Turned by Blood

by Holly Hook

  Xavier: “Bathory...yes. Primrose, warn them...serious!”

  “...too powerful. Let her do her thing elsewhere.”

  “...planning something big...won't be elsewhere.”

  It looked like the usual display between the two of them. Xavier's aunt had been the favorite of his horrible grandfather, and she knew it. Xavier had been the family scapegoat and the unofficial idiot (even though he wasn't an idiot.) Primrose had never taken him seriously. Sure, Xavier's family questioned why his violet-blue eyes had gone all the way violet, but that hadn't helped his reputation much.

  Alyssa sighed again. It was clear she could hear parts of the fight, too. She yanked open the door of Lovetail's and marched in, not caring about the dress code. I followed, trying to hide behind her.

  “Excuse me,” a waiter said, casting us a disapproving glare.

  I waved. “We're not eating in,” I explained, keeping my mouth most of the way shut this time. Everyone in here smelled like fancy food and delicious bread, and it was driving me crazy. I had to get out. “We're only here to pick someone up, and then we'll be leaving.”

  The waiter grumbled and waited. It was clear they had no tolerance for riffraff. “Make it fast, please.”

  Xavier looked up when we approached. “You shouldn't be in here,” he said. “They almost didn't let me in."

  Primrose wore an evening dress and makeup. Diamond earrings hung from her lobes, and she smelled like exotic wood smoke like every other War Mage. Her blue-violet eyes hardened as they landed on us. It was clear from her smell she had already sampled bread. Bathory was planning something horrible, and she was here, enjoying the meal.

  “Is my nephew telling the truth about the hospital basement?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Alyssa said. “He doesn't have a reason to lie.”

  Primrose's lips got thin, and the air crackled with electricity. Some came from her, but Xavier was the big spark in the room. It amazed me that none of the other diners seemed to notice. Maybe Alyssa and I could feel magic easier than Normals. “He knows he doesn't look good in the family,” Primrose said, keeping her voice low.

  I didn't get why his aunt hated him so much. Even Xavier's grandfather had honored him right before his death. The Lovellis were a messed up family.

  “This isn't about looking good,” Alyssa said. She was always in Xavier's corner. “This is about the Mother of Vampires planning something that has to do with harvesting more blood. She was the only Dark Council member who was loyal to the former mayor, and you have to be evil for that. Someone needs to investigate.”

  “That's ironic, coming from you,” Primrose said.

  Alyssa clenched her fists. She and Xavier were twins. It seemed Primrose had prejudices of her own. Once, I thought all Abnormals stuck together due to a common enemy—the ATC and its supporters—but I learned that the Abnormal world was just as screwed up as the Normal one.

  A lot of the War Mages were rich and let power go to their heads. Even though Mages were human, a lot of them had an incredible power. The Lovellis were the strongest family, and you didn't want to mess with them.

  “She won't listen,” Xavier said. “We might as well investigate things ourselves. It's what we always do.”

  “I will not have you getting into any more trouble, young man,” Primrose said. “We need no more ATC agents breaking into the Underground and kidnapping everyone.”

  “That wasn't my fault,” Xavier said, standing. “That was the fault of Leon.” He was talking about his grandfather.

  Primrose bit her lip and turned in her chair to face Xavier. The electricity in the room increased, making my hair stand on end. I hoped no magic flew. “We need to keep the ATC away as much as possible,” she said. “We're lucky they haven't returned.”

  “That's because Bathory killed most of the agents involved in that raid,” Alyssa said.

  “Exactly. We need to let her do her thing. The woman is thousands of years old. She's been in the shadows for that entire time, and the world has not ended. Engaging her will cause more problems than it will solve. She has not bothered the Underground.” Primrose didn't care about the Normals that Bathory would hurt. She would follow her father's example of hiding and doing nothing. That had worked well in the past.

  “Only, she tried to send her minions after Alyssa and I,” I said. “They knew we were in the basement. One of them said something about us being summoned by the Mother. I can't think of what else that means.”

