I studied her response, not entirely sure what to make of the bold tactics she was using to try to break the ice between us.
“Look,” she continued, “I can sit here and try to convince you that I’m a friend—that I have no other agenda than to spend time with Dylan and help Quinn and you the best I’m able—but we both know that’d just be a waste of breath. You’re going to have to come to that conclusion on your own.” There was no animosity or arrogance in her voice.
“And what if I don’t come to that conclusion?”
“Then I’ll go. I’ll leave and break all contact with Dylan until Quinn is safe and this Servant fiasco is behind you. You can’t afford to have me as a distraction—and neither can Dylan. You both have to stay focused in order to protect Quinn and yourselves.”
“You would leave? Just like that?”
“Well, not forever. It would be only a matter of days, weeks maybe, for me up in my realm.” She shrugged.
“Yeah, I suppose it would.”
“But, Evie, I really hope it doesn’t come to that. I hope you come to realize that I’m a friend who wants to help.”
“I hope so, too.”
“You two getting along?” Dylan called out as he and Quinn walked towards us, still dripping wet from the pool. I could see the concern in Dylan’s eyes. No doubt he’d heard our entire conversation.
“Brilliantly,” Minerva replied with a wide smile. Dylan smiled, leaned over her chair, and shook himself off like a wet dog. She laughed as she made a halfhearted attempt to shield herself with her hands.
“Oh, sorry. Did I get you all wet?” Dylan feigned innocence. Still dripping, he kissed her. To my surprise, she didn’t seem to mind. So maybe she wasn’t as high maintenance as her appearance had led me to believe.
Quinn, on the other hand, winked at me and dried himself off with a towel before leaning over to kiss me. I smiled appreciatively at him.
“Who won?” I asked.
“It was a draw,” Dylan reported.
“Yeah, sure,” Quinn scoffed. “If a draw means me totally getting my ass smoked.”
“Oh, c’mon. You got some decent spikes in there,” Dylan said in conciliation.
“Thanks for trying to make me look good, but I can accept losing a game of volleyball to an immortal.”
“That’s very big of you,” I teased.
“That’s me. Big—and starving, actually. I’d offer you all something to eat, but—” He chuckled in amusement.
I followed him inside to the kitchen where he turned on the oven and popped in a thin crust sausage pizza. I checked my watch anxiously. I had put this discussion off and now I only had forty-five minutes before I was supposed to meet Jaegar and Chase again. Without getting the assurances I needed from Tartuf, there was no way I was bringing Quinn. They said there would be no deal without a sample of his blood, which meant I didn’t need to bring him. Unfortunately, it also meant I needed to tell Quinn where I was going in order for him to agree to give me the sample. Crap. He was not going to like any part of this.
“Umm, Quinn, I have to tell you something.”
“Shoot,” Quinn said in between bites of a banana.
“I have another meeting with Jaegar and Chase in forty-five minutes.”
“Another meeting?” Quinn asked. I could see a vortex of emotions swirling in his eyes—worry, anger, confusion.
“Evie, are you sure it’s such a good idea to meet with them again?” Dylan asked as he suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway.
Damn Shepherd ears. Is nothing sacred? I scowled. Did I think it was a good idea? No, not really. But I didn’t have any other feasible choices.
“They say they’ve got a line in to help us get what we want,” I replied.
“And what do ‘we’ want exactly?” Quinn asked.
“Your blood,” I replied matter-of-factly. “Specifically, the vial the Servants took from you last April.”
“And why do we need to get that back?” Dylan asked.
“Because the Servants can use it to get Quinn to do what they want him to do.”
“How?” Quinn asked.
“The Servants will use the blood in a ritual,” I said vaguely.
“I don’t like this,” Dylan declared. “I’m going with you.”
“You can’t,” I replied. “They’re not expecting another Shepherd. I don’t want to risk blowing the deal.”
“Then let me come with you,” Quinn offered. “It’s my blood they’re trying to retrieve.”
