His eyes went again to Pixie’s neck, the terrible, animal-attack-looking scar his hand almost covered, but not quite. Was that what vampires really did to people? To each other? Was that what Pixie was going to—
“Jude. We don’t have time for this,” Jasper prodded, grave voice bringing him back to the present. “I’m not sure Pixie does either.”
He did know one simple thing: if their positions were reversed, Pixie would save Jude’s life without question. He wouldn’t even have hesitated this long. Jude knew that like he knew the full moon meant trouble, and guitars killed fascists. He knew it like he knew Eva’s steady eyes and Jasper’s quick smile. Like Felix’s warm voice. He knew it like he knew he’d been right for so many years about everything and finally been vindicated—almost everything. He’d been wrong about one thing. One person. And here he had the chance to be right again.
“Okay,” Jude said, voice and hands steady, and rolled up his sleeve. “Pixie?”
He didn’t get an answer. Pixie’s eyes were shut and face slack, even his ears were still. He had slipped back into unconsciousness. Jude gave him a gentle shake, as much as he dared, but he didn’t move. Jude felt a stab of panic in his chest and let out a swear under his breath. “He’s not—what do I do? I don’t know how to—”
“Do you trust him?” It wasn’t Jasper who spoke, but Letizia, appearing at Jude’s elbow as if out of nowhere.
“What?”
As Jude stared at her, she held up one finger, light catching her black, curved claw. “I won’t ask you to trust me, you’ve got no reason to. It’s not about me anyway. Do you trust him?”
Jude didn’t hesitate. He never would again. “Yes.”
“Then give me your arm,” she said, sounding perfectly reasonable and businesslike. “One small cut, I promise. That’s all he’ll need. It might sting, but not for long. Vampire saliva has a numbing effect.”
“This is really happening,” Jude murmured, holding out his arm but keeping his eyes on Pixie. He had to be doing the right thing. Everything had led to this. They’d faced monsters and traumatic memories, they’d made a deal and worked together beyond the terms and conditions. Somewhere along the way, Jude had started to trust him, look over his shoulder, or feel for the soft warmth of a bat in his pocket, and be relieved to find Pixie still there. This had to be the right thing. He had to still be there when this was over. “This is—ah!”
It did sting. But it really was only one small and shallow cut, a single, fast swipe from her claw across his skin. It didn’t even bleed nearly as much as he expected—but Pixie’s eyes still snapped open, black pupils round and huge, with barely a bit of brown and white around the edges. As he stared, wide-eyed at the small trickle of red on Jude’s forearm, he started to shake, hands curled into fists. But he didn’t move, seeming paralyzed, caught between an instinctual desire and abject terror of following it.
“It’s okay,” Jude said, meaning every syllable and wondering exactly when all his doubts had been replaced by such certainty. “You’re okay. I give you permission.”
Pixie’s feverish eyes were filled with a combination of anxiety and hope and, when they flicked up to meet Jude’s, he held out his arm and nodded confirmation. Pixie didn’t lurch or spring forward, instead sitting up just enough to reach and, when his mouth closed over the cut, he didn’t bite down at all. Jude felt weak with relief. No fangs. Even after all this, he’d been expecting something aggressive, something terrifying, ripping teeth and dizzying pain. He’d been ready for something like the attack that had ravaged Pixie’s neck. But what he got was soft, warm, entirely unlike a bite and so much more like a kiss.
As it went on, Jude slowly felt his own tense muscles relax. He didn’t know when he’d slipped one hand under Pixie’s head to support him and make the angle less awkward, but he knew, like everything else in this moment, it had been the right thing.
Jude’s primary attention remained on Pixie, but he was aware of the others behind him, softly talking amongst themselves. It was comforting, a reminder that he wasn’t alone, even if he couldn’t bring himself to join.
“Thank you,” Jasper said in a quiet, awed voice. He still held Felix’s hand, gently avoiding the smoking welts, and stared at it as he spoke. “For sparing Felix.”
“It was the least I could do,” Letizia said with a one-shouldered shrug, as if she’d just picked up something on his grocery list. “I mean that. The very least.”
