Hotblood (43 page)

It wasn’t that warehouse. It was a building in between my mother’s pharmaceutical building and the town, one of many obscure, irrelevant buildings, but this one had apparently been used by Devlin. I looked around at Osmond, Snowy, Ash, and Smoke where we stood in the low building with shelves of things that I could feel were full of technology, the kind that never worked. I stayed near the door, relieved when Osmond set up a chalkboard and began to draw on it, a square building just as I described it.

“
Smoke brought a printout of the city layout there, on the wharf so we know the general territory,” Ash said handing it to Snowy who pinned the piece of paper to the strip of cork around the top of the board.

“
Like bringing Smoke was a good idea,” she muttered.

“
I thought you two were getting along,” Osmond said sounding amused.

“
Getting along is not the same as dragging on a suicidal mission.”

“
So I’m not the only one who sees how insane this whole thing is,” Smoke said cheerfully. “That’s a first. Look Snowy, Ash was doing guitar hero at my house when you called him. I’m just here to give him a ride. As far as breaking and entering, it sounds fun, fighting bad guys, also, very good times, but arguing with you, not worth it. So let me know if I’m in the way and I’ll take off.”

Snowy frowned at him and shook her hair back. “This is the window, facing away from the river, and this is the next building across the street, or alley, not a very large street, anyway, there’s only the one exit, and the walls are cinderblock instead of vinyl. What do you think Osmond?” She didn’t even look at Smoke again. He wandered among the shelves looking at things while I stayed where I was.

Osmond shrugged studying the plan closely. “It would be better to wait for her relatives,”

“
No,” I said. “Jason will be gone by then. It’s Ace’s warehouse, he’s not going to be there much longer.”

The conversation, the argument, the struggle to fit the plan to Snowy’s exact specs took most of the night, and by morning, I was exhausted, and the plan still had holes, lots of holes, but it was starting to come together.

“
If we do this right, we’ll all be back before school’s out, and no one will notice we were ever gone.”

“
Right.” I nodded less uncertain than I’d been about involving these people, but still wishing I didn’t need help. In the course of the evening I’d learned a few interesting things about my town, one of them being that my friends were a little group that went on raids every now and then across the river to keep the inhabitants in check, led of course by my brother. There hadn’t been any raids since Satan had taken over, but they were used to actual fighting, and monsters were more of a novelty for me than for them.

“
I still find it hard to believe that you with your perfect posture are part of this creepy world,” I told Snowy buckling up for the drive back to my house.

“
It’s true, my hair belongs in a world too beautiful to be true, not in a B horror flick, but what can a girl do?” She pulled over and opened my door for me. “This next bit gets a little sticky. I would rather face a screaming horde of Hotbloods than…” she trailed off and looked truly morose. “Wish me luck.”

“
Good luck,” I said, and turned towards the house, glad that I had the less deadly assignment.

I wasn’t so sure I was the lucky one after all as I perched on the roof of my house beside Jackson who studied me intently.

“
Just jump.”

I glared at him, and he smiled. It was so close to Devlin’s smile my heart twisted a little. “Just jump, huh?”

“
If you still have my dad’s skill you’ll be able to land it no problem.”

I tilted my outstretched arms, then threw myself forward before I could think. My reflexes took over, snapping out the sail past my elbow, spinning around, slowing the downward speed to land in the precise spot as easily as if I’d practiced a thousand times. I let out my shaky breath and the nerves hit me then, the trembling as I realized my near death.

“
Good work,” Jackson said, dropping lightly to the grass. “Let’s do it.”

Snowy drove her parent’s SUV while Smoke brought his wagon, Ash beside him, Valerie perched in the back with a look of disdain as she tried not to touch too much of the old ripped upholstery.

“
If I ever look anything like that, I want you to knock me out, all right?” Snowy said to me. Jackson laughed where he sat in the back, and she frowned, but didn’t look at him directly. It was unnerving how much he looked like Devlin, particularly when he smiled. Of course, that’s why he was there.

