Eternal Craving (7 page)

“They’re both getting in.” Ty seemed definite about that.

“They have their own car.” Jenna hoped she sounded calm, rational.

“Not anymore.” Ty sounded a lot less calm and rational than Jenna did.

“What?” For the first time, Jenna glanced at the car Jude had been driving. The front end was crushed. Flat. She swallowed hard. Ty didn’t give her a chance to ask any questions.

“We’ll discuss it back at the condo.” His voice was clipped, angry.

Kelly shifted in her seat so she could look back at Jenna. Worry shadowed her sister’s eyes. “I should’ve talked to you sooner. But I didn’t know you were going out with Jude and Al to night. You should’ve told me.” She quickly waved away Jenna’s response. “No, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should’ve told the family when I was still back in Houston. But I thought I’d have lots of time to work it out.”

Told her what? For the love of God, told her
what
? Jenna was too confused, too upset at everyone, to make any reply. She just nodded.

But when Al pulled open the door and slid in beside her and Jude went around the car and got in on the other side, panic shook her. She clasped her hands over her stomach to hold everything in.

“Did anyone see you?” Ty scanned the darkness.

“Don’t think so. At least no one came out or called the cops. Not surprising in this neighborhood.” Jude sounded matter-of-fact about the whole thing.

Al watched her from eyes filled with emotions that tore at her—rage, regret, sadness. None of them made sense.

She didn’t think she could even look at Jude. She would’ve sat in Al’s lap to avoid touching Jude if she wasn’t almost as afraid of Al. Because whatever had happened in that park had involved him as well. And where had the monster gone?

“Do you need a cleanup?” Ty sounded like he was suppressing a lot of anger.

“Yes.” Al didn’t elaborate.

Kelly punched in another number on her cell. No greetings. She just said, “Cleanup,” and then gave the address.

No one talked for the rest of the way back. Jenna wasn’t going to be the one to speak first. Besides, she had too many thoughts racing around in her head to concentrate on a conversation.

“Look at me, Jenna.” Jude’s voice was low, compelling, and she found herself turning to stare at him even as her brain screamed at her not to look.

“Leave her alone.” Al’s voice was a rumble of savage threat.

Jude shrugged. “I was just trying to help.”

“You can help by shutting up until we get to the condo.” This came from Ty.

“Watch it, human.” Jude was all smooth menace. “Respect who I am.”

Human?
Jenna couldn’t even begin to process the meaning of that one word. Her memory laughed hysterically and whispered, “Yes, you can.”

Now that Jenna was actually facing Jude, she forced herself to study him. He looked like the same gorgeous man she’d met a few hours ago. He smiled. No fangs. She relaxed just a little. But she knew in her heart of hearts that only the calm presence of her sister kept her from screaming like a banshee. And that’s about all she’d be able to do hemmed in by both men.

Jenna should’ve felt relieved when they reached the condo, but she could only think that inside were more men like Al and Jude. She forced herself to climb from the car and not run away from all of them. When Al offered his hand to help her out, she pointedly ignored it. No touching. She didn’t know why that was important. He wasn’t going to infect her with whatever he had.

The uncomfortable silence lasted all the way up in the elevator. The mirrored walls reflected everyone’s tense faces back at her. Thank heaven Kelly stood beside her. Kelly wouldn’t be so calm if there was danger anywhere near. Jenna had to believe that.

Fin met them at the door. And if Jenna thought she’d felt fear earlier, it was nothing compared to the mindless terror she felt looking into those silver eyes. Something cold and merciless moved in them. She shivered.

He swept his gaze over them. “All of you. In the media room.” As Jenna started to follow Kelly, Fin put a hand on her arm. “You, come with me.”

Kelly swung to face Fin. “I should be the one to tell her.”

“You gave up that right when you put it off so long that this happened.”

Fin’s voice dripped with cold fury. Even Kelly seemed to wilt beneath it.

Ty joined his wife, pulling her to his side in a protective gesture. “Don’t blame Kelly. This isn’t something that’s easy to explain. Besides, you’re the one who invited Jenna here.”

