I set the spell book aside and went to the darkened living room to find a dictionary. I found one—a miracle, considering how very few non–New Age books Nathan owned—and flipped to the correct page. “‘A man artificially created by kabbalistic rites; robot,’” I read aloud. The robots part certainly sounded like the humans the Soul Eater had sent after us. Could the Golem spell be the one Dahlia had used?
Her handwriting was abnormally small and cramped. Through most of the book, she wrote with big, round loops, but here the writing scrunched in on itself, almost as though she were trying to hide the words from each other. The ingredients list, unlike those of her other spells, was very simple. A ball of clay, a drop of blood.
Looking around the room, which I was sure lacked clay, I despaired a little. Then, I realized I actually planned to do the spell, and chills ran down my arms.
What was I doing? Would I really be able to create some monster to fight on our side? What if I couldn’t control it? What if the spell didn’t work, or something horrible, Monkey’s Paw caliber horrible, happened?
You’d never know until you try, that reasonable voice in my head nudged, and I wondered if it was really me or Dahlia planting a trick there. The book seemed to pulse with energy under my hands. I opened it and stared down at a page containing what appeared to be a love spell. It was ridiculous, and I laughed as I ripped it out. Without any conscious effort on my part, the page burst into flame and the ashes rained to the floor in a neat little pile.
Use the ashes.
I knew that was Dahlia’s blood in me, feeding my excitement, calling me to go ahead with the spell before I could think rationally. But there was no malice in the message that I could feel. Maybe that was her trick, but somehow I couldn’t believe it. She was as curious and excited as I was. Ever the opportunist, Dahlia wouldn’t resist the chance to see if her spell worked, even if it was to the detriment of her own cause.
I knelt on the floor and scooped the ashes into my cupped hands, then let them fall again, watching with fascination as the dust settled into serpentine patterns on the wood. I thought of my parents, their earthly remains reduced to ash, their urns resting in expensive marble vaults miles and miles away. I imagined touching the carbon that used to be my father, used to be my mother. I changed my face and used one fang to puncture the tips of two fingers. The blood welled there, red, violent, immediate. I thought in a far-off way of mixing my two parents together and giving them life, the way I would give these ashes life. Could I make them whole again, like before the accident? I saw the blood fall from my fingertips, as if in a dream, to strike the gray ash that filled my vision. Could I mix it all together—my father, my mother, my blood, my dead fledgling, his ashes scattered in places I couldn’t find? Could I mix them all up and come out with something whole?
I imagined the end product would be me, but made of ash. A creature of various grays, moving brittle limbs that would flutter away in a draft. I saw lips that looked like mine, eyes that looked like mine, but liquid and bloody, running into the spaces between the ash, abnormal cracks in the gray, like a grim artistic parody of a harlequin fetus.
The creature I imagined reached toward me, began to speak, but it had no words. I had no words. For the spell to work, to create my golem, I needed words. I’d used words to create fire and to put it out again. Those elements seemed so trivial in the face of this power of creation I worked now. As the creature’s mouth moved, so did mine, and I saw, from the space between my heart and my stomach, a word form. It coiled and writhed like the serpent of fire I’d seen in my mind, then burst forward, as if to strike the creature. I couldn’t understand what I said, or even begin to guess at the meaning. But when the voice of scales and fury poured from me, I was left an empty vessel. I collapsed, the sound of the strange words in my voice ringing in my ears: “Shem. Shem gal’mi. Gal’mi emet. Azel Balemacho!”
I opened my eyes and saw a man. He didn’t resemble the creature I’d imagined. His skin, while gray, was solid and very definitely real, not some figment of ashes bound together with blood. His lips and eyes weren’t the bloody things I’d seen, either, but gray as the rest of him. His head was bald, his appearance generic. Nothing was unique about him but his grayness. That, and the fact he hadn’t been standing there before.
He stared down at me, not confused, not intelligent, not pitying me or even curious as to my presence. He was tabula rasa, a completely blank slate, waiting for my instruction.
