Blood and Kisses

by Shah, Karin

  It was true. Gideon could not recall this decayed remnant of a man. But as the vital blood from his youthful victim circulated through the rogue’s ancient veins, a transformation occurred. His flesh began to plump out. His sallow skin took on a wholesome glow. His crooked spine began to straighten. His shrunken body grew up and out.

  Soon, a man Gideon did recognize stood before him.

  “Akos.”

  The man he despised more than any being in the world, next to himself. His nemesis. The man who had shown Gideon what he truly was. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Far from it.”

  The emaciated arm swelled in Gideon’s steely grasp. Muscles strained beneath his fingers. Akos would soon be strong enough to be a danger.

  His old enemy laughed, a dry, rusty sound like a broken-down car refusing to start. “What are you going to do? You’re a wanted man, and the police will be by any second. Not time enough to take care of me and the boy.” He waved a hand in his victim’s direction.

  Thalia had lost the fight to keep the man upright, and he’d slithered to the flooded pavement. Thalia pushed his head between his knees and forced his thighs up to his chest to aid his stuttering heart in its quest to push blood to his brain. Her face, blanched with concern, could not compete with the man’s waxen complexion. Gideon could hear the thready, irregular beat of the man’s heart. His cells, deprived of oxygen-rich blood, were dying. The man stood on the very threshold of death. He needed blood and fast.

  Offering his blood might turn him, and Gideon had no idea what witch blood might do to him or how to get it in him. There was no time to spare. A hospital was his only chance.

  Akos, flush from his aborted meal, but not at full strength, and without the augmentation of the Claiming, would be a fool to attack Gideon now.

  Gideon flung the ancient’s wrist away and turned his back on his age-old rival. He stooped to gather the victim up in his arms.

  Akos rushed him. Gideon spun and planted a sidekick in Akos’ middle, knocking him across the alley. He hit the wall of the next building and slid to the wet ground. Before he could rise, Gideon scooped up the dying man, grabbed Thalia’s hand, and teleported them directly outside the nearest hospital.

  The suddenness of their arrival outside Highland Hospital’s Emergency Department startled Thalia. Disoriented, she froze, taking in her new surroundings.

  “Get help!” Gideon said, urgently. “Tell them he got into a fight, and his opponent cut his throat. Go!”

  Recovering her scattered wits, Thalia sprinted inside. Seconds later, she ran back out with two E.M.T.’s and a gurney. Paul lay on the curb, his jacket pillowing his head, barely conscious, a hand pressed to the wound at his neck.

  Gideon was gone. She didn’t bother looking to see if he hid nearby. His presence affected her on a cellular level. She always knew when he was near.

  He had left her.

  She drew a deep breath, feeling strangely abandoned.

  No doubt he’d gone back to find the man he’d called Akos. She needed to get back to him. Who knew how much energy he had expended teleporting?

  Grunting with effort, the E.M.T.’s loaded Paul onto the gurney and rushed him inside. She trotted alongside, the soles of her sandals slipping on the shiny floor. She placed a hand on his forehead and uttered a quick healing spell under her breath. With any luck, it would keep him alive until they could transfuse him. They came to the doors that led to the E.R. and Thalia stopped, saying a prayer for good measure as the door closed behind them.

  A kind and helpful man, Paul didn’t deserve to die for the crime of knowing her. None of the victims had deserved that—not Kimmy, or Sarah, or Grace, and certainly not Lily.

  Lily. Tonight she’d met the animal who had taken her cousin from her.

  Rage replaced guilt, pouring through her like water over High Falls. She was not to blame for their deaths, Akos was. It was Akos who had stolen their futures, ripped them from loving families. He alone was to blame. He was every bit as insane and evil as Gideon said the rogue would be.

  She thought of Gideon, somewhere out there, perhaps fighting Akos at that very minute, alone and drained.

  She wandered back outside into the small adjacent parking lot. The rain had stopped, but the air, still thick with moisture, clung to her, weighing down her clothes and hair. “Think, think,” she said out loud, pacing as she examined her options. She didn’t even have money for a bus or a cab, and even if she did, they might be on the lookout for her.

