Stay down, Joshua mouthed as he slid out his gun and pulled himself up to a kneeling position. The sound of footsteps echoed down the hall, and he flicked off the safety.
“Joshua, Ada Jessup is at the door and says she needs to see you,” Dustin Donovan said as he entered the room. He glanced at the gun in Joshua’s hand and sighed deeply as he ran a hand through hair that was more salt than pepper. “Angel, it’s past your bedtime. Go on upstairs.”
Angel stood up and smoothed out the gauzy pink dress that was a bit too formal for a night of watching old episodes of The Fairly Odd Parents, but Angel tended to care more about style than comfort. She was a true fashionista. Even when she wore jeans and a t-shirt, she made certain they were the right jeans and the trendiest t-shirt. Like her sister, she had a mad scientist streak, but instead of playing with genes and chromosomes, Angel dabbled in lip glosses, mascaras, perfumes, and hair products. “Why would Ada Jessup want to talk to Joshua?” she asked as if it was inconveniencing her greatly.
“I didn’t ask because it’s none of my business, nor is it yours.” Her father pointed toward the stairs. “Bed. Now.”
With overly dramatic sighs and a fair amount of stomping, Angel made her way to the bedrooms on the second floor. It took Joshua a few more minutes to get up since he was trying not rip open the hole in his shoulder. When he was finally standing with the gun tucked back in its holster, Dustin was waiting at door.
“Thank you.” Dustin was a former high school teacher and recently retired school superintendent. When he spoke, even if it was to ask someone to pass the butter at the dinner table, he sounded like he was trying to command the attention of a room full of teens. So at his quiet thanks, Joshua stopped, knowing whatever it was the father of his Alpha and best friend had to say was important. “Thank you for watching over her and keeping her safe. And not just Angel. All of them. My kids…” Dustin ran a hand over his face. “My kids mean everything to me. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to one of them, so thank you for looking out for them.”
Joshua clasped the other man on the shoulder and immediately regretted it. Even though he was technically old enough to be Dustin’s father, it felt disrespectful to be so casual with him.
“You’re my family,” he said, hoping Dustin could hear the sincerity in his words. “No thanks required.”
Dustin just nodded, and Joshua hurried past him, terrified he was going to see the man cry.
Of course, once he was past the sentimental father, Joshua was at the front door and facing a much bigger problem. Steeling himself against the pain in his shoulder, he slung open the door.
“Why, Miss Ada Jessup, to what do I owe the honor of this…” He glanced at his watch. “Midnight-thirty visit?
She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her khaki pants. “I need to talk to you.”
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!
“Of course. What would you like to talk about? Need a sugar fix? Having trouble leveling up on Skyrim? Or is there another party afoot? Buzzkill Boy is ready for action!”
Joshua struck a pose with one fist on his hip and the other raised in the sky, but instead of the smile he was expecting, she looked around as if she could sense the Taxiarhos watching the cabin from the shadows.
“Come with me to the dock?” she asked.
Again, Joshua wanted to refuse. It wasn’t a rational feeling. He should want to talk to her, to assure her she hadn’t really seen him get shot the night before. Killing her curiosity and then staying close enough to make sure she didn’t start questioning the lies she’d been told was the best strategy. But something in Joshua’s gut told him that wasn’t how this was going down. Still, he nodded his agreement and started walking down the path leading to the private dock behind the cabin, knowing Scout was inside where she could keep an eye on Angel. As he walked past the edge of the house where he was sure Robby, who was on watch for the evening, would see him, he tugged on his ear to let the Shifter know he didn’t need additional coverage.
“I heard you had to go to the hospital last night,” Joshua said, holding a tree branch up so Ada could pass under it. “Did you get hurt? I’m sorry I didn’t stick around. I saw that Jase had you, and the guy with the gun was running off. I thought he might be getting into a boat or something, so I chased after him. I wanted to be able to tell the cops which way he went.”
