by Angela Allen
“Yes,” he said. His mind scrambled for a way to get himself and Nisi out of this alive. He flexed hopelessly against the rope around his arms.
“I wondered what was following me. I’ve never heard of anyone like you before.” She released Chun and sat on the trunk. “Still, the question is what to do with you? Unfortunately, I don’t like the taste of your blood. It doesn’t have the full body and sweetness of normal blood. You’re not a very good conversationalist. None of you hunters are.” She prodded Nisi with her boot. “You might be fun to play with. Maybe I could urge you to be more open. Or just open you up.” She giggled, still high on Michael’s blood.
“Now I see why the hunger came again. Your mixed blood called it out in me. Connects us now,” she said. “I don’t think it would do to leave you around for long.”
Adina picked up Chun’s sword and swung it through the air with one hand, the seven-folded steel singing over him. The sound reverberated up and down his spine. Vibrations, sound, the blood of a First. If he was affected, how would a First react to the words he had collected?
“Adiilch’il,” he said in Navajo. Be a crash of lightning. The beginning words from an effective section of the secret he had compiled in his notes.
She stumbled forward, letting the sword go. It clanged into the corner of the room.
Chun felt a surge of stinging pleasure through his wrists and feet. A stronger echo of the sensation snapped back at him from Adina. His heart skipped a beat; the words did affect her.
“What…what did you say?” She stumbled to him, went to her knees and grabbed him by the throat.
He repeated the phrase.
Holding him with one hand, she covered her eyes with the other. A shudder shook both of them.
“Where did you hear that?” she growled. “Did the First who attacked you say those words to you?”
“I have his words and others,” Chun said.
Her eyes narrowed and she shook him. “How many words?”
“More than I can remember. I keep them in a notebook at my place, here in the city.”
“What else do you know?” she asked.
“I know you need to use certain words when you feed, like tonight, they are part of the blood hunger. They are also part of the secret that makes you different than the Remade.”
She released him. Chun fell onto his back. Adina walked to the corner to retrieve the sword. She held the blade to his neck.
“Kill me and others will know the words. I’ve made arrangements for someone else to get the book,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “You know there’s power in these words. Do you want to take the chance of another having this power?”
“What do you propose?” she asked, lifting the blade off his neck.
“We go to my place, I’ll give you the notebook and walk away from all of this. Give up hunting. This mix of blood has given me more than extra abilities. It has made me sick inside. I’m tired of all the death.” Tears filled his eyes as he looked at Nisi.
“Yes, I believe you are,” Adina said.
It was true. At that moment, Chun wanted nothing more to do with this mission.
She turned her back to him and walked over to Nisi with the sword.
Chun held his breath.
Adina dropped the sword, picked Nisi up and locked her back into the trunk.
“Don’t think I trust you, but I want that notebook.” Adina lifted Chun to his feet. “I don’t care what you do with the rest of your life, as long as you give the book to me, leave this city and make sure our paths never cross again.”
He nodded.
She carried him to the car and put him in the trunk. It was a fast ride to his house.
Chun rolled around in the dark trunk so his hands could reach a backup weapon he kept under the spare tire. He barely had time to slip the small knife in the side of his work boots before the car stopped.
She untied his arms and feet before taking him out of the trunk.
“We should go in the side entrance,” he said.
“No matter how you’ve been changed, you’re not stronger than me. There are many bones to break in the human body. You’ve seen how imaginative I can be in giving pain. Do I have to say what I’ll do to you if you try anything?” she asked.
He shook his head.
He rubbed his wrists to get the circulation moving again as they walked to his house. She kept her hand wrapped around the back of his neck. He had no doubt she could easily crush his vertebrae with one hand. His gait was shaky from nerves as much as from having had his legs tied. The memory of Nisi in Adina’s basement flashed in his mind. If there was any chance of saving Nisi, he had to stop thinking about her and be in the present moment.
He unlocked the door. Ping barked from behind the door.
“Just a minute,” he said to Adina.
“You make sure it’s under control or I will,” she said.
“Okay.” He opened the door a couple of inches. “Go to the basement, Ping.”
She pressed her nose at the opening and barked louder, toe-nails scraping against the metal door. “Stop, Ping. Go to the basement,” he said.
Ping whimpered but padded away from the door. Chun waited a minute before opening the door.
“I need to lock the basement door so she won’t come back up,” Chun said, when Adina held him back. He pointed to the open door on the other side of the kitchen.
Adina walked with him across the room. Chun looked down the stairs and could see Ping’s eyes reflected in the kitchen light.
“Good girl. Go to the box,” Chun said, knowing Ping would obey their code word.
Ping growled low and walked away from the steps into the darkness of the basement. Chun locked the door.
“Okay, where’s the notebook?” Adina said, shoving him against the door.
He pointed to the dining room. She looked away for a moment. Chun stumbled to his knees, snatching out the small knife hidden in his boot. As she reached down to grab him, Chun swung his arm up and down. The knife slashed through one wrist, then the other.
