Chapter Twenty-four
MY BRAIN STRUGGLED to take in what he was saying. Turn Caitlín? Why? Why would Kyle want Theo to do that? What could he possibly hope to gain?
I struggled, not caring when the razor-sharp wooden tip broke my skin.
‘Ah, back with us?’ Kyle breathed into my ear. ‘Keep fighting me like that and you’ll stake yourself, precious.’
I ignored him and continued to thrash wildly, forcing him to lower the stake and hold me with both arms again. I managed to free one arm, but only for a moment. Kyle clamped down on my hand so hard I felt one of my fingers break.
I gasped, tears of pain burning my eyes.
Theo, meanwhile, had laid Caitlín gently on the ground. Oh, God, I wanted to go to her so much. It was like my vision had narrowed to the point where all I could see was her. Her red hair was lank and she looked sickly-pale, her face practically glowing in the darkness.
Kyle moved one hand so quickly I didn’t even notice he’d half released me. He punched me hard enough to crack ribs and I gasped, trying to focus past the pain.
‘I said, stop wriggling. Next time I’ll snap your neck.’
I forced myself to be still. He’d really do it, and then I’d be as near to death as a vampire can get. And I didn’t doubt Kyle, not for a second. He’d break my neck in front of my Maker – his ‘Master’ – and he wouldn’t blink. The ruthless efficiency that made him one of the best Enforcers in the country was the very thing that made him such a dangerous enemy. Who would have guessed that he was ambitious too?
Theo stood in the gentle breeze, last night’s rain long gone and an autumnal chill in the air. His black clothes and black hair made him seem like a slender shadow – apart from the dangerous glint of eyes and teeth.
‘You are in no position to make demands,’ he said.
He sounded calm, but I knew he was furious. Beyond furious. His rage was something that was a tangible thing, almost as though he could make it a weapon and cut out Kyle’s heart with it.
The object of all that anger simply laughed. ‘You’ve always had a subtle kind of humor. I like that about you, Theo. Of course, I am in the perfect position to make demands – you’ll do what I say or watch your “little Moth” take her final flight.’
I stared at Theo, wondering what we could do. He met my eyes and blinked, slowly. His eyes were almost completely silver, so bright I wanted to look away . . . only I couldn’t.
For the first time since he’d turned me, I wished he could be inside my head and tell me what his plan was. Did he have one? He must have a plan, right?
But what if he didn’t.
I licked my lips and tried to push strength into my shaking legs. I needed my own plan, just in case.
Theo shook his head. ‘Kyle, have you lost your mind? What will turning this one human achieve? You cannot beat me, you know that. I am older than you. Stronger than you.’
‘I may not be strong enough to kill you, but I’m smart enough to discredit you.’
Theo took another step. ‘That’s what this is about? For what purpose? Perhaps you want my place as head of the Family. Perhaps you have your eye on a greater prize – unseating Solomon . . .’
I felt Kyle’s arms stiffen. ‘Your position is the very least of this. Do you really have no clue? I think you’ve grown complacent. Look how you handed that other girl over to me to return safely to her life, her friends – handed me weakened, easy prey, covered in your scent.’
Theo ignored the taunt. ‘Why stage a coup after all this time? Do fifty years of partnership mean nothing to you?’
‘Coup?’ Kyle shook his head. ‘You’re not listening to me, old man.’
So weird to hear him call my Maker that; but then, Kyle was half his age.
Theo bared his teeth. ‘You don’t possess enough years to depose me. You clearly don’t have enough years to successfully Make a vampire.’
‘I don’t need centuries, not when I have you.’
‘Wrong,’ Theo said. ‘Without age, you cannot take my place.’
‘I don’t want to take your place. I just want you gone. I’m part of a group that believes the time is right for a change in the status of the vampires of this world. Masters like you – those who want to stay in the shadows – are only holding us back. Keeping us locked in the Dark Ages.’
‘You’re talking about announcing our existence? Integration into human society?’ Theo’s voice held disbelief.
‘Well,’ Kyle said, ‘not so much integrating as . . . governing. And I needed to prove that Moth wasn’t your only slip in self-control.’
