Possession-Blood Ties 2 (36 page)

And he had begged. Cyrus had made sure of that.

Absently, he reached out and flipped down the nearest picture, so he wouldn’t have to see the smiling faces of father and son staring back at him. Max immediately stepped forward and righted the frame. Ah, so that’s how it would be then. It made sense. In his life, Cyrus had done abominable things, and worse. Now, he was receiving retribution. But if this puffed up childmasquerading-as-tough vampire thought he could dole out the worst of the punishment, he was sadly mistaken. Some vampires in the desert had already claimed that particular prize.

Morbidly, Cyrus’s mind made its way back to the church basement. Did the fire still smoke? Had anyone found her? Had her body burned away? It seemed wrong that he’d left her there, helpless in her death. His logical mind recognized the fact she felt no pain, but his emotions played havoc with his brain, showing pictures of her serene face contorted with terror as she woke to find herself abandoned to the flames. He should have made Carrie leave him with her, so he could have said goodbye in private. Oh, he wouldn’t have used her the way he had done the girls he’d killed himself. The thought was disgusting when applied to a person he cared about, a person whose life he’d valued. But it had seemed rushed. He’d wanted to hold her, to lie beside her, close his eyes and pretend she lived, despite the stiffness creeping into her limbs and the coldness of her skin. Maybe he would have stayed a few days, never moving. Maybe he would have died of a broken heart.

It was a possibility that eluded him now. His grief, left untended, had subsided some. He didn’t want to survive losing her, but circumstance had forced him to heal to a cruel plateau. He ached for her, but he could not bring that ache to drive him to the madness required to harm himself.

The werewolf—Bella, Max had been calling her—walked in a few lazy circles around a pile of blankets before lying down. She pillowed her chin on her arms, stretched in front of her like a dog’s paws, her eyes scanning a book.

Max stretched on the couch, trying valiantly to read something handwritten. His eyes flitted occasionally from the pages to the woman on the floor. Cyrus wanted to urge caution. Love was fleeting, and it could be taken so easily. But he didn’t care enough about either of them to impart this knowledge, and if they were smart, they would have known it on their own.

Instead, he gestured to the book in Max’s hands. “What is that?”

“The Big Book of None of Your Business.” He frowned at the lines as if he’d been concentrating on the words and not the object of his obvious desire. The rejection rolled off Cyrus like water. “It looks like a journal. A book of shadows?”

Max didn’t look up. “It is a journal, and you can stop talking at any time.”

“I’d like to know what I’m supposed to be looking for. Unless you’d just like a comprehensive report on the entire text?” Cyrus closed the book with a loud snap that

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sent up a puff of dust. Emblazoned in cheap, gold ink across the cover were the words Vou Dou Spells of Possession and Control.

Lovely.

Max finally deigned to glance up, cold fury etched in every line of his face. “You’d know better than we do what he’s up to.”

“He?” Cyrus shrugged innocently. “If by that you mean my father, you are mistaken. I haven’t heard from him since before I died, and he wasn’t happy with me then.”

“Right, and we’re supposed to believe that. I suppose you have no idea why he brought you back from the dead?” Like a shark circling a reef in search of dying fish, Max stood and paced around the room.

It wasn’t quite intimidating enough. In fact, the absurdity of the situation brought a bubble of laughter from Cyrus’s throat, which he quickly suppressed. “No, I do know that. Carrie told me. He’s trying to become a god. But you’re not going to find anything in here to stop him.”

“Where would we find it?” Her attention finally captured by the conversation, Bella sat up. Cyrus would have found her attractive, if not for the fact she was a dog, but he didn’t believe it would be wise to make a pass in front of her boyfriend, especially when he was so obviously besotted with her.

Instead, Cyrus gave her an answer simple enough even the caveman vampire could understand. “I don’t know. As I discussed with Carrie, my father was obsessed at one time with the quest for an ancient spell that would help him achieve such status. But I have no idea if he found that spell in particular, or if he did, where. And I would certainly have no idea how to stop it. If it’s anything like most of these ancient rituals, it will require some impossible undertaking to stop it once he’s begun. Which he must have, if I’m here. Father sticks to a very rigid schedule when it comes to any occult business. Things run more smoothly that way.”

