The Blood That Bonds (10 page)

“
No, my father is Abraham.
My blood is Abraham’s blood. I only meant sisters in that our
bodies are of similar ages. And both of us will have been reborn
into darkness, as the poets put it.”

Darkness. Two could feel darkness at the
back of her mind, beginning to gnaw at her again. The idea of a fix
right now, after the nice warm bath, out on the patio with a
friend, seemed dangerously appealing. Melissa cocked her head.

“
You’re thinking about
drugs.”

Two felt her face reddening, nodded. “Yeah.
Sorry.”

“
It’s okay. I imagine it’s
hard not to. I wonder if it’s like the thirst. If it’s like when
we’re forced not to drink for a few days. It burns in us, Two. It’s
all I can think about. Sometimes it’s like that even on normal
days. Sometimes I’ll feed two … even three times a
night.”

Two didn’t know. Of the thirst she knew only
a vague desire, not a desperate need. Of the heroin, she knew
nothing else.

Time passed. Several times Two was one the
verge of asking Melissa for more blood, but stopped herself. She
didn’t want to seem that weak. She could handle it until Theroen
returned. Light shakes and a dry mouth. No worse than getting the
flu, really, for the moment.

In the distance, in the trees, a howling.
Two looked up, eyes widening. Melissa’s reaction was immediate. She
stood and peered out into the forest.

“
Oh, shit. I have to go,
Two.”

Two felt fear flood through her, fear of
being alone, of the pain returning. Two turned to Melissa with
pleading eyes.

“
Why? What is
it?”

“
I have to. And you have to
go back inside.” Apology implicit in her voice, but Melissa offered
no explanation. Two looked at her, mute. She wanted to ask for more
blood, if Melissa was going to leave her alone, but the vampire
seemed agitated and nervous.

“
I’ll take you back up to
your bedroom, if you want. Then I have to go.”

Two nodded, biting her lower lip, trying to
suppress the fear and depression that wanted to engulf her.

Lying in the dark. Hard to breathe, hard to
think, conscious thought slipping in and out like the tide.
Sometimes there was only pain, sometimes she could hear herself
sobbing. Chills, nausea, and the maddening craving for the drug.
God, all she wanted was to get high. Was it so wrong? Thoughts of
Darren, Molly, the drug, the needle. Two wanted to leave this
mansion, return to her pimp, beg for his apology and for her
ration. But she couldn’t walk. She knew that soon she would try to
crawl, crawl back to New York, back to Darren, on her hands and
knees. She had no choice.

More howling from the outside, and then
quiet. Just the wind, the rustling of leaves, the sound of grass
shivering under its assault. Two’s eyes were wide open in the dark,
not seeing the room around her. Instead she saw the forest. She
heard light, quiet breathing. Gasps from further away. Was this her
body? Golden hair at the sides of her vision, hanging in long,
loose curls like hers. Yet her chest felt heavier, the breasts
larger, the body lankier. She moved across the ground in a manner
completely unfamiliar to her. This was not Two.

The pain cut through the vision. Two gasped,
moaned, lay back, and again the seeing overtook her. No, not Two.
Not her eyes. Not her body. Someone else. Some other.

Ahead, a silhouette, something struggling
its way through the forest. Something that Two could barely see was
moving in lumbering steps, gasping, weeping, praying in some
nameless language to some nameless god. The prayer of the victim.
The prayer of the hunted. Two’s heart raced, adrenaline flooding
her body, excitement and lust and terrible, terrible hunger. The
prey was at hand, the hunt over.

Speed, now, overtaking the victim, warmth
flooding through her body as dull excitement awakened between her
thighs. Was it always like this? Would she never grow used to this,
never lose that throbbing heat? She tasted the man’s sweat, salty,
as her teeth and tongue caressed the surface of his neck. He lay
there, caught by her powerful arms, unable to move, unable to
breathe.

