The Blood That Bonds (29 page)

“
All will
not
be well. I’m sorry,
Two. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I could think of nothing else
to do.”

“
S’okay.” Two felt groggy,
like she had just been pulled from a deep sleep. “What do we do,
Theroen?”

“
We get out. All will not
be well. Be ready to run when I tell you.”

“
Run where?”

Theroen shrugged. “Run in whatever direction
Abraham is not.”

He exited the car and went to stand beside
Sam in the rain. Two followed. Abraham towered in front of them,
massive, grim and silent, his face a mask of fury. Two felt rooted
to the ground, legs stiff and numb from fear. Run? She wondered if
she could move.

“
Father.” Theroen’s voice
was quiet. Cautious. Abraham’s eyes moved to his son, seemed to
bore into him. Theroen stood firm, staring back at the elder
vampire.

“
Leaving so soon, Theroen?”
he asked. His voice was light, mocking, but behind it Two heard
anger, and an ageless, depthless hate.

“
I thought it best. I can
only assume you wish to be rid of me, and of Two, as soon as
possible.”

“
Rid of you. Yes. Yes, my
headstrong son, I wish to be rid of you. And so, you may go. You
will leave me Samantha, and you will leave me Tori, and since I am
now short a daughter, you will leave me Two. In doing this, you
release yourself from my bond, forever.”

Theroen took a breath, set himself, looked
off to the side and back at Abraham. “No, father. I will not.”

“
Oh no? And tell me, boy …
how would you have this encounter end? Shall I allow you and your
lover to run off into the darkness? No, I think not. Shall I
instead slaughter her, and this half-vampire cow, right where we
stand? My child is
dead
, Theroen, because of your fledgling. Her life is
forfeit.”

“
Your daughter murdered
herself, Abraham. There is nothing Two wanted less, but she did
what she had to do. Two proved superior to Missy.”

“
Did she?” Abraham’s voice
was raw in its malice. “Did she indeed? What will she do now,
Theroen? She is a quaking little girl, trembling at the darkness.
See how she stares? She stands in the face of eternity, a candle
before the blackness of the storm. What
will
she do?”

Theroen closed his eyes. “She will run, and
when you try to pursue her, I will stop you.”

Abraham seemed taken aback by this. He
paused for a brief moment, cocked his head, and then howled his
horrible laughter. Two felt goose bumps ripple up and down her
arms. Sam cried out, and took a step backwards, her trance
dissolving. Abraham put his hand out, and she stilled, but looked
at Two as if awaiting instructions.

“
You are ready to die for
these two, my son?”

“
Two has my heart, and
Samantha has my promise to my sister. I will sacrifice myself for
them, if that is how it must be.”

“
Ah, little, holy Theroen.
Do you truly believe this act can make up for centuries of godless
living? Centuries of death and evil? How much blood is on your
hands?”

“
That blood can never be
washed away, Father. You know this. There is much I would atone
for, given the chance, but the blood will always
remain.”

“
Perhaps I shall simply
kill all three of you.”

Theroen shrugged. “It is within your power.
I ask that as payment for three hundred and fifty years of loyalty,
you let us live. Let us go, Abraham.”

“
No.”

“
Then I offer my life for
theirs. That is the bargain … the request.”

Two wanted to protest, but could not find
her voice. She wondered if it was Abraham or Theroen keeping her
from speaking, suspected it was the latter, and began to weep in
frustration.

“
Your foolish notions of
love and redemption disappoint me, Theroen. At every step, you have
disappointed me. Did you learn nothing from Lisette?”

“
I learned much from
Lisette, father.”

“
Not everything. No,
Lisette brought one secret with her into the ground, Theroen. Sweet
little Lisette, pure and honest. Wretched. Loathsome.
Good
. All these years and
you’ve never found out. How marvelous.

“
Oh, Theroen … How she did
scream when I chained her to her funeral pyre.”

