Unhinged: Blood Bond: Parts 4, 5 & 6 (Volume 2)

by Hardt, Helen;

  My skin chilled.

  What if I’d been glamoured while I was out and about during the night?

  No. Dante had said I’d been fed on sometime during my last work shift. Going shopping wouldn’t harm me. Besides, I was itching to do something productive. I changed into jeans and a T-shirt and left.

  I’d filled my cart with groceries and was headed toward checkout, when I spied a familiar face.

  “Hello, Erin,” Abe Lincoln said, striding toward me.

  “Oh. Hi.”

  “What are you doing out at night?”

  “I work nights, remember? This is my night off.”

  “Oh.”

  “What are you doing here?” I wasn’t sure what to call him. Last time I’d seen him he hadn’t answered to Abe but had come running when I hollered “Red Rover.”

  “Meeting someone.”

  “Who?”

  He looked over his shoulder and then inched closer to me. “A vampire,” he whispered.

  I resisted the urge to burst out laughing. “You’re meeting a vampire in Walmart?”

  “I meet them wherever they tell me to.”

  I peered behind him, shuddering. “Where is he?”

  “He’s not here yet. Do you want to meet him?”

  Did I? I desperately wanted to find out who was stealing my blood, but Dante had warned that my scent was irresistible to vampires. Any vampire who fed on Abe Lincoln didn’t share Dante’s scruples about not feeding on humans.

  I cleared my throat and decided to change the subject. “Why did you run away the day we bought you lunch?”

  “A ghost told me to.”

  I began to roll my eyes, but stopped abruptly, remembering my conversation with Dante about ghosts earlier.

  “What ghost? Was it the same ghost you saw with the vampire the night you came into the ER?”

  He shook his head. “No. That was a good ghost.”

  I chilled again. “There are good and bad ghosts?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t there be? There are good and bad people, aren’t there? Everything comes in good and bad.”

  He had a point. “How did you know the ghost you saw that day was bad?”

  “I just knew. I got a weird feeling. So I ran.”

  “What could a ghost do to you?”

  “I don’t know. And I wasn’t interested in finding out.”

  This was getting way too freaky. “Look, I need to pay for my groceries. Do you need anything? I’ll buy you a sandwich or something. A bottle of water. Whatever you want.”

  “That’s nice of you to offer. But the vampire will buy me a hot meal once we’re done.”

  “Right.” I headed toward the checkout line. “It was nice to see you.”

  “You too. Wait for me after you load up your groceries. I’ll take you to meet the vampire.”

  I opened my mouth to object, but then changed my mind, against my better judgment. My curiosity won out. I began placing my items on the conveyor belt.

  “Erin,” he said.

  I turned back toward him. “All right. I’ll wait.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Dante

  “I didn’t appreciate you hanging up on me,” Bill said. He sat on the couch in the living room while I paced.

  “I apologize.” Though I wasn’t the least bit sorry.

  “You’re going to wear down that Persian rug.” He eyed my feet.

  I plunked down into a recliner. “Sorry.”

  “What do you need, Dante? It seems you only come to me when you need my help.”

  I needed his help more than anything, but so far he’d refused to tell me what I needed to know. What was in the Texts.

  “I was at dinner with Erin,” I said, “and I felt a…presence.”

  “Oh?”

  “Something messed with my mind. Took me back to…” It was still so hard to say. “To when I was in captivity. It took me back to her while I was in the men’s room. Then, when I got back to the table with Erin, I felt an icy stab on the back of my neck. I don’t know how else to describe it. I just knew we had to get out of there.”

  “I see.”

  Did he really see? I wasn’t sure anymore. Though I was hesitant, I went on to explain our subsequent run-in with Bea on Royal Street earlier.

  “It was the strangest thing. This homeless woman—she says she’s a voodoo high priestess—was quoting Shakespeare.”

  “Just because someone is homeless doesn’t mean she’s not educated.”

  “I know that. But the first time I met this woman, she didn’t seem educated.”

  “Hmm…”

  That’s not helping. But I didn’t say it.

  Seconds passed. Then minutes. I was about to say something, when Bill finally spoke.

  “I believe the woman. I believe something dark has targeted you.”

  “How can you believe that?”

  “I’ve learned much in the years you were gone, Dante, a lot of which I didn’t want to believe. But I find I have no choice.”

  “What is it, then? This thing that has supposedly targeted me?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Damn!” I brought my fist down on the soft arm of the tan leather recliner.

  “Calm down.”

  “Calm down? Really? You have no idea what I’ve been through, and now, all I want is peace. A life of peace and love with Erin. Why me?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m willing to bet it has something to do with your blood.”

  I hadn’t told Bill yet that my blood type had mutated. Or been tampered with.

  “And,” he continued, “I’d bet it also has something to do with your father and uncle.”

  “What could it possibly have to do with them?”

  “I have reason to believe they were the primary targets when you were taken.”

  “What?”

