White Winter (The Black Year Series Book 2) (11 page)

Eve looked at the little girl with the pigtails and the flower dress.
Hannah Willoughsby,
she thought, her mouth dropping open.
Second victim, and the youngest.
“How are you-”

An older girl stood in the shadow of a tree. A light breeze blew a bang into her face and ruffled her blue dress. “You’re not welcome here.”

Pulse
.

“But she seems nice,” Hannah said.

“Well, she’s not. She’s trying to take Edward away from us.”

Hannah let go and stepped back. She looked like she was about to cry.

Everything is so perfect here,
Eve thought. The grass was green, trees tall, songbirds sang sweetly. A white, four-story house that looked a bit like a barn stood fifty yards away.

The sun pulsed, reminding her why she was there.
He just swallowed.
She started walking toward the house.

“Hey!” the older girl said, shoving her. Eve recognized her now.
Kaja Gorecki, the first victim.
It was kind of sick that he was making guardians out of the girls he killed. Eve swiped at her with two tendrils of thought. The blow hit Kaja hard, knocking her down, but she didn’t fly apart.
Why didn’t that work?

Hannah screamed and ran toward the house.

Kaja started getting back up.

Pulse.

Eve ported herself closer to the house, passing Hannah in an instant. The little girl yelped and slipped on the grass. Eve ignored her, expanding her mind and invading the space like a crystallizing snowflake.
Hannah’s solid. Kaja’s solid. The house is solid.
A tree swing, a sandbox… everything else was scenery.

She ported to the front door and grabbed the handle.
Locked.

Pulse.

She probed the house like she was running her tongue over her teeth and found an open window on the first floor. Pulling herself along by her mental arms, she flowed around the side of the house, pried the window open, and climbed inside.

“Aaaaaaaah!” Gloria Mendez, victim number four, charged at her with a kitchen knife. Eve stepped to the side and grabbed her wrist with both hands, plucked the knife from her hand with one tendril and threw her across the room with two more. Gloria slammed into the aluminum fridge door, denting it.
Why is everyone so solid in here?
Eve wondered again. Guardians shouldn’t be able to take this much punishment. It was like she was fighting several real people at once, and it was starting to wear on her.

The lights flickered.

Gloria grabbed another knife from the knife block on the counter.

I don’t have time for this,
Eve thought, rotating herself so she was standing on the ceiling. Hannah ran into the kitchen and stared at Eve like she was some kind of monster, then grabbed a plate and threw it at her. She missed, and the plate didn’t quite make it to the ceiling, but Gloria jumped on the idea and threw her knife, which sunk into the ceiling to the hilt.
Interesting,
Eve thought. She knelt on the ceiling and yanked the knife out, letting it fall to the floor. She batted another out of the air and melted through the hole before Gloria could throw another, reforming right side up on the second floor.

The lights flickered.
Half a pint, need to move faster.

She pulled herself forward, tendrils carrying her a foot above the ground, tossing furniture and dumping shelves and drawers on the floor. There were enough rooms for dozens of victims. Some were occupied, others were… waiting.
Seriously?
Eve thought.
How many people was he planning to kill?

Two girls she didn’t recognize slammed a door in her face. Eve ignored them. She was angry now. She surged up the stairs.

Flicker.

One of her tendrils knocked out a section of the outer wall. Smaller filaments had invaded the inner structure of the rogue’s barrier, burrowing in. She was tearing him apart from the inside. She punched holes through drywall, ripped doors out of their frames, and generally did as much damage as she could until she found the way up to the attic.

“It’s okay, Julie. I won’t let her hurt you,” Edward said.

Eve extended her hand to the side and blew out a car-sized section of the room, dropping Edward to his knees. “Let her go,” she said.

“I’m not… why are you doing this?”

Eve paused. The attic was much less ornate than the rest of the house: plain wooden-slat walls, bare plank flooring, a simple twin bed, and a dresser with a few belongings. She’d expected him to have something more dominant. She’d expected him to have a knife on the girl but, if anything, Julie was hiding behind him.

Lightning flashed through the windows
.
Julie staggered. “Edward?”

“Let her go!” Eve shouted, knocking five holes in the vaulted ceiling in quick succession. She flexed her extended network of thoughts, and the whole house shuddered and groaned. Edward pitched over on his side, clutching his head, and Julie screamed.

Eve gasped as something sharp stabbed into her back, scraping over her hip bone.

“She doesn’t want to go with you,” Kaja said.

Sharp, jagged pain lanced through Eve’s back as the object was jerked out of her and she stumbled forward. Kaja walked forward, holding a knife. It was the same knife the rogue held to Julie’s throat in the real world.

She slashed Eve’s arm, forcing her back toward a rent in the wall. “She doesn’t want to leave us!” She tried to stab Eve in the stomach, but Eve was ready for her and grabbed hold of the other girl’s wrists. “No one’s leaving me ever again!” Kaja shrieked.

The wind howled outside. Edward moaned, face down on the floor. He was nearly unconscious, but Kaja was almost stronger than Eve, and the knife tip started moving toward Eve as they struggled. Eve’s back foot was inches from the edge and a long drop. It didn’t make any sense, unless…

Eve let go of Kaja’s wrists. The knife sank into her chest, and Eve’s thoughts folded back in as she wrapped Kaja in a bear hug. “Surprise!” Eve said, smirking, and dove backward into the storm.

♘

The knife clattered on the floor, and Julie collapsed into the soldier’s arms.

Edward blinked several times, and said, “What just-”

Eve had two pounds of lead shot in her clutch. She smashed it into the side of Edward’s head.

