‘Take a seat,’ Pummel said, pouring him a drink, sliding it across the coffee table towards him as Eden complied.
He leaned back in the sofa, the shot glass in his hand. He knocked it back in one, but kept a hold of it.
‘You’ve been a while,’ Pummel said. ‘I didn’t expect it to take you this long. Did you do what you needed to?’
‘I did.’
Pummel nodded. He met his gaze again as he reached for his own shot. ‘But no Dice with you?’
‘He’s occupied elsewhere. I left him too it.’
Pummel exhaled tersely.
A more rancid sense of unease curdled Jessie’s stomach. There was something wrong. She flashed an anxious glance in Eden’s direction, but his gaze remained calmly on Pummel.
‘I’ve found lots of thinking to occupy me too,’ Pummel declared. ‘In fact, I’ve been learning lots of interesting things,’ he added, with a drawl that added to the tension in her chest. ‘Particularly about Jessie here.’
Her heart pounded. Her hands tightened to fists beneath her thighs.
But Eden remained composed, his poker face as efficient as always.
‘So I’m glad you’re back,’ Pummel declared. ‘Because I have another job for you.’
‘Like what?’
‘I want you to punish her.’
Her attention snapped to Pummel. Her stomach yanked into a knot.
Eden raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘Punish her?’
‘I went in her room earlier. I’d told her to stay there. Only she wasn’t there. Worse, I discovered she’d damaged the bars I’d had put in for her security. It seems she can remove them whenever she chooses to. It seems Jessie has been off on jaunts, even after what happened to her earlier. So yes, Eden, Jessie needs to be punished. And as you’re in charge of her care now, I want you to do it. And I’m going to watch.’
She looked back at Eden, who glanced at her only fleetingly.
Pummel was cornering him. He knew. He knew something. He had to.
They’d messed up. The message had got back to him about Dice.
Her heart nearly left her chest as Pummel pulled her sketchpad from under the sofa.
He slammed the open page down onto the coffee table nearest Eden. ‘I found that in her room too,’ he said. ‘It seems Jessie has something of an obsession with you.’ His glare locked on Eden. ‘I’m hoping it’s not mutual.’
Eden picked up the sketchpad like he’d never seen it before. He smiled before he threw it back down. ‘Do you blame the girl?’ he asked with a nonchalant shrug.
Pummel smiled. Pummel laughed. Then it faded. ‘I will if I find out you’ve been fucking her behind my back. That this little arrangement of celibacy we’ve had here has been a lie. Then, yeah, I’m going to blame her all right.’ His gaze locked squarely on Eden’s. ‘But you haven’t, have you, Eden? Like you said, you don’t have “fucking stupid” tattooed anywhere just yet – do you?’ He leaned forward slightly. ‘But I need to hear you say it. Especially considering Tatum informs me that Mya let something slip to her earlier. Something about it being you who killed a couple of my men three nights ago, that you took a nasty stab wound, that you might not have made it if Jessie here hadn’t intervened.’
Jessie snatched back a breath. She glared at Tatum. Tatum who knew what Pummel would do to her, let alone what her life would be after that. The cruelty of it was intolerable.
Worse, Tatum met her glare with an indifference that wrenched her insides before the con turned her attention back to Eden – Eden who, if he survived that next hour, would no doubt be Tatum’s reward for her proven loyalty to Pummel. For Tatum it was win-win. For Jessie, it was over.
‘Go on, Eden,’ Pummel said, his glare cold, steady, composed. ‘Deny it.’
The moment of silence was agony, Eden’s eyes unreadable.
Eden stretched his elbows out on the back of the sofa and shrugged. ‘What’s the point?’
Jessie’s pulse flatlined.
Pummel raised his eyebrows. ‘So you’re not denying it? You’re not even going to try to deny it?’
‘No, I’m not going to deny it. Why should I? Jessie’s the best I’ve ever had.’
He could have lied. He could have at least attempted to lie. He was the most convincing liar she had ever met. But there he sat, eyes locked on Pummel, a glaze of triumph in his expression.
