Damned if I Don't (The Harker Trilogy Book 2) (10 page)

“Figured you might get cold.”

“Can you help me into it?” I hold out my arm, like I’m a baby that needs help dressing herself. I did it a lot with Amelia when she was little.

“I’ll do you one better than that.” He wraps me up in the robe, not bothering to put my one and a half arms through the sleeves, and I give a surprised shriek as he hefts me up. He doesn’t say anything until he places me in the bed, careful to avoid any impact on my wound. Purl was curled up there, waiting for me to come out of the bathroom, except that she’s now getting up with a gruff hiss at Jude’s proximity.

The mix of exhaustion and pain blend and I can feel myself wanting to lay down in this bed and sleep.

Jude’s propped up on his elbows on either side of me from when he deposited me on the bed. His face is unreadable as he looks at me, like he’s trying to commit this moment to memory.

“Sleep well,” he whispers. He gets up to leave, and my soul aches at the absence.

I catch his hand before he goes.

“Stay with me?”

I hear him let out a breath, and for a second, I think he’s going to turn me down again. Then he gulps, nods, and wordlessly crawls into bed with me. He spoons his body against mine, holding me to him. I feel his heat on my back as we both settle into the plush mattress.

“Good night, Jude,” I whisper.

His lips brush the back of my neck. “Good night.”

Edie

Dreams are never restful when you’re the Harker.

“That’s interesting,” Meghan’s voice says, as I awaken to find myself in the Void. I’m always doing something, whether it’s in my sleep or it’s in reality. For the briefest moment, I panic, wondering if my body is icy in the real world with Jude lying next to it.

“What’s interesting?” I ask. I cross my arms—plural, because I’m in the Void.

Meghan is sitting on our childhood bench, her face drawn up tightly. “Everything that you heard from that Hannah chick,” she says, stroking her chin. “I never knew.”

“What, all of that stuff about the Progenitor? The Marrow?”
Jude?

“Yeah. You’d think they would have worked with us.”

That’s one thing that’s been bothering me. Everyone claims to be doing good for the sake of the world, but everyone’s doing it in silos. The purpose of the V Boards is to unite that front, at least as much as possible. Through the years, even when Mom was still alive, we’d meet up with people, kill some bad, ancient vampires, and make connections that I still keep now. We were all banded together then.

I wish we’d connected with the Marrow before all this. Maybe it would have saved Meghan’s life.

Meghan chuckles, as if she read my mind.

“You look so pensive right now,” she says.

“Any chinks in my aura?”

“No. Your aura is the dark purple of confusion. Nothing more than that.”

“Good.” So Hannah is telling the truth. That’s at least reassuring in and of itself. It would be terrible to invite another betrayer into the fold, after Tessa.

“How is Carl doing?” Meghan asks. Once again, as if she’s reading my mind. I even ask her that, but she laughs and shakes her head.

“No. I just know you very well. You’re like an open book to me.”

“Oh, well that’s great,” I say sarcastically. I wonder how many other people are able to read me like an open book.

“Really, Edie. You’re fine.”

“I haven’t been fine in five months, Meghan.”

My sister’s face falls and I wish I could take that back. It’s not her fault she died when I became infected with this fucking virus. Only recently did I stop blaming myself for her death. Having Meghan tell me face-to-face that she didn’t blame me lifted a huge weight from my shoulders, and I don’t want to blame her for my predicament.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

“It’s all right,” she sighs. “You probably needed that.”

“Heh. Yeah.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

I blink. “I guess I’m going to find a way to kill Anthony.”

“And you’re not going to try to find a replacement?”

I sigh. “No. I agree with Hannah—it’s too much of a burden to thrust onto someone right now. It’s such a huge weight for anyone to carry. Even if you look at the Progenitor, he’s crestfallen. He wants to die. He doesn’t want this anymore.”

“And what do you want?”

“To live, of course.” But that’s not in the cards for me anymore. Might have never been in the cards for me.

“I’m so sorry, Edie.”

