Blood Rules (4 page)

He walked off, but she followed, the scent of her heated skin growing stronger as she caught up. The link between them flared with her nearness.

Overcome for a piercing moment, Gabriel reached out, grasped her shirt.

A slight tearing sound offered the only protest.

Control, he thought. He had about as much of it as she did when they were together. They drove each other's passions up, and that was no good for either of them.

He let go of her, almost as if in violent disgust, and her eyes went shiny with what had to be oncoming tears.

Sadness. He knew it well by now. Being here in the New Badlands had schooled him in most of the emotions he'd lost upon becoming a vampire. He wished he didn't see sorrow so often in Mariah, though she'd done so much to deserve it, especially with Abby.

The name wandered through Gabriel, as if it'd strayed from the center of him long ago. Thing was, it hadn't fully deserted all of him yet.

Would it ever?

He held up his hands, showing Mariah that he wasn't going to touch her again. She looked . . . crushed.

The part of him that was still hopelessly addicted to helping her made him say, “There're solutions other than a cure, you know.”

She swallowed, as if gathering herself. “Are you the one lying now, Gabriel?”

Nothing to say to that, so he kept himself shut right up.

She sighed. “What if there
is
a cure? Wouldn't I be irresponsible in ignoring the possibility?”

It felt as if his chest were being pried open, and he knew that he was connecting to her emotions again through the imprint. They shared so much, and even the vague dream of a cure made him yearn just as she did.

Then it hit him: Because of the imprint, would a cure affect him, too?

He brought himself to continue walking away from her. The only vampire cure he'd ever heard of was when the death of a maker resulted in the return of humanity for a vamp.

Mariah gave him space, then followed at a distance. Their imprint connection faded, but beats of her vital signs still possessed him. Sometimes he thought that the echo of her was the only thing that made him feel alive.

Shit, he hated this dependence on someone else's life to feel like he had one of his own.

They arrived in the main area, a cavern with stalactites and stalagmites stabbed with beige and brown artistry. Among them, three visz screens silently flashed pictures from some hidden cameras outside. Otherwise, the area was stark, with a few empty aluminum casks serving as chairs while others, filled with turtlegrape alcohol, lined the right side of the room like a bar. During the rushed move here, Pucci had found the casks near an abandoned semi-truck filled with black-market goods. The bleached bones of smugglers had littered the sand around the seemingly ancient, gutted vehicle.

Pucci often drank the turtlegrape, but at the moment, everyone, including him, was soberly waiting in the room: Hana. Chaplin. Sammy Ramos, a bitten were-creature whose orange hemp clothing matched the hues of his skin whenever he shifted into Gila monster form. Right now, though, he only looked like a stocky middle-aged man with dark hair, pocked skin, and a barely contained frown.

Then there was the true-born oldster, a no-name who could assume a modern-day scorpion figure during his changes, like the huge, previously unknown, meat-eating mutants that'd come out from the holes under the Badlands after the world had gone terrible. He sat on top of a cask, his skinny legs dangling, encased in the earth-toned denim he favored.

“Next time,” he said to Gabriel and Mariah, “you two might think about how them tunnels are a conduit for sound.”

Mariah stayed near the entrance. “Then we don't have to catch you up on our conversation.”

From the way the Badlanders avoided looking directly at Gabriel and Mariah, he knew that they'd also intuited the hard feelings that'd gone along with the exchange.

Pucci dove straight in. “So when're you leaving, Mariah?”

Everyone shot the big man a dirty glance, though no one contradicted him.

Mariah crossed her arms over her chest, taking it as she always did. If she hadn't decided for certain whether she'd be on board with this hare-brained idea about a cure, Gabriel was pretty sure a decision had just been finalized for her. It seemed as if tonight's excitement had been the final blow, and the silence from the community spoke volumes—a group of books slamming shut.

Then Chaplin spoke, woofing.

“No,” Mariah answered. “You're not going anywhere. The community needs you as protection.”

The dog barked, his tone vehement. He wasn't bothering to block what he was saying from Gabriel this time.

I promised your dad I'd always be there,
Chaplin said.
And I want to be.

Gabriel hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. This was definitely going past the idea stage.

Was she
seriously
thinking of leaving?

Even if he wasn't a vampire, he wasn't sure how he'd be feeling about this turn of events. All the pieces clashed in his mind: Abby. The profound link he'd created with Mariah during the imprinting. The rights and wrongs of her being out there all alone.

Gabriel's remaining sense of right wasn't sitting well with him.

“Chaplin,” Mariah said, “have you thought about what would happen if you were uncovered as an Intel Dog? Your kind was set upon, too, right along with preters, and one DNA test from a cop or official would result in your immediate termination. From what I hear, there aren't even many regular pet dogs round anymore, and you'd attract attention, boy.
I
can hide my abilities because I'm a were-creature, and if anything happened to you . . .” She shook her head.

A thought invaded Gabriel: A vampire could hide, if he tried hard enough.

He ignored it, but it seemed as if his mind connection with Chaplin had allowed the dog to hear Gabriel's musings.

Double shit, because Chaplin was shining those huge brown dog eyes at him in a sad plea that Gabriel could read loud and clear, even before the canine thought,
Mariah wouldn't be able to go to the hubs alone to get a sense of what might be possible as a cure, Gabriel, and you know how much she needs this. How we
all
need her to do this.

He could feel Mariah looking at him, too—could feel that link between them—but when Gabriel turned to meet her gaze, she'd already averted her eyes. Her stubbornness nagged at him, because a woman like her wasn't going to ask anyone to go with her if she undertook this journey.

She'd pile everything upon herself like some martyr seeking redemption. He knew the type all too well, because he'd done it when Stamp had called him out. He'd been willing to suffer for the Badlanders because, at the time, he hadn't known what they were; he hadn't thought them capable of handling the Shredder themselves, and he'd believed he was the only one around who had the power to save them.

