by Jess Haines
Not only that, but a thousand myriad sounds and scents that had assaulted me before had gone silent. Temporary deafness, blindness, and loss of my sense of smell? No, I could hear Gideon moaning in pain somewhere nearby, and the smell of blood and butcher shop leftovers assailed me. Not as acutely as before. It was like my ears and nose had been covered in gauze. My mouth tasted god-awful, too, like the lingering taste of copper pennies left on my tongue. Old blood. I felt around with my tongue, and detected no hint of fangs anymore.
Holy shit. Iana hadn’t specified what she meant by “cleanse” me, and I hadn’t thought to ask.
She’d made me human again. She’d burned away the infection. Healed me.
All because I gave her a few minutes of freedom.
I had never let go of her hand. Though I couldn’t see her body anymore in the dark, I curled both of my hands around hers, already going cold, bowed my head, and cried.
This wasn’t a victory. What had I really done that merited her giving up her life in the process of saving me or making me whole again? It wasn’t rational, but I wished I hadn’t taken her gift, thought that maybe she’d still be here if I hadn’t said yes. Maybe she could have used that strength to stay alive a little longer. Maybe I could have gotten to Arnold or Bonnie in time to save her. Maybe one of the vampires could have turned her, even if she would have hated them—and me—for it.
It wasn’t fair. And all the wishes and regrets in the world wouldn’t bring her back.
As I rocked back and forth, holding her limp hand to my cheek even if she wouldn’t feel it anymore, something changed. It felt like some of that warmth in my chest returned, a phantom touch, filling up some of that emptiness where Max used to be.
Though she hadn’t told me, whatever part of herself she’d given over to me was expressing comfort the only way it could. Passing on a taste of her motivation. She had given up everything to put an end to Max’s evil. She knew and accepted that she would not survive the encounter. Her reasoning wasn’t solely to avenge her imprisonment. Like me, she had wanted to put a halt to his activities to save the others, and future generations, from his cruelty.
It wasn’t like having the vampires or the belt in my head. Nothing about it was like a voice or a goad. Just a feeling. A knowingness that told me I wasn’t alone.
I’m not sure how long I sat there, silently grieving over someone I barely knew. Her body was gone, but she wasn’t. Not really. A part of her was with me, and I would carry it with me until I found the Sleeper. Even when she was gone, I would never forget what she had done for me, and that I would never be alone.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Though I no longer felt like I was going to jump off the nearest cliff at the earliest opportunity, the reminder that I was so close to Gideon sent a pang of fear through me.
Then I remembered that I was no longer harboring a semi-vampiric nature for him to manipulate. The charm that should have kept vampires and magi from messing with my head was long gone, but I didn’t think there was anything he could do to me as long as I avoided meeting his gaze. I hoped.
I didn’t dare wipe away my tears considering what must be on my hands and clothes. Though I couldn’t see shit, I followed the sounds of his heavy breathing and groans, fumbling on hands and knees in the dark. Every time I touched a puddle I cringed and wrinkled my nose. My senses might have been dulled, but the stink of rot wafting off the necromancer was easier to follow than the sounds of complaint he was making, even over the powerful odor of blood and other gore in the room and coating my clothes.
We both yelped when I put my hand down square on his junk. There was no mistaking it, either. I really hoped he couldn’t see as well in the dark as I had been able to, because I was pretty sure my cheeks must have been glowing like beacons.
“Sorry! I didn’t mean—”
“Stuff your sorry!” he croaked.
“I’m sorry! Cripes. I can’t see shit in the dark.”
“Fuck,” he whispered. “I’m dying. First my blood, now my balls. What the fuck is next?”
I huffed, sitting back on my heels and feeling around for a more neutral body part of his to grip. “Shush. If you can complain about it that much, you’re not dying. I said I was sorry. Can you cast a light or something?”
He snorted. “Not that kind of mage, remember? I see fine. I guess I can direct you.”
