Bloodlands Read online

  But, most of all, Abby had made him wonder if trading his monster in for a better self truly did improve him.

  “The books,” he said, nodding at the shelves. “No wonder you’re so steeped in the Old American language. You study how everyone used to talk and you’ve kept yourself away from all the dialects out there.”

  “There’re too many to keep track of, anyway.” Mariah set the book down on a crate table and turned the page, all while keeping touch with that revolver. “You speak Old American pretty naturally yourself.”

  All right, so she wasn’t very distracted just yet. Like most shut-in citizens in the hubs, she was relatively focused.

  Mariah didn’t even glance up from the book. Chaplin squatted on his haunches next to her, bright-eyed as he wagged his tail.

  Gabriel winked at his familiar, who, in spite of his helpfulness, still retained such loyalty to his mistress. Then he addressed his hostess’s comment, which had seemed conversational, though he was under no illusion that this was anything but a continued interrogation.

  “I speak Old American,” he said, “because I lived in a sanctuary in the Southblock. We cut ourselves off from society there, just as you folks did out here. There’re a lot of places that outside forces haven’t corrupted yet.”

  The mention of the Southblock finally merited a glance from Mariah, probably because it was a mass of states—the remaining part of Florida that hadn’t been consumed by encroaching waters, and what used to be known as Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi—that had been born from chaos. They’d once tried to secede from the Union, and it was the first part of the United States that the government had officially locked down with martial law.

  By then, Gabriel had already become a vampire, saved by a young, anonymous, self-appointed female with frizzy dark hair and eyes like the shine of a firebird. She’d come to him a few years after the mosquito epidemic, when he’d been, like many others, still consistently drunk off his ass after the loss of his family. But that hadn’t stopped her from continuing her personal crusade to lure every human she met into a shadowed place, where she would bite, then exchange blood with one of her “lambs” to keep them alive, because monsters had proven immune to existing diseases and were said to adapt to new conditions quickly.

  At first, he was grateful for what she’d done, and to hear her whisper her intentions to him during the exchange. She’d offered hope and what he thought would be a path to sobriety in such a time of darkness, but that was before the bloodlust had really hit. Still, he’d tried to locate her that night after he’d recovered, wishing for some real guidance in this new form. When he’d been unsuccessful in that, he’d spent weeks on her trail, only to hear that she’d been caught by a government-sanctioned slayer—one of the “Shredders.” However, for some reason, this Shredder hadn’t terminated her. Gabriel would’ve known if the slayer had done it, too, because, during his initiation in that black alley, his creator had left him with a slim survival pamphlet he’d eventually destroyed because it could prove easy evidence of his preter status. He’d read the thing before getting rid of it, and at least it’d said that his maker’s termination would result in the return of his humanity.

  But that hadn’t happened just yet. And even if he got his soul back, he highly doubted he’d ever get rid of his monster, something he clung to even as he wished he could cut it out of him.

  Once exposed, always mentally infected, he thought.

  “I’ve heard of the Southblock,” Mariah said, still in investigatory mode. “Why’d you leave?”

  Because Abby had disappeared without any warning.

  But he didn’t mention it, even if Chaplin sensed what was haunting Gabriel and lowered his tail, tilting his head in empathy.

  “I’ve already told you why I came out to the Badlands,” Gabriel said instead. “It’s not as crowded here. The Southblock sanctuary was filling up, and I thought that’d lead to a raid all too soon. I got out before bad guys got hold of us and took what was left of what we had.”

  And then he’d hunted clues from east to west, tracking rumors of one person having seen Abby, then another. The path had finally guided him out here, into the New Badlands, to this community.

  With every passing second, Gabriel was itching to say Abby’s name—to ask Mariah if she’d ever seen a woman with kind brown eyes and a smile that had all but disappeared on the night Abby had discovered Gabriel wasn’t like her. But he held back, knowing his questions would only be shot down.

  Even Chaplin had blocked Gabriel’s initial queries about Abby. Both mistress and companion were protective about their hidden community, about the details of their lives and those of the other Badlanders. Gabriel had the feeling they’d been burned before, yet they were only hosting him based on Chaplin’s instincts that their guest truly wasn’t there to do them any harm.

  Mariah finally closed that book, but when she gripped the butt of her weapon, Gabriel knew he hadn’t passed any kind of test.

  Then she fired away—just not with her revolver.

  “The crucifix,” she said. “Your cold skin. Sleeping all day. Everything else about you . . .”

  Too late, he spied the cover of the old book she’d been reading.

  Monsters.

  He would need more than damage control here. Someone like Mariah might have it in her to disable him and then turn in his body to high authority for compensation. Before monsters had been deemed “cleared away” by the government, they used to be worth decent bounty, even to a recluse.

  But he’d come a long way, and it would require more than a revolver to scare him. He had taken the gamble of living among humans in the Southblock, just to follow Abby there. He had risked going outside the sanctuary when he required feeding. He had been ready to die just to be near her because being away seemed even more suicidal.

  Now, in this moment of possible exposure, Gabriel forced a grin that was even more seemingly careless than before.

  “Vampires?” he asked Mariah, as if her question were too amusing to pursue.

