The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1) (37 page)

“No? You don’t know where you are right now?”
 

“No.”

“Huh.”

We sit in silence for a long while. I hear the sound of many Absent beyond the door. Laughing and talking. Then the woman says: “Does it help you to understand where you are if I say my name is Detective Sandra Bernard, and the man standing behind you is Detective Al Kusch?”

“No.”

“No?”

“This is a waste of time,” the man named Al Kusch says.

“Detective, or Sandra?” I say, very quietly. “Or Bernard?”

The woman leans very close. “Yes, dear? I didn’t hear you.”

“Which of your three names is correct in this Absent Land?”

“Sandra,” she says, eyeing the man named Al. “Please call me Sandra.”

“Can you…ask him to…come where I can see him?” I ask.

The woman’s eyes widen. “Who? Detective Kusch? Sure, Emma. Of course. Hey—Kuschy. Walk around here so the girl can see you. Although you’re not much to look at…”

Kusch grumbles and steps forward. Sandra is right. He’s a squat, ugly man with a round glistening face and deep-set eyes that are buried so far in his sagging skin I can barely see them.

My skin begins to crawl. I scratch at one of my bandages.

“There. That better?” Sandra asks.

I shake my head no.
 

The Absent named Kusch groans and puts a flabby hand over his eyes like he’s very tired.

“Detective Kusch bothers you?” Sandra asks, watching me scratch my bandages. “He makes you feel uncomfortable?”

I nod yes.

Sandra sighs. “How about that breakfast, Kuschy? You feel like getting us some breakfast?”

Kusch looks about to argue, then he gets a gleam in his eye like he and Bernard just shared a secret. Absent can do that. Communicate without words.

“Fine, yeah,” Kusch says. “You said breakfast burrito? Chorizo?”

“Yes. Please.”

Kusch leaves, and my skin stops crawling. I don’t like him at all.
 

“Ok. Phew,” Sandra says. “Kuschy can be a bit of a jerk sometimes. We don’t have to let him back in the room, Emma. Do you want him back in the room?”

“No,” I whisper.

“Why not?”
 

“Because he…he wants to hurt me.”

“He does?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

I don’t want to say. But this woman, this Sandra…I think it’s all right to tell her. But first I want to know. I lift my hand over the table, palm out, and hold it toward her. Sandra’s eyes widen a little, and her right hand moves a tiny bit toward her firearm, but when she sees me just holding my hand in the air she relaxes. Then she says, very quietly, “Emma? What are you doing with your hand?”

I ignore her and focus on my hand.

“Emma? Why are you holding your hand at me?”

“I’m reading you,” I say.

“Reading…huh. Reading for what?”

Her mind is there. I can feel it, just like the Priests said I would. She doesn’t want to hurt me.
 

“I’m reading to see…if you want to hurt me too.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Sandra whispers, her face sad again.

“I know.”

“I wish I could do that. Read people. Know what’s in their minds. That would be
real
helpful in my line of work.”

“Only Guardians can do it,” I say, flinching as I hear the words. I shouldn’t have said that. Not to an Absent. Even if she reads clean. We’re never supposed to mention the Guardians to anyone. Enemies are everywhere. In Guises.
 

“Guardians? Who are they?”

I shake my head no.

“Tell me about the Guardians, Emma. Who are they?”

“I don’t…know.”

“Tell me.”

“Please. No.”

Sandra sighs and leans away from me. We sit in silence for a while. Sandra picks at the paper cup on the table. I wonder if I could kill her. She has a weapon. A handgun. The Priests taught us to shoot all kinds of guns.
 

“How long you been using?” Sandra asks.

“Using?”

“Oh for fuck sakes, Emma,” she says, rising from her chair, gripping my arm and pointing at the marks on my arm.
 

I should do it now. Pull her toward me and grab her gun. It’s a Glock. I know about those.

“Using? Shooting up? Getting high? How long?”

She’s talking about the Purification. How could she know? And then I say: “I need some. Please.”

