VA 2 - Blood Jewel (36 page)

“I do.”

“Okay. Let’s go have some
babies.”

Chansey was quickly pulled over
onto the surgery table and I moved to stand by her head as she was
draped. Her body was uncontrollably shaking and I reached for her
hand. She squeezed it tightly and said, “She’s out of my mind now.
I didn’t mean it. God, how I didn’t mean it. I love you, Curry. I
love you forever times infinity.”

I laid my forehead against hers
while the surgery crew finished prepping her. “And I love you
forever times infinity.”

“Sir, I need to get to your wife
so I can put her to sleep.”

“Of course.” I quickly kissed her
head and said, “Sweet dreams, Sleeping Beauty.”

Seconds later, Chansey was asleep
and the man by her head said, “Okay, go.”

There was scrambling behind the
sterile drape with clanking sounds of metal instruments and I heard
Dr. Knight announce, “We’re almost to the uterus,
Curry.”

Less than a minute later, Dr.
Knight said, “Here comes number one,” and I heard the shrill cry of
one of my children. “It’s a girl and she looks good. Chunky little
thing. I’m handing her off to the nursery so we can get number two
out.”

I gave thanks for my daughter that
was alive and prayed for our other child still inside of Chansey.
Please, let him or her be alright. Please. I braced myself for the
worst, but pleaded for the best as I prayed. I waited for the
second squeal, prayed for it, and it felt like an eternity while I
waited.

“Okay, here comes number
two.”

I heard the second squeal and felt
light-headed, like I might pass out, but I held it together because
I had to hear it when Dr. Knight announced what the second baby
was. “Curry, number two is a boy.”

I wished Chansey could experience
this with me. I squeezed my eyes and felt the tears spill over.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Whoever is listening, thank
you.”

“Come over and take a look at your
babies, Mr. Brennan,” I heard from across the room.

I slowly walked across the room to
see my children for the first time and saw two little black haired
babies laying side by side in a warmer. The nurse picked up my
daughter and held her up for me to get a better view. “She’s a good
size. I think she’s a little bigger than her brother.”

“Everything looks normal with both
of them?”

“They look perfectly healthy,” the
other nurse said as she lifted my son for me to see.

“Can I touch them?”

“You can do more than that,” she
said as she put hats on them and then swaddled each of them. “Here,
you can hold them.”

I tried to remember the way it felt
to hold Lily as I put my arm out to take my daughter. I looked at
her face as she squinted at the bright lights and I knew my place
would always be wrapped around her little finger.

“Ready for your
son?” the nurse asked and I put my other arm out to take
him.

She placed him in my arms and he
looked just like his sister as he squinted under the lights. I
studied their faces and the similarities between them. They were
the same, but different, and my heart was flooded with so much love
I thought it could literally burst.

They gave me a few minutes to hold
my children before one of the nurses said, “Okay, it’s time for
them to go to the nursery, but they’ll be in your wife’s room in a
couple hours. What are their names?”

I laughed as I leaned down to kiss
my daughter’s head. “I have no idea.” I kissed my son and said, “I
guess their mother and I have an assignment.

“I believe you do. You can come
with us and we’ll take you to the waiting room where your family is
while Dr. Knight finishes your wife’s surgery. After that, she’ll
go to recovery for an hour. You and your family may come to the
window and admire your new babies through the glass.”

“I don’t know if our family is
here.”

“Oh, I bet they’re out
there.”

I found everyone in the waiting
room as the nurse suspected and I couldn’t contain my huge smile as
I walked toward them.

“Well?” Lairah and Gia chimed
simultaneously.

“A boy and a girl.”

“And Chansey?’

“Doing fine.”

Lairah reached out to hug me. “I’m
so happy for you, Curry.”

She passed me off to Gia. “Me, too.
You deserve Chansey and those babies.”

After we all stood at the nursery
windows admiring the babies, I went down the line being told,
“Congratulations,” by my family members and I noticed Sol hung
toward the back of the crowd. When the hugs were over, the others
headed for their cars and Sol stood looking at me as he shook his
head. “Man, you’re somebody’s daddy-two little somebody’s. How did
all of this happen in less than a year? It’s crazy.”

“I don’t know, but I couldn’t be
happier.”

“You should be. You have it all-a
beautiful wife and now not one, but two beautiful children. Your
life is perfect.”

“It’s not perfect yet, but it will
be when I kill Marsala.”

“Do you think you can do
it?”

“Hell, yes. I know I can do it
without blinking an eye. She tried to kill Chansey and she almost
killed my children. She would have if I hadn’t agreed to come back
to her with a baby.”

“What are you going to do about
that?’

“I don’t know, but it’s going to
involve a way to kill Marsala.”

≈ ≈ ≈

After the family was gone, I
continued to stand at the nursery windows and stare at the babies.
I loved to watch the way they squirmed and the faces they made when
they squealed, but I was mainly looking for any signs that would
alarm the staff of their non-human characteristics.

They appeared completely human by
all of my standards, but who knew what would pop up along the way
with them. Half of their DNA was contributed by yours truly, but
maybe my prayers were answered when I pleaded for them to be
nothing like me. Maybe they were all good like their
mother.

“Mr. Brennan, your wife is in her
room and she is asking for you.”

I looked at my watch and thought it
was peculiar that she was already in her room. They told me it
would be a while closing her in surgery and then she would be in
recovery for an hour. She must have done really well if she is
already back.

I anxiously went to the room and
saw Chansey in the bed on her back with her eyes closed. She was
much paler than I would have expected after surgery. She was silent
and unmoving and I felt no emotion from her-no happiness, no joy,
just...nothingness. I listened for the sound of her heart beating
and heard nothing.