“Doesn’t hurt to ask. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Gideon grumbled a bit under his breath, but he gripped my hand when he felt me fumbling for his arm, and accepted my help getting him to his feet. Once he was up, he lurched against me so hard we both almost toppled back to the ground. Good God, for such a beanstalk, the guy weighed a ton.
Oh, ugh. He was still bleeding from the bite, too. It was getting all over my cheek from where half my face was mashed against his chest near his armpit due to the disparity in our heights. Worse, aside from a liberal splash of Eau de Zombie and formaldehyde giving him a formidable stench this close up, I was pretty sure the guy had never heard of deodorant.
“You stink,” I grumbled, half dragging, half carrying the necromancer back the way we had come. Up ahead, I thought I could see the outline of the door leading to a hallway we had passed through earlier, but it was hard to tell in the dark.
Gideon didn’t seem very grateful for my help. Or my observation. “Yeah, well, you don’t smell so good yourself, Copper-top. Did you have to bathe in the blood? You reek of butcher leftovers and putrid produce.”
“At least I don’t smell like a rotting body in a boys’ locker room. Freak.”
“Blood bag.”
“Turd burgler.”
“Twat-waffle.”
“Douchenozzle.”
We both fell into a fit of entirely inappropriate giggles. Once the last of his snorts tapered off, he tightened his grip around my shoulder in what might have passed for a hug.
“We’re still not friends, you know,” I told him, putting a cap on my own laughter with a bit of difficulty.
“No, maybe not. But you better get used to having me around. Even if I could go back to San Francisco, I doubt your partner or her boyfriend would want to come with me.”
I stopped so abruptly that he lost his grip on me and fell forward with a cry. Cursing under my breath, I felt around until I found his arm and shoulder again, helping him sit up. He pushed me off him, breathing heavily and fabric rustling in a way that made me think he was checking for new bruises or something.
This wasn’t in the plans. He hadn’t said a damned thing about coming back to New York with us, and only then did I realize why Iana had said he was lying. It wasn’t about hurting us—not in the literal sense. It was about his actions having anything to do with his ties to Fabian. He must have been planning this from the start.
Even though I knew he was serious, the words still exploded out of me. “You’ve got to be kidding! You’re supposed to let Sara go and leave us all the fuck alone.”
“Yes, and everyone is supposed to live happy ever after with a pony, their very own Prince Charming, and a winning lotto ticket under every pillow. Sorry to break it to you, snookums, but we don’t always get what we want.”
I punched in the general direction of his shoulder. I may not have had Other blood to fuel it, but I still landed a satisfying hit somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulder.
“Ow! The hell was that for?”
“For being a lying asshole! For scaring the piss out of me! For betraying me, betraying Sara, for thinking you have any right—”
“Shut the fuck up, you stupid little angst factory!” His vehemence, more than his words, did surprise me into silence. He continued in a tirade, so obviously frustrated and hurt and frightened that any lingering desire I had to continue to berate him faded into an unexpected and unwelcome sense of pity.
“You have no fucking idea what coming out in the open has cost me. You have no clue what it means to be a necromancer, what the Other community wan
ts to do to me. I can’t go back.”
“Why not? That doesn’t make any sense. I thought you loved Fabian?”
“Ha! Fabian desires the power I wield, not me. Now that his sire is dead, he’ll know I had a hand in it and that he hasn’t got a prayer of controlling me. He’ll do his best to kill me if I ever return to the West Coast. I can’t stay here—it’ll be the first place he’ll send assassins to find me.”
I considered that, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth. Even with all the layers of my clothing, I was cold. Gideon had murdered people. Innocent people. A group of White Hats had committed the grievous crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting in Gideon and Fabian’s way when the dastardly duo stole into Los Angeles to wrest control of the city away from Clyde Seabreeze. The hunters paid for it with their lives.
Gideon was not a nice guy. He’d proven that time and again. So why did I feel so bad for him?
