In the Dark (19 page)

“Ian,”
a voice called.

I stopped, hand
halfway to face.

“I-an,”
she yelled again, sing-songy. “Eee-an, where aaare you?”

Definitely her.
Distant, but how far had I run already? She was tracking me. No
matter how far I ran or where I hid, she’d find me. I bolted.

The voice
stopped. Feet started running somewhere behind me.

She could run
faster than me. My only hope was to hide. She’d gotten too
close for me to reach a cab. I ran as hard as I could, listening to
the footsteps behind me echo my turns, getting louder with every
block I took. Catching up. I kept pushing myself, hoping it would be
enough, that I could get under cover before she caught me. Because
she was going to catch me.

I turned down
one last alley before coming out onto an open street. A busier one by
day, but not this late. All the shops had closed. Brick walls echoed
my footsteps. The buildings stood inches from each other, sometimes
less. Nowhere to hide, no corner to push into.

The steps behind
me stopped. Not veered away or faded off, but stopped. I slowed,
listening. Nothing. My own boots drummed the pavement; beyond that,
the street was quiet. What happened? Where’d she go?

Not behind me,
and that was enough. I picked up my pace and ran again. Maybe I could
make it to a busy street in time. I could see the nearest one down a
few blocks, cars zipping past between the rows of buildings.

Clanging.

Loud, echoing
all around me. It sounded familiar. I searched my mind to place it,
couldn’t. I needed to know, in case it might be bad.

I heard feet hit
the ground in the alley ahead of me – fire escape! She’d
climbed up one back there, run over the buildings and come down in
front of me. Cut me off. I had to turn around and run for all I was
worth, try to get out of sight before she reached the mouth of the
alley.

I skidded to a
stop, feeling the jolt all through my face. I spun around and
switched back the way I’d come. Maybe I could do it. Maybe.
Maybe. I heard feet pound the blacktop behind me. I willed my legs to
go just a little faster, just long enough to make it around the next
corner, just a little farther –

A heavy, solid
weight crashed into me. I sprawled to the ground, hands out to catch
myself. The fall was too awkward. I missed, taking it with my
shoulder and hip. I heard a wet, muffled crack, like a joint popping.
My joint. My leg went numb as my hip flared with pain. I opened my
mouth and couldn’t scream.

She landed on
top of me, her weight slamming me against the pavement. I yelped, a
hoarse, vomiting sound.

For a small
woman, she weighed a lot. I still tried to throw her off, my teeth
grit against the pain. A hand grabbed the side of my face – my
head cracked against the pavement –

The explosion in
my head made me forget my hip and shoulder. It occurred to me that
she could kill me like that, one little injury after another. I tried
to throw her again, hoping to catch her off balance. Another shove
against the pavement. A bone in the side of my face cracked. A
whispery moaning sound escaped my mouth.

“What’s
wrong, Ian?” Emily’s voice purred.

Not Emily,
I tried to remember. My vision didn’t come back past gray this
time. She rolled me over onto my back. I felt her weight over my hips
once I was over. I couldn’t move. My arms and legs wouldn’t
listen, like they weren’t mine.

“I thought
you liked me. I thought we were going to be friends.” She
leaned close to me, breath cool on my ear. “I thought you
wanted to fuck my brains out.”

I shut my eyes.

She dropped and
kissed my sore, bruised mouth, pressing hard. I wriggled. She grabbed
my lip in her teeth. Fangs split it open.

Sebastian
,
I thought.

She drank. I
winced while my blood swelled under the cuts. Sweet driblets ran back
into my mouth. My stomach gaped in desperate hunger. I struggled, but
even my terrified strength had gone. She slammed my head against the
pavement to stop me. The world went black. I lost the feel of the
pain, of everything. I knew this – I was dying again.

Sebastian,
I pleaded.

The feel and
sound and sight of everything around me flickered in and out, like a
bad signal. It made me tired. I wanted more than anything to close my
eyes and take a long, long nap. I relaxed, drifted, waiting to fall
asleep.

It didn’t
happen. Actually, nothing happened. Nothing at all. I could still
feel a vague sense of pain. Nothing else.

