Blood Ties (20 page)

Besides, the light that caught Oliver's eye just now was not that pale firefly green. It had seemed white. He peered into the pine trees, seeing only shadows.

There it was again: some kind of glowing white object, but its exact shape was obscured by the branches and thick trunks. It seemed to shimmer, its edges tinged with silver, throwing off blue sparks, almost as though it were electric.

As Oliver watched, the white glow receded into the woods. He suddenly felt like he wanted, or even
needed
to follow it. The light didn't feel dangerous. In fact, Oliver felt a strange connection to it in the forces around him: It almost seemed familiar.

He moved off the path, treading quietly. For a moment, he lost sight of the light completely, but then spied it again. It seemed to be drifting along in no hurry.

Oliver weaved more rapidly through the trees. He closed on the shape. It looked narrow, tall. Not a figure, exactly, but the word
apparition
came to mind.

An apparition was an energy concentration, almost like an echo of someone or something. It was different than a wraith, which was a person's spirit that was still attached to this world by grief. Apparitions wouldn't be able to act or speak in this world. They were thought to be
drawn
by a person, meaning that they weren't just beings on their own, but were created by the people who saw them. Like a memory made real. Was that what this was? Oliver needed to get a better look.

The light winked out. Oliver blinked, turning his head about. Where had it gone?

Then he walked into a brick wall. It was chest high, and his knees and torso thumped against it. He stumbled back, annoyed, but spied the light again on the other side. It was about twenty feet away. As he watched, it seemed to lower and sink out of sight.

Oliver leaped easily over the wall and found himself in a cleared area beneath tall pines. The ground was covered with wood chips. Slides for small children had been carved into large rocks. In front of him was a series of concrete mounds with tunnels running beneath them. Oliver approached the nearest entrance. A short flight of stairs led down into the passages. Bending over, Oliver caught another glimpse of the white light. It didn't seem to be moving.

It's waiting for me,
he thought, and felt like that was true.

“Hello?” Oliver whispered. He ducked and dropped down the steps. The apparition hovered just beyond a bend in the passage. Oliver moved slowly toward it. He thought he could make out some features now in the blue-white light: arms, legs, a head, and hair.

Hey
… Oliver heard a voice in his mind, weak and distant, and he felt sure that he recognized it. But apparitions weren't supposed to be able to speak.

Oliver tried to make out the face, but couldn't. He needed to get a little closer, see the apparition fully, and talk with it. He really wanted to know what it was … but something froze him in his tracks.

There was a new sound in the dark: a deep, guttural growl. The apparition began to fade, its light dissolving.

“Wait!”
Oliver whispered after it.

The growling increased. It vibrated like a car engine. Oliver looked around, then up.

Above him was a hole in the concrete ceiling, and peering over the edge of this space was a giant, feline face with glowing black eyes. The zoo's jaguar. And it was Occupied.

Oliver scrambled backward, falling. The creature hissed, baring a mouth of razor-sharp teeth, and lunged at him.

Thick paws slammed against Oliver's chest. The weight of the jaguar pinned him to the ground, its spotted face filling his vision. Whiskers brushed against his cheeks. Hot saliva dripped into his eye. The cat unleashed a piercing cry, its sour breath blasting Oliver's face. Its glowing black eyes bore into him. Oliver could also smell a pungent but familiar odor.

Suddenly the jaguar was enveloped in black, swirling smoke. It leaped off Oliver. He sat up to see a figure appearing. Before he could make out who it was, he recognized the laughter.

“Ha! What a
lamb
!”

Oliver scowled. “Shut up, Bane.”

Bane crouched in front of Oliver, a wicked grin stretching the painted pattern of black and red spots that adorned his bone-white face. That gross smell was the coyote and aniseed cologne that he'd been drowning himself in lately.

Behind him, the dazed cat turned to dash off. “Stay, little nahualli,” Bane said and flicked his wrist, tossing a tiny glass sphere. It hit the wall beside the jaguar and exploded in a puff of dust. The cat seemed to choke, then slumped to the ground and lay still, chest heaving slowly, its eyes open, its body paralyzed.

