Blood Oath Read online

  He froze when he saw Cade at the computer.

  Griff stood up and guided Zach over to the table.

  “Relax,” he said. “He won’t bite.”

  “You’re. Not. Funny.” Zach was breathing hard.

  “Show him your papers.”

  “What?” Zach was shaking. He wouldn’t take his eyes off Cade. Griff couldn’t really blame him—he remembered the first time he’d encountered Cade, and he’d had a lot more training, with physical combat under his belt. It was a little like waking up and finding a cobra coiled on the next pillow.

  Cade was doing his best to ignore this, to spare Zach any further embarrassment. Still, they had work to do, so Griff carefully reached into the jacket pocket of Zach’s suit and took out the envelope there.

  “Show him your orders from the president,” Griff told Zach. “Go on. Do it.”

  Zach took the envelope back from Griff, and stepped forward to hand it to Cade. As soon as it touched the vampire’s fingertips, Zach jumped back again.

  Cade opened the envelope and read aloud: “‘I hereby invest Zachary Taylor Barrows with the powers of liaison for the Office of the President of these United States, with all rights, privileges and duties pertaining to that position....’”

  Cade finished reading the letter silently, then nodded. “Welcome aboard,” he said, folding it into the envelope again. “You are now a designated officer of the President of the United States. You are under my protection. ”

  Zach’s breathing began to slow. A little. “What? What does that mean?”

  “That means he can’t hurt you. Even if he wanted to,” Griff said. “He’s bound to follow your lawful orders, and keep you from harm.”

  Zach looked back and forth between them. “What is that, like a magic spell?”

  “Actually,” Cade said, “it was a blood oath.”

  FIVE

  1867, FORT WARREN,

  GEORGES ISLAND, MASSACHUSETTS

  Cold water stung him, a wet slap against his face. He woke up, not knowing how long he had been asleep. For one blessed instant, he thought it had all been a nightmare.

  Then he felt the chains on his wrists, and it came back with terrifying clarity.

  He was in a dank stone cell, the floor covered with the shit and filth of other men. His arms were locked in heavy manacles above his head. There was a dull ache in his chest, and he remembered being shot.

  He looked down, and saw the bullet wounds healing on his chest and abdomen. But he couldn’t imagine how that was possible.

  A second later, his mind caught up with his senses. He was aware of other men in the room.

  Four soldiers with rifles, wearing the blue uniforms of the Union, watched him. One held a bucket, still dripping with the cold water he’d thrown to wake Cade.

  Sitting on a stool between them, an older man. Barrel-shaped, with a greasy forelock of hair over his thick brow and nose. He wore a good suit and expensive boots.

  Cade realized, with some horror, that he could smell the man, just like he’d smelled the corpses on the boat, and it seemed completely natural to him now. Like he’d grown a fifth limb without questioning it.

  He smelled talcum powder, the pomade holding the forelock in place, and above all of that, whiskey. The man seemed to be sweating it.

  The man in the suit turned to Cade and smiled.

  “No, no,” he said. “Don’t get up.” Then he wheezed at his own joke. Cade would have been able to smell the whiskey on his breath even without his new senses.

  Cade caught a whiff of the soldiers, too. Sweat-damp wool, and the already familiar stink of fear. It was just as vivid to him as the images from his eyes.

  The man on the stool spoke again, to one of the soldiers.

  “What’s it called, Corporal?”

  “Cade, sir. Nathaniel Cade.”

  “Cade, is it? Did you know that means ‘a pet of unknown origin or species’ in Old English?”

  “No, sir. I did not.”

  “I never had a proper education, you know, but I have done a great deal of reading. Never stop trying to improve yourself, Corporal.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The man looked at Cade again, eyes narrowed.

  “I suppose you are my pet now, Cade. I pardoned you. Spared your life.”

  “What happened?” Cade asked.

