In the living room, I went to the bookshelf and trained my eye on the spine of one of the books with a crescent moon as the publisher’s logo. I knew Nathan wouldn’t mind losing it—“Another Wicca 101 book,” he would scoff after a customer left with such a volume—so I figured it would be of more use to us if it was sacrificed for the cause. I held out my hand, directing my concentration at the book, and it slid off the shelf, suspended in midair. I imagined what would happen next. The covers would open, the pages would rip out one by one, then the whole thing would dissolve into sand. I visualized the word “apart” as it came from my lips, each letter tipped with acid, the whole word sharp as a razor blade. It sliced into the book, and, when I opened my eyes, I saw exactly what I’d imagined happening, and the guys’ horrified expressions as they witnessed it all.
“Can you do that to…to people?” Bill asked in quiet awe. He seemed to remember himself, held up his hands and said quickly, “I mean, I don’t want a demonstration or anything, but…can you teach us that?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I can do it. I suppose if I can, anyone can.” I sat down and noticed that the three of them flinched as I did so. Ignoring it, I explained to them my thoughts on how magic worked. Namely, that I didn’t know how, just that it did, and how I managed it.
After I brought down a pile of books from the same publishing company—glossy covered books with titles like To Sip From A Goddess’s Chalice and written by authors with names like “Golden Crowfox”—Max and Ziggy set to merrily tearing them to shreds with their new knowledge.
Ziggy did far more damage than Max did. In a battle situation, being able to rip the limbs off someone was handy, but considering what we were potentially up against, I really wished he could do it a little faster, and with less muttering under his breath.
Max, though…I remembered learning about werewolves and their abilities. Most notably, that they practice magic. Max must have gotten a lot of practice. He obliterated his first book almost faster than I could see it fall apart, and he didn’t have to actually say anything.
“Wow.” I knew I was staring at him as though he were a circus freak, but I couldn’t help it. He seemed almost more powerful than Dahlia.
He just shrugged. “I suppose it comes with the hairy palms.”
“I might not be cut out for this kind of thing.” Bill sounded a little embarrassed, still holding an undamaged copy of Merlin’s Majikal Almanac.
Ziggy finished destroying a copy of Wiccan Sex Magic For One, which I made a mental note to tease Nathan about later, and turned to me. “Why is that? Why wouldn’t he be as good at it as we are? Is it a vampire thing?”
“It can’t be just a vampire thing. Dahlia could do it before she was a vampire.” I wondered if witches were born, not made. Maybe Nathan was right when he said that the dangerous witches were the ones with talent. The kind of power Dahlia had would have been venomous even without a knowledge of spells and potions.
Of course, I didn’t think I had any inborn talent toward the occult. If I did, I would feel awfully gypped that I didn’t use it to do better in medical school. No, it probably had more to do with Dahlia’s blood.
Max, I could understand. He was some strange monster hybrid, and to my mind that explained all sorts of weirdness. But then, why was Ziggy so good at magic? Could it be the Soul Eater’s blood, or—
“Did you drink Dahlia’s blood?” I asked, the question out before I could cushion it with tact.
Ziggy didn’t—maybe couldn’t—look me in the eye.
“It’s not a big deal. I’ve had Dahlia’s blood before.” But it was a big deal, and it was a little uncomfortable trying to compare my experiences, which were probably tame next to what he’d been through, to his. “You don’t have to tell us how or why. I’m just wondering if it has anything to do with why you’re able to do magic.”
He nodded, not at anything I said, though. More like he was psyching himself up to answer me. He looked up, and the expression on his face spoke of things I would never want to hear out loud. “Yeah. I’ve had her blood.”
“So, if I drank this Dahlia’s blood, I’d get magical powers, too?” Bill’s expression changed to one of utter disgust. “I can’t believe I just said ‘magical powers’in a serious way.”
“It’s okay, you’ll get used to it,” Max reassured him.
I cleared my throat, a little amazed myself at the way the conversation was spinning. “If you drank Dahlia’s blood, you’d become a vampire. Or, maybe you would when you died. I don’t know what would happen.”
