What was he now? And why him? What was going on?
“Steven?”
He glared at his feet, a dull ache in his gut the first reminder since leaving the beach he still hadn’t fed. Well, whatever he was, that hadn’t changed. He still needed to feed. He closed his eyes, letting his thoughts turn to his hunger for a moment before biting back a curse. He still needed to feed on blood. Human blood. So much for being a better standard of monster now.
“Steven!”
Patrick’s shout jerked him out of his reverie and he pulled a face at his brother. “What?”
“I said, what happened at the beach? What did Pestilence say? What did he do? What’s this q’thulu and did you kill it?”
“Pestilence—stupid bloody name—rattled off some crap about breaking rules and then disappeared up his own—what?” He turned his glare on Death, who was staring at him with such intensity his skin felt like it was being trampled by a swarm of ants.
Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side. “There’s something different about you, fang face.”
“Yeah. I almost had my butt sucked off by a squid monster, which, by the way, was not as erotic as it sounds.”
Death shook her head again. “No, that’s not it.” She moved from Patrick’s side to stand before him, staring down at him with eyes no longer blue but an iridescent white.
He gazed into those eyes, feeling the force, the power of their infinite depths. A shiver rippled through him, cold and hot at once, and before he could move, she reached and placed her palms on either side of his face.
“Hey!” he yelled, indignant, ignoring the ironic fact only two hours ago he wanted nothing more than to have her hands all over his body. “What the hell are you—”
He didn’t finish.
With a sharp hiss, Death jerked her hands from his head, fingers wide, eyes wider. She took a step backward, staring at him with something close to horror on her face. “By the Trilogy…”
Her stunned murmur faded away.
Ven gaped up at her, his heart hammering, his mouth dry. “What? What did you feel?”
“Tell me what’s going on, Fred?” Patrick appeared at her side, and a detached part of Ven’s mind, the part not freaking out at Death’s strange behavior, noticed his brother seemed to move and speak with a confidence he’d never possessed before. It seemed Ven wasn’t the only one who’d undergone a change today. But what did it all mean? And was it for the good?
Death flicked Patrick a quick look, her forehead furrowing. “I need to test something. I think…” She turned back to Ven, regarding him with an expression he could only call guarded. “I need to take you both somewhere. Now.”
“Where?” Patrick asked, and again, Ven was struck by the poise and self-assurance in his baby brother’s voice and demeanor.
She looked at him, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. A tiny jolt of something that may have once been desire worked its way through Ven’s chest at the sight, but he ignored it. Whatever he was, Death sensed it and was confused by it. Confused and apprehensive.
That wasn’t good.
He stood up, brushing past her and his brother. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve had a feed,” he threw over his shoulder on his way to the front door. “I’m starving, I’m tired and I smell like fish piss. After I’ve had a bite, a sleep and a shower, probably in that order, then you can start drawing up travel plans. Until then…” He stopped at the door and turned around, tipping a sarcastic wave their way.
Death looked at him from across the room, eyes white. Glowing. “Sorry, Steven.” Her voice rumbled through him like thunder. “But I’m not asking.”
Apprehension flooded through Fred. She stared at Steven, even as she felt Patrick step up behind her and smooth his hands over her hips, as if he knew what she was about to do. That he may very well be able to do such a thing should have scared the metaphysical shit out of her and had her tailbone itching like an insane demon, but it didn’t. Not anymore. Nothing about Patrick Watkins scared her anymore. His brother on the other hand…
She braced herself, knowing she was about to break one of the highest rules of the Realm, but unwilling to risk any other course of action. Not yet. Not until she had her answers. She needed those answers. The human race needed those answers.
Reaching out for the brothers with her mind, folding them into her existential vortex, she pictured her next location.
And transubstantiated them all to the Realm.
***
Patrick stared at Death, unable to take his eyes from her. They were somewhere dark, somewhere warm, but he’d yet to take in his surrounding. Where he was didn’t matter at that very moment. At that very moment what mattered was how Fred was behaving.
