Hunting the Dark

by Karen Mahoney

  ‘So this girl, this Subject Ten . . . you think she’s a dhampir?’ Jace asked.

  ‘I don’t know anything for sure,’ I said, even though it seemed like the only logical conclusion I could draw right now. ‘But I do know this: we have a dead Elder. Not just a Master vampire, in charge of a city, but an Elder who oversees all the Masters and all the vampires in a state. Nicole was powerful. Whoever ended her existence must have had good reason – it wasn’t a random killing.’

  ‘Unless your Maker was the real target.’

  I squirmed over that for a moment, because of course I’d wondered the same thing. But my gut said something different. ‘Let’s assume Nicole was the mark, at least for now.’

  ‘But if we think the shooter might have been this girl you tussled with, what was her motivation? And why would she be implicating me?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure that it was her, although it’s pretty likely.’ I took a slug of cold coffee and grimaced. ‘She could be an assassin, I guess. Although that won’t help us to figure out motivation. Maybe someone hired her.’

  ‘Not just someone,’ Jace said. ‘Maybe a whole group of someones. Like the United Vampire Alliance?’

  I shook my head. ‘No way. That’s run by vamps.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t take out vampires who would stand in the way of them declaring their existence to the world, though. Isn’t that their agenda? Look at what Kyle did to your Maker.’

  Neither of us mentioned Jace’s dad’s role in that particular mess. I quickly moved on. ‘It’s a good theory, but I know for a fact that Nicole supported the UVA. Or, if not the organization, at least she agreed with their principles.’

  Thinking back to that debate between her and Theo on the street, just before she’d been dusted, made my stomach hurt. Nicole had seemed positive about the idea of bringing vampires out into the open. Could that have anything to do with this?

  Jace rubbed a hand across his face. ‘Really? Well, OK then. At least that rules them out. I guess that leaves us with the Nemesis Project – whatever that actually is.’

  I pointed at my laptop screen. ‘This stuff I accessed via Quinn describes what looks like a large-scale operation. There are definite ties to vampires – and not in a good way. We’re talking about something run by scientists.’

  ‘Dr Stark.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We at least have enough information to go digging. I haven’t even gone through half this stuff yet.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll help with that.’

  ‘Cool.’ I tried to stay cool myself, thinking about how Jace and I really were working together this time. Like a team! Of course, he would always have to be my sidekick. No way was he the boss of me.

  ‘But if we’re looking at an entire organization,’ my sidekick asked, ‘where does that girl come into it? Do dhampires actually exist? Is she part of Nemesis? Did they send her out to kill Nicole, target Theo, and then murder Quinn? And again,’ he said, ‘what do I have to do with any of this? Where the hell are the connections?’

  My shoulders slumped. This was enough to fry my brain. ‘I don’t know. It’s like we have all the pieces of the puzzle – everything is there, but I’m not sure how it fits together. For all we know, you were just a convenient person to frame. They knew Quinn, and that would have led them to you and your father.’

  ‘But then why kill Quinn? Were they done with him, so they just tossed him aside?’ Jace looked just as frustrated as I felt.

  I tapped the table absent-mindedly. ‘I know this gives us even more questions, but I’m still not sure I believe that Subject Ten is . . . what I think she might be. I’ll have to speak to Theo about it.’

  But I didn’t know whether I should speak to Theo. Not because I wanted to run around playing hero and deal with this on my own, and not because I wanted to do my usual thing where I kicked against authority – just because I could. Honestly, I simply didn’t know that I could trust Theo right now. He was acting super-weird, and everyone else was so damn respectful of him they didn’t dare question him. He’d been effectively alone since Kyle’s betrayal, after fifty years of so-called friendship, even though Holly was doing her best to insinuate herself as his new Enforcer. There were other vampires in Boston, sure, but they weren’t people that Theo felt close to. He was, at heart, a loner. Running a Family didn’t come naturally to him.

  Jace nudged me. ‘What are you thinking about? You were miles away just then.’