“It’s life.” And death.

Then Meghan asks me something that totally catches me off guard. “Are you going to ask Reiko for information about Anthony?”

I consider her question and snort. “I’ve tried already, but I don’t think she’ll talk.”

Meghan smiles serenely. “I can show you something that I learned after I died.”

“What?”

“How to make her talk.”

***

I wake up with a jolt in Jude’s arms, my pulse racing. I grab my phone and look at the time. It’s ten in the morning, and the sun is shining outside. Meaning that most vampires are asleep, but I can wake that bitch up and find some answers.

Beside me, Jude shifts, then stills. I can’t tell if he’s awake or not until I hear, “Edie?”

I turn myself on my back and watch him in the dark. The suite, as nice as it is, doesn’t have any windows, and the only light in the room is from an ornate nightlight on the far wall. It casts a greenish glow across our bodies.

“Hey,” I answer.

I can see the contours of his face shift into a frown. “What is it?”

I debate whether I should get up right now or wait. Then again, every moment I waste is another moment where Anthony could be tracking down the Progenitor. Or Graeme and Amelia.

“I need to go talk to that vampire.”

He props himself up on one arm and watches me. Our eyes meet. “Who?” he asks.

“The one that Dean brought in. Reiko?”

Again, he looks doubtful. “Edie, we already tried that.”

“I have a new technique.” Quite literally. “Can you help me?”

It takes us about ten minutes to change into new clothes. I’m tired, flat out exhausted, but I know that the longer we wait, the greater the chance we’ll be too late. I need to stay on top of things. Jude and I don’t talk, whether it’s from an unspoken truce or the urgency in my voice, I’m not sure. We get ready and we head out into the sixth and a half floor.

To my surprise, there are still quite a few vampires up and about. The hacker vampire is still at his wall of monitors, watching the daytime world outside of the compound.

Every eye on the floor turns to look at me as I stride over to the interrogation room where they’re holding Reiko. Even for a vampire, Jude is struggling to keep up with my fast pace.

I guess a few hours of sleep has rejuvenated me.

“Can someone open this door?” I ask, as I stop in front of the barred door. It’s dark inside, so I can’t see what’s beyond it. All I know is that the lock is keeping me from speaking with Reiko and I want in.

“Why do you want to speak to her?” Amy, the vampire from last night approaches me.

“I have a new way of getting her to talk.”

Amy exchanges glances with another vampire, then nods solemnly. She turns away from me and shields our view from the keypad as she punches the number in. She still thinks we’d try to get in the room by ourselves.

“What are you doing?”

I look up to see Dean coming up to me. He looks more disheveled than usual, which is saying something. I guess he’s not a day person.

“Edie thinks she can make Reiko talk.” Jude murmurs. He’s not impeding me. There’s more amusement in his voice. And a touch of pride.

Let’s see if that’s warranted.

Amy opens the door and flicks on the light, revealing Reiko exactly where we left her in her space in the middle of the floor. I may not like it, but I can see why Zhi has a similar interrogation room in the basement of his dry cleaners.

It’s a good way to minimize risk.

She glares up at us as we come in. Her mouth is still bound and gagged, so she can’t taunt or bite us.

“Can you get me a chair?” I ask Dean. The vampire blinks in confusion and he doesn’t move, causing me to lose my patience. “
Now
?”

“Do it,” Jude orders.

Dean looks at him, swallows uncomfortably and then ducks away. Meanwhile, Reiko isn’t doing anything except glaring. If looks could kill, I’d be dead a thousand times over.

Then again, from the way I’m looking at her, she’d be dead too.

“Morning,” I say. “It’s time to talk.”

She gives a gruff snicker, then turns away.

Dean comes back, wheeling in an office chair, still looking unsure of what we’re doing here. I take it from him with a “thanks” and plop my butt into it, rolling up to Reiko. I hesitate just for a moment and then I reach over and undo the gag around her mouth. Not that I need her to physically talk, but I at least want to hear her words. She snaps at the area where my hand was, but only gets empty air.

