by Laken Cane
His stare sharpened. “Can I choose where I land?”
I hadn’t met a spirit like him before, and I shot a glance at Jin, unsure. He only shrugged, his eyes wide. I returned my stare to the visitor. “No. I find the true path, and I show it to you.”
He sighed.
“Do you want some water?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Please, sit.” I pointed my chin at the kit on the table. “There’s chocolate.”
He watched me as he edged toward the table, suspicious but hungry. In the end, the food and water won out and he perched on the edge of the chair and dug into the food. The only time he took his stare off me was when he planted it on Jin.
He smelled of the outdoors. Of Fall, wood smoke, sweat, earth.
I shuddered, suddenly nostalgic for something, but I didn’t know what. It wasn’t me, I realized, finally. I was simply picking up his sadness. His homesickness. He was missing his people and his past. He was missing life.
He ate like a man accustomed to hunkering down and taking food where he found it, even if it was in the middle of a battle. I wasn’t sure he even tasted the food.
“What’s your name?” he asked me, finally.
“Trinity. What’s yours?”
“Ian. I’ve been drifting for a long time. I ran into some of the worst shit I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something, considering where I come from.”
I nodded. “The wrong path is…”
“Just bad,” he said. “All bad, all the time.”
“That ends for you tonight, though,” I assured him. “It’s time for you to go home. To your paradise.” I hoped I didn’t sound impatient.
He lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t guess I believe in paradise, lady.”
I shrugged. “Maybe you don’t have to believe.” I slid my hand across the table. “Take my hand.”
“I can’t stay here?” He eyed my hand but made no move to take it.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. Your borrowed body would begin to rot and you’d be stuck forever on that bad path. Take my hand, Ian.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. But he grasped my fingers. “Go on then. Get it over with.”
I closed my eyes, clenched his hand, and found his path. It was dusty and lonely and seemed to go on forever. But at the end, something good would be waiting. I had to believe that.
“Do you see it?” I whispered.
“Yeah.” There was a smile in his voice. “It looks like a quiet trail.”
“No monsters,” I said.
“No monsters. Thank you for that.”
Then he was gone.
Jin tossed the body over his shoulder. “You should go.”
I blew out a tired breath, then remembered I was supposed to be in the city. Shane and Clayton were there, and it was a dangerous night.
So I rushed from the house, jumped into my car, and sped out of Bay Town, letting the warm air sweep the cold dead from my mind.
Chapter Fourteen
Something Wrong with the Night
On the way to the city, an image of Rhys floated into my mind.
I’d had a power growth spurt. A big one.
I was ready for the demon.
Maybe I was ready for Rhys.
I felt ready. I felt beyond ready. Probably I was just eager and wanted to be ready.
Thoughts of Rhys helped distract me from my worry for my hunters and the city and even for the captain. He’d gotten angrier over my attachment to my supernats, and his anger was bringing out his inner asshole.
Still, I worried about him.
Frank Crawford had a lot on his shoulders.
I called Shane but got no answer. I hadn’t really expected to. A hunter couldn’t stop in the middle of killing vampires to chat on the phone.
I knew that, but I called Clayton, as well. He didn’t answer either.
“Be okay,” I whispered, and drove faster. There was no traffic, and the night seemed vast and endless.
I called Angus.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m almost to the city. I just needed to hear you.” My insides shook, as did my voice. It’d been a long, stressful night, and it wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. And I was still carrying around the nagging anxiety I’d picked up earlier.
“I’m right behind you.”
I frowned. “What?”
“I’m not letting you face the city without me. Not tonight.”
“Bay Town needs you.”
He grunted. “You need me, girl.”
“But…”
“I need to be where you are,” he said.
I couldn’t help my relief. It just was.
And then his headlights appeared in my rearview, and my stomach eased. “I see you,” I murmured.
He followed me to the city, and when we parked and left our vehicles, there wasn’t time for anything but fighting. Vampires were everywhere.
No. Rifters were everywhere.
At least it seemed as though they were. In reality, there couldn’t have been more than six or seven of them. But they were huge, fast, and vicious, and in my mind, they were many.
Silverlight was ready for them. I was ready for them. My sword lit up the night sky, and the rifters screamed as I sliced through them like butter. Their screams sounded like laughter.
I needed to find my hunters because there was something wrong with the night.
For the first time in a long time, I longed for the sun. The darkness was no longer kind. It was no longer mine.
The city was full of blood and death and tears. Everything was magnified—the sounds, the sights, the scents—and I knew the humans were feeling it even more than I was.
They were stunned and overcome. Some of them were dying, some were dead, and some were turning. Humans stared from windows, their faces white blobs of terror, and watched me and mine try to regain some control of their world.
A woman rushed from her house, screaming, and flung herself atop a fallen man.
And the man they’d bitten—her husband, I figured—began to twitch.
The streets and tiny yards were littered with twitching bodies.
I released my rage in a hoarse scream and turned in circles, searching for rifters I could not see.
