Falling to Ash (27 page)

I held up both my hands as though trying to stop traffic. ‘Both of you, stop arguing and let me see him. Then I’ll go.’ I glared at Jace and tried to pretend I didn’t notice the guilt in his eyes. ‘I won’t bother you again.’

‘That’s right,’ Murdoch cut in. ‘Because if you do, you’re going to end up like the corpse you should be.’

I gritted my teeth and didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. I was furious with Jace too – way to stand up for the girl who’d watched your back more than once now. The girl you’d just
kissed
. Let your psycho father insult and threaten her.
Nice one, dude. Totally smooth
. If I was ever going to talk to him again, I was going to give him a few lessons in basic manners.

Jace frowned at me and looked like he was about to say something when the sound of sirens stopped him. He closed his mouth and scanned the area.

His father cursed. ‘You take the van – we’ll put the body in there. I need to ditch the car I stole.’

‘You
stole
a car?’

‘I had to track my van in
something
.’

The sirens were getting closer. There was no time for anything and I didn’t know what to do. I hesitated, watching as Murdoch leaned inside the car and began tossing equipment to Jace.

‘Put these in the van. I’ll bring the body.’

Jace fumbled a rolled tarp, then had to put it down when his father threw a jacket at him next. I stepped forward automatically to help Jace before his father tossed something heavy and smacked him on the head with it. My hands reached for the item on top of the pile. The jacket.

My
jacket.

The jacket I’d given to my sister when I said goodbye to her at the station yesterday.

I clutched the leather in my fingers and held it to my chest, watching as Murdoch moved beyond the car and bent down to what I assumed was Byron’s body. I couldn’t see properly beyond the vehicle – and the crimson veil that swept across my vision.

Caitlín’s scent was still on my jacket. What was Thomas Murdoch doing with it? Where was my sister?

I didn’t even realize I was moving until I stumbled, my legs buckling beneath me. Jace had returned from dumping equipment in the van and reached out to stop me from falling.

‘What’s wrong with you? You look as though you’ve seen—’

‘A ghost?’ My lips felt numb. I could hardly work my mouth.

‘Moth, what is it?’ Jace filled my entire field of vision, holding my shoulders and shaking me.

Static filled my ears, blocking out the sound of sirens as they passed us by. They weren’t even coming for us, but I didn’t care about that anymore.

Only my little sister mattered.

I shrugged Jace off as though he was nothing. He staggered back as I pushed him aside using my full vamp strength.

Byron was in the van. They’d burn him and that would be the end of him. No more shambling revenant – no more Unmade vampire. Even that meant nothing to me.

I moved to the car. Murdoch had just started the engine. His eyes widened as he saw me appear beside his window. It must have looked like magic. I’d show him magic.

I punched the window so hard that the skin across my knuckles split and blood sprayed. I hardly noticed. Murdoch ducked as glass caved in and covered him. I reached through the jagged hole and grabbed him by the throat. He made satisfying gurgling sounds as I attempted to pull a fully-grown man through a gap the size of my fist.

His face grated across the broken glass like cheese. The smell of human blood awakened the predator in me. I pulled harder and he screamed—

And then I was on the ground with Jace on top of me.

‘What is
wrong
with you? What happened?’

I shook my head, trying to clear it of the desire for blood. Trying to shake myself free from mindless rage.

‘My sister.’ I glared at Jace, expecting him to understand.

‘Huh? Where?’ He looked around, half expecting to see another girl in the clearing.

‘Her jacket,’ I said. ‘
My
jacket, I mean.’

‘You’re not making sense. Like, at all.’

Murdoch crawled out of the car, blood covering the entire left side of his face.

Jace leaped to his feet. ‘Dad! Are you OK?’

‘Do I
look
OK? Kill that thing.’ He slipped a crudely carved stake from somewhere inside his coat and tossed it to his son. ‘Kill it now.’

Jace instinctively caught the length of wood and I forced myself to stand and face him. I didn’t think he’d attack me – not now, not after everything we’d been through together in the past week – but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. Not where families were concerned.

I still clutched my leather jacket under one arm. I held it out, exhibiting it like a piece of evidence. ‘What is your father doing with
this
?’

Murdoch snorted, mopping blood from his cheek with his sleeve. ‘
That’s
what this is about?’

Jace looked between us in turn, clearly confused.

I took a step toward Murdoch Senior. ‘Where is my sister?’

He smiled, the expression even nastier than usual thanks to his lacerated face. Blood pumped from a particularly deep wound by his left eye. ‘She’s your
sister
?’ He whistled, as though impressed. ‘The vamp’s got balls, I’ll give him that.’

I saw Jace’s mouth begin to open, but I cut him off. ‘Whatever you’re about to say, save it. This is between me and him.’

Murdoch shook his head. ‘He said she was insurance, but I didn’t realize you actually knew her. Like the first three kids were all connected to you in some way. Don’t you understand now? They were to frame
you
– so that your boss would be held responsible. But the new one?’ He nodded at my jacket, still crushed between my frozen hands. ‘I thought she was just another piece of collateral damage.’

‘“Collateral damage”?’ I stared at the hunter, trying to fathom what kind of a person calls a teenager something like that. He was a
father
, for God’s sake.

Jace tucked the stake into the back of his jeans. ‘If one of you doesn’t tell me what’s going on—’

‘The guy I’m working with took another kid. Said it would make sure Dead Girl here didn’t get in our way any more than she already has.’

I swallowed. ‘Kyle. You’re talking about
Kyle
, aren’t you?’ I’d been right! Kyle was involved, right up to his skinny little neck.

Murdoch shrugged. ‘Yeah. So?’

I glanced at Jace. ‘He’s a vampire, you know. Part of my vampire Family.
Theo’s
Family.’ There. I’d said my Maker’s name and the world hadn’t ended. At least, not quite yet.