I didn’t
feel her let go of my lip. I just noticed all of a sudden that she
had. I opened my eyes. At first they wouldn’t open. When they
did, it was like controlling my body from remote. I couldn’t
make out anything in front of me, and a dizzy nausea swept through
me. I shut them.

Blood.

Salty liquid on
my tongue . . . it filled my mouth until I had to swallow it, a big
gulp that hurt going down. It burned my stomach like whiskey when it
hit.

Sebastian.

“I’m
here, Ian.”

My teeth were
clamped hard in skin. I kept them there.

More.

I opened my
eyes, carefully. Sebastian held me upright, leaned against his chest.
My butt felt blacktop through my slacks. I drank.

He heard me.

“Yes, I
heard. Take as much as you need,” he murmured to me, breath on
my face. I relaxed my bite without letting go.

The blood tasted
rich. Cold. Thicker than normal. Sebastian’s. I had my teeth in
his wrist. He was hunkered over me, watching me with sparkling
worried eyes. I let my teeth out of his wrist. They didn’t come
at first. I had to pull them out. I closed my eyes and kept drinking.
Probed fang marks with my tongue. I heard Sebastian hiss softly and
stopped licking his wrist. There were a few puncture wounds. He’d
been bitten more than once. I winced.
I’d
bitten him
more than once.

The vampire!

I pulled away.
Sebastian took his wrist back.

“Where is
she?” is what my mouth said. My throat just made a horrible
gurgling sound. I jerked, startled, and started crying again.

“More?”
Sebastian asked. Guarded. He didn’t want to give me more.

I wanted more.
But I knew what being bitten felt like, what being fed from felt
like, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I shook my head and
tried to sit up, make myself stand. Too dizzy. I wobbled on my feet.
The world spun, color mixed with gray so that I couldn’t see
anything. I reached for the side of my face. My fingers found a
ragged mess. My eye on that side sat too low, the bone cracked beside
it. The tears came harder.

“It will
heal, Ian,” Sebastian said beside me.

I nodded. I
couldn’t see straight. Opening my eyes made me dizzy enough to
wobble. And I hurt. All over.

“I’ve
got her here. And your phone. Why don’t we get off the street?”

I nodded again.
I still couldn’t feel one of my legs. My hip grated in a way
that couldn’t be healthy. I shut my bad eye. Without the
bizarre angle it showed me, the dizziness got better.

Sirens screamed
in the distance.

Sebastian turned
his head, tracking the sound. I suddenly noticed another person on
the pavement beside us – Emily. I jumped back from her, then
regretted it.

She sat propped
against a building, snarling. Her nose was a flat mess. That confused
me for a second . . . until I remembered slamming my head into her
face. Her legs stuck out in front of her, bent at sickening angles. I
flinched, partly at her, partly at her legs. Someone had broken them.
Not once, but in a few different places. Both legs.

Sebastian
scooped her over his shoulder, took my elbow, and led me away. I
followed, limping, leaning on him harder than I wanted. Refusing to
look at Emily over his shoulder.

We went back the
way I had come, a more direct route back to the old brick house. When
a police car pulled over to ask us what was going on, Sebastian told
them there was nothing to see and to move along. The cops inside
nodded and left.

Emily. There she
was, slung over Sebastian’s shoulder, but it wasn’t her.
The pure hatred on her face told me that.

How long had
this stranger replaced her? Had I even met Emily? My eyes welled up.
I stumbled along beside Sebastian, hurting, crying.

The walk was
long. Torturously long. I wanted to ask, how much further? Each time
I thought about it, though, I realized I couldn’t talk.

And then we
reached the house. Sebastian unlocked the doors and popped the trunk
of his car. I wondered why until he threw Emily into the tiny trunk.
Hard. She yelped.

“Get in,”
Sebastian said to me. “I believe we’ve caught Kent’s
murderer. The only one.”

T
he
elevator doors lumbered open. Sebastian stepped off before me,
carrying Emily, workman’s boots thunking. I limped into the
living room and found a corner to hide in. My hip grated and popped
with every step, on fire from the damage in the joint. All I could
manage was a snail’s crawl, and even that hurt. Josephine sat
still for one silent moment, then shoved herself up off the couch.

“What the
hell is going on?”