“You’re not making me talk, Harker,” she growls.

“Not from your mouth at least.”

“Edie, what are you doing?” Jude murmurs in my ear.

“Meghan showed me something. A way to access her mind and figure out where Anthony is.”

“That’s if she even knows anything about him,” Dean says. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to track that bastard down. We’ve been trying for a long time.”

“Then let’s see what she has to say about it.”

“Fuck you,” Reiko growls.

I smirk. “You’re not my type.”

My quip catches her off-guard, and she reels back, glaring at me suspiciously. With my good hand, I reach out towards her face. She snarls and thrashes away from me, as if she can veer away from my grasp. At one point, when my hand gets close to her, she ferociously bites at me.

Then my hand connects with her forehead, and she immediately goes silent. I’m concentrating on her, trying to sneak past her mental defenses that she has up against me.

“Edie.” Jude says.

“Hush,” I whisper, finally finding an opening in the walls in her mind.

Then I dive in.

Edie

According to Meghan, breaching someone else’s consciousness is an inexact science She apologized for not telling me about the technique earlier, but my growing powers mean that I can try advanced magic like this now. It’s kind of what Aunt Tessa did to piggy back onto my trips into the Void, only she had to do it with magic circles, incense and potions.

It’s what I’m doing now to get into Reiko’s mind. A flush of power, skin-to-skin connection, and I’m there.

My eyes open, and I’m standing in Reiko’s version of the Void. I realize now what the Progenitor meant by sharing it with his children.

While my version of it is a seamless white environment that is both immense and claustrophobic, Reiko’s resembles something like a concrete courtyard with reflective puddles of water on the ground, giving the illusion that there’s two of everything. A red haze hangs over the place, and it looks like a blood storm is about to hit.

Reiko is standing before me, only it isn’t the Reiko who’s sitting with me in the interrogation room. She appears to be about eight years old, her hair in twin pig tails and she’s wearing a school uniform. The tips of her patent leather shoes are in a puddle in front of her, and looking down, I see her reflected in the water’s surface. Except, the reflection is different. Her socks have ruffles, the ribbons in her pigtails are different colors.

Then I realize that the reflection is a manifestation of her twin sister. The one that I set on fire.

I can’t shake the overwhelming sense of dread as I step forward.

Holy fuck, is this what it feels like for all vampires?

It’s palpable, like evil itself resides here. It makes sense though; the Progenitor showed me just a glimpse of the Void, explaining that there was so much more beyond it. The evil, the place where the dead go, the place that’s a reflection of each of us. It ties us all together.

The sound of my Docs hitting the concrete makes little Reiko turn around. The reflection of her twin bares her teeth as she follows suit. Meanwhile, Reiko is watching me with huge, almond-shaped eyes.

“You,” she snarls. Her voice is that of an eight-year-old, but there’s a weight to it. The five-hundred-year-old vampire is still before me, so I’d best not let my guard down.

“Yes, me,” I say.

“Why are you here?”

“You know why.”

Her reflection bares its teeth at me, but Reiko doesn’t miss a beat as she coolly regards me. “You’re so sure you can get it out of me?”

“I’m hoping I can,” I say. “I don’t want to resort to beating up an eight-year-old, but I will. Especially when I know that you’re an old vampire on the outside.”

Reiko crosses her arms, and looks me dead in the eye, like she’s daring me to try anything. I glance down at her reflection, seeing her mirror-twin doing the same thing.

Inspiration strikes, and I take my boot, and kick at the puddle. Such an innocuous movement, but it shatters the reflection of her sister into droplets. To my surprise, the girl in the reflection screams, her childlike voice filling up the courtyard, reverberating off the walls and coming back to me in spades.

The noise is deafening. I cry out and put both of my hands over my ears and cower from the sound ricocheting around my soul, trying to block it. Reiko does the same thing, only she’s screaming as well with her reflection.

Okay, I may not try that again, but I hope it’s enough to get her to speak.

