Diadem of Blood and Bones

by Ripley Proserpina

  Briar bit her lip, and as hard as it was, she kept the words inside.

  “Is that it?” Sylvain asked, his voice a low rumble. She was struck by a wave of curiosity. It was Sylvain, and he wasn’t suspicious.

  Which made it harder to lie, even if just by omission. “For now.”

  “I never heard a word about Theia,” Marcus said. “She wasn’t someone Asher ever spoke of.”

  “I wonder why he never went after her.” Sylvain shifted the chair from side to side, gently rocking them. “She’s powerful. More so than us.”

  “Probably because she’s a woman,” Marcus answered, and then, when Briar made a sound of offense, he held out his hands. “I’m not saying that to be sexist. It was a different time, Briar. Sons were given power. Not daughters. I bet once she was gone, he forgot about her.”

  “I suppose we should be grateful for that.” Briar could just see a world laid to waste by two vampires who had the ability to control minds. She shivered. “Are there any other relatives we should worry about?”

  “I hope not,” Marcus muttered. “I think we’re good here.” He examined the gel and smiled. “Ready?”

  Hudson

  Hudson stared at the orange and gold wallpaper of the motel room. He and Valen had finally stopped running when they’d reached one of the Great Lakes. He wasn’t sure which one, but from the framed classic car advertisements, he suspected they weren’t far from Detroit.

  “Are you going to talk to her tonight?” Valen asked.

  His brother’s voice shook him out of his daydream, and he glanced at the glowing blue computer screen in front of him. He’d been researching visual hallucinations all day, hoping to find something that could explain what Theia had done to him.

  “You’re certain it was her?” Valen asked. “Could it have been Asher’s other children? The brothers from before your turning? If Theia has shown herself, why not them?”

  “Theia is so much like Asher. She announces herself and then attacks,” Hudson answered, and his chest tightened. “As for the brothers… I don’t even know if they were his sons. They could have been rogue vampires with their own kingdoms. That time is such a blur.” Hudson barely remembered his early days as a vampire. He’d been too busy, murdering and glutting on blood.

  The three brothers, so physically similar they had to be related by birth, scarcely penetrated Hudson’s blood-soaked consciousness.

  Theia, on the other hand, was one of very few female vampires Hudson had ever seen. And he was the only one of his brothers who’d been Theia’s contemporary. Unlike the three blood brothers, Asher had spoken of Theia from time to time, but only for the first fifty years, and only to compare with Hudson’s shortcomings. “I know it was her.” He touched the spot on his chest where the metal bar had impaled Briar. Asher had bragged about Theia’s ability to use her mind to influence others, though he found it lacking compared to himself.

  Having had both vampires in his head, Hudson could attest their skills were dramatically different, but equally unpleasant. Ha. Unpleasant.

  Inside him, his monster roared. Theia had tricked them both, making them believe Briar was a threat. Showing them her face, and not Briar’s. The vampire had filled his mind with images and impressions which had seemed so real.

  In hindsight, he should have listened to his brothers, but he’d been so certain they were wrong. That he was the only one who could see what was really happening.

  His monster’s anger was directed at himself as much as at Theia. They should have known better, but they continued to think they were the smartest. Logically, Hudson knew his confidence came from his years as a general. During that time, he’d made decisions unilaterally, rarely allowing people like Marcus to offer their suggestions.

  Excuses. The monster wasn’t impressed and called Hudson on his excuses.

  “Hudson?”

  Valen had been speaking to him—what had he said? Right. “Yes. I’m certain it was Theia. Like Asher, she doesn’t need to be in proximity to use her abilities.”

  Valen grunted, and the bedsprings creaked as he adjusted his position. Hudson didn’t bother looking at him, but focused on the computer again. “You need to talk to her.”

  “Theia?” Hudson asked. “Yeah. It’d be great if she’d turn up so I could have a discussion that ended with me ripping her head off.”

  “You’re deliberately misunderstanding me, Hud.”

