Icarus; The Kindred (A Paranormal Romance)

by J. S. Chancellor

  Trinity, you impenitent, skulking son of a bitch!

  I hear that sick laughter and wish I'd kept my id shut. Ah, just as creative with your insults as usual. Feeling any better?

  Just fabulous, you?

  As I watch the news, a bleak shadow creeps up my spine.

  Well, my bed is a little lonely without your loveliness warming the sheets, but enough about me. Did you tell him, Jess? Did you tell him what you'd wanted to tell him then? What you remembered last night?

  Trinity … don't do this. Please.

  More laughter. No, see, I've been holding onto that card far too long, waiting on a moment just like this one. My sympathies, Jacelynd, it's not an easy burden to bear. I have, after all, taken more than just your wife. I took your son as well.

  Now, I really feel sick and stumble outside to throw up, which for Kindred is a very different thing than for a human. One of the fine gents from inside has followed me and isn't sure what to do about a girl vomiting blood.

  He really is a fine child, Jess. You'd be proud. Iris has done a fine job raising him. He hates the Rebellion as much as I do. Oh, and don't worry, Jacelynd—she was still quite aware of who she was when she birthed him. I didn't wipe her memory until after he was born. Too risky. Besides, her donor wasn't pregnant. That'd be a bitch to explain.

  I'm shocked. I had only remembered the part about having been pregnant. I would never have imagined that I went to term. I feel a hand on my shoulder. It's Blake and I hear him vaguely telling the guy who followed me from inside that I will be fine.

  "Shit man, she's got that stuff on the news! You need to get her to a hospital." The guy backs a few steps up. "Keep the map. Gas is on me, just get the hell out of here before you get us all sick."

  Blake ushers me to the passenger side of the car and sits me down. I am still dry-heaving.

  "Jessi, what's wrong? What's going on?" Blake starts the 4Runner, but doesn't take it out of park.

  "Did you ever see Iris with a child?" I choke out. "A boy?"

  Blake nods, "Yeah, sure. Once, but he wasn't there for long. I haven't said anything because he didn't appear to belong to her. Iris has a son? He doesn't look anything like her."

  "Because I don't look anything like Iris." I am so angry that I'm shaking. "Drive, Blake. Before these guys get wise and call the authorities. Trinity has started the virus scare."

  Blake looks at me, horrified, before pulling out. "What, he hasn't had time! And what are you talking about, you don't look like Iris? What does—"

  "The CDC just released that we are one notch below global pandemic. We've apparently missed a whole hell of a lot in the last few days. We only have a limited amount of time before he announces the vaccine. Just like you said." I want so badly to talk to Jace, but I don't want Trinity to know that I'm not with him. "I was pregnant when I was taken—I hadn't had a chance to tell Jace. I didn't realize it until last night—I couldn't sleep because I'd remembered that I was pregnant when they took me. I didn't know I actually had the baby, though—a son. That might have been nice to know before now."

  "God, Jessi. I'm so sorry."

  "Don't feel for me. Feel for Trinity. He's the one with dismemberment in his immediate future. I wonder if we need to dump this car?"

  "Does Jace know?" Blake quietly asks.

  "He does now," I whisper.

  Low Rider

  The world flows past my eyes in blurred colors. The hum of the road reflectors, like a heartbeat, marks the fact that I am still alive. Despite all evidence to the contrary. My existence, once wonderfully complicated but nonetheless mine, has been pulled in so many directions that I don't even know where to pick up the first piece.

  Trinity has said a word or two to me over the past few hours, but his regretful tone does nothing for him. His actions far outweigh his words. What's so sad, for him, is that had he only left things alone, had he never tricked me into a Blood Tithe, and this scares the hell out of me to admit, I might have made the wrong choice. I might have chosen him. I can't tell him that, regardless of how deeply it might wound him, because it would do more damage to Jacelynd.