Jenna felt like a volleyball being lobbed from one side to the other. “Hey, guys, I’m right here.” She looked at her sister. “It’s okay. Fin can do the telling. He’s such a cold bastard that he’ll keep me from going all emotional.” There, problem solved, with the added bonus of letting Fin know what she thought of him.

There was a long silence, and Jenna got the weird feeling that some kind of conversation was going on without her.

Finally, Ty turned toward the media room again. Kelly stepped up to Jenna and hugged her. “Everything will be fine. Listen to Fin and what he says. He’s telling the truth. And I’m sorry.”

Sorry for what?
She asked herself that question all the way to Fin’s office. And what an office it was. Huge with soaring ceilings and a bank of windows that looked out over Philly. The lights of the city looked bright and magical. She glanced at Fin as he took his seat behind his massive oak desk. If the lights were bright and magical, then Fin was dark and demonic, even with his silver persona. She sighed. Okay, time to shut down her imagination. She sat stiffly in a chair facing him across the endless expanse of his desk.

Instead of facing her, he swiveled his chair so he was looking out the windows at the night. “I had a better condo in Houston. Higher. It felt like I was in the stars.”

What a whimsical thing for him to say. Didn’t fit his image.

“And what
is
my image, Jenna?” He didn’t turn to face her but continued to stare out the windows.

Shock clogged her throat, taking away her breath and her voice.

Fin waited patiently for her to answer.

She was finally able to croak, “You read my mind.”

“Yes. But I asked you a question.”

Slowly, her heart calmed. After what had happened at the park to night, this didn’t seem worthy of total collapse. Besides, she’d had a demonstration of his mind-reading ability last night. She’d just chosen to forget it. “I think you’re cold, calculating, and hiding emotions that would probably scare the crap out of me. I also think you must be incredibly powerful to lead the kind of men I saw today. Now will you tell me the truth about all this?” Good, anger pushed some of the fear aside.

He finally swung his chair around to face her. “I’ll tell you, but I have to make one thing clear. Only my respect for Kelly kept me from wiping your mind clean of what happened to night.”

“You can’t do that.” Her response was more instinctual than reasoned. No one could take another person’s memories away.

Fin smiled. It was slow and so glorious it made her want to cry. Did that make any sense? No. But after the park, she had every right to get emotional over whatever she wanted.

“Tell me about to night, Jenna.” His gaze speared her, reached inside her, and did weird things to her thoughts.

Okay, now that impression was definitely the product of a deranged imagination. She’d just opened her mouth to answer when a stabbing headache caught her by surprise. Where the hell had that come from? It was like an ice pick to her brain. But she tried to fight past it. “Kelly and I came home from shopping and you said I should go with Al and Jude to see…” See what? She frowned, straining to remember. There was an important reason why she was supposed to go with them to night. Where had they gone? What had they done? Jenna closed her eyes, tried to picture the night, tried to reclaim her memory of what had happened. Because every instinct screamed that something important
had
happened.

Fin nodded. “Now I’ll return your memory. Then we can get down to business.”

Suddenly, it all came flooding back, and the headache disappeared. The park, the monster, Jude. She breathed out a horrified breath. Fin had done what he’d promised. How? “Who are you?” It sounded like a cheesy line from some grade-B movie, but it fit the moment.

He shrugged. “Who, what, it doesn’t matter. Let’s not waste time. I’ll tell the story, and you’ll keep quiet until I’m finished. Then you can ask questions.” Fin looked as if it pained him to grant her any questions at all.

“Go ahead.” Jenna forced herself to relax as she slid a little farther down in her chair.

“The Maya Long Count calendar ends on December twenty-first of this year at exactly 11:11. The Maya believed that time is cyclical. The present time period ends at that moment. Time then resets to zero and begins again.”

She nodded. Lots of apocalyptic myths were attached to the 2012 date. But some people saw the final days in everything. Jenna didn’t.

“The Maya understood the importance of numbers.” He paused. “So do I. I have an affinity for them. They guide my existence.”

Jenna thought that was a bit extreme, but then everything about this group of men seemed extreme.

