Blood Ties Omnibus

by Jennifer Armintrout

  “You wouldn’t have to go.” Nathan tapped his index finger against his lips. “I have at least seven warding spells we could take a look at tonight. Most of them involve doing a simple spell over ingredients and then sprinkling them around the perimeter of the area you want to ward.”

  “So, we could do the spell, and then split up and sprinkle the dust?” I brightened at that. “Max can go out in the daylight now. Whatever we don’t cover, he can do.”

  “But I want to be there, as well,” Nathan said quickly. The desperation he felt was written clearly across his face. “I’m not going to be able to help in the big fight. I want to at least be able to do this.”

  “Like Carrie said, we could split up,” Bill interjected, rubbing the knees of his jeans nervously. “She could go with Ziggy and I could go with you.”

  “And I could pick up the day shift,” Max finished for him. “Perfect. Let’s make with the magic, guys.”

  Nathan wheeled forward, trying hard not to look at Bill. “Maybe I should go with Carrie. Assuming the spell even works to begin with. I’m still very fragile, and I’m sure she wouldn’t want me to be—”

  I saw through his plan. He wanted to avoid being alone with Bill. While I wasn’t sure it would make him any more accepting of his son’s relationship, it probably wouldn’t hurt any, either. That’s why I said, a little too enthusiastically, “No, it’s fine! You’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

  “Tell me what books you need, and I’ll grab them,” Max offered helpfully. “I have to go downstairs and call Bella anyway.”

  Nathan sighed heavily. “Get me a pen and I’ll write them down.”

  Do you really think you can pull it off? Dahlia mocked in my mind.

  I shoved her aside. Remember, if you trip me up, I might just waltz through this thing alive. For your sake, you’d better cooperate, so Jacob can avenge you.

  She laughed. Or, at least, her soul trapped in me replicated the crazy sound of her laughter. In that moment I almost called off the entire idea of warding the cemeteries.

  And then I wondered if that was what she wanted me to do all along.

  Nineteen:

  Army of One

  T hough it was plenty warm in the bookstore, Max’s blood pumped cold through his veins. “Could you repeat that?”

  Bella sounded far too cheerful and way, way too oblivious to the implications of what she’d done as she explained. “My father has been deposed. After I informed several pack members of the situation with the Soul Eater, they called a special meeting of the council. They were enraged to find that my father had hidden this information from them, and I was correct in my assumption that they would view a vampire god as a threat to our continued existence. They voted, and cast my father out.”

  “My God, Bella, are you okay?” Max had never known his father, but he was pretty sure he’d take it hard if he had and some council had voted him into exile.

  “Oh, yes.” She sounded like someone talking about their breakfast, not their father. “He was not sentenced to death. He will probably retire to the Sanctuary, or perhaps meet with the outcast clan on Corsica. I will still be able to speak with him if necessary.”

  “You’re taking this remarkably well.” Almost too well. What if he was exiled somewhere? Wouldn’t she be upset about it?

  And then he remembered that he had been exiled, in a way. Worse, he’d been sent to die. And she hadn’t been too demonstrably upset. But she had done something to ensure his return, as much as something like that could be ensured. If she’d done this to her own father, she’d thought far enough ahead to plan the best possible outcome.

  That was his girl.

  “I have had time to accept it. Now, do you wish to hear the council’s decision on the Soul Eater?” She didn’t give him time to answer her. “They are sending a core group of warriors to assassinate him. I, unfortunately, was not invited to go. But I will stay behind and perform the battle rites with the priestesses of the clan. Fighting would be an honor, but this is an honor greater than I have dreamed of.”

  “Pardon me if I don’t immediately concentrate on that last part. You said they’re sending warriors?”

  “Yes. Fifty, perhaps more. They wish to make an example of him.” She paused. “Max, this means you do not have to fight now.”