  He was. Hudson knew exactly what Valen wanted, but he couldn’t do it. “Not yet.”

  “What would you do if she wouldn’t talk to you? How would you feel?”

  Ripped open. Wrecked.

  But he didn’t say that. He didn’t say anything. Finally, Valen growled and the bed squeaked again. A blast of cold air hit his back and the door slammed shut.

  Hudson sighed and shut the computer before dropping his head in his hands. Valen wouldn’t be gone for long. Hudson had pushed in the early days of his escape for his brother to return to Boston, but Valen refused. Unsurprisingly.

  Standing, Hudson stretched his back. For hours he’d sat, and now his muscles were screaming at him. Valen’s phone sat on a bedside table, taunting him. What if he called just to hear Briar’s voice, and then hung up?

  You’ll run back. His monster was right. If he heard her voice—and the pain in it—he’d lose his resolve. It was dark here, but if he ran all night, he’d get to Boston by the time the sun came up.

  A growl began deep in his throat. It was the monster’s way of showing his displeasure. At least one of them had Briar’s best interests at heart. More than anything, Hudson wanted to return to her, but his monster wouldn’t set foot on the East Coast until he was certain they wouldn’t hurt her.

  And the only way to do that was to figure out a way to stop Theia from getting in his head. He’d stopped Asher from getting in Briar’s, he could do this.

  Except you had Briar to help you.

  Hudson grabbed the hair at his temples, willing the monster to shut up, but the floodgates had opened and neither one of them were strong enough to shut them. Image after image, memory after memory, swamped him until he was drowning in longing. He wanted to go home. He wanted his brothers.

  He wanted Briar.

  Briar

  Briar studied the images on the computer screen.

  “Guess which one is yours,” Marcus said.

  Her hypothesis was wrong. She’d spent hours staring at her Chromosome 18 with Hudson, she recognized hers immediately. However, the differences that made the doctors think she had EPP, were gone. She got closer to the screen.

  “It’s already magnified, Briar,” Marcus said. “You touching your nose to the screen isn’t going to reveal anything.”

  “It could,” she muttered. “It looks more like yours.” She pointed to the guys’ chromosomes.

  Marcus closed out the other images and leaned back in the chair. “I’m not Hudson, so I don’t get gaga over DNA, but there’s something pretty cool about seeing the moment DNA changes from human to vampire.”

  “Definitely!” Briar tapped the screen. “Right there was my genetic mutation, and now—” She cocked her head to the side. “Now there’s still a mutation. But it’s a little bit different.” She sighed. “I wish we could get the DNA of everyone in my family. All the way back. I hate unanswered questions.”

  Marcus and Sylvain laughed.

  “I could rob some graves if you want,” Sylvain offered. He narrowed his eyes at the computer screen. “It all just looks like a blur to me. Or a worm. Blown up. A blown-up worm.”

  “Ew.” Briar glanced over at him, and he shrugged.

  “If I take more art classes, I’ll have a more creative description.”

  Briar sighed and propped her chin in her hand. She’d stared at the screen so long her eyes had crossed and her vision blurred. “Too bad there isn’t a mind reading gene.” She sighed.

  “Huh.” Marcus drew his eyebrows together. “Actually…” He began typing. “This
is in the very early stages of discovery.”

  A simple internet search revealed what he’d been hinting at. Genetic Mind Reader. “No way.” Briar began to quickly skim the article. “Oh! That title is totally misleading. The gene helps you read emotions by examining other people’s eyes.”

  “And for a second, I was interested,” Sylvain said. “But anyone can look at someone’s face and read their emotion.”

  “Oh yeah?” Marcus asked. He covered his mouth and forehead with his hands. “What am I thinking?”

  “You’re thinking about how you’re an idiot.”

  “False.” Marcus dropped his hands. “I was thinking that you’re an idiot.”

  “So close,” Briar said, distractedly and then slapped her hand over her mouth. Both guys burst out laughing, and she dropped her hand. “Sorry.”

