by Melinda Metz
He’d asked Ernst how he knew what to do, where the ritual had come from. Ernst hadn’t known the answer. He’d learned the runes that had to be painted on the stones in red—red from the blood of the family—from his creator, although they weren’t Germanic in origin. Gabriel hadn’t seen anything like them before or after Sam’s execution. Until tonight. He could smell the blood of his family around him, not quite dry yet on the stones.
Ernst nodded at him. Gabriel knew he was expected to shed his clothes and lie down in the circle. He’d prepared himself for this moment and had been convinced he was ready. But when he looked at Ernst, he knew he didn’t want to die without reconciling with the man who was the only father Gabriel had ever known.
“Could we have a private moment?” he asked Ernst. “I’d like to say good-bye to you, Father.”
“I didn’t have that chance with Richard,” Tamara spat.
“Ernst?” Gabriel said.
“You’ve forgotten how this family works,” Ernst replied in a cold voice. “We are bound together. We are one. We share our lives, our emotions, our fate. There is no need for privacy among the family.”
It was clear nothing Gabriel said would penetrate the stone wall that Ernst had raised between them. He felt so distant from his father. He could only guess what Ernst was feeling now that the hawthorn had broken the communion between them again. So let it end. Just let it end, he told himself.
Gabriel stripped off his clothes and lay in the ash in the middle of the circle. It was still faintly warm, and the cellar air was damp and cold. The heightened awareness of the physical world was the thing Gabriel marveled at the most when he was first transformed. Shay had given him back that sense of wonder. He’d thought it had been lost forever after Sam died, but somehow she had found an ember of it still burning in him and brought it blazing back.
Gabriel sought out the emotions that were Shay’s. She was still all right. Getting calmer, pushing down whatever it was that had filled her with devastation and self-loathing. She was strong, stronger than she knew. She would find a way to make her new life matter.
He let that thought comfort him as Luis and Tamara drove four stakes into the ground. They chained each of Gabriel’s hands and each of his feet to one of them. It wasn’t necessary. It had been for Sam, but Gabriel had no intention of trying to escape the will of his family. He deserved this, for what he’d done to them, to Shay, and to Sam.
When they finished, Ernst began to speak. “As I said, we are a family, with one life that belongs to us all. If one of us is in danger, we all are. If one of us is in danger, we all fight until that danger is gone.” He paused. “What has happened to our family is the ultimate betrayal. One who should have been protecting us, fighting by our sides, brought danger into our home, our place of safety and security.”
There was no protest. No one spoke out to defend him, to say that what Gabriel had truly brought into their home was another member of their family.
“Because we are all one, we must all take responsibility for what is to be done tonight and the next two nights. We must all share in the ritual. We must all share in the blood, not only because it would be fatal for any one of us to drink so much of the blood of our own kind, but because we must share everything. We must share the grief that it is impossible not to feel. And the guilt.”
“I won’t ever feel guilty for this,” Tamara muttered. “He doesn’t feel guilty for what he did.”
She was wrong. Gabriel’s guilt over Richard’s death was heavy within him. He said nothing. No words would convince her.
But Ernst. Did Ernst actually feel guilt and grief over condemning Gabriel to death? Did Ernst still love Gabriel? Did he still see Gabriel as his son? He’d never said so, but Gabriel knew something had broken inside Ernst when the family took Sam’s life. Would the ritual leave him shattered this time?
I wish I could tell him I understand, Gabriel thought. That I know he believes he’s doing the right thing, doing what he has to do to prevent another massacre. I felt the same way when we performed Sam’s ritual. It was only after falling in love with Shay that I truly understood what we had done, how wrong we were.
“The youngest will begin,” Ernst announced. “Do not take more than your body can safely process. Stop when you feel the nausea and dizziness overtake you. The purpose of the ritual lasting three nights is so that this may be done safely. Tonight I will not drink. I will watch over all of you. My turn will come later.” Whatever Ernst was feeling didn’t come out in his voice, which was steady, his tone cool.