  ‘Sorry. I keep trying to make sense of this and all I seem to do is go round in circles.’ I thought for a moment, clutching at all available straws. ‘Hey, do you think maybe your dad knew about the Nemesis Project?’

  ‘Why would he?’ The defensive tone didn’t escape me, but I ploughed on regardless. Silly me. ‘Well, he was good friends with Quinn, right?’

  ‘And that means they told each other everything? Had sleepovers? Maybe held hands when they went out on hunts together?’

  The mood in the room had shifted so fast, my head was practically spinning.

  ‘Jace,’ I said, trying not to let my irritation show. ‘I was just asking.’

  ‘Well, don’t. I don’t want to talk about my father. You, of all people, should understand that. It’s not like your dad’s a prince among men.’

  It felt like he’d slapped me. ‘Thanks a lot. My dad’s just had major heart surgery and you’re being mean about him.’

  ‘I’ve never heard you say a good word about him,’ Jace said, pushing his chair away from the table.

  I bit my tongue before I could say something nasty about his dad in return, but Jace could see it written all over my face anyway.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. My dad isn’t worth defending, right? You think I don’t know what kind of a man he was? I had enough bruises over the years to figure it out. But . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘What?’ I tried to keep my tone neutral. After all, who was I to judge?

  ‘He wasn’t always like that. I’m not saying it makes it right, because it absolutely doesn’t. But he did used to be a better person. He changed after Mom died.’

  I thought about my own father, and the way he’d changed after my mom’s death. Jace and I had so much in common, although my dad was just a cop with a drink problem – a problem that had existed long before Mom got sick, I should point out – whereas Thomas Murdoch was a vampire hunter, and I still wasn’t entirely sure how his wife had died. Of course, thinking that made me remember the photos I’d snatched from Quinn’s place. Was now the right time to show Jace?

  Yeah, right.

  Jace leaned against the edge of the table, and I listened to his heartbeat. Not in an I-want-to-eat-him kind of way, but more just for comfort. I know that’s weird, but there was something soothing about the steady rhythm of his heart.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked. ‘With me, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, surprising me. ‘Maybe. Sometimes.’

  ‘Well, that’s specific,’ I said with a tiny smile.

  He stared at me for a beat, then grinned back. ‘I can’t believe this.’

  ‘What?’ I said, still smiling. Things were OK again and we were having a moment. I loved that we were having a moment.

  ‘My only real friend in the world at the moment is a vampire.’ He shook his head.

  The smile dropped off my face like a stone. ‘Right,’ I said stiffly. ‘Because I’m a monster, and you can’t possibly be friends with a monster.’ Yep, I thought bitterly. We sure are having a ‘moment’ here. I was such an idiot. When would I learn not to be so hopeful? It was the way I’d always been, but I seemed to be getting worse. My heart dipped somewhere down into my stomach.

  Jace had taken a step toward me. ‘Hey, I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know what you meant,’ I said, my voice cold. ‘It must be so hard for you, having to be friends with someone – oh, I’m sorry, something – like me. How disgusting. I�
�m not even a real person, am I?’

  I squeezed my coffee mug between my hands, wondering whether Jace would be afraid of me if the mug shattered. Amazing, I thought, feeling so sad I wanted to cry. Amazing that you could sit so close to someone and still have him be so totally far away. Right now, Jace Murdoch might as well have been on the freaking moon.

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets, his shoulders slumping. ‘Moth . . .’ He looked up and his eyes were intense, and maybe a little angry. ‘This is hard for me.’

  ‘Gosh, Jace. I’m sorry that your life is so hard that you’re forced to hang out with a freak of nature.’

  ‘Hey,’ he replied, his voice rising along with mine. ‘That’s not what I meant. I’m not playing the pity card here.’

  ‘No?’ I shot back. ‘Oh, poor me, I’m all alone. I’m so confused. My only friend is a monster – and I’m supposed to kill the monsters. At least you have your life. Your soul. You’re human. You get to—’

  ‘You don’t know anything about me,’ he said, ‘and I can’t believe I was about to tell you anything personal.’

