I have something for you. I think we can work together on this one. Will meet you in the usual place next month.
Ciao,
Nic
The full email signature was, Nicole Bertonelli.
Holy freaking crap! That must be Nicole. Theo’s Maker knew Dr Helena Stark, and had done for more than a decade.
And, not only that: now I knew what the NB on those tags stood for. I was getting closer and closer to the truth, and it was a larger and far more twisted thing than I could ever have imagined. Now was definitely the time to see Theo. I had proof – at least of something – and he would simply have to realize that Jace Murdoch was the least of his worries.
‘The Weapon is the Cure,’ Jace said, still looking confused. ‘Are you sure you don’t know anything about that?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ I said, pushing him out of the way to avoid his champagne-breath. He was leaning all over me thanks to how many freebies he’d put away earlier.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Jace said, sounding like he blamed me for how cryptic it was. ‘What does it mean?’
‘I said, I don’t know,’ I snapped. ‘We can think about it later.’
‘And why did that strange girl let us leave like that?’
‘I don’t know that either,’ I said. ‘Let’s just get out of here.’
We headed for the nearest exit, for once in total agreement: we’d both seen enough for one night.
It was time to get the hell out of Dodge. Or at the very least, to get outside without being caught.
Outside, however, another ‘issue’ immediately made itself apparent.
It wasn’t that we’d been chased or anything like that. There was no death or decapitation on the horizon (at least, not that I could see). No, we’d made it out relatively unscathed – all things considered.
The problem was far simpler than that: Jace was drunk.
Maybe not a lot, but enough that I could see his guard was down. Maybe enough that he shouldn’t be driving anywhere tonight. I tried not to enjoy the feel of his arm around me, but it was difficult not to sink into his warmth. I tried even harder not to think about his blood, and how it might taste. If it was even half as good as he smelled, I would be in trouble. Not that I’d ever find out; he’d told me that, once, in no uncertain terms. But, despite my reservations about taking blood from an actual person, a girl could dream.
‘Exactly how many glasses of champagne did you drink tonight?’ I tried to keep my tone light, knowing that I was failing miserably.
‘A couple. Three, maybe?’
I put my hands on my hips. ‘Why would you do something like that?’
‘Relax, Moth. It was just a bit of champagne. Live a little.’
I glared at him.
Jace grimaced. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. Just a saying, you know?’
I ignored him and tried to remember what his car looked like. I never took any notice of that stuff. What was the point when I didn’t drive?
I fixed him with the iciest expression I could muster. It was tough considering how he was stroking my arm with the back of his hand.
‘Where did you park?’
‘Don’t you remember?’ Jace asked, his expression completely serious.
‘I didn’t come with you, you idiot!’
‘Oh, right.’ He nodded, although he still didn’t look certain.
‘Jace,’ I said, trying not to let my anger spill over. ‘I said, where’s the damn car?’
‘You ask a lot of questions.’
‘It was one question.’
‘In general, I mean.’ His sleepy gaze turned his eyes to melting chocolate, and he watched me in a way that made my stomach flip.
‘Um . . . sorry?’
His hand began to fiddle with the ends of my hair and I gasped involuntarily. Thankfully, the chill night air helped to cool my flushing cheeks.
‘Seriously,’ he said, seemingly unaware of the effect he was having on me. ‘You ask a lot of stuff about me. About my life, my family. All that.’
I shrugged, batting my eyelashes in an attempt to deflect him with my feminine wiles. The location of Jace’s car didn’t seem so important right now.
‘Do you have something in your eye?’ he asked.
I stopped batting. ‘I guess I just find you interesting. Sort of.’
‘Interesting, huh?’
‘Sort of.’
‘I like the sound of that,’ he said, voice low and eyes warm.
I nodded, incapable of words as his hand moved to the back of my neck and rested there, firm and comforting, promising something else. Something that I wanted very, very much, no matter how hard I tried not to.
Jace watched me, and it was hard not to think of myself as prey. I was supposed to be the predator, but the look in his eyes was one step away from a hunter closing in on his quarry.