“That’s not how this works. I know you know that.” Sandra releases my arm and sits down very close beside me again. Then she says: “But I tell you what. I see there are some things you want. You want to be away from Kuschy? Fine. Can’t say I blame you. You want to get high? All right. We have something pretty damned close what you need. You stop bullshitting me, start telling me the truth, and I’ll keep Kuschy away from you and I’ll call in a doctor to bring you a dose. Got it? After that…you’re on your own, kid.”

“You have Essence?”

“Essence, smack, H, whatever. We got approximations of it.”

The thought of feeling the Essence in my blood makes me tremble.

“I don’t care about what you did. Out on the highway. To that man,” Sandra says. “That’s for another time. You know what I care about? What I want you to tell me about right now?”

“No.”

Sandra reaches into a file on the desk, spreads a half-dozen photographs across the table. Photographs of two dead girls. Each have their eyes burned out. But only one I recognize.
 

Amelia
.
 

“Tell me about these girls, Emma. The girls you talked about when you were…not well. The girls you said had their eyes burned out. You know these girls, Emma? I know you do. Now tell me. Who are they? What happened to them?”

I’m crying. It feels strange.
 

Water from my eyes? What a strange thing.

“Tell me,” Sandra says, “Or god help me I’ll lock you in a room with Detective Kusch for a fucking week.”

My entire body’s shaking. Deep, racking sobs tear through me. Sandra hands me a small, soft piece of white paper. I look at her, not understanding.

“Christ sakes, Emma. It’s a
tissue
. Y’know? To wipe the snot off your face?”

I wipe my face like she says. Amelia. Dead. Her eyes burned out. Lying on the beach. She left the Ark just last week. Vanished. She bred an infant Guardian, and then she vanished. “Embraced by the Everlasting,” Priest Gabriel had said. “Ascended to heaven and Him for her blessed service.”

They killed her.
 

Burned out her eyes. Bred her. Then killed her and threw her body in the cold ocean.

And there were others over the years. Many others. It happened often…always right around the time the baby stopped needing its mother for sustenance. The Vessels Ascend. That’s the role of a Vessel. To breed a Guardian, and to Ascend into the Everlasting.

I heard them take Charlene’s eyes.
 

I was ordained to be the Ark’s next Vessel.
 

A long, keening wail escapes my lips.

“Emma? Emma what’s wrong?” Sandra’s on her feet, not touching me but almost, and she’s saying, “Do you know her? This one? This girl? Who is she? What happened? Emma? Stay with me. Come on now. Stay with me. What happened to her?”

I try to speak, but my sobs block my throat. “…she…I didn’t know…Amelia!”

“Amelia? This girl’s name was Amelia? What did they do, Emma? What did they do to Amelia?”

“They…Bred her…and…the Ark…”
 

My words dissolve into another wracking sob. I lean forward and put my forehead on the table, no longer caring what the Absent do to me. No longer caring about whose side I’m on, or the war, or my everlasting soul.
 

The Priests killed them. All of them.

My family.

“
Bred
her? Who? Who bred Amelia? The Guardians? Who are the Guardians, Emma? Tell me. Breathe, okay, breathe, slowly now…yes, yes…it’s okay, no one can hurt you now, Emma. I promise you. No one can hurt you here. Now tell me. Where is the Ark? Is it in the ocean? Is the Ark in the ocean and that’s why you were on the road? You jumped from the Ark and you swam, didn’t you, Emma? You swam to escape the Guardians because you were next? Am I right? Please?”

I nod.
 

Sandra pales. “Holy mother of shit,” she says, which makes me flinch and sob again. Then she lifts my arm, points to the needle marks. “They did this to you, didn’t they? The fucking bast…the Guardians?” She releases my arm and says, very slowly, “Tell me about the Ark, Emma. What kind of boat? Where? You have to remember. For Amelia. Can you do that? You’re safe here. But…they have other girls, don’t they? Do they have other girls?”

I nod. My skin begins to itch and I can’t help it, I reach up and dig my fingernails into my arm so hard I bleed.
 

“Fucking hell, Emma. Jesus fucking hell. Stop that!” Sandra snatches my hand off my arm, takes a long breath and says, “You have to tell me now. We can help them. The other girls on the Arc. You’re safe now. But they’re not. You understand? They are
not
safe. We can help the other girls but you have to tell me where the boat is, what it looks like, who the Guardians are—”

The door bursts open. Three men wearing black outfits storm into the room.

