Shadows on the Soul

by Jenna Black

  He curled his lip up in a nasty sneer. “We’ve had some good times together. And I will admit to feeling a certain fondness for you. But don’t you dare to question me again. I might not particularly enjoy hurting you, but don’t fool yourself into thinking I won’t do it if you disobey me.”

  He let up on the glamour, and Jezebel hurried to put some distance between them, her eyes glistening with tears as she averted her gaze. The sight of her hurt was like a knife in his gut. If he didn’t get out of here, his resolve was going to crumble and he’d end up giving her yet another set of mixed signals.

  “I’m going for a walk,” he announced.

  He pushed past her without a backward glance and slammed the door when he left.

  FOR ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES after Gabriel had left, Jez sat on the couch with her face buried in her hands, fighting sobs.

  She understood him too well not to see what he was doing, not to see that he was willfully erecting walls between them because their connection tonight had scared the shit out of him. But she saw more than that. She saw the well of bitterness and anger inside him. For a few hours, he’d let that anger slip away, had allowed himself to feel what she felt sure was genuine joy. But the anger was still there, five hundred years’ worth, and it was a foe too great for her to battle.

  Still sniffling and wiping her eyes, she got up off the couch and hurried to the bedroom to pack up the few belongings she’d brought with her. It would be dawn in an hour or so, but she suspected she’d be able to get to Eli’s with time to spare. Assuming he was still willing to shelter her after her deceit.

  She made a quick phone call on her way out and was relieved beyond measure when Eli assured her she was still welcome.

  All the way to Eli’s, she kept hoping that Gabriel would leap out of the shadows, beg her to stay with him and promise not to explode like that again.

  It was just as well he didn’t. Any promise of change he might make would be short-lived, at best. It would be just like the times her mother had promised to stop drinking. She’d really meant it at the time she said it, had every intention of turning her life around and becoming a good mother. Those good intentions had amounted to nothing.

  People didn’t change—one of life’s hard lessons that she had to learn to live with. But oh, how she wished the fairy tale were true and the kind-hearted soul could tame the savage beast.

  19

  GABRIEL WAITED UNTIL AFTER the sun came up to return to his apartment. He wasn’t positive he could stand firm in the face of Jezebel’s hurt and disillusionment, so like a coward he’d stayed away until he was sure she’d be asleep.

  He wasn’t in the least bit tired, but he felt inexorably drawn to her, so within five minutes of returning home, he headed toward the bedroom. He’d taken two full steps into the room before his mind registered its emptiness.

  He came to a halt, his heart lurching in his chest. His first thought was that Brigitte had returned to take out what she saw as her “competition,” and the horror of that idea was like a thousand lead weights collapsing on his shoulders. How could he have been so self-centered, to have left Jezebel alone and undefended when he knew Brigitte could get into his apartment?

  Even when he saw the sheet of paper sitting on the bedspread, he thought it must be some sort of ransom note. It wasn’t until he’d forced his heavy feet to move and picked up the note that he realized what had really happened.

  Jezebel had left him.

  The desolation that slammed into him at that thought was like nothing he’d ever felt before. His knees wobbled beneath him, and he sat heavily on the edge of the bed, Jezebel’s short note clutched in his fingers.

  You asked for this, you fool, he reminded himself as the pain threatened to crush him. No, he hadn’t thought things through enough to consider that his earlier outburst might make her leave him, but he had wanted to put distance between them. His plan had succeeded, had worked better than he could possibly have hoped. He should be rejoicing that he’d gotten out in time, before she had the power to destroy him.

  The ache in his heart suggested that maybe he hadn’t gotten out in time after all. A lump formed in his throat, but he swallowed it down. No matter how much this hurt, it was for the best. Jezebel would be safer and happier without him. And if this feeling that overwhelmed him was anything like that elusive, unfamiliar emotion of love, then he should be selflessly looking out for her best interests instead of his own.

