Blood and Kisses (15 page)

Heath addressed the crowd. “This just emphasizes how important it is that we have a powerful Champion. Where was Thalia when this was happening? Consorting with that vampire?”

“That’s not fair!” a middle-aged witch shouted.

“It’s a valid question!” a mage defended, triggering a rush of heated arguments.

“Enough! I’ve had a vision.” The voice came from a tiny African-American woman wearing a violet pantsuit, seated in the back of the room. She could have been anywhere from fifty to one hundred. Her hair was upswept into an elegant braid. Her voice was as rich as crème brulée.

“Mina.” Her name swept through the room like a fragrance carried on the breeze. Perhaps the most respected witch in the community, Mina Shaw rarely ventured out of her elegant home in the affluent suburb of Brighton. When she did, it paid to listen.

“If the rogue vampire is not stopped, we will have more than just pettys to worry about. We can’t afford to allow Thalia the chance to fail.”

Her words seemed to reverberate in the heavy air.

A young witch sneezed, breaking the tension, and all heads turned in her direction. “Sorry,” she sniffed before sneezing again, and then a third time. She raised watery eyes to Heath. “Do you have a dog?”

Spirit slid out behind a late arrival, ducked into the bushes and materialized. Whew! For a second there he thought he’d be discovered. Who’d have thought he would choose to sit next to one of the rare people who were allergic to basenjis? An ordinary group of humans wouldn’t have thought a thing about it, but witches...

He waited until the coast was clear and loped down the sidewalk. A dried leaf blew across the street, skipping and skittering as if it were alive. He restrained the urge to chase it. This body, as convenient as it was, came with strong instincts. Real basenjis had a powerful prey drive and no car sense at all.

Fortunately, he had the benefit of human intelligence. He looked both ways before he crossed the street and headed toward the bus stop. The driver had no idea as he opened the door for his exiting passenger that he’d also picked up an invisible hitchhiker.

Spirit growled softly as he ruminated over what he had heard at the meeting, causing the only other occupant of the bus, a heavy-set woman in a blue flowered dress with four burgeoning grocery bags at her feet, to look uneasily in his direction. When she didn’t see anything, she looked to her left. Failing to see anything there as well, she shook her head, pulled a paperback bestseller out of one of the bags and buried her face in it.

As the bus driver navigated the bends and curves of the city streets with great swings of the steering wheel, Spirit lay down on one of the plastic seats, his invisible body rocked by the vibration of the bus, and conjured terrible penalties for Heath and Mina. They should be banished from the community. Boiled in oil.

How could they attack Thalia’s abilities as Champion?

The Kents had been Champions since before he met them.

Thalia was an excellent Champion. True, she performed her duties with a minimum of magic, but why use more when less would do? If she was sometimes so drained in the pursuit of executing her responsibilities that she had difficulty getting home, well, that was just part of the job.

And to blame Thalia for Kimmy’s murder, when even now she risked her life to find the rogue? It was more than just unfair. It was nothing less than betrayal.

“Come here.” Gideon seemed to regain some small fragment of humanity, but Thalia knew he had only switched tactics. His voice was low and seductive, full of promise and urgent with compulsion. Thalia shuddered. Her body longed to obey. Sweat burned on her forehead. Her muscles trembled with exertion as she fought to retain control.

She didn’t dare use magic to resist. He needed every bit of power she could spare. She had to rely on willpower alone. She took an involuntary step forward, as if jerked by an invisible string. Gideon smiled. His eyes gleamed. A wolf watching prey step into an ambush.

Thalia dug in her heels. She imagined her feet were rooted to the floor. Her upper body swayed forward, like a skyscraper resisting an earthquake, but she stayed put. Thwarted, Gideon growled.

The sound crashed over her like a breaker of cold water and broke the spell. Freed from compulsion, Thalia raised her arms, channeling energy from every cell in her body up and out. Streams of blue light flowed from her out-raised palms. Twisting and turning, they combined into a river that washed over Gideon.

