Dying Light (2 page)

I peek over the tabletop and see Jason
standing in the flames. His body smolders. His blistered arm melts
from burnt to scabby to pink. He spots me behind the desk and we
lock eyes. His face twists into a murderous grin.

“
Stop hiding,” he calls
out. “Let’s do this.”

In my peripheral vision, Ally darts to
another desk, staying low.

Jason takes a step toward me. “Just
think, this power could be yours if you’d challenge me
already.”

“
Fighting is such a
commitment.” I stand slowly, but keep the desk between us. I’m
hoping it buys me time if he does anything crazy like lunge for my
throat. “You have to get close. You have to touch people.
Sometimes, like you, they
smell
. No, thank you.”

Jason’s face goes perfectly smooth.
Was it something I said?

A flash of black wings catches my eye.
Gabriel’s still here, even if he can’t materialize. The scent of
rain overtakes me as Gabriel dials up my power. My muscles contract
and my body warms. My skin starts to itch around the collar of my
shirt and across my belly. I feel like I have to pee.

I try not to squirm. “You know who
else is in the city? Caldwell. Why don’t you kill him
instead?”

Jason’s face twists up in fury again.
“After I’m finished with you.”

“
Why does everyone keep
saying that?” I would put my hands on my hip if not for the giant
amethyst. “Don’t you think I’m a badass?”

“
You’re
smaller.”

My temper flares. “You’re
trying to kill me because I’m
short
?”

Ally coughs on the smoke filling the
room and I jerk my head toward the sound. Jason doesn’t
hesitate.

“
Jesse!” Gabriel’s voice
booms in my head.

My soul rips open, power exploding
from my center in all directions. It’s like someone is yanking my
intestines out of my belly button. I’m so overwhelmed but I can’t
stop the power from flooding out of me or even slow it
down.

Fire and smoke whoosh away from me as
if blown by a great wind. The air around me shimmers like pavement
on a hot day. Blue flames roll over the surface of my body,
suspended about three inches above my skin before erupting outward
toward Jason, the office around us and anything else in its path.
The only object that is safe is the amethyst cradled in my
hands.

The walls and ceiling shudder under
the force of my firebomb, raining dust and plaster down on our
heads. One minute the windows shatter, and glass spills out into
the night air. The next minute cold winter air is sucked into the
room.

I open my eyes and find Jason sprawled
on the floor, unconscious. My power blast knocked him out, burned
his skin, but didn’t kill him. Damn.

I come around the desk, or what is
left of it, and peer closer. His flesh is already
healing.

I try to use my breath to slow my
heart rate. I need to calm down, but my head is
throbbing.

“
Ally?”

No answer.

“
Ally!”

“
Here.” She pulls herself
to standing in the middle of a cluster of desks that had obviously
been pushed together in the blast.

She shakes glass out of her hair and
checks the laptop in her arms for damage.

“
Kill him,” Gabriel says
in my ear. The weight of the amethyst doubles in my hands.
“
Kill
him.”

The idea of killing Jason and taking
his healing powers appeals to me. Instead of having to die in order
to heal myself, I could simply stay alive, and after a few breaths,
be as good as new again. Wasn’t that a hell of a prospect? Less
pain. Less wasted time. Less danger for myself and the people
around me.

I lift the amethyst, my eyes fixed on
his skull.

“
Jesse.”

I lift the rock a little
higher as a strange calm washes over me. No, more than calm. Peace
tinged with excitement. Oh god, I
want
to kill him. I don’t think I’ve
ever wanted to kill anyone.

“
Jesse
.”

Ally’s face appears in front of mine.
Eye to eye, she blocks my view of Jason. “Baby.” She’s whispering.
“We need to get out of here.”

Her voice. Something about Ally’s
voice seeps into my mind and untangles my thoughts. The cold hand
inside me, the one delighting at the idea of peeling Jason open and
stealing his ability to heal, grows warm. Its hold on me slackens
as her brown eyes come into focus. I can’t murder someone in front
of Ally. What the hell am I thinking?

My muscles relax and I let the
amethyst slip from my fingers to the floor.

“
Come on.” Ally squeezes
my shoulders. “Maybe we can crawl down the hall a little bit and
find the stairs.”

“
No we can’t go that way—”
I don’t finish my thought. The smallest movement steals my
attention and I turn just as Jason snatches up the amethyst and
throws it at Ally.

“
No!” I scream as the rock
sails through the air. “Gabriel
!
”

My shield goes up around Ally. The
shimmery purple light envelops her from head to toe. The rock
ricochets off the force field, shoots through the broken window and
out into the night. Jason screams and runs at me, head down as if
he might tackle me like some football player.

“
Fuck this.” I sidestep
Jason and grab hold of Ally. Her shield falters just long enough
for me to wrap her in my arms and yank her forward. Before she can
process what is about to happen, I shove her out the big window and
don’t let go.

Her shriek is muffled by the wind
whipping around us, tearing at our hair and clothes.

I suppose this is a perfectly natural
reaction to your friend shoving you out of a high-rise
building.

“
It’s okay.” I squeeze her
against my chest. “The shield will hold.”

“
Right?”
I
ask
Gabriel.

“
What about you? What
about you?” Ally screams.

“
You will not survive the
fall.” He plummets with us, his wings folding back to embrace the
drop. “You must shield yourself.”

“
Ally lives, not me. We
have a deal.”

“
You must shield yourself
also.”

“
I don’t know how. You
have to help me.”

“
Envision it.” Gabriel’s
wings open, lifting him up into the air. “See it grow
larger.”

The field shines about an inch or so
above Ally’s skin, it touches parts of me, but it sure as hell
doesn’t cover anything important.

“
Hurry,” Gabriel says.
“See it around you.”

