Eater of Lives(SPECTR #4) (8 page)

A low growl escapes him at the thought of
Sean. How dare he? He upset Caleb, and insulted Gray, and said they
should let this other mortal take their place in John’s bed. It is
not to be tolerated.

Caleb’s doubts are like a sour sickness in
their blood.
“What if Sean’s right? What if John would rather
have Will? Would rather have a normal life?”

At least he can offer comfort.
John is not
so faithless. He loves us.

“
No. He loves
me.”

Caleb is confused, obviously. Gray helpfully
recalls the perfect moment on top of the lighthouse, after they fed
on the incubus, when John leaned into them and whispered, “I love
you.”

“
He didn’t mean both of us.”
But there
is no heat to the thought, no malice. Just a sort of wistful pain,
which Gray does not understand.
“He was talking to me. I’m…I’m
sorry.”

You are mistaken
. John loves them
both. Caleb misinterpreted—the language of mortals is imprecise. He
is wrong.

He has to be.

“
Don’t you get it? John is trying his
damnedest to exorcise you! Don’t you know what that means? What
they’ll do once you’re in a bottle?”

No. No, he does not wish to think of this. He
rises to his feet, feeling their heart race. This beating heart,
this thing he has never had before.

“
They’ll kill you.”
Caleb is
relentless, and for the first time Gray wishes he could escape
Caleb, if only for this moment.
“John will hand you over to
them, and they’ll destroy you in their special furnace.”

John…wishes me dead?

“
Not out of malice. But it’s his job to
make sure you’re destroyed. So…so you see why he can’t love
you.”

Gray stays very, very still. The wind pushes
against him, catching his hair, brushing across his lips, but it
seems very far away. He has known these things, of course, but only
as a jumble of facts. Something he didn’t have to put into a
coherent shape, because of course John will not be able to exorcise
him. No one ever has; why consider the ramifications?

Perhaps he is wrong. John might remove him.
Then he will die, because it is John’s duty to see him destroyed.
And even if he is right, and he cannot be removed, John will still
never love him.

It is terrible in a way he did not know
something could be terrible. Everything inside him is broken, like
the ends of shattered ribs digging through flesh. If only their
ribs were truly fractured; that he could heal. Could fix. Could
escape.

“No,” he whispers aloud, but he doesn’t know
what he refutes.

“
I’m sorry.”
Some of the pain belongs
to Caleb, more jagged edges which will never really fit back
together the way they once were.
“I wish it didn’t have to be
this way.”

“Yes,” Gray agrees. But the wind carries away
his whisper and drowns it in a sheet of rain.

* * *

Caleb sat on the staircase, his head in his
hands, his long hair forming a tangled curtain around him. A couple
of hours spent on the church spire had left him soaked to the bone,
but he couldn’t bring himself to care enough to towel off. Gray’s
presence was like the ache of a tooth, sharp and hurtful and
impossible to ignore.

God. How had his life come to this? He wished
he could go back in time and stop his past self from going with
Melanie to the old house. They should have just gone to the public
outreach side of SPECTR and raised holy hell until someone looked
into the disappearance of Ben’s body.

But he’d been unregistered and determined to
stay that way, which meant never drawing SPECTR’s attention. And
Melanie saw all paranormals as the enemy; she wouldn’t have gone to
SPECTR even if Caleb had insisted. Despite everything, he still
couldn’t figure out what he should have done differently. Never
been born in the first place, maybe.

A knock on the door broke into his reverie.
Lifting his head, he listened for a moment, but the knock wasn’t
repeated. His amped-up senses caught the soft snick of shoes on the
sidewalk outside, but nothing more.

Probably a mistake, or somebody selling
something. Or a deliveryman with a package. John hadn’t mentioned
anything, but maybe that asshole Will ordered something, Will who
thought he’d come waltzing back to Charleston, and get Sean on his
side, and steal John back…

Except maybe John couldn’t be stolen, because
he didn’t really belong to Caleb in the first place.

Gray stirred sluggishly.
“John loves
you.”

Next time Caleb saw Sean, he’d punch him in
his damn mouth. Except Sean thought he was looking out for
John.

