Dread Nemesis of Mine (30 page)

"It never ends."

"I just want to forget everything. The pain,
the anger. I want to let it all go." Her kisses became more
insistent. "Just for one night."

I ran a hand up her neck, gripping her damp
hair tight as need and desire swept me in a flood. "I just want
you." My voice came out rough. "You're all I ever wanted."

She tore off my shirt. Pushed me onto the
bed, and straddled me. Leaned down, her hair hanging in damp,
tangled braids to both sides, violet eyes glowing with hunger. Her
soft lips pressed against mine. I felt her fangs nip my lower lip.
She ran kisses down my neck, groaning softly.

I gripped the towel and pulled it off,
flinging it away to reveal her slender, athletic body. With a
twist, I flipped us around, pinning her beneath me.

"You won't be needing these," she said,
unbuckling my pants and pushing them down.

Brushing aside the raven dark hair from her
face, I looked down upon her full lips, at the fangs protruding
ever so slightly from beneath. I kissed her upper lip. Her bottom
lip. Leaned into her neck and drew in the heady scent that drove me
wild.

"You smell so…amazing," I said and pulled
the sheets over us.

I woke up to the sound of someone knocking
on the door. I pulled on my pants before answering.

"Oh!" Katie stood there, face blushing red,
eyes wide as she stared at me. She reached a hand toward my
stomach. Pulled it back, as if reconsidering. "God, I just want to
touch your six-pack."

"Hello, Justin," said a calm, familiar
voice.

I flinched, spotting the gray man as he
stood motionless in the twilight outside. "What time is it?"

"Almost evening," Katie said. "The Templars
brought us back here, although I had to convince them not to take
poor—uh—whatever his name is and toss him into a cell." She jerked
a thumb toward the golem. "I slept like a rock. Holy crap was I
tired." Her eyes wandered up my torso. "Anyway, when I woke up, I
came over here and found him sitting outside on that bench over
there." She pointed out a wooden bench along a path leading through
the compound. "It was kind of creepy."

"I did not intend any creepiness," the golem
said.

"Weren't you bored?" Katie asked.

"I'm not familiar with being bored. Is this
something I should attempt?"

"Not if you want to be bored," I said.

His head tilted. "I do not know enough about
being bored to either want or not want it."

"Poor thing," Katie said, shaking her head.
"He doesn't know much."

"Hang on," I said, and went back inside to
grab a shirt.

"Is that Katie?" Elyssa asked, sitting up in
bed.

"And the gray man."

She groaned. "Let me get dressed."

After we were properly clothed, I invited
Katie and the golem inside and told her about my efforts to find
Nightliss in the hopes Felicia could be saved.

Katie snapped her fingers. "Wait a minute.
Now it makes more sense."

"What does?"

She pulled out an arctablet and accessed a
document. "Underborn gave me access to a ton of information, like
Templar crime reports, stuff like that, when I was studying for my
undercover role. I found reports from all over the world where bad
guys were being mean and all, and then a mystery woman showed up to
save the day. But there were some weird cases where they described
a blonde woman helping. Nightliss is short, has an olive
complexion, and black hair, right?"

"Yeah, unless she can change her appearance,
Daelissa is the only blonde angel I know of," I said, "and I can't
imagine her being helpful to anyone. Back up for a minute—you're
saying Nightliss has been spotted all over the world by the
Templars?"

Katie gave a nod. "Mostly Templars. There
were reports from normal sources too, like random people with
cameras or posting to social websites. Ireland, Paris, and
Johannesburg, I remember for sure."

"And you're sure Nightliss is the person in
these reports?"

"The descriptions are so similar it'd have
to be a big coincidence. Plus, some reports mention dark, smoky
wings."

"Yeah, that about nails it," I said. The
angel didn't have wings per se, but when she was using her magic,
smoky apparitions in the shape of wings appeared, spreading from
her back.

"Your angel has been a busy little bee,"
Elyssa said. "Didn't she give you some way to contact her?"

Katie arched her eyebrows. "Yeah, like a
phone number? Email address?"

