Blood Revealed (35 page)

“My loyalties have shifted, yes.” Then he frowned. “I’m not even sure I had loyalties before. I had ambitions. Only, ambitions are not a good foundation upon which to build a life. Look at where I was before you came along.”

“You were with Dominic,” she reminded him. “I’m the interloper.”

“You know that’s not true.” He twined his fingers between hers and closed their hands together. “Dominic and I would never have lasted. It took you to change the dynamic and that is what is going to keep us together. All of us.”

They both looked up as the bathroom door opened and Dominic emerged, naked and still gleaming with moisture. “Must you two always have heart-to-hearts when I’m somewhere I can’t extricate myself in a hurry?”

He sat on the bed, in the middle so that he was between the two of them and facing their linked hands. His eyes were grave, despite his grumbles. “I got almost all of that. Patrick is right. I don’t think even you and I would have lasted, Blythe, if Patrick was not here, too. None of us work together, unless all three of us are together.”

Then he looked at Patrick. “If Hollywood is going to come calling again, that is going to put some interesting stresses on things. Blythe’s right to feel afraid. I think I do, too.”

“We don’t even know what Hollywood wants yet,” Patrick said. “Maybe they’re all telling me to piss off again.”

“Not after you’ve been plastered across television with the sword strapped to your back, out there fighting the bad guys every night like a real hero,” Blythe said.

“I can’t think of a single other A-list actor who has been seen doing something like that. It’s recasting you as a hero for real,” Dominic added.

Patrick looked at them both, his gaze moving from one to the other. His expression was sober. “I won’t make promises,” he said gently. “I’ve been breaking promises my entire life, so I won’t promise now. I won’t even ask you to trust me. Just give me time. Give me the time I need to prove to you that things have changed.”

“Things changed because Hollywood didn’t want you anymore,” Dominic said. “Now they want you back.”

“No one gets to go back, remember?” Patrick said.

Blythe tried to smile and managed a weak one. Dominic brushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her temple, then pressed his lips against Patrick’s cheek. “I look forward to your proof,” he said. “For now, we better move our asses. Jake and the girls will be back soon and I’m really in the mood to kick some Summanus’ ass tonight.”

* * * * *

The news about Nashville broke the next morning. Blythe had tried to ban the news at the breakfast table, because all the bad tidings made the day start under a cloud. As she was so rarely at the breakfast table, everyone had gotten into the habit of listening to updates while they ate.

The morning was an occasion when she did not feel so drained that she couldn’t get out of bed for a short hour or two to share breakfast with her children. Patrick and Dominic and Jake and the girls had the breakfast routine down to a science, so she sat at the table to stay out of their way and watched with growing amazement as everyone worked together to get breakfast on the table in record time.

There was a lot of chitchat and snarky comments thrown around the room, to be batted back with zingers. Jake and Simone and Eloise gave as good as they got, which was even more amazing. Her girls were generally shy around adult men, as they had not had a father figure in their lives, yet some of the more smart alec one-liners were tossed at Patrick and Dominic by both of them.

The plates of bacon, eggs and hash browns had just been put on the table, when the standard CNN morning news show was interrupted.

Blythe lifted her head from her plate, as she heard the words. “We interrupt this broadcast to bring breaking news to you…”

The image on the screen had clearly been taken by a camera in a helicopter, for it was a little bit shaky and from several thousand feet up. The helicopter was circling around a city. The dateline at the bottom of the screen said Nashville, Tennessee.

“At approximately nine p.m. last night, Nashville city authorities and emergency services began to broadcast distress messages. All of them claimed that the city was being overrun by Summanus.”

“Tennessee’s riddled with caves,” Patrick said softly. “Even the land under the city is a honeycomb.”

The CNN report continued. “Civilian militia from surrounding areas were dispatched by the state coordinating service. All military personnel in the state were also sent. Just after midnight last night, all communications from the city ceased. There has been silence from Nashville since one a.m. this morning. No one is responding to communications.”