  She didn’t draw her weapon, but she didn’t release it, either. Next to her, Chaplin’s eyes weren’t bright anymore as the dog watched her, as if he dreaded having to make a decision between defending his new master and helping his old one.

  “Hey,” Gabriel Yo, his voice low and calm as he held up his hands in placation. It was still a better option than swaying her; that would be the worst thing to do, testing her wariness. Last night when he was injured, he hadn’t cared as much. “If I were a vampire, I’d daresay you’ve got the wrong weapon with you. Aren’t they supposed to be killed by stakes and the like?”

  She gestured with her free hand toward the book. “Or fire or decapitation.”

  “Come on, Miss Mariah. Vampires and other preternatural things are only tales. Surely you know that, even out here.”

  “And that’s why they have Shredders running round?” she asked.

  Even the word itself was enough to send a shiver of wariness up Gabriel’s spine.

  “They say society used to have Shredders,” he said, hedging the truth. “Back in the day when paranoia was at its height. Back when there was a run on sustenance and rumors about monsters were at their peak.”

  Back when the Nets had whipped people into a frenzy after offering proof of preters.

  There’d been hunts, and the surviving monsters had to hide their true natures. Some, like Gabriel, even masqueraded among the humans who called preters “parasites,” which was just a dirty name for creatures who used humans for food and water. The fear was actually that the monsters would feed off mortals—who were composed of a lot of water—for secondhand sustenance and would end up extinguishing the already-threatened human race altogether.

  Gabriel added, “I haven’t heard rumors of Shredders for a good while. Stories say that they ran out of work after they supposedly extinguished what monsters there were, and after regular people killed the rest off with impunity. But that’s all bullshi
t, if you don’t mind my candid description, Miss Mariah. Monsters were always a product of the fearful collective imagination.”

  “Urban legends,” Mariah said. “Is that your take on it?”

  “I have no other.”

  A hard smile shaped her lips, and he wondered anew just what’d happened to make her this way.

  “Where do you get your information?” she asked. “The Nets?”

  The toxic Web. Years ago, it had led to the demise of newspaper journalism, giving way to bloggers who weren’t subject to the fact-checking process. Rumor had become truth and truth, rumor. In fact, real truth had seemed to die a nonresurrecting permanent death.

  “I suppose,” he said, leaning back against a wall, showing he had nothing to fear, at least from a revolver, “that I picked up some commentary about monsters during my travels. You probably also heard stories about a cure for preters, and that’s another reason for the sharp drop in their supposed population.”

  “If monsters exist . . .” She narrowed her eyes, as if compensating for some vulnerability in his presence. “The bad guys would use the rumor of a cure to draw out any remaining creatures. Besides, there’ve always been stories, including the one about a cure for lyncanthropy.”

  It was a condition that had introduced itself in full after the mosquitoes had been dealt with. But it wasn’t the same as actually being a werewolf; it was supposed to be a product of melancholia, which ran rampant after the world had altered. Lycanthropy had accounted for a lot of the “monster rumors,” and Gabriel had been reluctantly thankful for the diversion, ev while wondering if the condition had made humans more aware of monsters—fake or real—than ever.

  He continued using a calm tone while avoiding hypnosis. “The only monsters out there are the human ones.”

  Mariah’s gaze wandered to a wall. But Gabriel thought that maybe she was looking beyond it, outside, where there really were monsters who only needed to be invited in.

  Just as Chaplin had invited him.

  He watched her for a moment, caught a shard of some memory cutting through her gaze that made him tilt his head.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, genuinely curious. “Why did you leave the world?”

  She flinched, then turned back to him and, unable to control himself for a terrible instant, Gabriel sought her gaze and peeked into her temporarily unprotected mind to hear the cries of what he thought to be loved ones.

  He saw blood on a woman who might’ve been her mom . . . then her brother . . .

  Then there was a tearing wipe into a second, even more painfully vivid memory, blood . . .

  The red of it clutched at him, and he dropped the connection. A tremor lined his veins, and he hungered. Yearned.

  That was why he couldn’t afford to look into people—because they might jigger his worst instincts with careless thoughts. That was why he should’ve been able to stop himself this time, too.

  Chaplin winced, as if feeling his anguish, and Gabriel silently commanded the dog to keep this secret between them.

  The dog quivered, as if the effort of separating secrets were too much.

  Control. Gabriel needed to find it, to access it. Control was key to a monster’s survival. It was almost all they had.

  He took the reins of the conversation, leading it to where he thought it’d be safer.

  “Ask me anything,” he said to Mariah. “And I’ll tell you so I can ease your wonderings.”

  He’d lie. He’d dodge. He’d hide.

  “Okay then,” she said. “The crucifix. Your reaction to it . . .”

  “Coincidence.” There—simple enough. “You know I hadn’t eaten properly after I was injured, and I overtaxed myself while working.” Gaining strength by the moment, he stood away from the wall, his tone lightening. “Besides, I’m an atheist. Always did have an aversion to crosses and the like.”

  Another lie—he’d had religion in his day, and the symbols of his own church burned at him every time he witnessed one. In a cross or crucifix, all he saw was hopelessness.

