Cormia figured that if her blush had spoken for her once already, it could do it again.
“You don’t have to answer,” Bella said with a smile. “He is a special male. But back to the selfless stuff? Here’s the thing. If you spend too much time focusing outward, you lose yourself. That’s why I worry about him. And that’s why I know he doesn’t truly love me. He believes I saved his twin in ways he couldn’t. It’s gratitude he feels. Intense gratitude and idolization. But it’s not true love.”
“How do you know this, though?”
There was a hesitation. “Ask him about his relationships with females. You’ll understand.”
“Has he been in love often?” She braced herself for the answer.
“Absolutely, positively no.” Bella’s hand went round and round her belly. “This isn’t any of my business, but I’m going to say it anyway. Save my hellren, there isn’t a male I hold in higher esteem than Phury, and I like you a lot. If he continues to stay here, I hope you do, too. I like the way you look at him. And I really like the way he looks at you.”
“He’s passed me over.”
Bella’s head came up. “What?”
“I am no longer the First Mate.”
“God… damn.”
“So I really should go back to the Sanctuary. If only to make things easier on whomever he chooses to replace me.”
It was the right thing to say, but she didn’t really believe it. And her feelings showed in her voice. Even she could hear the strain.
Funny, the practice of saying one thing while keeping what she truly thought to herself was a skill she’d honed over the span of her life on the Other Side. When she’d been over there, lying had been as easy and comfortable as the white robe she wore and the proscribed way she did her hair and the rote recitation of ceremonial text.
Now it was hard.
“No offense,” Bella said, “but my bullshit meter is going off.”
“Bullshit… meter?”
“You’re lying to me. Look, may I offer you some unsolicited advice?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t allow yourself to get swallowed up and lost in this Chosen thing. If you truly believe what you’ve been taught, then that’s fine. But if you find yourself fighting an inner voice in your head all the time, then it’s not where you’re supposed to be. Being a good liar is not a virtue.”
That was it, wasn’t it, Cormia thought. That was precisely what she had always had to do. Lie.
Bella shifted on the pillows, pulling herself up. “I don’t know how much you’ve heard about me, but I have a brother. Rehvenge. He’s a hardheaded handful, always has been, but I love him and we’re very close. My father died when I was four, and Rehv stepped in as head of the household for my mother and me. Rehv took great care of us, but he also was controlling as hell, and eventually I moved out of the family house. I had to… He was driving me nuts. Jesus, you should have heard the fighting. Rehv meant well, but he’s old-school, very traditional, and that meant he wanted to make all the decisions.”
“He sounds like a male of worth, though.”
“Oh, he absolutely is. But the thing was, after twenty-five years under him, I was just his sister, not me, if that makes any sense.” Bella reached out and took Cormia’s hand. “The best thing I ever did for myself was get away and get to know myself.” A haunted light came into her eyes. “It was not easy, and there were… consequences. But even with what I had to go through, I highly recommend figuring out who you are. I mean, do you know who you are as a person?”
“I am a Chosen.”
“And what else.”
“That’s… all.”
Bella’s hand gave a squeeze. “Give you some thought, Cormia, and start small. What’s your favorite color? What do you like to eat? Are you an early riser? What makes you happy? Sad?”
Cormia looked across the room at the incense burner and thought about all the prayers she knew, prayers that covered for every eventuality. And the chants. And the ceremonies. She had a whole spiritual vocabulary at her disposal, not just of words but of actions.
And that was about it. Or was it?
She shifted her eyes to meet Bella’s. “I know… I like lavender tea roses. And I like to build things in my head.”
Bella smiled and then hid a yawn with the back of her hand. “That, my friend, is a good start. Now, you want to finish Project Runway? With the TV on, you’ll feel less awkward about being in your head while you’re with me, and Fritz won’t be here with dinner for another twenty minutes.”
Cormia eased back into the pillows beside her… friend. Not her sister, her… friend. “Thank you, Bella. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And I love the incense. Very calming.”
Bella pointed the remote at the flat screen and pushed some buttons, and Tim Gunn appeared in the sewing room, his silver hair as neat as pressed cloth. In front of him, one of the designers was shaking her head and looking at her partially constructed red dress.
“Thank you,” Cormia said again, without looking over.
Bella just reached out and gave Cormia’s hand a squeeze, and they both focused on the screen.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Lash stumbled out of his parents’ home with blood on both his hands. His knees were unhinged, his stride jerky. As he tripped over his own feet, he looked down. Oh, God, the stuff was on his shirt and his boots, too.
Mr. D popped up out of the Focus. “You hurt?”
Lash couldn’t find any words to answer. Limp and shaky, he could barely stand. “It took… so much longer than I thought.”
“Here, now, suh, let’s get you in the car.”
Lash allowed the little guy to take him around to the passenger side and settle him in the seat.
“Whatchu got in your hand there, suh-”
Lash shoved the lesser to the side, bent over, and dry-heaved a couple of times over the ground. Something black and oily came out of his mouth and dribbled down his chin. He wiped it off and looked at it.
Not blood. At least, not the kind… “I killed them,” he said hoarsely.
The lesser knelt down in front of him. “ ’Course you did, and you made your daddy proud. Them bastards ain’t your future. We are.”
Lash tried to stop the scenes from replaying in his head. “My mother screamed the loudest. When she saw me kill my father.”
“Not your father. Not your mother. Animals. Those things were animals in there. Like taking down a deer… or, yeah, like a rat, you know? A vermin.” The slayer shook his head. “They wasn’t you. You just thought they was.”
Lash looked down at his hands. The knife was in one. A chain in the other. “So much blood.”
“Yeah, they done bleed a ton, those vampires.”
There was a long silence. Like, one that lasted for a year.
“Say, there, suh, you got like a pool thing ’round this place?” When Lash nodded, the lesser said, “ ’Round back?” Lash nodded again. “Okay, we gonna take you there and let you wash up. We got you some fresh clothes in the back of this here car and you gonna put ’em on.”
Before Lash knew it, he was in the estate’s pool house under a shower, washing the remnants of his parents away from his skin and watching the red funnel down the drain at his feet. He rinsed off the knife and the chain as well, and when he stepped out to towel off, he put the stainless-steel link around his neck first.
There were two dog tags hanging off the thing. One was his rottweiler’s last license, and the other the record of King’s final rabies shot.
Lash’s change of clothes went on quick enough, and he transferred his father’s wallet from the soiled pants he’d had on to the clean ones Mr. D had gotten for him. He was going to have to keep using the boots, but the stains were browning up, looking less red, which made it more bearable.
He came out of the pool house and found the little slayer sitting on one of the glass-topped tables by the lawn chairs.