  ‘So, don’t bother,’ I muttered. ‘You can just leave. I have to go be with my family, anyway.’

  Whirling, I strode away. I could have used vamp-speed, but a tiny part of me held back in the hope that he’d stop me. I hated that needy inner voice and buried it as deep as possible until I reached the apartment door. I stomped my feet as loudly as I could, wishing I could kick something.

  A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.

  Jace stood in front of me, breathing hard. I could feel his body heat burning through the material of his shirt, and I wished that I was wearing my jacket for protection. As armor against everything that I was feeling.

  God, I was an idiot. And I was furious. With him, yeah, but mostly with myself. For believing he could really like me in the first place. For everything that made me feel powerless. For his stupid brown eyes and his quick smile – and even quicker temper.

  Jace tried to pull me against him and I shook him off, glaring. Remorse was etched into his face and, just for a moment, I wanted to relent.

  Which, of course, made me even angrier.

  I swung my fist up, but Jace caught it and held it against his chest. My other fist shot out, but he caught that one too. I was stronger than him, so I must really have let him stop me. I didn’t want to think about that too much.

  Jace stepped into me. His fingers wrapped around my wrists and pulled me close, closer. My nose was level with his throat. I could smell the coffee and gum on his breath as he looked down at me, and I wanted to kiss him with a fierce possessiveness that I’d never experienced before. Not even with Theo.

  I forced myself to stop breathing, anything so that I didn’t have to smell how deliciously human he was.

  The object of my confused hunger continued to hold me tight, and I forced myself to stand still. I reveled in his heartbeat against me, imagined that I could taste his pulse on my tongue. It was a beautiful torture that I never wanted to end.

  ‘Moth, I’m sorry,’ he said, voice low and urgent and threaded with something that made my stomach tighten.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I don’t know why I couldn’t just let things happen; why I had to worry and analyze all the time. ‘Why do you even care?’

  Jace pressed his lips to my temple, just beside my left eye. It was the softest of touches and it both shocked and thrilled me. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just do.’

  I pulled away from him, my skin still feeling hot where he’d kissed me. ‘Maybe you need to start figuring it out.’

  He nodded, watching me intently. ‘Maybe I do.’

  And maybe I was being too hard on him – he had lost everything, after all.

  Maybe you’re just being an idiot, said my inner Moth. He’ll let you down again, just you wait and see.

  Jace moved back to the table, standing behind his chair. Putting it between us. He said, ‘You still have your family, no matter what else you’ve been through. OK, so things are difficult with your dad – especially now – but you have your sisters. I know how close you are with Caitlín. I was there, that night at your Maker’s place, up on the roof when my dad died . . . remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘You told me that you loved her more than anything in the world. I don’t have that.’

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘That’s not my fault, though. It’s not fair to punish me for something I didn’t do.’

  ‘But the vampires did do it,’ he said, his voice suddenly dropping in pitch. His knuckles were white on the back of the chair. ‘They did all of it.’

  ‘Kyle killed your father, I know that. I didn’t like your dad, and I’m truly sorry you lost him. But, Jace, that still doesn’t mean—’

  ‘And my mom,’ he said, speaking very fast now. ‘And . . . my brother or sister. I never even got to see that baby, and I was desperate for it to come. I was so young I didn’t know anything, but I knew how much I wanted the baby to be born. I prayed that Mom would have a boy, so that I could teach my little brother how to kill monsters. That kid never even had a chance at life – he or she would have been almost nine years old by now, but then the monsters killed my mom. And that was that.’

  He finally stopped talking and I stood there in shocked silence, not knowing what to say. How do you respond to that kind of pain?

  I’d suspected something – something beyond terrible after the glimpse inside his head back when we were both investigating Kyle’s killing spree. Those suspicions had been confirmed after finding that Murdoch family portrait.

  Jace clenched his hands into fists and stared at the floor. ‘Shit. I never meant to actually say all that.’

