The Blood That Bonds (17 page)

Two sat down at the side of the road with
his seed on her hands and his blood in her mouth, arms across her
knees, head down, sobbing.

* * *

Chapter 4

Life in Shadow

Curbside. Sometime later.

She felt Theroen’s hand on her shoulder,
heard Melissa sigh beside her, felt a cloth cleaning her hands. Two
made some sound, pressed herself against Theroen, couldn’t stop
crying. He ran a hand through her hair, kissed the top of her
head.

“
Was it what you thought it
would be?” he asked at last.

“
No,” she said into his
chest, miserable. Theroen waited. At last, Two was able to stop
crying. She leaned against Theroen, sniffling, eyes closed. Melissa
was still holding her hand.

“
What was it
then?”

“
It was horrible. It was
beautiful.”

She didn’t see Melissa glance at Theroen, to
exchange with him a tiny smile. Two loosened her grip around
Theroen, sitting up and looking at him. “How can someone so awful
contain all of that beauty?”

“
The blood doesn’t care
about the vessel. Some vampires are like vigilantes. They take only
from murderers, rapists and the like. Others take only from
sixteen-year-old virgins. The truth? It doesn’t matter. The blood
is the same regardless.”

Melissa nodded. “It’s why we make our
choices the way we do. It’s not worth worrying about. Someone
catches my eye, and that’s that. I guess Theroen started you off
with this guy because you were already looking for some kind of
revenge?”

“
Yeah.” Two was trying not
to look at Sean’s corpse. Revenge against anyone seemed to be the
furthest thing from her mind.

“
It doesn’t matter though,
Two. You need to learn that. It’s mortal sentiment.”

“
Sorry. Never done this
before.” Two ran a hand across her eyes. The liquid was pink. She
stared at it for a moment, laughed incredulously.

“
There is nothing to be
sorry for. It is understandable. But as you can see, Two, you are
not human anymore.” Theroen stood, glancing toward the body. He
reached down and helped Two to her feet. She followed his glance
and grimaced.

“
I don’t even know why I
did … that.” She gestured toward the unbuttoned pants, the piece of
meat hanging out of them.

“
Part and parcel of the
thirst, Two. It’s a desire. A lust. They’re tied together,
particularly for those of us lucky enough to retain our sexual
capabilities.”

“
You’re a natural, to be
honest. Not many new vampires could have pulled off simultaneously
grilling the guy about his wife
and
keeping him mesmerized at the same time. Theroen
and I were impressed.” Melissa leaned down and, with an air of
complete indifference, put the offending item back where it
belonged. She hefted the body up on one shoulder like a sack of
potatoes.

“
What do we do with that?
With him?” The expression on Sean’s face, a mixture of horror and
pleasure, made Two queasy. She looked away.

“
Good question. After a
while, maybe ten, fifteen years, there’s not a ‘that’ to deal with.
Eventually you won’t need that much blood,” Melissa
said.

“
For the Ay’Araf and
Burilgi vampire strains, that’s almost immediate. Their fledglings
stop needing to kill within a week or two. Ashayt vampires … within
a few months. Eresh vampires go into a deeper trance and take much
longer to learn how to break it. Years. Melissa still kills
sometimes.”

“
No. I don’t.
She
does.” Melissa’s
voice was quiet.

“
My apologies,
Melissa.”

“
S’okay. It’s weird, Two,
but the stronger we get, the less we need. You’ll learn how to
control that mesmerism stuff. Then you can keep them from
remembering. They wake up feeling kind of crappy, figure it’s the
flu … end of story.”

“
You can purposely do
that?”

“
Oh, sure. One time I was
with these two guys and this other girl, and we were all getting
pretty into it, you know? And I was all hot and I started biting
without even really thinking about it, and then the girl
started
freaking
out, because this guy was, like, dripping blood on her, but he
had his eyes closed and thought she was, you know … just getting
off. So he keeps right on banging away at her, and I—”

Theroen cleared his throat. “Melissa, do you
have any stories that might illustrate your point without requiring
a detailed description of your various acts of debauchery?”

