Possession-Blood Ties 2 (12 page)

But he’d dreamed of her. As in all things where Carrie was concerned, he couldn’t so easily forget. In the dream, he’d held her. Not a salacious embrace. He’d actually held her. She had let him stroke her hair and kiss her. She had told him she loved him. When Carrie had been his fledgling, she’d always hovered on the edge of revulsion when she’d touched him. In his dream, she’d loved him the way he’d wanted to be loved. When he’d opened his eyes, he’d held the bleeding, heartless corpse of his beloved Elsbeth. He’d shaken her, as desperate to revive her as he had been the night she’d died. Her auburn curls and delicate features had morphed quickly into Carrie’s pale blond hair and strong-boned face. That’s when he’d woken, screaming, to find the Mouse beside him, and for a horrible moment, he was certain he’d killed her, too.

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I’ve got to get out of here, he told himself as he turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face. I’m losing my mind.

He shook the thought off. Too much had occurred in his past, too much horror, too much death, to lose his mind over a simple girl like the Mouse. If he was going to lose his mind over anything, it would not be her.

Not if I have anything to say about it, that is. His own voice sounded like his father’s in his head, and it pleased him. Finally, he was becoming like his old self again. Why did that thought sicken him? Why wouldn’t he want to reclaim that part of himself his traitorous, human body wanted to erase?

Stupid boy, you never learn. He leaned his forehead against the mirror. Had it been his father or the Soul Eater, the creature who’d evicted Jacob Seymour’s sanity, who’d said those words to him time and again? It had been Jacob, at first, after his dear Moll had walked into the sun and burned to ash, and again, one hundred years later, when lovely Francesca had plunged herself into the bathing tub full of holy water. But by the time Elsbeth’s blood had cooled and congealed on her marble skin, Jacob Seymour was long dead, and it had been the Soul Eater who’d come to Cyrus. And when Carrie had sunk the stake into his heart, he’d heard Jacob’s voice in his head, taunting him with those same words.

Cyrus opened the medicine cabinet. There he found shaving soap, a razor and scissors. Morons. He couldn’t help his utter contempt for his captors. They’d been too busy playing at torture with the Mouse and her holy friends to think of removing potential weapons from his cell. The vampires upstairs were either stupid or so out of touch with their humanity, they didn’t realize how easy it would be for him to slit his own wrists and end the waiting.

Or would it? Everything about him was so…mortal. Would he really be capable of taking his own life, when the very thought of it, even in the abstract, sent a shudder of revulsion through him? No. He would not go back to that ghost world. Not if he could help it. He should kill her, he decided. He would prove to himself he had learned something. He would prove to himself he could still be the vampire his father had wanted at his side, and hopefully his father would feel the same.

Cyrus’s total dependence on the Mouse for his day-to-day activities would be a hurdle. It was easy enough to overcome. If he learned to live a mortal life, just for a while until his father found him, he could be done with her.

He availed himself of the priest’s toiletries, pleased at the thought of returning to his former state. With each stroke of the razor, he hardened his resolve. Though his servants had always taken care of running the modern appliances in the kitchen, he considered himself a smart man and was fairly confident in his ability to figure things out for himself. When he was finished grooming, he would simply go out and kill the Mouse. With his hands, if necessary; with a knife, better. Either way, she would be dead. Before she can hurt me like the rest of them. See, Father, I have learned something, after all.

He could do it. She made him weak. Killing her would make him strong. The thought brought on a frown. He didn’t like the way it contorted his face, so he forced his features into an impassive mask.

Using the flimsy, plastic comb he’d found in the medicine cabinet, he worked to untangle

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his long hair. It took only a few painful snarls for him to realize the sad truth. It would have to be cut.

You’re making excuses not to kill her.