"No." I sighed. "Not even a friend request.
She wanted me to choose a side. Her side. Then she could give me a
gift, which I assume meant I could contact her whenever."

"And you didn't decide?" Elyssa said, brow
wrinkled. "After all the times she's helped us?"

I pushed away from the table and paced. "I
know, I know. Seems like a big mistake in hindsight." My gaze found
Elyssa. "But what if I choose wrong? What if Nightliss isn't what
she seems to be?"

"Seems like a slam dunk," Katie said. "At
least from what you've told me."

I dropped back into my seat. "Yeah. Maybe it
is." I definitely regretted my indecisiveness now. Time was against
me and Felicia. To make matters worse, Maximus was still free and
probably up to his old games. Every minute I sat here was another
minute my nemesis could fortify his position and another heartbeat
closer Felicia and I were to un-death. I'd been inside his Atlanta
compound while saving my father. While it wasn't built like a fort,
there were only few ways inside. Risking open war with him might
expose the Overworld. The Templar Custodians had barely kept things
under control in Bogota. In Atlanta, it would be almost
impossible.

If noms discovered the existence of the
supernatural in their midst, all hell would break loose. At this
stage of the game, however, it might not matter, especially if
Daelissa managed to restore the Grand Nexus and allow her people
back into our world. Their reemergence would give a whole new
meaning to hell on Earth.

"Why didn't Nightliss help us with Maximus?"
Katie said. "All the stuff she's done, and she didn't lift a finger
to help. You could have died."

I had to admit, it worried me a little bit.
Nightliss had proven herself powerful and capable. But she'd also
told me she wasn't fully recovered from the destruction of the
Grand Nexus centuries ago. She might be overextending herself.
Sitting here was no longer an option. I
had
to find her. I
had to stop Maximus.

My calf throbbed, sending a jolt of pain up
my body.

I struggle against the tight bonds. Dash
leans toward me, his eyes wild and crazy. He throws back his head
and laughs. Skin flakes from his cheeks, his nose, his mouth,
leaving raw muscle and bone. Blood streams from his eyes and ears,
trailing down his throat. Still, he continues his hysterical
laughter as I look up, helpless.

Fury burns through me. Blinding pain jabs
into my skull. I will kill them. Kill them all. The table beneath
me groans. Bends. Snaps in two. I am free. Free!

"Justin!"

My face stung. Rubbing my cheek, I looked at
Elyssa. She and Katie's expressions were filled with
uncertainty—maybe even fear. "What—where?"

"You were shaking. Yelling." Katie looked
down.

I looked at the table. I'd gripped it so
tight, the metal had bent. "Uh." Words failed me. "I guess I'm
stressed out more than I thought."

"That would be putting it mildly," Katie
said.

Elyssa touched my hand. "We need to talk
with Meghan."

"Can't it wait?"

Her eyes went hard. "You promised."

I jerked my hand out from beneath hers.
"Fine. Let's go."

"If it is acceptable to you, Justin, I will
remain here." The gray man had hardly spoken a word since taking a
seat in the corner of the room.

I nodded. "Sure."

"Perhaps I will attempt being bored as you
suggested earlier. It sounds interesting."

"It's not all that interesting," I said.
"Why don't you practice being happy instead? We could all use a
little more happiness right now."

He tilted his head. "I will consider it,
Justin."

We left him in his corner, and walked to the
infirmary where we found a team of healers treating Templars
wounded from the day before. Meghan saw us and approached.

"Any luck finding Nightliss?" she asked.

"Not yet." I sighed. "Can we speak somewhere
private?"

Her eyebrow quirked. "Sure." She led us
outside the squat adobe building and took us behind it. Turned to
face me. "What's on your mind?"

"Show her," Elyssa said, voice tight.

"What's wrong?" Katie asked. "Justin?"

I pulled up my pants leg.

Meghan's eyes went wide. "Oh no."

Katie gasped. "Justin. Please don't tell me
that's—"

"It's a vampling bite." The punctures were
as black as the day before. The skin around them looked slightly
bruised.

"Do you want me to suspend you?" Meghan
asked, kneeling to run her wand over my skin. "The rate of
infection seems much slower than usual, so you might have more than
a few days before—before the end."

