Blood Ties Omnibus

by Jennifer Armintrout

  Another few steps and he would be there. If he didn’t lose his balance and fall into a shaft of sunlight first.

  As if in answer to a prayer he hadn’t uttered, the light dimmed.

  “Max, what is happening?” Bella asked, her last word nearly drowned out by the clang of steel shutters. The windows and oculus were covered, leaving them in darkness.

  Not a good sign. “Go!” he shouted, racing to grab her. But it was too late. The doors slammed shut before them.

  “We are trapped,” Bella whispered, eyes wide.

  A mechanical whirring drew their attention to the other side of the room. A section of the tall paneling began to shift. Improbably, the whole section swung around, reversing itself. On the other side was an attached dais with a large, ornate throne.

  And on that throne sat the Oracle.

  Invisibility wasn’t a subject I’d given much thought to. Still, I think my logical expectation would have been that being invisible would make you lose your inhibitions and become a little reckless. In reality, it made me feel exposed and overcautious.

  Maybe the situation would have been a little different if I were using my invisibility to spy on the men’s locker room at the gym instead of sneaking into a house I’d tried desperately to escape from before.

  When Cyrus ran the place, it had been crawling with guards. But he’d been paranoid. As I eased open one of the French doors leading from the terrace to the foyer, I noted that the Soul Eater seemed pretty confident no one would try and oppose him.

  Then the alarm went off.

  For a split second I panicked. Since when had there been an alarm system? And I’d thought Dahlia had killed all the guards? Then I remembered that, though I might not have anyplace to hide, I was wearing the best camouflage possible. Still, being invisible didn’t make me noncorporeal. Which became a real concern as the room flooded with guards.

  Oddly enough, some of them I recognized. They were the Soul Eater’s personal retinue, trained to obey their master’s whims, most likely on pain of death. They’d been there the night of the Vampire New Year, accompanying their master to his feeding. I’d probably get an extra helping of torture before they killed me.

  I slipped into the corner under the stairs and watched as they assembled, praying none of them copied my get-out-of-the-way idea and discovered me. Fourteen of them milled about, weapons drawn—shiny, black stakes with gleaming metal tips—scanning the room in a state of determined readiness.

  “Nothing here,” one of them barked, both to the guards in the room and into his headset. “I want two men at the top of those stairs, and stay there. Another team searches the servants’ wing. I want two more casing the kitchen, dining room and ballroom. Go in threes to search the grounds. The rest of you get back to your posts, and keep your eyes open. They might have tripped the alarm to distract us. Go, go, go!”

  The guards scattered as quickly as they’d assembled. Somewhere, someone turned off the alarm, and an unnerving silence descended.

  Creeping from my hiding place, I willed myself to stay calm. Someone hypervigilant—or a vampire—might be able to hear me.

  The door to the study was open. I noticed no one had been posted there, so it seemed a good place to start. I was halfway across the foyer when I heard steps coming down the stairs.

  Dahlia swept into the room, clad in a diaphanous black gown. Her sleeves fluttered behind her as she stalked toward the study. I froze, holding absolutely still to keep from making a sound. My palms grew damp. It became a little more difficult to keep my grip on the slick stone, my only camouflage.

  She paused, turned her head slightly. Then, without warning, she spun and held out both hands. “Illuminate!”

  The room flared with bright, white light. It penetrated the space where I stood and destroyed any shadow on the floor. Her eyes narrowed. She knew someone was in the room with her, she just couldn’t see me.

  “Let the guards handle it, my darling,” a deep, cultured voice called from the study. It sounded almost like…

  A visible tremor racked Dahlia at the sound of his voice. An almost identical reaction to what Nathan had experienced in the presence of his sire.

  Oh, God. Dahlia was the Soul Eater’s fledgling.

  It made sense, now. Why Dahlia had been feeding Cyrus information. She knew that eventually, she would find herself on the Soul Eater’s dinner table. If she played both sides, someone might rescue her.