They were gone. But more would come. Many more. The damage a few of them had done was enormous. If hundreds of them poured into the city, the city would be destroyed. How could a few hunters and supernaturals defend the humans against dozens of stronger, faster, twisted vampires who could go inside homes? Who were immune to silver?
I didn’t know.
The huge horror of our reality began to really sink in.
And the humans…
The humans were my people as much as the supernaturals were my people, and their pain was my pain.
“Trinity.” Clayton’s voice was gentle when I turned to look at him. “We have to give them the true death.”
I nodded but didn’t move.
Shane was already busy, his blades flashing as he jogged from body to body, making sure they stayed down.
“How could those few have killed so many?” I asked. But it was more a statement of shocked realization than a question.
A wailing woman, huddling protectively over one of the bodies, began to scream when Shane approached her.
“Go away,” she begged. “You can’t take my boy. You can’t have my boy.”
Shane murmured something I didn’t catch and glanced uneasily my way.
“No,” the woman said. “He’s not dead. See? He’s moving. Please don’t kill him. Please don’t kill my boy.”
I shuddered, and then, with reluctance in every step, I went to help Shane.
“But why?” the woman cried when I drew a blade. I left Silverlight inside me. She wasn’t needed. Not then. “He’s still my Josh. He’s still in there. Can’t you see?”
I knelt beside her, and Shane and Clayton walked quietly away to tend to the other turned humans, so
me with family beside them, some alone.
“He’s a vampire now,” I said, gently, though I felt like screaming. “And he’s suffering.”
New vampires were feral and hungry. That was all they were. Without an older vampire to develop him, Josh would likely die anyway. But if he managed to survive, to “age,” he would kill anyone or anything he could grab so he could feed. He needed the immediate and sustained exchange of blood and the care of his maker—or at least an older and capable proxy—before it was too late and his baby vampire brain was twisted into something black and rotten.
Josh wasn’t in there. But his grieving mother saw only her son, and she did not want to let him go.
A little while earlier, she’d have demanded the death of a vampire without thinking twice—but now it was her child who lay upon the street, and she would never again look at a vampire with quite as much hatred, disgust, and disdain.
Bright sides.
“I’ll take care of him. He’s always been such a good boy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Her smile was wide and terrible. “I’ll tend him, don’t you worry.”
“He’s…” My voice broke. “He’s suffering. You have to let him go.” I did not want to end him with her begging me not to. I would if I had to, but I didn’t want to.
Crawford came to stand at my back, and policemen walked the streets, trying to restore some sort of order to the fucked-up mess. No one really knew what to do.
Reporters flooded the area with camera crews and microphones, shrill and excited. Hysterical.
I felt Angus and my hunters slipping up behind me and I glanced over my shoulder, cataloging injuries in a glance.
Then I caught sight of Amias, half hidden in the shadows of the house across the street. I felt his stare, his intensity. His desolation. We were connected, for better or for worse, and I felt his struggle.
He could not save them, those baby vampires, as much as he wanted to.
Because the infection and the hunters had managed to severely reduce the number of vampires, he would feel the need to begin to rebuild. But he was only one vampire, and the humans had been turned by rifters.
Amias had said the turned were useless to rifters. For all I knew, they were useless to regular vampires, as well. Surely being turned by the twisted created only more twisted.
Then pearly pink fingers slid through the sky, like bright ink on black paper, and when I took my stare off the coming dawn, Amias was gone.
Seconds later, the sun touched the new vampires, and they began to burn.
Screams worse than anything I’d heard in my life burst from their gaping mouths. Josh’s mother screamed with him, and all over the city voices sharp with unimaginable pain lifted in a sort of gruesome, heart-wrenching symphony.
Chills raced over me and goosebumps dotted my skin. Shuddering with horror, I set about silencing that sorrowful music forever.
And finally, I put Silverlight away and stood with my men, blood dripping from my fingertips to splat upon the pavement.
For a little while, the darkness was conquered.
The long night was over.
Chapter Fifteen
Take Me Somewhere Better
Frank Crawford handed me a key. “Shower and bed waiting for you, Sinclair.”
I automatically reached out to take the key, but Angus stopped me with a hand on my wrist. “No.”
Frank watched me for a few seconds, and when I didn’t argue, he shrugged and slid the key back into his pocket. His eyes were glassy, the lines on his pale face a little deeper, and he looked thinner, as though he’d lost a few pounds overnight.
“You need to get some sleep,” I told him. The man ran himself ragged. As far as I could tell, he never slept, ate, or took time to recover from anything. And I had a frustrating desire to take care of him.
Then a couple of detectives came to hurry him away, and I knew he wasn’t going to find himself a bed or a hot meal. He was just going to work until he fell over.
“Frank,” I called, as he walked away with the other two men.
He glanced back over his shoulder. “Yes?”
But what did I want to say? Go home, rest, lie down, eat? I wasn’t his mother. I felt heat climb my cheeks. “Just…I’ll be back tonight.”
