ELEVEN
Before we left I had one final thing to take care of. Marco, Zane, Jenny, Reikah and myself drove up to the mansion. It was just past dusk and the dim lights were burning. The door opened before I could knock. Yasmina stood there looking like a ferocious, barely tamed animal still in human form.
“You,” she hissed.
“Yup,” I said, “big bad me. The one who kicked your butt, is here.”
“You still can't have him.” Her lips pulled back to show her teeth, already going sharp. Gee-zus, someone needed to get this girl into some anger management therapy. I had never seen her be anything but pissed off, and usually at me.
“Still don't want him.” I said. “But I'm not here for that.”
“Then what are you here for?”
Just hearing Vlad's voice made my skin crawl. It was good to know that I wasn't attracted to every male vampire. Just most of them. Go me.
Vlad materialized out of the darkness in the same way that I assumed Zane could do. Dark tendrils of smoke coiled together to create a vampire out of pretty much nothing. Vlad formed a moment latter, wearing a blood red top with frills around the neck and cuffs, a long black jacket, and pants that looked nearly painted on. He should have looked horrible, but he made it work. He kept a safe distance away from me. He was wary, I liked it.
“We are going to assault the temple, I'd like the help you and the rest of the vampires. Then I am going to fulfill the prophecy.”
He raised his brow. “You will accept my offer?”
“I didn't say I was going to do it with you,” I pointed out. “But here's the thing. I want magic in this world. I want it more than I can tell you. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to live in a world with dragons, and vampires and everything else. Blame it on the video games, or the comic books, or whatever you want to. I wanted it so bad that I used to cry about it. I dunno, make of that what you will. You aren't my therapist. But we are going to attack the Temple, and all of you are invited to join us.”
“And what will you offer me?”
I laughed, and even to me it sounded derisive. “Dude, I'm going to be giving you back the ability to create more vampires. At the end of all of this? You will owe me.”
A hand curled over his arm. Anja stood there with her wise dark eyes. She reached up and tucked his collar around his neck. It was a wifely motion, an affectionate one. He turned his gaze on her, and they shared a silent conversation. A moment later he bowed his head.
“We will join you.”
“Good,” I said. “Then pack up.”
“You will make war now?”
I shrugged. “I've put this off long enough, and I don't know how much time Wei still has. Let's go make a battle plan.”
~~
It sounded like the beginning of a really bad joke. The witches, the vampires, and a prophecy girl approached the temple at midnight. A year ago, I would have thought it was a joke, but today? It was just my life choices.
I had traded in the ruined robes of my grandmother for a tank top and a leather jacket. My dad had inscribed mathematical symbols into the jacket to protect me. I liked it. It went better with my boots. He'd done the same for a pair of wristlets he'd found, wearing them made me feel kinda like Wonder Woman. What more could a girl want in life?
There were a little over a hundred of us. Witches from every walk of life, dressed in every style of clothing a person could imagine, all shoulder to shoulder with one intent in mind. To help me take back the magic that they had lost, or had never been able to gain. The vampires were a dark shadow, save for Genevieve and Alan, who both looked like angels. They formed a semi-circle around Marco and I, and my magic was so ready that it itched at my skin. My dad stood just behind them, he hadn't been willing to stay behind this time. I wasn't going to tell him no. This was his fight too.
The temple looked more like a fortress, but I expected no less from the Order of the Loyal Hermit. It was all gray stone and barbed wire. The wire had been formed into symbols, I didn't know them, but I knew that they were protective in nature. It took Reikah, and her knowledge of the Order, and my dad, with his knowledge of inscription to take it down.
Before they were done a blast of sound hit our gathering. It was so loud and so unexpected that nearly all of us crumpled to our knees. All save for the deaf witch. She looked around at us and understanding crossed her features. She threw one hand into the air, and a moment later the sound dissipated. By the time that had happened, however, faces appeared at small slit windows around the temple.
