“Heatrsblood Fusion”
A.M. Burns
Published by Mystichawker Press
Copyright 2011 A.M. Burns
Snashwords Edition
Edited by Laura Culley
Cover by Mel Kary
For More Information on A.M. Burns visit http://www.amburns.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, incidents or places are either a product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblances to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locals are entirely coincidental.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Heartsblood Fusion
by A.M. Burns
A big cat screamed. It was close by. We’d been tracking a missing couple for several days and the signs pointed to abduction. After going over the spot where their car had been found, I was fairly sure a wer had a hand, or paw, in it. Believe it or not, there are still parts of the Texas panhandle that are wild enough that people can disappear. The only reason we got involved in the case was that Geraldine, Geri, Beggay had caught a strange scent near her home. Geri, my lover Alex Carlson, Charles Colfax and I tracked the scent and it led us to an abandoned car along the Canadian River. The scent and tracks were of a werepuma. One of the rarer forms of Lycanthropy, I haven’t encountered a werepuma in nearly a hundred years.
I didn’t like it, but I motioned the gang to split up. Geri, slipping into her coyote form, disappeared in the sage brush to the north. Charles and Alex swung to the south, while I went straight up the middle.
“Be careful,” I told Alex through our mental link. We’ve only been together six months, and I still get nervous when he might be in danger. We haven’t completed the bonding ritual that would tie his life to mine. We’ve discussed it, but the time just hasn’t felt right yet. I lived nearly two thousand years before we met. Now after just six months with him in my life, I couldn’t bear to lose him. Loss kills more dragons than all the magic swords in the world and I finally understood that.
“Tal, I’ve got Charles with me, I’ll be fine,” he replied with a mental kiss.
The cat screamed again.
“He’s just killed a deer over here,” Geri howled.
I ran toward her howl.
“Geri’s got a visual,” I called to Alex. Even though he shared my knowledge, I knew he still had difficulty understanding the various weretongues.
“We’ll head that way.”
“Keep your eyes open for any sign of the couple,” I advised. “It could be he’s got them around here somewhere. Their trail leads this way.”
“Charles says he just got a blood scent,” Alex said, as I closed in on the sounds of a big cat feeding. “We’re going to follow it.”
In my heart I wished he wouldn’t, but if Geri and I had the werepuma in our sights, the danger to Alex decreased. I was just fine with him rescuing the humans while we took out the lycanthrope. I spotted Geri sitting under a salt cedar tree. Her attention focused on something just down the sandy hill. Her head came up as I crouched down.
“Damn,” she growled. “He just spooked.”
The werepuma spooked badly enough that he didn’t bother running quietly. He crashed through the bushes, making a terrible ruckus as he ran. Geri bolted after him and I followed.
“I think we found them!” Alex called.
As we ran, the wind blew the scents of Alex mingled with Charles’ undead odor right into our faces. That must have been what set the werepuma off.
“He’s heading right for you!” I replied, wishing the werepuma hadn’t gotten a head start. “Take cover.” Even with my superhuman dragon speed, the werepuma was fast enough to out sprint me. Geri, still in her coyote form, fell behind.
A black-tipped tail disappeared over the crest of a hill. A bright blast of magical force lit up the night. Fear for Alex tore at me. I lost control of my human body and the dragon roared forth.
The werepuma moved cautiously around the back of a tree. It looked like he was trying to keep something between himself and Alex. Charles was nowhere to be seen. I roared. The cougar looked up. Even in the dark of the night, he saw my black-scaled body towering over him. He glared. There had to be something wrong with him. He should have cowered or run or something, but he stood his ground and glared. Then, with the speed only a werecat has, the werepuma ran at Alex. Without stopping to think about it, I launched myself over the crest of the hill. A single beat of my wings carried me down toward the cougar. Alex got off another magical leven bolt, but with an uncanny dodge, the cat slid under it. Instead the bolt hit me. It stung. My claws wrapped around the werepuma and I slammed it into the ground. Something in it snapped, and it went limp in my grasp. My wing hit Alex, and he went down hard.