She looked across at an open-mouthed Tatum, the shock in her eyes as transparent as her indignation as her glare snapped to Jessie.
And, at that moment, Jessie felt a little flare of triumph too. That she was no longer a nobody in that room to be ridiculed, bullied or ignored. That she had been the one to pull the rug from under all their feet.
But reality re-struck instantly. Reality that she was still bound to Pummel. Reality of what could be if she didn’t think fast – if Eden didn’t think fast.
She had no idea what the hell he was playing at but, this time, even she wasn’t so sure he knew what he was doing.
‘I guess you’re losing your touch, Pummel,’ Eden added, a taunting curl marking his lips.
The room suddenly closed in on itself. She was going to have to intervene. Not with Pummel, she was helpless against Pummel, but she’d rip everything else from him if he took Eden from her.
Eden’s blatancy evoked uncertainty in Pummel though – as if sensing Eden had to be hiding something to dare be so bold.
It created uncertainty in her too. That maybe Eden did know what he was doing.
Or that maybe, in the few hours he’d been gone, he’d worked out her tears offered more than just permanent healing.
Her pulse picked up a notch again.
Eden wasn’t going down without a fight.
Eden was cutting his losses.
Pummel lit a joint, puffing a few smoke rings before settling back into the sofa. ‘You don’t smoke, do you, Eden?’
Eden’s gaze didn’t flinch. ‘I try not to.’
‘You’re wise. This stuff will kill you – unless you’re a vampire, of course. Those lucky bastards get to puff all day without so much as a black cloud in their lungs. All of the pleasure, none of the pain. Just like how they rule this territory – acting like they own the place. The likes of Kane Malloy and Caleb Dehain sat on their thrones, dictating how we should live, like they’re any better. But I’m going to put them right back in their place, Eden, and remind them who’s top of the food chain.
‘And I was hoping you’d be a part of that. That you’d be a part of us. I liked you, Eden, from the minute you walked in this place. I liked your attitude, your swagger, your confidence. Most of all, I liked that you have all of that and you get the job done. I could have worked with someone like you for a very long time. You could have helped me turn my plans into reality. So, tell me, now that you know I’m prepared to take on the likes of Kane Malloy and Caleb Dehain, what the fuck makes you so arrogant as to sit there and think I won’t take you on right now?’
‘You forgot Jask Tao.’
Pummel frowned. His eyes flashed with momentary uncertainty. ‘What?’
‘In your Blackthorn line-up – you forgot Jask Tao. I don’t think he’d appreciate that.’ There was a moment’s pause. ‘But then we both know he’d appreciate you holding his young even less.’
Pummel’s eyes flared and then narrowed.
‘That was the whole point of that exercise you had set up with Dice, wasn’t it?’ Eden said, not even a glitch in his composure. ‘You wanted to test how the ground lay because you want me to use my contacts to sell them on. You know what a risky operation you’re thinking of running – one that needs to be handled properly, professionally. And you know I’m the right one for the job.’
‘But unfortunately for you, I work only with those I trust.’
‘And as I said from the outset, my loyalties go to whoever pays me the most. I think Jessie should just about cover it,’ Eden said.
Her heart skipped another beat.
Pummel laughed an unnerving laugh as his stony grey eyes locking on Eden’s. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘It’s not a request, Pummel.’ He leaned back in his seat, his gaze steady on Pummel in a move that clearly infuriated the con even more than the request itself. Eden gave a small shrug. ‘I’m not being unreasonable here. I’m striking a deal. I’ll pass those young on for you, I’ll make you very rich in the process, but I want a pay-off for that risk – because we both know how much of a big fucking risk I’d be taking.’
‘I knew you were a cocky bastard the minute you walked in here, but still I gave you the benefit of the doubt. That’s what offends me the most about this situation.’
