Bloodstone

by Sydney Bristow

  “That’s enough, Kendall!” When she didn’t respond, I dropped the blade, clutched onto her shoulders, and tried to pry her away from the woman.

  Kendall didn’t move or even acknowledge that I tried to separate her from the woman, probably due to her super strength. That disconcerted me. Did my lack of strength, compared to her, render me as inconspicuous as a mosquito? I swept my right arm around her neck and used all my power to yank her backwards.

  This time, I’d managed to strip her free, but before I even hit the ground, Kendall had slipped out of my lock-hold.

  Lulu charged up to Kendall and barked. Then she backed off a bit and yapped at her.

  Ignoring my dog, Kendall pushed away, slipped around behind the demon, and clamped down on the side of the woman’s neck, her mouth puckering in and out like a fish as blood filled her mouth before she pushed it down her throat.

  She met my eyes with a heated gaze that said…don’t you dare try that again! Her eyes looked rabid, predatory. It seemed that while feeding, vampires neglected reason and gave way to a feral instinct to protect their food source.

  “The demon is gone,” I told her in a placating manner, so she wouldn’t regard me as a threat. “She’s human.” At that moment, Lulu decided to start barking again, so I pointed a finger at her, which silenced her. I redirected my attention toward my best friend.

  Kendall continued drinking from the woman’s neck, but my words must have entered her mind because she no longer fed with such ferocity, and her eyes no longer shined with animalistic need.

  “Hey,” said Brandon, sliding his knees against the carpet as he slowly approached her. “Look at her. She’s unconscious! She’s so pale. You’ve taken at least two pints from her. If you take any more, you could really hurt her.”

  Kendall met his gaze and after taking a few more gulps of blood, she stopped sucking from the woman’s throat. She removed her lips from the woman’s skin and licked the blood from her lips.

  Brandon sighed with relief.

  I appreciated that Brandon severed her primal need to feed, but I didn’t like how she’d responded when I’d done the same thing. I feared there might come a time when I tried to get her to follow logic, only to have her ignore my pleas with more than a glare.

  Kendall looked at the woman and her eyebrows quirked as though startled to find a human in her arms. She drew her own arms back, disgusted by her actions.

  The woman slumped to the carpet.

  “Hey!” I said, drawing near the figure on the ground. “Be careful. She’s a person.” I was glad Kendall acknowledged how she’d harmed the woman. Perhaps it would prevent her from attacking another person with abandon the next time she was starving. I put my ear beside the woman’s mouth and felt her breath against my earlobe. I placed one hand on her shoulder and gave it a light push to rouse her.

  The woman squinted and groaned. “A little dizzy.” She smacked her lips as though thirsty.

  I turned to Brandon. “Could you—”

  “I’m on it.” He bolted toward the kitchen.

  Instinctively, the woman placed a hand against her neck. When her fingers tapped her skin, she cringed and grunted. “What happened?” She glanced around, her breath coming quick. “Where am I?” Although I hovered over her, she looked at Kendall.

  My friend licked her lips again, shrugged, and looked elsewhere out of guilt. “Sorry.”

  The woman met my gaze, and fear entered her eyes. “Who are you people?” She plugged her palms against the ground and scooted herself backwards. “What’s going on?” She looked at Kendall again. “What have you done to me?”

  Brandon arrived with a tall glass of water and an apple, the latter probably because he’d seen those working at blood banks do the same thing after someone donated a pint of blood.

  The woman regarded him with a sadistic glare before extracting a cell phone from her pocket. “Somebody better start talking.” She lifted a finger, prepared to start dialing.

  Kendall hurried over, snatched the phone from her hand, and retreated to the spot she’d just vacated a moment earlier.

  The woman hitched her shoulders and stared at her. “What are you?” She scooted backwards until her back hit the wall. Alarmed, as though expecting to have butted up against another person, she glanced back, but seeing no one she looked our way again. “Somebody, tell me—”

  I couldn’t find a way to tell her what had happened, so I said to Kendall. “Let’s see how good you are at compelling another person.”

