Blood Heavy (Blood Heavy Series)

by S. L. J. Shortt

  Devlin glared at her, while Sasha took a step back, looking worried.

  “So quick to forget that you were once human, that you’d be nothing without humans...those silly little movies and romance books make you out to be something special, but really, look at you. You hide away from the sun and you can’t go on living without stealing life from other things...you’re pathetic. A walking disease. Parasites with an ego, and yet you claim to be immortal,” she actually seemed amused by their very existence.

  Devlin looked ready to attack ,but before he could she raised her hand and clicked her fingers together.

  And then Devlin exploded.

  Bloody chunks of his body rained down, as if someone had just set off a pipe bomb inside a watermelon. They barely had time to hit the ground before they disintegrated into ash. Sasha was so shocked that she couldn’t even move.

  “Oh yeah, that’s really immortal,” the woman said with slightly bored sarcasm.

  Panicking, Sasha bolted away, but something stopped her. It was like an invisible bubble had wrapped itself around her and was pulling her back. All her limbs were frozen and her boots scraped across the floor as she was dragged in front of the woman. Nothing was actually there holding onto her, but she couldn’t move.

  “Leaving so soon?”

  For a moment, the red haired woman just looked her up and down, studying her features. Then she looked her in the eye and grinned. “I’m going to let you live,” she said jauntily, “and in return, you’re going to do me a small favor.”

  Sasha felt the invisible grip around her neck loosen slightly and she shook her head in agreement. A moment later, her jaw was able to move. “Anything,” she breathed.

  “Now, when I let you go, you’re going to run from this place as fast as your little undead legs will carry you and should you meet any sub-humans in your travels, I want you to give them a message from me.”

  “What message?” she gasped.

  “Daniel Jericho is off limits...he belongs to me now,” she said, looking into her eyes. Her glaze seemed to go right through Sasha and terrify her to her very core. “Understood?”

  “Yes!” she squeaked.

  “Good girl...here’s a little something to remember me by,” she grinned and pressed her finger to Sasha’s face. She screamed as her touch burned through her skin as if it were a red hot poker. She traced a line down her cheek before taking her hand away.

  Sasha had tears running out of her eyes and she was breathing hard. The red headed woman just laughed.

  Suddenly, the force that was binding her vanished and she had control over her body again.

  “Run away,” the red head said merrily. Sasha didn’t hesitate. She rushed from the factory as fast as she could, holding her face. “Run, Black Forest, run!” Sasha was gone a few seconds later. The woman laughted to herself for a moment more, then she looked around. “I like this place already.”

  Sophinia’s Mansion – Sioux Falls

  Sophinia was alone in the Library. With no one around to hide them from, she allowed her wings to hang loosely instead of packing them together against her back. She was talking on the phone in a hushed voice.

  “You’re going to have to elaborate,” she said.

  “We’ve been through all the records of his family that we could find,” Benchley’s voice said back, “his father, Jonathan Jericho checks out, so does his uncle and their parents. It’s the mother we found the discrepancies with.”

  “What kind of discrepancies?”

  “Well, on September sixteenth, we’ve got here that she was having an Ultrasound scan at Denver Community Hospital at eleven AM, which is strange because she was also at the National Trust Bank, eight blocks away setting up a credit card account at the exact same time,” he explained.

  “Could it be a mistake with the records?” Sophinia asked.

  “We thought that as well, but when we rechecked everything else we found over a dozen more incidents where this chick seems to be in two places at once. They’re really subtle, but if you look closely they’re there. Also, I can’t find anything to prove she even existed a year before she gave birth to Daniel,” he said. “There are records, but nothing that can actually confirm them.”

  Sophinia couldn’t deny the possibilities this news raised.

  “But here’s the kicker...it says that she’s buried at plot forty nine in Crown Hill Cemetery, but the cemetery’s records say different. The headstone reads Aurora Bennings, but the records say the grave belongs to Jason Vance,” he said. “I did a check and Jason Vance has no family, nobody to come and visit him, so nobody’s going to notice if somebody decided to change his headstone.”

  “It’s a lie...” Sophinia breathed in astonishment. “She fabricated her whole life...and her death.”

  “That’s what it looks like, and in my experience there are only three types of people who do that. Criminals, spies and -”

  “Non-humans,” Sophinia finished, “Anyone with something major to hide.”

  “Something tells me that his mom wasn’t a fugitive or James Bond’s sister and it would certainly explain why he’s got that freaky blood,” he said. “The only question is; if she wasn’t human then what the hell was she?”

  Sophinia nodded to herself. That was the question. There weren’t a lot of things out there that could successfully mate with a human and she’d never heard of a hybrid with blood like Jerry’s.