Gabriel kept his gaze locked on the ceiling, waiting for the fangs of his sister to pierce his flesh. Millie was the youngest. She would go first, followed by Luis, who was older, and Tamara, who was older still.
“Millie,” Ernst finally said, the one word an order. Revulsion and sadness and a little anger—he thought at Ernst—pulsed through the communion from Millie as she approached Gabriel. She knelt beside him. He could hear her shifting slightly, hesitating.
He turned his head and looked at her elfin face. “It’s okay, Mils.”
“No, it’s not,” she whispered.
“It is. Ernst was right. I didn’t mean them to, but my actions got Richard killed. In our family that is punishable by death,” Gabriel told her. He willed her to realize that if she refused to take part in the ritual, she would be the next to die. Ernst would never allow the discipline of the family to break down.
He looked back at the ceiling, thinking it would be easier for both of them if there were no eye contact. He tried to imagine the sky, the moon, the stars. He heard Millie sigh, then her hair brushed against his cheek as she brought her mouth to his neck and began to drink.
Sensations bombarded him as a purplish haze stole over his vision. The feeling of his blood being siphoned through his veins. The nausea Millie was already beginning to experience. Tamara’s bloodthirsty satisfaction. Luis’s revulsion—and his surprise at his own reaction. From Ernst, nothing. They hadn’t restored the communion, and Gabriel knew he’d never feel his father’s emotions again.
Fragments of memory from his long life competed with his family’s emotions for his attention. Watching Elena make flower chains at the orphanage. Playing poker with Sam. Sitting in a lecture hall, uneasy with the number of humans around him. Lying with Shay, her arms and legs wrapped around him.
Dizziness washed through him. Gabriel wasn’t sure if it was his or Millie’s or both. The memories continued to explode in his mind, some of moments in his life he’d long forgotten. Then, like a sucker punch, he was hit with the picture of him drinking from Sam, helping to kill him. Involuntarily, Gabriel gave a moan. Millie misinterpreted it and pulled away. “I can’t . . . Ernst, please.”
“Come away, Millie,” Ernst answered. “Luis?”
Luis nodded. He strode over and stretched out on the ground next to Gabriel, then slid his teeth into the largest vein in Gabriel’s wrist. As Luis drank, Gabriel wished for more of the sweet agony the memories of Shay gave him. Instead, he was blasted with a series of memories of Sam. All so good at the time. And so horrible to recall now that he believed with all his heart that the family shouldn’t have killed his brother. Why had Gabriel gone to Ernst with the information about Sam and Emma?
Because I thought it was my only choice. I believed that there was no way for the rest of my family to be safe if Sam involved himself with a human.
The memories dimmed, and Gabriel’s body suddenly felt light. He felt as if he were floating up, up, up. Up past the wooden beams of the cellar ceiling, up through the old farmhouse, up into the night, into the brightness of the moon. The feeling shattered as the poison of his blood began to burn through Luis’s body, Gabriel experiencing the agony along with Luis.
“That’s enough for tonight, Luis,” Ernst finally said. “It’s Tamara’s turn now.”
Only seconds after Luis pulled away, Tamara dropped down on top of Gabriel and jabbed her teeth into his neck without hesitat
ion. She sucked so viciously that Gabriel felt as if his blood were being scraped from his veins.
She uttered a growl as another memory of Shay from their one night together in the barn flashed through Gabriel’s mind. Gabriel wondered if Tamara realized where the rush of joy and rapture she was getting as she drank came from. Shay straddling him, kissing him. Gabriel gasped with the pain of that memory, its sweetness tempered by having lost Shay. But no matter how much pain it caused, he was grateful to experience that moment again before he died.
Gabriel’s stomach cramped as he absorbed Tamara’s feelings of nausea and, less powerfully, the nausea that still filled Millie and Luis. Pain exploded behind his eyes, and again he wasn’t sure if the sensation was directly from his own body or something that Tamara was experiencing as she sickened from his blood.
