Falling to Ash (24 page)

I swallowed and shook my head. ‘No, you’re safe from that.’ I couldn’t quite keep the bitterness from my voice. ‘They didn’t make him feed from them. Either he’s dead or he’s coming back as Zombie Boy Mark Two. But he won’t be a vampire.’ For a horrible moment I thought I might start to cry again. What was
with
me and all the tears lately?

Jace nodded as he moved the body’s legs so he could shut the doors. ‘Good.’

Hot fury warmed me. ‘Why? Because it’s one less monster for you and Daddy to dust?’

‘No, of course not.’ His voice was quiet and he didn’t quite meet my eyes. ‘Because I didn’t want us to have to kill another one of your friends.’

‘Oh.’ I paused, gathering my scrambled wits. ‘He wasn’t my friend. I only met him properly today.’

Jace whirled his silver-edged blade between his fingers, making it glitter like a sharpened shard of moonlight. It was making me nervous.

‘Moth, I’ve seen a newly risen vampire before. If
there’s
no Maker around to control it . . .’ He looked away for a moment and I couldn’t help wondering about the things this kid had seen in his life. How old had he been when he first knew that the monsters were real?

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘At least we only have to worry about the whole Unmade thing.’ I shook my head. ‘I can’t believe I just said that.’

Jace’s mouth was set in a grim line as he pulled a huge sheet of plastic over the body. It was thick, black, and looked perfect for hiding corpses in the back of his dad’s van. The vehicle stank of death and decay, and I knew that wasn’t only thanks to
this
body. Gross as it was to even think like that, Byron was too fresh to smell this bad.

I watched Jace tuck everything out of sight and swallowed. ‘What are we going to do with him?’

A muscle flickered in his jaw and he shot me a dark look. ‘What do you think?’

I grimaced. ‘I just—’ I shook my head. Dammit, this was
hard
. And I didn’t even know the guy. Well, hardly. ‘I was hoping there might be something we could do.’

Jace barked a laugh that echoed with bitterness. He turned his back on me and climbed between the front seats, sliding into the driver’s position and hunching his shoulders as he fiddled with the ignition. He put the car in gear, tapped the accelerator and drove down the street. He banged a left at the first intersection, weaving around
pedestrians
and motorcycles and other cars running the red light.

I frowned and followed him, leaning over the seat backs and trying to catch a glimpse of his face. ‘What’s wrong? What did I say?’ I clambered into the passenger seat. It was covered in cheap nylon that was worn in several places.

‘Why do you guys care about him all of a sudden?’

By “you guys”, I assumed Jace was referring to the vampires that existed under-the-radar in the city. I tucked my feet underneath me on the seat and clasped my hands in my lap. They were shaking and I didn’t want Jace to see. ‘So what’s your big plan for dealing with this, then? Especially as I have no idea if he’s going to come back the same as Rick.’

‘We have two options. Either we take him to your Maker or we deal with him ourselves.’

‘There’s no way we’re going to Th—’ I stopped and glared at him. ‘You asshole, you almost had me there.’

Jace’s mouth quirked very slightly. ‘It was worth a try.’

‘I’m not telling you anything about him, so you can just go screw yourself.’

‘You say that so often, and it’s not getting any more appealing.’

I pouted and stared out of the window. I wasn’t interested in looking at anything outside – I just wanted a break from Jace Murdoch and his irritating know-it-all
posturing
. I glanced out of my window and watched the road blur pass, black and endless as the night itself.

‘Moth?’ His voice was low. Insistent.

‘
What?
’ I practically growled, still gazing out of the window.

‘You’re steaming up the damn window. I can’t see shit.’

Oh
. I’d been breathing without even thinking about it. That was sort of cool.

The guy who wasn’t supposed to be in my life touched my arm. ‘Moth, are you listening to me?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’ He shifted in his seat, as though uncomfortable with what he was about to say. ‘If you don’t want my help that’s cool. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t particularly want to be here dealing with this. I’ve had enough of it in my life already.’

‘So why didn’t you leave me there? Why did you even bother to come in the first place?’

‘I came when you called because I wanted to see what crazy drama you’d gotten yourself into
this
time.’

‘I thought you didn’t trust vampires.’

‘Sometimes, you don’t seem like a regular vampire,’ he said.

‘What am I supposed to be like?’

‘I don’t know. Just . . . not like you.’

I raised my eyebrows, wishing my vamp-abilities
extended
to reading his mind. He probably thought female vampires were femme fatales, sultry seductresses who wanted to drink the blood of every man they met. A siren. Someone who radiated menace. I almost laughed. That was so far from who I was it was laughable. I was tough, rather than dangerous. Needy, rather than sexy. And my total geekiness pretty much ruled me out of the seduction stakes (no pun intended).

But Jace wasn’t done talking. ‘I didn’t leave you there in the alley because . . .’ His voice trailed off as he concentrated on a stream of traffic and we pulled out onto a busy road.

I continued to knead my fingers together in my lap. It reminded me of the way my mother used to make bread. ‘Well? You can’t just say something like that and stop.’

He glanced at me, then focused back on the dark road stretching ahead. Headlights zoomed past us on the other side, but Jace handled the van effortlessly. He zigged and zagged along side streets I wasn’t even sure I knew had been there, dodging triple-parked cars that were common sights in Boston.

Finally, he said, ‘Why do you think I didn’t leave you there, you idiot? I always said you were a freak.’

If my heart could race, I knew that’s what it would be doing. But I could still feel its ghostly beating, as surely
as
I could feel the warmth from the van’s heater beginning to thaw out my frozen cheeks. An echo of humanity.

Jace said, ‘OK, maybe this will help. When you saw that body in that alley, did you think it might be me?’