  “Julian and Braedon are male vampire identical twins. You know how rare that is. Identical vampire twins hadn’t been documented since the fourteenth century. And your grandmother lived through their birth. In fact, she had what amounted to an effortless pregnancy for a vampire female. Everything about your father and uncle is extremely rare and worth studying.”

  “You think they’ve been…” Nausea crept up my throat as I envisioned my dead father and uncle being autopsied. Cut apart and put under a microscope.

  No.

  They were alive somewhere. I’d been kept alive. If they were that rare, whoever took them wouldn’t kill them. I had to believe that. Had to.

  “I think you were taken to draw them out, Dante. Whoever took you knew they would go after you.”

  My mind raced. “Then why keep me? And why take me instead of River? We were both there that night.”

  “I don’t have an answer to either of those questions.”

  “Then why do you think whoever took me was actually after them?”

  “For the reasons I just stated. Their rarity.”

  “Then they might still be alive. We have to find them.”

  Bill sighed. “How much are you ready to believe now, Dante?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told you recently that you’re safe because a ghost is watching over you.”

  I jolted. I hadn’t believed in ghosts then. But now? I wasn’t so sure.

  “Is this ‘dark thing’ that has targeted me a ghost?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Bea said it wasn’t a demon.”

  “That’s good to know. We need to assume this Bea is telling the truth, at least for now.”

  “Demons exist, then?”

  “I’ve realized so much in the years you’ve been gone. Yes, demons exist, unfortunately, but not in the way you might think. When evil embodies a living thing, anyone can gain immortality and become a demon.”

  I pulled at my hair. This was all too much. Too fucking much.

  Dante.

  The voice again. The one I’d heard in the restaurant tha
t had sounded familiar.

  Very familiar.

  “Dante,” Bill said, his tone ominous. “Your father is standing behind you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Erin

  After fifteen minutes of waiting in the well-lit parking lot, I rolled my eyes and gave up. Abe Lincoln, as I’d always known, was delusional. Maybe vampires did exist. I pretty much had to accept that. But Abe Lincoln didn’t actually know any, no matter what he and Bea said. I was done chasing zebras.

  I opened my car door—

  I jerked when a clammy hand gripped my other arm. I turned.

  Abe Lincoln.

  “You nearly scared the piss out of me!” I yanked my arm away.

  “Where are you going? I thought you wanted to meet the vampires.”

  Vampires? As in plural? No thanks. “I changed my mind. I just want to go home.”

  “But they want to meet you. I told them all about you.”

  “Not tonight, Abe. Sorry.”

  He grabbed my arm again. Harder this time. How did a skinny homeless man have such strength?

  “They want to meet you. Behind Walmart.”

  Oh, hell, no. “I’m sorry. I can’t. But tell them thanks.” I yanked my arm away once more and dived into my car, slamming the door shut and knocking Abe onto his ass on the asphalt. I didn’t care. I was so out of there.

  I started my engine and peeled out of the parking lot, my heart hammering.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dante

  A chill swept over the back of my neck and I stood and turned.

  Nothing.

  “You’re off your rocker,” I said to Bill.

  “Believe me. I thought I was too, at first.”

  “There’s no one here,” I said.

  “You’re wrong. He’s there. I can see him as plain as day behind the chair. He just appeared.”

  “Then tell me why I can’t.”

  “Because you don’t believe. You need to let go of your skepticism, Dante.”

  “You taught me long ago that ghosts don’t exist, Bill. That the dead join the cosmic energy force and cease to have any uniqueness.”

  “I did. I taught your father that as well. I was wrong.”

  “How do you know?”

  He laughed. “Because your father is standing right next to you now.”

  “Can you hear him?”

  “Of course. Just as if he were alive.”

  Dante.

  The voice again. It was his voice. My father’s voice.

  But I didn’t hear him out loud. Only in my mind.

  “That’s how it starts,” Bill said. “You think your head is playing tricks on you. But it’s not. Suspend your beliefs, Dante. Suspend everything you thought was reality. And feel. Have faith.”

  “How long have you…”

  “A day before your return, I began to feel my son’s presence. I didn’t think anything of it, but the next day, you returned. I knew then that I needed to pay more attention to my feelings and intuition. I opened myself up, and Julian spoke to me. In my mind. A day later, I was able to see and hear him.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “The same as he did when he was alive. You’ll be able to see him soon.”

  “And what does he think about us having a conversation about him as if he’s not in the room?” I still wasn’t convinced he was actually in the room. Before he could answer, I added, “Is this why you’ve been so…different since I returned?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you’re asking. I don’t think I’ve been different at all.”

  Of course not. Now was not the time to get into that anyway. If my father was truly here as a ghost—and I’d heard his voice in my mind three times now—that meant two things. One, ghosts did exist. But I could hardly wrap my head around that revelation at the moment. No. The second and more important fact was…my father was dead.

  Dead.

  He and Uncle Brae weren’t alive, as I’d secretly hoped.

  And I was responsible.

