Blood Day (36 page)

Viv felt as though she was filling up, expanding with the horror of what she knew. Of what she had done. All this time. All this time. It was her. Her own child, and the knife…

She put her hands over her chest to try to stop the pain.
 

“I’m breaking apart,” she gasped.

Conrad was next to her now, crouching down, gathering her up. She pressed her face into his soft jacket and the grief took over. She couldn’t move as he lifted her up.

“Take it away,” she whimpered. “Make it stop.”

“Are you sure?” he said.

“Please,” she said, the word soundless but on her lips. “Please.”

“It would be my pleasure,” said Conrad. And they were moving down the hall now, the lights overhead a blur of brightness. Viv closed her eyes against them.

“You see,” said Conrad, as they turned a corner. “You may have stopped my experiment before, but now you will be the experiment, my esteemed doctor. You shouldn’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson. The pain isn’t the important thing, the result is. You’ll be sedated and when you wake up, you won’t feel a thing. Won’t that be lovely? I know what went wrong last time. It was the blood. All in the blood. We used the wrong kind of blood, because it was the new Revenant blood. I can fix it. I can fix it with my own blood. Ancient blood. It’s strong, and you’ll be strong too.”

“I killed him,” Viv said.

“Yes you did,” said Conrad. “And you’ll be killing many more.”

“I don’t want to feel,” said Viv.

“You won’t feel a thing, my dear,” said Conrad. He held her tighter. “And it’s only the beginning.”

Thirty-Four

Sia rose from the dead man, the taste of him on her lips. Her face shifted again and she screamed anew, the pain fresh. She had strength now, but she couldn’t stop her own body. She began walking, holding the wall for support, so she didn’t topple over from the pain. She knew where to go. She could feel him now, just outside the gates.
 

She stopped and looked down at herself. Her ribcage was still open, her beautiful heart beating in an empty wound. How was she alive? She could see blood still dripping down the front of her, her once-white dress soaked in red. Not all of it was hers. She could feel Mathilde inside of her, guiding her, making her strong. Sia felt her teeth sliding out again and she touched them this time. So long and smooth and sharp. She could feel the strength in those teeth, in the horrible things they were capable of. If she could just control them.

Each step was agony, but she pushed herself on. She’d almost lost her voice from screaming. She came to her room, but she kept walking. And when she came to the locked double doors, she shoved them open and felt the lock splintering metal. Her features shrunk down to human again as she walked through the hospital where she had been a prisoner. Her warden, Evelyn Hauser, was nowhere to be seen.
 

Sia made her way to a door opposite the nursing station. This was the door the Movers used to enter, and the nurses used to leave. She pushed, but the door was unlocked and swung open easily. Sia went down the stairs, leaning against the wall occasionally, leaving a trail of blood on the white tile. She followed the lights down the hall until she came to a large door marked “EXIT.”

Sia felt her teeth come out as she pushed the door, and it toppled off its hinges and fell sideways into the snow. Sia stepped outside and closed her eyes at the cold. The heat that had been setting her on fire seemed manageable now. She stood, the snow melting around her thighs, and let the cold seep into her. Felt the snow melt on her face and in her hair. She felt the wind blowing on her bare heart and she smiled around her sharp teeth as she began to walk barefoot through the snow. She changed again and the pain brought her to her knees. So much power and she was wasting it. Sia ground her human teeth together in frustration, but then her Rev teeth forced her mouth open and she pushed herself forward in the snow.

When she saw him, walking through the gate, Sia paused. She stood still as a stone and watched him stop, too.

“Are you real?” Sia said, her voice husky from screaming.
 

“I’m real,” said Joshua Flynn, his voice cracking. “I heard you call.”

He was at her side then and Sia felt everything melt away. His hands, so warm once, felt cold now on her hot flesh.

“Sia…” He picked her up as she fell, cradling her in his arms, an odd sound coming from his chest. “Sia, what did they do to you?”

“I’ve never seen you cry,” she said.

“Sia…”

She smiled then and touched his face. She shook her head sadly.
 

“You were too late, Joshua. You were supposed to come. I called and called.”

“I was coming for you,” he said, something desperate in his voice, a grief so deep that it made him seem small. “I was coming to take you away, whether you hated me for it or not.”

