Once we had him securely wrapped in the sheet, Ziggy lifted his feet and I very carefully grasped him under the arms, trying not to touch the ragged edges of removed skin. We went as fast as we could through the house, but the broken furniture and general squalor inhibited us greatly.
Outside, the van roared up to the porch. Bill laid on the horn.
“That doesn’t sound like a good sign,” Ziggy said, nodding toward the door.
We rushed the rest of the way, almost dropping Nathan at the threshold. At the top of the driveway, four sleek black cars pulled in, tires kicking up gravel as they spun out on their way down.
“Guards,” Ziggy explained. “The house was too small, so they live in a house off-site, down the road. And there are more. We have to get out of here, now.”
My heart leaped into my throat. “You could have mentioned that before, Ziggy!”
Bill left the car running as he hopped down from the driver’s seat to open the back doors of the van. He looked from the bloodied sheet covering Nathan to me, and I shook my head, indicating there wasn’t time to waste.
Ziggy got in first, and Bill took over for me, helping to load Nathan in the back. All I could do was stand by, wincing every time they jostled him, repeating things like “Be careful” and “Hurry.”
I was about to climb into the back with them when Ziggy asked, “What about Henry?”
I’d forgotten about him. “Henry, come on, we’ve got to go!”
“More specific, Carrie,” Bill reminded me tersely, jumping down from the back. “Henry, come and get in the van!”
The cars screeched to a halt and black uniformed men climbed out, running across the lawn toward us.
“Forget him, you can make another,” Ziggy shouted as I climbed out.
“Henry,” I called, and, over Bill’s shoulder, I saw him dart around the front of the van. For a moment I was grateful to see him. Then he raised his knife and, without any change in his blank expression, brought it down.
Bill turned, his face frozen in disbelief, the knife handle jutting out of his chest.
Thirteen:
How to Save a Life
“B ill!” Carrie screamed, putting her arms out to grab him as he fell. But Ziggy grabbed him faster than she could and slung him over his shoulder. “Max, get in and drive.”
How the hell had he managed to say that without screaming? It was all he felt like doing, dropping to the ground and wailing at the unfairness of what had just happened. But he managed to get Bill’s body in the back, beside Nathan’s, and Carrie crawled in beside them. That ghoulish gray thing sat in the seat beside Max. Carrie pushed the canvas curtains back and screamed at it. “Why did you do it? Answer me!”
It didn’t even turn its head. “‘Kill all of these humans.’”
The transmission scraped as Max forced it into Drive and stomped on the gas, and Carrie fell back, nearly crushing Nathan.
“Bill, can you hear me?” Ziggy slapped his face. This was not happening. It was not happening. “Bill, come on, you fucker! Wake up!”
If he had paid better attention in Boy Scouts, he would know first aid beyond a vague idea of CPR. Jesus, he couldn’t even tell if Bill had a pulse. “Carrie, what do I do?”
It was a really long time before she said anything. At least, it seemed that way with Bill’s blood pumping slower and slower out of the hole in his chest and Carrie staring at him like she was in shock.
“Put pressure on the wound. Not too much. If it’s his heart…”
“If it’s his heart, what?” He tried really hard to keep the panic out of his voice, to keep from screaming at her for being so stupid. It wouldn’t help, and Bill was opening his eyes, kind of moving his head around. “Bill, can you hear me?”
He opened his mouth as if he would talk, but instead a bloody bubble pushed out.
“Oh God.” This time, Ziggy couldn’t care less the way his voice sounded. And he didn’t care all that much about the tears in his eyes, as long as Bill didn’t see them.
“Shut up…I’m fine,” Bill wheezed, choking on more blood. “I think. I’m lying…on a…” He reached a hand out to touch something in front of him, but nothing was there.
“You’re going to be all right, okay?” He pulled back the canvas flap. “Can I move him? He’s lying on something.”