“You could have hurt him.” Jasper gave his head a slow shake. He moved it gingerly, haltingly, sure signs that it was starting to give him trouble again. “Easily, from the look of it. Thank you for freeing him instead.”
“I saw the way you looked at him.” Letizia gave a slow smile, starkly different from her usual smirk. “Like he’s all that matters in the world. Like he is the world. I looked at someone like that once.”
Jasper started to reply, but the moment he looked back at Felix, words seemed to fail. He just looked at him, making no effort to wipe away the fresh tears that spilled from his eyes. One hand went to the back of his head and neck, as if the pain were intensifying, but he didn’t look away. Felix’s eyes followed the motion, widening in something that looked like mingled recognition and concern. He raised one grey, burned hand as well, and slowly, gently, laid it on Jasper’s head where he’d started rubbing. Jasper drew in a shuddering gasp at the touch, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, as if he were witnessing something inexpressibly transcendent. He leaned into Felix’s hand, closed his eyes, and was silent.
“Thanks from me too,” Pixie said then, carefully withdrawing from Jude’s arm and weakly swiping at his mouth until no trace of red remained. The cut on Jude’s arm didn’t bleed nearly as much as he’d imagined, and in fact seemed to be scabbing over now that Pixie was done—which he seemed to be, eyeing the cut but making no move toward it. His voice was still faint, but he seemed to have recovered a great deal from even a small amount of blood. When he opened his eyes, they were clear, and his pupils weren’t quite as blown out. “To both of you. Felix…”
The other vampire didn’t speak, or remove his hand from Jasper’s head. Slowly, he looked over at Pixie, looking almost afraid of what he might hear, as well as deeply ashamed. Jude’s heart ached to see that expression on Felix’s face. But there seemed to be no blame on Pixie’s side, nothing but the same warmth and gratitude he’d given the others.
“Felix was there the night I got taken. The whole time, actually.” As Pixie spoke, Felix’s shoulders sagged and his head dropped until it hung low, once-smooth black hair hiding his face in a tangled curtain. Until now his wings had hung half-open behind him, but now they came up, curling around himself as if he wanted to hide behind them. “No, no, don’t feel bad! He helped me escape,” Pixie said quickly, looking up at the others as if to make sure nobody doubted it. Once satisfied, he turned back to Felix. “And you weren’t doing any of it because you wanted to. Believe me, I know. Cruce’s bad enough on his own, but he’s nothing compared to what you… what we… I just know you didn’t have a choice. It’s okay.”
There was something behind that, Jude thought, remembering Cruce’s words about orders, his master. The implication filled him with foreboding but with Pixie barely recovering and clearly having difficulty talking about it, now didn’t seem like the time to bring an all-new horror. Jude didn’t ask the question on his mind, but he’d save it for later.
Felix didn’t answer either. Instead he gave Pixie a slow nod, then shut his eyes, gently leaning against Jasper and looking more exhausted than anyone Jude had ever seen, living, dead, or otherwise.
“I just can’t believe this is happening,” Jasper said, smiling through his tears. He’d told Jude not long ago that for the first time in years, Jude seemed alive. Amazingly, the same seemed to be true of him. “We have to tell Eva! As soon as we can—if that’s all right with you?” Felix nodded without hesitation, and Jasper smiled, looking more blissful than he had in five years o
r longer. “Then it’s settled. We’ll have our lives back. Or even better, new ones.”
“Wait, I’m not sure about this,” Jude said, hesitating as he felt the full weight of not just all that had happened, but all that he’d denied. There was so much he hadn’t been able to tell her—partly because she hadn’t wanted to hear it, hadn’t been ready. How could anybody be ready? Still, as he imagined actually revealing everything, no emotion rose so strongly to the surface as guilt. “This is just a lot to take in all at once, and she doesn’t know anything about this. Maybe we should wait—what?”
Letizia gave a snort and he looked up in time to catch the vaguely annoyed look on her face. “Unbelievable.”
