Possession-Blood Ties 2 (42 page)

Before I could wrench away, she pulled me forward and pressed the crystal to my forehead. The splitting pain couldn’t have been worse if she’d used an ax. The cool, smooth surface of the stone focused the pain into a thread that wound down my spine, into my torso, branching into my limbs. The thread widened, opening like a telescope until I was filled to bursting. There was no room left for me in my body, and the thing kept growing, crowding me farther and farther back.

My eyes rolled back in my head. The last thing I saw was Max’s face as he screamed, but a tremendous roar filled my ears, thundering over him. Then my vision flared silver and I was falling. It was nothing like the gentle, backward suction I’d experienced when my sires had shared their memories with me. That had been mildly disconcerting. This was nothing but pain and horror. And then, I was gone.

Standing before the big, oak double doors, Marianne didn’t bother to disguise her observation of the man at her side. My husband is so handsome. I’m nearly a corpse. Nolen gave her a smile and squeezed her hand. She knew the smile. It was not the one that had charmed her when she’d been young and pretty and not aching with every step. Not the one that had made her give into him in the stock room of her father’s shop. She hadn’t seen that smile for a year now. Not since the last baby wasn’t born. Not since she’d begun to fall apart.

No, this was the pity. He would never look at her the way he used to, not even if this

“faith healer” did help her.

“Do I really look all right?” Marianne toyed with the heavy chain around her neck. How many more times will you drag me across the world on my father’s money? How many more cures will I be forced to endure before you let me die?

“You’re a vision.” He smiled and touched the heavy pendant hanging at her throat. His fingers never touched her flesh. He’d become so good at withholding all but the most sterile of touches. “Although I don’t think this suits you. It’s a decent sign, though. No one would give away a bauble like this on a whim.”

“Unless it’s meant to be a rejection gift.” The thing was too heavy. Her shoulders ached. What would he do if she collapsed right now and ruined the good impression he hoped to make?

A faith healer. I’d have to have some first. She hadn’t told him, but she’d given up believing in God. Every night, when he held her hands and they said their prayers, she recited empty words. She was too angry to speak with the Lord or the Virgin Mother. It was considered holy to share Christ’s pain, but on the worst days, when the cancer seemed to be dissolving her very bones with acid claws, she envied him. Christ had only suffered

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for two days. And it was too cruel to venerate the Blessed Mary. What praise did she deserve? She may have endured the pain of losing a child, but Marianne had lived through that hell five times, and she’d never been able to hold her children. They’d gone to their Golgotha inside of her and ascended into heaven on a rush of blood. The fruit of her own womb was less than holy, the disease that now destroyed her from the inside out. Nolen believed, though, that God would send them a miracle, that the future hadn’t been denied, only delayed. To ease his mind, she acted the part of the pious wretch. The doors before them opened. Marianne had assumed they’d be meeting with Jacob, Simon and Simon’s beautiful young wife, Elsbeth, as they had the two times they’d both been invited to dine at the mansion. Oh, Nolen had been invited far more often than she. Jacob had taken an almost fatherly interest in him, sending invitations that called Nolen away in the evenings, entreating him to leave his diseased wife at home to rest. She did not know what had transpired those nights, but the group assembled around the table now, bored-looking and beautiful, surprised her. Their gazes all held a strange hunger as every pair of eyes examined her. With a sudden, crashing clarity, she realized something was terribly wrong.

There wasn’t enough time to bend her intuition into action. Those guests who’d seemed so impressive and imposing a moment before transformed into demons before her eyes. They moved faster than Nolen could and tore her away from him as he tried to shield her. Marianne’s world narrowed to a void of claws and fangs. They cut and tore her flesh, but she welcomed the pain. It felt different than the slow burn of the disease devouring her body. Faster. It would be better this way.