  “You’ve been asleep for nearly three days,” Johnson said. “You missed the trial. They intended to hang you at dawn. While I doubt the hanging would have killed you, the dawn most certainly would have.”

  Cade looked at him, baffled.

  “Who are you?”

  The man in the suit laughed and then coughed. He took out a flask and uncapped it. The whiskey scent blotted everything else as he tipped it back.

  “I’m Andrew Johnson, President of these United States since the death of Abraham Lincoln two years ago.”

  As keen as his ears were now, Cade wasn’t sure he’d heard any of that right.

  “The president is dead?”

  “Don’t you listen? I’m the president. I’m alive and well. But, yes, while you were out at sea, someone put a bullet into poor old Abe’s brain. This bullet, in point of fact.”

  He fished a handkerchief from his vest pocket. He unwrapped it and revealed a round lead ball, stained with rust-brown powder.

  Cade smelled it immediately: blood. Old and dried but unmistakable.

  His mouth watered.

  “Please,” he begged. “Please. Let them kill me.” He searched for the words. “You don’t know—you don’t know what I am.”

  Johnson laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “If I didn’t know what you were, you’d be dead already.”

  That seemed incomprehensible to Cade. “You know?”

  Johnson nodded.

  Cade was shocked. “For the love of God, why didn’t you let them kill me?”

  The drunkenness seemed to slide off Johnson, and his voice was quiet and dark when he spoke.

  “There are other nations in this world. Nations that don’t have names, or borders, but they exist all the same. And make no mistake—we are at war with them. They would wipe us from the face of the Earth quicker than any foreign army. Unless we find a way to strike at them before they gain a foothold inside our own country.”

  Cade barely listened, panic rising inside him. He was beginning to feel the thirst again. The wounds in his chest throbbed. He started to see the blood pulsing in the men in the cell, just beneath their skin.

  Cade struggled to lean forward. He had to make the man see.

  “You don’t understand, you have to kill me ...”

  His chains rattled and pulled taut.

  The soldier smashed his rifle butt into Cade’s face, putting him back onto the floor.

  Johnson looked annoyed.

  “You owe your life to me, creature,” Johnson said. “And you’re going to spend the rest of it paying off the debt.”

  He took another swig and then nodded to the corporal. The soldier ducked outside the cell and returned with a different bucket. This one was smaller, and stained with red.

  “I hate to drink alone,” Johnson said. “Join me.”

  The aroma nearly made Cade pass out. It was not exactly right—not what the thirst really craved—but it was blood. He was close to choking on his saliva now, and he felt his canines growing.

  Carefully, the soldier placed the bucket on the floor in front of Cade, and stepped back quickly.

  Pig’s blood. Cade could see it was already starting to thicken in the cool of the cell.

  It took everything he had to clamp his mouth shut.

  They would not make him do this. He might be an abomination, but that didn’t mean he had to accept it.

  He didn’t trust his voice, so he simply shook his head at Johnson.

  “It’s from the finest butcher in Boston. You should be honored. What’s wrong? Had your fill on the boat?”

  Cade shook his he
ad again.

  Johnson laughed, belched, and put away his flask. “You have no say in this, creature.” He turned to the corporal. “Make sure he drinks all of that. He’s not going to starve. I have plans for him.”

  Johnson exited, and the soldiers turned to Cade. They regarded him fearfully, but they followed their orders. They beat him with their rifle butts until he stopped thrashing and then rolled him onto his back. One man plugged his nostrils, and they held him down as they emptied the bucket of pig’s blood into his throat.

  And despite all his efforts to resist, Cade shuddered with pleasure as he drank.

  JOHNSON RETURNED SIX DAYS LATER.

  Cade watched him enter. He was stronger now. The soldiers had forced buckets of pig’s blood into him. Until two days ago, when he learned he didn’t need to breathe anymore. They couldn’t choke him, so he didn’t have to swallow. Still, he’d already fed, whether he wanted to or not, and the change was working in him.

