Chapter 4

The patter of rain and the scraping of wipers against the windshield tried, and failed, to lull Coral to sleep. The luxurious leather seat of Gavin’s car would have easily welcomed her to rest had she the slightest inclination to allow it. They’d been driving for three hours in near silence. Her heart hurt, and her stomach was collapsing into a single supermassive point. Long-dried tears still burned her eyes. Her tongue tingled and twitched as she replayed her parents’ explosion over and over in her mind.

But the sorrow and despair that enveloped her had now given way to a quiet fury. After eighteen years of a cookie-cutter happy family, how could her parents disavow her just because she was a hemomancer? The salt in the wound was that Gavin had offered no proof of it besides the good-Samaritan credibility he earned by saving her life. Still, they had willingly believed the grim truth without a moment’s hesitation. Were they that eager to throw her in the garbage? Then again, it wasn’t like there was no evidence at all.

The way her mother had spat with such contempt of her fall at Brown Mountain kept ringing in her ears. She remembered slipping from atop that hill, and the full-bodied agony that followed as sharp rocks stabbed and slashed at her the whole way down. It was before the Hemotech Affordability Act, in the days before Factor Eight was available cheaply over the counter; therefore she was, in all likelihood, destined to bleed out and die on that jagged slope. But hemophilia was, thankfully, no match for the power of hemomancy. It had been trivial to scratch that itch, stretch her power, and keep her blood flowing safely through her veins as she made the strenuous climb back up toward her mother. Oh, the way Mama’s face had lit up. The woman had proceeded to lord her survival over her as proof that the divine had a plan for her, that her God and Jesus and Mary were real and cared about her.

What a fucking joke.

The more Coral thought about it all, the angrier she became—not only at them, but at the man beside her in the driver’s seat whose loose lips had lit the fuse of her own personal cache of dynamite. His silence grated on her nerves almost as much as her mother’s shrill shrieking.

The lights of the highway blurred and dissolved into galaxies through the droplet-splattered glass. At some point, Coral began to count the points of light, if only to leash in her deepening despair.

Gavin let out a deep breath and passed his gaze over her for what felt like the hundredth time since the trip began. She pretended not to notice. “Hey,” he said gently.

“No,” Coral spat before he could get another word out of his mouth. “No talking. I don’t want to hear a damn thing you have to say.” Her heart raced at the outlet for her anger. The man again fell silent. Soon there was just the scraping of the windshield wipers, the pattering of the rain, the groaning of the road.

After permitting her a few moments of quiet, Gavin drew a razor-thin breath and tried again. “Listen, I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, I am. I don’t know what else to say. I had no… I simply assumed your parents were hemos, too. Maybe that was wrong of me. I didn’t think… It was careless of me, alright? And I’m really sorry about that. If I’d known, I would have weighed my words better. Would’ve said you were in trouble with the mafia, or something.”

“Lot of good that does now, huh?”

Gavin wiped his face with one hand. His lips were parted as though in mid-syllable. Coral almost felt bad. He was clearly upset over what he’d done, and his apology was obviously earnest. But whatever a sorry from a hemomancer was worth, it sure couldn’t rebuild a shattered family.

“I’m certain they’ll come around,” he said quietly. “Most families don’t go disowning daughters so easily. Once the anger fades, I’m sure they’ll be calling you to apologize.”

Devil. Demon. Verm. Those weren’t the words of someone who would be calling to apologize, especially not a woman so entrenched in her faith as Mama. “I hope you’re right.” Whatever. Just let him be done with it. The conversation was likely to strangle her if it continued any longer.

He stuttered a shaky sigh, then coughed and cleared his throat. “Do you need anything? Anything to drink or…?”

“No.” She wedged her elbow against the glass and tucked into her forearm. Her eyes fell shut, but the burn ringing her vision didn’t depart. The odds of all this being a nightmare were looking slimmer and slimmer. “So where are we going, anyway?”

“Saint Isabeau, Massachusetts. The Veil has a presence there.”

