House of Slide Hybrid (32 page)

“What was that? Are you all right?”

He paused, letting the emptiness swell between us before he spoke. “I’m just staying occupied, hunting down those who attacked Sanders, nothing very interesting. I almost didn’t expect you to answer. Thank you.”

I felt a wave of guilt and frustration. He was supposed to be staying safe, not fighting off a demon horde on his own.

“Of course I answered. I miss you.”

He cleared his throat then I heard a gasp and the line went dead in my hand. I stared at the black receiver, waiting for something to happen when Satan came in.

“You have to hang it up if you want him to call you back.”

I replaced the receiver on the cradle with trembling hands before I sank into a chair at the kitchen table and put my head down. I jerked my head back up from the pain of my bruise.

“He’ll be fine,” Satan said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “He’s getting in contact with old Hunters who thought he was dead, bringing them into the area. It’s alarming how much demonic activity is around you.”

I swallowed and nodded. “You think that he has help, that he’s not alone?”

Satan sighed as he sank into a chair that creaked ominously. “Oh, he’s got as much help as he wants, but thing is, you distancing yourself from him while I suppose a bit altruistic on your part, isn’t something that he appreciates.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s not going to sit somewhere safe while you try and finish your runes. He’s going to go out and look for trouble. Frankly, the safest thing for him is to be where you can keep your eye on him. He’s never had a reputation for being very concerned about his own well-being.”

I swallowed down the panic that had the lights flickering before I stood up. “I’ve got to get to school. Will you take me?”

On the drive, I stared out the window seeing Lewis everywhere with his face covered in blood, sweet blood that I wanted with a sudden burning in my veins that made me want to throw up.

At school, Osmond gave me a smile that made my stomach twist with more guilt than usual, but that was mostly because it took all my will to put one foot in front of the other as I crossed the stone floor of the high school, beneath the stained glass window that glowed so brilliantly in the sun that still shone, true to my mother’s word. Snowy gave me a tight smile as she fell in beside me.

“The weather’s been nice. Pretty soon it’ll be too warm for your turtleneck. You know what you need?”

I sighed. If she started talking about Osmond I would scratch out my own ears.

“Ice cream. After school we need to go to the ice cream place and drown ourselves in empty calories.”

Well, that was better than talking about Osmond. Smoke didn’t show up until Sewing class, and he gave me a cool nod but didn’t perch on the edge of my table like he usually did. I was too wrung out to do anything about it, but I wished there was something to say to make Snowy’s cruelty more tolerable. What could I say, though? I drifted through the rest of that class then at home that night, sat by the phone all afternoon doing my homework, then just sat and stared at it until eight o’clock, it rang.

“Hello?” I said as I ripped the phone off the hook, fumbling in my haste. “Lewis? Are you all right? What happened? I’ve been going crazy all day wondering if you were okay.”

He laughed a low resonant sound that sent shivers through me. “Sorry about that. I didn’t think you’d be out of bed or I wouldn’t have gotten distracted. You sound amazing for just finishing your runes.”

I sank down on the floor beneath the phone feeling the stress leach out of me. “It’s better this time. Much easier. I didn’t die or anything. Can I see you some time?”

Silence stretched out on the line while my heart pounded in my chest.

“I thought that you didn’t want to see me,” he said quietly.

“I do. I just don’t want to hurt you.”

He sighed. “I’ve been busy with some old friends. We’re in the middle of a small war, actually,” he said sounding embarrassed.

“You’re in the middle of a war? Oh. In that case, never mind.” I wanted to scream at him, to lock him up and keep him safe. What was wrong with him? Why would he go fight a war in the middle of my runes? I needed him with me, safe, not fighting and putting his life on the line, like he wanted to die before we finished the bond.

“I’m your Intended. This is part of the job description. When they attacked Sanders it became essential that I track them all down and destroy them, personally.”

I swallowed unable to find words. I’d been runed too recent to be able to process very well.

“Lewis, please come home. Don’t risk…”

“It’s my duty and pleasure,” he responded.

I wanted to smack him, to kiss him until he realized that he needed to be careful. Of course he wouldn’t do what I wanted him to do, not when he saw it as hypocritical of me to want to protect him instead of letting him protect me.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered, rubbing my temples.

“You’ve proven that you can,” he responded easily. “Don’t worry. Hunting is one of the things I do very well.”

“You do everything well, that doesn’t mean that you should go out and fight a war in the middle of my runes! I’m trying so hard to be strong so that you’ll be safe, and you throw it away?”

“You’re upset. Why don’t you have your mother make you some tea and go to bed?”

I took a deep trembling breath. “Lewis, if you’re fighting in a war, maybe you shouldn’t take a break and call me twice a day. Maybe you should focus on what you’re doing so that you don’t get yourself or someone else killed.”

“If that’s what you’d like.”

“It is,” I said although after the words came out too quickly for me to have thought about them.

The line went dead.

“Hello? Lewis?” Nothing. I sat there with the dial tone and stupid tears staining my cheeks until the computer voice came on. ‘If you would like to place a call, please hang up and try again.’

I stood up feeling a hundred years old as I put the phone away whispering, “I love you,” before I went to bed.

The rest of the week passed in a miserable blur and then it was time for another trip to the spa. I thought it would be better, after all, the second time wasn’t as bad as the first, I didn’t die or anything. My body seemed to accept the tattoos, letting them sink into my flesh while I lay there like a slab of meat on the metal table, limp, passive, without energy or desire to struggle anymore. Unfortunately, it was harder for me to function afterwards, to shake off the lethargy that left me limp with uncaring. I didn’t leave my body, didn’t get lost in the soul, but I wanted to.

