Severed (6 page)
‘You mean Grace,’ Issa interrupted before he could even finish.
‘Yes,’ he said, realising she must have anticipated this question.
Issa shook her head. ‘She vanished around the same time that the Elders took Tristan.’
‘They took Tristan?’ Lucas asked, his stomach dropping. Tristan was the man in charge of the Brotherhood. The man who had trained him and ordered him to kill Evie. ‘What have they done with him?’
‘They banished him to the Thirster realm,’ Issa answered. And then, as she anticipated his next question, she added in a quieter voice, ‘They blamed him for what happened to the Brotherhood – to the others.’ She paused, ‘For your betrayal and for Evie escaping.’
Lucas was acutely aware of the three of them watching his reaction, so he blanked his expression. But all he could see now in his mind’s eye was Tristan, a Shadow Warrior, but a wounded one, banished to a land where he would be easy prey. Unless he found some allegiance with the Originals – the older Thirsters who no longer fed. There were worse fates, but right now Lucas couldn’t think of any. And it was his fault. He was the one who should have been banished. The crime had been his, but Tristan was the one paying. He squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Look,’ he heard Flic say, ‘we need to get going.’
‘Where to?’ Lucas asked, trying to clear his head of the images that were now racing through it, trying to shake off the molten layers of guilt that were settling over him.
‘The Tipping Point,’ Flic answered.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a club.’
‘And there’ll be unhumans there?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes,’ Flic answered with a slow smile. ‘You’ll have your pick. Last time a fight broke out between some Scorpio and some redneck Thirsters and the rogue Hunters arrived and broke it up quicker than a Shapeshifter can shift. Let’s just say the place is now a charred relic, as are the bodies of those unhumans.’
‘You don’t need to come with me,’ Lucas said. ‘It’s going to be dangerous. Just tell me where the place is.’
‘No. We’re coming,’ Flic snapped.
‘Issa says it’s fine,’ Jamieson added when Lucas opened his mouth to protest.
‘You’ll need someone to get you past the doorman,’ Flic said. ‘You can’t walk in there and show your face. You’ll have to stick to the shadows.’
‘Word’s out, Lucas,’ Jamieson said with a grin. ‘Everyone’s talking about the Shadow Warrior who ran off with the Hunter. You’re famous.’
‘And you have a price tag on your head.’
Lucas looked at Issa. She seemed vaguely amused. ‘How much am I worth?’ he asked.
‘Enough for me to reconsider family ties,’ Flic quipped, though Lucas wasn’t entirely sure she was joking.
‘Six figures dude,’ laughed Jamieson.
Lucas smiled grimly. ‘Let’s see if we can up that.’
Evie looked up at him when he walked in. She was crouched on the ground, her hair dishevelled and her hands buried deep in the pockets of the blood-spattered trousers he’d been wearing the night before.
‘I need a phone,’ she said as soon as he appeared in the doorway. She sounded afraid. Her bottom lip was trembling slightly.
‘What’s up? Who do you need to call?’ he asked.
‘My mum,’ she said, stumbling to her feet. ‘My mum, Lucas! I forgot to call my mum. Crap, what time is it?’ she asked, her head whipping side to side.
‘It’s nearly seven.’
‘In the evening?’ she asked, confused.
‘Yes, you slept a long time.’
‘Damn. You should have woken me up! I need to call her, Lucas.’ She dropped once more to her knees and started rooting through the pile of discarded clothing. A sob erupted from her chest. ‘If anything’s happened to her …’
‘Nothing’s happened to her,’ Lucas said, dropping to his knees and taking her hands in both of his. ‘It’s OK. She’s OK. I called her this morning, just after you fell asleep. I knew she’d be worried.’
‘You called her?’ Evie whispered, turning pale. ‘What did you tell her?’
He stood up slowly. ‘I told her you were with me, that we’d decided to take a little trip and would be back soon.’
Evie sucked in a breath. ‘You told her that?’ she said, falling backwards onto her haunches and staring up at him.
‘Yeah,’ he answered, with a small shrug.
‘And you thought that would help how exactly?’ Evie yelled. ‘Are you trying to make me an orphan twice over? Did she have a heart attack?’
‘No.’ He paused. ‘Though I don’t think she likes me as much as she used to.’
She glared at him. ‘I’m not sure I like you as much as I used to.’
