Blood Ties Omnibus

by Jennifer Armintrout

  Of course, I still had to talk to him about Cyrus being alive, as well. I’d just made myself a bearer of unbearable news, twice over.

  Max came up the stairs, wearing stiff, dirty clothes from the night before, but looking to be in a better mood than I’d seen him in for a long, long time. He had a cooler with him. “Blood. Not much, but enough for right now.”

  “You were busy,” I noted, nodding to the cooler. “Thanks.”

  He smiled a smile that told me all was forgotten from the night before. “I live to serve. But we need a donor. There are five of us now, all vampires, and we all need to eat.”

  “We’re on it,” Ziggy said, indicating himself and Bill. “We’re going to Club Cite in a few hours. Want to come with us?”

  “You should,” I interrupted, before Max could decline. “I’ve got to perform a…procedure on Nathan. I don’t think you want to be here for that.”

  Fortunately, they all agreed with me. A few hours and a bag of skinned chicken breasts later, they headed out for Club Cite. I waited until I heard the van chug away from the curb to wake up Nathan.

  He gave me a sleepy smile as he woke, and I kissed him. I’d missed him so acutely, even that small contact was irresistible.

  “I’d be happier to see you if I didn’t know you were here to carve me up,” he murmured sleepily. “Are you ready? Should I have faith in your skills now?”

  “You should have faith in my skills, always.” I laid the scalpel, which I had sterilized in boiling water after using it to carve up the chicken, on the bedside table. I don’t care if vampires are impervious to disease, there was no way in hell I would use the instrument on Nathan without purging the salmonella demon from the blade.

  At the sight of the gleaming silver, Nathan paled. Which is an impressive feat for someone as pale as Nathan already was. I put my hand on an unskinned portion of his leg and gave him a squeeze. “It’s not like the last time.”

  He took a deep breath that trembled when he released it. “I know. And I trust you.”

  Since he couldn’t actually lie on his stomach, I used pillows and balled up towels to prop him on his side, exposing his back. The marks from where he’d been scourged were missing now. I traced my finger over one of the lines I remembered, and for a moment, I almost lost my nerve. I didn’t know if I could cut into Nathan’s skin, if I could deal with causing, if not pain, damage to his body.

  Suck it up and get on with it. Let’s see some blood, Dahlia said in my brain, sounding incredibly bored with the whole proceeding. I wished I could somehow blindfold her so she would take no pleasure in what I would do. But I found it was simply better not to think of her at all.

  I took a syringe and the vial of local anesthetic and set to work injecting Nathan and ignoring his flinching when I did so.

  “Can you feel that?” I asked when I was done, sticking him a little with the needle. I jabbed a little perimeter around the injection sites where he indicated the skin was numb, then took a Sharpie marker and drew a rough rectangle within the numbed area. Taking a deep breath, I picked up the scalpel and started to cut.

  It was the most difficult thing I’d ever done. Harder than giving stitches to a squirming two-year-old, harder than cleaning pebbles out of a motorcyclist’s leg while he panted and turned gray from the pain. Cutting into someone I knew, someone I loved, even knowing it was for the best and they were going to be fine and feel no pain, was the worst thing. Ever.

  Just when I thought it would go better if I started talking to distract myself, Nathan decided on the same tactic. “Is Ziggy okay?”

  Thank you, I sent to him over the blood tie. “Yes. He’s out at Club Cite, trying to get us a new donor.”

  Nathan made a noise of acknowledgment, then was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was quieter. “Did Bill die?”

  He had to give me an opening, didn’t he? I sighed and pulled the flap of skin I’d excised free. I laid it over Nathan’s side for safekeeping and he squirmed and groaned in pure disgust. “Sorry,” I said quickly, moving the piece to rest on his plastic-wrapped thigh. “Funny thing about Bill. He’s um…”

  “Ziggy turned him, didn’t he?” Nathan didn’t need me to answer his question, judging from the agitation that sizzled across the blood tie. “Great. I suppose he loves him?”

