Blood Rage, page 15
And bizarrely it doesn’t feel like a stranger’s touch. It feels like home. Caring. Motherly.
The backs of my own eyes begin to sting as I realise that this small gesture has brought home to me something I’ve been missing for a long time now.
Kimberly doesn’t notice my emotion or, like a graceful lady, chooses not to acknowledge it. But she does leave the room, quietly and softly and, just on the edges of my hearing, leaves strict instructions to both Duo and Solo to leave me alone for a few minutes longer.
I use that time to pick up my mobile phone.
“Mum,” I tell the voicemail software, “it’s me again. I know I said yesterday, or whenever, that I can’t keep doing this, but I can’t not do it either. I love you and I miss you. So I won’t give up. Not on you, not on our family, not on any of it. You and Dad taught me that.” I dash a hand across my face, wiping what must obviously be sweat away from my cheeks.
“So I’m going to keep calling. Every day if I can. And even if you don’t answer, at least you’ll know that I love you. I’ll always love you.”
The message is short, but that’s all my nerves can manage. I hang up, let the phone drop into my lap, and simply hold Norma as she snoozes against my chest.
Chapter Seventeen
Later that day, Solo is telling me a series of increasingly bad knock-knock jokes while Duo stands outside. I dutifully roll my eyes at each terrible punchline and try to think up something even half as bad to come back with. I fail. But I do spot him suddenly sit straight, head cocked to one side. His nostrils flare ever so slightly.
“What?”
“Incoming,” he says simply. “Want us to stop it?”
I shrug. “Can’t be that bad, right?”
Oh, how wrong I am.
The door slams open and through it stomps Linda with a bemused Duo right on her heels. Behind them both is Viola who, now dressed for the day, looks entirely different to when I saw her last.
While Linda is a supermodel—classy and expensive, Viola is a fully made-up goth with more dark makeup than I’ve ever seen on one face. Her shoes are massive, thigh-high monstrosities with buckles and clasps and silver studs, while her dress is a long, clinging, wispy thing with huge sleeves.
It looks fucking fantastic.
Linda pauses only an instant at the sight of Solo near my bed. A small moment, but enough for me to mentally prepare myself for anything and everything she intends to throw my way.
“What the hell did you do to my fiancée?”
Oh. Fine. Anything and everything except that.
“What?”
“Don’t play dumb. How did it happen? When? Are you the reason she left? Why she lied about being dead?”
I don’t intend to play dumb, but I honestly can’t believe that this woman actually thinks I had anything to do with what happened to Rayne. Doesn’t she notice me up and sitting? Awake at four in the afternoon?
Besides, there’s a far more pressing issue with what she just said.
“I—”
She snaps a hand up. “Don’t you dare lie to me. Emily was a beautiful, outstanding citizen with a glorious future with me ahead of her. You snatched it all away from her. How could you?”
Viola clears her throat. “You weren’t engaged any more, Linda. She dumped you, or did you forget that?”
Holy crap, so we’re claws-out now?
“Shut up, you little emo bitch,” Linda roars. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
Solo snarls low in the back of his throat. I doubt anybody other than Duo hears it, but I’m more than close enough. I rest a hand on the back of his wrist.
Viola shrinks back like a wilted flower, flinching even when Duo places a soft, comforting hand on her shoulder.
I spit my words through gritted teeth. “Maybe we should all calm down and—”
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down. I should call the police. I should call MI5. I should have you thrown in a jail cell. I should tell everybody in town what a menace you are, bringing all this trouble to our home.”
“What trouble? I—”
“Everybody heard the screaming last night. Everybody. And that thing”—she jabs a perfectly manicured finger at Norma—“frightened my cats so much they refuse to leave the house. I thought you spoon people were supposed to kill the unnatural critters roaming the countryside.”
Spoon?
“SPEAR?” Duo offers, his lip quirked with amusement on one side.
“Whatever you are. You don’t belong here. None of you. Well, maybe you.” She assesses Duo with a fresh interest in her gaze. “Speak to me later, both of you. I’ve a modelling contact you should meet. But you”—the finger snaps to me—“aren’t welcome.”
“Says who?” again Viola chips in. Her voice is still soft, still gentle, with a hint of a quiver, but there is defiance in her stance now. Her little hands are balled into fists. “You don’t own us and you’re not a part of this family. You can’t tell us what to do.”
“Well, someone should tell you what to do.” Linda lashes right back, eyes narrowed with fury. “Look at you—dressing like a devil worshipper and shacking up to that headcase of a man-woman. I can’t believe Kim allows it, much less Bruce—”
“Okay, that’s enough of you.” Solo is off the bed in an instant. It’s not overly fast, or even aggressive, but Linda is quick to take a giant step back.
“What are you doing?”
“Escorting you out,” he murmurs, “before it gets nasty.”
“More nasty,” Duo corrects, opening the door wide.
Linda plants her hands on her hips. “And who are you? Some stranger wandered into my village trying to give orders? How dare you? Besides, this is Bruce’s place of work, and only he can—”
“They were invited to stay here, Linda. You weren’t.” Viola twists her hands but stands firm. “And Pa has told you time and again you can’t just wander in here whenever you like.”