They’ve found me.

“Hey!” Sandra yells, leaping to her feet and leaning over me like she’s shielding me from something. “What the fuck do you think—who the fuck—get out of here! Now! Get out of this box right this instant, or so help me—”
 

“Stand down, Detective Bernard,” one of the men says. “You’ve done a fine job questioning the suspect. We’ll continue from here.”

“Like fucking hell you will,” Sandra screams.

And then I know.
 

Sandra was wrong. I’m not safe here. She can’t protect me, and from the look in her eyes I see she knows it as well.

“Get the fuck out of my interrogation room,” Sandra screams. “I was just…she nearly—”

“C’mon, Sandra,” the man named Kusch says. “You’re outgunned.” He’s leaning at the door, looking right at me as he speaks. I feel his eyes piercing into me, making my skin ripple and crawl.

“There are more girls!” Sandra shrieks. “And she knows where they are!”
 

I loose a keening wail and start scratching at my bandages. Blood flows from the wounds and the insects are crawling and I feel the clicking buzzing sounds rise in my throat—

One of the men sweeps the photos into the file and stuffs it in his jacket. Another one circles around behind me.

Sandra steps between me and the man approaching me. “Don’t you dare touch her,” she says. “You have no idea what this girl—”

“Sorry, Detective. But it’s you who has no idea. Please stand down. The suspect is wanted for federal questioning.”

“Federal? For fucking
what
?”

The man doesn’t answer, just leans over the table and snatches my wrists.
 

His hands are covered in thick black hair, and his nails are inches long and yellowed.

My scream dies in my throat. It’s one of His. Azazel’s Guises.
 

He has me now.
 

I should never have spoken to an Absent.

My skin is rippling and tingling and so hot it feels on fire. I begin the prayer, Oh Holy Guardians give me—but I stop, remembering Amelia and Charlene and all the others over the years.
 

There’s no one to pray to. The Priests betrayed us.
 

There’s only me. Alone and afraid.

“Kusch,” Bernard screams, “call Deputy Chief Price. This is bullshit. She was just going to—”

“Speak to him yourself,” Kusch says as a very tall, very thin and very grey man strolls into the room, smiling a tight, forceful smile.
 

“Hello, Detective,” the man says to Sandra. “Please join me in my office. Immediately.”

Something inside Sandra collapses. Her breath whines through her lips. Her shoulders slump and her chest folds inward and then there’s a sharp clicking sound as he man behind me snaps something cold and hard around my wrists.

“Yes, Deputy,” Sandra says. “Certainly. Apologies for the…thank you for…coming down...”

Sandra looks in my eyes as they lead me out.
 

She’s fighting back tears.

Kusch is still leaning in the doorway, half blocking it, and when I’m led past him he puts his chubby hand on my upper arm and says, “It’s all right, kid. You’re going to be a-okay.”

Something bites me under Kusch’s hand, hard enough to pierce the thick cotton shirt I’m wearing and break skin.
 

“T
AKE
ME
FAST
into the curves,” Lily says, and I tell you what: I know by how she says it that she means it. Her hands around my waist feel damn good, and the smell of her cunt pressed hard into the leather saddle makes my cock throb tight in my jeans. My wolf is pacing in his cage, hungry for a meal he hasn’t enjoyed in far too long.
 

This Skin bitch Sparkles. She’s an unknown quantity. I don’t know why I can scent her like nothing before and I don’t know who she is or why the fucko crazy cultists took her, but I know I want her more than I’ve wanted a woman, ever.

I tell Mia to stop by a gas station and fill up a few gas cans, then meet me at the Stricken breeding lair. I got an errand to take care of before me and Sparkles ride.
 

Mia rolls her eyes like a pouty bitch and tears off. Good for her. She can sit on a stick for all I care.
 

I make sure Sparkles is holding on good and tight, then throttle hard out of the parking lot and away from that fucking ship. We whip through Seattle’s night streets. I’m hoping the rain will wash a little of the blood off my face. Sparkles is tense at first, throwing the bike off balance, leaning against the turns instead of into them. But she learns quick enough, and soon we’re riding smooth.