Bloodlines b-1

by Richelle Mead

  Even as a freshman, Kelly took lots of space in the yearbook. I remembered Mrs. Weathers saying Kelly was a good athlete. No kidding. Kelly had participated in nearly every sport Amberwood offered and been exceptional at all of them. She’d made varsity teams during her first year and won all sorts of awards. One thing I also immediately discovered was that Kelly was definitely not a Moroi. That much was obvious, even in black and white, and confirmed in the sophomore-year color spread in the middle. She had a very human build and tanned skin that clearly loved the sun.

  I was skimming the index of the junior yearbook when I heard a knock at the door. For a moment, I didn’t want to answer. For all I knew, it was some loser friend Keith had made while here, looking to eat his food and watch TV. Then I worried it could be something Alchemist related. I found the Kelly tribute section I’d been seeking and set the yearbook down before tentatively approaching the door. Looking out the peephole, I caught sight of a familiar face.

  “Lee?” I asked, opening the door.

  He gave me a sheepish smile. “Hey. Sorry to bug you here.”

  “What are you doing here?” I exclaimed, beckoning him inside. “Why aren’t you back with the others?”

  He followed me into the living room. “I—I needed to talk to you. When you said you were coming here, it made me wonder if what my father had said was true. That Keith isn’t here anymore?”

  I sat back down on the recliner. Lee took a spot on the nearby loveseat. “Yup. Keith’s gone. He was, uh, reassigned.” Keith was off being punished somewhere, and I said good riddance.

  Lee glanced around, taking in the expensive furnishings. “This is a nice place.” His eyes fell on the cabinet that had held the alchemy supplies. Its door still hung precariously from its hinges, and I hadn’t bothered tidying up where the Alchemists had cleaned out its other contents.

  “Was this . . .” Lee frowned. “Was this place broken into?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Keith, um, just needed to find something in a hurry before he left.”

  Lee wrung his hands and looked around some more before turning back to me. “And he’s not coming back?”

  “Probably not.”

  Lee’s face fell, which surprised me. I’d always gotten the impression he didn’t like Keith. “Will another Alchemist be replacing him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. There was still some debate on that. Turning Keith in had stopped me from being replaced by Zoe, and Stanton was now considering just having me fill in as the local Alchemist since the duties were light. “If someone does, it may be a while.”

  “So you’re the only Alchemist in the area,” he repeated, sounding sadder still.

  I shrugged. “There are some in Los Angeles.”

  That inexplicably perked him up a little. “Really? Could you tell me their—”

  Lee stopped as his focus dropped to the open yearbook lying at my feet. “Oh,” I said, scooping it up. “Just a research project I’m doing on—”

  “Kelly Hayes.” The cheerful look was gone.

  “Yeah. Have you heard of her?” I reached for a nearby piece of scrap paper, intending to use it as a bookmark for the tribute section.

  “You might say that,” he replied.

  I started to ask what he meant, and that’s when I saw it. The spread they’d done in honor of Kelly had pictures from all parts of her high school life. Unsurprisingly, most of them were pictures of her playing sports. There were a few from other areas of her social and academic worlds, including one of her at the prom. She wore a stunning blue satin dress that made the most of her athletic figure and was giving the camera a big grin as she wrapped an arm around her dashing, tuxedo-clad date.

  Lee.

  I jerked my head up and looked at Lee, who was now regarding me with an unreadable expression. I turned back to the picture, scrutinizing it carefully. What was remarkable wasn’t that Lee was in the picture—though, believe me, I hadn’t figured out what was going on with that yet. What had me hung up was the timing. This yearbook was five years old. Lee would’ve been fourteen at the time, and the guy looking back at me with Kelly was certainly not that young. The Lee in the picture looked exactly like the nineteen-year-old sitting across from me, which was impossible. Moroi had no special immortality. They aged like humans. I looked back up, wondering if I should be asking if he had a brother.

  Lee saved me from questioning, though. He simply regarded me with a sad look and shook his head. “Shit. I hadn’t wanted it to happen like this.”

  And then, he took out a knife.

