Oh my God, what am I thinking? I wanted to beat the crap out of myself for even allowing that sly little thought any space in my severely screwed up psyche.
I was one sick puppy. And Jace Murdoch was not cute. No way. Not even slightly.
The voice of the object of my non-admiration vibrated with shock and anger. ‘Don’t tell me this is a goddamn coincidence, freak. Have you been following me?’
Wow, he really isn’t happy to see me. He took another step forward. ‘Answer me!’
I scowled. ‘What makes you think I’d be following you? What is it with men and their egos? You’re the only freak standing in this room.’ I liked the anger that burned in my gut, making me feel ten feet tall. It helped to cover up my nerves as he took another careful step over scattered debris. Maybe if I kept him talking I’d think of a way out of this. ‘And how would I know you’d be here, anyway? And wait a minute – why would I even care? Duh.’
Clearly unimpressed, Jace pulled a huge hunting knife out of a scabbard hidden beneath the well-worn army jacket.
‘Nice knife,’ I said, trying to keep my tone light. ‘You planning on dry-shaving with it? Maybe show me how manly you’ve grown?’
‘Shut up, freak.’
‘Oh, but I can see you don’t really have any stubble yet. Wow, how many nineteen-year-olds do you know who haven’t even started to grow their first beard?’ I shrugged. ‘Not that it bothers me – I still think you’re super-sexy, even if you’re not quite there yet. And you’re a little too . . . alive, for me.’
All the while I was doing the fast-talking thing, I was still trying to get my toe under the edge of the trapdoor – but it wasn’t working because of my stupid boots.
Jace came toward me brandishing the knife, the murderous look on his face still visible in the weird glow of the gently swinging bulb. Wavering yellow light spilled down in sickly waves, turning his brown eyes into pools of shadow.
But there was no mistaking the grim set of his mouth. I remembered those slightly-too-thin lips (Oh, how I remembered them), but back then they’d been mostly grimacing in pain after I’d broken his leg. He seemed to have made a full recovery, more’s the pity. I should have kicked him harder. All I wanted was to get a look at Rick’s body, and here I was having to deal with Van Helsing Junior.
I gave up any pretence at subtlety and made a dive for the trapdoor, jamming my small fingers into the even smaller gap and prising the creaking wood upward. But despite my unnatural speed, Jace was like an unstoppable force of nature. He lunged at me and I only just deflected the knife’s progress in time, grabbing his wrist as we both went down beyond the trapdoor.
‘Get off me!’ I was half crushed, as six feet of furious young hunter tried to force the knife against my throat. If it was edged with silver, I was seriously screwed. The way the light caught the blade didn’t fill me with much optimism, but maybe it was just really shiny.
The ‘really shiny’ knife nicked my throat and, Oh shit, that burns, I thought. My body spasmed as it processed the fact that a tiny piece of silver had entered my bloodstream. I was easily stronger than Jace, but the knife was taking up all of my attention, making it impossible to get a good hold on him. And now my freaking neck felt like it was on fire. I decided to try reasoning with him instead. My mom had always been all about the ‘Make love not war’ thing.
‘Jace, let’s stop this and talk. Maybe we can help each other?’
I gasped as the wickedly sharp silver edged close to my face and our arms waved wildly back and forth, wrestling for control. There was no way I should be having this much trouble subduing him – sure, he looked like he’d been working out, but this was crazy. Vampires had much more strength than humans. Was I weak from not having fed recently? I wished now I’d taken Holly up on her offer of blood before heading out here.
Murdoch Junior held my legs clamped between his, and I tried to remember which leg I’d injured six months ago. Maybe I could use that to my advantage. But with his full weight on me and the knife wavering close to my face, it was tough to get the leverage I needed to push him off.
Jace was panting with effort, both hands on the hilt now and his handsome face twisted with something dark and mean. ‘Not so tough this time, are you?’