Blythe stared at the images, realizing what was wrong with the city scene. It looked like a normal city, only nothing moved on the streets. The cars on the streets were still, some of them pulled up at odd angles, as if the occupants had had to stop in a hurry.

As the helicopter swung around the city in a slow arc, the camera showed block after block of silence and emptiness.

“Everyone’s just gone,” Jake said.

“One of the last communications received from the city,” the CNN reporter continued, “was that the Summanus were attacking in overwhelming numbers. These reports speak of Summanus numbering in the millions. This morning, when authorities entered the city, they found empty streets and empty buildings. Although authorities are continuing to search the city, fear is growing that there are no humans left at all.”

Eloise gasped and Dominic put his coffee cup down slowly, not quite reaching the table and having to adjust as it sloshed.

“All of them?” Simone said. “A
whole city
?”

“How many people lived in Nashville?” Jake asked. Blythe noted the past tense he was using.

“If you count the outlying suburbs,” Patrick said, “then about three million people.”

Blythe pushed her plate away. Her appetite had fled.

Dominic was looking at Patrick. “You’re from Nashville?”

Patrick shook his head. “Kentucky, originally. I spent time in Tennessee as a kid. I had cousins there.”

The helicopter had continued to move as they spoke and now, Blythe began to see people. They were not going about their daily business. These must be the outlying suburbs. Everyone who still remained was fleeing. There were long lines of people walking and even slower lines of cars. It was an exodus.

“Sweet Jesus,” Jake breathed.

“No one wants to be there after nightfall, now,” Dominic said.

The CNN reporter was droning on about estimated losses and what the authorities were doing to combat the menace. None of it was new. Most of it added up to humans having to fight for themselves, because the authorities had no real strategies.

“Turn the TV off,” Blythe said firmly. “There’s nothing we can do about this right here and now. Let’s eat breakfast and be civilized for a few moments more.”

Someone pressed the remote and the TV turned off with an electronic sigh. Blythe picked up her fork and tried to pretend to eat the rest of her breakfast, while her heart fluttered in a weak and sick way.

Simone was weeping steadily and silently, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand in between mouthfuls.

Jake did not attempt to open the laptop as he usually did.

Patrick and Dominic remained silent, too. There was no more give-and-take, no more zingers.

They may have turned off the sound, but the fact of Nashville was sitting right there on the table in between them, affecting them all. It was making them question the future.

How much longer could this go on?

The weeks wound on, filled with hunting, losses and heartbreak.

The President addressed the nation, sharing his grief over all those who had been slain and taken. He promised that every resource at the government’s disposal had been retooled in the effort to find an answer to this new menace in their lives.

Dominic, who listened to the address filtered through everyone else’s hearing, was the first to notice. “There’s no specifics,” he said. “I don’t think they know what they going to do at all.”

“They’re not going to spell out details of national security on television,” Blythe said.

“Why not?” Patrick said. He had a script open upon his knee, one of the many he was assessing that had been thrust at him by producers and directors eager to have him in their movie. “If they really have answers, the best thing they could do is tell everyone exactly what they are going to do. It’s not like the Summanus can listen and take notes.”

They had taken a rare night off from hunting in order to catch the President’s address. Patrick had the armchair and Dominic sat with Blythe upon the sofa. Jake and the girls were sprawled on the floor, propped up on cushions. All three of them had scripts open in front of them, for they were helping Patrick search for a suitable story.

“Maybe they’re not disclosing details, because they are used to keeping them close to their chest,” Blythe said.

Jake rolled over on his back and looked at her. “It’s not like any other government in the world is announcing a grand new plan.” He handed Patrick the script he had been reading and grimaced. “This one sucks. Too much girly stuff.”

Patrick pulled a script off the pile next to his elbow and handed it to Jake. “Try this one, then. Action thriller.”