  CHAPTER 24

  IT’S WEIRD how you react in moments of immediate danger. Part of me was pure panic, complete with racing heart and rapid breathing. That hollow feeling, the one that felt like a hole had opened in my chest, returned. Another part of me was able to still inexplicably think along logical lines, mostly something like, Yup, that’s the kind of knife that could slit a throat. The rest of me? Well, the rest of me was just confused.

  I stayed where I was and kept my voice low and even. “Lee, what’s going on? What is this?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t pretend. I know you know. You’re too smart. I knew you’d figure it out, but I just didn’t expect you to do it so soon.”

  My mind spun. Once again, someone thought I was smarter than I was. I supposed I should be flattered by his faith in my intelligence, but the truth was, I didn’t know what was going on yet. I didn’t know if betraying that would help or hinder me, though. I decided to play cool for as long as I reasonably could here.

  “That’s you in the picture,” I said, careful not to make it a question.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “You haven’t aged.” I dared a quick look at the picture, just to ascertain that for myself. It still baffled me. Only Strigoi were ageless, staying immortal at the age they’d turned. “That’s . . . that’s impossible. You’re Moroi.”

  “Oh, I’ve aged,” he said bitterly. “Not a lot. Not enough that you can really spot it, but believe me, I can. It’s not like how it used to be.”

  I was still clueless, still not sure of how we had reached a point where Lee—starry-eyed and lovesick for Jill—was suddenly threatening me with a knife. Nor did I understand how he looked exactly the same as he did in a five-year-old picture. There was only one terrible thing I was beginning to be certain of.

  “You . . . killed Kelly Hayes.” The fear in my chest intensified. I lifted my gaze from the blade to look into his eyes. “But surely . . . surely not Melody . . . or Tamara . . .”

  He nodded. “And Dina. But you wouldn’t know her, would you? She was only human, and you don’t keep track of human deaths. Only vampires.”

  It was hard not to look at the knife again. All I kept thinking about was how sharp it was and how close it was to me. One swipe, and I’d end up just like those other girls, my life bleeding away before me. I groped desperately for something to say, wishing again I’d learned the social skills that came so easily to others.

  “Tamara was your cousin,” I managed. “Why would you kill your own cousin?”

  A moment of regret flashed across his features. “I didn’t want to—I mean, I did . . . but, well, I wasn’t myself when I came back. I just knew I had to be awakened again. Tamara was there at the wrong place and the wrong time. I went for the first Moroi I could get . . . but it didn’t work. That’s when I tried the others. I thought for sure one of them would do it. Human, dhampir, Moroi . . . none of them worked.”

  There was a terrible desperation in his voice, and despite my fear, some part of me wanted to help him . . . but I was hopelessly lost. “Lee, I’m sorry. I don’t understand, why you’d need to ‘try others.’ Please put the knife down, and let’s talk. Maybe I can help you.”

  He gave me a sad smile. “You can. I didn’t want it to be you, though. I wanted it to be Keith. He certainly deserves to die more than you do. And Jill . . . well, Jill likes you. I wanted to respect that and spare you.”


  “You still can,” I said. “She—she wouldn’t want you to do this. She’d be upset if she knew—”

  Suddenly, Lee was on me, pinning me to the chair with the knife at my throat. “You don’t know!” he cried. “She doesn’t know. But she will, and she’ll be glad. She’ll thank me, and we’ll be young and together forever. You’re my chance. The others didn’t work, but you . . .” He trailed the knife’s blade near my tattoo. “You’re special. Your blood is magic. I need an Alchemist, and you’re my only chance now.”

  “What . . . chance . . . are you talking about?” I gasped out.

  “My chance for immortality!” he cried. “God, Sydney. You can’t even imagine it. What it’s like to have that and then lose it. To have infinite strength and power . . . to not age, to know you’ll live forever. And then, gone! Taken away from me. If I ever find that bastard spirit user who did this to me, I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him and I’ll drink from him since after tonight, I’ll be whole once more. I’ll be reawakened.”

  A chill ran down my spine. In light of everything, you would have thought I’d already be at maximum terror level. Nope. Turns out there was still more to come. Because with those words, I began to put together a fragile theory of what he might be talking about. “Awakened” was a term used in the vampire world, under very special circumstances.

