When Darkness Hungers: A Shadow Keepers Novel (Shadow Keepers 5) (34 page)

“No!” She jerked free, falling, then half crawled and half ran to the bedside table. She ripped open the drawer and snatched the gun she kept there—the one loaded with wooden bullets. “Goddamn you! You killed her!
Oh, my God, please, please, tell me you didn’t kill her. Tell me you didn’t kill Tori!”

She was crying, but even through her tear-blurred vision she could see his face, and the pain on it was clear. He didn’t need to speak. She knew the answer.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so damn sorry.”

She held the gun out, and it trembled in her hand. But she couldn’t fire. Couldn’t do anything but collapse to her knees and weep.

“You shouldn’t have to bear this,” he said. His voice was raw, gravelly with pain, but still firm and deep. “I wasn’t here, Alexis. We never met. You won’t remember me or the pain. I know you can’t forgive me, but at least I can give you this.”

Her mind
. He was trying to mess with her mind.

“No.”
The word wrenched out of her, and she realized she’d raised the gun again. “Don’t you take this from me. Don’t you try to make me forget.”

She saw the shock register on his face and she held tight to the gun. This was the vampire she’d been hunting. The one she’d sworn to kill. A murderer. A monster.

Serge
.

Again, she dropped the gun. “Get out,” she whispered.

“Do it,” he said. “Do it now. Fire the damn thing. Dammit, Alexis, you know what I did.”

She couldn’t. Not him. Not Serge.

She tossed the gun aside. “I can’t. Not you. Not ever.”

“Alexis …” His voice was heavy with pain.

“It wasn’t you. Something inside you, yes, but you’ve fought it. You’re not a monster.”

“The hell I’m not.”

“You think I don’t know evil? I’ve looked it in the eyes. I grew up with it.” She thought of her parents. So
cold to her. So vile to Tori. “That isn’t you. You fight it. You don’t embrace it.” She drew in a breath, her lungs feeling like cubes of ice. “No, Serge, you’re not a monster. But I don’t think I can look at you, either. I don’t think I can—” She swallowed. “I can’t be with you. Please. Please go.”

“I have a hundred regrets, Alexis. But all of them pale in comparison with this.”

She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear to see her own regret reflected in those eyes she’d come to love. Instead, she crawled into bed, buried her face in the pillow, and stayed there long after she’d heard his departing footsteps and knew that she was once again alone.

“Turn here,” Jonathan said from his seat beside Derrick. They’d forgone traveling as mist so that they could communicate, and now they were in Derrick’s Jaguar—he’d acquired a taste for fine cars once he’d learned to operate the things—and were heading to the woman’s house. Their little female problem. The bitch that Derrick intended to kill.

Jonathan had done well. He’d returned from Bella’s with a name—Alexis Martin—and an address.

“That’s it,” Jonathan said. “The third one on the left.”

It was a stately home. Two stories, manicured lawn, pleasing architecture. Who would have thought that the bitch vampire hunter would live right here in the heart of suburbia?

He smiled, thinking of the gossip her brutal death would bring to this quiet street. Who said Derrick never
did anything for humans? He was about to provide them with a grand spectacle.

Another car approached from the opposite side, then pulled into the drive and parked.

“Dammit.”

“Should we go in anyway?” Jonathan asked. “Just two guys,” he added as two men in suits stepped out. “How much trouble can they be?”

“If they’re aligned with our girl, possibly too much. Don’t discount the situation. She’s killed enough members of the League to be taken as a serious threat. If her visitors know how to wield a stake, we’d be foolish to go in now.”

“So we wait?”

“We wait.”

Alexis moved through the house numb.
Serge
. All this time, the vampire she’d been hunting was the man she loved.

And God help her, she did love him. She wanted to hate him—she really did. Wanted to beat on him and batter him with all the horrible, hateful emotions she’d built up inside her. He’d killed her sister, after all.

Except he really hadn’t. He’d been a different person back then; the Serge that she’d come to know had been buried deep within a tortured soul. He was a man who’d paid a dozen times over for the crimes he’d committed. A man who’d never stopped trying to become better, not even after thousands of years. It was awe-inspiring, and she had to wonder if she would have had that kind of strength, or if she would have simply let madness take
her, let herself slide into the black, sloughing off torment and living only to exist. To kill.

She shivered, because that wasn’t Serge. He may have fallen into darkness, but he’d managed to climb out of it.

