Read In Blood We Trust Online

Authors: Christine Cody

Tags: #Fantasy, #Vampires

In Blood We Trust (38 page)

BOOK: In Blood We Trust
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The night and moon were starting to do their work on me, pushing, making me feel as if I were ready to expand.
“It's almost time,” I said.
“I can feel it,” Gabriel said.
And our link blipped, gaining power. My Gabriel was on his way just as surely as lunar time. Here for a short while, only to be gone all too soon.
The change didn't happen right away, but, within a quarter hour, it burst upon me—eyes, arms, hair, tongue.
Gabriel was the first thing I saw after the change, the first thing I identified thundering through my veins as he smiled down on me.
Then he reared back his head, opening his fanged mouth, basking under the moonlight and the returned gloaming within him.
My blood, his blood—crashing toward each other, making us as near to one entity as we could be.
After the oldster was moon-pulled into his were-scorpion form, we all sped off into the night, not quite as fast as yesterday, when the moon had been its fullest, but rapid enough to leave flares of sand in our wake. We brushed over hills and gullies, and I had to keep tabs on the oldster because he kept mindlessly veering off to hunt.
We made it to where Gabriel slowed us down near an old highway that crawled over a rise.
There was nothing round us except for that.
They know something's on its trail,
Gabriel said.
They're fleeing.
And we took off again, on their tails.
Blood—I wanted it now . . .
All kinds.
But the 'bots were foremost on my mind, and they led us a merry chase. We spent most of the night after them. It got to the point where our efforts even became a game instead of a life-and-death mission.
I grabbed wildlife along the way, munching on it, offering some to the oldster and Gabriel, too, before we put on our speed again. Once, after I'd given Gabriel a sand-rabbit dripping with blood, he looked into my eyes, love shining from his own.
It wasn't just devotion right now, either, thank-all.
The moon was already getting weaker, though—I could feel it in me—and Gabriel ran a hand over my face, as if mourning what was going to occur all too soon. I shied away from him, too beastly to imagine that he could enjoy touching me in this form.
Mariah,
he thought, almost like a beaten sigh.
The oldster had been ripping apart a blackmole with his mouth, which was no more than a slash through the exoskeleton covering his face, and he grinned a bloody grin at us. His limbs waved just as my arms did, ready to pluck and smash.
He ran off again, and we had to follow.
It didn't take long for our preter senses to detect a whining from the 'bots. We were getting close.
Very close.
Soon, we found them cooling their engines near a bundle of high rocks, where the elevated pitch of the machines was louder than ever. The sound gouged my ears, going lower, through my chest and limbs.
I had to kill that sound.
The oldster and Gabriel seemed to have the same idea, and we zoomed ahead, charging them.
Their bodies, which resembled little versions of those old stealth airplanes you'd see on the Nets, weren't facing us, and I got to a 'bot first and grabbed it by the wings, raising it over my head.
Gabriel and the oldster took the other Monitor, but I got too busy to mind their fight.
My 'bot changed color, from sand to dark blue, as I raised it toward the sky. A pair of mechanical beaks snapped out of its casing, slicing toward my arms.
I heaved the thing toward the ground, but before I jumped at it, the 'bot blasted laser shots at me.
I took offense at that, mainly because this 'bot was a representative of the government. The enemy. The big bad guy.
I flipped away from every laser shot as the 'bot recovered well enough to jet off the ground, aiming its beaks and its sharp nozzle at me in a burst of speed. At the same time, it captured my image in its lens with a revolving click.
No matter—we'd be gone soon, anyway. If the government was still functioning, they could chase us all they wanted to.
I sprang into the air, thrusting my tongue out at the machine, taking it by the nozzle, holding it high once again and banging it into a nearby rock.
Its plates flew off, revealing the naked form beneath—a buglike mass of gears and parts spiked by those beaks that sought me out again.
Everything on it started whipping round then, just like fast-motion blades, as it came at me.
I spread my arms—
come on, come on
—while it zoomed toward me, my sight isolating each blade until its movements were reduced to slow whirs in my reddened sight.
I shot out my tongue, grasping the head of the 'bot, and it was as if time sped up when I threw it toward the rocks again, pulling back my tongue before it got sliced off. Just as rapidly, I hopped after the machine, grabbing a rock in each of my four hands.
Right before I smashed the bitch to smithereens, I saw the recording unit glowing in the 'bot's middle, red, like blood.
Hunger needled me as I thought of what I could be feasting on: blood, bad guys, animals, Civils.
Chaplin . . . ?
Full of rage at that, I opened my mouth wide at the exact same time I brought the rocks down on the 'bot, one-two-three-four times with all my hands, over and over again, freak strength. Just as its blades stopped whirring, I clamped down on its nozzle with my teeth, chewed on it, then spit it out.
Its innards were strewn all over the place, and I ran my tongue over my teeth. None broken.
But I did have a cut or two that were already healing on my body.
Inside me, I could feel the moon beginning its retreat and, taking advantage of what I had left, I turned my attention to the oldster and Gabriel, who were playing a match of dodge with their 'bot. With a hissing laugh, I jumped at it, hopped on its back, grabbed onto its wings, and rode it for a few seconds, just before its beaks and blades came out.
The thing must've been wounded by something Gabriel or the oldster had done to it, but it still had enough feistiness to rear back and forth so much that it jarred me, making one of my huge teeth dig into my lip.
Blood wet my mouth. It was just enough to tick me off again, and ignoring the blades, I jumped off the 'bot, turned it over like a turtle, then jammed a clawed hand under its casing, disemboweling it.
The 'bot dropped to the ground, and it made a terribly humanlike sound.
“Meh-meh-meh,”
it said in its death throes, just before it went dark.
I smiled big for the dying 'bot's lens as it clicked to termination.
That entertained the oldster and Gabriel, and their laughter—wheezy animal cackles from Michael and a warm zing of feeling from my vampire—cleansed me. At least for a time.
But then the oldster ran off again, taking advantage of the full moon's last moments, after more blood.
That left me and Gabriel there, and neither of us was laughing anymore.
We looked at the damage round us, and I imagined how, inside of him, he was about to get just as cold as these gutted gears and parts.
He walked toward me, and I backed away again.
Don't, Mariah,
he thought.
I let him take one of my hands, and he didn't mind the claws, didn't mind my other appendages waving round.
But the night was already backing off the moon, leaving it weaker.
Still, Gabriel kept holding me, looking into my eyes for as long as he could, my body, his body . . .
When I finally dropped to the ground, I pulled my claw through the dirt, as if I could grab onto what remained of our disappearing connection that way.
Looking up at Gabriel, I saw that he was experiencing the loss, too.
Mariah . . .
he thought to me, but this time, there was desperation. He sounded like a man who was being pulled back into hell after being granted a few days out of it.
The moon lost more power. My extra set of arms drew back into me, just like my long hair. My eyes rotated back to their normal shape, my mouth and teeth shrank, along with my tongue . . .
All the while, Gabriel seemed to be slipping further away, although he was right here.
I was halfway human now, and with the last of my strength, I wrapped my two remaining arms round Gabriel's legs, and he got to the ground and clung to me, too.
The last thought I heard from him was,
Remember how much I love you right now. Never forget . . .
Then he was gone—not in body, but in here: my chest, my hollowed-out center.
He pulled back from me, frosty, distant, with a look in his eyes that told me he felt nothing, even with my bare skin against him. He glanced at the blood on my lip, where I'd bit it earlier to create a wound that had already healed.
Only the blood remained, and I knew he wanted it.
Knew it would make him sick if he took it.
Even as my body beat for him, post-change pain flowing through me and making my aches that much worse, I saw in Gabriel's gaze that he was a stranger now.
When he stood, I knew he only had to leave to complete the journey.
“There's always the next full moon,” he said.
I shook my head, unable to stand the thought of this torture month in and month out. I poisoned him, but he poisoned me just as much.
He tilted his head, as if digesting my reaction, and then without even a good-bye, he sped off for parts unknown, seeking shelter before daylight broke.
I never even had time to call out for him to come back.
 