There were scissors in the medicine cabinet. He could use those to stab her. He’d once cut a man’s fingers off with hedge clippers, and that had been a pleasant-enough experience. The memory turned his stomach, and he focused his attention on cutting. Cyrus expected the blades to be rusty, but was pleasantly surprised to find they were sharp. A few ragged snips left his hair shoulder length. From there he clipped it shorter, mimicking the generic style he’d seen his former bodyguards wear. It took longer than he’d expected to finish the job, and his arms ached by the time he was done. Beyond the door, a game show host inquired as to the price of dishwashing liquid, and the Mouse’s voice preceded the contestant’s answer.

Cyrus wetted his hair and parted it on the side. His own perfectly good eyes stared him down in the mirror. He no longer resembled the monster he once was. For a frightening moment, he found he liked it. Then he picked up the scissors once more. He opened the door as quietly as he could. She didn’t look away from the television. The sunlight streaming in through the small window above her head surrounded her in a halo of shimmering dust motes. Though she looked tired, the worry had left her face. A contestant on the game show shouted a number, and the Mouse shook her head. “Way too high.”

Cyrus took slow steps, not wanting her to see him until the moment he raised the scissors, the second before they fell. To see her face, serene in recognition, then drawn and pale in the briefest sliver of horror as the deathblow landed. As he imagined the beauty of it, his chest tightened and he sucked in an involuntary gasp of breath. She turned then, obviously startled.

She knows, his frantic brain shouted. Do it quick now, she knows. The shock on her face melted into a small smile. “You cut your hair.”

He’d never seen her smile. She wasn’t beautiful, but the unguarded expression transformed her from plain to a simple kind of pretty. It was the meaning behind it, though, that froze his lungs and made the air in the room too thick to breathe. Somewhere in the night, as she nestled against his side, her fear of him had vanished. If she noticed his distress, she didn’t show it. Her smile grew wider. “It looks nice.”

Cyrus had never felt self-conscious. It had been easy to be sure of himself when he’d known he was adored. At this moment, he would have done anything to feel so confident again. He reached to touch his shorter strands, realizing too late he still held the scissors in his hand.

Her smile faltered. Though she regained it, the expression was forced. Pained. “What’s that for?”

Lying was not something he’d lost in the transition from immortal to dead to mortal. He casually juggled the scissors from one hand to the other. “I thought they’d serve us better in the kitchen.”

“Good idea.” She rose slowly, and though his back was to her, he knew she followed him. So, she does still fear me. The thought sickened him. He had actually planned to kill her. Suddenly, and with shocking clarity, a vision of her slashed throat and bloody dress shot through his mind. The scissors, before a simple, common tool, seemed evil, as though his

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intent had somehow infused them with malice.

I can’t do it. He didn’t want to think of why. No matter what the reason, it pointed to the same harsh truth. He was as weak as his father believed him to be. He slid the scissors into a drawer and closed it, resisting the urge to slam it tight. Was it possible his captors had imagined he would try to kill her, think of killing himself? Was this a planned torture?

Behind him, the Mouse made a small sound of relief. Cyrus turned, not sure if he was angered at her for not trusting him, or ashamed of himself for deserving mistrust. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t do it.”

“Did you?” He wanted to grab a knife from the block on the counter and prove her wrong, but the rage died in him. Despair took its place, and he sat at the table, cradling his head in his hands. “Because I wasn’t sure, myself.”

7

Consequences

“H ow on earth could you be so irresponsible?” Breton paced back and forth behind his desk, reminding me, in his self-righteous anger, of Nathan. I wondered if all Movement vampires were this uptight, or just the ones from the U.K.

“In Max’s defense, General, it was Anne who took me to the Oracle,” I interjected, only to be met with a steely look from Breton.

“Yes, I know. And for that, she’ll be penalized. As for you, you’re lucky I don’t call a team in here to stake you, or do it myself!” Breton threw down the sheaf of papers he’d been clutching. They hit the desk with a loud smack and skidded toward us. “Your travel information. It’s all in order.”

“Whoa, what’s this?” Max reached for a pink, carbon-copy sheet.

“It’s the order removing you from the Galbraith assignment.” Breton’s lips twitched, and I knew he suppressed a satisfied grin, the smug bastard.

