Falling to Ash (21 page)

We’d barely spoken last night after I had told Caitlín the truth about who I was now, why she couldn’t stay with me. Why everything was different. But now she had questions, which wasn’t exactly a big surprise.

‘Are you unhappy?’

‘What kind of question is that? Of course I am!’

‘But it can’t be all bad, being what you are.’

My gut went cold. ‘Don’t get any ideas.’ I glared at her. ‘Seriously, this isn’t something that I’d wish on anyone.’

She watched me for another few moments. Then: ‘Is he awful to you?’

‘Who? Theo?’

She nodded.

I sighed. ‘It’s not that. It’s just so . . . stifling. As a vampire in a Family, you have no freedom. Everything revolves around the Master. Everything has to go through
him
– he gives permission or he doesn’t. And if he doesn’t? That’s it. How am I supposed to live like that?’

Caitlín’s lips twisted into something approximating a smile. ‘Sounds like Dad.’

‘God, it does, doesn’t it?’ I’d traded one set of restraints for another. That’s how it felt.

Caitlín held me tightly and whispered in my ear, ‘You’re still my sister. That won’t change, will it?’

‘No, of course not. How could it?’ I pulled away, keeping my hands on her arms. I looked at her for a long time, wishing we could stay together somehow.
Maybe someday
, said a voice in my head that sounded a little like Mom’s. ‘You’re not scared of me, are you, Cait?’ My throat hurt.

‘Of course not.’

‘I mean, I guess I couldn’t blame you . . .’

She put her hands on my shoulders, shaking me slightly. ‘I told you that I’m not afraid, OK?’

‘OK,’ I whispered.

‘You had this done to you,’ she said, sounding far older than her sixteen years. ‘You don’t want it. You didn’t ask for it, I get that. It’s a terrible, terrible thing, but you’re still you. You have to hold onto that.’

‘I keep thinking of all the things I can’t do now.’ I shrugged, trying not to sound too pathetic. Failing. ‘I want to go back to school, you know? I never even got started.’

‘There’s always night school,’ Caitlín replied, a slight smile on her lips.

My throat was almost too tight to get the words out. ‘You will always, always be my little sister.’

‘Even when I’m older than you?’ my sister asked, flashing a lopsided grin that almost broke my heart.

‘Even then.’

Afterward, Caitlín stood on the platform, a lonely figure wrapped in my leather jacket on top of her own thin denim one. She was cold, and it’s not like I really needed it.

‘But you love this jacket,’ she said.

‘I love you more,’ I replied.

At least she hadn’t run away screaming when I’d shown her my fangs – she’d begged me for a peek, of course. But now I had to leave my sister to find her own way back to the O’Neals’ suffocating embrace, and return to my life as one of Theo’s Family.

The Boston Common murder made the front page of all the newspapers. The police made no official comment, but that didn’t stop over-zealous journalists from speculating in all kinds of ways. Some were even calling the murder the work of a serial killer, despite the call for calm from the police. One newspaper was naming him – or her – the Boston Ripper. Originality wasn’t exactly their strong suit.

I walked to the corner of the common where Erin’s body had been found. Without the police vehicles surrounding the area, and the barriers holding back the morbid curiosity of the crowd, the place looked almost normal again. Something about that made me feel sad: a girl had died, but the world still turned just the same. There were a few limp bouquets of flowers scattered by the roadside, but they’d been pretty much pulped by last night’s rain despite their cellophane wrappings.

I couldn’t help hoping that Erin really
was
dead, wherever they’d taken her body. Who knows how long it would take the police to give her back to her family; how would they find closure without that? Any violent death was bad enough, but when a very young person was involved it made everything ten times worse. I sniffed the air, trying to pick up the same scent from last night. I didn’t want to believe that Theo really was involved in this, but what else was I supposed to think? Every time my tired mind wandered back to that screwed-up possibility, it felt as though something cold was clutching my heart and I found it difficult to draw breath. Even more difficult than normal, I mean.

