Blood Relations - Chapter 17

Saturday, November 15, 1997

Claudia rubbed her stomach while she sat in the den beside Marcus. Almost everyone else was pacing, which was causing magi to walk into the paths of vampires. Tempers were flaring, and the house felt like a powder keg which would explode soon.

Claudia wanted to leave and search for Amber herself, which was why she kept rubbing her stomach. She was so close to being due, and it would be madness to leave when she could go into labor at any second.

Emil continued to read, though it was clear from his tortured expression that he was getting nothing useful on tracking a wyrm. He refused to give in to his nervous energy, while most of the whelps were the exact opposite. They stalked the room, looking like sharks who couldn’t remain still.

But among all of them, Vicky was the most active. She moved from the window to check outside, and then to the phone to stare and will it to ring. She would wander to the fireplace and pace in front of it, but no matter where she went, she wouldn’t stop moving.

Lucas and Charles stayed close to Emil, and their shorter circuits frequently put them in Vicky’s path. She would snarl and move away each time, her fists clenching while she tried to calm herself.

As she turned her back, Charles nodded toward Vicky while his eyes pleaded with Lucas, Tell her to calm down.

Lucas scowled and shook his head before pointing at Vicky. No, you do it.

They wouldn’t, nor would anyone else, and the routine was repeated at every near collision.

It was easy to understand why Vicky was strung out with worry, but trying to calm her would only shift her ire onto a hapless target who didn’t deserve to be chewed out...or chewed upon, depending on how angry Vicky got.

Claudia had another idea. She stood up and cleared her throat. “I propose a hunt.”

Vicky shook her head, her pacing taking her back to the window to look out into the side yard. “I don’t think I can find Dimitri or Amber unless he wants me to.”

“No, I meant a hunt for meals.” Claudia smiled at the incredulous glares aimed in her direction. “You’re all just begging for a fight right now, and if you stay cooped up like this, something is going to go wrong fast.”

Vicky pointed at the phone. “But we’re waiting for—”

“The magi can man the phones in case Ellen calls to ask for a ride from the airport,” Claudia said. “But the rest of us need to get outside.”

Charles was rigid and angry as he shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere, Claudia.”

“When did I give you the right to order me around?” Claudia asked. Her smile remained, but in her voice, a hard edge warned that he was treading on thin ice. “Now, if we all spread out, we might end up with a meal, a chance to find Amber, or a chance to find Dimitri. But if we stay in here, all we do is get on each other’s nerves.”

“You’re not traveling alone,” Charles said, though the commanding note was gone from his voice. Instead he was pleading with her. “We can hunt together.”

“No, I’ll be hunting with Vicky,” Claudia said.

“Why?” Vicky asked.

Claudia said, “Because if we run into Dimitri, I have to make sure you won’t do or say anything to get yourself killed.”

***

Amber shook her head and gave up, heaving a sigh at Dimitri’s angry expression. “What? I tried out your spell, and I can’t heal myself. So now what have you got in mind?”

Dimitri shook his head, his eyes raised to stare at the ceiling while he mulled his thoughts. “You had enough halfling to carry a vampire child, so I thought you would be able to cast...maybe you’re lacking the focus to heal yourself while you’re still sick from the poison.”

Amber sighed. “This is a hell of a time for you to think of something obvious.”

Dimitri nodded and got up from the recliner. He held out his palm and cast a scrying shadow to check the time in Lissand, and he scowled as he saw that dawn was swiftly approaching in the elvish plane of existence. “Amber, I must leave now, and I won’t be back to feed you. I suggest you use the telephone to contact the coven and have them clean up this mess for you.”

Amber wanted to hurl an insult at him, but the sudden flash of light above the wyrm’s head blinded her and forced her to bury her face against the couch cushion. When she looked back, he was gone, and she was left alone.

Alone with two bodies, and their blood smeared across her face. It was streaked in her hair, and stained in the fabric of her shirt. The only thing that might make the case easier for the police is if she started writing her confession before they arrived.

Amber wondered if anyone called the cops over Jane’s screaming, or over John’s angry cries after he saw his girlfriend lying dead on the floor. If someone called the cops, how long did she have before they busted down the door?

But the poison made it almost impossible to move. Her limbs were wet rags she could barely lift, and her mouth and throat were already feeling coated in ice again. The burning in her stomach felt less intense, but her child was far from satiated.

She thought of Dimitri telling her she had days left to suffer, but she no more believed that statement than anything else he’d said. She knew the burning could consume her tiny well of strength and leave her incapacitated long before she died. Then her child would starve once he’d depleted the last of her blood.

It was that thought, the idea of her child starving to death, which motivated her to roll off the couch. Amber hit the floor on her shoulder, grunting at the shock of pain that lanced from the joint up to her spine. Her legs flopped over Jane, and in front of her, the path to the kitchen was blocked by John’s body. Amber chose to drag herself around the cable spool coffee table to avoid the cold corpse, but she regretted it when her bare legs scraped over the rough wood.