Theroen’s eyes blazed. His jaw clenched,
hands wrapping into fists, muscles tensing. It seemed that at any
moment he would spring at Abraham.

“
Isaac—” he began, and
Abraham cut him off with the wave of a hand.

“
Isaac was a fool, and a
puppet. It took me little effort to work him into a frothing rage
over Lisette’s transgressions. He brought her to me, Theroen, so
she would know. Before she died, I wanted her to truly understand
the penalty for taking what was mine.”

Theroen was pale. Shaking. Barely in control
of himself. He spoke through his teeth. “I have given you more than
three centuries of service for a debt that I did not owe. You will
let my child, and Melissa’s child, leave. Then you will prepare for
death.”

And now Abraham grinned, his eyes greedy,
burning with anticipation. “Oh, my. How exciting it all is! Yes,
Theroen, she may leave. You will stay. This will be wonderful
indeed.”

Theroen turned to Two. “Go.”

Two found she could speak again. “No,
Theroen. I won’t.”

“
You will. Take Samantha,
and go, and do not look back.”

“
You can’t—”

“
Go!” he snarled. Two
flinched backward, then looked at him again, frightened, confused,
unsure. Theroen, with a visible effort, brought himself back in
control. “Please, my love. Do not make me force you.”

His eyes held her for a moment longer, and
then Two saw the anger swallow him again, and he turned back to
Abraham. She took Sam’s hand, turned to her left, and ran, tugging
the younger girl along.

* * *

They made it perhaps two hundred yards
through the damp woods before Two was stopped by a low growling.
She skidded in the mud, nearly falling, and came to a halt. Eyes
glittered from the darkness before her.

“
Whatthefuckisthat?” Sam
asked in a breathless rush.

“
That’s Tori. She’s the
other vampire. She knows me … but I think she knows what happened
to her sister, too.”

Tori moved closer, into a patch of
moonlight, and Two saw that her face was drawn and pinched in rage.
She snarled, and charged them, howling. Two did the only thing she
could think of. She held out her hands, still tacky with Melissa’s
blood, and implored Tori to stop.

Tori seemed somewhat taken aback by this.
She slid in the mud, came to a stop and rolled back on her
haunches, considering Two.

“
Tori, it’s Two. I know you
remember me. I know you’re a lot smarter than you seem. I know you
can smell Melissa’s blood. I know that you know she’s dead. Can you
understand that I didn’t want it, Tori? That I’m sorry? I need you
to understand.”

Tori took a few steps closer, and made that
questioning sound Two had heard when they had first met: like a dog
yawning. Two held her hand out. Tori sniffed it, growled again,
looking up at Two with accusing eyes. Two knelt, and matched Tori’s
gaze.

“
I didn’t want to kill her,
Tori. I didn’t. Now I have to run. You can stop me … kill me here
if you want. That might not be such a bad thing. Or you can come
with me. I don’t know how far we’ll get, but it’s me or Abraham
now. You have to choose.”

Tori seemed to be struggling, perhaps
attempting to process the words, perhaps only making her own
decisions based on what she sensed. Two couldn’t tell. Finally,
Tori moved out of Two’s way.

“
Thank you, Tori. We have
to go now. You can … God, I’m so sorry. Sam, come on!” Two took
Sam’s hand again, and they began running once more down the path.
After a moment, Tori caught up to them, overtook them, turned and
met Two’s eyes, and then shot away on a diagonal, down a different
path. Two relied on blind instinct, as she had so many times
before, and followed Tori’s route.

* * *

Theroen stood facing his father, trying hard
to keep the rage from flooding him completely and drowning his
thoughts.

Abraham’s eyes glittered at
him, mocking, as he spoke. “So. After almost four hundred years,
things
finally
get
interesting.”

Theroen’s voice was low. Strained. “You
murdered her.”

“
I did. I did indeed. She
took what was mine.”

“
I was never yours,
Abraham.”

