by Anne Hope
“I’ll walk, thanks.” He jumped out of bed, stood tall and powerful beside her. Awareness made every feminine instinct within her vibrate. No one filled a room quite the way Jace Cutler did.
Thoughts of Cassie trickled into her consciousness, followed by a stab of guilt. “I forgot to ask. How did things go with my sister?”
“Not so good. She’s going to need you.”
Lia didn’t like the sound of that. “What happened?”
He didn’t answer. Resignation hardened his features. “Can I have a minute? Nature calls. I’ll meet you outside.”
She nodded, gently made her way to the door. “Don’t take too long. We’re running late.” She was about to walk out when he intoned her name. Reluctance tugging at her heels, she turned around to face him and nearly drowned in his sea-green eyes.
“Thanks, for everything.” Emotion deepened his voice. “I meant what I said. You really are an angel.”
Why did she get the distinct feeling he was saying goodbye?
“Just doing my job.” With a last lingering glance at his perfect face, she walked out and closed the door behind her.
She waited close to ten minutes. When he didn’t come out, she went back in to check on him and found the room empty, which made no sense because there was no other way out.
“Jace?”
No answer.
She searched the bathroom, the small closet, she even looked under the bed. Jace Cutler had vanished. From across the room, the window yawned. She ran to it, peeked over the ledge, and gazed outside. A bird flew past her with frantic wings, startling her. Four stories below, traffic roared. Far beyond the mountains, black clouds continued to boil. But there was no sign of Jace. She’d gone from a world where science and reason ruled to one where men came back to life and escaped tall buildings in a single bound.
But most perplexing of all was the small death that claimed her soul once she realized he was gone.
Chapter Seven
“You asked to see me.” Marcus leaned against the doorjamb at the threshold of Cal’s office, unsure if he should enter. His leader seemed quiet, lost in thought. Cal wasn’t the conversational type on a good day. On a bad day, he was completely closed off.
“You can come in. I won’t bite.”
Marcus entered the minimalistic room set at the heart of this metal construction most believed was a secret military base, cloaked in fog and foliage. Only the Watchers knew the truth. They usually made it a point to move around, but they’d called Cascade Head home for over a year now, ever since they’d gotten word that the Kleptopsychs had moved their base to Oregon. They had yet to locate them, though. Marcus was beginning to wonder if their informant had been mistaken.
“There’s been a development. A trusted source has just advised me that a Hybrid was admitted to the Rivershore Hospital two nights ago.”
“Is he sure?”
Cal nodded. “Apparently, there’s a resident there who swears she saw one of the trauma patients come back from the dead.”
“Might be another false alert.”
Twisting the ring on his finger, an ancient silver band engraved with a symbol Marcus couldn’t identify, Cal stood and approached him. “I considered that. But then my source mentioned an unexplained flood in that very patient’s room.”
All of Marcus’s instincts flared to attention. “When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Do you think Athanatos is involved?”
Cal stopped twisting his ring. His lean body stiffened as purpose coursed through him. “I don’t think. I know.” Marcus was man enough to admit that Cal had an arresting face—boyish but powerful. At the moment, that face was set in a concerned scowl.
“If he’s really in town.”
“He’s in town.” The certainty with which Cal spoke left no room for doubt. “Crime is up. Accidents have doubled. The weather’s growing more and more erratic. Then there was that riot in Pioneer Square. An organized feeding, no doubt.” He turned and stalked the room, emotion contorting his features.
Cal wasn’t like the rest of them. He felt things much more acutely, guilt in particular, to the point where he was defined by it. He’d been around forever, long before any of them were born, some said from the very beginning of time itself. “Trust me, Marcus, the Kleptopsychs are holed up here somewhere. They want access to the catacombs. There are only a few strategic locations on the globe that provide that. Oregon is one of them.”
“And this Hybrid,” Marcus asked, “did he survive?”
“Yes. Our new friend seems to have nine lives.”
Silence thickened between them, a living beast holding its breath. Then Cal finally spoke. “His name is Jace Cutler. Find out everything you can about him. Then bring him to me.”