“If you drank a vampire’s blood and they didn’t exchange with you, you’d become like the humans the Soul Eater keeps.” A visible shudder went through Ziggy as he spoke. “That is seriously bad news.”
“Okay, so, I’ll rely on the little bit I’ve managed to do here, and this.” Bill pulled his gun from behind his back and put it back just as quickly. “You can shoot these things, right?”
“Absolutely,” Ziggy said, looking a little disappointed at not having a firearm himself. “It might not stop them entirely, but it will definitely knock them down. They aren’t immortal, just really, really strong.”
“Okay, I think we have a plan of attack.” I couldn’t believe how close we were getting, how soon we would be doing all the dangerous things we’d talked about. “When do you want to do this?”
“Right now,” Max answered, but his words were covered up by Ziggy’s.
“The humans usually get fed at one. They lose strength between feedings, so if we hit them at like, twelve, twelve-thirty, we have a really good chance of getting them at their weakest.”
I considered that bit of information. “What about the Soul Eater? Will he be there? Or Dahlia? What are their schedules like?”
“Ten kinds of crazy,” Ziggy answered without hesitation. “They’ll either be there, or they won’t. We need to be prepared.”
“I’m prepared. They have Nathan. There could be ten Soul Eaters in there, and I would take on every one of them.” And I meant it. I leaned so I could see the clock in the kitchen. “Okay, midnight gives us two hours to get our heads together and get things ready to go. Is that enough time for you guys?”
Ziggy nodded, and Bill affirmed with a loud “hell yes.”
“Good. Get what weapons you need. And…” Struggling for some other good, inspiring advice, I finished with, “Wear comfortable shoes.”
“What are you going to do?” Max called after me as I walked down the hall.
“I’m going to worry, and pace,” I said, but as I closed the bedroom door behind me, I admitted to myself that what I was actually going to do was pray.
Bill wanted to ask him something. It wasn’t as if Ziggy was psychic or anything. He could just tell that when someone kept giving you sideways looks, they were probably working up the courage to ask you something.
With their arsenal collected and safely stored in the van, Max had excused himself to call home. Left alone, Ziggy and Bill sat on the couch, drinking coffee because beer seemed like a bad idea, and besides, they probably didn’t have time to run to the liquor store. Drunk might be more comfortable than sober when facing a life-or-death situation, but it probably cut your chances of living through it in half.
“So, what do you think about this?” Bill asked, but Ziggy could tell that wasn’t the question that was bothering him.
He could wait him out. “I think it might be suicide. But we don’t have anything else we can do. You?”
Bill shrugged. “Never know. We might have a chance. You’re pretty good with that spell thing. And I’m an okay fighter. And Max is pretty good, even though he seems pretty distracted by stuff at home. But if it really came down to it…would you go out fighting?”
“What, to bring Nate back?” That was a kind of hard question. In the past, it wouldn’t have been an issue. He would have done anything for Nate then. But after the last couple of months…
“What the hell happened to you?”
Bill asked suddenly. “With your sire or whoever he is? What did he do to make you so…cold?”
“I’m not cold.” It came out more defensive than he’d meant it to. “I mean, there’s just other things to consider right now. Nate has definitely put his butt on the line for me, tons of times. But I did not survive the last couple of months through self-sacrifice, okay?”
“I get that.” Bill put his arm across the back of the couch, trying to appear casual and relaxed. “But this is the guy you consider your father. How can you be in self-preservation mode when it’s him you’re talking about?”
“Because I’m always in self-preservation mode.” Ziggy startled himself with his easy answer.
“And that’s why, when you were with your sire, you did whatever he wanted you to. And the things he wanted you to do just made you feel worse,” Bill said, and it was as if he’d read Ziggy’s mind. “I was in kind of the same situation, when I was younger. With my father, actually.”
Ziggy felt something tug in his chest, but that self-preservation forced him to ignore it. “Really? You think your dad did anywhere near the damage my sire has done to me?”