Like she expected to be attacked.
She stood frozen, long, dark hair blacker than pitch, pale skin even paler in the soft, muted light. The infamous Grim Reaper’s robe she’d worn in his living room was replaced by black denim jeans, black biker boots and black silk hoodie, but the casual items of clothing did nothing to hide the tension in her body, the sublime coiling of every muscle, ready to…what? Attack? Defend?
Moving his stare to her face, Patrick hissed in a quick breath. Her eyes smoldered with white, burning light, like the infinite fires of some eternal energy force. There was power in those eyes he’d never witnessed before. Power and pain and menace. For the first time since seeing her, he recognized her for what she was—an entity of sheer and absolute force. It sent a shiver through his body. It made his cock pulse.
Bloody hell, Patrick. Now is not the time.
He rolled his eyes and let out a harsh sigh, shaking his head in disgust.
“Well.” The tension suddenly flowed from Fred’s body and she smiled. “That clears up one thing.”
“Clears up what?” Ven snapped, and it took a second for Patrick to realize his brother stood to his left. In full vamp mode. “Where the hell are we?”
“Not hell, Steven,” Fred replied, turning to Ven. “Home.”
Patrick watched her give his brother a wide, cheeky grin and a shard of something dark and wrong stabbed into his chest. Something a lot like jealousy. He ground his teeth, another surge of disgust roaring through him. Here he was, caught up in the middle of the coming Apocalypse brought about by some wanker with what, in Patrick’s mind, could only be called “short-entity syndrome”, and he was getting jealous? Jesus, he needed to get his act together.
“Gentlemen.” Fred’s voice jerked him from his self-contempt and he looked at her, noticing her eyes were once again their original glacier blue. “Welcome to the Realm.”
“Great,” Ven growled. “Bloody fantastic. Just where I wanted to be. Who does your decorating?”
The surly venom in his brother’s snarl made Patrick blink. He turned, finding Ven had dropped into one of two leather armchairs positioned before an open fireplace, arms crossed, human once again.
Armchairs? Fireplace? He frowned and let his attention finally move to his surroundings.
The room was small, almost cosy, with polished wooden lamp tables on which sat squat, bronze lamps. Floor-to-ceiling shelves on three of the walls, stuffed full with books of all sizes and thickness, and a massive open fireplace made from what looked like black granite dominated the wall before him. A fire blazed in its guts, the flames licking the air in undisturbed tongues of heat, casting a warm yellow glow over the room and its comfortable pieces of furniture—and the silently snarling vampire hulking in one of said pieces.
“What’s the point of bringing us here, Death?” Ven thumped his heels onto the low table sitting in front of the two armchairs, his expression grumpy. “Not satisfied with doing my brother in the real world anymore?”
“The real world?” Patrick turned his stare from his brother to Fred. “The Realm? Where are we?”
“The place between the void and the final destination,” Ven answered, studying his feet—which Patrick realized, were bare. “The home of the Order.”
He frowned. “Of Actuality?”
Ven shook his head. “The Order of the Agents.”
“How do you know that?”
Fred’s demand swung both their heads in her direction. She was staring at Ven, the same intense light in her eyes he’d seen before she’d done whatever it was she did to bring them all here. An intense light that said she had discovered something terrible. Or incredible. “Tell me how long you’ve known about the Realm, Steven. And the Order of the Agents.”
Patrick turned back to his brother.
Ven shrugged, but the firm set in his jaw and the stubborn look in his eye, a look Patrick had seen more than once, told him the shrug was a lie. “What’s going on, Steven? The Agents of what?”
“Something has happened to your brother, Patrick. Something…” Fred stopped, and again that incredulous expression flashed across her face.
