by Sierra Dean
“So, you killed Alexandre Peyton.” He crossed his legs at the knee and slipped his glasses back on.
I withdrew the leather cord tucked under my shirt and showed him the tooth I’d removed. Since I hadn’t been able to keep the first one I’d divested Peyton of, I wasn’t sure what would happen to this one if it were to see daylight. Luckily, keeping it on me meant I would probably never have to find out.
“Dead dead.”
“How does it feel?”
It was a fair question, but one I hadn’t really paused to consider for myself. Peyton’s death had opened up a whole Pandora’s box of problems I was now juggling. Unlike killing The Doctor, I hadn’t been able to meditate on how the death impacted me.
Killing The Doctor had been essential. I’d made a military general swear to me I’d be allowed to do it, and to their credit they’d followed through. If he hadn’t died by my hands, I never would have slept again. As it was I barely slept. Without seeing the life fade from him with my own eyes, though, I wouldn’t have been able to go on living.
Peyton was different. He was easier and harder all at once. Killing him didn’t cleanse my soul or give me freedom. It felt like the period at the end of a very long sentence, something that just finally was. It was as necessary as the death of The Doctor, perhaps more so in some ways. Yet when I thought about it now, I felt…
“Nothing. It feels like nothing.”
Maybe in a week, or whenever I was able to sit down and process everything, I might feel relieved, or triumphant. Maybe I’d feel sad. Or sick over how I’d done it. But for the time being, where there ought to be a sensation of finality, there was a void instead.
Keaty didn’t seem worried, though. Rather, the smile forming on his face told me he was the exact opposite of concerned. “At last.”
“At last?”
“You have been led through life by a leash of your emotions, Secret. You feel too much, and it makes you weak. I have spent years trying to train you to rid yourself of pointless thoughts and feelings and to simply be. And now, at last, I think you might be there.”
Ah, yes. To be Keaty’s perfect assassin. The mindless killing machine he had spent most of my teenage years teaching me to be. In an ideal world, I would be a cross between Sherlock Holmes and a Terminator. Deductive not reactive. And driven at all times by my directive.
I think Keaty’s main problem with me was that I wasn’t human, but I behaved too much like one. He didn’t know what to do with me, so he’d tried to beat the humanity out of me one lesson at a time.
There were days I think he succeeded more than he could ever know, but sometimes a shard of personhood peeked through.
Who the hell was I?
I had straddled the line between my vampire self and my werewolf self, and for the longest time neither side wanted me, which made it easy to stay the course and do a fair impression of humanness. Now I was being pulled in both directions at the same time, and something had to give.
And that something was my personhood.
I’d literally given up my humanity earlier in the year, hadn’t I? I’d had a chance to live as a human, and I’d traded it in to be a monster again.
What did that say about me?
Maybe Keaty was right. Maybe I finally was the mindless killer he wanted me to be. And if that was the case, I had to be her a little longer. I wasn’t done with death yet.
“I learned from the best.” I wasn’t sure if I meant it as a compliment or not.
I doubted it mattered.
Chapter Twenty-One
There were only so many detours I could take before I had to go home. Though I didn’t have to worry about feeding my cat, Rio, since she’d been staying with Mercedes and Owen while I was in France, I did still need to go back to my apartment eventually.
I’d checked my phone every five minutes since leaving Rain Hotel, and as if he could feel my anxiety from across the city, Dominick texted me to say, I’ll let you know if anything changes. Go home.
How did that skinny jerk know I was avoiding my apartment?
What Paris and New York had in common that I most appreciated was how their layouts promoted pedestrian exploration. I liked cities I could walk in, mostly because driving in traffic made me want to punch people in the throat.
Walking also gave me an excuse to avoid Hell’s Kitchen for an extra forty minutes while I wandered the streets, breathing in the evening air. It wasn’t until I’d gotten back here and set foot on the sidewalks of the city that I realized there had been a time I might have never seen this city again. I had almost died in Paris, and if I had, what would my last memories of New York have been?
