Who?
The world fell still.
Jacob.
Chapter 2
THE SIDEWALK milled with costumed people in a curious mixture of horror and comic. Jigsaw in his distinctive white and red mask rubbed elbows with Jay and Silent Bob. Carrie’s bloodstained prom dress stood out in the throng as she scampered down the street, her date sporting a very realistic-looking proton pack strapped on over his Ghostbuster uniform.
It was unreal. On this night, one year ago, I stood at this very spot when I recognized Kristair.
Lost in memory, indifferent to the people streaming around me, I remained frozen, cradling the rose I’d brought in my hand. Muttered curses followed after me as other students were forced to detour, but for the most part they were too intent on the promise of alcohol and a night of uninhibited celebration to notice. Last year I had been one of them.
It was part of a whole other life. This year, things were different. Different in so many ways it hurt my brain to try to process them all at once.
Tony was gone now. The last words I had said to him were full of hate and fury. It ate at me during the long, dark hours before dawn when I lay awake, my arms empty. I didn’t know if my friend had survived his trip to Rome or how the Syndicate had greeted him. I wondered about it whenever I closed my eyes and heard Tony’s screams for mercy. Or when his mom would call in the hope that maybe Steve or I had heard from him. Or every time I walked by our old, empty apartment. I would never know what had happened to him. I accepted it as part of the sentence to my own private hell.
Tony, Steve, and I had been the best of friends since the first day we’d been assigned the same dinky-ass dorm room as freshmen. Maybe two and a half years isn’t a long time to some, and I know friendships come and go, but not for the three of us, or so I’d thought. We were more than friends; we were brothers. Sure, we’d had our share of blowups in the past, but in the end we were always there for one another. Until I had let Tony down. He’d been trying to protect me. Instead of recognizing that, I had lashed out at him in my own hurt and rage over Kristair’s death. It didn’t occur to me until much later that he had been acting on what little information I’d allowed him to have. Maybe if I’d been honest with him…. Fuck. It was the same loop: maybes, what-ifs, regrets. It was a wonder I was still sane.
God, please, I have no damned right to ask anything from you, but if you could grant one thing, please let Tony be okay. I don’t care if he hates me for the rest of eternity or if I never know what happened to him, but please make it so I didn’t send him to his death. That’s all I ask.
Of course, maybe death was preferable to whatever life he might be living now. Sometimes I hated the way my brain enjoyed torturing the fuck outta me.
Steve was still around, in a way. He’d distanced himself from me. Not that I could blame him. Kristair had set him on edge from day one and with everything that happened afterward, how it all got so fucked up, it didn’t help. I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face. No, I couldn’t blame him one bit.
I had always viewed Steve as the big brother I never had. Steve was the person I went to when I had a problem I couldn’t tackle on my own. He’d listen, sometimes cuss me out a bit if I had been an idiot, but then helped me take care of it or offered suggestions in his abrupt kind of way.
Now Steve seemed almost afraid of me at times. I’d catch him looking my way out of the corner of his eye, the expression on his dusky face almost wary. It hurt like hell. Still, Steve stuck by me. If I called, he listened. If I came by his new place, he didn’t kick me out, and, on occasion, I even got a visit from him. On a rare occasion.
He understood why I went nuts and thought Tony had fucked up. But despite all that, in his mind, there were still some things you didn’t do and I had gone over the line. Big time.
The pedestrian light changed and I crossed the street, my eyes locked on the spot where Kristair had been standing last year. I wasn’t even sure why I was doing this, why I was here. For some type of closure, I guess. That was a fucking laugh. Even now, after all of this time, Kristair was with me every damned moment, eternally haunting me. It was a constant torture.
Though our bond had shattered, my mind held all of Kristair’s memories; I still carried his heart, which would start beating at odd times with no rhyme or reason. At first, it had given me hope that Kristair still lived and would somehow make his way back to me. Over the long months, hope had died. He had been gone far longer now than we had ever been together.
