The Jackal

by J. R. Ward

Nyx exhaled and shook her head—

  With resolve, Posie seemed to collect herself, regathering that dress. And as she crossed the distance to the Volvo, her eyes were blinking quick, but there were no tears.

  “Come on,” she said calmly, “let’s get you inside.”

  As Nyx’s fragile, hysterical sister took hold of her arm, and quietly and with purpose, led the way to the house, Nyx went along without argument or a false show of strength. It was like the pair of them had traded whole portions of their personalities.

  Or at least lent them for a little bit.

  The stairs seemed next to impossible, and Nyx had to rely heavily on Posie to make it up the steps at all. And getting to the front door felt like she was sprinting ten full miles.

  Inside the house, she looked around and again felt no connection to any of it. Not the rustic, handmade furniture, even though she had arranged the chairs and sofa and side tables. Not the photographs on the mantel or the painting on the wall, even though they all featured family members. And the rug underfoot was a total mystery.

  “Shower,” she said. Mostly because she didn’t want to talk to anyone and figured it would buy her some time alone.

  She didn’t want to speak. She didn’t want to eat. She just wanted to lie down.

  Posie took her to the bathroom. Opened the door. Pointed to the tub. “Bath.”

  “Shower.”

  “No, bath. You won’t be able to stand up in the hot water for long.”

  When Posie forced them inside and shut the door, Nyx shook her head. “I can do it. I don’t need help—”

  “You must need to pee.”

  Nyx blinked. Looked at the toilet. Wondered if she could remember how one worked.

  Strange, she didn’t recall how she’d gone to the bathroom when she had been down below. She must have gone. She just couldn’t remember how or where.

  She couldn’t remember whole parts of the experience beforehand. Just like she couldn’t remember much of her time in the farmhouse. It was as if she had a drape of amnesia over everything that had ever happened to her.

  “I’ll start the water.” Posie pointed to the toilet. “You sit there.”

  As her sister didn’t budge, Nyx murmured, “You’ve changed.”

  “You’ve been gone for a lifetime, as it turns out.”

  As they stared at each other, Nyx thought, Shit, the young pretrans. Posie had not only had to deal with that death, but also with the fact that she hadn’t known where Nyx was.

  “Grandfather told me,” Posie said. “Where you went. Did you find her?”

  Nyx slowly shook her head and braced herself.

  “Well.” Posie turned to the tub and started the water. “There’s that then.”

  “Are you okay?” Nyx asked.

  Posie bent down and put her hand in the rush. Then she adjusted the hot side. “I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I don’t think you’d tell me if you weren’t.” Glancing back, her sister nodded at Nyx’s clothes. “Do you need help getting undressed? And sit down on that toilet now.”

  “I will. But I’d like a little privacy.”

  “I’m checking in on you in five minutes.” When Nyx tried to talk, Posie put up her hand. “Just stop. I’m not going to argue with you about common sense.”

  Posie went to the door. “Five minutes. And if you lock this door, I’m going to get grandfather’s axe and chop it into kindling.”

  As her sister quietly shut things behind her, Nyx stared at the panels. There were two towels hanging on a rod, and for a moment, she wondered what they were there for. Turning to the sink, the two toothbrushes in the stand caught her eye. With a shaking hand, she touched the grip of the pink one. Of Posie’s.

  She remembered putting her toothbrush in her backpack.

  So naive. So incredibly naive.

  Posie wasn’t the only one who had aged a million years in such a short time.

  Nyx lifted her eyes to the mirror over the sink—and gasped. A stranger stared back at her, one with dirt and mud and blood on her face, in her hair, down her throat. Her eyes seemed like they’d changed color, and there were deep hollows in her cheeks that had not been there before. She looked as though she had been to hell and back.

  With a shaking hand, she touched the wound on her temple—and then noticed her chipped nails and the raw places on her wrists.

  Where had the cuffs gone, she wondered. She’d had them when she’d emerged from underground.

  As her arm started to tremble, she lowered it and leaned into the basin.

  Where was Jack? Had he found his young? Was he still alive?

  With painful clarity, a memory of her male, with his long hair loose around his muscled shoulders, his brilliant blue eyes heavy lidded and looking at her, came to the forefront of her mind. The image lingered, tangible as a living, breathing thing, as ephemeral and heartbreaking as a ghost—

  Dripping got her attention and she glanced over her shoulder.

  The tub was starting to overflow. How long had she been staring at herself?

  She reached to the side and cranked the faucets off.

  That was when she looked down at herself. Her tunic was covered with mud and blood, just like her face. As it was damp, the folds were cold, and as she peeled the thing off, the smell of the prison entered her nose.

  The knocking on the closed door made her curse. “I’m just getting undressed. Give me a damn minute.”

  That’s right, she told herself. Come back from the brink of death… to bitch at your sister like it was business as usual.

  Posie’s voice was strident. “Five more minutes then.”

  Nyx shook her head as she started to undo her pants. When her back let out a holler, she twisted around to inspect the damage. The bruising from when she’d landed after the explosion was extensive, the purple patches up at her shoulders and down on one hip.