CHAPTER 14

Eve finished her third blood pack and stood up from the ambulance tailgate. The Agency medic had given Julie a transfusion and a mild sedative; she’d be fine, insofar as she wasn’t worse off than she was when she decided to run away from home and commit suicide by vampire. Eve wasn’t sure what to do about it, or if it was even her problem. She grabbed her clutch, carried her heels over her shoulder, fingers hooked in the heel straps, and walked around to the front of the club. The parking lot was mostly empty; it was still night, but the sky had started to lighten and even those vampires who stuck around to watch had returned to the lairs or lofts they inhabited during the day.

The local Agency director waved her over when he saw her. He was standing with Ravi.

“Well done, Ms. Gallagher. Ravi was just telling me how impressed he was with your performance.”

Ravi gave her a warm smile. Eve tried for cool and professional. “I wasn’t aware you knew each other.”

The director and Ravi exchanged glances, grinning like schoolboys caught playing a prank. “Well, we were in the Agency together, once upon a time,” the director said.

“You what?” Eve said.

“Nothing so glamorous as what you or Hugh can do, I’m afraid. I was an accountant,” Ravi said.

The director - Hugh, apparently - crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

Ravi just smiled.

“So this was a test,” Eve said. Ravi shrugged. “Was any of this real?”

The director nodded. “The rogue was real. We could have picked him up on Tuesday, but it took a few days to set up the right bait.”

“Which I provided,” Ravi said. “And she really was a runaway, and my manager really was incompetent, and I really did fire him.”

Eve sighed, transferring her clutch to her left hand before brushing the bang out of her eyes. She’d spent three weeks tracking Edward, and she’d spent the last six days working with the local operations’ center to trap him, sometimes getting so close she’d wanted to scream when he managed to slip away. And she’d felt good when she finally caught him, saved the girl, and laid him out in the parking lot.

“You did a phenomenal job, Ms. Gallagher, especially given your age and experience.”

That doesn’t make it better; it makes it worse,
she thought.

It must have showed. The director sighed. “Look, you’re a probationary enforcer and this is my jurisdiction. Normally, we would have thanked you for your analysis, found him if we had time, and put a bullet in him. Mrs. Black asked me to make an exception, so I did.”

Eve straightened, hand tightening on her clutch.

“And you did great,” Ravi added.

“Yes, you did,” the director said. “If you hadn’t been there, my men would have shot him and we wouldn’t have had the chance to interrogate him.”

“And the girl might have died,” Eve added.

Ravi grinned.

The director shrugged. “I suppose she might have.”

“So what are you going to do with her?” Eve pressed.

Ravi stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled openly. “Yes, Hugh. What
are
you going to do with her?”

The director scowled. “We’ll drop her off at her parents’.”

Eve shook her head. “Her stepfather is abusive. That’s why she left in the first place.”

“She’ll have to figure that part out on her own. We’re not social services.”

Eve tightened her grip on the clutch. If he thought going the assertive route with her was going to work, he had another thing coming.

“I, on the other hand,” Ravi said, locking eyes with her, “could be persuaded to take her in. Mick could use a protégée, or at least someone to make sure he makes it home after a night of drinking and storytelling.”

Both Eve and the director looked at him in surprise.

“I thought someone would have offered to turn him by now,” the director said.

Ravi grimaced. “They did.
I
did. He says he’s never backed down from anything in his life, and he’s not about to start. He’s turning into a fall risk.” He wiped his face. “How about it, Ms. Gallagher? A favor for a favor?”

Eve looked at him, at his relaxed stance and open expression. “You would have done it anyway,” she said. She was almost certain of it.

“I might have,” he admitted. “But I’m prepared to assuage my guilt with another street urchin, while you’re keen to save this one.”

“And the favor?”

“When you leave the Agency-”

Eve winced. “I’m not-”

He raised a finger. “Humor me, Ms. Gallagher. We live a very long time.” Eve nodded, and he continued. “When you leave the Agency, come find me first. If I can’t find something that will challenge you and benefit me, you’re free to go, but you
must
come to me first.” He stuck out his hand.

The director watched her, arms crossed, but didn’t say anything. She felt like she was making a deal with the devil - a handsome, well-intentioned devil but a professional tempter nonetheless. She shook his hand.
I’ll deal with it when the time comes,
she thought.

“Thank you, Ms. Gallagher. You won’t regret it.”

♘

Eve had to jump a little to climb onto the tailgate and pull herself into the tactical van’s interior. Unlike a SWAT van, the windows were slits covered by lockable shutters, and the driver’s section was sealed off by a steel partition. She guessed it could deliver a team of vampires during daylight, as long as their destination was underground or away from any windows. There was just enough light in the sky to make her skin itch, and she was glad to put the heavy door between her and the dawn.

She sat next to the director. Edward sat across from them, hands cuffed to the bench between his knees, forcing him to hunch over. He tried to give her a friendly smile, but he couldn’t keep the fear from his face.

“Has he said anything?” Eve asked.

“Mr. Green has been very cooperative,” the director said, picking up a clipboard, and Edward nodded. “He’s about 115 years old, and became a vampire 78 years ago which was duly registered by the Chicago office. His file describes him as unremarkable, a borer in name only, barely above a standard and therefore not offered a position within the Agency.”

Edward’s face tightened, but he kept smiling.

“He wandered around the country without incident for most of that time, neither causing trouble nor managing to accumulate any significant wealth or influence, which is abnormal for someone his age. A model citizen, until he let himself starve and killed Kaja Gorecki.”