“Margot,” I called.
“Best to look away,” Margot smirked.
I had not understood the term “charming” before Margot. It was hard not to look at her, it was harder still to look. Her robes were a flutter of golden silk. It brought out the warmth in her skin, making her look softly pink. She laughed, and the sound rolled over the crowd.
Then she began to sing. I didn't know the song, it was in a language I'd never heard, but it made me think of all the things that I wanted. I wanted Wei back, safe and happy. I wanted my dad to not worry about me anymore. I wanted Jenny and Reikah to live a long life together. I wanted the child that everyone told me was going to bring magic into the world. I wanted Zane to get over my sister. I wanted so many things...
A pair of hands clapped over my ears and I found myself looking up into big golden eyes. They were so bright, and so easy to give into. Zane's eyes.
“Stay here,” he said, “a Siren's song is not easy to ignore.”
I blinked, and now that I knew what it was, it didn't have nearly as much effect on me. I shook my head and gave his lips a light kiss. I don't know who was more surprised him or me.
“What was that for?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe you'll second guess yourself before the inevitable betrayal.” I gave his cheek a pat. “This probably is the worst possible moment for this, but I gotta say, I don't think you love my sister.”
He frowned at me. “Is this another tactic to assuage me?”
I don't know if I actually understood what the word assuage meant, but I was going to guess it meant “turn.”
“No,” I said, “You can love someone who doesn't love you back, that's fine. But I don't think you can love someone who doesn't even respect you.”
He gave me a look, and I didn't need the tether that still held us together to know that he was angry with me. He could be angry. Hard truths pissed a lot of people off. But we could deal with that later.
The front doors were opening on the temple, and a slew of people clad in gray robes were coming out. Their arms stretched out as they tried to get to Margot.
That's when the first volley went over. Spells of every variety slammed across the wide expanse between us and them. People flew backwards, and the Siren spell was broken.
“Go!” Marquessa called out. “It's your time!”
I wasn't part of the main attack force. The plan had been fairly simple, and Vlad had been the one to come up with it. I guess all those years in the military had been helpful.
The hardest part about getting into the temple was the fact that it was so closed off. It was right up against a mountain which meant there was only one direction that we could come from. The front. So we had to draw the cult out, and there was no better way to do that than Margot. Now that that was done, and the doors were wide open, Me, Zane, Alan, Dmitri, and Genevieve were going inside. This way both necromancers had some vampires with them.
Jenny had wanted to come, but I needed her with the main forces. Her stone magics were much better on large forces than smaller ones. An opinion made valid by the way the bedrock shook beneath us, scattering group of cultists as me and my coterie of undead charged inside.
“Okay, Maahes,” I said, “let's find Wei.”
The inside of the temple was as gray and lifeless as the outside. Jeez. What was it about these people and their monochrome color scheme? I followed the tabby cat as he went around from room to room, looking for the vampire that he liked best.
I knew something was wrong when my tabby cat froze. Maahes wasn't your normal cat, what with him being dead and all, but he wasn't prone to going vampire still either. I held up a hand and before I could say anything Maahes was dragged across the ground, towards a room that seemed like it was more central to the temple than not. He howled in feline pain.
“Maahes!” I screamed, charging after him. I was dimly aware that the vampires were following me.
I didn't know that a ghost could feel pain, but I felt Maahes. His claws dug into the concrete, and he struggled to keep from whatever was pulling him down the corridor. His eyes were big in his head and his stripped tail was poofed out.
He disappeared through a door, and it took me one terrified kick to charge in after him. No one hurt my kitty.
I came to a halt just inside the door. There was a short set of stairs that gave us just enough room to gather on.
The room was massive. Like, half a football field large. It was a perfect octagon, and looked more like a temple than anything else that I had seen in this fortress. Nine-foot-tall pillars, Greek in style, held up the ceiling. The ground was made of black marble, so shiny and perfect that I could see myself reflected in it.