‘It appears that I’m off the hook,’ he said. ‘With your scary boss, I mean.’
‘Hopefully.’ I wouldn’t believe it until I’d shown Theo the email from Nicole. It proved a link between her and Nemesis – and presumably Subject Ten – but there were still a few more dots to join.
Jace smiled. ‘We should celebrate.’
‘Um . . .’ I said. ‘How do you propose we do that?’
He removed my glasses. ‘You seem nervous.’
‘I’m not nervous. You’re staring.’
‘Which is making you nervous?’
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘I already said I’m not nervous. I just don’t know why you’re looking at me like that.’
‘Maybe I find you interesting,’ he said. ‘Sort of.’
And then he kissed me. Properly.
Finally.
At the first touch of Jace’s lips against mine, I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him back. It wasn’t that my nerves had magically disappeared – no, I was honestly terrified. But not of him. I was scared of myself and of what I might do if I lost control. I’d only just begun to master the bloodlust of a newbie vamp, and I’d seen how even someone as experienced as Theo could lose it at the wrong moment. Hell, I’d almost lost it myself just a few days ago.
But I desperately didn’t want this to be the wrong moment. It felt so very, very right and I wanted to hold it close. Just as I was holding him close. Oh, how I wanted Jace then. Just this moment, one kiss . . . That’s all I wanted. To feel the rush of blood through my body. To press myself against him and feel the vibration of his beating heart, almost as though it was my own. To hear his sharp intake of breath as his tongue found its way into my mouth and touched the tip of one of my fangs – and even then he didn’t stop kissing me. He carried on, holding my face gently between his hands as though I was a real person that he could really like.
I hoped this precious moment would never end. I fiercely hoped it wasn’t just the champagne talking. Jace moved his hands to my hips, and my fingers were in his hair. I felt him breathe and forced myself to breathe along with him, matching the rhythm to his, trying to pretend it was natural for me. I felt his heart beating slow and steady, imagining the blood flowing through his veins, keeping him alive and strong.
He half lifted me, and I wanted to climb up his body like a piece of ivy, kiss him deep enough to lose myself. Disappear inside him and wrap myself in the warmth of his wonderful humanity.
And I wanted to taste him, in other ways – in ways that would no doubt send him running the other way in disgust. But I didn’t do that. Of course I didn’t. I tucked that part of me away into a corner and let Marie enjoy this moment. Moth could wait her turn.
My back hit the wall of the building as he walked with me, pressing me into the brick, suddenly not being gentle anymore, as though he knew that was exactly what I wanted. He didn’t have to be gentle – not with me. Things were getting crazy, way out of control, just with a kiss. It felt like everything inside me was on fire, and I was sure that if anyone were watching us they’d think he was kissing a medusa from mythology, her hair
rising into the air, writhing like snakes from the sheer electricity we were creating. It was so incredibly wild and passionate and good.
It was heaven.
He pulled away, and I saw the blood on his lip from where I must have snagged him and I was about to apologize, say something that would make him not regret this – regret us – but then I saw her behind him. Too late.
The girl who’d killed Nicole. The girl who had, just minutes before, let us go.
Subject Ten.
She threw the dagger so fast, impossibly fast, and I was half drugged from the best kiss of my life. I couldn’t stop her. All I could do was push Jace to one side at the last possible moment – a split second when everything seemed to move in movie-style slow motion. I somehow managed to get myself in front of him, don’t ask me how. But there I was, shielding him when the blade hit me squarely in the chest.
The first thing I thought, while looking down at the alien, sharp object sticking out of my body was: Why would she do that?
And then the second thought, following quickly on the heels of the first: At least I saved him.
I must have blacked out for a moment, but I couldn’t be sure. Everything was blurry, although it felt like someone was dragging me along the ground.
‘What are you doing?’ I muttered. ‘Stop . . .’
‘I have to move you,’ a voice I recognized said. Jace. ‘Got to get you hidden.’