I stopped struggling and met his eyes with mine. For a moment I was distracted by the glint of a tiny silver ring in his left eyebrow; but then I focused, pushing all of my will onto his as I struggled to capture his gaze in mine. Vampires could do all kinds of impossible things, and those abilities increased the older they got. I was way too young to be able to do something as complex as mould another’s will completely to mine, but if I could manage it for a few seconds – distract him . . .
I locked eyes with him, just for a moment, and it was enough. He froze and I grabbed his shoulders and rolled him over, pushing his body until we exchanged positions. I lay on top of him, not even caring when I heard the jarring clatter as the knife fell from Jace’s limp fingers and hit the ground. He smelled fresh, like the city streets after hard rain.
I licked my lips, fighting the rising hunger in my gut, trying to stop the primal urge to bite into the soft skin of his throat as it lay exposed beneath me. My silver eyes glowed so brightly I could see their shining reflection in the brown depths of his. I was right there, reflected in his eyes; inside of him, gaining a precious foothold on his will and personality. His life and dreams and hopes and fears laid bare before me. This was better than I’d ever managed before.
Jace fell in.
His face went slack, empty. All that earlier rage just slipped away like drops of water sliding down glass.
The weight of his mind cradled within mine was too much for me, I wouldn’t be able to hold it. How could I, when there was so much? I couldn’t make sense of this mass of complicated pain and beauty that was Jason Murdoch. I couldn’t . . .
A much younger Jace walks toward the door. It’s a regular painted wooden door like in any suburban home. No glass, all solid. No way to see through it. But whatever’s on the other side is scaring the crap out of him. He is so afraid, and as he reaches with shaking fingers and grasps the handle and turns it he knows what he will see.
‘Say goodbye to her, son,’ says a tall man, a man who looks like an older version of the boy. His father. ‘There’s not long left.’
The room beyond is plain and simply furnished. Utilitarian, just the way the boy’s father likes it. The bed in the corner holds a woman who might’ve once been beautiful, long before the approach of implacable Death. She is so pale, like bleached bones and the perfect moon in the sky outside the tiny window. Although she is slender, petite in build, her stomach is swollen beneath the covers and her white-knuckled hands clutch over the second life dying inside her.
The boy kneels by the bed and straightens the blanket, smooths back his mother’s sweat-soaked hair. Tries not to meet her strange, shimmering eyes. The room reeks of something twisted and . . . wrong – sickness, death, mortality on the brink of slipping away. Slipping away like . . .
. . . like drops of water sliding down glass.
‘What the fuck?!’ Jace was choking, curled into a ball on his side, coughing and trying to catch his breath.
Somehow I was halfway across the room, as far away from the trapdoor as it was possible to get. I slowly pulled up into a sitting position. It was as though I’d been flung – presumably by Jace – with such force I’d landed in a crumpled heap against a pile of crates. They hadn’t moved on impact; must be something heavy stored in them, because my back hurt like someone had stomped on it while wearing my best steel-toe-capped boots. The ones I save for special occasions.
Well, if that little mind meld had achieved anything, at least I was free.
Unfortunately, Jace was now between me and the hatch.
Everything seemed to slow down as we both rose to our feet, tentatively, like new-born colts testing their legs for the first time. My head felt full of splintered glass.
&nbs
p; I was light-headed and yet strangely energized. Apart from the pain in my back, I was sort of OK. Jace didn’t look like he’d fared as well from whatever had just happened. He stood facing me, empty-handed.
‘You were in my mind. You bitch, you were in my head.’ His voice was hoarse, almost too quiet to hear.
‘I . . . I didn’t mean to do that.’ And I really hadn’t. Not like that; not as deep or as intrusive. I shivered.
Jace rubbed his hand across his mouth, as though trying to wipe away a stain or the memory of something.
I shook my head, angry for losing control of an ability I still didn’t understand.
He rolled his neck from side to side, breathing deeply and avoiding eye contact. I wouldn’t catch him again, not like that. He was too smart. At least the rage seemed to have passed. Surely now I could talk some sense into him—
Jace grabbed a crossbow from behind some tumbled crates. A wickedly sharp silver-tipped bolt was already locked and loaded and he pointed it at me. The stock rested firmly against his shoulder, one eye squinting as he got me firmly in his sights. Literally.
