Blood Work

  Chapter 40

  Back in the early days, when Mercy and I were still learning our way around each other, she’d fed on me twice. The first time, I think I had wanted it. All those months I’d spent watching her from a distance, falling in love, or lust, or simple obsessive infatuation. Whatever. Then in the hospital, watching her sleep and being torn apart and remade. And finally, there she was with me; strange and dangerous, absolutely, but the body was the same, the voice was the same, even if the eyes were silver glazed and impenetrable. She’d come at me, lust for my blood in her eyes and coursing down the burgeoning link between us. I’d let her.

  And it had been the single most mind blowing, orgasmic feeling ever.

  It hurt. How could it not? A vampire bite is of necessity a small thing. Two holes over which they must fit their mouth, otherwise there is too much wastage to make the kill profitable. Drawing litre upon litre of blood through wounds of that size is going to cause pain. You can feel it being pulled up against your heart’s will. Like someone has wound a needle and thread through every organ and muscle of your body, starting at your feet and ending at your neck, then they start tugging on that thread. It feels like your guts, stomach, lungs, heart, everything inside you, is about to be drawn out through your mouth.

  At least, that’s how it was without the feeding compulsion that numbs the victim to all sensations.

  Mercy had still been too young to have worked out her mental whammies. When she fed on me, it was with no nice, considerate thought for the food’s comfort. It had hurt, and I’d got off on it. If I hadn’t been totally consumed in mistaking pain for pleasure, I think I would have tried to fuck her while she killed me.

  That first time, the only reason she didn’t kill me was because she was too weak to drain me. I spent two days in a delirium and she had her first reaction to a wrong blood group.

  The second time, my memories of the first encounter had scared me sufficiently I performed the first reverse whammy on her. She’d got away with only a couple hundred mils of blood that time. No vampire had fed off me since.

  Until now.

  Veilchen might have been able to control my body, but she was unable to touch my mind. No feeding compulsion for me. Not only did I get the full force of all the inherent pain, but that savage lust rose in me again. I enjoyed the way she hurt me. I wanted it to go deeper, to sink right into my body and twist and tear. She felt it. Against my neck, her mouth shivered, a mixture of amusement and responding passion. Her control over my limbs eased but I didn’t take the chance to fight. I simply grabbed on tighter, hauled her hips closer to mine, let her know how much I liked what she was doing.

  I clawed at the fastening on her slacks. Her hand made the same motions at my own.

  Suddenly, Veilchen pulled away from me. She threw herself backwards so harshly I fell back onto my arse, jarring my back and knee.

  Howling, Veilchen spun around and swept her arm out. Erin went spinning away, falling to the ground by the creek. My eyes focused on the Primal’s back. There was a sizzling hole in her blouse in the centre of her shoulder blades. Jutting from the middle of the burn was the hilt of my SAS knife. Veilchen furiously tried to pull the weapon free, but it had been placed well. She couldn’t reach it. Her finger tips brushed it but could gain no purchase. She flew into a rage and blurred out of my perceptions.

  For a moment only, the lust for her coursed through me. Then I felt the blood trailing down my neck and into my shirt. That woke me up.

  “Matt?”

  Erin struggled to sit up by the water. I crawled over to her. Her lips were split from Veilchen’s blow and there was a deep red patch over the entire right side of her face that would bruise nicely. I couldn’t look her in the eyes. My head was clear of whatever mania Veilchen had inspired, yet there was still a slight and distressing tent in my pants. I set about untying her hands.

  “I’m glad you decided not to die long enough to lend a hand.” It came out harsh, fuelled by an inward directed anger but I don’t think that clarification came through.

  Erin stiffened but let me finish freeing her. “Well, you seemed all too willing to let her kill you. And more.”

  My teeth ground, but Erin continued before I could explain.

  “Besides, I already said you needed to survive this. I fully expected her to kill me when I stabbed her.”

  The bitter, defeated edge in her voice cut my anger away with a single sweep. I meet her gaze. Her eyes were dull, empty of life.

  “Erin,” I began but couldn’t finish. Whatever it was that pulled her over this slope was too big to deal with now. “We have to get moving. That knife won’t stop Veilchen. She’ll be back.”