“Actually, they asked me to bring you.”
“Great, then it’s settled. I’m going,” he asserted.
“No!” Dylan and I shouted in unison.
“I feel like I’m missing the party,” Minerva stated as she walked into the kitchen.
“Yeah, well, don’t,” Quinn huffed. “Evie just informed us she has another meeting with those two Moon Mercenaries she met last night, and they want her to bring me along—only Dylan and Evie aren’t too thrilled with the idea.”
“Quinn, while I don’t think they’re setting a trap, I still don’t trust them,” I stated. “Besides they don’t need to meet you … they just need a sample of your blood,” I said somewhat hesitantly. “They need it to track your scent if they’re going to find the blood the Servants stole from you,” I added in the wake of the horrified stares Quinn and Dylan were both flashing me.
“Who are these Moon Mercenaries? Vampires? Bloodhounds?” Dylan demanded.
“No, they’re hired guns with ties to the Underworld,” Minerva stated, completely unfazed. “They’ll do just about anything—for the right price,” she continued warily, never taking her eyes off of me.
Crap, she knows. I stared back at her, pleading with my eyes not to say anything more.
“What are you thinking, meeting with these scumbags?” Quinn demanded angrily.
“By yourself!” Dylan threw in, equally pissed off.
“I’m doing what I have to in order to get Quinn’s blood back!” I snapped.
“Fuck my blood!” Quinn hollered. “The demons can have it! It’s not worth risking your safety—your future!”
“It’s not just my future I’m risking if we don’t get it back!” I blurted out in frustration.
“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Quinn looked a bit taken aback.
“It means I have to go to this meeting, alone, with some of your blood,” I explained curtly.
“K.C., what’s going on?” Dylan asked in concern.
“Dylan, love, I’m sure Evie has a very good explanation for all of this—one that she can tell us after her meeting,” Minerva offered, coming to my aid. “Right?” She looked at me expectantly.
“I won’t be able to tell you anything about the meeting if they leave because they think I blew them off.”
“Evie, you don’t need—” Quinn began.
“Quinn, please don’t tell me ‘I don’t need to do this’ because I really do,” I said softly, cutting him off.
“Fine.” Instantly, his pained expression turned ice cold. He pulled a paring knife out of a kitchen drawer and cut across the fleshy part of his palm. He squeezed his hand, pumping blood out of the wound, smeared it onto a dishtowel nearby, and tossed it at me. “Here’s my damn blood.” Then he stormed out of the room.
“K.C., you sure you’re okay to go alone?” Dylan asked me.
I nodded. “This is the only way.”
He gave me a quick little nod. “I’ll go talk to College Boy—and heal his hand.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“You do realize what you’re getting yourself into, don’t you?” Minerva whispered quietly when Dylan had left the room.
“Yes.”
“And you’re positive you want to go through with this?”
“Minerva, do you know why I need to get his blood back?” I inquired.
She nodded sympathetically.
“I see.” I exhaled loudly. “Then you should know
I have no other choice.”
She nodded again.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to Quinn. I don’t want him to find out until I have a better handle on the situation. And he shouldn’t hear it from anyone but me. He won’t take this well.”
“No one in their right mind would,” Minerva replied solemnly.
*
By the time I arrived in North Carolina, Chase and Jaegar were already there, waiting for me.
“Chase bet me you’d be a no show, but I knew you’d come.”
“What did it cost you?” I asked Chase in a sharp, no nonsense tone.
“The profits off one vial of your blood.” He flashed me a depraved smile.
My stomach turned and I thought I was going to be sick.
“You were supposed to bring your friend,” Jaegar stated, looking around for Quinn.
“Your exact words were, ‘No blood from the boy, no deal.’ Here’s his blood.” I offered the blood-smeared dishtowel to Jaegar.
“And just how did you manage to get this? The aftermath of a little domestic squabble?” he quipped, smiling to himself as he took the rag.
