Evie had heard enough. She took a lightning fast step towards him, switching the sword into her left hand at the last moment and smashing her right fist into Victor’s jaw. She ignored the pain that burst through her knuckles and slammed all the way up to her shoulder, and watched Victor stagger backwards and topple into the coat stand. His gaze flew to the umbrella stand containing the swords and he lunged for it, but in the same instant Vero darted forward, kicking it out of his reach.
Evie felt a calm descend over her. The blood rushing in her ears had dropped away, the adrenaline had crystallised inside her, bringing a clarity of vision and focus. The sword felt like it was part of her body, an extension of her arm – just like Victor had told her it should. And if she wielded it with true intent …
Suddenly Victor moved, a knife flashed silver in his palm as he dived straight at her. Evie spun sideways as the blade scythed the air in front of her. She used the momentum to throw all her weight at Victor, sending him slamming into the door. She followed it with a roundhouse kick that sent the knife flying out of his hand.
Victor clutched his bruised fingers to his chest and stared at her, breathing hard and fast, trying and failing to mask his fear. Evie stepped towards him, her heart slamming into her ribs.
‘You asked me once, didn’t I want revenge?’ she said softly, breathing fast. ‘Well, can you guess what the answer to that is now?’
She raised the sword once more. This time she was going to do it. Victor shrank back further against the door, his eyes fixed on the glistening edge of the blade.
Time slowed. Evie felt every pulse of blood charging through her body, feeding the rush of adrenaline. She readied herself for a final blow.
And then a hand circled her arm.
‘Evie,’ Ash murmured in her ear.
She whipped around.
Ash shook his head at her slowly, his fingers tightening even more around her arm, trying to tug it down. ‘Victor’s right. We do need him.’
Evie glared at Ash but he didn’t let go.
‘Evie, you deserve revenge,’ he said, ‘and I will happily stand aside and let you have your revenge after this is over, but only after this is over. We have to fight what’s out there first.’
Evie glanced at Victor as Ash spoke and saw the relief wash across his face.
‘We can find them without him,’ she hissed through her teeth at Ash.
‘Yes, probably,’ he admitted. ‘But Victor’s right, we can’t fight them all by ourselves.’
Evie took a deep breath, her whole body shaking with pent-up rage. Did Ash have a point? She thought of the map in the other room and of the photographs of all those dismembered bodies. She thought of all the people who were missing children or brothers and sisters, and she thought of all the innocent people who would die if they didn’t stop this army of unhumans from wreaking havoc on the city.
Finally she dropped her arm. The blade smacked against her side, its tip scraping the ground. Ash studied her for a beat, warily, before he released his grip.
Victor straightened up, lifting his chin, a smile creeping across his lips.
‘Just know,’ Evie said to him, anger boiling in her veins, though her voice stayed icy cold and steady, ‘that one day I am going to stand and watch you die.’
Chapter 13
‘You’re still living here?’ Evie asked, as Ash pulled into the parking garage of a seemingly abandoned warehouse building.
‘Yes, for the time being,’ Ash answered. ‘We’ve got nowhere else to go.’
Evie climbed out of the car, taking in the echoing vault-like space. She half-expected to see Cyrus striding towards her, a sword in his hand and a smirk plastered across his face, but only ominous silence met them.
Cyrus’s playboy pad was exactly as it had been eight weeks before. Evie glanced up at the ropes slung from the rafters and at the punch bags dangling forlornly from the roof, tensed for an attack that was never going to come. Her eyes tracked automatically to the weapons cabinet by the door. Its doors were locked but she already knew what lay behind them. An entire armoury – enough firepower and weapons to open a military museum. And not a single one of them could subdue an Original.
The atmosphere was so tense between her and Ash that not even the shadow blade Vero had stolen from Victor could have cut through it. Evie avoided looking at them, instead crossing to the windows that ran the whole length of the room. It felt strange being back here, in a place so swimming with memories of both Cyrus and Lucas that Evie could feel their presence thick as tar in the air. How did Vero and Ash stand it?