“We’re the Eleven, and our destiny balances on that number. At 11:11 on December twenty-first, we’ll be at our most powerful. And that’s good for humanity. Because if we’re not successful in what we’re doing now, mankind will cease to exist at that moment.” He spread his hands in a symbol of inevitability. “Time will go on without you, your family, or any other family on Earth. And a new dominant species will arise. One that will bring chaos and destruction to this world.”

Wow, he did bombshells well. Jenna knew her mouth was hanging open, and she felt like she’d never blink again. He had to be crazy. Then she thought about his mind-reading and memory erasing. Maybe not.

Jenna automatically started to ask a question, but he put his finger over his lips, and she shelved the question for the moment.

“Who are the enemy?” He steepled his fingers and stared at the opposite wall.

Memories? Her intuition said yes. From his expression, they weren’t good ones. For no logical reason, her thoughts slid briefly to Al. Did he share those memories? Was that why she sensed all those emotions hiding behind the angry stare he showed the world? And why did she even care?

“They’re a group of ten immortals. At the end of each time period, they appear to do what they do best—destroy. Not directly. They can’t personally lay hands on the dominant race. The last time this happened, they used an asteroid strike along with volcanic eruptions to get the job done. Now they’re getting nonhumans to do their work for them. The minute the new time period begins, they’re banished from Earth. But they always come back.”

“Nonhumans?” Okay, mental overload alarm ping, pinging away in her brain. She thought about Jude. “Vampires?”

Even saying the word out loud sounded stupid. When she’d told Kelly she thought Ty was a vampire, she hadn’t really believed it. She’d just
wanted
to believe, so she could get an awesome story. But she’d never thought—

“Yes.”

She took the concept a step further. “And others?”

“Yes.”

With that one word he shattered the shell of what she’d believed was her world. But what she’d believed in had only been a pretty veneer. The cracks revealed something dark, frightening, and totally impossible to accept in a few minutes. She’d need lots of time to think through this new vision of the universe.

“Since I have no names for them, I call the immortals by numbers. They were granted access to Earth about six months ago. They’ve spent their time here traveling to major cities where they’re recruiting an army of nonhumans who’ll be ready to rise and destroy all humans on December twenty-first. They have no problem with their recruits starting to kill now. It helps to spread terror, and terror is their friend. We came to Philadelphia because I knew Eight was here.”

“Eight?” His explanation was making her head ache again. The fingers she pressed to her forehead shook.

“We banished Nine from Earth back in Houston.”

“Banished? Not killed?”

“They’re immortals. We don’t have the power to destroy them.”

“You’ve left a bunch of holes in this plot. Why can’t—?”

Fin exhaled wearily and leaned back in his leather chair. “Did I not explain the silence and question rules thoroughly enough?”

“Right. Silence.” But questions about Al, about all of them, tripped over each other in her mind.

“We existed sixty-five million years ago when the immortals last visited Earth. They met no resistance that time. We had no weapons that could defeat them.”

A slow smile tipped up the corners of those marvelous lips, and for just a moment, Jenna saw another man inside Fin.

“This time we can fight. And fight we will. This time we have—”

Whatever he would have said was cut off when someone knocked on his door.

“Just a minute, Shen.” Fin didn’t sound any happier about the interruption than she was.

It said a lot about her acceptance of his power that she didn’t wonder how he knew who was on the other side of the door.

“Find Al. He’ll tell you the rest of what you want to know.”

“I can ask Kelly.”

“No, you can’t. Kelly and the rest of the Eleven were called out for something important.” A shadow dimmed those silver eyes for a moment.

“Something important? Kelly didn’t say anything about going back out when I just saw her. How do you know she was called out?”

“I always take a look into the mind of anyone standing on the other side of my door. Safety issues. Shen is about to give me the details.”

That scared Jenna. “Kelly isn’t in danger, is she? Why does she have to go with Ty anyway?”

“Your sister isn’t in danger. But she’s Ty’s driver. She has to be with him.” He held up his hand. “Let me reword that. She wants to be with him.”

“Why does he need a driver? I—”

“Enough.” It was an order. “You’re like your sister, an endless stream of questions. Al can answer all of them.”

Endless stream of questions, hah. If she weren’t so traumatized by everything to night, she’d give him questions until they squirted out his ears.