“Listen,” Jude said, with what he felt was admirable patience, half-turning to face her without letting go of Pixie. “I’m grateful for your help, really. We appreciate it. But you don’t know us, and you don’t know Eva.”
“I know what it’s like to lose a friend.” Letizia folded her arms and stared Jude down; he suppressed a shiver at her hard, unyielding eyes. Cruce had called her a slayer-witch. He thought he’d been a hunter, or at least working to become one. But he knew the real thing when he saw it, and knew he’d never compare. “And I know what I’d do if I thought it would bring them back. Shouldn’t yours at least get that choice?”
In the awkward silence that followed, Jude peered into the shadowy tunnel entrances around the cavern, pointing his thumb in the direction Nails and Maestra had disappeared in their pursuit. “Are they coming back?”
It was a weak subject change, but Letizia seemed content to take it. “They deserve a free flight,” she said, face softening slightly and reverting to her customary smirk. “And the chance to chase Cruce—even if they won’t catch him. Still,” she said, taking a step away from the group. “I’d better go make sure they don’t run into any more trouble. The world’s unfriendly to baby vampires.”
Again, there was no sound or magical flash. She was simply there one second and gone the next. Confused, Jude looked around for the bat he now expected to appear whenever this happened, but there was none. Letizia had simply disappeared.
“She likes drama, doesn’t she?” he asked, turning to Jasper to find him actually smiling.
“I believe witches enjoy it just as much as vampires. And some people happen to be both.”
Jude shook his head and gave a soft laugh. It felt good. “How are we doing?”
“I have everything,” Jasper said, looking down at Felix’s burned hand in his own as if he still couldn’t believe it. Felix still didn’t speak, but he nodded and pulled Jasper closer, reaching out with one wing to gently encircle him in its black, leathery-looking folds. “I’m never letting go. And it looks like I’m not the only one.” Jasper nodded down at Pixie, still held safely in Jude’s arms, and raised his eyebrows so far they almost disappeared into his hair. Jude probably would have gotten his point anyway.
“It’s about time we all went home,” he said instead of answering Jasper’s hint, eyebrows coming together as he warily took in Felix’s ragged clothes, grey skin, long and untended hair, claws, and wings. “But how are we going to get them there? It should still be night, the mall’s closed, but what if someone’s hanging around?”
“I can just bat again,” Pixie offered, with an only slightly-loopy-sounding giggle. He was sounding stronger all the time, but still nowhere near actually walking anywhere. “You still got pockets, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve got—fine,” Jude said, steadfastly ignoring the heat rising in his cheeks. “You do that. Felix, can you… bat?”
Felix was silent for a few seconds, looking at the ground with such a deeply ashamed expression it made Jude’s heart ache. Having Felix back, only to see that kind of pain on his face, was almost more than he could stand. Finally, he spoke, voice faint and rasping, so rough it sounded painful.
“I can’t transform. Either way. Bat or human. I’m stuck between. I’m sorry.”
“Hush about that,” Jasper said without hesitation. “You have nothing to apologize for, or worry about. We’ll get you home and worry about the rest later.” Felix didn’t look convinced, but Jasper did, smiling. “Do you know, walking down the street with you is the one part of this I’m not worried about? I’ve seen stranger-looking people by far, every day. And that’s in broad daylight—such that it is in Portland, another unexpected bonus.”
“We do kind of fit in here.” Pixie gave a lopsided grin that made Jude’s anxious heart feel a little lighter, a little warmer. “Just keeping it weird.”
Jude wanted to call Eva right away. He’d wanted to the moment he got home, but Pixie asleep on his couch and every window in the apartment covered with towels and duct tape would have raised too many questions that he didn’t know how to answer. And Jude wasn’t about to move him.
Jasper had taken Felix back to his place and Jude had reluctantly let them go—taking his eyes off Felix was almost physically painful, but then, so was looking at him. And Felix hadn’t been able to look at him fully yet at all. Was he too ashamed of his new, half-transformed appearance? Had he heard Jude was supposed to be a hunter—was he actually afraid? Either possibility was unthinkable. Jude wanted to follow them, stay looking, stay touching, stay close, even if regaining whatever they’d once had might be impossible. But that would have left Pixie alone and that was definitely impossible.