In the window ahead of her she saw Ash walking towards her, tentatively, as though approaching a coiled cobra. He hovered behind her shoulder and their eyes met in the glass, Evie’s gaze laser beamed, Ash’s steady and even.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said after a moment.
Evie wheeled around, unable to contain her rage any longer. ‘I once asked you how many unhumans you needed to kill before you’d feel like you had your revenge.’
Ash frowned but his frown quickly gave way to comprehension as he remembered the conversation she was talking about. He and Evie had been sitting together in Cyrus’s car just before they had gone hunting for the first time all together.
‘And you didn’t answer me,’ Evie continued. ‘But I know exactly how many unhumans I need to kill to get mine.’ She paused just a beat. ‘None.’
Ash’s frown deepened.
‘I don’t need to kill a single unhuman,’ Evie growled. ‘I just need to kill one human.’
‘I understand,’ Ash nodded, ‘and, like I said, I won’t stand in your way once this is over. I’ll even help you, if you want or need my help when the time comes. And so will Vero. But right now we need him.’
Evie glowered at him but he held her gaze, unfazed. Finally, he walked away, following Vero down the hallway towards the bedrooms.
Evie turned angrily back to the window. She could see herself reflected in the glass as clearly as if she was standing in front of a full-length mirror. It was the first time she’d seen herself in two months and she looked like a vengeful ghost hanging outside in the cold night air. Her skin was deathly pale and she looked gaunt. Her pupils were two bottomless black pits. It was no surprise people in Riverview had been whispering that she was a drug addict. She looked completely strung out.
Unable to stand looking at herself for a moment longer she walked over to the sofa and dropped down onto it, feeling exhaustion claim her. Her body felt as solid and unwieldy as a punchbag, her skull sealed in concrete. She hadn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. Slowly, she hauled her bag onto her lap and unzipped it, pulling out one of Lucas’s old T-shirts. She brought it up to her cheek and then lay down, using it as a pillow, closing her eyes and trying to breathe in the lingering scent of him.
The dream came swiftly, drawing her down, submerging her. It was a dream she’d had before. She was at the bottom of the pond – the one in the woods near her house – her limbs bound up with pondweed so coffin-tight she quit struggling within seconds, knowing already what would happen and deciding not to fight it. Ice-cold fingers of water plunged into her ears and forced their way inside her mouth, caressing her eyelids and seeping into her eye sockets. Her lungs were bursting – on fire from the inside.
‘Evie! Evie!’
She was being shaken, hard. Her eyes flashed open and she spluttered, heaving in deep breaths of air, clutching at her throat even as the tears streamed relentlessly down her cheeks. She rolled off the sofa and tumbled onto her knees, pressing her head to the cool wood floor.
Suddenly she became aware of Vero’s hand on her back, patting her shoulder blade. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked. ‘It sounded like you were drowning or something, like you couldn’t breathe.’
Evie gripped the edge of the table. Her clothes were drenched with sweat, her skin felt clammy.
‘I’m fine,’ she mumbled, wiping a hand across her forehead. She glanced up at Vero, hoping
to reassure her. The last thing she needed was Vero seeing her like this.
Vero stared at her sceptically, her eyebrows almost merging with her hairline.
‘It was just a bad dream,’ Evie told her, resting her fingers against her ragged pulse, trying to bring it under control.
Vero continued to stare at her for a few seconds before she nodded. ‘I have those all the time,’ she said, dropping down onto the sofa and taking a deep breath. ‘I keep dreaming about Risper – about her dying. I’m just there. Watching it happen. And I can never do anything to stop it.’
Evie’s throat tightened again. Was there an element of blame in Vero’s voice? Evie had been there when Risper died. She and Lucas hadn’t been able to help her or save her. The guilt of that ate away at her every second of the day, along with the guilt of everything else.
She cleared her throat, wanting to say something – to apologise, explain, empathise – but before she could find the words Vero started talking again. ‘When Risper died I wanted to kill every single unhuman I could find.’
