The Dark Side (37 page)

Cilla laughed. “So close and yet so far.” She traced the blade down Rhi’s cheek. Rhi stayed still, but her eyes met mine. There was no fight in the expression. No hope.

Nothing to indicate she remembered our plan or cared about it.

I looked again at the tears on her face and wondered if Cilla had tried some ‘persuasion’ on her as well.

I hoped not. Cilla appeared to have left sanity—at least anything I recognized as sanity—behind a long time but she did seem to be fixated on no one hurting her ‘children.’ Rhi fell into that category, if children meant vamps made with the assistance of Smith’s drugs.

Still, I didn’t like the way the knife pressed just a little too hard into Rhi’s skin. After all, push a psycho too far and they snap. Then anything or anyone in their way was fair game. Tate had taught me that. My mouth tasted like dust, drier than ever. I swallowed painfully. “If you hurt her, you won’t be able to get what you want.”

“Maybe not. But I don’t think she’s really tried to find out.” The knife paused, then pricked deeper. The sharp sour smell of vamp blood joined the other odors in the room. Rhi jerked her head, blood trickling down her cheek.

My hands curled tight, a growl rising in my throat. “I’m happy to let Rhianna try again, you don’t have to hurt her.”

Cilla’s eyes narrowed then she smiled. “I knew you’d see sense.” She beckoned me, black painted nails looking like razor blades. I edged my chair closer to Rhianna’s. This close, Cilla’s violet scent filled my nose. It felt cloying and sticky, like it was trying to climb down my throat and steal my breath. My stomach heaved.

“Kneel down, puppy,” Cilla said. “Rhianna needs to look into your eyes.”

I slid off the chair and knelt. The floor was hard under my knees, the cheap carpeting doing little to pad the concrete beneath. Cold seeped upward, exacerbating the tiny tremors in my legs.

“Good. Now, Rhianna. Let’s try this again. No one else is here. It’s nice and quiet, just the way you wanted.”

Rhianna looked at me. Still nothing in her eyes to indicate she was working with me rather than with Cilla. Fingers of ice gripped my spine. Either Rhi deserved an Oscar or I was in trouble.

Rhianna’s hands trembled as she put them on either side of my head, leaning forward so our faces were only inches apart. Her breath brushed my skin, cool and still carrying the faint scent of blood.

Another reminder that everything had changed.

Once again, I tried to relax, tried to think of something to keep me calm enough to let Rhianna in.

“Hurry up,” Cilla said.

Her voice broke my concentration. I glanced upward to find her staring down at us. The knife was back in its sheath, the gun tucked beside it. So close. It would only take a second to make a play for the gun. But I couldn’t make a move. Not yet.

I needed Cilla to be relaxed and off guard. Right now, tension practically vibrated through her.

“Look at me,” Rhi said softly.

I flicked my eyes back to hers, forced myself to let that summer sky color in and breathe as the world flowed away.

“Ash?” Rhianna’s voice was quiet in my head and as I watched, she appeared in my mind. But not dressed in pink. This time she wore black. Severe, unrelieved black. Pants and shirt and shoes in a black so dark and dense it seemed to absorb the light around her. Her hair was scraped back from her face and black ringed her eyes as well like she’d been on a three day bender with a kohl pencil.

“You going goth?” I asked nervously.

She shook her head. “I want you to listen to me.”

A chill stole over me. “I’m listening.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said. About how it’s all going to be okay.”

“It will be. Just trust me.”

Another headshake. “No. No, it won’t. And I don’t want it to be. Ash, I don’t want to live like this.”

The ice spread out from my spine, enveloping every inch of me. My chest ached with the cold, pain numbing me. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t want to be a vampire. So, if there’s a way to take Cilla out, then take it. Don’t worry about me.”

Was it possible to be colder than freezing? I couldn’t feel my body. Couldn’t think either but I had to. Had to convince Rhi that she was wrong. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

“I’m not asking you to leave me behind. I’m saying don’t worry about me.”

“Rhi, don’t do this. My father’s research, whatever’s in my head, maybe it can fix you.”

“Turn me back?”

I couldn’t lie to her. Nothing was going to change her back into a human. “No. But they could make you a normal vampire. You’d be able to live. Lots of vamps are happy.” That much was true, most vampires seemed content enough. Of course, those who weren’t, at least the ones I’d met, fell more into the rabidly insane category.