My shift back to human happened as I released my hold on werepuma. I took the couple of steps between me and Alex. His lanky form lay in the dirt. His green eyes were open, but slightly unfocused. I knelt at his side and brushed a lock of red hair from his forehead.
“Are you okay?”
His eyes focused a bit more. “Wow, your wing packs a pretty good wallop.” He smiled at me and I knew he was going to be alright.
“Sorry about that.” I bent down and kissed him.
“Hey no problem, you got the bad guy. Sorry about the leven bolt,” he replied, sitting up slowly.
I smiled at him. “It just tickled.”
“Tal, why did you kill the guy?” Geri asked, resuming her human form. Her gray eyes looked at the crumpled form of the man lying in the dirt. I hadn’t even realized he’d turned back to human, let alone that he was dead. My only thought had been for Alex.
“It was an accident,” I said. “I slammed him into the ground a bit too hard.” I offered Alex a hand up. His long fingers curled about my shorter ones and I pulled him off the ground.
“So where’s Charles?” Geri asked turning from the corpse.
“He went back there.” Alex pointed behind the boulder just south of us.
“Charles, you back there?” Geri called out.
“Found them,” the vampire responded. “But you need to take a look at this.”
We followed the trail of footprints in the dirt. Around behind the huge boulder, Charles worked at untying a man from a tree. The woman, whose arms were covered in blood, sat on the ground nearby, her face buried in her hands as she wept. The marks showed that the werepuma was trying to infect them with lycanthropy. As he pulled his arms from around the tree, the man also showed signs of being savaged. Long scratches ran down his arms and sides.
“Damn,” Geri swore as she stepped closer to them. “Why would he do this?” She looked at me with pleading eyes.
I shrugged. “Werepuma’s are rare. Maybe he was trying to make more.” I looked at the woman, she was pretty enough. “Maybe he was making a mate. Or maybe he was just sick.”
“Do you mean something other than the obvious?” Alex asked as Geri knelt down beside the woman.
“He didn’t run from me, he just glared and then he attacked you,” I explained. “It was almost like he wanted me to kill him.”
“I hope you did,” the man said weakly as he stumbled toward the woman. “Whatever he was, I hope you killed that thing.” He dropped to the ground and clasped the woman’s hands. I could’ve listened to what he whispered to her, but I gave them their privacy.
“Charles, can you get the Pathfinder?” I asked. He was the fastest one of us, other than my dragon form, and I didn’t like using it for flying in Texas. The land was too flat and there was too much of a chance of showing up on radar, unlike my Colorado mountain home where the mountains helped hide most of my movements as long as I stayed low.
“Will it handle this sand?” he asked, raising a dark eyebrow.
“Put it in four and take it slow, you should be fine,” I advised. “I thought you guys said folks go four wheeling out here all the time.”
Alex laughed. “They do, just normally in daylight. We used to do it all the time, remember Charles?”
Charles looked sad, the way he normally did when Alex or one of the others reminded him of the sun. Like many young vampires, and he’d only been a vampire for six months, he missed the sun. It’s one of those things you never realize you’re going to miss until it’s gone from your life.
Charles sighed, “Yeah I remember.” He turned and walked up to small hill. “Tal, I’ll be careful with the Pathfinder.”
Alex touched my arm. “I wish we could do something for him.”
I reached up and stroked his ruggedly-handsome face. “I know, but he’s the one who has to master the spells that will allow him to move around in the sunlight again. At least he’s able to stay awake during the day now. It will get better for him. I promise.”
“So Tal, is there any way we can know for sure if these two have been infected?” Geri asked, still kneeling by the woman.
I shook my head. “Not for a few days.”
“Infected with what?” the man asked.
Geri looked up at me, giving me my cue to explain what had happened to the young couple. I sighed. I hated this part. It’s never easy to explain the existence of the magical world to people who get dragged into it.
***
“So what are we going to do with them?” Alex asked as we closed the door on Vasos and Vanni Vavara. We’d brought them back to our house in Yellow Sky. After one of Geri’s new students, Charlotte, a gifted natural healer, mended their wounds, Geri cast sleep spells on both of them so they’d get through the night.