He gave her his roguish grin in reply, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. She tried not to, but she smiled back anyway.
‘I said you’d call her when you woke up.’
‘And what am I supposed to tell her exactly?’ Evie asked.
‘Tell her the truth.’
Evie’s eyebrows rose another inch in disbelief. ‘The truth? What – you think I should tell her that I ran off with a boy who’s half-demon because we’re going to save the world together by ridding it of the really mean demons who are out to get us?’
‘No,’ Lucas said softly, taking a step towards her. ‘Tell her you love me. Tell her that I love you and that I’m keeping you safe. And,’ he paused, ‘tell her we’re coming home soon.’
Evie stared at him in amazement, her mouth falling open. He held her gaze, unfazed. She shook her head slowly, the blush sweeping across her face. ‘But I need to tell her to get out of Riverview, Lucas. What if the Brotherhood comes looking for me? Or any of the unhumans that Flic mentioned. What if they come looking for us there? What if she’s in danger?’
‘She’s not in danger,’ Lucas answered calmly.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I called Jocelyn too.’
Evie’s face drained of colour. ‘You called Jocelyn?’
‘Evie, she’s the only one who can protect your mum right now. And despite everything she’s done to you, she does care about you.’
Evie grimaced.
‘She told me it was already handled. Your mum’s safe.’ He walked to the desk and picked up his father’s blade, testing the point against his thumb, more out of habit than anything else. It never lost its razor sharpness. ‘Look,’ he said as he sheathed it in a leather holder on his waist, ‘can we talk about this when I get back?’
Evie’s head flew up, ‘You get back from where?’
‘We’re about to head out to this club. You’re staying here. It’s safer. Issa says you’ll be fine. She doesn’t see any danger for you.’
Evie jumped to her feet. ‘No way. I’m coming with you.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘Yes I am. Lucas, I’m coming with you.’
There she was, tilting her chin, standing with one hip jutting forward, taking him on as if he was the world. He sighed inwardly. The world never won against Evie Tremain. He should have learnt that by now.
‘We know the prophecy is going to happen,’ she said squaring up to him. ‘So we know that I must survive whatever happens tonight. Theoretically, therefore, I should be the one going and
you
should be the one staying.’
He raised one eyebrow.
‘But I know that’s not going to happen,’ she conceded. ‘So I’m coming. Besides,’ she said, her tone becoming more wheedling, ‘you said you’d never leave me alone again. You promised.’ She took a step closer towards him, sidling up to him, until she was so close her stomach was brushing the hilt of his knife. He let out a long sigh and pulled her close, feeling her smiling victory against his shoulder.
‘Where are we going?’ Evie whispered to Lucas as they hurried down the block.
Jamieson looked over his shoulder and answered her, ‘The Tipping Point. It’s an unhuman club.’
‘Where is it?’ she asked. She was still having to do a double take every few seconds, sneaking peaks out of the corner of her eye at him.
‘It’s downtown. It moves every night to a new location so that the humans can’t find out about it and claim it for their own enjoyment.’
‘You shouldn’t be bringing her,’ Flic muttered as she strode past them. She was wearing a see-through leopard print top and dark jeans. In heeled boots she was almost Lucas’s height. Under the glow of the orange streetlights, with her geometric cheekbones, she looked like some mutant wildcat escaped from a lab and prowling the streets for dinner. Tonight her eyes were violet coloured. Last night they’d been brown, but Evie was fairly sure that both colours had been achieved by contact lenses. She had a sneaking suspicion that Flic’s actual eyes were yellow. Maybe it was some Shadow Warrior gene that had skipped Lucas by. Thankfully.
Evie pressed herself closer against Lucas’s side, her hip rubbing comfortingly against the hilt of his blade. She was distracted. In her mind she was still playing over the phone call she’d just had with her mother. It had contained a lot of
disappointed
s, a dozen
what about school
s
?
And had finished up with a cheek-flayingly cringetastic
Please, dear Lord, don’t come back pregnant.