‘You did,’ Evie said, remembering how Vero had acted like a woman possessed, on a vengeance mission no one could have stopped. She had taken out every Thirster in her path without batting an eyelid, setting fire to the Bradbury building in the process.
‘It was the same when Cyrus died,’ Vero said, turning towards Evie. ‘But it doesn’t go away.’
‘What doesn’t?’ Evie asked, frowning.
‘The pain. It’s still there. Ash doesn’t realise it either. He’s like you. He thinks that killing as many of them as he can will bring his friend back, will somehow make up for the fact that Cyrus died.’ She softened her tone. ‘It’s not going to fix anything, killing Victor. It’s not going to bring Lucas back.’
Evie felt as though the ice-cold fingers from her dream had torn open her ribcage and were now shredding her insides.
‘I can guarantee you’ll feel as empty as you do now,’ Vero added. ‘Maybe even emptier.’
Evie stared at her, utterly speechless. What she was saying couldn’t be true. It wasn’t possible to feel any emptier than she did now. ‘No,’ she managed to say, ‘I won’t.’
A ghost of a smile flitted across Vero’s face. ‘The one thing keeping you going right now, Evie, is the promise of that pain disappearing. As if killing Victor is going to be like popping a magic pill. But it won’t take away the ache. It’ll still be there afterwards. It will always be there. I don’t think it ever goes away. It will get less though,’ Vero said. ‘Over time. I can promise you that much.’
Evie dropped her head into her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Vero was wrong about something, she thought to herself. She didn’t want the pain to magically disappear, because if it did then it would be as if she had forgotten Lucas ever existed. The pain was a part of her now, just as much as he had been a part of her, and always would be. She didn’t know who she would be without it – without him. And she didn’t want to find out.
Chapter 14
They parked outside the bookshop that Cyrus’s mother, Margaret, owned.
‘How’s she doing? Do you know?’ Evie asked.
‘No,’ said Ash. ‘We’ve only seen her once. She came to the warehouse a week or so after it happened and collected a few of Cyrus’s things. Told us we were welcome to stay there for a while if we needed a place to live. But we haven’t seen her or heard from her since.’
‘She didn’t look so good though,’ Vero added, almost redundantly.
Margaret had lost her only child. Evie could imagine that Margaret was probably doing worse than she was, given that Cyrus was her only child and she had spent her life trying to protect him from the thing that had eventually killed him.
Evie cast a glance in the direction of the bookshop that Margaret owned. It was bustling this weekend morning with young couples and arty-looking types, all reading their papers while sipping their lattes at the tables inside. Everyone was so oblivious, so unaware of what was going on around them, of the fact that three Hunters were sitting in a car a few metres away and that the city was being overrun with demons.
‘So are we going in, then?’ asked Evie finally, trying to ignore the thrumming headache crashing against her skull and her overwhelming tiredness.
Ash twisted around to look at her over his shoulder, his dark eyes hooded by lack of sleep and maybe something else – something that seemed more like an apology.
‘Maybe it’s better if you wait out here,’ he said, avoiding looking at her directly.
An uncomfortable silence filled the car. Vero started fidgeting with the door handle.
‘I know why you’re saying that,’ Evie said in as even a voice as she could summon, ‘but I want to come in.’
Ash studied her for a moment and then exhaled loudly while mumbling something which sounded to Evie like, It’s your funeral.
They strolled through the café part of the shop, dodging and weaving around outstretched legs, and had almost made it to the door at the back of the store that led up to Margaret’s office when a waitress – a tall girl with dark hair in braids – stepped in front of Evie and let out an ear-splitting squeal. Her name was Darcy. Evie remembered her from before.
‘You! You’re one of Cyrus’s friends!’ the girl screeched. ‘Were, I mean. Weren’t you in his band?’
Evie’s gaze shifted to the muffin and coffee sitting on the tray the girl was carrying. ‘Yeah, something like that,’ she mumbled.
