Page 32 of Blood Lovers (American Vampires #1)

Just tell me what to do.

They crossed the veil. And they never came back .

Lucia’s words echo in my head and then I involuntarily shiver.

They never came out of the dreamwalk.

And wasn’t I just thinking about this? Did I just give this fear some kind of… reality when I articulated it in my head?

I did.

So I just scoff. “Of course they didn’t.” Then I scoff again.

Lucia places a hand on my spirit shoulder and I brush it off because I don’t like her. She shoots me a look that says, Really? then gets past it. “Now listen. We don’t have a lot of time. Ryet is here—”

“He is?”

“Can you please not interrupt? I’m trying to tell you the plan.” She closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them again. “He’s down the driveway. There was some sort of crash. But Paul is there, so forget about Ryet in the present for just a moment, please. Because what you need to be concerned about is Ryet’s future.”

“What about it?”

“He’s Paul’s firstborn. At least, he will be. Once he’s drained you and the transformation can proceed.”

“Paul’s really turning him into a vampire?” I recall the words Ryet spat at me back at the spa. You have turned me into him, Syrsee. That’s what you’ve done .

“Oh, he really is. And Ryet doesn’t want this, Syrsee. You’ve been with him. You know this. Right?”

I can’t deny it. Though I have a bad feeling about where this is going, I can’t deny it. “No. He doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t. He wants to die, Syrsee. He wants to get on with it.”

“Get on with it?”

“He wants to go to Hell, darling. He wants to die .”

Everything inside me—every little bit of hope that I was holding onto that somehow I would be able to keep Ryet, that we really could run away, and get jobs somewhere in some little city, and just banter and fuck—well, this is the moment when that hope dies.

He’s going to Hell.

We’re all going to Hell.

But while we wait for that, we’re going to be here, which is… pre-Hell.

I know where this is going. I know what Lucia is going to say next, but it still shocks me when the words come out of her mouth.

“And you are going to make that wish come true.”

I shake my head and turn away from her. “No.” But my objection is soft, and low, and weak.

“Listen to me, OK? Just hear me out. The reason I showed you Coyrah and the aquis equī is because the witches have a breeding game too, Syrsee. Just like the vampires.”

“What?” I’m so confused I turn to look at her.

“Paul is—was, actually—a great student geneticist once upon a time. But he made abominations. Disgusting things, Syrsee. I mean, think about it for a moment. How bad, how disgusting, how vile does a creature have to be that even vampires are repulsed?” She pauses here, letting her descriptions sink in. “Paul made monsters so terrible from the blood of vampires and witches that the Obscurati had no alternative but to strip him of power and banish him for life. That’s how we ended up here.” She points to the ground. “Do I sound like I’m from Montana ?”

She doesn’t. Her accent is very posh and not at all American.

“And right now, in this very moment, he is turning Ryet into one of those monsters.”

“No.” I shake my head and turn away from her again. “No. No. Fuck this shit, I’m not killing Ryet.” I say it first because that’s where she’s going. “I don’t even know how that would be possible, but that’s what you’re going to tell me, right?”

Lucia grabs my shoulders and turns me around. Gently. Carefully. And when we are face to face again, she looks me in the eyes. “How bad, how disgusting, how vile does a creature have to be that even vampires are repulsed?”

I look away from her. “I don’t know.” And I’m not deflecting, either. I’m no expert in demons, or spirits, or whatever. “But I can’t do it.”

“Fine.” Lucia withdraws her hands from my shoulders and walks across the room to the bed where my real body is sleeping. Or… unconscious. Since the third bag of blood is full now. And while I’m not any kind of authority on blood, I’m pretty sure three bags is pushing the limit.

I feel so detached from that body at the moment, I actually begin to wonder if I’m dead.

Lucia takes the bag off the stand, places it in the ice chest near the door with the others, and then hooks up another bag. But she doesn’t start the flow of blood again. Instead, she walks over to the armoire where the supplies are and begins straightening things up as she talks. “Let’s forget about Ryet for a moment. Let’s think about Paul. He has made these creatures before. This is his… life’s work, OK? Does that make sense?”

I shrug noncommittally. “I guess.”

“He has been planning this moment for hundreds of years. And he’s going to succeed, Syrsee. Ryet will drink you tonight. I can’t stop it. I’m nothing compared to Paul. He could hunt me down in minutes. He would do terrible things to me. Maybe not kill me—he would have to take off my head for that to happen—but he could torture me for… well, forever, if he wanted.”

“Is this little admission of weakness supposed to inspire trust in me? Because if so, you really need to work on your approach.”