The attack was not a clean bite, not the
civilized piercing Theroen’s teeth had made in her own vein, barely
noticeable afterward. Two felt her head move forward, felt her jaws
clench like powerful machines, felt bone and muscle and cartilage
crush between her teeth. A tearing sound, like wet cloth,
resistance giving way as she jerked and twisted her head. Two
screamed out loud at this sensation, in her bedroom in the
mansion.

The blood sprayed, coating her face in
warmth. Below her, the man was jerking, seizing, pain and pleasure
overtaking him even as his death throes began. Great draughts of
blood, they seemed to never end, pumping and pumping from his
ruined throat.

Two closed her eyes, driving this vision
away, descending into pain. The pain was better than this. The pain
would help her forget, help her erase this memory of brutal,
violent death. Yet these things did not happen. Two could not
forget, and in the depths of pain she found she could admit to
herself the truth, somehow more bearable amidst the cramps and
chills ravaging her body.

Hadn’t she wanted it? To rip, to tear, to
feed? Had her body not peaked as those awful teeth began their
assault, as it had with Theroen? As it had with Abraham? Had it not
reacted to this horror with pulsing ecstasy, calling for more,
calling for the blood?

Had she not loved it?

* * *

Two was sitting up in her bed, pressing
against the wall, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them,
shuddering. It took several seconds for the sound of the door
opening to register with her. She looked up. Theroen, standing
before her, concern and love and sorrow on his face, watching her
with his unearthly composure. Two put her head down on her arms and
began to sob.

He was holding her, powerful arms, gentle
touch. He lay next to her on the bed, and she wept into his chest.
He whispered into her ear, calming, soothing, and his fingers
touched her lips, and Two tasted blood there. She licked it
greedily.

“
I am sorry, Two. It was
foolish of me to leave without giving you this. It is my fault.
I’ll not leave you again now. We will be together until this is
done, and then forever.”

The pain receded. Gone, not forever, but for
the moment, and for the moment that was enough. Two twisted in
Theroen’s arms, sobbing, crushed her body against his, kissed his
neck, kissed his lips. Theroen kissed her tears from her face.

“
I am so sorry, Two. I
would never have left you if I’d know it would get that bad, that
fast.”

She shook her head. She didn’t care. She
didn’t blame him. He was here, now, and the rest was
unimportant.

“
Has it been this way since
I left?”

“
No.” A whisper. It was all
she could manage.

Theroen sat up, seemed to notice her clothes
for the first time. Two smiled sadly as he looked her over,
shrugged her shoulders, looked at him in apology.

“
It looked a lot better …
before.”

“
You look radiant. How
strong you must be, to look so, and in such pain.”

Two lowered her eyes. Was this strength?
Theroen ran his hand through her hair, seemed awed by its
softness.

“
Melissa helped
me.”

Theroen nodded, as if expecting this.

“
I thought she might show
herself. She’s incorrigibly curious. Good that it was Melissa, and
not Missy.”

“
There are two of
them?”

Theroen sighed, shook his head.

“
No.”

“
I don’t
understand.”

“
Someday soon, I’ll tell
you much more of Abraham, and myself, and Melissa … and why we are
who we are. You are lucky, Two.”

His smile, though, was bitter.

“
Why?”

“
We are unlike any other
clan of vampires I have ever come across. We are as unique in our
makeup as any mortal. Abraham, myself, Melissa … sweet Melissa,
cruel Missy; sometimes she is both in a single night. Abraham was
old when he made me. It gave me power beyond any of a normal
fledgling. He was ancient when he chose to make Melissa, yet rather
than bestow power upon her as it had me, the infusion of his blood
broke her mind.”

Two thought again of the howling in the
woods, and Melissa’s immediate departure. She began to ask Theroen
of this, but he was looking away, lost in thought.

“
Melissa is my sister, and
I have loved her as much as many mortal brother might. I fear for
her. I fear for what may happen when I leave.”

“
Leave?”

“
I cannot stay here much
longer. Twenty years, maybe less. Abraham and I …”

He trailed off, eyes clouding again. She saw
sorrow there, and anger. Finally he sighed, shrugged, looked
away.

“
You don’t like each other,
do you?” Two’s voice was soft.

“
We
despise
each other.” Theroen turned
to face her again.