This had gone far enough. I couldn’t stay out of it any longer. ‘You’re jealous of him, aren’t you, Kyle?’
‘Shut up,’ he growled, almost breaking my windpipe.
‘I always knew you were secretly jealous,’ I croaked. ‘Is it because he’s got bigger . . . fangs than you?’
‘Stop. Talking.’
‘Why, when I’m so good at it?’
Theo closed the distance by another tiny step. He gestured at Caitlín’s still form. ‘Why involve this girl? She is an innocent.’
Kyle barked out a laugh. ‘“Innocent”? That didn’t stop you before. I thought you had a taste for O’Neal girls . . .’ He stroked the hand holding the stake across my belly, tightening the other around my throat. ‘That one behind you is even younger than the first. You can never have them too young, right, boss? In fact, why don’t we take turns with her first? We could turn her together. I’ve always liked redheads.’
Terror parched my mouth. Not for me, not any more. I was beyond something as pointless as fear. I was dead already. But . . . Caitlín. My baby sister. The thought of Kyle hurting her made my whole body weak, hollowed out. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rip off his head and pull his heart out through his neck.
Bad thoughts piled into my terrified brain, washing away the fear with a welcome black-hearted fury.
‘Don’t you touch my sister,’ I said. ‘I’ll kill you, you sick bastard.’
‘You didn’t call your precious Maker that, did you, hmm . . .? I bet you begged him for it. I bet he made you scream.’
Yeah, but not in the way you mean, you perv, I thought.
Theo took one more step forward. ‘Nobody gets Made tonight.’
‘That’s far enough.’ Kyle pointed the stake at Theo to punctuate his words.
And that was his mistake. Well, that along with threatening my baby sister.
I slid my left arm free in the split-second I had and snatched the stake from Kyle’s hand. I sensed, rather than saw, Theo blur forward as I spun and ducked Kyle’s strike. His fist grazed my temple. He’d recovered fast and now I was off-balance.
I gripped the deadly stake and wobbled on the ledge, gazing down four floors below. I’d survive the fall, but it sure wouldn’t be pretty.
Everything went into freeze-frame.
Jace was still on the ground beside his father’s dead body. Caitlín lay behind Theo, ghostly pale. Theo was moving toward us, super-fast – vampire fast – but in my mind’s eye he moved in slow motion. Kyle seemed torn between finishing me off – all it would take was one push over the edge of the roof – and facing his former Master.
I dropped to my knees and threw myself to the side, missing out on my potentially messy swan dive by millimeters. As Kyle’s fist shot out again, Theo reached us and he grabbed the back of my jacket. He yanked me off my feet and I went down, dropping the stake over the edge of the roof, scrabbling to save myself from following it into the wide open space below.
Baring his fangs, Kyle moved, diving at Theo. I flinched as they clashed, seemingly in mid-air. It was all too fast, too brutal. Blood flowed and splashed to the ground.
Theo and Kyle began fighting, Master and Enforcer, in a whirl of faster-than-the-human-eye-can-see punches and kicks. Even I had trouble following the action.
I rolled off the ledge and limped toward Caitlín. My whole body hurt and I wanted
to curl up in a ball and not get up for a week, but this wasn’t over. It was very far from over, and I knelt beside my sister and checked her breathing. Everything seemed normal. Her heart beat in a comforting rhythm against my hand and I could feel her breath on my cheek. It seemed that Kyle had simply compelled her to sleep, which meant she would take a very long time to wake – unless another vampire broke the compulsion first. It would need a stronger vampire than the one who had placed it, so I was out of luck until Theo finished with Kyle.
He now had his Enforcer pinned face down on the roof. It looked like one of the Kyle’s arms was broken.
‘Moth.’
I spun, surprised to see Jace looking at me. The emotion on his face was like a raw and open wound. He’d dragged himself back to consciousness while I’d escaped from Kyle. I touched Caitlín’s silky hair one more time, just reassuring myself that she was really there, and crawled toward Jace. I didn’t think I could stand up again and didn’t have the energy to try.
