The Blood Bundle, Books 1-2: Blood Singers and Blood Song (New Adult Paranormal Vampire/Shifter Romance) (69 page)

Kiki loves me more than I love myself.

She loves me enough for us both.

*

Sue glances up when I click off the light off.
The sky is darkening as I slide my last patient folder through the
glass partition. She has that look in her eyes and pushes a
business card through the slot.

It bears a doctor's name: Dr. Clive
Matthews.

I give Sue a sharp look, and she shrugs, giving
my hand a maternal pat. My eyes burn with tears from the
spontaneous gesture.

Sue notices my emotional struggle and ignores
it. “He got rid of my migraines. Miracle worker, I say.” She nods
and glances at the card significantly.

I notice the appointment time and sigh.

Sue doesn’t drop her gaze. “How much longer are
you going to struggle through those bone crushers?”

I don't answer, and she nods in her knowing way.
“That's what I thought, Miss Mitchell. You'd have just come in
suffering worse than your own patients.”

Sue’s right. She knows it, and I do too.

I take the card and stuff it in the pocket of my
smock, Dr. Seuss cats cover it in a smear of red and blue.

“Thanks,” I say grudgingly while I grab my
coat.

“Welcome,” she shoots back in triumph as I hear
the door whisper closed behind me.

I look at the card again as the cars, people,
and city noise encapsulate me in the comforting rhythm of downtown.
The smell of fish, food, and sea mingle, and I begin the short trek
to the dank alley with the entrance to my apartment.

I have two weeks to prepare myself to go back
into a hospital. I hate hospitals. They're all about death.

The thought of returning is almost enough to get
a proper panic attack going.

Almost.

#

THE TOKEN
is available now!

Book One of the Death Series

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

Copyright
2010-2013 Tamara Rose Blodgett

Smashwords
Edition

ISBN
978-1461058663

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted
under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the
prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of
fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products
of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are
not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or
dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental.

All rights are reserved.

For Joshua

Edited by Stephanie T. Lott

I am Caleb Hart, son of the first scientist to
map the human genome back in 2010. Now, fifteen years later, all us
kids (during puberty because we're so lucky) get to draw what's
equivalent to a winning lottery ticket. What paranormal power would
we have, would I have? It could be anything as benign as Empath,
Telepathy, Pyrokenesis, Astral-Projection, and the real creeper,
Affinity for the Dead, AFTD. New abilities kept cropping up, like
an untended garden. The paranormal ball had begun to roll and it
was all downhill from here. As long as I didn't get anyone's
attention, I was down with that. I should think Science is the
bomb, but it's not, it's a bomb alright-- right on my head.

In eighth grade, we're required to take
pre-Biology. My teacher is enthusiastic, so there's never a dull
moment.

Especially with me passing out all the time.

That's how it happened the first time. The frogs
came in and I went out... like a light.

At least that was the first time I hadn't been
able to ignore it anymore.

Xavier Collins had reined in his ranting about
bees becoming extinct and other huge rage-topics on the
environment, to delight in telling us our next experiment would be
dissection.

I didn't have Mark “Jonesy” Jones in this class
but my other best friend, John, was here, so not a total loss.
Jonesy kept school in balance, making jokes at the expense of the
teachers (very wise). John countered with keeping Jonesy from
getting us in trouble (not always happening). The drag of it was
the two kids that hated my guts in a steaming pile
were
in Biology
.

Carson Hamilton and Brett Mason sat next to each
other, never giving me a moment's peace about anything. Carson had
everything anyone could want: money, looks (he's a mirror-lover)
and parents that didn't care about anything he did. My parents had
not caught the disease of indifference yet. Brett didn't have it so
hot, but he was as miserable as Carson.

John sat down next to me with two pencils up his
nose while Collins was at the whiteboard, discussing how to pin the
frogs down.

Nice.

“Did ya make sure the erasers were in there
first?” I asked him.

“Yeah, duh.” The pencils bounced as he spoke.
For a smart guy, he had some weird ideas about self-entertainment.
It was very “Jonesy” of him.

“You still buzzing?” he asked.

I looked at John. “Yeah, it's on and off.” I
felt kinda defensive about this part, I was avoiding thinking about
it myself, and didn't really want to talk about it.

“I've been thinking about that,” he said.

How he could think with pencils up his nose? A
mystery. “Yeah?”

“I think you have the undead creeper, like that
Parker dude,” John said.

That would be bad.
“He's the one that
could corpse-raise, right?” I asked.

John nodded.

Hadn't I just been thinking about how much that
ability sucked? However, the rareness of corpse-raising might come
in handy. Not likely to happen though.

“It would suck for you.”

Nice, John restating the
obvious. Yeah, it would suck. I mean, what's so great about
communicating with the dead, locating the dead? Any of that...
ah,
no
. Nothing in it for me but
weirdness.

“Government took him. Bye-bye... gone.” John
made a fluttering motion with his hand like a bird flying away. The
pencils kept bouncing in a distracting way.

I'd heard about that. Corpse-Manipulation,
rare-much. Jeffrey Parker was the only recorded case.

“Why do you think?” I was interested for once,
sometimes John would lose me in a tech-rant and it was all
over.

“
Are you shitting me? Dead
people... come on.” I got an image of zombies with M-60s,
interesting
.

“No, think about it. They could get people
raised and force them to do stuff. From a distance, they could look
like they were alive, important people.” He raised his
eyebrows.

“Presidents?”

