Blood Hunt (51 page)

“You don’t need her blood,” Naomi said.

“Why NOT?”

Naomi turned and smiled her sad smile. When she spoke, it was in a voice both tired and defeated, and Two heard in it a note of resigned familiarity. It was a tone that said Naomi had been here before.

“You don’t need the blood because you already have an Eresh husk, as pure as can be found, buried in New York, emptied of blood and just waiting to be filled.”

“You don’t mean …” Two began, and Naomi’s smile became something like a grimace.

“Of course I do,” she said. “Of course.”

“No wonder Eadwyn said no,” Stephen said in a quiet voice.

A wave of extreme dizziness passed over Two, and her vision seemed to fade. She felt herself losing her balance, and bowed her head.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” she said. The muscles in her arms and legs were jerking involuntarily, and her entire body was shaking. She kept drawing in breath to do something – Cry? Laugh? Scream? – but each time she instead had to suppress a rolling wave of nausea. Grey spots were dancing before her eyes.

“You’re passing out,” Stephen’s voice said from somewhere far away, and there was a sudden, jarring blow to the right side of her face. Two’s head whipped to the left and she lost her balance, falling to the dirt. The hit had proved effective, however; she was no longer passing out.

“Did you fucking slap me?” she snarled at Stephen, who was looking at her in amusement.

“No,” he said. “That was Naomi. I was going to suggest biting your tongue.”

“Sorry,” Naomi said. She wasn’t looking at Two but was staring again at the ground. “I forgot how hard I hit … humans.”

Two wanted to ask what was wrong, even though she knew. She wanted to give Naomi the chance to articulate it, to say it out loud and let the poison out of her, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She turned instead to Ashayt, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

“Can I bring Theroen back with these?” she asked. “Is that … is that what you’re telling me? That I can use these to turn him into some new vampire, and bring him back to life?”

“It is only theory, Two,” Ashayt said. “It has never been tried, and I have no way of knowing if it will work.”

“How could it work? He’s dead. I mean … isn’t he dead? His heart’s not beating. He’s not breathing. I saw him. I held him. I tried to give him blood.”

Naomi spoke up, her voice strained. “Some vampires … it’s been hypothesized that the blood of powerful vampires may keep their bodies alive if they’re not burnt or dismembered. Theoretically, they could be in some kind of suspended state. No one’s ever been brought back, though, and it’s been tried more than once.”

“Not with source blood,” Stephen said, and Naomi shook her head.

“No. The blood in those vials is orders of magnitude stronger than anything that would’ve been available.”

“I don’t understand,” Two said. “This wasn’t suspended animation. He’s not frozen or … or vacuum-sealed, or something. He’s dead.”

“He’s almost dead,” Naomi said. “For all intents and purposes, he
is
dead. Abraham drained Theroen dry enough that Theroen’s body can’t recreate the blood it needs to function. That doesn’t mean that every last drop was removed. Theoretically, what little blood there is that’s left might be sustaining the body’s tissue. The older a vampire’s corpse is, Two, the longer it takes to decay. We think that’s because it’s not really a corpse yet. Not entirely.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Two was trying to control her excitement and agitation but wasn’t doing a very good job. She wasn’t angry with Naomi and didn’t want to seem so; she was simply overwhelmed by all of this. Naomi, for her part, didn’t seem offended. She shrugged.

“Until tonight, I never thought about it. Three hours ago, I would have told you it was impossible.”

“It may still be impossible, Two,” Ashayt said. “But now you understand why Eadwyn sent you to me. When he first heard of your story, it was before the three of you had even come to Europe. He contacted me immediately, and I sent him to find Ay’Araf’s blood. It was not an easy feat, but he succeeded. By that time you had arrived, and it was nearly time for the council to meet. We felt it would be best if he discussed it with them all at that time.”

“Why let me choose?” Two asked. “You could have just gone and dug Theroen up and tried it yourself.”

“Yes. This is an experiment that goes well beyond your personal needs. Yet at the same time, you loved this man. You killed for him, and in so doing you freed the world from a great evil. How could we send you away, whether with a positive or negative verdict, without giving you the opportunity to choose?”

