Page 58 of Absolution
“Well, yeah, doesn’t everyone? That’s why we do the whole sex thing or suggestion sex thing, right?” It took me a few seconds to catch up. Was he saying he and Seiran hadn’t had sex in months? No wonder Seiran was falling apart. “You need to go to ground,” I told him no longer willing to mince words.
He gripped the steering wheel. “I won’t leave Seiran alone.”
“You’re already leaving him alone. In case you’ve forgotten he has two brand new babies that you promised to help with.”
“That’s temporary.”
“Uh, not sure how babies were done when you were young, but babies are sort of a permanent fixture. They grow up yeah, but they are your kids for life.”
Gabe pulled into a downtown parking garage with covered parking and took us to the first spot he found. “I’d be gone centuries.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s been almost a millennium since I went under. Other than when Seiran put me in the ground.” Only to pull him out way too soon. “What would that do to Seiran? And why do you care? I thought you hated him.”
If I’d been born to a different family, I could have been him. And wasn’t that just the kicker. There was a time I’d have looked at Sei and Gabe and thought they were the perfect couple, madly in love and unbreakable. Love didn’t conquer all, but sometimes it gave us the strength to do the right thing. “What are you doing to him now?” I threw back. “To all of us?”
“Holding it together,” he said through clenched teeth. “Now shut up and get out of the car.”
I swallowed back a hundred things I wanted to say and got out of the car letting the anger build. I wasn’t hungry. Had no desire to hunt. And was so mad at Gabe I wanted to hit him.
We exited the parking garage and crossed the street in silence, taking a backdoor into a building that I didn’t recognize. The smell hit me first. Blood, sex, and death. Lots of disinfectant, but nothing could cover the smell of old blood and spend. I followed Gabe down several curving hallways until we passed an area like I’d only ever seen in porn videos. There were naked people everywhere, women and men, most of them lying on tables with their legs spread, some on their knees sucking men off, or bent over a table taking someone, or even two at a time.
The entire place had one common theme, vampires. Everyone getting off was also eating; necks, wrists, thighs, wherever. Nothing about this appealed to me at all. It didn’t arouse me, it didn’t make me hungry, it just made me angrier.
Why was Gabe bringing me here? Why was he here? Hadn’t he told me all about what it meant to be a gentleman when I fed? To make them feel good and treat them with respect? This was the complete opposite.
I reached out without even thinking about it, tapping that tiny seed inside me that was Seiran’s energy. I could feel him sitting in his apartment watching Con play a video game while Luca read. Kelly had joined them too, but was on the floor playing with the twins who were giggling at faces he made.
Seiran looked up like he could see me inside his head. The link tying us together through the earth strong enough that he could follow it. Did he really want to see? I wondered. Did he want to know what Gabe had been up too? How far he was gone?
Seiran’s answer was a painful, “Yes.”
I closed my eyes and let the feeling of him settle over me. The weight of warmth and calm that only the earth could provide, with an undercurrent of chaos just waiting for release. He saw what I did, and was mostly nonplussed.
I was never really into porn,he told me.
Me neither. At least not like this.There was no illusion of shared pleasure here. It was all about the vampires, feeding, getting off, while humans were little more than blood bags with holes.Maybe I’m still too human to see the difference.
Vampires are essentially humans,Seiran reminded me.All creatures of the earth, taken as easily as given.And he was right. There wasn’t a creature who walked the earth that couldn’t be taken back into it. That alone was the reason Seiran should have scared everyone. Earth was both the most fundamentally powerful element and the most vulnerable. Little shifts in human existence could tear it apart, or tiny ripples from the earth could destroy humanity. Seiran should have been the one to feel all-powerful and omniscient, since he practically was, only I never got that feeling from him. Even with his senses laid over mine in that moment.
I’m just me,he told me.Beautifully fucked up, me, as Gabe always used to call me.I could feel his sadness at the reminder.
We’ll get him back,I told him. He wasn’t at all sure about that. And really, neither was I. I hated standing there in that room, watching the vampires pretend to be more important and treat the humans like nothing more than blow-up dolls filled with blood. It reminded me of my time with Matthew, and how much I’d come to hate him in the end.
I’d always hated the superiority complex some people had. That their skin tone or race meant they were better than I. This was no different. Being a vampire didn’t make them greater. In fact, I was pretty sure it made them weaker. Vulnerable to being seduced by blood, power, and destroyed by sunlight.
Seiran silently agreed.
Gabe didn’t stop. He passed through the room and into one beyond where the lights were low and music played softly. People were dancing. I realized then that the music must have been set at a vampire’s hearing level because it didn’t hurt my ears at all. And once again the crowd was filled with vampires dancing with humans, feeding.
“What is this place?” I demanded of Gabe.
“Feeding Ground,” Gabe said like it was a title rather than a thing. “Should have brought you here right after you changed.”
To feed on emaciated humans looking for a way to die? Couldn’t he smell the sickness in them? How many vampires could they feed before they succumbed? “Are these people here because they want to be turned?”
Gabe shrugged. “Some. Though most are fed on by too many different vampires to ever survive a transition. Not enough of a bond built up. Some vampires even refuse to heal their wounds as it creates a tie that might eventually be used to change them.”