“No.” Carrie shook her head. “He’s not lying on anything. Internal bleeding is putting pressure on—”
“Shut up!” Ziggy shouted, and he realized he sounded like Nate had the night he’d been dying in Cyrus’s study. It made a horrible chill go up his spine, and he shut his eyes tight.
When he opened them again, there were light droplets of sweat on Bill’s skin, but if you didn’t look into his eyes, you’d think he was the most stoic motherfucker on the face of the planet. “Not thrilled…about dying.”
“Shut up, you’re not going to die.” Ziggy ignored the thump at the side of the van that made them swerve again.
Max cursed loudly, then shouted, “I think I lost them!”
Somehow, Bill’s hand managed to find Ziggy’s. “Sorry…we won’t—”
“You’re not going to die,” Ziggy said, but he couldn’t be as vehement this time. Because he was starting to believe that Bill might have a very serious problem. “Just rest now, okay?”
“We don’t have far to go,” Carrie reminded him, but as the minutes passed and they seemed to hit every red light in Grand Rapids, Ziggy started to lose hope.
“Bill?” he said quietly, touching the side of his face. Bill didn’t answer.
And that was it. He was gone. Ziggy felt for a pulse. And then Carrie did, holding her hand at his neck for a long time before letting it drop hopelessly to the dirty, bloodstained carpet. There was nothing. Bill was really, truly gone.
A feeling Ziggy despised formed a giant fist in his chest, pushing up, trying to push the air and voice and tears out of him. He tried hard to swallow it down the way he had whenever one of his mom’s boyfriends had hit him, whenever he’d found himself sleeping in a doorway in the dark, by himself. Whenever someone or something he loved was taken from him. It should have gotten easier every time. It didn’t. And it wasn’t now.
I told you, foolish boy. Jacob’s voice was cracked and weak, but there was the seductive warmth he always had, hiding beneath the surface.
“I’m not listening to you,” Ziggy whispered, barely louder than a breath.
I told you no one would care for you as much as I. Look at him. Mortal. Dead. How stupid of you. There was a sound, almost as though Jacob was trying to laugh, but didn’t have the strength. It was absurd, since the blood tie was a mental connection. Carrie must have really messed him up.
No matter. My heart is open to you, as always. You are my fledgling. The moment of silence that followed was either a dramatic pause, or Jacob had lost consciousness. It gave Ziggy some time to regroup. Come home to me. Come home to me, son.
I’m not your son! Ziggy shot back, bombarding his sire with images of all the perverse, abusive things he’d done to him. Images of pain and humiliation. You don’t do that kind of sick shit to someone you love!
Bill’s body jerked, just a little. The kind of spasm dead bodies always have, right after.
What did you do for someone you loved? If it was the exact opposite of what Jacob had done, then the thought Ziggy was beginning to have was definitely out. But what if it was a sliver of what Jacob had done to him? Jacob had saved his life, after everyone had already thought he was dead. That was something, wasn’t it? Didn’t that count for something?
“Ziggy, I’m so sorry.” Carrie’s voice was a ghost of what it usually sounded like.
“No. He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.” Ziggy heard the wobble in his voice, felt the tears that had escaped against his will.
But Bill wasn’t fine, and wouldn’t be fine, unless he did something now. And even then, it could be too late.
He leaned close to Bill’s ear, praying his word
s would penetrate to whatever part of him hadn’t left yet. They said that hearing was the last thing to go, and Ziggy knew that firsthand. “Please, forgive me. I have to do this.”
Waiting for some sign, some indication to proceed or not to, was the hardest thing Ziggy had ever done. But there was nothing left in Bill to answer.
“We’re almost home, Ziggy, hang on,” Carrie urged. As if she knew what he was considering. And she might have. He wished she would come out and say it. Say no, say don’t, say do it, he didn’t care. As long as she took the decision from his hands. But she couldn’t and he knew that.
There were two options available to him. Let Bill die. Or not. And he didn’t know if he could live with either one.
I suppose I could just kill him if he doesn’t like it or it doesn’t work out. Right? What if he didn’t mind being a vampire but really wasn’t big on the whole tied forever to Ziggy thing? What then?