  She’d lied to me. I was outraged, but not surprised. Dahlia was clever in ways that continued to mystify me. If I’d thought I’d had her—or her motives—completely figured out, I’d been a fool. No one would ever really know what she was up to. My mistake had been believing that she’d been sired by one of the Fangs, as she’d told me. She’d been in relentless pursuit of Cyrus’s blood. Why would she have settled for a lesser prize? She could have had my blood the night I’d fed from her and she’d stabbed me. But she’d wanted power.

  I followed her to the door of the study, timing my steps to echo hers. She tried to trip me up, once. I’d been counting on it. She’d have noticed by now that her spell book was missing. I’m sure she had a clue as to why the guards hadn’t—and hopefully wouldn’t—find the intruder.

  In the study, a fire burned in the fireplace. All of the lamps, delicate art nouveau creations, lit the room cheerfully. Seated at the desk, his long, white hair bound in a single braid that coiled on the floor, was the Soul Eater.

  He turned at the sound of Dahlia’s entrance, and smiled. He looked so much like Cyrus, but with the added mystery and elegance of age. My heart lurched in my chest.

  But he’s not me, Cyrus reminded me through the blood tie. He’s so much worse than I ever was.

  “You look lovely tonight,” Jacob Seymour said, inclining his head in Dahlia’s direction. “Is there some occasion?”

  “None, really.” She sank into a large, leather armchair with a winged back, looking like a queen on a throne. There was no way that was an accident. “I thought we could try the potion again, if you wanted to.”

  He made a noise of disgust. “We have been over this time and again. Julia has captured the werewolf and her vampire companion. We’ll have the child soon enough.”

  “There’s no reason not to continue as planned, though!” Dahlia sat up straighter, pounding the arms of the chair with her fists. Her knuckles were white with tension. “We have no idea if the child will be born vampire or werewolf. Or lupin.”

  “The baby will be a lupin,” the Soul Eater retorted calmly. “A natural-born vampire and werewolf combined. What use would I have for a mere vampire child?”

  “A right hand?” Now Dahlia was reaching. She’d outlived her usefulness and she knew it. “A son. With the power of a natural-born vampire. Maybe if Cyrus had been—”

  “My son is not the issue!” The Soul Eater stood so fast he knocked over his chair and the delicate writing desk. Papers fluttered to the ground, all scribbled on in handwriting that I was sure belonged to him. I moved cautiously toward the desk as he continued to rage.

  “I have warned you never to speak of him in my presence!” He advanced on Dahlia, throwing aside his overturned chair. It bounced off my legs and I muffled a shout of pain and surprise. Luckily, neither of them noticed, wrapped up in their rage and fear, respectively.

  Dahlia crawled backward like a crab on her hands and feet, too tangled in her voluminous dress to create much room between her and the Soul Eater.

  “I should destroy you now!” As his voice raised in volume, it grew in intensity, the voices of his past victims joining in the hellish chorus. I’d heard that voice once before, and I shuddered to hear it again.

  “No!” Dahlia screamed, holding up her hands. “You need me!”

  “Need you?” He continued to advance.

  Carrie! Go, find what you have to and move on! It was Nathan’s voice in my head, involuntarily replaying images of the night we’d both barely escaped this room with our lives. The n
ight Nathan’s son, Ziggy, had died at the hands of his sire.

  I dropped to my knees and scrambled toward the mess of papers. Letters, a sequence of them, made out to Julia. The second I touched one, it disappeared. I had to read them silently where they lay, transmitting their contents through the blood tie.

  Julia,

  I hope this letter finds you well. I have arranged a transport for you and the werewolf for the week of the seventh. This will ensure it is well past the time of the full moon.

  I noticed, along with the fact his notorious charisma did not translate to paper, that beside the scattered letters were a handful of envelopes. All were addressed, simply, to “Oracle.” There were no addresses.

  Father uses personal couriers. Cyrus’s contempt echoed through my head. You won’t find the address there. But he will have it. Look in my bedroom.

  His bedroom, I snapped back. I’ll go when I can move.

