Blood Secrets (16 page)

Peter pressed close to her naked body. The need to find solace from the inner fire that burned his flesh and tortured his mind consumed him. He wanted to bury himself within her, plunge his fangs into the tenderness of her neck, and quench the fire with her blood.

It took all his strength to step away from her. He couldn’t seek the release he desperately wanted, that he’d denied himself for so long. He must save it for Alexandra. Once she was his and his alone, then he could satisfy his desires.

He returned to his worktable and picked up the newly completed doll’s head. Its porcelain face was a perfect copy of Alexandra’s as he’d seen her in the Hall of Records. Holding it delicately, he turned it so the neck revealed the cavity within the head—the perfect vessel to ensure his soul mate remained with him forever.

Turning back to the girl, he could see her fear. He stroked her new penny-colored hair. Tears rimmed her jade green eyes. As his eyes and hands admired the lines of her body, the smoothness of her unblemished skin, she trembled and sobbed.

“Shh,” he said and wiped her tears. “It will all be over soon. I’m going to release you.”

“You’re letting me go?” she croaked, the first words she’d spoken in days. A spark of hope flared deep in her eyes.

He smiled. The scalpel he’d tucked in his belt now pressed into the soft flesh of her neck. “I said I would release you. I said nothing of you leaving.”

With a practiced flick of his wrist, the scalpel flashed red in the light.

A dizzying kaleidoscope spun around Alex. Wind whistled past her ears and ripped away her scream as she fell. Vivid colors flashed, searing her eyes, until everything turned black seconds before she slammed into the ground.

Her eyes snapped open, and she bolted to her feet, only to immediately collapse, struggling for breath. Darkness enveloped her. She swatted at the hands that tried to pin her as voices shouted all around her. “Daddy!”

“Alex!” The scent of sandalwood and cinnamon cut through the chaos, easing the panic that consumed her. “It’s me, baby. Calm down. You’re safe now.”

“Varik?”

“Yes, baby. It’s me.”

She closed her eyes and melted in the warm safety of his arms. “It was him. He was chasing me. I was so scared. Where is he? Did he follow me?”

“What is she talking about?” a woman—Morgan, Alex remembered—asked.

“Baby, Bernard’s dead. If you saw him it was in the Shadowlands,” Varik said calmly.

Images flashed through her mind in a confused jumble. “No, not Daddy—the Dollmaker. Did he follow me?”

Varik’s hold tightened. “You saw the Dollmaker?”

She nodded, feeling the soft scrape of his shirt against her cheek. “I saw him
and
his house.”

“The Dollmaker’s been on our Most Wanted list for decades,” Morgan said. “If you saw him, who is he? What’s his name?”

“I don’t know,” Alex grumbled, pushing away from Varik. “I was running for my life so I didn’t stop to swap recipes and Twitter handles.” She felt as though fine grit coated her eyes and she blinked rapidly, trying to clear them. When that didn’t work, she tried rubbing them.

“Is there something wrong?” someone else—Tasha, Alex placed the voice—asked.

“I’m not sure.” Alex frowned. “Varik, do I have something in my eyes?”

He tilted her head back. His breath was warm on her face and his hands gentle. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because I can’t see shit.” A chill flashed up her spine. Her hands tightened on his arms. “I’m fucking blind!”

Kirk nursed his amaretto cappuccino while he gauged the appearance and reactions of the girl seated in front of him.

Jennifer Lee was petite, barely five feet tall, and maybe a hundred pounds when weighed soaking wet. Bright red hair surrounded her head like a giant puff-ball. She would glance at him with her bright blue eyes and quickly look away.

Piper sat beside him in the corner of the booth they all shared in the back of Mug Shots. She yammered on about an assignment she and Jennifer had recently been given in a psychology class.

He hadn’t expected Piper to actually find a willing redhead to replace her cousin so quickly. He liked having
a variety on hand and natural redheads were the hardest to find. Hopefully Jennifer would prove more loyal than Amber Lynn, whose body had been safely deposited in three separate Dumpsters around town. Steam cleaning the stains out of the carpet had taken longer than depositing the bitch’s body.

“So, Jennifer,” he cut into the girls’ conversation, earning a startled look from the new bunny. “Piper tells me you’re looking for work.”

