All the while knowing he and the others he’d been with were the reason Ms. Rowanberry would leave her house in a black body bag and Officer Bhatt was on her way to the hospital with potentially fatal wounds…
I’d never thought life was particularly fair but some days it was downright cruel. Today was definitely one of those days…
Chapter 19
Sitting on the hard plastic seat inside the armoured truck, I watched as the other Division 6 officers unloaded the still sleeping vampire. He lay perfectly still, strapped to the stretcher with steel chains as thick as my wrist, keeping him from escaping. The chains themselves were coated in silver, and despite the thick fabric between him and them, I was beginning to get the faintest hint of charring flesh.
The entire ride he’d remained deathly still. I’d watched him like a hawk, my eyes glued to his face for even the slightest movement out of place. His chest was still, his skin cold to the touch. I knew because I hadn’t been able to fight the urge to brush my fingers against his cheek.
For all intents and purposes he was dead.
Scrambling from the truck, I dropped down onto the black tarmac outside Division 6. The holding pens were in the back, hidden from the prying eyes of do-gooder humans and supernaturals alike, who thought our treatment of the preternatural criminals that ended up inside the walls was unsavoury. They weren’t wrong. Humans had rights when it came to imprisonment, at least in this country they did, but preternaturals were a different matter. Their rights were somewhat of a grey area and one of the main reasons so many of the supernatural community tried to pass for human.
The two guards unloading the vampire chattered amicably over the top of the prone body. Their complete disregard for the cargo they were transporting left me cold and the bitter taste of hypocrisy coated my tongue.
I would have killed him back at the house if Alex hadn’t intervened. In fact, there was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to reach out and feel his essence leach from his body. He was a killer, a sadistic one at that. The vamps tended to live by a code of kill or be killed, their lives violent and bloody. It was a misnomer that vampires lived long lives. Some did, but for many, their lives were short, shorter even than the humans they fed from.
In a world of kill or be killed, the old adage survival of the fittest had been replaced with survival of the smartest.
“I came as soon as I heard,” Grey’s quiet voice cut through my thoughts and my fingers tightened reflexively around the blade on my belt. I was still wound up over everything that had happened and if I didn’t get a grip on it soon, I’d end up stabbing some poor unsuspecting Division 6 lackey.
“That was nice of you.”
There was a flinching around the corners of Grey’s eyes as my words struck home.
“I’m sorry I left things the way I did.” He glanced down at his hands and I followed his gaze, noting the brown paper folder in his grip.
“What’s that?”
He sighed, his shoulders visibly relaxing. “Results from the preliminary exam of Simon Waits body.”
Obviously, giving me the news of how our teenage victim had died was easier than continuing the conversation about why he’d bailed from the car earlier after his meeting with his brother.
I held out my hand and he slipped the file to me. Drawing in a breath, I scanned through the notes quickly, my eyes darting back and forth, absorbing words like prolonged abuse, suspected torture, defensive wounds.
“He was a fighter,” I whispered, sliding the file shut as I closed my eyes and dragged a deep breath in through my nose.
“Easy,” Grey said, but his voice seemed very far away.
Opening my eyes, I realised I was facing the cracked and broken brick wall of the Division 6 building. Wincing, I lifted my hand and noted the bloody cuts across my knuckles. The file was still clutched in my other hand, the edges of it more than a little crumpled from where I’d tried to ball my hand into a fist while still holding it.
“Still got quite the right hook,” Grey said, tilting his head toward the damaged wall.
“What are we doing here?”
“Excuse me?” Confusion filled his dark eyes.
“Here,” I said, gesturing to the building. “We’re not helping anyone. What we do…” I sucked in another breath, trying to quiet the panic that rose in my chest. “It’s always too late. We’re always too goddamned late, Grey, why is that?”
“We do it for the ones yet to get hurt,” he said.
“And what about all the ones that count on us and we let them down? What about the likes of Simon, or Ms. Rowanberry…or Sita Bhatt?”
“I heard about that,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough,” my voice rose with emotion. “Sorry doesn’t bring them back, it doesn’t soothe the pain of their passing, or the hole left in the lives of their loved ones. Sorry isn’t good enough, Grey, it wasn’t ever good enough.”
“What would you do differently?”
“Stop hiding behind the protocols, the paperwork…”
“They exist for a reason.”
“They’re killing innocents, Grey…” I searched his face, looking for something, anything, that told me he understood what I was feeling. “Don’t you care about them, even a little?”
“Of course I care,” he ground the words out and I knew I’d hit a nerve.
“You show me this…” I said, waving the file in his face. “They tortured him, and if they can get that from the preliminary, then imagine what they’ll find when they do a proper autopsy of him.”
“We can’t save them all, Jenna,” he said quietly.
“How about some of them?”
He blew out a breath. “We’re trying but evil is insidious, it creeps in when you least expect it. You know that.”
Bile climbed the back of my throat. I knew it only too well, but I was tired of always being behind them. I wanted for once to get ahead…
“You shouldn’t blame yourself,” Grey said.
