Hotblood (2 page)

I let my eyes and attention wander to take in the crowd. It looked like the entire town and then some had turned out for the event. I saw a few high schoolers standing around the coffin. One girl had white blond hair that stood in sharp contrast to the requisite black. When I looked past the coffin, a flash of lightning illuminated a line of men with umbrellas. It took that flash of light for me to see them in the growing darkness. I sighed at the heat and rush of adrenaline as my body prepared for a fight. I inhaled deeply trying to contain the fury as my senses filled with the stench of their blood. If I didn’t contain my irrational anger they would kill me, or worse.

For a moment I contemplated how many I could take out first then shook off the thought. I’d put a great deal of effort into convincing Wilds and the rest of the world that I was already dead. The dead were the only souls they didn’t try to meddle with. Wilds were always tricky with their tenacious belief that whatever they were doing was morally superior, along with their abilities to manipulate elements, but the House of Slide were trained to kill. All of them had fought hand to hand in real battles. The big one, the one called Satan had taken out more Hotbloods than I cared to think about. He actually liked fighting. Most Wilds thought that was below them when they could manipulate things without getting their hands dirty. That was one reason Hotbloods were so often used to do the dirty work. I felt assaulted by their Wild blood but struggled almost successfully to smother out the heat in my eyes. Old Peter had warned me about the father, but he hadn’t said that every one of the legendary House of Slide brothers would be in attendance. It was the kind of thing he would know.

The black-haired woman in the center shared their blood. I could smell it. She must be Helen, former daughter to the House of Slide who had given up her House for love. I held my breath as I studied the Wild woman. She looked as calculating and icy as any Wild I’d known. The whole thing made my head ache. Why was Slide making such a big show for someone who had been disowned? The man at her side opened an umbrella and covered her and the slumped figure between them. I shifted trying to make out who it was.

The wind began to pick up, and I could smell the sorrow in waves and gusts as the grieving people looked yearningly towards the coffin. I’d known more than enough Wilds in my time, but I’d never been to a packed funeral where everyone felt real regret at the loss.

“
Who’s in the box?” I whispered.

“
Devlin, Son of Helen and Alex Sanders.”

I looked down and for some reason felt a wave of heat as I looked at the umbrella the man held. “It’s not even raining yet. What does he think the umbrella is going to protect her from?”

Old Peter glanced over at me, and I tried to shake off my irritation. I had more important things to worry about than a single irrelevant girl crouching between Helen and Alex Sanders. I tried to put her out of my mind then, shrugging, I breathed deeply and tried to focus on her scent. It would give me something to distract me from the Wilds who made it so difficult to stay cool. It was something to do, to trace a scent while the wind blew hundreds of different smells at me. I had the strong odor of the woman Helen to guide me. I caught a flash of something enticing from the mystery girl just before the subtle scent of the man holding the umbrella struck me like a physical blow.

I exhaled and closed my eyes as the first spattering drops fell from the sky. I let my senses drown in the smell of ozone. When I thought I had myself under control, I opened my eyes and studied the threesome closest to the casket. The man’s silver hair trailed down his back. His scent was difficult to pick up like all Cool ones, but he was much more than simply Cool. He was a Cool enhanced by Nether blood. As a rule I stayed away from Cools. I didn’t like the way that they could manipulate people. While most of them were willing to relax and embrace nature they weren’t anything like defenseless or stupid. If the Cool was who I thought he was, you couldn’t let him get inside your head or he would never get out. Some people thought Wilds knew how to play games and scheme, but they were nothing compared to motivated Cools. Happily, most Cools were content to let things go. This one was not. Old Peter hadn’t mentioned why he was so dangerous. If he had there was no way I would have come. He was tall like all Nether and slender. I couldn’t be certain at this distance but I had a strong suspicion that his face was on the deck of cards at Old Peter’s house. Cools lived a very long time even without the Nether blood. Did the woman beside him know what he was? She watched nothing and everything like a Wild, but she always kept her body between the slight figure beside her and everyone else. I noticed that every individual was centered, not on the coffin as I’d first thought but on that threesome and the single person in the center.