  Neither acted offended as they continued to chuckle, so she relaxed. “I don’t know a lot about this chromosome, but I think there are a lot of visual issues associated with Chromosome 3. And some studies have shown a correlation between genes on this chromosome and autism.” Briar drummed her fingers on the counter. “Both of you have spoken to Hudson, haven’t you?”

  Sylvain and Marcus glanced at each other, and finally, Marcus nodded. “Yes.”

  “Did he have visual hallucinations or auditory or both?” she asked.

  “Visual,” Marcus said. “He thought you were another vampire. But mine were auditory.”

  “Interesting. I wish I had examples of all your chromosomes… and mine. I could see what other things we have in common.” She wanted answers that would get Hudson and Valen home to her sooner.

  Nearby, Sylvain started snickering. Distracted, Briar walked over to him. He held his phone in his hands, tapping away. “I found the answer to our problems. I’m sending it to Valen now.”

  A huge weight lifted off her shoulders until Sylvain showed her his screen. A man stared at the photographer, a tinfoil hat wrapped around his head.

  “Sylvain.” She sighed.

  “Marcus searched the Internet for mind reading genes, I searched for ways to stop mind reading.” His phone chimed. “Valen said, ‘Thanks.’ ” It chimed again. “Hudson isn’t amused.” He showed her. The text read, “Not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny,” he said. “Valen gets it.”

  “I really hoped all the answers to our questions would be here.” Briar hadn’t realized how much she’d had riding on science explaining away their problem. “I thought it would be glaringly obvious.”

  Marcus shook his head. He shut down the computer and then approached her. “Too easy.”

  “I know,” she replied and leaned her head against his arm. “But I want them home.”

  “Let Hudson do what he needs to do. He’ll figure it out if we don’t. And then they’ll come home. In the meantime, we only have a few hours until we need to go hunting again.” Marcus glanced out the window. It was still raining, but now it was darker.

  “Yay.” Briar shook her fist in the air like it was a pom pom.

  “Finally!” Sylvain stood and swept Briar away from Marcus. He lifted her in his arms until her feet were off the ground and kissed her loudly. “Let’s do something fun.”

  Hours later, full darkness had fallen and Briar was the only one not complaining about the weather. She was soaked to the bone, but not cold. They’d gone west again, but when they hadn’t met one crawler or soldier, they’d turned around and headed back to the coast.

  “The bad weather is keeping them in,” Marcus said. Briar wasn't sure if he was serious. He caught her watching and lifted his eyebrows. “I’m serious.”

  “The humans are inside, so what’s the point of hunting if the prey is locked away,” Sylvain replied.

  “They attacked a college campus in broad daylight, but the idea of getting wet? Or opening a door is too much?” That didn’t make sense.

  “That was Theia. Until then, most attacks were quick and concentrated. A nightclub. A party. A group of humans walking home from work.” Marcus slapped the back of his neck. “It’s dripping down my neck. I’m two seconds from giving up.”

  “That’s true.” Briar remembered how hard they’d searched for the crawlers and soldiers. They were attacking a lot, but they weren’t being stupid about it. “The crawlers were still directing the soldiers, but now with Theia, they’re taking risks.”

  “Which makes it all the more surprising we haven’t seen any tonight,” Sylvain grumbled.

  “Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Theia is guiding them to do the opposite of what they’ve done,” Briar said. Streams of rain dripped down her forehead and into her eyes. She wiped it away with an already wet sleeve. “I think we should head back east. Right into the city. I bet they’re there.”

  “I think you’re right,” Sylvain said. “For all we know, they could be going house to house.”

  The thought of innocent families being attacked inside their own house was sickening, and Briar shivered. “Then we need to run.”

  Go. Her vampire was just as disturbed as she was and urged Briar faster toward Boston. The guys ran next to her silently. The rain continued to pour, drowning out everything until they got into the city.

  The streets were empty. The cars that were there rushed by, splashing dirty puddles onto the sidewalk. Briar could feel the anxiety in the air.