  Although this revelation could explain a lot, it still raised more questions than answers. She made a silent promise to herself that she wouldn’t tell Jerry about this until she could actually give him some of those answers. He had been through a lot and he would definitely not take this kind of news well.

  Especially the part where his mother may still be alive.

  “Keep this to yourself,” she ordered.

  Jerry, Joe and Goose arrived at the mansion just before midnight and now stood with Claire in Sophinia’s kitchen, each with a glass of scotch in their hands. They raised them up and clinked them together.

  “To friends we’ll never forget,” Joe toasted, and they all drank to their fallen comrades.

  They were all cleaned up now, bandaged and wearing fresh clothes, but they were still sporting their battle wounds. Jerry’s forehead looked pretty nasty and his left eye was swollen from the slash above his brow. Joe’s cheek was turning blue from where he’d been hit by Selena and Goose was sporting dozens of angry red cuts. But, they’d live. It was a shame they could say the same for their friends.

  “Still sucks,” Goose said, as the sting of the whiskey hit his throat.

  “It always does,” Joe nodded.

  “No, I mean brushing it off as an accident. They deserve better,” he said angrily. “If we hadn’t been there, if we hadn’t gotten them out, all those kids would be dead. Steve, Sarah, Parker, Roach, they died saving them and no one’s ever gonna know!”

  “You know,” Rachel’s voice said from the doorway. “Just because they’re not getting medals or a national holiday named after them, it doesn’t make what they did any less important. You know and you’ll remember them forever. That’s what matters.”

  “Where’s Sophinia?” Claire asked.

  “Making some calls,” Rachel said walking over to them. “Spreading the word.”

  “About our mystery guest?” Joe wondered.

  “Yeah, and about what you guys did,” she smiled.

  “Huh?”

  “You may not be able to get recognition in the human world, but in our world news travels fast. Give it a day, maybe two and monsters on the other side of the world will know what happened,” she said proudly. “They’ll know that a bunch of high school kids took on an entire army of vampires and they’ll know that the boy with the magic blood killed Selena.”

  “Whoa, is it a good idea to go spreading that around?” Joe asked, looking apprehensive.

  “Absolutely. Like I said, Black Forest may be gone, but there are still a lot of nasty t
hings out there that would love to get their claws into your nephew. But when they find out that he killed a pureblood they’ll sure as hell think twice about coming after him. Fear and force are they only things most monsters respect.”

  “And now we got both on our side?” Jerry asked with raised eyebrows.

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, I can’t say that having a reputation as badass monster killers is the worst thing we could have,” Goose said, “I say send out the memo. Let all the freaks know that you screw with us, you’re gonna regret it,” He raised his glass again.

  “Yeah, except that not all the freaks are monsters,” Joe said, smiling at Claire. She went a bit flushed and looked away. She really was smitten with him, but yet again Jerry failed to notice.

  “Speaking of, where’s Cass?” he asked.

  “She’s upstairs, resting.”

  “I should go talk to her,” Jerry said, before gulping down the rest of his drink.

  “Really?” Joe asked.

  “You heard her earlier. She’s still kickin’ herself in the ass about what happened,” Jerry said. “She straightened me out a bunch of times. Least I can do is return the favor.”

  “Okay...maybe Claire should go with you, just in case,” Joe suggested.

  “Just in case of what?”

  “Just in case,” he repeated. He didn’t want to have to spell it out to his nephew that he didn’t entirely trust Cass after what had happened.

  Claire put down her drink and followed Jerry up to her sister’s room.

  It was a damn nice room. Inside there was a huge king size bed, oriental rugs, classic art work on the walls and a big cosy fireplace. Cass was tucked up in the bed looking peacefully frozen, like Sleeping Beauty. She opened her eyes as Jerry entered the room. Claire waited outside.

  “Well, you look like nine kinds of hell,” she remarked as soon as she saw his busted up face.

  “I’m still sexier than you,” Jerry smirked.

  “You wish you had half of what I got,” she snorted.

  “Had enough to save your ass,” he reminded her.

  “Yeah...” she couldn’t deny that and she was still being haunted by the memories of what she had done. She had attacked and almost killed him. In fact, if it weren’t for Goose stopping her and the mystery woman healing him, she would have killed him. “Jerry, I’m sorry. I -”

  “No, Cass, it’s okay. You don’t have to apologies, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Dress it up however you like, it doesn’t change the fact that it was me,” she said, unable to keep the sadness from her voice.

  “Hey, if anyone’s to blame here it’s me. I was the one that made you like that,” he said sincerely.

  “You couldn’t have known that would happen to me.”

  “I know. I guess it’s just another thing on the list of crazy shit about me we need to figure out. But still...I had no right to use you like that and I’m sorry.”

  That made Cass pause and look at him, confusion written all over her face. “Use me?” she asked, just in case she’d misheard.

