The Wages of Sin (Blood Brothers Vampire Series Book Two)

by Greg Sisco

  “I’m sorry for the terrible things I said in that e-mail. I didn’t realize the horrible thing you were going through.”

  “It’s okay. I just… I’ve missed you.” He kissed her again.

  In a moment the two of them were lying together on the bed and his hand found its way inside her blouse and unlatched her bra the way his muscle memory told him to. His instincts took over and they ended up free of clothes and tangled in each other’s arms.

  She pushed him down and climbed on top, her nails in his chest as she moved her body and rolled her eyes back in her head and panted.

  He ran his hands up her body and felt her sweat running down the creases between his fingers. The warmth of her skin. The blood just beneath it.

  He wanted it. The blood. He wanted to bite into her and taste it again, like he had the woman last night. But he couldn’t. Not Jewel.

  Could he?

  He leaned up and put is mouth on her neck as she continued to move. He felt his canines protruding. The pulse of her jugular vein.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  He did everything he could not to bite down. To taste without drinking. He pressed his mouth down hard, his lips and tongue against her carotid artery. He felt the heat from it. The beat against his lips.

  And then he couldn’t help himself anymore. His body would hold back no longer. He gritted his teeth and the flesh took over. He gasped.

  “Oh Christ,” she said. “Did you come in me?”

  He nodded.

  “Jon. God damn it. Without a condom? You could have warned me.”

  She got up and went to the bathroom to rinse everything out with water, as though it would do any good. She couldn’t afford to be pregnant and neither could he. Even if they were normal it would have been a problem, but pregnancy was a potential health risk for a diabetic and an enormous health risk when the baby was half vampire.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “So you’re going to kill me?” Eva asked when Loki entered her room. “For all your time together and the Brotherhood you two talk about, you’re so unlike him.”

  “He’s unlike himself lately, more human than does him any good. But he is like me. Normally he is.”

  “Maybe he can grow and you can’t.”

  Loki laughed and took a seat at the foot of the bed. “You know what amazes me about humans? Your capacity to forgive. I think you’re better at it than I am and I’ve been around a long time. What is it you see in him that makes up for the monster?”

  “What do you see in yourself that makes up for the monster?”

  “Well, my perspective is different—I’m a higher being. Humans are… tiny, insignificant little things here to nourish me, like chickens are for you. But from your perspective, Tyr’s a killer, just like me. And ever since you’ve been together he’s been screwing and killing every woman he could get his hands on. From where I’m standing, that’s his nature. But from where you’re standing, how are you able to accept that? How do you allow yourself to love someone who killed your parents?” Her face went blank and her spirit broke the way he knew it would. He gave a little laugh. “Oh. You didn’t know that part.”

  “It was you…”

  “It was the three of us. But if memory serves, he fired the shot that hit Daddy’s head. I wondered why you let that go; now I know. See, that’s the other way humans impress me—their capacity for self-delusion.”

  “But… He saved me. He saved me from… you and Thor.”

  “That’s probably true too. These wonderful years of cancer and poverty might never have been yours without him. But, well… I don’t know how well you remember the Great Train Robbery, but what actually happened was this: We rounded up all the passengers and took them to the back car, but you eluded us. You were hidden away. And Tyr was the one who found you. Everything didn’t go to hell until he brought you back to the baggage car with the rest of us, and it was our little quarrel over you that got everybody killed.

  “Like I said, I don’t make apologies for what I am and I have no delusions about my morality from a human perspective—and especially from the perspective of a human like you. Without me, your parents and all those other passengers would still be alive today—I’ll grant that. But it’s also true that if Tyr had just left you where he’d found you, if he came back and said ‘Looks good, guys. There’s nobody else in the train,’ well… then you’d be dying under the care of Mommy and Daddy today instead of locked up in a house with a bunch of goddamn vampires.”

  “You’re lying to me. I don’t believe you. You’re trying to break me.”

  “No, I’m not lying to you. I’m being one hundred percent honest. And as far as breaking you is concerned, I’m not worried about it. You can believe me, or you can exercise that self-delusion I was marveling at and it doesn’t make a difference from my perspective. Whether I kill you now or the cancer does it next week, you’re in the same place you’d be if we left you on that train and let it crash into the station. And Tyr will get over you. He’s had crushes before—maybe not this extreme, but crushes nonetheless—and when the girls die he’s always back to robbing trains and seducing showgirls a few weeks later. All I’m interested in is understanding your species. You’re interesting to me.”

  Eva held back tears. She turned her head toward the wall and said, “I hate you, Loki. More than I’ve ever hated anything.”

  Loki laughed. “I get that a lot.”

  “Just kill me. If that’s what you’re here to do, then do it. Otherwise leave me the fuck alone.”

  “I get no joy from killing without sex, and I don’t think you and I are likely to get it on, so you don’t have to worry about death coming from me. It’ll be the cancer that gets you.” He stood up. “But I do have a present to give you, and it comes with a story, so I’ll get this out of the way before I go.

