by J. R. Ward
"She'll tell them." Mary rubbed her eyes. "I'll help her pack up her things. I think it's best that we don't draw it out longer than we have to. The transition is going to be hard enough on her without her having to stay in limbo."
"I'm not staying on that third floor. The second she leaves, I'm moving us back down to our old room."
"I think that's a good idea." Mary cracked her neck. "Poor Trez. He's going to be yo-yoed again."
"He doesn't seem to care about much right now."
"No."
And indeed, Mary found herself struggling not to fall into a similar despondency.
"I'm going to go in to work tonight," she forced herself to say. "I don't feel like it, but I'm going to do it."
"Me, too. There's a meeting at twelve midnight to talk to the class about what went down last night."
"Did Peyton survive?"
"Yeah, Manny sent out a text to all of us--that bastard is a brilliant surgeon. The brain swelling is down, stats are fine. The kid's not cleared to work out or fight for a couple more nights, but he'll be good to go soon enough. Novo saved his life."
"I'm so glad everyone came through."
"It was a close call."
Even though it was time for Mary to leave, she didn't move. She just sat next to her male--and when he reached out and took her hand, she went back to resting her head against his shoulder.
Being left behind was a special kind of loss.
--
After Elise drew on her coat and wrapped a scarf around her throat, she opened a window in her bathroom by the tub and dematerialized to where Axe was waiting for her downtown, their blood tie helping her triangulate him in an instant, even though they had agreed on the address.
As she re-formed, he was staring up at the condominium building like he was assessing its structural integrity.
"Allishon was on the fourteenth floor," Elise explained after they kissed hello. "The front door to the apartment is locked, but maybe the terrace is open?"
"Do you have any idea which side of the building she faced out of? This place has hundreds of units."
She thought about where the elevator had emptied out in the hall. The direction the hallway had run. Which way she had gone.
"Facing the Hudson. On that side."
"Let's go around."
The two of them walked to the far edge of the high-rise, squeezed through some evergreen bushes, and whispered down its flank until they reached the river-view side.
Craning her neck, she had to hold her hair out of her face as gusts blew against her back. "Almost all the lights are on in the units." She counted floors. "But see? There are two that are out on the fourteenth level--assuming they started the count with the lobby being the ground floor. One of them has to be it."
"I don't care if we have to try fifty of the damn things. If we attract any human attention, I'll just scrub their memories."
Elise nodded. "You first?"
"No, you. I want to guard you when you're on the ground."
With a nod, she closed her eyes...and went flying in her molecular form, coalescing herself on the terrace of the darkened apartment that was three units in from the end. Axe followed right along, materializing by her side.
There was a sliding glass door and she went over and grasped the handle. Bracing herself to be denied, she--
Yup. "It's locked."
Axe cupped his hands and looked inside. "Seems pretty average human stuff. Not a place for a vampire to hide out."
"Next door?"
"Next door."
They proceeded over to the other unit, and her first thought as she leaned into the slider was, No way was this a vampire apartment. Even with the darkness inside, she had the impression the drapery was white and diaphanous--nothing that would keep out the sun.
"There's a bloody handprint here," Axe said in a grim voice. "On the outside jamb."
As she glanced across to where he was pointing, Elise's heart started to hammer--and then she closed her eyes. After a moment, she reached out, took hold of the handle--
The slider pulled free without any problem at all, as if the glass were almost relieved to be getting out of the way.
"I can smell blood," Elise said roughly. "It's faint...and it's Allishon's."
Stepping over the threshold, that first impression of white everything gained traction. Even the carpet was the color of a sheet of paper. And as her eyes adjusted, she focused on the bed across the way. The sheets were gone. So were the pillows. There was nothing but a headboard and a mattress.
"You want me to turn a light on?" Axe asked.
"Yes, please."
Still, she jumped when illumination flooded the bedroom.
Oh...blessed Virgin Scribe. There were stains on that mattress, most of them at the top of it, by the headboard. And there were footprints that were brown on the carpet. Another brown smudge on the doorjamb.
It was as if the violence had been filtered through the passage of time, drained of most, but not all, of its characteristics.
The remnants were more than enough.
Wrapping her arms around herself even though it wasn't cold, Elise walked out of the bedroom and down a short hall. The living room was also done in white with those same filmy drapes and a set of all-white furniture. The galley kitchen was unremarkable, the counters clean, nothing really in the cabinets. The refrigerator was empty.
No blood to be seen. But that was no relief, really.
"She came here to do drugs," Elise said to Axe as he loomed in the hall. "This was her party house, apparently. And one night...she brought back someone...."
Not just someone, she reminded herself. Anslam. One of their own, and not only because he was a vampire, but because he was a high-bred member of the aristocracy.
Had been, at any rate.
And now they were both dead.
Elise took her time going around and around, pacing through the limited floor plan, even though she didn't know exactly what she was trying to make sense of. It was, she supposed, yet another example of how having all the education in the world about emotions didn't necessarily help when your own were raw and damaged.