He stiffened as if punched in the stomach. His powerful body arched away from the bed. Fresh blood stained the sheets as his unsheathed claws bit his flesh. He howled. The unearthly sound pierced Thalia to the core. Her chest ached. She couldn’t seem to draw in a full breath. Tears pearled in her eyes, but she held her focus, continuing to feed him the precious force.

“Gideon, the hunger is not your master. You’ve got to fight. Take my power. Use my strength. Come back to me.” She maintained the steady current of energy, even as she carried on a desperate monologue, barely aware of the words rushing from her like the tide through a spillway.

As she spoke, Gideon writhed against the damp, blood-dyed sheets. His glorious face turned toward her, and she saw the red haze begin to fade from his eyes.

The spell was working.

Thalia drew more power from inside. She exhausted the reserves of her energy and began to take from her own life force. Her body shook with the effort. Her voice quavered. Feeding him more and more of her personal strength, she was painfully aware of her dwindling capacity; willpower alone kept her on her feet. She couldn’t go on much longer.

Gideon’s face twisted with agony. Thalia could feel the struggle raging within him as the man fought to subdue the beast. Who would win?

Thalia’s magic rushed over him like a shock wave and suddenly Gideon remembered why taking blood from her would be wrong. Not only was witch blood poisonous, but more importantly, he didn’t want to hurt the witch. A glimmer of sanity returned. Not
the witch
.

Thalia
.

That was her name. She was brave and beautiful. A rare mixture of strength and vulnerability.

Vulnerable, no. Weak
. The creature insisted. The beast wouldn’t surrender without a fight.
Ripe for the taking
. She was nothing more than a feeble human, after all, destined for only one purpose. To fill the hollow ache. He would gorge on her blood, milk her of every scarlet drop.

No. Fortified by the power Thalia was feeding him, Gideon rejected the vile thoughts and attacked the vicious evil within, wrestling for control. He herded the demon, prodding it into submission. Gradually the whirlpool of hate and anger let loose by starvation drained. Reason returned.

The hunger still beat within him like a swarm of angry wasps, but the beast was in retreat. Gideon, the man, reinforced by the surge of energy Thalia provided, shoved the demon into a small dark corner of his soul and raised the mental walls that would imprison it, at least for now.

In control once more, he collapsed, temporarily debilitated by his long battle despite her generous gift. The bed groaned under his weight.

The blue light flickered out like a defective neon light, and Thalia sank to the ground, her skin the color of wet clay. She’d given him almost everything she had.

She’d risked her life to help him cage the monster.

He hadn’t come so close to the edge in millennia. That this woman had seen him this way was almost more than he could bear. He closed his eyes against the crippling shame. He didn’t want to see the revulsion in her clear blue gaze.

Thalia, clearly too sapped to open his chains, drew the key from her pocket and handed it to him. The chains fell to the floor with a thunk.

He steeled himself to face her, but when he turned to her, he found her kneeling on the floor, leaning back against the side of the bed, unconscious. Gideon swept her up into his arms.

Spirit was waiting in the hall. His ears went back, lips curled and for a moment, Gideon thought the familiar would take a chunk out of his leg. “She’s all right,” he said.

“She’d better be.”

Gideon didn’t bother to answer. He felt the same. He would never forgive himself if something happened to her.

She stirred when he crossed the threshold to her bedroom, but never opened her eyes. He laid her gently on the bed. Her hair formed an ebony halo against the vivid red and green of the quilt. She looked so small and helpless on the bed and yet she had saved his life. His hand brushed her hair back from her damp forehead. He didn’t want to leave her, but he had just enough strength left to feed safely. If he waited much longer, her sacrifice might be for nothing.

He went to the window and hit a button to raise the shutter. It whirred softly as it rose section by section and came to rest in its recess.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said over his shoulder. “Watch over her.” Without waiting for a response, he threw open the window and launched into the darkening sky, wondering as he shape-shifted into a massive osprey, whether she would be there when he returned.