“No,” Reiko cries. “Ryoko!”

Reiko being able to speak forces me to stand upright and take a heaving breath to steady myself. “Speak, or I’ll do it again,” I demand, holding my foot above another puddle, where the reflection cowers away from me. “Tell me where Anthony is and what he’s doing next.”

Fear reflects in both Reiko and her twin’s eyes as they look at me. I raise my foot higher in warning before Reiko reaches out, sobbing.

“Okay! Okay!” She’s crying, gasping for breath, and I almost feel bad. Almost. Then again, she did bite into Carl’s neck and mocked me.
Threatened
Amelia.

That’s unforgivable in my eyes.

“Tell me where I can find Anthony,” I say.

“
Now?
As in this very moment?” Reiko stammers.

I blink. “Yes, now
.
”
Why?

The girl in front of me crumples into tears. “I don’t know,” she says. “All I know is that he is en route.”

“Where?”

“To get your brother-in-law and your niece.” Now, finally admitting the truth, the girl laughs shrilly. “How do you think I knew Amelia’s name? It’s not like all of vampire society keeps up with your fucking lineage, Harker.”

I grit my teeth. “That’s impossible.” All Anthony wants is me.

Right?

But Reiko shakes her head. “He wants your niece. In order to get you.”

“Why? He has my arm, what does he want with me?”

Little Reiko grimaces. “That, I don’t know.”

I could take her at her word, but right now, I want to delve further into seeing how she knows Anthony’s plans. I could dive deeper into her mind to find out.

Bring it on.

I step towards her, and she whimpers, cowering away from me. I hesitate, seeing her reaction and hating myself for causing it. I don’t want to be the monster. I’m just trying to figure out how to save the world.

Funny how those two things seem to be one and the same at the moment.

I touch her forehead, both in this reality and in the reflective puddles…

…And I’m transported to the entrance of an upscale office building. I blink, and the world shifts slightly. I realize that I’m not controlling this movement. I’m seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

Reiko’s eyes.

Movement to my right causes me to turn my head. I see a face watching me, like I’m watching a mirror. Reiko’s twin sister smirks at me and tilts her head towards the right. I follow where she gestures to see two men walking away from us. I almost jump out of my skin when I realize that it’s Jude and Dean walking away from us.

This must have been tonight, just as Jude and Dean were heading back to the car. I was probably having my attack at this very moment, tucked away into one of the back alleys of Houston. Reiko’s sister quizzically raises an eyebrow without saying a word.

I get the feeling that these two sisters do a lot of nonverbal communication. Several centuries of being with the one person who knows you best will do that. Not to mention that it’s not uncommon for human twins to have their own language.

I watch as my hand reaches into my back pocket and I pull out a cell phone. I scroll through my contact list to an unidentified number—really, it’s labeled as “Unidentified” —and hit “SEND”. It only rings once before someone picks it up.

“
Moshi-moshi
.”

I recognize the voice immediately, even though it’s speaking Japanese. I’d recognize that voice if it was coughing.

Anthony.

“He’s here,” I hear Reiko’s voice—my voice in this memory—say. The twin snickers next to me.

“Is the Harker with him?”

“I don’t see her.”

“Follow him.” There’s a desperation to Anthony’s voice. “We’re just about to pick up the tiny Harker and her father.”

“Will do.”

I hang up, just as the feeling of panic spreads across me.

Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Reiko seems unusually calm for how I’m truly feeling inside. She/I look to the other vampire, nod, and then we both make our way through the alleys in the direction Jude and Dean were headed.

I don’t need to see any more. I
know
what happens next.

I break the contact with the memory, taking me back to Reiko’s version of the Void. The girl staggers backwards from me with a cry, as if the memory was a physical assault. The reflection of her sister does the same as well.

“Where is he headed?” I demand. I grab the girl roughly by the collar. “Where the fuck is Anthony going to get Amelia and Graeme?”

Right now, I don’t even know where they are. It was to protect them. Yet it seems like that’s about to bite me in the ass, as Reiko shakes her head with a sigh.