Naomi sighed, and Ashayt turned to her.

“I understand that this pains you, daughter. Would it have been good for anyone, though, to let you make this girl your fledgling, only to turn around and attempt to bring her original sire back to life? What if it works? How would that have been any better for you than this?”

Naomi said nothing, just continued to stare at the ground. Two walked over, knelt down in front of her, took her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Naomi, you’ve given me so much, but I have to try this. I have to do this.”

The vampire girl nodded and looked up at Two. Her eyes were shiny, but she was for the moment holding back her tears.

“I know,” she said. “I understand. It’s just hard.”

“I won’t be just another voice for you,” Two said. “I won’t leave you alone.”

Naomi attempted a smile at this, but she couldn’t seem to manage. She looked down at the ground again and said nothing. After a moment, Two let her go and went back to sit beside Stephen on the pillar.

“The choice is made,” Ashayt said. “This night has been millennia in the making, and now at last it is finally here. I am glad to see it; my wait has been long and lonely.”

“What will you do now, lady?” Stephen asked.

Ashayt looked at him, eyebrows furrowing, as if this question had never before occurred to her. After a moment, she smiled and looked out into the night, to the horizon, to the west.

“I believe I would like to see America,” she said.

* * *

“I should thank you,” Naomi told Two as they entered the hotel room that they were sharing, the pink light of dawn just beginning to show on the horizon. The vampire’s voice held the same tired acceptance that it had since Ashayt’s revelation.

“… the hell would you thank me for?” Two asked. She sat down on the edge of the bed, pulled off her shoes, looked up at Naomi. “I feel like you should hate me.”

Naomi shook her head. She had her hands folded in front of her and was staring down at them. “No, I don’t hate you, and I’m thanking you for not ever saying those words when you didn’t mean them.”

Two tasted a sudden bitterness in her mouth. “You’re a better person than I am,” she said.

Naomi sat down on the other side of the bed and began to undress. “I wish we’d made love last night instead of going right to bed,” she said in a far-away voice.

“We didn’t know,” Two said.

“No.”

“Naomi, I … I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Naomi told her. “Tomorrow morning I will book flights for the four of us, though it may be a few days before we can leave. Soon enough we’ll be back in the United States, and then we’ll go see what we can do about Theroen.”

“Oh, hon, you don’t have to do that. That’s not fair to you at all.”

Naomi shrugged. “He was my friend. More than my friend. I gave him my virginity, once upon a time, and I was happy to do it. We spent decades together with Lisette, and it was lovely. I have missed him very much these past centuries. Of course I’ll go with you.”

Two moved closer to the vampire. Naomi looked over, gave her a small smile, went back to gazing at her hands.

“It would mean a lot to have you there,” Two said. “To me and I’m sure to Theroen. He missed you, too.”

“Good. Then that’s that. If … do you mind if I spend one more day in this bed? I will arrange for a different room in the evening.”

“You can just stay here until we leave, if you want …”

Naomi smiled a little at this but did not look up. “No, I think it’s best if we separate quickly. I just … I’m too tired to deal with the desk clerk right now. He barely speaks English, and I know exactly three words of Turkish.”

“OK,” Two said. “Naomi, I’m sorry it went like this.”

“It had to end sometime, I think. You were never going to love me like you love him.”

Two didn’t respond to this. Her throat ached and she wanted to cry, but what was the point? Naomi was right: it had to end sometime, and now it was over. If there was crying to be done, she could do it in private and let the vampire do the same. She swallowed hard, pushed the tears away, sat in silence for a time.

“I’m going to take a shower before bed,” Naomi said at last. “You should sleep.”

Two said nothing, and after a moment Naomi stood. Two watched as the vampire stood and made her way toward the bathroom.

“Naomi,” she said, and the vampire stopped, glancing over her shoulder at Two and waiting. Two tried to think of what to say, came up with nothing. It was over, and there was nothing more to talk about. Two shrugged, shook her head, looked away.

“Nothing,” she said. “Never mind.”

