The Accords Triptych (Book 2): Bloodstream

by Ian Thomas

  “Nope.”

  “Then…”

  “McLachlan’s probably told you that archaeology outside of academia is a pretty small field. Limited income at times. Most work comes from either the Church or the Clan. Oh look more alliteration for you.”

  “He never mentioned that sarcasm was a prerequisite.”

  “On that score he taught me all I know,” Arizona laughed. Despite his public disdain of McLachlan, she sensed Chase had some respect for him. However grudging. Which, knowing the extent of McLachlan’s sarcasm, was understandable. The thing was those were aspects of him she liked. The playfulness, the humor, the frankness to call people on their actions.

  “But how did you come to be the poster boy for the Clan Delphae?”

  “Ouch.”

  “Sorry, I mean if you’re a…civilian like me–”

  “Ooh, good word.”

  “Thanks.” Though all credit went to Hayley. “How did you become affiliated with the supernatural. Surely not all archaeology is Raiders of the Last Crusade?”

  He took a deep breath. For a second, she saw a memory of pain on his face. She’d come to recognize the look from the numerous times she’d seen McLachlan wear it: like sackcloth and ashes. Only after they’d met face-to-face and she’d learned about his past did Rebecca realize all the times he’d gone quiet over the phone, he must’ve looked like that.

  “About fifteen, sixteen years ago, I was on the tenure fast track. Offers from Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Brown, the Sorbonne, Berlin – you name it, they wanted me.”

  “Because of your immense modesty I’m guessing.”

  “I can see why you two are together,” Chase said, a smile softening the painful memory.

  “So what happened? You discovered you were too beautiful for tweed jackets with suede elbow patches?”

  “A c-cursed object,” he said falteringly. “While I was trying to settle on a post I – I wanted to stay active.” He paused, the memory fresh in his mind. “S-so I went on a dig in Northern Africa.”

  “Well that was just asking for trouble.” The way he stumbled in his words signaled his reluctance. Cajoling him along was something she’d picked up not just from the early morning hours on the radio station, but also her parents. They had a way of drawing the pain out without needless confrontation.

  “Not really. Was supposed to be just a simple sand grab. Revisit an older unearthed site with fresh eyes. Found a treasury niche and, well, who doesn’t love a good plunder.”

  “Guessing you’ve re-thought that phrase ever since?”

  “Oh yeah. Most everything was okay. Safe. Uncursed. But among them was a cursed object. A bowl. A plain, old wooden bowl. Little reliefs around the inside in a frieze. Nothing sinister. But two days later I woke up having killed the whole expedition team.”

  “Whoa.”

  “And then some. The site was pretty isolated so I had no idea what happened. I freaked out though. Big time. Gunned a jeep for the nearest town. Problem was the closer I got the more my bloodlust grew. I couldn’t control it. I didn’t know why. I just wanted to kill.”

  Rebecca had folded her arms around her. There was a familiarity to the story. He sounded like McLachlan describing times when his stain had taken over. To her knowledge though he’d never killed anyone.

  “What…” She cleared her voice. “What did you do?”

  “I called Somerset. He was just a scholar at the Paris chapter house then. Not that I really knew what the Clan was. I’d just thought of them as a flaky bunch of history nerds too wackadoo for academia. That’s when I learned the truth.”

  “And he came for you?” she asked, caught up in the story. “How?”

  He paused looking past her to the large building. “Somerset’s…stronger than he seems. He got me out and to a safe location. Only once I was restrained did he bring in some help.” Chase finally looked at her, a gentle warmth in his face. “Rowan.”

  “Whoa! Plot twist! I did not see that coming.”

  “Neither did I. She was just out of high school, angry at the world, and looking to change things with her magic. Somerset had her studying in Paris. Something about a coven drama stateside. I didn’t care, I didn’t know anything other than wanting to kill this fiery girl in front of me. Which you know was like a red rag to a bull for her.”

  “Completely,” Rebecca laughed.