You really don’t have time to consider a future broken heart. When it came down to it, he realized it didn’t matter. If he could have stopped that knife going into Bill’s heart, he would have, whether or not they had any kind of relationship future. He couldn’t turn back time and keep him from getting stabbed. But he could help him now, and that should be his only consideration.
So, while the van pulled to a stop, he rolled back his sleeve, spit on his wrist to wash away the blood that had crusted there, and then bit down.
He’d tasted Bill’s blood before. That would be enough. How many times had Jacob warned them never to feed off the humans in the barn, to wait for clean feeders who’d never tasted vampire blood? That had to mean something, or he wouldn’t have been so careful about it. So, he held his bleeding wrist over Bill’s mouth and pressed down.
A few seconds passed. Nothing.
“It’s too late,” Carrie whispered, tugging gently on his shoulders.
Ziggy ignored her. “Come on. Come on.” He willed Bill to come alive somehow. Maybe coughing and sputtering like drowning victims in the movies. Something to tell him it worked. Just so he didn’t have to wait any longer.
He began imposing time limits. Two more seconds. If Bill wasn’t alive again in two more seconds, he was giving up. But then two seconds passed, and he couldn’t give up. Four, six, he kept extending the deadline.
At a minute, he knew Carrie was right. He’d debated too long, he’d been selfish, and now Bill was dead.
Really dead. The no-coming-back kind.
He was really gone.
“I can’t believe that just happened.” Ziggy hadn’t meant to speak. But then, he hadn’t meant to cry, either, and that hadn’t stopped the tears. Probably nothing would.
Jesus. It wasn’t as if the guy was like, his long-term boyfriend or anything. They’d just met. This was so fucking stupid.
Stupid, and he couldn’t stop crying.
“This just can’t…” he said, his voice breaking as he leaned down to kiss Bill’s forehead. And then he wrapped his arms around Bill’s head and pulled him into his lap, curling over him and crying.
Stop. The voice in his head came on a wave of pain so intense he cried out at it. He let go of Bill and clutched at his temples, gritting his teeth. It was like someone was ripping a hole in his brain and pumping something in. Not matter or anything, just something…energy. He cried now for a totally different reason.
“Don’t cry. I’m fine.” The voice was outside his head now. “I don’t know how, but I’m fine.”
He looked down, tried to open his eyes against the splitting pressure in his head and saw Bill, his mouth streaked with blood, his face still ashen. “It worked.”
“My God,” Carrie breathed, and then she fumbled for Bill’s wrist, a disbelieving smile spreading over her face. “It worked!”
But then Bill coughed up more blood, and his head fell back. The energy that had flowed into Ziggy’s brain stopped, and that hurt almost as much as it had when it started coming in.
“No.” Ziggy shook his head, as if denying it—and making the worst headache of his life even more painful—would undo it all. “No!”
The van pulled over. A second after he heard the driver’s door open, Max flung open the back doors. “Henry, get Bill,” Carrie ordered, and Ziggy put himself between them, pronto.
“That thing has done enough damage to him.” Even as Ziggy spoke, Henry reached out for Bill. He kicked him back, hard. “You aren’t going to touch him!”
“Fine,” Carrie said, nodding to Max. “Get Bill. Henry, you help me with Nathan.”
“We have to get inside fast. I don’t know if any of them followed us,” Max warned, lifting Bill up in his arms as though he was a huge rag doll.
Once up the stairs, Carrie and Henry took Nate into the bedroom. Ziggy laid Bill on the couch, wishing he had a more stable surface, thinking it would probably do less damage to him, what with the knife sticking out of his chest.
If there was any damage to be done. Bill still hadn’t moved, and that weird hole in Ziggy’s head, while not closed up, wasn’t feeling any better.
Carrie came back down the hall carrying Nate’s big red box of medical supplies, her face full of worry, and Ziggy felt instantly bad for thinking anything even halfway mean about her.
“Did he turn him?” Max looked from Carrie to Ziggy to Bill on the couch, his hands opening and closing as if he desperately wanted to do something.