Saint Isabeau? The name of the original hemo-hunter chilled her to the bone. It sounded like anything but an auspicious destination given the circumstances. A mild but sharp smell from the heater stung her nostrils as she tried to breathe away the malaise. “Are you planning on telling me what this Veil of yours is anytime soon?”

“Ahh. Right, I keep forgetting you don’t know. I suppose it wouldn’t be right to leave you in the dark. But understanding the Orchid Veil would be impossible without touching on the Rosarium.”

Her heart stuttered. “Those guys back there?” She’d picked up as much from the conversation in the living room, but the rest was more or less a tear-streaked blur.

He grunted an affirmative as he shifted the car over into another lane to pass a rusty pickup. “The Rosarium is an old order of hemos—the oldest still around today, in fact. They’re led by a man called Lord Malthus of the Rose. Search high and low, and you won’t find a more detested individual, hemo or not. And to make a long story a wee bit shorter, the guy’s sick with something grim. Getting closer to his last legs. To keep himself kicking he’s gotta find a blood donor. Specifically, he needs a nought: a hemo with type O-negative blood to match his own. And that brings us to you.”

The gears were turning in her head, trying to process the set of circumstances that precipitated the collapse of her everything. “Why me?”

“Lordy, was my explanation that bad?”

“No, I mean, why me? You’re not gonna sit there and tell me I’m the only O-negative hemo around, right?”

Gavin grimaced, lips folded back around bared teeth. A moment later, the expression vanished. “That’s the thing. Nobody knows how many noughts are left. Most of ’em went into hiding to avoid falling into the Rosarium’s sights. The Rosarium has a history of practicing eugenics, y’see. Genocidal eugenics, really. Weak blood is a disease, or so Malthus believed. Many noughts were culled as a result. A lot of innocent hemos died for the crime of having the wrong blood type.” He sank a bit in his seat, as though haunted by something in the rearview mirror.

“Not everyone wanted to take it lying down,” he continued. “And so the Orchid Veil was born as something of a resistance movement against Malthus and the Rosarium. There’s a lot of hemos out there even today, and most of them now align with one of us or the other. More with us than against these days, due in no small part to Malthus being revealed to be a nought himself. Nobody likes a damned hypocrite, much less a genocidal one. But God sure loves his irony, so He does.”

“Hmm,” Coral hummed to feign interest. Some part of her had hoped that real-world hemomancer politics would be more interesting than the tired government-versus-resistance trope that scourged both fiction and reality. Trite though she knew it was, she’d have preferred to learn that the six great clans from Blood Watchers were accurate portrayals of the real vermilion underworld. Back in middle school, she’d sometimes fantasized about being inducted into the Seilheim clan, the silent keepers of the secret, the hunters of the bloodless horrors that stalked men in the streets. The reality, however, showed little of the fantasy’s luster. Worse, she found it hard to sympathize. Genocide of the hemos sounded awfully just in the grand scheme of things. She hated that she could feel her own blood ebbing with each beat of her heart.

Gavin gave a throaty chuckle as he glanced out of the corner of his eye at her. “You won’t be tested on this, you know.”

She sat immediately upright, startled. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to say that you’re boring me, or whatever. I just can’t relate, is all.” What the hell am I being so civil for? she thought at herself.

He squinted ahead at the road, and the rain falling on the windshield grew lighter and finer. A bolt of lightning lit the clouds far over the mountains ahead. “I know. I can’t blame you. You don’t know anything about what it is to be a hemo, I’m sure. And I understand hearing about the different families, all the Roses and Orchids and Amaranths, it’s all over your head. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you were to say what you’re really thinking right now. You don’t give a damn. You sure as hell don’t have a horse in this race. Orchid Veil, Rosarium, who cares? It’s got nothing to do with you, right?” A grim look passed between them. “Well, I’m afraid it does now. The Rosarium wants your blood bad. And they’ll do anything to get it. Malthus is a right bastard, and his men’ll kill anybody between him and his query, whether they be man or hemo.”

