Possession-Blood Ties 2 (14 page)

“I’ve heard.” She extended her hand. Her grip was powerful. “Call me Angie. I hear you throw a mean New Year’s party. Sit down.”

“Some are meaner than others.” He nursed his crushed hand discreetly as he sat opposite her. “What’s going on?”

She pulled a cigarette from the pack and offered it to him. Though he’d given up smoking before his death—finding tables in restaurants had been an annoying affair in the healthconscious nineties—he accepted it gratefully. His nerves were painfully raw from the ordeal of the last few days. He’d try anything to take the edge off. Angie leaned back and regarded him a moment, before admitting, “I just came down to make sure you survived this long. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to tell you.”

“Start with who put you up to this.” He mimicked her casual pose and inhaled a lungful of the acrid smoke. Centuries of indulgence hadn’t been wiped away by death. He didn’t cough or falter, and even produced a perfect smoke ring on the exhale. “Was it my father?”

“Does anyone else have the kind of connections required to bring someone back from the dead?” She raised an eyebrow.

He’d suspected the Soul Eater had done this. Still, icy cold crept up his spine now that his suspicions had been confirmed. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Didn’t say. He gave me two-hundred thousand to get the job done. I would have asked for more if I’d known how much work goes into it. But you don’t break a promise to the big S.E.”

“Address him properly,” Cyrus snapped, out of habit more than respect. How could his father have done this to him?

It wasn’t as if Jacob Seymour had ever held any faith in his youngest son. The very notion of him needing Cyrus for anything seemed far-fetched. But here that failure of a son was. Alive. Human.

But for how long? “I take it you’re going to change me back?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

That didn’t surprise him. “He probably expects me to earn it. Father always did have a flair for the dramatic. Who’s coming to get me?”

“Don’t know yet.” She took a long draw off her cigarette. “We’re waiting for word.”

“I can’t wait much longer. I’m almost out of food down here.” He carefully kept the “we”

out of his statement. Though companionable enough, this woman had accepted money to raise the dead. She was dangerous, and definitely not someone he wanted to further expose Mouse to.

Angie nodded. “It’ll be taken care of.”

“Good.” He rose. “I take it we’re through here?”

She smiled. The expression was monstrous on her warped face as she stood, as well. “But before I go…”

She pulled an envelope from her leather vest, offering it to him. Frowning, Cyrus lifted the flap and pulled out the contents.

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Polaroids . Of him and Mouse lying side by side on the narrow bed the night before. His arm curled protectively around her slender shoulders, his head resting against the curve of her neck.

“Glad to see you’re getting on so well down here.” Angie’s face morphed back to its human form. She looked better as a vampire.

His mouth dry, Cyrus slipped the photographs into his pocket. He said nothing, but he knew what they meant. The Fangs knew he valued Mouse. That knowledge was a formidable weapon, one he hadn’t even known the existence of until he saw it with his own eyes. They could hurt her, to test him, to force him to cooperate, for no reason other than because it would be fun to torture him.

“It helps to know what we’ve got for bargaining material. Don’t you think?” Angie stubbed out her cigarette on the plastic tabletop.

His mouth dry, Cyrus nodded. “I suppose it does.”

He had to take a few steps toward the door before he could regain some of the confidence she’d shaken from him. When he did, he stopped and faced her. “Remember, I’ve got bargaining material, as well. I need her. I’m still too weak to care for myself.” A lie, but an easy one to tell. “If she dies, I die, and you lose your money.”

“Repaying your father’s money would be the least of my worries.” Angie folded her arms over her chest. “Besides, I could always just raise you again.”

Cyrus watched her until she disappeared at the top of the stairs and closed the door behind her. He raced up and locked it, mentally berating himself for not requesting the key or whatever other method Angie had used to get in.

Mouse still perched on the edge of the bed, her thin arms wrapped around her middle. She leaned over her knees, sniffling softly.

“Damn it.” Cyrus couldn’t help the curse as he hurried down the stairs. “What’s the matter?”