“If they’ve contracted the werepuma virus, we’ll need to get them to someone who can ease them through their first few months,” I said taking his hand, leading him toward our bedroom. “Someone who can evaluate them and make sure they can adapt to a wer lifestyle.”
“Can Geri do that?” he asked, opening the bedroom door.
I shook my head. “No, it would be best to be another werepuma, and barring that, another werecat of some kind.”
“So do we know any?” Alex asked as he pulled off his boots.
I sat down on the bed next to him. “I know a few, no werepumas, but there is a weretiger who’s part of the Coalition. He lives in Santa Fe, and he’s old and crotchety, but he’d make a good teacher.”
I belonged to the Coalition of Magical Creatures along with Alex, Geri and the rest of the Yellow Sky Coven. As a worldwide organization, headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland, it had branches and operatives all over the world and served as the paranormal government that made sure the things that belonged in the shadows stayed in the shadows. Its basic agenda was to keep knowledge of the magical world a secret to all but those who needed to know.
“So how long do you think before we’ll know if they’re infected?” Alex asked, pulling off his socks and tossing them into the barely visible pile of dirty clothes just inside the open closet door. Given the way they changed direction at the last second to land on the top of the pile, I suspected he used a bit of telekinesis.
“Probably about a week,” I replied. “Unlike canine lycanthropy, feline lycanthropy is extremely difficult to spread. If one of them caught it, we should hope that the other one did too. It’ll make the transition easier. It’d be really lonely for them if only one caught it. Luckily, we have less than a week until full moon.”
Alex reached over and ran his fingers through my black hair. Even after six months, his touch still made me shiver. I hoped he’d never know the centuries of loneliness I endured before I found him. It reminded me of how fragile he was, and how lost I would be if something happened to him. He pulled at my shirt, and after working it free of my jeans, pulled the gray Polo over my head. His passions and hands tugged at me as he eased us down onto the bed. I put thoughts of talking out of my mind as I surrendered to the never-ending lust I felt for him. His hard body moved against mine and the way the red hair on his chest moved through the black hair on mine tingled up and down my sculpted form.
***
“I love you so much,” he sighed a bit later while I lay with my head on his shoulder.
I traced my finger down the hairy contour of his abs. “I love you too. More than I thought possible.” I bent up and kissed his soft lips. “I never want to lose you.”
He sighed. “I never want you to lose me. I don’t know what I would do without you Tal.”
“We need to finish up the bonding ritual,” I said. “That will finish linking your life with mine.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” he said, stroking my hair. “Ostara’s coming up. Other than Beltain, it’s the best time to get married.”
I rolled over so I could meet those green eyes with my sapphire blues. My heart beat so hard and so fast, I was sure he felt it. I could feel his. “You mean it? You want to go ahead and finish the ritual and make it a full-fledged wedding?”
“Sure, if we did it without a proper ceremony my mother would have a fit, not to mention what Trix would do to us,” he laughed. I chucked too, I could just see Alex’s little sister have the kind of fit that have made redheads famous for centuries. It wouldn’t be pretty. She’d probably decide not to talk to either of us for months and there’d be lots of throwing involved.
“So do you think she’d be the flower girl or is she too old?” I asked. At eleven, it was hard to say how Trix would feel about being the flower girl.
Alex laughed and rolled us over so he pressed me into the mattress. “Oh I think we wouldn’t be able to stop her.” He kissed me. “So we don’t have that long to plan. Do we do it on Ostara?”
I ran my hands up the side of his head, tangling them in his red hair and pulled his mouth back down to mine, “Of course we do. It’ll be perfect. We’ll need to start planning tomorrow.” Our next kiss turned into more as we celebrated our brief engagement. In a week, we’d complete the ritual and Alex would stop aging, and be very hard to kill with my life force running through his veins.
***
Vasos Vavara paced the kitchen. We’d found some clothes that almost fit him. At six feet three inches, he was a bit taller than either of us. Thankfully the shirt was short sleeved, but the jean rode up a bit on him.
