I let the guys think I was crazy, or grieving. They didn’t bother me, and it gave me time to think.
I’d used Dahlia’s magic before. It wasn’t all that difficult to do. Nathan believed that everyone had the capacity to perform magic on a small scale. It stood to reason that after I’d imbibed Dahlia’s blood and some of her power in the process, my own magical capabilities had amped up considerably. All I had to do was learn to use it. Not in the heat of the moment, fueled by extreme emotion. I’d seen enough movies to know that kind of talent was unreliable. I needed to learn how to get control of the power I had, and find out how it could work for us, against the Soul Eater.
The problem was that I didn’t know where to start finding answers. That was usually Nathan’s job. I just tagged along.
“Carrie, you okay?” Max looked at me with concern etched into every line of his face, but I could tell he thought he was covering it up.
“I’m thinking.” I bit the thumbnail on my uninjured hand. “About what happened downstairs.”
“Oh, you mean when you opened your mouth and fire poured out like a dragon in a bad fantasy movie?” Ziggy slowly rubbed his palms up and down his face, the way Nathan always did when he was stressed-out and tired.
“Yeah, what was up with that?” Max grabbed Dahlia’s spell book from the coffee table where we’d left it. “Was that in here?”
“No.” How could I explain it to them, in a way that would make sense and also not make me feel like a total flake saying it out loud? “It was just heat-of-the-moment. An improvisation based off of things Nathan had told me and things that I’d seen Dahlia do. But that’s not the point. I obviously have an advantage here, and we’re not exploiting it.”
“Why would you want to?” Ziggy finished cleaning the blood off his hands with a towel that had once been white and now sported several mottled shades of pink.
“Because that was badass,” Max said, his eyes practically boggling out of his head. “We were sucking against those things, whatever they were, and she unleashed hell and fried them where they stood. Why wouldn’t we want her to do it again?”
Ziggy shrugged, but though his body language was casual, his voice was cold as stone. “I’ve watched Dahlia use her ‘talents’—” he made air quotes around the word “—and yeah, she can do some really awesome tricks. But she’s insane, and there is no way she’s been that way her whole life without someone noticing.”
“You think Dahlia’s power drove her mad?” That was an intense thought. One I didn’t want to entertain. If she’d had the kind of limitless power she wielded now at a young age, someone would have noticed her playmates getting immolated. Maybe the more she’d used her power, the more it had chipped away at her sanity. I certainly didn’t need anything else to chip away at mine.
I already had the fact I was a vampire working against me. It seemed that the younger a vampire was, the less evil it was. I wondered if evil was a product of age, like crow’s feet or cholesterol for humans. Did the years stack the decks against vampires? I’d been changed for less than a year now, and I could easily see how several centuries of the kind of crap we’d been going through would push me to the dark side. It just seemed easier to be evil, because for as long as I’d known there was evil out there, things always seemed to go in its favor.
I blew out a breath and dropped my head to my hands, my elbows resting on my knees. “You’re right, Ziggy. It could be dangerous. Nathan believes magic is very dangerous, and he would know better than I would. But we still need to get more help than we’ve got. Maybe this is the best place to start.”
“And we have to save Nathan. We all want to get him back as quickly as possible, before the Soul Eater can do anything to him,” Max put in quietly, his gaze leveled dead on Ziggy’s face. “But I’m not sure you do.”
Ziggy’s back straightened at that. “What the hell do you mean?”
I wanted to stop this line of conversation, and at the same time let it crash to its inevitable conclusion. I needed to know—I think Max and I both did—that Ziggy wasn’t going to give in to the will of his sire at the last minute and, if not double-cross us, at least back down from the conflict to protect his sire.
“I mean,” Max said, as though he was picking up my mental broadcast signal, “I want to know if you’re going to stab us in the back to help your sire.”
Ziggy turned to me. “Carrie, come on. You gotta have my back here. You know I wouldn’t fuck you guys over.”
