Blood To Blood (7 page)

“And the drinking of blood
while mortal is a part of this mystery?” Cici asked. “Have you ever seen
someone do this before?”

“Yes. Your brother Tunde.”

Brother? I went numb with
astonishment. I never knew anything about a brother named Tunde.

“He drank blood before his
change, and then went on a killing rampage.”

My brain started swimming.

“Did he have this hidden
place, too? Like Angel?”

“I do not know. But we do
know there was something in Tunde's makeup that contributed to his eventual
personality. At the time, we did not recognize the specific traits, but we see
some of the same traits in Angel.”

Hands on my shoulders pulled
me out of Cici's head.

“Angel, you okay?” Julietta
looked worried.

“Yeah,” I gulped. “I was just
somewhere else.” Sawyer’s hooded eyes regarded me thoughtfully.

I tried to shake the yucky
feeling of dread, but between being in Cici's head and recalling Mom’s words, I
failed. I reached for a thermos and decided to lose myself in the music.

LaLa had a great verse for
track No. 97, and to strengthen the rhythm of her flow, Sawyer suggested
stepping into the sound booth to record her idea. Julietta joined as a human
beatbox, and Sawyer went in with a jimbe drum to beat out the rhythm of the
track. Someone had to sit at the board, so I volunteered.

It was also a good way to
stay away from all of them.

“Apple Pro Logic DAW,” Heist
said as he plunked himself down beside me. “Can't wait ‘til I get my own.” He
pointed to the monitors. “Down there, he's got the turntable set up. This board
can mix analog as well as digital, so he can throw in all that obscure stuff
you heard. He gets a lot off vinyl.” He pointed to a collection of actual vinyl
albums in a cabinet. I nodded in awe and took a long swig from the thermos.

Sawyer's movements in the
booth caught my eye. He was giving me the signal. I hit the “record” button and
the console lit up like a bunch of crazy fireflies. The track started and Heist
lowered the levels slightly. LaLa started spitting her rap and Heist's head
started nodding in time. She'd found a true fan in him, and maybe something
more, seeing the way he watched her through the window.

They finished the eight bars.
Over the intercom, Sawyer suggested a second take; and
Julietta agreed,
saying she heard a counter-melody in her head. W
ith
a nod, he gave the signal once more. I pressed the button again. As the track
began, I heard yet another melody in harmony with Julietta's. Excited, I sang
the melody line before belting out a rift that complimented LaLa's peppery
delivery. My eyes were closed as I felt the track’s hypnotic rhythm mix with
LaLa’s flow and the melody I was singing. I opened my eyes and my peripheral
vision took in Heist, who seemed like he was rocking to the music. It wasn't
until he started to fall when I realized there was something wrong.

Heist was convulsing. 

Maybe an ingrained respect
for the soundboard caused him to fall not forward, but to the side to avoid
interrupting the recording process as he hit the floor, where he gasped for
breath. I pounded the intercom button. “Sawyer! It's Heist!”

Sawyer raced out of the booth
and ran to Heist's jacket, where he extracted an inhaler. He applied the
medication, but there was no response. I began pumping Heist’s chest and Sawyer
breathed into his mouth. CPR. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, repeat.
Still, I heard no heartbeat from Heist. LaLa frantically screamed into the
phone with 911. But it was too late. Heist, the intern who showed so much
promise, was gone.

Sawyer stubbornly kept
breathing into him. Stunned, I stopped pumping and eventually Sawyer, struck
with the futility of our efforts, stopped too.

Julietta, crying, turned to
LaLa and reached for her hands, which had turned into bloody fists from beating
the floor. I saw the blood flowing from her hands, but it left me cold. This
scene felt too much like when Mr. C. passed out over the keys. And then there
was what Mom said. There was something about me, and it was causing people to
get hurt. Or drop dead.

The panic started deep in the
pit of my stomach. I scooted on my bottom along the floor into the nearest
corner, where I cowered in horror.
I'm almost there
, I heard Cici's
voice.
I’m calling Dad. Stay calm!

Her command came too late as
a wave of panic took control and lifted me off the floor. To keep from floating
into the air, I scuttled under the soundboard, where I fit perfectly in the
small space between the bottom of the board and the cabinet with the hard
drives. My head was pressing painfully into the board. Crying and terrified, I
gripped the heavy feet of the console to keep my skull from being crushed.

Sawyer, his eyes glazed,
looked up from where Heist's body lay and saw the state I was in. “Angel, you
did all you could do.” His voice broke as he reached for my hand.

The doorbell rang. I heard
Julietta say, “Dr. Brown…?”

Dad swept in and took in the
situation with eyes that missed nothing.  “I was only a few blocks away
and on my way to the hospital when I heard the EMS call,” he explained. He knew
immediately Heist was dead, but had to go through the mortal motions of making
sure. As he did, his lips moved quickly, as if he was chanting a spell under
his breath.

I felt calmer. Soon, I came
back down to the ground, and with the pressure around my head and shoulders
gone, I could breathe properly again. I sucked in a large amount of air.

Dad made a note in his book
and put away his stethoscope. “He’s gone,” he announced before administering to
LaLa's bloody hands. “I’m sorry you kids had to go through this.” EMS arrived
through the open door. Dad gestured toward Heist's body, shook his head with
meaning, and gave the time of death. “They're in shock,” he added and pointed
to the rest of us. The second attendant started with me, as if I looked like
the one in need of the most help.

When Cici arrived, she went
to everyone in turn, helping to distribute water, blankets, and words of
encouragement. My body was numb and felt strangely distant. I watched Cici,
thinking she should have studied medicine instead of architecture. She caught
my eye and continued talking to LaLa as she broadcast her thoughts to me.
Dad cast a spell to calm you down. You were freaking out, and now you won't
feel much of anything until we get you out of here.