“So what you’re telling me is we won’t know what’s going on for almost a week?” he asked again. He’d been asking the question every few minutes, amongst the other standards like, “Now tell me what really happened,” “Who are you people” and “What are you going to do to us” stuff. Vanni just sat slumped in her chair at the table and sipped her coffee. Hiding behind her long blonde hair, she was either taking this better than her husband, or she was still in shock.
“Mister Vavara, as I’ve been saying, it will take a while before we know if you were infected with the virus,” I said again, still maintaining my calm patient voice.
“Is there anyone else we can talk to, someone who might know more than you do?” he demanded.
I resisted the urge to laugh at him. He had no idea how ludicrous the idea of someone who might know more than me really was—well, at least when it came to matters of the paranormal.
“We’ve called for a friend of ours, but it’s going take a few hours for him to get here.” I didn’t bother to explain that the friend was a weretiger. It was best to drop the bombshells only as absolutely necessary, especially with so much new information to process. “Now why don’t you settle down and enjoy your coffee with your wife.” I gave a little telepathic push hoping he’d respond. Telepathy isn’t my strongest skill. Vasos looked at me for a moment, shrugged and kept pacing.
“Mister Vavara,” Alex stepped up to my side with that fresh-out-of-the-shower smell. “Why don’t you listen to Tal? Getting upset won’t help anything. Relax. Enjoy your coffee.” Alex’s telepathic powers were stronger than mine. The air tingled with the energy that passed between them. The big man stopped pacing, walked over to the table, sat down next to his wife and picked up his abandoned cup of coffee.
“Please tell me you gave them decaf,” Alex mentally chuckled. Out loud he said, “That was Geri on the phone, she said she’ll be over shortly. She’s all excited about the event.”
“We’ve got a lot to do if we’re going to be ready in a week,” I said resisting the urge to take him in my arms. It may have been my house, but we didn’t know how either of the Vavaras would react. We didn’t need either one of them going into a major homophobic rant in the middle of everything else they were going through. So Alex and I were more subdued than normal.
“Hey, we get the whole gang working on it and it’ll be great.” He beamed. I think the only time I’d seen my lover happier was the morning after the first time we made love. That telltale morning cemented in both our minds that we were meant to be together. The idea of the whole gang, the Yellow Sky Coven, working on making our bonding ritual a huge success made my heart swell. I’d never had a large group of friends the way Alex did, and they accepted me as part of the family almost from day one.
“So are you planning some kind of party?’ Vanni asked, finally looking beyond her cup of coffee.
“Yeah, first one we’ve had in a while,” Alex replied, stepping toward the table.
“Hey, maybe I could help. It’d help us pass the time while we wait to see if that monster infected us.” For the first time since we rescued them last night, she sounded hopeful. “But could we at least go home and get a few things? Vasos and I could really use some better clothes. And shouldn’t we let the police know we’re okay?”
“We’ve already spoken to the police,” I said, leaning against the grey marble countertop near the kitchen sink. “They’re sending a man over later to take a statement from you.” I didn’t bother to tell them that the man being sent over was the father of two members of the coven. Having a contact on the police force helped. “After he leaves, we can see about running you out to your place to pick up a few things.”
“Shouldn’t we contact our family and let them know we’re alright?” Vanni asked, setting her coffee mug on the table.
“First we need to find out if you’ve been infected or not.” I said, trying to project a feeling of calm. “If you’ve been infected, you can’t go back to your old life. It’s too dangerous for you and your loved ones.”
“But don’t they deserve to know something about what’s going on?” Vasos asked. Something in his tone told me that he was trying to push through the calm Alex projected at him.
The front door opened, interrupting our discussion. Since the person hadn’t set off any of my magical defenses or bothered to ring the bell, I knew it must be a member of the Coven. Even Alex’s family rang the bell before opening the door and walking in.
“You guys in the kitchen?” Geri called out.
“Sure are,” Alex replied.
Geri walked in with a bounce in her step, a smile on her craggy face, and windswept gray hair. I wanted to ask if she’d hung her head out the window while driving. She bounded over and grabbed me in a big hug. Then she hugged Alex.