  “I’m not sure how educated you are, but if you’re not a complete idiot you’ve probably heard of Eva Braun. You and Miss Braun have more in common than a first name. You were both romantically linked to men who killed by the thousands. Your beau is Tyr. Hers was a fellow by the name of Adolph Hitler, who I call Addie.

  “Now Miss Braun wasn’t a real political girl and she didn’t necessarily agree with everything Addie did, but she stood by him because she loved him. And much like Tyr, Addie didn’t commit to the relationship as much as the lovely Miss Braun might have liked—I’m assuming this much when it comes to you, because Tyr’s supposed to kill anybody he fucks and it wouldn’t be like him to break that rule, so in my mind there had to be a point when you wanted it and he wouldn’t give it to you. Am I right?”

  Eva said nothing. She made like she wasn’t listening, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Well, in a lot of ways Miss Braun wasn’t happy with her life. She tried to kill herself more than once, because Addie’s love was all she ever wanted out of life but he kept her hidden away. You see, he knew his power was seductive and he wanted all the women of Germany eye-fucking him everywhere he went, the same way all the women of the world quite literally fuck Tyr everywhere he goes.

  “In her case, she had family around, at least—you can’t really relate on that note—but you both felt like you drew the shit-stained spoon when it came to life. Once again, I’m assuming you feel that way because—well, because you did.

  “The last few days of the lovely Miss Braun’s life, I imagine, were bittersweet. The Red Army was closing in and she and Addie were in the capital and outside forces were inevitably getting ready to break up that sweet relationship the way the Big C is getting ready to break up yours. So, in the last few hours they were alive, Addie made her Mrs. Hitler. And they went up to their marital bed and the next day at breakfast, boom! Addie puts a gun to the side of his head the way Tyr did tonight when he ran off with you.

  “And Eva Hitler, formerly Eva Braun—just before all this, I’d imagine, if Hitler was half the man I think he was—she took a kill-pill. A cyanide capsule.” Loki held up a
pea-sized capsule and set it on the bedside table. “Now in your case, Tyr’s already more or less shot himself—he didn’t have the compassion Hitler had to wait till you were out of the picture. But whether you want to wait it out and die by the hand of your god or whether you want to take matters into your own hands, that’s a decision I leave up to you. Bite into that bad boy and you’re brain dead in a couple minutes. In my mind, that beats capture by the proverbial Red Army. But, Miss Braun, I leave your fate up to you.”

  Loki spun on his heels and left the room.

  Eva looked away from the pill. She let the barriers in her eyes break and the tears finally came. She hated to give Loki any credit at all, but the memories had come back as he was talking. Tyr had killed her dad right in front of her when she was six years old. He’d helped to massacre every person on that train. He’d saved her life, but did it matter? The best thing about her sad, pathetic life had been a man who’d murdered and stolen and ruined the lives of new families and friends every night for a thousand years, a man who was out killing and fucking while she lay dying in a room and struggling to stay alive to be with him, a man who’d murdered her parents and lied about it to spare himself.

  It was true. She’d been Eva Braun. And all of a sudden she was Eva Braun without the delusional love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “If you’re in there with a woman, I hope she’s dead,” Thor called from the courtyard.

  Heimdall was standing on the balcony of Jewel’s apartment having a cigarette. His eyes went wide and he glanced back into the house. Jewel was in the restroom and the roommates were still out.

  “She is,” he lied.

  “I’m coming up.”

  “No.” Heimdall jumped from the railing and landed in the grass in front of Thor. “Let’s just go.”

  “You’re lying to me. If you’ve done something that’s going to create a problem for us, I want to know about it.”

  Thor started to climb the stairs to the apartment and Heimdall grabbed him from behind and flung him onto the grass. “Back off!”

  “This is for your own good. If there’s someone alive up there, somebody has to resolve the situation.”

  “Nothing you’ve ever done has been for my own good. You ripped me away from everything I had, you ruined my girl’s life, and you turned me into a monster. If you want to do something good for me, fuck off.”

  Thor was silent for a moment. “You remember…”

  “Yeah, I remember. I remember enough not to trust either of you. And now that I’m out, I’m not coming back. If you and your asshole Brothers don’t come after me, I won’t come after you.”

  “It’s her, isn’t it? The girl up there. She’s the same one from the other night.”

  “You mind your own business and go.”

  “You picked up your old life where it left off. You returned to the relationship. This is… This is the worst thing you can do.”

  “Thor, you’d better pretend you didn’t find me.”

  “Don’t make threats. I’m here to help and they wouldn’t change things if I wasn’t.”

  “I mean it. Tell Loki I up and vanished.”

  “We’re going to have a conversation first.”

  “—And if you mean to kill her you better kill me first, because I swear on everything holy if you harm one hair on her head—”

  “Clichés, clichés. You used to be a writer.”

  “I’m serious. Walk away.”

  Thor shook his head. “I wouldn’t do anything to harm you, Heimdall. I don’t know how much you remember, but you did save my life. That said, I’m not going anywhere until you and I have had words, so here are your options: we either go to my car and talk there, or we talk upstairs with your girlfriend and she finds out all about what you’ve become. I think it’s probably easier for the three of us if you and I go to the car. Would you say so?”

