Echoes of Blood and Glory Page 6

  “Yeah. Or turning one off.”

  “Like the gene that controls healing or being immune to the sun?”

  Seti snapped his fingers. “Exactly.”

  “You know one of the things that’s bothered me?” Rose leaned back in her chair and stretched. Staring at her computer for too long hurt her neck. “Why are all these vampires and crawlers listening to Dr. Stone? Why don’t they just kill him?”

  “Vampires and crawlers are bound to the ones who created them,” Seti said.

  “It helps them survive.” Ra held one finger on the ivory-colored queen. “Lone vampires are rare. They stay with their makers. Create a family.”

  “But crawlers aren’t part of that family.” From what the guys had said, they were pretty expendable.

  “No.” Horus watched Ra. “Are you going to move your queen or think about it all day?”

  “In a hurry?” his brother responded testily.

  “Why would anyone make a crawler?” Rose asked. If, like they’d said, crawlers often resulted from some of the dregs of humanity being turned, what was the point?

  “I think it was nature’s way of keeping things balanced,” Seti said. “Imagine if you took the worst person in the world, gave him all the powers of a vampire, and immortality. Can you imagine?”

  A dozen figures from history went through her mind and she shuddered at the thought. “Yes.”

  “Crawlers might be immortal, but their power is really only in their bite. They’re soft and easily destroyed.” Ra moved his queen and Horus clucked his tongue.

  “They depend on the vampire who created them for protection, and in return, will use what power they do have for their makers.” Horus smiled. “Checkmate. You have to stop protecting your queen, Ra. You end up forgetting about the king.”

  Ugh. “So there’s something internal that compels them to listen to their maker?” Rose asked. “Is that true for all vampires?”

  The brothers exchanged glances. “It is very difficult,” Ra said, “for vampires to leave their maker, but it happens. Briar’s husbands left theirs, and he waited centuries to get his revenge.”

  Hmm. The sun was starting to go down, but the sky was still overcast. Rose stood from where she sat and went to the window, leaning against the casement. The pretty snow from earlier had partially melted from the freezing rain, revealing what had been concealed: a bird bath. A Greek statue.

  She stared, watching the shadows move over the wet earth as she thought about what the guys had explained. Dr. Stone was a vampire maker now, and he did it by giving them blood.

  Humming, she turned away from the window. That didn’t seem right. He was a human. “Is it difficult to leave the vampire who makes you because there’s something connecting you?” Touching the spot on her chest that connected her to the guys, she glanced at each of them. “Is it emotional?”

  “Kind of.” Seti came to stand next to her. He put his arm around her waist and spun her until she faced him. He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “Actually, I don’t know. It could be chemical. When we left Asher, it was easy.”

  They’d mentioned something before about the vampire who had made Briar’s husbands.

  “But we were a family before Asher,” Horus said.

  “So blood bonds you,” she said. “Briar’s husbands are brothers because they share the same blood. But they’re also family because they choose to stay together. What does that make me?”

  “What do you mean?” Ra asked. He narrowed his eyes, studying her. “We care about you very much.”

  She waved that aside, then when Seti started to laugh, realized how that looked. “Sorry. I wasn’t being dismissive of your feelings. What I meant was—what does that make me to the vampires and crawlers Dr. Stone created. It’s my blood, right?”

  Ra stood slowly, unfolding from the chair like some great, hunting panther. “It is your blood. And if your blood is creating vampires, then you’re their maker.”

  11

  Horus

  “She’s their maker.” Horus repeated his brother’s pronouncement. “That’s why the crawlers and vampires are drawn to her.”

  Rose’s nose wrinkled. “Like their mother? That’s creepy. Not that vampires aren’t creepy on their own—”

  Ra raised one eyebrow, and Horus chuckled.

  “Not you!” she answered quickly. “You’re not creepy, but you have to admit, the way the crawlers ooze…” She made claw fingers and drew her hands into her chest like she was a velociraptor.

  While the movement wasn’t a crawler’s, the clawed fingers were right on. Her brief bit of humor disappeared a second later. “I don’t want to be anyone’s maker. Is there something I’m giving off, like a scent or some high-pitched noise that attracts them?”

  “I don’t know,” Ra answered. “I never asked Hudson or his brothers why they stayed with Asher, so I can’t explain why vampires are drawn to their makers, just that they are. And because we don’t have one, all we have are guesses.”

  “Well, do I smell weird?”

  She smelled wonderful. Her scent constantly teased Horus’s nose.

  He took a step toward her, breathing deeply. Sweet and earthy. No one who smelled her would know that there was poison inside her.

  “It wasn’t your scent that drew me toward you,” he said. Never—no matter how much time passed—would he forget the instant his chest warmed from her presence. “It was the heat.”

  She smiled. It was one of happiness and a little embarrassment. Her fingers drummed on her breastbone before she let her hand fall away. Smile disappearing, she bit her lip. “I have a hard question.”

  Horus studied her. The door between their minds wavered. “Go on,” Ra told her.

  “Have you ever made another vampire?”

  Not in a thousand years did he expect that to come out of her mouth. He should have. They were just talking about makers and creators and crawlers and soldiers.