So yeah, Kristair and I may be as one, our souls bound when he completed the ritual that saved my life and allowed me to walk again, but I knew he was dead. I’d never forget the last expression on his face, the agony and ecstasy twisting his elegant features into an inhuman mask. I may have had his memories, his knowledge, but there was no emotion behind them. And though it rarely showed on his face, Kristair had held more emotion inside of him than most men did.
I’d never gotten used to his lingering presence. At times it had almost made me forget he was gone, most often when drifting off to sleep or upon first waking. I could pretend the feeling was real until I’d find myself reaching for him. Then it would come crashing down all over again and it would be as if I’d lost him all over.
I couldn’t go on like this. Somehow, I had to let him go, to regain my sense of self. Kristair’s personality was as strong as my own. However, the number of years I’d been alive weren’t even measurable against his. I’d find myself saying things I’d never say, doing things in a certain way that had people looking at me sideways and whispering behind my back. My Ma thought I’d joined a cult and Coach Latimer thought I was on drugs. The only ones who took it in stride were Steve and Kayla, but they were also the only ones who knew the whole story. The true story.
Even then, it was hard for them to be around me at times. I’d see Kayla looking at me with her gray-blue eyes wide on the verge of tears and know I had done something that reminded her of her father. There was a certain amount of attraction between us; there always had been. Only now, I didn’t know if she was reacting to me or to what she saw in me of the man who she’d always wanted to be more than her protector, and who had known of her feelings, but could never return them. It was more than weird.
God, it hurt.
Nothing in my life had ever prepared me for this constant aching emptiness, the continual depression I couldn’t shake off. The worst was the fury. It simmered underneath everything else heaped up on me and the target kept changing—everybody from myself to Kristair to the goddamned geek in my class who thought he knew everything already. I got a perverse amusement out of using Kristair’s knowledge and flair for words to knock him down hard during debates.
Yeah, there had been some good things that came from all the shit I’d encountered in the past year, but those times didn’t hold a candle to the burning ache the rest had left inside of me.
Someone shoved up against me. “Get outta the way, asshole.” I turned my head and gave him a cold glare, irrational rage bubbling up at the interruption. He paled and stumbled back, and then the crowd flowed around me creating a little pocket, leaving me alone once more.
I returned to my brooding.
I glanced back down at the spot I’d been drawn to, my eyes stinging. I hadn’t cried since the night Kristair was killed and I wasn’t gonna start now. Sometimes I wished I’d never caught his attention, never met him. Those moments didn’t last long because at least I knew what it was like to love someone, truly love someone.
I’m sure most wouldn’t get how I could have had such a deep connection with him when we’d only had such a short time together. When we were as different as two people could be.
Come off it. Pick up and move on. There were other guys out there, or girls; you liked girls too. At least they’d take your mind off him. Yeah, I’d heard it all. But when you’d held someone in your arms and heard every thought they had, the good and the bad, felt every damned emotion they experienced
, that kind of relationship never came again. Nor would I want it to, not unless it was with him.
Kristair loved me, even with all of my pride and need for dominance. I loved him despite his own arrogance and knowing that no matter what I ever accomplished he’d always be stronger, wiser, and smarter than I was. We fought, made up, and fuck I missed him. I wanted to hold him again, make love to him. God, I just wanted to know if he could hear me, could still feel me.
A very wise woman once told me this: one day you’ll meet someone who by their presence heals you. When you do, everything you’ve ever been through in your life, every ordeal, every trial will be worth it because they’re there. Only she never told me how to handle it when they left you alone, and I was too chickenshit to ask her.
What screwed with me was the fact that I couldn’t be sure I’d ever see Kristair again after I died. My deep-set beliefs in life, death, and the afterlife had been shaken to their core. Who’s to say what happened? Maybe there wasn’t a heaven. Maybe there was only emptiness, oblivion. Just maybe, except for those few short months, I was alone for the rest of eternity.