“I don’t get you. You’ve lied your ass off, participated in a hostile invasion, killed people, nearly killed Clyde, and now you’re telling me you won’t let Sara go. Not to mention helping Fabian kidnap Devon. I’m having a really hard time figuring out why the hell you think I owe you anything except helping you get out of here in one piece so Sara doesn’t get hurt in the crossfire.”
A twin set of glowing green orbs flared in the darkness. Must have hit a sore spot. I scooted back, putting some distance between us.
“Devon lived and escaped because of me, and thanks for asking about my motivations before leaping to conclusions. As for Sara, if I let her go, do you know what her lover and his coven will do to me? They’ll make me into a fucking magical eunuch, that’s what. I’ll never be able to cast so much as a simple fucking corpse location spell, let alone call up a guardian to protect me. I can’t have that.”
“Maybe you should,” I countered. My relief to hear Devon was alive and free was short-lived after hearing how selfish Gideon was being, keeping Sara trapped to save himself. “Like it or not, you’re dangerous. If the magi don’t stop you, then you can bet your ass Royce and the other vampires will.”
Probably in a much more permanent fashion, though I didn’t say that part out loud.
“Your concern is touching,” he replied, laying on the sarcasm, “but I’ll take the risk. Do you know why I wanted Max dead? He was hunting me. He thought I didn’t know that he had broken the accord between our kind and enslaved or killed every other necromancer in the country. I am the last one, Copper-top. If I hadn’t helped Fabian, I never would have had the chance to make it look like I was trying to get into Max’s good graces. The deaths and pain I caused were regrettable, but everything I’ve done has been in the name of survival, to get close enough to destroy him before he could make me into another collared curiosity for his collection.”
I stared at the vague shape slumped a few feet away, somewhat visible now that my eyes were adjusting to the darkness. There wasn’t much I could say to that. I may not have had Iana’s ability to taste his lies, but I had the feeling he meant every word this time. There wasn’t even a hint of slyness or duplicity to his voice that I could detect.
This changed everything. He was dangerous and awful and I hated myself for feeling sorry for him—but I didn’t want him or anyone else to die. Enough people had already suffered. There had to be some way of getting Sara out of this mess without putting Gideon at risk. He wouldn’t let her go without some kind of reassurance from The Circle and the vampires in New York guaranteeing his safety, and I didn’t have a clue how to manage that.
If he was telling the truth, and he really was the last of his kind, it made sense that he would go to extraordinary lengths to save himself. Sara was his life insurance policy now, so he probably wouldn’t hurt her. He’d do whatever it took to protect himself. The problem was that he had proved himself willing to kill in the process.
Considering I was a murderer, too, and had even considered killing Gideon on multiple occasions, I couldn’t exactly throw stones.
His voice had gone low, but the frustration in it was still evident. “You think I’m a monster, too. I bet you think I’m no better than Max, lying and using those vampires and killing like I did.”
“No,” I replied, “but I am thinking you and I seem to excel at making the same kinds of terrible life choices.”
He scoffed, the derision evident in his voice even if I couldn’t see his expression. “Please. Don’t patronize me.”
“What, you think you’re the only special snowflake who ever made a bad decision? Get over yourself.”
Another disbelieving snort. He was starting to piss me off. Mostly because I saw far too much of myself in him, right down to the bad decisions, smart-ass responses, and martyrdom complex. He wanted to do the right thing but went about it all the wrong way—just like I always managed to do.
“You know what? Fuck you and your attitude right to hell.” I glared in the general direction of his shadow. “I’ve killed people, too. Probably for much more selfish and much stupider reasons than you. You’re not the only person in all of creation who ever did something terrible they regretted later. If you want to go play the part of the victim, you go right ahead—but you damned well better get over it quick and start looking at how you can atone for the wrongs you did. Start with figuring out how to let Sara go and make nice with Arnold. Maybe then you won’t have to look at The Circle and the vampires in New York like they’re all out to play the next round of let’s-see-who-tries-to-kill-me-this-time.”