I raced to pull the emergency call
light, but I heard the sound of the devil’s voice and the moment I
heard her first word, I knew what she had done. “What’s wrong,
Curry? Is your Agápe a little bit dead?”

Marsala had drained Chansey and
made it impossible for me to call the nurses for help. I ran to her
and began to breathe for her and compress her heart.

“Curry, Curry, Curry...CPR is
designed to keep oxygen flowing to the vital organs through the
circulations of blood. If she doesn’t have a drop of blood in her,
you can’t circulate oxygen and if she doesn’t have blood or oxygen,
she can’t live. You do have two choices, though.”

I whirled around to see her sitting
in a rocker in the corner of the room holding my
daughter.

“Choice number one-there’s still
time for you to force your blood into her and turn her into the
thing you hate most, but can you really look at her for eternity
and know you are the one responsible for turning her into a
monster? If I know you, you don’t have the stomach for it. You
would probably rather see her a pretty little corpse with a
beautiful soul that went to Heaven.

Now for choice two-you can come
with me and this beautiful little baby girl and we can be the
family we were intended to be. The beautiful part of the plan is
that no matter what decision you make, I win. If you choose to save
your Agápe, she will never forgive you for letting me have your
daughter. If you leave with me, your Agápe is dead forever.
So...what’s it going to be? The clock is ticking.”

How was I supposed to make that
choice? Choose between Chansey and our daughter? I was no longer
completely opposed to the idea of turning Chansey, but Marsala was
right. If I let her take our daughter, she would be devastated and
I risked her never forgiving me.

Then, it hit me. Sebastian said
that our bond would never be broken. He said that it is different
in death, but we would still share it and I felt nothing coming
from this cold body in this bed. I recalled what Emelyn had said to
me the night she visited me. Chansey would never become a vampire
because it was forced by Marsala’s hand.

I pushed through with my mind to
find Chansey, to feel what was happening to her and I felt her
pain. I heard her moaning about the pain in the abdomen and I felt
the nurse reassuring her that she would feel better in a minute
when the pain medicine traveled down her IV into her vein. She was
in the recovery room, not dead in the bed before me. This was
Emelyn and she was doing her job to protect Chansey.

But what about the baby in
Marsala’s arms? Was she my daughter or was she a Fylgia in her
place? I had no way of knowing and I couldn’t let her take
her.

“Marsala, it’s you I’ve wanted all
this time. Anteros forced this Agápe on me. I never asked for her
and I was forced to be her companion because it was Anteros’ will.
I had no choice in the matter, but I have a choice now that she is
dead and I choose you. My daughter will be your daughter, as it
should have been all along. We will raise her together and be the
family we were intended to be. I can see that now.”

She smiled maliciously. “I knew you
never wanted her. I knew it was me you wanted, but Anteros
bewitched you with his Agápe spell.

I sensed Sol and then saw him
appear in the doorway behind Marsala. “You are right. Will you let
me put our daughter in her crib because I want to drink from you. I
need to because it’s been too long.”

“Of course,” she said as she
handed the baby to me.

I laid the baby in the crib and
looked at her face. She looked just like the child I held in my
arms earlier, but she had that same blank stare to her eyes like
Emelyn had the night she visited and I was certain she was not my
daughter. I didn’t know how, but she was a Fylgia in her
place.

I turned around to face Marsala and
with lightning speed, Sol was behind her and trapping her in his
fierce hold. She kicked and bucked as she struggled to free
herself, but Solomon proved to be stronger.

I looked around the room for
something made of wood and saw a framed pictured on the wall. I
took it from the wall and broke it, giving me the splinted point I
needed.

“Curry, no. You can’t do this. You
won’t do this. I demand you to not do this. I am your sire and you
can never harm me.”

“Chansey is everything to me and
you are nothing to me Our bond was broken when Chansey was born and
I am no longer bound to you. I am bound to her forever. She is the
mother of my children. She is my heart and my soul and that is not
her in that bed. That is her Fylgia, so you have failed
miserably.”

“Your Agápe is
different. She isn’t like the others,” Marsala sneered. “She’s a
Blood Jewel and if you kill me, you’ll never know what that
means.”

Sol’s eyes grew large. “Curry, we
need to know what it means.”

“No, we don’t. We need nothing
from her. With Marsala, everything has a price and it’s always one
you can’t afford. She is a master of trickery and that’s what this
is. It’s one of her tricks. If I don’t kill her now, I’ll spend
every moment worrying and wondering when she will get to Chansey
and our babies.”

“But Avery...we need to know for
her,” he whispered.

I saw the look in his eyes and knew
Sol was desperate for the information, although I didn’t understand
why. He was thinking about releasing Marsala with the hope of
learning the information she knew, but he was wrong. She wouldn’t
make good on her promise to tell us anything.

I pulled the stake back as I
prepared to kill the woman that had tried to take the most precious
things in the world from me. I ran the stake through her heart and
gave it an upward twist for good measure. She groaned and her knees
buckled under her as Sol held her in place. I walked over to her
and leaned close to her ear so she could my words as she died.
“Tell the devil I said hello when you get back to where you came
from.” And then she was gone. Finally.

Sol let her body fall to the floor.
“You shouldn’t have done it,” he yelled at me. “She could have told
us about the Blood Jewel and what it meant. We could have gotten it
out of her.”

“You’re wrong, Sol. You don’t know
her the way I do. This was her stalling until she could find a way
to escape,” I explained. “There are ways of finding the explanation
behind the Blood Jewel, but bargaining with her wasn’t
it.”