  “I just - I’m sorry I led you on. That was wrong,” he said with a heavy heart.

  “Led me on? What – I was talking about almost killing you, you dick!” she suddenly snapped, annoyance starting to build up inside her.

  “Oh...oh, I thought you were talking about us having sex,” Jerry laughed, looking a little embarrassed.

  “No! And what the hell do you mean you used me?!”

  “Well, you know...I was horny and drunk and fearing death at the time and I just wanted to, you know...get my cherry popped,” he said awkwardly.

  “Get your cherry popped?! You listen to me you little prick! You didn’t use me, I used you!” she said, truly getting furious now. Cassandra didn’t get used, she used people! Who the hell did this idiot think he was?

  “Yeah, right, of course, that’s what we’ll tell everyone!” he agreed quickly, apparently unaware of just how pissed off he was making her.

  “Tell everyone?! That’s what it was! I wasn’t your one night stand, you were mine!”

  “Yes, that sounds much better,” Jerry said, backing away from her.

  “You little bastard! I’ll kick your ass!”

  “Cass, this isn’t a healthy way to deal with rejection,” he said, holding up his hands in innocence.

  Cass’s rage hit boiling point. She reached over and grabbed the lamp next to the bed and threw it at him. He dived back out of the door just as it smashed against the wall. He quickly slammed the door behind him and then looked at Claire, while Cassandra’s rants of anger echoed through the house.

  Claire was trying desperately hard not to laugh her ass off. “That was awesome!”

  “I know,” Jerry said, bursting into giggles.

  He knew any kind of heartfelt speech would have been completely lost on Cass, so he had decided just to try and make things the way they had been, which mainly included them both firing insults at one another and trying to outdo the other’s verbal weaponry. Any feelings of respect which they held for each other would now be kept under lock and key and they’d just go on acting like a bickering brother and sister.

  He loved Cassandra, but he wasn’t in love with her. He needed her on his team, but he knew there was no chance of them ever going beyond friends. Not just because those feelings weren’t actually there, but because it would have been far too dangerous. After everything they’d been through she was family now and that made him more than happy.

  “I wish I’d thought of that,” Claire admitted.

  “I can hear you!” Cass’s voice screamed.

  The two of them laughed and ran away down the corridor before she decided to come after them with an axe or something. They returned to the kitchen, still chuckling.

  “What happened?” Goose asked.

  “Oh, I just had to break Cass out of her depression,” Jerry smiled and poured himself another scotch.

  “Not bad,” Rachel giggled, reading what had just gone down in their heads.

  Jerry just shrugged and smiled. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fresh carton of cigarettes.

  “Hey, I let that go because of everything that’s happened, but don’t think I’m happy about this!” Joe glared and pointed an accusing finger at the smokes.

  “Blame Cass! It was her feedback thingy that did this to me,” he said, putting a cig in his mouth and lighting it.

  “I’m supposed to be looking after you, not sitting back and letting you turn your own teeth yellow,” Joe said, folding his arms across his chest. “Oh, by the way, Goose, you should probably stay at ours for a few days.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your dad’s back...he was carrying a shotgun when I saw him.”

  Goose gulped and went pale. So did Jerry.

  “You’re not gonna tell him what I did to his gun, are you?” Goose asked worriedly.

  “Definitely. If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me!” brotherhood aside, he really didn’t want to face his dad alone.

  “Okay, now I’m glad I smoke,” Jerry said, before talking a drag.

  “That’s not something to be happy about!”

  “On the bright side, it’s not like he can get cancer.”

  They all turned to see Sophinia walk into the kitchen. Still as beautiful as ever, she nevertheless approached with a solemn look on her face. She was radiating guilt.

  “Daniel, I am so sorry...I broke my promise,” she said, looking him in the eye.

  “Your promise?”

  “I swore that I would protect you and everyone you care about. I failed,” she was old and powerful and she had enough dignity and honor to look him straight in the face when she spoke, but her eyes were begging for his forgiveness.

  “Nothing worked out the way we wanted it to. Best laid plans and all that jazz,” Jerry said, not blaming her for a second. “You didn’t fail Sophinia. You did everything you could and that’s all I can ask.�
�

  “You did so much more,” she smiled with pride. “You’re a remarkable person, Daniel.”

  “Nah, I’m just lucky,” he shrugged, feeling a little awkward. He wasn’t used to getting praise.

  “Maybe not.”

  “No, don’t start with that crap,” Jerry said, waving his hand, trying to make the subject shoo.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know what you’re gonna say, that I was saved for a reason, that an angel came to help me. Forget it,” he said. He’d never bought into that stuff and he wasn’t going to start now. “If angels did exist, I doubt they’d dress in business suits. It’s bull.”