Ashes to Ashes-Blood Ties 3 (9 page)

"What if we help you?" Nathan edged forward. "If we don't oppose you, we may live. If we help you, will you offer us asylum?"

A laugh filled the air, but it didn't come from Bella. Her head drooped forward, her body slouching in midair. "You wish to help me?"

"It's better than dying." Nathan shrugged, as if he didn't care either way. "Better than trying to fight you."

"That path will surely lead to death," the Oracle warned, her now bodiless voice shaking the walls. "If you wish to gain my favor, abandon your pursuit of the pawn I need to ensure my rule."

"The Soul Eater?" Max whispered, as if she wouldn't hear us.

"He goes by many names. Abandon your pursuit of him and you may know my mercy." Another wall-rattling boom split the air. "Upset my plans and you will know my wrath!" The wind came again, this time sucking into the dining room as the Oracle's presence left us. The doors slammed closed, shutting us out, just as Bella's body dropped to the floor. We heard the noise of her impact, and Max darted forward.

When he grabbed the door handles, he cursed. "It won't open!"

"She must have meant the Soul Eater." Nathan rushed forward to help him, but in true Nathan fashion his mind was on the bigger picture. "When you said his name, she didn't deny it."

Max didn't respond, pulling so hard at the door the wood splintered around the handle.

"Come on!"

"Let's try through the kitchen," I urged, but no sooner did I say it than the doors let go easily. Nathan stumbled backward and landed on the marble floor with a curse. Max, who'd obviously braced himself in the certainty they'd get the door open, managed to stay on his feet. He ran into the dining room, shouting Bella's name. I helped Nathan to his feet and hurried after Max. "Don't move her! She could have broken her neck in the fall."

It was too late. Max had already pulled Bella into his lap, and was slapping her ashen cheek lightly with his palm. "Bella, come on!" He looked up at me. "Carrie, she's not breathing!"

"Lay her down!" I caught her wrist as Max moved her to the floor. "No pulse!"

"Do something!" He pounded his fists on his thighs. "There has to be something you can do!"

"Do you know CPR?" I asked, tilting her head back. Max shook his head. "Only from movies. Tell me what to do."

"Pinch her nose shut and breathe into her mouth when I tell you to. VU do chest compressions." I turned to Nathan. "Call an ambulance."

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"No!" Max shook his head. "The full moon is tomorrow night. If she's in the hospital all doped up, she'll change."

"Nathan, get the phone." I met Max's worried gaze. "If we don't get her back in two tries, we're calling an ambulance."

Grim-faced, Max nodded.

I've always hated doing CPR. Most of my experience with it came from the E.R., on seventy-and-over patients who'd gone into cardiac arrest. Their ribs were usually so brittle from bone loss they cracked like wishbones under my hands.

Bella was built stronger than that, whether by virtue of being younger, or because of her species, I have no idea. I got through the first set of compressions without breaking her bones. "Breathe now!"

Max didn't hesitate. Bella's chest inflated with the force of the incoming oxygen, but it fell again when Max pulled away.

I gripped her wrist—still nothing—then began another set of compressions. At the cessation of compressions, blood traveling through the heart slows. Resuming the process doesn't bring the circulation back up to speed. It's like accelerating to seventy, dropping to fifty, speeding up to sixty, then dropping to forty. Bella's fingernails showed signs of cyanosis. Blue is never a promising color.

But we didn't have to call for help. This time when Max breathed for her, her body shuddered and she choked to life, taking great, panicked breaths.

"Bella, you're fine, you're fine," I assured her, checking again for a pulse. Though a little slow, it was strong. I nearly sobbed with relief.

"Calm down, baby," Max urged, brushing her hair back. "Just calm down. You're fine." She opened and closed her mouth, vomited spectacularly, then visibly relaxed, shutting her eyes as her head dropped back to the floor.

"Let's get her to a bed," Max said, scooping her up. Bella's eyes opened to slits and she laughed weakly. "Always trying to get me into your bed, vampire."

"You know it." If Bella's eyes hadn't closed again, she would surely have seen the mix of relief and sadness, and the determination not to show them, that crossed Max's face.

"You take care of her. I'll tell Nathan not to call the paramedics," I offered. Max and Bella needed time alone. If near death wouldn't inspire them to talk without sniping at each other, nothing would.

I found Nathan in the kitchen, slumped over the island with the phone in his hands. When he looked up, his eyes were rimmed with red. "Is she—"

"She's fine." I pulled out the stool next to his and climbed onto it. "Banged up, but she'll pull through. I'm not so sure about you, though."

Nathan sniffed and tried to cover it with a laugh. "Oh, I'll be fine. Just rattled my nerves, is all."

Because she was possessed.

My gaze dropped to his arm, where he'd rolled up the sleeve of his sweater. Though vampires heal quickly, for some reason the self-inflicted marks he'd carved under the Soul Eater's influence had never completely faded.

I went to his side and put my arms around him. "It still bothers you."

"You're damn right it bothers me!" he snapped, pushing away from the island and stalking

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to the other end of the kitchen. "Jesus, Carrie! She found us. She nearly killed Belial" He looked instantly repentant for his outburst. "She could have chosen you. She could have done that to you."