‘So I can die in peace?’ I felt gravel dig into the backs of my legs. ‘Good idea.’ I could hear someone singing and it was strangely soothing. Then I realized it was just a cell phone. Was it mine?
‘Moth!’ Jace was calling me from what seemed a very long way away, his eyes wide and panic-stricken as he tried to get me to respond. ‘Stay with me. Just . . . stay with me, OK?’
He wrapped his hand around the hilt of the shiny dagger sticking out of my chest and pulled. The jagged thing lodged deep inside me hardly moved, and the pain was so bad that my vision blurred and brightened, bringing me back to full consciousness for an agonizing moment. Maybe this is it, I thought. I’m dying. For real, this time.
Silver blade to the heart and . . . lights out.
The pain continued and nothing changed. No lights out.
Shouldn’t I already be dead? How long does it take? I considered asking someone this question, but I didn’t think I had enough energy.
‘Moth,’ Jace said. ‘Marie. Hold on, I’m trying to take it out.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ I slurred, wondering if he could hear me properly. Don’t call me Marie. My fangs were fully extended, probably from shock, and all I could taste was blood. All I could smell was Jace.
Crap. If I could taste blood, what did that mean? I didn’t want to hurt Jace and maybe I already had and couldn’t remember it. ‘Did I bite you?’
‘Shhh,’ he said, wiggling the knife in my chest as he tried to get a better grip on the hilt. I felt something move inside me, something other than the blade. Something that probably should stay right where it was. The sensation made me want to throw up.
‘Blood,’ I whispered, trying to stay conscious. ‘There’s blood in my mouth. Where did it come from?’
‘You didn’t bite me,’ he said, his voice tight with . . . I don’t know. Stress? Anger?
Worry?
‘I don’t—’
‘Stop talking,’ he snapped. ‘It’s your blood, not mine.’
That probably wasn’t a good thing. If I was coughing up blood, this really could be The End. The final curtain and all that. I wished Theo was here so that I could say goodbye. It didn’t seem right that he wasn’t with me at the very end. My second death. He would want to be here . . .
And what about Caitlín? ‘Oh God,’ I whispered.
Jace stopped tugging for a moment, and the roiling nausea subsided. ‘What?’
‘My sister . . .’
He grabbed the knife again. ‘Caitlín? What about her.’ His voice was shaking.
‘Say goodbye to her for me, would you?’
‘Moth, you’re not going to die.’
I ignored him. He was just trying to be kind, which was nice of him and everything – but if I was going to die I needed to make myself clear. This was important and I might not get another chance.
I grabbed a handful of his bloodstained shirt (my blood, not his, I reminded myself), dragging him toward me. ‘Tell her I love her. Tell her she’s the best thing in my life. Jace, tell her—’
‘Tell her yourself, freak,’ he grunted as I half throttled him with his own collar. ‘You’ll still be here causing trouble for a long time.’
‘A verrry long time,’ I slurred. ‘Eternity.’
His eyes darkened. ‘Yeah. Lucky you.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Can’t you leave it in? Hurts so much.’
‘It hurts so much because you’re already healing.’
Oh. With the knife inside me. Again, not a good thing. Very bad.
‘Shut up and hold still.’
‘But I—’
And then I had to stop speaking because Jace pulled the blade cleanly out of my chest at last, and all I could do was scream.
Chapter Sixteen
I Am The Bogeyman
Somewhere in the darkest corner of my awareness I hear a car engine and feel the rumble of wheels on asphalt, but I keep slipping away and can never quite grab hold of anything.
I figure out enough to realize that I’m lying across the back seat of a car. The sound of the engine is almost comforting. I frown when I realize that I can also hear music playing through tinny speakers. It sounds suspiciously like ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’ by Kansas which places me firmly in Jace’s battered car. He has a healthy sense of irony. And hey, who doesn’t like Supernatural? Even vampires watch television.
I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, trying to come to terms with the pain all through my chest and back. It feels as though someone has taken a spoon to my chest in an enthusiastic effort to scoop out my lungs.
Once again, I can’t help thinking that it’s lucky I don’t really need them.