Ven snapped to his feet, fixing Fred with a hard stare. “What has happened to me, Death? Come on, you know all the answers. How come I do know all this shit about the Agents of the Order, and the Powers and the Realm and the Void now? One minute the sum total knowledge I have in my head is what I learnt growing up, the next, after my run in with the bloke in the black suit and his squid-faced friend, I’m a walking, talking encyclo-bloody-pedia on all things fucked-up and paranormal. How come I now know exactly what a seraph is? What a cherub is? Who Abaddon is and why it’s best not to let him catch you unawares? Tell me that. Tell me what’s going on and I’ll—”
Fred cut him short. “I need to test my theory.”
Ven’s eyebrows knotted for a brief moment and then his jaw clenched. “And how do you do that, exactly?”
Fred’s tongue darted out to wet her lips, a hesitant, almost nervous action that made Patrick’s throat squeeze tight. Why did he get a bad feeling about this?
“Your blood. I need to taste your blood.”
Ven vamped out. Instantly. Completely. He hissed, his fingers—longer than normal and tipped with thick claws—wrapped around Fred’s throat and he jerked her from the floor.
“Steven!” Patrick shouted, lunging at his brother.
“No one is tasting my blood,” Ven growled, his eyes burning with a wild yellow light.
“It won’t—” Fred began, but Ven threw her across the small room before she could finish.
She arced through the space. And the space shifted.
The room shimmered and before Fred hit the wall, the wall wasn’t there.
She twisted midair and landed feet first on the floor, her face set as she strode back toward him, the room reforming around her with each step she took. “The other choice is I kill your brother,” she stated, matter-of-fact.
It felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Patrick gaped at her. Did she just say what he thought she said?
“You won’t kill your lover, Death.” Ven clenched his fist, glaring at her. “Pardon the cliché, but I’ve seen the way you look at him. What does it mean to the world that the Grim Reaper is in love?”
Fred’s eyes hardened. “On imminent death, the soul releases everything into the Void. The person’s life flashes before their eyes, as such. But to me, I see it all. Their life. Their past. Their entire connection to the mortal coil. If I kill Patrick…”
Ven shook his head. “No.”
“Then let me taste your blood.”
Ven shook his head again. “The last time one of your kind tasted my blood, I became a fucking monster.”
His voice cracked, though from anger or something far more wrenching, Patrick could not tell.
Oh, Jesus, Ven.
Patrick’s heart thumped and he closed his eyes, the realization of what his brother had been through, what he’d suffered since they’d been attacked that night outside the pub all those years ago really sinking in for the first time—the torment and torture and sacrifice.
He’d died protecting Patrick. His neck had been torn open, his blood had gushed from his body, draining from his veins in thick, red rivers and yet he’d never been allowed the release death brought.
Gut churning, Patrick stepped between Fred and Ven, and gave Fred a level look. “No.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “I need to know this, Patrick.”
“Because it changes the balance of power in my upcoming confrontation with Pestilence? Or because you hate not knowing the answers? Because you hate being confused?”
The second the words passed his lips, Patrick knew they were the wrong ones. Fred’s eyes turned white. Iridescent white. But it mattered not. He wouldn’t let her do what she wanted to do to his brother. Even if it meant he, Patrick, went into battle against the First Horseman with nothing but a cricket bat and bad sarcasm.
“Patrick,” Fred began, but he shook his head.
“No, Death.”
She turned her white, glowing eyes to Ven. “I need to know, Steven. You should have died when I touched you eighteen years ago. I severed your life thread. No one survives that. You should never have transformed into a vampire. I need to know why. If you’ve become what I think you’ve become, I need to know how.”
Patrick felt his brother shift behind his back. He turned, seeing confusion, fear and anger swimming in his eyes. And surrender? “No, Steven.” He shook his head, giving him a dry smile. “Not this. I won’t let her do this to you.”
Ven looked at him, his every muscle coiled, his vampire’s face tormented. “Pat…”
“It’s not important, Ven,” Patrick said. “Unless you say it is.”
