Another vein, p.1
Another Vein, page 1
Another Vein
A Resurrectionist Novel (Book 3)
Leah Clifford
Another Vein
A Resurrectionist Novel (Book 3)
By Leah Clifford
Copyright © 2022 Leah Clifford
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.
See my website at LeahClifford.com for information on trigger warnings for this book.
Cover design by Daqri Bernardo
Contents
Chapter 1 Meadow
Chapter 2 Allie
Chapter 3 Ploy
Chapter 4 Meadow
Chapter 5 Allie
Chapter 6 Meadow
Chapter 7 Ploy
Chapter 8 Allie
Chapter 9 Meadow
Chapter 10 Ploy
Chapter 11 Meadow
Chapter 12 Allie
Chapter 13 Ploy
Chapter 14 Meadow
Chapter 15 Allie
Chapter 16 Meadow
Chapter 17 Ploy
Chapter 18 Allie
Chapter 19 Ploy
Chapter 20 Meadow
Chapter 21 Allie
Chapter 22 Ploy
Chapter 23 Meadow
Chapter 24 Allie
Chapter 25 Meadow
Chapter 26 Ploy
Chapter 27 Allie
Chapter 28 Meadow
Chapter 29 Allie
Epilogue Two Months Later
Also By Leah Clifford
Entry 174
Subject’s age: approximately 23 years
Name: Subject refused to relinquish name despite attempts at coercing cooperation.
Initial injection (Serum F, modification 3) resulted in seizures, memory loss, inability to control bowels. Reduced circulation in extremities. Hands and feet showed evidence of extreme blood leakage, resulting in bruising under the skin, blackened color. At one hour mark, subject bit through tongue. Aspirated on blood. Did not self-resurrect. While the reaction to injection was severe, it is worth noting the subject died from pulmonary aspiration, which might have been intentional and not a reaction to the injection. Progress?
NOTE: *Could a patient have the presence of mind to do this?*
NOTE: *Patient did not die of reaction to injection.*
NOTE: *Further research needed for conclusion. A new subject will need to be obtained.*
Chapter 1
Meadow
Jonah is on my shit list.
Sweat sprouts along my hairline as I throw my Porsche into park. The heat has been near record-breaking for Colorado lately, which is all the more reason I’d rather be lounging by the pool. My implied ‘sibling bonding’ time with Jonah doubled as a rare afternoon out of the lab for me and a few hours of freedom without security for him. Win, win. Jonah had one rule in exchange for me covering for him—be back to our meeting spot on time.
And Jonah is late.
Technically, because I showed up late myself, Jonah is extra late, which means I have every right to be extra pissed.
Dust devils swirl the dirt of the empty parking lot and the baseball field beyond. They don’t inspire confidence that he’s here. The school is desolate, not because it’s summer and set deep in the woods down a long, paved road, but because it’s literally abandoned. Due to budget cuts, the city absorbed the grades into the elementary and high schools and shuttered this place. The building’s been on the market for years. The wooden planked For Sale sign nestled into the overgrown grasses of the front cul-de-sac is missing, though. I try to remember if it was here when Jonah and I pulled this stunt yesterday and can’t recall. Maybe the realtors gave up.
The building is in reasonable shape, likely because it’s a good twenty-minute walk from the bits of town worth hanging in for juvenile delinquents seeking first cigarettes and windows to break. My brother, for better or worse, is too sheltered to be a hooligan. Yesterday, I’d thought the school a weird choice for a meeting spot and now, with him being late, I’m wondering if Jonah didn’t have some reason behind it. Is he keeping secrets?
Pinyon pine overpowers my senses. Even the mountains appear droopy and wilted. A slight breeze blows and chills the soaked spots from the wet bikini top under my shirt.
“Jonah!” I call, though it’s obviously pointless. I wonder if the former middle school is unlocked, if Jonah went inside to explore.
Grumbling, I drop into the sport seat and throw my car into drive. I jam my pedal on the gas, hurtle forward, and slam on the brakes next to the glass doors. I honk my horn twice.
Nothing.
Despite the convertible top being down, I’ve got the vents set to blast cold air. Chlorinated droplets slide from my dark hair onto the nape of my neck, the wet trails going frigid.
Jonah should be here.
I skip the Where are you? text and head straight for Please call me.
He’s twelve, I reason with myself. Cut him some slack.
Yesterday, I pulled into this same parking lot ten minutes early, surprised to find him talking to a girl, his baseball mitt balanced on the roughhewn bench of the sunken dugout. She’d ducked from view, shy, and when Jonah spotted me, he bolted toward my car without so much as a backward glance.
I grilled him in the car the way big sisters are supposed to—Did he like her? When’d he meet her? Did he at least get her number?