Ziggy shrugged, suddenly too tired to be emotive about it. “I thought I did. But he…he woke up and then…nothing.”
Carrie spoke quietly. “I hate to say this, but I think it could be because of the knife. Because it’s in his heart.”
“What do you mean?” Fuck that, he didn’t want to know what she meant. Not if she meant what he thought she did.
She reached down and felt for a vital sign. “There’s a pulse, but it’s weak. I could…I could take a look, but it would be messy.”
“I don’t care. Just do it. Do whatever.” As long as he didn’t have to watch. He’d seen enough blood and gore, he didn’t need to see it on someone he…well, someone he knew well.
He turned his back, fixed his eyes on one thing as long as it would hold his attention, then darted off to the next. He started to anticipate things he could concentrate on to keep from looking at Bill. He heard Carrie’s soft, “Oh, no,” and still he didn’t turn around. Not until she put her hand, that smelled like Bill’s blood and his own, on his shoulder.
“Ziggy, I’m sorry. But the knife…it’s almost like he didn’t turn all the way. Half of his organs still appear human, the other half…” She pressed something into his hand and he looked down at the pages of The Sanguinarius, open to an anatomy drawing. He pushed it away.
“It’s kind of a blessing, maybe?” Max didn’t have to sound so halfheartedly positive. “If he had changed, the knife would have instantly staked him. The heart of a vampire stays human. We grow another one, but the one that matters, the one that kills us…that’s the one with the knife through it right now.”
“How is it a blessing?” Ziggy managed through gritted teeth. “How is it a blessing that he’s going to die?”
Max faltered a little when he started to speak. “I don’t know. Maybe…you could give him a proper burial. Somehow. You could have closure.”
“I don’t want closure. I want Bill.” Ziggy knew how childish it sounded. He turned back to Carrie. “Listen, I just…Is there anything you can do?”
“Short of give him a new heart?” She sounded defeated. She’d given up.
Heartless. They are all heartless, Jacob pushed into his brain. Come home to me.
Heartless. The word fired off a network of lightning-fast memories in him. “Wait. The Oracle sent Jacob her heart, and he put it inside him.”
“Yes,” Carrie said, as if she already knew what he was going to say and didn’t like it at all.
He turned then to look at Bill. He was splayed open like a gutted fish, and the knife really was sticking into him. It was
weird. Looking at it head-on, it seemed that maybe there was only a little bit of blade in there, that there wasn’t room for more. But it had made room. Six inches deep, all the way through his heart, into the squishy bits behind it. But Carrie was right. There was only one heart.
“Take mine.”
It took surprisingly less consideration than he’d given turning Bill in the first place. Shucking his coat, he reached into his shirt and pulled out the slimy plastic bag containing his heart.
“Ziggy, it won’t work. The Soul Eater was already a vampire. It’s not which heart is in the vampire at the time, but whose. She could stick your heart in him, pull out his, the change might complete and then whoosh, he goes up with your heart in him and kills you, too.” Max’s face turned red. It was a weird thing to see on a vampire.
Carrie was uncharacteristically quiet, considering how much she usually argued in this kind of situation. It gave Ziggy the will to press on. “If you put my heart into him, do your doctor thing, hook it all up, while he’s still human, then it’s like a transplant. While he’s human. And then we let him change the rest of the way and it’s like it’s been his heart all along, right?” The more he described it, the more it seemed as though it could probably work.
Finally, Carrie spoke. But she didn’t sound as if she believed her own words of denial. “Ziggy, no. It sounds interesting. I might even try it if…But I couldn’t endanger you like this. What would Nathan—”
“You and Nate left me for dead at the Vampire New Year party. You put that death sentence on me and told me everything was going to be all right, when you had no clue what was going to happen.” His voice rose as he remembered it, and he forced it down. He couldn’t let his anger get in the way of proving his point. “You owe me. You didn’t protect me, and now you owe me.”
Blood Ties Omnibus Page 113