“Can you see my heart? Isn’t it pretty?”

“Sia…”

“Joshua, it hurts. My face, my bones. You have to end it. You have to kill me.”

“No,” he said. Sia felt his tears falling on her face. “I’m going to fix you.”

“Not like this, Joshua. Kill me, please. If you love me, you must end it. I have their sickness inside of me. Please.”

“Sia, I can’t. I won’t. I can fix this.”

“No…”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“Then let me fix you. This is what we always planned, remember? It’s what you were always going to be.”

“My daughter…”

“First, you must survive, Sia. It’s the only way. I’ll never kill you, do you understand? I won’t hurt you.” He put a finger to her lips and it tasted of blood. Sia felt tears freezing to her cheeks.

“You’re too late,” she said. “It hurts already.”

“Not for long.”

Sia watched his face. His dark eyes, capable of so much death, pleaded with her. His expression was one that Sia had never seen before. He looked vulnerable. How could he be a monster and look so lost and pained? How could she be a monster with him at her side?
 

“I will consent,” she said at last. “Fix me, my love.”

“Yes.”

“And then we’ll kill them all,” she said, gasping as her bones began to shift.
 

“Yes,” he said.
 

He began to lead her back toward the hospital.

“No,” Sia whispered. “I’m on fire.”

“I’m not going to speak false to you,” he said. “I am going to have to hurt you.”

“Yes,” she said. “In the snow. Please. I’m burning up.”

Joshua set her down gently in a snowbank like a bride he was taking to bed. She felt herself melt into the drift, her body cooling as steam rose up around her. Her new heart was beating fiercely.

“Something went wrong, they said. Something with the surgery.”

“Surgery,” he said scornfully. “How very scientific.”

“They love their needles and their scalpels.”

“It is empty,” he said. “Cold and without beauty. There is beauty in the blood, in the pain. There is such infinite beauty in the darkness. Conrad has taken that from them. He has turned them into husks.”

“They want to live in the light,” said Sia.

“It is not our nature to live in the light.”

“The darkness suits you,” she said.

“Why didn’t you run, Sia?” he said. He was taking off his shirt, his skin pale in the snow-light. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I called you,” she said. “But it was too late. There was a party, Joshua.”

“It was a festival,” he said. “It’s our way. Before someone changes.”

“It was a surprise,” she said.

He was quiet for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was quiet.

“Are you ready?”
 

Sia watched him change, watched his face flatten and his spine lengthen. She touched his teeth, his face. He closed his eyes. He was a gorgeous, dark thing. All sharp teeth and claws and eyes so deep they cut you. Sia gave a breathy gasp despite herself. This was no weak creature with soft skin and fancy clothes. Her Joshua was power. He was danger. He was hers. And soon she would be his forever.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“They’ve put their blood into you,” he said. “Into this heart. I have to get it out. It’s poisoning you.”

“I killed a man in the hall,” she said. “I think I killed him. He wasn’t moving.”

“Oh?”

“I liked it.” She looked at him. “Will you still love me when I’m a monster, Joshua?”

“Until the end of time.”

“Do it.”

She screamed again as she felt his teeth sink into her heart, and felt the fire being pulled out. The shifting stopped and her bones settled. Joshua gasped and Sia heard a ripping sound. The very wind seemed to stop as she felt something warm being poured into her chest, her heart. She felt the light inside her grow brighter. Sia cried out one last time as Joshua pushed her ribcage back together. The snow dwindled and then stopped falling altogether as he brought the open vein in his arm to her lips. She drank, feeling herself growing strong, the wounds of the past hours closing up and her skin growing fresh and new, as though she had never been hurt. All that remained was her memory, the sound of Mathilde’s screams still in her ears. And an aching hunger. The clouds parted and a full moon shone upon her, born anew.
 

Sia reached up to run her fingers through the particles in the frigid night air. The moonlight reflected off her skin as though she glowed. She felt each snowflake when she touched the snow around her. She could see the light in Joshua’s chest as he stood looking at her, his own heart throbbing with such ferocity that she was sure it would pound through his skin. It matched her own and Sia stood, the dress sticking to her with blood. Slipping it off, she smiled at Joshua and kissed his lips, letting her naked skin soak up the moonlight.

