When Darkness Hungers: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 5) (30 page)

“Bella’s dead,” he said flatly. Jonathan was right; no other conclusion could be drawn. “Do you think I cared nothing for her? That I would leave this place without seeing her avenged?”

The younger vamp ducked his head. “I’m sorry. It’s just that everything seems to be going so wrong lately. Maybe we should just leave until things cool down.”

“Are you scared?”

Jonathan shook his head.

“Don’t lie. It doesn’t suit you. Here.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down hard, setting the blood to flow. “Drink, and be restored.”

Jonathan genuflected, then came around Derrick’s desk, knelt in front of the elder vampire, and drank.

The power
. Such glory, such delicious exultation simply from knowing that his strength was being drawn into these disciples. He let his head fall back, closed his eyes, and simply gave himself to Jonathan.

After a moment, the younger vampire released his wrist, then stood, bowed, and moved back around the desk. He seemed to glow with power now, and Derrick could feel the strength and courage rising in the boy.

“Has your fear faded?”

“It has,” Jonathan said. “And my mind is clear. So please understand that it is not out of fear that I speak, but from intellect.”

Derrick frowned, irritated that the boy hadn’t fallen into step, but he waved at him to continue anyway.

“There are League members in Europe, Derrick. Your teachings may not be widely known there, but those who follow you are loyal. We can go now, then return
to Los Angeles when the timing is better suited for success.”

“The timing is excellent now. Trust me. I have reason to stay here.”

“You don’t even know for sure that Sergius is in town.”

“I believe that he is,” Derrick said.

“Because of the sketch?” Derrick had shown it to all of his lieutenants. “Even if he was here, there’s no guarantee that he’s stayed. Not only that, but have you considered that it might be Sergius who’s killing us?”

“The cause of the desiccations, you mean?”

“Exactly. What if he’s targeting the League?”

Derrick couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his lips. “Why the hell would he? You’ve never met him. Serge is a wild thing, a man after my own heart. You wouldn’t believe the things that I’ve watched him do. He’s a killer, my young friend. Serge’s only friends are pain and death.”

“
Our
pain?
Our
death?”

But Derrick wasn’t going to listen to such nonsense. Jonathan didn’t know Sergius, whereas Derrick’s fondest memories were of the two of them traveling together. Killing together.

“You needn’t waste any more thought on him. It’s the girl I’m concerned with. The girl who’s been hunting us. The girl who took my Bella from us.”

Jonathan bowed his head. “I’ll happily destroy her, with your permission.”

“No. I wish to do it myself. Bella didn’t tell me where the girl lives, but she found papers. Go to her apartment. Find out who the woman is. When you have the
information in hand, we’ll go pay her a visit together. But fair warning, Jonathan. This kill belongs to me.”

CeeCee wasn’t as interested in the Xbox as she pretended to be, although it did feel good to sit on the couch and mindlessly shoot monsters. That was the trouble—
monsters
. Because now she was a monster, wasn’t she? A vampire.

Maybe even worse.

She’d eavesdropped last night when Luke went into his office to talk with his friend Nick and then later with that PEC agent, Doyle.

They were worried about Serge. About the fact that he might be killing humans. And that he might be doing some really weird shit to some other vampires.

Not that she cared, she told herself. She was still mad at him. And she was going to stay that way for a long, long time.

But if they were worried about him, then that must mean they were worried about her, too.

She closed her eyes, dropped her remote hand to her lap, and just let it lie there. She was tired and antsy. She’d slept for a few hours that afternoon, but not long enough. She would have liked to sleep for a couple more hours, but that had been impossible. Too many thoughts in her head.

She felt the couch shift, and she opened her eyes to see Sara sitting next to her, smiling that smile. CeeCee liked Sara. She reminded her of Mrs. Dawson, her fifth-grade teacher. The one who told her how smart she was and used to invite her to the school on weekends to make
posters for the classroom. CeeCee knew that the room had more posters than it needed because of all the weekends they spent together, but she was so grateful to be out of the house—away from her mom and Burt—that she never said anything. She was afraid that if she did Mrs. Dawson would quit inviting her.

“You doing okay?” Sara asked. CeeCee shrugged. She was still pissed at Serge, of course. But she had to admit that it was okay here. They let her go down to the beach—day or night, since she wasn’t light-sensitive yet like Luke. And they’d fixed up a room for her.

Sara set a plate of cookies down on the table. “You need the blood to survive, but I still haven’t lost my taste for food. I’ve even found that it helps keep the daemon down. Memories of pre-daemon times, maybe.” She glanced sideways at CeeCee. “Still no stirrings?”

“Nothing,” CeeCee said. It was weird talking about the daemon. Her stepfather had always said that she was an evil girl. That she’d been born bad. If that was true, her daemon should be ripping her apart. “I mean, I’m hungry,” she added, “but that’s normal, right? When you’re new?”

Sara squeezed her hand. “That’s normal.”

“Serge is supposed to be the one telling me these things, isn’t he?” She wanted to sound all cool and matter-of-fact, but she couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice.

“You don’t like it here?”

“No, I do. You and Luke are great.” She managed a self-deprecating snort. “Nicest place I’ve ever been, that’s for sure. But …” She trailed off with a shrug.

“Serge will be back,” Sara said.