“Rulers or whoever,” John said. “He was a
five-point. He could do the whole tamale. I think the government
exploits whatever they can; using whoever they can.”

I laughed.

“What?” he asked.

“I can't take you seriously. You look like a
dumb-ass.” The pencils dangled indignantly inside each nostril,
humiliated.

John pulled them out, checking the ends for
gold.

Huh.

I'd been wondering why my head was buzzing. Now
memories surfaced. When had the buzzing started exactly? What
triggered it? Could John be right?

“Okay people, zip up here and pick up your
trays. Your sterilized utensils should already be at your desks,”
Collins said.

John went for our trays, minus the attractive
pencils. I stared out the window, the splatters of rain causing
rivulets that looked like gray streamers marring the glass.

I shook my head, clearing fuzziness. I couldn't
shake the buzzing, a dull noise that ebbed and flowed. I felt it
today the strongest. As soon as I entered class, the buzzing
increased, like whispers.

“Here you are. One frog for the both of us.”
John plunked down a frog that had once been green but was a
bone-gray now, staking pins gleaming under the LEDs.

That's when the screaming started.

The whole earth felt like it was swiveling on
its axis, and I was on top. The whispering grew in volume until
images flooded my head. There were marshes and swamps. A frog, in
the bloom of its life, shiny with amphibian iridescence, leaped to
a log, hoping to fool a small water moccasin close enough to take
it.

(NO!)

Right behind you!
I shouted in warning.
But I couldn't be heard, these were images... memories.

A motor boat was closing in on
the frog, getting ready to take it with a metal pole and loose net
on its end. Caleb heard the frog's thoughts,
strange
predator must seek cover... noise... hurts...

(NO!
NO!!!
)

It wasn't the only frog with memories. Every cut
my classmates made, a new flood of memories came. I realized
through some dim sense that I was on my back on the Biology floor.
Carson and Brett in the background wheezed with laughter.

“He bit it over a frog? Seriously?” Carson
ranted.

Brett, not to be outdone caterwauled, “He's a
total girl!”

Collins was moving his hand in front of my face,
holding up fingers, but I was caught in the grip of the death
memories, absorbing my consciousness. The last thing I remember was
John's anxious face taking turns between telling the dumb-ass duo
to shut up and seeing if I was gonna live. My vision became gray at
the edges, a pinpoint of black expanding to clear my mind of
everything and I knew no more.

CHAPTER 1

Trees
surrounding the cemetery danced in the languid breeze of the mild
spring night. I looked behind me at the pair of eighth grade boys
who'd come to egg me on. They had discovered my secret: that I knew
the dead,
heard
the dead.

Headstones glimmered like loose teeth in the
moonlight, the whispering like a steady thrumming of white noise in
my head. My hands grew clammy.

“Caleb, show them you're not a frickin' poser,”
said Jonesy.

“I don't
pose
.” My
thoughts raged against each other in contrary purpose. Proving to
Carson and Brett that I had AFTD wouldn't keep them off my back
completely, but it'd notch down their stupidity to something me and
my posse could manage. That's where it was, managing their shit
behavior.

I took a step through the high, Victorian-style
gate, my foot touching its reluctant toe on hallowed ground.

The feeling of being forced pressed
uncomfortably against my mind.

Crossing the threshold of sanctified ground, the
whispering turned into voices. One voice whispered to me the
strongest. I stopped feeling tentative and like an invisible string
pulled, was drawn toward one of the gravestones, standing sentinel
near the middle of the cemetery, glowing softly in the moonlight. I
came to stand in front of the headstone which read:
“Clyde
Thomas, born 1900, died 1929.”

“
Wake me
...”
it said.

“
What?” I
whispered
.

It speaks.

“
Wake me
...”
it repeated.

“Caleb, who are you talking to?” John asked,
lack of understanding clear on his face.

My head swung in slow-motion as if through
quicksand, moving in his direction, blood rushing in my ears and my
heart beating thick and heavy in my chest. Everything became
crystallized in that moment. John's frizzy hair and freckles stood
out like measles. A microscopic chip lay like an imperfect shadow
on the headstone, shining stark contrast to the white marble.

Something... something... was building, rising
up as if underwater, rushing to the surface. I was supposed to
finalize something, but what? The whispering of the corpse in the
earth was so loud it drowned out John's words. John's mouth was
moving but no sound was coming out.

What-the-hell? He was arguing with Jonesy, his
teeth a pale slash against his dark face.

Flailing, Jonesy's hand suddenly connected with
my face. My teeth slammed into my tongue and the taste of copper
pennies filled my mouth. I leaned over and a drop of blood hung
tremulously on my bottom lip, falling to the grave like a black
gem.

Everything clicked into place, vertigo spinning
the graveyard on its side as if it had been waiting for this
moment. The ground rushed toward my face and I threw my hands out
to brace my fall, fingers biting into damp earth. A clawed hand
broke through the ground like a spear through flesh. Searching, it
grasped my wrist, the bones pressing in a vise-like grip that
captured my breath, the intense coldness of the grave lingering on
its dead flesh.

The head of the corpse broke free of the ground,
its shadowed gaze meeting mine, the hand releasing me. I scuttled
backward, standing up, swaying, overcome with, excitement? Fear? I
had done this thing and now, didn't know how to undo it. The corpse
moved with purpose, pacing me as it used the undisturbed ground to
leverage itself as another drop of my blood fell and landed with a
dull plop on the corpse's forehead.