  “You used to be Strigoi,” I whispered, not even sure if I believed it myself.

  He pulled back slightly, gray eyes wide and glittering feverishly. “I used to be a god! And I will be again. I swear it. I’m sorry, I really am. I’m sorry it’s you and not Keith. I’m sorry you found out about Kelly. If you hadn’t, I could have found another Alchemist in LA. But don’t you see? I have no other options now . . .” The knife was still at my throat. “I need your blood. I can’t go on like this . . . not as a mortal Moroi. I have to be changed back.”

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “Not a word,” Lee hissed. “They’ll go away.”

  Seconds later, the knock repeated, followed by: “Sage, I know you’re in there. I saw your car. I know you’re pissed off, but just listen to me.”

  Dingdong, distraction calling.

  “Adrian!” I screamed, jumping up from the chair. I made no attempt to disarm Lee. My only goal was safety. I pushed past him before he could react, heading for the door, but he was more prepared than I’d expected. He leapt toward me and tackled me to the ground, the knife catching me in the arm as I fell. I yelped in pain as I felt the tip of the blade dig into my skin. I struggled against him, only succeeding in making the knife tear into me more.

  The door suddenly opened, and I was grateful that I’d left it unlocked after letting Lee in. Adrian entered, coming to a standstill as he took in the scene.

  “Don’t come closer,” warned Lee, pushing the knife against my throat again. I could feel warm blood oozing from my arm. “Shut the door. Then . . . sit down and put your hands behind your head. I’ll kill her if you don’t.”

  “He’s going to do it anyway—ahh!” My words were cut off as the knife pierced my skin, not enough to kill me yet but enough to cause pain.

  “Okay, okay,” said Adrian, holding up his hands. He looked more sober and serious than I’d ever seen. When he was settled on the floor, hands behind his head as directed, he said gently, “Lee, I don’t know what you’re doing, but you need to stop it now before it goes any further. You don’t have a gun. You can’t really hold us both here under the threat of a knife.”

  “It’s worked before,” Lee said. Still keeping the knife on me, he reached into his coat pocket with his other hand and produced a pair of handcuffs. That was unexpected. He slid them over to Adrian. “Put these on.” When Adrian didn’t react right away, Lee pushed on the knife until I yelped. “Now!”

  Adrian put the handcuffs on.

  “I’d meant them for her, but you coming by might be a good thing,” said Lee. “I’ll probably be hungry once I’m reawakened.”

  Adrian arched an eyebrow. “Reawakened?”

  “He used to be Strigoi,” I managed to say. “He’s been killing girls—slitting their throats—to try to become one again.”

  “Be quiet,” snapped Lee.

  “Why would you cut their throats?” asked Adrian. “You have fangs.”

  “Because it didn’t work! I did use my fangs. I drank from them . . . but it didn’t work. I didn’t reawaken again. So then I had to cover my trail. The guardians can tell, you know. Moroi and Strigoi bites? I needed the knife to subdue them anyway, so then I cut their necks to hide the trail . . . make them think it was a crazy Strigoi. Or a vampire hunter.”

  I could see Adrian processing all this. I don’t know if he believed it or not, but he had the potential to roll with crazy ideas regardless. “If the others didn’t work, then Sydney won’t either.”

  “She has to,” said Lee fervently. He shifted so that I was rolled onto my back, still pinned by his greater body weight. “Her blood’s special. I know it is. And if it doesn’t . . . I’ll get help. I’ll get help reawakening, and then I’ll awaken Jill so we can always be together.”

  Adrian jumped to his feet, full of a surprising fury. “Jill? Don’t hurt her! Don’t even touch her!”

  “Sit down,” barked Lee. Adrian obeyed. “I wouldn’t hurt her. I love her. That’s why I’m going to make sure she stays exactly the way she is. Forever. I’ll awaken her after I’m reawakened.”

  I tried to catch Adrian’s eye, wondering if I could pass some silent message. If we both surged at Lee together—even with Adrian cuffed—then maybe we had a chance at subduing him. Lee was seconds away from tearing into my throat, I was certain, in the hopes that . . . what? That he could drink my blood and become Strigoi?

