In the Dark (9 page)

His eyes stayed
flat while he looked at me. Then he lowered his eyes to my hand and
brought them back up to my face. I ducked my head and took my hand
back. He didn’t say anything, just went back to driving. I
didn’t press.

T
he
drive home was . . . tense. Sebastian refused to look at Ian again,
using his temporary deafness. He did not want to know what she had to
say. He pulled into the parking garage, left the Vector and strode
for the elevator. Part of him hoped he could leave her behind. He had
taken her in only from boredom and curiosity, and she had pushed the
limits of what he wanted to endure from her. She stayed with him,
though she fidgeted in the elevator car.

When the doors
opened, he left her in the living room. She did not try to follow
him. He went down the hall to the practice room and locked the door
behind himself. Coat off, sword hung on its rack, he threw himself at
the uneven bars, hauling himself up in one hard movement. Arms stiff,
he held himself upright, then swung down and around to catch the
higher of the two.

He couldn’t
hear if Ian moved in the apartment. The thunder had seen to that. If
he had been paying attention, not caught up in the hunt, he would
never have strained his ears. Of course the thunder would deafen him
if he did, he knew that. He berated himself for carelessness.

Monster, Ian had
called him. Asked him, why do you do that?

He swung around
and held himself upright on the higher bar, then slowly lowered his
body and raised it again, to keep from punching something. What was
the use? He’d been gone for decades, hoping his absence might
in some mystical way clear his mind and show him where he belonged.
All he had to show for his time were some vague feelings of sympathy
for a strange girl and a handful of used up memories of a long-ago
mortal life.

His eyes
clenched shut.

His mortal life.

It pained him to
think of that time, though he no longer knew why.

Slowly, and
almost unnoticed over the decades and centuries, he had forgotten.
He’d had a life. Family. Friends. He’d been taken from
them violently, against his will. But these were cold facts that held
no emotion for him any longer. He knew them to be true, but he
couldn’t
remember
them anymore. Even the moment in the
alley with Kent, watching him die, listening to him ask after Ian –
whatever emotion that had stirred, it was only an echo.

Every day
Sebastian spent away from the pack gave him the opportunity to recall
more. Since leaving, he had found a few more tattered memories,
dragged up from wherever they had all gone over the years. That was
the use.

He opened his
eyes, and tensed to find his room a wash of red. It startled him –
and then he realized. Tears.

It had been so
long.

None fell. The
liquid welled in his eyes, then dissipated.

He wiped his
eyes, tightened his jaw, and went on with his exercises until dawn.

T
he
pillowcase was stiff with dry blood when I woke up, my face covered
in it. I’d cried myself to sleep again as the sun came up. Not
because Sebastian had glared at me, although that hadn’t helped
matters. Just because I missed Kent and felt lonely and wanted to go
home. I wiped at my face, but the dried blood only crumbled and
dusted the bed more. I sighed and decided to check out the bathroom
attached to this room.

My body twinged
from all the exercise the night before – climbing in and out of
the house, walking all the way home, running like mad across the
neighborhood. I didn’t smell like sweat, though, or like anyone
does when they first wake up. Kent had explained that I was basically
a corpse. Regular showers and deodorant were things of my past life.
My hair needed brushing, though, and I seriously needed to wash my
face.

Of course the
bathroom was large and ritzy. Antique tiling in the shower; old,
shiny gold knobs on the faucets; a pillar sink with an enormous
mirror above it. A shelf by the sink held a brush, a bar of soap and
a towel, otherwise, the room was bare. I used the brush on my rat’s
nest and the soap on my face, wishing I had something to change into
besides Sebastian’s clothes.

After splashing
the soap off my face, I looked up to stare at myself in the mirror.
Pale and wet with flashing green eyes. My near-black hair made my
skin seem porcelain, and my white skin made my lips look almost
blood-red. I didn’t look my best, but I didn’t look as
bad as I should have. No swollen eyes, swollen nose, dark circles,
marks of a sleepless night.