  Heimdall looked over his shoulder at the apartment. If Loki was here too and they wanted blood, he didn’t stand a chance. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”

  “I think I can make that work.”

  Thor and Heimdall sat in the front seats of the Rolls Royce with the windows up and spoke in low voices. Yet again, Thor was stuck bearing witness to a situation forbid by the holy texts, but he meant to make this conversation the last one of its kind.

  “I know it’s only been a couple days for you and you’re still getting used to this whole idea, coming to terms with the kind of life you’re going to have to live from now on, and I can respect that. I also know the rest of us have told you how dangerous it is to associate with humans and to break the rules Ofeigr set in stone a long time ago, but I’m not convinced you’re aware of just how much potential danger you’re putting yourself and the rest of us in, so I want to be sure we’re completely clear on this.

  “We are being watched, always, by a group of vampires called the Chosen, and we’re not sure just how many of them there are or whether it’s possible to pull the wool over their eyes, but it’s safe to assume the worst. There’s a very real possibility, given how fucked up things have been around Loki’s house the last few months, that we’ve been under scrutiny for some time. There’s a good chance they’ve had their eyes on you since the moment you were reborn and they’re watching us right now. I’m not saying this to scare you exactly, I’m just trying to be open with you.

  “I don’t know if you’ve had sex with this girl yet, and I don’t want to know because my odds of survival are better the more ignorant I am, but the fact is this: if these guys are watching you, or if they come to begin watching you, and they find out you’re romantically linked with a human, they’ll kill her, and they’ll probably kill you too. And if you’re sleeping with her—or if they think you are—and if she’s pregnant—or they think she might be—they’ll kill her, they’ll kill you, and then, probably, they’ll track down me, Loki, and Tyr and kill us too. All four of us will probably be tortured, and you’ll get it worse than anybody. That’s the reality of the situation. Is that clear?”

  Heimdall wouldn’t keep eye contact. He stared ahead into the empty parking lot and when Thor asked him a direct question he turned his eyes and looked out the window with a sigh.

  Thor shook his head and lit a cigarette. “I should go in there and kill her right now, and if I was Loki, I would. In fact, if I was Tyr—much of a hypocrite as I’d be—I still probably would. This isn’t something you fuck around with. It puts our whole species at risk of being found out and there are forces in place to make sure that doesn’t happen. And considering we’ve been around as long as humans have and there have been few cultures and few times when anybody has taken us seriously, the forces in place are obviously pretty damn effective.

  “Where you’re lucky is it’s only me who’s here today, and I’m not gonna kill you or her for two reasons. The first one, like I said, is I’d be dead without you—that counts for something. The second one, which is just as important, is that Loki and Tyr have been just about as fucked up as you lately and I’m not particularly interested in being around them anymore either. You caught me at the right time, because I’m done. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m removing myself from the equation. When one of the three of you inevitably brings the others down, I’m going to be far away and as disconnected as possible and hopefully that will stop me from suffering with the rest of you.

  “I’m not telling you what to do, but as far as I can see you have three options. The first is to go back to Loki and let him guide you through this, but I don’t think you want to do that and I don’t blame you. The second is to go it alone as a grossly inexperienced vampire, take your chances with a girl who is going to get old and die before you age a day, and pray that you don’t get caught or get her pregnant and get us all killed. And the third choice is to come with me, now, and kill her if there’s any chance at all you impregnated her tonight—and I’ll do it for you if you ask me to—and I’ll show you how to live this life safely and enjo
yably. Those are your choices, but you have to decide now.”

  Heimdall said nothing for some time. He stared ahead and scowled and shook his head. “Why didn’t you guys just kill me? What was the point? I ripped a woman’s throat open last night—I mean, murdered her in cold blood for no reason—and you’re talking about killing another one.”

  “You’ll kill tons of them; that part’s not optional. One every few nights, at the least. That’s life.”

  “Why? You take years off their lives to give yourself a few days and then do it over and over to live eternally? That’s not your right.”

  “You shouldn’t remember. That mortal life is over. It isn’t worth—”

  “It’s not over for me! I remember. All of you are deluding yourselves because you can’t survive if you don’t, but I’m not. I won’t.”

  “I really think you should come with me, Heimdall.”

  “My name is Jonathan. This Heimdall character—that’s who you want me to be, and I’m not. Fuck you, Thor. You and your friends are sociopaths. There’s no justification for what you do.”

  Heimdall got out of the car and shut the door.

  Thor finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. He’d hoped for another answer, but he’d gotten the one he was expecting.

  That was that. He put the car into reverse and backed out of the parking lot. Dawn was getting close. There was still a room in his name at the Excalibur. He’d spend the day there, and when the sun went down he’d catch a red eye somewhere new.

  Thor had hardly turned out of the parking lot when he heard movement in the back seat and a voice said, “Just circle the block, Thor. I’m not going far.”