by Jenna Black
Jules came to squat beside him. “And what are you planning to do, other than give orders?”
“Clean up this mess,” Drake said, with a sweeping motion of his hand. “And make sure that if the gunshot draws any police attention, it gets deflected.” Even now, Gray heard a siren howling its way toward them. “Now hurry up,” Drake urged, helping Michael to his feet.
Jules slung the injured Guardian’s arm around his shoulders. “Let’s go, Gray,” he said, heading toward the door.
Resisting the urge to argue just for the sake of arguing, Gray followed.
BACK IN THE SAFETY of her own home, Carolyn bawled helplessly, a pile of tissues clutched in her fist. Hannah hugged her tightly, rocking her and murmuring soothing, meaningless words. Carolyn’s throat was choked and tight with tears, her chest aching with sobs she couldn’t seem to contain.
“Let it all out, honey,” Hannah said, stroking Carolyn’s hair. “You’ve been bottling all this up for three years and it’s time to let go.”
Carolyn gulped a breath of air, but though she wanted to dispute her friend’s diagnosis the relentless tears wouldn’t let her. Whenever they seemed about to ebb, she’d remember the look on Gray’s face, eyes filled with madness as he bared his fangs and prepared to bite her. To kill her.
A shudder rocked her whole body. It wasn’t his fault. Deirdre had been starving him. And the room had reeked of blood, which must have maddened him. It wasn’t his fault.
“I never stopped loving him,” she sobbed, and Hannah’s arms tightened around her.
“I know. But it’s just like he told you—the man you loved died three years ago. It’s time you finally let yourself mourn him, and then let him go.”
Carolyn squirmed out of Hannah’s embrace, scrubbing at her eyes with the already soaked tissues. Her nose was so stuffy she could barely breathe, but at least the flow of tears seemed to be slowing. “I kept thinking …” She hiccuped and almost lost it. She tried again, her voice little more than a whisper. “I guess I thought it was all in his mind somehow, that he really was in control of himself. I never really allowed myself to think he might hurt me.”
The sympathy in Hannah’s eyes only made the pain worse. “He tried to warn you, I think.”
She nodded. “Yes, he did. And I didn’t listen. I only heard what I wanted to hear.”
A gentle smile touched her friend’s lips. “Human nature, I suppose.” The smile faded. “I can’t pretend to understand how you’re feeling right now. I’ve never loved anyone like you loved Gray, and I can’t put myself in your shoes. But I have to think that when the worst of the aftermath is over, you’ll finally be able to start healing. As long as you didn’t know what had happened to him, there was always some part of your heart that believed hope was still alive. I don’t know if you were ever going to get past it. Now maybe some day …”
Carolyn was glad Hannah didn’t finish the thought. It was too soon to think about healing. Right now, all she could think about was trying to weather the storm, trying to contain the pain and keep herself from going stark, raving mad. She wanted to scream, wanted to hit something. Surely there was some way she could make herself feel better!
But there was nothing she could do. Only time would ease the pain, and right now Carolyn had her doubts about even that.
GRAY SAT ON A plush chair in front of the fire, sipping from a glass of blood and milk, not even noticing the foul taste that usually turned his stomach. He was very much aware of Eli and Jules staring at him, but he couldn’t tear his own eyes away from the flickering flames. His whole body ached, and though rationally he knew that this was no physical pain but an emotional one, he couldn’t shake the illusion.
“You did the right thing,” Jules said softly, and Gray reluctantly dragged his gaze away from the fire. For the first time he could ever remember, he saw no hint of animosity on the older vampire’s face. “I know from firsthand experience what it’s like to cling to one’s mortal life, to refuse to sever the ties.” Jules shook his head and looked at the floor, his voice dropping even lower. “My son is eighty years old. My grandson is forty-two. My great-granddaughters are ten and eight.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Soon, my only child will die of old age. It would have been better if I’d heeded Eli’s advice eons ago and just let them all go.”