  It was Seti whose thoughts flooded his mind. The taste of blood flowing down his throat. The sensation of teeth sinking past skin and into muscle.

  The power of commanding an army.

  The glory of it all.

  Rose’s tan face went slack, and she stepped back. Seti’s thoughts had appeared in her head, too.

  Horus’s brother fought against the tide of blood and memories, but it was too strong, and Ra was the one who had to shut the door.

  12

  Rose

  “You made them and then you killed them.” She couldn’t believe it. If she hadn’t felt their bodies give way as the brothers pulled the vampires to pieces, she would have thought it was just a nightmare.

  Her legs gave out, and she tumbled into a chair.

  “Why?”

  Horus and Seti stared at each other. The rage on Horus’s face was hard to ignore, but not as hard as the horror on Seti’s.

  “Seti.”

  He shut his eyes, let out a breath, and faced her.

  13

  Seti

  Why? Why had she had to ask that question? He couldn’t stop the memories when they started. They’d glossed over their past—the one before they joined Asher.

  Their past—covered in blood with stacks of bodies a mile long—was what had drawn Asher to them, and ultimately, bound them together. The last thing he wanted to do was tell her what he’d been.

  Father to a hundred soldiers.

  Maker of crawlers.

  Creator of vampires.

  In those long-ago times, his hurt and rage had been boundless and rivaled only by his brothers’. Once they’d begun to kill, they hadn’t stopped.

  Not for hundreds of years.

  They’d been the night army for ruthless humans, and then slaughtered those men and women when the war turned dull.

  Seti could picture himself. Blue eyes flashing, sword raised and dripping the same blood that stained his lips. His past self stared at the body at his feet. A beautiful queen, adorned in jewels and silks,
her throat open, spilling blood all over her throne.

  His throne.

  Wrenched out of the memories by a gasp, he suddenly became aware of Rose and the way she trembled.

  She took a deep breath, shutting her eyes. “I—” She shook her head. The door between their minds was shut tight, made of metal and too strong for him to wrench open. It hurt his soul not to see into her mind. “I asked a question,” she whispered it to herself. “I got an answer.” Slowly, the metal slid open. “Don’t judge me too harshly.”

  Don’t judge her too harshly?

  Horror. That was the first emotion that hit him. But it was the one in a one-two punch, because dread followed it.

  Vampires who made other vampires were akin to parents in her mind. That was why, when she saw what he had done to the vampires he’d made, she was shocked.

  Seti laughed without humor. “If demons are children, then yes, they were my children.”

  “We were all their makers,” Ra explained; his voice was deep and icy. “Horus, Seti, and me. Your horror should include all of us.”

  14

  Rose

  It wasn’t fair that she’d put them on a pedestal. They’d never asked to be there. Now here she was, shocked because in the thousands of years they’d lived, they’d done things.

  As if murder and pillaging and ravaging was a thing.

  One image stuck with her. It stayed, spot lit, in the front of her mind. A man in a dusty street, frozen in fear. And Seti, staring down at him, unmoving.

  Then he turned, striding in the opposite direction.

  Vampires streamed past Seti, who—sword still clutched in hand—put his hands over his ears to block out the sounds of an entire village slain.

  Eating.

  Drinking.

  Tearing.

  Ripping.

  Gorging.

  Rose covered her eyes with her hands. “I see. Okay. Just give me a second.” Her chest hurt.

  “There was no stopping that army. If we had been careful, cared about the people we turned, perhaps there would have been men or women worth saving. Instead, we created a mindless, hungry machine. It was never satisfied. Never.” Ra spoke so quietly Rose barely heard him, but maybe that was because the screams were still in her head.

  “The honorable thing to do would have been to end our own lives along with theirs, but it is exceptionally difficult to die.” Horus leaned against the bookshelf. He crossed his arms over his chest. Shame. His sentiments struck Rose right in her already aching heart.

  “No.” She glared at Horus. “I never would think that honorable.” The sheer number of vampires in their memories had been overwhelming—so many she couldn’t count them. When Ra thought of them, they spread over hills and valleys, a black mass of movement passing like a shadow over the land. It stretched so far, no one face could be made out. “They would have taken over the world,” she thought aloud. “So many vampires. So much hunger.”

  “Yes,” Seti replied. “We thought to leave them with Asher, but he was already too powerful.”

  She was beginning to make sense of it all. “So you called them to you and killed them. The crawlers and soldiers would have been easy enough. But the individual vampires…” She trailed off. “They must have fought.”

  “It was our last battle,” Horus said. “And perhaps the first one that ever made a difference to the world. We didn’t want to kill them, but we’d shaped them, molded them into killers, and they never looked to be more than that.”

  “We tried,” Seti added. “Before the decision was made. We wondered if it was possible to change the way they saw the world.”

  He presented an image to her. A young man, handsome and strong, who listened with rapt attention to whatever Seti was saying. Rose could feel Seti’s hope—would all it take was a conversation or some insight?

  But no.

  All it took was one opportunity to kill, and the young man was lost. And when Seti tried to explain, he laughed. “Why would I ever live as a house cat when I am a lion? Do you think I will be happy eating rats when I’ve torn apart kings?”

