In Blood We Trust (36 page)

It was begging to give itself over.

“John . . . ?” she asked, as if sensing him coming around.

She got to all fours, bending over him, her loose hair brushing his chest.

Now he started to shake, caught between what he knew was right and what he knew was wrong.

She opened her mouth, her fangs glinting . . . her eyes red and full of blood promises, just as brutal as the splash of gore that'd covered him in the marketplace that day his parents had blasted apart from a sympathizer's bomb, right along with the only normal world he'd known . . .

With the last of his strength, Stamp took hold of a grenade on his belt, one filled with silver shards and designed to disable any vampire or were-creature.

He hugged it as he pulled out the pin.

“Run,” he whispered, barely able to say it with his throat closing up as it was, bringing wet heat to his eyes while he closed them and pictured the Mags he'd known before they'd gotten to GBVille.

She hissed, but it sounded more like a tiny cry, and then she was gone, the door in the roof banging behind her, the wind whooshing around him, leaving the air empty.

Stamp thought of how many humans he'd saved in his short lifetime. Now he was only saving one more, and it was the one that counted most of all.

He was still embracing the grenade, and his convictions, when it exploded.

A
t dusk, Gabriel woke up to the sound of screams.

He bolted from the couch in Mariah's domain, springing fang, on reddest alert, already crouched and ready for trouble.

Under the trapdoor, on Chaplin's blankets, Mags was letting loose, and Mariah was standing away from the new vampire as Mags flailed and made an earsplitting racquet.

Gabriel sped over to her, taking the young vampire's wrists in his grip and pulling her off the blankets. He peered into her eyes, consoling her.

Going limp in his arms, she slumped back to the floor. He checked her eyes. Misty.

He allowed his fangs to recede and backed off.

Just what they needed—a fledgling vampire in distress.

“Mags was with Stamp just before he died,” he said to Mariah as she stayed near the wall. “After he did himself in last night, she zoomed back in here and raged about it until she went dark at dawn.”

He glanced at Mariah, who must've changed into humanlike form and waited until after the same sunrise to sneak back into the hideaway. He hadn't seen her do it.

Now, she'd already dressed for the day, but she hardly looked put together. There were dark smudges under her eyes, as if she were plumb worn out. And in those eyes, he could see that his aloof explanations about Mags disturbed her. That she wished the moon were still full because that was the only time she knew him.

But just being this near to him, her vitals were also pumping, spelling out her desire for him.

As if to remedy that, she glanced at the visz monitors, breathing deeply. The views were peaceful, revealing an expanse of Badlands dirt that had settled back into place after the showdown last night.

“How did Stamp die exactly?” she asked.

“He loosed a grenade on himself while they were down in Zel Hopkins's room. When I read Mags's mind after she fled the scene, I could see all of what happened. But even before that, I felt the explosion.”

“Suicide?” Mariah asked.

Gabriel recollected that the same madness had engulfed her father after he'd grown weary of taking care of his wayward werewolf daughter.

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Stamp chose to remain what he's always been instead of switching sides. He couldn't stand a world where he'd have to be one of us. He was dying, anyway, from the wounds I gave him, and he didn't want Mags to heal him or exchange with him.”

Gabriel was still holding Mags's hand, and he let go of it. There was no reason to be touching her now since he'd swayed her.

As Mariah stayed quiet, Gabriel relaxed, noticing with one test of the air that Taraline was somewhere within the domain. The direction of her scent indicated that she was probably in the bedroom, no doubt still sleeping off the trying events of last night. Humans—or even creatures with a lot of humanity still in them—weren't as stalwart as vamps.

Gabriel jerked his chin toward the door that led to the common tunnels. “I've been meaning to see what kind of destruction the grenade left, and what's there of Stamp, too.”

“You're going to bury him?”

“There's probably nothing left to put underground.”

She wrapped her arms around her middle. It clearly hurt her to be near him, with her blood simmering and the threat of a full-moon change creeping up on her for the third night in a row. Most of all, it had to hurt that he didn't want to touch her anymore, that he had no need to.

Mariah shirked off his gaze, concentrating on Mags, whose dark hair spread over the floor, her gaze still sedated.

“How long will she be swayed?”

“I gave her enough for about an hour.” He shook his head. “When she first came to us last night and told us her secret, I knew it'd bring no good with it.”

“I think Taraline knew what Mags is,” Mariah said. “Or at least other shadows did. They know everything.”

Gabriel had never given Taraline a chance to explain when she'd brought up Mags last night. There'd been the Witches to plan for, as well as Stamp. Plus, he just hadn't given a shit.

Mariah started walking away, then halted. “She's going to need help, you know. Just like you did when you became a vampire and your maker wasn't round to teach you.”

Gabriel knitted his brow. He'd never wanted children, and even if this one consisted of a vampire in her late twenties, he couldn't see himself raising anyone.

Mariah didn't pursue the subject, though it remained in his mind. Maybe Mags could just go back to GBVille and be taught the ways of vampires there.

“God-all,” Mariah said, hugging herself harder as Gabriel flinched from the curse.

Her inner pain was just about radiating off her.

“Are
you
okay?” he asked. Then it occurred to him that she might've somehow run into trouble when she'd deserted him to roam free under the moon last night. “Did the shades harass you while you were out there?”

“No.” She sent him a glare, as if he should know better. “You don't understand anything anymore, do you?”

Yeah, he did, but he just didn't feel it. He was even starting to wonder why feeling for someone else even mattered when it threatened your survival, just as it obviously had done with Stamp when he'd chosen to die instead of accept Mags's offer of long life.