  “Yeah so I threatened a thousand different ways I was going to slaughter her and all she did was smile, close her eyes and work through incantation after invocation, blessing after prayer until a month later the curse was lifted.”

  “A month?!”

  “She wasn’t giving up,” he replied, his voice full of fondness that threatened to take Rebecca’s breath away. “And I’m glad she didn’t otherwise I wouldn’t be here today.”

  “She’s pretty damn amazing.”

  “That she is,” he said wistfully. Then he caught himself and focused back on Rebecca. “So you’ll give the place a chance?”

  “Seems only fair.”

  “Good because it’s lunch time and then you’re in the library,” he said, guiding her inside.

  “Sounds like a great afternoon.” After a couple of turns and short passage, they were in a beautifully appointed dining room that overlooked the lake. “Wow, Mills undersold this as the mess hall.”

  “Remember…he’s new.”

  “Speak of the devil,” she said, seeing him loitering by the sideboard. “Oh crap, guess that’s not really appropriate anymore, right?”

  “You’re over-thinking it. Here have a seat, the others will be in soon,” Chase said, pulling a chair out for here. “Would you like water?”

  “Yes please,” Rebecca replied.

  “I got it,” Mills said, pouring her a glass of grape Kool-Aid. She looked up at him sternly but couldn’t hold it and started laughing. Blushing, Mills managed to crack a smile and she finally saw him as something other than a black cloud of anger.

  V

  It started as a whisper.

  Whispers to be more precise.

  Only when McLachlan shut the door to Matteo’s did he realize the noise was inside his head. The stain. Which meant a supernatural nearby. And not just any run of the mill mythological beastie. This was a very particular corruption, he recognized, feeling the hunger and hatred mount.

  A siren.

  Inside the house.

  Trembling with enraged need, he walked into the house proper. Above him he heard water running from Matteo’s bathroom. The sharp, gnawing anger overrode any memory of their friendship or the concern that had brought him to the house. He would feed. He would drain the beast from the man. He wanted to do this. Needed this.

  The Pack Lord had walked away from them. Turned his back on their friendship, sunk into his own pain ignorant of everyone else’s. That wasn’t friendship. Pain would even it out. Make him really suffer. Not this wallowing self-pity over Ben’s betrayal.

  Gritting his teeth, McLachlan lunged for the door. These weren’t his thoughts. The stain was latching onto siren energy and consuming him with their same primal rage and hunger. Wrestling with the handle, he couldn’t open it. Just needed to get to the other side.

  Finally it opened, the noise of the city hitting him. Gasping the cold air, he realized he’d been drowning in malicious desire.

  “Leaving so soon?” a woman called from behind him.

  Turning, his eyes flared purple with psychic traces. While he still heard the murmur of voices, the violence had quelled within him.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “Wasn’t sure if you were friend or foe.”

  “Helluva way to find out,” he spat.

  From her languid posture, McLachlan could tell she didn’t entirely care what he thought as she scrutinized him warily.

  “Not sure I have a clear answer,” she replied. McLachlan could feel her inside his head, the cold vapor of psychic threads slipping through his mind and memories.

  “Get out
of my head!” he yelled, scooping up a brass plate and hurling it at her. But she had already ducked. The threads knotted in his head and he buckled to the floor.

  “This is pointless,” she scolded. “I’m in your head. I know your next move before your limbs do.”

  “While you’re up there,” he stammered through gritted teeth, his eyes watering from pain. “Enjoy the view.” Mentally he projected all of his pain, memories, nightmares, fears, and torment at her. Matteo had taught him how during his first encounter with a siren. Overwhelming them with a deluge of anguish would mask action. He felt it hit her and forced himself to his feet.

  Charging, he took her legs out from under her. But her instincts were better than he expected. As she fell, she caught his arm and dragged him down.

  Suddenly he was pinned. Her hand at his throat. He struck the inside of her elbow and felt the pressure release. Rolling away, he didn’t make it to his feet before her boot slammed into his face. Grunting, he hit the door frame with force, dislocating something. She had him by the hair and pummeled his face into the wood. Pain exploding in his mind and across his face, he jabbed an elbow into her ribs. Swinging himself around, he swung and connected yet she barely flinched. Her punch sent him sprawling across the floor.