Who was she? I wondered if it was an old grandmother from one of the families, but nothing I’d smelled of her was Wild. I tried to recall everything I’d heard about the House of Slide. While they’d had a long and inglorious past for the last decade or so they’d been ominously quiet. The only news was that although Helen had been disinherited, her son was the future of the house. Apparently the future now lay in a coffin.

The crowd began shifting as the wind picked up speed, flapping dresses against legs. The sound of rain beating its way across the hills triggered a running exodus towards the cars. Not a lot of people had brought umbrellas and this wasn’t going to be your run-of-the-mill May shower. Old Peter didn’t flinch as we were pelted with rain that stung my cheeks. It felt good. I would have found it refreshing if I weren’t still preoccupied with the brothers of the House of Slide, a Nether Cool, and her, the mysterious central figure. When the hail began, I shifted to block Old Peter from most of it wishing I could run away or fight something. I watched the three huddled together under the black umbrella with the same attention that Old Peter gave them. Another flash of lightning illuminated the seven Wild brothers of the House of Slide as they gathered near the grave. It grated that it was nearly impossible to see them in their nondescript trench coats even with my eyes. The largest of the brothers motioned, and two others lowered the casket.

I flinched as a hailstone struck me on the neck through my hood. I could hear the steady slopping sound as they shoveled mud onto the coffin. The seven of them made quick work of the job until there was a mound. The other guests would be disappointed when they emerged from their cars and found the service finished. Helen stepped forward, and I kept my eyes trained waiting for the moment I would finally get a clear view of the central figure. It was no use; she moved with Helen. I clenched my fists as wave after wave of frustration ripped through me.

I felt the gathering of electricity the moment before it came together in one bright flash and exploded into the earth. Helen kept her feet but the girl fell to her knees. For a moment I saw an outline of her but then the uncles and Helen blocked me as they helped her to her feet. Alex Sanders, the Nether, walked with her towards his car. At the last second the girl held back and turned to take one last look at the grave. I stopped breathing when I saw her face.

Seeing her was so unbalancing that I reached out to that other sense, the one I avoided using if I possibly could. The world around me disappeared into a blurry melding of inanimate and animate. Everything was reduced to its basic spiritual structure. The brothers and Helen were darkly burning sparks with red lines wrapped around their bodies. Where the girl had been was nothing. I stared blindly in front of me, hardly noting the flashing silver fire of Alex before he ducked into the car. I turned to Old Peter and stared at him dumbly as the sparkling of his soul faded and I could see him with my eyes.

“
Huh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I stared into the distance instead. When I looked at the world through that sense, I could see what people really were. I could see a person’s energy. Some people can see auras, but I could see souls. Every living person has a soul, well, everyone except for this one girl apparently.

Old Peter turned and started walking back home. “Well?”

I started after him and felt a building fury that would no doubt leave me with a headache. “Well, what? Not that it wasn’t an enjoyable afternoon, but I have no idea what I was supposed to learn from that sermon. I feel like I’m dealing with Wilds again. I’ve successfully avoided Wilds for years, and now I have to go right back to the beginning. Do you know how frustrating that is? I don’t even know who she is. I don’t know why I care. Every time I run into you, things get complicated.” I realized that I was pointing a finger at him, and I shoved my hands in my pockets and focused on my steps across the unstable graveyard. Water streamed beneath my feet towards the road. At least the hail had quit.

Old Peter shuffled along with me and put his hand on my arm when he slipped in the mud. “You didn’t see it. No, you’re not losing your mind. You didn’t see it because it wasn’t there. So the question now would be where is it?”

No one liked to talk about this kind of thing. It was brave of Old Peter to bring it up, and I should appreciate his efforts at clarity. I should not want to pound him into… I slumped slightly and tried to submit but the fury wasn’t hot enough. It was burning steady just below submission. Irritating. “It was not just a trick of the light? She really doesn’t have a soul? What happened? Who is she?”