There was nowhere else I could go to say goodbye to him, so I returned to our beginning.
I refused to revisit the warehouse. Kristair’s office had been gutted and rebuilt and now belonged to Kayla. It somehow seemed fitting to do it here under the streetlamp where I first saw him. I touched the griffin head torc around my throat. It was the only thing I had left of my lover. I brought the Baccara rose to my lips and then let it fall, the light shining down on its dark petals where it lay on the cold, impersonal cement.
Goodbye, Kristair.
My throat swelled shut. What else could I say? Blinking rapidly, I turned and strode into the crowd.
I hadn’t pushed my way very far when some deep instinct made me pause. I continued at a slower pace, all the while scanning the streets, the crowds of drunks, until through the costumes I caught a glimpse of a man staring at me with the eyes and bearing of a predator. For a second, I swear my heart froze in my chest. No, not again.
Fury reared. Hell no, not ever again.
I shoved my way toward my watcher, ignoring the curses around me, but when I reached the spot there was no one in sight. Seething, I spun around, examining everyone and everything once again. My fellow students gave me a wide berth. I must’ve looked crazed.
Then doubt crept in, leeching away some of the anger. I was losing it. That’s what I got for inviting old ghosts with my oh-so-emo ritual. I was seeing things, or wanting to see them. Either way, I was done with it.
Disgusted with myself, I turned to head back to the dorm. If I kept clinging to the past I’d never move forward. Lost in my internal lecture, it took me several minutes to realize I was still being watched.
This time my anger was cold. I’d get nothing accomplished by running off half-cocked again, chasing down shadows. With deliberate casualness, I turned up the collar of my jacket and used the red light at a cross-street to study my surroundings, forcing myself to look as unconcerned as possible. And with my mood at the moment, that was no small feat.
Nothing out of the ordinary. More students in costumes, but any one of those masks could hide a predator. Except that I’d learned predators rarely hid, especially when hunting. They were among us all the time. Kristair had introduced me to a whole new side of the world, one with its own strange rules and the constant edge of danger.
To top it off, Pittsburgh reminded me of Gotham, a place not quite sane, where the saviors were as terrifying as the villains. Skyscrapers reared up to claw at the sky, huge monstrosities of stone and steel. Some effort had been made to clean it up, to wipe up the detritus left by decades of steel mills and factories. Renovation had brought glass and chrome, but it just seemed to me it was kind of like a whore attempting to cover up the dirt and hopelessness on her face with an extra layer of makeup. Still, I loved the place. It had such character, and as much as I was a southern boy, this was the home I’d chosen.
The light turned green and as I stepped off the curb to cross, the nape of my neck prickled with predatory awareness. My watcher was still there and I became very aware of the gun I had been carrying next to my skin for months now.
“You’re being followed,” Kristair’s voice whispered in my mind, stirring the old familiar rush of pain. It no longer stabbed, just felt more like a scab picked at one too many times. It still bled.
“No shit, Sherlock,” I growled back.
Silence.
That was how I’d finally figured out it wasn’t my lover trying to reach me. Kristair would have answered back, but this voice never did. It was merely his echo, the memories, instincts doling out advice whether I wanted it or not.
Instincts honed over thousands of years led me away from campus toward the maze of small side streets, interlocking alleys, and service doors. A perfect place for an ambush or for springing a trap. It might just be one of Ussier’s men wanting to talk with me, but hadn’t they heard of a goddamned phone? Or it might be a different kind of monster than a vampire. After all, if one legend existed, couldn’t another?
My heart pounded, my senses sharpening. As I moved in deeper, I released the mental restraints I had laid on my body. The hunt was on, but I wasn’t any damned unaware prey. At least not anymore. I sharpened my anger and held it close inside, letting it fuel me, giving me strength.
The attack came in a dark alley reeking of rotten garbage and stale piss. Thin light filtered down from a stuttering bulb farther down the alley. It was the kind of place where, if screams managed to escape, no one would bother to investigate. What little light the streetlamps provided barely pierced the gloom. Three of them flowed out of the night, fangs and claws bared, but I was ready.