Jude didn’t quite know what to do with himself. For once, he had no driving urge to hit the dark streets and root out fanged threats, especially when almost every vampire he’d met recently had turned out to be much less threatening than he’d expected. Glad as he was that the fight was over, the hunt itself had given his life purpose and direction. Where did he go from here? He didn’t know. For the first time, he had options, and that was overwhelming. Still, he couldn’t just sit here in a dark room and do nothing. He’d never been good at that, and there was someone he still badly needed to talk to. As a few rays of sunlight just barely started to peek through gaps he’d missed, he picked up the phone.
It only rang once.
“Eva? It’s—”
“Jude! God, it’s good to hear your voice.” Her relief was palpable and she spoke fast, as if galvanized into a second wind after a long, exhausting night. “I checked your place a couple times and you weren’t there—I was literally just about to walk out the door to check again. If you weren’t there I was going to call the police. When did you get back?”
“Late,” he said, realizing he didn’t specifically know what time. Before sunrise, thankfully. “Really late. I’m sorry for making you worry.”
“It’s fine,” she said, in the quick, light tone that suggested that it wasn’t fine, but acknowledged that neither of them had the energy to analyze it yet. “Did you get him back?”
Jude nodded. Then, upon realizing foggily that people couldn’t generally see through phones, he made himself talk. “Yeah. Yes, Pixie’s fine—or he will be, I think. He’s actually sleeping here, I’ve got him on my couch.”
“Sounds like he had a rough night.”
“Yeah,” Jude sighed. He may have been sleepwalking for five years, never fully awake, but it didn’t feel like he’d slept in that long either. Sleeping for five more years was starting to sound pretty good. “We… yeah, it was. Really rough.”
Eva was silent on the other end of the line. Jude couldn’t even hear her breathing. She was going to ask him to take her through it. Exactly who’d kidnapped Pixie and why—he’d managed to avoid saying the ‘V’ word last night, though it had been heavily implied. She’d accepted it then, but now? It was daylight, she was about to ask directly, and Jude was out of excuses. He had to tell her the truth.
Finally, she broke the silence, but it wasn’t to ask the question turning his insides to ice. “So, that sounds like the good news.”
“What?” he frowned; she’d veered off-course. This wasn’t turning out like he’d rehearsed it in his head.
“Getting
Pixie back. Everything turning out okay. That’s the good news, right? So what’s the bad news?” Eva prodded, sounding a little afraid to hear the answer. “You’re holding something back, you’re scared to tell me because it’s really bad, or you think I’ll think you’re crazy, or back on your vampire bullshit. And you don’t have to. Not from me.”
“You can tell that, huh?” He leaned against the wall, letting his head tip back and eyes slip shut.
“You’re not that subtle, Jude.” Eva paused. When she spoke again she sounded as hesitant, anxious, and exhausted as he felt. “It’s something new, isn’t it? Usually you’re not exactly quiet about… things. If it was just, uh, the usual, I can’t imagine you holding back.”
“Neither can I,” he said with a tired smile, and a just-as-tired but true rush of affection. How well did she know him? How was it that some people just worked themselves into the patchwork of your life, until it felt like they’d always been there? That memories without them seemed empty, even if they outnumbered the years they’d been together? That the time before knowing them felt like a life belonging to someone else?
“So what are you holding back?” she prodded. And how well did he know her? She just wouldn’t be Eva if she let it go. They were the same that way. Always had been.
“Holding back?” He sucked in a breath. Held it. Let it go. “Yeah. I am. I’m just trying to figure out how to say it in a way that doesn’t freak either of us out.”
“But it’s not working?”
“Not really, no.”
“Then why don’t you just say it now and we freak out later?” Her tone sounded half-joking but he could hear the tension, the same anxiety that made it feel like his stomach was eating him from the inside out.
“Because… it’s not the kind of thing you want to hear over the phone.”
“What happened?” She’d dropped all attempts at lightness and now the fear was undisguised.
The Secret Ingredient Is Love. No, Really Page 17