A long splinter bit through her thigh, and she thought, It would figure. The one time I decide to wear shorts, all hell breaks loose. She uttered a weak laugh and added, That will teach me for bucking a trend.

***

Vicky walked with her head down, hands stuffed in her pockets while she huffed. She was angry, but her odd breathing pattern had nothing to do with her emotions. She was searching desperately for any hint of Amber’s scent in the air.

She could smell a pair of homeless bums in the alleyway up ahead, and she was momentarily grateful when she glanced at Claudia questioningly, and the vampire wrinkled her face in disgust.

But then Claudia’s rejection of an easy meal brought Vicky’s anger surging back, and her scowl returned. “We aren’t really out to hunt tonight, are we?”

“No, and I don’t believe we’ll find Amber either. But you’re about to explode and take someone’s head off. So if you’re going to vent, I prefer it would be me who has to deal with you.”

Vicky stopped walking and snarled, “You idiot! If you wanted to have me rant, why not just pull me off to a room upstairs? For fuck’s sake, Claudia! You’re about to pop, and we shouldn’t be outside.”

The look on Claudia’s face shifted subtly to hunger, and she started walking toward the alley up the street. Vicky jogged after her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m changing my mind.”

Vicky frowned when Claudia slid a knife out of her purse. The scene was disturbingly surreal; Claudia, a pregnant woman in a loose black dress that billowed around her swollen stomach. Slung across her shoulder was a black canvas bag, and in her hand, a butterfly knife, the brass handles still folded over the blade. Etched on her face was a look of hunger that grew more intense as she drew closer to her prey.

Recognition dawned on Vicky, and she tried to grab Claudia’s hand. “Whoa, wait a—”

Claudia lifted her hand, then twisted her wrist to crack the top of Vicky’s middle knuckle with the knife. “Be quiet,” she hissed.

The bums were sleeping soundly. They never had a chance as the vampires crept upon them. Vicky took out her switchblade and clicked it only once she was set to pin the man down. She grabbed his throat and lifted him up. Then she slammed the man down, splitting his skull on the pavement.

Laying on his back, the bum’s blood rushed out of his throat the instant she vented his jugular, and she had to sink down quickly to avoid losing most of her meal.

She couldn’t go into bloodlust while she fed. She had too much to worry over. Claudia’s sudden hunger was a sign of her body preparing for labor. Which meant they only had a few minutes to return home before Claudia’s fluids burst. That would be a lot of vampire DNA left not far from the scene of a suspicious pair of murders.

No, this is only the pair we’re leaving behind, Vicky corrected herself.

All over the city, the vampires were hunting, taking meals to vent their frustrations over a situation they had no power to change.

But things were about to get much worse.

Claudia drew away from her victim, her skin flushing a soft blue color before she grimaced. “Yep, that’ll do it.” She waved her hand for Vicky to come closer. “Help me to the dumpster, and hurry.”

Vicky guided Claudia, walking behind the shorter vampire while she held the panting woman by her upper arms. Claudia pulled away from Vicky’s grasp to rend the padlock off the sliding door on the side of the dumpster. She slid back the door and snapped her head around, her nose wrinkling at the scents of rotting human food.

Hiking the hem of her dress, Claudia turned to settle herself on the edge of the dumpster. “Go toss those two in a dumpster farther up the alley.”

Vicky nodded and took off running. Claudia would let her fluids break into the dumpster, where no one would notice the odor. The garbage men wouldn’t notice the bodies until several other trash collections, and the discharge would be mixed in with the rest of the refuse in the truck by then.

That was assuming anyone saw the bodies.

Vicky dropped the bums into the dumpster and piled bags of garbage around over the bodies. She decided to transfer more bags from other dumpsters and make sure the two were covered. But even after she was sure they couldn’t be seen, worry chewed her nerves like a frenzied animal.

She’s taking too many risks for nothing, Vicky thought.

Behind her, Claudia’s voice raised in a blood-freezing screech. The first labor pains were starting.

***

Amber panted into her forearms, resting though she’d barely pulled herself two or three feet through the living room at most.

She thought, You know, Helen, it’s days like this when I’m almost ready to ask, ‘why me?’ I mean, I can see how I might deserve to be lying here. I drank human blood, so that makes me a liquid cannibal. I’m not so sure why you sent the daemon after me.

But what’s really bothering me is, why do you always have to kick my ass with something bigger and older than me? Just once, couldn’t you send a baby brownie to attack me? Or, or maybe a pixie? Just one, though. I seem to recall they’re deadly in hordes.

She finished the unorthodox prayer with a half sincere Amen, and then she pushed her arms out to drag herself closer to the kitchen.

