“What did he have to say to you?” Grey asked as soon as I stood next to him in the clinical hallway. The harsh glare from the fluorescent light overhead stung my eyes, the light bouncing off the pristine white walls that made up the corridor.
“He seems to think she’s going to get him before we do,” I said, momentarily closing my eyes. As soon as I did, the fear-filled gaze of Sita Bhatt filled my mind.
“Any word on Officer Bhatt?” I swallowed hard, my throat was so dry my voice was almost unrecognisable.
“She’s in surgery.” Grey pressed his hand to my cheek and without thinking, I leaned into him, feeling his calloused palm cup my face with the kind of tenderness I’d thought I would never see in him. “I should have been there for you.” The hoarse whisper was fuelled by his regret, and when I looked up at him, his eyes swam with self-loathing.
“I can take care of myself,” I said, slowly extricating myself from his hold.
I kept my eyes locked on him, watching as his hand slowly recoiled, his fingers curling as he let his arm drop back to his side. Tension sang through him and power prickled along the edges of my arms, making it feel as though thousands of tiny ants crawled just below the surface of my skin.
“What’s going on with you?” Scrubbing my hands over my arms, I tried to dispel the uncomfortable stinging.
“I don’t know.” The raw honesty conveyed in his words took me by surprise.
“You’ve got better control than this, Grey. For as long as I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you react like this…”
“I think the Pied Piper did something to me,” he said, closing his eyes. The magic that had been rising in the hall dissipated instantly.
“What kind of something?”
He shrugged, sweat beading on his forehead. “I don’t know. All I know is that every time I get angry my power spikes and I can’t stop it.”
My eyes widened. What he was confessing to me was beyond dangerous. He was a druid, the kind of magic he had access to was lethal in the wrong hands. But that had never been a problem for Grey. If he was losing it now, the kind of destruction he was capable of wreaking was beyond measure. And if Sophia found out…
The emotional damage it would do to him would be unbearable. If he hurt someone because he couldn’t control his power, he’d never be able to walk away from it unscathed. In fact, I was pretty damn certain it would destroy him…
Not to mention what Division 6 would do to him. I glanced back at the heavy iron door that kept us from the vampire in the room beyond. The last thing I wanted was to find Grey in the same position as the vamp…
“Anyway, we need to focus on Carmine and why she’s in Whitby…” His voice cut through my sombre thoughts.
“I don’t know why she’d go there,” I said honestly. “We weren’t exactly close. I don’t know how she ticks… makes it a little difficult to figure out her motivations.”
Grey nodded as the hollow ring of running footsteps in the corridor drew our attention.
“What the hell is going on in there?” Alex said, breathing hard as he caught up to us.
“In where?”
“The cell, the vampire, he freaked out and the cameras went all funky…”
An icy chill climbed down my spine and I grabbed the door handle. Pain seared into my palm and I jerked my hand back, my skin giving way as I left a thin layer of it behind on the frozen lever.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I chanted, eyeing the sigil seared into my palm. “Whose magic is this?” I said, gesturing to the marking. “Because it’s not mine.”
“Something’s triggered the wards,” Grey said grimly, his hand hovering over the handle.
Isaac screamed, the sound penetrating the solid door and soundproofed walls, and I knew that whatever was going on in there, whoever was in there with him, they wanted us to listen to him suffer.
“We have to get in there,” I said, taking the handkerchief Grey held out to me and wrapping it around the now weeping wound on my palm. It wasn’t healing and it made me wonder just what kind of sigil made up the ward. Anything that could prevent a preternatural from healing was serious magic.
The fabric from the handkerchief chaffed the wound. An injury like this was going to make using my blades an absolute pain in the ass.
“Stand back,” Grey said, the energy of his gathering magic rushed over my skin. When he was casting, the air felt thinner, his magic sucked the oxygen from the room and I struggled to draw a deep breath.
He raised his hands, the air above them shimmered, making me think of heat rising from the pavement in the summer sun. Energy slammed into the door, the groaning screech of twisting metal rent the air and I clapped my hands over my ears to block the noise out.
Sweat beaded along Grey’s forehead and the metal of the door screeched again. “Something is fighting me,” he said through gritted teeth.
Without thinking, I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder. My eyes rolled back in my head, the feel of Grey channelling my energy into his power was akin to having your insides scooped out with a spoon. A scream built in the back of my throat but I couldn’t free the sound.
What little oxygen I had in my lungs burned, my guts churning as they, too, became molten and still I felt Grey pulling power from inside me.
“Let her go!” Alex’s voice came from far away. I tried to focus on the words but my brain was boiling inside my skull. Red light danced behind my eyelids and still the agony continued.
“I’ve got you…” Kypherous whispered in my ear, his warm breath creating condensation that clung to my skin, his rough scaled tongue scraped along the side of my cheek. Fear scrambled my thoughts and it was then I found my scream.
Chapter 21
The concrete was cool beneath my cheek, the fluorescent lights overhead left no room for shadows in the corridor and for that I was grateful. I could still feel Kypherous’ tongue against my cheek and I bolted upright, spider walking in reverse until my back slammed into the solid stone wall.