“I have to sleep now,” I told him, my voice scraping from a throat coated in razors. “Stay right there.”
He nodded, once, and I fell into an uneasy, but inescapable, sleep.
Nine:
Falling
T he water was getting cold.
Ziggy opened his eyes and stared up at the showerhead. It felt good to get the blood off him. Made him feel more human than animal.
He dunked his head under the frigid spray one last time. He hated getting out of the shower with half-dry hair, and he wanted to make sure he’d gotten all of the blood out of it anyway. His mouth opened in an involuntary O of surprise at the sting of the cold against his scalp and he decided he’d had enough. He stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist.
This has to stop. Jacob’s voice, smooth as silk, wound through Ziggy’s brain, taking away all the conflict and confusion. You did what you thought was right. I can’t fault you that. You are impetuous and you never believe that which you cannot see with your own eyes. I wouldn’t have you any other way.
“Get out of my head, old man,” Ziggy whispered, staring hard at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. The fog on the glass had begun to recede, framing him in mist. He concentrated on the drops falling from his hair, down his face. One slithered down the bridge of his nose to hang, trembling, at the tip, and he focused on that as he forced his sire’s mind from his own.
Now you’ve seen what it is, to be on their side. What it makes you.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he chanted. The smell of blood, emanating from the clothes he’d discarded in a damp, crusting heap on the floor, made his stomach alternately sour and growl. It would be better when he got something to eat.
Emerging from the bathroom, he rummaged through the box of clothes Max had hauled up from storage for him. For a minute he worried that all it contained were jeans with the crotch worn out and ripped-up poet shirts he’d worn in his “I want to be Robert Smith” phase, but there was a pair of plaid flannel sleep pants that fit, and some T-shirts that had been washed so many times they were as soft as butter. He used to make fun of Nathan for saving everything, but if they managed to get him back, he never would again.
He got himself dressed and headed for the kitchen. He could leave the laundry until later. Right now, he needed some time on his own to think, and something in his stomach to keep him from thinking too deeply.
The light in the kitchen was on. Sitting at the cracked Formica dinette table, hunched over a glass of something clear that was sure as hell not water, Bill looked up as Ziggy entered. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself.” Ziggy watched him from the corner of his eye as he went to the refrigerator. There was a bottle next to Bill’s left hand, and it was half-empty. “You’re up late. Or early. Whatever it is for you.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Bill raised the glass, hesitated for a moment, then gulped it down. He reached for the bottle. “You want some of this? Or wait, no…you’re underage, aren’t you?”
“Never stopped me before.” Ziggy grabbed a mug from the dishwasher and held it out to Bill. “What is it?”
Bill waited until the cup was safely filled and back on the countertop before answering. “Gin.”
Ziggy set the mug aside while he poured a bag of blood into the teakettle on the stove. He wondered what the hell had happened to the microwave while he’d been gone. All the while, he felt Bill’s stare boring holes into his back. The air crackled with the kind of
high-alert energy most humans gave off when they knew they were dealing with a monster. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m not going to do anything to you.”
A picture of what he must have looked like, tearing those creatures apart with his hands and teeth, flashed into his brain and his sire’s voice murmured, It must have been beautiful.
“Stop,” Ziggy said before he could help it, and then he knew he looked like a crazy person and a murderer, and things were just not going his way.
“Are you okay?” Bill’s voice was dry and scared sounding, miles away from the guy who’d hugged him and comforted him earlier. “Do I need to go get Carrie?”
“No.” Ziggy turned and pasted on a fake smile that he hoped didn’t look sinister. A kid in elementary school had told him once that his smile looked like an evil jack-o’lantern’s, and even though he was pretty sure it was because of the snaggly state of his baby teeth at the time, the last thing he wanted to project to Bill was evil. “Let her sleep. I’m just keyed up, is all.”
“Me and you both.” Bill seemed to relax a little, or at least, he seemed to want to relax. He took another swallow from his glass. “I don’t know if I can take much more of that kind of thing.”