And in the very center stood Connie. She was wearing her gray robes, but the hood was pulled back so that I could see her freckled face. It had been a long time since I had seen her in the flesh. We were the same height, and had similar builds, but that was about where the similarities stopped. Her hair was a riot of curls, in shades of red and blonde. She had constellations of freckles across her face, neck and arms. She carried a pot in her arms, as long as her torso, and her eyes were filled with disgust.
“So it's true,” she sneered. “You are a necromancer.”
I blinked. Really? That's what she was going to open with? “Well, yeah,” I said. “You got a problem with that?”
Her sneer deepened. “The undead are lesser creatures.”
“Whoa.”
“Connie,” Zane's voice was breathy and strangled.
She looked at him, almost as if she had just realized he was there. I don't know what I expected to see. If it had been mean I'd have apologized for saying something like that. She barely bothered to give him a millisecond of her attention before she turned back to me.
“I should have known you'd be so pathetic.”
“What the heck.” I shook my head. “Okay, we are going to have to school you in rudeness another day. Where is Wei?”
She laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “By now? Dead. You took too long big sister.”
“Liar.” I surged forward.
She shrugged. “Even if he's not, by the time I get done with you he will be.”
The door slammed shut behind us, locking us in the room. I had just long enough to muse over the concept of epic boss battle before she lifted the jug over her head and poured it out. It was blood, and it sloshed over her Carrie style. Gross.
She threw her arms into the air and a hundred symbols that I hadn't seen flared to life. They were carved into every available surface, the floor, the walls, the pillars. Even the ceiling was blanketed in them. I recognized plenty of them, most were summoning magics, some were protective, some talked about beasts and stars. But I couldn't put them all together, and by the time I was sure they meant something bad for me, the ground was beginning to warp beneath my feet.
Strong arms hauled me away from the black marble, and back unto the entryway stairs. Dmitri put a protective arm around my middle and hauled me against his chest while Zane, Genevieve, and Alan stepped in front of me. It was strange to feel so protected.
My sister’s eyes found mine anyway and we shared a look filled with knives and meaning. Her lips curled into a knife sharp smile and I was reminded a little of Dora, the Swamp Witch. Magic pulsed through the room, beating down around me. It smelled like blood and wood and starlight. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
The floor was shifting everywhere but the stairs and the spot where my sister stood.
“Don't do this,” I didn't know exactly what she was doing, but I knew it couldn't be good. Magic that required so much blood didn't seem like it could end well.
“Come to me, Beast!”
The floor surged up like a waterfall going the wrong way. I tried to take another step back but Dmitri held me close.
The floor, which looked more like a night sky, wrapped around my sister like a wave, and then it took shape. Four legs, a long powerful body, and head that looked like something between a bear and a pitbull, broad and flat and powerful. Fur grew across its body, rippling like starlit shadows. It threw back its head and howled. It wasn't like an animal’s howl. It was like the lowest note on a very long electronic keyboard, with the bass turned all the way up. It made my teeth ache.
It took me a moment to realize what she had done. The creature swam around her protectively. My sister had a talent for beast magic, and blood magic and she had managed to combine the two. She had bonded herself to them. It was a hag's trick.
“You can't do that!” I cried out.
“You would bring magic to everyone!” She snapped back at me. “I will do whatever it takes.”
“Connie, please,” Zane's deep voice was filled with a plea.
She rolled her eyes in response. “You, you are even more pathetic than she is. What are you hoping? For my love? My attention?” She laughed like it was the worst joke ever. “You are so stupid. Haven't you figured it out yet? I don't love you. You don't love me. My mother magic must have worked way too well.”
Zane's face filled with shock. He probably understood what she was saying better than I did. My mom was a mind mage, given enough time she could brainwash them into thinking whatever she wanted them to. Zane had a similar power, but his wasn't so long lasting. One time he told me to relax and it felt like I'd had a ten-hour massage.
