Hotblood

by Juliann Whicker

  She shrugged, “It’s been almost a month Dari. You’re losing weight and wearing tons of black. I thought you were so over that whole color phobia.” Her smile was not entirely kind.

  “Why don’t we go out some time?” Osmond asked.

  “Out?” I stared at him. “I guess you could come to the sleepover…”

  “No, Dari,” Snowy said with a smile that wasn’t entirely happy. “I’m not into that kind of party.”

  “We could go bowling,” Osmond said and gave me a smile that gave nothing away. How had he learned to smile like that?

  “I guess. Bowling would be fine. With other people?” Both he and Snowy shook their heads no. “Like a date then?” Their nods became affirmative and I couldn’t help giggling. “You should see yourselves in a mirror. So you think I need to date someone to help me push past my current state of...”

  “Zombiness,” Snowy said bluntly. “Osmond’s a perfectly appropriate first date for you to have.”

  I looked at Osmond, and felt a stir of uneasiness in my stomach. “I might hurt him,” I said. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and I wanted to take the words back, but they were laughing like I’d said something funny and I let them.

  At home I skinned a chicken while Jackson chopped vegetables. “Osmond asked me on a date,” I said, for no reason in particular.

  “How did you turn him down?” he asked and I stared at him.

  “I didn’t exactly. Why should I?”

  “You’re Daughter to the House. That means you get to date suitable men the house approves of, not nice guys from high school.”

  “Excuse me?” I realized I’d changed the way I was holding my knife, and he raised an eyebrow at me, and shifted the grip on his blade as well.

  “You took the uncle’s blood in an ancient, seldom used rite that makes you irrevocably daughter of the House. Why do you think your mother’s been so mad lately?”

  I stared at him, my mouth hanging open, and spun around to the door where my mother stood. “Is this true? Do I not get to choose who I date because of some obscure ritual that I knew nothing about?”

  “Yes,” she said coolly. “Unless I choose to take your place, divorce your father, and join the circle.” She closed her eyes and looked very tired, and delicate.

  “Do it then. You’re not living with dad anyway.” She stared at me, and something flickered on her mouth, a smile of some kind.

  “Not quite willing to let someone else control your life? I like that, Dari. I like that very much. Are you going to spend the night at Snowy’s tomorrow?”

  I nodded and that was the end of that conversation, but it explained Grim’s behavior at the House. I should have demanded, I should have known, but then, after an hour, the anger cooled and I was left feeling nothing. The swirling colors of the Axel painting kept me company, the rest of the world seeming farther and farther away.

  I arrived at Snowy’s and we did the usual stuff, girl talk. Well, Snowy talked about the latest guy Valerie was dating, and how ridiculous it was for Smoke to have ever played the tuba, and about the Christmas social she was planning, until finally she ran out of things to talk about. I lay there on her floor in an old sleeping bag of her brother’s and listened to the sound of cars driving by through the slush, and the sound of the house wrapped in silence as the town fell asleep. I fell asleep, lulled by the sound of Snowy’s heartbeat and steady breathing.

  ***

  A distant white light was all there was at first, a blurry white haze, and then as things came into focus there was the pain. I made a sound, one tiny whimper that did nothing to contain the agony, the ache that permeated every cell of my body. My heartbeat was slower than the sound of icicles dripping on the window ledge. I heard the hum of a machine, the buzz of florescent light bulb above my head and the sound of someone very close breathing. I twitched, a slight movement that took all the energy I had, and I faded out, then back, the room coming into focus for a moment as I concentrated, the wall with photos of a smiling family on it, the old coffee maker on the counter, the small window that was large enough to let in air, but not much else.

  “He’s awake,” a voice warned. Nervousness mixed with fascination as I saw a glowing set of eyes looking down on me set in a strong-jawed face.

  “Not for long,” and I saw Jason’s face, the smile blurring even as I struggled to move, to rip the needle from my vein, I saw my hand reaching for his throat, the white corpselike skin stark against Jason’s tan. The pain increased until I felt a scream rip out of me, and another, on and on.

