Page 22 of Resurrection

Chapter 8

It took Gabe a while to regain control. Hunger expanded in his gut in horrible, rippling pain. He heard the shower turn on upstairs and breathed deep with the hope that the scent of blood would soon fade.

He estimated it probably took a good ten minutes to move from the counter. But he found the freezer with blood in it, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Old blood. And not the witch’s.

There was a handwritten note on the microwave with instructions on how to warm it. Gabe followed them to the letter, trying to focus on the rotating cup warming, rather than the sound of Seiran moving upstairs. The need to find him was intense. Like distance was a bad thing. Gabe hoped it was due to the lack of blood, whether that meant in general he needed to eat, or that he craved Seiran’s blood, he wasn’t sure. The latter he knew would not be welcome.

The tiny droplet that had remained on the knife he’d licked didn’t satisfy him so much as intensify the craving. And it couldn’t be correct anyway. No one tasted that good. Blood wasn’t like regular food. It couldn’t be rich and decadent like a piece of chocolate fudge cake drizzled in ganache and topped with the sweetest, juiciest strawberries imaginable.

He didn’t even know what that was—those flavors, the texture—as he was sure he’d never eaten it. Yet he could vividly recall every detail of the dish, as though it had been a long time favorite. Perhaps not his favorite, but the witch’s.

Blood was usually warm, metallic, and slightly bitter. Though the taste… small as it had been, and the lingering scent of the witch, claimed otherwise. A memory tied to the witch, perhaps? It had felt more real than that. Tasted like things Gabe couldn’t possibly remember. Vampires didn’t eat regular food. Their systems were too delicate for that. But Gabe could recall how the cake would melt on his tongue, the rich decadence of the chocolate topping, a lingering bite of sweetness with an edge of the bitterness.

Maybe that was why vampires were warned to stay away from witches. Their blood was addicting. The power in it? Or, something more? Perhaps it was the witch himself that was different, appealing to Gabe because they were bound? Even some part of the death magic that animated vampires?

The microwave beeped, and he carefully took the cup out, the ceramic hot enough to burn, but he didn’t loosen his grip on it. The pain was welcome, clarifying, grounding. It pushed back the edges of the revenant. He waited, letting the liquid cool a little before taking a sip. It was foul. Old, dead, weak, human blood. He could live this way, he knew he had in the past, but it would take more of these packets, and the lingering edge of the revenant would remain.

His gaze fell on the golem. They weren’t all that different. The golem needed blood to be controlled, and Gabe would need blood to solidify his sanity. How long could he wait? Would he become like that animated toy and throw himself at the power soon? Maybe he shouldn’t have risen yet. He shouldn’t be this unsteady if he’d been ready to return. Had something pulled him back early? He vaguely recalled a tug of something while he’d lingered between worlds. Not the witch. He’d have recognized that. Death magic.

He stared at the lines of magic tying up the golem. Part of the witch now, but so much death magic. Creating that, perhaps? Powerful enough to drag him out of the grave early? That couldn’t mean good things.

Then there was that unusual overlay on the golem. Like there were things inside it. Golems were empty vessels of intent, fueled by death. It shouldn’t have anything inside. He tried to clarify what he was seeing, the swirling lines of three distinct colors. Not ties to Seiran or even the creator, something else. Souls? Not human ones either as they almost felt like… revenants.

Was something trying to pull revenants out of vampires? Was that why he’d awoken?

The witch hadn’t been willing to destroy the golem. Needing to find who created it. Gabe understood that. Death magic was never kind. Though Gabe was not as convinced of a crime as the witch seemed to be.

Vampires used to hunt necromancers. No one much liked the idea of being controlled by some magic puppet master. Gabe could vividly recall a battle or two with a particular monster of mortal making. They were called the Dark Ages for a reason. The wars of magic wielders, and beings provoking a war, that had almost eliminated humanity. Witches and their ilk on one side. Shifters, and a dozen other monsters, on the other side. The vampires hadn’t begun on a side. Until their food sources began to die out.

Gabe sipped at the nasty blood, letting it remind him of a battlefield of corpses, reanimated, as a particular nasty witch had sought to destroy the stronghold Gabe had created for himself and a handful of his children. He’d been obsessed, not with power back then, but safety. And there was safety in numbers, distance, and stone walls. At least until the darkness came.