Grief and bitterness, avoidance and pain.
If I was going after my mother, I needed to make peace with my city and the people who lived in it. Specifically the people in my life who I had been failing of late.
I kicked up my pace, walking past the corner Starbucks that would take me into Calliope’s hidden realm and continuing down the next two blocks until I was standing outside my yellow apartment complex. My living room light glowed warm, but I couldn’t see who was home thanks to the curtains.
Since Desmond was in wolf form downtown, my houseguest potentials were severely limited. In fact, given that only a handful of people knew I was back in the city, the possibilities were narrowed right down to one.
I didn’t bother looking for my keys again. If it was who I suspected it was, the doors would be unlocked. The undead tended to be less than concerned over their personal safety, at least as far as break-and-enter situations went.
As predicted, neither door gave me any resistance, but when I walked into the living room, it was empty. My apartment wasn’t very big, so there weren’t a lot of places he could be.
“Holden?” I dropped my Coach weekend bag on the floor, weary of having dragged it all over the city. My purse thumped next to it. I kept my boots on and unsnapped the closure on my holster in case someone other than Holden was waiting in the dark recesses of my apartment.
I peeked my head into the kitchen first but found only my microwave and small bistro table to greet me. Neither had much to say.
The shower wasn’t running, so I didn’t bother with the bathroom and instead moved into my bedroom. He wasn’t hiding. My side-table lamp was on, and Holden was sitting in the big armchair next to the door. He’d stretched out his long legs and rested his feet on the end of my bed. A copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was lying facedown against his stomach. It was one of those books I’d bought on a whim but had never gotten around to reading.
I didn’t have a lot of spare time for books, unfortunately.
“Running up my electric bill for kicks?” I asked.
He glanced up. “You can afford it. Speaking of, I have to wonder why you still insist on living here when you have the Tribunal bankroll behind you. I know you weren’t keen on taking charity from the wolf king, but the Council money is yours to spend.”
“No, it’s not.” I sat on the end of the bed and pulled his feet into my lap. I liked seeing he had obeyed my house rules when I wasn’t home, and had taken his shoes off. I gave his toes a squeeze through his cashmere socks.
Leave it to Holden to be snobby enough to own cashmere socks.
“You work for them. Most people who do a job are willing to accept the paycheck that goes along with it.”
“I accept the money, but I don’t feel right spending it wildly. After my first Bergdorf’s spree, I stopped finding it fun. Plus, I like this apartment.”
Holden sneered, doing nothing to hide his disdain for the place. “You’re rich, yet you choose to live in squalor beneath the streets.”
“God, you make it sound like I’m living in an abandoned subway tunnel with all the mole people. This is a nice apartment, and if I ever fall out of favor with the Council, it’s the apartment I can afford. Why would I give that up?”
“Secret, you’re the Tribunal. If you fall out with the Counc
il, you’ll be dead.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek and stopped squeezing his feet. “Unless there were extenuating circumstances.”
“Such as?”
“Like if they found out what I really was.”
His chocolate-brown eyes narrowed in concern. “Why would you bring something like that up?” He knew me well. At least enough to know I wouldn’t casually mention something like my heritage unless I had a good reason.
“Peyton knew. And he told a bunch of his lackeys in Paris. It’s going to come back to our Tribunal. And…”
“He knew? Past tense?”
I gave a tight nod, and he pulled his feet from my lap, leaning closer so he could take my hands in his.
“I killed him,” I said.
“Finally. I wish I could have seen it.”
I liked how he didn’t ask me what I was feeling or how I was dealing with it now that that chapter of my life was over. Withdrawing the tooth necklace from under my shirt, I showed him my spoils of war.
“Good girl.” He kissed my forehead, holding my face close to his for a long breath, then placing a second soft peck on my lips. He didn’t try to initiate anything else, and I was grateful, since the one kiss had already made me coil up with anxiety.