“We are trying to find a way to help Nathan. We think your father may have done something to him,” Bella volunteered, ignoring Max’s glare.

“Oh, he’s absolutely done something to him,” Cyrus agreed. Turning to Max, he admonished, “Isn’t it amazing what you find out when you ask civilly?”

“Shut up and tell us what you know, asshole.” Max leaned against the frame of the doorway that led, presumably, to the kitchen.

Cyrus’s stomach rumbled. “I’m hungry. Does Nolen have anything to eat that isn’t blood?”

“Get him something,” Bella ordered Max. The vampire gaped at her in rage, but turned to do her bidding.

Oh, yes. God save us all from a vampire in love. Only when Max had left the room did Cyrus begin to speak. It was an intentional slight, to put Max in his place.

“If my father is using the ritual I believe he is using, he’ll need to purify the souls of all those he’s turned. The only way to do that is to consume them, at which point he’ll perform another part of the ritual. I’m not sure what exactly that entails. But after it’s done and all the souls are destroyed—”

“Destroyed?” Bella’s eyes widened in shock.

It took Cyrus a moment to remember how barbaric that should sound. A soul was all a mortal creature had—did he have one now?—and humans prized theirs very highly.

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“Yes. Once the impurity has been obliterated, he’ll be able to finish the ritual as written.”

Cyrus laughed, shrugging. “That will be the best way to stop him. Keep him from collecting the souls he needs.”

“That’s what we plan to do.” Max returned from the kitchen, a crumpled bag of some snack food in his hands. “Here. Kitchen’s closed.”

Though they were stale and horrid tasting, Cyrus pretended to enjoy the “cheese puffs,” as the bag proclaimed, with gusto. “Well, I’m assuming Father has simply used his blood tie to Nathan to call him back.”

“Blood tie?” Max smirked. “I’m pretty damn familiar with that, and it couldn’t make me carve myself up and go on a killing rampage.”

Cyrus shook his head. “No, but perhaps you’d go a little mad if you spent most of your time trying to block it out. I know my father. He used to torment me day and night with visions of—”

No. He wouldn’t share those horrors with these strangers. “With visions of unpleasant things. He’d do that until I gave him what he wanted.”

“Whatever he’s doing, it’s a lot worse than a scary picture show.” Max shook his head. “If we could just figure it out…”

“We will keep looking,” Bella said, lifting another book. “Nathan has an impressive collection. We will find something.”

As the hours ticked by, Max on the couch glancing furtively at the werewolf while she pretended not to notice, Cyrus feigning interest in the dusty text cradled on his lap, he felt a bizarre peace. Though his companions didn’t accept him, he felt involved in their singleminded task and the hope that fueled them. He might not die this week, or the next. He might live a whole year, maybe even two. As long as he had this optimism afforded only to the good guys.

I’m a good guy now, Mouse, he thought, believing with all his heart she could hear him. I think I might stay this way.

21

The Dark Night of the Soul

I woke before sundown. Drugged into oblivion by whatever potion he’d been given, Nathan didn’t stir when I eased from his side. It hadn’t been a restful day. Every time I’d dozed off, I’d come dangerously close to falling off the bed. I’d jerk awake, disturbing Nathan in the process, and have to assure him I was not leaving him. I made a mental note to ask Bella to double his dose tomorrow, so I could get some sleep. In the living room, Max lay sprawled on the couch, an old-looking book over his face. I sincerely hoped the thing didn’t have paper lice. Bella lay in a pile of blankets on the floor, whimpering like a dog having a nightmare. There was no sign of Cyrus, but my bedroom door was open a crack.

I leaned against the frame and gently eased the door open, hoping to avoid the creak of the sticky hinge. Inside, everything was as I had left it, with one notable exception. Cyrus lay curled in the fetal position on my bed, the blankets twisted artistically across his nude body.