I didn’t ask Jonah if the girl was a resurrectionist. New blood is scarce in this town and a family with the gene relocating to Ruxton would have been hot gossip. His little summer crush is forbidden, but he deserves a bit of normalcy. By winter, my mom wants to start him resurrecting.
I check the time. The ten minutes I was late, added to the fifteen I’ve been sitting here, puts him at nearly half an hour over schedule. He knows what’s at stake if we get caught, if I get caught.
If my mother discovers I let Jonah out of my sight...
I go through my phone again for a missed call, a text that slipped by me. All that’s there is the See you at three! I sent him from the stop sign after I dropped him off. The owe you he sent back.
You left your brother unprotected. It’s my mother’s voice in my head.
I won’t panic. Not yet. I have no desire to acknowledge those are the active genes she passed on to me. Jonah got the good ones.
You left your gun at home.
Another thing I screwed up.
I’m in shorts. Sure, I could have used the shoulder holster I usually opt for instead of the thigh holster, but this morning I abandoned my piece in my bedroom lockbox when Jonah and I bolted. I prepped myself for an afternoon of swimming, not an incident. I’m supposed to always be prepared and I’m not.
My brain is still trying to convince me everything is fine.
He’s inside. He’s got to be. My brother’s way too naïve for breaking and entering on his own, but if that girl was with him, a bad influence, maybe she convinced him a little trespassing never hurt anyone. Hell, I’d have been the bad influence at his age if I’d had friends.
Except Jonah’s not me. He’s never been a rule breaker.
Still, he’s got to be inside because he’s not outside. I get out of the car and walk to the door. There were never sufficient students to justify the school’s construction; Ruxton Springs, Colorado, has always been a small town. Close-knit keeps secrets, my mom says. Which is good for people like Jonah, who have the genetic variant that makes their blood so different, instead of merely a carrier of the gene like me.
I give the glass door a tug, sort of surprised when it rattles against its deadbolt. Leaning forward, I cup my hands around my face to cut the glare and peer inside, hoping to spot my delinquent brother. The school is as empty as the infields.
This isn’t good.
If I alert anyone, play this wrong, Jonah and I will both have hell to pay. But if something happened to him, and I’m stalling to save my own ass…
I pull my cellphone from my pocket and shoot a text to my mother. Jonah make it home?
No ???? comes the reply a moment later.
Jonah’s not a wanderer. He didn’t even hide inside the round clothes racks when my mom took him shopping as a toddler the way I’d been prone to do. Jonah, like my mom, has always been careful about texting plans, who he’s with and where. If he and that girl were delayed, he would text me. Call. Something.
If I don’t answer my mom soon, she’ll go into panic mode. It’s one of those family jokes, my mom’s overprotectiveness. Jonah, being the beloved precious jewel, seems to understand. I, on the other hand, never quite managed. The first time I came home fifteen minutes late, she’d already alerted the phone chain of resurrectionists, pulling a dozen people away from their lives to search for me, even though I didn’t deserve their protection. My phone had been dead. When I survived her verbal lashing and was sent to my room for the night, I charged it to find thirty-seven missed calls and as many text messages.
In hindsight, I don’t understand why she was worried. I had enough documented scabbed over kn
“Damn it, Jonah,” I whisper. It’s not like him. It’s not.
I skip the text.
“Meadow,” Mom answers, cautious.
“He was supposed to meet me.”
Uncertainty radiates from her end of the line. “What do you mean, meet you?”
I wince. “We weren’t together. I dropped him off at the middle school.”
“Okay,” she says, drawing out the word. Her voice fades as she responds to someone in the background. One of the security team, no doubt; I assume Israel. She’s handling it. We’ll suffer through a lecture over dinner and never, ever do anything like this again.
A droplet of pool water slips from my bunned dark hair and rolls down my neck. “I’m sorry. It was only for—”
“And you don’t see him?” she asks, cutting me off before I can explain.
The tiny kernel of terror I’ve nurtured since I got here sprouts into a growing horror. She’s asking if I found my brother’s body.
The blood that runs through Jonah’s veins can cure diseases, save lives, or even bring back the dead within certain time limits. Keeping it out of the hands of those who would abuse it matters. Each resurrectionist carries a vial. When there’s a threat, when there’s no other choice to keep the blood protected, they drink the poison in the vial. It’s seen as noble, soldiers dying for the cause. It’s not the only part of the resurrectionist world I don’t understand.
“He’s not here,” I say.
“Come home.”
There’s no room for argument. I try anyway. “But what if he’s—”
“Now, Meadow.” This time, my mother doesn’t bother hiding her fear.
I want to tell her she’s overreacting. Jonah is fine. He messed up the meeting spot, though we’ve never had another. I’m searching for any other excuse that ends with him safe as I turn to walk to the car. My flip-flop kicks at something that tinkles as it skips across the asphalt.
