Blood To Blood (9 page)

My nightgown was ripped and
covered in all kinds of blood, fur, dirt and skin. Gross. I touched the back of
my neck where the bear had clawed me. It was healed. I ducked behind a giant
tree to change before making my way back to the clearing where the others were.

“So, dear,” Dad said as I
made myself comfortable on the circle of boulders they lounged on, “There are a
million questions going through your mind right now. You are probably wondering
exactly what is going on, and what it all means.”

He was wrong. There was only
one question on my mind. “What day is it?”

“Thursday,” he answered,
puzzled.

“Good, I still have time to
get ready for the Garden gig.” Eager to get back to work, I stood up.

“Angel.” Dad spoke as if I
were a two-year-old. “You must understand what happened to you over the past
few days. You are fully immortal; there is no more for your body to do. Your
abilities are almost set in stone, but over the next year you may develop new
ones. This is normal. And you are Shimshana. What this means is you must
subsist on blood. You will never need to eat mortal food again, although if you
want to you can.”

“Why would I want to do
that?” The thought of mortal food now made me want to hurl.

“We're natural-born
immortals,” he explained, “and as such, our bodies adapt with time. But change
for us is quite different than it is for mortals. Our bodies adapt to the
circumstances around us. If not, we would never be able to move with the times.
Since our bodies cannot die easily, we cannot allow our other senses to
atrophy.”

“You said our bodies can't die
easily. Has anyone ever died?”

“Yes,” said Mom, “my first
husband was destroyed. By your brother Tunde.”

There was that name again:
Tunde. My head started reeling, and I nearly fell head first off the boulder.
Dad caught me as I swayed. Cici pushed her calm, and I allowed it to wash over
me.

“It was a long time ago,” Mom
continued. “Tunde was once one of the most loving of souls. But when he started
to mature, another side came out. His Mahá was… eventful. Many came away
knowing that Tunde was trouble, and our family was devastated at the change in
him. He had developed a taste for killing. His powers were immense. He became
obsessed with destroying every immortal he could. One day, he decided he was
going to kill me.”

The blood flooding my mouth
told me I’d bitten my tongue.

“I was in the midst of my
sleep,” Mom continued, “and, so I am told, he trespassed on my resting place.
My husband at the time, Levi, caught Tunde in the act. There was a battle
between them. I woke up to find Levi in ashes.”

I'd always wondered what
happened to Mom's first husband. “How did he die?”

Mom took a deep breath.
“Tunde was walking fire. In an instant, he could incinerate the most powerful
immortal. I stopped Tunde before he could do the same to me.”

Dad tenderly took Mom's hand
and, in that moment, I was glad that she had someone to travel that long hard
road with. “Tunde made some bad choices,” Dad said. “It is very important at
this point in your existence, Angel, that you decide what kind of life you will
lead. Will it be for the good of others? Or will it be something else? After
The Change, there is a period of time called the moral window. It is open for
about a mortal year, the same amount of time it takes for your powers to fully
solidify. During this time, we are faced with tremendous temptation to make bad
choices. It is very important to be aware of this and make your decision as
soon as possible.”

I thought about what he was
saying and noticed the way everyone's attention was on me. It was almost as if
Cici was holding her breath mentally.

Why was there a question as
to what side I would choose? Did it bother me that they had to ask, or did it
bother me that I had to think about it?

Dad was still talking. “Your
premature blood drinking may have been triggered by your strong connections
with your colleagues. If so, your bloodlust might go into overdrive and make
your chosen career impossible. You might even kill your entire audience because
you feel a connection to them. You have to decide if performing is what you
want to do.”

Stunned, I sat in silence and
contemplated what he said.

“Angel,” Mom said gently,
“perhaps you should forget the singing career.”

I felt it before I saw it.
Red. It covered the trees, the ground, the sky, my family. The sun boiled red
and every living thing for miles became one big heartbeat that pounded in my
skull.  It felt like fire raced in my veins. Recalling the horrible vision
of a life without music, I opened my mouth and screamed. Angry red sound
buckled trees and cracked boulders around us. Birds fell from the sky and snow
melted in all directions.

Cici sat still, eyes wide
with terror as Mom and Dad looked at each other in the same wide-eyed alarm. A
protective field glowed around them; Dad was shielding my own family from me.
My heart felt like it was breaking. It occurred to me that I’d killed the
second bear with the sound of my voice, and now my voice was destroying
everything within earshot. I shut my mouth immediately and only opened it again
when I regained some control.

My voice, the only thing I
had, was now a weapon. “I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. What you just
saw is nothing compared to what I could do. I saw it. Saw what my life would be
if I didn't sing.” Feeling hysterical, I looked to Mom. “Death and destruction
all around me. I have to sing. I have to sing in order to be good. I want to be
good!”

But how could I sing if my
voice was a force of destruction? Devastation. I was broken. Blood red tears
dropped on the stonewashed Walmart jeans. Mom emerged from the protective field
and held me close. We sat in those woods for I don't know how long, and the
sound of my weeping filled the spaces between the patches of green moss my
outburst had uncovered when the snow melted. Mom stroked my hair while Dad
paced back and forth. Cici floated inches above the rocks.

“We can keep the mind lock in
place for the next mortal year, until she's completely matured,” Cici said.

“We will be in damage control
the entire time,” Dad replied. “We cannot have more incidents like the boy in
the studio.”

I wailed at the image of
Heist on the floor. “Shhh, no tears, sweetheart,” Mom said. “We will work this
out.”

“Angel,” Dad said. “What
other abilities do you have? Show us here and now.

Remembering the bear's claws,
I said, “Throw something at me. Anything.”

Cici tossed one of the dead
bushes. It went right through me.

“There is one other thing,
but I don't have a mirror.” I explained Reflection.