17 Team Sanders Unites

“
Just jump,” I told myself, but it was harder, perched on the roof of the building across from Ace’s warehouse. The wind was biting coming up off the river, the snow swirling below me up, then crashing down on the ground, crashing like I was probably going to do. I looked at my target, the small window across the street and fiddled with the bands on my wrists. Devlin’s car swung around the corner, I saw the beautiful black thing and wanted to throw up. I saw Jackson’s dark hair under the sunroof, sitting passively beside Valerie and closed my eyes praying that this would not all go very badly.

I heard the warehouse door scrape open and shoved off with my legs, exerting the precise amount of pressure to glide and swoop through the swirling sleet before I landed with a thud against the window and slid in, the guard’s attention was on the door instead of me as I tranquilized him, not letting myself think too much until his body was slumped over and I picked him up along with the chair he was in, and carried him over to the desk. I didn’t look at the desk, I simply pulled out the needle, ignoring the scent of blood that filled the room and slid it into the arm of the unconscious guard. That done, I pulled a hypodermic needle out of my bag and took Lewis’ wrist in my hand. I winced as the name came into my head and my clear, straightforward, precise actions were slowed by the rush of emotions. I took a deep breath, forcing the emotions aside and closed my eyes, focusing on my own steady heart, forcing it to slow instead of galloping off at the sight of Lewis and his corpselike body lying there, nearly bloodless.

I could hear the voices from the cavernous warehouse, Valerie’s snide, derisive tone seemed to work like a bucket of water on my senses. I slid the needle into the vein and injected the blood. I stared at the arm, white flesh corded with muscle, the bare shoulder cut open, a long line drawn from there to his heart, but the heart still beat, slower than molasses in winter, but it beat. I looked past the chin, to the cold lips, barely parted as each breath slid into him. I breathed as shallowly as he did, uncertain how to proceed, staring at the features that looked carved in icy marble. The blood hadn’t done anything at all. Old Peter had been so certain it would work, but not an eyelid flickered, his skin was as pale and waxen as ever.

I pulled the needle out of his arm and hesitated a moment, thinking about shared needles before I jabbed the end into my skin, awkwardly digging around until I found a vein, and blood rushed into the syringe as I eased the plunger back. My blood filled the vial and I pulled out the needle, holding my finger to the place in my arm where a drop of blood wanted to well out. I couldn’t be filling the air with my blood. If Jason could smell the difference we were lost, although I couldn’t see how anyone could smell anything with all of Lewis’ blood. I waited two heartbeats and then slid the needle into his arm, grateful for the large vein, making the process less of a hack job than my own arm. I injected the blood and pulled out the needle, taking my vein again, faster this time. As my blood filled the syringe I thought I saw something, a flicker of his eyelids that made me gasp and my heart pound. I forced myself to focus, to concentrate on my task, and put the needle into his vein, to push the plunger down.

I studied his face for signs of life, checking his skin where I could see the blood spreading through him, but slowly, too slowly. His heart hadn’t sped up, his chest barely rose and fell, and I felt a rush of fury that I had to stop, had to drown before Jason sensed it, felt my emotions with Devlin’s leaning ability.

I grabbed Lewis’s head between my hands and leaning over him, pressed my mouth against his, thinking something about resuscitation, but the contact of his lips under mine wiped out all of my intentions. I kissed him. It was like drowning, and falling off a roof, like being under a wave crushed down to the bottom, only there was no bottom. It was like dying, like all of life leaving me in a rush. I lost awareness of my limbs, but then his hand was holding my head, his lips pressing mine, catching me and filling me with flight, and buoyancy that couldn’t ever be crushed, drowned, or swallowed by any power in the world. I lost track of time, space, lost everything, and regained it in his embrace.

Burning and Other Byproducts of Romantic Obsession

~Lewis

Her blood entered me in a rush that filled my nerves from the tips of my toes to my fingernails. It was heaven; it was euphoria; it was better than death, or anything else I’d imagined. When she kissed me it was sweet and hot. As she drew her soul out of me, I felt agony. On the brink of oblivion I hovered, her mouth an intense pain that spread through me, mingled sensations of ecstasy and agony from her blood, and the stripping of her soul. She didn’t stop, even when I was falling into darkness, into nothing; the pressure of her mouth was persistent, frantic, like someone resuscitating another from the grave. My soul slammed into me so hot and furious my flesh burned from the pressure, from the mass of it. I could feel fibers twitching, spreading, to contain the soul, my soul again.

