Blood To Blood (4 page)

“Try?” she asked.

“Ewww.”

“You have to eat something,
dear.”

I started picking at the
beans. “Type A?” I inquired, glancing at her glass.

“Yes, a new donor.” A really
long time ago, Mom stopped ravishing mortals for moral reasons and now had
donors, willing mortals who offered their blood as food. The pitcher’s label
read “SEBASTIAN.” She put the glass under her nose and inhaled deeply. “He is
Brazilian. He has a fabulous, nutty taste. With a hint of citrus.”

Dad moved down the stairs. No
doubt Mom had sent him mental images of everything that had happened since
she’d pulled me through the door. “Do I hear my little honey bear hiding her
thoughts from me?” he called out in a booming voice.

At six-foot-eight, Dad filled
most rooms he stood in, which is why he built the house with
uncharacteristically tall ceilings. Bald and dark brown with a wiry build and
sculpted beard, Dad had an easy-going nature. Who’d a thunk that, one; he’d
been born in ancient Kush circa 250 A.D., or, two; he was a wizard with a craft
so epic he could level an entire city with a few incantations.

 “Hey Dad.” I didn’t
allow him to bear-hug me into his arms as usual, but remained in my seat, concentrating
on keeping my shield intact.

Dad doesn’t technically read
minds. Rather, thoughts are drawn to him as if they’re metal shavings and he’s
a magnet. Cici has the same ability. My effort was focused on stopping my
thoughts (easy prey because they concerned the family’s well-being) from
attaching to Dad and my sister. I could feel my face scrunched up with
concentration. He exchanged an “our baby’s growing up” look with Mom before
sitting down.

Cici flitted in and sat down
in the most neutral position she could find, making sure she was facing
everyone equally. At one hundred sixty-seven years old, she was my closest
sibling in age and looked the mortal equivalent of twenty.

Tall and dark chocolate like
Dad, she had the physique of a model. She’d recently dyed and cut her
waist-length hair, and it now lay blond and close to her scalp in a
face-framing style that emphasized her glittering, reddish-brown eyes and the
high cheekbones we both inherited from Mom. Her new haircut was kind of butch,
but it was balanced by the girly gear she liked to wear.

I missed braiding Cici’s
hair, missed how she would sit between my knees while my fingers flitted
through her locks and experimented with different patterns while we talked
about everything under the sun.

She was my only true
confidant.

There was a time when we had
no secrets, even after I, at the age of twelve, had asked her and Dad to not
read my thoughts. When they complied, I felt free to share with her every bad
thing I wanted to hide from our parents.

Shortly after that, Cici
informed me that she had constructed a special place in her mind for all of my
“adventures,” away from Dad’s unintentional prying. That so earned her forever
points.

But now, I avoided her eyes.
Ever since I’d decided to be serious about music, I’d kept it secret from her
for fear Dad may find out and blame her as an accomplice. No need for her to go
down in Mom’s flames with me.

As still as sighted stones,
my family watched me chew anxiously on the tines of my dinner fork. Finally, I
took a deep breath. “Mom, Dad. Kat Trio got a record deal. I’m dropping out of
school.”

Stunned silence. Cici glanced
nervously at Mom, who, from the look on her reddening face, had begun her
bloody thoughts. Right then, I knew I was dead meat.

D
espite Mom’s growing rage, I quickly
plowed ahead…while I still
had
a head. “I will pursue a recording
career. I will go on tour. I will play the Garden. I want to make records. Move
into my own place. And sing on TV, videos, and the radio.”

Cici grinned. Dad frowned.
And Mom literally saw red. The room took on her bad mood by turning a slight
shade of burgundy and gaining a few degrees in temperature. Typical Shimshana
anger stuff.

I retained a cool façade. I
was prepared for this.

“What did you say?” Mom said
in that certain tone.

“I want to—” I started
to repeat myself word for word.

 “Have you forgotten
your Mahá, Angelika?” she interrupted tersely.

Mahá was the coming-out party
for new immortals, which lasted for days. It happened immediately after The
Change and was one of the most important events in an immortal’s existence.
Other immortals from everywhere came to meet and observe the “New One.” Mahá
was as old as the oldest of us and there was no getting out of it.

“No,” I answered, deflated.
Spent, I released my shield, wanting nothing more than to climb into bed and
try to go to sleep.

 “Why, Angel? Why do you
feel the need to do this...pop star thing?” she asked.

“School sucks. I want to
sing.”

“You want to sing for
mortals,” Dad said.

“I want to sing for
everybody.”

He leaned forward, and
extended the first two fingers of his left hand. “May I?” he inquired gently.

I paused for a second, and
then nodded. He touched my temple. After a few seconds, he quickly pulled back
and, after a brief pause, patted me on the shoulder. “I see it,” he said. “You
want to change the world into a better place with the music in your soul. You
want to touch the hearts of people.”

“Yeah, what you said, Dad.”

Mom softened up and the
burgundy disappeared. “Angel,” she said.” You are beginning to mature. Surely
you see that now?” I nodded. “You most certainly will be Shimshana; it is in
your blood. And those mortals you want to sing for and be with so badly will
suddenly be food to you.”

Dumbfounded, I looked to Dad.

“It is difficult, honey, when
you are newborn Shimshana,” he agreed. “Your natural tendency will be to…hunt.”
The word hung in the air like a threat. “You may not be able to… control
yourself the way your mother and sister do.”

“You mean I could…” the words
stuck in my throat before rushing out in a blurt, “…want to kill Jules and
LaLa?”

My eyes darted to Cici, who
stared at the table. I eyed her with growing horror. “Cici? You didn’t…?”