  She thought about her strangling the Command, those cuffs wrapped around the female’s throat—and suddenly she remembered. Her grandfather had taken them off. In the car. He’d gotten behind the wheel, leaned into the passenger seat, and she’d heard something like change rattling in a pocket. Then he’d turned and told her to put out her hands.

  He’d had a ring of tiny keys. The sixth one had worked.

  Moving her shoulder into the mirror’s view, she pushed at the red stripe on the outside of her biceps. And remembered getting shot. In fact, every time she blinked, more flashes of memory came back, and they were so vivid, she heard the sounds and smelled the smells that went along with them.

  Screams. Moldy, damp air. Gunpowder.

  Blood. So much blood.

  Thrusting the recollections aside, she refocused on her pants. They came off only with effort, the wet, muddy fabric clinging to her legs—and she had a thought about how much of a mess she must have made in the back of the Volvo.

  When she dropped them to the old tiled floor, the fleshy sound they made turned her stomach.

  Before she got in the water, she used the toilet because Posie had said she had to. And it was the best piddle she had had in her entire life, the only thing that had felt good in what seemed like an eternity.

  The bath was even better. But it came with the price of thinking of the hidden pool. Of Jack. Of them being together.

  As she sank into the warm, gentle embrace of the water, she knew she was going to have to get used to the mourning. It was a part of her now, something as permanent as her arms and legs, as dispositive as the beat of her heart and the draw of her lungs.

  Laying her head back on the curve of the tub, she closed her eyes and the tears that escaped were hot as they slid down her cheeks… and joined the now dirty brown bath water.

  Knock, knock—

  “I’m fucking fine,” she snapped.

  The door opened anyway. Posie leaned in. Looked in. And then retreated with a warning that there would be another five-minute check coming.

/>   Aware that she had to get on with it, Nyx sat up and gripped the sides of the tub. Rising to her feet in the water, she couldn’t believe how filthy things had gotten. She turned on the shower at the same time she took the drain plug out.

  Posie was wrong. She did manage to stand on her own, although she made sure she didn’t let things get too hot.

  Soap was a revelation. Shampoo and conditioner as well.

  Nyx reflected, as she tilted her head back and winced from the sting at her temple and the stiffness, that when you did something every day, you got used to the benefits of the service. Cleanliness. Clean water. Food that was unspoiled and prepared to taste. Rest on a soft bed in a safe place. It was a luxury to complain about inconveniences like parking tickets and coworkers who reheated cod in the company microwave and storms that took your power for a night and plumbing that leaked.

  Nyx had to wash her hair through twice.

  And when she got out, the dirt rim around the white porcelain was so thick, it was like a stain. She had a thought that she should get the Scrubbing Bubbles right now, but she didn’t have the energy. Then, as she toweled off, she realized she hadn’t brought anything in with her to change—

  On the back of the door, a pink bathrobe had materialized on the towel hook.

  Posie had clearly done another check-in.

  Nyx wrapped herself in the softness and cranked the tie around her waist. As she went to open the door, she noted every single ache and pain. Considering what she had been through, it could have been so much worse.

  She had Jack to thank for all of that. His blood, so pure and strong, had sustained her.

  The bathroom door opened soundlessly. Then again, it had had plenty of Posie warm-ups.

  Beneath her bare feet, the floorboards creaked softly and she smelled something coming from the kitchen that made her mouth water. Onions sautéing. Beef.

  Posie was making her something to eat—

  Nyx stopped in the archway. Across the shallow space, at the table with its four chairs, there were two males sitting down in front of the place settings.

  The one with his back to her had thin, small shoulders and shaggy brown hair.

  Just as Posie pivoted at the stove, one hand on the pan’s handle, the other on a spatula, the pretrans did the same, his narrow torso twisting around in the chair.

  His eyes, his brilliant, gleaming, aquamarine blue eyes, looked up at Nyx.

  Someone made a strangled sound.

  Herself?

  Yes.

  That was all she remembered as she passed out cold where she stood.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The following evening, as the moon rose over the farm and the heat dropped some, Nyx stepped out onto the porch. As she looked over the property, the barn and the pasture were like something out of an artist’s rendering, so perfect and homey, with the graceful, full trees, and the healthy grass, and the fences that undulated across the meadows.

  It was a very all-American kind of expanse. As long as you didn’t know that it was owned and built and maintained by vampires.

  Her grandfather came out tamping tobacco into his pipe, the screen door clapping shut behind him. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  She glanced back at him, noting the fabric roll under his arm. “Yes.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s go out to the barn, then.”

  They walked side by side across the fragrant, freshly cut lawn. The maple trees seemed more beautiful than she remembered, the boughs laden with their emerald green, late-August leaves. Soon, when the weather turned, they would be red and gold, and then finally, crunchy brown upon the ground.

  “Actually, I do have a question,” she said. “How did you know Janelle had killed the old male? How were you so sure?”

  Her grandfather put his pipe between his teeth and lit it with his old, serviceable lighter, clustering down with his palms, hunching to keep the breeze from disturbing the flame’s work. And then it was puff, puff, puff… the fragrant smoke rising up.

  She was becoming convinced he was going to ignore her when he finally spoke.