Trying to remember what happened before is a challenge I don’t think my brain is quite up to at the moment. Far easier to let Jace fill me in when we stop wherever he’s planning to stop. I want to say something, let him know I am awake and not dead after all, but I just feel so tired. And it’s not like he’s dumb enough to try taking me to a hospital. Maybe he is driving us to Theo’s house.
I drift away on that comforting thought, letting the cool darkness take me down, under, deeper. I listen to the wheels against the road and the sound of cheesy Seventies rock. The last thing I remember is the faint scent of vampire-but-not-vampire. That can’t be right . . . can it?
Something is very definitely wrong, but now I am swimming in swirling black water that keeps sucking me back down (under, deeper). I can see the surface glittering coal-bright above me, but it might as well be a million miles away . . .
The first thing I became aware of was pain.
The second thing was the strong smell of disinfectant.
I gulped, half gagging on the scent, trying to wake the hell up. I forced my eyes open, fighting lethargy and fear, but when I finally took in my surroundings there was nothing to give me any clue as to where I was. It was disorienting and terrifying.
What I knew for certain: I was flat on my back on some kind of a low bunk set against the wall. The ceiling glistened white, and I had the impression of a hospital even before I could fully take everything in. Was I in the hospital?
Panic began to subside. Right! I was in hospital because I’d been stabbed.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I whispered, to no one in particular. Why would Jace take me there when they wouldn’t be able to treat a vampire? When I had to hide what I was from regular human places.
He wouldn’t. He didn’t. That’s another thing I know for sure. Jace would try to protect me.
Why? Because we’re such good friends now? I gave myself a me
ntal eye roll for being so ridiculously sappy.
But . . . he did kiss me, I couldn’t help thinking.
He was drunk, said that annoying inner voice I still couldn’t quite kill off.
So what if he was, I told it, mentally sticking out my tongue. He seemed into it. And he’d only had a couple of drinks. OK, three glasses of champagne. But who was counting?
I suddenly brought a hand to my chest, pushing thoughts of Jace as far away as possible. There was the not insignificant matter of the knife wound I’d taken and how I was still ‘alive’ in the first place. Hadn’t I been hit with a silver blade? Thinking back to the pain, I began to wonder about that. It had hurt, sure, but it hadn’t burned. Silver would have felt like fire in my chest.
Not that I wasn’t grateful to have another chance. I was beginning to wonder if Theo, upon Making me a vampire, had also turned me part-cat, thanks to all the lives I apparently now had.
I didn’t want to move, so I just lay there and examined my surroundings. There wasn’t much to see: the room was white, white all over and super-clean, with metallic shiny floors that looked freshly polished. A sink and toilet were in the furthest corner, and that made me think that if there had been previous occupants, they must have been human. You know, with regular human bodily functions.
Set in the wall directly opposite the bed was a huge rectangular mirror. It looked like the ones that belong in police interrogation rooms, and the icky suspicion that it was likely two-way made me feel exposed and vulnerable. No doubt there was someone on the other side of the glass, checking me out. The brief temptation to give them a one-fingered salute made me feel a little better.
Where am I? I forced myself to remain calm and simply gather as much information as I could. There had to be a way out of this place.
Who had been driving Jace’s car when I regained consciousness in that haze of pain and confusion? My imagination ran wild, figuring that it was probably some kind of secret government agency. What about those files I’d snatched from Quinn’s house: the Nemesis Project. A list of names. They knew who I was . . . what I was. Were they going to do experiments on me? Sure, I’d watched my fair share of genre TV, but Theo had actually warned me about things like that after I’d first begun to come to terms with the change. He’d told me that there were people in this world who would do anything to prove the existence of vampires and other supernatural creatures. Was that what this was all about? According to Theo, these clandestine people would go to any lengths to achieve . . . stuff. All kinds of shady stuff. I can’t honestly say I’d believed him, which you might laugh at considering my vivid imagination. But when you live your life in a fantasy world – for real, I mean – it becomes very easy to ignore tales of the bogeyman.
Hunting the Dark Page 16