  She turned over the spells she knew in her head and dismissed any that would take too much power. She didn’t want to be too weak to help when she found him. If only the grimoire weren’t locked in Mina’s Cadillac. Finished mulling over her choices, Thalia came to one conclusion.

  She would have to steal a car.

  Chapter 18

  Akos dusted off his clothing and stood. His timing had been just a bit off. Fortunately Gideon had always been easy to manipulate.

  He cracked his neck with a jerk of his head and assumed the body of the undercover policeman whose life he’d almost Claimed. He headed back into the bar, walking right past the police loitering around the entrance. They gave him no notice as he strode by.

  He went up to the bar to order a drink. His stomach might no longer digest food, but he still enjoyed a little wine. Gideon’s lapdog wasn’t behind the bar. A young woman with long curly brown hair was bartending. She’d served Thalia numerous times and had a casual chatting relationship with her. Her skin glowed with health, although she wore too much eye make-up for his taste.

  She might do. It would take no time at all to encourage her that she wasn’t feeling well and to leave work early. What would be more natural than for him to confess he was a policeman and offer to walk her to her car?

  He flashed her a smile. She smiled back, revealing straight white teeth. He was grateful for the good dental care of this century. Not that it mattered to him, but it was more pleasant when his dinner didn’t have a mouth full of rotten black teeth. Her lashes swept up and down in a look as old as man, clearly pleased by the open, handsome face of his disguise.

  He sighed inwardly. None of his prey put up much of a fight. It was almost boring really.

  The cute little waitress from last night had been eager to meet him outside. The young witch she’d brought with her as a precaution had been a surprise, but no match for him.

  They didn’t make them like they used to. In the past, a witch would have at least made a show of it, but with all their modern rules and ethics, they no longer learned the old martial spells. It was no wonder they were barely able to protect themselves. That’s what the Champion was for.

  He sipped his wine, savoring the bouquet. No match for blood of course, but it provided a bit of variety. He took his money out and when she reached out to take it, he grabbed her hand. She smiled again, flustered, and tried to pull it back, but he caught her gaze with his eyes and her expression went blank. The young were so malleable.

  Exhausted, Gideon staggered as he materialized back in the narrow alley where they’d left Akos. The rogue was nowhere in sight.

  Damn.

  He would have teleported right into the Tomb’s back room, but he hadn’t wanted to lose his elusive quarry. Now, he no longer had the strength to teleport, and he’d still lost Akos.

  Although mere minutes had passed since Gideon had teleported to the hospital, Akos could be anywhere. But his old enemy still needed to claim a life, and taking a victim from some other part of the city wouldn’t follow his pattern.

  Akos wasn’t the only one who needed to feed. Teleporting drained him dangerously fast. He had enough energy left to conceal himself, and he quickly did so rendering himself invisible. He needed to get into the Tomb. Luckily his home wasn’t the only place he owned with an escape route.

  He made his way to the pedestrian bridge at High Falls and jumped over the side into the gorge. His clothing flapped as the wind rushed by. He landed li
ghtly on his feet at the bottom of the gorge, and found the secret entrance to the Tomb. A door cut into the bedrock at the base of the falls, masked by rocks and vegetation.

  Once inside, he made his way up the worn stairs and through the narrow, dusty passage carved through solid rock that led to the office of the tavern. Tom was standing with his back to the passage door checking over an inventory list.

  “Tom,” Gideon said as he came up behind his manager.

  Tom jumped and spun around, one hand on his chest. “God, you startled me. What are you doing here, Gideon? The police are everywhere. They’ve already been through every inch of this place.”

  “Did you follow standing instructions and destroy my emergency rations?”

  “No,” Tom confessed warily. “I thought you might need them. They’re in the passage.”

  “Good man.” Gideon drew back and allowed Tom to lead him back into the tight corridor.