  “He called me. Two nights before he was killed.”

  When she looked over sharply, her grandfather showed no signs of noticing her surprised reaction. He just took his pipe out of his mouth and peered into the belly as if checking to see it was sufficiently embered.

  “He told me that she had threatened him,” he said as he stopped and had to relight. When things were properly going, he resumed speaking, but not walking. “He called me as her male next of kin, in accordance with the Old Laws. At first, I thought it was disciplinary in nature. Then I realized that he was scared of her. I interceded on his behalf. I told her there was no cause to go over to the property again, that her services were no longer required.”

  “And what happened,” Nyx prompted when he fell silent.

  Her grandfather started walking again and did not respond until they were inside the barn. And even then, he waited until he was standing by a guide boat that, going by the sweet smell of varnish, he had recently put a first coat on.

  He puffed on his pipe, releasing clouds of white that drifted over his head. “I am an old male now, and fifty years ago, I had already been on the planet for five hundred and seventy-three years. In all that time, I have never been looked at like that.”

  “How did she…” Nyx’s voice got unreliable so she had to let the words go.

  “Janelle had no soul in that moment. Behind that stare, there was… absolutely nothing.” He put up his forefinger. “No, that isn’t true. There was logic and calculation. Nothing of any humanity, however. No love or connection to me as a member of her bloodline. And that was when I saw the true nature of her. That was when I realized… that I had been living all of those years with a predator.”

  Nyx shook her head as she remembered the female’s cold stare through the steel mesh of the holding cell. “I didn’t know, either,” she whispered.

  “I fault my own reasoning. I assumed…” He ran his hand along the gunwale of the gleaming golden boat. “I assumed females couldn’t think like that, be like that. Of course, there had been flashes of strange detachment from her, things that lingered from time to time, but I disregarded all of that because she was my granddaughter and I loved her.”

  “She was my sister.” Nyx walked over to the lineup of orderly tools on the wall above the workstation. “I did the same.”

  “The next night, the old male called and told me she was welcome back on his property. Even now, I wondered what she did to get that result. I can only guess. I decided to stay out of it. I doubted myself… and I was, like him, scared of her. When she came home from work early the following night, with that cash and that so-called gift?” He shook his head. “I knew what had to have happened. I came out here, so she would think I was working, and dematerialized over to the house. I demanded to see the body. The butler tried to stop me, but I rushed upstairs and followed the scent of death. I saw the old male propped up in his bed, lying against the pillows. His butler informed me that it was his time. That he had been suffering the rapid descent of age. I pretended to be overcome and require a glass of water. When the doggen left me, I went across and inspected the male. His neck was broken, snapped free of the spinal cord. Old age does not do that.”

  “And how were you sure it was Janelle?”

  “I could scent her soap on his nightclothes, his hair, his skin. The doggen was too discreet to mention any of that. Too discreet to mention the broken neck, too.” Her grandfather looked over, his eyes sharp. “Just so that we’re clear, I have no love for the glymera. They are a useless drain on species resources. Except I had to protect you and Posie. Janelle was fulminating in her madness, on the cusp, but not quite there. It was my only chance. I knew the aristocrats would not hesitate to seize the assets in the event it was murder, and that they would therefore act precipitously on my informatio
n. They did so. I lied to her to get her to go unto the Council. I told her she was due a proper inheritance from the old male she had killed. That the notice of allegation had been a mistake. She was less smart than she was aggressive. She believed me.”

  He shook his head. “Or perhaps, as I had discounted her deviancy, she disregarded the risk to her freedom because I was her close relation. Or… maybe she was just overconfident. As with the posed body, which she assumed people would take at face value, she might well have thought she would be believed. I do not know. What I was sure about, however, was that I had to keep you and Posie safe. Once she had the taste of death, she was going to hunger for it, and she might well have started at home.”

  Nyx ran her hands over the chipped and worn surface of the workstation, at which her grandfather had spent hours. “You did the right thing.”

  “I couldn’t bear the risk that she’d hurt either of the two of you. You both are, and always have been, all I have left to live for.”

  Shifting her eyes over to him, she tried not to look so shocked. “Do you really feel like that?”

  Her grandfather puffed on that pipe. When his stare finally met her own, there were unshed tears in his eyes. “I have always felt this way. I lost my daughter. My shellan. My parents. The friends I had, the cousins I used to know. My life has long been winding down, and there has been much mourning for me. You and Posie? You have brought me such joy. Posie with her warmth, you with your brave nature. You two are everything that keeps me going.”

  Her grandfather cleared his throat. “And I am so proud of you, Nyxanlis. For following your destiny. And I am proud of Posie for learning her own strength these last few nights. Both of you have changed, and now I can go in peace.”

  “What?” Nyx gasped. “Are you ill—”

  “No, no.” He motioned with his hand dismissively, as if he were wiping away the words. “I am fine. But when it is my time to go unto the Fade, I now know you and Posie can take care of yourselves. You will be fine without me, and that gives me great relief.”

  Nyx choked up. “Oh, grandfather.”

  When he opened his arms, she rushed across and threw herself against him. As he hugged her close, she grabbed on hard.