Jennifer glanced at Piper, who nodded encouragingly just as he’d taught her. “Yeah, I got laid off from my job and my rent’s already late. If I don’t pay my landlord soon, he’s going to kick me out.”

He nodded sympathetically. “This economy is tough on everyone. What kind of work do you do?”

She shrugged and sipped her chai tea latte. “Whatever I can find. What about you?”

“I’m in the entertainment business.” Kirk leaned back in the booth and slipped an arm around Piper’s shoulders. “I supply goods and services to a select clientele.”

“Sounds fascinating.”

“Oh, it is.”

“Do you ever meet anyone famous?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Like when the vampire band Primal Dark was playing in Jackson,” Piper said in a rush. “Kirk set them up with—”

He squeezed her shoulder, a silent warning to shut her mouth.

Jennifer sat forward. “Primal Dark? I love them!” She closed her eyes and began swaying in her seat, singing off-key. “She was my lover, my bloody lover, my dancer.…” She giggled and when she looked at Kirk, her eyes sparkled with visions and dreams of fame. “Do you
really
know them?”

He nodded and sipped his cappuccino. “Wow. I’d give
anything
to meet them. I’m, like, their biggest fan.” Kirk smiled, showing his fangs, and knew he had her.

“Vita in nex,”
Peter intoned and poured a few drops of blood on the first sigil. “Life in death.”

Stripped of his clothing, he knelt within the circle he’d carved into the attic’s wooden floor. His latest acquisition lay to the left of the center, on the side of death. The newly completed Alexandra replica was to the right, on the side of life. The ritual was a delicate process and if performed incorrectly could result in his own soul becoming splintered and trapped within the doll.

He moved clockwise around the circle to the second sigil and dribbled more of the girl’s blood. “
Pectus pectoris nutritor nex
—the heart feeds death.”

The girl moaned softly. He’d drained as much of her blood as he dared, bringing her near death. She needed to be hovering on the edge of the abyss in order for the ritual to work. Shattering a soul required precision timing and over the years he’d become adept at making it quick. However, there was no way to make it painless.

He followed the outline of the circle to the third sigil. Three liquid rubies fell in its center and were greedily absorbed by the dry flooring. “
Nex nutritor obscurum
—death feeds the darkness.”

Power hummed within the circle. It crackled in the air and made the tiny hairs on his neck and arms stand erect.

“Totus animus servo obscurum,”
he droned and added the last of the blood to the final sigil. “All souls serve the darkness.”

The circle snapped closed, sending a charge through
his body. His breath hissed over his teeth as he sucked in the electrified air.

The initial rush of power was always the sweetest and the hardest to control. Peter forced himself to relax and open his mind to the energies now swirling within the confines of his circle. Gradually, with each measured breath, a balance was achieved both within him and within the circle.

Now the ritual could truly begin.

He paced to the center of the circle and knelt between the girl and the doll. Picking up the ceremonial dagger, he held it over the girl, blade directed toward her heart.

“Ut quod est recipio, quod novus visum est instituo in obscurum,”
he recited as he had done countless times prior. “That which is, recedes, and new vision is found in darkness.”

He positioned the dagger over the doll.
“Memento vivere,”
he said. “A reminder of life.”

The girl moaned as he laid his free hand on her bare chest, over her heart.
“Viva enim mortuorum in memoria vivorum est posita.”
He placed the dagger against her throat. “The life of the dead is retained in the memory of the living.”

The dagger sliced through her flesh. Bright red arterial blood sprayed upward, coating his arms and chest.

Power surged around the circle’s perimeter, flowed through him, and into the girl. She convulsed beneath his hold as her life drained away, pushed into the abyss by the energies now coursing through her—the same energies that caused his back to bow and his penis to stand erect, energies he had to control and direct into the doll.

Peter gasped and groaned as another surge of power hit him. “
Vita mutatur
 … life is changed.…”

The girl stilled and the power receded, but he knew it was only a momentary pause—the eye of the storm.
The girl’s mouth fell slack and a pulsing blue-white stream of mist rose before him.