“Do you have proof you can recover the blood?” I asked, cutting out the small talk.
“Yeah.” Jaegar opened up a brown paper sack and pulled out a torn scrap of parchment with red writing on it.
“What’s that supposed to be?” I asked, irritated.
“It’s part of the ritual—written in your friend’s blood.”
“How do you know it’s his blood?”
The Moon Mercenaries sniffed the parchment and then dishtowel. Each one repeated the process again and then both nodded their heads in agreement.
“Yup. It’s one and the same,” Chase said.
“That’s it?” I exclaimed in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I’m just supposed to rely blindly on your alleged keen sense of smell and hope you’re telling me the truth that both blood samples are the same? Nuh-uh.” I shook my head vigorously. “No way.”
“You want more objective proof? Fine,” Chase replied, annoyed. He pulled out a handheld monitor, a small vial of solution, and a couple of litmus strips. It resembled something a diabetic would use. He dropped some of the solution onto the bloody part of the dishtowel, pressed the litmus strip up against it, and stuck the strip into the machine. He pressed a couple of buttons and waited for a beeping noise before holding up the monitor for me to see a digital readout appear on the screen.
“See these three numbers here? And this scatter pattern?” Chase asked. I nodded. “If the blood on the parchment is his, then these should be identical after I process the next strip. Got it?” Again, I nodded.
This time Chase dropped some solution onto the parchment and pressed a clean litmus strip up against the treated paper. He repeated the process with the monitor and the results were identical.
“See?” Chase asked wryly.
“See what?” I challenged. “That you have some fancy smoke-and-mirrors trick to get me to give you some of my blood while you give me some bogus blood in return?”
“Look here,” Jaegar sneered. “On some level, you’re going to have to trust us or this just ain’t gonna happen. We may not be the most well regarded lot, but we’ve got principles, and we don’t cheat to get what we want.”
“We don’t have to—when we can just steal it,” Chase added, sneering.
“Besides,” Jaegar added, “Tartuf obviously trusts us enough to send you our way. You think you’re better than him? That his standards aren’t high and mighty enough for you?”
“No, of course not,” I replied. “But this isn’t just fun and games—it’s important. It’s literally a matter of life and death.”
“What isn’t?” Chase asked smugly. “Sweetheart, we put ourselves at risk every single day, so don’t preach to us about what is and isn’t important. We said we’d get you the blood, and we’ll deliver. Now, do we have a deal or not?”
“You agree to retrieve my friend’s blood and deliver it to me within two weeks time, and in return I agree to give you five vials of my blood—two now and three upon delivery.”
“Um, yeah, about the turnaround time—our source says it’ll take closer to three weeks.”
That was cutting it close—too close for my comfort. “I’ll tell you what. You deliver the blood to me no later than two weeks from tonight, and I’ll give you another vial of my blood upon receipt. So, two vials now and four for the quick turnaround. Otherwise, it’ll be three upon delivery.”
Jaegar smiled. “We’ll see what we can do. So we have a deal?”
I took a deep breath and exhaled. “We have a deal.”
Jaegar held out his hand, and I shook it.
“Yes!” Chase clapped his hands and rubbed them together greedily. “Let’s get this party started!”
Extracting my blood turned out to be trickier than I thought it’d be—although no more painful than getting my blood drawn when I was human. The difficult part was how my body instantly began to heal itself without any conscious effort on my part. And if I did begin to think about the wound, or even look at the syringe in my arm, my body kicked the needle right out of my “vein,” forcing us to start all over. By the time Jaegar was finished filling two vials with my blood, he looked utterly exhausted.
“I’m not looking forward to collecting the rest,” he commented.
“Yeah, it’d be a lot easier if she were unconscious—or dead,” Chase added, shrugging as if he were actually contemplating that scenario.
“I can assure you that you won’t have a chance in hell of getting any more of my blood if you don’t deliver on your end,” I warned, scowling at him.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Chase replied. “We’ll deliver. We’ll call you when we’ve got the goods.”
