“Die!” She snarled.
I don't know why I didn't really expect her to kill me until that moment. I think a part of me had been hoping, really hoping, that she'd remember the fun times that we'd had as friends, that she would admit that she too had wanted a sister all these years. But the tip of that dagger glittered in the strange room and it was nothing compared to the vicious light in her eyes. She had every intention of killing me.
“Connie!” I cried out just as she began to swing the blade down.
A dark arm wrapped around her neck and hauled her off of me. She screamed her frustration as the dagger clattered to the floor. My brain was frazzled, surprised I wasn't dead. Zane had her in some sort of hold, his arms beneath hers, his fingers interlocked behind her head. She squirmed and jerked.
“Stop this!” he pleaded with her. His eyes were glittering gold. “Please, Connie.”
“Get off of me you undead freak! Don't touch me.” Her words dripped with venom. Her teeth were visible between tight, angry lips. She looked like a wounded animal caught in a trap. Her body slithered this way and that as she tried to free herself.
He whipped her around, took her face between his hands. The look he gave her made my heart ache. “Please, Connie. You don't have to do this. I love you.”
She laughed, and it was a mean sound. “Didn't you hear me you freak? You don't love me, it's a lie.”
“I don't care,” he said, leaning down to give her a kiss.
She jerked away from him so hard that she stumbled. He watched her go but he didn't try to go after her. He stood there, his proud shoulders slumping forward, his newly cleaned clothes slathered in blood.
Connie whirled on me. She moved to charge and Zane caught her up again.
“I can't let you hurt her,” he said.
She snarled and hissed like a cat. “She must die! Her blood will unmake the world!” She was almost frothing with her rage; every word was spit out like rotten meat. “Do you love me or not?”
Red lines spilled over his cheeks. He was crying bloody tears. “I do.”
“Then do what I say! Kill her,” she snapped the order as if she expected it to be followed. A line of tension ran through his shoulders and he turned his head away, closing his eyes as if he could unmake everything that was happening.
“I... can’t.”
She howled her rage, trying to jerk out of his arms. She swung at him, her small pale fists hit at him over and over again, and not once did he try to defend himself. The attacks shouldn't have hurt, but my sister was filled with hag magic, new and untamed. Bruises formed on vampire skin, no easy feat, and I heard ribs crack beneath her tempest of rage.
“Kill her!” she shrieked at him. “If you love me, kill her! If you love me prove it.”
A rush of emotions filled me and I knew that they weren't mine. I saw Connie as he saw her. I saw her hooking him up to that machine, promising him that when it was over they would be together. I saw her promising kisses that she would never give. I saw her demanding that he follow me. Each time she made some terrible command of him, she was asking him to prove his love. I saw all these things, and I could feel his hurt and his sorrow. I knew that he hated himself, loathed himself for what he had done, more so now that he knew it was a lie. I knew what needed to be done, but I also knew that he couldn't do it.
The magic that existed between Zane and I hummed. He jerked in response to her command of devotion. My own magic flared. Her blinked and looked up at me.
Vampires would do anything for the person they loved, he had told me once, all they had to do was ask. Apparently, when a mind mage was involved, that was extra true. “Prove it.” It was a command phrase, a trigger word for hypnosis. Connie would demand proof of his affections and he would do whatever she demanded. But here I was, with necromantic control over him, interfering with my mother's magics. Oops. My bad.
“No,” he said, and he shuddered to say it.
Connie snarled. “What did you just say?”
“No. I said no. I will not kill Lorena. I will not kill her. I will not harm her. I will never raise my hand against her, or those she cares for.” His deep baritone voice rumbled with the promise as he took two long strides towards Connie. “I will not lie for you, cheat for you, steal for you. I will not be your weapon, nor will I be your victim.”
“You...you cannot do that. My mother...her magic.”
“Is nothing compared to the link between necromancer and thrall.” He said thrall as if he was almost proud of it. “Your mother's pitiful mental magics can do nothing but make demands of me. Her's,” he motioned with a hand in my direction, “can raise me from the near death that you put me in, invigorate me, feed me and empower me. I draw from her, and her from me, and that...that is what love is.” He looked at me and I felt my heart skip a beat. He loved me. I didn't need the connection between us to see it, to feel it, but it was there anyway.
“How dare you!” she screamed. “You are mine!”
“Only because I didn't know any better.”
She hurled herself at him, wild magic thrummed through the room and swung against him like a hammer. He jerked backwards, tumbled to the floor. Her rage was a palpable thing, beating around the room, and I gotta be honest. I did not understand it. She'd made it clear that she didn't love him...but apparently couldn't handle that he cared about someone else. Ugh.
“Get off him!” I cried out. I picked up the dagger in my hands.
She didn't even acknowledge me. She just brought her magic down on Zane over and over again in a fit of vengeful frustration.