A shudder passed through Ven’s body and his human façade, so like Patrick’s their parents complained often it was eerie, stood in the room again. His gaze slid to Fred, his throat moving up and down as he swallowed.
“She won’t kill me, Ven.” Patrick gave his brother a broad grin, ignoring the sound of Fred moving behind him. Talk about being caught in the middle. “She’s all bluff.”
“Hey!”
Fred’s indignant shout made him grin wider.
Ven narrowed his eyes on Fred, the promise of lots of pain in their green depths, before he turned them back on Patrick. “I’ve had enough of this,” he muttered. “I’m hungry. I’m going to Amy’s. Call me when the Reaper’s finished with the dramatics.”
He flicked his stare to Fred again and disappeared.
“Holy shit!”
Fred’s shout made Patrick jump. He spun about, finding her standing with her mouth open and her eyes—once more pale, pale blue—wide.
“Did you do that? Did you make him go away?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t. But Ven shouldn’t have been able to do it, either.”
He frowned, wanting nothing more than to drag his hands through his hair and let out a roar of frustration. Just when he thought he had a handle on what was going on, his brother goes and stuns the hell out of his guide and tutor to all things otherworldly. “I guess that means you really are going to need to kill me now, aren’t you? There’s no way you can let something as inexplicable as that pass without needing to find out the answer. I can almost see you wanting to scratch your nonexistent tail.”
She blinked, and for a split second Patrick saw her wavering with indecision. But then she let out a sharp sigh, shook her head and took the one step left between them to take his fingers in hers. “I’m not going to kill you, Patrick. I was never going to kill you. Almost kill you, maybe, but kill you? No.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, almost kill me. Well, that makes all the difference.”
Fred’s low chuckle set his pulse into heated flight and he scowled. Once again, the woman was affecting him in ways she shouldn’t. He should be worried about his big brother and his disappearing act. Instead he was getting turned on by a laugh. “Don’t worry, lifeguard.” She arched her own eyebrow back at him. “Something tells me even if I tried, it would be impossible to sever your life thread.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because Ven transubstantiating himself from th
e Realm shouldn’t be possible. That he did so answers at least one question I had before bringing you here.”
“And that is?”
“I’m one hundred percent certain your brother has become a second-order demon.”
Patrick frowned. “How did Ven become a second-order demon? And why? Does this have anything to do with me?”
She pulled a face. “I don’t know. But I think I have an idea.”
Patrick pulled his own face. “So, we’re back to square one.”
A small smile, both nervous and hesitant, played with the corners of Fred’s mouth. “Back to testing my theory? Yes.”
“But you said you needed to taste Ven’s blood.” He looked around the room pointedly. “Bit tricky when he’s not here.”
There was a short pause as Fred studied him, and Patrick’s gut twisted. “I said I needed to taste Ven’s blood. I didn’t say only Ven’s blood. You’re brothers. The answer lies in both your veins.”
Patrick’s heart smashed against his breastbone. He stared down at her, the twist in his gut turning into a full-blown knot.
“It won’t hurt.”
He let out a short, sharp grunt. “That’s not the problem.”
Fred studied him, puzzled uncertainty on her face. “Then what… Ahhh.” She nodded, as if finally seeing the hidden 3-D shape in the image of nonsensical colors. “I’m not going to turn you into a vampire, Patrick,” she said. “That ability is beyond my power. I’m Death, not a bloodsucker and only vampires can sire vampires.”
Patrick narrowed his eyes, but before he could response—exactly how, he didn’t know—she continued.
“What I said about the soul releasing its secrets to the Void on imminent death is true. I see it all. Their entire thread in the Weave. Where they came from, right back to their first ancestor. By the same token, I can taste it all, for want of a better way to explain it, in a living human’s blood. In fact, the results are quicker. I would have suggested your blood first, but I was…” A soft blush tinged her cheeks and she looked away for a quick moment. “I was a bit concerned about how I would react.”
“How you would react?”
Death, The Vamp and His Brother Page 19