The Blood That Bonds (20 page)

The transition that began on the night she
had met Theroen was still happening, the blood working on Two in
ways both subtle and obvious. Beyond the strength, and the speed,
it seemed also to be shaping her mind, maximizing it, bringing it
to its full potential. She was now able to read far more quickly,
comprehend on many more levels. The work, which would once have
left her confused and frustrated, now fascinated her. She continued
to read, glancing occasionally at the door, waiting for
Theroen.

* * *

Two’s ears picked up the noises several
minutes before her brain truly became aware of them. Shuffling from
down the hall. Heavy breathing. They came not from the direction of
Abraham’s chambers, but from Melissa’s.

She glanced at her watch. It had been more
than ninety minutes since Theroen had left. If he did not return
soon, Two would have to go hunting without him. She stood, set the
book on the table, crept out the door, edging toward Melissa’s
room. She hoped to determine which of the two women inhabited the
body before making her presence known.

The cry startled her not only because it was
unexpected, but because the voice belonged neither to Melissa, nor
Missy. It was a woman’s voice, gasping for air and begging. Two
heard fear in the voice, but also pleasure, longing, desire.

“
No. Please
wait!”

Two crept toward the door, curiosity
overwhelming her. Light shone from the interior of Melissa’s room,
spilling gold and amber onto the carpeting of the hall. Two glanced
through the crack, into the room, eyes wide. On Melissa’s bed lay a
girl about Two’s age, naked and sweaty, bleeding from a wound on
her neck, and another near her navel. She had straight dark hair
and brown skin, broad hips, heavy breasts. Melissa, or Missy, was
straddling her, unclothed as well. There was blood on her lips and
chin.

“
Wait?” It was obviously
Missy. The tone of the voice was enough. “Do you
really
want me to
wait?”

The girl was stammering, panting, staring up
at Missy with huge, confused eyes. Missy didn’t give her a chance
to form a coherent answer, but reached instead behind her, between
the girl’s legs. The girl cried out, arched her back, immediately
matched the movement of her hips to the rhythm of Missy’s hand. She
leaned her head back, gasping, baring her throat. Missy moved her
head down without hesitation, feeding. Two felt her own hunger roar
to life despite her horror. The blood, the sex; she could smell
them on the air. Missy pulled away again, licking her lips.

“
I can’t finish you
tonight, but I can start you. Theroen thinks he can leave me here
by myself. Fuck him. You’re mine, Samantha.”

Samantha looked up at her, semi-conscious,
dazed from passion and lack of blood. Her nipples were dark,
engorged with blood, standing hard, and Two noticed that there were
bite marks on her breasts, too. A gold chain hung around her neck,
its small crucifix pendant currently shoved aside, dangling in
Samantha’s left armpit.

“
Drink,” Missy said, and
ran a sharp fingernail across her own breast. She lowered it to
Samantha’s open mouth. The girl latched on to it like a child
intent on feeding. Missy gasped, turned her head, and caught sight
of Two. Their eyes seemed locked. Missy smiled, but in those eyes
there was only malice.

“
Mine,” she
said.

Two turned and walked back to her room on
legs that felt numb.

* * *

Three and a half hours had passed since
Theroen’s departure. The hunger was gnawing at Two, but she was
afraid to leave her room. Afraid that Missy might be waiting for
her, might be looking to show off the awful progeny she was
creating. Would her blood taint the girl’s mind? Would she and
Theroen find themselves now the only sane beings in an even larger
brood of vampires?

The door to her room opened. Two whirled,
expecting Missy, unsure of what she might do to avoid
confrontation. Theroen stood there instead, looking at her, calm as
ever. “You waited.”

“
You … we … there’s a
problem, Theroen. It’s bad. Really bad. Something really bad is
happening.”

Theroen nodded. His expression didn’t
change. “I am aware of it.”

“
But you didn’t stop
it?”

“
I wasn’t able to. I was
with Abraham. I believe he knew.”

He came into the room, sat down in a chair,
looked out the window. Two waited for him to explain.

“
There is nothing to
explain,” Theroen said after a while. “Abraham knew, yes. I’m sure
of it. He knew where Missy was, and what she was doing, and now
there’s another half-vampire lying unconscious in a cell in the
basement, and Melissa’s been crying for the past hour.”

“
Melissa?”

“
Missy let her back in, as
soon as she’d done it. Melissa woke up naked, lying next to the
girl. It didn’t take her long to figure out what had happened, but
she couldn’t make herself kill the girl. Perhaps it’s maternal
instinct. Perhaps it is Missy exerting her will. I do not know, but
Samantha is her child now.”

“
Couldn’t she just leave?
You said that half-vampires eventually revert.”

“
They do. It doesn’t
matter. They are bonded now. What will the girl do, if we take her
somewhere and leave her lying unconscious? She will wake up and
return home. Missy will eventually wrest control of the body away
from Melissa. When she does, she will go to the area of the city
where the girl lives. Tracking her from there will be
simple.”

“
So what do we
do?”

Theroen laughed. There was little humor in
the sound. “Yes. What do we do? We go hunting. Then I go to Abraham
and tell him what he already knows, and find out how he wishes me
to proceed.”

“
Would he care?”

“
I do not know. The
possibility exists that this is some sort of test, or lesson, or
final parting gift. He might tell me to do nothing. He might tell
me to slaughter the girl. To be honest, I’m not sure what the best
course of action is. He may have arranged this entire event, that
he might exercise one last bit of control over me before I abandon
him forever.”

“
Would you do
it?”

Theroen’s gaze did not leave the window. He
shrugged. “She might well be better off. Melissa would certainly be
better off. In truth, it might be better for all involved if my
parting gift to Abraham was to slaughter those of his descendants
whom I am not taking with me.”