Whether he sensed my unease or he had learned to accept my emotional distance by now, he sat back in the chair, giving me some much-needed personal space.
I hadn’t felt the crashing waves of fear and uncertainty in their former extremes since leaving Paris. There’d been no flashbacks or panic attacks since the moment I’d divorced Peyton’s head from his body. Part of me had probably thought that was the end of it. I was cured.
But it wasn’t so easy, was it? Clawing my way back to a place of safety and sanity would take more than one headless vampire.
I stared at Holden, taking in every last bit of him I could, feasting on the visual buffet of his beauty. During our stay with The Doctor he’d been starved to the point where his skin clung to bone and his hair had begun to fall out. Now that he was back to his former modelesque glory, I only wanted to picture him like this and drive out all other memories. His dark, glossy hair, this side of too long, brushed the collar of his dress shirt.
He looked like he’d just stepped out of the pages of GQ, which stood to reason. I don’t think I’d ever seen Holden as anything other than totally pulled together.
Even when we’d been on the brink of death, he’d worn Burberry.
“I thought I’d be happier,” I confessed, though he hadn’t asked.
“About killing Peyton?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you think he was the vessel containing your peace of mind? And by cutting him open he would release it and you’d be yourself again?” When he said it like that, it sounded totally absurd, but of course I’d thought that.
“I guess I figured I’d feel like the whole thing was over finally and that would make me feel better. But it’s not over yet.”
“Who decides when it’s over?”
“It should be me, but every time I see the end in sight it turns out to just be one more false finish.” I laughed and stripped off my jacket, snapping my holster closed again. “Maybe I’ll feel better if I admit it’s never going to be over.”
“Secret…”
“Or maybe it’ll be over when Juan Carlos realizes I’m part werewolf and rips me into tiny pieces in the middle of the Tribunal chamber. I won’t have too many things to worry about after that happens.”
“Juan Carlos can’t kill you. It would defy all the rules of the Council for one Tribunal leader to kill another. As much as he despises you, he is a stickler for the rules.”
“He’ll find someone else to do it.”
“You’re very difficult to kill.”
I snorted. “I should put that on my resume.” As I flopped backwards on the bed I considered Holden’s words, thinking over and over about Tribunal leaders and the position we often found ourselves in.
Tribunal leaders…
I was shocked out of my reverie, sitting upright like I’d been stuck with a cattle prod.
“What’s wrong?”
“In Paris, Mouse said the letter he got with the shot was signed A.”
Since I’d already explained Desmond’s situation via text, he didn’t need to ask about the shot. He did ask, “Who is Mouse?”
“He was our informant. A little double-crosser too, since he was working for Peyton. He sold us up the river. Or the sewer, in this case.”
“And you’re trusting something he told you?”
“I know, I know. Chances are as good he’s lying as they are of him being honest, but still… Do you remember the West Coast Tribunal?”
“They were so charming. How could I forget?”
“Galen, Eilidh and Arturo.”
“Your point?”
“I thought the person who betrayed us while we were out there was an underling, a sentry or warden. But what if it was someone with real power? What if the A who sent Peyton the shot was Arturo?”
“That’s a stretch…”
“Maybe.” Except now that the thought was in my head, I couldn’t shake it. Arturo had the power to send my father out on the mission that ended up getting him snagged by The Doctor, and he had the influence to make Eilidh think the whole thing was her idea. He could cover his tracks because he was above suspicion.
“Isn’t it almost exactly what Daria did when she framed you? Think about it. Shift attention away from the real villain. They brought in outside help, even appealing to Sig to make it seem like they were, I don’t know…innocent?” My mouth was working faster than my brain now.
“You can’t accuse a Tribunal leader of treason without proof. And that’s what this would be, if he was caught conspiring with a known rogue. He would be bound and locked away. If you’re going to run with this theory, you need more.”