He nodded and turned back around, and then I remembered what Himself had asked me to do. “Frank!”
He stiffened, then turned toward me again, his eyes narrowed. I could feel Angus, Clayton, and Shane staring at me, but I ignored them.
“Sinclair, what is it?”
I straightened my shoulders. “Can you get me a meeting with the mayor?”
He glanced around at the bloody streets, then nodded slowly. “I’ll do my best.”
And that time when he walked away, I let him go.
When we arrived back at the way station, I headed for the shower to wash away the blood and grime of the night. The others would do the same.
And we would need to plan. I’d talk with Amias in Willow-Wisp later, and I’d need to meet again with Himself. The rifters had to have a weakness. They had to. And we needed an army.
But when I was nearly finished with my shower, Shane climbed in with me.
He said nothing. Neither did I.
His hair was slicked back, still wet—he’d already had his shower. But then, getting clean wasn’t on his mind.
Quietly, and with just a touch of exhausted desperation, we stared at each other. How far we’d come in such a short time. When I’d first met Shane Copas, I hadn’t liked him. He hadn’t liked me, either.
He’d been a complete jerk.
But now…
Now he was just the perfect amount of jerk.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked me.
He was dark, my hunter—I could feel it as surely as I could feel my own darkness. The night had kicked all our asses.
“Memories,” I said. “Memories of you.”
“What do you need, baby hunter?” He skimmed my cheek with his lips.
I shuddered. “I need to get out of my head. Take me somewhere better, Shane.”
He slid his fingers up my chest. “You got it.” He grabbed my throat and held me in place while he kissed me, hard and deep, his violence, always there, always retrained—except when he fought and sometimes when he fucked—fighting to get free.
As soon as his fingers encircled my throat, squeezing gently, my entire body relaxed.
I didn’t know why. It just was.
I lost myself in his roughness, his intensity. I pulled him to me, my hands pressing against his wet, smooth back, loving him with every part of me. God, I loved him.
Someone else was in the bathroom.
I could feel him.
I dragged my mouth away from Shane’s and peered over his shoulder.
Clayton, dressed in a pair of faded jeans and nothing else, leaned against the sink, his arms crossed, watching us.
Alone.
“Clayton,” I whispered.
Shane stiffened and half turned, then buried his fingers in my short hair and tugged, bringing my eyes back to his. Whatever he saw made his fierce stare soften.
He planted a soft kiss on my forehead, then shoved open the shower doors. “You okay, man?”
I felt a twinge of guilt for having left Clayton alone after his traumatic encounter with the demon’s sword.
With Miriam.
His eyes were dark and sunken, and I realized then how much the encounter had affected him. He shuddered, remembering, and though he stared at Shane and me, I wasn’t sure he was seeing either of us.
Concerned, I stepped from the stall, wrapped my wet arms around his neck, and asked him the question Shane had asked me. “What do you need?”
He focused on my face. “I need control of that sword, Trinity.”
As much as Miriam was obsessed with him, he was obsessed with her. I blew out a hard breath. “I know.” If he controlled the sword, the sword could not control him.
Shane
shut off the water and followed me from the shower. He placed a fluffy towel around my shoulders, then shrugged. “You want the sword, we’ll get you the sword.”
I released Clayton’s tense body and stepped back, then caught his hand and laced my fingers with his.
He gave my fingers a squeeze. “Thanks. Both of you.”
Shane, completely comfortable with his nudity—and his flagging erection—gave the other man a nod. “We’ve got your back.”
“Sorry for…” Clayton gestured at the shower. “Interrupting.”
They took my breath, the two of them. Watching them, my mouth dried up, my heart galloped, and my stomach tightened. Shane had awakened my lust monster in the shower, and I really wanted him to finish what he’d started.
The air grew suddenly heavy, and both men jerked their heads around to pin me with sharp stares.
No one moved.
Usually, sex wasn’t awkward. We’d always managed to find our alone time, and no one was left out or neglected.
But now both men watched me, both of them aroused. Both of them in need. And I wanted them both.
I let the towel slide from my body. Then, without a word, I padded from the bathroom, walked across the floor, and got into my bed.
And there I waited.
Shane climbed in a few seconds later. He pressed his warmth against me and glided his fingers across my ribs, then covered one of my breasts with his hand, his rough palm sliding across the nipple.
I shivered and turned to face him, closing my eyes as I brushed his lips with mine.
Then my eyes flew open as the bed dipped. Clayton climbed in behind me, snaked his arm around my waist, and pressed his erection against my ass.
“Oh,” I managed.
Shane’s eyes glittered but he didn’t smile. “We’ll get you out of your head, Bloodhunter.”
I had no doubt whatsoever.
I was where I felt safest, most alive. With my hunters.
For a little while, there would be no rifters.
Shane pushed me to my back. I sighed, calm and tense at the same time, my limbs heavy but my body humming with expectation.
