Deadly Descendant (12 page)

Jack let go of me, and I jerked away from the dead guy. My head swam at the sudden movement, and I closed my eyes to avoid passing out.

“What the hell was that about?” I snarled at Jack.

“What good is a trickster if he has no illusion magic?” Jack responded, sounding smug. Apparently, the blood and gore didn’t bother him nearly as much as they did me.

I forced my eyes open, and though my head still swam, it wasn’t quite as bad. Jack was sitting on the bloody grass between the victim and Jamaal, showing no sign of self-consciousness. I kept my eyes pinned on his face as I realized something.

“I’ve seen you change forms before. You don’t have to be naked to do it.” When he’d changed in the living room, his clothes had changed right along with him.

He grinned at me and stretched out his legs to give me a better view. “I don’t technically have to, but it’s more fun this way. You should see the look on your face.”

If my gun had been in easy reach, I might have shot him. “Some poor bastard just got mauled to death by jackals, Jamaal is lying there unconscious, I’m bleeding, and you think this is a good time to yank my chain?”

He met my eyes as the humor left his. It was the first time in my memory I could remember seeing Jack look serious. His expression was strangely chilling, maybe only because it looked wrong on a face that was always smiling.

“I’m a descendant of Loki,” he said in a tone that suggested I’d ticked him off. “Deal with it.”

Loki, who was a trickster and who didn’t much care about the feelings of those around him.

“That may be true,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you
are
Loki. You could show a little compassion every once in a while.”

The grin was back. “Why would I want to do a silly thing like that?”

I guessed appealing to his better nature was a lost cause. Which I should have known before I opened my mouth. Tricksters aren’t known for being nice. I shook my head.

“You’re an asshole,” I told Jack, who was not the least bothered by it.

Down the street a bit, I could see a couple of people turn the corner at a run. They were far enough away that I couldn’t tell who they were yet. I supposed I should be grateful that Jack had gotten there as quickly as he had. If I’d been in trouble, the others would have been too late to help me. Assuming Jack wouldn’t have sat on the sidelines eating popcorn if I
had
been in trouble.

“Put some damn clothes on,” I snapped at him, only to realize that in the brief moment I’d looked away, he’d somehow managed to clothe himself.

The rest of the
Liberi
converged on us in the next couple of minutes. I was still light-headed and woozy, and the bite wounds hurt like a son of a bitch. I didn’t feel like reliving what had just happened multiple times, so I waited until everyone was there before I gave them the play-by-play.

I debated whether to tell everyone about how Jamaal had wigged out and then ended up killing the victim, but he was still lying there unconscious, and I figured I had to explain. I hoped I wasn’t condemning Jamaal to a fate worse than death by telling Anderson what had happened. But I knew it hadn’t really been Jamaal who killed the victim; it had been his death magic, which had taken him over completely, possessed him like a demon. I hoped Anderson would understand that.

There was silence among the gathered
Liberi
as they contemplated everything I’d said. Anderson knelt
by Jamaal’s side and lightly tapped his cheeks, trying to wake him up, but he was still out cold. Another car passed by, and Jack did his thing, reaching down to touch me and the dead guy and Jamaal. I noticed more than one
Liberi
grimace and look away, and, as before, the car went right on by the bloody murder scene without stopping.

“Do I want to know what you’re making people see?” I asked Jack.

“No,” several people answered at once, and I realized that I was probably the only one who hadn’t seen the illusion. I bit my tongue to resist asking him why I couldn’t see it. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to start up a conversation with him.

“We’d better get back to the house,” Anderson said, standing up and brushing dead grass off the knees of his jeans. Somehow he’d managed not to get any blood on him. “The killer isn’t going to come back here tonight.”

“What about Jamaal?” I asked.

Anderson gave me a neutral look. “I’m not making any decisions until he wakes up and gives me his side of the story. Maybe he had a good reason for what he did.”

But Anderson hadn’t seen him, hadn’t seen the absolute lack of humanity in his face. I wondered if Jamaal would even remember anything when he woke up—assuming the death magic hadn’t pushed him over the edge permanently.

Anderson moved around to Jamaal’s feet and
squatted, glancing up at Logan. “Help me carry him, will you?”

I didn’t know how much Jamaal weighed, except that it was a lot. It probably would be easier to use a fireman’s carry, but we had a considerable walk to get to where we’d parked, and I figured the guys were going to have to take turns, so maybe two at a time would be more efficient in the end.

Logan was just starting to bend down when Maggie grabbed his shoulder and tugged him back.

“I can carry him,” she said, then bent and slid one arm under Jamaal’s shoulders and one under his knees, lifting him like he weighed no more than a toddler. “See? Light as a feather.”

Maggie had told me once that although the guys all knew about her supernatural strength, testosterone poisoning made them really uncomfortable with letting her carry stuff. I could see she was right by the way the guys shifted uncomfortably on their feet. Maggie smiled tightly, and I knew it bothered her that they were threatened by her strength.

I forced myself to stand up, though it seemed to take a massive amount of effort, and putting weight on my wounded leg made a reluctant whimper rise in my throat.

“I guess I should carry
you
instead,” Anderson said, and before I had a chance to protest, he’d swept me off my feet. I instinctively put an arm around his neck to hold on.

“I can walk,” I insisted like an idiot.

“Yeah, if we don’t mind it taking three hours to get back to the cars,” Anderson retorted.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Jack bend down and feel around the dead guy’s pocket until he found a wallet, which he promptly transferred into his own back pocket.

“You’re stealing his wallet?” I asked, my voice a little shrill with my indignation.

Jack shrugged. “It’ll have ID and credit cards, which might help us find out more about him and maybe figure out why he was targeted.”

I didn’t think that had anything to do with it. He could have just glanced at the ID to find out who the poor guy was, then left it at the scene.

