Page 21 of Resurrection
And obviously he was remembering things he’d never before shared with Sei. Maybe he’d been that far gone, forgotten most of it, or Tresler, the former head of the now dead Tri-Mega, had already had control of him.
“Fine,” Sei agreed. “Try not to attack me.” He made his way to the knife board on the counter and took out one of the small steak knives. Jamie kept them sharp, but it was still going to hurt.
Gabe waited beside the door. He put a hand up, and said, “You’ll have to drop the wards so I can get through. I have to be fast.”
“Will you be strong enough?” Sei wondered.
“We will find out, won’t we?” He waited, braced like he was ready for a sprint.
Seiran raised a hand toward the door. “On the count of three. One… two… three.” He relaxed the extra ward meant to lock the golem into the arboretum. It slammed through the door, causing a ripple in the wards of the house, nearly knocking Seiran off his feet.
And that fast, Gabe was on him, wrestling him to the ground. It wasn’t easy as Seiran thought it might be for a vampire. The golem was supernaturally strong, fueled by death magic, earth, and whatever the caster had juiced it with. In fact, Gabe barely seemed to be holding it back.
“Spell,” Gabe said with a grunt, trying to use his body as an anchor.
“Blood coming,” Sei warned as he put the knife to the inside edge of his arm and sliced. It was a sharp pain, fast and stinging. He set the knife aside and squeezed his arm to let the blood pool, then coated his fingers in it. Of course, getting close to the vampire was part of the trouble.
Gabe’s eyes went black, but he held onto the golem.
Sei carefully bent to spread blood on the lips of the golem. Well, not lips so much as a gape in the mass of clay and sticks that created it. He had to recoat his hand, pressing for more blood even as he was healing the cut at almost vampire speed, to draw the symbols of ownership. He’d always hated this sort of thing, an enslavement really, rather than a spell. Total control, which shouldn’t have bothered him because Forest was a thing, not a person, but it didn’t feel that way.
The spells began to wrap around the golem. An invisible tie that made it hard for Sei to breathe for a moment. He could feel souls within it, struggling, trying to escape, and deeper, something dark, almost like a vampire revenant, twisting and flailing to answer a call. Not a golem of the normal sort at all. Not just fueled by will and death, but by actual souls. He might have suspected before, but now he was certain and could even feel the distinct difference of each. Three. There were three souls trapped inside the golem.
Strangely enough the signature of them didn’t feel normal. Not human, Seiran realized, as that pulsing memory of revenants brought a startling thought to sink like a stone in his gut. Not human souls, at all. Was that possible?
Seiran tried to follow that call with his magic, even while tying the spell around the golem so tightly it felt like a spiderweb wrapped around an unwitting fly, squeezing tighter and tighter. But the call vanished, cutting off before Sei could reach any recognition of the source, not even a direction.
He snarled in frustration even as the spell completed and the golem stopped moving. The roll of Seiran’s magic retook the golem, sliding the appearance of a human back over it. Gabe still held on as though the thing were a wriggling leviathan, instead of stone still as it was now.
“Gabe?” Seiran called softly. The vampire’s eyes were closed and he seemed to be breathing hard, while motionless as only a vampire could be. Seiran took a couple slow steps backward, putting the counter between him and the vampire. The Focus bond meant that Gabe probably wouldn’t kill him. Maybe even couldn’t since Sei was the Pillar of Earth. But that didn’t mean Seiran couldn’t experience physical pain. He’d survived gunshot wounds to the head, being absorbed back into the earth, and a dozen other attacks over the years. He’d never experienced having his throat torn out, drowning in his own blood, while a revenant fed at him, and he hoped to never have to.
“Gabe?” Seiran called again.
One second Gabe was across the room on the floor, holding the golem. And the next, he was inches away from Seiran, only the giant marble island slowing him down as he reached for blood, his black eyes glazed over with a red edge of madness.
Seiran’s heart flipped over, thinking he’d have to put Gabe back in the ground, and likely ruin his kitchen doing so. But the vampire grabbed the knife Seiran had used, and licked the tiny bits of blood from the blade.
It clattered to the floor with a metal clang, and Sei expected Gabe to reach for him next, but he was gripping the counter, eyes closed.
“Maybe… you could go wash off the blood?” Gabe asked in a very tight voice.
Seiran’s gaze swept from the vampire to the golem. “There’s blood in the freezer for you.”
“There is,” Gabe agreed quietly, but didn’t move from his spot, plastered to the edge of the marble island. Seiran really hoped he didn’t damage the stone.
“The golem?” Seiran backed away, toward the stairway that led upward.
“Bound for now. Yours… ours.”
“Forest, go sit in that chair until I get back,” Seiran commanded, feeling the magic rip through him like a fist of energy rather than a request.
Gabe sucked in air and squatted down beside the counter like the command had made it harder for him to hold back. “Go, clean… please?”
“Okay, going, sorry. Be right back.”
“Don’t run,” Gabe squeezed out, his face below the counter edge now. “Might chase…”
Predatory instinct. Vampires were predators after all. Seiran knew that. The few he interacted with most days were so human-like that he sometimes forgot. But he moved slowly, backing toward the door, counting to keep his heart rate as even as possible until he reached the stairs and headed upward. He would have to get ready for his day anyway. He’d need to get to the office, and put the entire task force on finding who had killed vampires, not humans, to create a golem.