And then she was dying. The thing she’d not been above praying for, even after she’d shunned God, was finally upon her. Vision dimmed, then returned like a tide teasing the shore, but it wasn’t disorienting. In fact, it was disappointing when clarity returned, because she wanted to see what was on the other side of the darkness. Wanted to see if she was damned for her lack of faith, or if she’d be proved correct. The prize at the end of the race seemed so very close when it was cruelly yanked from her grasp. Pain exploded in her head as she connected with the floor. The groping hands had dropped her. They were alone with the one she knew as Simon. Nolen was praying, invoking the aid of Mary and the archangel against the demon that embraced him. Simon’s hands caressed her husband like a lover’s hands. Give in to him, she urged wordlessly. It will be finished sooner. He will grow bored and kill you.

But Simon didn’t intend to rape Nolen. His violation was more sinister. He was gentle and tender, aiming to seduce his unwilling partner into consent, forcing Nolen’s body to betray him, making him take pleasure from unforgivable sin. This is my fault. The sadness and regret gripped her then. A fine time to get her heart back, when she lay dying a world away from home.

Simon took his time with Nolen, and Marianne, too weak to turn away, watched her husband weep as he came, trembling, beneath Simon’s mouth and hands, even as the monster penetrated him.

“Your husband did this to you, Marianne.” Simon groaned, hissing in pleasure as his hips pumped against Nolen’s body. “Tell him how you hate him for it.”

She found her voice then, to whisper a weak, “No.” For all she resented him, she loved him. She would not have him die thinking she’d scorned him. Her gaze lingered for a

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moment on Nolen’s fingers clutching futilely at the slick marble floor. Then her eyes slipped closed.

As life continued to slowly ebb from her, Marianne wished for the strength to cry for joy. They would both be gone soon, abused to death at the hands of these monsters. And then she would be free of a worse pain, the pain of walking the earth in a faltering shell, watching her husband transform her from an object of desire to an untouchable martyr in his eyes.

I have to tell Nathan. The thought startled me, namely because it had rung through my mind so clearly. I remembered instantly where I was, what was happening, but where had I been? I’d seen it all, but it hadn’t been me. Marianne had truly taken me over. Now, as she died in the past, her control slipped.

Concentrating hard, I felt myself detach a little from her flickering soul. Silvery threads of pain webbed around my mind, but I fought past them. It was like running through kneedeep water, but the struggle was worth it. I heard sounds from my own time, namely, Bella commanding me to stop fighting.

“It’s important.” I didn’t recognize my own voice. Was it Marianne’s voice, or was I Marianne, not recognizing Carrie’s voice? Where did she end? Where did I begin?

“I want to die.” I felt the carpet beneath my knees now, at the same time the marble cooled my back. I shook my head. No, I shook Marianne’s head, and she shook mine. I stood on weak legs, while she delighted in my strong ones. “Nolen, I want to die.”

We were alone in the Soul Eater’s dining room. Nathan’s bed was here, now, with him handcuffed to it, but there was no sign of the madness that had tormented him. I touched him with Marianne’s hand and felt his skin beneath my own in another time and place. His throat convulsed as he swallowed, and a tear slid from his eye. “I don’t want to kill you again. I kill you every time I close my eyes.”

“You can’t keep me here any longer. It hurts to be in this body.” Was I talking, or was she? Did she speak of the past or what she lived through now? “It hurt, Nolen. You answered my prayers. You blessed me with death. Now let me go.”

In the past, a phantom hand closed over Marianne’s wrist as she reached to unlock her husband. In the present, Max restrained my arm as I tried to release Nathan.

“Let her,” Bella urged, and then Nathan was free.

He fought it at first, trying to hold back the madness. “I can’t. I want to stay with you.”

“You can’t have me.” I heard my voice speaking in a gentle Scottish lilt. Marianne’s voice.

“Kill me. For the last time. Set us both free.”

When his arms closed around her body, they crushed the air from my lungs. When his fangs pierced my neck, she cried his name.

Tears poured down his face as he drank my blood. That was a part of me I couldn’t mistake. Though Marianne’s soul was in my body and I was crowded into her mind, my blood was his. It mocked him as he tasted it, but in it he saw the truth and acceptance. No matter how many times he replayed this night, he couldn’t change what he’d done to her, and now he knew he shouldn’t wish to.