If the sensation was from Tamara, it wasn’t inhibiting her. She continued swallowing down Gabriel’s blood, as if she was planning to take it all right then. That’s how badly she wanted him dead. The night of Sam’s ritual, she’d done what she needed to do, without pleasure or regret. But with him . . . He’d probably feel the same if the situation were reversed and Tamara’s actions had led to Shay’s death.
Gabriel realized his muscles had tensed and consciously relaxed them. This was what he wanted. “Forgive me, Tamara,” he said. Her only reply was to knot her fingers in his hair and drain his blood more desperately.
Then Tamara’s eyeteeth jerked out of his throat. He felt her body being lifted off of his. “Enough!” Ernst cried. “Are you trying to kill yourself? That’s not what Richard would want for you.” She began to sob. “Enough for tonight.” Ernst’s voice was gentle now, the voice of a concerned father. “You all did well, and you all need rest. It’s time to go back upstairs.”
Two more nights, Gabriel told himself as they left him chained there, naked on the cellar floor. Only two more nights.
He heard a shuffling sound from the top of the staircase. Ernst.
“You don’t have to stay there all night,” Gabriel called softly. “I’m too weak to break the chains, but if I could, I wouldn’t. Don’t you understand? This is what I want.” To go through what Sam had, for almost the same reason, for love, felt right, deserved, earned.
There was no reply from Ernst, but Gabriel knew he was still there.
“Shay despises me. I murdered Sam. I betrayed my family. And you hate me,” Gabriel burst out. “What is there to stay alive for?”
Again, there was no reply from Ernst.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
SHAY FINALLY SLOWED DOWN as she entered Black River. No reason to risk a ticket when she was only a couple of miles from home. As if speeding was the worst of it. She’d stolen a car. Somehow she’d become the kind of girl who’d steal a car. Girl. She had to stop thinking of herself as a girl. She was a vampire. She did what she had to do to stay alive. Steal a car. Break into a motel. Drink human blood.
As she pulled to a stop at a red light, the nausea and dizziness she’d been feeling all night intensified. Because she was anxious about facing her mother and Martin? Because she couldn’t get Olivia’s expression of absolute revulsion out of her head?
Shay sighed. Maybe both those things were part of it, but she knew that mostly the sensations were coming to her through her communion with Gabriel. There was something wrong with him, seriously wrong. He’d drained her of blood, and her blood was poison to him. Was he going to be able to survive it? Or was Gabriel dying?
I told him that transforming me might kill him, Shay told herself, pushing down the emotions from him. And, anyway, there’s nothing I can do. It’s not like I can save him. I have my own situation here, my own life. Or afterlife.
A horn blared behind her, and Shay realized that the light had turned green. Okay, okay, she thought as she stepped on the gas. I can see you have someplace very important to be. So do I. I have to go tell my mother I’m a vampire.
That was the only plan she’d been able to come up with. She was going to ask her mother for help. And if Mom refused, if she turned on Shay immediately the way Olivia had, then Shay would go outside and let herself burn down to ash when the sun came up. She couldn’t handle this by herself, she just couldn’t. Olivia thought she was a monster, and Olivia was probably right. Mom had spoken of Gabriel as something less than human, so she’d probably think of Shay that way too. And what was the point of living if everyone she loved hated her? Hated her or was dead.
Two lefts, a right, and she was on her street, the perfectly manicured lawns and lovely McMansions gliding by. Shay felt like she’d drifted into a dream she used to have. When she pulled into the driveway, it didn’t feel like coming home.
Maybe because this house, this street were much more Martin’s than Shay’s or her mother’s. When he’d married Mom, he’d swept them away into a bubble with every comfort money could buy. They hadn’t known that it was as much of an investment as anything else. Did he have any real feelings for her mom? Had he ever?
Shay turned off the engine and stared at the house. More questions she hadn’t allowed herself to think about flooded her. Would Martin be there? He’d answered the phone before. Did her mother know what Martin had done in Tennessee? Had she helped him plan his attack on the vampire family’s lab? She had helped him take Gabriel hostage, but that was to save Shay. Would her mother—
Shay shook her head, trying to stop the chatter in her brain. She should use her vampire senses—that would tell her all she needed to know. There was only one heartbeat inside the house. Shay pulled in a deep breath. The strongest scent was her mother’s, that mix of honeysuckle perfume and the chemicals of hair coloring, Tide detergent, aloe vera hand lotion, and, more faintly, under the powdery odor of deodorant, the pungent scent of fear sweat.
