Ashes to Ashes-Blood Ties 3 (36 page)

There was a long silence. When Nathan looked at me again, his eyes were rimmed with red. "Why him, Carrie?"

My voice caught in my throat. "Would it have been better if it was someone else?"

"No." He didn't turn away, just kept staring at me with an intensity that burned. "No, it wouldn't have been."

I glanced down to hide the tears in my eyes. "He loves me. Or, he wanted me to love him once, and now that's just… enough."

"You wanted to love me once, too," Nathan reminded me. I nodded and swallowed against my tears. "He's different now. When he was my sire, I wanted so badly to give in to him. To let my humanity go just so I could be with him. But I couldn't. I don't know why."

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"Because you're a good person." He smiled sadly. "So, you love him now because he deserves it?"

"Nathan, I would never want to hurt you. But… " I closed my eyes. "But no matter what, I'm going to be with someone who doesn't love me more than he loves a memory. He's my fledgling. I do feel like… like I owe him my affection."

"I know exactly how that feels." Nathan's words sent a dagger through her. "Except for the bit about owing my affection. You see, I never felt I owed you anything. What little I could give you, I gave freely."

My chest constricted, and I couldn't hold back my sob. "Nathan—"

"No." He turned away. "No, I get the last word in this one, Carrie. Read the spell. I'll go look for a book on basic magic."

I slumped over the counter, resting my forehead on my palms. It would have been so nice to break down, to sob my eyes out at the unfairness of it all. Once again, I was pulled between the same two men. Once again, I would never be certain I'd made the right choice.

But there was no time for self-pity. Wiping my eyes, I willed myself to stop crying. Time to get down to business.

The spell was broken down into two parts, an ingredients list and various directions, numbered, renumbered, crossed out and scribbled over.

"We need heliotrope," I called.

"The herb or the stone?" Cupboard doors scraped open somewhere in the back of the shop.

"Both, actually." I scanned the ingredients. "And a blue candle. And a bunch of stuff that is, like, way too disgusting to even consider."

Nathan returned and leaned over my shoulder. His closeness did nothing to calm my strained nerves. "Why would she include these things?" he mumbled, his finger pausing near the item "baby teeth."

"Maybe to get someone off track?" It came to me in a flash of inspiration. "If I were to look at this spell, I would think all this weird, exotic stuff was the most important." The bells above the door jingled, and Cyrus strolled in casually, a carefully composed expression on his face. "So, what have I missed?" He stopped at my side, one hand possessively on the small of my back, and leaned over the book. "Do you really have all these ingredients?"

"That's what we were just discussing," Nathan explained, "We have the heliotrope. Not much else."

"Mmm." Cyrus squinted at the list. "Well, we're sunk. The calf's heart we can get from a butcher, but human toe-nails… I'd give mine up, only they're not human anymore."

"See?" I smiled triumphantly. "I bet these are all a distraction. Whoever attempts the spell will break their back finding all these morbid components, and leave out one or two small details. Only, the small details are the only truly important ones."

"I have to admit, I'm impressed." Nathan rubbed a hand over his jaw. "How did you know that?"

"Recipes. My mother used to complain that her mother in-law always left something important out, or labeled it optional. It was like cracking a code." I turned my attention to the actual instructions for the spell.

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"Women are devious," Cyrus observed, as if realizing it for the first time. I pointed to the page. "See here, she has you anoint the heliotrope stone with oil of heliotrope, but everything else gets thrown in a cauldron and burned." Cyrus sniffed in distaste. "Imagine the stench."

"I'd rather not." Nathan shook up the small bottle of oil. "Let's hope this is the real stuff, not a synthetic. I'm paying enough for the real deal, but suppliers can be a bit shady."

"Oh, I've heard the herb trade is brutal," Cyrus quipped. I elbowed him. "If you're not going to help, there's a sinkful of dishes upstairs."

"Are you ready to try this?" Nathan asked, lifting the rock so I could see it. It was green, with subtle red flecks the color of dried blood.

"Also known as bloodstone," Nathan said, turning it so the red flecks sparked in the light.

"An obvious choice for a vampire."

I held out my palm and he dropped the stone there. It seemed to bum my skin. "What do I have to do?"

"Anoint the stone with the oil, apparently," Cyrus observed with a bit of amusement. "And carry it with you to remain invisible."