Anderson turned away before I had a chance to tell Jack what an asshole he was—for the second time in the last ten minutes—and we started down the road toward where we’d parked.

“The best way to handle Jack is not to engage with him,” Anderson told me.

Jack said something under his breath that I think it was good I couldn’t hear.

Anderson carried me gently, but I felt every footstep reverberate through my body, bringing stabs of pain from my wounds. I gritted my teeth and held on, trying not to make any undignified noises or start crying.

Emma was watching me with narrowed eyes, and I realized she wasn’t at all happy about Anderson carrying me. It made me want to snuggle in closer to him just to piss her off, but I hurt too much to
indulge in mind games. Instead, I closed my eyes and prayed for my supernatural healing to hurry up and do its job.

I think I passed out for part of the trip back to the cars, because we seemed to get there faster than I expected. Obviously, neither Jamaal nor I was in any shape to drive, so we had to shuffle passengers and drivers around a bit. I ended up stretched across the backseat of Anderson’s car, which I didn’t think was the smartest seating arrangement in the world, seeing as Emma was still glaring daggers at me. Anderson must have noticed—she had a few daggers in her arsenal to spare for him, too—but he ignored it.

I
know
I passed out for a while during the car ride, and based on the stony silence and bitter expressions I woke up to, it was probably just as well. Anderson was staring straight ahead, all his concentration fixed on the road in front of him, while Emma stared out the side window, her arms crossed over her chest. I hoped it wasn’t me they’d been fighting about. I thought they had enough issues without Emma’s irrational jealousy thrown into the mix.

The ride was long enough that I expected to be feeling somewhat better by the time we arrived back at the mansion, but everything still hurt, and I was still weak. In fact, I seemed to be even weaker, although that was probably because I’d let myself forget just how miserable I’d felt the last time I tried to stand.

Anderson wound up carrying me again, and I could tell Emma was just thrilled about it. Here I was, making friends and influencing people without even having to
do
anything.

Jamaal was still pretty out of it, although he was technically conscious. Maggie’s arm was around him, and he leaned on her heavily as he walked. I really wanted to know what the hell had happened back there in the cemetery, but I knew I wasn’t getting an explanation anytime soon. Jamaal looked like a stiff wind would knock him down, and he was shivering even though it wasn’t all that cold. By the time we got through the front door to the main stairway, he was completely spent, and Maggie had to carry him up the stairs. That he didn’t protest showed just how out of it he was.

Anderson took me up to my own room. I didn’t want him to lay me on my nice, clean bed when I was covered in blood, so I directed him to take me to the bathroom so I could get cleaned up first. When he put me down, I had to grab hold of the sink to keep from falling.

“I feel like shit,” I grumbled, wishing my supernatural healing would do its thing a little faster.

Anderson’s brow furrowed as he looked at me. “You’re looking rather pale.”

He had to help me get my ruined coat off, and that’s when we first got a close look at one of the bites. My stomach lurched, and I had to tighten my grip on the sink to stay upright.

The jackals’ fangs had left a series of deep puncture
wounds, and they didn’t appear to have healed at all, even though it had probably been almost an hour since the attack. The flesh around the punctures was red and swollen, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn I had a raging infection.

“Why isn’t it healing?” I asked Anderson, wondering if I shouldn’t have just skipped the cleanup and collapsed into bed.

“I don’t know,” Anderson said grimly. He reached up and touched my forehead, and I realized for the first time that I was sweating. Anderson looked even more grim. “Feels like you have a fever, too.”

“But that’s impossible. Isn’t it?”

“I would have thought so.” There was no missing the worry in his eyes, and that didn’t do much to comfort me. “Lets get the wounds cleaned up and put you to bed. Maybe there’s some irritant in the jackals’ saliva that’s keeping you from healing.”

An “irritant” probably wouldn’t have given me a fever, but I felt too awful to argue.

“I’m going to need some help,” I said, though I knew it was obvious that I wasn’t up to cleaning and dressing the wounds myself. “I think Emma and I would both be happier if you sent Maggie in to help me instead of doing it yourself.”

Anger flashed in Anderson’s eyes. “Emma wouldn’t be so shallow as to be jealous of you in the state you’re in.”

Ah, denial. I’d seen the way she’d looked at me while he was carrying me, and I knew without a doubt that she was, indeed, jealous. Ridiculous it might be,
but then, feelings often were. But that was not an argument for right now.

“Then forget about Emma,” I said. “
I’m
not much of an exhibitionist, so I’d really rather Maggie help me than you. No offense.”

“None taken,” Anderson said, though I wasn’t sure that was true. He reached over and closed the lid of the toilet, then helped me traverse the few feet between it and the sink so I could sit down. Instead of leaving me there and going to get Maggie, he actually called her on his cell phone. The idea that he was worried enough not to leave me alone for the five minutes it would take to go find her was not at all comforting.

My head started to throb, as if the wounds themselves didn’t hurt enough. When Maggie arrived, Anderson had a whispered conversation with her right outside the bathroom door. I couldn’t hear a word they said, but I didn’t think it boded well for me.

Things got a little fuzzy then, so I only vaguely remember Maggie helping me out of my clothes and cleaning my wounds. She had to use water at first, because the
Liberi
didn’t have things like alcohol or peroxide sitting around—who needed them when your body repaired itself in a matter of hours?—but somebody must have been sent out to raid a drugstore, because the peroxide came eventually.

By the time I was laid out in bed, my wounds all bandaged, I was sweating and shivering at the same time, and all my joints ached. I’d never been this sick in
my life, and I spent some time complaining to myself about how life wasn’t fair. Here I was immortal, invulnerable, and I was sick and hurting and scared I was going to die anyway.