Mom’s alone. Just go in, Shay ordered herself. It was almost six in the morning. There was only about an hour before sunrise. There wasn’t enough time for doubt. She stepped out of the car and shut the door softly. When she’d climbed the steps to the front porch, she took the spare key from the hanging pot filled with what her mother called hummingbird fodder—just a bunch of plants that hummingbirds liked.
She felt like a thief as she slid the key into the lock and silently opened the door. I still live here, she told herself. Mom would want her to come in. She’d be so excited to see Shay, and so relieved. At least at first. At least until she knew what Shay had become. She loved Sam once, Shay reminded herself. Even though she knew what he was.
Shay started for the stairs, then hesitated as she heard a clicking sound from the kitchen. The sound was familiar, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint it.
Oh. Of course, she thought when she reached the kitchen doorway. The clicks were created when her mom shut one of the little plastic doors on Shay’s pill holder. Holders. She had two—one for morning, one for night. Wednesday—click. Thursday—click. Friday—
“Mom.”
The bottle of pills her mother had been holding flew out of her fingers. It landed with another click—a louder one—followed by the ping, ping, ping of some loose pills, pills Shay no longer had any use for.
“Shay!” Mom scrambled up from her chair. They met in the middle of the room. Shay had to remind herself not to hold her mother as tightly as she wanted to. She was still learning to control her strength, and she could crack one of her mother’s ribs if she wasn’t careful.
Again, Shay was struck by the realization that she was stronger than the people she kept turning to for protection. Kaz, Olivia, Mom. Maybe she shouldn’t have come here. But she hadn’t had anywhere else to go. And this way, no matter what, she’d at least be able to say good-bye to her mother.
“Are you okay?” her mom exclaimed as she released Shay, her eyes frantically searching Shay’s face. “You look—you look well. But we should get you checked out.”
“No,” Shay said quickly. “I’m fine.”
“I’ve been frantic. After I talked to you, I came stra
ight home from Miami,” Mom said. “I figured this was where you’d come if you wanted me. How did you get here? Where were you? Is the—Is he with you?” Fear flickered in her eyes, and the smell of her fright intensified.
“No. Gabriel isn’t with me.” Her mother flinched at the way Shay had emphasized his name. “I meant what I said before, Mom. What you did to Gabriel . . . I know you did it for me.”
“I did! It was the only thing I could think of to save you. I—”
“But that doesn’t change the fact that you took a person hostage for his blood.” Shay felt some of her old anger rising up. What Gabriel had done to her father was unforgivable. But it didn’t change the fact that he himself had been treated like a lab rat.
“We both know he isn’t a person,” her mother replied, then she pressed her fingers against her lips. “Let’s not do this, Shay. Let’s not fight. I was afraid I was never going to see you again.”
“Me too,” Shay admitted. “Mom, I have so much to tell you. But where’s Martin?” His scent was still strong in the house. He’d been there recently.
“He was gone when I got up,” her mother said with a shrug. “He’s been heading to his office insanely early and staying late. He’s going crazy trying to figure out where you are. He feels so responsible for what happened to you.”
“That’s because he is,” Shay snapped.
“We both are. I should have demanded that Martin stop the transfusions. I could see they were making you act recklessly. You never would’ve gone to Martin’s office . . . you never would’ve found that vampire if I’d just made Martin stop,” her mother said.
“If you’d made him stop, I’d be dead,” Shay argued. “It wasn’t the transfusions that—”
Mom put her hand on Shay’s arm, interrupting her. “I can’t believe how good you look. Martin didn’t think you’d be able to live more than a few days.”
The fear flashed through her eyes again. Does she know the truth? Shay wondered. She has to at least suspect. She knows I was with a vampire. And here I am looking completely healthy, when I shouldn’t even be able to keep myself on my feet.