Gray sighed heavily and finished up his meal. “You know, it’s much easier to hate you when you’re being a prick.”
Jules laughed, and though the sadness still sat heavily on Gray’s shoulders he allowed the corners of his mouth to lift in a slight smile. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Jules said.
“Perhaps it’s too early to ask,” Eli said, his voice conspicuously gentle, “but have you given any thought to what you’re going to do now?”
For half a minute, Gray was tempted to play dumb, his heart too sore and his thoughts too jumbled to deal with a serious conversation. But in the midst of the turmoil, he sensed a paradoxical calm at the center of the storm. The one and only thing that was clear to him right now was that he couldn’t go on the way he had before Carolyn waltzed back into his life. He couldn’t go on just … existing.
Gray cleared his throat. “Three years ago, you tried to get me to join the Guardians and I turned you down. Is the offer still open?”
“Of course,” Eli said.
Jules let fly another stream of his French cuss words, but Eli silenced him with a raised eyebrow. Jules folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “Well, I’m not working with him!” he declared, his expression dangerously close to a pout.
“Glad to see you’re the same old Jules,” Gray muttered, earning himself a withering look. “And before you start acting your usual self and pissing me off with every word that leaves your mouth, let me thank you for saving my life.”
Jules looked like he’d just swallowed a live toad, his face so comical that even Eli laughed. Gray’s mood lightened just a bit. Life was full of surprises—he’d finally found a taunt to get under Jules’s skin, and it was because of Jules’s good deed!
“I’m regretting it already,” Jules grumbled.
21
“I THINK I’M GETTING carpal tunnel syndrome,” Carolyn complained as she shoved her chair back from her desk.
At the other desk, Hannah switched off her computer and raised an inquiring eyebrow. “What? You don’t enjoy spending eight to ten hours a day pushing your mouse around and staring at a little glowing screen? But Carolyn, just think how rewarding it is when you find the missing heir.” She frowned theatrically. “Or is it a deadbeat dad this time?”
Carolyn scowled at her best friend and business partner. “Make fun of my misery, why don’t you.”
Hannah sighed and shook her head, pulling her chair over to Carolyn’s desk and sitting down. “It’s self-imposed misery, honey.” Carolyn opened her mouth to protest, but Hannah cut her off before she had a chance to get a word out. “Face facts, Carolyn: you became a cop because you wanted to do some good in the world, and then you gave it all up because of the man who shall remain nameless. You’ve never liked being a private investigator.”
Carolyn’s scowl deepened. “That’s not true!” she protested. “I love being my own boss. I love not having to fill out twenty different forms to explain every move I make. And I especially love picking and choosing the cases I want to work on.”
“Are you fooling yourself with this shit, because you’re not fooling me.”
“Hannah—”
“Look, you’re a perfectly decent PI. You get the job done, and your clients have no reason to complain. But you were a great detective. You had passion. You were excited by what you were doing.”
Carolyn narrowed her eyes. “We’ve been working together for three years. You’ve never complained about my lack of enthusiasm before.”
“I’m not complaining. I’m just pointing out what I see.” Hannah bit her lip and looked uncertain.
Carolyn braced herself�
��if Hannah was unsure of herself, then she must be thinking of saying something pretty scary. Finally, Hannah blew out a loud breath.
“From the moment you started looking into the Banger case, you had this … sparkle in your eyes. A sparkle I hadn’t seen for three years. Me, I was scared shitless the whole time and I wanted it all to go away. But Carolyn, you wanted to take the Banger down. And face it, if it weren’t for your investigation, he’d probably still be out there killing people right and left. You’re the one who figured out who he was. You’re the one who figured out where he was.”