  “It would be pretty soon in their relationship to say love, I think.” I started working on another strip of skin. “Besides, you don’t have to love someone to change them.”

  “Yes, you do.” Nathan reached slowly to scratch behind his ear. “Otherwise, there would be a hell of a lot more vampires in the world.”

  My heart caught a little bit at what he’d said. “Well, it can’t be true. Because you turned me after Cyrus killed me. And you weren’t in love with me then.”

  The little boost I’d gotten deflated when Nathan said, “Well, I didn’t know I was going to turn you, did I? I thought it was more a blood transfusion than a siring.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed quietly, hoping he thought my change in tone was due to focused concentration. But, to be honest, after eight chicken breasts, I could skin anything in the dark with my eyes closed while answering SAT questions.

  He turned a little, hesitant because of the knife at his back, I was sure, and looked at me until I was forced to make eye contact with him. “Carrie, I think I loved you from the second I saw you.”

  “No, you didn’t.” But even though I honestly believed he hadn’t, I couldn’t help the flip-flop in my chest. I dipped my head and smiled, pulling another strip of skin free. How romantic.

  “You think I’m lying to make you feel good.” He laughed quietly, and I smiled with him. He laid his head back down on the pillow and closed his eyes. “No. I think that most people are in love at first sight. They don’t know it until after, of course. But I try to remember what it felt like not to be in love with you and I can’t.”

  I paused in my work, then remembered the time limit on local anesthetic. Right now, blood was rushing its merry way to the deadened area, and soon all the painkiller would be washed way with it.

  I came away with three small strips of skin. I waited until the areas I’d excised showed signs of healing, then I covered them with gauze and rolled Nathan onto his back. “If all goes as planned, those will heal up before you feel them,” I reassured him. After I pulled back the makeshift bandages I’d used to cover his chest, I put the few flaps of skin against the left edge of his wound. The seam between them closed up almost immediately, and I wanted to jump for joy at my success.

  “Going that well, hmm?” Nathan asked through clenched teeth.

  I pressed the back of my hand to his clammy forehead. “Hurts that much?”

  All he could do in response was nod. I thought it would be better if we waited to try again when he’d had some blood, and more rest. But now, after this slight repair, his injury seemed greater somehow. It was as though we were close to the finish line and had hit the wall.

  “You’re naturally impatient,” he said, some of the color coming back into his face as I covered his wound again. “Just give it time. It’s not like I’m going to go anywhere.”

  I chewed my lip. “There is that to think of, you know. How are we going to get you back to Chicago?”

  “We won’t.” His words were cloaked in trademark Nathan steel.

  Shaking my head, I started to gather up my medical supplies. “You’re irrational from the pain.”

  “I’m not.” He grabbed my arm to stop me moving around the room. “Carrie, we’re not going back there.”

  I hesitated. While I was glad to be back home, in our home, staying would be suicide. I told him as much, both through the blood tie and out loud, and he sighed.

  “They know where we are. They came right into the apartment to get me. But the same could happen in Chicago. And this is my home.” He shifted on the bed and grunted a little in pain. “Your plan has failed. My back stings horrible.”

  �
��It’s waking up,” I explained offhandedly. “At least in Chicago, we have distance between us. And better security than a dead bolt and a chain lock.”

  “And here we have four perfectly capable vampires to guard me. And one of them is a Soul Eater with a witch’s blood.” Nathan wasn’t going to let that point go anytime soon. Not that I could blame him, but it was devastating to my argument. Still, he plunged on, further destroying my objections. “Do you think, from a tactical standpoint, that being as far away from the enemy as possible is a really smart idea?”

  “I’m not a tactical thinker. I’m a survival thinker,” I sniped, tossing the vial of anesthetic into the med kit. “Why is this our responsibility? Why do we need to take care of all this…crap?”

  “Because it is. And if we don’t, no one will, and he’ll win.” He knew he’d just repeated the same thing I’d told myself over and over. “We stay,” he started again, his tone gentle. “We stay. And we fight. And if we can’t fight, then…”

  “Then we die knowing we didn’t just wimp out.” I leaned down and kissed him. “Should we maybe put this in front of Max and Ziggy and Bill and see what they say?”