Lewis didn’t call.

One day Satan caught me staring at the phone like a sick puppy.

“I liked how punctual he was,” Satan growled, rustling in the fridge for something. “It really shows he cares.”

“He said that he’s in the middle of a war. It doesn’t make sense for him to interrupt his hunting for a stupid phone call.”

Satan snorted. “That’s what Stanley said.”

“Stanley? What does he know about it?”

“You don’t think Slide’s Intended would go out on his own, do you? I’m stuck here with you, no offense, but your Trainer and half the Sons of Slide are off watching your boyfriend kill stuff. I get to watch you mope.”

“I’m sorry I’m so boring. I’ll try to liven things up a little bit, maybe melt another movie theater.”

He snorted as he chewed on a turkey leg. “What you need to do is go hunting, taste some death. You could use it.”

I shook my head in automatic disgust then paused. I knew what Lewis was, who he was, but I had such a hard time accepting that he had been made to go out and fight things that might hurt him. He hadn’t called me. He must hate me by now, weak, stupid, incapable of smelling blood or hurting anyone.

“Yes. I’ll go get my knife,” I said as I walked up to my room.

“You don’t want to rip it open with your teeth?” he called to me as I left.

I shook my head as I climbed the stairs, exhausted when I got to the top. I stood there, leaning against the wall to catch my breath and stop my heart from pounding.

Satan found me collapsed on the window seat with my knives in my lap, my beautiful curved dagger with a hilt encrusted with jewels as well as my knife from my father, the silver colored metal glistening in the afternoon light.

“I can’t go hunting,” I said staring at my knives.

“Saturday, when you’re not trying to go to school. It’s stupid, really. You should be at Slide. Slide would make sure you felt well enough to go out and kill something any time.”

I looked up at him. “Slide doesn’t have woods to go hunting in.”

Satan grinned. “In the city, you don’t need woods, not when you’ve got enough people to attract a good amount of demons.”

I blinked, opened my mouth to ask if they really killed people for fun and then closed it and looked out the window. Satan enjoyed a certain level of shock value that I didn’t have energy for, not that day or any other day that week.

I opened my eyes one afternoon and realized that I was sitting in an empty classroom, empty except for Ms. Briggs where she fastidiously cleaned the chalk board. When she turned around her face was devoid of her usual frown as she looked at me.

“Maybe you should stay home for the next few days,” she said. That made me sit up straight, gave me the energy to get to my feet and grab my bag.

“I’m fine,” I muttered before I left the room, but her sniff was disdainful. I should have been fine, third time was easier than the second, that made sense. Nothing else made sense. I wandered the halls, ending up in the study hall instead of my classes where I sat at a table that seemed too big for one person before I realized with a slight sickening sensation that it was the table where I used to sit with Lewis. I was skipping classes so I could sit somewhere that bore his imprint. I shook my head as I left the room, the building, wandering aimlessly down streets that I knew but seemed different, distant.

I stood in the driveway staring at the empty gravel drive, felt the abandonment of Old Peter’s little town farm. I sat down there, on the sidewalk, unable to make myself go home, do homework, get another three inches of runes on my spine. I couldn’t remember what the point of it was, and I didn’t see how the emptiness would ever give way to something more, something better, something that wasn’t as aching and pointless as wasting away without a soul.

The screen door swung open, creaking ominously.

I held my breath. Had Old Peter become a Lost Soul? No, only Hollows did that.

I struggled to my feet, needing to talk to someone who would understand.

“Dariana Sanders. Don’t you look charming,” the familiar voice of my Trainer came drawling from the door.

“Carve?” I scrambled to my feet. “What are you doing here? This is not your house.”

He laughed and opened the screen all the way so that I could see his swarthy, sagging face while he sneered at me. “Don’t you think it suits me? Tell me, Daughter of Slide, how are your runes progressing?”

I swallowed and fingered the lacy pattern on the back of my neck. “They’re great.”

“You’re avoiding Axel. He’s good for your well-being. Also, he’s getting more destructive without you.”

I clenched my fists and swallowed hard. “I have to do what I think is best.”

“You think that you’re protecting him?”

“He’s come much closer to death with me, than any other time.”

“And hunting? Are you capable of taking death?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Dariana, you must keep the Code. Haven’t they warned you about the dangers of possession if you allow truth to be replaced by self-deception? You must follow the Code or you might end up a demon man. You should hunt if you can. If you Hunted, you could absorb strength from the death of another, and never have to take the strength of the creature you love.”

I gritted my teeth. “It’s on the list. Is that all?”

He raised his eyebrows. “All of what?”

“The training session. Is this it for today?”

“I could give you some relief, some reprieve from your pain, but I doubt you’d appreciate it. No, right now any more Training would clearly break you.”

“I’m fine,” I stated and turned away.

I walked quickly while he laughed, his voice mocking me as I went. Satan had said that Carve was with Lewis. Maybe the fighting had ended. Maybe they’d gotten everyone who had attacked Sanders and knew something. I should have asked Carve. I should have been polite and grateful instead of weak and wounded, snapping at everyone I met. I should have let him take away my pain, especially the part inside my chest where I ached for Lewis.

Ash only lived a few blocks away. I headed towards him. His mother opened the door as soon as I knocked, like she’d been waiting for me. Her eyes were worried in spite of her melodious greeting and the calm that infused their house.

Ash, when I went into his room lay on his bed staring at the ceiling, lying on a happy looking bedspread that was even brighter from the pool of sunshine that wrapped around Ash, giving his hair a tint of bronze.