Her legs began to shake, and a trace of nausea ate at her throat. What the hell had she gotten herself into? What had she done to deserve any of this?

“But don’t be worrying,” Gavin said, a tiny ray of cheer shining through the somber message he’d left to rot in the singed air. “You’re in good hands. The Veil takes care of their own, and you’re no different. Hate us if you want, but you’re one of us now. And we’ll keep you safe from that bastard and his pawns.”

She was sitting in a strange car with a stranger man. She could have been killed or worse at any moment, and nobody would ever know. But despite the reality of her situation, she found his reassurance somehow soothing. He had, after all, rescued her from the men and women in black at her parents’ house. He and Jase had put their own lives on the line for what was, ultimately, her own mistake. Maybe she really was being unfair to them. She hadn’t said a single thank you.

What the hell do I have to thank anyone for? The liquid indignation returned, boiling and steaming through her. Because of them, I’ve been disowned. I have to give up my studies, my apartment, my whole damned life. Everything I own. She didn’t even have her phone charger. Just her messenger bag, forty dollars, and the medicine and muters she’d picked up from the pharmacy. No. She didn’t owe anyone any thanks.

Perhaps it was useless to be so bitter, part of her thought. It wasn’t like being mad was going to change anything now. The damage had already been done. She knew deep down that she just wanted to wallow in it, like she’d done ever since Tamara left. That was the only thing she was good at, after all. And though she was growing increasingly convinced that the likes of Seilheim and the Crimson Edge were media inventions, there was still an ember of fascination that dared to glow in her heart.

Hemomancers were, first and foremost, a mystery. That they existed at all was undisputed fact, but there was no reliable literature which explained that existence. Where had they come from? How did they control blood? Where did they really live and what did they really do? Science knew more about the structure of their blood from the carcasses sold by hemo-hunters than about the rest of the creature combined. How many humans could boast of getting to meet one in person? Childhood fantasies never truly died, she thought; they merely shut their mouths and hid in the furniture of the soul. “Can I ask something?”

Gavin ducked his chin a bit, a road-safe stand-in for a bow. “Anything you like.”

One of her fingers traced the puckered skin along the slash at her left wrist. The Factor Eight had done its job, and a crusty layer of red clotting had finally sealed the wound. “When you cornered me in that alley, you overpowered my blood so easily. And when those guys from the Rosarium or whatever showed up, I tried to fight one. But he did the same thing to me. Why couldn’t I do anything? Is it because I never got training in how to use my power?”

“You know how hemomancy works, right?”

“Obviously I don’t, or I wouldn’t be asking.”

He straightened as if she’d slapped him. “Right.” It seemed her barb had left him flustered after all her quiet simmering. “You know about blood types, right? How when you get a transfusion, you have to make sure the blood you’re getting is compatible with your system.”

“Kind of.”

“I’m no doctor, so my explanation may be a bit rough. Should pro’lly ask Jase instead of me. Basically, each letter in your typing corresponds to a certain… What’s the word? Like a feature of your blood cells. So, if you’re an A type, you’ve got these A-shaped spines on your blood cells, and if you’re a B type then you’ll have these little B-shaped things on there. Not literally shaped like the letters, mind you, they’re just proteins or some such. If you’re AB, you’ve got both, if you’re O you’ve got neither. And plus is a whole other thing. So if you’re B-positive, you’ll have some B’s and some pluses on every blood cell. And as long as the blood you receive only has jagged little proteins that your body understands, you’ll be fine. The danger comes in when there’s an unfamiliar coating involved.”

“Okay…”

He shook his head and grimaced. “Sorry, that’s a terrible explanation. But the blood hemos like us can control is linked to blood type as well. It happens to be that you can control any type of blood that you can safely receive in a transfusion. So, here’s a pop quiz, Miss Universal Donor: why couldn’t you do anything when facing me?”

His explanation, though lacking, clicked at once. A weight formed in her chest. “Because my blood’s plain, and nobody could ever be hurt by it. Because it lacks all the coating, or whatever.”