  “Lee,” I said in a small voice. Too much movement in my throat would result in a bite from the knife. “It didn’t work with the other girls. I don’t think the fact that I’m an Alchemist matters. Whatever that spirit user did to save you . . . you can’t go back now. It doesn’t matter whose blood you drink.”

  “He didn’t save me!” roared Lee. “He ruined my life. I’ve been trying to get it back for six years. I was almost ready for the last resort . . . until you and Keith came along. And I’ve still got that last option left. I don’t want it to come to that, though. For all our sakes.”

  I wasn’t the last resort? Honestly, I didn’t really see how any other alternative plans here could be much worse for me. Meanwhile, Adrian still wasn’t looking in my direction, which frustrated me—until I realized what he was trying to do.

  “This is a mistake,” he told Lee. “Look at me, and tell me you really want to do this to her.”

  Cuffed or not, Adrian didn’t have the speed and strength of a dhampir, someone who could leap over and disarm Lee before the knife could do its damage. Adrian also didn’t have the power to wield a physical element, say, like fire, one that could be used as a concrete weapon. Adrian did, however, have the ability to compel. Compulsion was an innate ability all vampires had and one that spirit users in particular were adept at. Unfortunately, it worked best with eye contact, and Lee wasn’t playing ball. His attention was all on me, blocking Adrian’s efforts.

  “I made my decision a long time ago,” said Lee. With his free hand, he dabbed his fingers in the bloody patch on my arm. He brought his fingertips to his lips, a look of grim resignation on his face. He licked the blood from his hand, which wasn’t nearly as gross to me as it would’ve been under other circumstances. With so much going on right now, it was honestly no more terrible than the rest and just rolled off of me.

  A look of total shock and surprise crossed Lee’s features . . . soon turning to disgust.

  “No,” he gasped. He repeated the motion, rubbing more blood on his fingers and licking it. “There’s something . . . there’s something wrong . . .”

  He leaned his mouth to my neck, and I whimpered, fearing the inevitable. But it wasn’t his teeth I felt, only the lightest brus
hing of his lips and tongue at the wound he’d created, like some sort of perverse kiss. He jerked back immediately, staring at me in horror.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he whispered. “What’s wrong with your blood?” He made a third attempt to taste my blood but was unable to finish. He scowled. “I can’t do it. I can’t stomach any of it. Why?”

  Neither Adrian nor I had an answer. Lee sagged in defeat for a moment, and I suddenly allowed myself to think he might just give up and call all this madness off. With a deep breath, he straightened up, new resolve in his eyes. I tensed, half-expecting him to say he was going to try to drink Adrian now, even though a Moroi—two, if you counted Melody—had apparently been on the menu of his past failures.

  Instead, Lee pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, still keeping the knife at my throat and preventing me from attempting any sort of escape. He dialed a number and waited for an answer.

  “Dawn? It’s Lee. Yes . . . yes, I know. Well, I have two for you, ready and waiting. A Moroi and an Alchemist. No—not the old man. Yes. Yes, still alive. It has to be tonight. They know about me. You can have them . . . but you know the deal. You know what I want . . . yes. Uh-huh. Okay.” Lee rattled off our address and disconnected. A pleased smile crossed his face. “We’re lucky. They’re east of LA, so it won’t take them long to get here—especially since they don’t care much about speed limits.”

  “Who are ‘they’?” asked Adrian. “I remember you calling some Dawn lady in LA. I thought she was one of your hot college friends?”

  “They’re the makers of destiny,” said Lee dreamily.

  “How delightfully enigmatic and nonsensical,” muttered Adrian.

  Lee glared and then carefully studied Adrian. “Take off your tie.”

  I realized I’d spent so much time with Adrian now that I was ready for some comment like, “Oh, glad to know things aren’t so formal anymore.” Apparently, the situation was dire enough—and the knife at my throat serious enough—that Adrian didn’t argue. He’d handcuffed his wrists in front of him and, after some complex maneuvering with his hands, was finally able to undo the tie he’d donned for Jill’s show. He tossed it over.