by Shéa MacLeod
“You barely know him.” My vision was kind of watery, but I’m pretty sure she looked exasperated. Frankly, I didn’t give a damn if she thought I was an idiot. Probably in my saner moments I’d think I was an idiot, too. Sanity seemed a rare commodity lately, especially where Jack was concerned.
I brushed a lock of hair back from Jack’s eyes. Pupils dilated and fixed. They were always saying that on those crime scene shows. I used to love those shows before life changed. Now they seemed rather trite.
Definitely dead. I struggled to hold back what felt suspiciously like a sob as I pressed my lips against his forehead, then I laid him gently back on the ground before closing his eyes.
They used to say the soul escaped to heaven through the eyes when a person died. I wondered if Jack had a soul to escape. I couldn’t imagine him sitting around strumming a harp on a cloud somewhere, but I hoped his soul was at peace anyway. I just didn’t know what I was going to do now that he was gone. I couldn’t believe he was really and truly dead. There were still too many questions left unanswered.
Something niggled at the back of my mind. Something not quite right.
“Kabita, Jack didn’t dust.”
She shrugged. “Probably has something to do with the whole Sunwalker thing. Maybe they don’t dust like normal vamps. Don’t worry about it. I’ve called Inigo. He’ll help.”
With the body. She didn’t say it, but I knew she meant he’d help us get rid of the body. Couldn’t very well have the cops around asking questions. They weren’t exactly in on the whole supernatural secret and the Feds liked it that way. Having to explain why my best friend had just stabbed someone was not something any of us wanted to do.
I could tell I was still in shock. I was thinking way too clearly not to be. My mind was also going on really weird tangents which meant I was probably going to cry myself to sleep later and then not eat for days on end. That’s how I dealt with grief, which was kind of weird because I barely knew Jack.
Kabita was pulling me away from Jack’s body, whispering words that weren’t quite making sense. Either I was in worse shape than I thought, which I doubted, or it was a spell.
“Don’t you pull that voodoo shit with me,” I snapped at her. Anger surged up to take the place of shock.
“It’s not voodoo and you know it,” she snapped right back. “It’s just a spell to make you feel better.”
“I don’t care what it is; I don’t want to feel better.” God I was being such a child. I knew very well the difference between vodun and witchcraft; I just wanted to piss Kabita off. Nothing pisses off a witch more than calling her spells voodoo. I was actually OK with pissing Kabita off right then.
She sighed and there was a lot of sadness behind it. “I’m sorry, Morgan. I’m really sorry. I honestly thought he was going to kill you. If I’d realized … I’m sorry.” Moonlight turned her into shadow, but I felt her sorrow just the same. Sorrow for me, not for Jack.
I closed my eyes. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. “Yeah, I know.” I pulled my arm out of her grasp and knelt back down on the grass next to Jack’s body. The moonlight shimmered on his skin and turned his hair black. I ran my fingers through the heavy silkiness of it, cool in the night air. I leaned down to press my lips against his one last time and nearly had a heart attack.
His eyes flew open. His mouth moved, like he was trying to talk and then his body arched off the ground as he drew in a gasping breath, lungs heaving. Coughs wracked his body as he struggled to breathe.
“Jack? Jack!” It was like his body was relearning to breathe. I grabbed him and rolled him on his side in the recovery position. Hooray for first aid training. He seemed to breathe a little easier.
He was dead. I’d seen him die. I’d bloody well held him in my arms while he died. Kabita had driven a stake through his heart, for fuck’s sake. Nobody came back from that.
I pulled out one of my knives and sliced open his shirt so I could see his back. Where there should have been a gaping hole was smooth, flawless skin marred only by a rough coat of dried blood. I ran my fingers over the warm silk of his back. He was perfect. Not even a scar to show where the stake had gone in. We were both still covered in blood; there’d been a lot of it, but no marks.
As his breathing eased, I helped him sit up, using my body to brace him. Kabita was staring at both of us with her mouth hanging open. I couldn’t blame her.