Heading back into the bedroom, she went for the closet. She had to. It was almost like closing the loop, her stepping into the walk-in and looking at...emptiness.
There was nothing but a couple of jackets hanging off the rods and a formal gown pooling on the floor.
Allishon must have come here after one of the glymera's grand events. Stripped her mask of civilization off. And proceeded to...
"So sad," Elise murmured as she went over and picked up the red swath of satin.
It wasn't a fancy dress, though. It turned out to be a cloak, one that had beautiful trim and buttons of mother-of-pearl--
As she went to hang it up on a hanger, something knocked her in the leg.
"Ow." She looked through the folds, wondering what was hanging off the cloak--or perhaps in a hidden pocket. "Okay, that hurt--"
Elise frowned as she took out a large piece of black metal from the lining. It was oddly shaped and heavy...kind of like a key, but not really.
"Did you find something?" Axe asked from behind her.
"I don't know." She held the thing out. "What do you think this is?"
When he didn't answer, she glanced at him and then rolled the object over in her palm. "Is it some kind of self-defense weapon? It isn't like there's a blade in here or...maybe it's a key, except not to any door I've ever seen."
"I don't know. But I think we should go."
"Yes."
She was tempted to take whatever it was with her. But she didn't want to have to explain, if she was found with the object, why she had gone to Allishon's and nosed around.
Putting the weight back in the pocket of that cloak, she stepped out of the closet and shut the walk-in's door.
Going over to a stuffed chair, she sat down and stared at the bed. "Thank you for coming with me."
She was a
cutely aware of Axe standing by the sliding glass door they'd come in through, his big body taking up nearly all of the slider's expanse.
"I really appreciate it." She shook her head as she imagined what had happened in the room. "I guess...you know, I had to come here."
"Yeah."
"I think I can let her go now. I've taken this as far as I can--this is the dead end that means stop for me. I just have to mourn her in my own way. Maybe I'll even do some version of a Fade ceremony for her." She took a deep breath. "It's funny, I feel closer to her now than I did when she was alive--and all mourning is private, isn't it. We all do it in our own ways for our dead. And she was mine. Close or not, she was my blood and nothing will change that."
Axe stayed quiet, but that was probably because he didn't know the right thing to say--and she could understand that. Except then he gave her something more important than words.
He came over to her, kneeling down and reaching out his arms.
As she went into him, up against him, she sighed with gratitude.
Sometimes, you didn't need the right syllables.
You just needed the right person.
o you don't mind if I go to your house?" Elise asked a little while later.
She and Axe were back down on the street, the apartment shut up again, the memories of having walked through those rooms stained on Elise's brain forever--even as a fragile peace began taking root in her heart.
"Axe?" she prompted into the bitterly cold wind.
Her male shook his head like he was trying to clear his own thoughts of where they'd been. "I'm sorry. What?"
"Are you sure you're okay with my going back to your place? I promise I'm just going to sit in front of the fire and probably fall asleep."
"I want you there," he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I like the idea of you in front of my fire. And my meeting shouldn't last too long."
"I'm so glad Peyton's okay and resting at home."
"Me, too."
"Thanks again for coming with me."
"Anything for you."
Axe kissed her, and took his time about it. Then he stepped back. "Let me get you to the cottage safe, and then I'll take off. I've got to be at the meeting point in five minutes."
She hurried away, and so did he, and then he was escorting her into the house--and insisting that he get the fire going for her even though it meant he was going to be late.
"It's going to get down to zero tonight," he said as he started stacking hardwood on the lit kindling. "All that Canada air coming south and turning us into Popsicles."
She put her hands up to her wind-burned cheeks. "It was really windy downtown, too. Hey, listen, I can do that."
"I know."
Soon enough, the flames were snap-crackle-and-popping and he was disappearing into the rear of the cottage.
"I'm locking this back door," he yelled out from the kitchen. "And I want you to lock the front one after I leave."
As he returned to the living room, she was already sitting in front of the hearth, but she got up again. "Absolutely."
"And call me if you see anything."
"I will."
"My extra gun is under that sofa cushion, right there. Loaded and the safety's off."
"I'm not shooting anything again. Or at least not for a very long time and only if it's a snake in my car. Now, will you go? You're going to miss the bus--and yes," she drawled, "I'll be naked when you come back."
Axe let out a growl. "Okay, there's an incentive."
A quick kiss and he was out the door--and yelling, "Lock up! Or I'm not leaving!"
She laughed and went over, turning the dead bolt. "Locked! Go!"
Elise went back and sat before the fire, tucking her legs up tight and linking her arms. In the peaceful solitude, she thought about Troy and how much she was looking forward to them starting that seminar after New Year's. He'd been so understanding when she'd told him that as much as she liked him, she had just started to see somebody, so there could be no dating between them. He had almost seemed relieved, explaining that it was probably for the best, given their professional association.
So all was good there.