“Goodnight, Two,” Naomi said, and in a moment more the bathroom door closed behind her.

“’Night, Naomi,” Two said, and the words made her throat hurt again, so she turned off the light, lay down on the bed, and closed her eyes.

Part V

Chapter 27
The Last Source

The mansion where Abraham had lived with his small, strange family had been burned to the ground nearly two years ago, but the stone wall that surrounded the estate was still there and had been reinforced with razor wire. The vampire council had moved quickly to secure the land after Abraham’s death to prevent prying eyes.

The wrought iron gate that served as an entrance to the grounds was padlocked shut, but Naomi had the key. The perimeter, she had said, was wired with motion sensors, heat detectors, and other devices that made trespassing nearly impossible, even for vampires. The security firms that monitored these systems were not directly owned by the vampire council, but they were well-trusted.

“That land is as secure as it gets, outside of the government,” Naomi had told Two. “Only a few of us know the codes to disable the systems, and even so we have to call ahead of time and alert the security office that we’re going to be doing it.”

Most of the land had been allowed to grow untended, and was slowly being reabsorbed by the forest that surrounded the mansion. Where the building had once stood, however, there was still little more than a great expanse of ash, marked occasionally by the remains of a charred timber poking out at strange angles. Somewhere among those ashes there was a heavy concrete slab and, underneath it, a door of solid steel. That door, which faced straight upward, opened upon a stone staircase that spiraled deep into blackness. At its bottom, the body of Theroen Anders still lay upon its stone bier. In what state they might find that body, neither Two nor Naomi knew.

Two had thought her nerves under control, but when they pulled up in front of the gates, she felt her body jerk involuntarily in a series of spasms. Naomi noticed this, but made no attempt to calm her. In truth, Two and the vampire girl had barely spoken for the past six days. She had spent most of her time alone, and when she had been with the others they had been listening to Ashayt’s stories of the past.

Their flight had arrived in New York’s John F. Kennedy airport on December eighteenth, sometime just after dawn, much to Stephen’s annoyance. The ride home in the sunlight had been painful and exhausting for him. They had gone directly to Naomi’s apartment without announcing their arrival to anyone. Ashayt’s presence complicated things; before anything else happened, Stephen wanted to take her to the cathedral at which the council met to introduce her to Malik and Jakob. The others had agreed that this was wise, not knowing that Jakob had been taken into captivity shortly after Naomi had spoken to him on the phone.

Ashayt was given the bedroom that had once been Two’s, while Stephen and Naomi took their standard rooms. Two slept on the couch, not minding, just happy to be back in the United States and excited at the idea of being reunited with Theroen. There had been little talk once they arrived, the vampires preferring to go directly to sleep. The next evening they had separated; Stephen and Ashayt headed for the cathedral, while Naomi and Two went to Theroen.

Now they were here, and Two was fighting to keep her muscles under enough control to exit the car and walk. Just the sight of the mansion’s grounds had brought up old, ugly memories that filled her with fear and pessimism.

“Christ,” she said. “I thought I was done with this place. I never want to come back here again, especially not at night.”

“One way or the other, this should be your last visit,” Naomi told her. She shut off the car’s ignition and opened her door, stepping out into the cold night air. Two sat for a moment longer, and the vampire came around to her side of the car and opened the door.

“Are you all right? Do you need help?” Naomi asked.

There was no malice in her voice, but Two bristled at the question anyway. “I’ll be fine.”

Naomi stepped back, and Two forced herself to get out of the car. Her legs were shaky, but they held her. Naomi had opened the car’s trunk and was removing two hand-held electric lanterns.

“I wonder if he’ll recognize me,” Naomi mused, closing the trunk and turning on both lanterns. She handed one of them to Two.

“I wonder if this is all a bunch of bullshit,” Two muttered. She stepped toward the gate, but Naomi held a hand out.

“Don’t touch it.”

“Is it electrified or something?”

“No. At least, not in the way you mean it. There is a mild current running through it, but you wouldn’t feel it. Your touch would alter it enough to set off the alarms, though.”

“We don’t need security showing up while we’re down there,” Two said.