“Why're you still even here with me now if you couldn't care less?” Mariah asked.

“Because the last of the full moon's tonight.”

Her voice shook. “And that full moon gives you a rush, but only because of me, doesn't it? Is that why you're staying?”

He'd be able to explain it to her later, when they were both in a better place.

“It's not worth this,” she said, her voice gritty. “Staying with each other just for the sake of a three-night rush.”

“Why not?”

“Because either we'll be at polar ends for the rest of our existences or we'll be bad for one another in so many other ways.” She wiped a hand down her face. “You're at your best during our full-moon link—you're basically back in your gloaming phase—and I'm at my worst with my four arms and that sharp tongue. And when the moon
isn't
full, you don't want much to do with me while I sit here aching for you. Our imprint still works on me, but not you, unless there's that full moon.”

She sighed roughly. “I shouldn't want to be anywhere near you, but here I am, wishing for it, wanting to die rather than knowing I don't mean a thing to you at any time other than when I go into 562 mode.”

“We'll find a way to work with that.”

Was he saying it just because she wanted to hear it? Because the words reminded him of platitudes that you gave someone who had something you wanted, and you were only holding them off until you could get it again? For him, it was the promise of those three addictive full-moon nights in the future.

“I don't think there's a way this time.” She sank back against the wall again. “You don't love me anymore, Gabriel. Liam told me that you wouldn't be able to. You can devote yourself, but it's a gesture, not an emotion. You've evolved into something I can't understand.”

“We all evolve. You're even doing it with every full moon.”

“Is that how you see it? An evolution instead of a devolution?”

He cocked his head, which seemed to make her angry again. He could hear it in her raging pulse.

But maybe it wasn't just about him.

“However you want to put it, Gabriel, I have . . . cravings. And not just for Civil blood. Last night, I . . .” Shame seemed to color her face. “I started thinking about Chaplin.”

Instead of shock, a comparison hit Gabriel: 562 had never gotten along with Chaplin—it had even attacked him on the first night they'd met—but the origin had never eaten the Intel Dog.

Was Chaplin a lot like a Civil monster in 562's mind but, because it had wanted to win over Mariah, it hadn't devoured the canine?

“I'm becoming more like 562 every time,” Mariah whispered.

“No. You don't have its full blood. You weren't born a 562, only made into something like it.”

She turned those watery green eyes on him. “There's more to it than that. I've never really fit in anywhere—not since I was bitten. And I wanted to so badly. But finally,
finally
, I found a place where people looked at me without having that
Why don't you just go away?
cast to their gaze. And I found it with you.”

“In GBVille.” Where she was the power-blaster heroine, the goddess of the Reds. And he had worshipped her there, too, in his own way.

“I can't go back there because I'd only end up stirring up the Reds again, and that'd lead to me putting another wedge between them and the Civils,” she said. “And I can't go back to what we had there, either.”

“We can go other places,” he said.

Mariah paused. “Are you saying we should just keep running together like nothing's wrong?”

He assessed that, and her expression fell. It was his coolness again.

What they had now really wasn't enough for her. But he couldn't give her more than those three full-moon nights, and she'd told him that all she'd ever wanted was to belong. Now, with his gloaming over, she didn't even belong in
his
world, not as she wanted to.

He made her so sad, he thought as he watched her hold back the tears. And she was too human to want to live with that kind of isolation when she still loved him so much.

“We're always going to lose to the monsters in us, aren't we?” she asked.

Without waiting for an answer, she went to her room and closed the door behind her.

Gabriel stayed by the viszes, knowing that whatever he might say to her wouldn't change a thing. She was right—the monsters in them would always win. It would either ruin everyone around them or ruin
them
.

But those three nights . . .

He stood in front of the viszes, as still as the dusk on the screens. An hour passed without him moving a muscle and without her coming out of the room. Then another. Mags rested through it all because he kept going back to her and swaying her, dreading the noise she would make when she woke up again.

Eventually, a knock sounded on the door that connected the domain to the common tunnels. He went to unlock it, opening it to the oldster, who was still wandering around without clothing.

Nodding in greeting, the man didn't seem to mind that he was buck naked and skinny as a whipcord to boot. The were-creatures he knew had been pretty free with their appearance after coming out in GBVille, unlike most vampires, who didn't destroy clothing upon going monster.

When the door to Mariah's room opened, too, Gabriel switched his gaze there, expecting her to wander out. But it was only Taraline. She'd put her veils back on, even though everyone knew what was beneath the cloth now. With her, it was a matter of propriety.

She came close to Gabriel, and he saw that she was jittery. He knew why. Last night, when he'd come back inside, she'd seen the blood on him from where Stamp had sunk teeth into a spot by his ear. He'd hadn't even noticed it was there until she'd skimmed her finger over it before it'd healed, then put her finger into her mouth.

She wanted more now, did she? Not for survival, just for that rush.

Made sense that she'd have a yen for it, after going so long without it following Mariah's 562 infusion the night of the asylum rampage.

The oldster spoke. “Just wanted to see if everyone is recovered.”

“For the most part,” Gabriel said.

“Mariah's sleeping,” Taraline said. “How's Hana?”

The oldster shuffled his bare feet. “She's good. Chaplin's with her. Like Mariah, she's sleeping it off. Being pregnant might be starting to take a toll on her, but I've already got her restrained, just in case she wakes up and takes it into her mind that she needs to work her way out of the chains like she did last night and continue this vendetta against Gabriel.”

“A vendetta you seem to condone,” Taraline said.

“Listen, I realize it looks bad for me and Chaplin to have sat out that fight with the Witches and Shredders, but we knew Mariah would take care of them.”