Shock caused my breath to catch in the back of my throat. Rocking back on my heels, I felt the wall press into my spine. If he’d slapped me, I might have known how to react, but this was different. He’d cut straight to the core of my turmoil. And what was worse, he was right. I did blame myself.
Carmine was my problem. I should have made sure she was dead… I’d had more than enough time to ensure it and instead, I’d run away, tail tucked between my legs as I tried to bury the memory of everything Kypherous had done to me. I’d let her go free and she’d tortured and murdered innocents… Their blood was on my hands whether I wanted it or not and nothing would change that.
“This isn’t your fault, Jenna, the sooner you wrap your head around it all, the better.”
“Would you be so quick to forgive yourself if you were in my shoes?” He looked away quickly, telling me everything I needed to know. “I thought not…”
“Maybe it’d be better if I handled the interview with Alex,” Grey said, his words caused my shoulders to stiffen. If he thought he could cut me out of this, then he was sorely mistaken.
“I’m the reason that vamp is in there at all,” I said.
“And I heard Alex is the reason he’s still alive to answer our questions,” he parried.
“Are you doubting me, Grey?”
He shook his head and there was a sadness in his eyes that took me by surprise.
“If there’s one thing I’ve never done, Jenna, that’s doubt you.” He swallowed hard, straightening his shoulders. “If you think you’re up to this, then let’s get it over with…”
He didn’t need to ask me twice. I followed him toward the solid steel door that marked the back entrance to the underground holding cells.
“Where did you go?” I called, noting the faltering of his step as he reached the door. With his back to me, it was impossible to read his expression, but I knew Grey, and the more nonchalant he attempted to appear, the more suspicious it made
me.
“I just needed to clear my head,” he said, holding the door for me.
“I tried to call you,” I said, “so did Alex.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, I turned it off…”
I gave him a thin-lipped smile as I passed. There was something he wasn’t telling me, but, then, we all had our secrets. If he wanted to keep me on the outside, then I couldn’t stop him, didn’t mean I had to like it.
“In all the time I’ve known you, Grey, you’ve never once shut off your phone.”
“Well, people change.” His tone was harsh and abrupt making me think for a second time that evening I’d struck a nerve with him.
Without another word, I stalked past him. If he was that desperate to keep his movements a secret, then I wasn’t going to press him. I had bigger fish to fry after all and Carmine was definitely a big fish. And when I was done with her, she was going to wish that Kypherous had killed her, just as he’d said he’d done all those years ago.
Chapter 20
Stepping into the concrete cell, I kept my eyes trained on the vamp on the other side of the room. Unlike most of the cop shows on the television, when it came to interrogating preternatural suspects, Division 6 didn’t sit down with them at a table and have a civilised little chat.
The vampire was suspended upside down from the ceiling, the chains that had held him so securely during the journey over here were still locked around his body. And from where I stood, with my back to the smooth grey concrete wall, he looked like a cocooned creature. Only this was a macabre and grotesque antithesis to the typical cocoon. What would come crawling from this chrysalis wrought of steel and silver was not a beautiful butterfly but a creature borne of blood and destruction, hell-bent on inflicting as much suffering and grief on its hapless victims as it itself had probably suffered at the hands of those it called Master.
Grey moved into the middle of the room, the sound of the metal chair he dragged behind him grated in the silence of the room. The suspended vampire had eyes only for Grey, and his intensive study of the druid made me think he was ignoring me deliberately.
Grey settled the chair in the centre of the room and gracefully dropped into it, arranging himself carefully before he finally deigned to flicker a look in the vampire’s direction.
“I presume you’ve got a name?” There was no power in Grey’s question but the command in his voice was there all the same.
“I don’t have to give it,” the vamp said, his words a little slurred from the sedative he’d been given.
“You don’t have to,” Grey said, “but things would be better if you did.”
“Better for who?” The bitter quality in the vampire’s words weren’t lost on me. He knew what he faced, knew what would become of him. “I face the stake anyway, why should I do anything for you lot?”
Grey smiled, the look of a predator. It was an expression I’d only ever seen worn by those who knew the true meaning of cruelty. It was the same look I’d seen on the vampire’s face a couple of hours prior when he’d held Officer Bhatt down to torture her. It made me uncomfortable then, but I wasn’t naive when it came to vampires, I knew what they were. It was worse seeing Grey wear the same look.
“Because a stake is a quick death, an easy one in comparison to the end you gave your victims,” Grey said softly.
The vampire shifted in his chains and winced, the scent of smouldering flesh joined the jangle of chains.
“There’s nothing else you can do to me,” the vampire said, but he suddenly didn’t sound as sure of himself anymore.
“Isn’t there? I don’t see anyone here to stop me,” Grey said. “In fact, I think you’ve already met my partner. I hear you two had quite the moment…”
The vampire’s gaze slid from Grey’s to mine, fear slithering and writhing behind his eyes like a heaving body of maggots feasting in a rotted corpse. Without needing Grey to say it aloud, I knew what he wanted. I smiled at the vampire and the scent of his fear suddenly spiked in the tiny room.