“It's...not...real.”
Connie sneered. “A vampire isn't capable of love.”
Well, that I knew wasn't true. Alan was in love with Dmitri, and Wei was in love with me and there was absolutely no magic involved with any of that. But it was clear by the look on her face that Connie believed it.
“But...” Zane slid to his knees and my heart went out to him, but there was no time to offer comfort now.
“Beast! Get them!”
The creature howled that terrifying howl again and charged at us. I didn't have time to think I threw my power into the vampires and they drank it in. They were already strong and fast, I made them better.
Dmitri jumped in front of me, taking the brunt of the hit. Alan and Genevieve darted to the left and the right, flanking the great creature. Zane was still kneeling on the ground, looking like he had been kicked in the gut.
The fight was too fast for me to follow. Alan and Genevieve took turns lashing at the creature from either side, their claws digging into star speckled fur. It snarled and snapped at them, But Dmitri, who shifted into a beastman himself, was there to take every hit. When he weakened, I threw my magic into him, reinvigorating him, making him like new. We were unstoppable. At least we were until Connie attacked me.
I went tumbling to one side, and she snarled at me.
“You will destroy the world!”
“Nope,” I said, even as her blood-soaked hands went around my neck. “Just you.”
I hadn't realized how angry I was at her. I had thought that I didn't really care all that much about her doing our mother's bidding...but I was pretty pissed off. I had always wanted a sister, almost as much as I wanted magic, and this one was the worst one that I could even think of. She could have been my friend, she could have stood with me, she could have taken the time to see things from my point of view, but instead she betrayed me and that just hurt so much. Then, the fact that she had known about the magical whammy put on Zane and had taken advantage of it? Man, that just made it worse.
I used my hips to tumble her off me and we crashed down to the steps and onto the marble floor. It was far more solid now, but the blood that had spilled on it made it slick. She threw her hands at me and raw magic sent me flying backwards, slapping into one of the pillars. I was going to have some pretty impressive bruises on my back, that is if I survived long enough to bruise. Life goals.
I threw magic back at her, it wasn't half so strong, since my magic was already being split four ways. It was enough to disrupt her and then I tackled her to the ground and pinned her arms above her head, keeping her from casting spells.
“Why do you hate me so much?” I growled. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You were born.”
“Oops,” I said, maintaining my title as queen of comebacks.
She tried to get up, but she couldn't, not with me weighing her down.
“We could have been friends.”
She gave me a look that told me I was an idiot. “You killed my dad.”
She jerked her hands out of my grip, a move made easier by the slick blood, and hit me so hard I saw stars. My head rocked to the side. She kicked me across the jaw and I tumbled back. Then she was on top of me, a blade held high in the air. It had a ribbon like look to it, like a wave, with a perilously sharp tip.
“You killed him!”
“He started it!”
Yeah, I know. I could have said pretty much anything else, but apparently fear of death reverts my brain back to that of a kindergartner. I had killed her dad, and he had started it, but it sounded like a childish excuse even to me.
“Die!” She snarled.
I don't know why I didn't really expect her to kill me until that moment. I think a part of me had been hoping, really hoping, that she'd remember the fun times that we'd had as friends, that she would admit that she too had wanted a sister all these years. But the tip of that dagger glittered in the strange room and it was nothing compared to the vicious light in her eyes. She had every intention of killing me.
“Connie!” I cried out just as she began to swing the blade down.
A dark arm wrapped around her neck and hauled her off of me. She screamed her frustration as the dagger clattered to the floor. My brain was frazzled, surprised I wasn't dead. Zane had her in some sort of hold, his arms beneath hers, his fingers interlocked behind her head. She squirmed and jerked.
“Stop this!” he pleaded with her. His eyes were glittering gold. “Please, Connie.”
“Get off of me you undead freak! Don't touch me.” Her words dripped with venom. Her teeth were visible between tight, angry lips. She looked like a wounded animal caught in a trap. Her body slithered this way and that as she tried to free herself.