Carolyn squirmed and refused to meet her friend’s eyes. The police were baffled by the sudden cessation of the Banger attacks. It had seemed to them that the killer’s pace was accelerating, and they’d expected it to keep getting worse and worse. Now eight weeks had passed without another killing, and they were beginning to think perhaps they’d gotten lucky and arrested the perp for some other crime. Or that he’d died violently, the way violent criminals often did.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has to do with you wasting your talents doing locates and skip traces. It’s kind of like Ernest Hemingway deciding he’d rather be a typist than a writer.”
Carolyn gritted her teeth. “So what? It’s my life, and I get to choose what to do with it.”
Hannah glared at her with genuine annoyance. “Well if that’s your choice, then don’t complain about freakin’ carpal tunnel syndrome!”
Carolyn looked away from the anger in her friend’s eyes, turning off her computer even though she hadn’t finished the tasks she’d set herself for the afternoon. “Just what is it you’re suggesting I do, anyway?”
“The only reason you left the force was because you were too pigheaded to quit chasing after Gray,” Hannah started.
“Don’t go there,” Carolyn warned, her cheeks heating with angry color. Hannah would probably never understand it, but Gray hadn’t been the only reason she’d left the force. Yes, her insistence on investigating his disappearance was the catalyst that had caused her to leave, but there had been more to it than that. She’d always felt like a cog in the wheel in the midst of that huge, urban PD, and a part of her had longed for a kind of independence she never would have found there. Unfortunately, while she now had the independence, Hannah was right that she’d lost a lot of excitement and sense of urgency that had come from working cases that were truly important.
Not that tracking down deadbeat dads wasn’t important, she reminded herself. The kids who suffered because of those men’s neglect were very much in need of any help they could get.
“All right,” Hannah said, “maybe you don’t want to go back to the force. Maybe you burned your bridges when you left. Maybe you should apply to the FBI. That would give you a brand new start, and you’d be back in the hunt where you belong.”
Join the Feebies? Carolyn could honestly say the thought had never occurred to her. “I’ll think about it,” she said. Of course, if she’d felt like a cog in the wheel in the Philly PD, how would she feel in the FBI? Assuming she managed to get in, of course.
“Is that ‘I’ll think about it’ as in I’ll think about it, or is that ‘I’ll think about it’ as in ‘no way in hell, but if I pretend I’ll think about it, maybe she’ll leave me alone’?”
Carolyn couldn’t help laughing at her irrepressible friend. “I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out myself, okay?”
“Deal!” Hannah declared.
IT WAS A LOVELY evening, so Gray decided to walk home from the weekly meeting at Eli’s, though it would take more than an hour. Eli wasn’t ready to send him out on assignments yet, so he still had many hours to fill during the long, lonely nights.
The Banger had taken a deadly toll on the Guardians, and it wasn’t just because of those he’d killed. Eli had persuaded all of the Guardians except for Tim Carter to return to the fold, but though Gray had only been a Guardian for eight weeks, he knew things had changed drastically since the pre-Banger days. The tension Deirdre had planted had grown roots, living under the surface but always unavoidably there. A rumor circulated that Carter was dead, that Eli had learned his lesson from the Banger and would never again let a Guardian leave the organization alive. Gray wondered if it was true, but no one was about to question Eli.
Gray still found himself the recipient of many a hostile glare, for though he had been completely exonerated of the killings, the suspicions clung to him in a lingering taint. He found himself scowling as he walked.
“Don’t take it too personally,” Drake said from close beside him, and Gray jumped a mile into the air.
He whirled on the older vampire and glared at him, putting his hand to his chest where his heart thumped vigorously. “You scared the shit out of me!”
Drake grinned. “If you’re going to be a Guardian, my friend, you should learn to be a little more conscious of your surroundings. You should especially be conscious if a Killer is coming up behind you.”
Gray let out a deep breath as his pulse rate slowed to normal. He started walking again, and Drake fell into step beside him. “Are you following me around to lecture me, or did you have something else in mind?” Gray’s voice came out surly, but in truth he and Drake had formed a friendship of sorts, both existing on the fringes of the Guardian society.
