by Myers, AJ
“That blood is most difficult to come by, Miss Blaylock,” Skipper said, frowning as he checked the IV for damage.
So much for the intros. The fact that he seemed really annoyed by my mere presence was enough to aggravate the hell out of me. He smirked unpleasantly when he looked up and saw my raised eyebrow, and then decided to really piss me off.
“Just relax and let it do its job. If you behave, I will give you a lollipop.”
I hissed like a cat dunked in ice water and Tyler groaned loudly behind me. A lollipop? Seriously? Did I look like I was five to him?
“Let’s get something straight, Skippy,” I snapped. “Unlike you, I went through puberty a while back. So you can take your lollipop and shove it right up your—”
Tyler’s long-fingered hand slapped over my mouth before I could finish giving Skippy his sucker instructions. Judging by the eerie lavender glow in his eyes, I thought Skippy had probably gotten the point. I felt a sense of vindictive satisfaction when the little man growled.
“She didn’t mean that Skipper. She’s had a pretty bad couple of days,” Tyler said in a respectful tone, apologizing for my behavior. He was going to have to if Skippy planned on getting an apology. He’d started it with that lollipop crack, after all.
I gave Tyler a dirty look over my shoulder, and he slowly removed his hand. He didn’t move away from me, though. He just kind of hovered there behind me. I might be wrong, but I kind of thought he was making sure to stay close so he would be there if I needed to be gagged again. The realization that he might actually be scared of the little vampire kid took me by surprise. Skippy must have hidden depths—and not the good kind—if a fallen angel was afraid of him.
“My girl, do you know what that substance is flowing into your undeserving veins?” Skippy asked, emphasizing the word ‘girl’ just to annoy me.
“Kind of looks like blood there, Skippy,” I drawled, rolling my eyes. He growled again and I took it that he wasn’t overly fond of the nickname. That meant that as far as I was concerned, it had just officially become his name.
“It is angel blood, to be precise,” he bit out, glaring at me.
He walked around the table and stopped to run his fingers over the scary tools laid out on the tray with a longing look on his cute little face. Now, why did I get the feeling he was thinking about using them on me?
“Angel blood is very rare,” he continued, shoving his hands into his pockets. To resist temptation maybe? Hmm… “I have only had a stock of it one other time. It pained me to part with it, but the donor insisted. Having made your acquaintance, I cannot for the life of me figure out why.”
He shot Tyler a disgruntled look and I turned, mouth falling open, to stare at him, too. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, but it didn’t take a genius to add two and two to get four. I had just been given a mega-dose of angel blood! Tyler’s blood! The last time I’d been infused with a mythological being’s DNA, I had become a life-sucking quasi-demon. So what neat little gifts would I get from an angel’s DNA? A halo and my own fluffy pair of wings?
“Horns and a forked tail would be far more likely,” Skippy muttered behind me, cluing me in to the fact that my mental shields were down and he could hear my every thought.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” I retaliated, turning on him. “That reminds me, if your mommy and daddy are looking for a babysitter, I’m free on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
It was Skippy’s turn to hiss in insulted outrage. Before he could come up with a good comeback—or kill me—the doors opened again and Nathan walked in, looking as filthy and tired as Tyler, with Zan trailing behind. The tension in the room slammed into them and they came to a quick stop, taking in my satisfied smirk, the pissed off mini-vamp, and Tyler’s panicked expression.
“Told you so,” Zan muttered, chuckling darkly. “I think you owe me twenty bucks, bro. I’ll put it on your tab.”
Nathan scowled at him and then stepped forward to put himself in a position to intervene should Skippy fly across the table with one of his toys and try to do a little slicing and dicing. Like Tyler, he looked slightly panicked, but his voice was calm when he asked, “What’s going on here?”
“Little Skippy here needs a time out,” I chirped, still smirking at the adolescent in question. Predictably, Skippy’s eyes glowed brighter and he hissed again, this time flashing fang. I wasn’t impressed.
“She is your mate, Nathaniel?” Skippy growled, his glowing eyes fastened on me.