  “Oh, we’re including Bill in big decisions now?” The sarcasm fairly dripped off Nathan’s words.

  “If you were smart, you would.” I didn’t want to face his questions when he found out the circumstances surrounding Bill’s change, but the longer I put it off, the worse it would be. “Bill has Ziggy’s heart.”

  Nathan was quiet for a long time. “You did this?”

  “I did. And you can yell at me about it all you want. But when you’re done being pissed, you’ll know why I did it.” And then I braced myself for his outburst.

  It never came. He might have been too tired. Or he might have, miracle of miracles, realized that he couldn’t keep his son safe from every possible hurt in his life. But he did ask, “Did you know it would work? Or was Ziggy in danger?”

  “He was in danger.” I held out my hands helplessly. “I did what he asked me to. Out of respect for him.”

  “What about respect for me?” He closed his eyes and seemed to lose all the strength I thought he had. “Carrie, if I lost him again…I don’t know.”

  “You might lose him again.” I didn’t say it to be cruel. “If not the Soul Eater, you’ll lose him because you treat him like a child.”

  “If you had a child, you’d understand.” The instant he said it, his eyes came open and they were full of grief. “You know I meant—”

  I waved his words away. “I know what you meant. And you’re right. I will never know what it’s like to fear the loss of someone that close to me. But I do remember what it was like to be a young adult, trying to get out from under my father’s expectations of me. I think I still am.”

  He beckoned me closer, and I knelt beside him and kissed him. He put his hands in my hair, ran his fingers down my neck, then groaned in frustration. “If Dahlia wasn’t already dead, I would kill her,” he swore.

  “You won’t be like this forever,” I reminded him. “You’re much better already. Yesterday night you could hardly talk, let alone move or think about sex.”

  I doubted he heard me. His eyes were sliding closed as I watched him. When he was deeply asleep, I went to the living room. Bill and Ziggy still hadn’t returned, and for a weird moment it felt as though I stood in a different time. In a time before I had to worry about the Soul Eater, in a time before I’d even met Cyrus. It felt like the night I’d stood in this living room, listening to Nathan vow to kill me, still denying I was a vampire at all.

  It hadn’t been that long, less than a year, and it felt like a century away.

  How had I gone from that person, who wanted nothing more than to return to her lonely apartment and pray for her old way of life back, to a person who made life-and-death decisions and damn the consequences. To a person who thought of all the truly terrifying things that lay ahead with some fear, but mostly with anger.

  You should fear, Dahlia warned in my head. You have no clue what he is capable of. What I’m capable of doing to you now.

  I went to the window and looked out on the town. The orange streetlights transformed the trees into shimmering, skeletal shadows against the dark voids of the buildings. At one time I would have worried about the things lurking out there, going bump in the night. But I’d seen them.

  Dahlia’s laugh rang through my head. You haven’t seen anything yet.

  “Bring it on, bitch,” I whispered, my cold breath misting the window glass. “Bring it on.”

  Sixteen:

  A Shock

  T he club was just as loud and pathetic as Ziggy remembered it. Club Cite had never been one of his favorite places, but he’d endured it back when he’d been human in order to help Nate track vampires. It seemed like this was the first place vampires new to the city, or just plain new, ended up. And that was pathetic.

  To get into Club Cite you had to find the place first, and it was intentionally nondescript. The building was brick, but someone used a really glossy exterior paint to cover it with black. The result was a brick building with peeling black blobs, and the whole thing reminded Ziggy of skin cancer. Once inside, the only place to go was down. He assumed there were offices upstairs, but the actual club was on the bottom level. It had a bar, but they only served alcohol on Thursday nights, the one night a week they didn’t let in anyone under eighteen. The rest of the time, you could get coffee and French sodas from the Manson wannabe behind the counter.