“I’m going to play music as I kill them,” Sia said.
 

“I would expect no less,” said Joshua. And when he kissed her back, Sia could taste everyone he’d ever drunk from. Everyone he’d killed, everyone he’d had mercy on. Sia licked his lips. There would be no mercy tonight, she could see that in Joshua’s eyes.
 

“They have my daughter,” said Sia. “She will be the only survivor.”

“Everyone that touched you is mine,” Joshua said, his voice husky.

“Not yours,” said Sia. “Ours. My Joshua. It’s so very good to see you.”

Thirty-Five

Dez woke up in a hospital bed, his neck an explosion of pain. He sat up and fought back the nausea. He had tubes in his arm, clear liquid going in through an IV. He could feel the coolness entering his vein. Dez frowned. Tubes going in instead of out. That was different.

“What the hell?” he said, staring at the needle taped to his arm. He looked around the room. Dim lights, a machine beeping, the smell of iodine.

“Don’t move,” said a voice. A scrawny old woman bustled in, pushing a cart with a pitcher atop it. She pulled a table across the bed and poured Dez a glass of ice water and set it in front of him, nodding at it brusquely.

“Who are you supposed to be? Bloody Nurse Ratched?”

“You ought to watch your tone,” she said. Her hair was in a bun, but much of it had come out and hung around her face. Her pink sweater had brown streaks all over it. Dez realized it was blood. He reached up and gently touched his neck. It had been bandaged.

“The girl,” he said. “She Goddamn bit me.”

“You know her?” said the woman. She suddenly looked shaky, her eyes twitchy.

“What do you know about her?” said Dez.

“I know quite a lot,” she said softly, her eyes going soft and unfocused. “I think I made her who she is.”

“Who are you?”

“Evelyn,” she said. “Just Evelyn.”

“Well, Evelyn,” said Dez, picking up the glass of water. “Why do you think you made Sia the way she is?”

“Because I tortured her,” said Evelyn, her rigid body slouching. She focused on Dez. “It was all very firmly according to regulations.”

“I know all about those,” said Dez. “I’m the one who brought her here.”

“Oh,” she said weakly.
 

“She’s with him, you know,” said Dez. “That vampire?”

Evelyn snorted. “Which one?”

“Joshua Flynn,” said Dez. “The one who wants to kill all the other ones.”

“Does he?” said Evelyn.
 

“We need to get out of here,” said Dez. “If he’s not already here, he’s coming. He loves that girl. I think. If it is possible for them to love.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Evelyn. “I owe her.”

“Who, Sia?”

“Have you heard her play?” said Evelyn. “You really should. She’s an angel.”

“You’re crazy, lady,” said Dez, yanking the needle out of his arm, and holding the sheet over it to stop the bleeding. “Bitch tried to kill me.”

“Don’t call her that.”
 

“Why not?” said Dez. “She’s just like them now. You didn’t see her. We have to go. You saved me, so I’m grateful enough to get your ass out of this place.”

“No,” said Evelyn. “I’m staying.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Evelyn, smiling ruefully. “I think I’m supposed to help her.With the children,” said Evelyn. “I know what to do. They need to be free.”

“What, ” said Dez. “The kids who came up missing? You know where they are?”

“If I give Sia the children, it will all be worth it. I can die knowing that she’s forgiven me.”

“Even if she kills you?”

“Oh, she’s going to kill me,” said Evelyn, with her eyes still closed. She looked peaceful. Dez pulled his shirt away from his body. It was stiff with dried blood. His own, he realized. If the van was still outside, he could make it out. They were far enough out of the city that he’d encounter very few obstacles.
 

“I’m going to save the children,” said Evelyn.
 

Dez stopped and looked at her.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he said. “Okay, fine.What’s your plan, then?”
 

Evelyn smiled.

“Goddamn kids,” said Dez. “I better not die.”

Thirty-Six

Viv felt heavy, as though filled with stones. She tried to open her eyes, to see where the voices were coming from, but she also wanted to sink down in nothingness and stay there forever. Something had happened, but she couldn’t remember exactly what. Viv could hear a man talking, muffled, as if from another room.