  “Let’s start in residential neighborhoods,” Marcus said. “See what we find and then branch out.”

  Just outside of Boston, they found what they were looking for. Briar knew something was off. First, it was the smell. The rain and flooded streets couldn’t wash away the smell of rot and metal, a sure sign the crawlers and soldiers had come through.

  And then there were small things. Things Briar wouldn’t have noticed as a human. Broken street lamps and glass littered sidewalks on an otherwise tidy street.

  Briar listened, dread building inside her as she filtered through the background sounds. With each step she took, she felt worse and worse.

  Her vampire was on guard, listening and worrying like she was. “Should I be able to hear heartbeats from outside?” she asked Marcus quietly. She felt like she was in a hospital, or in a library, and had to keep her voice soft.

  “If you can discard environmental sounds, then yes. We should be able to hear those things if we concentrate.”

  Sylvain prowled in front of them, and she got the sense he took in everything about the night. The first house they approached had three heartbeats. Two, slow and steady, and the third as quick as a hummingbird’s wings. “What is that?” she asked.

  “A baby,” Sylvain answered and continued past the house. At the next one, however, he stopped. Her heart sank. Slime trails led up the stoop and the unlatched door swung in the wind.

  She tried to find a heartbeat or a breath, but there was nothing. Sylvain moved first, stepping up the concrete steps to push open the door with his elbow. “Careful.”

  Swallowing hard, Briar followed. The crawlers and soldiers had left a map of their movement. First, they’d bitten the elderly man who had been watching television. The sound was muted with closed captioning on. The room was dark, but the screen flickered color across the man’s pale skin and torn throat.

  Briar turned her head and took a breath. There. The smell of metal seemed stronger when she moved, so she went in the direction it led.

  “Wait.” Marcus hurried to her, and her vampire hissed a little at the assumption that she couldn’t protect herself. Briar, however, was relieved to let Marcus lead. Not because she was frightened, but because she didn’t want to be alone when she found whatever it was she knew she’d find.

  By the time they passed the family portraits that lined the staircase to reach the second floor, the scent overwhelmed her. Slow, the vampire warned. Quiet.

  Listening hard, Briar caught the soft rustle of skin against fabric. Marcus glanced back at her as if to say, wait. Then he exploded into movement.

  The d
oor shattered beneath his foot before he rocketed into the room. Like the first group of crawlers Briar had found, these wound their way around the body of their victim like snakes. They cried out in fear, hissing and spitting. Marcus acted first, but Briar’s vampire was urging her on.

  Vengeance. Protect. She hadn’t felt this from her vampire before. She was horrified and angry and wanted to teach a lesson to these crawlers who dared to tread on her territory.

  It was the last coherent thought Briar had. Her vampire pushed Briar aside to take control. She tried to fight and reason with the creature, but her vampire was having none of it.

  There were only flashes of awareness. Briar held a crawler in the air, staring intently into its eyes and trying to impress upon it… something.

  Something important.

  Something her vampire wasn’t willing to share with Briar.

  Why would she do that? They inhabited this body together now, so why would the vampire shove her to the darkest corner and refuse to let her leave?

  The next thing Briar knew, Marcus held her shoulders, shaking her. “Enough! Briar! Enough!”

  He shook her so hard her head snapped back. “Marcus.” As soon as he heard her voice, he stopped and swung her into his arms.

  “What was that?” he asked. “What were you doing?”

  Over his shoulder, Briar studied the room. This wasn’t the room she’d started in. Here, the ceiling was low and stained. An old couch sat in the center of the room, two unmoving humans, Briar’s age from the look of it, sagged against each other.

  And they were covered in a thick layer of ash. The hands Briar had curled into Marcus’s sleeves were dirty. “What did I do?” she asked.

  “You killed them,” Sylvain answered. “Moved faster than I’ve ever seen you, and one after another, you killed them.”

  “Almost all of them,” Marcus said. He didn’t try to make her release him, rather, he latched onto her the same way she held him. “Some you let go.”