  ***

  I sat up panting, horror in every part of me. He was alive, Jason had him, he was alive and Jason had him. The mantra continued until Snowy flipped on the switch and looked at me, rumpled and scowling.

  “You all right? A nightmare or what?” she mumbled, her voice sleepy.

  I slithered out of the sleeping bag and started pulling my pants on over my pajamas. “I have to save him. He’s being drained, why is it taking Jason this long to drain him?”

  Snowy’s face was losing its innocence and she hopped on the bed and cocked her head to the side. “You can actually know that Lewis is alive by a dream? I assume we’re talking about Lewis.” I nodded as I searched the floor for my missing sock. “Dariana, hold on. If he’s lasted this long, fifteen minutes isn’t going to hurt. Do you know where he is?”

  “Ace’s warehouse, in the office up in the top of the building.”

  “All right, that’s specific. So that creep I shot is torturing Lewis, who is a creep that we like, even though he’s way too old for you and never ever should have danced a tango with you. I mean, your birthday wasn’t until last week.”

  “Don’t call him a creep.” I forced my voice to lower to a whisper. “It wasn’t his fault that time, it was Valerie, what she said to me that made me… anyway, I can’t leave him there suffering. If anyone kills him, it’s going to be me.”

  She looked at me skeptically. “Right. Well, on that note, we’d better call a meeting then.”

  “A meeting? I’ve got to go home, tell my mother…” I trailed off at the skeptical look on her face.

  “Your mother wants to kill him for what he did to you, the whole, getting you involved with her mob family, and I can’t say I blame her. She’s not there anyway.”

  “Not there?”

  “She’s serving your dad his papers. She’ll be back some time after school tomorrow.”

  I felt something then, a blinding flash of cold that left me thinking clearly, the emotion of Lewis wiped clean in an instant. I hadn’t meant it when I told my mother to divorce my dad so I could be free, I’d thought I was calling her bluff. After all, she married my father when she was Daughter of the House of Slide and what could anyone do if I refused to act like a Daughter? I took a deep breath and tried to organize my thoughts. I had to do something about Lewis, but what could I do when all of the allies of Slide had left the city to attack Bliss? That was why Lewis was in Ace’s warehouse, because Ace had gone to help, taking all of his Hotbloods with him. I didn’t know how long I had, but the memory of the white flesh, Lewis’ white flesh, bloodless, left my stomach roiling, the memory of Devlin’s corpse coming to the front of my mind.

  “All right. Let the meeting begin then,” I said, my words sounding much calmer than I felt.

  Snowy rolled her eyes. “At the warehouse, Dariana. If you’re serious about doing a rescue mission we will do it the right way. I mean, plan it instead of rushing in without an exit strategy.” She began getting dressed and I followed her lead, unwilling to do anything stupid that would give her more stitches. In fact, the idea of involving her at all seemed worse and worse. If there was some option that would have ended Lewis’ pain without anyone else getting hurt, even if it would kill me, I would have taken it. Unfortunately, I didn’t see how I could do anything except get myself killed.

  “We’re going to have the meeting at the warehouse where Jason has Lewis? How is that a good…�
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  “Not that warehouse,” she said sounding exasperated.

  It wasn’t that warehouse. It was a building in between my mother’s pharmaceutical building and the town, one of many obscure, irrelevant buildings, but this one had apparently been used by Devlin. I looked around at Osmond, Snowy, Ash, and Smoke where we stood in the low building with shelves of things that I could feel were full of technology, the kind that never worked. I stayed near the door, relieved when Osmond set up a chalkboard and began to draw on it, a square building just as I described it.

  “Smoke brought a printout of the city layout there, on the wharf so we know the general territory,” Ash said handing it to Snowy who pinned the piece of paper to the strip of cork around the top of the board.

  “Like bringing Smoke was a good idea,” she muttered.

  “I thought you two were getting along,” Osmond said sounding amused.

  “Getting along is not the same as dragging on a suicidal mission.”