  Xavier's jaw dropped. “The text?” he asked, paling.

  I felt like I'd interrupted. Primrose held me in her glare and I wanted to back towards the door.

  “Exactly,” Alyssa said. “What if she's trying to summon all the vampires for something? Thoreau's dead for the first time in millennia and now is her chance to be more than his shadow.”

  She had a point, and Xavier grabbed onto it. “Up to ten percent of the people in the Underground could be under her summons if that's the case,” he said. “We don't want to lose people like Trish. We need to send people out there to check it out.”

  Primrose wasn't moved. “Perhaps she was only after the people who fought her before.”

  She didn't give a crap about me and Alyssa, then. Primrose would play ostrich. Fine. “Let's go,” I said. At least Xavier knew.

  Besides, he was more powerful than Primrose now.

  The three of us left Xavier's aunt sitting alone at the table. As we left, I looked back to see her turning back to the menu.

  “Typical,” Xavier said with disgust. He lowered his sunglasses to glare at her. His eyes remained as violet as ever, and the surrounding energy crackled. How did he not notice it? “I'm sorry I didn't understand your text, Janine. I would have been there right away.”

  “It's my fault,” I said, eyeing the now-distant ATC building.

  “You were nervous,” Alyssa said. “You did the right thing.”

  “I wasn't nervous,” I said. “And now I'm missing a nail file.”

  We caught Xavier up on what happened. His jaw dropped when I told him about my makeshift weapon. “Do you think the guy survived?” I asked.

  Xavier shook his head as we walked towards an intersection. So far, no ATC vans had showed up. The bus driver might not have called them yet, and if we were lucky, he hadn't called them at all. The hundred dollar bill had come in handy. “If he spoke that same language Bathory used down in that cave one time, then he's old. Older vampires are stronger than the younger ones.”

  Alyssa nodded and shot me a warning glance. “Bathory was just as powerful as the former mayor. I couldn't fight her. The most I've ever gotten is one lucky stab. And that guy in the store—I couldn't hit him at all. He knew what was coming if I did. I could see that on his face.”

  “Then they're old vampires,” Xavier said. He faced me. “You're lucky. The moving bus saved you.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around that. Vampires stopped aging in their mid-twenties, or whenever they Turned if they were older. Alyssa's father looked like a twenty-five-year-old guy, even though he was in his forties. She and her dad looked like siblings.

  “Maybe I saved myself,” I said.

  “You could have,” Xavier said. “But the bus helped. You were right to get on it. The guy had nowhere to dodge when you went after him with that deadly nail file.” He blinked and rubbed his eyes as if he couldn't stand the thought. “You didn't get your contacts, did you?”

  “We planned to do that last,” Alyssa said. She glanced at a beauty salon, but it had closed and the woman inside was mopping the floor. Most stores in the city closed around nine, which meant we had to go back home and wait until tomorrow night to get contacts. Oh, and another nail file.

  It meant one more day of wearing sunglasses around my mom. She hadn't gone to work at the pharmacy since our apartment burned, since she was busy trying to find us a new place and deal with the renter's insurance, but she would soon, and I'd have to go back to school.

  She was
already angry when we stepped in through the door of Alyssa's grandmother's home at close to eleven.

  Xavier wanted to Transpose us, but Alyssa said no because someone might see. I knew the real reason. Alyssa feared Xavier's increased power, since none of us understood it. Though she had Transposed with him a few times since he'd changed, she was his battle partner and linked to him. I wasn't. She wasn't sure how a virtual god's power would affect me. Judging from the electric atmosphere around Xavier, I agreed that it might be dangerous to try.

  So we had to take another bus, and we took an extra hour to get out to Oakland, a town just outside Cumberland. Alyssa's grandmother had lived there for almost her entire life, and her house was in a wealthy neighborhood much safer than what I was used to. The bus dropped us off in downtown Oakland, a quaint place, and we walked the rest of the way to the house.