Pucci opened his big mouth, and Gabriel could see Mariah bristle.

“You'd need a heat suit,” the man said.

“I suppose I would.” She said it without fear, as if the more her neighbors showed relief at the idea of her leaving, the quicker she'd go, whether or not she wanted to.

Pucci continued. “Even with heat suits, I'd take care to travel at night, when it's cool and when I could run in were-form to get where I was going as fast as the powers that be allowed me to.”

In his corner, Sammy Ramos was fidgeting. “Mariah, are you sure ... ?”

“Sammy,” she said, “let's not pretend you all don't want this.”

Then the oldster gave voice to what everyone but Pucci had to be feeling. “I wouldn't wish your situation on anyone, Mariah. I'm sorry it's fallen on you.”

“You think that way even after what happened to Zel?” Mariah asked.

Even Gabriel was taken aback by the comment. It was as if she had a yen for self-flagellation.

Did she
want
everyone to push her out?

Zel Hopkins had been one of them, murdered by Stamp and his crew after she'd had enough of his threats and gone after him. A were-owl, she'd done quite a bit of damage to his men with her claws, but she'd been beaten in the end.

The oldster had been in love with her, and now he was silent, holding on to the cask, white-knuckled.

“Mariah,” Gabriel said, hoping to keep the calm, “let's discuss this.”

She peered around the room, seeming like she was already a thousand miles distant from all of them.

It felt as if Gabriel's gut dropped, and he knew it was because he was linking to Mariah. Devastation, isolation . . .

She was also mortified, dejected by how the community was acting, but she'd definitely decided to go.

She tried to act as if it were no big deal. “Gabriel, there's nothing to discuss.”

Chaplin whined, and it didn't mean anything more than that. A deep-down sound of sorrow.

Acceptance settled on the room, and Hana was the first to respect it. She reached under the collar of her robes and undid a necklace.

Gabriel had caught sight of it peeking out of all that hemp once—a golden star with seven points, framed by three circles.

She went to Mariah, who appeared wary at first, until Hana laid the necklace in the other woman's hand.

“For luck,” Hana said.

“I can't—”

“It is a traveler's star.” Hana smiled. “That is what my mother told me. My great-grandmother passed it down.”

Mariah's brows drew together as she stared down at the necklace. It looked like she was fighting tears again. But then she lifted the jewelry, putting it on as if daring someone like Pucci to take it away. It caught a glint of light from a solar lantern as Hana went back to where Pucci was standing with his hands planted on his hips. There'd be no parting gifts from him.

“Thank you, Hana,” Mariah said softly. It sounded final.

She's actually going on this wild-goose chase,
Gabriel thought, still not able to grasp it.

Sammy gestured toward the exit, which led to other tunnels where everyone's private caverns and the aquifer/storage room were located.

“I've got a comm device in my quarters,” he said. “You'd have to be close enough to a hub for good reception, but . . . Well, here it is, just in case.”

Though the Badlanders used viszes to survey the area around their homes, they'd turned away from higher technology. They'd removed the chips from under their skins, avoided getting personal computers implanted in their arms, and refused to have any powerful comm items anywhere near them, but Sammy, who used to be a computer specialist, still messed with smaller devices.

Mariah seemed touched by the man's gesture. “Thanks to you, too, Sammy.”

“It's nothing fancy,” he continued.

“It's . . .” Her smile wobbled. “It's good, all the same.”

The oldster made a cranky sound and ran a liver-spotted hand through what remained of his gray, wiry hair. “I could give you one of my zoom bikes.”

Sammy said, “Unless you can provide her with enough of that homemade fuel you concoct, oldster, she'd have to ditch the vehicle at some point.”

“It's okay,” Mariah said. “Changing into my other form at night and running is fine. I'll make it. And if I do locate a cure . . .”

She didn't say she'd come back, and no one asked her to.

Gabriel's blood thudded, but he didn't know why he should want to feel sorry for her.

She touched the necklace charm, then lifted a hand in farewell, moving toward the tunnel.

“Wait,” Gabriel said.

When she did, everyone else looked at him, too.

“That's it?” he asked the group. “Off she goes without any other—”

“Fanfare?” Pucci asked. “You'd better fucking believe it.”

Gabriel's fist itched to land right in the man's righteous face. “Do you all remember what's out there?”

Hana stared straight ahead. “Demons.”

Gabriel nodded. Stamp had caught such a creature and tortured it to perdition. They'd all wondered why a demon would be in the New Badlands, if there was some exodus from the hubs for the preters who managed to still secretly exist there.

And not all preters might get along as they, a vampire and were-creatures, had been doing.

The oldster added, “Humans are out there, too. Stamp had the tools to kill us, but the rest of them . . . they have the attitudes. Humans used to be just as bad as Shredders when it came to hunting. We threatened their place at the top of the food chain, and they were doing all they could to hold that chain together.”

Sammy laughed darkly. “We weren't the ones to blame for what got them into such a situation.”

The wars, the terrorism . . . Zealots had decimated the West Coast with clever ultracharges planted along quake faults, and change in general had caused catastrophic physical alterations throughout the globe. Disease, melting ice caps, more freak earthquakes . . .

The bad guys had taken advantage of every bit of it, seizing control in the name of safety. But everyone should've been more afraid of the people in charge instead.

And that was just where Mariah would be headed: straight to where they lived, en masse.

He could feel the fear in her, and it yanked at their connection, scorching him inside as if she were marking him.

If he'd been able to breathe, he would've felt suffocated. But he wanted to keep
on
feeling her, didn't he? With her gone, he might not feel half as alive or . . .