‘And what offends me is that I’m not convinced you’re taking this seriously,’ Eden declared. ‘But I would if I were you. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen lycans in action, Pummel. I doubt it. They’ve been so well behaved under these new regulations, probably because they’re claimed to have the greatest survival instinct of all the third species. I saw a recording of them in action once though – not a legal one, of course. I’m telling you, it’s unnerving to watch. When they attack, they operate in perfect harmony, perfect synchronisation. It’s very impressive. And quick? Shit, yeah. If they want someone dead, they’re dead. And a pack like that headed up by a leader like Jask Tao…’ he sucked air through his teeth. ‘I’m a reckless bastard, Pummel, as you can tell, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t opt to be on the receiving end of that. Then again, of all the young, I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to take Corbin Saylen’s either.’ His smirk was almost as terrifying as Pummel’s.
‘How the fuck…?’
‘Don’t worry about how I know – just think smart. Like I said, I can make you a very rich man, Pummel, but she’s my percentage. I want what binds her to you and then I’m taking her with me.’
Pummel licked his lower lip. He leaned forward, placed his joint in the ashtray before pouring himself a shot. ‘You do know, if I choose to call your bluff, what it could mean for both of you, don’t you? Not least her? All the potential things I can do to her and how she’ll be helpless to stop me.’
‘You’re not going to call my bluff,’ Eden declared.
‘No?’
‘No.’ Eden glanced down at his watch. ‘I’m a little behind time but that works more to your disadvantage than mine, which is why you’ll want to come to a decision quickly. I have an observer watching this house right now. That observer is in further contact with another about a mile down the road. In an untraceable chain, and one you’ll never get to in time, another is stood outside the lycan compound as we speak.’
Jessie’s attention snapped back to Eden. He had to be bluffing. He had to be.
‘I either walk out of here with Jessie in the next fifteen minutes and make it to my pickup,’ Eden clarified, ‘or that final contact is going to knock on Jask’s Tao’s door.’
Pummel laughed. This time it was through gritted teeth. ‘Fuck you.’
‘No, fuck you,’ Eden said, his glare resting on Pummel. ‘I give it less than half an hour before those lycans break the record speed and get here from the north. No matter where you hide, no matter where you run, I give it a further ten before they track you down. Even if you do get away, there will be nowhere in Blackthorn that you can hide once they’ve got a hold of your scent.’
Pummel’s eyes tightened to slits, his upper lip curling back slightly like a feral animal ready to rip the throat out of another invading its territory.
‘Be nice, Pummel,’ Eden said. ‘I’m giving you a way out. Kill me and you all die. Give Jessie to me and you survive.’
‘I ought to gut you in a public display.’
‘You ought to know checkmate when you see it. I’m putting in a decent offer. Be a leader or be a coward – it’s your choice.’
‘You dare to fucking threaten me?’
Jessie's attention flitted from Pummel to Eden and back again, the glares of both scorching each other’s with a gut-churning tenacity.
‘Do you dare to be so arrogant as to even contemplate saying no, Pummel? I don’t think your crew will appreciate your suicide mission, do you?’
Jessie glanced from Homer, to Chemist, to Tatum, their attention equally flitting between Eden and Pummel – the first time she had ever witnessed their shared alarm.
But then something distracted her.
At first there was a strange sense of disquiet. She could feel it in the sudden density of the atmosphere.
Then there was the thrumming – an almost flatlining thrumming that permeated deep against her eardrums.
The thrumming became like a heartbeat – a slow, resonating heartbeat.
‘Pummel,’ a voice called out from the doorway.
‘Not now!’ Pummel snapped, not yet having detected what she had.
Jessie looked at the con rooted to the spot in the doorway, his knuckles as white as his ashen face. ‘You’ve got to come and see…’ He stopped. His eyes widened further to the point he showed the whites of them as he stared across the room towards the pool table. ‘Shit,’ he hissed.
And all of them snapped their attention towards the source of his curse.
36
The child was stood three feet in front of the pool table. With tendrils of fine black hair falling scraggily to her thin waist, her heavy fringe hanging over her eyes and covering most of her face, it was hard to determine how old she was. But, from her stature, Eden guessed her to be six or seven.