“No, I don’t.” I didn’t let myself back down, not an inch, not even when I could feel Ziggy’s hate radiating off him in waves. “I know you’re torn. I know you would never hurt Nathan, but you admitted that you find it hard to resist the blood tie to him. How do we know you didn’t lead him to us? You haven’t been completely honest so far. You know things about these creatures, but you’ve never volunteered that information.”
I hadn’t expected Bill to back me up. I thought he would stay quiet, waiting for a safe time to speak. But he surprised me by putting his hand on Ziggy’s shoulder in a supportive gesture. “Tell us what you know.”
I watched the conflict inside Ziggy bubble to the surface. He was so angry—nothing at all like the boy I remembered. It didn’t take a blood tie to tell what he was feeling. He blamed himself for so much. For his sire’s anger, for his father’s capture. For becoming a vampire in the first place.
He reminded me of me, right after I’d been turned. I’d been mad at myself, mad at Cyrus, even mad at Nathan, who I’d barely known then, because my life had spun out of control. In Ziggy’s case, I was betting it was ten times worse, because it was a delayed reaction. He’d blithely accepted the horrific changes in his life in characteristic Ziggy style. I wondered if it had ever occurred to him to be angry before we’d entered his life again. That anger could definitely be misdirected, and I didn’t want us to bear the brunt of it. Ziggy had a blood tie to the Soul Eater. He could pretend to go along with our plans and spill them to the Soul Eater the whole time, either giving away our position or hiding important information about his sire. If he wasn’t letting us in on the things happening in his head, was he maintaining that same radio silence on the other end of the blood tie?
Even though I didn’t want to, I had to know. “Did you tell the Soul Eater to send them tonight? Are you working with him, listening to him through the blood tie?”
“Do you wanna know what he’s telling me?” Ziggy cracked his knuckles, glaring at all of us. I’m sure he thought he looked tough, but my heart ached for him. “I’m being urged every second to kill you and return to him. I’m seeing really vivid fucking images of him just handing over my heart to Dahlia—and it’s not like there’s any love from her, so I know what she’ll do with it. And he knows I’m not dead, and I’m trying not to tell him that you’re still alive, and at the same time I kind of want to kill you and get back to where I was a week ago.”
Ziggy stood and approached Max, every fall of his heavy boots sounding like ominous drumbeats on a movie soundtrack. “Right now, I don’t know what to do. Do I tell you guys these things? No, because what good does it do? Especially when I’m not sure if I want to be here, or back with him. Do you really want that kind of running commentary from me? Because I can tell you every time I think of killing you. Every time I think of how easy it would be to get my life back and never see you again.”
He was halfway to the door when Max called after him, “If your life was so great, if you don’t want anything else, why did he need to take your heart?”
Ziggy’s back went rigid. So softly I could barely hear it, he said, “Shut up.”
Max shook his head. “No, I want to know. Really. If you’re so important to him, why does he keep you on a leash? If you’re so content in your ‘life,’ why does he need that insurance?”
Ziggy turned, looking more enraged than I’d ever seen him. When he reached Max, his fists clenched and unclenched, but he didn’t strike him. Then, the anger left his
expression, and he did something I’d never have expected Ziggy to do. He cried.
It was as though his tears deflated him. He slumped onto the couch and, at first, he covered his eyes with his hand. When his back began to shake, Bill slid an arm around his shoulders, and Ziggy turned into the embrace, sobbing openly.
I itched to do something. I always feel that way when someone cries. But I could never think of a productive way to make them feel better, even now, when faced with Ziggy’s tears. So, I did nothing.
Bill looked at me over the top of Ziggy’s head, and though I hadn’t known him long, I could read the look. He didn’t want me to go easy on Ziggy. He liked that we were getting results.
“Ziggy, tell me what you know about these creatures he has. Anything you’ve done to betray us—” the ugly word slipped from my lips before I could stop it “—or anything you think you’ve done…. It doesn’t mean anything if you tell us what those creatures are.”