  Blake asks me if I'm all right for the millionth time and I nod mutely. What is there to say? The sorrow that hit me before, that fractured sense of security, has returned. But instead of the tremulous gut wrenching from before, this time it's taken root in my spirit. If there were ever a true moment when I thought I couldn't go on, this would be it. I'd entertained the feeling when we were in Hades, but see—you can't really give up unless you have something to lose. This time, the weight of what I've already lost proves corpulent and unwieldy beyond my comprehension.

  "It's late and I don't think it's wise for you to drive," Blake says, pulling into a parking lot. I don't say anything in response, which he takes for consent. There's a lot of that in my life lately. He gives me a grim smile before leaving to go check on a room.

  It's always the little things. Particularly when your world has gone careening out of control and you've already deliberated a hundred ways to kill yourself (which is a huge feat considering I'm immortal). I'm sitting still, staring at the now-risen moon and feeling woebegone, when I hear a tiny ping on the side of the 4Runner. At first this doesn't rouse me. I ignore it and go back to the self-loathing. It's upon the second and subsequent pings that the my-life-has-ended-and-I-want-to-die pity party meets its unfortunate death.

  I look up to see two preteens, mischievous grins splayed wide, holding pebbles in their hands and letting them loose in my direction. My inner bitch comes out of a coma and I smile while I let the window down.

  "Hey. I'll give you ten bucks to come here," I beckon.

  "Twenty or we'll dent your car." They jab each other in the ribs, thinking this is wicked fun.

  "Sure. Why not make it fifty?" I flash the bill in my hands and the one with the greasiest hair and baggiest jeans comes forth. "I want your BFF over here, too." I hope when I was their age, I was a little more intelligent than they are. He reaches out for the bill.

  Now, this is where I go from being a sackless, enervated vampire to a tetched, dentigerous freak of nature. I lunge halfway out of the window with my fangs bared to their full. They scream like banshees past Blake as he walks nonchalantly back to the driver's side.

  "Do I want to know?" he asks, sounding drained.

  I slump back into my seat and shrug. "I have anger management issues."

  "Yeah. I've noticed. That's kind of a new thing for you." He gathers some things from the back seat and comes around to open my door.

  I laugh half-heartedly. "I'm getting the impression that you've all been given back a very different girl than the one you lost." We walk toward a dodgy row of outside rooms that makes me feel like we're going to run into Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale. "You couldn't find somewhere a little less seedy?"

  Blake opens a door that I don't want to ever see with a black light. "Places like this don't require identification or a credit card. You know, a cash-preferred kind of establishment."

  "What happened to the good old days when a hooker could make a decent living in a decent place?" I say it with such sincerity that Blake stops in his tracks.

  "I'm kidding. Come on." I push him on through. "So, I was perfectly calm? No, temper? No, impatience?" I figure I must have been somewhat opposite of how I am now.

  Blake turns on a bedside lamp and I see several cockroaches big enough to have their own area code scamper off. I suppress my disgust and carefully sit in a chair across from the bathroom door.

  "Nothing took you by surprise. Ever. Which is probably why Iris setting you up shocked Jace so much. You and Jace were, are, so different. You loved everything about the Dayworld and Jace wanted only things soaked in tradition." Blake leans against the wall and crosses his arms. "Why don't you tell me about yourself, as you are now."

  "I don't know anything about myself. I'm carrying someone else's memories."

  "Sure, but you've existed since those false memories end
. You can't tell me that you've just been going through the motions. Jess, I'm your cousin. I won't judge you. We were close before."

  "Apparently so were Iris and I," I say snidely.

  "Not the same. You spent a great deal of time with her, but you never really bared your soul to her. Not like you did with Quinn and me. We have always been like older, pain-in-the-ass brothers. We got along with Iris, but it was just different. She couldn't get over our family history. She felt like our blood was tainted somehow."

  I sigh and walk to the sink to wash the grime off my face. "I love horror movies. Especially the really bad, low-budget ones. I love science fiction. My Sundays normally consist of my favorite spot on the couch and the sci-fi channel. I hate exercise because it reminds me too much of work. Running doesn't count. I don't—didn't—do much running while I was, you know." Killing our own people. I reach for the towel beside the sink then change my mind and wipe my face on my shirt instead. "I don't like Pearl Jam. I mean, occasionally sure, but not enough for this." I point down.