  Scrambling around he looked at the woman standing over him and held up his hands.

  “I’ll grade the papers, don’t hit me again.”

  “Papers?” she asked.

  “The midterms,” he said, not sure what was coming out of his mouth. Where was he and why was he on the floor bleeding, he thought. Looking around he was startled to realize this wasn’t his Brooklyn home. Much nicer in fact. “Wait, is this your house?”

  Did she think he was an intruder? Was he? This clearly wasn’t his house. Not nearly enough evil pieces of Lego lying in wait to be his and Rebecca’s house. Plus they didn’t have a skylight nor five hundred year old tapestries hanging on the walls.

  “No,” she replied, stunned.

  “Then what are either of us doing here? And why are you hitting me?”

  “You hit me first.”

  “I did? That doesn’t sound like me.”

  “No,” she said, eyeing him carefully. “It doesn’t.” Suddenly she grabbed his head. He felt his consciousness explode and a cold breeze blow through the scattered parts. “Interesting.”

  “Not really,” he replied. “Just a high school teacher. Wait…no I’m not.” Images of both lives floated before him. So real and vivid he felt both with aching certainty. Fragments of loss and love, parents or children, lover or wife, creature or teacher, sharp edges that cut deeply.

  “So,” she said, her tone changing, almost warming to him as she stepped back. “You’re the vessel. I’m Illyana.”

  As she withdrew from his mind he gasped for air, thankful when the familiar woody smell of Matteo’s home filled his nostrils. He took a second to recover. Only once before had his mind been invaded by a siren, a sensation he’d hoped never to repeat.

  A minute passed before he could connect her name to meaning.

  “Dominic’s partner?”

  Her silent nod was the only answer she could manage, his name still managing to cause her pain.

  “Why here?” he asked, her mental intrusion still rattling him.

  “Matteo,” she said, a catch in her voice. “He needed…something?”

  “From you?” She stiffened. “Sorry, that came out way harsher than I meant it.”

  Without a reply, she turned and walked back into the living room. Shutting the door and vaguely aware the water was still running upstairs, McLachlan followed her.

  “It’s expected,” she said, sitting down, armor firmly in place once more. Any softness or civility a measured ploy such was any engagement with one of her kind. “Sirens and wolves don’t have the easiest relationship.”

  “Well, there is the whole eternal struggle of love and hatred,” he replied. “And how wolves always leave wet towels on the bed.”

  Even an unguarded smile was an artful lure.

  McLachlan’s experience with sirens was limited. Powerful yet a rarity even amongst the already meager numbers of the supernatural, sirens had once been women loved by werewolves. When they were ‘sired’ to be immortal companions to the wolf men, the curse made them something else. Alluring. Desirous. Deadly. Their voices drew men – be they lupine or otherwise – to them, their beauty sealing their besotted victim’s fate. The siren would feed off their chosen’s psyche, killing him slowly and painfully. Judging by what he’d experienced at the door, theirs was a piteous existence.

  “Is he…”

  “Alive? Yes. Well? I’d say my presence answers that question.” In other words she wasn’t saying anything more.

  “I see,” he replied. McLachlan hoped in the silence that followed she might open up. Even after a dozen plus years he forgot that immortals pretty much always won at staring competitions. “Oh, hey and sorry about that whole,” he gestured toward the door, “attacking you thing. Pretty strange times is all.”

  “No need to apologize,” Illyana replied, disarmed by his words. “I started it. Invading your mind is not the best greeting.”

  “Wasn’t sure if that was you or my stain latching onto your energy. It does that. No real off switch.”

  “I can see that,” she said with a smile, comfortable on the sofa. “What was more interesting was your break with this reality. What happened there?”