She looked up, large eyes red with tears. “What will happen when you’re gone? What will they do to me?”

“It will be all right.” He hated himself for the empty promise. He had no idea what would happen when his father sent for him. But he sat beside her on the bed, unable to stop the hollow vows tumbling from his lips. “I’ll make sure no one hurts you.”

You weren’t able to save the rest of them, a mean voice in his head taunted. It didn’t bother him so much to be reminded of his past failures to save his companions, but that he suddenly thought of Mouse in the same category.

“And what if they…change you?” It seemed as though the words were hard for her to say.

“If you become one of them, will you kill me?”

Probably. He thought of what his father had done to Nolen, forcing him to devour the one person he’d wanted to protect with his last human breath. If the Fangs decided to change Cyrus and lock him up with Mouse, the time would come when he would kill from necessity. And if his father did the deed himself, Mouse still might die at his hands. Cyrus didn’t tell her that, though. “No. I won’t become some mindless monster. I promise, I will never hurt you.”

But he had the distinct impression they were both already dead.
8

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Victim of Circumstance

M ax Harrison had never liked Michigan . Yet somehow, he kept ending up there. He’d seen Carrie off in Ziggy’s old heap of a van with a silent prayer and a dozen false assurances that the vehicle would make it. He didn’t like lying, but they didn’t have another option. He’d need his car to track down Nathan, and the van’s windowless back would at least give Carrie shelter from the sun.

She’d left him the keys to the apartment and told him to make himself at home, but she’d wanted to make it as far as she could before daylight. As if he could make himself at home in a city where everything shut down at nine o’clock. He trudged up the stairs to Nathan and Carrie’s apartment, shaking his head. The last place he’d stayed for any length of time was Chicago. Blues and booze until the wee hours of the morning. Nothing could beat it. But he couldn’t stay there for long. There were too many memories of Marcus. Too much pain.

Now, he wished he could be there. He wished he could be in Zimbabwe. Anywhere but here.

He didn’t doubt for a minute Carrie’s story. Nathan probably was possessed. But while she was full of hope and determination, all Max could muster was a lesser level of boneweary despair. Demonic possession of a vampire wasn’t something that could be cured without drastic measures. Those measures usually involved the sharp end of a wooden stake. Though it was hard to imagine actually killing Nathan, Max knew it would be far better for him to die than be miraculously cured and have to face the death he’d visited on innocent people. Max dropped his bag at the end of the couch out of habit. The last time he’d stayed in the apartment had been the time he’d helped Nathan and Carrie kill Cyrus. She was a piece of work, running off to face him again after all he’d done to her. Max wasn’t sure if, given the same circumstances, he could have managed it.

In the kitchen, he looked guiltily through the refrigerator. No matter how many times someone told him to make himself at home, he always felt as if he was snooping. He grabbed a bag of blood and poured it into the teakettle, praying Carrie hadn’t tampered with the contents for one of her experiments.

The hiss of the burner reminded him how quiet it was in the empty apartment, and he went to the stereo. Glancing over the rows of CDs, he found it easy to tell which were Nathan’s and which belonged to Carrie. Nathan was all about mellow, moody classic rock. He had a decent selection of Zeppelin and some Floyd. Carrie had a small but respectable jazz collection and some pop albums of questionable taste. Like oil and water. Max chuckled to himself as he slid a Led Zeppelin album into the CD

player. The machine cycled, then the opening notes of “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You”

wafted from the speakers.

“Excellent,” Max affirmed to no one in particular. He went to the kitchen, poured the warmed blood into a mug and seated himself at the cracked Formica dinette table. With no time left to canvass the city, he decided to wait out daylight and start at dusk. Wherever Nathan was, he’d find him. He owed it to his friend to let him die at the hands of a vampire, not some werewolf assassin who reeked of dirt and campfire smoke. The only thing Max hated more than werewolves were hippies, and even he had a hard time telling them apart.

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As the tempo of the music slowly picked up, he stood and wandered around the apartment, sipping his dinner. Everywhere he looked were books with creased spines, notebooks and scraps of paper, framed snapshots on the shelves. It was a home. Someone lived here.

