Blood To Blood (6 page)

“Heist is a Quake intern,”
Sawyer said as an introduction. “He'll take your orders for lunch.”

Heist politely flashed a
platinum grille. “Hello, ladies. Nice to meet the minds behind 'Get Out of
Here.'”

He referred to what was, as
far as our fans were concerned, our signature tune. After we’d won the contest,
I’d written the lyrics about feeling trapped in a life of pretense, and LaLa
had added a blistering rap about rising above hypocrisy. The song lived in an
edgy track co-created by the three of us on Julietta's simple keyboard. It was
written up in
The Boston Phoenix
as an “underground hit,” and was
probably responsible for helping to clinch the deal with Quake.

Out of one of the many
pockets of his jeans, Heist pulled out a Blackberry. “So, Sawyer already gave
me his order, what are y'all in the mood for?”

“Extra spicy Thai soup,”
Julietta said in her I’m-coming-down-with-a-cold voice.

“Pizza with artichoke and
peppers. Salad. And green tea. Please,” LaLa requested. Heist looked at me
expectantly. I tried to think of something to order, and drew a blank.

“What’d you order?” I asked
Sawyer.

He was caught off-guard, as
if someone asking him about what he wanted was unusual. “Soul food from
Nathan’s Hut. Wings, greens, candied yams.”

I swallowed down a strong
wave of nausea even worse than last night, mindlessly requested pizza, and
couldn’t even remember the toppings or drink I asked for. Heist jetted out on
his mission.

LaLa stretched. “He came
right on time. I'm starving,” she said before going to search for a bathroom.

“You got any lemon and honey
up in here?” Julietta yelled from the kitchen. Sawyer went to assist her.

I assessed my feelings of
nausea. I hadn't eaten anything today, and the only thing I'd drunk was Cici's
blood.

Is today the day I turn
Shimshana?

But Cici told me I had at
least a few days. I recalled drinking her blood earlier that morning and waited
to see if the memory evoked feelings of hunger. Nope, I concluded after a few
moments, I was still as grossed out as before. Maybe I just wasn't hungry.

I wandered over to the
boards, fascinated with the complexity of Sawyer’s equipment and its many
buttons and flashing lights. The large monitors played the waves of track
number twenty-seven, and I was mesmerized by the colors and lines that pounded
to the rhythm of the beat.

I heard his heartbeat and
felt the heat of his body before his voice sounded behind me. “The flashing red
button to the left will shut that track down if you press it,” he said near my
right ear.

I pressed the button. The
monitor’s dancing waves and colors immediately died. He continued to stand
behind me, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose as if a waft of cold air
had just entered the room. I smelled freshly showered soap scent mixed with the
smell of his skin—mmmm, spicy and sweet—and was reminded of cake
batter I'd lick from Mom's bowl when I was little. His lean, muscled arm dusted
with light-brown hair reached around my left side to point at a dark button on
the board.

“This here's the delete
button. You want to send that track to the trash?”

“Yes,” I said after a
breathless pause, in which I savored the slow drawl of his Georgian accent. I
pressed the “delete” button, and a low sound bite of a maniacal clown laugh
confirmed the file’s deletion. I giggled at his dark sense of humor. But my smile
instantly dissolved once I turned around. He was standing so close that I had
to lean back slightly with my thighs resting on the edge of the keyboard. His
proximity had an overwhelming effect on me.

It was like I was surrounded
by an electric circle of Sawyer aura and nothing existed outside of it. I took
a deep breath, and his scent entered my nostrils.

And then something weird
happened.

The aroma of him—his
skin, hair (and other things I couldn’t even identify)—traveled down my
throat and entered my stomach...where it was met with a loud, undeniable growl.

I
was
hungry. But not
for food. I was hungry for Sawyer.

Panic rose as I looked up to
meet his eyes. He gazed back steadily, as if examining a strange piece of art.
From a distance my mind shrieked;
Sawyer is food!
But I straightened up
and moved closer to him. He took a small step back, his eyes never leaving
mine. The sound of his heartbeat was the background music banging in my ears as
I, in a daze, took another step forward. My fingers itched with the desire to
pull through the gold-tinged hair hanging less than an inch from my face. His
eyes narrowed and his head cocked to the side. He was exposing his neck...yes,
as if he was offering it to me. I inhaled his scent again and my brain switched
off.

Led by my watering mouth, I
closed the gap between us and placed my lips on his neck.

M
y teeth never touched Sawyer’s skin.

STOP BREATHING!
Cici's voice was deafening and shrill in
my head.

I followed the instruction
and the spell was broken. What had I done? Scared at how close I came to doing
I didn’t even know what, I scooted sideways, like a crab, along the edge of the
board and out of his proximity.

He looked confused about what
just happened. “Angel…?”

I’d run out of air and was in
danger of breathing in his scent again.
Go outside. NOW!

I ran to the front door,
stepped out, and sat on the top step. Confused and close to tears, I
desperately sucked in the cold winter air.

The good thing about having a
sister who can fly is that you never have to wait for her too long. Cici soon
bounded up the steps from whatever hidden spot it was she had dropped out of
the sky. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a slim thermos. “Drink,”
she ordered. The smell wafting out of the metal container confirmed it was
blood. Before I could even think about it, I drained it quicker than you could
say, “Type A.”

And that was that.

No trumpet fanfare. No divine
choir singing from parted cumulus clouds or anything else I’d fantasized would
accompany such a momentous occasion. Nonetheless, I was now a bonafide blood
drinker.

I broke out in a cold sweat.
“More,” I said. Forehead wrinkled with concern, she drew out another thermos.
And another. On the fourth, Julietta popped her head out the door.

“Oh, hi, Cici.”

My sister, ever the
socialite, got up to give her a huge hug while I downed the rest of the blood.
“How's it going?” Cici asked after throwing a quick glance at me.

