“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 33
Jack was hungry in the traditional sense of the word and ended up grabbing a couple of granola bars to snack on as he followed Katie out of the mansion. They took her car, more because of Katie’s innate bossiness than as a group decision, but he didn’t mind letting her do the driving.
It was a little past ten when they pulled onto the road leading down the slope. An odd tension hung over the air. Jack’s intuition told him that it didn’t have anything to do with the situation they were heading into.
“You might have to use your blood magic to get us into the hospital,” said Katie. “Do you have enough blood essence to pull it off?”
“I should,” said Jack.
“You can feed off me, if you need more,” said Katie.
He looked over at her, feeling his gaze being drawn somewhat involuntarily to her neck.
“That’s the second time you’ve offered tonight,” said Jack.
“And?” Katie scowled at him.
“You’re usually a lot more reluctant,” said Jack. “It’s almost like you want me to feed off you.”
Katie’s face reddened slightly, and she immediately started shaking her head.
“I…” She cleared her throat, clearly flustered. “You… Don’t say things like that!”
“I don’t mind, if that is the case,” said Jack. He couldn’t help but smile as he watched her reaction. “In fact, maybe I do need to feed, after all.”
“Quit… being weird.” Katie slowed the car, coming to a stop at a red light as they entered Lesser Town. “If you really need to, I’ll let you. But you don’t have to use that tone of voice.”
“What tone of voice?” asked Jack.
“You know which one.” Katie looked over at him, and Jack felt his heart skip a beat as their eyes met. Neither of them said anything for a tense, loaded moment. A moment that felt like it stretched on for a miniature eternity.
“Anyway,” said Katie. “My point is that I’m here. But only if it’s absolutely necessary.”
“I get it,” said Jack. He frowned, finding himself unable to contain his next question, even though he knew he shouldn’t be asking it. “Katie… Are things alright between you and Bruce?”
She scowled at him, tightening her grip on the steering wheel.
“Are things alright with you and Ryoko?” she countered. “And even if they weren’t, would it be any of my business to butt in?”
Jack didn’t know what to say to that. She had a point.
“They’re fine,” said Katie. “We argued a lot today, though. He thinks I’ve been acting weird lately.”
Jack resisted the urge to point out that she probably had been.
“The thing is,” continued Katie, “I love Bruce. But part of my reason for loving him is how easy things are between us. He’s a simple, straightforward man. With no supernatural baggage and no secrets.”
Her comparison hit a little too close to home for Jack to brush off without saying something.
“He probably wants a simple, straightforward relationship, then,” said Jack. “Maybe it would be for the best if I stuck to feeding off Ryoko.”
Katie didn’t say anything, and her silence made Jack wonder if his words had come across a little colder than he’d intended. He took a slow breath, inhaling through his nose and accidentally making himself aware of her wonderful, titillating smell.
“I don’t know what’s for the best, anymore,” she muttered. “I’m so confused. Sometimes I feel like each day is this struggle, both to keep from hurting other people, and... to keep from getting hurt myself.”
Katie pulled into the hospital’s parking lot and brought the car to a stop against the curb. She looked over at him expectantly, and Jack felt an almost overwhelming temptation to bite her. He cleared his throat instead, forcing himself to look at her face, rather than the nape of her neck, or the slight cusp of cleavage poking out from the unzipped portion of her tight leather catsuit.
“Come on,” he said. “We should get moving.”
“Right,” said Katie.
Lestaron Hospital served a small enough constituency to be rather quiet at night. The main entrance was locked, and the lights on the other side of the automatic glass doors were already turned off. Unfortunately, the entrance used keycards in place of traditional locks, so there wasn’t anything Jack could do with his blood magic. He and Katie had to continue on around the building’s other side.
They found a thick, metal door next to a drop-off bay that Jack could open. He took a slow breath, taking stock of his blood essence as he formed a Spectral Lockpick between his fingers. He was surprised by how topped off his reserves were. Ryoko had given him far more than he’d realized, and it made the fact that she’d immediately started cleaning when they’d returned to the mansion even more impressive.
Katie took the lead, knowing the hospital’s layout better than Jack did. There were two nurses making the rounds up and down the hallways, but neither posed much of a problem for them, as it was easy to duck out of sight into empty rooms.
As soon as Jack and Katie noticed that only the currently occupied rooms had their lights on, finding Margaret was easy. She was awake, lying upright in a loose-fitting hospital gown, half covered by sheets. Her hair was messy and loose about her shoulders, but she seemed alert, raising an eyebrow as she saw Jack and Katie enter.
“Now this is quite the surprise,” said Margaret. “Would you mind closing the door? I would hate for one of the nurses to discover the two of you and cause a fuss.”
Jack looked over at Katie, whose freckled face was already twisted into a wicked scowl. He closed the door.
“Margaret,” said Katie. “You could have given me a heads up that you were going to be on the island.”
“Still territorial to a fault, I see,” said Margaret. “And given what I now know, I’m glad I didn’t.”