I brushed his hair out of his face and stared into his eyes. He stared back. Neither of us said a word, but I knew it was him. It was Jack. He’d been dead a minute ago, his soul, spirit, whatever gone. I didn’t doubt that for a second.
“Jack, what the hell just happened?” My voice was a little husky from all the crying.
“I died.”
“No shit. But you are very much alive now.”
“Yes.”
I glared at him. Honestly the man needed a good smack alongside the head. “Now would be a really good time to explain.”
He sighed and winced a little. I frowned. “Do you still hurt?”
“A little. It will pass.” He gave me one of those manly brave smiles that men gave you when they’re badly hurt but trying to be all macho. Men were so weird. They got a paper cut and acted like they were dying, but a true injury and they tried to play the big, brave hero.
“Uh, huh. I’m sure. I still want an explanation.” I almost didn’t care, I was so glad he was alive, but the Hunter in me needed to know.
“My fate is tied to the amulet. I am its Keeper, its Guardian, and I will remain so until the true owner of the amulet is found.”
I didn’t get it. This was all starting to sound a bit weird and mystical to me. “This has to do with that stupid amulet? What do you mean, ‘true owner’?”
“It’s a long story,” he shook his head. He pulled out of my arms and staggered to his feet. He swayed a moment then gathered himself together. He stretched a little, testing the skin and muscles as though to make sure they still held together.
I sighed. He obviously wasn’t ready to share, but we were beyond the point of secrets and half-truths. “Fine. I’m taking you home. But, Jack, when we get there, you are going to tell me everything. Understand? Everything.” I guess I must have looked pretty stubborn because he finally nodded in agreement.
***
If Inigo was disappointed he had no body to clean up, he didn’t show it. Though I did get the distinct feeling he wasn’t too fond of Jack. Oh, sure, he did his usual jovial thing, but there was a dark look in his eyes that in anyone else I would have called jealousy. I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed off or flattered. I decided not to think about it. I was still kind of creeped out by whatever did or didn’t happen with him the other night.
Jack didn’t have a car. He wouldn’t explain just how exactly he managed to get up the hill to Pittock Mansion without a car so fast, though I imagined it had something to do with his Sunwalker skill set. He was still pretty wobbly, so I offered him a ride home. There were some things I really wanted to get straight with old Jack. Of course, I would have also liked very much to go home to a hot shower and a change of clothes, but that could wait.
I gave Jack a sidelong look. His face had an eerie greenish glow from the dashboard lights. “So … ” I prodded. He didn’t respond. I was nothing if not persistent. “So, you can’t die, huh?”
“No.”
“At all?”
He threw me a look. “I am the Guardian of the Key. I am truly immortal. Unlike a vampire, I cannot die, even if you take my head. As long as the amulet exists, so do I.”
“Key?”
He sat in stubborn silence.
“Listen Jack, there is some seriously weird shit happening here and I think I deserve to know about it. In case you forgot, I’ve been hired to kill you, so I’d kinda like to know what exactly I’m supposed to tell my client.”
“Tell Brent Darroch to go to hell,” he said mildly.
I glared at him a second before turning my eyes back to the dar
k road in front of me. “Yeah, right. That would go down a treat. ‘Excuse me Mr. Darroch, but I just found that Jack the Sunwalker can’t really die. Not as long as the amulet you stole from him exists. So would you please fuck off?’”
I was pretty sure I saw his lips twitch. I didn’t think it was an actual smile, but it was close. “Not quite what I had in mind, but it works.”
I rolled my eyes, which was kind of hard to do while driving. “You’re an idiot.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Anyway, I already told him I know he’s got the amulet.”
“What did you do that for?” He sounded irritated.
I shrugged. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”
I was no lady, but Jack’s language made even me blush. He eventually ran out of modern cuss words and switched to what sounded like French.
I pulled up in front of his house. “There you are. Front door service, sir.” My voice sounded a little over bright, even to me.