Other than the part about knowing Jase was protecting Ada, it was all a lie. The moment he felt the bullet go through his flesh and saw the rest of the Alpha Pack closing in, he bolted. He wasn’t sure where the bullet had gone in, the pain was too intense and encompassing for that, but he knew if it had been a fatal shot, it would have been impossible to explain his miraculous survival to doctors and authorities. Talley and Scout grabbed him at the bottom of the steps and pulled him out of sight before the cops arrived.
When he and Ada first got to Hillman House and he realized the unknowns really were a bunch of stupid guys throwing a kegger, he’d regretted sending out a battle cry to his friends, but the regret was short lived. There was no way he could have single-handedly pulled off getting away without anyone seeing him.
At least, not by anyone other than Ada.
“You didn’t hit your head did you?” he asked as they neared the dock. “If so, this might be a bad idea. I’m not a medical expert, but something tells me head wounds and large bodies of water aren’t a good combo.”
Ada stopped at the edge of the wooden walkway. She was, by all standards and measurements, a perfectly average looking girl. Height? Average. Hair? Medium brown. Eyes? Hazel. There was nothing distinct or particularly enticing about her, but for some reason, Joshua couldn’t look away.
“You really don’t know?” The moonlight reflected off her lips, which managed to be small and full at the same time.
He was going to have to reassess that whole not-particularly-enticing thing.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“Who didn’t tell me what?” It might have been that his brain was too focused on her lips too fully to process what she was saying, but he had no idea what she was talking about.
“Huh,” she said as she started walking down the planks leading out across the water. “That’s weird. I don’t remember the last time I talked to someone who didn’t know.” She stepped down onto the wooden platform bouncing gently with the waves and turned back toward him. “I almost don’t want to tell you. It’s nice being normal to someone.”
“Then, don’t tell me.” He would ask Jase later if it was something important for him to know, but until then, he would let her enjoy keeping whatever it was secret from him. When she flashed a smile, he knew he’d done the right thing.
It was a beautiful night. The humidity from the day had bled away and a soft breeze blew across the water. The sky was clear, and that far away from the lights of the cabin, the stars seemed infinite in the velvety night sky.
“This is nice,” Joshua said, spinning slowly in a circle with his eyes on the stars. He felt small and insignificant and the center of the universe all at the same time. “If we had some music, it would be perfect.”
“I know—”
“Give me your phone.” Joshua stopped to find himself facing Ada. She was standing closer than he expected. The smell of vanilla and chocolate filled his nose and tugged up the corners of his mouth.
“My phone?”
He made a give-me motion with his hand. “I know you’ve got some music on there. Hand it over.”
Ada reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. Before she had time to refuse, Joshua plucked it out of her hand.
There are at least a hundred different ways to record a conversation with a smart phone, and Joshua knew how to detect and disable all of them. He instinctively knew Ada was trustworthy, but still he took the necessary precautions. He was finishing the sweep for video recordings when she asked, “What are you doing?”
“Hmmmm…?” He made a few last keystrokes
and pulled up a different screen before she could look over his shoulder. “I’m giving you my digits.”
“Oh. Ummm… Well…” There wasn’t much light, but Joshua was pretty sure her cheeks turned red. “I have a boyfriend.”
Of course she did.
“Of course you do. You’re a pretty girl who likes video games. You could probably have ten boyfriends all at the same time if you wanted them.”
This time he was certain her face grew brighter.
“Well, one is all I can handle so…”
“So there can be no hanky-panky on our party-stopping missions. Got it.”
That wasn’t disappointment weighing down like lead in Joshua’s heart. Couldn’t be. He knew hanky-panky was off the menu. It had to be. He was an Immortal, and she was…
Well, she was a sparkly-eyed girl who made him smile. As far as he was concerned, she was the most dangerous creature on the earth.
