Falling to Ash (32 page)

‘I don’t know, Jace.’ Wow, how much did I suck at the whole offering-comfort gig?

But it didn’t matter now; none of it mattered anymore. Kyle was dead. Dead for real, this time – no coming back for another chance at existence. And more important than that, there would be no more innocent kids being taken and drained and then turned into shambling revenants. No more casual death for teenagers like Rick and Erin and Byron, or for innocent bystanders like Nurse Fox.

There was also the not insignificant detail that Theo had, by default, successfully completed his task for Solomon. His position of Master vampire in Boston was safe. We were safe – both of us. Although there was a job vacancy for a new Enforcer.

‘Seems like Kyle was leaving a trail of bodies in the hope of framing your Maker,’ Jace said. I kind of got the impression that he needed to talk about something – anything to delay the inevitable of dealing with his father’s body.

My lips tightened. ‘Yeah. Seems like it.’ Theo had still drunk from an underage kid – Erin – but at least he wasn’t a murderer. He hadn’t gone rogue. That should make me feel a whole lot better, but somehow I couldn’t find it in myself to be happy. Funny how that worked. Had Theo not fed from Erin in the first place, she would never have ended up in the hands of Kyle. Never ended up dead . . . I rubbed my eyes, wondering if I could somehow dislodge the unshed tears I knew were there. ‘I’m sorry, Jace. Sorry he was involved in any of this.’

‘It’s not your fault. Looks like Dad was involved enough all by himself.’ He lowered himself until he was sitting in the gravel of the rooftop, leaning against a low wall. ‘He always hated the creatures he hunted. That was his mistake: getting emotionally involved.’

Emotionally involved
. The words echoed inside my head. Was I emotionally involved with Jace? I looked at him, wishing I could say that I didn’t care. For a moment, I seriously wished that I’d never met him. He was a human being, and one who had wanted to kill me when we first met. Not that I truly believed he would have followed through – not now that I knew him a little
better
. But after what had just happened to his father – and what Theo still had to do with Murdoch’s
head
to complete his challenge – how could I know he wouldn’t change his mind about me and put me right back at the top of his hit list?

I tried to wipe the blood off my face with my sleeve, but I only managed to smear it around. Oh, well. Healing fast had its uses. I glanced at Jace and found him watching me. My stomach dipped. I remembered the feel of his lips on mine, but the hard look in his eyes made it seem like a dream. I wasn’t sure if it was a good dream or a bad one, but either way it was a long time ago. I wanted so much to believe it had happened. To believe in
him
.

I reached out, tentative, placed the tips of my fingers against his cheek. I felt his jaw tighten, but he didn’t move away.

‘Moth, I need to leave.’

His voice made me jump. I rested my hand back on Caitlín’s shoulder and looked away from him. ‘OK, I’m not stopping you. And Theo won’t be outside again until sunset. I can deal with things here.’

He shook his head. ‘No, I mean . . . I need to
leave
. Get away from here. Figure out what to do about my dad. I’ll do what I have to do for him, make it right – and then lose myself for a while.’

Everybody leaves
, I thought. Everyone goes away or I
leave
them. Maybe that was my superpower: driving people away. My lip trembled like a stupid girl’s. I laid Caitlín gently to one side and climbed to my feet. It felt like my body weighed a ton.

‘Where will you go?’ I asked. I thought of the OPI – they would be a natural home for someone like Jace. Would he join the ‘Spook Squad’? Be my enemy forever? I cursed my vivid imagination. Surely he wouldn’t do something like that. Jason Murdoch struck me as more of a natural loner.

‘I don’t know.’ He answered me before I could say anything further, put any ideas into his head. ‘Maybe somewhere in Europe. Dad has money put aside – I guess he won’t be needing it anymore.’