  Johnson apparently wanted him presentable. With their bayonets fixed at his throat, the soldiers had watched Cade while the garrison’s barber groomed him. It didn’t take much effort. The hair sloughed off almost by itself His hair came back, but his beard had not regrown since. The soldiers washed him by dumping buckets of icy water over and over until the last of the blood and grime was gone. Then they tossed him a freshly laundered prison uniform and watched him dress at gunpoint. He noticed something: aside from the aroma of soap, he had no scent. His body had stopped sweating—nothing was left to interfere with his ability to sniff out prey.

  After that, he began to hear the other prisoners in their cells, despite the stone walls.

  This morning, the soldiers couldn’t hold him down. He shook them off like fleas. The last scab flaked off his chest where the bullet holes had healed, revealing fresh, unmarked skin.

  Cade figured that in another day, two at most, he could pull the chains out of the wall. If he wanted, he could feed on the soldiers when they came.

  But he wouldn’t. The fact that he even considered it told him what course of action he had to take. He would do the only sane thing: he’d end his own life.

  He was considering how he’d accomplish this when the door opened.

  Johnson was not alone. In addition to the blue-uniformed guards, he had a Negro woman with him.

  No, not Negro, Cade realized. Mixed race. Her eyes were almond-shaped, her skin the color of dark gold. She carried a cloth bag and wore a headscarf, both dyed in bright colors that shone in the murk of the cell.

  Two things struck Cade: he couldn’t tell how old she was. She could have been anywhere from twenty to fifty years old.

  And she didn’t look the slightest bit afraid of him.

  Cade inhaled, and could name each soldier by his odor. He smelled Johnson’s hangover like a cloud around the president’s head.

  The woman smelled like nothing he could name. Some exotic flowers, perhaps. Or a kind of spice he’d never tasted.

  “He’s just a boy,” she said. Cade knew she meant him.

  “He was a boy,” Johnson corrected her. “Now he’s something other.”

  Cade tried to ignore this, as he had the soldiers’ insults and the sounds beyond his own walls. But he was intrigued. He looked at Johnson.

  “Cade, this is the Widow Paris, Mme. Marie Laveau of New Orleans. I had to go to some expense to bring her to you.”

  The woman—Laveau—had not taken her eyes off Cade yet.

  “You’re certain your Negro hoodoo will be able to do this?” Johnson asked her.

  “It’s called vodou, Mr. President, and I am Creole,” she said, something of a schoolmarm in her tone. “It will work.”

  Johnson nodded and handed her a piece of paper. “These are the words. Exactly these, do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “You can read, correct?”

  She gave him a withering look.

  Johnson looked away, almost sheepish.

  “You brought it?” Laveau asked him.

  Johnson nodded. “It’s never left my side. Though I still don’t see why you need this.”

  “There is a great deal you don’t see, Mr. President. Please.”

  She held out her hand.

  Johnson reached into his waistcoat and came out with the handkerchief, still wrapped around the bullet that killed Lincoln.

  “As you asked,” Johnson said. “Just as it came out of his skull.”

  Mme. Laveau took the bullet and held it in her palm. She turned away from the president and his guards.

  “You need to leave,” she said. “All of you.”

  “Impossible,” Johnson said. “We don’t know what he will do—”

  “I do,” she said. “Go.”

  Johnson hesitated and then nodded to the soldiers.

  “Very well, then.”

  They left the cell, and Cade was alone with Mme. Laveau.

  She set her bag on the ground and began taking things from it. A small leather pouch. Some bones, and plants. And then, finally, a long knife.

  “Do it,” Cade said.

  She looked at him, a question on her face.

  “Use the knife. You can end this.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” she said. She was starting a very small fire, lighting the green plants so they smoked on the floor of the cell.

  “But you could,” Cade insisted. He tried to keep his voice even. “Please.”

  Before he could say anything else, she had the knife in her hand and pointed at his throat. She had covered the distance between them too quickly for even Cade, with his new senses, to see.