The weapon was aimed directly at my heart.
I looked for the nearest exit or hidey-hole, anywhere I could gain some cover. I wasn’t sure how accurate a shot Jace was but I had a horrible feeling he’d be pretty good. His hands were certainly steady enough.
‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘I won’t hesitate this time.’
‘Neither will I,’ I said, throwing Jason’s dagger directly at his head.
‘Holy fu—’ Jace hit the floor and the flying dagger missed him. Which is exactly the way I’d planned it (go, me!).
Because, of course, I hadn’t been aiming for him at all.
The annoyingly creepy light bulb shattered with a satisfying pop. Glass fell in a musical sprinkle, crunching under my boots as I ran toward the trapdoor.
Impressively, he had actually managed to keep hold of his crossbow and got trigger-happy from his position on the ground. But I was already miles away from where he was shooting. The crossbow bolt swooshed past my left shoulder and thunked into the wall close to the main door to the room.
‘I hope you’re going to collect that,’ I said. ‘We can’t have any hospital staff finding crossbow bolts around here. That would be totally suspicious.’
I’d reached the hatch but Jace was advancing on me again, having tossed aside the now empty weapon. Maybe he intended to finish me off with his bare hands, but I didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to believe he could take me in a fair fight. Even weakened from lack of blood, I was stronger than him. I think I’d been so shocked to see him earlier, that was surely the only reason he’d been able to match me.
I raised both hands in front of me. ‘Stop right there. Think, Murdoch. I’m not trying to hurt you – I only want you to leave me alone so I can get on with my work.’
His step faltered. ‘Work? What kind of work would someone like you have to do in a hospital?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It wouldn’t have anything to do with the kid they have down in the basement, would it?’
I couldn’t help it. My mouth dropped open. ‘Um . . . you mean the kid who may have been attacked by a wild animal?’ What was the point of denying it?
Jace’s eyes flickered toward the closed door that would lead back into the hospital. ‘Yeah, that sounds like the one.’
‘I’m investigating.’
He actually started to laugh. The bastard. ‘Who do you think you are, Veronica Mars for the undead? I’ve got news for you: you’re not blonde enough.’
‘That’s OK, you’re blond enough for both of us,’ I shot back. ‘Have you had highlights?’
Jace narrowed his eyes. ‘If you think I’m letting you go, you’re dumber than you look.’
I glared back. ‘If you think you can stop me, this time I’ll break both your legs.’
Stalemate. We watched each other in the gloom. I had no problem seeing the anger and confusion etched into his face, but I wondered if the only thing he could see of me was my eyes. If I closed them, would I disappear into the shadows?
He ran a hand through the close-cropped spikes of his hair. ‘So.’
‘So.’
‘Now what?’
I shrugged. ‘If you can’t bear to let me out of your sight, why don’t you come with me?’ Hello, was I completely brain-dead? What did I have to say that for?
His mouth lifted at one corner, but it wasn’t exactly what I’d call a smile.
‘I think I will.’
We made our way through the winding corridors that led to the basement space that served as Mass Gen’s morgue. Not really a morgue; more just an interim place before bodies were transported to the real deal. It was a depressing fact that life as a vampire meant you learned these things about the city – things involving the dead.
Jace had ignored me all the way so far, which was fine with me except for the fact that I had plenty of things I wanted to ask him. I wanted to know what he was doing here, for a start; what did he know about Rick, lying dead in the hospital basement? But even more than that, I wanted to ask him something I had no right to: had the dying woman I’d seen in his head really been his mom? How had she died? I knew it was something bad, maybe even something unnatural. I could still smell the way that awful room had smelled. There was nothing natural about that. And her eyes – I didn’t want to think about how horribly familiar that silver shimmer had been. Not that Murdoch Junior was likely to share his deepest feelings with me.
I doubted he shared those with anyone. You could see it written on his face – the grief and bitterness sort of locked in around his eyes. It made him look far older than nineteen.