He whipped her around, took her face between his hands. The look he gave her made my heart ache. “Please, Connie. You don't have to do this. I love you.”
She laughed, and it was a mean sound. “Didn't you hear me you freak? You don't love me, it's a lie.”
“I don't care,” he said, leaning down to give her a kiss.
She jerked away from him so hard that she stumbled. He watched her go but he didn't try to go after her. He stood there, his proud shoulders slumping forward, his newly cleaned clothes slathered in blood.
Connie whirled on me. She moved to charge and Zane caught her up again.
“I can't let you hurt her,” he said.
She snarled and hissed like a cat. “She must die! Her blood will unmake the world!” She was almost frothing with her rage; every word was spit out like rotten meat. “Do you love me or not?”
Red lines spilled over his cheeks. He was crying bloody tears. “I do.”
“Then do what I say! Kill her,” she snapped the order as if she expected it to be followed. A line of tension ran through his shoulders and he turned his head away, closing his eyes as if he could unmake everything that was happening.
“I... can’t.”
She howled her rage, trying to jerk out of his arms. She swung at him, her small pale fists hit at him over and over again, and not once did he try to defend himself. The attacks shouldn't have hurt, but my sister was filled with hag magic, new and untamed. Bruises formed on vampire skin, no easy feat, and I heard ribs crack beneath her tempest of rage.
“Kill her!” she shrieked at him. “If you love me, kill her! If you love me prove it.”
A rush of emotions filled me and I knew that they weren't mine. I saw Connie as he saw her. I saw her hooking him up to that machine, promising him that when it was over they would be together. I saw her promising kisses that she would never give. I saw her demanding that he follow me. Each time she made some terrible command of him, she was asking him to prove his love. I saw all these things, and I could feel his hurt and his sorrow. I knew that he hated himself, loathed himself for what he had done, more so now that he knew it was a lie. I knew what needed to be done, but I also knew that he couldn't do it.
The magic that existed between Zane and I hummed. He jerked in response to her command of devotion. My own magic flared. Her blinked and looked up at me.
Vampires would do anything for the person they loved, he had told me once, all they had to do was ask. Apparently, when a mind mage was involved, that was extra true. “Prove it.” It was a command phrase, a trigger word for hypnosis. Connie would demand proof of his affections and he would do whatever she demanded. But here I was, with necromantic control over him, interfering with my mother's magics. Oops. My bad.
“No,” he said, and he shuddered to say it.
Connie snarled. “What did you just say?”
“No. I said no. I will not kill Lorena. I will not kill her. I will not harm her. I will never raise my hand against her, or those she cares for.” His deep baritone voice rumbled with the promise as he took two long strides towards Connie. “I will not lie for you, cheat for you, steal for you. I will not be your weapon, nor will I be your victim.”
“You...you cannot do that. My mother...her magic.”
“Is nothing compared to the link between necromancer and thrall.” He said thrall as if he was almost proud of it. “Your mother's pitiful mental magics can do nothing but make demands of me. Her's,” he motioned with a hand in my direction, “can raise me from the near death that you put me in, invigorate me, feed me and empower me. I draw from her, and her from me, and that...that is what love is.” He looked at me and I felt my heart skip a beat. He loved me. I didn't need the connection between us to see it, to feel it, but it was there anyway.
“How dare you!” she screamed. “You are mine!”
“Only because I didn't know any better.”
She hurled herself at him, wild magic thrummed through the room and swung against him like a hammer. He jerked backwards, tumbled to the floor. Her rage was a palpable thing, beating around the room, and I gotta be honest. I did not understand it. She'd made it clear that she didn't love him...but apparently couldn't handle that he cared about someone else. Ugh.
“Get off him!” I cried out. I picked up the dagger in my hands.
She didn't even acknowledge me. She just brought her magic down on Zane over and over again in a fit of vengeful frustration.