Drake shrugged. Across the street, a pair of college-age girls stared at him and whispered to each other. Drake noticed their attention and grinned at them. Twin blushes colored the girls’ cheeks.
Gray couldn’t help laughing. “Anyone would think you’re a rock star, the way women eye you,” he muttered. Personally, he couldn’t quite understand what women found so appealing. He supposed Drake was a good-looking guy, but to Gray’s admittedly untrained eye there didn’t seem to be anything extraordinary about him. Not enough to warrant the kind of attention he got, at least.
“Women are attracted to men who are comfortable in their own skin,” Drake explained, as if reading Gray’s mind.
Gray thought about that a moment, then nodded. There was something about Drake that set him apart, and Gray could easily see confidence as that magical something. For a long moment, they walked in silence, but now Gray’s curiosity was roused and he had to ask. “So it doesn’t bother you, being a vampire?”
Drake shook his head. “Not in the least. I didn’t choose to become what I am, but I have always been determined to embrace it. I’m immortal, forever young, forever healthy.” He smiled. “I have little cause for complaint.”
Gray shivered, even though the night wasn’t particularly cold. “But you kill people.”
Drake shrugged as though it hardly mattered. “Had I encountered Eli before the addiction took hold, my life would indeed be much different now. Better, even. But I’m not one to moan and whine over what might have been. I can’t help the killing. All I can do is choose victims who will not trouble my conscience.”
Gray stuck his hands into his pockets, the chill deepening. “Now you sound like Deirdre. She and Montgomery kept trying to tell us how they had every right to keep killing people right and left.”
Drake stopped in his tracks, and Gray stopped too. He hadn’t meant to be a judgmental jerk, but now that the words were out of his mouth, he couldn’t very well call them back.
Drake, however, didn’t look particularly angry or offended. He regarded Gray with a penetrating gaze, so knowing that Gray had to look away.
“It’s like this, Gray—you can only control what you can control. I can’t control my need to kill. I can control who I kill, and to a certain extent how often. Montgomery couldn’t control his need to kill either. But he could have controlled his choice of victim, and he could have controlled the way in which he went about it. He didn’t have to rape them. He didn’t have to drive stakes through Guardian hearts. He didn’t have to try to destroy the Guardians from within. And he certainly didn’t have to try to create more Killers.
“If I could live on
lamb blood and milk, then I would. But I can’t, and I refuse to wallow in guilt over something I can’t control. Perhaps that’s a lesson you should look toward learning.”
Gray turned away and resumed walking. “I’m not wallowing in guilt.”
“No? Then why did you chase Carolyn away?”
Anger surged through Gray’s veins and it was only with a concerted effort that he managed to contain his temper. “That’s none of your business!”
“Any fool can see you love her,” Drake continued, undaunted.
“Quit it!”
“So one could come to the conclusion that you chased her away to punish yourself. Only, you may well be punishing her just as much.”
Gray ground his teeth and clenched his fists, reminding himself that Drake was even more powerful than Jules. If Gray couldn’t control his urge to throw a punch, he’d find himself flattened to the sidewalk in a heartbeat.
“Of course, that’s your choice to make,” Drake said. “It’s just that you should do yourself and Carolyn the courtesy of thinking it all the way through before—”
“Enough!” Gray snapped, and this time Drake must have seen how thin a thread his control hung on, for the older vampire shrugged casually and shut up.
They stood there for maybe a minute or so, each trying to stare the other down. Then Drake shook his head. “Coward,” he said softly, then turned his back and walked away.
CAROLYN DROPPED HER PEN and closed her eyes, shoving the pile of papers away from her as she propped her elbows on her dining room table cum work desk. She didn’t need a PhD in psychology to know that her inability to fill out the application without making stupid mistake after stupid mistake was a big, blaring warning message. She opened her eyes again and shook her head at the botched mess she’d made of the first page. It looked like it’d been filled out by a first-grader! The FBI would take one look at that page and toss her into the rejects pile without bothering to read any further.