I exploded into action, ducking under the arm of one and sending another slamming into the wall with a hard shove. They paused, surprised by my strength and speed. I spun and kicked the second one into the third, sending them sprawling. I wanted to follow up my attack, to pound them with my fists and my rage until there was nothing left of them. I wanted it so badly I could taste it, a hot sharp tang in my mouth. Instead, I gritted my teeth and yanked the gun out of my waistband, stepping back to cover all three of them.
“Your weapon can’t kill us,” one of them said, a woman seemingly in her mid-thirties, her hair a wild brown tangle hanging to her shoulders. Her smile would’ve chilled me to the bone a year ago, in a whole other life.
“Maybe not,” I replied, smiling back just as cold and cocky, my hand steady on the gun. “Unless I hit your heart dead on. These bullets are more than enough to make it explode right in your scrawny fucking chest. Believe me, I’ve been practicing and I’m fast enough. See, I’ve learned a few things. There are two ways to kill a vamp: destroy their head or their heart. Even if I don’t manage to kill you with one shot, it’ll slow you down. You’ll need blood to heal. Do you want to take the chance?”
“You’re not a killer,” another one said, his face a mask of scars, twisting his features into a grisly permanent scowl.
“Damn, you’re an ugly one,” I taunted. “Now tell me what you want.” Goddamned vampires. Would I ever be free of them? It was bad enough knowing I shared a city with them, even worse knowing they weren’t all bad despite what some had done to Kristair and me; after all, I’d fallen hard for one. But if I had never seen another one for the rest of my life I would’ve been cool with that.
“You know who we are, child,” the woman said.
“And what we want,” Scarface added.
The third remained ominously silent. Then they began moving outward, separating themselves so even if I shot, I’d have a hard time hitting all three before they attacked. Still I hesitated, my finger frozen on the trigger.
“Enlighten me,” I snarled, my heart beating faster, adrenaline soaring.
“Don’t allow them to distract you. Take them down now and ask questions of the survivor later,” Kristair’s ghost said.
“Sh
ut up!” For fuck’s sake, talk about distracting.
Mocking feminine laughter echoed off the brick walls. “The Ancient One’s secrets are locked inside your head.” Bitter bile rocketed up into my throat so fast I almost choked on it. “We’re here to take you back to Rome, break open your mind like an egg and suck out everything you’ve been hiding.”
Before my anger and fear overran my cursed conscience they attacked again, the silent one rushing at me from the side. I half-turned, firing, and the bullet grazed his temple. Then they were on me. The gun was wrenched out of my hand and skittered down the alley.
I shoved one off with a shoulder block to his ribs and punched another in the face, bone crunching under my fist. Then my feet were swept out from underneath me and I went down in a tangle of furious limbs.
“Yer getting nothing from me!” I snarled, struggling to get to my feet.
The Syndicate. Fuck, oh fuck, they were back, and if they managed to subdue me and take me to Rome, then Kristair would’ve died in vain. That thought alone was enough to send new strength surging through my veins.
“Kill them. Kill them all.” I couldn’t be sure if the thought was mine or Kristair’s.
These were the ones responsible for Kristair’s death. They were all going to pay. My blood seethed as I kicked. One of the vamps flew backward toward a new figure that had appeared in the alleyway. Fuck! I should’ve thought about the possibility of reinforcements.
The newcomer drew a sword as the female vamp jumped back up, turning her back on the fourth. There was a flash of silver and her head rolled away in another direction as her body crumpled to the ground in a heap.
My stomach heaved, sobering me as the rage and killing instinct fled. Suddenly, this wasn’t a game any longer. The silent vampire scrambled off me to face the new threat, leaving me to contend with the scar-faced bastard.
My new ally laughed as he faced off with his opponent. “Going out and not being ready for a fight to the death. How short-sighted.”
Triquetra Page 31