Connie wouldn't stop. She wasn't the swamp witch who just wanted to be left alone. She was a vengeful person, filled with the righteous indignation of the zealot. She believed I would unmake the world, that I would kill everything with magic. She believed it all the way down to her toes. She would kill me, she would kill Zane, and she would feel nothing but happiness in it.
I grabbed her by her riot of curls and hauled her away from Zane. She was stronger than she should have been, all that magic, but I had martial arts training and I sent her a few feet in the direction of away.
“I'm sorry.” I said. I think I was mostly talking to Zane, who had seen the dagger in my hand, but a small part of me was talking to that little girl who had dreamed of having a sister all those years ago.
Zane looked at me but he didn't respond.
With a ferocious wail Connie threw herself at me. All I had to do was lift the blade. I killed my sister. Jeez, even now it feels so terrible, even knowing that she would have killed me? It doesn't matter. I didn't have time to mourn what had never been as her body slid to the ground. I didn't even have time to tell Zane that I felt terrible for what I was doing. All I could do was drop the blade and swallow the sick feeling in my throat before a terrible sound reverberated around the room.
“Dimitri!”
Alan's voice didn't sound like his own, but I instantly knew what happened. Dmitri's body was lying prone on the ground. I had been so focused on the fight with Connie that I hadn't been paying attention to the massive beast. It was smaller than it had been, not by much, but it was noticeable. Maybe my sister had been empowering it the same way I empowered vampires. I didn't know. But Dmitri was on the ground, bleeding from at least four places that I could see, and all of them were bad.
Alan's eyes went big and he soared through the air like the angel I always thought him to be. His delicate claws tore into fur and flesh over and over again while bloody tears dripped over his cheeks. I thought I'd have to step in, but before I knew it the animal was dead.
I dashed to Dmitri's side, took his head between my hands. He was fading, I could see it in his eyes.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered, his voice thick with the accent of mountains and misty mornings.
“You've done nothing wrong.” I brushed his hair from his face.
He laughed, and nearly choked on it. “I hurt you, for that I cannot forgive myself.”
“I forgive you,” I said, I meant it.
Alan was suddenly there, cursing at him hotly in French. “What have you done, you savage?” he demanded. “You've gotten yourself killed.”
“It would have been you,” Dmitri whispered back, his voice shades lighter than it should have been. “and you are far too lovely to die.”
It was then that I knew that Dmitri was aware of Alan's feelings. Dmitri reached a bloody hand out and touched Alan's cheek. I think he intended to wipe away Alan's tears, but instead he left a smudge of red.
“You can't die,” Alan whispered.
No I thought, he couldn't. I wouldn't let that happen. Not now. My magic was running low, but I'd have enough, just enough to keep Dmitri going. I pushed a little into him and he gasped.
“No!” He shook his head, but he couldn't resist what my magic could do for him. “You do not know what has happened to Wei.”
I shook my head and transferred his weight to Alan, who took him in his arms. Alan looked at me with so much gratitude I knew it was worth it.
“My love isn't the only one that matters,” I said simply. “Genevieve, watch over them.”
She nodded and pressed a thankful hand to mine. “Be safe, necromancer.”
“You too,” I said.
As I turned to leave, Zane fell into step beside me. I knew better than to tell him to stay. I didn't need the connection to know that he would follow me, and protect me, wherever I went. I also didn't need it to know that Alan's lips were brushing Dmitri's in a tender kiss. I smiled. Here's hoping we all got a happy ending.
~~
There were a hundred rooms in that blasted temple, and I must have gone through every last one of them looking for Wei. I knew, via the wisdom of video games and comic books, that she would be my final boss. My mother. For all I had wanted a sister in my life, I had wanted a mother too. I had wanted someone to talk to when there had been a boy who caught my interest, when I had cried over a fictional character, when school had been bad. I'd wanted someone capable of telling my dad no, that we weren't moving, and for helping me settle in if we had.