“I didn’t know what else to do—” Alex came into view, his voice finally breaking through the panic that had threatened to engulf me just seconds before. “I didn’t mean—” He reached out to me. “I had to break the hold you had on each other.”
My mind was dulled and sluggish as it tried to make sense of his words.
“What are you talking about?” My voice was alien, the sound guttural, as though I’d spent the last hour screaming until my throat was raw.
“Your fears—” Alex said as he crouched next to me.
When I closed my eyes I could still see Kypherous, still feel his rough tongue on my cheek. Swallowing back the acrid bile that crept up my throat, I nodded as I pushed up onto my feet. Alex reached out to help but I shrugged him off. The last thing I needed right now was the feel of another’s hand on my skin, even if they were only trying to help.
Grey stood with his back to me, his hands pressed on the wall in front of him, head hanging down between his shoulders. His spine rose up as he sucked another gasping breath into his lungs.
“Grey.” I said his name half expecting him to ignore me completely. Instead, he half turned, glancing over his shoulder in my direction.
I took an involuntary step backwards, the cold concrete wall slapping into me once more. The feral look in his eyes brought a rush of my own power skittering over my skin.
“Whatever shit is going on between you two, we don’t have time for it right now,” Alex snapped.
Pushing my power back down where it belonged, I shook my shoulders out, a pathetic attempt to free myself of the ghostly touch of Kypherous.
The heavy steel door was buckled and crumpled as though the hand of great beast had reached in, destroying it in a fit of temper. It lay on its side in the doorway, one hinge still clinging onto the frame but the door itself was nothing more than a giant metal pretzel.
Now that I was concentrating on something other than Grey, I noticed the room where we’d left Is
aac was shrouded in darkness. Crossing the hall, the scent of smouldering flesh hit my nose and vomit raced up my throat. Gagging, I spun away, covering my mouth and nose, but it was already too late.
“He was alone when we left him,” Grey said, the strain in his voice evident. Sneaking a look in his direction, I watched as he clenched his fists, flexing them in time to something only he could hear.
“Please tell me you learned something, anything before…” Alex swore under his breath as he shoved the steel door, peeling it the rest of the way open. It hit the cement floor of the room with a resounding clang that boomed in my eardrums and I winced.
Alex exhaled sharply. “Something didn’t want him talking… they’ve turned him into a crispy critter.”
“Not quite,” Grey said.
“It’s Carmine.” Shock rooted me to the ground.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Alex said acerbically.
“Isaac told us Carmine is in Whitby,” I said quietly, following him into the room. The rest of the sentence died in the back of my throat as I skimmed over the sight of Isaac’s remains hanging from the ceiling. The chains holding him swung rhythmically and the steady plop, plop, plop sound of his liquefied viscera as it hit the blackened puddle beneath him was enough to haunt my nightmares for a lifetime.
Panic rose in the back of my throat, threatening to choke me as I tried to swallow past the lump. The more I stared at what was left of Isaac, the harder it was to think clearly. If I’d ensured she was dead, this wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t run away with my tail tucked between my goddamned legs like some kind of pathetic coward, so many would still be alive.
I’d hated Isaac, hated him for what he’d done to Officer Bhatt. He was a monster, there was no denying it. But not even he’d deserved this… Even monsters deserved some mercy.
“So why is she having them dump bodies here?” Alex circled the remains, before he wrinkled his nose in disgust. He wheeled around to face me. “Come on, Jenna, you must have some idea…”
“She knows I’m here.” My voice was flat, devoid of even the slightest trace of emotional turmoil taking place within me.
“And why would she care where you are?” Grey asked, the undercurrent of tension in his words made me bristle.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned to face him.
“You say you were nothing to her but that can’t be right because if you meant so little to her, then why the hell is she dropping bodies here”—he gestured to his surroundings as though Carmine would materialise out of thin air—“like some kind of deranged cat, dropping dead birds on their owners doorstep?”
“I don’t know…” My chest ached and it hurt to breathe.
“Something isn’t adding up, Jenna. Grey is right, there’s more going on here than you’re letting on.”
“I’ve told you everything.” The lie slipped out before I could stop it. The moment it hit the air, I saw Grey’s eyes darken. Alex sighed and let his hands drop to his sides. He hadn’t seen it, but Grey had. He knew… he was the only one I couldn’t lie to, the only one I’d never been able to lie to.
When he turned away, the air left my lungs in a whoosh as though he’d physically struck me in the stomach. I’d lied to him and he knew it.
“Grey—”
He shook his head, striding for the broken door.
“I’ve missed something, haven’t I?” Alex said as I darted for the door and Grey’s retreating back.
“Yeah, you go—” Alex called after me. “I’ll be fine here with this…” His voice was thick with disgust. “It’s not like I’ve got things to do besides mopping guts up off the floor.”
His words barely registered with me. Skidding out into the hall, Grey was already halfway down the stone corridor.
“Wait—”
“What for?” Grey froze and his words slapped into me.