As I died, so did Marianne, but I had a much farther distance to fall. Her eyes closed on Cyrus’s ballroom, her second death as much a relief as the first one, and this time she died with her husband’s name on her lips.

When her soul left my body I came jarringly awake, shivering uncontrollably from the

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blood Nathan had consumed from me. His mouth was still fastened to my neck, but he no longer drank. He kissed my wounded flesh and sobbed, crushing me to the rock-hard wall of his chest.

“She is gone,” I heard Bella say, and for a terrifying minute I thought she meant me. Nathan lifted his head. His eyes met mine and went cold. My heart froze with them. It wasn’t me he wanted. For a moment, he’d held his wife in his arms again. Now that she was gone, only I remained.

To his credit, he masked his grief quickly, trying to smile for me as though his tears were joyous at being reunited with me. “Did I hurt you?”

More than you know. I didn’t trust myself to answer him. Instead, I eased from his grip and tried to stand.

When I collapsed, Max caught me. Instead of easy encouragement, he whispered, “I’m sorry I let you do this.”

He’d seen it, I realized. He’d seen Nathan’s disappointment when he’d found it was me in his arms.

“I will tend to Nathan. You make sure she is all right,” Bella instructed. I wanted to lash out at her, to slap her or scream at her, but I didn’t have the strength and it wasn’t her fault, anyway. All she had promised was to cure Nathan of his possession, and her ritual had done just that. She’d never guaranteed I wouldn’t be left empty and hurt in the process.

Max scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the living room, to lay me on the couch.

“We’ll get some blood into you.”

“You could let the rest out of me.” I tried to make it sound like a joke, but the horror of the suggestion was evident on his face.

“Don’t say that. You’re just upheaved by this whole ordeal.” He squeezed my hand. “I can’t imagine what you went through.”

“Hell.” The word bubbled from my throat and I coughed, spilling wetness onto my lips. When I wiped it away, I saw it was blood.

Max went to the kitchen and made a horrible racket. He hurried as if my life depended on it, and in a way, I guess I was in danger. But it would take a lot more to kill me. The floorboards in the hall creaked, and Nathan emerged from the shadows. His hair was still matted, his skin marred by the sigils he’d carved there in a time that seemed ages ago. But he was at least half-dressed, in a pair of jeans, and the feral anger was gone from his eyes.

The tenderness on his face broke my heart as he stroked my hair back from my forehead with the palm of his hand. “Thank you.”

“It was no problem. It’s still not the worst dinner party I’ve been to.” I smiled weakly, but inside I fell apart. I loved him enough to sacrifice myself, at least symbolically, on the altar of his pain. While he clearly appreciated my devotion, it was impossible for me to forget who he really wanted. I could never be Marianne. And he wasn’t ready to give her up. And he knew that I knew. He lifted my hand in his and kissed my palm. “Don’t hate me.”

“I can’t hate you. I love you too much.” I didn’t fight my tears any longer. He held me, but it was a bittersweet comfort. Touching him, smelling him, feeling the pull of the blood tie between us wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. At least now we were acknowledging it.

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The floorboards in the hall creaked again as Bella joined us. Max stepped out of the kitchen and Nathan reluctantly let me go.

I wiped my eyes as I watched Bella ease open the door to my bedroom. After what I’d seen and been through, I didn’t have the strength to explain why Cyrus was in our apartment. “Maybe now isn’t a good time to—”

“Where is he?” Bella stepped into my room. The light clicked on and she swore.

“Who is she talking about?” Nathan asked as I used his shoulder for support to stand. Before she returned with the folded paper in her hand, I knew where he’d gone. There was no time to shield Nathan’s feelings. “She’s talking about Cyrus. And I know where he’s heading.”

26

Desperation

“H ow could you have let him into my house?” Nathan raged for the third time since our conversation had started.

I took another hurried swig of blood as Max wrenched open the weapons closet. Inside, axes and crossbows and sharpened stakes were stockpiled, as though we were planning a return trip to the dark ages. Not that I’d be good for much. I was still weak from blood loss, but I was quickly recovering. Whatever strength I had to contribute, I would.