In the center of
the living room, Sebastian hauled Emily over his shoulder like a
sack. I flinched when she hit the floor. She grunted and glared up at
Sebastian, fangs bared. Josephine stopped still like someone had
switched her off.

“Where are
Emily and Evan?” Sebastian asked. His calm, level tone bothered
me. Like none of this touched him. Like he did this sort of thing all
the time.

The fake Emily
hissed. She couldn’t reach me, but I still pushed further into
my corner. Josephine watched us like we were on acid, and only we
could see or hear the creature crouched on the floor.

Sebastian drew
his sword and pointed it at Not-Emily’s throat.

I squeezed my
eyes shut.

“Where.
Are. Emily. And. Evan?” Sebastian repeated, dangerously
careful. I squeezed my eyes shut.

“She knows
where Emily is,” the lookalike said. “Try to get her to
tell you!”

She meant me. My
jaw clenched.

A sudden
cracking sound made me jump. Not-Emily screeched, like metal tearing.
My eyes snapped open. Sebastian had the flat of his blade aimed at
her. Her hands covered her shattered nose while her eyes watered red.
He’d whacked her broken nose. My own nose throbbed in sympathy.

Josephine slid
up beside me, her eyes running up and down my battered body as if she
couldn’t believe what she saw. She lifted a hand in a
comforting gesture, a gesture that stopped uncomfortably short of
touching me. “Ian, do you know where Emily is?”

I nodded,
keeping my face turned. I didn’t want to say it out loud.

“Where,
Ian? Where’s Emily?” She asked quietly, but her voice had
a high tone. Panic. I shook my head, mouthing the word, refusing to
even try to say anything out loud.

“This
isn’t her?”

I shook my head
harder, hid my wet face in my arms.

“She’s
gone, Josephine,” Sebastian said.

The lights went
out.

I tried to
scream, gurgled instead. Josephine yelped, a short, clipped sound.
Sebastian made no noise at all.

“Was that
her?” Josephine whispered.

“Yes,”
Sebastian said. “Hush.”

She’d
turned out the lights? How the hell did she do that?

I heard
Sebastian and Josephine moving around – at least, I hoped that
was who I heard. I stayed rigid, straining my eyes, looking even for
black on black in the room. It didn’t matter if I opened my
eyes or shut them, everything looked the same. I pressed back into my
corner, waiting for the feel of hands grabbing at me, of teeth in my
neck again.

The lights
flicked back on. No one had gotten me, and having the lights on gave
me a second of relief – until I remembered that she didn’t
need the lights out to hurt me. Sebastian and Josephine stopped
moving, glanced at each other, then at me.

“Did you
hear anything?” Josephine asked.

“Nothing.”

I shook my head,
but that hurt so I stopped.

“Stay
here,” Sebastian said, and vanished down the hall. To the
practice room. That puzzled me for one second, and then I remembered
all the knives and swords he had hanging on the wall. If
whoever-that-was got hold of the stuff he had in there . . . I
shivered.

“Emily?”
Josephine asked, wringing her hands together. I shook my head again,
suddenly choking.

Josephine made a
soft noise. “No,” she said, but I could see on her face
that she knew. “Oh, no, no.”

A heavy ache
filled my chest. Josephine clutched her graceful hands to her
shoulders as her own tears ran down her face, then reached out for
me. I let her pull me to her.

“Oh,
Emily,” she said again and again, holding me tight.

A tiny breath of
cold air brushed my face. I jerked my head up –
what the –

The patio door
was open. A fraction of an inch. Not even enough to notice if you
didn’t think to look for it. That door hadn’t been open
before. Another cool breeze blew past, fluttering my hair across my
face. I tapped Josephine’s shoulder. She lifted her head
wearily, meeting my eyes with a dull expression. I pointed at the
door. She turned to it slowly, like moving hurt her, and stared at it
for a second as if she didn’t even know what it was. I thought
about flapping my arms to convey how important this was, but then her
eyes flew open.

“That
shouldn’t be unlocked, should it,” she said. I shook my
head.

Sebastian came
back in while we stared, frozen and unsure what to do. As soon as I
saw him over her shoulder, I pointed sharply to the door. I didn’t
know what he might do, but it had to be better than anything I could
think of.