Old Peter shook his head sadly. “Dariana Sanders was the little sister of Devlin Sanders, daughter to Helen and Alex Sanders, current Daughter of the House of Slide.”

I looked at him waiting for more, then impatiently prodded him. “And she’s missing her soul? Did anyone check the lost and found?” I winced when the words came out of my mouth while he scowled at me. I had a tendency to make bad jokes under stress. “Sorry. Did she lose it when her brother died?”

He shook his head. “She’s been soulless for a decade or so.”

I stared at him then looked forward through the driving rain. There wasn’t anything to say to a statement that impossible. I knew souls. For as long as I could remember, I’d been able to see people, know what they really were. Good people, bad people—the one thing they all had in common was that they had a soul. Some people’s souls were barely alive. Some people fed their souls to demons, but there was always something. People couldn’t live without their souls, at least not long. I recalled the image of her face, burned indelibly in my mind. I pushed past the impression of shocking beauty and recalled the sunken eyes, the pallor of her skin, and the way she’d trembled as she moved. It was possible to survive a few days without a soul, a few weeks if someone knew what he was doing, but anything longer than that was impossible.

“
Huh.” We walked along in silence while I considered my options. Old Peter was usually right about everything, but he couldn’t be right about this. There was absolutely nothing right about a girl, who looked to be about seventeen or eighteen, to have had no soul for a decade. I realized that I was rubbing the scar across my chest and forced my hand back to my pockets. I glanced at Old Peter and his lowered head covered in sodden white hair, his scalp visible beneath the thin strands. He moved slowly, more slowly than I’d ever seen. For a moment I felt concerned that he might catch a chill in the rain before I reminded myself what he was capable of.

“
Aren’t you going to ask how she lost her soul?” Old Peter finally said.

“
How?” It surprised me that he knew, and if he knew that he’d tell me.

“
Her brother took it.” He looked at me and gave me a gummy smile. “Yep. Her brother took it and kept her alive. I don’t think she’s had any human contact besides him since then. Not that she’d care,” he finished glumly.

I slowed and let him get ahead of me while I struggled to understand why I was anything other than vaguely interested. I burned up with a fury that made it difficult to be entirely in control of myself, but I wasn’t quite hot enough that submitting would do any good. I had an irrational urge to turn around and do something with the grave; what exactly, I had no idea, but I was sure I could come up with something. I wasn’t used to digging up graves and messing around with corpses, but I had a few friends… I took a deep breath and let the fury fill me and dissipate. It would do no good to bring someone back from the dead just so I could kill him again.

“
Do you want dinner before you head back to the city?”

“
Yeah. I’d like that.” My head was pounding, and although I could handle it, Old Peter made a fine concoction that helped Hotbloods and the aftereffects of the furies we had to deal with. “I may hang around for a few days. I’m a little bit curious.” That was an understatement. “It’s not something I’ve ever seen before,” I said, trying to justify myself as Old Peter gave me a wry look that seemed to understand my motives better than I did. “She has no soul?”

Old Peter shook his head then shrugged. “We’ll slaughter something. What are you in the mood for?”

That meant I would do the killing. I would also be standing in the yard packaging meat three hours later when Old Peter leaned out of the screen door to see if I was making a mess of it. It wasn’t like me to be so slow, but I was in a careful mood. The fury was lurking right behind my eyes, and I still felt like a visit to the gravesite might be a good idea. It wasn’t a good idea. It was one of the worst ideas I’d ever had, and I’d had some bad ones. The girl’s uncles would be hanging around for at least twenty-four hours. They had sealed the grave with lightning. That wasn’t an ordinary precaution most people took to keep a dead body in its grave. Of course, they were Wilds with traditions that were actually relevant. It was in everyone’s best interest that a body with those capacities stayed where it was.