  The atmosphere was the same every night, though. Frenetic, smoky, loud. Some generic metal song with wailing soprano vocals à la Nightwish blasted from the speakers, inexpertly coupled with an industrial beat. The tangle of bodies on the dance floor moved like Soul Train with a bad case of ennui: listless gyrations and halfhearted attempts to find the beat. It was depressing to think that people actually chose to spend their free time this way, all trying to out-goth each other with their Hot Topic wardrobes and grossly inflated attitudes of made-up depression. Ziggy leaned against the crescent-shaped back of the booth and tried to focus on the conversation Bill was having with a skinny punk in white face paint.

  “And that was when I realized that my soul would be forever devoted to the Lord and Lady of the Darkness,” the kid said, his hand trembling dramatically as he lifted his black-papered cigarette to his lips. “That I would wander forever. Lost in the darkness.”

  “Wow. Well, that’s…” Bill looked at Ziggy, then back at the kid. “That’s just fantastic. Did you hear that, Ziggy? The Lord and Lady of Darkness.”

  “Your sarcasm is not appreciated,” the fishnet-shirt-wearing loser said with a dramatic flourish as he stood, almost knocking over the chair he’d pulled up to the table. Seating was at a premium. He took the chair with him.

  “You’re batting pretty low tonight,” Ziggy observed with a smile. He touched the back of Bill’s neck, tracing his hairline until he couldn’t keep up his stoic expression and shivered a little.

  He knocked Ziggy’s hand away. “Stop that. We’re supposed to be inconspicuous here, and making out in a room full of teenagers would definitely draw some attention.”

  Taking in Bill’s appearance, Ziggy laughed. On an average street during daylight hours, Bill’s gray T-shirt, tucked into his dark blue jeans, wouldn’t look that out of place. But here, in the land of plastic pants and duct-taped-over nipples? He might as well have walked in naked. It would have drawn fewer stares. “Yeah, you look real inconspicuous.”

  “Hey, I tried. But we’ve got limited resources.” He nodded to a girl with green streaks in her hip-length black hair who eyed them with some interest from the bar. “She looks like she’d be up for it. What’s the story? Are we looking for a chick to bang in a threesome?”

  “As long as we don’t have to actually bang a chick in a threesome, yeah, fine.” Ziggy wanted to drop his head to the table and cover his ears to block out any more of Bill’s scheming. He had no idea—and really didn�
�t want to know—how good Bill was at lying to people.

  Before Bill could wave over their next mark, Max slid into the booth beside Ziggy. “Any luck?”

  “No, but you’re going to spoil our cover,” Bill said, giving the girl at the bar an exaggerated wink. Her face contorted as if she was trying not to laugh, and she cocked her thumbs and forefingers like guns at Bill before turning away from him.

  “Nice,” Ziggy said, trying not to laugh himself. “How are you doing?”

  Max shrugged. “Okay. I got a line on a group of ‘real’ vampires. You know, the kids who get together and drink about a teaspoon of each other’s blood on the night of the full moon?” His eyes got big and he reached his hands out like Frankenstein’s monster, then dropped them and laughed ruefully. “Most of them would shit themselves if they met a real vampire, but every now and then you find one who plays along. I got a few numbers.”

  “Bill’s been using a line about us looking for a third, if you get my drift.” Ziggy pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. “But so far, he’s not having much luck.”

  Looking him up and down, Max grinned wryly. “Yeah, wonder why that is.”

  At least, Max had taken some initiative in the disguise department. They’d found a box of Ziggy’s old clothes in the bookshop storeroom, and though Max was a few sizes too small and a few inches too tall to fit into most of the stuff, he’d at least embellished his black T-shirt and jeans ensemble with some heavy silver rings, rubber bracelets and a liberal amount of black eyeliner.

  Bill had declined anything in the Mary Kay department.

  “This music is killing me,” Max groaned, covering his ears. “If we’ve got nothing now, chances are things won’t improve. Let’s get back to the apartment before I go deaf.”

  “You know, I really do find this kind of thing fascinating,” Bill shouted to Ziggy as they pushed their way across the dance floor and toward the exit. “The whole ‘look at my dark soul’ thing going on here. I can almost take this better than eternally upbeat people.”