  “So I’m not the only one who sees how insane this whole thing is,” Smoke said cheerfully. “That’s a first. Look Snowy, Ash was doing guitar hero at my house when you called him. I’m just here to give him a ride. As far as breaking and entering, it sounds fun, fighting bad guys, also, very good times, but arguing with you, not worth it. So let me know if I’m in the way and I’ll take off.”

  Snowy frowned at him and shook her hair back. “This is the window, facing away from the river, and this is the next building across the street, or alley, not a very large street, anyway, there’s only the one exit, and the walls are cinderblock instead of vinyl. What do you think Osmond?” She didn’t even look at Smoke again. He wandered among the shelves looking at things while I stayed where I was.

  Osmond shrugged studying the plan closely. “It would be better to wait for her relatives,”

  “No,” I said. “Jason will be gone by then. It’s Ace’s warehouse, he’s not going to be there much longer.”

  The conversation, the argument, the struggle to fit the plan to Snowy’s exact specs took most of the night, and by morning, I was exhausted, and the plan still had holes, lots of holes, but it was starting to come together.

  “If we do this right, we’ll all be back before school’s out, and no one will notice we were ever gone.”

  “Right.” I nodded less uncertain than I’d been about involving these people, but still wishing I didn’t need help. In the course of the evening I’d learned a few interesting things about my town, one of them being that my friends were a little group that went on raids every now and then across the river to keep the inhabitants in check, led of course by my brother. There hadn’t been any raids since Satan had taken over, but they were used to actual fighting, and monsters were more of a novelty for me than for them.

  “I still find it hard to believe that you with your perfect posture are part of this creepy world,” I told Snowy buckling up for the drive back to my house.

  “It’s true, my hair belongs in a world too beautiful to be true, not in a B horror flick, but what can a girl do?” She pulled over and opened my door for me. “This next bit gets a little sticky. I would rather face a screaming horde of Hotbloods than…” she trailed off and looked truly morose. “Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck,” I said, and turned towards the house, glad that I had the less deadly assignment.

  I wasn’t so sure I was the lucky one after all as I perched on the roof of my house beside Jackson who studied me intently.

  “Just jump.”

  I glared at him, and he smiled. It was so close to Devlin’s smile my heart twisted a little. “Just jump, huh?”

  “If you still have my dad’s skill you’ll be able to land it no problem.”

  I tilted my outstretched arms, then threw myself forward before I could think. My reflexes took over, snapping out the sail past my elbow, spinning around, slowing the downward speed to land in the precise spot as easily as if I’d practiced a thousand times. I let out my shaky breath and the nerves hit me then, the trembling as I realized my near death.

  “Good work,” Jackson said, dropping lightly to the grass. “Let’s do it.”

  Snowy drove her parent’s SUV while Smoke brought his wagon, Ash beside him, Valerie perched in the back with a look of disdain as she tried not to touch too much of the old ripped upholstery.

  “If I ever look anything like that, I want you to knock me out, all right?” Snowy said to me. Jackson laughed where he sat in the back, and she frowned, but didn’t look at him directly. It was unnerving how much he looked like Devlin, particularly when he smiled. Of course, that’s why he was there.

  17 Team Sanders Unites

  “Just jump,” I told myself, but it was harder, perched on the roof of the building across from Ace’s warehouse. The wind was biting coming up off the river, the snow swirling below me up, then crashing down on the ground, crashing like I was probably going to do. I looked at my target, the small window across the street and fiddled with the bands on my wrists. Devlin’s car swung around the corner, I saw the beautiful black thing and wanted to throw up. I saw Jackson’s dark hair under the sunroof, sitting passively beside Valerie and closed my eyes praying that this would not all go very badly.

  I heard the warehouse door scrape open and shoved off with my legs, exerting the precise amount of pressure to glide and swoop through the swirling sleet before I landed with a thud against the window and slid in, the guard’s attention was on the door instead of me as I tranquilized him, not letting myself think too much until his body was slumped over and I picked him up along with the chair he was in, and carried him over to the desk. I didn’t look at the desk, I simply pulled out the needle, ignoring the scent of blood that filled the room and slid it into the arm of the unconscious guard. That done, I pulled a hypodermic needle out of my bag and took Lewis’ wrist in my hand. I winced as the name came into my head and my clear, straightforward, precise actions were slowed by the rush of emotions. I took a deep breath, forcing the emotions aside and closed my eyes, focusing on my own steady heart, forcing it to slow instead of galloping off at the sight of Lewis and his corpselike body lying there, nearly bloodless.