He snapped his fingers. “You’re a quick learner. That’s the problem with noughts: no matter who you go up against, the opponent will be able to manipulate your blood like it were their own. That’s called advantage.”

His explanation extinguished the spark of adventure she’d willfully tortured into existence. Nice while it lasted, I guess. “Fantastic. So let me get this whole thing straight. I was born with a shit-tier superpower that I can’t even use right, and because of that I’m being hunted by a genocidal tyrant and his organization.”

“I’m afraid so. The powers that be were not kind to noughts. But you’re not alone. Even higher-rank hemos are inferior to aces. That is, AB-positive hemos, like Jase.” His tone lowered as he seemed to recede in thought. “They can control every blood type fluently, and unless you’re an ace, too, then their blood is poisonous to you. All it takes is one tiny mistake, and it’s all over. If you believe in a god, then give ’em thanks that the only ace we ran into tonight was Blake Shields.”

“Guess that explains that.” Her heart sank again. The cuts and gashes Blake had given her in her shoulders and arms had stopped bleeding as well, but they still stung and ached in equal parts.

“Technically speaking,” Gavin continued, “it’s not impossible to force off-typed blood to obey you, even if you’re a nought. But it requires such a savage mental exertion that it’s not even worth it, except for exploring the science of it. Because by the time you’ve managed to bid the blood off the ground, you’ve been cut apart half a dozen times. Or shot. Or run over with a steamroller.”

“Great.” She didn’t care about whose blood she could control; it was the mere principle of it. By the sounds of it, she should barely have even qualified as a hemomancer in the first place. Yet all the same, she was the enemy of man, as though she herself had engineered the scourge. It was mocking how even the smallest glimmer of a silver lining was dashed at each turn. Was he doing this on purpose? Was the cosmos? The ache in her soul gnashed again at her. The damp burn in her eyes began to sizzle.

“And I suppose that concludes the first lecture on Hemomancy 101.”

“Great.” She closed her eyes, jaw clenched about the word. The relapse into despair was coming hard and fast now that the ghost of her surviving optimism had been squandered. The pattering of rain was getting heavier again, slushier. Winter truly was the season of tears.

A low, earnest sigh came from beside her. “I really am sorry, Coral. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, but… I’ll do anything I can to make this right.”

“I think it’s a bit too late for that.”

He allowed her some space, and the next half hour was uneventful. As they merged off one freeway and onto another, a buzzing rattled through the car. Gavin reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone—one of the modern miracles with touchscreens and always-on internet. He looked down at it and let out something that was either a laugh or a scoff. “That would be the man of the hour. I’ll put him over the speakers.” He nimbly tugged a cord that led to the car’s decades-old radio and jabbed the other end into a port in the phone. “Alright, Mr. Finn, you’re live on the air.”

Electrical silence hummed through the speaker system. “A good evening to you as well.” It was Jase’s voice, carrying a note of bemusement. “To both of you, I suppose.”

Coral sat up and stretched her back. She still didn’t know up from down, but a truly simple part of her hoped that her second savior would bring some good news.

“Sorry to put you on the spot,” Gavin chuckled. “I just thought she might like to say hi to you herself.”

Instead, she indulged her obstinance. Her reply consisted solely of glaring at him.

His crest fell a bit. “Nah, guess she’s still mad at me. Not that I don’t deserve it. How are things on your end?”

“About as good as we could hope.”

“That bad, huh?”

“About twenty minutes ago we got buzzed by the rest of the Rosarium’s presence here. Guess Blake legged it all the way to her apartment to warn them that we were there.”

Gavin snickered. “What a good little soldier.”

“We do have a problem, though.”

“Just one? We are in good shape then!”

Jase exhaled slowly, and the weight of it sent a shiver along Coral’s spine. “Coral’s parents were talking to the police. I don’t know the details of the conversation, but I think we should assume they’re cooperating. So the police now know that at least two hemos were crawling around the area. And from the state’s point of view, those Rosarium goons we gunned down were humans who got caught out by a pair of verms. We’re probably going to see the hemo-threat level hit orange or higher tonight.”