“
No, not in your mind, but
it matters not. Lisette learned her lesson, and I gained my
fledgling back. As is always the case, Theroen, I won. And now we
stand here, father and son. Soon you will attack me, and not just
because I took one bride from you, but because now I threaten a
second.”

“
You cannot have her,
Abraham.”

“
I don’t
want
her. I never did. I
thought she was a terrible choice for you, my son. Drugs?
Prostitution? She is unclean, Theroen. However did you find
her?”

“
I saw her standing on a
corner. I saw her
working
, Abraham, waiting to pick up
some strange man and have sex with him, and the strength I sensed
in her caught my attention. So much strength, from one in so low a
place. Would you even have noticed?”

“
Ah. Strength. Much like
Lisette, is she not? Young Two does not like to be owned by anyone.
As I said: a terrible choice for a fledgling.”

“
I do not look for slaves,
Abraham. I look for equals.”

“
I grow tired of this
nonsense, Theroen. It will lead nowhere. Your child, and the
half-vampire, and now yet
another
of my daughters, are all making their escape as we
speak.”

“
Good.”

“
We shall see how ‘good’ it
is when she feels you die, Theroen.”

“
That is how it is to be
then? My life for theirs?”

“
That is the bargain,
Theroen. You know me, and you know that I honor my bargains …
though I certainly stack the odds in my favor before making them.
If she flees tonight and does not return, she will not suffer at my
hands. This … this will be worth the price my daughter
paid.”

“
I will not make it easy on
you, Abraham.”

“
My son, you never
have.”

They were quiet for a moment, father and
son, bitter enemies. Theroen knew he faced death, but his love for
Two, his rage over Lisette, left him numb. There was no fear.
Abraham, sensing this, broke into a malicious grin.

A single thought came to
Theroen in that moment. Whether from his mind, or Abraham’s, he
could not say.
Get it over
with.

Theroen charged.

* * *

Abraham, alive long before the birth of
Christ, had met many challenges in his day. Some were human, some
vampires, all had sought only to bring about his destruction. None
had achieved that goal, and few had even come close.

Now his son charged across the wet grass,
roaring, eyes dark with hatred. Abraham’s amazing mind processed
each instant like a still picture floating gently in time’s pool.
He had ages to react. Eons. Theroen, powerful as he was, held no
threat.

Abraham stood and waited for his son. He
waited to free himself from the chains of his progeny. Melissa,
dead. Theroen, dead. Tori would likely turn on Two as soon as
Theroen’s death stole the whore’s vampirism away. Perhaps then Tori
would become a rogue monster, at least until she was hunted down
and destroyed by other vampires, an aberration too dangerous to let
live. Abraham no longer cared. He stood at the dawn of a new
millennium, and at the edge of the next phase of his life, a phase
where he doled out the gifts of his vampirism slowly, to
supplicants who would appreciate the power he delivered to
them.

Abraham had time to smile as Theroen
charged. Ah, it was going to be glorious.

* * *

Hitting Abraham was like hitting a wall of
solid concrete. Theroen collided with his father, fingers hooked
into claws, seeking to rend and tear. The force of the initial blow
alone would have shattered mortal bones. Abraham took only a small
step backward.

Hands like manacles around Theroen’s wrists,
forcing his claws away from Abraham’s face. Theroen snarled, lunged
forward anyway, oblivious to the pain as his shoulders dislocated,
snapping his teeth at Abraham’s neck. He tried to bite, to drink.
Perhaps if he could cut Abraham, he might weaken his father.

Abraham twisted, and pulled Theroen around
by the arms. Theroen felt himself flying through the air, heaved to
the ground. Abraham landed atop him. The creature was cackling, a
horrific, mad sound, happy at last for action, after so many years
of dark study.

Theroen screamed as he felt teeth tear
through the flesh of his neck, opening his jugular vein in a warm
gush. He struggled against the weight on top of him, to no avail,
as the draining sensation began. Abraham was drinking. Laughing.
Bathing in Theroen’s blood.