  His fingers curled in on themselves, crushing the note. Selflessness had never been one of his virtues. Even knowing she was better off without him, he had to fight the urge to go after her. It helped when he considered the likelihood that she’d fled to Eli’s house, rather than back to her own apartment.

  “What’s done is done,” he said aloud, trying to convince himself.

  His cell phone rang. Hope surged in his chest, hope that it was Jezebel calling to say she’d made a terrible mistake and wanted to come back. Hope that died even before he’d pulled the phone from his pocket, because, of course, she wouldn’t be awake at this hour.

  He flipped open the phone, and a lump of fear formed in his gut when he saw the caller ID. It was his mother. Had she somehow gotten her claws on Jezebel? If she had, he would kill her without a second thought.

  Steeling himself, trying to get his tempestuous emotions under control, he answered the phone.

  “Why, hello, Mother dear,” he said, his tone betraying none of his turmoil. “I hear tell you missed me so much you’ve come all the way to Philadelphia to be near me again.”

  “Yes, my son,” she answered, her voice as oily as his. “And I’m so anxious to see you again that I’ve arranged a little party in your honor. Let me send you a picture of just what I have set up for you.”

  The hand that wasn’t holding the phone was clenched into a white-knuckled fist, and he hoped his heart wasn’t beating so loud that his mother could hear it over the phone. If she had hurt a single hair on Jezebel’s head, he would see her—

  He looked at the picture on his phone, and for half a second was flooded with relief that it wasn’t Jez. Then, his mind made sense of the image he was seeing, and nausea roiled in his stomach. Another picture filled the small screen, this time showing the poor child covered by the body of an unfamiliar man who was licking her cheek.

  “She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?” Camille’s voice warbled over the phone.

  He raised the phone back to his ear, too sick even to manage a comeback.

  “Thanks to your handiwork,” Camille continued, “Bartolomeo can’t enjoy her as much as he would have once, but he seems to get a great deal of pleasure out of watching his fledgling—”

  “I knew you were a sick bitch, and I knew you’d teamed up with di Cesare, but I never imagined you had sunk this low.”

  She laughed, sounding genuinely amused. “If the girl were a vampire, you’d have found the sight so exciting you’d be fondling yourself at the moment.”

  He flinched, hating that she’d managed to shoot a barb past his defenses. But no, she was wrong. If there was one thing Jezebel had done for him, it was to make him see that he wasn’t the cold-blooded sadist he’d once thought he was.

  “But of course,” Camille continued, “the girl is not a vampire. She’s merely a pretty mortal child. I believe Bartolomeo and his man will continue to find her entertaining for another day or so. After that, they’ll want some variety. I’m sure we can find another lovely little girl for them to enjoy when they’ve used this one up.”

  Words stuck in Gabriel’s throat. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say, couldn’t think of a curse vile enough to hurl at her.

  How had he allowed himself to serve her for as long as he had? As soon as Eli had cast them out of Philadelphia, Camille had been free to indulge the taste for cruelty Eli had kept firmly in check. She’d tormented her victims, hurt and frightened them beyond what was necessary in order to feed. And she’d frequently allowed her fle
dglings to “play” with them before she actually fed.

  And Gabriel had stood by and let it happen, out of some twisted, misplaced sense of loyalty. A fist clenched around his heart. No, not just out of loyalty. Out of the pathetic illusion that she was the one person who could love a monster like himself.

  Which one of them was the most sick, and the most sickening?

  “I take it you are unmoved by the poor child’s plight?” Camille asked.

  Hate crystallized in Gabriel’s chest. “I made a terrible mistake when I allowed you to live. That isn’t a mistake I’ll make a second time.”

  Once more, she laughed at him. “Do you think you can manage it, my son? I’m not alone, you know.”

  He bared his teeth in a feral snarl, wishing she could see it, sure that even in her supreme confidence, that expression would shake something deep inside her. “Were you alone when I took your eight fledglings apart limb by limb in front of you?” he asked. He’d thought he’d broken her at the time. She had tried so hard to control him, to stop the slaughter, and her glamour had barely slowed him down.