  Mom was in the window, peeking out and waiting for me to return. She'd given me a curfew of ten, and I had broken that big time. I gulped as I approached the door. The glare she was giving me rivaled that of the guy who had tried to kidnap us earlier that night.

  Night was the only time I could go out without too much fuss, and Mom was taking that away from me. It wasn't fair.

  She opened the door before I reached it. Mom had placed her braids up in a bun, the way she did when she drove to work at the pharmacy every morning. She had been out apartment hunting, then. If there was one thing about Mom, she rarely went out without looking her best.

  With a narrow gaze, she asked, “What happened to your hair?”

  “Did you like the purple better?” I asked. “I think blond and copper are much tamer colors.”

  “Get in here,” she ordered. Mom glared at Alyssa. She knew what Alyssa was and only tolerated her because she and Xavier rescued my mother from Thoreau's minion once. Before that, she had helped vote the demon mayor into office, thinking he was a great Normal who would make the city safer. I wondered how much she regretted her ballot after the truth came out.

  But she would never admit it.

  “Tell me,” Mom said once we stood in the living room. “What did you do with your hair?”

  At least she focused on that. I'd roll with it. “Xavier paid for Alyssa and I to dye it. Didn't people like it when you did this with your hair? It looked great.”

  “You're still in school, young lady,” Mom said, flinching.

  “They won't freak out over copper,” I said. “It's more of a natural color, you know?”

  Mom glared at Xavier and Alyssa. It was her silent cue for them to leave us alone. They did. Alyssa opened the basement door, where we were all staying until things got settled down, and disappeared. I hoped that Alyssa would stay and eavesdrop. I knew there wasn't much she could do about my mom, but knowing she was there would be a big help.

  “Well, at least you got rid of the purple,” Mom said. “And you paid me back after your stunt.”

  “Xavier did,” I reminded her. I had used Mom's credit card when she got captured by the mayor to change our looks before we went into the ATC building to rescue her. “I'm sorry I was late, but we missed the bus away from the mall and had to catch another one.” That was part of the truth, and I felt a little less slimy telling her that.

  “Janine,” Mom said, taking a step closer. “I found us an apartment back in the city, only a few blocks from the pharmacy. I had furniture shipped this weekend, too, so we'll at least have beds. You'll be able to walk to school or take the bus when you go back on Monday.”

  “That's great,” I said, glad she was changing the subject.

  Mom headed into the kitchen. There was something tense about her gait, and she carried that faint metallic smell. She was nervous about something. “You will catch up on a lot of homework,” she said. “On Monday, ask all of your teachers for your assignments and bring them home. Your grades have slipped enough, and you will need to work harder if you will ever amount to anything.”

  “I know,” I said. My grades hadn't been that bad last semester. I had managed B's in my classes this time around. Physics was a struggle, and Mom focused on that. I still never worked hard enough or would go anywhere with my life, and I wanted to scream sometimes.

  I wouldn't be a great pharmacist, either. I had no interest in medical stuff.

  I followed Mom into the kitchen. “So, when are we moving in?” I focused on keeping my mouth most of the way shut. I knew if I fled from her too fast, it would raise suspicion.

  “Tomorrow,” she said in a low voice. She listened to see if Alyssa's grandmother was still awake, but the old woman had gone to bed earlier than usual. Mom smelled of fast food along with nerves. “You and me are getting away from here. I still don't like you being around Alyssa.”

  “Alyssa's cool,” I said. I couldn't count how many times I needed to defend my friend.

  Mom opened the fridge. “She's a vampire,” she said. “I know she helped us, but they need to drink blood, and sometimes they have to get it wherever they can. Hungry vampires can't control themselves well. I only let you go out tonight because Xavier was with the two of you, and I know he wouldn't let anything happen.”

  Mom's words stabbed like a knife.

  If she knew—

  I shook my head. “Alyssa's fine,” I said. “Her dad is, too.”

  Mom faced me and stood against the fridge. “Being bitten hurts.”

