in-law always left something important out, or labeled it optional. It was like cracking a code.” I turned my attention to the actual instructions for the spell.

  “Women are devious,” Cyrus observed, as if realizing it for the first time.

  I pointed to the page. “See here, she has you anoint the heliotrope stone with oil of heliotrope, but everything else gets thrown in a cauldron and burned.”

  Cyrus sniffed in distaste. “Imagine the stench.”

  “I’d rather not.” Nathan shook up the small bottle of oil. “Let’s hope this is the real stuff, not a synthetic. I’m paying enough for the real deal, but suppliers can be a bit shady.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard the herb trade is brutal,” Cyrus quipped.

  I elbowed him. “If you’re not going to help, there’s a sinkful of dishes upstairs.”

  “Are you ready to try this?” Nathan asked, lifting the rock so I could see it.

  It was green, with subtle red flecks the color of dried blood.

  “Also known as bloodstone,” Nathan said, turning it so the red flecks sparked in the light. “An obvious choice for a vampire.”

  I held out my palm and he dropped the stone there. It seemed to burn my skin. “What do I have to do?”

  “Anoint the stone with the oil, apparently,” Cyrus observed with a bit of amusement. “And carry it with you to remain invisible.”

  An involuntary shiver went up my back. I’d volunteered to do it, but now I wasn’t so sure I liked the idea of being invisible. So much of the human psyche is tied to the physical body…. I wondered what effect it would have on a person to be unincorporated, for lack of a better term.

  Nathan put a reassuring hand on my arm. “Likely, it won’t make you physically invisible. Most of these spells just cause anyone who sees you to not notice you.”

  I closed my fingers over the stone. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

  Nathan unscrewed the cap of the oil bottle and held it tentatively toward me. “Now, this isn’t the whole of the spell. What makes it work is your intent. Focus your mind, all of your energy, on becoming invisible.”

  I’d certainly had enough experience with that. Calmly, I set the stone on the counter, imagining shrinking down in my chair in my high school English class when the teacher asked a question. I thought of walking through a bad part of town at night, keeping close to the buildings, sticking to the shadows.

  I thought of sneaking across the lawn behind Cyrus’s mansion to meet with Nathan at the gate, and pictured the guards looking at me and seeing nothing.

  The
n I realized I was already an expert at invisibility. No one had seen me without me wanting them to for years. My face, my build, even my hair color were so nondescript I could rob a bank without anyone identifying me. This would be a piece of cake.

  At the same time I thought it, another wave of confidence rose within me. It was darker, ego driven and wild. Crazy.

  It was Dahlia.

  “I drank her blood,” I heard myself saying, as if from far away. “I think it’s doing something to me.”

  Cyrus stepped back. Even Nathan seemed frightened.

  I am invisible, I chanted in my head as I wiped the oil on the stone. The flowery scent calmed me, even as the stone seemed to burn from my concentrated energy. All my thoughts and visualizations flowed from my body through the fingertips of my right hand, into the stone.

  Then, just as abruptly as the sensations came, they stopped. The dark energy left over from Dahlia’s blood soaked into the stone, leaching some of me with it, and I jerked my hand back.

  “She did it,” Cyrus said, almost breathlessly. “I can’t believe she really did it.”

  “What? What did I do?” Before they could answer, I picked up the stone, so cold it burned, and gasped as my hand, then my wrist, then my arm vanished as though dissolving. I looked at my feet, only to see the floor they should be standing on. I waved my fingers in front of my face, but they weren’t there anymore.

  The room spun around me. Without visual confirmation of my body in its own space, I lost my sense of balance for a moment, stumbling against the counter.

  “Grab her!” Nathan shouted.

  “How? I can’t see her!” Cyrus reached out uncertainly and I grasped his arms. The second the stone touched him, he vanished as well.

  We stood perfectly still, holding each other for balance. I would have paid anything to see the expression on Cyrus’s face.

  “Well, we know it’s not just figurative invisibility now, don’t we?” he said with a rueful laugh, and I laughed with him.

  Something was finally working to our advantage.

  Twenty:

  Origins