“I can’t drink the manufactured blood.”

“Lots of vamps drink human blood without killing.”

“I know.” She sounded so lost. “But, Ash, you don’t understand. I liked it. I liked killing that man, draining his blood. I’m a monster now.”

My heart twisted, cracked, and shattered. “No! No, that’s not true. You’re still you. You can control what you do.”

“But I can’t control what I am. I’m sorry, Ash. I know this isn’t your fault. You have to try and get out of here.”

“Not without you.”

“Any way you can.”

The blue surrounding me turned paler, the color of a glacier’s heart, cold as the razored shards of pain and fear slicing through me.

“Promise me.”Rhi’s voice was fierce.

I hesitated and that icy blue tightened around me like a net of glass wrapping around my brain so I couldn’t think, couldn’t argue.

“
Promise me
.”

I had to do what she said. “I promise.”

   “Thank you.” This time her voice sounded happy.

I was frozen. Numb. I had no idea what to say to her. How to convince her she was wrong. To show her she was loved. Or rather, I had a thousand words but my tongue was as frozen as the rest of me, stilled by Rhi’s will. The blue dissipated like fog but the constraint and the cold remained. I opened my eyes.

Cilla was hovering next to us. “Did it work? Did it work?”

I shook my head, still trying to shake off the feeling of icy command from Rhi, to speak, to reach her. But I couldn’t. “Ask Rhianna.”

Rhi’s eyes were closed. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully.

But when her eyes opened I knew she wasn’t at peace. She looked sad. Beyond sad.

“Did you get it?” Cilla asked.

Slowly, Rhi nodded. “I think so. There’s lots of numbers and words I don’t understand.”

Was she telling the truth? Had she actually found something in my head? Something that might help us figure out how Smith had done what he’d done?

Cilla grinned, then pulled the gun out of her belt. She aimed it at me yet again. The urge to run exploded through me but something held me in place. “Then we don’t need her anymore, do we?”

Rhi’s face went white. “What do you mean? How do you know I got everything?”

“I’ll take the risk,” Cilla said. Her finger started to tighten on the trigger and I tensed. Now or never. A silver bullet—and I didn’t doubt that the gun was loaded with

silver—at such close range would kill me if she hit my head or heart.

“No!” Rhianna screamed and lashed out at Cilla, knocking the gun from her hand. It flew across the room landing God-knows-where. I lurched sideways, free to move but unable to think what to do next.

Cilla wasn’t so slow. The knife slid free of the scabbard with a hiss and she whirled on Rhi. “What are you doing?”

Rhi backed up but only a little. “Stopping you,” she spat.

Cilla’s shriek of rage almost deafened me. She lunged with the knife, aiming for Rhi’s heart. Rhi’s hand shot out, grasping Cilla’s wrist, stopping the blade’s plunge. The two vamps stood locked, muscles straining against each other. Evenly matched despite the differences in size. I hesitated, unsure how to help without risking Rhi.

“Ash, the window,” Rhi cried.

“What?” Cilla and I spoke together.

“The
shutters
.”

Cilla gasped. I surged to my feet, fighting the compulsion to do as Rhi said. “No!”

Rhi’s voice sounded in my head. “Ash, this is my choice. And your chance. You know what you have to do.”

I shook my head frantically. “I won’t, I
won’t
.”

Cilla started to laugh and, as I watched, the blade descended a fraction closer to Rhi’s throat. Rhi was weakening. If she lost, Cilla would kill us both, if I didn’t kill her first.

“Never put your faith in a dog, Rhianna,” Cilla said mockingly. “They always bite the hand that feeds them.”

I twisted my head looking for the gun. But I couldn’t see it. It must’ve slid under one of the cabinets lining the far wall.

I turned back to Rhi and made the mistake of looking into her eyes.

Blue ice blew through me like a blizzard and wrapped steel fingers into my mind. “Open the shutters,” Rhi’s voice roared. “Do it
now
.”

I fought her, I tried. Tried to summon the wolf and the moonlight to cut off her terrible command. It didn’t work. Even as I screamed in my head for her to let me go, my body moved to obey, heading for the window. “Rhi, no,” I begged. “Don’t make me do this.”

Her grip didn’t falter and her mental voice was calm. “It’s either you or the sunrise, Ash. I’d rather it was you. If you love me, you’ll do this.”