After about an hour of rest, I found the oldster nearby, and he was in no shape to were-change again, so before the sun could get too hot to endure, I took it upon myself to change into my nonlunar form, in spite of my keening joints and muscles.
I took him in my arms and sped back to the homestead, entering my domain and setting him down on my bed, then slipping back into my human state, my body one big pile of hurt.
He was already asleep, and I kissed his forehead. My own last hurrah with a good friend.
Holding back the tears yet again, I went to my living area. My place was deserted: No Mags. No Taraline.
No Gabriel.
He must've come here straightaway, extracting Taraline and Mags before dawn fully broke. They could've even gone to our second homestead, where there'd be water and shelter and no Hana to contend with, but I didn't pursue him.
I couldn't bear to.
Taraline had left a scrawl in the ground, though, and I kneeled down to read it.
Gabriel is taking me to the place
where I'll be safe and happy. Mags, too.
Thank you, my friend. I'll always remember
how you saved me.
I didn't move from that spot for a while. I guess happy endings did that to you, made you choke up just as surely as sad ones. And, if I could judge by this note, Gabriel had taken Taraline to 562, and she was pleased about it.
She'd always liked taking care of others, following them, and her path had taken her to a being who needed another guardian badly. A being who had cared for her during their calmer moments together.
I lay down right there, my head near Taraline's words. Sleep claimed me right away, and I didn't get back up again until the next nightfall had introduced itself.
The oldster was still tuckered out as I cleaned myself up, fortified myself with water, filled up a few canteens of it, dressed, then gathered some supplies.
I left the oldster slumbering, left without a word to Hana or Chaplin, neither of whom would care where I went, anyway.
As I climbed my ladder for the last time, then shut the door behind me, I looked west toward the setting sun, with its colors inking the sky. I set out the opposite way, east, drifting just as aimlessly as Gabriel had when I'd first seen him on the visz screen.
But I didn't let that get me down, because I was going someplace. Old D.C., most likely. Along the way, I'd try to catch news of what might be happening there. I'd look for fellow monsters, but I wouldn't fall in with any.
I was going it alone, and I didn't mind so much.
Well, not too much.
I walked that night. My body was too worn out from the full moon, too hammered from so much else, for me to change into nonlunar form. I walked the next night, also, and the next.
On the fourth night, I was strolling through a gully rife with weblike loom trees. Night birds whirred and made sharp chirps, warning me off. Little did they know that it wasn't wise to smart-mouth me.
When I caught the sound of rock sliding against ground from above, I glanced up, my body tensing, ready to were-change if need be.
But I didn't see a thing.
I walked some more, and after a few moments, I heard it again.
This time when I looked, I saw a silhouette against the waning moon.
A dog.
And he was just as tense as I was.
Emotion itched in my throat, my chest wrenching together.
“Chaplin?” I whispered.
He barked, a lonely sound that echoed through the gully.
Mariah?
God-all, what was he doing here?
Had he come because Gabriel wasn't round to corrupt me anymore?
I stood my ground, tried to seem mean, tried to seem that I was glad we'd been separated.
“Get on,” I said. “Go back where you should be.”
Bark, whine, mumble mumble.
I couldn't let you go for good.
Now tears were at the corners of my eyes. Great, like I could waste any water, out here in the nowheres.
“I mean it, Chaplin—git.”
BOOK: In Blood We Trust
12.08Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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