"Nathan," I whispered, my heart twisting in my chest. "She didn't pick me. She attacked Bella. There hasn't been a time since I've know you that we haven't been in danger. Why is it so different now?"

"Because now…" His hands fisted at his sides, and he looked away. "It's just different."
Because now you love me
, I finished for him across the blood tie. He shook his head. The denial didn't skewer my heart the way it would have before. "You love me, and you're afraid to lose me."

"We've got to take care of this," he said, changing the subject smoothly. "We have no idea if anyone else even knows what happened. If we're the only ones, and we wait… I don't even want to think of the consequences."

He was right. I hated it, but he was right. "What do you suggest we do?"

"Tonight? Nothing. There's no time. But tomorrow night we meet up again and we make an actual plan. Something concrete. Something—"

"Bloody and violent?" The rage emanating over the blood tie was almost frightening.

"You know, we might have a better chance of success if we didn't make this personal." Nathan jerked his head toward the door. "Tell that to Max."

"Good point." I went to Nathan and leaned my head against his chest, waited for him to put his arms around me. He hesitated, until I said, "We've been through worse, haven't we?"

I felt the low rumble in his chest, but the laughter wasn't enough to produce sound. "No. But there is a first time for everything."

Though I wanted to stay there, held by him forever, my thoughts strayed to the pair upstairs. "I'm going to go check on Bella."

There was a smile in Nathan's voice when he spoke. "Always on call?"

"Old habits die hard." I tilted my face up, expecting a gentle peck and receiving instead a long, thorough kiss that left my limbs trembling. "What was that for?" I nearly gasped when we parted.

"If anything like that ever happened to you—" He broke off, his fingers bunching my Tshirt where his hands rested against my back. "I swear, Carrie. I don't like what I am, but I would kill anyone who hurt you. I'd kill them, and I'd enjoy it." I didn't know what to say. I don't think I'd ever seen Nathan so angry before. At least, not an anger that wasn't fueled by grief. I pulled away from him, tried to smile. But he'd frightened me a little, and the expression felt fake "I know, Nathan. I know." And I didn't doubt him for a second.

I had no idea where Max had put Bella, but she wasn't in any of the guest rooms on the upper floor. A quick check of Max's room revealed it empty. I suppose, given the carnage of empty ice cream boxes and drained beer bottles we'd left there, it was no kind of environment for a patient.

I was about to try the rooms downstairs when I noticed the imposing double doors to Marcus's room were open a crack. The brass key with its heavy tassel, which Max usually hung from his bedpost, dangled from the keyhole.

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"Now, what are the chances that got there by itself?" I mumbled, easing the door open a bit farther.

I'd never been in this room, and though I'd never met Max's sire, the moment I peered in the place screamed Marcus. Stern, heavy furniture; ugly, masculine colors; scratchylooking, expensive fabrics. No wonder Max kept it locked up at all times. The room was dim. A bedside lamp with a gold shade and beaded fringe provided muted, warm light. Bella lay in the center of the bed, dwarfed by the antique monstrosity. The huge canopy nearly touched the ceiling, and I estimated there would be room for tour people on either side of her. Max sat with her, holding her limp hand in his. For a minute it looked as though he would lean forward and kiss her forehead. I cleared my throat, so he wouldn't go all "emotional shut-down Max" on me when he noticed I was there. "Knock knock." who's there?" he asked with a note of black humor in his voice. It you say banana, I'm going to hit you."

I walked slowly into the room, feeling somehow criminal for invading this private sanctuary. On the nightstand, in dark wood frames, sat an assortment of snapshots of Max. It was an uncomfortably intimate thing to see. "She's out again?" He nodded. "But she's still breathing, if you couldn't tell from the snores." I dutifully took her pulse and monitored her respiration, timing it by the ticking of the ornate gold clock standing in the corner. "She's going to be fine. Whatever the Oracle did—"

"Don't. Not around her." He positioned her hand on her chest in a way that made her eerily resemble a corpse.

"If there's anything else you need—"

Max waved a hand dismissively. "Go. If she wants to do this again, it's not like the two of you will be able to stop her. And I think if she makes a return appearance, Bella's gonna need a lot more than CPR to help her."

"Don't talk like that" I begged quietly. "Listen, we can talk about this tomorrow night. Right now, we all just need some time to think. But this isn't a lost cause." Max shook his head. "I hate to tell you, but life isn't always like this for us. You came into our world at a really bizarre time. I wish I could tell you this kind of high-concept shit goes down every couple of months, but it doesn't. So pardon me if the Pollyanna shtick doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

Our world
? That stung more than the aspersions he cast on my optimism. I might not be as old as he or Nathan and I'd never been a part of the Movement. Sure, there were things I didn't know, but I was learning. I'd killed Cyrus—even if it hadn't stuck—and Yd kept the Soul Eater from devouring Nathan. I'd willingly been possessed by the soul of his dead wife to break an evil spell. I might not have a vampire extermination record as impressive as Max's, but I thought I'd earned some pretty impressive street cred. The thought that I might be wrong, that I may not have seen anything yet, froze the marrow in my bones.

Chapter Five: Defenses

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