“You're telling me Reflection
took on a life of her own?” Cici exclaimed. She was the only one who knew about
my “alternate personality.”

Mom’s face was stern. “Why
did you girls not tell us about this before?”

“I don't know,” I answered.
“It just seemed silly.”

Mom and Dad were silent for a
moment before Dad turned to me again.

“Angel, you are vulnerable
now, but only in that you, like all newborns, may not be aware of the limits of
your powers or adept at using them. We get stronger and more in control with
time. Even so, it looks like you have a good grip on some of these abilities.
The one that is out of control is the most lethal. Your voice.”

“Mr. C.,” I said. “I think he
can help me...not kill anybody with my voice.” I told them about the incident
in the rehearsal studio and my suspicions about his not being your average
mortal. Mom was interested in the latter, and how it might link to why Mr. C.
survived when the younger and stronger Heist didn't.

“That is a possibility,” she
said. “Unless he gets too curious.”

“He has been ‘curious’ about
us for years,” Dad replied, shifting a glance toward Mom. “Once I heard him
think that you were exceptionally beautiful, although he had never actually
seen you eat.”

“He does have an interesting
molecular structure,” Mom said.

“The few thoughts I have
gotten from him show him to be open-minded and vested in Angel's well being,”
Dad continued. “I will listen to his thoughts in more detail to ensure he is
worthy of our efforts.”

“If he can be of use to us
without exposing our family,” Mom added, “and we can impress upon him the
importance of Angel learning to control her instrument, you might have a
singing career, dear.”

Joy and hope blossomed in my
chest. Preparing for the Garden gig now seemed like my only reason for living.

Dad stood up and stretched
his legs. “I am hungry,” he said. “Everyone else has eaten. And I have lost my
food buddy.” He patted my knees sadly.

Mom stroked his beard. “I can
have your dinner ready in no time,” she said.

Dad looked at her lovingly
for a long second before saying, “You have been going non-stop for the past
three days. You deserve a break.”

“I saw a mom-and-pop
restaurant,” Cici offered.

Dad regarded me for a moment.
“It might be an interesting experiment, since you need to be around people, to
see how you do.”

“But wait a minute. What if I
get hungry again? Wouldn't I just kill everyone in the restaurant?”

“It is a possibility,” Mom
replied, as if we were discussing the weather. “But we have worked out the
damage-control process and we can whisk you away before any harm is done.” She
held out her hands.

“It's next to a gas station,
Mom,” Cici said, before we whizzed through the ether to stand beside the
dumpster away from the pumps. Dad “unplugged” his invisibility spell, and we
casually walked around to the front of the building before heading into the
restaurant.

The place was packed. We were
told there’d be a fifteen-minute wait. Puzzled, we looked at each other, before
it dawned on us. “Oh my goodness,” Cici whispered. “It's Thanksgiving.” With
all the drama over the past few days, we’d totally forgotten. Mom’s head was
bowed as we were led to our table. I took her hand.

“Mom, you've done an awesome
job at making it all 'normal' for me, for us,” I said. “Please don't be sad.
It's not like you didn't have other things on your mind.”

Dad pulled out Mom’s chair,
gesturing to the waitress. “Believe me,” he said,” I’ll be eating every bit of
that turkey you have in the freezer. Now that this one isn't eating anymore,
it's just more for me!”

We all laughed and I could
tell Mom felt a little better.

“What can I get you to
drink?” asked the waitress. I stifled a giggle as I imagined answering
truthfully. We all ordered some kind of soda. Dad ordered a large amount of
food—turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, the works. The waitress was
shocked to find out it was all for him.

I spied the vein bulging on
the right side of her neck. She had an interesting, spicy smell that had
nothing to do with the body butter she'd slathered on her skin. I inhaled
appreciatively before catching Mom's warning look. Good thing I'd drained two
bears instead of one, I thought, as Cici pushed calm on me and Dad chanted a
soothing spell under his breath.

The rest of us put in orders for food we had no intention of eating. The
smiling waitress sauntered away, unaware of how close she’d been to death.

I
woke up the next morning wanting to
devour everything. The desire to drink mortal blood was so strong; I thought
I'd lose my mind. “How am I supposed to function in the mortal world like
this?” I complained to Mom. “I don’t even feel sane.”

“You are not sane, dear, you
are a newborn. And that means your need for blood can out-shadow all reason if
you do not feed constantly.”

Her forefinger smoothed the
tired frown on my forehead. All through the night I’d heard the constant dirge
of various sounds and wondered how one could rest with all this never-ending
noise. I told her all about it after I’d downed breakfast.

“Do not worry,” she said.
“Sleep is a habit you will be free of within five hundred years. After that,
you can stay awake for decades if you want to. Then, the only sleep Shimshana
require is the Great Sleep that comes upon us every seven hundred years or so.
Now get dressed, dear. You and I are going to spend some quality
mom-and-daughter time.”

Within seconds, I was
buckling the huge silver belt on my jeans. Before I could say, “who's for
brunch,” she touched me and we ended up in a massive, posh lounge. I looked
around at all the mortals and immortals going about their lives as we walked
through. “What’s this place?” I asked.

“This is The Nest,” Mom
answered while pointing to a neon sign that read—surprise—THE NEST.
“It is a restaurant/lounge that is part of the Nutrition & Wellness
Network.”

People were involved in all
kinds of activities: talking, watching TV, playing video games, etc. But what
caught my eye the most was the sight of people feeding directly from willing
mortals. I'd only seen people like us drink from containers. There was one
particular couple, a fanged she-vamp and a guy donor. He moaned real low as she
drank from his neck, her long red hair tossed casually over one of his
shoulders. She gulped him down as their heartbeats pounded together like two
racehorses heading toward a finish line.