“You can’t touch me here,” he said as I pushed away from the wall and stalked toward him. “The law says you can’t do this! I know my rights and you can’t —”
“Sshh,” I said, reaching out toward him.
He squirmed backwards, the jangle of his chains echoed in the concrete cell as he writhed within his cocoon. The scent of his smouldering flesh intensified, stinging the back of my nose and eyes so that bile rose in my throat. I’d never wanted out of a room as much as I did in that moment, but I didn’t flinch as his wildly swinging body came within reach and I brushed my fingers against his cheek.
“No!” The vampire howled, fighting against the restraints until smoke started to curl from the gaps in the chains.
“Your name,” Grey said, and he was suddenly next to me. He grabbed the vampire, pulling him to a halt, holding him despite the wretched creature’s continued writhing.
“Isaac,” he screamed, “my name is Isaac.”
“Surname,” Grey said matter-of-factly.
“Guardio! Get her away from me, please!”
Grey gave me a considering look before he nodded. Following his silent request, I stepped back, leaving him to hold the vampire still.
“Who created you?” Grey asked.
“I can’t— I can’t tell you… He’ll kill me.”
I took a step forward. Isaac’s eyes found mine and a fine tremor started in his body.
“Keep her away and I’ll tell you…”
“Who created you?”
“Promise she won’t touch me and I’ll tell you…”
With a sigh Grey nodded. “Tell us everything you know and she won’t touch you… Lie to us or leave anything out and I’ll let her finish what she started back at the house.”
Shock raced through me. Grey hadn’t mentioned knowing what I’d done to the vampire, and I hadn’t seen him stop to talk to Alex. How did he know?
“De Ville,” Isaac said softly. “He created us… He created all of us and we are many.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Grey said, casting a glance back over his shoulder toward me. I shook my head.
“Sounds like an alias to me,” I said. “I mean, come on, it’s a little too close to Devil to be a coincidence.”
“And where is this De Ville?” Grey said, returning his attention to Isaac once more.
“London,” Isaac said, “but he wasn’t the one who sent us here…”
Goosebumps spread across my arms and the hairs on my neck stood at attention.
“She sent us here to hunt,” he said. “Said she needed fresh meat… She’s nearly exhausted the supply there.”
“Who is she?” As my voice rang out, the vampire cringed as though my words alone could hurt him. And if she was killing in London, then why the hell hadn’t we heard of it before now? London was a big city but it wasn’t so big that dead bodies turning up wouldn’t cause a stir.
“We don’t get a name,” he said. “She’s Master’s new pet, we just do as we’re told.”
“And she’s in London, too?”
Isaac shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them once more, the fear was back. “Promise when I tell you, that you’ll kill me quickly. I don’t want her to get me.”
“I told you,” Grey said, “Jenna won’t touch you so long as you tell us what we need.”
“Not just her,” he said, inclining his head in my direction. “If the witch finds out I’ve betrayed her…”
“Death will be a longed for blessing,” I said quietly. Isaac locked onto me, his dry purple hued tongue slid from his mouth to graze his lips nervously, it made a dry rasping sound that instantly reminded me of the desiccated creatures that had dwelled in the catacombs beneath Kypherous’ lair.
“You know her, too,” he said.
“Knew her,” I said, “thought she’d been put down a long time ago.”
“Master said she’s eternal, she can never be destroyed. It’s why he lo
ves her so…”
“I’m going to kill her,” I said, and Isaac’s pupils dilated.
“I think you would succeed.”
“Where is she?”
“Whitby.”
The word rang in the silence and my ears popped as though I’d surfaced from being underwater.
Grey turned on his heel and stalked toward the door. “We’ll make provisions,” he said. “You have my word your end will be swift.”
Isaac’s gaze followed me to the door, the tremors in his body had intensified, and when I reached the door, he called out.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” he said. “She’ll find out… She always finds out.”
“Her reach is not so great that she will find you here,” I said gently. The terror I could see in his face was almost enough to make me pity him.
“She’s changed much since you knew her last.”
Isaac’s words tugged at me and I paused, hand on the door handle.
“Why would you say that?” Fear coiled around my spine, creeping ever upwards, spreading its chill outwards through my bones.
“Because you believe she can’t reach us here,” he panted. “I’ve seen what she can do, the joy she takes in it all… By telling you, I’ve sealed my fate.”
“She’s on the other side of the country.”
“Distance is no matter to her…”
He had a point there. I’d seen what she’d done to Simon despite the obvious distance. A knock on the other side of the door pulled me from my thoughts and I spotted Grey gesturing for me to join him.
“Please don’t leave me here… Just kill me—please—even by your hand it would be preferable to what she’ll do.”
Stepping out into the hall, the sound of the door slamming shut cut off Isaac’s pained howl and the eerie rattle of his chains as he once more started to jerk and fight the restraints.
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