“I don’t know,” the girl whimpers. “That’s all I know, I swear.”

I believe her. I curse under my breath and turn away from the girl, running both of my metaphysical hands through my hair.

Oh my God, he’s going to get them. And…

I hear an inhuman shriek and turn just in time to see Reiko flinging herself at me, her teeth bared. What’s in front of me now is not a child, but a killing machine intent of finishing the job that my virus started five months ago. I don’t know what it would mean if I died in the Void, but I’m not about to find out.

I sever the connection, and I’m immediately brought back to the real world, in the holding cell in Houston. Ice sloughs off me as I open my eyes. My hand that was on Reiko’s forehead breaks away, and we are both blown backwards.

It’s really cold in this room now, and I look behind me to see Jude and Dean watching me with wide eyes. I don’t know what happened while I was out, nor do I know how long it was, but it seems like it has frightened both of them.

Being the Harker, you think I’d get used to people watching me like that.

Then another shriek, similar but so much older, splits the air, and I scramble to my feet to get away from Reiko, who moves faster than the eye can follow to stand up and get at me, even though her hands are bound behind her back. She screams as she fights futilely.

Jude manages to pull me out of the way of her vicious teeth. “What happened?” he asks, bewildered.

“I went into her, ah, consciousness.” My mind is working at a million miles a minute, but at the moment, there’s one thought that towers above everything else.

I have to keep Amelia and Graeme safe.
Except I don’t know where they are. How the fuck does Anthony know? Maybe it’s a trick. Maybe it’s just a tactic to get me out in the open. Then again, Anthony has my hand and therefore my blood. He doesn’t
need
me or Amelia. He just needs to find the Progenitor and then he can become the big guy.

So why is he trying to fuck with me?

Jude watches me intently, as if he’s trying to keep up with my crazy stream of thoughts. “How did you go into her consciousness?” he asks.

“Meghan showed me.” I push past him, out of the holding cell and storm back towards the suite. Right now, I could care less what happens to the bitch in that room. They could open up the windows and let her burn in the sunlight for all I care.

Threaten my family, and I show no mercy.

“Wait,
Edie!
” Jude yells following me. “Where are you going?”

“To protect my family,” I say behind me.

I go into the room and start rummaging through my things, trying to locate my phone. I don’t have that much in my bag, except for my old clothes. Finally, I remember that my phone isn’t on my nightstand, it’s still in the bathroom. I storm into the bathroom and grab it.

Graeme’s cell phone is the first number on speed dial.

I hold it to my ear, holding my breath and counting the seconds as they tick by. The phone rings once. No answer.

Come on, Graeme,
I pray.
Please pick up.

Second ring. No answer.

In my panicked state all I want to do is hurtle my phone across the room.
He’s not going to answer. He’s not going to answer. Oh my God, what am I going to do if Anthony has them?

To my utter relief, the call is picked up in the middle of the third ring.

“Graeme!” I cry, almost crying. “Graeme, you have to listen, I -”

“You surprise me, Harker.”

The voice on the other end is not Graeme. My heart thuds in my chest as I listen in disbelief. How the fuck did he find them?

“Anthony,” I say through gritted teeth.

“I would have expected it to take you until at least nightfall to put two and two together.”

“Why do you have them?” I demand.

He chuckles. “Oh Harker, you really don’t know anything about what’s happening.”

“The only thing I need to know is that you have my family.”

“Well, I do have that.”

I close my eyes, fighting the desolation that’s about to consume me.
I’ve failed them.

Jude moves to my side, putting a comforting arm around my shoulders. He can obviously overhear the conversation.

“Where are you?” I say through a closed throat.

“Tsk, tsk, Harker. Surely you can find a more creative way to ask. I always did admire your wit.”

“I just want them back safe and sound.”

“Yet another bad plea. If you want to play the role of the vampire killer, you’re going to have to try harder.”

“I never wanted this role in the first place, goddammit!”