Her hands were loose by her sides, her feet together giving her a regimental appearance had her shoulders not been hunched as if she was looking at the floor. Either that or she was staring across the room, up through her fringe – a prospect that, in her stillness, only added to the menace of her inexplicable appearance.
‘Where the fuck did she come from?’ Homer asked with a wary scowl as he rose from his seat the same time as the others.
Eden glanced across at Jessie to see she was stood alongside Pummel, his fist gripping her upper arm as if ready to use her as a shield.
But adding to his unease was the way Jessie was frowning at the figure. Worse was the wariness in her eyes as if she understood what was going on. Despite her fixed attention though, she wasn’t so distracted as to not sense Eden looking at her.
Her gaze snapping to meet his. ‘Run,’ was all she mouthed.
But he was going nowhere without her.
‘That’s what I came to tell you. There’s more of them. They came from nowhere,’ the con who had barged through the door explained. ‘Dobe threw a bottle at one of them – it went straight through her. What the fuck are they, Pummel?’
‘More to the point, what the fuck is she looking at?’ Homer demanded.
They all followed the direction of the child’s gaze.
‘Tatum,’ Chemist said from beside her, almost stumbling over the coffee table, tripping over Homer and Eden’s feet as he backed away from her.
Tatum glared across at him before looking back at the figure, until she too took a wary step back.
Eden’s first thought was that the child was a ghost. In all the research, their existence had never been proven but, based on the calibre of the so-called human beings in the room, if this was a ghost, he had a feeling its presence was all about revenge.
‘Hey!’ Pummel called across the room to it.
But the child didn’t move.
‘I’m fucking talking to you!’ he yelled.
Feeling a chill at the back of his neck, seeing the look in Jessie’s eyes as she looked beyond his shoulder, Eden turned around to see there was another almost identical figure now stood in the corner of the room near the door.
It was stood in exactly same position with the exact same hunched shoulders and lowered head, resonating the same eerie stillness. At first he thought it was looking at him, but realised it was looking at Chemist.
Chemist who was already backing towards that very door before flinching on seeing it.
<
br /> ‘Fuck,’ Chemist hissed on a whisper as he took a wary step back from that direction too. ‘Is that thing looking–’
A split second later, everyone flinched.
The creature staring at Chemist lunged forward, tiny feet pattering frantically on the floor as if on a treadmill that wasn’t going anywhere. Its hair blew back from its eyes to reveal black canyons where eyeballs should have been, a toothless mouth gaping as it screamed. But it wasn’t any earthbound scream. And the deep resonance within its tone, let alone the wrinkled almost leathery face that was now exposed, had anything but childlike qualities. Neither did the force with which it knocked Chemist flat on his back on the ground, the other one simultaneously doing the same with Tatum, its tiny body pinning her down with ease.
Everyone instinctively backed away.
The con who had entered the room hightailed it straight back out of the door. Beyond it, beyond the arch, chaos was ensuing – yells, screams, the banging of doors, the smash and collision of furniture.
Whatever they were, there were more of them. Many more.
Letting Jessie go, Pummel grabbed a nearby chair and swiped at the creature, Homer attempting the same with the one that pinned down Chemist. But the chairs went straight through them.
Tatum and Chemist lay there transfixed, their bodies juddering, eyes wide and helpless as the creatures held them down, as they held their gaping mouths over theirs. They were changing: second by second, Tatum’s and Chemist’s skin was shrivelling, their eyes sinking, their hair greying. They were aging. Whatever the creatures were doing to them, it was as if they were drawing the life force out of them with every second that passed.
Pummel stared at Homer. Their exchange said it all. Pummel grabbed a hold of Jessie again, dragging her across the room towards the door.
Eden knew he had to let him. He knew where he was taking her. Pummel was bailing ship – and logic dictated he’d be taking the necklace with him.
From Jessie’s lack of fight, the look in her eyes as she captured Eden’s for a split second, she’d worked it out too.
Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Page 37