His eyes flared again, glowing like a pair of tiny green lanterns in the dark. He didn’t come back at me with a snarky reply, so I hoped he was thinking about it instead of brushing off the idea out of hand. There was a conscience in there, buried somewhere under the fierce drive to survive. Without Max in the picture, there was a possibility he could afford to be a better person now. Maybe I could find some way of convincing Arnold and Royce to help him start over.
Chances were I’d have to talk them out of tearing him to bits first, but—hey—one problem at a time, right?
The gleam of his eyes gradually died away, shifting fabric rustling as he scooted closer to me again. “I’ll think about it. Let’s find your friends and see if you can convince them to let me out of here in one piece first, hmm?”
Cringing at the prospect, I helped him back up, resigning myself to the battle ahead. I would have to use my wits instead of a sword this time, but that didn’t make it any less intimidating to consider. Facing down Angus, Arnold, and Soo-Jin’s protests wasn’t going to be fun. And who knew what Royce would have to say about it once he found out.
Grunting with effort as he leaned his weight on me again, I wrapped my arm around his waist and shuffled forward. I managed to huff out a few words between pants after we made it to the door.
“Hey, if I can get you out of here in one piece, promise me something?”
“Depends. What?”
“First thing you do, take a shower.”
He laughed, and I was starting to think maybe we’d be all right after all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It took awhile for us to find Arnold and Sara. Gideon had some kind of connection to her that told him roughly where she was, but the problem was that, like me, he had been confined to a few specific rooms and wasn’t familiar with the layout of the building. He couldn’t tell what floor she was on, only when he was getting closer to her. It was a royal pain in the ass when we both realized that he’d taken us in a circle because she was either on the floor above or below us.
Plus he wasn’t a very good navigator in the dark, getting frustrated when I didn’t turn right that second when he told me to, usually when it was too late for me to cleanly maneuver us through doors or around corners. Ass. At least there weren’t too many rooms with the lights off.
Considering Kimberly and the vampires with her had gone after the captives belowground, I was willing to bet that Arnold and Sara must have gone in search of them o
nce they lost track of us. They must have thought that was where we went, too.
By the time the thought occurred to me, I was already on the verge of exhaustion and Gideon’s grip on me had slipped a couple of times due to his growing weakness. He’d tied his handkerchief around his neck, and he’d stopped bleeding awhile ago, but being upright wasn’t doing him any good. He needed rest, and so did I.
The only bright spot in my day was that the way to the underground cells wasn’t hard to find once we did a bit of backtracking. The trail of blood helped.
Dark red footprints led to and from the hole that had been pounded in the security door. Judging by the way the metal behind the veneer of shredded silkscreen wallpaper was twisted and bent inward, one of the vampires had decided busting through was a more expedient method of getting inside than letting Kimberly try Arnold’s tactic of shorting out the locking mechanism’s circuitry.
I examined the entryway with a wary eye, then glanced up at Gideon. The muscles in his jaw were tight, but I wasn’t sure if it was from pain or nervousness. “You got any magic tricks up your sleeve if we run into trouble?”
“Not really, but desperation is the mother of invention.”
“I thought that was necessity.”
“That fits, too.”
The temptation to run my hand down my face in exasperation was strong, but thanks to the tacky coat of ick on my hands, I wasn’t about to touch any part of myself without washing first. It was no wonder half the Others in the country wanted him dead. He was an annoying smart-ass, just like me. Blowing out an exasperated breath, I gestured as best I could with my off hand.
“Look, there’s no way I can carry you down those stairs. Stay up here and be ready to do your thing if something follows me back. And for God’s sake, don’t wander off.”
He made a face. “Like I could, even if I wanted to. You’re my Get Out of Jail Free card, Copper-top, so don’t go getting yourself killed. That would be really inconvenient for me.”