“General, please!” I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. “The Oracle gave me information. ‘Seek the toothsome ones in the land of the dead.’ That’s something we can go on! And it’s proof!”

“Proof?” Breton scoffed. “And what, pray, is it proof of?”

“That the Soul Eater is up to something!” I squinted in frustration, the gleam off the polished edge of his desk blurring my vision. How much of what I was saying came from the Oracle’s information, and how much was my own mind skewing what I’d heard? “I can’t tell you why or how, but you have to believe me. The Soul Eater is behind whatever is going on with Nathan!”

“As far as I can tell, the only problem with Mr. Galbraith is that he has killed. Twice.”

Breton propped his fingertips together and rested his hands atop his desk. “But rapidly, his friends are becoming my problem. Mr. Harrison, you have been removed from the case. I will assign a more impartial third party.”

“You can’t do that!” I shot to my feet. “This isn’t Max’s fault, and it’s not Nathan’s! He deserves better than this!”

“What Mr. Galbraith deserves,” Breton shouted, leaning over his desk, his rage-contorted face inches from my own, “is to die in terror, the way his victims did.”

I felt Max’s stern presence beside me before he put his hand on my arm. “Let’s go.

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There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

We were silent on the way to the airport. We’d left too close to sunup, and the lighter the sky got, the more tense we became. By the time we reached the tarmac, we had to race to the plane, the frantic whirring of the jet engines urging us on. The official reason for our quick dismissal from Movement headquarters was our safety after our run-in with the Oracle. To get us out of her “immediate scope of thought,” as they put it. Though I knew it was really because Breton was pissed at me, I was glad we were leaving. We had precious few resources and a seemingly impossible task ahead of us. I would have gone nuts pacing around a hotel room all day, waiting to figure out what was going on, knowing another assassin was out there looking for Nathan. We made it up the steps to the plane just in time. The hot Spanish sun crested the horizon just as the flight attendant pulled the door shut. A thin line of smoke rose from the back of her hand from the contact with sunlight.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Max gave the woman a sharp look and she took the hint to skip the seat belt demonstration.

“I was thinking I had a way to get some answers, and I should take it!” I sat in one of the chairs, wanting to stand but too tired to fight my own body. “One of us had to!”

“Oh, so this is my fault?” Max gave a sarcastic laugh. “Now there’s some other assassin out there looking for him, and we’re screwed, Carrie! When it was just me, we could have bought some time!”

“No, we couldn’t have!” I covered my face with my hands. “We couldn’t have. Cyrus is alive.”

Max’s eyes narrowed. He raised his hand and rubbed his perpetually stubbled chin as he regarded me with something akin to mistrust. “No way.”

I forced back the tears of fatigue that assaulted me. “The Oracle told me. It explains why I’ve been having these dreams, but, Max…she told me things.”

“Did she tell you these things before she started breaking Anne’s spine?” Max paced like a caged tiger. “Four places. Four! It’s a miracle she wasn’t killed.”

“It wasn’t a miracle.” I blew out a frustrated breath. “The Oracle knew exactly what she was doing. Anne said she saw a vision of it years ago. It wasn’t an accident.”

“Fuckin’ A it wasn’t an accident!”

“Max, calm down!” My stern tone surprised even me, and for a moment, we stared at each other in shock.

He recovered first, but not much. “Okay.”

“What do you mean, okay?” I felt my hysteria rising again. “Cyrus is alive. But I killed him. You were there. We both watched him die. How can he be alive?”

Max shrugged. “It’s not unheard of. I know there are ways to do it, but who would want to bring the bastard back?” The Please Fasten Seat Belt light popped on overhead, and Max motioned me over to the couch.

“So, where do we go from here?” I tried to sound brave as I settled myself next to him.

“Carrie,” he said softly, as though preparing me for the worst, “you know what will happen if I disobey the Movement.”

“And you know, better than I do, what will happen if you obey them and kill my sire.” I couldn’t take any more of this, though I knew we were only steps into a very long journey. The uncertainty wore me down quickly, cast the shadow of doubt over every