“Fuck this,” Caleb said aloud. Maybe someone
left a package outside; at least it would be a distraction from his
own thoughts. He stood up and went to the front door.

Nothing sat on the stoop…but a folded sheet
of paper hung taped to the door, with Caleb’s name on it.

The fuck?

Caleb’s skin pebbled, and he peered out into
the rain, but didn’t see anybody. Was someone watching the place?
How else would they know he’d come back?

He shut the door and locked it for good
measure. Unfolding the paper, he let out a sharp hiss of breath as
an image at the bottom caught his eye. It was an illustration of a
moth…the same symbol which marked Brimm’s books, only much
larger.

Shit. Okay, this could not be good. Tearing
his attention away from the symbol, he read:

Mr. Jansen,

We are aware of your situation. Be advised,
Special Agent Starkweather does not have the resources necessary to
remove the drakul from your body.

We do.

We will assist you, on one condition. The
drakul were summoned to destroy “demons,” i.e. NHEs harmful to
humanity. Unlike SPECTR, we will not keep this one from its
purpose. Once removed from you, the drakul will be set free to
inhabit corpses once again. Its continued existence will save many
human lives in the future, as it has done in the past, by
eradicating malevolent NHEs.

SPECTR’s mission is to destroy all NHEs which
come into contact with humanity, without exception. We need not
remind you Special Agent Starkweather supports this mission with
great enthusiasm. When your time is up, SPECTR will feel it has no
choice but to lock you away, for study and containment. If you do
not wish to spend eternity in a holding cell, we strongly suggest
you do not reveal this communication to Starkweather.

Below is a number where you can reach us, day
or night. We probably don’t need to mention the number is for a
disposable cell phone, which can’t be traced back to us.

Call soon. Your time is running out.

* * *

The bells from one of Charleston’s many
churches chimed the nine o’clock hour when John finally unlocked
the condo’s front door. A long damn day, and nothing to show for
it. None of the tips coming in panned out. A few new missing person
cases cropped up, but he had no way of knowing if any of them were
connected with the wendigo.

His body felt like it weighed a million
pounds, every step slow and painful. The wendigo was out there
somewhere. It would kill again, if it hadn’t already. And every
death lay at his door, because it was up to him to stop it.

Caleb waited inside, curled up on the hideous
orange couch he’d insisted on bringing with him. He’d brought down
his easel and paints, but the canvas still sat blank. The first
painting he’d done stood propped against a wall.

“Hey,” John said, dredging up a smile. “Are
we going to hang the painting down here?”

Caleb shrugged. “It was in the way upstairs.
In the bedroom.” He stood up, unfolding his long legs. “Where have
you been?”

“At work.” John winced. “Sorry. I didn’t
think to call.”

“So you weren’t with Will?”

John frowned. “What? Of course not. Why would
you say that?”

Caleb looked away, his arms crossed
defensively over his chest. “He hasn’t come back yet, either.”

The hell? “I was working the case, Caleb. I
don’t blame you for leaving early, but if you’d stayed you know I
was at SPECTR the whole time.”

“Looking for the wendigo?”

“Of course.”

“And what about me?”

“I’m too tired to play twenty questions
here,” John said, struggling to keep a leash on his temper. “What
about
you?”

Caleb let his arms fall to his sides. “When
do I start taking priority, huh? You keep saying you’ll exorcise
me, but there’s always something more important.”

“I have worked on it! You’ve seen me with the
books—”

“Yeah, and I’ve seen you chasing down ghouls,
an incubus, and now a wendigo, and doing everything else on earth
but
focusing on how the hell you’re going to get rid of
Gray!”

John rubbed at his eyes. “I understand you’re
scared—”

“I’m not scared!” Caleb shouted, taking a
step closer, fists clenching. “I’m fucking terrified!”

Oh. Shit. “Babe…”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Don’t ‘babe’
me, Starkweather. I’ve got less than nine days left.
Nine
days.”

Yeah, okay, they were cutting it close. Caleb
had every right to be upset. “We’ll take care of it, I promise. But
you still have time. And right now, we need Gray to help find the
wendigo.”