I was too exhausted to even
nod in acknowledgement. After a little while, she finally came to me. “I'm
taking her home,” she said. They all stared at me.

You look catatonic
, Cici conveyed in order to explain the
concerned looks on their faces. They regarded me as if I was the second
casualty.

And I guess I was.

Because in some way I
couldn’t explain, I knew that if Heist hadn't sat down next to me he'd still be
alive. I failed to stifle a low moan.

Dad directed Cici to take me
home and straight to bed, and to keep me warm along the way.
Let them think
Angel is in shock,
I heard his telepathic instruction clearly.
She is
changing and this will be the cover for why they will not see her for a while.
I will be home soon, after I accompany the body back to the morgue and do the
necessary paperwork.

I walked like a zombie. Cici,
fighting the urge to pick me up, bundled me in my coat, gathered my things and
assisted me. I hated what I was becoming and wanted to die, too.

“You’ll get your wish soon,
sis,” Cici whispered into my ear as we slowly moved down the steps, down the
block and into the cover of night. “Tonight you go home to die.”

And with that, she rocketed
off the pavement with me curled up and weeping in her arms.

T
he sound of screaming woke me up. I was
confused, until the violent-colored sound waves pouring from my mouth clued me
in.

I was the one screaming.

It felt like my skin was
being torn apart inch by square inch and stitched back together. My eyes felt
like bubbling eggs in a frying pan. The angle from which Cici looked down on me
told me I was lying on my back, probably in my bed. Could I move? I wasn’t
sure; my body felt like a lump. No arms or legs, just throb.
Cici… Help me!

It's The Change, Angel.
The Shimshana rite of passage.
She turned away. “This is my fault. I stupidly thought I had enough time to
take you through everything, as if it were a class. I was a silly fool.” She
turned back to me, and her eyes glowed a faint red. “Crash course. Your body’s
becoming immortal. It’s literally changing as I speak. It’s changing as you
scream. You may feel as if your skin’s being ripped apart. That's because it
is. The molecules and the cells are evolving into a different substance. This
is the death of you. And the birth of you.”

“How long?” I panted.

“Three days.”

Seriously?

Suddenly it was clear why The
Change had been such a mysterious topic. If I'd known it would hurt this much,
I'd have jumped into the Charles River.

“This is how we come to be.
Shimshana. We’re not made, we can only be born. You’ll emerge from the fire
like a phoenix. Still hear me, Angel?”

Yes!
I thought through the murky agony. My
mouth was incapable of making sane sounds.

“There are many blood
drinkers. Some are invincible; others are as weak as the smallest insect
crawling along a gravestone. And then there are many in between. We’re the
prototype.”

She said all of this
matter-of-factly while placing a wet towel on my forehead. It steamed on
contact with my skin.

“Yes, you’re burning up, but
that's normal. Your body temperature’s rising and will stay much higher than
your old mortal temperature. Now you, too, can turn rooms red, just like Mom.”

I tried to laugh, but my
teeth, gums, and lips hurt too much. Just then there was a tearing that sounded
like something emerging from the area of my stomach.

“Your new digestive tract. It
is changing into one that processes blood effectively.” This was Dad's voice,
and I opened my eyes to see that it was now night. I must have fallen asleep,
or passed out.

Kill me now
was my only thought.

“You will get the death you
wish for.” Now it was Mom's voice. “You will die and be reborn to the heat of
the sun. It is our natural state to walk in the sun and absorb its rays.” Her
voice was a soothing drone, as if her intention was to lull me back to sleep.
“We are not like vampires, who must hide from the very thing that keeps our
planet alive. We
are
alive.”

“It hurts, Mommy,” was all I
could say.

“Leave the pain, Angel.” She
kissed my forehead. “Separate from it. I know you can do it.”

I imagined myself floating
over my own body and the pain went away. Ahhh, that felt much better. I looked
down at the part of me that was still lying on the bed. I was completely
encased in a gauzy, threadlike substance. A cocoon. It shrouded every inch of
my body except my eyes, nostrils, and ear openings, which Mom worked to clear.

Again, I wondered how all
this Change stuff would affect my life. For the millionth time, I wondered if
I’d still be able to sing. What if The Change altered my voice? The agony of
this thought, of never being able to sing again, was just as intense as the
physical pain, but I couldn't escape it. The mental pain made me cry out with
an out-of-body scream that seemed to rip open a hole in the space around me and
cause images to rapidly stream through my mind.

There were images of myself,
my family, my girls. I even saw Sawyer. There were other faces that only felt
familiar, as if I would know them someday. I saw myself singing on a stage in
front of masses of people, more people than I ever dreamed would possibly be
interested in me. I saw record charts, and sales figures with numbers that made
me want to gasp. Was I seeing my future? I knew with my whole being that I was
born to sing, and no one or no state of being could take that truth away from
me. To not sing would be impossible because my existence depended on it.

As if in response to this
revelation, I saw more images; bleak, desolate, and grim. I was angry and alone
in a barren landscape. My eyes were solid red, my skin glowed red, and the air
around me was dark like a black halo. There were others with me, but despite
their clamoring presence, I felt more alone than I even thought was possible.

Bodies covered the landscape
as far as the eye could see; bodies of mortals, immortals, and beings I could
not identify. I’d somehow killed these beings and a feeling of power rose
within me like a dark thirst. I wanted more death, more destruction, and knew
without a shadow of a doubt I could bring it. I could make mortals and
immortals dance to a different song: the melody of anarchy and the beat of
chaos. Was I seeing my life as it could be if I didn't follow the path that I
knew with all my heart was meant for me?