Man, had I drawn the short straw.
But in most of those rooms I found nothing but cultists. I didn't kill any of them. I had the sneaking suspicion that my mother's magic was at work in most of them. It had probably been in my sister too, but I couldn't do anything about that now. Between me, Zane, and magic I managed to knock out or tie up those who, for whatever reason, hadn't joined the main force outside.
My mother hadn't joined them either. I found her in a room that looked like a lab. There was a long silver table, not unlike the one I had found Zane on all those weeks ago, but it was Wei laying on top of it this time.
When I had rescued Zane he had looked too skinny, too lean. Wei looked worse. Twenty IV's were plugged into various parts of his nearly naked body, and I could count every bone in him. His lips were so dry that they were little more than cracked scraps across his teeth, and his eyes were yellowed and sunken. There was a single window in the room, and it was flung open. During the daylight, I bet this whole place was flooded with a gentle light, just enough to burn a vampire slowly.
I didn't even see my mother at first. I was so focused on him. I rushed to his side and I didn't need to see my tears puddling on his skin to know that I was crying for him. “Oh god, Wei....Wei!” I cried out again and again. I was too late. He didn't move beneath my touch, no blood pumped in his veins. I couldn't feel him. I couldn't even sense that essence of undead that I knew so well.
The world went hazy, and my head went light. He was dead. The room was too bright, too hot. I tugged at the IV's, desperate to get them out of his ruined flesh. The skin crackled.
“No, no, no, no,” I whispered beneath my breath, as if by saying it I could take back his death. I leaned over him and kissed those cracked lips. My lip caught on one of his vampiric teeth. I didn't care. I kissed him again. True loves kiss was supposed to be magic, right? The thought was so desperate, so wild and yet I still clung to it.
“You are too late,” a gentle voice purred.
It was a mother's voice, and I hated her for that. I hated that even now she sounded like everything a mother ought to sound like.
“You killed him,”
“It should have happened weeks ago.” She stepped out from behind a desk that I had been to blind with feelings to even notice. She looked like a mother, even now. Her eyes were bright with warmth, her pale hair delicately styled around her face. She looked like she should be on her way to a PTA meeting or a soccer game. Well, if she'd been wearing anything but Cultists robes that is. “He clung to life for a very, very long time.”
“You...you killed him,” I whispered, still not wholly believing it. I wanted to be angry at her, I wanted to scream and throw things and hit her, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything. I felt heavy, so heavy. It hurt.
“You killed Markus,” she spat, her face twisting so suddenly that I took a step back. Her hand swung out and slapped me across the face. An instant later Zane was there, materializing from mist. The next slap was caught in his hand. Her eyes went wide. She hadn't expected him. “Zane?” she gasped. Then realization hit her. “Where is Connie? Where is my daughter?”
It still hurt that she showed such devotion to Connie. Why didn't she love me even half so much? I was just as much her daughter as Connie had been. I opened and closed my mouth several times to tell her what had happened, but no sound came out. Some bad ass heroine I was.
“She is gone,” Zane said flatly.
“You...you didn't protect her?”
“No.”
“You had to, you had to protect her!”
There was a brief moment of silence. I felt like I should interrupt it, but my brain was still too shocked to form much but the most basic of sentences.
He shook his head. “Your magic isn't so strong as that.”
I wish that I could tell you some grand fight happened between me and my mother. It didn't. She shrieked her rage and tried to fight Zane, but it didn't help. Zane was by far stronger, and now that I wasn't keeping three other vampires alive for battle, there was plenty of strength for him. He just held her as she yelled angrily at us both. She tried to pull her mind magics on Zane, but my magic kept that from happening, and wouldn't you know it? His mental magics kept her from doing the same to me. It was a pretty impressive stalemate.
“I hate you,” she finally snarled at me, realizing that the battle was over. “I hate you.”