  “First,” Erin murmured, pulling up the sleeve of her jumper. Quickly she unwound the bandage, revealing Mercy’s teeth marks. They were closed with a couple of stitches each.

  “What—” I began but Erin silenced me with a look.

  She wrapped the bandage around my throat, reminding me I was bleeding. When she was done, I muttered thanks and stood. I was a bit shaky, but stable enough to help Erin up and half support her as well.

  “Good work, taking the knife from me,” I said. “Of course, you left me pretty much defenceless.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind too much.”

  My erection had, thankfully, subsided and feeling was rushing back into all the parts of my body Veilchen had numbed with her chilly touch. Things were starting to ache, and not pleasantly.

  “What did you put on the blade?” I asked, scanning the dark trees around us.

  “Holy water, from your other pocket.”

  “Gotta love the cargo pants.”

  I started us back toward the path I’d come in by. But even as we took our first steps, lavender swirled around me and Veilchen appeared, the knife still protruding from between her shoulder blades. The whole of the back of her blouse was burned away and hung in tatters, exposing the charred flesh around the steel blade.

  Veilchen was no longer angry. Back was that cucumber cool calm. She looked at us with a little smile and as we watched, the knife shifted. She used no hands to move it, but move it did. It twitched, shivered and then drew out of the wound and floated in place. Veilchen turned and plucked it out of mid-air.

  “Telekinesis,” I hissed. Aurum had said the Violets were the most powerful psychics of the clans.

  “How perceptive.” Veilchen spun the knife like an expert. “And now I have your only weapon.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  And Mercy slammed into Veilchen from behind.

  However Mercy had been able to sneak up on the Primal, I had no clue, but I didn’t waste time wondering. I grabbed Erin and turned to run in the other direction. I staggered to a stop, Erin’s momentum almost pulling me off balance. Then she too saw what had stopped me.

  Long coats settling about their legs, the line of Reds faced us. Some sported smoking craters from where Mercy had hit them with the paintballs, but most were unscarred and all were very angry. My senses were overloaded with Veilchen’s flavour. The cab sav of the Reds couldn’t battle through.

  I swallowed hard. This was what I’d wanted all along. I should have been pleased. But somehow being a bit angry and a lot scared took precedent. Scared, for obvious reasons. Angry because where the fuck was Big Red?

  As one, the Reds took a step forward.

  “Get behind me,” I whispered to Erin. For a wonder, she did. I grabbed stink bombs from my pockets. After a moment, I felt her hands dipping in as well.

  Then the Reds charged. I tossed stink bombs. They detonated against the advancing vampire bodies and garlic paste went everywhere. Between Erin and me, we didn’t precisely halt the charge, but we scattered it and they parted around us, keeping wide and sweeping in behind. I moved to put my back to Erin’s, and saw they weren’t closing in on us.

  Rather, they converged on the seething riot that was Mercy and Veilchen.

  They got a hold on her and Mercy, pulled t
hem out of their faster than fast fight and dropped them back into visibility. It was like one of those all-in-pile-ups, with more Reds throwing themselves mindlessly at Veilchen. Mercy battled the few that held her. I did my best to target the vampires around her, without hitting her. It was hard and I didn’t have much success. Erin, too, continued to empty my pockets, concentrating on the far side of the melee.

  Reds closed around Mercy and ruined my chances of helping from the outside. I could sense Mercy’s waning strength. She’d used most of it in racing up the hill to attack Veilchen in an effort to protect me. Then her strength gave out and she went down.

  Even bereft of stick and knife, I was about to wade into the fray to rescue Mercy when the knot around Veilchen exploded outward. Vampires flew up and out and the Primal sprang clear of the mess in an elegant twist through the air. She landed behind me and Erin. We spun to face her, the last of the stink bombs ready.

  What had remained of her clothes were all but gone now. The blouse was completely destroyed, showing off her white, pert breasts to the night, and her slacks clung to her waist with nothing but grim tenacity, turning to flowing tatters around her thighs. There were rents in her marble skin, but these closed even as we watched. No blood spilled from her at all. Not even mine.