“He shouldn’t have left.” CeeCee hated how whiny she sounded. How needy.

“No,” Sara said, “he probably shouldn’t have.”

CeeCee looked at her more closely, surprised that Sara was telling her the truth. Talking to her like she mattered. Like she deserved to know what was really going on.

“Would it be selfish of me to say that even if he shouldn’t have, I’m glad he did?”

“Really?” Her voice sounded needy, and she hated that. She wanted to be all cool and adult.

“Really,” Sara said. “I can’t have kids now that I’m a vampire, and, well, I’m not saying you’re a kid, but I will say that it’s nice to have you here. I like hanging out with you. So does Luke. He had a daughter once, you know. And even after all this time, he still misses her. Maybe it sounds a little presumptuous, but having you here fills a gap for both of us.”

CeeCee’s chest felt tight and she nodded, hoping she wouldn’t do something embarrassing like cry. “I’m glad. I like it here, too.”

“But it doesn’t make the hurt go away, does it?”

CeeCee looked up at Sara, relieved that she understood. “Is it because he’s the one that made me? Is that why it matters so much?”

“Partly. That and he saved you from something horrible. But at the same time he pushed you into this completely unfamiliar world, where you don’t even know your own body anymore. He should have stayed around. Made sure you understood what was happening to you.”

“Then why didn’t he?”

“I don’t know exactly. But Serge has walked this earth for a very long time, and when you’re that old, sometimes things get bottled up. He probably needs to work
through stuff. But I promise, it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

CeeCee nodded, because she could tell that Sara really believed that. But if Serge was the monster that Nick and Luke thought he was, then it had everything to do with her. And she wanted to talk to him. Wanted to know the truth. About what he’d done. And about what she was.

Heck, she wanted to so bad it almost felt like he was right there with her. Like he was watching over her. Some vampire version of a guardian angel.

But he couldn’t be, could he?

She shot a glance toward the window and realized that night had fallen once again. The ocean that had glowed a brilliant orange the last time she’d looked was now black with frothy gray waves.

He couldn’t really be out there, could he?

She told herself it was wishful thinking, and she’d seen enough crap over her sixteen years to know that wishful thinking was nothing short of stupid.

Still, there was that feeling. That burning in her veins. Like something was coming. Something was near.

Serge
.

She stood up, pulling her hand away from Sara.

“CeeCee? Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m just … I don’t know. Antsy.”

“Is it—”

“My daemon?” CeeCee answered. “No.”

“You’re sure?”

CeeCee nodded. “Totally. I just want to take a walk. I’m still all pissed off at Serge. I guess I just feel like walking it off. Is that okay? Can I go outside? I like the ocean.”

“Of course you can,” Sara said, her expression making CeeCee wonder if Sara saw through the lie. Except how could she, because CeeCee wasn’t really lying. She
was
antsy, and she
did
love the ocean.

So what if she also wanted to see Serge? Because she had to see him. She had to know what he was—and she needed to know what that made her.

Serge stood across the street from Luke and Sara’s Malibu house, his hands clenched at his sides as he fought down the rising daemon and the writhing, spitting beast.

He’d felt their gnawing power ever since he’d left Alexis. With her, they’d been calm, controlled, and he’d been the stronger for it. But away from her the darkness returned, and he’d locked himself underground, taking refuge in the first abandoned building he’d found after he’d fled.

Alone, he battled it back down. But he wasn’t truly alone. She was in his thoughts—Alexis. That door was closed, but the memory of her remained, and though it sent melancholy coursing through his veins to think of her, he did it anyway, reveling in the recollection of her scent, her touch, the sweet caress of her hair against his skin. And most of all the way she’d looked at him, like she saw something good inside. Something that he could cling to and cherish and try to believe.

How he’d fought and fought with his darkness until the sun finally set and he’d crawled out into the night, letting his mind go and his body take him until it led him here. To CeeCee. To the girl who’d made him a hero in Alexis’s eyes. Maybe by seeing her again he could see himself that way, too. Because if he didn’t, he was certain that without Alexis at his side, he’d eventually lose
himself to the lure of the dark—no matter how valiantly he fought.

“Spying on me?”

He whipped around to face CeeCee.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his voice almost a snarl. He didn’t want her to see him like this, to catch the scent of his self-pity. “Luke and Sara will wonder where you are.”

“Sara knows I’m outside.” She plunked down onto the ground next to him, looking calm and happy and perfectly well adjusted.

“She doesn’t know you’re with me. I don’t think she’d approve.”

“Because you went all
grrr
on us the other day?”

His smile came uninvited, and some of the tightness in his chest melted. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Is that why you’re here? To make sure I don’t go all wonky, too?”

“Wonky? You mean your daemon? I think Sara and Luke are capable of helping you through that.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head, her expression telling him clearly and concisely that he was an idiot and she wasn’t buying any of his crap. “I mean like you. It’s not normal, right? What you do? Turning the vamps into mummies.”

A frisson of anxiety shot up his back. “Who says I do that?” She couldn’t have seen him kill Mitre. She’d been yards away on the sand, and unconscious, too.

She shrugged. “I’m not stupid. I can piece things together.”

He got it, then. Of course Luke must be looking into the desiccated corpses, and naturally he’d discuss the
case at home. With Sara for sure, and maybe even with Nick.