Before Marcus could leave to carry out his orders, Cal pulled a glass vial from his desk and handed it to him. “Angel’s blood. Just in case.”
Marcus didn’t know how Cal got his hands on the stuff, but he seemed to have an endless supply of it. With a nod, he took the vial and retreated from the stark room. Expertly, he navigated the narrow halls that would lead him outside, where intermittent rays of sunlight painted the world gold. A world he’d never truly belonged to or ever would, but one he’d sworn to protect to the death. Even if he had to kill his own kind to do it.
The world could be a pretty daunting place when you had no idea where the hell you belonged. Nothing looked familiar. Not the cobblestone streets, not the arts-and-crafts booths, not the people strolling down the sidewalks. Overwhelming smells soaked the air as Jace melted into the crowd. An endless throng of tourists and shoppers bustled beneath the Burnside Bridge. He had no idea how he knew the name of the bascule bridge that spanned the Willamette River or that he found himself smack in the middle of the Portland Saturday Market. Disjointed thoughts came to him, pieces of a puzzle hinting at a big picture he was unable to see.
The commotion, the noise and smells and auras, were disconcerting. He felt smothered by them, squeezed and flattened. He needed to get out of here.
A pedestrian jostled him, gave him an angry glare. “Hey, buddy, watch where you’re going.”
“I’m not your buddy.” Jace returned the man’s unflinching stare. “If I were you, I’d keep walking.”
Without another word, the guy continued on his way. Jace watched him leave, eyebrows raised in silent query. For some reason, he’d been expecting a fight.
Then again, since he’d awakened in that hospital room, nothing was what he expected it to be. Every instinct he possessed had urged him to stay there with Lia, told him that she was the key somehow.
But he couldn’t. Not without putting her at risk. Diane had made that, if nothing else, clear. He’d become something he didn’t understand. Something dark, dangerous. Something that apparently screwed with everyone’s head. The fact that he’d jumped out of the fourth-story window and landed on his feet without as much as a scratch only added to the mystery. The window had been open when Diane had vanished yesterday after his near drowning. He was willing to bet that was how she’d escaped without Lia seeing her. He hadn’t gleaned much from their conversation, but he knew one thing for sure—Diane wasn’t human, and apparently, neither was he. So he’d chanced it and jumped, only confirming his suspicions. No human could survive that kind of fall. Not without divine intervention or the help of some unholy power. One he couldn’t even bear to contemplate.
Angel of death and destruction. Spawn of the fallen. The words circled his brain like a curse.
He stopped at one of the booths to buy himself a shirt. Since his was torn and bloodied, he hadn’t bothered putting it on before leaving the hospital. Instead, he’d donned the scuffed leather jacket he’d found in the closet. The sun’s hot rays beat down on him, but his body refused to break into a sweat. He should’ve been fried to the bone by now, and yet he barely felt the heat. Just the same, for the sake of blending in, he found a quiet corner, tugged off the heavy jacket an
d threw on the new shirt.
Determined to get out of this weekend crowd, he bought a rail ticket and boarded the MAX. It surprised him that he knew the precise line that would take him home. Remnants of the man he’d been before the incident still dwelled within him. He just wasn’t sure how to piece them together yet.
He sat on the train and quietly watched the world streak by, watched shadows paint eerie shapes on the ground and buildings as a soft mist rolled in from the north. Despite his best efforts to chase her from his thoughts, memories of Lia invaded his mind—the way her clear blue eyes grew smoky when she was frightened, the soft twitch of her lips when she struggled not to smile, the soothing feel of her touch, the way her presence filled him with something he could’ve sworn was hope.
He didn’t have a clue about his past, but he was willing to bet he’d never experienced anything like this before. Maybe walking out on her hadn’t been such a gangbuster idea after all. If he’d stuck around…
No, leaving was his best option. He couldn’t allow her to run an MRI on him. There was no telling what she’d find. The truth was, a part of him didn’t want to know what he’d become, didn’t want her to know. For some stupid reason, her opinion of him mattered.
