Blood Day (41 page)

“Your experiment,” said Viv. “You decimated your own race.”

Conrad looked at her, his eyes bloodshot. “You don’t understand anything, doctor.”

“I understand everything,” she said. “Your hubris destroyed your own kind. And now you’re scrambling to correct your mistake. With children.”

“I did not replace their hearts,” said Conrad.
 

“But you ordered it done,” said Viv. “Like everything else, you made others do your work.”

“Mathilde owed me her life,” Conrad said, his lip raising in a sneer. “She sided with that bastard Flynn. I told her that he never wanted her, but she refused to listen and was surprised when he shoved a stake through her chest. One millimeter more and she would have been dead. One millimeter, and I couldn’t have saved her. We cut out the sickness and she was able to continue as an ugly, ruined thing.”

“And yet, she gave her life for Sia Aoki.”

“Do not speak of Sia to me,” Conrad said, his voice suddenly a hiss. He closed his eyes again and leaned his head back against the wall. “Mathilde took everything from me. Joshua was like a brother to me. And when I turned on him, Mathilde told him everything.”

“So you killed her,” said Viv.

“I allowed her to die,” said Conrad. “For Sia. Only for Sia, that’s what she said. How she could love the woman who replaced her, I will never know. How she could love a woman in that way is a despicable abomination.” The pump was slowing, his skin growing gray.

“You’re killing yourself,” said Viv. “Take that tube out of your chest.”

“I will take as much as I can. You know, Mathilde was barely healed when Joshua forced his way into Sia’s life. Her music was like a drug to him. She had the face of an angel. I warned him to leave her, to kill her in the traditional way. Revenants should not fall in love with humans. He was a fool. He chose her over his own kind. He could have been a king.”

“So you punished her. When you found out she was the one. The Beta. You turned her pain into a spectacle.”

“Yes. Now stop asking me questions, Genevieve. I cannot talk. I am feeling so very weak.”

“You’re dying.”

“I don’t have enough. And you are too young. You still have human blood mingling with the ancient.”

“What’s in the cooler?”

“Look for yourself,” he said, gesturing limply. “You and I are going to make them ours. Mathilde has been coming down here every day and pumping her own heart’s blood. We are the same, she and I. Our blood. She is dead, and can no longer interfere. She cannot command them to turn on me. I am the only one left now. They will obey me.”

“But Sia carries your sister’s heart.”

“Just as Mathilde always wanted,” said Conrad. “Since the first day she saw her, she wanted her. She would have set her free, had she known I would not find her again. She thought Sia would be safe here, where she could look over her. But she was wrong.”

“You tore Sia apart anyway,” said Viv, reaching for the handle of the walk-in. “You did it without putting her to sleep. You did it in front of a crowd, like she was an animal.”

“She was just a human,” he said.

“Not any more,” said Viv.

“How do you know that? Did she survive the experiment?”

Viv looked over to see Conrad studying her. Viv smiled.

“You are weak,” she said. “And Sia has Mathilde’s heart.”

“You said that already,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “You are mine, Genevieve, what are you keeping from me?”

“You underestimate us,” said Viv. She opened the cooler and walked in, running her finger over the hundreds of vials of dark red blood. Heart’s blood. From Mathilde’s heart. A vial for each child. She felt Conrad rise shakily and stand at the door of the cooler.

“How much do they need?” she said.

“Naught but a drop,” said Conrad. “Injected deep into their hearts.”

“They had lives before you came,” she said, her back to him. “They were happy, safe. They were loved.”

“Love doesn’t last,” he said. “They’ll be safer now that they’re mine.”

“And you’ll do what to them? Make them do your bidding?”

“They will not keep to the shadows,” said Conrad. “I’m finished with trying to make humanity feel comfortable. What was your word? Safe. There is no safe. I will show the people what fear is. I will set their children loose upon the world and they will know what it is to fear.”

“And what of the old ways?” said Viv. “The laws that you are so interested in. What of beauty and darkness and shadows?”

“We are terrifying enough in the light,” he said. “What use have I for darkness?”

“They are all dying up here in the light,” she said. “Can you hear the music?”

“What music?” he said.

“You can’t hear her?” said Viv. “It’s her, you know. Sia. She’ll be the end of you.”