I close my eyes and see us falling in
my head. The building rushes past us. The freezing air tears at our
clothes and hair relentlessly. Lights shine from windows in a blur
as we pass. I picture my shield bigger. I picture it around me and
Ally, covering us both from head to toe.

“
Good. Do not stop now,”
Gabriel says.

I peek my eyes open to see purple has
crept over my arms and shoulder, the shield half devouring my
body—until pain erupts through my legs, my back, and the whole
world goes black.

Jesse

“H
ow do you feel?”

I pry one eye open, then another.
Jeremiah’s blue collared shirt and gray sweater vest comes into
view. I blink several times and his face sharpens. He’s trimmed his
beard, and his glasses reflect the overhead lights, making it
impossible to see his eyes.

“
I feel…” I begin,
swallowing against a scratchy lump in my throat.

My head throbs and my neck is stiff
and I’m pretty sure a flamenco dancer did a number on my lower
abdomen. “I feel like someone had to dig a donkey out of my
ass.”

“
You shattered your
pelvis,” Jeremiah says. “Your death healed it.”

“
What about the
cat?”

Jeremiah frowns. “I wasn’t aware of
any feline involvement in the mission.”

“
I’m talking about the one
that must’ve shit in my mouth.” I moan and try to sit up. A nurse
rushes over to help me. I don’t recognize her, but that’s nothing
new. Jeremiah has a huge operation, and his minions all start to
look the same after a while. “Can I get some water?”

The nurse returns carrying a tiny
plastic cup.

I throw it back in one swig. “Thanks.
And now that I’ve wet my lips with this, do you think it’d be
possible to get a Big Gulp?”

The nurse scurries away again. Okay,
so I’m a bit of an asshole when I first wake up, but I’m in a lot
of pain. It isn’t easy dying and coming back to life, you know. I
die. I decompose a little. I slip into a coma state and heal most
of the damage until my organs can sustain me. Then I wake up stiff
as hell while my cells try to push the extra calcium
out.

“
You didn’t ask about
Alice.” Jeremiah drags a seat to the side of my bed. The room is an
exact replica of a hospital room, but I know better.
This floor
of Tate
Tower, Jeremiah’s headquarters, closely resembles a hospital, down
to the weird beds, horrible fluorescents, and unnerving stringent
smell. It’s where he brings everyone who gets hurt.

I force a grin and lay back on my
pillows. “Of course she’s fine. I’m the best.”

He regards me with an assessing stare.
I’ve gotten used to these over the past two months. I’m getting
really good at giving him the blank face too. Or better yet, I make
faces and see how long it takes for him to look away. He’s never
amused, but I am.

I’m still pinning my nose up into a
pig snout for Jeremiah’s pleasure when the nurse arrives with my
water.

“
Thanks,” I snort and
accept the drink. I get half of it down in the first go. God, it
feels good. I swear, it’s like death sucks all the water out of
me.

This is only my second death since
Brinkley died in October, two months ago. When Jeremiah insisted
that we come to Chicago where we would be useful and safe, I
thought he would use me for more replacements. After all, that’s
what I do. I die so others don’t have to. I’m good at it. But just
like the last time I died, Jeremiah looks pissed.

“
Why didn’t you kill
Jason?”

I meet his eyes over the rim of my Big
Gulp water. “Uh, because I’m not a murderer?”

“
Caldwell has killed at
least three partis and absorbed their abilities. Acquiring a second
ability would be useful.”

“
You’re still talking
about killing someone.”

Jeremiah steeples his fingers. “You
need to be stronger if you want to take him on. You have your
shield and your pyrokinetics, excellent abilities. But think of
what you could do with Jason’s ability to heal.”

“
When I die, I heal
anyway. Too bad he doesn’t have super strength or the ability to
fly. That’d be cool.”

And who said I want to take Caldwell
on? Where did Jeremiah get that idea? I want Caldwell dead. I’d
bring maracas and a kazoo to his funeral. But actually taking
someone’s life is a whole other matter.

Jeremiah prattles on, unaware that
I’ve stopped listening. “Your mission—”

“
Listen.” I cock my head
to the side. “I don’t care about the missions. I
only
care about keeping
Ally safe. She’s the one who insists we help you, so here I am. She
seems to believe that you’re saving all the babies from war-torn
childhoods or whatever. So I get why she thinks the work you do is
important. But don’t act like my handler or my boss, because you’ll
never be either.”

“
Your handler was a good
man, but—”

“
Don’t.” Heat rises in my
face.

Gabriel appears at the end of my bed,
his feathers ruffled. His gaze is murderous and fixed on Jeremiah.
Good. I don’t like the guy either, but melting Jeremiah in his seat
is a bit of an overreaction, even for me.

I release a nice controlled breath.
Some of the tension in my chest loosens and Gabriel’s own feathers
lay flat. I breathe again, in and out, and Jeremiah arches a
curious eyebrow.

“
You’ll thank me for not
boiling your eyeballs in their sockets. Or ruining this year’s
argyle.” I flick my eyes down to his sweater vest. Jeremiah’s lips
press into a thin line.

The heat of my anger cools and I try
to speak like a civilized person. “You didn’t know Brinkley, and
you’ll never replace him. If you insist on trying, I’m out of here
and I’ll take Ally with me. Got it?”

I have no idea if I can actually get
Ally to leave this place. She believes that Jeremiah is trying to
help people and save all the orphans Caldwell is leaving in his
wake. Until I can prove otherwise, I have to hold on to her
coattails and keep her out of trouble. No thanks to
Jeremiah.

Even if I can’t prove Jeremiah is
secretly evil, maybe I can prove her new girlfriend Nikki is a
traitor, liar, or cheater. Anything horrible would make Ally never
want to set foot inside Tate Tower again. Who cares about helping
people?