A vampire.

The signs of it
were obvious to me. To anyone else, I supposed I seemed exotic.

I gave myself an
angry glower like Sebastian had given me the night before. Even with
my fangs bared I didn’t look nearly as scary as he had. I
turned away from the mirror and left the bathroom.

In the main
bedroom I pulled on the jeans and button-up I’d worn the night
before. Sebastian’s clothes. The way he’d glared at me
last night was like he wished I would just go get myself killed. Or
like he wished he’d never stopped to ask me if I needed help.
So why had he brought me home?

I bit my
knuckle, carefully avoiding my fangs. Any cuts I made would heal up
over the day, but I would have them all night and fang slashes stung
like paper cuts.

Maybe I needed
to go talk to him. Maybe after some time to calm down, he wouldn’t
bite my head off or give me filthy glares for speaking. And I thought
maybe I needed some answers to a few things. I left the room and went
to find Sebastian.

He had the dusty
little TV on in the living room, standing in the middle of the room
with his arms crossed. He reached out to flip it off when I came in.
I paused. He could hear again. Or he’d seen my reflection
somewhere.

“Good
evening,” he said. As if nothing unpleasant had happened the
night before.

“Hey.”
My voice was thick. I cleared my throat. “Look, can we talk?”

One of his
eyebrows flicked up. “Certainly,” he said, and stood
there. Waiting.

I looked at the
floor to gather my thoughts.

“Did you
kill Kent?” I asked, since it was my deepest fear.

“No.”
As if I had asked him about the weather.

I started to
tremble. Actually standing here asking this stuff was very different
from thinking about it. “Do you know the woman who did?”

“No.”

His face didn’t
betray anything. His eyes stayed flat and calm. I took that as a good
sign, that he hadn’t lied to me. “Why are you helping
me?” I asked next.

A tiny flash of
his lip happened – I thought it meant he’d smiled. I
almost didn’t see the movement. “I am sure you would not
believe me if I told you it was out of the goodness of my heart,”
he said.

My eyebrows
jumped. I probably would have, if he’d said it right.

“No,”
I said instead.

He shrugged. “To
be honest, I am bored. I have been on a personal quest that involved
having no contact with others. A quest I am finding quite difficult.
Solving mysteries and exacting revenge are things I know how to do.
Your dilemma offers me a respite.”

Odd answer. “You
know how to exact revenge?

He nodded, once.

I gulped. “So
you’ve . . . practiced . . . a lot.”

His eyes
flashed, hardening a little. “I have.”

“Only for
revenge, though?” I asked, high-pitched. Thinking I could
justify it if he’d only killed bad people.

He stared at me,
eyes boring into mine. “I believe you know the answer to that.”

Okay. Not so
much.

“Are you
going to kill me?” I squeaked.

Humor in his
eyes this time. “No.”

“Why is
that funny?” I said, then more forcefully, “why are you
laughing at me?”

“I’m
not laughing.”

Technically, no,
his face was a stone. Only his eyes had flickered.

“You know
what I mean,” I said, because I knew he did. “That thing
in your eyes when you think something’s funny, why is that
funny?”

More humor.
“Because, Ian, I have never been a murderer of children.”

“Is that
supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. You
asked why I found your question amusing. That’s why.”

My mouth snapped
shut. I had wanted to feel reassured and instead, I only felt more
uncertain. I still wanted to trust him, but how did you trust anyone
who admitted to murder?

“Dammit,”
I said. Then again.

“Are you
done?” he asked.

“Promise
me you won’t kill me.” I felt stupid the second it left
my mouth.

“Will that
make you feel better?”

Good question.
“Are you a liar?”

Humor flashed.
He didn’t have to say why.

“Just
answer me,” I said, glad I couldn’t blush.

“No. I
have never lied to anyone. I don’t intend to start.”

“All
right,” I said, and had to gulp insane giggles that suddenly
wanted to come. “Promise me you won’t kill me.”

“I
promise, Ian.”