“I thought you were a big, tough army guy.” He leaned against the counter. “You afraid of a few little creatures of the night?”
“First of all, I was a Marine, smart-ass. Second, no. No, I’m not afraid of those things. I’m afraid of you.” The look he gave Ziggy was so pointed, it could have been a sword. He turned back to his glass, staring straight ahead as he gulped it down.
“Damn. That’s harsh.” Ziggy took a swig of the foul stuff and forced himself to maintain a straight face. He’d covertly snuck booze from Nathan’s personal stock since he was fourteen years old, but he’d never gotten used to the taste of it solo. Gin, if he remembered correctly, tasted best mixed with Kool-Aid. “I mean, especially after you were all strong, silent, supportive type just a couple of hours ago.”
“A couple of hours ago I wasn’t dumping bodies with their heads nearly chewed off into a lake with my new vampire-werewolf buddy.” At least he had the decency to look a little ashamed. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get my head around the transition from sweet kid to…”
“To monster?” The feel of flesh crushed to pulp zinged along the nerves in his fingers, and he wiped his hands against the flannel pajama pants.
Part of him was ashamed of what he was. He wanted to apologize to Bill, to do anything to take away that fear he said he felt. Because he did like Bill, and he did want something to happen. He didn’t know when, but he did want it.
But another part of him—the selfish, childish part—wanted to tell him off. Who the hell did he think he was, telling a vampire how he should act or feel or whatever? He was just a human. A cute human, but still…
Bill shook his head, but his expression was still grim. “I’m not making judgments. I’m just saying, I’m not used to the guys I’m interested in tearing people’s throats out with their teeth.”
“I did that?” Ziggy searched his memory, but the teakettle whistled, bringing him back to the conversation at hand. “Hey, I did what I had to do. Don’t fault me for it. I’m not a human. You knew that when you followed me to the bar.”
“Yeah. I knew it.” Bill turned back to his drink, and Ziggy poured the warm blood into his own mug, mixing it with what remained of the gin. He would need it, to put up with this bs.
Bill reached for the bottle again, and Ziggy’s conscience forced him to intervene. “Hey, take it easy there, cowboy,” he said, trying to sound friendly as he put his hand on Bill’s arm to keep him from pouring more booze that he didn’t need down his throat.
The way he moved, Ziggy was almost a hundred percent sure Bill was going to slug him. He even let go of his arm and stepped back defensively, because the last thing he needed was a broken nose and to have to fight a drunk human. Not to mention the fact it would make him seem more monstrous in Bill’s eyes.
But he didn’t hit him. He grabbed him, a hand on each shoulder, and pulled up hard against him. Bill’s mouth touched his, just a little touch, and it was like electricity running through his entire body. And then he had no willpower. He should have. He wasn’t the one who was drunk and had some weird prejudice against vampires. If this went too far, Bill would probably regret it, and that would make Ziggy regret it, but he just couldn’t make himself care.
Bill’s hands slid under Ziggy’s shirt, the warmth of human skin a shock to his chilled flesh. “You’re freezing,” Bill said, his voice half-muffled by the proximity of his lips to Ziggy’s, and Ziggy couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’m dead,” he whispered back, and then he wished he hadn’t said that. Bill didn’t like that he was a vampire, that much was clear. No need to remind him, when he was so close and it felt so good to be pressed against him.
I’m just not going to think anymore, Ziggy decided, smothered under another of Bill’s kisses. He ached to be touched, not in a way that only seemed gentle, but in a way that was gentle, with no threat of pain to follow. Or, if it was rough, roughness for its own sake, not because he was a plaything to be dominated or tortured for someone else’s amusement.
He wanted to be treated like a person. It had been a while since he had been.
Bill’s hands slid under his T-shirt again, lifting the fabric up. Ziggy broke the connection of their mouths and put his hand out to stop him. “What if Carrie or Max comes in here?”