  I knew the feeling. Mom still had faint bite marks on her neck from where Thoreau's minion had fed.

  She continued. “I know that I can't Turn now but we don't know if your father could have given you the gene. Yes, it's like a one in five hundred chance of having it, but I don't want you to take any risk. Alyssa could bite you if the two of you aren't around someone else who could stop her.”

  I already knew the answer to that. “It's not a gene,” I said, gazing at the cupboards. “Alyssa says the first vampire gave her blood to some people thousands of years ago, and it's the descendants of those people who can Turn if they're bitten.”

  “Whatever,” Mom said. She opened the fridge and fished out brownies she'd made earlier that afternoon. “The point is, we can't ask your father to get tested for it.”

  The tension hung in the air. My father had left after I came along. He hadn't wanted a child, so he left my mother to raise me by herself.

  I had grown up wondering about him, and now I knew one thing.

  He had given me the ability to Turn. There was no other explanation. Mom couldn't Turn, or she would have after her bite.

  And worse, Thoreau had known I could Turn. Getting me and Alyssa to be friends was part of his plan. Alyssa was to Turn me by mistake and feel bad about herself, which was part of his plan to start Armageddon. That was another long story.

  The most powerful demon in history had known about me and my ancestry, whatever it was. He never told me how he knew I could Turn.

  I didn't like the mystery.

  “And besides,” Mom continued. “A bite could get infected and cause other issues. I had to take antibiotics for mine. I'll have this scar for the rest of my life. And why don't you try one of these brownies? They're your favorite.”

  In one moment of horror, I understood Mom's nerves.

  She was testing me. The sunglasses made her suspicious.

  And she was trying to test me in the least traumatic way she could for herself.

  “Those look amazing,” I said, forcing a smile. I struggled in a trap. Using illness as an excuse would work as well as saying my dog ate my homework. I'd visited the mall tonight.

  They were big brownies, too.

  My stomach turned at the thought of eating one. Alyssa had once tried to eat chocolate cake when she was five. The results hadn't been pretty.

  I had to brace myself.

  The metallic smell in the room increased, and I felt as if my nerves were joining the fray. I picked a brownie out of the pan. It was perfect, smooth and rich, with peanut butter chips mixed in. The thought of ingesting it made me want t
o puke.

  But if she knew what I'd done in the hospital basement tonight—

  “I don't know how many I can eat,” I said. “We had burgers tonight in the food court.”

  “You love brownies.”

  I prayed for Alyssa to provide a distraction, but what could she do?

  I took a bite.

  The texture was revolting, like shredded garbage, but I chewed, giving Mom a thumb-up sign. Then I swallowed, and my esophagus protested all the way down at the solid food. I took another large bite, and then another, with no other thoughts but to get to the toilet and retch it back up. How did Alyssa ever try chocolate cake and not die? The brownie was the most disgusting thing I'd ever tasted.

  At last, after two agonizing minutes, I finished.

  My stomach heaved. I would vomit up everything I'd eaten during the past two years.

  Mom smiled, and the nerves in the room dissipated. The metallic smell faded, leaving only the fast food dinner Mom ate earlier in the air.

  “Delicious,” I said, just as my stomach rumbled in protest.

  “Great,” Mom said. “Why don't you get to bed? You need to get used to getting up early for school again.”

  “You're right. I do,” I said, inching to the kitchen entryway. “I'll have more of those brownies tomorrow.”

  She smiled. “Great. It'll help you to get away from Alyssa. I will not have a vampire under my roof.”

  I barely reached the toilet in time.

  There was a small bathroom in the basement which was divided into multiple rooms. Alyssa had already opened the door for me to allow me the fastest access possible. She frowned as I leaned over and let my body reject the Normal food.

  It wasn't the only reason I was sick.

  It was over quickly, but a queasy feeling remained in my stomach. I flushed and faced Alyssa after rinsing out my mouth in the sink.

  “I heard her,” she said, eyes full.

  Her words spoke volumes.

  For the first time since Turning, I wanted to cry.