“I am family—”
“You’re a bully, and I’m glad Emily came to her senses before doing something really stupid like marrying you.” More hand twisting but now a slight tilt to her chin.
“You colossal brat.” Linda’s voice leaps to a shrillness that hurts my ears. “You have no right to speak to me like that. You do remember who I am, don’t you? The power I hold here? You can’t speak to me like that and expect to get away with—”
Solo steps forward until his chest bumps Linda’s arm. He doesn’t touch her exactly, but he certainly does use his size and relative bulk to nudge her into moving. “Out,” he asserts.
“Get away from me.”
“Out,” he repeats, voice dangerously low. He keeps walking forward, and she keeps giving way, still yelling past his shoulder towards Viola, who now cowers near my bed. She resembles the proverbial deer in headlights people always talk about.
Near the door Solo stops and Duo takes over, using the same herding, bumping motion to keep Linda moving.
“You answer me right now,” she screeches, this time in my direction. “Who are you? Why is Emily here with you? What did you do to turn her into a demon freak?”
The smart-arse answer rides on the tip of my tongue. I long to correct her about what demons actually are and how vampires are entirely different, but instead I think of Rayne and what she would do. I keep my mouth shut.
“Answer me. I have a right to know, and I’m not leaving until I get answers. Do you know who I am? I have the power to gather the whole village behind me, and together we’ll run you out. Your kind doesn’t belong here, troublemakers and devil-worshippers and unnatural freaks of nature.”
“Come on, miss.” Duo’s voice is low, but with none of the steel of his brother’s. He actually sounds calm and concerned as he gently nudges Linda one last time.
Which is probably why every one of us is stunned into silence when she swings around and slaps him hard across the face. The loud crack seems to echo off the walls and floor. “Don’t you dare touch me,” she roars.
Duo, though unharmed, is clearly shocked to the point of speechlessness.
Solo experiences no such issue. Snarling, fingernails flashing with inky blackness, he grabs Linda by the waist and hurls her onto his shoulder. “You’re lucky you’re small and squishy,” he growls, carrying her out of the room. “The last person to touch my brother like that lost seven fingers.”
Linda screams, a cacophony of rage-dripping insults and threats, with the odd shriek of fire and help thrown in.
I leap off the bed, leaving the sheet this time, and hurry after Solo in just my underwear.
“Solo—”
“I won’t hurt her,” he calls back at me, still not stopping. “But if she lays another hand on my brother, I’ll rip out her throat.”
He says it coolly, calmly, as if he were describing his intent to buy flour and eggs.
Maybe it’s the threat itself. Perhaps it’s the delivery. Whatever it is, Linda at last seems to realise that she might be in danger, and her screams begin anew. She begins to kick and punch, landing blows against any part of Solo she can reach. He winces once or twice but otherwise keeps walking, an easy, resolute march along the landing and down the stairs.
As we reach the bottom, Bruce darts into view from a side room. One hand loosely grips a pen, while the other is wet and dripping, stained with a thick, blue-green fluid full of lumps and flakes of scales.
“What is going on here? Linda? When did you arrive?”
Well, if I needed any more confirmation that this woman is full of bullshit, there it is.
“Don’t mind me, sir.” Solo one-hands the front door with ease. “Putting the rubbish out.”
Bruce gives a little cry of alarm and begins to wipe his dripping hand down his shirt. “But I—”
“Bruce? Help me.” Linda continues her harpy-like screeching. “Help me—no, no, you animal—put me down. Right now. Assault. Assault. He’s assaulting me. Bruce, do something.”
Bruce manages half a step. “I—”
Loud clomping footfalls preview Viola’s arrival at the top of the stairs. “She slapped him, Pa. No, the other one. The orange hair. She slapped him.”
“I defended myself—”
“You acted like a self-important bitch.” Solo cuts her off. “And now you can fucking leave. Piss off.” With that he plonks her down on the far side of the door frame and slams the door. In her face.
At once, hammering, knocking, even kicking—if I recognise the sounds correctly. Pretty sure I do. I’ve kicked down many a door in my time.
Bruce finishes wiping his hand off on his shirt. The weird goo clings like slime, and his skin is faintly stained with it, but he makes no move to clean it. Instead he stares at the door. “What on earth…?”
Solo shakes himself off and glances at his hands. He sighs, no doubt frustrated at the sprouting of fur down the backs of his wrists and fingers. Each of his fingernails is tinged black and significantly longer than they had been minutes earlier. “I didn’t need this,” he murmurs.
“Take a breath,” I warn.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He closes his eyes and breathes deep, a noisy inhalation that ends with an exhale more resembling a grunt than a sigh. “People like her just piss me off.”
“I’m sorry—”
He flaps a hand at me. “One of my xiblings is trans. They get enough of this stuff on the daily that I just…” He growls.
I widen my eyes. “You’re not a twin?”
“Oh, I am. Only Duo and I are blood related, but I do have pack xiblings where the mental bond is as strong.”