“What a creature, eh?” said Bane. “We're demon twins.”

“Whatever,” Oliver muttered. “Like you could have a jaguar nahualli. They're supposed to be noble—”

Bane socked Oliver in the shoulder. “That's for being dumb!” He glared darkly at Oliver, but then grinned again. He brushed his long bangs, dyed with shocks of green, from his face. “And you should have seen the look on your face! You'd think it would get old, bro, but it never does.”

“Yeah, it sure is funny,” Oliver mumbled, as he got to his feet.

Bane's arm shot out, knocking Oliver down again. “Watch your mouth, dork.”

Something clattered like claws on the top of the tunnels. Oliver looked up to see a wolf peering down at them. Now a black bear appeared. These animals also had glowing black eyes.

“Hey, gents,” Bane said to the animals. Black smoke swirled around them, and Bane's friends Ty and Randall appeared. Their faces were also painted with designs in skeletal colors. They produced glass spheres and incapacitated their animals. “Look what I found,” Bane continued. “What should we do with him?”

Randall's grin faded. “How about I tear his limbs off?” He sounded like he meant it, and Oliver saw Randall flexing his right hand. His arm had been burned off by the Scourge of Selket back in the winter, and had only recently finished regrowing. Emalie was responsible for Randall's injury, although she'd been possessed at the time. Randall blamed Oliver, because the Scourge had been meant for him. The Brotherhood of the Fallen had been trying to slay Oliver so that he wouldn't open the Gate.

“Or,” said Bane, “we could drop him in the hippo pool. That'd be fun to watch.”

“Why don't we go do something that's not completely boring?” grumbled Ty.

“Good point,” Bane agreed. “Anyway, we wouldn't want to damage the favorite son.”

“Better than being the shame of the family,” Oliver shot back before he could stop himself.

Bane's eyes narrowed to slits. “Excuse me?” Oliver saw his brother's fingers tighten into a fist.

Don't say anything else,
Oliver thought, and yet, since he'd confronted his father in Italy, Oliver was finding that it helped to try to say what he was feeling. At the time, he'd thought that his parents were so ashamed of him that they were going to slay him and start over with a new son, but when he finally confronted his dad, he'd found that their feelings were quite different.

“Big deal,” Oliver said. “So you can push your little brother around. You're just jealous because I have a destiny.” Oliver felt strange using his destiny as a weapon against Bane, since Oliver didn't even want it. In fact, Bane would have been much better suited to the prophecy. Ending the world wouldn't bother him one bit, and he'd probably love all the attention of being the chosen vampire. Still, it was all Oliver had to fight back with. “And what do you have?” he continued. “Some fancy new Occupying powers, so what.”

“Oh yeah?” Bane grabbed Oliver by the shirt and hurled him up out of the tunnels. Oliver spun through the air, trying to find the forces, but slammed to the ground, his back spiking with pain. As he tumbled down the side of one of the cement mounds he thought that, while this whole saying-what-you-were-feeling thing might be good in the long run, in the short term it always seemed to lead to pain.

Oliver landed on his stomach, getting a mouthful of wood chips. Bane vaulted out of the tunnel and stalked toward him.

“Hey, Bane, can we go already?” called Ty, his voice flat with boredom.

Bane's eyes glowed fiercely. “Don't talk to me about your destiny, you miserable butt fungus.”

Oliver jumped to his feet. “Leave me alone.”

“I should,” Bane snarled, but he paused. “If you had any idea …”

“About what?” Oliver was surprised to hear himself shouting, but he couldn't help it. “What am I too much of a
lamb
to know about now?
You're
the one who doesn't have a clue. You've been digging around all year trying to find out more about my destiny 'cause you wish you had it!”

“Ha!” Bane spat, eyes burning, but he stayed rooted in place. “Don't act like you know anything, bro. 'Cause you don't, you really,
really
don't.” Bane's voice cracked a little, from anger, Oliver guessed.

“Can I rip his leg off?” Randall called. “Or can we just leave?”

Bane glared at Oliver. Oliver stared back, trying to keep his eyes narrowed, trying not to let his legs buckle. Bane seemed even more angry than usual.