He sat up a little, as if reluctant to break contact with Bill. “Dahlia says they’re ghouls. But Ja—the Soul Eater doesn’t call them that. He said his are better. Different, because they started with his blood, but we fed them. They got something from both of us.”
“What did they get?” Bill’s voice was soft, soothing. I don’t know what it did for Ziggy, but it sure put me at ease.
“From Dahlia, they got her…power.” Ziggy sniffed manfully and straightened. “I don’t know what they could have gotten from me. My physical strength, maybe? He said I had more than any fledgling he’d ever sired. I guess it was supposed to be a compliment.”
My fingers twisted the hem of my T-shirt of their own volition. “Forget about that for now. Do you think Nathan is still alive? Do you think we have time?”
Ziggy shrugged. “I know that he wants Nathan for something. But I don’t think it’s to kill him. Wherever Nathan is, he’s with the Soul Eater.”
I stood and paced to the door and back. “We’re going to get him back. Tomorrow night.”
“Why not now?” The restlessness had returned to Bill’s voice. “We’re sure where he is. Let’s go get him.”
“And get killed.” Ziggy laughed hopelessly. “He’s got dozens of those things. I mean, at least a hundred.”
“A hundred dozen?” My knees went out from under me.
Ziggy waved his hands in front of him. “No, no. Total. A hundred total, maybe more. I’ve never bothered to count.”
“What can kill them?” Max asked, and I was glad he could focus all of our ready-to-go energy on something constructive.
Ziggy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. We’ve never tried before.”
“They were strong,” I noted, hearing a little of my old, stupid confidence creeping into my words. “But still human. I’m willing to bet they’re like anything else—destroy the heart, burn it up, cut off the head and they’re no more problem to us.”
“Heads off, check.” Max stood and rubbed his hand across his jaw. “This is going to be dangerous.”
“It’s not the first time,” I said, suddenly feeling the weight of the last year full on my shoulders. “It probably won’t be the last.”
“Well, it should be!” Max stomped a few paces away, then stopped, covering his face with his hands. “This is ridiculous. I was right there. Right there! And I let them get by me.”
“It wasn’t your fault—” I began.
Bill interrupted. “I was right there, too. Are you blaming me?”
“Of course I’m not!”
“And I’m not blaming you,” I interjected. “Or Bill or Ziggy. No one is to blame. But Nathan was taken and we have to get him back.”
In the moment that Bill didn’t look as though he believed either of us, I realized something. Something that was a little bit silly, something that completely detracted from the seriousness of the situation. But it seemed to be needed, so I said it. “Bill, I think you’re officially one of us.”
“Fantastic,” he grumbled, then smiled grudgingly. “Listen, I’m not used to this sort of thing.”
“Neither am I,” Ziggy said with a sympathetic nod. “But she is. And so is Max. So I say we listen to them.”
“Okay, guys, you stockpile weapons, whatever you need to get this done.” I looked nervously at my watch, cursing the shortened summer nights. “I’m going to see what I can learn from Dahlia’s book.”
While everyone went to prepare, I locked myself in the bedroom. Past situations of dire peril would have found me weeping at my powerlessness, or at least worrying over the horrible fate Nathan might have met. But not tonight. Tonight, I wanted to arm myself with more than a wooden stake. I wanted to wield the horrible power Dahlia had shown me.
I opened the book, and the moment my fingertips skimmed the pages, I felt calm. In control. More like myself.
Imagine how good you would feel if you set that evil thing on fire.
I blinked, twitching my head and shoulders. Why would I have such a crazy thought?
There’s nothing useful in it. All the spells you’ve been able to do, you’ve figured out on your own.
That seemed reasonable. I lifted the book and saw the word flame coiling like a snake in my mind, gathering power and pulsing with an evil energy. The image had come far too easily, and it looked so different from how I would have imagined it.
You must be getting more powerful. Don’t worry about that now. Burn the book.