Connie wouldn't stop. She wasn't the swamp witch who just wanted to be left alone. She was a vengeful person, filled with the righteous indignation of the zealot. She believed I would unmake the world, that I would kill everything with magic. She believed it all the way down to her toes. She would kill me, she would kill Zane, and she would feel nothing but happiness in it.
I grabbed her by her riot of curls and hauled her away from Zane. She was stronger than she should have been, all that magic, but I had martial arts training and I sent her a few feet in the direction of away.
“I'm sorry.” I said. I think I was mostly talking to Zane, who had seen the dagger in my hand, but a small part of me was talking to that little girl who had dreamed of having a sister all those years ago.
Zane looked at me but he didn't respond.
With a ferocious wail Connie threw herself at me. All I had to do was lift the blade. I killed my sister. Jeez, even now it feels so terrible, even knowing that she would have killed me? It doesn't matter. I didn't have time to mourn what had never been as her body slid to the ground. I didn't even have time to tell Zane that I felt terrible for what I was doing. All I could do was drop the blade and swallow the sick feeling in my throat before a terrible sound reverberated around the room.
“Dimitri!”
Alan's voice didn't sound like his own, but I instantly knew what happened. Dmitri's body was lying prone on the ground. I had been so focused on the fight with Connie that I hadn't been paying attention to the massive beast. It was smaller than it had been, not by much, but it was noticeable. Maybe my sister had been empowering it the same way I empowered vampires. I didn't know. But Dmitri was on the ground, bleeding from at least four places that I could see, and all of them were bad.
Alan's eyes went big and he soared through the air like the angel I always thought him to be. His delicate claws tore into fur and flesh over and over again while bloody tears dripped over his cheeks. I thought I'd have to step in, but before I knew it the animal was dead.
I dashed to Dmitri's side, took his head between my hands. He was fading, I could see it in his eyes.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered, his voice thick with the accent of mountains and misty mornings.
“You've done nothing wrong.” I brushed his hair from his face.
He laughed, and nearly choked on it. “I hurt you, for that I cannot forgive myself.”
&nbs
p; “I forgive you,” I said, I meant it.
Alan was suddenly there, cursing at him hotly in French. “What have you done, you savage?” he demanded. “You've gotten yourself killed.”
“It would have been you,” Dmitri whispered back, his voice shades lighter than it should have been. “and you are far too lovely to die.”
It was then that I knew that Dmitri was aware of Alan's feelings. Dmitri reached a bloody hand out and touched Alan's cheek. I think he intended to wipe away Alan's tears, but instead he left a smudge of red.
“You can't die,” Alan whispered.
No I thought, he couldn't. I wouldn't let that happen. Not now. My magic was running low, but I'd have enough, just enough to keep Dmitri going. I pushed a little into him and he gasped.
“No!” He shook his head, but he couldn't resist what my magic could do for him. “You do not know what has happened to Wei.”
I shook my head and transferred his weight to Alan, who took him in his arms. Alan looked at me with so much gratitude I knew it was worth it.
“My love isn't the only one that matters,” I said simply. “Genevieve, watch over them.”
She nodded and pressed a thankful hand to mine. “Be safe, necromancer.”
“You too,” I said.
As I turned to leave, Zane fell into step beside me. I knew better than to tell him to stay. I didn't need the connection to know that he would follow me, and protect me, wherever I went. I also didn't need it to know that Alan's lips were brushing Dmitri's in a tender kiss. I smiled. Here's hoping we all got a happy ending.
~~
There were a hundred rooms in that blasted temple, and I must have gone through every last one of them looking for Wei. I knew, via the wisdom of video games and comic books, that she would be my final boss. My mother. For all I had wanted a sister in my life, I had wanted a mother too. I had wanted someone to talk to when there had been a boy who caught my interest, when I had cried over a fictional character, when school had been bad. I'd wanted someone capable of telling my dad no, that we weren't moving, and for helping me settle in if we had.
Man, had I drawn the short straw.
But in most of those rooms I found nothing but cultists. I didn't kill any of them. I had the sneaking suspicion that my mother's magic was at work in most of them. It had probably been in my sister too, but I couldn't do anything about that now. Between me, Zane, and magic I managed to knock out or tie up those who, for whatever reason, hadn't joined the main force outside.
My mother hadn't joined them either. I found her in a room that looked like a lab. There was a long silver table, not unlike the one I had found Zane on all those weeks ago, but it was Wei laying on top of it this time.
When I had rescued Zane he had looked too skinny, too lean. Wei looked worse. Twenty IV's were plugged into various parts of his nearly naked body, and I could count every bone in him. His lips were so dry that they were little more than cracked scraps across his teeth, and his eyes were yellowed and sunken. There was a single window in the room, and it was flung open. During the daylight, I bet this whole place was flooded with a gentle light, just enough to burn a vampire slowly.