  Gideon pulled the door shut behind him. He could see perfectly in the pitch darkness, but Tom flicked on a small flashlight they kept near the entrance. “Besides, I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I can’t just pour it down the sink. They’ve got that luminol stuff,” he said as they walked down the stairs.

  “You’ve been watching CSI.”

  “Naw—well, yeah, but I heard about luminol years ago, from that Discovery Channel show, the FBI Files. Here it is.” Tom was an aficionado of T.L.C. and the Discovery Channel. He’d confessed to Gideon once that he hardly moved from the couch during Shark week.

  He shined his light at a rectangular, blue cooler Gideon had walked right by when he’d come in. Gideon was surprised he hadn’t smelled it. He must be more drained than he thought.

  Tom flipped the cooler open with his foot, displaying plastic bags of blood on ice. “I better get back before they know I’m missing.” He slid past Gideon and headed back up the stairs.

  Gideon gulped down as much of the stale, chilled blood as he could stand. He preferred his blood warm and fresh, but he’d take what he could get. He didn’t have time to hunt, nor did he want to risk feeding when the place was swarming with police.

  A moment later, flush with blood, he prepared to resume the search.

  The club closed at two-thirty a.m. That gave Akos less than eighty minutes to find a new victim from one of its patrons, and dawn was a mere three hours after that.

  Akos. Gideon felt his eyes ignite as he imagined rending his enemy limb from limb. He gritted his teeth. Death was too good for Akos, but it would have to be enough.

  He wondered how Thalia was making out at the hospital. The doctors had probably taken her friend into surgery. He was no doubt being transfused at that very moment.

  Was Paul a suitor? The man who would one day be the father of her children? She’d said Paul’s name with such emotion. There was fondness there, maybe more. He disliked the imaginary man who would some day win her. He hated Paul.

  The decision to leave her at the hospital had been forced on him, but it was for the best. He hadn’t had enough power in him to teleport them both one more time, and he hadn’t wanted to lose Akos.

  She would be safer at the hospital, anyway. Akos couldn’t know where she was.

  Gideon was struck by the nagging feeling he’d forgotten something. The sense of unease followed him as he cloaked himself in invisibility once more and flew up out of the gorge.

  He hovered high above the Tomb.

  Now he could see the police presence in full force. A man dressed in dark clothing, sat on the roof with a pair of binoculars and a high-powered rifle. There were other similarly dressed men on other rooftops nearby. Down on the street he saw several plainclothes officers sitting in their cars, and still more pretending to enjoy the evening air. The police were throwing everything they had at this case.

  A man and a woman left the Tomb and Gideon tracked them. He probed the man first, before he realized Akos could have just as easily disguised himself as a woman. His last victim had been male. He examined their thoughts. They’d been dating for quite a while. The woman was expecting a proposal at any minute. The man had already bought the ring, but was waiting for the right time.

  He should move on, but Gideon found himself caught up. So this was what it was like to be normal.

  He wondered what it would be like, if he and Thalia were just an ordinary man and woman like this couple, able to have children, work together, play together, grow old together.

  They got into their car and drove off. He shook his head, dismissing them from his thoughts. They were a dead end. He had more important worries.

  Another couple left minutes later. Once more he delved into their minds. The woman was thinking she was crazy to go home with someone new when there was a murderer on the loose, but Liam was just so attractive, so polite. Everyone knew serial killers were social misfits who kept to themselves.

  She’d obviously never heard of Ted Bundy.

  Besides, she thought, according to the news, the police are looking for that bar owner, what was his name? Damien or something like that.

  He scanned the man and ran right into a mental shield. He’d have to break the man to get through a shield that strong. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. The shield had “mage” written all over it. The meeting must be over, or he hadn’t bothered to attend.

  He turned his attention back to the Tomb. Akos wouldn’t take on a mage unless he was at full-strength, and if he’d claimed a life while Gideon had been busy, he’d be long gone.

  A half an hour passed. A lone man left the Tomb. A Kodak employee by the look of the badge he’d forgotten to remove.