He’d said the wrong thing; he knew it the
instant the words left his lips. All the color drained from Caleb’s
pale face, save for two spot high on his cheekbones. “You son of a
bitch.”

Fuck. “You’re helping save people’s lives,”
he said, hoping to repair the damage.

“Maybe I don’t want to, okay? Taking down
NHEs, helping the helpless, being a big damn hero—that’s
your
dream, not mine! I never wanted this! The only reason I
agreed to any of it was to keep my ass out of a cell.” Caleb shook
his head savagely. “You and Gray are the ones with hard-ons to
chase down demons, not me.”

John pressed his lips together. Couldn’t
Caleb see he’d just been trying to help? “Okay, I get it. You
aren’t SPECTR material. Not everyone is. But right now,
tonight,
people might die because we haven’t caught this
wendigo yet. The case has to take priority. Lives are at stake
here.”

Caleb seemed suddenly to deflate. “And my
life? Doesn’t it matter?” He stepped back, averting his eyes.
“What’s going to happen to me, if you don’t get rid of Gray?”

Something thick clogged John’s throat.
Sekhmet, Devouring Lady, save him, because when he did “get rid” of
Gray…

It might be the end of everything. If Caleb
felt betrayed now, how would he feel if he learned John
deliberately let the drakul go? That John would risk everything,
their whole future together, to avoid murdering Gray?

“I love you,” John said quietly. “And I swear
I will figure this out before it’s too late. I won’t betray you.”
Not the way Caleb thought he would, at least. “By next Saturday,
you’ll be free, and Gray will be in a bottle. But right now, there
are people dying, and yes, you can help save them. And I’m asking
you to do it. To do the right thing.”

Caleb crossed his arms over his chest, his
long hair a screen to hide his expression. “So. That’s what it’s
like, then.”

“Yeah. That’s what it’s like.”

Caleb didn’t seem inclined to say anything
else. John reached out to him, but the other man flinched back, and
he let his hand drop. “I’m going to bed,” John said because,
Goddess, he could barely think straight at the moment. “Join me
when you’re ready.”

Caleb didn’t reply. Hoping the next day
brought some more answers, John climbed the stairs to the second
floor alone.

Caleb’s breath hitched in a barely concealed
sob, even as his amped-up hearing brought to him the sound of the
bedroom door clicking shut.

God. It felt like something alive had gotten
trapped in his chest, shredding his lungs and his heart. Something
out of a science fiction movie, maybe, except this alien would
never burst free, just keep burrowing deeper and deeper, until
nothing remained but blood and pain.

“I don’t want this,” he whispered. “I. Don’t.
Want. This.”

His breath grew shorter and shorter, pain
giving way to fury. God
damn
John. Damn him for choosing,
because if Caleb had any doubts about whether or not he should tell
his lover about the letter the moth people left earlier, he sure as
hell didn’t have them now.

John would do everything by the book,
wouldn’t he? He’d be the fucking Boy Scout, the one who saved the
many and sacrificed the one. He’d toe the party line, and fucking
hell, Caleb didn’t want to get stuck in a cell forever, and he
didn’t want Gray to die.

“
I do not wish to die, either.”

Why did Gray have to be so damn naïve? Why
did he have to go and fall in love with sex, with color, with
everything? With John?

Sorrow, keen as the kiss of a razor on his
skin.
“I never meant to. I…am sorry, Caleb.”

Caleb glanced up, and his gaze lighted on the
painting. The painting they’d done together, for John.

To hell with it. To hell with all of it.

Two strides carried him to the painting.
Snatching it from its resting place against the wall, he tore it in
half, dried paint flaking everywhere even as the heavy canvas
ripped like tissue paper under his more-than-human strength.

When nothing more remained than colored
scraps, he hurled the remnants away. Tears stung his eyes, but he’d
be damned if he let Starkweather see. He had to get out, get
away.

He ran for the door, barely having the
presence of mind to shut it behind him. A tree loomed up nearby,
and Gray rose to help. They swarmed up it, the ragged bark giving
plenty of hold for claws, and leapt to the roof of the condo.