  Damn. That put him in a hard spot. There was no way in hell Carrie and Nathan weren’t going to fight. They would argue that it would be too dangerous to leave it up to someone else. They had a responsibility to the world or something like that. And he had a responsibility to them, even if he wasn’t entirely vampire anymore.

  “I’m sorry. But I’m going to have to fight. You know they’re not going to back down, and I’m not going to be able to let them go in on their own.” He could feel her disapproval over the phone. “I promise to be careful. I’ll stick to the fringes, all of that—”

  “You are not one of them, Max. You are one of us.”

  “I know that. But I can’t turn off my feelings for my friends like a faucet. They’ll get themselves killed if I don’t help out.” He stopped, cold reality smacking him in the forehead. “If they’re there, at the Soul Eater’s house when the werewolves show up, they’re going to die, aren’t they?”

  “Our soldiers will not distinguish one vampire from another,” Bella admitted.

  Rage boiled in Max’s stomach. “You were going to tell me this when?”

  “It does not affect you, Max. They know that you will be there and they will not harm you. But what description should I have given them of your friends? It would be impossible to tell one vampire from the next.” Bella sounded exasperated and tired. “If they wish to stay and die, that is theirs to decide. But you have a responsibility. To me and to the pack, and to your child, as well. You must come home now.”

  It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, he was sure of it. He wanted so badly to return to her, to forget about the life he’d led as a vampire and start a new one. One where he didn’t have to kill or battle mystic forces. Where the last year—hell, the last couple of decades—didn’t exist.

  But what kind of a man would that make him? Running from his friends in their time of need, when they were walking straight into a massacre. They didn’t have many illusions about their survival, but at least they thought they stood a chance. Max had seen the warriors train and fight in practice. They would be lethal in battle, tearing through vampires without a thought about what they were doing.

  The picture of blood and carnage that filled his mind made his mouth go dry and his cock grow hard. The sick thing was, he couldn’t tell if it was the vampire in him or the werewolf that craved the destruction.

  “Bella, I can’t.” The second he said it, he wondered what kind of moron he was that he actually went through with it. “I can’t let my friends walk into this blindly.”

  She made a noise that could have been a sigh or a held-back sob. “Max, I am frightened for your life.”

  “I know you are. So am I. But I’ve come through worse things than this. I’m sure I have.” He neglected to add that he wasn’t entirely sure what worse situations those might be, because that would be unhelpful. “When will the warriors get here?”

  “They plan to attack at the time of the full moon, but they will arrive a few days before. If you do not wish to come home, at least promise me you will go into battle with them, not with the vampires. Do not shame the pack.” She was so sure, so goddamned sure that vampires were these evil, filthy creatures. Max wondered how she’d ever fallen in love with him.

  He wondered if she would ever accept him for what he was, what he really was. A vampire who happened to get bitten by a werewolf. Would she ever admit to herself that he hadn’t been born as she had, that he was something else? Or, would it become the thing they never spoke of, until one of them exploded?

  His goodbyes to her were mechanical. Not cold, but he didn’t feel the longing for her as he had in the past. And when he hung up, he still felt that c
rushing pain of loneliness in his chest, but it was for a different reason.

  They might save the world from a rampaging hell god. They might be able to fix everything that had gone so terribly wrong over the last year.

  The way we decided what warding spell we would use was not as scientific or mystical as I thought it would be. We flipped through the books, wrote up ingredients lists and decided to use the one we had the most components for. After that, Nathan went to work cross-referencing magical substitutions by planetary influences, elemental correspondences and mythical connotations. I’ll never stop being amazed that the same man who prayed the rosary every morning when he thought I was safely asleep knew more about witchcraft than any other person I had ever met.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I was pretty intimately acquainted with Dahlia now, though I wished that wasn’t the case. There were times I wanted to scream, just to drown out the sound of her in my head. Even if I blocked her from communicating with me, she was there, like a high-pitched frequency whine in my brain. Like water in my ear, rolling around and blocking out the sound of everything else until I wanted to claw it out to make it stop.