“I’ll make her see,” he said. “She can still be mine.”

“She has Joshua Flynn’s blood in her veins.”

“And you have mine,” said Conrad. “And yet, you are no friend, are you, Genevieve? Why do you disobey? How can you? You are meant to be mine.”

“I only speak the truth,” said Viv. “You shouldn’t have lied to me.”

“When did I lie?” His mouth twitched as though he were fighting a smile.

“You said I wouldn’t feel it,” she said. “You said I wouldn’t ever think of it again.”

“I also said you’d killed him.”

Viv turned then and stared at Conrad. He pulled the tube out of his chest with a sucking sound. He gritted his teeth and tossed it on the floor. And then he smiled.

“Humans are always so eager to believe,” he said. “You may have cut him, yes. But I healed him. He’s here, now. Do you want me to pull out his IV? Do you want me to wake him and show him what his mother has become?”

“No,” Viv said, her voice a whisper. “And yes.”

“Do not cross me ever again,” said Conrad, pulling his shirt back on. “Unless poor little Hunter deserves to die a second time.”

“You have no right,” said Viv, her voice coming from somewhere deep inside of her. Somewhere raw and dark. Somewhere full of shadows. Her teeth came down.

“I have every right,” said Conrad. “And soon, I’ll have an army of sweet children. When they get older, we’ll have enough heart’s blood to make my real army. And when that time comes, we’ll cut out their borrowed hearts and put them into beings more powerful. They’re really just incubators, until they get stronger. Then little Hunter really will die, though his heart will beat on. Now, Dr. White. Come prepare the blood to inject into the children’s hearts.”

“I would like to see him.”

He gestured weakly. “Be my guest. Find him if you can.”

Viv turned to the sea of tiny faces, swallowing thickly. She walked down the aisles, up one row and down another. So many children that her brand new heart hurt at the sight of them. She felt something expanding in her chest as she walked down the perfect lines of beds. Faces of every color, every shape, every size. Babies, toddlers, pre-adolescents, all turned to monsters and forced into servitude. She could help them. She could end this.
 

And then Viv stopped, unable to move, unable to breathe.

“Hunter,” she moaned. She fell to the ground at the side of his bed. He was small, so small. Impossibly small in his little bed. His face was streaked with dirt and his eyes were crusted with sleep, but he was otherwise perfect. Viv pulled the sheet down to see the scar on his tiny chest.

“Perfect,” she said. She watched as something dripped onto Hunter’s face, and realized she was crying. She smiled through her tears, stroking his tiny face. He was so cold. She was going to warm him. She was going to warm all of them.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to Hunter, and she kissed his face, she kissed his fingers, she kissed his cool little head. She bundled him back up under his blanket and took a step away, unable to tear herself away.

He’s here,
she thought.

Stay strong,
said Sia.

I don’t know if I can, I’m so weak.

Strength, dear Genevieve,
said Sia.
For them. All for them.

Viv forced herself to walk away from her boy. Each step felt like plunging into cold water, growing colder with each step away from Hunter.
 

“Please,” she said, when she stood in front of Conrad.

Conrad stood, gray as a corpse. He took her hand in his. Viv felt the pain filling her up. But something else, too. Strength.

“I’m stronger than you know,” said Viv. Someone said that to her long ago. Otherwise how did she know to say it?

“That’s more like it,” said Conrad. “You know, you talk about the old ways like you know them. In the old days you wouldn’t even be here. Think of it. A black woman. How odd would that have been?” He laughed. And that’s when Viv saw the small girl. She would know her anywhere. And she knew why Sia had come, and why she hadn’t left.

She was looking at Sia’s daughter.

Viv turned to look at Conrad and she smiled.

“You are not going to survive this,” she said.

“Who’s going to kill me?” he said. “You? Joshua?” He laughed.

Viv stared at him. “She’s not like anyone else. She won’t forgive you. And neither will I.”

“She’ll have to,” he said, anger in his voice. “She’ll have no choice. And I do not seek your forgiveness, Genevieve. You are mine.”

“You’ve torn our children apart and put them together again,” said Viv. Conrad looked at her quickly and Viv smiled.

“What do you mean
our
children?”

“You didn’t know,” she said. Viv looked to the child again, the spitting image of Sia.