Melissa tilted her head, thinking. “No.”

Two laughed. “It’s okay. Sounds sort of fun,
before the screaming anyway. But that only tells me what to do with
something alive. Sean has, uh … moved on.”

Two tried to feel bad about this, but found
herself unable to manufacture any guilt. The truth was simple: this
man was as much a killer as she was, and it was difficult to be
remorseful about what she had done.

“
Well, we could just leave
him. The bite marks fade. Abraham says it’s something in our
saliva.” Melissa shrugged, an odd gesture with a body slung over
her shoulder. “Don’t know. I’m no biologist.”

“
There were others in the
bar,” Theroen said. “No investigation will find us, but it’s best
to take reasonable precautions. We can take him into the woods and
bury him.”

“
With what?” Two
asked.

Theroen and Melissa exchanged another
glance.

“
You’ll see,” Melissa said,
and began moving up the road toward the edge of town.

* * *

The lack of shovels proved to be of little
concern. Digging by hand is not, for a vampire, the difficult task
that it is for a human being. Fingernails do not break, flesh does
not cut or wear, strength does not flag.

Work proceeded rapidly. Melissa chattered
away at them. Two and Theroen were mostly silent, half-listening,
absorbed in the work.

“
This is good for you to
learn, anyway, Two. If you ever get caught away from someplace
safe, and the sun’s coming up, you can actually dig down and go
into the earth if you have to. It’s not the most pleasant way to
spend the day, but it works. I had to do it once when I pissed off
Theroen and he left me in the city. I was halfway through walking
back when I realized that I wasn’t going to make it in
time.”

At this, Theroen glanced up. “I have never
left you anywhere you did not wish to be left, Melissa.”

A moment’s pause, and she shrugged. “Must be
remembering it wrong. Anyway, it’s sort of funny. It’s not really
the bugs or worms that bothered me, or even the difficulty
breathing. It was the scent. I could smell everything rotting. It
was pretty disgusting.”

Melissa stopped working for a minute, a
far-off, quizzical expression on her face. “What the hell was I
doing out there anyway? I could have sworn we had a fight, Theroen.
You don’t remember anything like that?”

Theroen shook his head.

“
Guess I’ll have to trust
you. You remember everything.”

“
Largely, yes. It’s of no
real concern, Melissa.”

“
I suppose.”

Theroen stood, brushed off the knees of his
pants. The hole was done.

Melissa dumped Sean in with no more
reverence than if she were a farmer dropping a sack of grain. Two
felt as if she should say something, shook it off. Human sentiment.
She was no longer human. It was a waste of time, and Theroen and
Melissa were no doubt hungry. She joined them, tossing the dirt
back over the body with her hands.

Finished. Less than an hour, and they’d
managed to camouflage the hole quite well. Two’s watch said it was
nearly two in the morning.

“
Do you guys need to, uh …
eat?”

Theroen grinned. Melissa laughed, brushing
her hands together, trying to rid them of dirt.

“
Yes,” Theroen said,
turning and walking away from the grave. “But that doesn’t have to
take long.”

“
Ooh, are we going to get
to watch the master at work?” Melissa’s voice was merry as they
tramped through the woods.

“
If you’d like, though I’ve
never claimed to have mastered this particular aspect of our lives.
We can return to the town.”

“
We’re pretty deep into the
woods. Should we get the cars?” Two asked. She didn’t really mind
one way or the other, but it seemed impractical.

“
None of this is, or
particularly needs to be, practical, Two,” Theroen said. “It’s for
your edification mainly, and now is an opportunity for another
lesson. Keep up!”

Theroen turned, grinning, and took off like
a shot through the woods, moving faster than seemed possible. Two
felt her jaw hanging open, and closed it with a snap. Melissa
laughed and ran after Theroen, crying out for Two to follow her.
Two took a deep breath, and started to run.