  My stomach churned and I wanted to hit something, more because I was so overwhelmed with grief for him than anything else. I had to make sure that I was calm, that I wasn’t going to turn all vamp on him at a time like this. That would be the end of our so-called friendship. If that’s what this even was.

  I screwed up my courage and touched his arm. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know . . .’ I was afraid to tell him the whole truth.

  ‘You knew,’ he said, sounding more tired than angry. ‘I think you saw it. In my mind that time.’

  I bowed my head. ‘I saw something, but I wasn’t sure.’

  He looked down at my hand on his arm. ‘I lost everything to them – to the monsters.’

  I licked my suddenly dry lips. At least he hadn’t lumped me in with ‘the monsters’ this time, but I wasn’t going to get too hopeful about the direction this might be taking.

  He placed his other hand over mine. I think that surprised me more than anything else. He still wasn’t looking at me, though, so I couldn’t read his facial expression when he said, ‘I know you lost a lot too. It’s different, but I get that you didn’t ask for what happened to you. I’m sorry that it did.’

  I closed my eyes for a moment. Opened them again and forced myself to breathe. I wanted to look as human as possible in that moment. It seemed important.

  ‘Nothing’s the same,’ I said, my voice barely above a whisper. ‘And they’ll all be gone, one day. My family . . . my sisters. Everyone will die.’

  ‘And you’ll still be here,’ he said. ‘I get it.’

  We looked into each other, going deeper than we ever had before. Whatever was happening between us was about as far from ‘safe’ as it was possible to get. This feeling was one of danger and excitement. Desire. I wanted things. Theo told me that I had to stop wanting so much, that it would only cause me heartache. But those things didn’t listen to reason; they stirred inside me. Restless things.

  Hungry things.

  The atmosphere was getting so heavy I could practically feel it pressing against my skin. I wanted to run. Hunt. Feed. I dug my nails into my palms, anything to distract myself from that constant sense of wanting.

  Jace turned away from me then, moving to stand by the window. Maybe he knew how on
the edge I was. I didn’t follow him, because I didn’t want him to see my non-existent reflection beside his. It would remind him of things I would far rather he didn’t remember right now. Let me have this moment, OK? I told myself. It’s not hurting anyone.

  The intercom buzzed, ruining my moment.

  ‘Man!’ I shouted. And then I remembered that Jace was still supposed to be in hiding. What if Theo had sent one of the other vamps to collect me? I’d left him so abruptly and I didn’t expect him to let me get away with it once he was feeling better. Panic made my fangs extend. I slapped my hands over my mouth. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Just answer it,’ Jace said, sounding annoyingly calm. ‘Act normal.’

  I opened my mouth and pointed. ‘Normal?’

  He stared at my fangs. ‘You have a point. Two, actually. I’ll get it.’

  He strode in the direction of the hallway, looking for the intercom controls.

  ‘No, wait!’ I ran after him and pushed him aside. ‘What if it’s Holly?’

  ‘Why would it be Holly? She has a key . . .’

  Oh, right. I thought about that for a moment.

  ‘She might have lost it,’ I said finally. ‘And anyway, who else would it be? It’s almost midnight.’

  Jace shook his head but didn’t argue.

  I grabbed the handset. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Moth,’ Theo said, doing his best impression of a serial killer. ‘Open this door or I will break it down.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wrecked

  Everything stopped, as though we’d been zapped by a magical time-stopping ray-gun.

  OK, that’s not true. It just felt that way because I was freaking-the-hell out. Somewhere inside my head I was screaming, trying to figure out the best escape route. If I was by myself, I could just jump out the window. Why not? It wouldn’t kill me. But Jace was here. Jace couldn’t jump from the window and survive without several broken bones. At the very least. Of course, it was Jace’s fault I was stuck inside the mother of all panic attacks in the first place. If I’d been by myself, I could just open the door to my Maker and everything would be sweet. Totally fine. Hunky-freaking-dory.