  Erin threw a stink bomb. It hit her chest and blew open. A slurry of garlic splattered her upper body. And that was it. No burning, no screaming in pain. Her mouth curved upwards. Veilchen dragged a finger through the stinking mess and lifted it to her lips. She licked the garlic paste off and made a satisfied noise.

  Shit.

  But Holy water worked. Sadly, Erin had my only store.

  Howling, the Reds faced Veilchen, preparing for another charge.

  She just laughed and suddenly, the black of the night around her split down the middle. Layers of darkness peeled back and tore away on a sudden wind. What was left was Veilchen, and a new mob of vampires.

  I’d thought the stench of lavender couldn’t get any worse. I’d thought wrong.

  It suffocated me. My stomach churned with the overpowering sensation. I wanted to puke, to scour my mouth and nose free of the smell.

  But then it changed. The mustiness soured and deepened, gaining a peppery hint.

  Narsico Martínez Pérez stepped from the ranks of Reds. He ignored me in favour of sizing up Veilchen.

  “My Lord bids you greetings,” he said formerly to the Primal.

  She sneered at him. “I am sure he does. What business does the Red Lord have with my affairs?”

  Martínez bowed his head in submission. “My Lord recognises that he has overstepped his boundaries by pursuing your stolen daughter. But he wishes you to know it was done as gesture of good will.”

  She eyed him with weary contempt. “The Lord of the Red is weak. What need have I of his good will?”

  If her insult about his lord bothered Martínez, he didn’t show it. “My Lord is aware of his position amongst his brothers and sisters. He knows that of all the castes, his children are the least. Not as strong, not as empowered. But they are numerous, more so than any other, even your own.”

  The wall of Reds that had gathered just behind Erin and me parted. Mercy, bloodied and limp, was carried out between two vampires. They stopped beside Martínez and dropped Mercy. She hit the ground hard and lay still.

  My knees gave out and I sank down. Erin came with me, simply because I think she didn’t know what else to do. I could only stare at my nasty kitten, my broken doll. Her touch through the link was barely there, ebbing even as I desperately reached for it.

  “We sought your stolen daughter,” Martínez said, waving a dismissive hand at Mercy, “so that we might present her to you as an offering.”

  Veilchen gazed at Mercy as well. Her thoughts were hidden by her blank eyes. How she felt about seeing her chosen vessel battered and torn was a mystery. Probably it was just mild annoyance. Not like the gut wrenching ache in my stomach, the dreadful anguish roaring through my veins.

  “Your Lord wishes an alliance,” Veilchen said.

  “He does. He believes that between the Violets and the Reds, a dominance will be created and the other castes will fall before us.”

  “And you think to begin this alliance with the gift of a broken body? A body I had in my possession not moments before your pathetic creatures attacked me?”

  Martínez conceded the point. “For that, I am eternally sorry and should you wish it, you may have my life in payment. The crippled one had incensed my children to the point at which they did not understand what they were doing. But alongside this one, we have more to offer.”

  He pointed at me.

  Again, Veilchen was summarily unimpressed. “Another I had in my possession until you interrupted.”

  “Yet you would have taken him and turned him without knowing what he possesses.”

  Veilchen looked between Martínez and me, her expression cool. “Apart from a pleasing body and intoxicating blood, there is little special about him. Whatever might set him apart from other humans he has only gained through the bond with my stolen daughter.”

  Martínez dared to shake his head at her. “You forget one other thing. Knowledge. This human has the knowledge to increase a vampire’s strength and cognition without having to wait centuries. At its full strength, this one,” he indicated Mercy, “is the equal of any of our kind more than a hundred years old.”

  That caught Veilchen’s attention. She came forward and crouched by Mercy. She pushed Mercy onto her back and laid her hand between my vampire’s breasts. I could feel the tug of Veilchen’s questing probe down the link. She was seeking to find if what Martínez said was true. It didn’t take her long.

  Slowly, Veilchen turned to me. Her lips curled in that fond smile again.

  “Tell your Lord,” she said to Martínez, “that we may discuss the terms of the alliance.”

  You know, I was new to all this vampire politics stuff, but that didn’t sound very good to me. Not at all.