Lucia turns away from the armoire so she’s facing me again. Only now she’s holding a syringe in her hand. “I’m merely stating facts. And these are the facts. We need to stop Paul. You’re not going to die tonight. He will use your blood for as long as he can. He’s not letting you walk away, darling. When he told you that, he meant to make you realize that you were not a part of his and Ryet’s future. You see, it is just him and Ryet.”

I want to play dumb here. But I already know she’s right. And Paul told me this, didn’t he? He didn’t say he was going to imprison me and bleed me out for the rest of my life, but why wouldn’t he? I’m the blood he’s been waiting for.

Lucia is smiling now because she knows I’m listening. “We can’t kill Paul. But we can… pack him up and put him away, so to speak.”

“And how would we do that?”

“Throw him into the purple, my dear. Just like the magnificent cities made of ice that disappeared long ago. They crossed the veil and they never came back. We can pull the cloak of purple over Paul and trap him there.”

“And how does Ryet fit in?”

“He can be killed. He has not transformed yet. All you have to do is feed him dead Black blood.”

“So…” I look down, laughing, shaking my head. My life. My fucking life. Then I look back up. “So I’m going to die as well? Is that what you’re telling me? You’re going to kill me—”

“It’s not permanent.”

“It’s not permanent !” My voice is going shrill because my heart is thumping inside my chest and the panic is beginning to set in.

“Relax, would you? I will bring you back. It’s not like no one has done this to you before.”

“What?”

“Your little friend, Zusi.”

I almost collapse. I only just barely manage to walk over to a little settee at the end of the bed and fall into it. I lean over, breathing hard, as the pieces to my puzzle start falling into place and the memory comes back to me in Zusi’s own words… I lied. You were dead. We smuggled you into the country in a coffin .

They bled me?

I look up at Lucia, shaking my head, trying to deny this, even though I know it’s true.

She’s sympathetic, frowning a little, not because she’s sad, but because she knows how much this is hurting me. And that makes it so much worse.

“Has anyone told me the truth?”

“Me, Syrsee. I’m doing my best. It’s a long, complicated, twisted story, darling. And once we get through this night—once Paul is on the other side of the purple, trapped where he can’t hurt us anymore, and once Ryet is out of his misery—because he is miserable, Syrsee, you know this—once these things are done, I will sit down with you and spill out every single detail.”

I deflate, all the fight leaving me. Because what is the point? Why do I care about Ryet, anyway? He’s no one to me. Just a guy I fucked. A one-night stand that has gone on too long. Why should I save him when my entire world is a lie? “What do I have to do? Just tell me what to do.”

“Feed him, Syrsee. You will feed him. But while you are doing that, you will be dying.” She squirts a few drops out of the syringe she’s holding to illustrate how I will be dying. “And once you are dead, he will drink your dead black blood and he will die too. But while all that is happening, Paul will be watching in the purple. He won’t want to miss this. And that is when you will trap him there.”

“But I don’t know how to do that. I don’t—”

“Of course you do, Syrsee. Of course you do. Because are you are the night mare they’ve been waiting for. You, not me, not anyone else. You are the night mare from Coyrah’s bloodline. You are the rightful rider of the aquis equī. You control the purple, Syrsee. All of it. You are its queen . The night mare has the power to metamorphose—to change people from one form to the next. This power comes from her own merging with the aquis equī, a shapeshifter. A water horse one moment, an alluring man the next. That’s why you work, darling. That’s why all Black witches have the ability to change scions into vampires with their blood. But your mind can do things as well. You can change physical bodies into spirit. And while you can’t kill Paul, you can trap him in the purple as a spirit.”

“Fine. Whatever. But none of that explains how I get it done. How do I pull the cloak of purple over Paul and trap him there?”

Lucia gives me a little shrug. “You need to figure that out.”

“I need to…” But I don’t finish the sentence. Because I’m too busy laughing.

“Every witch must find her own power, Syrsee. You’ve been in the purple, you know how it works. Past, present, future?”

“So?”

“So… your power is in there. The secret to how to wield it is lying around somewhere.”

I look around. Because we are actually still in the purple. And that’s when I see a fur cloak hanging on a coat rack near the door.

Lucia chuckles. “That is very literal, darling.”

I walk over to the cloak. It looks so familiar. I feel the soft fur between my fingertips. Fox? Mink? Wolf? I don’t know. I’m not a fur expert. But it’s very silky and nearly white, so… maybe fox. “The cloak.” I nod, and look back at Lucia.

But she’s not paying attention to me now. She’s looking at the door. “They’re coming.” Then her green eyes meet mine and I am once again in my physical body, chained to the wall.

Lucia is standing over me with the syringe in her hand. “Just stay calm now, Syrsee. It’s all going to be OK. It’s all going to be… ooooo … kaaaaaay .”

But everything is blurry and then… it all disappears.