“
Theroen, no! Melissa? She
…”

“
She shares her mind with
something that has become progressively stronger with each passing
day. Something evil that was never meant to be. Something that is
slowly taking over the body that once was hers.”

He turned to Two. “The question is not
whether Melissa will die, Two. It is whether she will die by my
hand, or Abraham’s, or Missy’s. She will eventually be absorbed.
This leaves Tori, who is almost certainly better off dead, and the
half-vampire in the basement, whose name I do not even know.”

“
Samantha.” Two’s lips felt
numb.

Theroen looked at her, and there was a
momentary dizziness. Two’s vision swam, and images of the events
with Melissa seemed to flicker past behind her eyelids. Then it was
over.

“
Yes, Samantha. My
apologies, Two. I should have asked before doing that.”

“
Doing what?”

“
Normally I receive
thoughts passively. I shut most of it out, in fact, for a variety
of reasons. Occasionally though I harvest. In this instance, I’m
now aware of what you saw and heard.”

“
How do you do this stuff,
Theroen?”

Theroen shrugged. “All thought is energy.
All energy can be harnessed. I do not know how my mind does it,
only that it can.”

“
Theroen … what do we
do?”

He sighed. “My largest concern is not
determining Abraham’s desire, but whether I should carry out those
actions regardless of his wishes. The people who will be left in
this mansion, Two, are largely better off dead. Melissa knows this.
She’s known it for years.”

“
That’s why she cried last
night. When you finished me.” Two felt cold and frightened. She
felt as if some momentous event was taking place, something beyond
her ability to control.

Theroen nodded. “Your birth into darkness
was the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of the end of
everything she has ever known.”

* * *

Two could hear muffled sobbing as they left
her room. She turned instinctively toward the sound, but Theroen’s
hand guided her back toward the staircase.

“
There’s little we could do
for her right now, Two.”

Two looked up at him,
angry. “You’re talking about your
sister
, Theroen.”

He closed his eyes; put his hand on his
forehead. “I know exactly whom I am talking about, Two.”

“
The person you’ve shared a
hundred and forty years with.”

“
I know, Two.”

“
The least you could do is
…”

“
Is what?” Theroen asked,
looking up at her. There was anger in his eyes, and his voice was
strained. “Sit next to her? Hold her hand? Tell her everything is
going to be okay? Is that what I should do?”

Two was taken aback.

“
I have hated myself, Two,
for things broken that I could not repair, for three hundred and
fifty years.
Hated
myself. I know now what I must do, and may God forgive me for
it, because I will never forgive myself. Melissa knows I am to be
her destruction. We were waiting only for the catalyst. The thing
that would cause me to flee from Abraham’s grasp. It was
inevitable.

“
You are that catalyst,
Two. All I can think about is our life together. It is in my mind
always. I want to take you away from this. From Abraham and Tori
and Missy. I want to show you what we can truly be, as Lisette once
showed me. This means leaving Melissa, and for that I am truly
sorry, but I cannot help myself. I must go. The final act of this
little farce that Abraham created has come.

“
How can I give her any
comfort? What is there to say? It is remarkable that Melissa does
not hate us both.”

Two was silent. She could feel her eyes
going hard and wet the way they always did when tears threatened.
Theroen could not meet her gaze. He kept trying, and was having no
success. This somehow made it worse. When he spoke, there was
sorrow in his voice. And regret. And defeat.

“
I should have told you. I
… Two, I’m sorry. Living for so long, it’s blinded me. I act as I
wish without considering others. Even when I told you I was giving
you a choice, I failed to tell you what it was you were choosing. I
never even thought to do so, and I apologize. Your choice did not
doom Melissa … that had already happened. It did, though, set the
end in motion.

“
I will understand if this
changes your opinion. You are
Eresh-Chen
. You can be human again if
you wish. You can take that choice back. I will not stop
you.”

Two looked at him, angry and in love,
horrified and filled with despair. At last she spoke.

“
I want to meet
Tori.”

Theroen turned and was finally able to meet
her gaze. He seemed surprised. “Two, I explained—”

“
Now, Theroen. I want to
understand what I am.”

“
Tori is nothing
like—”

“
Tori is
everything
like me! No,
let me finish. You’ve given me this gift. I asked for it. I don’t
want to give it back. You’ve let me see through vampire eyes, taste
with a vampire’s tongue. You’ve let me run like a vampire, and feed
like a vampire, and fuck like a vampire, and I
love
it, Theroen, but you haven’t
shown me what I really am.

“
Whatever’s inside me, it
wants blood. Right now, it wants blood very badly. It wants to rip,
and tear, and hate. That thing is the same thing inside of Tori,
the most pure it’s ever going to be. I want to see her, Theroen. I
want to know what’s inside of me. I want to see it all laid bare,
and I want to see it
now
.”

Theroen contemplated this for a moment,
shrugged, sighed.

“
So be it.”

* * *

The moon was like daylight to her eyes. The
forest, which might have seemed foreboding to a human, gave Two no
pause. Forests in the night were filled with predators, and there
were none out this night greater than she and Theroen. They had
been walking the grounds for thirty minutes. Theroen did not call
for Tori, and it was obvious he knew where he was going. At times
he would pause, change direction, and move forward again.

“
Tori doesn’t stay still,
and she doesn’t know we’re looking for her yet,” he explained. “I
could call, but it would do no good. I can sense her, though. We
will catch up eventually.”

At length they reached a small clearing.
Here, Two saw, were paths carved into the ground from the frequent
passage of some creature, like a dog that runs patterns into its
yard. From the woods not far away, Two heard growling. The sound
was low and guttural, the noise of a large jungle cat.