I tried to push away the sadness that threatened to overwhelm me as Jace stood up and stepped toward me. I swallowed, wondering why I couldn’t stop shaking and hating myself for it. He touched my face with fingers made sticky with his father’s blood. I didn’t care, for once hardly noticing the scent. All I could think about was how close he was to me and how much I wanted him to hold me. I wanted to ask him not to leave – not yet – but I couldn’t speak past the confused emotions bunched together in my throat.

And then he pulled me against him, pressing my head against his chest and folding me in his arms. The feeling of safety reminded me of what it was like when Theo held
me
, only that was more like the embrace of a father – a father who loved me. Right now there was nothing familial about the desire warming my stomach. I felt a hunger I only vaguely remembered; not a hunger for blood, but for something so much sweeter. I buried my face into the rough material of Jace’s jacket, took a deep breath so that I could remember his scent.

Jace rested his chin against the top of my head and I felt his jaw move as he spoke. ‘I didn’t realize vampires could be so sentimental.’

I could hear the smile in his voice, and for some reason that made the tears spill over. His father had died and I was the one crying. But of course, I wasn’t shedding tears for Murdoch Senior.

Jace released me, holding me away from him and looking into my eyes. ‘Will you be OK? I mean, with him. Theo.’

I nodded slowly. ‘I have no choice.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

I looked up sharply, but for once there was no judgment in his voice or on his face. I shrugged. ‘Maybe one day,’ I said. ‘But that day is not now.’

‘Don’t let him control you,’ Jace said. ‘You’re better than that.’

‘Thank you.’ My voice was huskier than ever. ‘What about you? Are
you
OK?’

‘I will be.’ His gaze flicked over to where he’d dragged
his
father’s body and his jaw tightened. ‘There’s a lot of cleaning up to do.’

We both turned our attention to Kyle’s ashes, stirring gently in the morning breeze. I shivered, but not from the cold. I avoided looking at Murdoch’s body. ‘Theo will sort it, Jace. All of it. He’ll treat your father’s remains with respect – he always respected him as a hunter. Just go . . .’

I didn’t say anything about the Council, or about Theo needing Murdoch’s head. It really wasn’t what Jace needed to hear right now.

Much later, after Theo had done the ‘cleaning up’ he had to do, I walked into his bedroom, not bothering to knock. He should have been sleeping, recovering his strength, but I straightened my spine and fixed him with a serious expression.

‘I need to know the truth. About that night.’

‘Which night are we talking about? There have been many nights between us.’

Blushing, but refusing to back down, I continued to press him. ‘You know which night I’m talking about. There has only ever been one quite like it.’

He visibly deflated. The expression on his face was loud and clear:
Here we go again
. ‘You mean, when I turned you.’

‘I mean,’ I said, ‘when we slept together.’

‘Which was the same night, if my memory serves.’ His
eyes
narrowed as he clearly wondered where I was going with this.

‘I want to know if you compelled me to sleep with you. If I was somehow . . . under your control.’

Anger flashed across his face, there and gone in less than a second. But I saw it and braced myself for his reply.

‘Ah, my Moth. If you remembered that evening as well as I, you would not be so quick to claim I needed to compel women to my bed.’

Now my whole face was burning. ‘Theo, I need to know.’

‘You loved me,’ he said, his voice rough with emotion.

‘I still do,’ I replied, surprised to find that I meant it. ‘I always will. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Recently, I’ve been remembering things. I remembered a lot of stuff from that time, and I can’t help wondering how much of it was my choice – and how much of it was your . . . influence.’

‘I didn’t force you.’ His voice was cold with anger.

‘That’s not what I said.’ I took a step forward, expecting him to pull away and unbearably relieved when he didn’t. I laced my cold fingers with his. ‘I asked if you used your abilities – your vampire abilities, I mean,’ I added hastily.

He smiled, but it was an unbearably sad expression.
‘I
did not. I . . . could never have done that to you,
m’anamchara
.’

Now my heart was pounding, and I felt suddenly afraid. ‘Don’t call me that. Not now.’

