Bloodlines

Tomorrow, I thought drowsily. I'll do it all tomorrow.

Tomorrow came much more quickly than I expected. I was woken out of a heavy sleep by someone shaking me, and for a split second, the old nightmare was there, the one about Alchemists carrying me away in the night. Recognizing Jill, I just barely stopped myself from screaming. "Hey, hey," I scolded. There was light outside, but it was purplish. Barely after sunrise. "What's going on? What's the matter?"

Jill looked at me, face grim and eyes wide with fear. "It's Adrian. You have to rescue him."

Chapter Fourteen

"FROM HIMSELF?"

I couldn't help it. The joke was out before I could stop it.

"No." She perched on the edge of the bed and bit her lower lip. "Maybe 'rescue' isn't the right word. But we have to go get him. He's trapped in Los Angeles."

I rubbed my eyes as I sat up and then waited a few moments, just in case this was all a dream. Nope. Nothing changed. I picked up my cell phone from my bedside table and groaned when I read the display.

"Jill, it's not even six yet." I started to question if Adrian was even awake this early but then remembered he was probably on a nocturnal schedule. Left to their own devices, Moroi went to bed around what was late morning for the rest of us.

"I know," she said in a small voice. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. He got a ride there last night because he wanted to see those... those Moroi girls again. Lee was supposed to be in LA too, so Adrian figured he could get a ride home. Only, he can't get ahold of Lee, so now he can't get back. Adrian, that is. He's stranded and hung over."

I started to lie back down. "I don't have a lot of sympathy for that. Maybe he'll learn a lesson."

"Sydney, please."

I put an arm over my eyes. Maybe if I looked like I was asleep, she'd leave me alone. A question suddenly popped into my head, and I jerked my arm away.

"How do you know any of this? Did he call?" I wasn't a super-light sleeper, but I still would've heard her phone ring.

Jill looked away from me. Frowning, I sat up.

"Jill? How do you know any of this?"

"Please," she whispered. "Can't we just go get him?"

"Not until you tell me what's going on." A weird feeling was crawling along my skin. I'd felt for a while that I was being excluded from something big, and now, I suddenly knew I was about to find out what the Moroi had been hiding from me.

"You can't tell," she said, finally meeting my eyes again.

I tapped the tattoo on my cheek. "I can hardly tell anyone anything as it is."

"No, not anyone. Not the Alchemists. Not Keith. Not any other Moroi or dhampirs who don't already know."

Not tell the Alchemists? That would be a problem. Among all the other craziness in my life, no matter how much my assignments infuriated me or how much time I'd spent with vampires, I'd never questioned who my loyalty was to. I had to tell the Alchemists if something was going on with Jill and the others. It was my duty to them, to humanity.

Of course, part of my duty to the Alchemists was looking after Jill, and whatever was plaguing her now obviously was connected to her welfare. For half a second, I considered lying to her and immediately dismissed the idea. I couldn't do it. If I was going to keep her secret, I would keep it. If I wasn't going to keep it, then I would let her know up front.

"I won't tell," I said. I think the words surprised me as much as her. She studied me in the dim light and must have at last decided I was telling the truth. She gave a slow nod.

"Adrian and I are bound. Like, with a spirit bond."

I felt my eyes widen in disbelief. "How did that - " Everything suddenly clicked together, the missing pieces. "The attack. You - you - "

"Died," said Jill bluntly. "There was so much confusion when the Moroi assassins came. Everyone thought they were coming for Lissa, so most of the guardians went to surround her. Eddie was the only one who came for me, but he wasn't fast enough. This man, he..." Jill touched a spot in the center of her chest and shuddered. "He stabbed me. He... he killed me. That's when Adrian came along. He used spirit to heal me and bring me back, and now we're bound. Everything happened so fast. No one there even realized what he did."

My mind was reeling. A spirit bond. Spirit was a troubling element to the Alchemists, mostly because we had so few records of it. Our world was documents and knowledge, so any gap made us feel weak. Signs of spirit use had been recorded over the centuries, but no one had really realized it was its own element. Those events had been written off as random magical phenomena. It was only recently, when Vasilisa Dragomir had exposed herself, that spirit had been rediscovered, along with its myriad psychic effects. She and Rose had had a spirit bond, the only modern one we had documented. Healing was one of spirit's most notable attributes, and Vasilisa had brought Rose back from a car accident. It had forged a psychic connection between them, one that had only been shattered when Rose had had a second near-death experience.

"You can see in his head," I breathed. "His thoughts. His feelings." So much began to come together. Like how Jill always knew everything about Adrian, even when he claimed he hadn't told her.

She nodded. "I don't want to. Believe me. But I can't help it. Rose said in time, I'll learn the control to keep his feelings out, but I can't do it now. And he has so much, Sydney. So much feeling. He feels everything so strongly - love, grief, anger. His emotions are up and down, all over the place. What happened between him and Rose... it tears him apart. It's hard to stay focused on me sometimes with all of that going on in him. At least it's only some of the time. I can't really control when it happens."

I didn't say it but wondered if some of those volatile feelings were part of spirit's tendency to drive its users insane. Or maybe it was just part of Adrian's innate personality. All irrelevant, for now.

"But he can't feel you, right? It's only one way?" I asked. Rose had been able to read Vasilisa's thoughts and see her experiences in everyday life - but not the other way around. I assumed it was the same now, but with spirit, one couldn't take anything for granted.

"Right," she agreed.

"That's how... that's how you always know things about him. Like my visits. And when he wanted pizza. That's why he's here, what Abe wanted him here for."

Jill frowned. "Abe? No, it was kind of a group choice for Adrian to come along. Rose and Lissa thought it would be best if we were together while we were getting used to the bond, and I wanted him nearby too. What made you think Abe was involved?"