He speared the mist with the dagger. Coldness spread over the blade, up the hilt, and into his arm. “… 
non tollitur
 … not taken away,” he completed the incantation as the energies ripped the girl’s soul from her body.

A piercing shriek filled the circle and he answered it with his own howl of pain. The mist quivered and writhed on the dagger’s blade. Power rushed into him.

The girl’s soul shattered like glass, leaving a small piece clinging to the dagger’s blade.

Peter positioned the blade over the doll, reciting the words he’d used to seal the circle in reverse order.
“Totus animus servo obscurum. Nex nutritor obscurum. Pectus pectoris nutritor nex. Vita in nex.”

The soul shard slipped from the blade and melded with the doll.

He covered the doll’s chest with his hand, feeling the final surge of power building within him.
“Ego sum obscurum quod vestri nex sustineo mihi.”

The dagger fell from his hand. The last of the circle’s energy coursed through him. His hips bucked violently as he climaxed and then collapsed to the floor between the doll and the girl’s corpse.

Panting from his exertion, he gazed at Alexandra’s replica, glowing brightly with life. He stroked the doll’s fine red hair and a spike of power jolted his fingertips.

He smiled and whispered to the doll. “I am the darkness and your death sustains me.”

ALEX PERCHED ON THE END OF A GURNEY AND CURSED
the darkness that her own stupidity had thrust upon her. The rapid transition through the Veil had been too much for her psyche to handle. As a result, her brain had blocked all visual input as a defensive measure. Even though it was a natural reaction, she still berated herself for following the possessing entity into the Shadowlands. She did it to save Varik, but now Morgan, and therefore the Tribunal, would know about her abilities as well as the blood-bond.

Blood-bonds were rare and a bond shared by two Enforcers even more so. The FBPI had no policy against its agents fraternizing, dating, or even marrying so long as their work performance didn’t suffer. However, having two Enforcers bound by blood increased the danger to both, especially if they worked in the field together. The attack in the salvage yard proved she and Varik were vulnerable, and with her temporary blindness, the Tribunal was sure to use it as an excuse to widen the scope of their inquiry.

“Well, Ms. Sabian, there doesn’t appear to be anything physically wrong with your eyes,” an unseen doctor said. “However, I’d really like you to have a CT scan.”

“No.” Alex rubbed her eyes and sighed when the darkness remained unchanged. She slipped on her sunglasses, not because she needed them, but because she felt weird staring into nothing.

“We need to be certain there isn’t an underlying cause that—”

“The underlying cause is psychic trauma.” She heard the emergency room treatment door open and the scent of sandalwood and cinnamon announced Varik’s return. “Your scans and tests aren’t going to find diddly shit.”

The doctor huffed loudly and seemed to be preparing his next argument when Varik cut him off. “Save your breath, Doc. You’re not going to win with her. Believe me.”

Alex flipped him off, earning a laugh from Varik and another huff from the doctor.

“When can we expect her eyesight to return?” Varik asked.

“Could be anywhere from hours to days. In the meanwhile, if you should develop any headaches or eye pain, come back to the ER right away.”

“Understood,” Alex said.

“How’s your pain now?”

“Better after that nurse shot me in the ass.” Ever since she’d returned from the Shadowlands, she’d felt as though she’d fallen from a great height and her body was a giant bruise. Whatever drug the nurse had given her dulled the hurt to a tolerable ache. Too bad it wouldn’t last more than an hour or two due to Alex’s high vampire metabolism.

“It’s probably best if you aren’t left alone for the next few hours, at least until the medication wears off. Will someone be around to help you?”

Varik answered before Alex could respond. “Don’t worry. She’ll be well supervised. I’ll see to it personally.”

Alex frowned in the direction of his voice. Vampires were fiercely independent, even in childhood, and a blind vampire was often viewed as a burden both on
their family and on the community. Long ago, any disabled vampires, whether caused by the rare birth defect or through artificial means, were killed in order to preserve the community’s hidden status from humans.

Alex was already facing a potential death sentence because she’d turned rogue. Damian’s reinstatement didn’t change the fact that she still must face the Tribunal, nor did her blindness. In fact, her current self-made predicament would be viewed as further evidence of her recklessness and would undoubtedly weigh heavily against her.