  I could hear the voices from the cavernous warehouse, Valerie’s snide, derisive tone seemed to work like a bucket of water on my senses. I slid the needle into the vein and injected the blood. I stared at the arm, white flesh corded with muscle, the bare shoulder cut open, a long line drawn from there to his heart, but the heart still beat, slower than molasses in winter, but it beat. I looked past the chin, to the cold lips, barely parted as each breath slid into him. I breathed as shallowly as he did, uncertain how to proceed, staring at the features that looked carved in icy marble. The blood hadn’t done anything at all. Old Peter had been so certain it would work, but not an eyelid flickered, his skin was as pale and waxen as ever.

  I pulled the needle out of his arm and hesitated a moment, thinking about shared needles before I jabbed the end into my skin, awkwardly digging around until I found a vein, and blood rushed into the syringe as I eased the plunger back. My blood filled the vial and I pulled out the needle, holding my finger to the place in my arm where a drop of blood wanted to well out. I couldn’t be filling the air with my blood. If Jason could smell the difference we were lost, although I couldn’t see how anyone could smell anything with all of Lewis’ blood. I waited two heartbeats and then slid the needle into his arm, grateful for the large vein, making the process less of a hack job than my own arm. I injected the blood and pulled out the needle, taking my vein again, faster this time. As my blood filled the syringe I thought I saw something, a flicker of his eyelids that made me gasp and my heart pound. I forced myself to focus, to concentrate on my task, and put the needle into his vein, to push the plunger down.

  I studied his face for signs of life, checking his skin where I could see the blood spreading through him, but slowly, too slowly. His heart hadn’t sped up, his chest barely rose and fell, and I felt a rush of fury that
I had to stop, had to drown before Jason sensed it, felt my emotions with Devlin’s leaning ability.

  I grabbed Lewis’s head between my hands and leaning over him, pressed my mouth against his, thinking something about resuscitation, but the contact of his lips under mine wiped out all of my intentions. I kissed him. It was like drowning, and falling off a roof, like being under a wave crushed down to the bottom, only there was no bottom. It was like dying, like all of life leaving me in a rush. I lost awareness of my limbs, but then his hand was holding my head, his lips pressing mine, catching me and filling me with flight, and buoyancy that couldn’t ever be crushed, drowned, or swallowed by any power in the world. I lost track of time, space, lost everything, and regained it in his embrace.

  Burning and Other Byproducts of Romantic Obsession

  ~Lewis

  Her blood entered me in a rush that filled my nerves from the tips of my toes to my fingernails. It was heaven; it was euphoria; it was better than death, or anything else I’d imagined. When she kissed me it was sweet and hot. As she drew her soul out of me, I felt agony. On the brink of oblivion I hovered, her mouth an intense pain that spread through me, mingled sensations of ecstasy and agony from her blood, and the stripping of her soul. She didn’t stop, even when I was falling into darkness, into nothing; the pressure of her mouth was persistent, frantic, like someone resuscitating another from the grave. My soul slammed into me so hot and furious my flesh burned from the pressure, from the mass of it. I could feel fibers twitching, spreading, to contain the soul, my soul again.

  I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close, unwilling to lose the touch and taste of her. I knew it couldn’t last. I knew I should open my eyes and start moving, but what needed to be done was nothing compared to the need to be with her. I could taste her soul; I could feel it saturating her body. I’d been waiting my whole life for this moment, for this creature to make me whole. All of my senses were focused on the one thing in the world that made sense. I could hear her heart, smell her skin and hair, taste her breath and mouth. I drowned in her. Feeling the silky strands of her hair I felt a sigh come through me, or her. I wasn’t certain where I ended and she began. We were the perfect whole.