“I can’t tell you two how delighted I am! After everything we went through last fall, this is the best news we’ve had in months.” She rattled on in a fairly un-Geri-like way. “I made a few calls on my way over and the whole gang will be here this evening so we can set out who has to do what. With only a week to get everything going, we’re going to need to work fast. Alex, have you talked to your mother yet?”
He looked down at the floor. “Ah…no. We’ve been dealing with the situation from last night all morning. Still waiting for the authorities to arrive.”
Geri spotted the Vavaras sitting at the table. She walked over and introduced herself. “You probably don’t remember me, I’m Geraldine Beggay, but everyone calls me Geri. I was with the guys when they found you last night.”
Vanni and Vasos introduced themselves with a bit of apprehension in their voice.
Then Geri turned back to Alex and me. “Alex, it’s Friday. What time does your mother go to work?”
“About noon, if I’m remembering her schedule correctly,” he replied after a moment’s thought.
“Good,” Geri nodded. “You two go over there and I’ll hold down the fort here. Anything I should know about before you go?”
“I told Vanni we’d get them over to their place for some clothes and such after they give their statements,” I explained. “Vinnie Sapaleeni should be here this afternoon, but we should be back before then. Anyway, Alex needs to open the store in an hour or so.”
Alex got a worried look on his face. “I completely forgot about the store. Do we have time to go talk to mom?” Alex owned Halfling’s Hideaway, one of the small local independent bookstores, and a couple coven members along with his family helped him run it. He didn’t normally forget about it.
I chuckled and reached up to ruffle his hair. “If we hurry, I can drop you off on the way back here.”
“Okay,” Alex smiled as he dashed off to get his boots. “Thanks Geri. You’re a real lifesaver.”
“Mister Vavara is having some understandable anger issues,” I whispered, just loud enough for Geri’s keen werecoyote ears to hear. “Alex has been keeping him calm. I don’t know how long that influence will last once we’re gone.”
She nodded, indicating she’d heard me. “You guys have fun. I’ll see you back here in a little while.
***
Alex’s mother was thrilled with the news. She was the only one home, so Alex asked her to send his sister, Trix, by the shop after school so he could tell her, too. His mother offered to do whatever she could to help with the arrangements, and after a quick discussion of which family members to invite, we headed down the road. He kissed me deeply when I dropped him at the shop.
“I’ll swing by later to bring you some lunch if you like,” I said, happy to do anything that made his life easier.
“Nah, Terry will come by,” he said. “I’ll go get something, unless I just want to see your hotness before I get home.” He swung his lanky frame out of the Pathfinder and headed for the shop’s back door.
When I arrived back home, I walked through the open door to find that chaos had erupted.
***
Geri stood in the kitchen, a grim disgusted look on her face. She rubbed at the back of her head and glared at the world.
“What happened?” I asked, looking about for the Varvaras.
“After Officer Holloway and his partner stopped by and took their statements, I walked the two officers out to the car,” she explained. “I came back and … I think it was Vasos who whacked me in the back of the head with the skillet. Something told me at the time not to get Alex that set of cookware. Even my hard head wasn’t made to be thwacked with a cast-iron skillet.”
“Let me look at that,” I said stepping closer to her. A large red lump was already receding into the gray-haired scalp. “Looks like your wer metabolism is already healing it rather nicely.”
“I just can’t believe they got the drop on me like that,” Geri complained.
I patted her shoulder. “It happens to the best of us. Now we need to figure out where they went. Can you get a scent trail?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” she said, smoothing down her hair and squaring her shoulders. Geri drew a deep breath near the table where I’d last seen the couple. With a short nod, she took off out the door. I followed, careful to close the door behind me and fell into step beside Geri, who marched down the sidewalk at a brisk pace.
“You know this would be easier in coyote form,” she mumbled as she followed the trail. “But there’s no way I’m doing the collar and leash thing to stay legal in town.”
I laughed at the image. “And I would feel rather silly walking you that way.”