“Two weeks for an extra vial!” I called out as Chase slung his bag over his shoulder. I sat down on a rock and watched the two walk towards their motorcycles and then ride off.
“What have you gotten yourself into, Evie?” I asked myself, sighing heavily. I looked at my watch; I’d been gone for an hour and a half. Quinn was probably out of his mind with worry. I stood up and was hit with a minor dizzy spell, nothing that would ordinarily cause me any concern—if it weren’t for the fact that I’d just let a Moon Mercenary stick a needle in my arm and withdraw the very essence of my immortality—well, a little of it anyway.
The spell passed as quickly as it came. I looked around me to make sure no one else was on the beach, and teleported myself back to the Harrisons’ home.
6. brutal honesty
“Quinn?” I called out when I arrived at his parents’ house. He didn’t respond, and all the lights in the house were out. I checked my watch. It was too early for Quinn to be sleeping. “Dylan? Minerva?” I walked into the kitchen and saw a note on the far edge of the counter. It was from Dylan—they were at the Falls. Images of Quinn being in a close call and escaping in the nick of time filled my mind. I shuddered and teleported myself to the portal immediately.
“Is everything all right?” I asked when I arrived. I took a moment to catch my breath.
“Yes,” Dylan answered. “Is everything all right with you?” He looked worried.
I was still panting. White noise began to buzz in my ears and my eyes began to play tricks on me, converting the scene in front of me into what looked like a film negative. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath, letting the air fill my lungs, and exhaled slowly. When I opened my eyes again, everything had returned to normal. “That was weird,” I mumbled to myself.
“What was weird?” Minerva asked in concern. Instantly, she was beside me, leading me by the arm over to a rock to sit on.
“I just had a little dizzy spell that’s all.”
“What do you mean ‘a little dizzy spell’?” Quinn asked as he crouched down in front of me and took my hands in his. “Evie, you’re trembling—and you’re freezing.” He rubbed his hands along my arms to war
m me up but stopped when he saw a dried drop of blood on the inside of my forearm.
“Whose blood is that?” Quinn demanded.
“Quinn—” I began.
“Whose is it?” he demanded again more harshly.
It was time. There was no way of keeping this a secret. I glanced over at Minerva, who flashed me another sympathetic look.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you out of this one,” she told me telepathically.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, too ashamed to look at Quinn. “Mine,” I whispered.
“What did those bastards do to you?” Dylan asked through gritted teeth as he grabbed my arm and inspected it. “What is that?” he asked, feeling the last puncture mark Jaegar had made on my forearm; the rest had already disappeared. Only someone with our acute senses could’ve detected the nearly healed pinprick.
“Is that a needle mark?” he asked me telepathically.
I opened my eyes and looked up at Dylan. “Yes.”
“What did you do, K.C.?” Dylan asked me aloud.
I closed my eyes once more in an effort to fight back the tears. When I opened them again, I looked directly into Quinn’s dark, stormy blue eyes. He was worried, confused, and angry—and rightfully so. The guilt in my eyes told him I’d done something foolish and risky—something he no doubt would’ve disapproved of strongly.
“I made a trade,” I said, still locking my eyes onto Quinn’s. “My blood for yours.”
“Why would you do that?” Quinn asked me, his eyes looking more and more tortured by the second.
“Because that’s the price for having them steal your blood back.”
“Did you get it at least?” Dylan’s Shepherd instincts were kicking in.
“No. Not yet.”
“Evie, I told you, I don’t care about my blood. I told you to forget about it. So what if we don’t get it back—”
“I can’t forget about it,” I whispered. Tears welled up in my eyes. “I can’t.”
“Why? What’s the worst thing that can happen if we don’t get it back?” The color began to drain from Quinn’s face as my tears began to stream uncontrollably down my face. “Evie, how bad is it?”
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