Finally, Bane spun and returned to his friends. “We're outta here,” he barked, dropping down into the tunnel. Ty and Randall stood and dissolved into smoke swirls, then rushed back into their animals. The wolf and bear got to their feet and were joined by the jaguar. The three grunted and growled to one another, then took off as a pack into the trees.

Oliver felt the dizzying rush of his nerves unwinding. That had not been fun. Not that things had ever been particularly fun with Bane, but lately they seemed even worse. Bane wasn't happy about summer school, even though it allowed him to finally catch up on his studies like Occupying, which his friends had learned back in the spring. He always seemed irritable, and kept to himself even more than usual. It had been a long time since he'd come home and shared stories of his exploits with Phlox and Sebastian, as he once had.

Then again, they were still mad at Bane for getting the family kicked off the boat to Isla Necrata, which was a major embarrassment, not to mention that it cut their summer vacation short.

Bane had been caught stealing the summoning charm for Selene, when Half-Light was still trying to acquire it. Oliver didn't know whether Bane had used the charm during the time that he'd had it. Had he summoned Selene, and if so, what had he learned about Oliver's prophecy? And why had he wanted to summon her in the first place? Was it really for the simple reason that he was jealous of Oliver? Or was it more than that?
Maybe he's trying to find a way to get my destiny for his own.

Whatever Bane was up to, Oliver hadn't heard his parents talk about it much at all. Overall, there seemed to be a lot of
not
talking this summer when it came to Bane. Since the trip to Morosia, it was almost as though Oliver and Bane had switched places.

Well, hopefully Bane was out of his hair for the night, and he could get back to meeting up with Emalie and Dean. Oliver hurried across the zoo to the echoing sounds of lonely animals and vampires at play. He kept to the shadows, and kept an eye out for that strange apparition, but he didn't see it again.

Chapter 2

Bats and Bodies

NEAR THE CENTER OF
the zoo was a long, low building. Half of it contained reptiles, and the other half held the nocturnal animals exhibit. Oliver passed the main entrance and stopped at a maintenance door. It had a thick padlock, but that was only for show. The lock had been specially made with a release button on the back, placed there by a thoughtful vampire employee.

The room was comfortably warm, lit only in low red. Oliver was relieved to find that there weren't too many vampires around. He passed a group of three kids sitting on the rocks inside the turtle habitat, snickering softly to one another, silhouetted in the red light. A group of younger girls knelt in a circle on the floor, tossing dice made of bone.

Oliver kept his head down as he passed the vampires, only looking up to gather the curious glances from the reptiles, who were busy and alert with nighttime activity. They had sensitive noses and were aware of the forces, too, so vampires intrigued them in ways that annoying humans never could.

At the end of the reptile hall, Oliver pushed through a set of double doors and wound his way into the nocturnal animals room. Day and night had been switched for these creatures so that humans could see them at their most active. At ten P.M. the lights would be turned on for the rest of the night, but Oliver had a little time in the dark before that. He walked on a twisting catwalk with angled glass walls looking in on the dark habitats. He noticed a slow loris creeping by, and heard the rustling of an anteater on the simulated forest floor below.

He stopped at the last habitat and sat down on the carpeted floor, elbows around his knees. Despite his side trip with the apparition and his brother, Oliver still had a few minutes before Emalie and Dean would arrive.

In front of him was a display of trees with thick ropes strung in between. There was movement, and then the ropes began to twist and bend—a flapping of leather—and now a small creature approached, pulling its way along a rope: a vampire bat.

The creature reached the glass, its upside-down head peering out at Oliver, its busy nose twitching.

“Hey,” said Oliver quietly. The bat continued to survey him as he stood and produced a small plastic bag from his sweatshirt pocket. He placed his other hand against the glass. The bat reached out, touching the tiny elongated fingers at the end of its leathery wing to the glass where Oliver's hand was.

“Maybe you'd be my nahualli,” Oliver said quietly. Unlike a jaguar or tiger, the little vampire bat was never going to be the symbol of an army or a great leader. It preferred the shadows, where it could be less noticed as it went about its existence. Oliver liked that.