Evie sneaked a glance at Lucas. He was walking fast, his arm tight around her, his eyes focused on the street ahead. She mentally added pregnancy to the list of things they were trying to avoid, along with being killed by demons. Her mother would be better off praying to the Lord for her to come back alive – never mind the pregnant part. And besides, it wasn’t as if she and Lucas had actually done anything beyond kissing anyway. The only time they’d even properly kissed had been in the basement of her house, just after Lucas had killed Caleb. Now that the whole world seemed to be after them, trying to kill them, kissing seemed like frivolous behaviour. Having said that, now she was thinking about it, remembering what his lips had tasted like, what his hands had felt like against her skin, and what Lucas had looked like without his shirt on, maybe it wasn’t so frivolous after all. Maybe kissing was exactly what they should be doing right now, rather than going out to start a fight with some unhumans. But from the looks of it, Lucas wasn’t contemplating frivolity. Judging by the expression on his face and the tension running in taut lines across his shoulders, it looked as if he was contemplating a fight.
Every slight tensing of a muscle in Lucas’s body she felt too, as if transmitted to her by electric current, and every step was making her feel more and more jittery, as if she was being charged with static and at any moment lightning was going to strike through the top of her skull. Sensing her unease, Lucas slowed his pace and pulled her closer, his fingers curling around the nape of her neck. A vague memory jostled in her mind of the last time she’d felt the pressure of his fingers on her neck. That time he’d done something to her that had made her black out. This time though he laid off on the Vulcan death grip, instead brushing the tip of her wounded ear with his lips. Her whole body shuddered in response and she stumbled against his side.
Flic had lent her – well, thrown at her – a pair of black high heels which she was finding it hard to walk in. Together with the pair of borrowed black jeans, which were restricting her circulation, and the spaghetti-strapped black camisole top she was wearing, she felt as if she had left the house half-dressed, late for a dancing session with a pole.
Another shudder suddenly rose up her spine, goosebumps chasing their way down her arms. It felt as if a million icicles were crystallising rapidly against her skin. She inhaled sharply. She knew it wasn’t the cold that was making her shake as if she had hypothermia, or Lucas’s arm around her. She was sensing what felt like thousands of unhumans close by. She squared her shoulders and forced herself to keep walking straight with her head held high. There was no way she was going to give Flic the pleasure of seeing her freak out.
Lucas sensed her fear. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you, remember,’ he murmured softly, his lips brushing the top of her head.
She nodded absently. Didn’t he know already? It wasn’t herself she was worried about.
‘I have to disappear,’ Lucas suddenly said, giving her waist a squeeze before letting go.
Evie turned to him, frantically grasping for his arm, but he had already vanished. She stopped in her tracks, shivering, staring in disbelief at the space beside her where he’d been just a moment before.
‘Keep walking,’ she heard him whisper suddenly in her ear. ‘I’ll just be a few steps away. I need to stay in the shadows.’
She took a faltering step forward, rounding the corner and almost stumbling to a halt when she saw the mass of unhumans before her. A line stretched out ahead of them that was so long it continued all the way around the block. They were in what looked like a film studio’s back lot. Warehouses lined the street and stretched in every direction. The one before them had a metal fire escape criss-crossing it like an exoskeleton. A thin, uneven alleyway, like a knobbly spinal cord, ran between two squat-looking buildings and it was down this alley that the line snaked.
Evie darted what she hoped was a casual glance sideways. They were passing a screeching group of unhumans dressed in shimmering neon. Just as they drew parallel, one threw back her head and cackled loudly, exposing her face to the dim orange street light above her. The girl’s skin was a pale shade of green. Evie eyed the others – also green. But even if Evie had been colour blind the halo of bare tarmac around them was signal enough that they were Mixen demons.
Flic strode on past them without a second glance and headed straight towards the front of the line. Evie froze uncertainly on the sidewalk.
Issa was beside her in the next moment, slipping her arm casually though her own. ‘Don’t just stand there. Walk!’ she hissed, dragging Evie forward while simultaneously raising her arm and waving at someone in the line.
Evie clutched at Issa’s arm. ‘Was that the Olsen twins?’ she whispered, trying to look back over her shoulder at the two short blonde girls with enormous panda eyes, wearing purple kaftans, whom they’d just passed by. ‘As in, the
real
ones?’
‘Who knows,’ Issa shrugged, still walking, trying to keep pace with Flic. ‘Most of the time it’s Shapeshifters. They like to show off. Don’t stare like that,’ she warned, yanking Evie’s arm. ‘They’ll realise you’re not one of us. And besides,’ she said with a sigh, ‘it only encourages them.’