All of them had agreed that Patrick’s first movie, now he was a vampire and now that the world was in peril, should absolutely be a heroic adventure, where the good guys won against overwhelming odds.

“Then you don’t have to act at all,” Jacob said, with a grin. “You can just be yourself.”

Patrick had tipped him upside down and shook him for his cheekiness, although even the girls agreed that a story about battling the odds would be better than any romance he could possibly cast himself in.

Blythe had not got involved in the script analysis project. Neither had Dominic. Although neither of them spoke of it, she knew that Dominic was as nervous about Patrick’s return to Hollywood as she was.

Patrick was very calm, almost cynical about it. “Who knows? By the time principal photography starts, there may not be a Hollywood left. And if Hollywood is still around, there may not be anyone left to watch what they make. But for now, the best thing we can do is act as though everything is normal. It’s the only way to stay sane.” He had grinned. “Take it from me. When the booze was really biting, acting as if everything was normal was the only way I got through the day.”

Except that normal wasn’t what it used to be, once upon a time.

* * * * *

On Jake’s sixteenth birthday, Jake asked Patrick to train him with the sword. Blythe thought she might have a meltdown right there in the kitchen. While Dominic held her tightly, Patrick considered Jake’s request.

“I’ll train you on one condition,” he said and Blythe bit back her moan.

Jake nodded.

“You don’t go out hunting Summanus until I say you’re ready.”

Jake grimaced. “In other words, I’ll never be ready.”

“You’re only sixteen,” Blythe began and Jake rolled his eyes.

“One day you’ll be ready,” Patrick said. “And you’re growing up in a world where you will have to hunt Summanus if you want to live any sort of life. So I will teach you and Dominic will teach you how to use a knife. Your mother will teach you the best ways of finding and defeating Summanus. We’ll train the girls, too,” he added.

“We will teach you everything we have to share with you, to make you the best hunters you can be. However, until you’re good, until we think you have the skills necessary to defend yourself and not end up dead on the first night out, you don’t hunt. Is that understood?”

Jake had agreed to the bargain. Both of the girls had also agreed, which had surprised Blythe more than Jake’s request. She had not realized how closely the girls have been watching her, until Simone said, “Why shouldn’t we fight? Mom does. And she’s good at it. We can be, too.”

As winter began in earnest so, too, did training for everyone in the house. School hours were adjusted downward, so that kids could go to and from school in daylight. That meant that they were home for longer, which gave everyone the opportunity to be together and during those hours they trained, too.

Patrick and Dominic were still technically guests in her house, but as they spent nearly every single night in her bed, the technicality was losing any meaning. Still, Blythe was reluctant to address the matter directly.

Patrick had begun filming only a few weeks ago and his contract kept his hours at a minimum, so that he could return home each night and hunt. The producers had groused and whined, while Patrick remained firm. If they wanted him in their movie, they would agree, or he walked.

They had agreed.

That he was home every night went a long way toward helping Blythe relax. However, her bed was not big enough and space in the house was stretched to near breaking. With the addition of training, it became almost impossible to find space for themselves. Even the kids grew stir crazy from the short daylight hours and being cooped up inside for so long.

Dominic was the one to raise the subject. “I’m sick of living out of a duffel bag,” he began. “School has been dismissed for the Christmas season. Now is the perfect time. Patrick has miles of room in his house. Jake and the girls could transfer to a school in Hollywood. They have more money to spare for security, anyway. Then we wouldn’t have to keep up this ninety minute commute all the time.”

Blythe looked at Patrick. He hadn’t reacted in any way and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Did that freak him out, Dominic?” she asked.

“Is it freaking
you
out?” Patrick said. “He’s basically suggesting we all move in together, your kids included.”

“She’s worried about the upheaval,” Dominic said. “And you’re worried about what everyone will think.”

“I don’t give a damn what anyone in Lalaland thinks,” Patrick said. “But I know that Blythe is worried about it.”

“Is that why you’ve never said anything until now?” she asked.