An involuntary shiver went up my back. I'd volunteered to do it, but now I wasn't so sure I liked the idea of being invisible. So much of the human psyche is tied to the physical body… I wondered what effect it would have on a person to be unincorporated, for lack of a better term.

Nathan put a reassuring hand on my arm. "Likely, it won't make you physically invisible. Most of these spells just cause anyone who sees you to not notice you." I closed my fingers over the stone. "Okay, here goes nothing." Nathan unscrewed the cap of the oil bottle and held it tentatively toward me. "Now, this isn't the whole of the spell. What makes it work is your intent. Focus your mind, all of your energy, on becoming invisible."

I'd certainly had enough experience with that. Calmly, I set the stone on the counter, imagining shrinking down in my chair in my high school English class when the teacher asked a question. I thought of walking through a bad part of town at night, keeping close to the buildings, sticking to the shadows.

I thought of sneaking across the lawn behind Cyrus's mansion to meet with Nathan at the gate, and pictured the guards looking at me and seeing nothing. Then I realized I was already an expert at invisibility. No one had seen me without me wanting them to for years. My face, my build, even my hair color were so nondescript I could rob a bank without anyone identifying me. This would be a piece of cake. At the same time I thought it, another wave of confidence rose within me. It was darker, ego driven and wild. Crazy.

It was Dahlia.

"I drank her blood," I heard myself saying, as if from far away. "I think it's doing something to me."

Cyrus stepped back. Even Nathan seemed frightened.

I am invisible
, I chanted in my head as I wiped the oil on the stone. The flowery scent calmed me, even as the stone seemed to burn from my concentrated energy. All my thoughts and visualizations flowed from my body through the fingertips of my right hand, into the stone.

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Then, just as abruptly as the sensations came, they stopped. The dark energy left over from Dahlia's blood soaked into the stone, leaching some of me with it, and I jerked my hand back.

"She did it," Cyrus said, almost breathlessly. "I can't believe she really did it."

"What? What did I do?" Before they could answer, I picked up the stone, so cold it burned, and gasped as my hand, then my wrist, then my arm vanished as though dissolving. I looked at my feet, only to see the floor they should be standing on. I waved my fingers in front of my face, but they weren't there anymore. The room spun around me. Without visual confirmation of my body in its own space, I lost my sense of balance for a moment, stumbling against the counter.

"Grab her!" Nathan shouted.

"How? I can't see her!" Cyrus reached out uncertainly and I grasped his arms. The second the stone touched him, he vanished as well.

We stood perfectly still, holding each other for balance. I would have paid anything to see the expression on Cyrus's face.

"Well, we know it's not just figurative invisibility now, don't we?" he said with a rueful laugh, and I laughed with him.

Something was finally working to our advantage.

Chapter Twenty: Origins

Sitting up, Max blinked in an effort to bring his vision into focus. When he tried to rub his eyes, chains rattled and his arms met with marked resistance.
Waking up in another dark,
strange place, restrained
.

Perfect.

"I wondered when you would wake."

Bella
. He wished he could see her. "Did she hurt you?" There was a squeak. Something nudged his foot. When he looked up, he saw her face.

"The drugs will make it hard to see for a while. Relax, and let it pass." Her fingertips brushed his face. She wasn't bound.

"Did they hurt you?" he repeated. His tongue felt as if it were covered in fur. He'd kill for a drink.

The scent of her blood assaulted him, and he involuntarily lunged toward her. He heard her startled intake of breath, felt her withdraw a bit. He'd scared her. "Sorry, can't help it."

"I know." She placed her cool palm against his forehead. "No, they did not hurt me. They tended me better than the Movement did. At first, I did not know why, but… "

"Why didn't they tie you up?" Not that he wanted her restrained. He just wondered why she was free and hadn't tried to make a break for it yet.

"I could not go far. I am… in a wheelchair." She whispered the word like a curse. "I am crippled."

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He closed his eyes, though he couldn't see worth a damn, anyway. "I'm so sorry, baby."

"Do not be sorry. They followed us from the cabin. You could not have prevented it." She moved away, and he wondered why he hadn't recognized the sound of the wheelchair as it moved across the dirt floor of the room.

"You sound awfully calm." Too calm. Something was wrong. He couldn't put his finger on what.