“We're up to track number
twenty-eight.” Jules rubbed her upper arms against the winter chill.

You still hungry?

My stomach’s not growling
anymore.

Stay as far away from him
as you can. Keep sipping every ten or fifteen minutes. I'll come get you when
you're done.

“Then I won't keep you guys,”
Cici said out loud. She brought out two more thermoses and offered them to me.
Julietta grabbed one.

“Wouldn't recommend it,
sweetie,” Cici said to Julietta. “You sound a little hoarse, and this might
make whatever you're starting to come down with worse.”

Yeah, you’re right,” Jules
said, unaware of Cici’s power of suggestion. Cici calmly took the thermos out
of Jules’ hands and handed it to me. “I’ll pick you up later, sis.” She punched
my arm and headed into the flow of mortal life known as Commonwealth Avenue.

I felt right again. Jules and
I went back inside, where a frowning Sawyer had already fired up the next
track. The undecipherable look on his face told me that he, too, had put the
incident on the back burner. For now.

The work pace quickened as we
continued to delete tracks that didn't work and modify those with potential.
Some tracks had samples taken from a number of lesser-known operas, and there
were tracks with rock riffs, country, and even blues samples. The diversity of
his choices made me feel guilty for having dissed his skills.

Soon we had six hot tracks to
build our vocals on, and by the time Heist returned, we'd gone through an
additional ten and identified two more to work on. Sipping blood from the
thermos, I looked with disinterest at the food Heist brought. Sawyer retreated
with his lunch somewhere upstairs, while LaLa tore into her pizza and Julietta
slurped down her soup. I was completely grossed out.

“Want?” LaLa asked while
gesturing toward my pizza.

“Go for it.” I said.

“Your tongue's so red.
Thanks.”

She tore into a slice. Cheese
pulled in long strings from her mouth. I looked away in private disgust and
sipped more.

After lunch, we threw
ourselves back into picking out tracks from the remaining files and settled
into a groove of listening, contributing, amending, and critiquing. Sawyer had
become slightly more talkative, but not by much. I chose the chair farthest
away from him and he chuckled.

“Something funny?” I threw a
dark glare at him.

“Touché,” he quipped, turning
his attention back to the board.

As we worked, Heist would pop
in with packages, which he'd place quietly on one of the couches before heading
out again. “Efficient,” LaLa remarked while watching him take the stairs three
at a time.

She liked him. Jules’ rounded
eyes met mine in mutual surprise. This sort of thing, LaLa into a guy, didn't
happen that often. She was a rebel who didn't care what she wore, except for
her extensive collection of top-of-the-line baseball caps. She always put music
first, always had rap lyrics and razor-edged poetry bubbling at the edge of her
brain or on the tip of her tongue. Because of her strong non-girlie-girl
personality, most dudes were oblivious to her, and she to them. But Heist, with
his easy-going confidence, was one of the rare ones who caught her eye.

We were waiting for Sawyer,
who’d stopped to calibrate some doohickey on the back of his keyboard where a
mass of wires lived. He finally finished, sat on his stool, and started banging
out Beethoven's “Prometheus Overture” so rapidly the maniacal pace seemed to
propel me to another place.

Suddenly, I was downtown and
surrounded by buildings. I recognized the office building where Mom worked,
B.O.R. International. But I wasn’t actually there. My body was still in the
studio, and what I saw felt like it was viewed through some sort of tunnel.

It hit me then. I was seeing
what Cici saw.

So the mind lock was a
two-way street. She could see and experience what I was doing, and now I saw
what she saw and felt what she felt. The mind lock was responsible for the
mellow feelings I'd had all day (with the exception of wanting to eat Sawyer).
It was as if I was bathing in an invisible stream of chill. It made sense that
Cici, the most chilled-out person I knew, would rub off on me.

But now she was a bunch of
nerves, desperately wanting to get close to Mom and tell her something. Mom's
office was on the top floor of the building, and I could feel Cici's
frustration at having to adhere to the modicum of “normalcy” that dictated she
take the slow elevator as opposed to flying up there. By the time she got to
the top floor, she was about to jump out of her skin and I was fidgeting in my
chair with her anxiety. The receptionist, whose name, as I remembered, started
with a Q, greeted her before speaking into the intercom. Cici moved forward
into the office as soon as we heard Mom's terse, “Let her in.”

Mom wasn't alone. A man with
black eyes turned to Cici and I fought back a shiver as she locked her mind down.
She didn't want to know what was in this guy's head either.

“Charleston, it was a
pleasure seeing you again,” Mom lied. “Quenee will see you out.”

Charleston rose and left with
the receptionist. The door closed behind them, and Cici turned to Mom. “She's
drinking blood.”

That was it? That was what
she was so anxious to tell Mom? Why not just call or send an email? What was
the big deal? Cici collapsed into a chair, her mind on the auto-lock she used
around family. Mom sighed heavily and for a frightening second the color
drained from her face. I’d never seen her look so tired, and her
uncharacteristic gesture, putting her head in her hands, made me want to cry.

“What's happening to her,
Mom? She's not supposed to drink blood before she transforms. I don't
understand.”

Mom straightened up.
“Sweetheart, there are no hard and fast rules for The Change. Especially for
Angel. She is different.”

Different?

“How?”

“We are not sure yet.”

Perplexed, I digested this
information. Mom was pretty old, and her vast range of experience usually
supplied an answer to any question. Why not this one?

“What do we know so far?”
Cici asked.

“We know there is a hidden
part inside her consciousness. It is a place your father cannot access, even
with her permission. He discovered it last night when he touched her temple.
That place seems to have an awareness of its own, but she herself is unaware of
it. I believe this unconscious element will make itself clear after The
Change.”