Blood To Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

started
to repeat myself word for word.
     “Have you forgotten
your Mahá, Angelika?” she interrupted tersely.
    Mahá was the coming-out party
for new immortals, which lasted for days. It happened immediately after The
Change and was one of the most important events in an immortal’s existence.
Other immortals from everywhere came to meet and observe the “New One.” Mahá
was as old as the oldest of us and there was no getting out of it.
    “No,” I answered, deflated.
Spent, I released my shield, wanting nothing more than to climb into bed and
try to go to sleep.
     “Why, Angel? Why do you
feel the need to do this...pop star thing?” she asked.
    “School sucks. I want to
sing.”
    “You want to sing for
mortals,” Dad said.
    “I want to sing for
everybody.”
    He leaned forward, and
extended the first two fingers of his left hand. “May I?” he inquired gently.
    I paused for a second, and
then nodded. He touched my temple. After a few seconds, he quickly pulled back
and, after a brief pause, patted me on the shoulder. “I see it,” he said. “You
want to change the world into a better place with the music in your soul. You
want to touch the hearts of people.”
    “Yeah, what you said, Dad.”
    Mom softened up and the
burgundy disappeared. “Angel,” she said.” You are beginning to mature. Surely
you see that now?” I nodded. “You most certainly will be Shimshana; it is in
your blood. And those mortals you want to sing for and be with so badly will
suddenly be food to you.”
    Dumbfounded, I looked to Dad.
    “It is difficult, honey, when
you are newborn Shimshana,” he agreed. “Your natural tendency will be to…hunt.”
The word hung in the air like a threat. “You may not be able to… control
yourself the way your mother and sister do.”
    “You mean I could…” the words
stuck in my throat before rushing out in a blurt, “…want to kill Jules and
LaLa?”
    My eyes darted to Cici, who
stared at the table. I eyed her with growing horror. “Cici? You didn’t…?”
    She eventually met my eyes.
“It’s almost impossible to stop. Mortals smell good, the way a roasted chicken
still smells to you. It took me roughly fifty years before I got to the point
where I didn’t want, or need, to attack them.” She quickly looked back down at
the table.
    “It is nothing to be ashamed
of,” Dad said. “It is your nature.”
    “We make the moral choice to
find alternatives to hunting,” Mom added, “but at our core we are hunters. Your
band mates, your fans, your teachers, are all fleeting. We are immortal. We
cannot afford to see life the way they do.”
    Tears dripped over my lower
eyelashes as I fought the mental image of killing my best friends for food. But
it wasn’t the thought that made me cry. It was the knowledge that, despite the
risk, I wasn’t going to stop. “I’m still going to do what I said I’d do,” I
said.
    Dad, looking slightly
disgusted, shook his head. The room grew red and hot again. “Oooh, this child,”
Mom said from between clenched teeth.
    “Let us talk, my love,” Dad
said, rising from the table and reaching for her hand.
    She immediately focused on
his eyes, took a deep breath, and clasped his hand. “We are not done with you,
young lady,” she said, never taking her eyes away from Dad’s. “Wait here.”
    “Um, okay.”
    Clasping hands, Dad and Mom
faced each other. She kissed the space between his bushy eyebrows and the two
of them disappeared.
    I whipped around to Cici.
“D’you see where they’re going this time?”
    “Taj Mahál. She must be
wicked mad.”
    I paced the floor as Cici
floated near her chair. “They’re going to keep treating me like a child,” I
complained.
    “Hate to tell you this,
Bighead, but you are a child. You’re still mortal. And you’ve got no idea what
you’re in for.”
    Before I could ask her what
she meant by that, Mom and Dad appeared in the same spot they vanished from.
“One hour and twenty-seven