Jace was bent over his father’s body. Murdoch Senior was dead, and although I was glad he was gone, I couldn’t hold onto that feeling for long. Not when I had a full view of the ragged grief and shock on his only son’s face. Thomas Murdoch hadn’t been a very nice man. At all. But he was still Jace’s dad, and since the death of his mother he was pretty much all Jace had.
‘What?’ I said, as I came up close to him and the bloody remains of his father.
I approached cautiously, as though Jace was a wild animal who could be spooked by sudden movements.
‘Help me with him. I can’t carry him down those stairs on my own.’
‘Jace,’ I whispered. ‘I’m so s—’
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Just . . . don’t.’ He paused. ‘I saw you fight Kyle, though. You took his stake and seemed fine.’
I couldn’t help feeling defensive. ‘I think that must have been adrenaline.’
‘Because he threatened your sister.’
‘You heard that?’ I shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess. Anyone hurts her – or even thinks about it – has to go through me first.’
‘I get that,’ he said, his voice so quiet I had to lean forward to hear him. ‘I would have been the same – had my sister lived.’
‘What?’ I searched his face. ‘You had a sister?’
He turned away. I wondered if he regretted the revelation. ‘I would have done. My mom was pregnant when she died.’
A lump rose in my throat and I had trouble swallowing past it. ‘Oh, Jace . . .’
His shoulders were rigid. Then he stopped moving, stared across the roof and cursed. Loudly.
‘What?’ My head jerked up and I looked in the direction of his shocked gaze. How could I have forgotten that Theo was fighting for his life? Was it that I had simply assumed that he would win easily?
But Theo had been weakened before fighting Kyle, and that could be the only possible explanation for the scene I saw before me. Kyle had gotten hold of Thomas Murdoch’s sword and my Maker was impaled on the end of it. The weapon had gone all the way through his body: piercing his stomach, with several inches of bloody blade protruding from his back. Theo hung on it, eyes blazing and mouth open in a silent scream. No way would he give Kyle the satisfaction of hearing him actually make a sound.
Theo was made of strong stuff, but this was bad. This was really bad. The silver must have been causing him unbearable pain.
I pulled myself up on shaking legs, using Jace’s shoulder for support.
‘Moth, what are you doing?’ He grabbed my wrist and I glared at him.
‘Don’t try to stop me.’
‘You’re crazy! You can’t even walk.’
‘This is my duty,’ I hissed, shaking him off and staggering in Theo’s direction.
Jace looked like he was considering trying to stop me, then his shoulders slumped. He glanced down at his father’s still face.
‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘It’s your funeral.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first one,’ I said, and began a limping jog across the roof. ‘Keep an eye on Caitlín for me.’
Kyle was so focused on making Theo suffer as much pain as possible that I managed to catch him in an unguarded moment. I snuck around from behind, conveniently downwind so that he wouldn’t catch my approaching scent, and used the last of my determination to power my failing body. Theo saw me coming – I know he did – but he didn’t blink. Not even while impaled on a sword.
Without a second thought, I threw myself onto Kyle’s back. No reason to fight fair any more, not after the bastard had almost crushed my skull with silver while my own back had been turned.
I grabbed his face and dug my nails into flesh. He roared, grabbing my arms and shaking wildly in an effort to dislodge me. My back hit the wall and the pain almost made me let go, but I managed to hold on. I gripped with both arms and legs and my fangs extended. I wanted to bite him. I wanted blood.
Kyle twisted around, trying to buck me off, but I hung on and forced him down onto his knees. He let go of the sword’s hilt and Theo sank to his knees, still skewered.
I didn’t know what to do, now that I was here. I was simply trying to buy my Maker time, but had no weapon other than my fangs and Kyle was moving too violently for me to have any hope of biting him.
Movement out of the corner of my eye made me hesitate.
Jace approached, wiping blood from his face. I stared at him, shock leaving me momentarily frozen. I’d thought his father’s death had broken him – thought that he’d left me to pick up the pieces of this battle alone. But, once again, the young hunter surprised me.
He gripped the hilt of his father’s sword and, without warning or any sign of squeamishness, pulled it out of Theo’s gut.
Theo fell back and lay on the roof, blood-soaked, but still . . . alive. Still here.