  “But they were merely fledglings. My allies at the moment are considerably more potent. Let’s have it out, shall we, dear boy? A showdown of epic proportions. You all by your little lonesome, against me and Bartolomeo and our friends. It ought to be most entertaining, don’t you think?”

  Gabriel hesitated. No vampire of Camille’s power or age would offer up anything like a fair fight. Camille and Bartolomeo had to know they were no match for him. But perhaps they were expecting Brigitte and her fledgling to fight on their side? Brigitte had claimed she would neither help nor hinder his mother’s cause, but she could well have been lying. And she’d already proven herself a formidable foe.

  But perhaps it didn’t matter. He couldn’t stand by and do nothing while Camille and di Cesare made a sickening feast of the city’s children. He could hope that he was more than a match for anything they would throw his way, but if he wasn’t …

  He shrugged. Hating how pathetic it sounded even to himself, he had to admit that the world might be a better place without him in it.

  “Very well,” he said. “Let’s have this showdown of ours. Where and when shall we get together to try to kill one another?”

  “Tonight at midnight seems an appropriate appointment, don’t you think? If you have a piece of paper handy, I’ll give you the address.”

  Heart and mind both blessedly numb, Gabriel wrote down the address she gave him.

  JEZ SUFFERED A MOMENT of disorientation when she first woke up. She wasn’t in the familiar double bed in her apartment, nor was she in Gabriel’s plush king-sized bed, with his body warm beside her. A hint of alarm tingled in her blood, warning her that something bad had happened, warning her that she didn’t want to wake up and remember where she was or why.

  She tried to burrow more deeply under the covers, tried to let sleep take her again, but the shot of adrenaline the worry caused made that impossible. Hard though she tried to hold the memory off, it came crashing down on her again.

  She’d walked out on Gabriel.

  Tears stung her eyes. She bit her lip hard and told herself she was not going to cry about this anymore. Yes, she was the one who’d physically done the leaving, but not until after he had slammed the metaphorical door in her face.

  Groaning and rubbing her eyes, she sat up. She opened her mental shields, searching tentatively for her connection with her maker, but though she found the line that connected them, she couldn’t travel along it, couldn’t penetrate the shields he’d erected around himself. If she’d hoped to find him open and pleading for her to return to him, she was sorely disappointed.

  A long hot shower cleared her head somewhat, though it didn’t make her feel any less miserable. When she couldn’t delay it any longer, she trudged down the stairs and into the library, looking for Eli. She’d arrived so close to dawn this morning that she hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with him. Now, it was time to face the music, as well as time to let him know some of the secrets Gabriel had been hiding from him all these years.

  He was reading a book when she entered the library, or at least he was pretending to. She knew he’d felt her coming long before she’d walked through the door. He slid a bookmark between the pages of the antique-looking hardback, then set it down on a side table and looked up at her, his expression carefully neutral.

  Taking a deep breath, she sat in a comfortable chair across from him and tried to relax. The fact that he’d let her stay here last night was a good sign, a sign that he would forgive her for her betrayal. Still, despite all the reasons why she hadn’t had a choice in the matter, she couldn’t help the guilt that clung to her like sticky cobwebs.

  “For what it’s worth,” she said, looking at the floor instead of at him, “I’m really sorry I lied to you.”

  Eli’s only answer was a soft grunt that could have meant anything.

  “He promised me that he wouldn’t kill anyone,” she continued.

  “And you believed him?” His voice was as neutral as his face, giving away nothing of what he thought or felt.

  Jez forced herself to meet his eyes, her chin stubbornly raised. “Yes, I believed him. If for no other reason than because he made me work so hard to drag a promise out of him.” She suspected there was more to it than that, that her deepest instincts had spoken to her from the very beginning and told her he wasn’t as he appeared. But that was something she doubted Eli would understand.