Blood spurted out. Having fed two nights in a row, Adina’s body was rich with blood. The mix flowed thinner than her blood alone would have. Chun had hoped this would happen. Every drop of blood she lost was an advantage for him, and he needed all the advantages he could get right now. Not surprisingly, he felt a stinging at his wrists. The connection between them was still strong.
She reached for him again, but Chun scrambled across the floor. He clawed under the small kitchen table and pulled loose a sword, half the length of the one lost at her house. He turned and pointed it at her.
Adina didn’t pay attention to the wrist wounds, letting the blood spill to the floor. She laughed. “You can’t be serious.” She ran toward him.
He quickly turned and rolled out of her way, the short sword cutting across her thighs. Blood leaked from the gashes. His thighs burned, echoing her wounds.
“You’ll never bleed me out through these little cuts,” she growled. She threw the table at him. He ducked, the table slamming into his shoulder, throwing him against the wall. She rushed him, but Chun kicked the table at her and ran into the dining room.
She turned to chase him, almost losing her footing. The floor was slippery with blood, giving Chun time to get around the dining room table and grab another short sword from behind a cabinet. He stood in a low stance with a sword in each hand. She vaulted the table, expecting to land on him, but he ducked more quickly than a human could have and slid under the table to the other side.
“You do move fast,” she said, gripping the end of the dining room table. “Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy some of the side effects of First blood in your body.”
He inched along the wall toward the doorway to the living room.
“Still not talking? I will hear you scream tonight.” She picked the table up and flung it at him. It shattered against the wall, but he was already through the doorway.
He jumped
over the low couch to the middle of the room and took deep breaths to gather his energy. She was through the doorway in two steps and shoved the couch aside. Only the trunk coffee table stood between them. Chun stood crouched, holding the two swords in front, pointed at Adina.
“Tell me where the notebook is and I’ll kill you quickly,” she said.
Suddenly Ping charged her from the hallway behind Chun. The dog had crawled from the basement through the hidden passageway as trained. She jumped into the air and landed on Adina, her strong jaws clamped on the vampire’s neck.
The First tripped backward to the floor and punched at Ping’s head. The dog yapped in pain, unlocking her jaws. Adina flung Ping across the room over Chun’s head. She landed against the wall and slid to the floor. She didn’t move. Chun could hear her heart still beating. She wasn’t dead.
“Not dead…yet, but she will be,” Adina said, getting to her feet. Blood dripped from her neck. “After I kill you.” She coughed and put her hand to her neck.
Chun coughed, and started to reach for his neck. Spikes of pain itched at a wound he didn’t have.
“What will it be like to experience your death, I wonder. Let’s find out,” she said, taking a step toward Chun.
“Niyiilkaah doo i ii aah,” he said in Navajo.
The words sent waves of pain and pleasure along his spine, and his fingers and toes tingled. The effect on Adina was more intense. She flung her arms out to the side and screamed.
Chun sprang into the air. He landed with his feet on her chest, knocking her to the floor. Still in the grip of the words, she bucked to throw him off.
He repeated the words again. She growled and arched up, her hands reaching for his neck. Chun swiped outward with the two swords, cutting off her hands. Blood gushed from her wrists.
The swords dropped to the floor. His hands were gone, his wrists throbbed, echoing Adina’s pain.
No, not his hands, Adina’s hands. He reached down to grab a sword but his hands wouldn’t flex.
Adina growled, knocking him off her with her arms, spraying blood across the room. “That didn’t work out the way you planned, did it?” she said. She tried to stand but the blood loss was becoming too great. Managing to sit up, she leaned against the living room wall. Blood poured from her wrists onto the wood floor in a widening misshapen circle. She tucked her wrists under her arms in a vain attempt to stop the blood flow. The thick, dark liquid seeped down her sides to the floor.
Chun’s energy dissipated but at a slower pace than Adina’s. His hands were still useless.
“You can’t kill me,” she said. “You would die too.”
“It would be worth it,” Chun said, crouched on his knees.
“Then who would save your precious Nisi?” she said, closing her eyes. “Ah, yes, Nisi.”
He thought she had passed out, but instead she whispered, “Chun, come here.”
The connection between them pulled at him, like a thick rope around his neck. He slid back away from her. “No,” he said.
“I need you,” she said.
He blinked. It wasn’t Adina, it was Nisi, blood-covered and begging, with open arms.
“Chun, please.”
“Nisi?” he said.
“Yes, come here. I need you.”
The tips of his fingers tingled. He leaned toward her. “But—”
“Please,” she pleaded.
He had to save Nisi.
He shook his head. Nisi wasn’t here.
He blinked.
Adina’s eyes wre still closed, her head slumped forward, the lake of blood growing around her.
He blinked and shook his head.
They were home, in the hut he had built for them. Adina was hurt. Someone had hurt her.
“Tacuma, come here,” she whispered.
He would do anything for her, be anything. He loved her with every breath of his body. There was something wrong. His body didn’t feel right; he was weak. This wasn’t his home. Where was he?
“Home, my love, we’re home.” Adina’s voice was barely audible. “Please come to me. I need you.”