  * * *

  In my living room, thirty minutes after Kendall compelled the woman to believe she’d scratched a mosquito bite open and to stop the bleeding before sending her on her way, Nolan, our band’s guitarist and the man I hoped would someday become something more than just my bandmate said, “So in dealing with Zephora, we’re basically dealing with the devil?” Nolan sifted his fingers through his thick, dirty blond hair and paced my living room with an incredulous expression that made it clear he was aggravated that he played a part in this paranormal world.

  “So what now?” asked Brandon. Along with Nolan and Kendall, he looked at me for direction.

  Rather than answer, I tried to slow my heartbeat now that I couldn’t avert my eyes from Nolan. Although I wanted to melt upon seeing his beauty, I scrutinized him for any sign of physical weariness, but he seemed completely fine. I was a little disappointed, considering that if he’d needed a power boost, it would have given me an excuse to get close to him. On the other hand, since we had no reason to touch, I wouldn’t deplete my energy or lose time from my life. Insecurity crept into my mind when a different thought occurred to me. Had he found another willing accomplice?

  I wish he needed to stay at my house the same way Kendall and Brandon did. It would have given me a chance to keep an eye on him. What if he discovered a new ability at an inopportune time? What if the gift appeared in public? At least, if he stayed with us, I’d be there to help him regain his focus and potentially prevent others from noticing what occurred. Likewise, if I’d failed in that endeavor, Kendall might be able to compel those who’d witnessed what went down to forget what happened. Those excuses sure sounded better than simply acknowledging that I wanted to spend more time with Nolan.

  “I set up a gig for tomorrow night,” I said, trying to take my mind off all things supernatural.

  “Wait a minute,” Nolan said, hitting me with a heavy stare. “I’m all for talking about another show, but this Mephisto guy kind of trumps…everything! So what’s going on?”

  After he listened to what I’d learned a short time ago, I said, “Lucifer lies and manipulates others to act on his behalf. I guess that’s why Mephisto carries out his plans in our dimension.”

  “What’s our next step?” asked Nolan.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. I expounded upon my visit to Alexis’s home as well as Grams’s visitation and, after answering their questions, I said, “Part of me wants to go to Alexis’s house and attack Zephora, but not only will Alexis try to stop us, Celestina might take her mother’s side. I don’t want to hurt my niece. Besides, we don’t know what abilities Zephora can use or how much power she has, but she’s getting stronger by the hour. If we strike when she doesn’t expect it, we might catch her off balance and—”

  “What?” asked Brandon. “We open up that little wooden box and say, ‘Hey, Zephora, jump in!’”

  He had a point. “One thing’s for certain. We need Celestina on our side.” The others nodded. “Her mother and Zephora are twisting her reality, and I need to warn her that they don’t have her best interests in mind.”

  “Do we?” asked Kendall. “You’ll try to set her against Alexis. No matter what happens, there won’t be a fairy tale ending. Even if she sides with us, she’ll resent you…for taking your side and having turned away from her mother.”

  “And the fun never ends,” I said, closing my eyes at the possibility of severing Celestina’s relationship with Alexis. “I’d ju
st be honest with her. She’s old enough to make her own decisions...and that means, she’s old enough to take responsibility for her own actions. What she does with that reveals the type of person she wants to become.”

  Grams’s unwillingness to share our ancestry still grated my nerves, so I knew how terrible it was not to hear the truth. Besides, I couldn’t in good conscience allow Alexis and Zephora to warp her mind and turn her into an evil sorceress. Nevertheless, my intuition told me that, after telling Celestina about what I’d learned from the demon today, my niece might not trust me, and if she didn’t, she might hate me for making her choose between her mother and I. It seemed that no matter how I handled the situation, she wouldn’t be happy.

  “Okay,” Nolan said with dazed eyes brought on by the subject matter. He swished his hands together as though doing so would reset our reality and priorities. “I mentioned a possible gig tomorrow night. It’s at a place called the Home Bar in Arlington Heights.”