  Seconds later, a redheaded woman in a short red dress came out. She ran after the man, high heels clicking on the pavement. She put her slight hand on his arm and smiled. The man gallantly offered her his arm. Gideon searched the man’s mind. He had gone to the Tomb out of curiosity after seeing it on the news. Divorced, he was nearing retirement and had wanted some companionship. Gideon pulled back to focus on the woman, but before he could do so he detected that the man knew Thalia. He’d hired her to follow his former wife.

  Suspicious, Gideon swiftly probed the woman and discovered another wall, but this wasn’t a witch.

  A thrill of triumph raced through him.

  He had found his quarry.

  Akos led the man around the corner into the alley where he’d assaulted the young man earlier. A creature of habit? Or bait for a trap?

  Gideon decided not to wait to find out. He dived out of the sky and hit Akos, knocking him off his feet before he could do more than sink his teeth into the older man’s neck and take a sip. Gideon landed and revealed himself. Akos snarled, shifted into his true form and leaped to his feet. The mortal gasped and backed up against the wall. “What the—”

  “Stay there!” Akos commanded. Completely at the mercy of the powerful compulsion inherent in Akos’ voice, the man froze, unable to order his muscles to move. “As for you,” Akos continued, gesturing with both hands, “come and get me.”

  “My pleasure.” Gideon swept an elaborate bow before his adversary, hoping to enrage him.

  Akos growled, his face warped with rage and hate, and launched himself at Gideon. He sidestepped faster than human vision. Akos’ momentum took him to the opposite wall. He ran up the uneven surface and flipped over to attack again, but Gideon was ready. His fingers bit into Akos’ shoulders. The other ancient grasped Gideon around the neck in return and tried to choke him. With a yell, he broke Akos’ hold and lifted them both off the ground, taking a struggling Akos high into the dark sky and into the clouds, away from mortal eyes.

  He leaned toward Akos and pierced his neck with his fangs, taking his ancient blood. He immediately spit it out. Gods. It was bitter. His mouth burned.

  Poison.

  The blood Akos had stolen from Thalia’s friend, untainted by the Claiming, would have tasted sweet. Akos had already taken a life.

  The rogue began to laugh. The sound rang through
the clouds, amplified by their moisture. Still laughing, he grew beneath Gideon’s hands, shape-shifting into the form of a huge black dragon with sweeping bat-like wings. Gideon lost his grip on his now immense opponent. Akos threw him backward, bowling him over.

  As he rolled through the atmosphere, Gideon started to shift into a large dragon. Time to fight fire with fire.

  But before he could finish morphing, Akos was there. He stabbed Gideon with his massive, razor-tipped claws, tearing a deep gash in his scaly chest.

  He tumbled, disoriented for a moment in the wispy white cloud, unable to discern up or down. Bleeding, he regrouped and flew above the dense clouds, wings beating rapidly, their powerful up and down drafts molding the clouds into new fantastic forms. A blast of orange flame singed one pumping wing, the iridescent blue of a peacock feather in the bright moonlight. Akos emerged from the snowy cloudbank like a shark leaping from the waves. He made another pass.

  Gideon twisted and rolled, eluding the blazing missiles. He summoned fire from deep within his belly and blew a stream at Akos.

  Akos dodged, ducking and weaving among the clouds. The shot went streaking into the night sky like a meteor, hissing as it cut through a cloud, evaporating the water droplets in its path.

  Gideon’s enormous wings cut through the thinning air as he flew higher to get above his enemy. Akos gave chase. They careened through the sky, darting over, under, and through the clouds, pulling a trail of vapor behind them. Two leviathans locked in mortal combat. Their flashes of fire lit the clouds like sheet lightning.

  Tiring, Gideon’s heart thundered in his chest. His huge lungs gasped for oxygen. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. He was bleeding heavily, and the energy he’d received from his emergency rations was almost depleted. He had to take Akos down while he still had the strength to finish him. It meant risking being seen, but what choice did he have?