“Yes,” Chun said, looking at her. It was the sweet girl he had married. She hadn’t changed, still beautiful with a smile that pulled him into her eyes. Dark brown eyes that hid much, said everything.
Blood.
There was so much blood.
He slowly crawled toward her, aching for her, so hungry.
Nothing mattered except keeping her safe.
His hands felt strange, tingly, as if waking from a dream.
Why was there so much blood?
“Don’t worry about anything, just come to me,” she whispered. “Need you, hungry for you.”
There were two swords between him and Adina. His hands curled around the hilts, and he dragged them with him as he crawled.
Someone had hurt his wife and they would pay.
Blood.
A dog barked. Ping?
Blood.
His wife was dead.
Chun shook his head, took a deep breath and pushed out with all the psychic energy he possessed. The connection between him and Adina collapsed and the room came into sharp focus.
“No,” Adina said, looking up.
Chun dove to her and, in a quick scissor action, cut off her head. He rolled off her body. Her head lay on the side, eyes open, staring at him as her body twitched.
Ping whimpered. Chun laid the swords on the couch and went to Ping. “Steady, girl,” he said as she started to stand. Quickly checking the dog for broken bones, Chun ran his hands over her body. There was no serious damage.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said, giving her a hug.
Chun picked up Adina’s head by the hair and carried it, dripping blood, to the basement. Ping followed him, limping. He threw Adina’s head into the refurbished wood-burning furnace, turned up the heat and watched it catch fire and burn. Ping rubbed against his leg.
“Good girl. It’s alright now,” he said, scratching behind her ears, his bloodied fingers leaving pink traces in Ping’s gray fur.
He looked at his hands. Her blood covered them. The blood. The answer was in the words: the patterns of sounds and the blood of a First. He ran back upstairs, grabbed a jar from the kitchen, went in the living room and scooped as much of her blood into the jar as he could. He went through her pockets until he found the keys to her house.
Ping followed him and stood at the doorway of the living room, sniffing at the blood soaking into the area rug near her paws.
“Back girl,” he said, pointing to the kitchen.
He quickly rinsed his face and hands in the kitchen sink, and threw on a black sweatshirt hanging on the back of the kitchen door. Hopefully the blood on his black jeans wouldn’t be too obvious if someone saw him on the street. He had to get back to Nisi first. Then he’d come back to clean up the rest of the body.
He looked at the jar of blood on the kitchen table and picked it up.
“Let’s go get Nisi,” Chun said to the dog.
With Ping in the front and the jar of blood in the backseat, Chun drove back to Adina’s house.
He ran to the basement, carrying the jar, followed by Ping and used his discarded sword to break the lock on the trunk. Carefully lifting Nisi out, Chun put her on the floor.
She was still breathing, but her heartbeat was weakening. She was fading fast. He wasn’t going to make it to a hospital in time.
Nisi opened her eyes. “Chun.”
He caressed her forehead. “Don’t say anything, save your strength.”
“Too late,” she said.
Chun looked at the jar of blood next to the trunk. He picked it up.
“No, it’s not. This is First blood,” he said. “It could save you.”
“No,” she said, trying to lift her hand to push it away.
“You can’t die, Nisi. I can’t do this without you.”
Her eyes closed. She went limp. He could feel the life seeping away from her.
He laid her down and opened the jar.
“Please forgive me,” he said and poured the blood over her open wounds.
He whispered, “Fumiya ayzie, kambui sipo.”
The blood moved as if alive, pushing itself into her wounds and mouth. Tears poured from his eyes. This had to work.
Chun sat for what felt like an eternity, watching her prone body.
Ping whimpered nearby.
Finally, with a gasp, Nisi opened her eyes.
The Touch
Donna Hill
Prologue: July 1804, New Orleans
Her silhouette casts a long, lean shadow against the stark white of the full moon. Perfect in every way. From her vantage point upon the rooftop of her palatial home in the Saint John’s Parish of New Orleans, the city and all its inhabitants are there for the taking. That pleases her greatly.
Her hair lifts lightly from her shoulders, blown by the humid summer breeze. If only the wind could cool the fire that rages in her veins and pounds through her skull.
She digs her long nails deep into the soft flesh of her palms until the tiny punctures send a jolt through her vibrating body. She closes her eyes and shivers before bringing the wounded palms to her mouth and sucking until the tiny wounds seal shut.
A low growl rumbles deep in her throat. For an instant the fire dies down, but she knows it will not last. As much as she relishes her life of eternity, her silent wish is that she will not spend forever alone.
July 2004
The newscasters have proclaimed today the hottest day on record in the past one hundred years. People are falling out on the streets of New York City. Dropping like flies. Easy prey. The citizens are advised to stay indoors, drink plenty of fluids. Yes. Fluids.
Selena LeBeau stands in front of her dresser and slowly brushes her ink-black, shoulder-length hair. Men and even women often comment on the beauty of her tresses. It has the weight of the Orient, the sleekness of the Indian and the rich color of Mother Africa.