  Cade flinched back involuntarily.

  “Do you really want to die?” she asked.

  Suddenly the question was no longer a far-off possibility. It was right there, at the point of the blade.

  “Yes,” Cade said, after hesitating a moment.

  “You a Christian, child?” she asked.

  He nodded. Carefully. The knife hadn’t moved.

  “What makes you think God wants a thing like you?”

  That stopped Cade. He hadn’t considered that. But it made sense. There was no place in Heaven for what he had become. His soul was damned. It had to be.

  “You still want to die?” she asked.

  This time, Cade couldn’t open his mouth. Still, there was only one answer. Even if he was condemning himself to Hell, he could not go on. Not like this.

  He nodded.

  Mme. Laveau looked disappointed. “You are a coward, then.”

  Some remnant of pride surfaced in Cade. “I am not a coward.”

  “It’s easier to die than fight,” she said. “There is much good you could do, even now.”

  “I’m damned,” Cade said. “You just said—”

  “Yes, you are damned. There is no chance of redemption for you. You are a vampire, and you drank the blood of an innocent. You are an abomination before God.”

  “Then what hope is there for me?”

  “For you? None,” she said. “But you can still do good in this world.

  This man, your president, will ask you to fight. You are lost to the darkness, but you can still save others from it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mme. Laveau sat back. “I could use the bokor paste, and make you a slave. That’s what he wants.” She nodded back at the door Johnson had exited. “But without free will—without your mind, your spirit—you would be little more than a club, and you would fail at any job that required more than simple battering. I don’t think this world can afford that. You have to be better than that.”

  She paused, an odd look on her face. “Besides,” she added, “I find the idea of slavery ... distasteful.”

  Cade got the idea they were bargaining, but he didn’t know what for.

  “There is another way,” she said. “The gris-gris. It ties into you, becomes part of you. But then, the magic is only as strong as the thing it’s tied to.”

  She p
ointed. While they were talking, she had put the leather pouch, open, on the floor between them. The herbs were like a nest for the bullet that had killed President Lincoln. It sat there, still crusted with his blood.

  Cade looked at her, curiosity overcoming his fear for the first time in days. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I need to know how strong you are.”

  Cade didn’t know what to say. To live like this, with no chance of redemption ... he didn’t know if he could take it.

  “You don’t know what this is like,” Cade said. “This hunger, this thirst ...”

  “Is it stronger than your faith?”

  Cade had always believed. Always. He learned to read from the family Bible. He knew that this world didn’t matter, not the poverty, or the work, or the pain. It was a test on the path to salvation.

  But it was easy for that boy. Those tests were nothing, that pain barely registered. That boy hadn’t been turned into this thing. He hadn’t fed on the blood of his friends.

  That boy was dead. Cade was all that was left. But he wouldn’t turn his back on everything he was. He refused.

  In the end, there was only one answer.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not.”

  She looked into his eyes—seemed to look even deeper than that—and took something from the folds of her dress.

  Cade looked at it, and winced. It was a small, rough cross of some base metal, covered in silver.

  It felt like needles in his skin, in his eyes.

  She placed it in his hand. Agony shot through his fingers.

  But he didn’t drop it.

  She nodded, as if he’d passed some test.

  She struck a wooden match on the stone floor and lit the herbs.

  Then she slashed quickly with the knife.

  It stung, but the pain of the cross drowned it out. He saw that she had sliced deeply into his cheek and cut a chunk of his hair out in one stroke.

  His blood pooled in the leather pouch, right where she had placed it.

  It hissed as it extinguished the burning herbs. Then his blood covered the assassin’s bullet, briefly turning the brown crust fresh and red.

  Mme. Laveau took his hair and knotted it, expertly, into a tiny doll—arms, legs and head, like a straw man. Then she waved it through the smoldering herbs, chanting some language Cade didn’t understand.