And Axe was going to get her back and forth to the classes safely. She was even excited to have him see her teach--
A gust of wind hit the side of the cottage, whistling through the shutters and making the eaves moan. When another hit, she turned around and looked behind her. She felt like she was being watched, but...no.
There was no one around.
As a third battering gust of wind howled, she could swear she felt the chill inside. But maybe that was because her brain was bouncing between the actual violence she had witnessed the night before in that alley...and the representations of violence she had seen at Allishon's.
Even with her coat on, she got cold.
Axe had stoked the fire perfectly, though, and at least the front of her was warm. But she sure could use...
Getting up, she went over to the chair by the front door. There was a nice heavy throw draped over the back, and as she picked it up, it smelled like Axe's body. Perfect.
Halfway on the return trip to the fire, something dropped out of its folds, and she bent down to--
At first, Elise couldn't believe what she was looking at.
So much so, that instead of picking the object up, she knelt down next to it.
A piece of metal. Painted black. In an odd shape that was kind of like a key, but not really.
Her heart started pounding and she looked around, which was ridiculous. Like any of the furniture or those banked flames were going to help her reconcile the issue?
Which was the fact that not more than fifteen minutes ago, give or take, she had looked at Axe and asked him what this "key" was--and he had told her he didn't know?
Letting the weight of the fabric fall to the floor, she flattened the expanse out...and was entirely unsurprised to find that it was a cloak. Just like Allishon's--
There was a large bulge on one side, and she ran her hands over it, wondering if she wanted to go any further with this. But of course, she had to. Heart pounding, she reached inside and--
With a curse, she dropped the mask of a skull. The thing was evil looking, realistic to the point of nightmare, hinged so that he could talk while wearing it.
Her hands shook as she put the horror back. And then, bending down low, she breathed in deep--and smelled Axe...along with some other things.
That made her want to throw up.
Images and memories filtered through her brain: of the two of them together, talking downstairs in that cellar; of him smiling at her for the first time; of him kissing her outside of that steakhouse; of their bodies in front of this very fire.
Maybe there was some kind of confusion or...an explanation for why he'd lied to her.
Surely there had to be.
Folding the cloak back together, she stared at the metal object.
Yes, there most certainly was an explanation...but she was abruptly scared of what it might be.
--
All in all, Peyton had it good.
He was reclining in his bed, his every need catered to by his family's staff, his pain controlled by some Oxys that were, for once, entirely legal. And what do you know, his head was working fine--i.e., it was running his body and generating reasonable thought processes--like, yes, definitely, he wanted the underdog Louisville Cardinals to beat Kentucky in men's basketball.
He had good money bet in Vegas with his bookie.
But he couldn't say he was happy. Even with the feel-fine opiate in his system.
That shit with Novo was staying with him and not in a good way.
The issue for him was not so much that he cared he was a douche bag. Hell, if that bothered him, he'd have hanged himself in the closet years ago.
It was the idea that Novo thought he was a douche bag that was putting a hair across his ass.
Shit, maybe he was more old-fashioned
than he thought. He'd certainly flown those same colors with Paradise when she'd told him she was entering the training program--and look at how that had worked out. She had ended up being the Primus, the number one trainee during that brutal orientation they'd all been through. So yeah, he'd been wrong about her.
Was he wrong about Novo? About females in general?
Maybe he just needed to have sex with that hard-ass female.
The instant the thought hit him, he started to get hard--and this was not a surprise. He'd been attracted to her since day one.
Paradise, though, was who had his heart--not that she was even a remote possibility with Craeg around. Which sucked. It was just...well, they'd developed a real bond during the raids, during all those phone calls when they had both been in their safe houses outside of Caldwell, isolated from everyone but their immediate families.
He trusted her in ways he didn't anyone else.
And he was attached to her in ways he wasn't with anybody else--
The knock that sounded out on his door was quiet, too quiet to be the butler--or that nurse who had forearms like Popeye and seemed to enjoy manhandling him around when she changed the dressing on his head.
"Come in--" He sat up as he saw who it was. "Elise, hey, girl. What are you doing here--what's wrong."
The female didn't answer him. Hell, she didn't seem capable of speech. She just shut the door behind her and stood there, ashen and shaky.
His first thought was that Axe had done something to her.
And his second was that if that fucking asshole had? Head injury or not, Peyton was going to castrate the bastard.
"Come here," he said, patting the bed next to him. "What can I do?"
But she paced around, and it was a while before she spoke. "You told me...back in the beginning..."
"What did I tell you?" he prompted gently. "Keep talking to me."
"About Axe...that I didn't really know him."
Motherfucker. "Yes, I did. What's going on?"
She put her hand into the pocket of her coat and took out an object. As soon as he saw it properly, he frowned. "What are you doing with one of those?"
"You know what this is?"
"Yeah, it's a pass to that sex club downtown. The Keys. I'm not a member, but I've seen them every once in a while. Allishon had at least one--I asked her what it was once."
"This is not hers." Elise stared at the thing. "But I went to her apartment tonight. I just had to--Axe was with me. When I found the one that was hers, he said he didn't know what it was."