  “Been there,” Brandon said. “It’s a pretty cool place. Smaller than our last couple venues, but hey, a gig’s a gig, right? Especially if we can get the word out.”

  “Definitely,” Kendall said. “Hopefully, we won’t have any…unexpected visitors.” She no doubt referred to vampires.

  Nolan cleared his throat and set his eyes on mine. “I got a call from a promoter about headlining at the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles a few days from now.”

  My pulse pounded at another opportunity to spread the word about our music. “What did you say?”

  “That you’re our band leader and he should talk with you.”

  I couldn’t hide the small grin sweeping across my mouth because it meant Nolan respected me. Otherwise, he would have already set up the gig. “I appreciate it.” However, I sensed he had more to tell me. “Did…you agree to it?”

  “Yeah.”

  I should have been upset that he’d went behind my back, but at this early point in our career, if we hoped to catch on with fans, we needed to accept every offer, as long as it covered our expenses. Even the slightest delay in responding to an offer could sink our chances at playing, so in this instance, I appreciated that he took the initiative. Nevertheless, most music promoters didn’t set up performances so close to a scheduled date, but with word of mouth swirling around our band at such a fevered pitch, and with the reach of social media nowadays, some entrepreneurs were willing to take a chance. After all, if they sold enough tickets, those in attendance might fork over enough for drinks, which is where the venue earned their greatest profit during any given show.

  In response to Nolan signing on for our gig, I said, “Under normal circumstances, I’d be infuriated because I make the decisions as to where we play. You know that, right?”

  He nodded, stone-faced, not backing off one iota.

  “But these aren’t normal circumstances. So I’m glad you took advantage of the opportunity.”

  He broke into the briefest of smiles.

  “But the next time you have something big like that come up, call me. My phone is always on me. I want to know what’s going on with my band.” I disliked stating my proprietary over the band, but in the metal community, female singers weren’t regarded as equals to their male counterparts. In order to break that perception, women had to prove their mettle. Without doing so, we’d remain on par with every other woman in American society. We’d work harder, but earn less. I hated the double-standard, and I’d do whatever was necessary to earn the respect all women deserved.

  Nolan turned to Kendall and Brandon. “What do you think about setting up a YouTube page for the band?”

  “Already on it,” Brandon said with a grin. “We hit 46,000 views on one clip of our first show, and another 28,000 from the gig last night. Kendall thought we might want to create a page to prepare for…” Catching a stern expression from Kendall that made it clear he’d said too much, Brandon didn’t finish his line of thought.

  Unlike Nolan, my best friends had been planning band activities behind my back...without intending to inform me until they found the right time. Although irritated, I wasn’t angry. We’d all been through a lot lately. Besides, they meant well and probably put things in place to present their idea and follow it up by showing me evidence to support it. That didn’t bother me, but they knew why I might resist them on creating a YouTube page. They were aware of my reluctance to embrace the paranormal that had nearly upended our only two shows as a band.

  We hadn’t constructed elaborate stage shows for concertgoers, and I didn’t want potential fans to expect huge productions because we couldn’t predict when paranormal creatures would attack us on stage. Those recorded gigs might get us press and online attention, but we would need to present concertgoers with a similar show every single night, and since we couldn’t promise that, we would ultimately let some people down.

  Kendall and Brandon knew that, but focusing on gaining a following for reasons other than our music and chemistry, and instead publicizing our stage show on effects (the supernatural) we couldn’t duplicate, they could irreparably damage our reputations. They weren’t thinking long term. In the end, failing to plan the trajectory of our career, while leaving room for some flexibility, might kill our career.

  On the other hand, if things went as they had during our first two shows, we could become international superstars. Regardless, I preferred a slow, steady climb, rather than a rabid response we couldn’t follow up on each time we played. In short, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

  After expounding on these thoughts, Brandon didn’t say a word. Instead, he showed me the YouTube page he’d set up and hit play on one of the videos. On screen, I shot a steady stream of fire at Darius while keeping him in place in the air. I watched in awe as Darius struggled – kicking, twisting, punching, and utterly helpless to do anything but suffer.