Tears rolled down my face, half blinding me. My arms reached for the shutter release as I heard Rhi scream behind me and motion blurred in my peripheral vision.

“NOW, Ash!” Rhi screamed and I watched myself in horror as I pulled the release and flooded the room with sunlight.

Cilla wailed behind me as I fell to my knees by the window. Rhi’s voice said “Goodbye, Ash,” in my head as her hold on my mind released. I felt a blaze of heat like something had exploded and pushed myself to my feet, twisting to face the vampires. Maybe, if I could just shield Rhi, somehow—

But even as I turned, I saw the flames engulf them, saw Rhi’s face smile then twist in agony. Then the fire went white-hot and there was a whomping noise as all the air was sucked out of my lungs. I flew backward and hit the wall with a crash of plaster.

Then all at once the flames vanished and there was nothing but fine gray dust raining around me as I lay there, sobbing like a baby.

* * *

Gray ash coated everything. It covered my skin, filled my nose and mixed to sludge on my cheeks where my tears mingled with my friend. I lay there and let it fall, unable to move as it floated down on me.

An alarm started to sound in the distance and suddenly water poured from the sprinklers in the ceiling.

I let it soak me. Unwilling to move or think or react.

Rhianna was dead.

And I had killed her.

My eyes burned as tears flowed without stopping. Rhi was dead. Another loss.

I didn’t want to get up. Was half-willing to let Smith come back and do his worst but somewhere—after minutes or hours, I couldn’t tell—my survival instinct kicked back in.

“Move,” I told myself. “Don’t think, just move.”

Smith would be back. If they hadn’t seen the flames or heard the alarm then they’d be back after however much time they’d agreed with Cilla.

I pushed to my feet, feeling a thousand years old. I skirted the charred patch of floor in the middle of the room, the twisted metal that was all that remained of the two chairs and ran for the door.

Locked.

And, I remembered suddenly, Cilla had had the keycard. The plastic keycard that no doubt had been vaporized when the two vampires burned. I was trapped.

Fuck and double fuck.

Think.

Okay. Don’t panic. There was a gun here somewhere and a window. I scrabbled around in the wreckage of the room and the gods must’ve decided I deserved a break because my hand closed over the smooth metal of the gun.

“Move,” I repeated, and forced myself back to the window. To my surprise, it looked out onto some sort of office park. There didn’t seem to be anyone around but it definitely wasn’t the middle of nowhere.

On the downside, I was on the second floor. And there was no fire escape. I looked down at the pavement, calculated the distance. Survivable for a werewolf.

It was getting through the glass that was going to hurt like a bitch. I just hoped it wasn’t reinforced. It would just be my luck if the people who owned the building were too cheap to pay for UV glass but had sprung for double glazing.

Only one way to find out.

And that way was going to bring some attention to my location even if the fire hadn’t.

I retreated to the far side of the room, aimed the gun and fired three times.

The bullets left three neat holes in the window, surrounded by a spider web of cracks. Not exactly the result I’d hoped for but it should’ve weakened the glass enough that what I was about to do would hurt a lot less. I didn’t want to waste any more bullets.

“Don’t think,” I repeated one last time and then pushed away from the wall, picking up speed as I leaped and hurled myself through the window.

I’d been right.

It hurt like a son of a bitch. Glass sliced into my arms and legs but I barely had time to register the pain before the cement hurtled up to meet me.

My landing knocked the wind out of me and I wasted a minute or so trying to convince my lungs to remember how to breathe and my back that it hadn’t snapped in two.

As soon as the air started flowing back into my body I forced myself to change. Wolf then back in rapid succession. I could run faster as the wolf but I couldn’t carry a gun.

Changing helped the pain and stopped the bleeding but left me shaky.

I gritted my teeth and hauled myself up anyway, taking a moment to get my bearings.

The fire alarms still shrieked in the distance. Hopefully that meant there’d be emergency crews on their way. But Smith and his vamps could well beat them back. It was daylight but from the position of the sun, late afternoon. Once darkness hit, any advantage I had over the vamps was lost. I needed to move.

I scented the air, trying to pick a direction. I mostly got a dizzying rush of city air, full of tar and sun and rubbish and the weird air-conditioned smell of office buildings. But to the west, I got just the faintest hint of food. Something was cooking. Cooking meant people.