“You know she is,” Nathan answered, still sounding calm and collected.
I thought he deserved a standing ovation for that act. He sure as hell didn’t look calm. None of them did. Even Zan looked like he was bracing himself for something very unpleasant.
“Then you have my sincerest condolences,” Skippy told him, smirking back at me. “Perhaps you could instruct her on the appropriate way to address her superiors in the future.”
“My superiors?” I sneered, rolling my eyes. “Look, you little brat, I’m—”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence. Nathan slapped a hand over my mouth and grabbed me around the waist. Tyler unhooked the IV tubing from my hand and then followed, Zan taking up the rear, as Nathan turned and walked out the door without another word.
Nathan carried me, writhing and squirming to get loose, with Skippy’s laughter echoing down the hall behind us, to the first empty room he came to. Tyler and Zan followed us in and Zan had kicked the door shut and leaned back against it before any of them took a deep breath.
“Let me go!” I howled, glaring up at Nathan. “Kicking your ass for leaving me in the morgue is on my To Do list, buddy, but first I’m going to finish what Vampire Opie started! Let. Go!”
“She didn’t call him that?” Nathan groaned, staring over my head at Tyler.
“No, but you know how much he hates to be called Skippy…”
Zan started laughing. Nathan glared at him.
“Anything else?” Nathan asked, sounding resigned.
“She brought up the puberty thing,” Tyler told him, shrugging.
Zan laughed harder. Nathan groaned again, louder and longer than the one before.
“Then she offered to babysit him.”
“Holy shit!” Zan choked out, laughing so hard blood tears filled his eyes and started to spill over.
Nathan moaned and dropped his forehead to rest against the back of my head, shaking it back and forth as if he could make what Tyler had just told him go away with the gesture. I dug my elbow into his ribs, glaring at Tyler for being such a narc. Why had he only told on me? Why hadn’t he listed all the insults I had taken from the little monster down the hall? That was so unfair!
Nathan grunted as I dug my elbow in harder and loosened his hold enough for me to wiggle free. I barely caught the sheet in time to keep from flashing the entire room as I made my bid for freedom. I didn’t miss the disappointed look in Zan’s eyes—or Tyler’s.
“So I insulted Evil Mini Me,” I growled, glaring at all three of them as I adjusted my sheet so it would stay put. When they all gazed back at me with incredulous looks, I wanted to scream. “What? He started it!”
“Do you want to explain, or should I?” Nathan asked Tyler, arching one perfect eyebrow.
“This one’s all yours. You brought her here,” Tyler said, gesturing toward me and dropping onto the sofa in a graceful sprawl.
I hadn’t even noticed that sofa. It was the exact same shade of beige as the wall and the carpet, making it almost invisible. I gave him a disgruntled look, a little jealous of his comfy position, and he grinned back.
“What is wrong with you three?” I demanded, propping my hands on my hips while being careful not to dislodge my sheet. “Seriously, why are you so scared of that little ankle biter?”
“Lower your voice!” Nathan hissed, taking a step toward me with a look in his eyes that said he was seriously considering gagging me for real. I stepped back, giving him an I-wouldn’t-if-I-were-you look, and he stopped
and rammed his hands through his hair instead. “Em, what do you know about the Mafia?”
All I knew about the Mafia was what I saw on television, the same as everybody else. They were the bad guys, the guys who arranged for people to ‘swim with the fishies’. What did the Mafia have to do with Skippy the Teenage Vampire?
“Vampires have their own version of the Mafia known as the Nosferatu,” Nathan said softly, answering my unspoken question. “They make the human version of the Mafia look like a bunch of saints in comparison.” When he saw I still didn’t get it, he sighed again. “You just got on the wrong side of the vampire equivalent of the Godfather, Em.”
At first I just stared at him, then I started laughing. He had to be kidding. That snot-nosed little brat was a vampire Mob boss? Yeah, and I was Snow White.
I looked around the room, expecting everyone to be smirking at Nathan’s little joke. But apparently I was the only one who was amused. In fact, they all suddenly looked entirely too serious, even Zan.