“Now that has been established, how about we find some decidedly non-hanky-panky music?” He pulled up the music app and decided she was his own personal devil sent to earth to torture him. “Okay, fess up. What old lady did you beat up so you could steal her phone?”
Ada snatched her phone back and held it protectively against her chest. “No dissing my music selection. Just because I happen to have taste and standards when it comes to what I listen to—”
“Slow down, crazy train. I would never, ever, diss a music collection featuring both Chuck Berry and CCR. I was just commenting on the obvious lack of drum machines and boy bands.”
“Boy bands?” Ada shot him a half-smirk that went straight to the spot between his chest and stomach where his feelings lived. “Of course I’ve got boy bands. I’ve got the boy band.” Her thumb raced across the screen. After a few taps, she sat the phone on the dock, and then lowered herself down beside it. Joshua followed, trying to find a distance that was close enough to allow for a quiet conversation, but not so close he seemed desperate and pushy.
“Good choice,” he said. “I’ve always thought the George songs were underrated. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ is my one of my all-time favorites.”
Ada slid off her shoes and began rolling up the legs of her khaki pants. “You know, my boyfriend couldn’t name a single Beatles song when we started dating.” She tested the water with her toe before sliding in both legs. “He still calls Ringo ‘Bingo,’ and I don’t think he’s trying to be clever. Marsden isn’t really a clever guy… and I can’t believe I just said that.” Both hands covered her face. “Can you please forgot I said that?”
“Said what?”
Her hands slid down until they were just covering her cheeks. She titled her head up to the stars, and from where he was sitting, Joshua could see them reflected in her eyes.
“I’m not really a bad person,” she said. “And Marsden is great. He has many really great qualities.”
It didn’t sound like Joshua was the person she needed to convince.
“I’m sure he does.”
Her hands dropped back into her lap and she pulled back her shoulders. “He’s a good person. He does a lot of outreach ministry, visiting with the elderly and doing service projects around town,” she said as if she was reciting it from a memorized list. “He loves the Lord with all his heart.”
But does he love you?
“He sounds great.”
“He is.” She nodded her head, and again it seemed more for her benefit than Joshua’s. “And he’s an actor. He was on four different episodes of Sesame Street when he was eight.”
“Very impressive.”
Ada cut her eyes at him. “But we’re not here to talk about Marsden.”
Joshua didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going to lead them into the conversation and make it any easier for her. With any luck, she would chicken out and convince herself she hadn’t really seen what she saw.
“If you’re going to burn a bloodied shirt with a bullet hole in it, it’s a good idea to actually start the fire,” she said. “Otherwise, anyone could happen by and pick the evidence up right out of the fireplace.”
Or maybe she would call him on his bullshit.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ada turned to face him. “Seriously? That’s how you’re going to do this? You’re going to pretend like you have no idea what I’m talking about? Do you really think I’m going to be all, ‘Oh, he says it didn’t happen, so it must not have. Silly me, thinking I saw someone get shot. I’ve got to cut back on the Mello Yello. It’s rotting my brain.’?”
“Don’t be crazy. I’ve known way too many Mello Yello addicts in my day. I would never expect you to admit it’s brain-eating capacity or cut back.”
The steady chatter of frogs and crickets and the soft lapping of water against the pier were the only sounds as Ada and Joshua stared into one another’s eyes, each waiting for the other to relent.
“Take off your shirt,” Ada said when it became obvious he wasn’t going to fess up.
Joshua tried to pull off the kind of half-smile he’d seen Jase use a million time. “I thought you had a boyfriend.”
This time there was no blush tinting her cheeks. “Show me your shoulder. Prove me wrong.”
Joshua took a deep breath and ran through a million different responses in his head, but there was only one thing he could really do. He grabbed the edge of his shirt and lifted it slowly, being careful not to reopen the wound. As soon as it was over his head, warm fingers were there, tracing softly around the spot where the bullet had gone in. It should have hurt. If he was being completely honest, it did hurt. But the pain was significantly dulled by the little electrical storms dancing from one nerve ending to another.