  Eli sighed. “I’d like to promise the Guardians will welcome you back with open arms, but I doubt that’s the case. Once upon a time, my word was law. Gabriel has weakened my authority.”

  Anger pulsed through her veins. “Don’t put this all on his shoulders! You may not have lied outright, but you’ve certainly deceived everyone about a lot of things for a long time. Maybe if you’d been honest from the beginning—”

  “If you’re planning to take me to task for my mistakes, then perhaps you would prefer to sleep under your own roof from now on.” Eli’s eyes flashed and his jaw clenched.

  Jez swallowed her own indignation. Most likely she would be compelled to leave the Guardians and take care of herself eventually, but with Brigitte out there potentially regarding her as a rival, and with Camille and di Cesare seeing her as bait, she really didn’t want it to be now.

  Another deep breath helped calm some of her anger, though she wasn’t about to apologize for what she’d said. “There are some things I think you should know about Gabriel,” she said. “Things I’m sure he’d rather I didn’t tell you, but maybe they’ll make you understand him better.”

  Curiosity and irritation warred on Eli’s face. Apparently, curiosity won. “Such as?”

  She rubbed her hands nervously up and down her pants legs. “Such as, our bond is different from the usual bond between master and fledgling. We can communicate telepathically, and sometimes we feel each other’s thoughts over the connection. I’ve been in his head for both of his kills.”

  The lines around Eli’s eyes and mouth tightened. “You’ve already established that they were potentially killers themselves.”

  But she shook her head. “Not potentially. Gabriel didn’t know either of them. He picked each of them out from a crowd. I don’t completely understand it, but there’s something about his power that lets him sense these people.”

  “I hardly—”

  Jez ignored the interruption. “When he bites them, he shares their memories. They were both guilty, Eli. And it wasn’t just that he suspected they were, he knew. That’s how he’s always picked his victims.”

  She could read the doubt on Eli’s face. “If that were truly the case, he would have said so,” Eli argued.

  She shook her head, not at all sure he’d be able to understand. Her hands had curled into fists in her lap, and she forced them to relax. “You always disapproved of him, and it hurt him more than he could ever admit. So he let you think he was a heartless Kill
er because he couldn’t have borne the pain if he’d told you he wasn’t and you’d still disapproved of him.”

  Why she was bothering to tell Eli any of this, she wasn’t sure. She’d already established in her own mind that the rift between father and son was irreparable. And she’d established that it wasn’t her job to try to repair it. So why didn’t she just keep her mouth shut?

  Eli sat there and stared at her, his thoughts hidden behind his impassive face and dispassionate eyes. Jez clenched her teeth and fought the urge to argue her case any further.

  Finally, Eli looked away. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” he asked, sucking the air out of her lungs.

  Was that what she felt for Gabriel? Love? Certainly the pain she felt at leaving him would suggest a depth of feeling she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge before. But was that feeling truly love?

  “Maybe,” she admitted. “But he loves his anger more than he loves me.” And for once in her life, she’d decided she deserved better.

  Eli nodded sagely. “Very well, then. I’ll give you shelter for as long as you need it. But I will restrict you to your room whenever the Guardians meet here. Tensions are running high and I’d prefer not to spark them.”

  Jez ground her teeth. “You don’t actually think you’re fooling me, do you? You want to lock me in my room so that I don’t overhear your latest plan to kill Gabriel and warn him about it.”

  He didn’t bother to deny it. “As long as he insists on remaining in Philadelphia to torment me, he is under a death sentence. When he gets frustrated and angry enough, there’s a good chance he will start killing Guardians, and that I won’t allow.”

  Jez bit her lip to keep from arguing, though she was sure deep down in her gut that Eli was wrong. No, she didn’t think Gabriel was going to let go of his vendetta any time soon. But as tough as he talked, he wasn’t going to start killing the good guys just to get back at his father.