* * *

The sensation was like nothing Two had ever
before experienced. She had no idea how fast she was moving, but it
seemed faster than even a trained sprinter could accomplish. And
such agility! It was as if she ran not through moonlit forest, but
on solid pavement. Her feet seemed to cope with the imperfections
of the ground by themselves, no longer requiring any conscious
effort. Theroen was far ahead, Melissa roughly halfway between him
and Two. Both of the older vampires occasionally turned their head
back, making sure they hadn’t outdistanced Two.

They reached the outskirts of the town in
less than ten minutes, slowing as they approached, and Two found
that she wasn’t even winded. Melissa was laughing, the noise pretty
and bright in the quiet streets, and Two joined her.

“
That was
amazing!”

“
Only the tip of the
iceberg, Two. I’ll take you through a vampire obstacle course
sometime. You can’t imagine what it feels like to take a five-story
jump.” Melissa sat down on the curb and looked at Theroen. “You
find one yet?”

“
Yes, that one.” Theroen
pointed to a small white ranch home to their left.

“
What’s special about that
one?” Two was confused.

“
When I don’t have the time
or inclination to be choosy about my food, I go with something easy
to attract. Young women, usually. Normally I would spend some … how
should I put it? Quality time with her, and then feed.”

“
I’m not sure if that
should offend me.” Two was smiling when she said it. Theroen
returned the grin.

“
Another thing I’ve learned
from other vampires: Sex is sex. Love is love. The first is a raw
biological process, the latter is something more.”

Two considered this. “But love makes sex
something more.”

“
Certainly. Which is why
the sex without love is merely gratification. Insignificant in its
implications. That much more pleasure, in addition to the blood.
Sex is sex. Love is love. I love
you
, Two.”

“
Oh, and how many guys
would like to be able to say
that
to their girlfriends, I wonder?” Melissa had taken
out a compact and was checking her eye shadow.

Two sat down next to Melissa. “A lot, I
think. How many girlfriends would be okay with it? I don’t know.
Probably not many.”

“
So are you okay with
it?”

Two looked at Theroen, who returned her
glance with the same cool grin that had so intrigued her on the
night she had first met him. She felt herself warming. The memory
of Sean was fading, and thoughts of how she might spend the rest of
the night were cropping up in her mind. Theroen, sensing this,
laughed slightly.

“
Yes,” Two said. “I’m okay
with it. He just watched me give the world’s deadliest hand-job,
after all …”

Melissa burst into surprised laughter before
pressing her mouth into one arm to muffle the noise. Theroen shook
his head, grinning. Two smiled, stood up, reached out on tiptoe to
give Theroen a brief kiss.

“
Let’s do this and go,” she
said.

Theroen nodded, closed his eyes, breathed
deeply. In a moment, the front door of the house opened, and a
young woman in her early twenties stepped out onto the porch. She
looked around, caught sight of the trio, and made her way toward
them. Dark hair, dark eyes, she was generously proportioned under
her nightgown. Two felt a momentary twinge of jealousy as the
moonlight caught the swell of the girl’s ample breasts, but fought
it down.

She stopped in front of them, seeing and not
seeing, swaying slightly. Theroen was standing in front of her but
off to the left. When he touched her cheek, tilted her head, moved
the hair from her neck, she sighed. Her nipples grew hard under the
cotton of the nightgown.

Two watched, fascinated. Theroen could kill
this woman, if he wanted to, and she would go to her death happily;
might even go in the throes of ecstasy, under the right conditions.
It was amazing.

It happened so quickly that Two almost
missed it. One moment, Theroen was lightly caressing her cheek. The
next, he had latched on to her neck. The woman gave a slight cry,
her hips bucked once, and then she slumped. Theroen held her,
drained her, and was done. He took a deep breath.