  “It took a long time.” Horus dragged his hands over his head. “Those vampires. But even the soldiers and crawlers, they screamed when the sunlight hit their skin. We forced ourselves to stand there, watching them burn as penance for what we’d made.”

  And now Rose was in the same position they’d been in. Even if those vampires had been made without her knowledge, they were her blood. Which made them her responsibility.

  “Remember all those fighting moves you showed me?” she asked.

  “No.” Ra’s response was immediate. “They are not yours. You didn’t make them.”

  “I did.” She replied just as he had, infusing every word with her resolve. Speaking aloud, she went on, “I’m not going to be able to come up with some serum that turns them into the sort of crawlers or soldiers that should exist—which is a weird thought—but I will control them. That’s my DNA inside them. My blood. I’m their creator.”

  Seti studied her, more serious than she liked seeing him. “We don’t know if that will work.”

  “We don’t know that it won’t. Look…” She rubbed her forehead. “What do we have to lose? The last time we ran into daytime crawlers they pulled me out of my apartment and nearly killed Horus. What if I could have controlled them? Turned them right around and sent them after Dr. Stone?”

  “You want to try.”

  Horus hissed. “Seti.”

  “There are three of us, Horus,” he snapped. “And we can’t clear this city without some help. Not at the rate Stone is making them. And our advantage”—he glanced at Ra and then away—“may have been taken away.”

  “Fuck,” Rose said.

  “They’ll want to do what you ask,” Seti said. “It’s an imperative, an urge. If, if, we can figure out how you do that.”

  “Well.” It seemed obvious enough to her. “How did you do it?”

  “I want to stop talking about this.” Ra strode between them. “I don’t want to talk about controlling armies and destroying them. Not right now.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but he fixed her with a bright gold stare. “Please.”

  Slowly, she nodded. Ra had shut the door between them, but those eyes gave him away. “Okay. We’ll take a break for now.”

  Some of his tension drained, and the gold darkened to amber. “Thank you.”

  Ra. What was he struggling with right now? This was the first time Rose had felt like she wasn’t enough for them. She wanted to comfort Seti, wipe the glare from Horus’s face, and figure out what the fuck was causing Ra to shut down.

  There wasn’t enough of her to go around. Fix what needed to be fixed.

  Rose imagined whispering to Seti and Horus, to them and only them. “Ra needs something.” Was that too vague? Probably, but all she knew was that she didn’t want to watch him pull away.

  “Yes.” Thank god they understood. There wasn’t any jealousy or anger in their response.

  Ra turned to leave, but she caught his hand. “Go for a walk?” she asked, even though it was dark and bound to be windy and cold. Probably wet.

  He stared at her.

  “I need some fresh air.” It wasn’t a lie. She would like to get out of the house. “We can walk down the driveway. Or around the house.”

  Gaze traveling from her socked feet to sweater, he studied her. “Coat and boots. Hat.”

  “Yes, sir!” She saluted him, and his eyes darkened a little more. Success.

  In moments, she was wearing a pair of too-big mud boots and a raincoat. Ra shoved a hat on her head, and opened the door. “Hold on to me.” He offered his arm like a gentleman. “You don’t see as well in the dark.”

  “So you’ll keep me from wandering off,” she replied as they went down the steps and sloshed down the driveway.

  “I’d never let you go.”

  At first, Rose wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. Silence filled th
e space between them. In the distance, she could make out traffic. The wind swirled around them, and she shivered, moving a little closer to him.

  “Was it common for parents in Egypt to name their children after gods?”

  He stilled, drawing them to a stop before he began walking again. “You’ve been doing some research.”

  “Someone got me a computer,” she teased. “And I’m curious.”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “My father was named Ra. I was his first-born son. We would have to ask my great-great-however-many grandparents that question. If you’re hinting that I might be the god worshipped in Egypt, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I’m merely an immortal.”

  “Merely an immortal. You realize how that sounds, don’t you?” Leaning her head on his arm, she squinted into the darkness. “I know you don’t want to talk about your past.” Despite his gentle hold, his muscles were clenched, his arm rock hard. “And I don’t want to upset you, but I feel like I have to say this—I’m going to figure out a way to kill the crawlers and soldiers.” She didn’t recognize her own voice when she made that pronouncement. It was hard. Decisive.

  “You sound much like I did.” Ra covered her hand with his. His skin was warm, chasing away the chill from the wind and cold. “But it’s easy to say something, and much harder to do it. No.” He paused. “Sometimes, doing the thing is just as easy, it’s living with what you’ve done that can be unbearable.”

  Was that how he felt? Like the things he’d done were unbearable? Did he not have a single bright memory he looked back on and was proud of?

  She took her hand from his and touched the center of her chest. The idea stabbed her in the heart. “It’s strange how quickly I’ve come to care about you. It breaks my heart to think you’re unhappy. Or that you’ve lived an unhappy life.”

  He sniffed, and she almost smiled. His face was easy to imagine, chin lifted, eyes glittering. Proud and distant. “I haven’t spent much time considering my happiness.”