Blood Legacy Origin of Species (9 page)

“Where did she take her?” Abigail whispered into Susan’s ear, pressing her cheek to Susan’s temple.

Abigail listened to the conversations between Susan and Ryan, and those between Susan and the creature’s servant. There were two rooms, the first an inner chamber and then an inner sanctuary, and apparently, at least according to the servant, Ryan should not have been allowed in either. Abigail watched the memories play out, absorbing every detail. She felt she had almost most everything she wanted, with one exception.

“The pattern that Ryan was tracing on the table today,” she whispered, “what is that from?”

Abigail saw a series of images: the hieroglyphic-like figures on the doors to the rooms where Ryan was taken, and the fractal-like, geometric patterns of the bricks of the walls themselves. It was these latter patterns that Ryan stood before for hours, then days, then weeks, tracing the outlines of the geometric bricks, weakening the structure of the wall until at the very end, she pushed a section of the fortress outward in exactly the shape she had traced for months. Susan had thought the behavior random and obsessive, not realizing the hidden purpose in what Ryan was doing.

Abigail mentally released Susan, who collapsed into her arms.

“Are you quite finished with her, Madame?” Edward asked from the doorway, his manner tightly controlled.

“Yes,” Abigail said smoothly. She released the young woman physically when Edward approached and he gathered the limp form into his arms. He carried Susan to her bed as Abigail left the room without a backward glance.

“Aeron is right,” Victor commented upon Abigail’s entrance, “you are brutally efficient.”

“I wonder, my lord, why you did not think of it yourself.”

Victor glanced at her sharply since her words were so close to his own thoughts. But it appeared she was merely using her formidable intuition and not actually invading his mind.

“I have not been at my best since Ryan’s return,” he admitted. “I’m questioning my judgment in a lot of things.” He walked to the window, looking out but focusing on nothing.

“Then perhaps Ryan’s uncertainty is catching.”

Victor turned back to Abigail, who had settled gracefully onto the lounge. “What do you mean by that?”

“I sense an overwhelming uncertainty in Ryan right now,” Abigail said, “as if she feels her grip on reality is very tenuous.”

Victor sat down next to Abigail. “That’s not surprising given what she’s told me, especially about Ravlen.”

Abigail could not hide her flair of interest. “The creature she described as your mother?”

“Yes,” Victor said. “She has actually told me very little. But she did say that the woman was ‘not of this world’ and ‘not human.’”

Abigail considered this. “I don’t know that the statement is really that outlandish. We have no explanation for our origin, and it’s as good as any. And given what I’ve now seen of Madelyn, she was not human, nor our Kind.” She turned to the dark-haired man. “I know we’ve spoken of this before, but do you have any recollection of your life before your Change?”

Victor shook his head. “No, I remember nothing. In fact some of my very first memories are of you.”

This admission touched the glacial queen although she tried to disguise that fact. She stood and sought to excuse herself. Victor’s hand on her arm stayed her movement, as well as sent an electrical shock that traveled the length of her arm, then the length of her spine, arriving most pleasantly at both its extremes.

He stood and his words were simple. “Stay with me.” His eyes swept her form, so gracefully concealed yet tastefully accentuated by her clothing. He more than anyone knew of the flawless body beneath that dress, the curve of her hip, the fullness of her breasts, the taut stomach. If Ryan had achieved ideal beauty by freezing time prior to feeling its touch, Abigail had achieved it by abusing Time itself, maturing to full ripeness, than refusing to let the rot of it touch her.

“Is that a command or a request, my lord?” Abigail said, softly mocking, “because as you reminded me earlier, Ryan is still king.”

Victor pressed his body to hers. “Then it is, of course, a request.”

“I see,” she said, “and will you be so ‘brutally efficient’ as you were last time?”

Victor smiled, both at the words she tossed back to him and to what she referred. When he had awakened from his illness to find Ryan missing, he had taken her blood in a cold manner with the utilitarian motive of gaining information, much like she had just done with Susan.

“No,” he said simply. “It’s not information that I want right now.”

“Ah,” Abigail said, taking his hand and leading him toward the bed, “then I get to be on top.”

“Hmm,” Victor said, “so business as usual.”

CHAPTER 8

LIA WANDERED THROUGH THE FOREST. There was a hare ahead of her, perhaps a hundred yards or so, attempting to hide in the undergrowth. She thought about hunting it but she wasn’t really hungry, then thought about killing it just because she could.

As if aware of her intent, the hare bounded off and disappeared into a burrow. It was of no matter, Lia thought, continuing on her way. She had grown less and less hungry and was hardly eating at all now. In fact, her last dinner had ended most strangely when she had stalked and brought down an elk with nothing more than her hands. She had pounced upon the beast, ripping its skin from its body in the ravenous way that no longer disturbed her. But she did not seem to want the flesh this time, but rather the blood, and fastened on the beast’s neck, draining it dry. She pulled away, her actions having long since lost any ability to horrify her, and instead was occupied by how dissatisfying the act had been.

She turned her attention to the forest around her. She could hear everything, the insects scratching on the leaves, the drip of dew as it fell from flowers, the scrape of small rodents in the gnarled tree roots. She could smell everything as well, and it was this ability that told her she was approaching yet another burned-out village. She pushed her way through the brush, ignoring the thorns that tried and failed to pierce her hardened skin. Even when one snagged deeply and was able to prick the surface, the sensation barely registered as it was so beneath the threshold of pain that she lived with constantly.

The sight that greeted her as she exited from the forest was familiar. Smoke rose from gutted dwellings, bodies were strewn about, dogs fed on carcasses and flies were omnipresent. She strolled into town, unaffected by the atrocities, and glanced about with interest. She was always amazed at the number of ways in which humans could die, the number of ways in which their bodies could be mutilated and contorted. She searched through the rubble, curious to see if there was anyone who looked like her.