Jace glanced over at me. ‘So what’s your interest in this kid?’
I met his gaze, knowing that my eyes would be shining brightly in the gloom. They always responded badly to stress. ‘Why should I answer any of your questions? All you’ve done is attack me and threaten me. Again.’
‘That’s my job.’
I shook my head, frustrated that a seemingly smart guy could be so short-sighted. ‘It’s not your job. This is what your father does.’
‘My father’s gone.’ His voice was low; something hollow echoed beneath the hard edge. There was pain hovering beneath the surface – a lot of pain – but I didn’t have time to tread gently. Not that I could tread anywhere gently in these boots.
‘He’s dead?’ I couldn’t wait to tell Theo that the ‘great’ Thomas Murdoch had actually croaked. Last time we’d talked about him, my Maker had seemed almost disappointed that the hunter had been so quiet lately. It looked like Theo wasn’t the only one missing Murdoch Senior.
Jace scowled. ‘Try not to sound too happy about it. No, he’s not dead – he just skipped town and I haven’t seen him in weeks.’
Oh, well . . . ‘I wasn’t happy. Simply curious.’
He didn’t sound convinced. ‘You’re not the only one. A lot of people are looking for my dad, but I can’t tell them a damn thing. Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I’ve tried all the contacts I can think of – all Dad’s old hunting buddies – but if they know anything they’re not talking.’
‘Maybe you’re better off,’ was all I said.
‘You don’t know anything about it.’ Jace’s voice had risen well above the respectable level you were supposed to use in a hospital. Not to mention the fact that we were supposed to be sneaking into a restricted area.
‘Shut up! Do you want to get us caught?’
He slid me a sideways look from those almost too-pretty brown eyes, what with the long lashes that put mine to shame. ‘What do I care? This is your stupid mission.’
‘Then why are you even here? I thought you said you were here for the boy.’
‘It sounded like a possible vampire attack when I heard about it over the police scanner and I wondered if Dad might be here,’ he replied. ‘He checks out anything with vamp-potential.’
I glanced around, suddenly worried that Thomas Murdoch could be creeping up on us at any moment.
The young hunter shrugged. ‘Anyway, there’s no sign of Dad and I don’t care about the kid one way or the other. I’m only here now to keep tabs on you. Can’t have an undead freak wandering around in a place where humans are sick and vulnerable.’ He crossed his arms. ‘I don’t trust vampires.
‘Because you know so many.’
‘Well, I don’t generally spend time getting to know them, I leave that to my crossbow. That’s the best way to deal with monsters.’
I narrowed my eyes. He didn’t look intimidated, just gave me a slow quarter-smile. A lump rose in my throat. I tried to swallow past it so I could give this self-righteous punk something to chew on, but it felt like nothing would shift the ache of wondering if he was right. After all, a year ago I would have agreed with him. And a part of me – the Marie part – still did.
We finally reached the door we needed. There was an orderly on duty and luckily he took a shine to Jace. I tried flirting with him until I realized I was wasting my time; the guy only had eyes for the tall hunk of brooding muscle standing next to me. One look into Jace Murdoch’s soulful brown eyes – allied with his smooth talk of ‘medical studies’ – and the orderly was only too happy to allow us into the restricted area.
‘He was totally hitting on you,’ I whispered as we walked down a corridor that stank of disinfectant.
The corner of Jace’s mouth quirked blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fast. ‘Yeah, I’m just irresistible.’
I leaned against the wall. ‘OK, before we go any further I need to know something. Are you helping me or not?’ I was pleased that my voice was steady.
‘Sure, I’ve got nothing better to do.’
‘Fine. Just don’t get in my way,’ I muttered. And don’t try stabbing me, I wanted to add.
As we came to a stop, he suddenly looked at me with something other than disgust. ‘Hey, listen—’
But I never did get to hear what he was going to say, because I suddenly realized that the ‘secured’ door was partly open and a gut-twisting stench came from the room beyond.
Falling to Ash Page 4