“There are things I need—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. What was I supposed to tell him? I’d kept my secrets for so long, the thought of letting anyone in terrified me, even if that someone was Grey…
The silence dragged out between us. From where I stood, I watched as Grey’s shoulders drooped, his sigh audible even with the distance between us.
He stalked away, leaving me to stare after him, the truth burning on the tip of my tongue.
Chapter 22
“So what aren’t you telling me?” Alex’s question intruded into my thoughts. His fingers brushed my sleeve and I wheeled around to face him. He threw his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, I know you’re a little weird about that…”
“We need to get this sorted out,” I said, gesturing to the room behind him.
“Already called in the crew,” he said. “A breach in security like this isn’t something to be taken lightly.”
He was right. Carmine shouldn’t have been capable of breaking the wards on Division 6. She was strong but even this should have been beyond her… and yet, the truth lay hanging from the ceiling, dripping black ooze onto the cement floor.
We froze at the whisper of a sound, then turned to stare at what was left of Isaac, as if our bodies operated under the direction of one brain.
The sound came again and what little heat I had in my body slipped away, leaving my skin icy.
“He can’t still be—”
“He’s a vampire, Alex,” I said, “they’re already dead and we didn’t think to check…”
“How can you check a vamp for vital signs? You said so yourself, they’re already dead.”
The noise vibrated through the air, twisting my guts as I stared at the ruined mess of the vampire. A pitiful, twisted cry of pure anguish that my brain refused to accept was coming from the corpse hanging in the centre of the room.
“What are you doing?”
Alex’s words brought me up short and I came to a halt. I hadn’t even realised I’d moved closer to Isaac. There was a part of me that couldn’t bear to hear the bleats of agony that were coming from his ruined his mouth.
Crouching next to the gently swaying body of the vampire, I stared into the blackened mess where his face had been just moments before.
“Isaac, can you hear me?”
The seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Pushing up through my heels, I straightened and met Alex’s curious gaze. The anguished sob spilled from Isaac, growing louder, piercing my ears and leaving me in no doubt as to whether he was still alive or not.
“We can’t leave him like this,” I said.
“You pity him…” Alex’s words hung between us, more accusation than question. “Even after everything he has done, you actually feel something for him.”
“What’s your point, Alex?”
He stared at me for another moment before shrugging nonchalantly. “I think I’m just surprised that your emotions are that of a human. I don’t think I could handle this job if I was so conflicted all the time.”
“Can we get back to Isaac?” I asked. “We need to stake him.”
A surprised bark of laughter escaped Alex, and I cringed inwardly.
“You’re kidding, right? He’s the best lead we’ve got in this whole mess and you want to just, what, put him out of his misery?”
“We can’t leave him like this—”
Another soul crushing wail escaped the dying vampire, cutting me off.
“We can and we will. He’ll regenerate and then we can question him about the breach.”
I stared uncomprehendingly at Alex. Had he completely lost his mind?
“And how do you propose he regenerates?”
Alex waved a hand in Isaac’s direction. “It’s what they do, it’s why they’re so damn hard to kill. Geez, Jenna, anyone would think you hadn’t done your research on these bastards. Regeneration is vampire basics 101.”
“They regenerate through feeding,” I said through gritted teeth. I had one nerve left and Alex was currently stomping all over it with his utter stupidity. “And even if he could feed,” I said, glancing
back at the vampire, “considering he doesn’t appear to have a mouth anymore, I don’t really think it’s a possibility, but even if he could, just who were you planning on feeding to him, Brainiac?”
Alex opened his mouth and then paused, his eyes darting to the vamp and then back to me once more. Finally, I’d actually managed to stump him.
“Sophia will have our heads if we stake him.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “As much as I hate him for everything he’s done”—I closed my eyes and an image of Officer Bhatt flashed in my head—“I can’t let him suffer more than he has. Even the most wretched of creatures deserve to die and not be left in this kind of torturous agony.”
When I opened my eyes, Alex was holding a stake.
“For the record,” he said, “this wasn’t my idea.”
“I can do it,” I said, holding out my hand. I swallowed back the wave of disgust that rolled through me. It was one thing to kill when your life was on the line, it was another thing entirely to kill something bound and helpless. There was something innately monstrous in the act of taking a defenceless life, even if said life belonged to murdering vampire scum. What was one more life on my conscience?
“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” Alex grumbled beneath his breath. “Go, I’ve got this.” He shoved a hand back through his blond hair. A gesture I’d grown to recognise as one he did when he was particularly stressed or conflicted.
His hair was beginning to grow out, the ends of it curling gently, softening his features, making him look even younger than when I’d first met him, vulnerable even. Considering he’d once faced down armies, using his ability to conjure fear to scramble his opponents, describing him as vulnerable just didn’t sit right.
Guilt gnawed at the edges of my conscience. “I can’t just leave you here to sort this out,” I said. “It’s not fair.”
“Just go already. You’re no good to anyone like this.”
“I’m still capable of doing my job,” I said, taking a step toward him and the stake. My body ached as though I’d just gone ten rounds with a gorilla; taking a beating from a vamp was pretty damn close.
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