  As it seemed not an entirely wise decision to claw my head to let the voices out, I would try to concentrate on something else. And luckily, Max gave me that exact distraction. I’d thought we’d seen the last of him for the night when he burst through the door looking like someone who’d just heard they needed a tooth pulled.

  “Listen up, guys,” he said, coming into the living room to shake Ziggy awake where he lay passed out on the end of the couch. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Not going to believe what?” I had to poke Nathan to get his attention out of his book. “Now that we’re all listening.”

  “We don’t need any spell. We’ve got reinforcements.” Max went on to explain about the pack Bella belonged to, and what she’d done for us. Just when I was about to be grateful to her, he added, “And she doesn’t want you to fight.”

  “What?” I shrieked.

  “Carrie, wait—” Max said, but it was too late. I was on a roll, fueled by the horrible crap going on in my head courtesy of Dahlia, and the horrible crap going on around us, courtesy of the Soul Eater.

  I stood and marched up to Max, though I’m sure the effect was diminished somewhat by the fact that I’m several inches shorter than him. “We were here when this thing started. At least, some of us were. And we’re going to stick it out until the end. Just because she doesn’t understand what it means to be loyal—”

  “I told her no,” Max interrupted. “I told her there was no way you’d agree to sit at home and let someone else take care of it when there was so much on the line.”

  “So, when do we go?” Nathan left the book on the kitchen table and wheeled into the living room. “I’m ready.”

  “You’re not going,” I reminded him, but Max answered the question anyway.

  “We’re going in on the night of the ritual. It won’t be easy. For one, you guys will have to avoid the werewolves. They’ll kill any vampires they come across.”

  I cut him off. “But you’ll be there. You can tell them—”

  “I won’t be able to tell them anything.” He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “It will be the full moon. I’ll change. The warriors will change, too. But I…I don’t know how much I’ll remember. About you guys or anything. Just make sure you stay clear of anything even remotely wolflike.”

  “There’s more to it than just running in and saving the day, though,” Bill pointed out. “If this Soul Eater guy is a big nasty, how do we fight him?”

  “I think fifty werewolves can handle him,” Max said, almost contemptuously.

  “I don’t.” Nathan looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone. “In any situation where a crowd gathers intent on destroying him, what happens?”

  A chill of memory crept up my spine. “He gets away.”

  “He uses the confusion as a distraction,” Ziggy added.

  Nathan nodded. “Our odds are better if, in the confusion, one person goes after him specifically. And only one person here has the kind of power to kill him.”

  It was a weird feeling. I wanted to yell at Nathan for wanting to send me into danger, but in the past, when he’d wanted to stop me from getting involved in something for my own good, I’ve yelled at him for that. It was a true case of “be careful what you wish for,” I guess.

  “Come on, man. That’s stupid,” Max said quietly, fulfilling his role as the person who spoke reason on my behalf.

  I didn’t have the conviction to argue. “At least having Dahlia trapped in my head will end happy. Not entirely happy. I mean, she’ll still be trapped in my head. But at least I’ll be able to use her for something.”

  Use me. That sounds so dirty. And so unlike poor, pure little you.

  I bombarded her with images of Cyrus and I together, that first time, when I’d torn at his throat with my human teeth and reveled in the pain we’d caused each other. It wasn’t mature, but for some reason I wanted her to know that I was better than her, and a hundred times better than she ever was, at anything she was proud of.

  “Carrie, are you okay?” Nathan’s voice came to me as if through a fog. “Carrie?”

  I snapped myself back to reality. Unfortunately, in reality, I’d clenched my fists so tightly my nails had dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood, which now dripped onto my clothes.

  “Sorry,” I said, smoothing my shirt down out of nervous habit. The blood from my hands stained the cloth and I crossed my arms over my stomach to hide it. “What were we talking about?”