From what he’d gleaned, he should’ve died two nights ago, but he hadn’t. In fact, he seemed better than ever, indestructible, and if he wasn’t such a goddamn coward he could prove it.
All I need to do is jump in front of the train, he mused. See what happens.
But as eager as he was to test his immortality theory, the idea of becoming road kill held little appeal.
The passenger beside him suddenly began to sniffle, jerking him out of his morbid thoughts. She pulled a thick wad of tissues from her purse and buried her face in it. Sniffles unexpectedly morphed to violent sobs.
“You all right?” He didn’t mean to pry, but her sudden mood swing puzzled him. The woman’s abject misery contrasted sharply with her lemon-colored sundress. She looked like someone’s wife or mother, someone who attended PTA meetings and baked apple pies on Sundays just for the heck of it, not a person prone to depression or despair.
She nodded, unable to stop bawling long enough to answer. “I’m”—hiccup—“not sure”—sniff—“what’s come over me. I’m sorry.” She bulleted out of her seat and got off at the next stop.
Jace shook his head and sank deeper into his seat. The whole world had gone insane, if you asked him. At least he wasn’t alone.
When the train took off, he reveled in the momentary silence that engulfed him. Then a god-awful screech rent the air and the train came to a quaking halt.
Hushed whispers turned to worried shouts. People rushed from their seats to peer out the windows. One passenger used the evacuation instructions to open the doors, and everyone poured out onto the platform, Jace included. He cut through the horde of onlookers to see what all the fuss was about and froze. On the tracks, crushed beyond recognition, was the woman who’d been sitting beside him, crying her heart out. Her uncommonly bright dress was the only thing that gave her identity away.
A flickering aura ascended from her body, swirled through the air. The shifting mass of bright white energy was so beautiful, so damn intoxicating, he couldn’t take his eyes off it. Everything inside him screamed to possess it. As if in answer to his crippling need, it floated across the tracks, past the unseeing onlookers, and entered him.
Euphoric heat spiraled through his veins, journeyed across his nerve endings like an electric charge. Emotions he barely recognized buffeted him—excitement, greed, bliss. They spun through his bloodstream, made him hunger for more.
A man crowded in beside him. “The rail operator says she waited for him to take off, then threw herself on the tracks. What kind of sick person does that?”
Jace barely heard him. He was too caught up in the sudden wave of sensation that had seized him. A slice of heaven in hell. A taste of what could never belong to him.
“Poor guy’s a mess,” the onlooker added.
“Who?” The only unfortunate person Jace saw was the woman lying on the track, a broken mass of flesh in a bloodstained yellow shroud.
“The rail operator. He didn’t see her until it was too late. Tore her to shreds. Now he’s gotta live with that.”
Guilt and pleasure conspired to slice Jace in half. “We’ve all got something we have to live with.”
He couldn’t help but feel he was every bit as responsible for this woman’s death as the train conductor, and that truth burned like hellfire even as his insides continued to resonate with the staggering gift he’d received.
Fighting a sudden onslaught of agoraphobia, he removed himself from the masses, backed away from the nauseating suicide scene and the people weeping silently on the platform, into the concealing shade of the neighboring trees, where mist and shadows happily merged to blanket him.
She couldn’t explain it, but for some reason Lia felt compelled to drop by Jace’s room every so often to see if he’d returned. It was crazy. Why would he go through the trouble of escaping, just to stroll back in later in the day? He was long gone.
Why then did she still feel him, as if a part of him had taken root inside her?
She padded to the window and gazed outside again. A gentle breeze streamed in to caress her face. It brought to mind the feel of Jace’s hand on her cheek, the way his breath had tickled her ear when he spoke her name…
Get a grip, Lia. If he’s all wrong for Cassie, he’s most certainly all wrong for you.
Which was precisely what made him so darn appealing. For the first time in her life, she understood her sister, even shared her insanity.
A low, scraping sound, followed by the rasp of fabric brushing fabric reached her ears. Excitement shimmied up her spine.