I wish it hadn't hurt. I wish I could say that I was stone cold to her insults, but I wasn't. Even now, even after everything I wished that she could find it in herself to love me. It might be pathetic, and even ridiculous but I really wanted her to just relent and say that she loved me, or even liked me, just a little. Instead she spit at me, literally. After all that had happened she puckered up her lips and shot a gob of spittle at me. Gross.
“Real mature,” I snarled, wiping my face.
“I should have killed you when that bitch said the prophecy.”
“Well, you didn't.”
“You've taken everything! You took Markus, you took Connie! You will remake the world with some demon spawn child.”
I shrugged. I didn't feel like defending myself against her.
Then she did something I should have seen coming, but didn't. She ripped herself out of Zane's arms and made a mad dash for the window. I felt a wave of shock as she flung herself out of it. It was not the epic boss battle that I had expected. I blinked, pretty sure that my mom had manipulated my brain into just thinking that she was dead, but a brief glance out the window told me otherwise. I will never get that image out of my head, not the guilt I felt at doing absolutely nothing to stop her. Feelings are weird.
I should have felt elated. We had won, the cult was obliterated and wouldn't stand in my way, but all I could do was look at Wei's emaciated body.
“You do love him,” Zane said after a moment.
I nodded my head, taking a dead hand in mine, wishing that I could do something, anything to make this better. “I do love him. I think I've loved him since the first cold glare he gave me. But that's...it doesn't matter.”
Zane walked past me and picked up the IV's. Before I could ask him what he was doing he jammed them into his skin. An instant later blood, my blood if we wanna get technical about it, started to flow back through the complicated tubing and into Wei.
“What are you doing?” I managed.
“You love him,” he said simply. “I can give him to you. I can make amends.”
I shook my head, moving to jerk the IV out of his arm. He held me away. I tried again, and he shifted away from me. Let me tell you, it is impossible to catch a vampire who can turn into mist.
“Why?”
He gave me a look. “Because, I love you.”
I knew he meant it but I shook my head anyway. In that moment, I knew that I loved him too. Call me whatever you want for being in love with two guys at once, call me fickle, call me names, tell me that I'm an idiot or frivolous or whatever, but I couldn't not love them both. “Zane, I-”
He held up one hand. “Do not say what you are going to. I would not have the strength to deny you if you did. Let me do this for you.”
“Stop.”
We both jerked as a rich voice rumbled through the room. At first, wildly maybe, I thought that it was Wei, but I turned and saw Vlad Tepes, father of all vampires, standing at the edge of the bed.
“Get out of here,” Zane snapped. I was surprised to hear someone take that tone with Vlad. I fully expected the master vampire to get angry, but instead he smiled. He looked almost proud.
“You are not the only one who needs to make amends, my son.” Vlad glanced at me with dark eyes, and then bowed. “I am an imperfect man, Lorena Quinn, and I let my desires outdo me.”
I didn't know what to say to that. It was an apology, sure, but I wasn't really ready to forgive him. “What are you doing here?”
Vlad picked up another IV, and stuck it in his arm. “I will not lose two sons today.”
I was about to say something, I don't know what, but I felt like arguing with him. I didn't want Vlad's blood in Wei's veins. But the moment the blood went from tube to flesh Wei's whole body jerked and suddenly I didn't care if a load of serial killers were hooked up to Wei, so long as he lived.
I rushed to Wei's side and took his hand in mine. His fingers weren't as gnarled as they had been. They were still cool beneath my touch, but fleshy. His eyes went from hazy to clear, his lips softened.
“Lorena?”
It was the first word out of his mouth, and I shivered to hear it.
“I'm here.”
He didn't breathe out a sigh of relief, vampires don't need to breathe, but he seemed to sag against the metal just the same. “I knew you'd come for me.”
“Because I love you?” I asked.
His not quite healed lips curled into a smile. “No, because you are stubborn.”
I laughed, and I kissed him, and then I laughed again. Everything was going to be just fine.