She pulled herself until her arms were under her face, then flung them out again. She repeated the process a third time, and her vision doubled. Amber turned her head to check her progress and decided she’d made another foot.

Oh come on, snails can move faster than this, she thought angrily.

But her flaring temper couldn’t grant her additional energy, and she had to rest again. Dimitri’s words drifted through her memory, a reminder that she voluntarily ingested poison just because it tasted good. But as she thought about it, she recalled how his question implied that he was feeding her something to make her immortal. More proof of his lies.

As if she needed more.

Amber set her hands on the carpet, and her nail caught a snag, folding the fingernail back over onto the nail bed. Amber hissed and drew her hand back under her chest while she made a fist to squeeze away the hot stabbing pain.

Hell with this, she thought and pushed herself up onto her hands. Her legs wobbled when she pushed her hips up from the floor, and then her view of the world stayed doubled. She tried to blink it away, and her hands quadrupled below her before the color drained from her vision.

Amber pitched forward, landing hard on her nose and chin. She didn’t feel a thing.

***

Vicky pushed open the door and stumbled into the house. Claudia was probably uncomfortable running with her arm up over Vicky’s neck, and with Vicky’s hand clamped over her mouth.

But Vicky didn’t have much choice. Claudia’s cries were bound to scare someone into calling the police, and the only safe place for her to deliver her child was in the soundproofed walls of the coven house.

Felix and Simone raced into the foyer, both of them looking on with anxious expressions once Claudia’s mouth was uncovered.

Her shrieking bought Marcus out of the guest room and to the top of the stairs. “What’s wrong with her?” he shouted.

“She’s gone into labor.” Vicky yanked her head away from a louder screech, then started moving up the stairs. She was halfway up when the phone started ringing. “Felix, get that! If it’s any of the coven checking in, you know what to tell them!”

All of Vicky’s concerns for Amber had to be pushed aside. No one else was on hand to help Claudia through her labor. The magi couldn’t come near her in her condition. Being so badly in pain, Claudia would lash out at them without thinking.

Felix stood at the door. “It’s Ellen. She’s at the airport.” He had to repeat himself, shouting to be heard over Claudia’s screeching.

Vicky clamped her hand over Claudia’s mouth, and then drew in a hissing breath when Claudia gnashed her teeth against Vicky’s palm. “Then you’ll have to go pick her up. That is, unless you want to take my place here.”

Felix shut the door without a word. Only a few seconds later, she heard the front door shut.

Vicky decided it was good timing after all. She could get rid of the magi on an important task instead of telling them to boil water.

***

Amber woke up, gasping for air before she opened her eyes. Raising her head, she saw the kitchen floor was almost within her reach. All she had to do was stretch out just a bit farther, and she could pull herself in.

Only then did she ponder the trivial matter of getting up to search the counter for the phone. It wasn’t mounted on the wall, but it had to be...Amber laughed at herself. Who told me where the phone was? Next question: why did I believe him?

Still, she raised her arms and started pulling herself into the kitchen. There was nothing else to do by then but check.

Amber opened a cabinet door and used the shelves to pull herself up to a sitting position. She had to rest for a long time before she could reach for the drawer to slide it open, and the effort of pulling herself to lean on the cabinet with her bruised chin on the countertop was almost enough to drop her back into another unintentional nap.

She was so thirsty, and the blood in the living room was still damp enough to make her think of looking for puddles. Amber shook the temptation off. She was already too drained to make the trip back.

More proof of Dimitri’s lies.

But the phone was on the counter. The spiral cord snaked across the counter next to the wall, trailing right up to the edge without looping over. Of course. If it had fallen over, Amber would have known where to pull herself up. Instead, she was on the wrong side of the counter.

She closed the cabinet, and then the drawer before she hefted her arms over the top of the counter. She began scrabbling her arms to pull herself up until she was bent over, her cheek pressed into the icy formica while she stared at the phone.

Her vision blurred. Amber’s mouth tightened in a thin line, and she closed her eyes, thinking of Vicky. She wouldn’t give up. Amber forced her eyes open and slid her arm out to grasp the phone.

But when she lifted it from the cradle, there was no dial tone. The buttons of the phone wouldn’t light up, though the cord in the base was connected to the wall.

Amber dropped the phone and let herself slide off the counter. Crumpling to her knees, she rolled back on the floor and cracked the top of her head at the base of the cabinets doors on the opposite side of the cramped kitchen.

Stars danced in front of her vision, but she wouldn’t close her eyes to clear them. She couldn’t give up. Maybe the jack was just bad. Maybe if she tried in the bedroom...

Amber’s vision cleared, and she was looking at the refrigerator door. More specifically, she was looking at a red stamped message on a bill.

The message read: PAST DUE, and once her eyes could focus enough to see the smaller print, she confirmed it was the phone bill.

There was no help coming.