Her name is Ana,
Sia told her.

“Ana,” Viv said aloud. “Her name is Ana.”

“How do you know that?” said Conrad. He stumbled weakly toward the child, and Viv saw fear cross his face. The child of his enemy’s lover, the lover who had grown as strong as his enemy. Stronger, perhaps. Viv laughed.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she said.
 

“Tell her. Tell her I didn’t know. Tell her I’m sorry.”

“How weak you are,” said Viv.

“You’re just a woman,” he said. “What do you know?”

“I know much,” said Viv. “I know Sia, a creature who barely lives in the world. She’s a beautiful spider who draws you to her. And you’ve dismembered her offspring. And mine. Do you fear her, I wonder?”

“I’ll kill her if I have to.”

Viv cocked her head. “Can you hear it now? Can you hear the music?”

Conrad turned at the sound. It filled the basement and his eyes filled with tears.

“I have work to do,” said Conrad. “I’ll make her see. I’ll make her see the beauty of it all.”

“The beauty,” said Viv.

He grabbed Viv by the throat.
 

“You will do as I say or your son will suffer, Genevieve.”

“My son has suffered already,” she said, breaking his hold easily. Conrad stumbled back, his eyes watching her, narrow and suspicious. “But I have suffered more.”

“What are you doing?” he said. “You cannot.”

“I cannot what?” said Viv. “You may have made me, Conrad, but you do not own me.”

“Stupid woman,” he hissed.
 

Viv could feel the Revs dying in the grounds above them. She felt the roots pushing down on the ceiling, forcing spiderweb cracks in the concrete. She could hear Sia playing her violin like a mad demon straight from Hell. She could feel it all and she closed her eyes at the ecstasy. Dust rained down from above, and rubble rolled down the stairs like marbles, scattering around their feet. The roof above rumbled and something stabbed through the cracks, shoving itself through the concrete, stopping just above Viv’s head.
 

Conrad fell back onto the floor, and Viv stepped toward him, reaching up to grasp the hawthorn root in her hand.

“Enough,” said Conrad. “Enough of this. I command you to stop, girl.”

“I’m no girl,” said Viv. “My name is Genevieve.” She snapped the root easily. She was so strong now. Stronger than she had ever been. Gloriously powerful. She could feel it now in her hands and arms and back. She didn’t have to wait for Sia.

Conrad pushed himself away with his feet. He had given too much of his blood, she could feel it. Barely a trickle left in his veins.

Stop, Genevieve,
said Sia.
Leave him for Joshua.

“No,” said Viv. “Tell me again what you’re going to do to the children.”

“I won’t,” said Conrad, shrinking away from her, a puddle of shame on the dirty floor. “I’ll spare him. I’ll spare your boy.”

“And what of Ana?” said Viv, examining the root she’d snapped off. She traced it to the point with a finger, licking her lips.

“Yes! And Ana! Anything for you, Genevieve. You are mine, I will do anything you ask.”

“I’m not yours,” said Viv, turning her eyes to him. She saw him shudder. “What of the other children?” she said, taking another step toward him.
 

“They will be ours,” said Conrad. He attempted to smile, but quailed under Viv’s stare. “We can do as we wish with them. They will be our army.”

“They will be no such thing,” said Viv. “They’re children.”

“They will not be children if we bring them to life,” said Conrad. “They will be monsters like us. Devils. They will be terrifying.”

“And I will be their mother,” said Viv.

“What?”

“We will be a family,” said Viv, smiling again.

Conrad shook his head. “You cannot be a mother to such as these, Genevieve.”

“I can,” said Viv. “I will.” She crouched down next to Conrad. “I’m afraid you will not live to see it, though.”

“Please,” he said.
 

“Can you hear the music now?”

“Yes.”

“She’s here.”

“Why her?” Conrad said, seeming to forget his fear. “Why do you have this connection to her? You are just women.”

“We are mothers,” said Viv.

“Mothers are supposed to be weak,” said Conrad.

Viv let her teeth slide down. “And you’re supposed to be dead. We all are.”

“Please, spare me.”

Viv raised the root above her head as the music stopped. She heard someone screaming far, far above. “You have caused me so much pain. You took my son. You took my job and my husband. You took my life. And then you took my soul. What makes you think I have it in me to forgive?”