Margaret had a dry smile on her face, and Katie looked like she was a few jibes away from losing her temper and slapping the other woman. Jack placed himself squarely in between them before the tension could build any further.
“I take it you two know each other?” he asked.
He looked over at Katie first, but she avoided his gaze.
“We do,” said Margaret. “When Katie was younger and a bit more open-minded, she was a prospect for the Order of Chaldea. A very promising one, at that. The Order made an effort to recruit her, but she was a little too rebellious, and too deep under the sway of her master’s ideals.”
“That’s just another way of saying that I had a fucking moral compass,” said Katie. She shook her head and looked over at Jack. “The Order is basically militarized at this point. The only people with the Potential that join up these days are the ones interested in being turned into mindless magical soldiers. That’s the real reason why Peter wanted nothing to with them.”
“Oh, but we both know that isn’t true,” said Margaret. “We do what needs to be done. It isn’t always pretty, but it’s for the good of the world. Your master, despite his reclusive ways, still helped us out whenever it suited him. And we were fine with that, as a working relationship.”
Margaret sighed and focused her attention on Jack. He could almost mark the point where her gaze shifted from viewing him as a person to viewing him as a target, an objective to kill or capture.
“This is bad, Katie,” said Margaret. “The real reason I didn’t get in touch with you immediately is because of the information I had. I’d assumed, for justifiable reasons, that this was a hostage situation. I thought that you were his thrall… and it’s still a valid question. Are you his thrall?”
“Fuck you, Margaret,” said Katie. “He’s an old friend, and he’s Peter’s grandson. He came to Lestaron Island to handle Peter’s estate and was ambushed by one of Peter’s old enemies. He isn’t like the ancient vampire clans and the wild nightwalkers that the Order of Chaldea usually hunt.”
> “If anything, that makes him more dangerous,” said Margaret. “Furthermore, it puts you in a rather compromising situation. My superiors won’t be able to ignore this.”
Katie shrugged, but despite her aloof exterior, Jack could see how concerning she found Margaret’s words to be.
“I’m a big girl,” said Katie. “I’ll manage.”
“I suppose that’s about what I expected from you,” said Margaret. “A pity. I was hoping that I’d get the chance to repay you, you know. Make up for the bad impression I left on you the last time we met. Enjoy each other’s company, like we used to.”
“That’s not going to happen,” said Katie.
Margaret took a slow breath and folded her arms.
“Pierce is doing well, by the way,” she said. “I told him that I was coming to see you.”
Katie’s stoic expression faltered, and Jack saw a slight blush burning in her cheeks. Jack wanted to leave the two women to their conversation, but the silence stretched on for an unbearable amount of time.
“Who’s Pierce?” he asked, against his better judgement.
Katie tried to answer, but Margaret spoke at the same time and in a louder voice.
“He’s a member of the Order, and a prodigy in his own right,” said Margaret. “He was recruited around the same time we were trying to recruit Katie, and he accompanied several senior wizards to Lestaron Island when they made the proposal of bringing her into the guild originally. He and Katie were… close.”
The smile on Margaret’s face was self-satisfied and smug. Katie’s face was as red as Jack had ever seen it.
“He got along rather well with Peter, too,” continued Margaret. “I believe he spent a two-week independent study on Lestaron Island a year or so after your refusal, didn’t he? To study under the legendary reclusive mage, himself. Did the two of you get much studying done, Katie?”
“It… wasn’t like that!” stammered Katie. “And besides, it’s… none of your business! Why even bring that up?”
“He still talks about you, you know.” The way Margaret spoke the words made it sound as though the fact displeased her. “He wanted to come with me, but the Elders needed him for something else. He sends his condolences for your grandfather and wants to know if he can visit you soon.”
Katie bit her lower lips slightly, looking conflicted and still rather red in the face. Jack waited for a couple of seconds before clearing his throat.
“If the two of you have finished catching up, let’s get to the point of us coming here,” he said.
“Oh, but of course,” said Margaret. “Do tell.”
Jack nodded, frowning slightly as he finally stopped to consider her reaction to them.
“You know, you’re acting a lot more reasonable than you did when we first met,” he said. “It’s a little suspicious.”
Margaret’s smile broadened, and she leaned back in the hospital bed.
“That’s because of a wonderful thing called morphine,” said Margaret. “And also… because you saved my life. I still don’t understand exactly why you did that. It’s dangerous for me to point this out, as weak as I still am, but it would have worked in your favor to let me bleed out.”
Jack shrugged. “I guess. But I wouldn’t have felt right doing something like that.”
“That’s an interesting statement to hear coming from the mouth of a vampire,” said Margaret.
“Look, we came here because we need your help,” he said. “I’m tracking down the gang who shot you. Can you help us trace a bullet back to the gun that fired it?”
“I could,” said Margaret. “But I’m not like Katie, Jack. I have a general rule against consorting with my enemies, and I generally hold to it.”
“I saved your life, though,” said Jack. “Think of it this way. If I’m tracking this gang, you can be sure that I’ll still be in the general area for at least a few more hours. It’s the only objective I have right now. If I can’t make progress on this, I’ll probably just leave town and make your job that much harder, going forward.”