“Bleedin’ fantastic. If they set up any checkpoints between here and Saint Isabeau I might have a hard time explaining my relation to this girl. And at this point, she’s liable to finger me as a kidnapper.” His voice sounded contrite but was wrapped in a sardonic chuckle that rang utterly false. He was wounded. Was she being unfair to him? She was reminded again of the relative gravity of things.

“Where are you now?” Jase asked.

Gavin briefly craned his neck forward and peered somewhere past the falling sheets of slush. “Virginia. We’re about twenty miles out of Richmond.”

“In that case, I’ll make sure the police focus their efforts on North Carolina.”

“You’re not going to do anything rash are you?”

“How rash would a fake scourge bomb threat be under the circumstances?”

The tiniest of smirks carved away the gloom on Gavin’s face. “Great, we’ve officially resorted to juvenile pranks. Lady Leblanc’s judgment sure has been slipping as of late.”

“That reminds me,” the voice crackled. “I talked briefly with Lady Leblanc on the phone a moment ago. I told her that we’ve found Coral and are taking her back. She was disturbed, to say the least, to hear that the Rosarium was also aware of her. Since the three of us were careful, it’s unlikely there was a traitor in Saint Isabeau, but higher up the information chain things get spottier. Just to be safe, and hedging against the unthinkable, nobody besides Lady Leblanc knows you two will be arriving. So expect some heads to turn when you get into the office.”

Gavin hummed quietly, a note nearly indistinguishable from the hissing of the heater. “Makes things a bit complicated, doesn’t it? No worries. I’ll see to it nothing happens to her.”

“Fantastic,” Jase said, “I plan to stick around here for the time being. I don’t know if I’ll be able to give her parents the details on the Veil’s relocation package, but I can at least make sure the Rosarium doesn’t make a move on them.” A pause lingered, seemed to vibrate through the steady stream of air blowing off the heater’s grill. “You’re sure Coral’s there with you? It’s awfully quiet.”

“I’m here,” she said meekly.

“Good. How are you feeling?”

What the hell was she even supposed to say to that? How could she distill all the loss, all the anger, all the fear, all the confusion into a single concise reply? “I’m alright,” she said at last.

“Ahh, the sound of a woman’s lie. How sweet it is.” A warm chuckle melted through the speakers. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine. We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

His comforting tone sparkled with kindness. She didn’t know what to do with it. A normal human would be grateful to be taken care of, she supposed. Then again, she wasn’t really a human, was she?

“At any rate, I’ve some work to attend. I’ll leave her in your capable hands, Gavin. Protect her at all costs.”

Gavin’s jaw tensed. A severe expression came upon him. “Don’t be worrying. I gave you my word, didn’t I?”

“Brilliant. I’ll be in touch.”

The speakers clicked softly, and again they were alone.

Gavin grumbled a little and popped the cable out of his phone. “Jase is a good man,” he said quietly. “We’ve been friends for a long, long time. If you’d be so kind, I’d ask you to not take it out on him.”

The warmth from the heater was blistering. Sweat began to form on her neck, so Coral again pressed her face into the window to savor the chill bleeding through from the other side. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“What’s that?”

“I said I’m sorry. I know I’m being ungrateful. I know you two risked your lives to protect me. And I promise I’m thankful for that.” Her throat quivered. “I just can’t express it right now.”

Gavin breathed out slowly. There was a note of relief, however small, that filled the car. “Perhaps you should try to get some sleep. We’ll be driving through to midday tomorrow.”

“Not tired.” It was a lie, and a self-destructive one at that. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. If anything, it would make awakening that much more painful; the single moment where she was uncertain if she was dreaming or not would just be a rerun of her heartbreak. It was better to stay alert and let numbness swallow her whole.

The streetlights on the highway continued to blur past. Coral found herself staring at the cut on her wrist. She focused on the throbbing of her heart, on the way her veins bulged imperceptibly as the fluid coursed through her. Each circulation carried her farther and farther from home.