I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close, unwilling to lose the touch and taste of her. I knew it couldn’t last. I knew I should open my eyes and start moving, but what needed to be done was nothing compared to the need to be with her. I could taste her soul; I could feel it saturating her body. I’d been waiting my whole life for this moment, for this creature to make me whole. All of my senses were focused on the one thing in the world that made sense. I could hear her heart, smell her skin and hair, taste her breath and mouth. I drowned in her. Feeling the silky strands of her hair I felt a sigh come through me, or her. I wasn’t certain where I ended and she began. We were the perfect whole.

She gasped and pulled back, staring down at me. I stared back, taking in the flushed skin, the way her breathing made her pulse jump in her throat. I shifted my hand so I could rest my finger on that beating pulse. She looked terrified and bewildered, like she was more shocked at finding us together than I was. I smiled at her, difficult to make the effort, but the smile she gave me was worth it. I wanted to kiss her again, to take her in my arms and carry her away from here, but I wasn’t sure if I could stand. I certainly couldn’t with the way she was laying on top of me, and I wouldn’t have changed positions for the world. She glanced to the side and I followed her gaze to see an unconscious man hooked up to a bag of blood. It was my blood mostly, but where was the rest of it? I sighed, hating that I had to think, that I had to fix things when all I wanted to do was forget about the world and focus on the center of my personal universe.

When the man moved, I reacted, shifting to roll over her and attacked the man, knocking him out again. I stood reeling from the blood loss as well as distance from her. Every sense I had was focused on her, the reality of her, where I’d left her behind me. This was not a love bower, this was the office of someone who may or may not be dead, and out there was Jason who wanted her blood nearly as much as he wanted mine. I took a shallow breath and turned to her. She stared back, her fascinated gaze caught on my eyes, her vulnerability making me ache. I dropped my gaze to the floor letting my senses stretch past her, to hear something other than her racing heart.

There were voices from the warehouse, one voice I could have sworn belonged to Valerie. She was trying to talk Jason into something. Jason had Devlin’s blood, he could certainly lean her if he didn’t find whatever she wanted amusing. Jason had been my friend, had tried to kill me, and now threatened what I loved. I stole a glance at Dari and saw her sitting up, making fists, and staring at her hands like she’d never seen them before. Her soul was nearly as new to her as it had been to me. Her soul was a shock to the system, so much brightness, light and energy wasn’t something you came across every day. I felt a wrench in my chest as I thought how much I would miss it.

I went to her, dropping to my knees, half intentionally, half my legs giving out. Her fists were so small. I caught one, then the other. It was impossible for me not to kiss them, the sweetness of her soul saturated her flesh, making me lightheaded, unless it was lack of blood.

The explosion wasn’t entirely unexpected in as much as I went through my life always half expecting an explosion at any moment, but it took her by surprise, in spite of her planning it. I pulled her off the desk, waiting for the shaking walls to stop, inhaling the scent of her, the smell of her hair, her skin, the blood pounding so close under the flesh.

She pushed, like a butterfly against my arms and I let her escape to stand unsteadily. I followed her gaze to the bag of blood, and knew that the explosion would have disrupted the monitors Jason had on the blood, and I could now empty the bag without alerting him.

“
Now we finish your transfusion,” she said, her voice still wobbly as she moved to hook up the tube and needle. I watched her, the way she didn’t look at my eyes as she hesitated with the needle. I took it from her and finished the job, feeling the relief come off of her. She broadcasted her feelings unintentionally, unused to the leaning, and I felt her, and wished I didn’t. She was wrapped in so much anxiety and relief, I found myself taking the transfusion faster than I should, burning hot to assimilate it, to mix it with hers and Old Peter’s blood. I didn’t understand why she hadn’t waited, why she’d given me so much of her blood, which tied me irrevocably to her. I felt better, I’d already felt fantastic, having her with me, but now my body was a little more under control and I felt more confident in my ability to get her out of here unscathed. Alive wasn’t enough, her skin could not be marred.