Margaret rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed by the threat. She was still smiling though, and she let out a chuckle after a couple of seconds. She glanced over at Katie.
“I see why you like him,” she said. “You always did have good taste in men.”
“Shut up!” snapped Katie.
“You’ve convinced me,” Margaret said to Jack. “Give me the bullet. I’ll see what I can do.”
CHAPTER 34
Katie fished the deformed lead bullet out of her pocket and passed it over to Margaret, along with a piece of paper and a pen. Jack watched, quietly curious, as Margaret sketched out a circular pattern that reminded him a little of a pentagram. She wrote several sentences within it, written in a language that Jack could neither read nor recognize, and then placed the bullet in the paper’s center.
“Can you hold something over the fire alarm?” asked Margaret. “I’d rather not risk it going off…”
Katie nodded and looked at Jack expectantly. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that he was the only one of the three with a garment that could be taken off without exposing himself. He slipped out of his duster and passed it to Katie, who stood on a chair and held it in place over the fire alarm.
“Thank you,” said Margaret.
She took a slow breath and carefully twisted the paper around the bullet, folding and rolling it around the ruined projectile almost as though she was wrapping a gift. Margaret licked her lips and winked at Jack, holding the finished product between two fingers.
She muttered an incantation under her breath, and the paper burst into flame, turning to ash in less than a second. The smoke released from the controlled burn moved slowly through the air, forming into complicated, purposeful shapes. Margaret stared into the smoke, frowning and nodding after a couple of seconds.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ve got it. I’m not sure that it’s good news for the two of you, however.”
“What is it?” asked Jack.
Margaret pulled out her phone and brought up the maps app. She centered it on Lestaron Island, and then carefully zoomed in on a low-resolution section of ocean to the northeast. She placed a marker to confirm the coordinates, and then passed her phone over to Jack.
“There,” she said. “That’s where the gun is.”
“In the middle of the ocean?” asked Jack.
“Could be,” she said. “One of the perpetrators of the drive-by may have ditched their gun into the ocean, and it could have been dragged there by the current. Or they could be in a boat right now, on their way to another secret location.”
“Or there could be an unmarked island,” said Katie. “A small sandbar, or coral atoll. Human traffickers love places like that, outside of regular legal jurisdiction. It keeps them from running into as many problems in their line of work.”
“That’s also a possibility,” said Margaret. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much more based off a single bullet.”
“It’s enough,” said Jack. “We’ll figure something out from here.”
He nodded to Katie, and they both stood to leave.
“Jack,” said Margaret, as he reached the door. “You seem like a reasonable young man.”
Jack turned back around to face her. He frowned, noticing the serious expression on Margaret’s face.
“I’ll ask you this time, instead of attacking you,” she said. “Give up. Surrender to me, once you’ve tracked down these criminals.”
Jack had already started shaking his head no, but Margaret held up a finger, bidding him to let her finish.
“This is pure speculation on my part, but the nature of your… condition must be putting the people nearest to you through a lot,” she said. “People you care about. People you love. Either you’re hurting them through your actions or placing them in difficult circumstances by mere proximity.”
Katie had already started down the hall and was out of earshot. Jack couldn’t
claim that what Margaret was saying wasn’t at least partially true, but still…
Was he ready to give up? And what would it even mean if he did?
“If I were to surrender,” he said. “What would happen then?”
“I don’t know,” said Margaret. “Given how you saved my life, I would of course speak on your behalf.”
“Did you come here to capture me, originally?” he asked. “Or did you come here to kill me?”
Margaret shrugged.
“You should surrender now, Jack,” she said. “It will make things simpler, in the long run. I’ll have backup the next time I encounter you in an official capacity.”
Jack didn’t say anything else to her. He left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him as he stepped out into the hall. Katie was waiting for him at the intersection, and she raised an eyebrow as they fell into step.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“What was the whole Pierce thing about?” asked Jack.
“That…” Katie made an annoyed noise under her breath. “Is none of your business.”
Jack actually agreed with her, for the most part. He wasn’t all that interested in delving into the details of Katie’s past trysts, but his curiosity over the specific timing of it got the better of him.
“Was it before you and Bruce got together?” he asked.
“I.. It was… I mean…” Katie scowled at him and balled her hands into fists. “Bruce and I had a very slow courtship. We were close friends, basically, before we started dating.”
Jack chuckled. It brought a petty smile to his face to imagine how much having a competitor for Katie’s affections early on must have annoyed Bruce.
“Close friends,” said Jack. “Right… Are you going to take this Pierce fellow up on his offer to visit?”
“Jack!” hissed Katie. “This is none of your fucking business.”
It really wasn’t, and he knew it. It was Katie’s business, and maybe Bruce’s. But Jack couldn’t deny the fact that a part of him did care. As much as he’d enjoy watching Bruce squirm at having one of Katie’s “old friends” back in town, he wasn’t entirely sure that he would be able to have a mature and adult reaction to it, either.
Shadow Form (Dark Impulse Book 2) Page 20