Jace spun the sword once, single-handed, in a flamboyant gesture that almost made me smile.
Almost. There really wasn’t much to smile about in Jace’s expression. His eyes were the darkest I’d ever seen them.
Kyle elbowed me in the stomach, and the sudden sharp pain brought tears to my eyes. But I wasn’t about to let go of him. I had a pretty good choke-hold on him – even though he couldn’t exactly choke – and I’d managed to wrap my legs around his waist to stop him taking another shot at me. I was determined to hang on until Jace did what he had to do.
The sword trembled almost imperceptibly in the younger Murdoch’s hands, whether from exhaustion or fear I wasn’t certain. Had Kyle noticed? I hoped not. Beheading a vamp with a sword wasn’t the easiest way to end our existence. Jace’s father’s sword had better be sharp. Just thinking about it made me want to throw up, but it wasn’t like Kyle didn’t deserve it.
Of course, Theo chose that moment to – impossibly – rise to his feet.
He looked amazingly calm and collected for a guy who’d been stabbed twice in the same night. He also had a set of chains in his arms.
Kyle thrashed in my grip like a shark rolling its prey. Luckily for me, he didn’t have teeth quite as deadly as a shark’s and we weren’t anywhere near water.
Theo ignored Jace and continued to approach Kyle – and me – with the chains. His expression was grim. ‘Why don’t we restrain him in a more . . . appropriate way?’
I had to admit, my arms were freaking killing me. I’d been thrown in every direction for the past couple of minutes, including being rolled on the ground and smashed against concrete. Letting go and leaving Kyle in Theo’s capable hands seemed like a pretty good plan to me, although I wasn’t sure that Jace would agree.
My eyes were irresistibly drawn to the chains that Theo cradled against his chest. He held them awkwardly, and I realized that it was because they were made of silver. Oh, nasty, I couldn’t help thinking. Kyle was in for some bad times.
Jace had other ideas. ‘Back off, he’s mine.’
Theo narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re mistaken.’
‘That monster just murdered my father
. Nobody ends him except me.’
‘No, child.’ Theo was using his extra-soothing voice – the one that left a thrill of pleasure running through his willing blood donors. ‘Kyle belongs to me, and only to me. Your involvement is . . . unfortunate.’
‘Unfortunate? My father is dead.’ Jace made it a statement, his voice ice-cold and controlled but his face twisted with hate.
‘This one disobeyed me and tried to remove me as the head of Boston’s Family. He risked uncovering our existence to the world at large. That is a far more serious crime than the death of a hunter.’
Fury poured off of Jace in sickening waves. Kyle had frozen in my arms, waiting for judgment. I released him and backed away, shaking my arms to try getting some feeling back into them. I touched Jace’s back and he spun around and glared at me.
I shrugged, facing my Maker. ‘We could stake him,’ I said, ‘but I dropped the one I had.’
‘Staking’s too quick,’ Theo said.
I shivered at his tone, wondering what punishment he had in mind for the man he’d trusted with his life for almost fifty years.
But then, to immortal vampires, a decade is just the blink of an eye. Kyle had been biding his time – five decades must have seemed a cheap price to pay for gaining Theo’s trust. Or perhaps his shift in loyalties had been more gradual. Perhaps it hadn’t all been a lie.
Theo knelt by his fallen Enforcer and endured the silver-burn on his hands while he secured the chains around Kyle’s chest and arms. The fact that he lowered himself to do the task himself held a significance I couldn’t help noticing. He was showing Kyle a small measure of respect by doing the binding with his own hands.
I didn’t think the disgraced vampire deserved even that gesture, but it wasn’t exactly my place to argue. Theo would do as he pleased whatever my opinion, so for once I decided to keep my mouth shut.
It turned out that Theo’s plan for Kyle was to truss him up, Thanksgiving-style, in heavy silver chains, and leave him on the roof to wait for sunrise. At his age, the sun would be intolerable – it would burn him to cinders. It was a harsh but appropriate judgment, and one I was certain the Elders would approve of. There would be no need to speak to Solomon first – Theo knew that there was no mercy for traitors.
Falling to Ash Page 22