“
Why?”

“
You felt his evil. You
know it does not reside in me. He assumed the blood would convert
me, change me as it had him. It did not. For four hundred years I
have been his errand boy, slave to the whims of a depraved fiend
whose lust for power and dark knowledge know no bounds. I have seen
him murder dozens in a single night, solely to try, and fail, to
read the future in their steaming entrails.”

Two shuddered. Theroen looked at her, nodded
grimly.

“
I am no knight in shining
armor, Two. I have killed, many times, without repentance, and I
would have you do the same. You must understand this. But I am not
evil in the manner that Abraham is evil: active, conscious,
focused. I am evil like a hurricane. A force of nature, nothing
more.

“
There’s no evil in
that.”

“
Isn’t there? But it
doesn’t matter. I am the creature I have been for nearly half a
millennium. Any moral dilemma that might once have existed has long
since been washed from me. But I still hold the rest. I still hold
love for human life, and I take it only when necessary. I loathe
Abraham for his inability to feel these things.”

“
Why haven’t you left
already?”

“
It’s the blood that bonds.
It keeps me here. But the link grows weak as my powers increase.
They are already well beyond what they should be for my age. This,
too, is a source of frustration for Abraham. Most
Eresh
fledglings are not
ready to leave their masters until well past their fifth
century.”

His eyes flashed suddenly, a look of disgust
crossing his features.

“
Yet it is
his own fault
!” Theroen
snarled. “He waited too long to make his children. He knew that age
makes the blood unpredictable. He knew that if I was not driven mad
by it, I would wield power unlike any ordinary
fledgling.”

“
But he keeps you here
anyway …”

“
Out of spite, yes, and
malice. Abraham hates me, perhaps more than I hate him, but he
would not be rid of me. I am
his
, do you understand? Or so he
feels.”

Two took his hand, kissed the
fingertips.

“
This is the world within
the world, Two.” Theroen’s voice was gentle now. He looked again
into her eyes. “This is a secret life unknown to those who walk
during the daylight. Humans have their legends and rumors, movies,
television, comic books … but they do not believe.”

Two was kissing his face now. Chin, cheek,
lips. Theroen kissed back absently, his mind still on their
discussion. Two moved her lips to his neck, felt the pulse of his
blood buried beneath the flesh, and was overwhelmed with sudden
desire. She pressed her new, sharp teeth against the flesh, waited
for his acknowledgement. Apprehension. Would he deny her this gift?
Would her yearning go unfulfilled?

She heard the smile in his voice.
Satisfaction. He understood now; she wanted what he offered.

“
It is yours for the
taking, Two. It always has been.”

Two, unfamiliar with the mechanics of her
own body now, pressed too hard, tore instead of pierced. The blood
flowed out around her lips, dripped down her chin. Theroen, his
unearthly calm never leaving him, lifted his hand to her head,
pressed her against him. Two wrapped her arms about him, fastened
herself securely to his neck. Drank. Swallowed.

Warmth unlike anything she had ever known.
Dizziness, desire. The blood coursed over her tongue, down her
throat, hot and wet and alive. Two moaned, her arms tightening, and
here it seemed was everything she had ever wanted. Thoughts of
heroin were cleared from her mind. This was freedom. This was love.
The full, rich liquid of life which Theroen now gave her freely was
beyond anything in the scope of her experience.

She dropped backwards, satiated in only
moments. She lay on the bed, Theroen next to her, gasping, reeling.
Weeping again? It seemed she had wept more in the past two days
than ever before in her life. Joy, pain, fear, desire.

“
I understand,” Theroen
whispered into her ear. “Ah, Two. There will be so much for us
after. Soon, my love. Soon.”

Soon
, Two thought.
Soon and then
forever
. She held on to Theroen, lost in
the blood, lost in the ecstasy of it all. Small kisses now, lover’s
kisses, and the joy she felt was too real to be wrong, too powerful
to be denied. The moment it was safe for him to do so, Two was
prepared to beg for Theroen to drain her, and fill her with his
blood, and finish her transformation.