I didn't even see my mother at first. I was so focused on him. I rushed to his side and I didn't need to see my tears puddling on his skin to know that I was crying for him. “Oh god, Wei....Wei!” I cried out again and again. I was too late. He didn't move beneath my touch, no blood pumped in his veins. I couldn't feel him. I couldn't even sense that essence of undead that I knew so well.
The world went hazy, and my head went light. He was dead. The room was too bright, too hot. I tugged at the IV's, desperate to get them out of his ruined flesh. The skin crackled.
“No, no, no, no,” I whispered beneath my breath, as if by saying it I could take back his death. I leaned over him and kissed those cracked lips. My lip caught on one of his vampiric teeth. I didn't care. I kissed him again. True loves kiss was supposed to be magic, right? The thought was so desperate, so wild and yet I still clung to it.
“You are too late,” a gentle voice purred.
It was a mother's voice, and I hated her for that. I hated that even now she sounded like everything a mother ought to sound like.
“You killed him,”
“It should have happened weeks ago.” She stepped out from behind a desk that I had been to blind with feelings to even notice. She looked like a mother, even now. Her eyes were bright with warmth, her pale hair delicately styled around her face. She looked like she should be on her way to a PTA meeting or a soccer game. Well, if she'd been wearing anything but Cultists robes that is. “He clung to life for a very, very long time.”
“You...you killed him,” I whispered, still not wholly believing it. I wanted to be angry at her, I wanted to scream and throw things and hit her, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything. I felt heavy, so heavy. It hurt.
“You killed Markus,” she spat, her face twisting so suddenly that I took a step back. Her hand swung out and slapped me across the face. An instant later Zane was there, materializing from mist. The next slap was caught in his hand. Her eyes went wide. She hadn't expected him. “Zane?” she gasped. Then realization hit her. “Where is Connie? Where is my daughter?”
It still hurt that she showed such devotion to Connie. Why didn't she love me even half so much? I was just as much her daughter as Connie had been. I opened and closed my mouth several times to tell her what had happened, but no sound came out. Some bad ass heroine I was.
“She is gone,” Zane said flatly.
“You...you didn't protect her?”
“No.”
“You had to, you had to protect her!”
There was a brief moment of silence. I felt like I should interrupt it, but my brain was still too shocked to form much but the most basic of sentences.
He shook his head. “Your magic isn't so strong as that.”
I wish that I could tell you some grand fight happened between me and my mother. It didn't. She shrieked her rage and tried to fight Zane, but it didn't help. Zane was by far stronger, and now that I wasn't keeping three other vampires alive for battle, there was plenty of strength for him. He just held her as she yelled angrily at us both. She tried to pull her mind magics on Zane, but my magic kept that from happening, and wouldn't you know it? His mental magics kept her from doing the same to me. It was a pretty impressive stalemate.
“I hate you,” she finally snarled at me, realizing that the battle was over. “I hate you.”
I wish it hadn't hurt. I wish I could say that I was stone cold to her insults, but I wasn't. Even now, even after everything I wished that she could find it in herself to love me. It might be pathetic, and even ridiculous but I really wanted her to just relent and say that she loved me, or even liked me, just a little. Instead she spit at me, literally. After all that had happened she puckered up her lips and shot a gob of spittle at me. Gross.
“Real mature,” I snarled, wiping my face.
“I should have killed you when that bitch said the prophecy.”
“Well, you didn't.”
“You've taken everything! You took Markus, you took Connie! You will remake the world with some demon spawn child.”
I shrugged. I didn't feel like defending myself against her.
Then she did something I should have seen coming, but didn't. She ripped herself out of Zane's arms and made a mad dash for the window. I felt a wave of shock as she flung herself out of it. It was not the epic boss battle that I had expected. I blinked, pretty sure that my mom had manipulated my brain into just thinking that she was dead, but a brief glance out the window told me otherwise. I will never get that image out of my head, not the guilt I felt at doing absolutely nothing to stop her. Feelings are weird.
I should have felt elated. We had won, the cult was obliterated and wouldn't stand in my way, but all I could do was look at Wei's emaciated body.
“You do love him,” Zane said after a moment.
I nodded my head, taking a dead hand in mine, wishing that I could do something, anything to make this better. “I do love him. I think I've loved him since the first cold glare he gave me. But that's...it doesn't matter.”
Zane walked past me and picked up the IV's. Before I could ask him what he was doing he jammed them into his skin. An instant later blood, my blood if we wanna get technical about it, started to flow back through the complicated tubing and into Wei.
“What are you doing?” I managed.
“You love him,” he said simply. “I can give him to you. I can make amends.”
I shook my head, moving to jerk the IV out of his arm. He held me away. I tried again, and he shifted away from me. Let me tell you, it is impossible to catch a vampire who can turn into mist.
House Of Vampires 3 (The Lorena Quinn Trilogy) Page 16