  “Oh that.” He blushed, looking at his boots. “Kinda have someone else’s memories in my head.” When she didn’t say anything other than to look at him to continue, McLachlan took a seat in the armchair. Suddenly he was sixteen and back in therapy. Except then he hadn’t opened up about the stain, the demon, the Cult or those other fun things from his past. “It happened during The Ordeal when the Cult tried to summon their demon into me again.”

  This all seemed to be news to her given the questioning crease to her brow.

  “Surely Matteo told you this? Kinda why he’s been so down.”

  “Oh is this the thing where Ben turned traitor?” she asked, leaning forward and pouring tea into a cup. “Care to join me?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” he replied, still reeling from her description of The Ordeal. ‘The thing where Ben turned traitor’. Wow, he thought, way to be reductive. And no unnecessary capitalization in sight. Nor air quotes. Worst night of his adult life, second only in his whole existence to the original possession, and it was being dismissed as the thing where Ben turned traitor. Way to force some perspective.

  Of course mentally raging at a lack of empathetic wording and grammar was not great seated across from someone with psychic abilities, he realized. Or perhaps he knew and was just being a little churlish about the matter.

  “Yeah, it was. During the possession, the demon offered me an alternate life if I let it close escrow on my body. Complete with wife, kids, townhouse in Brooklyn, and nothing supernatural in my life. Problem came after refusing the offer, somehow I got to keep the memories. And well you saw how that worked out.”

  “Must be difficult. But then demons always demand a price,” she said sympathetically. “No one’s exempt from that.”

  “You have some experience with demons?” he asked surprised at her comment.

  “A little,” she replied. Narrowing her eyes at him, she studied his face closely. “Being a siren isn’t like some Vanity Fair fashion spread. Achingly beautiful women sitting around dressed in gowns and ennui, desperate to feed on the souls of men.”

  “I pictured it more like a slumber party but anyway.”

  “We move among the supernatural communities. We have agency. But we are ostracized.”

  “Because even in the supernatural world there’s a fear of strong, independent women.”

  “You learn fast,” she smiled. Genuine this time.

  “Oh hey,” Matteo said, walking into the room, a towel wrapped around his waist, long hair still wet. Despite her words, Illyan
a tensed at his appearance. Her eyes traced every chiseled edge of his physique. But that was her hunger. He felt it affect him as well, seeing Matteo practically incandescent through her eyes. Hardly as ferociously hungry as when he had arrived, McLachlan decided he wouldn’t stay long. A siren’s influence easily made the top ten worst reactions his stain had. Higher than being near a werewolf on the full moon, but below facing down a cambion horde.

  Matteo crossed the room and kissed Illyana. It wasn’t offered, rather it was taken. McLachlan shifted uncomfortably as he saw Matteo flinch from the pain the kiss accompanied, surprised that his friend didn’t withdraw.

  “Hey,” McLachlan replied, really not wanting to be there.

  “I see you two have met,” Matteo said, finally breaking from her. Before either of them could respond, he looked at the kitchen. “Do you know if we have any of that pizza left?” Not waiting for a reply he walked out of the room.

  What the fuck? McLachlan thought, actively directing the question to the woman. Impassively, she sipped her tea.

  “Huzzah!” came the call from the other room. A second later, Matteo appeared with a pizza box in one hand and a slice already shoved into his face. He didn’t offer either of them a slice. Instead he dropped into a chair, the box on his lap, and tore off another piece while still chomping through the first.

  For some reason this piqued her desire for Matteo. Admittedly, the way he appeared aglow with warm energy flowing off from him did make McLachlan hungry for a burger. So this was how Elmer Fudd felt in all those Daffy Duck cartoons when he saw the duck as a cooked meal, McLachlan thought, a little creeped out that he was looking at his best friend like a he was a roast chicken.

  Though were they even still friends?

  Ever since The Ordeal, McLachlan had avoided asking that question. Of himself or Matteo directly.

  A distance had crept in. One for which he felt solely responsible. The Cult had come for him after all. Through Ben. And once the dust had settled, Matteo had paid the harshest price.