She eventually met my eyes.
“It’s almost impossible to stop. Mortals smell good, the way a roasted chicken
still smells to you. It took me roughly fifty years before I got to the point
where I didn’t want, or need, to attack them.” She quickly looked back down at
the table.

“It is nothing to be ashamed
of,” Dad said. “It is your nature.”

“We make the moral choice to
find alternatives to hunting,” Mom added, “but at our core we are hunters. Your
band mates, your fans, your teachers, are all fleeting. We are immortal. We
cannot afford to see life the way they do.”

Tears dripped over my lower
eyelashes as I fought the mental image of killing my best friends for food. But
it wasn’t the thought that made me cry. It was the knowledge that, despite the
risk, I wasn’t going to stop. “I’m still going to do what I said I’d do,” I
said.

Dad, looking slightly
disgusted, shook his head. The room grew red and hot again. “Oooh, this child,”
Mom said from between clenched teeth.

“Let us talk, my love,” Dad
said, rising from the table and reaching for her hand.

She immediately focused on
his eyes, took a deep breath, and clasped his hand. “We are not done with you,
young lady,” she said, never taking her eyes away from Dad’s. “Wait here.”

“Um, okay.”

Clasping hands, Dad and Mom
faced each other. She kissed the space between his bushy eyebrows and the two
of them disappeared.

I whipped around to Cici.
“D’you see where they’re going this time?”

“Taj Mahál. She must be
wicked mad.”

I paced the floor as Cici
floated near her chair. “They’re going to keep treating me like a child,” I
complained.

“Hate to tell you this,
Bighead, but you are a child. You’re still mortal. And you’ve got no idea what
you’re in for.”

Before I could ask her what
she meant by that, Mom and Dad appeared in the same spot they vanished from.
“One hour and twenty-seven minutes,” Mom announced. Since she was able to
teleport by collapsing space and time, she always told us how long it took to
come to a decision as a way to communicate the gravity of the situation and the
amount of thought that went into its resolution. Anything over an hour was bad
news.

I looked at them expectantly.
Cici eyeballed them for a second before pressing her lips together in what
looked like disapproval.

“You have our blessing,” Dad
told me.

Confused, I glanced at Cici
and her frown. This was good news, wasn’t it? “Don’t understand...” I said
warily.

“We have one condition,” Dad
continued.

Uh, oh…

“We need to be locked to you
at all times,” said Mom.

“A mind lock! DAD!” A mind
lock was a total abdication of privacy. Dad would be able to virtually go
everywhere I went and see everything I saw, and even scarier, hear my thoughts
twenty-four-seven. It was like Big Brother in your cranium. But worse.

Cici stared at the table
again. I felt waves of panic. “Angel. Look at me. Take a deep breath,” Mom
said. “Put your feet back on the floor.”

My panic had lifted me inches
off the hardwood. Cici gasped in shock. “Since when do you levitate?”

“N-never! I mean since now!”
I didn’t even know how to get down. Fresh waves of panic started as I pushed
helplessly against the ceiling. Would the bizarro-ness of this day never end?
“Mom, help!” I pleaded.

She focused her gaze on the
space beneath my feet, and I touched down.

“Angel,” Dad said. “You must
know we will not invade your privacy. Of course we will filter out...certain
personal things. We need to stay connected because you are starting to shift.
We need to know when things like this,” he gestured toward my feet,
“circumstances you may not be able to control, happen.”

“Honey, soon you will have
your Mahá,” Mom said. “You would have to take some time off anyway, so if you
feel you want to leave school a little earlier, we are okay with that. We can
hire a tutor, and you can always go back to school.” Her eyes glanced toward
the part of the dining room floor above her and Dad’s stash of diplomas. “The
most important thing,” she continued, “is safety.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll blow
our cover? That me being in the spotlight would expose us all?”

My parents exchanged a
glance. Quick unspoken words passed from Dad to Cici, who crossed her arms. I
cleared my throat, feeling left out of the silent conversation.

“We had that concern when you
were younger,” Mom said, “but now we can see that you understand how important
it is that we remain, at least in the eyes of the mortal world, normal.”

“We know you will never do
anything to intentionally damage our life here,” Dad added before casting
another quick glance at Cici and giving an almost imperceptible nod.

“I’ve been lying to you all,”
I confessed and sighed in resignation. “I never stopped performing. I just
couldn’t stop singing.” More tears.

“I know,” Mom said tightly. I
was thrown off by the calmness she displayed at my admission of guilt. She
gently lifted my chin and wiped my tears away with a dinner napkin. “We want
you to be happy,” she continued. “If singing on some stage somewhere is what
makes you happy, so be it. You would not be the first immortal to do so.”

I exhaled in relief.

“But you cannot fool
yourself,” Dad said. “You have to be honest to yourself about who and what you
are.”

“Be honest about the fact I
might eat my friends someday. I get it.”

The looks on their faces,
though, told me there was more.

“Okay, Dad. I accept the mind
lock. But we really have to talk about what you are not allowed to see. After
all, I’m not a child anymore.” (Take that, Cici!) “And if you acknowledge my
maturity, why not tell me everything?”

Cici stared at Dad with a
see-I-told-you-so look and he stared back sternly. But eventually, he slowly
nodded in what looked like acquiescence. Cici beamed.

“Angie,” she said excitedly.
“You were probably wondering why I’ve been around for the past few years. Why I
moved back home.”

I had wondered about this in
the past because Cici was in a long-term relationship with Satchel, a hunky,
electricity-channeling realtor from Los Angeles.

“I’m here because of you.
Aurora helped me during my change and now it’s my turn to help you as much as I
can. To initiate you.”

Three-hundred-forty-eight
year-old Aurora was the next-youngest of my five brothers and sisters. She lived
in Sweden, and respectfully declined to embrace the mortal pretense our parents
touted.