I bit my lip. Maybe if I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t get myself into trouble. I turned and watched him as his dark eyes reflected back the lights from passing cars.

‘For a minute, yes. When I saw him lying there. And I couldn’t stand the thought that something had happened to you.’

He didn’t say anything, but I watched that familiar muscle pulsing in his jaw. Then he nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

Oh, please don’t say he’s going to be smug about this
.

‘Moth, are you really so dumb that you need me to tell you that I came here for the same damn reason?
That’s
why I came when you called me – and you’re just too stubborn to already know it.’

‘Why can’t you just say what you mean?’ I pouted. ‘You’re so confusing.’

‘Maybe . . . maybe I like you.’

He
likes
me? Did threatening me and pointing sharp weapons at me count as liking me? I snorted. Yeah, maybe if you’re in third grade. But then again . . . I glanced at the bruises on his face. Bruises from his father. Bruises he got sort of (lamely) defending
me
 . . .

Jace stared through the windshield, fingers drumming
on
the steering wheel. He laughed, but it came out sounding strained. ‘You gonna leave me hanging here?’

Silence filled the van, the only sounds filtering through the thick glass from outside. The wheels bumped over a patch of gravel on the freeway; the engine grumbled under the hood as we made our way to the cemetery.

I slumped down in my seat and leaned my head back, gazing at a smear on the ceiling directly above my head that looked a lot like dried blood.

I sighed. ‘Jace, how was I supposed to know how you felt until you told me? It’s not as though we’re the most natural of . . . friends.’

His lips curved into a tantalizing ghost of a smile. ‘I thought you vampires could read minds.’

Dammit, I didn’t want him to make me smile
. ‘Is that what your dad’s books say?’

Finally he glanced over, locking eyes with me for dangerous seconds before returning his attention back to the road. ‘Nope. I figured that one out all by myself. When you pulled that number on me down in that hospital storeroom.’

I laughed. ‘I’d go back to what you do best, genius.’

‘What’s that?’ Jace asked.

‘Hunting the bad guys. Being a pain in the ass.’

He glanced at me, his face tinted green by the van’s dash lights. I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, and
before
I could even try, he returned his attention to the road.

We travelled the rest of the way in silence, but my vamp-hearing could still detect his heartbeat and it didn’t make me hungry – not even a little. At least, not for blood.

Chapter Twenty

THE GRANARY BURYING
Ground was the last place on earth I wanted to be.

Seriously, would you want to be sneaking around a freaking cemetery at night? I shivered. Just because I’m a vampire doesn’t make this my natural habitat or anything. Shadows shimmered like dark water, and in between, crumbling stones lined the path. Grave markers were haphazardly arranged so that they looked like broken teeth scattered around.

It was spooky, and no amount of fake Egyptian gates and obelisks would make me think any different. I looked around nervously as we checked it out for a suitable spot to bury Byron, half expecting to see a ghost creeping between the grave markers. I let out a muffled squeal as something that felt like cold fingers touched the back of my hand.

Oh
, I thought. It had felt like chilled fingers because that’s exactly what it was. Jace had touched my hand and his fingers were frozen. Wow, I was totally lame tonight. If Holly saw me jumping at shadows and shrieking like a girl, she’d never let me live it down.

I shrugged and whispered, ‘Sorry, you made me jump. Didn’t know what that was for a minute.’

Jace thrust his hands into the pockets of his army jacket. His breath puffed out in little clouds as we trudged back to where we’d left the van. He glanced at me, but his expression was difficult to read under the dim light of the mist-cloaked moon. ‘What else would it have been? We’re the only people out here.’

‘Um . . . nothing. Nothing living, anyway,’ I muttered. I kept my eyes down, concentrating on not tripping over a stray tree root winding across the narrow pathway.

‘No, really,’ he said. ‘I’m curious. What did you think

it was?’

I let out a dramatic sigh. ‘A ghost, OK? I thought maybe a freaking ghost touched me.’ I kicked a rock out of my way, taking childish pleasure in the sound it made as it hit a gravestone.

‘Don’t tell me that you, of all people, believe in ghosts.’

‘Vampires are sensitive to this kind of stuff.’ I eyed
him
to see if he was taking me seriously. ‘It’s like, that first near-death experience brings us closer to those who live in between. Or something.’

Jace nudged me with his elbow. ‘Sounds very technical.’

I stifled my smile and gave him a mock-angry look. ‘Well, I don’t know how it all works. I’ve not exactly done a ton of research on this, you know.’

‘But . . . surely this concerns you. I mean it’s part of who you are, right?’

I barely had time to freak out when a dangling tree branch brushed across my face. I pushed it irritably out of the way. ‘Sure, it’s part of my life now – this whole being undead thing – but I don’t make a habit of studying the phenomena. It’s hard enough adjusting to all the crap that comes with it. The last thing I want to do is read about what it means to be undead, or the difference between ghosts and wraiths—’

‘You mean, there’s a difference?’ Jace deadpanned.

‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘You know what I mean. Come on, think about it. If you were in my shoes, would
you
want to spend any free time you had immersing yourself in occult nonsense?’

We arrived back at the van and Jace leaned against the back doors. ‘First of all, I wouldn’t be seen dead in the sort of footwear you seem to love.’

He held up a hand as I opened my mouth indignantly. ‘Secondly, yeah, I probably would read up on all of that
“nonsense”
. I always like to know what I’m dealing with. Information helps with that.’

Whatever I was about to say froze on my lips as the back doors of the van flew open, crashing into Jace and throwing him to the ground.

No
, I thought.
Please, this isn’t fair. Not again
. But if anyone was listening to my silently offered prayer, there was no evidence of it as the boy – or what remained of him – climbed out of the van on unsteady legs.