  "Is your favorite book still Heart of Darkness by Conrad?" he asks smugly.

  "Yeah, actually, I—"

  He finishes for me, "carry it with you everywhere. You always have."

  "What's my favorite movie?" There's no way he's guessing this one.

  "Labyrinth … it's mine, too."

  "Wow. We really are related." I run my hands through my hair, untangling the ends the best I can without a brush. After a minute I get frustrated and decide that a French braid would be easier. Yeah I know, the '90s called and it would like its style back. At least I don't have a scrunchie.

  After I'm done, I walk to the bed and sit down. "I have a child."

  He comes around and stands in front of me. "We'll free him. Have faith."

  I rub my eyes like a child who's fighting sleep. "Christ. Imagine how much therapy he's gonna need. Hey kid, your mom isn't really your mom, she's your aunt—who coincidently arranged for your real mom to be tortured, held prisoner and emotionally raped by your father's worst enemy."

  Blake looks horrified by my untoward remarks.

  "I'm sorry," I mumble. "I don't deal well with serious stuff. Which isn't all that entertaining to everyone else."

  Blake lies down with his head propped against the headboard. "It isn't that, it's the imagery your coarse vocabulary suggests."

  I look sideways, embarrassed. "I should have considered that. Jace said I was a little less rough around the edges before."

  Blake nods. "You could say that. Then again, you seemed like two different people sometimes. You listened to softer music when Jace was around, you would mind your manners a little more. I don't think you've changed, per say. I think you've just stopped holding back." He sits up. "You knew Jace was fierce in ways you never got to witness, when he was in battle, when he wasn't with you, and it bugged the hell out of you. You would have wanted to do what we're doing right now, but had this been ten years ago you wouldn't have, simply to spare his feelings."

  I think back to when I first saw Jace again, when he pinned me to the wall. I had resisted him and he'd smirked. He hadn't been upset or emotional over it, he was amused. "Did he ever say he felt like I wasn't being myself around him?"

  "He knew you weren't. But he was content to wait."

  "Why was he holding back? Sounds like a two-way street."

  Blake thought about this for a minute. "You need to understand. He was raised a prince. His life before us was steeped in reticence and responsibility."

  It's my turn to smirk. "So, he was behaving himself because he thought it proper to do so? Seriously?"

  Blake nods.

  "He said he'd never be the Jacelynd that I knew," I say softly.

  "He isn't. He went fully into the human world to look for you, only returning for the good of our kind when he was directly called to intervene."

  I think about the ink on the back of his neck and his torso. "I take it the tats are new?"

  "The one on his chest is. He had it done about a year ago. I wanted to go with him, but he wouldn't let me. Good thing, too, cause he was gone forever. He did it for you, because you'd always loved the one on his neck."

  "When did he get that one?"

  "It's a war mark from around the 12th century."

  "Sure. I knew that," I laugh. Explains why I'd dreamed about it. I don't realize I'm shivering until Blake mentions it. He puts a hand on my forehead.

  "You're ice cold. When did you last take from Jace?"

  "Last night." I crawl under the covers. "I'll be fine. Let's talk about something else. Like what we're going to do from here."

  Blake turns off the bedside lamp, but the room is still brightly lit from the flashing neon sign from the roadside bar across the street. "I wish I knew. Any ideas?"

  "Nothing even remotely plausible."

  I sleep more soundly than I expect to, and when I wake I find myself alone. Blake's not totally gone, because his stuff is still here, but he isn't in the room.

  So, given this brief moment of privacy, I groggily take a shower. Not that the half-wrapped bar of soap I find does much good, but it's better than nothing. I hope.

  I'm washing the last of it out of my hair when I hear voices. Note, voices plural. I keep the water running and listen. Four of them. I don't hear Blake. Of all places for me to be when we get into hot water—I never thought it'd literally be in hot water. I purposely keep my thoughts stilled while I look around the shower. The ceiling is porous tile, the kind you see in public schools and nursing homes. I carefully peer beyond the shower curtain and see that I am still alone in the bathroom, but the door is partially cracked.