  The Soul Eater grabbed Dahlia by the hair and hauled her to her feet. At least, sort of to her feet. She tripped and her legs tangled, leaving her to twist by the handful of red curls he grasped. “Do you know how many there are like you? Who will do as I say and not make ridiculous demands? Witches are not hard to find. It’s an obedient one I’ve yet to come across!”

  He released her hair and grabbed her throat with his clawed hand. “You will not speak to me of this again! Do we have an understanding?”

  A tear escaped the corner of her eye, forced out by the pressure of suffocation. She gasped and scratched at his hand, squeaking out a pained “yes” before he threw her backward. She knocked over a table as she fell.

  I sprinted for the door, thinking to escape when I wouldn’t be heard over the ruckus Dahlia’s weeping and falling caused.

  “And you! Don’t move another inch!”

  I froze.

  Twenty-Three:

  Back from the Dead

  “Y es, I know you’re there.” The Soul Eater moved closer to me, as though he could see me despite my invisibility. He sniffed the air, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. “Do you think I can’t smell my fledgling’s blood in you?”

  I clutched the stone tighter. Run! Just get the hell out of there! Nathan screamed in my head. I tensed, ready to follow his advice.

  The Soul Eater laughed. “Oh, Nolen. He was always so dramatic. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  Carrie, don’t listen to him! Cyrus’s thoughts set up a panicked buzz in my mind. I clapped my hands to my head, trying desperately to keep my wits under the onslaught of my sire’s and my fledgling’s frantic urging.

  “Be calm,” the Soul Eater advised. His tone was patient and reasonable, cutting through the pandemonium in my head. “You know how to quiet them.”

  Block the blood tie? In my confusion and pain I dimly remembered telling Cyrus and Nathan that I wouldn’t, that they could stay in contact with me and know everything was all right. It was so tempting to follow the Soul Eater’s directive. So I did.

  “There,” Jacob said, stepping toward me. “Now, show yourself. I won’t hurt you.”

  For some horrible reason I couldn’t fathom, I believed him. I let the stone tumble to the floor.

  His eyes lit up with cold fire in recognition. A smile bent his lips, lips that were so like Cyrus’s. “Oh, this is a pleasant surprise.”

  “You remember me?” Why did that make me feel special, somehow?

  Dahlia staggered to her feet, her face cut and bleeding. “You!”

  “You may leave now, Dahlia. I am quite finished with you.” He didn’t look at her, until she opened her mouth to protest. Then he fixed her with a piercing glare. “Unless there is something else you wish to offer me?”

  She backed to the door, her eyes wide with fear, and left us alone in the study.

  As if he hadn’t just threatened to steal a person’s soul right there in front of me, he beckoned me closer. “Come here, let me get a look at you.”

  I went to him, drawn by some invisible cord that seemed to bind us. Nothing like the blood tie. It was pure charisma.

  “Of course I remember you. You were my son’s…well, plaything seems so crude.”

  “Because it is.” But I don’t know why it didn’t offend me.

  “Pity, what had to occur between you. But you weren’t suited for each other.” He reached out, gripped my wrist. “You’re much too strong for him.”

  “Is that a compliment?” It was hard to tell. It was hard to think at all. His hand burned where it touched my skin.

  “It’s an…observation.” He lifted my wrist to his lips. I didn’t resist him, even though it seemed certain he would bite. Instead, he pressed a kiss there, and I shuddered. “When you killed him, that created much trouble for me.”

  “Did it?” I pulled my hand back slowly, actually reluctant to break contact. “I won’t apologize.”

  The Soul Eater chuckled. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  “Because you know me so well?” I heard the sarcasm in my voice, but I didn’t feel the conviction that bolstered my words.

  He laughed again. “I can see why my son enjoyed your company. Please, sit. Talk with me. After five centuries, the days grow tedious, especially with such…pointless companions.”

  “And you two seemed to get along so well.” I sat on the couch, where he instructed.

  He righted the chair and turned it to face me before sitting. “She has her uses. I must admit, I found her enjoyable for a time. But I grow tired of people so quickly. It’s a character flaw on my part, and I accept it. So, tell me. What have you come for?”