“Really? How many are you?”
He glances briefly at the door, still shuddering against its hinges in the wake of Linda’s enraged onslaught. “Six.”
Wow. I try to imagine sharing my brain with five other people. Of having their thoughts so close to mine that I can read them at will. The thought is not attractive in the slightest. And that’s just the closest bond. The rest of the pack, of course, are right there too.
I shake my head. “No wonder you two are a bit nuts.”
A smile. “No, no, that’s the drugs.” He laughs at his own quip, then turns again to Bruce, who is still staring at the door as though it might fall in at any moment.
“You said no stress, right? I assure you, we found her to be incredibly stressful.”
Bruce looks pale. Though he hides it well, I spot the occasional shifty glance at Solo’s hands and the claws half grown there. “Th-that’s fine.”
“Should I go back up? Or would you like me to stay here in case she comes back?”
“Um…” he sputters.
“Head back up,” I say quickly. “I need a few words myself if you don’t mind.”
A smile. The last traces of black fade from his shortening fingernails as he gathers his temper under control.
As if on cue the hammering at the door also stops.
Blissful silence.
“Sure, boss.” Solo crooks a finger at Viola as he goes. “So, Danika said you had some questions about SPEAR? My brother and I are agents too, maybe we can help you out.”
“Brother? I knew it.” Viola and her excited responses fade out of sight and hearing as she and Solo make their way back across the landing.
I look at Bruce. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, I am. I had no idea she was in here. She must have used the back door. I would never have asked her to come here, much less visit you after such a hard night.”
“I’m fine.”
“Maybe, but you need to rest. You go back upstairs and do that. I’ll go talk to her.”
I lift my hand. “Actually, she mentioned something I thought I’d ask you about.”
Bruce is quick to back up. “She and Rayne were engaged, there’s no secret there. The rest you’ll have to ask her about—I’m sorry, but I really can’t go through it with you. It feels wrong somehow.”
I understand, though it frustrates me no end.
As if Rayne isn’t having a hard enough time right now, when she wakes, the house will be in chaos and she’ll be facing family drama the likes of which even the most convoluted TV show couldn’t script.
As I make my way back to the stairs, I hear Bruce inhale sharply.
“Agent?”
I give him curious eyes.
“What on earth is that on your back? Is it a tattoo?”
I hesitate. “You didn’t see it before?”
“Of course not. Kimberly was the one to undress you, with Rayne’s help of course. I wasn’t in the room until after you were beneath the sheets. What is it?”
“I…I don’t know.”
He strokes the sides of his mouth. His nose wrinkles, and he stares at his hand, seeming to remember only a short while ago it was covered in blue-green slime. A grimace, and then, “That’s a scar or a brand. Where did it come from?”
Lie? Don’t lie? Half truth?
I don’t even know any more, and I’m more tired than I should be for making decisions like this.
“Something back home did it to me. A creature.”
“What kind of creature?”
“We’re not sure.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “I’ve never seen anything like it. And those symbols are very unusual.”
No need to tell me that. I’ve seen more of my body in angles never intended to last me a lifetime. But in so doing I’ve been able to get a good look at the wreckage of sore, marked skin left by the yellow-eyed black creature.
“We’re working on it.”
A pause, then a slow nod as though he has caught up to something. “There’s a woman here by the name of Fiona Bristow. She’s a psychic, and while I know SPEAR doesn’t put much faith in the practise, she’s very skilled. I think you should visit her.”
I can’t help but smile. “Maybe we will. Thanks.”
I walk back up the stairs, now fighting the urge to roll my shoulders against the prickling intensity of Bruce’s gaze as I leave him behind.
Humph. At least I’m not the one covered in fae-ring slime.
* * *
My body feels better. Not great, but certainly an improvement on early this morning when even the smallest movement sent jolts of pain through every limb and joint. I sit up in the bed, the sheets tucked around me, listening to the wolf twins chatter with Viola.
The three of them seem fascinated with each other.
Viola in particular seems to have forgotten me entirely, instead focused on the boys with dozens of quick-fire questions about how they change, why they change, when they change. Her curiosity speaks to me of a future in some form of edane study, which doesn’t surprise me much since her father is a Rancher.
Surely some of Bruce’s studies and warding duties rubbed off on her.
Then, on preparing to leave, Viola explains that her interest in edanes is only partly to do with her future plans. As she readies herself for her classes, she grins at my cocked head and raised brows.
“I’m studying biomedical engineering.” She smooths down the wispy, lacy folds of her black dress and checks each of her glossy, black fingernails. “Sometimes I think that edanes are the future of human health, but then I feel really creepy and gross about it.” Apologetic glances at both Solo and Duo. “So instead, I figured I’d find other ways to help with the future of healthcare.”
Duo smiles gently. “That’s noble of you. You’re a good soul.”
She ducks her head with an embarrassed but obviously pleased smile.
“How did you come out of a place like this?” Solo quips.
“I lived south of Angbec before coming here. I never actually lived there, but I heard stuff. And, I guess, I read a lot of fantasy books as a kid.” She laughs. We all do.