  With all of Darius’s knowledge and abilities, he should have killed me with ease. Yet I’d defeated a master vampire, not because he’d given up, but because I’d outsmarted him. That’s why he pretended that he’d surrendered. His ego wouldn’t allow him to admit that he’d lost.

  The pressure weighing on my shoulders lifted. I breathed easier. My self-doubt eased up, and I actually smiled, for the first time feeling proud of my accomplishment. It meant I might have a chance, however slight, of protecting myself when facing Zephora and Alexis.

  Nolan examined my expression. “I think we should record the show at the Arcada for every format: MP3, DVD, Blu-ray, CD, and vinyl.”

  “But if we’re attacked—”

  “It’s always a possibility,” Kendall said, “but we can’t keep sneaking around the truth. These monsters think it’s the easiest place to kill us. Other than keeping your sword in that cane of yours at our last gig, we can’t actually bring weapons on stage. But vamps? They can compel security and whomever else to bring in whatever weapons they can hide. Werewolves? Even though we haven’t encountered any yet, they can wolf-out and attack. And we’ll be pretty much stuck in place because we can’t leave. We’re putting our lives on the line every time we perform. We should be able to profit from it, especially since we’re on edge and put on amazing shows because each time might be the last time we ever play again.”

  “I agree,” said Brandon.

  “Me too,” Nolan agreed. “Those monsters might attack, but…” He met Kendall’s eyes, and then moved on to Brandon’s before returning to mine. “We trust you.”

  I analyzed each of them, astonished by the looks of certainty on their faces. Despite my reservations, they had unshakable faith that, no matter the circumstances, I would defeat whoever attempted to attack us. Their resolute expressions humbled me while instilling me with strength. I knew they believed in how I could guide our career as artists, and in this moment, right or wrong, I needed to trust them.

  “Okay,” I said with a firm nod as a smile registered on my face. I knew that, while under attack, an unparalleled amount of adrenaline would impel us to fight.
Only one question lingered. How could anything we’d perform under normal conditions…match our stage presence and chemistry when prepared for anything at any moment? So what better way to introduce our music to the world than by presenting an official recording, one that had better production values than a cell phone?

  We spent the next few hours planning how to capture our show for posterity. Nolan and I would handle the financial matters. I’d meet with the owner of the Arcada to work out various details, Nolan and Brandon would procure a team of professionals to record the show in various formats, and Kendall would contact local media outlets about the gig as well as drum up interest via social media.

  “This just in,” said a female voice from the flat screen, “earlier today, a woman the American Red Cross, Lifesource, and Heartland Blood Centers are calling the ‘Blood Bank Burglar’ has robbed approximately five local blood banks of exactly 38 pints of blood.”

  My attention swung toward the TV, shocked to have heard words that seemed more appropriate for a movie or television show. I focused on the bobbed, blond-haired anchor in her early 30s. “Tyrone Hicks, manager of the Lifesource unit on Fullerton Avenue, stated that he’d never seen anything like it.” The camera focused on a pot-bellied man approximately fifty-two years old with a patch of hair under his lower lip as he stared at an unseen reporter outside his workplace. “Of course I saw her. She was…how would you call it…petite?” His chubby face took on a pained expression until he pulled an answer out of thin air. “That’s it.” He nodded, satisfied with his answer. “A real nice body on her, but still had some curves.”

  “How sweet!” Kendall said in a lofty voice.

  I grabbed the remote and paused the DVR. “What?” I turned to Kendall, shocked by her nonchalance. “Are you kidding? You don’t think this is a big deal?”

  “Well,” she said, taking things in stride, “I have to feed, so—”

  “So,” I finished for her, “grab the kids,” I said facetiously. “Let’s go rob a blood bank!” I turned to Brandon, ready for some backup, but I accidentally, hit the play button, which caught our attention, making it difficult to turn away.