“You’re joking, right?” I asked, my laughter dying as quickly as it had started. “You mean to tell me that Skippy is a vampire kingpin?”
“Yes, baby, he is.” Nathan’s expression was strained, his arms tensed at his sides. “Size is no indication of power, Em. You should know that better than anyone else. Skipper has more connections than God. He’s made people disappear for a lot less than what you said today. And that’s not the worst part.”
It got worse? Worse than pissing off the vampire Mob king? What could be worse than that?
“He can make you…do things,” Nathan said, really softly, like he was trying to find a way to break something to me gently.
“Things?”
“He can turn you into a puppet on a string,” Zan said, giving it to me straight. “He’s one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet, Firecracker. He can read your mind, rewrite your past, even take control of your mind and use you for whatever purpose strikes his fancy. He can make you turn on your best friend, or even kill yourself. And all without touching you. Hell, he doesn’t even have to be in the same room with you. That could be really bad now that you’re—”
His voice died as a low growl began to rumble in Nathan’s chest, growing louder and louder by the second. Zan flicked an apologetic glance at him, and I followed his gaze to find Nathan staring back at him stonily. There was more they weren’t telling me, and, for the first time in my life, I really didn’t want to know.
Which, of course, is why I asked.
“Now that I’m what?” I asked in a small voice.
For a long time, no one said a word. Then, with a soft sigh, Nathan turned me around to face him. There was something sad in his eyes when he spoke, something that touched me way down deep, in a place I hadn’t been sure was even there anymore to be touched.
“The goddess you were born to be,” Nathan whispered, reaching out to touch my cheek. “You just became the most powerful witch on the planet, Em.”
Is that all? I thought with a roll of my eyes. That’s what all the tension was about? Really, it wasn’t like I hadn’t been in worse situations.
I could see Nathan, Tyler, and Zan were waiting for my reaction, so I shrugged. I was powerful. I got it. I just didn’t think it was that big of a deal. As long as Skippy didn’t know what I could do, there wasn’t anything to worry about. Right?
“Great. Perfect. So, I’m some kind of super witch for real now?”
I watched as three sets of eyes widened in surprise simultaneously. For a second nobody said anything, and then Nathan chuckled and pulled me back into his arms. I laid my head against his chest and just let him hold me for a few minutes, enjoying being close to him again.
“That’s our girl,” Tyler muttered, laughing softly. “Well, since Em doesn’t seem all that fazed by the news that she just became a magical deity, I think we should move on to more immediate matters.”
“Like what?” I asked, burrowing closer to Nathan.
That’s when I noticed something was off. Nathan felt cool to me again. Not cold, really, but cool the way he had when I was human. He hadn’t felt like that the night before. He had felt warm, since his temperature had actually been a little higher than mine.
Frowning, I glanced up at him and found him smiling down at me, his eyes heavy lidded and drowsy. I recognized that look immediately. It was the same look I always wore when I was close to Tyler.
“Nathan, am I warm?”I whispered, awed by the possibility.
“Yes, baby, you are,” he murmured, kissing the top of my head and holding me a little closer. “It’s like holding bottled sunlight, holding you right now.”
I looked at the needle in my hand, thought about the nearly empty blood bag that had been pouring Tyler’s blood into my veins, and then turned to look at the donor. Tyler’s warmth was intoxicating and that aura around him was addictive. Nathan looked like he was both. Tyler just smiled at me, his eyes sparkling with amusement.
“Okay, what the hell am I now?” I grumbled. “And no vague bullshit answers like goddess or deity. I want details. Now.”
“You’re a miracle.” I was beginning to love Zan. He gave me straight answers. He didn’t beat around the bush or sugar coat things. “You’re a bandraoi and a darkling and a…” His voice trailed off and his brow furrowed in confusion before he turned to Tyler. “What’s that word again?”
“Nephilim,” Tyler said, watching me closely. “That’s not the first bag of my blood you got, Em. We almost lost you for real this time. The wound wasn’t healing, and there was nothing Shea could do for you because you’re a darkling. You were bleeding out.”