  “I want to know where the Oracle is.” There was no point in hiding it from him. I doubted I would survive to make it out of the place. If I could get the information, maybe I could relay it to Cyrus or Nathan. “The Oracle has my friends. Tell me where they are.”

  He laughed. “Now you underestimate me, Carrie.”

  “You won’t let me live to get out of here. Might as well tell me. Satiating my curiosity could be…fulfilling my last wish.” Even as I said it, I knew he wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it. He didn’t have a pathological need to gloat over his impending victory.

  He stood and paced leisurely behind his chair, then to the fire. There was a cut-crystal decanter of amber liquid on the mantel. He poured a glass and offered it to me.

  I declined with a motion of my head. “I need to stay dry. I hear you can be dangerous.”

  “In more ways than you know.” He moved toward me and pressed the glass into my palm. “Drink it.”

  I took the glass. “Is it poisoned? Spiked with holy water?”

  “I wouldn’t do such a nasty thing to you.” He poured himself a drink, as a show of good faith, probably, and sank into his chair. “I do remember you. I remember when you knelt beside my coffin and put your devious hands on it. And I remember how wounded you were when I did not fall into the same trap that my son did. How naive you were, how refreshingly stupid.”

  “I can’t say Cyrus was much better.” I couldn’t help glancing at the floor. We sat in the very room where I’d first encountered the Soul Eater. The room in which I’d killed his son.

  “No, Simon was always too headstrong. From the time he killed his brother, I knew it. He could never accept that he wasn’t my first choice as fledgling. He would never see the larger scope of my actions, only how they affected him.” The Soul Eater shook his head ruefully.

  “Talk about not seeing the broader scope! You killed his wives, you didn’t care when the only maternal figure in his life burned to death, your goons killed the girl in the desert—”

  “What girl in the desert?” Jacob leaned forward, clearly intrigued and…amused? “I hadn’t heard about any girl.”

  “I won’t be the one to tell you.” The fact I’d even mentioned it disgusted me. “But you can’t blame him for becoming blinded to betrayal. After living with you for so long, it probably felt natural.”

  “Very good, my dear.” The Soul Ea
ter laughed, a deep, seductive sound that didn’t have the callow edge of his son’s. “Well, I did kill a few of his companions. But his first two wives, they killed themselves. And his stepmother, what a useless woman. I suppose he told you his suspicions of me.”

  I glared at him. “Never. When I knew him, he was blinded by his loyalty to you. He acted like the sun shines out of your ass.”

  “Do you have to be so crude?” Jacob clucked his tongue. “I must say, I’m proud he never spoke ill of me to you. It showed he had at least some sense.”

  “It shows less sense that he stayed under your thumb for so long.” I let the comment hang in the air for a moment. “Tell me what you did to his mother.”

  “Stepmother,” the Soul Eater corrected. He propped his steepled fingers in front of his mouth, cold blue eyes glinting in the firelight. “She was useless. Perpetually pregnant and useless. I had two daughters by her. Neither of them lived past infancy, thank the Lord for small mercies. But the experience of bearing a child and watching it die…well, it ruined her. Chores were neglected, my children ran wild. All except Cyrus, foolish brat that he was. He doted on her, as if anything he could do would break her from her self-pitying spell.

  “The day she burned, I’d had enough. I came in from the field—I was a simple farmer then, with no land of my own, toiling day after interminable day for another man’s gain. I came into my house, and the fire had died. It wasn’t a cold day, mind, but with no fire came no supper, and my bones fairly ached with hunger. I thought of my sons, scattered to the winds, doing God alone knew what while their stepmother wallowed in her sniveling sorrow, and I’d had enough. I went for kindling, built up the fire and when it was large enough, I pushed her into it.”

  Cyrus’s tortured memories flashed through my mind. The loving mother figure, enrobed in flames. His only friend and ally in the cruel world of his childhood, burning to death before his eyes. And Mouse, left to burn away in the desert as he watched.