I was just about to walk around the perimeter of the area that had been cordoned off yesterday, when I caught sight of someone watching me from the nearest clump of trees. Leaving the sidewalk and entering the Common I slowly approached him, all the time trying to get
my
irritation under control. This was the last thing I needed.

Byron Castle Jr glared at me as I approached. ‘Who the hell are you?’

Nice guy. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Is this private property?’ I made a big show of looking around.

His eyes narrowed. Their color almost matched the arsenic-green streak in his black hair. ‘Hey, I remember you.’

My stomach dropped. ‘What? From where?’

You mean from when I practically tripped over your girlfriend’s body and . . . sniffed her? Why would you remember that?

‘Don’t screw around. I saw you skulking around Erin when they . . . took her.’

‘I don’t skulk,’ I said.

‘You were skulking,’ he replied. ‘Probably a loser fan of my dad’s, trying to get some kind of sick memorabilia.’

I wanted to ask him about his girlfriend, but couldn’t think of a way to do it without coming off as a total ghoul.

Ugh. Why did I have to think about ‘ghouls’?

‘I’m sorry for your loss, Byron,’ I said. I was sincere, and I hoped he heard it in my voice. ‘I’m not a fan. I knew Erin.’

He glared for a moment, and then his face cleared and it was a relief to see a less hostile expression. ‘Oh! I really
do
know you, don’t I? You disappeared from college last year. Rick noticed.’

He had?
My heart squeezed in my chest and I closed my eyes for a moment.

‘Come to pay your respects?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘Something like that. Byron, I really am sorry. Was Erin—?’

‘My girlfriend.’ He looked like he hadn’t slept for a week, but that was probably just the tear-smudged guyliner shadowing his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.’

‘Marie,’ I said, the name feeling strange on my own tongue. It was OK when I heard it from others, somehow.

We stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the rain-flattened flowers and pulped messages as they stood guard over the site of Erin’s death. Or at least, I amended, where her body had been dumped.

‘Do the police know anything at all?’ I felt awful digging for information, but I still had a nagging fear that this girl could rise again – Unmade. Would we even find out if that
did
happen? Perhaps the ‘Spook Squad’, whoever they were, would deal with it. Cover it up or something. But surely I shouldn’t actually be hoping for that. Wasn’t it better for the truth to come out?

Byron was shaking his head in reply. ‘No. They’ve got squat. Not that they’re telling us, anyway.’

‘Do you know where they took her remains?’

He stared at me. ‘Why would you want to know that, if you’re not a freak who just wants a piece of her?’

Um . . . Because I’m a vampire and I want to make sure she doesn’t turn zombie?

I cleared my throat. ‘Just curious.’ I cringed. God, that was lame.

‘Fuck off,’ he said. He turned on his heel and walked away. His long black coat floated behind him like a cape.

It wasn’t like I could blame him.

Maybe it was a rogue vampire moving in on Theo’s territory; we’d had those before. Perhaps someone wanted to cause a stir for the vamp community as a whole, by threatening to ‘out’ us in some way. Two innocent kids were already dead – both of whom I’d come into contact with myself – not to mention poor Nurse Fox’s horrible end.

I got home and found my cell phone had been left in the mailbox.
Jace
. I smiled to myself. There was no note, nothing to indicate how he might be coping now that his dad was back.

The phone rang, and I almost dropped it in shock. Expecting it to be Jace, trying to be clever, I was surprised to see a number I didn’t recognize.

‘Hello?’

‘Marie, it’s Detective Trent. We need to ask you some
more
questions and would appreciate it if you’d come to the Department’s headquarters this time.’

I’d hoped they would have forgotten about me, but that was naïve at best.

I sighed.
Now what?