I was poised to do so when my common sense broke through. The book was the only solid piece of enemy intelligence that we had. What was I doing?
Anger burned through me as I remembered the casual way she’d ordered our deaths. And it had all been a game. She knew we weren’t dead.
“Dahlia!” I shouted, knowing that she would hear me, even though a physical distance separated us. “Dahlia, I know it’s you!”
You’ll know better next time you steal someone’s blood, my inner monologue taunted, and then, to my horror, the voice of my thoughts laughed Dahlia’s unmistakable, crazy laugh.
The bitch. The consequences of drinking her blood hadn’t occurred to me at the time I’d done it. But I’d done what I’d thought I’d had to to stop the Oracle. Now, the ramifications of my actions hit me full force. I’d drunk the blood of a vampire, sired by one of the most powerful vampires I’d ever seen, who’d been a force to reckon with while still a human witch. Nathan had warned me of her power before she’d ever been turned.
“A vampire’s blood is very powerful. Combine that with a witch’s abilities and you’ve got spells to raise the dead, summon armies from hell…”
Dahlia’s powers had been dangerous before she’d become a vampire. It was the addition of vampire blood that had turned her into a supersorceress.
And I had that blood. A very little bit, but it seemed to work.
I threw the spell book away from me before I could do anything rash. I didn’t want to raise the dead. Did I?
No, zombies—if they existed—were definitely a last-resort kind of option. And armies from hell? I was officially putting that on the “not an option” list. I’d gotten my ass kicked by enough supernatural creatures already.
So, Dahlia could get inside my head. Fantastic. I wondered how many of my thoughts had been my original thoughts, and how many had been hers. Had I really fought my attackers earlier? Or had her thoughts held me back? Had my decision to go after Nathan been my own, or a trap planted by Dahlia?
I could second-guess myself all day, and it wouldn’t make a difference. We had to rescue Nathan. There was no other option. And I couldn’t worry about Dahlia messing around with my head. Worrying about it would just mean she’d succeeded in doing it.
I was done waiting, done trying to find someone to rely on. I was going to do something, even if it seemed totally crazy. If the Soul Eater had raised an army, then so would we. He had used Dahlia’s power to do it. So would I.
The book lay where I had tossed it in my panic. The pages that had been bent in
its fall flipped back of their own accord, free from the resistance of the floor, and settled open on a page titled “Golem.”
I chewed my lip. The name seemed so familiar. Instantly, I recalled my father sitting in his study and me, playing on the floor in front of his desk. The place was decorated with relics of psychiatry. Busts of the human head marked off with dashed lines for phrenology references, bottles of curatives from the Victorian era, even a leukotome and mallet kept under glass. I remembered asking what they were for, and the nightmares I had when I got my answer.
“It was a very old school of thought that if you damaged the brain of an unhealthy patient, you would restore their health.”
“You mean, they made the bad brain part go away?”
“That was their intention. But they didn’t know enough about the brain and how it works to isolate the bits that were unhealthy. They ended up doing much more harm than good.”
“But I thought doctors weren’t supposed to harm people. It’s in the hippopotamus oats.”
He’d laughed then and hugged me. He was never a very affectionate man, but I remember, at least that time, that he hugged me.
“They don’t do that to people anymore, do they? They don’t do it to kids?”
“No, they don’t do it anymore. But sometimes I wonder if we should do it to you. Stick you in the eye with an ice pick and make you as docile and obedient as the Golem of Prague.”
It hadn’t sounded horrific to me, because all the while he’d tickled me and blown raspberries on my cheek, making me squirm and wriggle and scrunch up my neck. Then, the phone had rung and he’d had to take the call from a patient in the middle of an episode and I’d been shooed away. I’d asked my mother what a golem was and she hadn’t known. Or, she had and didn’t have time to explain it. There were so many instances where my questions had gone unanswered because of this patient on the phone, or that newspaper reporter calling to talk to an “expert.”
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