I tell myself to get in the car. He’s with that girl. They stopped for ice cream. He lost track of time. He’s almost thirteen and not thinking about the panic he’s causing.
The glass tube glints blue in the sun. The lid is on. My brother wouldn’t be too scared to take what was inside. He’s brave in ways I can’t understand because despite how close we are, we’re different. We’ve always been different.
Jonah’s vial glares against the blackness of the asphalt. It’s there and he’s not.
“Mom,” I say. “Someone took him.”
Chapter 2
Allie
“Thanks for coming with me,” Talia says as I settle into the passenger seat of her SUV.
“Sure,” I say, all breath from the run down the rear stairs of the split up Victorian house which holds my tiny apartment. I snap the hair tie off my wrist and wrap my long, blonde locks until I’m satisfied they’re secure in case this little trip goes south. Twenty minutes ago, my phone rang with Talia asking me to come on a resurrection with her. “You said the call was weird?”
Talia gives me an uncertain look. Her own dark hair is secured in four braids close to her scalp. “A little. I wanted you with me over any of the others.”
It’s been three weeks since my boyfriend, Christopher, and I had our run in with a group of hunters who wanted to sell me for my blood. Three weeks since we massacred them in our escape, Christopher bleeding out as we struggled toward the front door of the house. We almost made it before the youngest hunter, foolishly left alive, cut me down. Lucky for me because of my genetics, and for Christopher because we transfused several pints of resurrectionist blood into him, the pair of us didn’t stay dead long enough for it to stick.
No one found Keeley, the thirteen-year-old hunter. But it’s not the threat of her that had Talia decree the resurrectionists in the Fissure’s Whipp cluster ride double until further notice.
The Doctor could be anywhere, I think as I buckle my seatbelt. The mere mention of him sends a shiver through the bones of any resurrectionist.
In the gloom of that bloodied house, with Christopher dead beside me, I bargained everything I had for Talia to help him. I will never pay off my debt. Talia and I will never be even again. I have no regrets. “You call, I’m there,” I say, struggling to sound casual.
Her hands flex on the steering wheel. “We’ve had each other’s backs since we were in fifth grade.” She pauses and the reminiscent smile she’s wearing fades. “You know I would never...”
I wait for her to go on, surprised when she doesn’t. Not much rattles Talia. “Would never?” I press.
Her attention flits to the road. Her mouth opens, but it’s a long moment before she speaks. “I guess it’s hitting me how many things are changing. How many have to change.”
“Oh,” I manage after a beat. They’ve scheduled her meeting to officially take the reins in Fissure’s Whipp. The leaders of the other clusters are attending. I’m not.
I can’t afford to leave this life behind yet, but I’m taking the initial risky step toward a future with the boy I love at my side. I’m not naïve enough to think that after their meeting, Christopher and I will traipse off into the sunset, all butterflies and hearts. The important players will understand I’m shunning my blood, denying my genetics, and I’ll be the first problem Talia’s expected to deal with. I don’t want change if it means losing Talia. She’s my best friend.
She’s my only friend.
We fall into a strained silence. The job’s not far, minutes outside of town, and the ride passes like a held breath. Twice, she tenses as if she wants to say something to bridge the gap we’re both pretending doesn’t exist between us.
We pull into the driveway of a house on the East side of the Chariot District. All the homes in this area are remodeled, their antique charm polished, cookie cutter siding removed, and the bright colors of paint favored by the residents of Fissure’s Whipp fresh on the cornices. “Nice place,” I say.
When I look at Talia, she’s stock straight in her seat as we roll to a stop.
“You okay?” I ask. She’d mentioned this job seemed weird to her. I assumed her gut was playing overtime or she’s stressed about the meeting. Now, I’m not so sure. Talia’s wound tight. “Something tip you off to a trap?”
“Nothing especially strange to get my hackles up,” she says, despite her behavior to the contrary. “Except that when the client called me, she was requesting a resurrection for herself.” Talia pauses dramatically while I struggle to put the pieces together.
“She wasn’t dead yet?”
“Hard to make a phone call if you’re dead.” She smirks before she goes on. “She sure as hell sounded like she was going to be soon.”
It’s uncommon that a resurrectionist is called when things are dire instead of dead. People typically learn of us through passed favors or cryptic rumors to give us a trickle of clients. Too much attention on what we can do would summon lab coats to discover the how. We can’t let that happen.
My last job was a bank robber who dramatically rallied when I showed up on the scene. I’m rooting for a body.
Talia kills the engine. The air is stagnant, heavy, and humid. The screen door isn’t banging against the house. Instead, it hovers, open and unlatched, like a portent of doom. Talia points to it and I nod.