“It’s almost healed,” she said, her breath whispering across his neck and setting off a whole new series of happy nerve storms. “How is that possible?”
“I’m a fast healer.” It was one of the benefits of being an Immortal. He could grab a hot pan at breakfast and the burn would be gone by supper. Still, even he was amazed at how quickly his shoulder was healing. By tomorrow night, it would be completely closed up, and by Monday he would be able to swing a sword again. He figured it had something to do with having a trained nurse treat his wound rather than doing what he could on his own.
“There is fast healing and then there is this. Does it hurt?” She touched the center of his raw flesh and this time the only storms were ones of pain. He jerked away, barely catching a curse before it escaped his lips. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Definitely a yes.” He turned back around and pointed at his discarded shirt. “May I?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen all I need to.”
Taking the shirt off had been hard, but putting it back on, especially after Ada’s jab-a-finger-in-it-and-see-if-he-screams test, was almost impossible. He was close to either giving up or crying when the scent of vanilla filled his nose and then small, gentle hands were tugging the worn cotton down to where it belonged.
“You were shot.”
“I was shot.” She knew, and he knew she knew, but it was still hard to make the confession after so many years of lies.
“You were shot last night, but it looks like you were shot weeks or even months ago.”
“Yes.”
A barge was trudging toward the dam. Someone had strung white lights around the bridge, and coupled with the masthead light reflecting on the surface of the lake, it looked like a fairy party was taking place just a few hundred feet from where Joshua waited in agonizing silence for Ada to say something else.
“I know you’re trying to figure it out, but I wish you wouldn’t,” he finally said when he couldn’t stand the silence for another second. “You really don’t want to know.”
“But I already do.”
“You do?”
She turned her back to him.
What the…?
“You’re pale. I only see you at night. And you heal overnight from bullet wounds. You’re
a—”
Joshua had to disguise his laugh with a cough before he could say his line.
“Say it,” he finally said somewhat stoically.
“Vampire,” Ada whispered, and then she doubled over in a fit of laughter. Joshua was laughing too, but then her giggles turned into coughs, and once she started coughing, he was afraid she wouldn’t stop. It took several minutes and a few puffs from an inhaler for her to regain her breath.
“Sorry about that,” she said once she had enough air to do so. Joshua wanted to ask, the question was on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back. She would tell him when she was ready.
“You should be.” He tried to glare at her but knew he wasn’t pulling it off. Joshua couldn’t muster a good glare even when it was called for. He certainly couldn’t conjure one in jest. His face didn’t work that way. Or maybe it was his personality. Life was way too precious to mar it with a bunch of angst. “How would you like it if I called you a vampire? We prefer ‘children of Dracula’ or ‘the fanged ones’. Vampire is a derogatory term.”
The music had changed to an Elton John song and Ada was tapping out the beat on her knee. “Okay, child of Dracula, when were you born?”
“December 3, 1932.”
“Sunlight, does it make you a crispy critter or glitter-rama?”
“If I don’t use sunblock I get kind of crispy, but that’s only because I’m a pasty white boy.”
“What’s your poison? Wooden stakes? Fire? Beheading?”
“None of the above.” He hated himself for the sadness in his voice. He didn’t want to die. He really didn’t. But sometimes he really didn’t want to live either. “Nothing can kill me. I can’t die.”
Ada stopped moving. Her finger was suspended midair above her knee, which made Joshua smile. It was like someone had stopped the music in a children’s game and whoever moved first lost.
“You’re not joking, are you?”
Later, his friend Maggie would ask him why he did it. Why after all these years he would tell the truth of who and what he was to this human girl who he had known for only a day. Why he would risk himself and the safety of all the other Immortals, Thaumaturgics, Shifters, and Seers just because this one, insignificant girl asked. He would tell her he didn’t know, but that wasn’t true, because Joshua did know.
Infinite Harmony Page 5