“Do you mind helping me in? I still feel a bit … delicate.”
Delicate? Jack? “Uh, sure.” I hopped out and ran around the side to help him out of the car. He was right. He was definitely a bit wobbly still and nearly brought me down right there on the pavement. Even with my extra strength, I could barely hold him up. “Sheesh, Jack,” I panted. “You weigh a ton.”
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound particularly sorry.
Between us, we managed to stagger to his front door and get him inside the house. He sagged down on the sofa. He seriously needed a shower; heck, I seriously needed a shower, but there was no way in hell I was going to get him up the stairs.
“Don’t worry; there’s a shower in the laundry room by the kitchen.”
“What? You’re reading my mind now?”
This time he did grin. “You’re thinking too hard.”
I scowled at him. “There is no way in hell I’m getting naked with you, Jack.”
His grin widened. “Well, now, that’s a pity. But I think I can manage to shower on my own.”
Yeah, right. The guy could barely stand on his own, let alone do anything as exciting as taking a shower. “Well, then.” I fiddled with my key ring. “Guess I’ll leave you to it.”
“Stay, Morgan. We have things we need to discuss.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. I glanced down at my filthy clothes. “We can talk later. I need a shower myself. Not to mention I think these clothes need burned.”
“Just wash them with some hydrogen peroxide. The blood will come out.”
I stared at him. What was this? Jackie Homemaker? I swore my life couldn’t get any more bizarre if it tried. “Sure. I’ll get right on that.”
“You can use the upstairs shower. It’s in my bedroom. You’ll find some sweats and T-shirts in the closet and there are some garbage bags under the sink in the kitchen for the bloody clothes.”
I shrugged. What the hell.
So, after I helped Jack into the laundry room for his shower and grabbed a plastic bag from under the sink, I headed upstairs to Jack’s room. His bedroom was what you’d expect. An enormous California king graced the middle of the room with matching nightstands on either side. The bedside lamps were sleek chrome things. It was all very modern and minimalist. Not my taste, but it sort of suited him. More so than the living room.
His closet, however, was pretty much a girl’s wet dream. Calling it a walk-in didn’t do it justice. It was huge, nearly as large as my entire bedroom. There were cubbyholes and shelves and hanging racks on every wall, crammed with more suits and shoes and ties and whatnot than I’d seen outside a clothing store.
There were four sets of bureaus standing back to back in the middle of the room. I pulled open one of the drawers. Socks. All black. Who in the world had an entire drawer of nothing but black socks?
The next drawer had white socks. Below that, boxer briefs in an assortment of colors. Now that was what I liked to see in a man’s drawers. No pun intended.
A few more drawers and I found T-shirts and sweat pants. I picked out a pair of black sweats and a green T-shirt with a peace sign on the front. Jack hadn’t struck me as a peace sign kind of guy. I guess you just never knew about people.
The bathroom was even better than the closet, if that were possible. It looked like he’d knocked a couple of smaller bedrooms together and converted them into something even the ancient Romans would have drooled over. I was pretty sure you could have fit an entire football team in the bathtub alone.
I’d have loved to try out that bathtub, but a shower would have to do. Not that his shower was anything to sneeze at. It was enormous and tiled in what looked like Italian marble or something equally expensive and a pain in the ass to clean. There were knobs and jets and things everywhere. I swear it took me twenty minutes just to figure out how to turn the thing on.
I felt immensely better after my shower. The therapeutic effects of a hot shower are highly underrated. The clothes left a lot to be desired, but at least they were clean. I was not a small woman, but Jack’s sweats required several rolls so as to avoid breaking a leg, and his T-shirt made me look like a five year old dressing up in dad’s clothes. Even worse, I was sans makeup and Jack didn’t appear to own a hair dryer, so my hair was all wet and slicked back. Not an attractive look.