‘It’s terrible, isn’t it?’ Darcy said, her voice cracking and her eyes beginning to shine with tears. ‘So hard to believe. There one minute, gone the next. Just crossing a street. I mean it’s just – it could have happened to anyone.’
Evie felt the scream building inside her. For an instant she entertained the idea of kicking the tray out of the girl’s hands and watching it fly across the store. Her rage was simmering dangerously and she fought to bring it back under control. It couldn’t have just happened to anyone. That was the thing – that was what she was mad about. Cyrus had given his life to save the world and no one even knew about his sacrifice. It was so damn unfair.
Suddenly she felt fingers squeezing her arm and glancing down saw Vero’s hand circling her wrist, gripping it in warning. Evie realised that her hands were fisted and her body tensed to spring. She took a deep breath and forced a smile before walking around Darcy and pushing through the door.
Even from a distance Evie could feel Margaret, that familiar buzzing sensation hitting her right in the solar plexus. The three of them hesitated for a moment in front of the door before Ash knocked tentatively.
‘Mrs Locke?’ he called out. ‘It’s me, Ash. We’ve come to talk to you. Can we come in?’ he asked.
They heard footsteps dragging towards the door, a shuffling sound as the key was turned in the lock. Finally the door fell open and Evie did an immediate double take.
The woman standing in the doorway was a spectre, as hollow-eyed as a skeleton, unrecognisable from the woman she’d been just two months before. Margaret’s clothes hung off jutting bones and her short, honey-coloured hair was greasy and uncombed. She stared glassy-eyed at Ash before her gaze roved over Evie. She blinked then and Evie saw a trace of the old Margaret in the flare of anger that gripped her face in the second before her fingers curled around the door and she slammed it in their faces.
Ash slid his foot into the crack just in time.
‘Mrs Locke,’ he said, wedging his shoulder against the door and speaking through the gap, ‘we just came to ask you one thing and then we’ll go. I promise. We’re not here to cause you any more grief.’
Margaret didn’t move her weight from the door.
‘Please?’ Ash tried again,. ‘It will only take a moment.’
There was a pause and then the door flew suddenly open, sending Ash stumbling into the room. Vero and Evie stepped gingerly over the threshold.
Margaret had crossed to the window and was standing there with her back to them.
Her shoulders were stiff, her head held high. Evie scanned the room quickly. Piles of books were spread across the desk and stacked up on the surrounding floor area. She couldn’t read the titles from where she was standing but they looked old and dusty, not exactly the latest Stephen Kings and Jodi Picoults. The sight of all those books reminded Evie that Margaret had once upon a time been researching the Hunter family tree. Evie wondered what she was now studying and why she was even bothering.
‘What is it?’ Margaret asked in a hoarse voice as if she’d spent the last two months crying. ‘What do you want?’
‘We think maybe you have something we could use,’ Vero said.
Evie watched Margaret’s shoulders tense as Vero pressed on. ‘A shadow blade?’
Margaret whipped around, her eyes now bright and alert. ‘Why do you want a shadow blade?’ she demanded.
‘Because we’re finishing what Cyrus started,’ Ash answered calmly. ‘We’re going after the unhumans left in this realm. The ones that came through before the gateway closed. There are more Originals than the one we killed in the Bradbury and we can’t fight them with normal weapons. We need shadow blades.’
Margaret’s expression darkened. ‘Why are you still fighting them?’ she asked.
Ash shrugged. ‘Someone’s got to.’
‘And if we don’t, then won’t Cyrus have died for nothing?’ Vero added. ‘He died to end this thing. The least we can do is make sure it really has ended.’
At the mention of Cyrus’s name, Margaret collapsed backwards against the desk, grief taking over, her shoulders slumping in defeat. Evie fought the instinct to reach forward and place her hand on the woman’s shoulder and … and she didn’t know what exactly. She just knew that she felt something of this woman’s pain and wanted her to know that she understood it.
She kept her hands glued to her sides though, knowing that the last thing Margaret would want was her sympathy.
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