There never was.

Something moved ahead of her, catching her eye. It was a man, bent over a child, tears streaming from his eyes. He appeared to be engaged in some great internal struggle, cursing himself as he took bites from the child’s corpse. Lia moved closer to him, unmoved by his plight. She gazed down at him without pity and he turned upward, his face blanching at the sight of her. Although he did not quite comprehend what stood before him, he would ask for mercy all the same.

“Please kill me,” he whimpered.

Lia’s jaw tightened. It was the one mercy she would always deliver, the one request which she would never again refuse. She leaned down and with the inhuman strength she now possessed, snapped his neck cleanly at the base of his skull. He fell on top of the child, his misshapen face relaxing into an expression of peace.

A scuttling noise behind her attracted her attention and she became aware of another survivor. This man was attempting to crawl away from her, but none too quietly. When she approached, he curled up, shielding his head with his arms.

“Don’t kill me!” he pleaded.

The back-to-back requests amused her. She had become quite the arbiter of death. This creature before her was pathetic, great lumps protruding from his arms like tumors, each with hair sprouting from their rounded surfaces. He had lumps on his head as well, and lumps on those lumps. It gave his head an almost pyramidal shape.

The man peered out from between the lumps on his upraised arms. He had seen horrible, horrible things in the last few days, but even so, the woman before him gave him pause. She had horns on the side of her head and her skin had a scaly appearance that shifted in color with the light. At the moment, the skin had a greenish brown tint that magnified her startling green eyes. She wore animal skins about her waist and breasts, but beyond that, nothing. He wondered if she was a demi-goddess, so exotic and frightening was her appearance.

The man would take no chances; he shifted himself with effort into a kneeling position. Lia noted the strained exertion.

“Are you in pain?” she asked.

The man gritted his teeth. “It is like fire that burns me constantly.”

“And yet you do not wish for death?”

The man shook his head.

Lia contemplated her victim. He did not seem to have any of the mental defects of the others, no madness or stupor. In fact, it seemed only his physical appearance was affected by the plague.

Just like her.

“Very well,” Lia said, turning away from him. She started back down the street in her original direction of travel.

The man watched the goddess stroll away, the sinewy form growing smaller as he sat indecisively. It hurt him to rise to his feet, and hurt him more to walk, but nonetheless he gritted his teeth and hurried down the street after her.

Ryan awoke with the unnerving thought that something important was rapidly slipping away from her.

But it was gone.

She looked about, finding herself alone without a guardian at the foot of the bed. Perhaps Victor and Edward had determined there were enough Old Ones in the mansion that she did not need a full time babysitter. Edward materialized in the doorway and Ryan revised that opinion. Perhaps they just thought they were of sufficient numbers that they were willing to give her a head start.

The mental picture of the ensuing chase was humorous to her and it brought a smile to her face that pleased Edward.

“How are you feeling, my lord?”

“Well,” Ryan said, stretching her neck. “I recognize you and don’t wish to tear your head off, so those are both good things.”

“Excellent. Your father and Abigail are down in the study. Drake and Jason are with Susan in the lab. Aeron, as usual, keeps his own council and I am certain Marilyn will appear since you have awakened.”

Ryan took a quick shower, put on fresh clothes, and started down the stairs toward the study. She actually felt surprisingly good, better than she had in a very long time. The disquiet she felt on awakening had disappeared.

Abigail and Victor glanced up at her entry, both thoroughly assessing her and both pleased at the results of the assessment. Ryan seemed almost normal. She picked up a copy of the newspaper and sprawled in one of the oversized chairs across from her father. As Edward predicted, Marilyn entered, tousled Ryan’s hair, and sat adjacent to her. Ryan was just about to speak to Marilyn when something sensory began pulling at her mental peripheral vision.

She turned her attention to Victor, examining him closely. His expression was benign and neutral. She then turned her attention to Abigail who also gazed at her with an impassive expression. Ryan’s eyes shifted back to her father, then slid back to the matriarch once more. Ryan raised an eyebrow and cleared her throat. There was quite an aura of contentment about the two.

A shadow of a smile played about Victor’s lips, but he returned to his paper. Abigail remained perfectly expressionless and returned to her stitchery.

“Hmm,” was all Ryan said. It did not bother her in the least that the two Old Ones had satisfied one another’s blood thirst. It felt appropriate. Although Abigail engaged in unions for a multitude of reasons, political and otherwise, Ryan knew she Shared with Victor for only one: she enjoyed it.

Ryan again turned to Marilyn to engage her in conversation when Susan appeared in the doorway. Ryan’s gaze was immediately attracted to the fading bruise on Susan’s neck, and to the mild flush on her cheeks when she saw that Ryan had noticed it. It wasn’t so much the bruise that bothered Ryan, but rather the discomfiture with which Susan displayed it.

Ryan’s eyes drifted back to Marilyn, who was entertained by the subtle detective work in which Ryan was engaged but whose expression communicated she was not the prime suspect. Ryan glanced back over at Victor, who looked up at her from his own paper then returned, unconcerned, to his reading. Ryan’s eyes moved to Abigail, who was gazing at her steadily with the unblinking gaze of their Kind, quite unrepentant. Ryan glanced at Susan then back to Abigail, and Susan shifted uncomfortably.

“You will not do that again without my permission,” Ryan said coldly, addressing Abigail.

It was quite an astonishing statement and the silence in the room extended and became pronounced. Victor looked over the top of his paper at Ryan and Marilyn made an elaborate show of plucking some non-existent lint from the armrest of her chair. Abigail continued to stare at Ryan, unblinking. When she finally spoke, her tone could not have been drier.