  “We need exact details of what the ritual will entail,” Max said, eyeing me warily. “Only Cyrus can give us that information. Unfortunately, he’s only speaking to us in riddles right now. Maybe you could…”

  “Of course, I’ll talk to him.” I didn’t want to sound as though I was jumping at the chance to see him again, though maybe I was. “He’ll be honest with me. At least, as honest as he feels like being.”

  “I’ll call him and set it up.” Max turned toward the door.

  “Wait, can’t we—” Nathan stopped himself. “Never mind. This way will work.”

  Thank you, I sent him silently, but he looked away.

  “I guess we’ll go downstairs, then,” Ziggy said awkwardly.

  Bill stumbled as he stood. “Leg’s asleep,” he said sheepishly, following Ziggy.

  Alone with Nathan, I could barely face him.

  “You know what I saw, Carrie.” The words scraped out of his throat as if they were coated with razors. As if it was physically painful for him to speak.

  I couldn’t deny it. He had an all-access pass to my head and I’d just been replaying “Carrie and Cyrus’s Greatest Hits” in my mind. There was no hiding anything from him. “I know.”

  “When is this going to end?”

  I had a horrible feeling that I knew the answer, but I couldn’t say it out loud. Instead, I asked him if he wanted a cup of tea, and he said he’d love one, and we pretended that nothing had happened, nothing was happening, and nothing would happen.

  It was a pretty fairy tale for a few hours, at least.

  Max called Cyrus and arranged to meet him at midnight, in the old section of the sprawling graveyard on the east side of town. It wasn’t a terribly long walk from the apartment, and I wondered if Cyrus suspected I might show up.

  The night was cooling off rapidly, and fog hung in the air, shrouding the ground. Half-sunken gravestones thrust up from the ground like broken teeth biting at the thick haze. I felt as though I’d wandered into a cheesy vampire movie.

  Cyrus stood with his back to the path I stumbled down, his hand gripping the foot of a cement angel perched just above his shoulder. In the dim light I saw he wore a red brocade robe, like the ones he’d worn when I’d first met him. His hair was shorter now, and the effect wasn’t quite the same as it had been then. Now, he looked a little like those
kids Ziggy had known, who dressed up to play vampire.

  “Kind of a cliché, isn’t it?” I asked, but not with the mocking I would have directed toward him in the past. “You know, meeting in a cemetery at midnight?”

  His back stiffened at the sound of my voice, and he spun, pure rage in his face. “Where is your werewolf? Baying at the moon?”

  “No need to be nasty,” I admonished, coming to stand in front of him. “I wanted to come. I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?” He turned away and stalked toward a leaning crypt. “So you can tell me that it’s me you want? That it’s me you love? And then change your mind when it becomes convenient to love someone else?”

  “I’m not the only one guilty of that,” I said, my limbs trembling with rage. “You ran back to Dahlia as fast as your little legs could carry you, didn’t you?”

  “I did what I had to in order to survive!” He stabbed a finger at his chest and advanced on me. “It’s all I’ve been doing since you came into my life!”

  “So you blame me?” I tossed up my hands and laughed bitterly. “It’s all my fault your life has been miserable for the past year. Well, I never asked you to attack me in that morgue. I never asked you to make me a vampire. And I never asked anyone to bring you back.”

  “I know!” He gripped my upper arms and pushed me into the base of the cement angel. Concrete chips fluttered from behind me and I heard the angel, apparently attached only by its weight and gravity, rock on its pedestal.

  Cyrus didn’t seem to notice that we were about to be killed by a falling monument. His face was inches from mine, teeth bared, features crumpled into his vampire form. “You didn’t bring me back! You had Dahlia’s spell book! You could have brought me back!”

  It took me a moment to decipher his words, choked by anger and hindered by his vampire face. His features morphed into his smooth, human visage and he stepped back, still trembling with rage. I stood by, my hands clenching and unclenching as I tried to think of something to say.