  "Lord Tristan said to be careful with her," a voice says. He is right outside of the bathroom and makes the incorrect assumption that I can't hear him above the water.

  I grab a towel from on top of the commode, wrap it around me and carefully climb onto the towel bar. I try the tile, exhaling when it slides aside easily. Now this is the tricky part. Vampires aren't immune from slipping. I take a deep breath and with one foot on the bar and one on the faucet, I make a jump for it, grabbing onto the pipe that runs a mere foot above the tiled ceiling and pull myself into the opening.

  After sliding the tile back into place, I shimmy across the pipe, stopping once I am over the room enough to hear what they are saying.

  "Didn't he say there were two of them?" a younger male voice asks.

  The guy by the bathroom door responds. "Maybe they're in there together."

  A female voice interrupts, entering the room from the external door. "No, they're cousins. Blake isn't here."

  I don't recognize her, but the way she says Blake's name leads me to think it's my beloved sibling. Trinity must know that I'm no longer with Jacelynd, but how? He couldn't be guessing if he knows exactly where we are.

  "Why are you waiting?" she asks impatiently.

  "Hold on, Iris. My Lord? Yes my Lord, I'll tell her." A long pause ensues. "We are waiting until she's dressed."

  "Tell me what?" Iris doesn't sound pleased.

  "Lord Tristan wanted me to tell you to keep your hands to yourself. If she comes back with even a scratch on her, you'll pay for it tenfold. His words, not mine."

  Iris growls below her breath something I can't make out. I stay still for another moment, irritated, before moving forward and finding the extremely small opening that leads to the overhang of the roof.

  I drop down and hit the ground, looking frantically around the parking lot for the 4Runner. It's sitting empty right where we left it. So where the hell did Blake go?

  I don't have to think about it long. Rolling around the corner, straight out of a seventies gangster movie, is a less-than-pimped-out Buick. I expect to see at least five day-workers crammed in there, gawking at the girl in a wet towel, when I see that it's Blake driving.

  "You've got to be kidding me," I muse.

  He slows down, and you'll swear I'm hallucinating, but "Low Rider" by War is playing over t
he staticky speakers. Really. He rolls down the window slowly. "'Sup?" Then it dawns on him that I'm only wearing a threadbare motel towel and he tips his newly purchased shades. "Um … ?"

  I want to laugh, but I don't have time. "Your second-favorite cousin is here, and she isn't alone." I hop in the passenger side. "They're in there waiting on me to come out of the shower."

  Blake turns the heat on and points the vents directly at me, but only half of one actually works. Not to mention that the air is freezing. He sees my discomfort and turns it off. We're down the road a few miles before he says anything.

  "I figured it would be a good idea to ditch the 4Runner."

  I dread the rest of his explanation.

  "Seeing as it was yours and all."

  I groan. "Of course the vehicle we chose, out of the ten we had to pick from, would have been my old 4Runner. Remember, please, that it was your idea when we are telling this story later. Assuming we live long enough to tell it."

  "Listen, we could have taken Liv's mustang, but it's always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. The other vehicles may or may not have even started." Blake's mouth breaks into a grin and he shrugs off his shirt, throwing it at me. "Here, you've got to be cold."

  I want to be pissed, but Blake with his shades, in the laid-back driver's seat, shirtless, proves too much and I can't help myself. I actually laugh—really laugh.

  "What?" he asks innocently.

  "You look ridiculous." I'm laughing so hard, in fact that my sides are aching. "Where in hell did you find this dinosaur?"

  "Might I remind you that you're in a soaking-wet towel in the passenger seat of this classic masterpiece? How did you get out of there, anyway?"

  "Well. Trinity won't make the mistake again, but he was on the phone with one of them, telling him to wait until I was dressed. It bought me enough time to climb through the ceiling. We're just lucky we weren't in a decent hotel. That cheap tile just saved our asses."