Chapter Seventeen

THE BOSTON HOMICIDE
Unit was all large windows, vaulted ceilings and potted plants. There were even cubicles, like you see in regular offices. The walls were blank of any decoration – white, smooth, and dull as hell. It was weird to think that my dad used to work here. I wondered if anybody remembered him anymore, of if disgraced cops were simply shuffled under the pastel blue carpet like a dirty secret.

I sat in an interview room in the stifling heart of Boston’s main Police Headquarters, meaning I’d been forced to drag my butt all the way across town to Ruggles Station in rush hour. Well, let’s be honest: every hour during the working day is ‘rush hour’ in Boston.

When I found out that Alison Trent was based out on Tremont Street, I’d had a minor freak-out. The building
was
an architectural monstrosity: a huge mass of ugly blocks made out of steel and glass. Lots and lots of glass. Hardly the ideal place for a vampire to go hang out with the local PD. It was pretty hard to miss. Every time I walked past another section of polished mirrored windows, I cringed and sort of ducked as though I could make myself even more invisible than I already was. It earned me some strange looks from passers-by, for sure, but I didn’t care if it meant nobody noticed the tiny Goth chick with no reflection.

I’d changed into clean black jeans, a black T-shirt (with a silver logo that said, ‘The Meaning of Life is: Whatever’), and my favorite steel-toe-capped boots. I was also wearing a fitted black satin coat that fell in elegant folds to my knees. Caitlín needed my leather jacket more than I did, but I couldn’t help missing it – there was something comforting about the weight of it across my shoulders, and I liked the way the zips rattled when I walked. Maybe I’d get it back next time I saw her.

The whole place smelled dusty and cold.

Trent had put me in a featureless room, with faded yellow walls and blue plastic chairs. She got me a coffee and sat opposite me, resting her elbows heavily on the table. There was no sign of Denmark Smith, her partner, and I half expected him to walk in and join us every few minutes. I was on edge, almost jumping out of my skin.

I tried to chill, not wanting to look any more
suspicious
than I already did – I’d already caused problems getting in here.
Not my fault, I swear!
Inside the main entrance of BPD headquarters, there had been a line of people waiting to go through the metal detector. The overweight, middle-aged officer running the show had little-to-no sense of humor, so I kept it dialled way back and just followed the lead of those before me. He demanded to see my driver’s license (I never learned to drive), made me remove my sunglasses, then my coat, before sending me into the walk-through metal detector.

The steel toe-caps of my boots set off the alarm, and I cringed.

That involved a five-minute delay and lots of glaring. I tried to make myself as small as possible. Eventually, they let me through to a lobby with a vaulted ceiling and I faced another uniformed officer behind a reception desk. She had freckles, hair as dark as mine, and a no-nonsense attitude. I asked for Detective Trent.

‘Do you have an appointment?’

Cops made appointments? ‘Um . . . I don’t know. I mean, she asked me to come in.’

‘Name?’

‘Marie O’Neal.’

‘Hold on and I’ll give her a buzz.’

At least she didn’t look at me like I was a potential terrorist. Maybe my Irish roots appealed to her. The name on her badge read ‘Hannigan’.

I waited while she picked up the phone, wondering what Trent wanted with me now. Wondering if I’d have the right answers or not. I could at least use the opportunity to find out whatever I could about Erin Doyle.

Officer Hannigan indicated that I should wait at the doorway at the far end of the lobby so that Detective Trent could collect me. She flashed me a quick smile, told me I was ‘all set’ with her distinctive Southie twang, and I felt marginally better.

Five minutes later, Detective Alison Trent was watching me across the interview-room table as though I might jump up and bite her at any moment. Of course, she wouldn’t be thinking that
literally
– more fool her – but she still looked incredibly wary. I wondered if I was giving off crazy vampire vibes or something. I wasn’t trying to look threatening and, for me at least, I was dressed quite conservatively.

‘I’ve run a check on you, Miss O’Neal,’ said the detective. ‘My sources say that not only did you drop out of college weeks into the course, you’ve also never had a job. Who’s supporting you?’