Ugh, just what I needed. Another project.
If what Holden said was right, I couldn’t hop on a plane and fly to Los Angeles to kill Arturo myself if I proved he was the bad guy here. I couldn’t be on two Tribunals.
I flopped back again and raked my fingers through my hair, trying to chase away my mounting headache. When had I last eaten? Hours? Days? I couldn’t remember the last blood I’d had, which was probably contributing to my cranky mood and my throbbing temples.
“I stopped in to see the Oracle before I came,” Holden said, reading me like the seasoned pro he was. “There’s fresh blood in the fridge.”
“Thanks, want any?” It was an empty offer. He’d only drink bagged blood if it was the absolute last option available. I wasn’t too keen on it myself lately, recalling the way I’d been rewarded for good behavior by being tossed clear bags of donor blood. But since I wasn’t about to start feeding off live humans—willing or not—I stuck with what I could stomach.
At least with blood from Calliope I felt relatively sure it had been donated freely at some point or another.
I made my way into the kitchen again and heated a glass of A positive in the microwave for twenty seconds before returning to the bedroom, sipping the liquid slowly. With each mouthful I felt a little more like myself.
“So the fur ball is…well, he’s a fur ball?”
“On his behalf I say hey. And yeah, Lucas is working on him now.”
“You trust the wolf to do what’s right?”
I shrugged and swallowed back the rest of the contents of the glass. “I don’t have much choice.”
Honestly, I didn’t trust Lucas as far as I could throw him. And strong though I was, I couldn’t throw him very far.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I wasn’t free from the nightmares.
I woke, panting, to the sound of my cell phone ringing in my ear. Fumbling to answer it, I cursed whatever tech genius had decided phones no longer needed actual buttons.
“Hello?” I mumbled, still not fully awake. I rubbed my chest where the phantom sensation of fing
ers clung to me, nails digging beneath my sternum. So much for escaping the dreams and panic attacks they brought with them.
“Secret, it’s Dominick.”
That grabbed my attention, chasing off the last of my imagined ailments.
“Desmond? Is he okay?”
Dominick hesitated. “Okay is sort of a loose stretch. He’s not bad. He’s human again and he’s resting, but the forced shift did a number on him.”
“I’m on my way.” I was already halfway into a pair of pants as I said it.
“No.”
“No?”
“He’s healing. Lucas has insisted no one can see him until we know for sure this form will hold. If there are lingering effects from the medication he was given, he might slip back into his wolf form, and there’s no knowing how he’ll react. It’s not safe for you.”
“Bullshit. I’m coming.”
“No.”
My fingers hovered over the fly of my jeans, and I glared at the darkness as though I might be able to express my anger to Dominick just by thinking mean things at him.
“I swear I will update you the moment things change. I know you want to be here, and if I thought you being here was a good idea, I wouldn’t tell you to stay away.”
“Lucas told you to call, didn’t he?”
“He thought, and I agreed, you’d believe it more coming from me.”
Damn, they had me pegged, didn’t they? Dominick was Desmond’s brother, so if he said I shouldn’t visit, he had good reason to say it, and not just because his boss told him to.
Since I was already half-dressed, I finished the process and said, “Promise me you’ll keep me posted. I want you to call the second he’s stable enough to see me.” Selfishly I hoped it wouldn’t be long, because I needed to get to Manitoba, like, yesterday. The longer I waited, the more Grandmere was at risk. But I didn’t feel right abandoning Desmond.
“I promise.” He didn’t hesitate at all in saying it, which made me believe he would. Promises were no laughing matter in the supernatural community.
He hung up, leaving me to pace my bedroom like a caged animal. What did I do now? And where had Holden buggered off to? He’d been with me when I settled in to sleep, but I’d drifted off well before sunrise, so there was nothing binding him to the apartment. Since he wasn’t here, he must have slipped out before the sun came up.