He picked up one of the photos. It was a souvenir snapshot people buy at amusement parks, a freeze frame of a moment on a roller coaster, at night, of course. Never in the entire time he’d known Nathan had Max ever seen him look like he was having that much fun.

Carrie was good for him. An ache grew in Max’s chest. It would be hell on earth for her when Nathan died. Not just because of the blood tie. Whether or not they admitted it to themselves or each other, Carrie and Nathan were in love. The constant, fevered wind-up of the song started to grate on Max’s nerves. He moved to change the track, and the floorboard creaked. Another creak echoed from the other end of the hall.

He straightened. So, it wasn’t the racing tempo of the music that set him on edge. Someone was there, lurking in the dark, empty rooms. He hoped it was just a garden-variety prowler.

The only weapon at his immediate disposal was a wooden stake. He slipped it into his back pocket, just in case, and retrieved a knife from the kitchen. The plan was to charge in, knife waving, in full monster face. Whoever had broken in would go out the way they’d come and hopefully not break their necks on the way down the fire escape or drainpipe or whatever they’d shimmied up. He changed his face to feeding mode and ran down the hall. Two steps into Nathan’s bedroom, a spike-heeled, leather boot caught Max in the forehead. The wicked thing cut across his face, and he stumbled back, the surprise flashing his vampire face back to human. Two more blows, a punch to the stomach and a knee to his groin forced him against the wall, doubled over, and brought the monster back to his countenance.

When he drew in a gasp of breath through his mouth and nose, he caught the spicy scent of her perfume. Werewolf. DeCesare .

With a cry of rage, he launched himself at his assailant. She tumbled backward and he crushed her to the floor. Though he had a good forty pounds on her, she almost wriggled free. She clawed at his face with razor sharp nails, and he leaned back. It was all the space she needed to flip him onto his back and aim a stake at his heart. He froze.

“Nolen Galbraith,” she wheezed in a strange accent, “by order of the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement, you are sentenced to death for the murder of Marianne Galbraith and Christine Allen. How do you plead?”

“Turn on the light,” he said between deep breaths. You dumb bitch, he added silently. She squinted in the darkness. “Nolen Galbraith?”

“No. Nice try, though.” Max shoved her off him and stood, brushing at his clothes as though they had been soiled.

In the faint illumination from the mercury light outside, he recognized her. “You met with the general last night. Or should I say, ‘your boyfriend, the general’?”

“You turn on the light,” she demanded, an exotic lilt adding haughty authority to her words. “I do not have the same quality night vision as you do.”

“Could that be because, oh, I don’t know, you’re not a vampire?” But he turned on the

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light anyway, because she still had a stake and he was curiously allergic to wooden splinters through the heart. “I always thought dogs could see in the dark. Or is that cats?”

“General Breton sent me. Apparently he was worried about an assassin who is not capable of finishing the assignment.” Her last words morphed into a growl.

“That still doesn’t explain why you’re in my friend’s house. Especially when he’s running berserk on the streets. What the hell were you thinking, coming here?” The knife was on the floor at his feet. He just had to figure out a way to grab it without getting skewered. Thankfully, she didn’t appear to have noticed his frantic glance downward. “I could ask the same of you. You are walking around, drinking their blood supply, using their appliances. It seems like you might be playing both sides.”

“There’s only one side, sweetheart. I hate to disappoint you, but Nolen—” Max sketched quotation marks with his fingers “—is on it.”

“He has killed.”

“Under very extenuating circumstances!”

Bella shook her head. “There are no extenuating circumstances. He has killed, he will be killed.”

“Unless I kill you first.” Max expected to see some reaction in her eyes, but there was none. Just the cold, calculating stare of a predator who lived only for the hunt. Moving faster than any mortal creature he’d ever seen, the werewolf threw the stake at him. He ducked it and scooped up the knife. The wooden missile embedded itself in the wall, near where his heart would have been.