Jace stared at his father like he didn’t recognize him. ‘Wait, you’re working with a
vampire
? How can you justify that, given everything you’ve always said to me? After what happened to Mom . . .’

Now it was my turn to stare at Jace. His
mother
? The vision I’d had – that brief and terrible glimpse inside his head – flashed into my mind. Horror took hold of my chest and squeezed, but I didn’t have time to examine the possibilities any further because Murdoch Senior was walking toward the van.

I headed him off. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Screw the car,’ he said. ‘I’ve got somewhere to be.’

‘You’re not going anywhere until you tell me where my sister is.’

He shook his head. ‘Where do you think? Tonight’s the night everything ends for your boss.’

Theo? I forced out a breath, just to steady myself. ‘This is all about killing Theo?’

‘It’s more complicated than that. At least, it is for Kyle.’ Murdoch’s lips twitched into something resembling a smile. His teeth were coated with blood. ‘For me, I’ll just be happy to take down the Master vampire of Boston, but you’ll have to ask Kyle about
his
plans.’

Jace had his hand on my shoulder and I shook it off. I hadn’t even noticed him move. ‘I don’t give a crap about Kyle,’ I said. ‘I just want my sister. Where’s Caitlín?’

The hunter opened the driver’s side door. He nodded his head toward the back of the van. ‘Right about now she’s probably joining the kid in zombie land.’

My eyes widened and I clenched my hands into fists.
I’d
kill them all if they hurt Caitlín. I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I would. Somehow.

‘Come on, son,’ Murdoch said. ‘You don’t want to miss taking down a Master vamp. Her boss.
Theodore Fitzgerald
. We need to get over to his house on Beacon Hill.’

I had to help Theo. What was I going to do? Was Caitlín at Theo’s house? She must be – if that’s where Kyle was intending to put his plan into action. Whatever that plan actually was.

Jace stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me, but I couldn’t find it inside myself to care. Not anymore. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ he said to his father.

‘Stop arguing and get in the van.’

‘Not without her,’ Jace replied, his face pale and set in hard lines.

‘The only way
that
gets in
my
van again is with a stake in its pretty little chest.’ Murdoch fixed his son with a cold stare. ‘Your choice.’

‘Jace,’ I said, carefully keeping my tone neutral. ‘Thanks for the
support
, but I’ve done just fine by myself so far.’

He held out a hand. ‘Come with me – let me help you.’

I shook my head, feeling sorry for him. ‘Your daddy’s made the decision for you, Jace. Just make sure that Byron’s truly dead – that’s all I ask of you.’ Surely I could
trust
him to do
that
much. I could get to Theo’s by myself.

Time to make use of my vampire abilities. Time to turn them into a
strength
.

I turned and ran back toward the heart of the graveyard. The distant rumble of traffic reached my ears as I almost flew beneath the branches of skeletal trees. Hardly watching where my feet were falling, I trusted my instincts to guide me safely and not let me run into grave markers half hidden by brambles and dead foliage. I hurdled a fallen branch and made it to the far side of the grounds. But I didn’t stop there, simply using my momentum to leap at the iron bars of the fence, swinging my legs up and over.

I slid down the other side and landed lightly on the sidewalk opposite the shining white façade of the Law School, no longer caring if a passing human saw me. What did I care about that when Caitlín was in danger? And Theo, too. There were worse things that could happen right now than discovery.

If I could save her, I wouldn’t even care what the Council did to me for telling her the truth about what I was.

Gritting my teeth against the aching desire to scream, I put down my head and ran.

Chapter Twenty-two

THEO’S FRONT DOOR
was unlocked. That was my first clue that things were way beyond screwed and on a fast-track to oh-shit-we’re-all-gonna-die.

The place was dark, feeling empty. I didn’t hear any breathing, but then vampires didn’t have to breathe. I moved up the stairs, attempting silence. I took the stairs two at a time. I reached the top floor, grateful for the vampire lungs that meant I could run up four flights of stairs without getting out of breath.

When I reached the top, Theo’s cathedral-like eyrie spread out before me. I stopped and stared, trying to process what my eyes and brain were telling me. Shadows flickered, pinpoints of light from the few candles that remained standing, like cats’ eyes watching and waiting at the edges of the room. Desperately, I searched for my
Maker
among the signs of struggle and violence: chairs overturned; one of the beautiful stained-glass windows smashed; even Theo’s plants torn apart and scattered, as though destroyed in a petulant fit of rage.

And blood . . . so much of it. Too much to possibly belong to just one person.

Caitlín!
Her name filled my head like a mantra. I had to find her, to make sure that the blood didn’t belong to her. To make her safe.

Something inside me broke, shattering alongside the multi-colored glass that covered the floor like confetti:

There is blood everywhere
.

For a moment, I think that’s all there is to see – a roomful of blood and pain. The floor gleams wet. The whole room reeks of death
.

Kyle. I grit my teeth against fear and anger, the alchemy of emotions making me feel like a shaken-up Coke bottle
.

Where is my sister? And Theo?

Terror threatens to make me careless, but I force myself to step carefully over the threshold, my feet slipping and sliding on the wet floor. I wonder how there can be so much blood. The carpet is spattered with it and I can’t help but turn away—

Which is when I see my wounded Maker in a crumpled heap at the side of an overturned chair. I run to him, trying to keep my balance but no longer caring if I end up on my ass; I have to reach Theo. My hand closes on the back of the chair and I jerk it away, my fingers slick with cold blood
.

I am too busy falling to my knees beside Theo to notice anything else. I am overwhelmed with panic and shock; fear for my Maker and how badly he might be hurt. I hate him at times, it’s true. But I still belong to him
.