“What if?” Bill retorted drunkenly, and when his mouth descended again, sliding from lips to jaw to neck, Ziggy really couldn’t argue with his logic. Hell, if the Pope walked in right now, Ziggy wouldn’t care. He leaned back, feeling the bite of the counter in the small of his back, and pulled his T-shirt off. Bill mercifully skipped past the physical inspection, that moment that always left Ziggy to mentally narrate all the flaws the other guy was finding with him, like the fact he didn’t have washboard abs—hell, any visible abs—and he’d never grown more than a few chest hairs. Whether Bill was too drunk to care or he really just didn’t care, either way, Ziggy was glad when, once he’d whipped his own shirt over his head, Bill reached for him again, pushing him a little awkwardly to lean against the refrigerator door. The cold, smooth surface hitting his back coincided with the hot skin of Bill’s chest meeting his, and Ziggy shuddered at the contrast.
Bill dipped his head to kiss Ziggy’s left collarbone, hands locked firmly on his hips through the flannel sleep pants. He gave the fabric a short, experimental tug as he stooped to spread more kisses over his chest, then paused, looking up with such a serious expression that Ziggy was sure rejection was about to follow. Instead, Bill said, a little nervously, “You’ve done this before, right?”
Ziggy smiled down at him, unable to work up even a little sarcasm for a guy as nice as Bill. “Yeah. You’re not being a creepy old man, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” Bill laughed and bent his head, nibbling and sucking a little trail to the waistband of the pants before he finally pulled them down. Ziggy’s cock, hard to bursting, leaped at the first touch of Bill’s hand and his warm, hesitant breath. “You got a condom on you?”
Oh, shit, Ziggy thought, then remembered with a mental palm to his forehead that he wasn’t some human teenager anymore. He cleared his throat and tried not to sound like “that guy” when he said, “No, it’s cool. I’m dead. No diseases.”
Bill didn’t respond. Ziggy saw the muscles of his back tighten up a little, as though he would push away and call the whole thing off, and then, in a moment like an electric shock, Bill slid his mouth over Ziggy’s cock and sucked him in, as far as he would go.
The proper response was probably something like, “Jesus” or “God yes,” but all that came out was a strangled noise. Ziggy’s hands curled into fists and one of them pounded backward against the gleaming steel face of the refrigerator as white-hot neurons f
ired jolts of pleasure through his brain. The hot wet of Bill’s mouth, the fingers digging into his thighs and the palm cupping his balls, every pleasure-feeling nerve in his body seemed right there, right wherever Bill touched him. And there was no fear of pain, no thought that now he would draw back and sink fangs into his thigh or more sensitive places. Everything felt good. Beyond good. Fucking incredible.
Too fucking incredible, after a few short minutes. “Hey, stop, stop,” Ziggy gasped, planting his hands on top of Bill’s sandy-blond hair to push him away. “I’m sorry, I was just really close there for a second.”
“That’s kind of the point,” Bill said, standing to kiss him. To clear his head—and to get his mind off his hyperaroused dick pressed between them—Ziggy reached for the fly of Bill’s jeans and tugged the button open. He slid a hand inside and found his cock, hard and eager and weeping a drop of silky fluid.
“Commando, huh?” Ziggy mumbled against Bill’s neck, sliding his fist up and down. Bill trembled against him, and Ziggy smiled against the shell of his ear, flicking his tongue out to trace it.
“I want to fuck you,” Bill groaned, thrusting against his hand. “Can I?”
His hand stilling on the thick, hot flesh under his palm, Ziggy considered. It didn’t take much to sway his decision, just the steady pulse beneath his fingers. “Yeah.” His breath caught in his throat as Bill traced his lower lip with his thumb. “Oh, definitely.”
“Turn around,” Bill said, his voice as low and rough as the gin they’d drunk. Ziggy complied, kicking the pajamas aside. He braced his hands on the counter, his sudden vulnerability a little frightening. Bill’s hands came to rest on his shoulders, then stroked down over the plane of his back, returning to repeat the motion again and again, pulling shivers from his spine.
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