“Yes.” Bill didn’t hesitate. “Not the same kind of damage, but he certainly did damage me.”
Ziggy leaned back, letting his head rest on Bill’s arm. What he really wanted to do was hug him, but that would breach both of their defenses.
Bill shook his head. “I won’t go into all of it now, but…if you get to the point where you start adapting, trying to become what other people want you to be, no one will ever know you. The real you.”
Sighing, Ziggy closed his eyes. “You want to know who I really am? I’m a condemned fucking building. There are so many things wrong with me that I know I’m not going to get over.”
“You’re not a condemned building. And you don’t have to get over anything. You have to move on from them, and you have to get beyond thinking because someone degraded you, that’s what you’re worth.” Bill looked at him, not with pity, but understanding, and it had the same effect as if he’d stripped the skin and muscle from Ziggy’s bones. It sucked to be the one who gets their defensive wall blown all to hell.
“How do I know that’s not all that I’m worth, though?” Ziggy leaned forward, not wanting to touch any part of Bill, afraid his bruised feelings would seep through his skin and translate into a clear picture of how damaged he was in Bill’s brain. “You don’t know what he did to me. How could he do those things to me if I was really worth anything at all?”
“Because he’s a sick bastard, apparently.” Bill’s jaw clenched, like he wanted to punch something. It was a good feeling, to know someone wanted to hurt someone else for hurting you. “Ziggy, you are amazing. And I don’t mean amazing in a sexual sense. You are, but that’s not the point I’m trying to get across right now. You’re amazing because you’ve lived through all that you have, and it’s torn you down and you’ve made your own armor to protect yourself. But I don’t want you to feel like you have to do that anymore.”
“Why, what are you going to do about it?” Oh God, did that sound desperate? Did it sound as though he was pushing for some kind of big declaration?
He opened his mouth to take back his question, but Bill seemed to shrug off the words anyway. He took a sip of coffee before he spoke. “Nothing, really. What the hell can I do? But, as I’ve said before, I like you. I don’t want you to suffer.”
“Thanks.”
“And I think you would suffer if you didn’t do everything you possibly could for Nathan.”
Ziggy had never cared for people who had that kind of common sense. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll probably be dead before we get the chance to do anything truly heroic.”
Bill laughed quietly at that. “You’re probably right. Just promise that if something really horrendous happens to me, you’ll put me out of my misery.”
“Like, I should eat you or something?” Ziggy was relieved when the joke actually made Bill smile, not recoil in terror.
Bill leaned forward, so their lips were almost touching, his breath teasing Ziggy’s mouth as he said, “I can think of worse ways to go.”
And then he took Ziggy’s hand and pulled it to his neck, where the scar from that first bite was, and Ziggy shuddered. “I’m really sor—” he started to say, only to have his words cut off by Bill’s mouth on his.
And then he didn’t feel like apologizing for anything anymore.
Before we left, I dressed Henry—I had decided the golem needed a proper name—in some clothes Max loaned me. Henry had the same lean-muscled build that Max had, and I wondered if subconsciously I’d chosen that form for him. The clothes didn’t quite disguise the gray skin completely, but I figured if anyone noticed him in the short walk to the van we could say it was a rare side effect of iron supplements.
“He is not sitting in the back with me,” Ziggy said, shaking his head when we met him and Bill on the sidewalk. “Too creepy.”
“He can sit in the passenger seat.” I opened the passenger side door for him and commanded, “Get in. And buckle your seat belt, too.”
I watched as Henry did what I’d asked, that same blank expression on his face the entire time. Bill pulled the back doors open and motioned us in, giving Ziggy a playful shove. It was as if we all felt lighter, somehow, despite the ugly circumstances. Taking action seemed to spark hope I hadn’t realized was gone.
Bill closed the doors, and I winced at the loud creak of the hinges. Ziggy settled against the side wall and leaned his head back, closing his eyes, while Max stationed himself against the opposite wheel well.