I stood there
fidgeting. I sounded like an idiot. He sounded calm, like he dealt
with people like me every night. I bit my tongue to keep the giggles
in.

“Done?”
Sebastian asked.

“Done,”
I said.

“Good.
You’re still experiencing some shock, and you’re
panicking. I want you to sit down and be still until you feel
better.”

That made too
much sense. A giggle got free. More came before I could stop them,
and I started laughing like a nut. A sick and painful laughter, the
kind that only comes out when nothing’s funny. Sebastian pushed
me into a chair, gently but firmly. Something in my gut melted
unpleasantly, and the laughter turned into tears.

“I want to
go home,” I sobbed.

Sebastian
crossed his arms. “This shouldn’t last long.”

“I want to
go home, and you’re a killer, and I’m laughing because
Kent’s dead!” I yelled, but I wasn’t laughing at
all. I curled in a ball, tucked my face into my arms and cried.

A hand touched
my shoulder. I winced away, then let him touch me. The chair beside
me sank under his weight and an arm snaked around my shoulders,
hesitantly. Sebastian hugged me. Distantly, as if he didn’t
want to break me.

Murderer,
vampire, stranger; he was here, he had his arms around me, and I
didn’t have anyone else. I leaned against him and hid my face
against his shoulder.

After a while
the sobs wound down, leaving me hiccuping and wet-faced. Sebastian
kept his arms around me the whole time, silent. Once I stopped, he
let me go and stood up. I wished he hadn’t. I didn’t ask
him to come back.

“Better?”
he asked.

I snuffed and
took stock. The hurt had gone, but so had everything else. I felt
numb. “Kind of.”

He nodded. “Wash
your face. I’ll get you another shirt. We need to go back to
your home tonight.”

Too wrung out to
question, I stood and did what he said. With the blood washed off my
face and wearing yet another button up, I dragged my feet back out to
the living room.

“Why are
we going back to my house?” Even my voice sounded tired.

“To see if
anyone touched anything or searched after we left. Either one of the
two could have gone back later on.”

I followed him
to the elevator, arms folded across my chest. “To see if
anything they touched might tell us who they are, or what they want?”

“Yes.
There were no reports on the local news broadcast of your home being
broken into. That means your house is still most likely unexamined,
other than what the two women might have done.”

“I wanna
get my cat,” I said. It got me a flat look that I couldn’t
read, but he didn’t say no. The elevator opened to let us on
and whooshed shut behind us.

W
e
went past the house. He had to know the place after last night, but
he went right by. I opened my mouth to say something, then realized:
we didn’t know if one of those women had come back to wait in
the house for us. Pulling into the driveway where they could see us
would be dumb. Sebastian had parked a few blocks away last night, so
neither one should know his car; cruising past and parking further
down was probably safe. Not to mention smarter. That’s what he
did.

“Do you
want me to come with you or wait here?” I asked as he killed
the engine.

“I’ll
need you in the house. I won’t know if anything is out of
place.” He stared at a screen on the dash. It looked like a
video of the back window.

I turned around.
The car had no back window. I turned to the screen in the dash again.
It showed what a mirror would have shown if there was a window. So he
was watching my house. For one second, I wondered what a car like
this would cost . . . then decided I didn’t want to know.

Out of
curiosity, I cleared my throat while Sebastian glared at the screen.
His eyes flicked to me, then back at the dash. He could definitely
hear again. And I’d just gotten used to his deafness. Or at
least, I’d learned to wait to yell at him until he faced me. He
still hadn’t said anything to me about last night . . .
probably didn’t want to talk about it. I wasn’t sure I
wanted to, either. We’d sort of made up earlier. Sort of. Maybe
that would have to be good enough.

“We can
heal deafness?” I asked.

“If it is
sustained after the change, yes. A vampire who was deaf as a human
will remain deaf.”

He glared at the
house a few more minutes, then opened his door. “Quiet,”
he said, as if I needed to be told. I nodded and threw in a suffering
look for good measure. Sebastian ignored me.