“Nephilim?” I repeated, still confused.
“You’re kind of part angel now, baby,” Nathan explained, watching me as closely as Tyler was for my reaction.
“I’m not going to grow a set of wings, am I?” I moaned, unable to stop myself.
“No, you’re not going to grow wings,” Tyler snorted, laughing. “You wish you were that awesome. But, you will be…different.”
“What does that mean?” Different? Oh right! Because I wasn’t already a big enough freak with the glittery eyes and the blood witch powers.
“Well, you were already immortal, so that won’t be a big deal,” Tyler said, shrugging.
“If I had been human, would it have made me immortal?” I asked.
“A small amount of my blood would have healed you without making you immortal,” he explained, shaking his head. “We gave you six pints, though. I had to donate twice. If I had given that much to a human they would have become a demigod. Given that you’re a darkling, and the fact that you were already so powerful as a bandraoi, you’re going to have the kind of power that hasn’t been seen in millennia. I can’t say exactly what new gifts you’ll develop, but I expect they’ll be spectacular.”
Great. More spectacular ‘gifts’ I didn’t want and could have done without. More gifts some asshole would probably hunt me for. You know, because I didn’t have enough of those to start with.
“So what you’re saying is you really don’t know what you’ve turned me into?” I asked, my voice hard. “Is that what you’re telling me, Ty?”
“More or less,” he muttered, looking away from me uncomfortably. “It’s not an exact science, Em. We don’t usually give at the local blood bank, you know. But…I couldn’t watch you die, beautiful. I couldn’t. I did what I had to do. It was the only way to save you, and I won’t apologize for it.”
Don’t get me wrong, it was really great of Tyler to save my life. But what had getting that much of a celestial being’s blood turned me into? I felt like a chemistry experiment.
And what about the demon I shared my body with? Somehow, I didn’t think she was going to be happy that I was now as much angel or nephilim or whatever as demon. Was my body now literally a battleground for the war between good versus evil?
I took a deep breath and decided not to panic. So I would have another set of abilities to get
used to. I had been there before. I talked to the dead. I had faced demons. I had survived waking up a card-carrying member of Club Semi-Deceased. Whatever Tyler’s blood did to me, I would just have to learn to work with it.
“Okay, moving on,” Zan grumbled, looking bored with the conversation. “We have other things to take care of. Em’s a big girl, she can deal. If I had to guess, I’d say she always does.”
“Zan’s right,” I agreed, nodding and trying to pull out of Nathan’s grip. He wouldn’t let me go, though, so I just turned in his arms until I could face everyone in the room. “What time is it? Hamilton only gave me until midnight to turn Ainsley over, and it has to be almost midnight now. We need to plan a defense.”
“It’s a little after six, Em,” Nathan said quietly, giving me a sympathetic look.
“No, that can’t be right,” I told him, shaking my head. “Tyler and I were at the pond at seven. I know because I looked at the clock in Tyler’s Jeep when we got there.”
It was completely silent in the room for a few minutes. They didn’t say a word. I had learned over the past few months to interpret long, uncomfortable silences to mean the shit was about to hit the proverbial fan. I looked at Tyler but he turned away quickly. Nathan wouldn’t meet my eyes, either. With no other choice, I turned to the one person in the room I could count on to be brutally honest.
“It’s not a mistake,” Zan said, wincing when I gasped in horror. He didn’t really have to explain. I knew what he was trying to tell me. But he went ahead and told me anyway. “It’s a little after six in the morning, Firecracker.”
I started to say something, but then stopped. What was there to say? We had missed the deadline. I had no doubt Hamilton hadn’t been bluffing. He wasn’t the type. If the others hadn’t handed Ainsley over—and they damned well better not have—he had targeted every witch and vampire for miles around. How many had died because of the hatred one man had for his own sister? How many families, friends, were in mourning for those they loved?
The blood on their clothing was suddenly all I could see. While they had been trying to save my life, others had died. There was nothing I could have done, but that didn’t keep me from feeling the guilt for it. Had Nathan even had time to warn them? Had they been able to save any of them?