Jace.
She spun on her heels, only to stop dead in her tracks at the sight of the unfamiliar man entering the room. He was even more striking than Jace, tall and dark, with a face one would expect to see on the stained-glass windows of a church. But the vibe he gave off wasn’t the least bit saintly. Black slacks hugged long, muscular legs, and an equally black T-shirt stretched over a well-defined chest.
“Is this Jace Cutler’s room?” He gave her the kind of smile that would’ve charmed the panties off Cassie.
“Yes. Are you a relative?”
“Friend.” The way he studied her, with interest and an unmistakable glint of fascination, unsettled her. “I really need to see him. Do you know where I can find him?”
“No. He checked himself out earlier today.” It was the most honest she could be without sounding like she was a few eggs short of a cuckoo’s nest.
Penetrating, midnight blue eyes met and held hers. She could almost feel him snaking his way into her thoughts. “Are you sure?”
Lia tamped down a spark of irritation. She hated being second-guessed, even by a good-looking guy in tight pants. “I’m his doctor. Yes, I’m sure.”
He walked toward her, and she fought the urge to take a step back. “It’s important that I speak with him.” He continued to watch her like she was some long-extinct creature in an exotic zoo.
“If you leave me your name and number, I’ll have him call you if I hear from him.”
He didn’t answer. Stopping at the window, he angled a glance below. Understanding smoothed out the hard planes of his face and gave him the frigid look of an ice sculpture. “That won’t be necessary,” he finally said. “I’ll track him down myself.”
Diane wanted to scream. She’d only fed last night, and her emotions were in a tailspin. She always enjoyed the high she got when she replenished her energy, but right now she wished for numbness. In the presence of a Watcher, a clear head was not only an asset but a necessity.
She ducked behind the counter at the nurse’s station, hoping the half-breed wouldn’t sense her. It hadn’t taken the bastard long to track down Jace Cutler. The Watchers were nothing if not thorough, not to mention persistent. They wouldn’t qui
t until they’d completely wiped out the Kleptopsychs. It was sick, the way they went after their own kind.
All thanks to Cal.
He had a personal bone to pick with Athanatos, though she had no idea why. Because of that secret vendetta, they all paid the price, day after day, year after year, century after century.
It was so damn unfair. The Kleptopsychs had as much right to live as the humans. Even more so, because they were stronger. Survival of the fittest—that was the law of the jungle. Of course, without humans to feed on, the purebloods would grow weak and powerless. But not the Hybrids. When a Hybrid’s soul left his body, it was reabsorbed into the universe and reborn. As long as that soul remained in circulation, it fueled the Hybrid it had once belonged to. For that reason, the traitors didn’t need to feed, and that gave them an edge. If, however, something were to happen to that soul, if it was damaged or extinguished, the Hybrid would go rogue. Nothing pleased Diane more than to see one of Cal’s self-righteous soldiers go on a feeding rampage.
But it didn’t look like that would be happening today. She had to get out of here. It wasn’t safe for her to stick around.
Shame, the hospital was the perfect place to capture errant souls and keep an eye out for Hybrids. Now she had to find a quiet corner where she could lie low and figure out a way to fix her screw-ups. She couldn’t go back to The Beach Palace, the hotel they’d converted into their headquarters. Not yet. If she faced Athanatos in her current state of mind, he’d surely throw her in the tank, as he’d done to all those who’d failed him over the years.
She needed somewhere to hide and think. When the emotional haze lifted, she’d be able to plan her next move, and everything would fall into place.
It had to. Her existence depended on it.
Jace made his way back home on foot, shocked at how fast and resilient he was. He ran for miles without tiring, perspiring or growing thirsty, even with the harsh August heat bearing down on him. The address he’d memorized from his driver’s license led him to a tree-lined street, where a series of vintage, redbrick buildings sat in neat, even rows. Harborview, the apartment complex he apparently called home, looked like it could use some work. The windows needed to be washed, the thick oak front door would’ve benefited from a coat or two of varnish, and a couple of shingles were missing from the roof.