He brought my hand to his mouth, brushed my knuckles with soft lips and then held my hand against his heart.

A heart that had stopped beating a century and a half ago.

‘You know that vampires have natural pheromones – a body chemistry that far exceeds that of our previous human form.’

‘Yes.’ I also knew that the older the vamp, the more powerful the pheromones. It’s what draws our prey to us and relaxes them enough to enjoy the process of sharing blood.

‘If I, to use your own word, “influenced” you in any way, it was something done without my conscious control. My pheromones would have convinced you that you were safe with me, but no more than that.’

I didn’t know whether to feel anger or relief.

Anger won. ‘But I wasn’t safe, was I? That’s the whole point.’

Theo bristled. ‘I gave you eternal life. Many would be willing to die for such a gift.’

‘And I did have to die for it, didn’t I?’ I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice. ‘You took my humanity.’

‘You will only truly lose your humanity if you let it go.’

‘That’s not true. It’s not something I can control – not entirely.’

He touched my hair, stroking it gently, almost absentmindedly. ‘Moth, I’ve been twenty-six for precisely one hundred and sixty-eight years. Do I get tired? Of course. Do I move further away from the person I was born as? Undoubtedly. But I still remember what it means to be human.’

‘And that’s why you could turn me in the first place?’

‘I believe so, yes. I still possessed enough of my soul to share it with another.’

‘With me?’

‘Yes.’

My shoulders slumped and I shook off his hand. ‘I can’t help feeling angry at you. It’s like . . . you took something that wasn’t yours.’

‘I don’t know how many times I can tell you that I regret what happened.’ He dropped my hand as though my skin burned him. ‘I rarely apologize for anything, Marie. It is not what the head of a Family does. And yet I have apologized to you, many times.’

‘Being sorry doesn’t give me back my life. My real life.’

‘Did you ever stop to think that perhaps this
is
your real life? Perhaps you were always meant for greater things.’

Greater things?
Was my life, now, something greater? I wasn’t convinced.

‘So what you’re saying,’ I said slowly, wanting to make sure I really understood, ‘is that although you didn’t roofie me, you might have gotten me a little drunk.’

His expression was one of distaste. ‘It is an unpleasant analogy, little one.’

‘But it’s the truth?’

‘It will do. Are you satisfied?’

‘No. But thank you for telling me the truth.’

He frowned. ‘Perhaps you will forgive me, in time.’

‘Perhaps.’

Epilogue

I have stared death in the face – on more than one occasion – and yet I still dread sitting at a dinner table with my biological family.

Strange how something so simple can feel so complicated. So
terrifying
.

I caught my younger sister’s eye and her lips twitched. Caitlín’s happiness made it difficult to worry about being here too much. I gave her a sickly smile in return.

Almost a week had passed since what had become known in Theo’s Family as a failed coup. Kyle was gone. Thomas Murdoch too. At least three teenagers from my past life had died – plus an unfortunate, hard-working nurse called Stephanie Fox – during Kyle’s attempt to unseat Theo from his position as Master of Boston’s Family of vampires.

All along, he’d been part of the growing movement of vamps who believed it was time to ‘come out of the coffin’ and take their place alongside human beings in the world. Politics or violence, two pathways toward independence, and there were groups aligned on either side within the vampire community. Kyle was a member of the United Vampire Alliance, or UVA.

Yeah, the name was ironic. Never let it be said that the undead don’t have a twisted sense of humor.

Theo was safe. The High Council had Murdoch’s head, and that meant that I was safe too. I couldn’t help but feel a warm glow at being fully accepted into the Family, no matter how much I wanted to deny it. There would be no more hiding for me. My un-life was opening up to new possibilities.

I glanced around the dinner table and tried hard not to think about Jason Murdoch. I especially hadn’t given any thought to that one kiss beneath Murdoch Senior’s van, or to the feel of his arms around me on Theo’s roof the last time I saw him.