Chapter Twenty-Eight

Robbie

Once I realized I was on my own, I went to the bed and gently lifted the sleep Command from Abi. I had slipped on the glasses so I could see Eli’s and my magical effects, which made it easier to tell when my Command had been lifted. It was really just a matter of soothingly undoing what I had done. I had been on the receiving end of Maggie’s gentle removals for a year and had felt the weight of the mind effects that my aunt and Mother had suppressed me with, lifted one by one. Joy eased my tension when I saw that it was easy for me to loosen my own effects.

Abi yawned and smiled up at me, then frowned for a moment. I could see the tendrils of Eli’s influence caress her. A momentary bolt of terror coursed through me when she blinked, and her eyes shifted to serpentine and her long, forked tongue shot out to sense the air. I had never seen anyone partially transform, and old instinct threatened when I thought she might attack me. Momentarily paralyzed, I also had a sense of strength. This was Abi and I knew she never would hurt me. At least I hoped as much. In the past, such a display from a Nüwa would have left me a quivering mass. Now, however, as my heart raced, I realized I had control and was able to calm myself. I took Abi’s hand gently in both of mine as her tongue whipped out into the air, so strange coming from her human lips. We sat staring at each other for several long silent minutes as I watched her internal struggle.

When Abi finally spoke to me, it was in our ancient language, one I instinctively knew but had always been forbidden to use. “Where is he?” Her tone was tight.

I considered Eli, still rooted to the chair, and tracked the prismatic effects of the vampire’s mind magic trickling over her, lulling her. She frowned in confusion, and then her eyes shifted to their normal cornflower, though somewhat glazed when she rolled out of the opposite side of the bed and slumped to her knees beside Eli. A welling rage coursed through me when I saw the strength of Eli’s will subsume my cousin’s.

He reached out his hand and gently petted Abi’s hair, smoothing it back. It was at that moment that I almost attacked him. A hundred Commands flashed through my mind and I had to take a deep steadying breath. As I was trying to control myself, the door burst open. A hiss escaped me at the intrusion, my fangs flashing. Theo’s scent was the first to hit me as my own serpentine tongue shot out. I was forced back in horror at my own partial transformation and animalistic display toward him and clamped my hands over my mouth in shame.

“Sugar,” he said evenly, having drawn up short, but then pushed through the instinctive fear that I could sense I had caused in him. I was still holding my hands tightly over my face, forcing my fangs away and puzzling at the feeling of transformed tongue as it shifted back to normal, when Theo gathered me to him. “You’re okay,” he whispered.

My breath was labored as I drew it between parted lips and nodded against his shoulder, surrendering to his strength. Theo pulled away only enough to catch my gaze. “I was watching, saw Abi on the floor with—that—and well, seemed like maybe you could use some help?”

I nodded again, not trusting myself to speak.

“Come on.” Theo guided me to the end of the bed, and we sat down opposite where Abi kneeled beside Eli, who had thankfully pulled his hand back into his lap. “So, is it Bill? Billy? Willy?”

I studied Theo questioningly, but was distracted when I noticed Eli’s eyes grow huge with shock.

“Let’s just go with Willy, eh? I don’t really care what your mom calls you, or why you’ve decided to take on your neighbor’s identity, but here’s the deal. We’ve got a couple choices to make right now. You help us fix Abi and we consider letting you go. Or, you don’t, and we fix her ourselves and decapitate you. Not a big worry either way to me. I am certain my man here can help his cousin without your help. And if he can’t, we have several vampire friends with centuries on you who can. But I figure the kind thing to do is to give you the choice, even though you didn’t bother giving one to Abs there.”

“He can’t,” I explained, deflated. “He doesn’t know how.”

“Ah, sugar, I get that.” Theo patted me on the leg. “He’s a baby vamp. Only been this way for, what, four years now?”

Eli’s mouth was open, which would have been comical if the circumstances weren’t so dire.

“And instead of doing anything truly epic with his newfound immortality, he’s spent the time screwing with his family and neighbors and jerking off to hentai. Whatever, man. We all have our things. But what you can do is try. You’ve spent this much time learning how to screw with people, but never figuring out how to help them or undo the damage you’ve done.”

Eli sat up a little straighter, seeming to gain more control over himself. “Go to hell. She’s mine.”

I don’t know what possessed me; perhaps something instinctive, buried within my psyche? But at that moment all I wanted was to slaughter the man. I realized I was singing a few moments after it had started. It was the melodious tone of our people, in the language that I knew but as a male was never supposed to use.

The sound was haunting, pacifying. I was standing, and while facing Abi and Eli, in the very back of my mind I recognized that everyone in the room was soothed, hypnotized. My forked tongue, present again, allowed me to know all the emotions in the room as I sensed the pheromones that spoke of concern and adoration from Theo, and confusion, fear, and underlying rage from Abi. But there were no pheromones from the vampire, only a sweet, almost intoxicating scent that was arousing, though fury stayed me from having a taste of him.

I knelt beside Abi, tenderly pulling her hands from where she had clutched on to the vampire’s leg. The soft symphony of my hisses and deep waves of resonance caused her to slowly turn to me, her eyes shifting back to flat golden, the slits meeting mine. There were no words, only impressions, suggestions. I saw the vampire’s mind-affecting auras around Abi shift ever so slightly, and her eyes narrowed with understanding, then fury.

I fell back and away from her when she sprung up and drove her fangs deep into Eli’s neck. The scent of his blood on the air sent a frenzy of desire through me, but I backed up against Theo, taking comfort that he was there.

Eli’s piercing screams shook me, and I found myself holding fast to Theo, unable to tear my eyes away from Abi’s attack as her arms and torso elongated, her pants shredding when her legs melded into her long tail. Innate fear shuddered through me, but I was able to continue watching when she pulled away. Blood oozed from his torn throat down his chest. But still, he was caged by my Command, so all that he could do in defense was try to push her away.

Abi grasped the vampire’s head with both hands, twisted, and tore upward in one fluid motion. The tearing sound of his flesh is something that will always haunt me. She stood with the head in her hands, held high above the corpse for only a moment before he began to dissolve. It did not fall to ash like the movies suggested, but rather began to decompose into a slick bloody mass. Abi dropped the remains with disgust, and I noticed that there was no longer any hold on her at all. The aura of subjection had lifted.