  “Healing,” she said, taking a step toward him. “You got rid of those injuries as if all you had to do was wish them away.”

  “The unguent I had you put on my wounds,” he said. In truth, it was meaningless, slightly-tampered-with lard that he carried and used as part of his masquerade. “An old woman—an herbalist—made some for me before I struck out of the Southblock sanctuary.”

  Mariah still didn’t seem won over. Steel, this one was.

  “Your flask. What’s in it? Blood?”

  He laughed, as if that were ludicrous, but he knew he’d have to bury the object outside before she could check it. Chaplin had vaguely revealed to Gabriel that Mariah didn’t leave the shelter unless necessary, and even then she didn’t stray far, so the odds of her discovering it out there were slim.

  “A concoction,” he said, adding lie upon lie, “made from a nutrient powder and what water I manage to find. The old woman gave it to me, as well.”

  “Sleeping all day . . .”

  “It’s relatively cooler out here at night. Everyone knows that. Better to sleep when the weather is unkind.”

  As Mariah stood there, he could see that she was stuck between wanting to believe this stranger who’d proven so helpful today and disbelieving him out of wise necessity.

  She glanced around the room, her gaze resting on a crate with some sticks poking out of a metal cup, as if she or her dad used to char the ends to write on paper.

  Walking over, she grabbed two of them, and Gabriel knew exactly what she was about to do: construct a makeshift cross to flash at him.

  But Chaplin also must’ve sensed her intentions, because he sprang up on the crate, knocking it over, spilling the sticks to the ground, barking and making those strange yet patterned canine sounds at her.

  He’d said something to her while blocking Gabriel, and he wondered what it was. Before he could mind-ask his familiar, the dog opened his thoughts.

  Don’t worry—I won’t let her kick you out, Gabriel.

  Mariah had already backed off, seemingly bothered by her companion’s defense of Gabriel.

  Chaplin yipped and yapped, stringing together a sentence, and Gabriel could hear what the dog was saying to Mariah now, because Chaplin was allowing him to.

  He chased off Stamp’s no-gooder. He can help. Monsters are serious business. Take it back.

  “Just hush,” Mariah said, her voice ragged with the betrayal of her friend. “He could be dangerous to us, and you know it.”

  The dog added a few more yaps. We need him, Mariah. Trust me.

  She stared at Chaplin, as if wanting further explanation, and the dog added more, though he blocked Gabriel from knowing what he said.

  Mariah sent Gabriel a strange glance.

  He hoped whatever Chaplin had said worked. He needed the dog on his side, needed all the Badlanders to confide in him so he could find out about Abby. And after a short time, after he got some answers about why there’d been rumors about his lover’s presence in the New Badlands, he’d leave Chaplin to Mariah, just as it should be.

  She’d crossed her arms over her chest, as if she were trying her best to hold in the apology that came next.

  “The dog . . .”

  Her voice faded, but Chaplin barked at her.

  Out with it.

  Her flintiness returned with the spark to match. “The dog,” she said louder, “means for me to apologize. Monster talk is a serious thing, he says, and it isn’t supposed to be thrown about lightly.”

  This was progress. “You had your reasons.”

  She searched his gaze, then glanced at Chaplin, raising her brows as if to ask, Is that a gooough sorry for you?

  Meanwhile, Gabriel couldn’t help but feel the beats of her blood running, hot and passionate, notes crashing into each other to make that music he couldn’t resist. He imagined running his mouth over her, reveling in her heightened scent until he was drunk on the hunger that was
consuming him even now. He could almost feel his fangs sinking into her flesh, popping it open to let the blood seep out so he could fill himself with the anger—or was there something else combined with it that drew him?—that made her seem so alive to him.

  Near dizzy, he fisted his hands, wrestling the emergence of fangs, the reddening of his irises, which would betray him.

  He turned around before that could happen, ducking out of the room just as Chaplin barked after him.

  “I’m off to that common area,” Gabriel said, his voice low enough to barely disguise how garbled it was.

  He could hear Mariah sucking in a breath to ask a question—probably Why?

  But he cut her off.

  “Don’t wait up for me,” he said as Chaplin darted ahead of him, obviously intending to show his new master to the tunnel that connected Mariah’s home to the place where the Badlanders gathered.

  “Chaplin!” Mariah called, her voice rushed.

  It’ll be okay, the dog thought. Then he mumbled something else to Mariah that Gabriel didn’t catch since Chaplin had blocked him out again.

  She didn’t say another word.

  Gabriel followed Chaplin beyond a steel door that stood adjacent to the one that led to her own underground workshop. Shutting the barrier behind him, he leaned against the wall of the tunnel, not moving another inch as he yanked his flask out of his pocket. He gulped the last of the blood, trying to imagine Mariah’s own life liquid coating his throat, then bursting into every part of him.

  Once, he’d wanted Abby’s blood like this, as well.

  He lowered his empty flask, knowing that this appetite for Mariah would only end just as badly if he gave in to it.

  6

  Gabriel

  By the time Gabriel reached the last door separating the tunnel from the common area, he was in as much control of his faculties as he could be.