Having come into the world before the insanity of Christianity had taken over global religions, he hadn’t worried much about good or evil. People were food, be they lords or peasants. The only real evil was poverty and starvation, and death was often a kindness.

For a while he’d followed the fringes of the movement, an almost hippie-like sense of love and peace, which would crop up over and over throughout history, only to be quashed by whoever the ruling class was, with war and death. He seemed to recall becoming familiar with the organized portion of the religion that grew up around him because it wielded power. And again, his thoughts returned to the ultimate goal, safety for him and his.

The witches had created their own movement in direct opposition to the church. Again, vampires were caught in the middle, accepted by neither, as most of the other supernaturals fought back and died. Pointless destruction. That’s what humans did best, be they religious humans or magical ones. Which was why it struck him as weird that he’d be married to a witch, in the metaphysical sense at least.

Survival? Or something more?

The scent of Seiran’s blood still lingered. A long wafting of the most decadent of perfumes, leading like a trail upward, not fading as he’d hoped. He sipped the blood until the cup was empty, knowing the taste was not at all what the witch would be.

Maybe he could seduce the witch. The vague memory of past seductions indicated he’d used that to feed. Perhaps even on the attractive man who was tied to him. Anger and betrayal were strong emotions, a delicate line walked with love. Gabe knew he had done something wrong. He didn’t know what. Mike hadn’t known specifics when he’d asked and there had been nothing in the media he could find. Whatever had happened, they’d kept it private.

He wished he remembered more. The few things he’d found on his phone, before napping under the pull of the rising sun, were scattered, somewhat political, and very censored. The Dominion had erected Seiran Rou as some sort of golden boy of men practicing magic. Gabe suspected a lot of that was editing and spin. The impression he’d gotten from the witch himself, was of a man less patient with the bullshit of people, any people, witches or otherwise.

He was also the type of man who got shit done. Dozens of articles about solved magic crimes testified to that. Which was something else that led Gabe to believe that the by-the-book persona portrayed to the world, was not who Seiran Rou was. It wasn’t like they could remove him, so instead they used him.

Having the power of a Pillar, meant he would be in control of that element until that element reclaimed him. Death for a Pillar rarely came in sleep from old age. It also meant that others would hesitate to cross him. And that pleased Gabe for some reason. He hated the idea of anyone tormenting the witch, though he suspected it still happened from time to time.

Their short time together made Gabe believe that Seiran had a backbone of steel, even if he didn’t always act like he was the most powerful in the room. How easily could the Pillar of Earth take a vampire like Maxwell Hart and put him in the ground? He could probably unravel a vampire as easily as the golem. But he didn’t.

Everyone indicated that Gabe had harmed him. Why not unravelhim?Or take vengeance on all vampires? The answer, Gabe suspected, was humility. Seiran Rou didn’t need to be power hungry because he had more power than anyone else on the planet. He didn’t need people to worship him or fear him, the entirety of the Dominion watched his every move. Like they would slap him down if he stepped out of line. Maybe they sent him strongly worded letters regularly. Gabe would have to do more research.

The sad part was, that the more he looked into the witch, the more Gabe hurt. Physically and emotionally. It had begun with a headache, and the constant echo of his old sire’s admonishments about witches, mixed with tiny pops of memories, and images, all a chaos of broken puzzle pieces. The emotional bits were harder to explain. His rising worry, and an almost visceral desire to touch had awakened with the bashing of the golem on the wards. Gabe could sense the wards now, his senses tickling with their energy, as though they were a part of him, but separated by a barrier.

It was their tie. The Focus bond, stretched between them, weak, and unfed from years of distance. But not all that unlike the tie to the golem, a bond of firm magic, extending only so far.

Gabe rinsed out the cup while studying the magic wrapped around the golem. The new spell, written in blood and strong green ribbons of earth magic, wouldn’t have been visible to most anyone else. The golem sat in the chair, motionless, more like a statue than a person, though it appeared human. The bonds holding the golem was stronger, detailed in blood magic. Gabe could separate out the colors of magic, those of its creation, and those of Seiran’s spell; a web of woven lines, colors, and pulsing magic, that felt alive.