“I can’t wait to get this thing done and get back home,” Ziggy said, as if we were headed to the Secretary of State’s office to get our license plates renewed, and I wished I had some of his bravado, even if it was mostly put on. He rolled his head, popping his spine loudly. When he straightened, I saw a fading bruise peeking out above the neck of his T-shirt.
“Oh my gosh, is that still there from the fight?” I leaned toward him to touch it, and he jerked his collar over it.
The mark faded with the red that crept up his neck. “No. Not from the fight.”
Oh. Right. I looked away from him so I wouldn’t stare at the hickey. “So, you and Bill are—”
The driver’s side door opened with a screech and Bill climbed inside. “Getting along well,” he supplied from the other side of the canvas drape, and the door closed.
Ziggy’s flush deepened, but a pleased smile tugged the corners of his mouth.
As obvious as it all seemed—now that it had been pointed out to me—I couldn’t quite get my head around their hookup. It was none of my business, but I couldn’t help it. The situation was exactly like when my best friend got a boyfriend during junior year and the rest of our clique wondered obsessively over whether or not they’d “done it” yet.
In a more maternal way, I worried that Bill didn’t appreciate what Ziggy had gone through with Cyrus and Jacob, if Ziggy had even mentioned it at all. Ziggy was a very private person, and if he didn’t warn Bill to tread carefully, he could wind up getting very hurt by his own omission. If Bill thought they were just having fun with no strings attached, would Ziggy even bother telling him if he felt different? Or, would he just hold all that hurt inside and go along with whatever Bill wanted?
And would I ever stop projecting my own relationship crap on others? I shook my head and grimaced at my own idiocy. Ziggy had done a lot of growing—had been forced to do it, actually—and Bill wasn’t a teenager. I was worried about things that not only were beyond my control, but also probably not worth worrying about in the first place.
You know why you’re doing it, right? I asked myself, and I had to agree that I did. I hadn’t heard anything through the blood tie from Nathan. It didn’t mean he was dead—I carried the broken connection between sire and fledgling around in my heart every day; I would know if he’d died. It did mean that he was experiencing things he didn’t want me p
rivy to. A sick part of me worried he’d been seduced into following his sire’s whim, the way Cyrus had always fallen to the machinations of his father. But Nathan had made that mistake before, and it had cost him dearly. He wouldn’t do it again.
The most likely—and horrific—explanation was that whatever they were doing to him was so terrible, he didn’t want me to know about it. I tried to imagine the most vile, cruel thing the Soul Eater could be capable of. I had to stop myself to keep from bursting into tears.
“Next stop, certain death.” I tried to make it a joke, but the sick fear wound tighter and tighter through me as we pulled away from the sidewalk.
“I hope we make it back here,” Ziggy said, as if he’d read my thoughts.
I nodded. “I know how you feel.”
Eleven:
Skin
T he Soul Eater’s new residence was a far cry from the mansion I’d met him in. That had been pristine brick-and-marble columns with a fine manicured lawn and lots of clean-cut henchmen. The building I surveyed through my binoculars was all peeling paint and dangling gutters, and I was pretty sure the grass hadn’t been mowed so much as worn off the ground by feet and cars.
“The Soul Eater lives there?” I hissed from the back of the van. I don’t know why I whispered. We had parked the van a safe distance down the road from the house, where Ziggy had assured us we could see the house but no one on the property would think to look our way.
Ziggy made a noncommittal noise, his body rigid in the passenger’s seat he’d evicted Henry from. “Yeah. Well, he needed to go somewhere no one would try to find him while he healed.”
The last time I’d seen the Soul Eater, he’d just killed my fledgling. But he’d also made the mistake of replacing his own heart with the Oracle’s heart. It may not have killed the Soul Eater when Cyrus sank the stake into his chest, but it had killed the Oracle, and the heart had combusted inside the Soul Eater. It had done plenty of damage, and Jacob Seymour had already all but destroyed his ability to function as a normal vampire by constantly cannibalizing others. It wasn’t a long shot to think he was still healing. Unless…
Blood Ties Omnibus Page 110