I was pretty sure Jack didn’t mind. If I hadn’t caught the look in his eye when I rejoined him in the living room, I wouldn’t have thought he noticed. It was the barest flicker of heat, but it was there. Then he did the blank thing again.
Yeah, he didn’t think I looked so bad. Then again it might have been because I was braless. But only because mine had been ruined and it wasn’t something Jack had hanging around in his closet.
His eyes flicked to my chest as I curled up in the armchair across from him. Yeah, it was definitely the braless thing. There was no way on earth a woman with D cups could possibly go around braless without someone noticing. Particularly a male someone.
“OK, Jack. Let’s talk. How about we start with Sunwalkers?”
He gave me a long look. “All right, what do you want to know?”
“What are they? You, I mean. How are you different from vampires? That sort of thing.”
He leaned back, wincing a little as his newly healed muscles contracted. “Your dreams, the ones you’ve been having about the priest?”
I nodded, urging him to continue. I was finally going to find out about those damn dreams.
He seemed to search for words. “They are real. What you saw really happened thousands of years ago, as near as I can tell.”
“You’ve had the dreams, too?”
He nodded. “It’s the amulet’s way of communicating with its Guardian. It sends me dreams, mostly. And the one about the priest were the first ones I had.” He paused for a moment. “You can’t tell anyone about my connection to the amulet.”
“Why? I mean, it’s kind of weird, the whole connection thing, being the Guardian, whatever that means, but why would anyone care?”
“Trust me; there are people who would care. Powerful people. People like Brent Darroch.” His voice was cold and hard. There was definitely some history there.
“All right, fine. I won’t tell. Continue the story.” I’d promise just about anything if he’d tell me the truth.
“The details are sketchy, but it appears that there really was a city of Atlantis which was destroyed thousands of years ago. From what I’ve seen in the visions, there was a sickness they brought with them from,” he frowned before continuing, “their homeland. I’m not sure exactly where this homeland was, but the sickness is part of what drove them out. They left in order to escape it. They thought they’d cured it, but there was a new outbreak. It made them crazy, bloodthirsty.”
I nodded. I’d known that much. I even knew where, or what, this homeland was, as well as the fact that it wasn’t just the sickness that drove them out, but a dying sun. I thought I’d keep that little tidbit to myself for
the time being. An ancient race from a dying world? Yeah, that’d go over well. “But they weren’t vampires?”
He shook his head. “No. They weren’t human, I don’t think, but they weren’t vampires, either. I think the sickness had a similar effect to vampirism, but not entirely. It seems that when they attacked humans, the disease mutated and the human survivors became the first vampires.”
“Shit.” My dream was starting to make a lot of sense now.
He smiled a little at that. “Before all this happened, humans and the people of Atlantis had already begun intermarrying. There were many people who were of mixed blood and they alone were immune.”
“How is that possible?”
“No idea. But something about the mix of human and Atlantean genetics was resistant to the disease. The last High Priest discovered this and decided to use it to his advantage to save what he called the Treasure of Atlantis. So he created the Key.”
“The amulet,” I said.
“Yes. His original plan was to entrust the Key to his son who was half-human and a trained Warrior. Unfortunately … “
“They got trapped in the cave and he ate his son for lunch,” I finished for him. Jack just gave me a dirty look. Could I help it if I had a sick sense of humor?
“Something like that, yes. From what I can tell, though, he had a backup plan. Anyone bearing the genetic code of one of his son Varan’s elite squad of half-human warriors who came into contact with the Key would become its next Guardian. I was that person.”
“You are a descendent of one of Varan’s warriors?”
“So, it seems.”
“But how did you manage not to turn into a vampire when the priest attacked you? Or were you immune?” This was getting weirder by the minute. Good thing I was starting to get used to weird.
“The Priest carried the original strain of the disease, not the mutated form which is vampirism. That’s part of it, I imagine, but the biggest part is that humans who carry Atlantean DNA are still partially immune to the disease which creates vampires. If we are bitten we don’t turn into vampires. We become Sunwalkers.”