“So what made you and Alex decide to finish the bonding ritual so soon?” She asked as we turned the corner heading toward the interstate highway that split Yellow Sky across the middle.
“Last night,” I replied. “Alex could’ve been badly hurt. I want him safe. Completing the ritual won’t make him indestructible, but it will give him more of my strengths and tie his life force to mine.”
Geri nodded as she picked up the pace. “Makes sense. I’m actually surprised you two waited this long. Although I wasn’t pleased with the changes in him at first, you’re good together.”
We turned east down the access road for the interstate. Not far away, cars zoomed by heading east and west. The cool spring day was perfect for a walk outside. If it hadn’t been so urgent, I think I would’ve enjoyed myself.
“Did they say where they lived?” Geri asked, her lope becoming more of a jog.
“Not while I was around.”
Geri pulled out her cell phone and hit two buttons. “Hey Terry,” she said after a moment. “The couple you just interviewed, where did they live before the abduction?”
Had we not been moving, I would have been able to hear his response, but I had to wait for Geri finish the call.
“Yeah, well they got the jump on me at Tal’s place and took off. I don’t think they’re any danger to the public, but he swings a mean cast-iron skillet.” There was a pause. “No I’ll be fine. The bump’s almost gone already.” Another pause when we came to a busy cross street. Geri walked back and forth a couple of times before pointing across the street. We waited for the light to change. Alex’s shop was just a block away. “Okay Terry, thanks, we’ll see you there.” Geri finally closed the phone.
As we crossed with the light, she explained the phone call. “So Terry Senior says that they live over on the east side of town. He’s going to text me the address. He also said that they were about to call me, they just got notified that Interpol is looking for Mister Vavara.”
I nearly stopped in my tracks. “Interpol? Why is Interpol looking for him?”
“They didn’t say, told the locals it was top secret,” Geri said as her feet slowed.
I looked ahead of us and saw the empty bus stop. So much for easy tracking. Geri sniffed all around the bus stop. Her phone beeped.
“Smells to me like they got on the bus,” she said, frowning as she opened her phone. “Got the address.”
“Where on the east side do they live?” I asked, formulating a plan. “Is it close to anywhere we know?”
Geri nodded. “A few blocks from my house, but with the head start they’ve got, they can be there and gone before we run back to your place, grab a car, and drive over there.”
I turned and starting walking across the large parking lot behind the bus stop, heading toward Halfling’s Hideaway. “Ah, but if we gate to your place, we should have time to walk to their house.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Geri said, falling into step and opening her cell phone again. “And just in case, Stan should be near there right now. He can go watch their house for us.”
***
When we arrived, a police car was there and a dark green unmarked car was parked across the street. Several officials from various law-enforcement agencies milled around in the yard and street in front of the Varvara’s house. Stan Belsario sat on the curb, rubbing his head. After a short conversation with the police, including Officer Holloway, Geri and I walked over to Stan.
“Tell me it wasn’t a frying pan,” Geri said as she bent to check her student’s head. A little bit of magic flowed out from her as she scanned him for damage.
“I don’t know what it was,” Stan moaned.
“He caught me with a cast-iron skillet,” Geri said as she straightened up. “You’ll be alright in a bit. We’ll get you back to my place and give you something for the pain, some willow bark tea I think.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“I headed over here as soon as I got Geri’s call,” Stan explained. “It’s only a couple of blocks. I thought I’d do a bit of recon on the house first. I figured I had a couple of minutes before you guys arrived.” Stan had been a burglar before he fell in with Geri and the coven, and he’d kept more than a few of his habits from that time. “I was in the back yard when I heard a gate squeak. I was just turning around when they caught me.”
“I’ll go sniff around and see if it was them,” Geri said heading up the well-patched driveway toward the side of the house.
I walked over to the man that Officer Holloway had identified as Interpol. There aren’t many government agencies that know about the Coalition of Magical Creatures, but Interpol is one of them. I needed to know what they wanted with the Varvaras. As one of the highest ranking field agents for the Coalition, I had a stake in their involvement with the werepuma.