  If I hadn’t been taken, my father and uncle wouldn’t have gone after me. And if I hadn’t disobeyed them and gone to the Quarter on Mardi Gras…

  I hadn’t mourned my father and uncle. I’d been too wrapped up in what was happening between Erin and me. I hadn’t given myself time to grieve, to deal with the feelings that were now plummeting through me like golf-ball-sized hail.

  Could I believe? Could I turn my back on everything I’d been taught? Everything I’d always known as truth?

  I’d already begun to.

  “Dad?” I looked around timidly, feeling like a blind person trying to find the light in the room.

  “He says, ‘I’m here, son.’”

  Not only was I blind, but deaf too.

  Or Bill was crazy as a loon.

  A chill swept the back of my neck. I swiped at it.

  “That’s your father, Dante. Ghosts have a cold presence.”

  The chill. I’d felt it many times since my return—the first when Jay Hamilton had caught me with the homeless man, Abe Lincoln, the night of my escape.

  I’d run, and Jay hadn’t followed me.

  Was that because… “Dad?” I said again. “Were you there with me that night? When I took clothes from a homeless man and a detective found me?”

  “He says ‘yes,’” Bill said.

  “The chill…” I said. “Then…in Erin’s apartment. She thought she saw someone.”

  “He says that was him as well.”

  “How could Erin have seen…?”

  “Once you see a ghost, it’s easier to keep seeing him,” Bill said.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. When would Erin have seen him?”

  Bill paused a second, appearing to listen. “He says he stopped to help her with her car one day.”

  “He’s been watching over Erin too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Then…thanks, Dad. I guess.”

  “He says he’d do anything for both of you.”

  I let out a huff. “This is getting ridiculous! If he’s really here, why can’t I see him? Why can’t I hear him?”

  “Because you don’t believe yet. You have to have faith, Dante.”

  Faith. The second time he’d used that word. How could I have faith after all I’d been through?

  Faith was an illusion.

  Dante.

  His voice again. In my head. What was he trying to say?

  I closed my eyes and drew in a breath.

  Faith.

  What was faith anyway?

  We weren’t a religious family. Our faith was rooted in our history, in being good, moral people.

  Faith was believing without seeing, without having any evidence to substantiate what you accepted as true.

  It had been hard to believe a blood bond—something I’d never heard of and that hadn’t happened in ages—existed between Erin and me, but at least I had some evidence to substantiate it. The fact that I could no longer smell other humans, the fact that she kept putting herself in danger without knowing it, the music we heard that no one else could. All those things pointed to the blood—

  Ice chilled my veins. Panic swelled in me as my heart thundered against my chest like a bass drum.

  Erin. She was in danger. Adrenaline surged through me, landing in the nerves in my cuspids. They tingled as they descended.

  “Dante?” Bill said.

  “Erin,” I said, my voice low. “I feel her. Something’s not right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Bill’s question lingered in my ears. I’d been wrong before. I’d rushed to the hospital, certain she was in trouble, only to be wrong. Was I wrong now?

  I drew in a deep breath and stayed still. I was freaked over my father. That was all.

  Calm down. You’re imagining things, Dante.

  Back to my father. I needed evidence. Tangible evidence that he was here. But what pointed to my father—a ghost—being in this room?
/>
  Only Bill telling me so, and I’d stopped putting any faith in what he said weeks ago.

  Only that…and the chill on the back of my neck.

  I could ask Erin if someone had helped her with her car.

  That’s what I’d do. I’d call Erin. I reached for my cell phone in my pocket—

  She burst through the door without knocking, running from the foyer into the living room. “Dante! I’m sorry to barge in, but I—” She looked over my shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Erin

  I was still trembling from my run-in with Abe in the parking lot. I hadn’t bothered knocking. I charged in and ran through the foyer into the living room.

  Behind Dante stood a stranger I recognized. The one who’d helped me with my car. Who’d told me to keep an open mind.

  An open mind.

  I’d been sure I saw him in the corner of my living room, but I’d been wrong. My imagination had been playing tricks on me.

  “Hello, Erin,” the stranger said.

  He’d had a familiar look about him at the time, but I hadn’t placed it. Now, seeing him in the same room with Dante and Bill, it was so apparent.

  He was one of them. A Gabriel vampire.

  “You’re a Gabriel, aren’t you?” I said.

  “I am.”

  “Would you stop talking to thin air?” Dante said, standing.

  “I’m not. I’m talking to the guy standing be—” I shuddered, as a coolness swept over me. “Wait. What?”

  “I’m Julian Gabriel,” the man said. “Dante’s father. Bill’s son.”

  “Dante can’t see him, Erin,” Bill said. “He doesn’t yet believe.”

  “Believe what?”

  “That I’m real. That I’m here and I’m real.”

  “That’s silly. You’re as real as the rest of us.” I stepped forward to touch his arm…only to have my hand whoosh downward. I’d definitely felt something, but it was spongy and slick, not at all like a person. I pulled my hand up and stared at it, my heart thundering.

  “It’s okay, Erin,” Bill said. “He’s here. But he’s a ghost.”