He was too bizarre, too out of place there. My stomach pitched as though I’d just gone over a particularly nasty hill on a roller coaster. I grabbed the doorjamb for balance.

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There had always been a neat division between my current and former lives. The apartment I’d lived in as a human had burned down, so there was no tie left to that time. My only encounters with Cyrus had taken place at the hospital, where I no longer worked; at his home, which I assumed now belonged to Dahlia and therefore I was in no danger of visiting; and in the alley outside the bookshop, where he’d cut my heart out, a place I strenuously avoided. In my mind there were Cyrus Spaces and Nathan Spaces, and they rarely overlapped. To have the two collide so violently and under such stressful circumstances was…well, it was just plain creepy.

“What are you doing?”

I jumped at the sound of Max’s voice and turned to see him stretch sleepily and scratch his stomach.

I nodded to the open door. “Visiting the scene of my nightmares.”

Max chuckled. “Aw, the little asshole’s all tuckered out.”

“You were supposed to be nice to him,” I admonished. Though I shouldn’t care how they treated Cyrus, so long as they left him alive, every time I tried to make myself indifferent to him I remembered the dead girl in the desert and the pain her death had caused him. Max didn’t have that problem. “Well, he was supposed to be dead. If he can’t return common courtesy, why should I?”

“He’s different now.” I wondered if he really slept, or if he was just faking it, and listening to every word we said.

With a deep, pained sigh, Max shook his head. “What is it with you and this guy, Carrie? I mean, I know he’s your—was your—sire, but he’s not anymore. And after the stuff he did to you, and what he’s doing to Nathan now…why can’t you just let him go?”

Whatever hackles are, mine were raised by that comment. I knew I was being overly defensive, but I couldn’t help it. My feelings for Cyrus, no matter how convoluted, were something I protected like a cherished family heirloom. I closed the door as quietly as I could and faced Max. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Explain it to me in a way I would. We’ve got nothing but time.” He leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest, daring me in his cocky, silent way to defy him. I could have brushed him off with a simple refusal, but that would have closed off a part of me to him, and that was something I was unwilling to do. Max was a friend, and it wasn’t as if I had those in spades these days.

“When I lived with him, Cyrus played so many mind games I had a hard time sorting out what feelings were mine and what ones he manipulated me into feeling.” I took a deep breath. I didn’t like talking about personal matters to anyone, even Nathan. At least with him, he knew what I was feeling before I did, and our “conversations” were little more than telepathic exchanges of emotion. “I didn’t get it quite sorted out before he died, and now that he’s back, some of those feelings are back, too.”

“Do you love him?” The question was so blunt and naked, it sounded perverse.

“No. I don’t love him. Not in a romantic sense.” At least I could deny that much.

“What about other senses?” Max’s tone implied his bullshit detector was reading off the charts.

That was one of the main problems with men. They couldn’t accept the concept of love unless it applied to sex.

“I don’t love him. But I see the potential in him to become a good person, and I have a lot

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of admiration and yes, affection, for the man he is when he lets his guard down. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to run off with him or anything.” I thought of Nathan lying in the other room, and what might happen if we couldn’t save him. Was I ready to live a lifetime alone?

“But I didn’t ask you to go easy on him because of any feelings I might have for him.” It seemed almost cruel to betray such private information about my old sire, but Max needed to understand my pleas for sensitivity where Cyrus was concerned. “Something happened in the desert. Not between him and me, but it was my fault. He wasn’t the only human being held by the Fangs. There was a girl—I guess they were keeping her alive to watch him or care for him. But they were…intimate. And I made a stupid mistake and got her killed. Max, I think he really loved her. She managed to reach some place inside of him I knew existed but had no clue how to unlock. Now that she’s gone, I’m afraid he’s closed that part of himself off again, and that’s going to make him susceptible to anything the Soul Eater might offer. I don’t want him to be a monster again.”

Max didn’t speak. What could he have possibly said? Of course, before we could say any more, my bedroom door opened and Cyrus, clad only in the black slacks he’d worn on the trip, stepped out. “Whispering sweet nothings in the hallway? How romantic.”