No, she thought. Serge hadn’t survived the encounter with Tori any more than Tori had. The Serge who’d killed her sister didn’t exist anymore. And the Serge who existed now was the man she loved.

Love, however, wasn’t always enough, and she’d spoken the truth when she told Serge that she wasn’t sure she could look at him again. Would she see Tori every time she looked into his eyes? Could she stand being that close to a reminder of the family she’d lost?

She hugged herself, pulling the sleeves of the ratty, comfortable sweatshirt she’d tugged on tight around her. It was late, well after two in the morning now, but she still eyed the phone. Leena wouldn’t mind if she called so late, but she hated to wake her friend. Especially since Leena seemed so touchy and out of sorts lately.

Alexis frowned, undecided, then jumped when her doorbell rang.

Serge?

No. She didn’t want it to be Serge. She needed distance. Time to think. Time to heal.

Maybe it was Leena. Maybe she’d caught a vibe and had come over to comfort Alexis.

“Who is it?” she called as she approached the door. Then she peered through the peephole right as her old boss, Tony Gutierrez, looked straight into it.

Surprised, she opened the door. “Tony, I—”

“Alexis Martin, you’re under arrest for impersonating a federal officer.” He exhaled loudly. “Shit, Martin, I flew in today so that I could do this instead of some
agent you’ve never met. You gonna invite me in, or do I have to plow through the bullshit on your front porch?”

In shock, she stepped aside, ushering him in, along with the unknown agent who accompanied him. She felt nothing, she realized. Was she still numb from Serge’s revelation, or from this horrible new reality? She’d known the possibility of getting caught existed, of course. But she’d never really believed it would happen.

“How?” she managed to croak out the word.

“You showed up at Edgar Garvey’s house flashing that fake badge. Dammit, Martin, what the fuck have you been up to—no, shut up and let me Mirandize you.”

He rambled off the familiar words, then asked her if she understood. She heard her voice saying that she did and that she wanted a lawyer. But the words were hollow. She didn’t really want anything except Serge’s arms around her telling her that somehow, someway, it would all turn out all right.

From the roof of the neighboring house, Serge watched and listened.
Arrest. Counterfeit badge
.

Goddammit, this wasn’t good. And once again it was his fault. Edgar had caught Derrick’s attention when he went out flashing a police sketch of Serge, after all. Somehow, everything he did circled back to stab Alexis through the heart.

No more.

He couldn’t give Alexis her sister back, but he could negotiate her freedom.

The price would be steep, of course. But for Alexis, Serge would do what he had to do, even if it meant selling his soul.

Serge stood outside Luke’s house, the surf pounding behind him, the windows brightly lit in front of him. He breathed in the salty air and told himself he was a fool for hesitating. This was Luke, after all. A man who was closer to him than any brother could be.

And yet that was part of what fueled his hesitancy. Because deep in his gut, Serge knew that he should have come to his friend before. Should have told him what was happening, listened to his advice, and taken whatever help he could offer.

He hadn’t been able to see that path, though. Not then, when all he could see was the beast within him. Alexis had changed that—she’d shifted the lens through which he looked at himself—and for that, he owed her the world. More than that, he loved her.

Alexis
.

She wouldn’t be scared—she was too strong for that. But she would be frustrated. He stood still, reaching out, seeking her through the blood connection. It was starting to fade, but he could sense her just enough to revel in the connection and to confirm that his suspicions were right. Not fear—irritation. At the system, at herself, and worry that she’d screwed up and that her mission to take out the rogues had been permanently compromised.

Not if I have anything to say about it
.

Determined, he strode to the back door. It opened just as he was about to knock, and he found himself face-to-face with Luke, who looked at him with flat, emotionless eyes.

“You are a goddamn fool.”

Serge grinned. “Good to see you, too, brother.”

“Dammit,” Luke muttered, then pulled Serge into an embrace. Fast and quick, but the emotion was real, and when he pushed away, Luke kept his hands on Serge’s shoulders, his eyes on him. “For months, I was afraid you were dead.”

“There were days when I wished I was.”

“You spoke to my wife. You entrusted me with CeeCee. And yet this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on you in over a year.”

“You know why.”

“I have my suspicions,” Luke confirmed.

“I’ll tell you everything, but there’s something I need first.”

“Tell me one thing. Have you harmed any of the humans?”

Serge almost sighed in relief. He could handle anything, he thought, except for Luke to play the fool. To pretend he wasn’t suspicious of his friend, when he knew damn well what Sergius had once been. “I have not.”