I glared at Elyssa. "See? No cure. Waste of
time."

Her jaw went tight. "It is not a waste of
time. Now we know your infection isn't spreading fast. We have time
to find Nightliss."

I wanted to feel reassured, I really did.
Instead, the clock in my head just ticked louder.

Nightliss, damn it, where are you?

I wanted nothing more than to see her. To
know help had arrived. A wave of dizziness washed over me. It took
everything I had not to stagger as my balance teetered on the
brink. I didn't want to give Elyssa any excuse to make me take the
Sleeping Beauty option from Meghan. I might have days or a week,
but the truth was obvious now. This infection was as relentless as
the vamplings.

And it wouldn't stop until I was dead.

Katie shrieked when we walked into the
cabin.

The gray man still sat where I'd left him, a
frightening leer plastered on his face. The god-awful expression
vanished as his lips resumed their normal flat state. "I have been
practicing being happy, Justin," he said in his calm voice. "It is
not easy."

"You call that being happy?" Katie said, a
hand pressed to her heart. "Smiling like that?"

He nodded. "From what I understand, smiling
is an important part of being happy. But smiling is very
difficult."

"It is when you're not happy," I said,
frowning. "How do you know all this stuff? Do you have a bunch of
information programmed into you?"

He tilted his head. "I am not programmed
like a computer. My spark contains a great deal of data, although I
do not know its origination. Some of this data is already organized
into information, linking it to what I have seen in the world.
Other parts are quite raw and scattered, and I must research
them."

"Such as how to be happy?"

He nodded. "Emotions are very hard to
understand. From what I have gathered, one must experience such
things to understand them."

"Get a girlfriend. You'll figure out a lot
of emotions really quick."

"Hey now," Elyssa said, punching me on the
arm.

The gray man looked from me to Elyssa.
"Finding someone who wishes to be with me in that sense would be
very difficult, Justin. I believe many here would rather see me
burned to ash and forgotten."

"Like little gray cinders on the wind,"
Katie said. "How sad."

The golem studied Katie for a moment. "I
have decided my name."

I cocked my head. "Really? Is it
George?"

"How about Dexter?" Katie said. "I love that
name."

"No. It is Cinder."

"Huh?" I said, failing to see why he'd
choose such a name.

"After Katie mentioned the word, I looked it
up. It describes me rather accurately. I am gray. I am not a full
being in any sense of the word, but an ashen representation of a
human. I am but gray dust molded into form."

I stared at him dumbfounded for a moment.
"That was almost poetic. But isn't a cinder hot ash?"

"I do have a spark inside me. While it is
not hot, I believe the name will suffice."

I stood up and walked across the room to
him, held out a hand. He stared at it for a moment before standing
and extending his own.

I gripped his hand and shook it. "Nice to
meet you, Cinder."

He looked at me. I caught the twitch in his
eyes, almost too slight for anyone without supernatural senses to
have seen. "Thank you, Justin."

"Congratulations, Cinder!" Katie said,
clapping her hands.

Elyssa stared at us like we were crazy.
"Yay. The golem has a name. Now, instead of wasting time, let's do
something to find Nightliss."

"I believe I have pertinent information
regarding this entity," Cinder said, flicking his fingers across
the arctablet Katie had used earlier.

A picture of the dark angel hovered above
the table. Rustic buildings, roofs laden with snow lay behind her
as she stared somewhere off into the distance while swirling snow
surrounded her. She wore only a simple black dress despite the
sub-zero temperatures. The shadowy outline of wings hung from her
back, and her black hair billowed. Beneath the image was a caption:
Crazy beautiful girl with wings. Not Photoshopped!

"Where was this?" I asked leaning forward
for a better view.

"In Breckenridge, Colorado," Cinder said.
"When I discovered the image, it triggered memories in my spark,
uncovering a series of directives we were given regarding this
entity."

"Mr. Gray knows about Nightliss?" My insides
went cold. Cinder's creator was—as far as I knew—in league with
Daelissa. As Ivy had put it, a Brightling.