The House (45 page)

Talon walked
into the main room with a shotgun plainly in his hands. It made my
heart speed up but he didn’t see me, he wasn’t looking for me. He
was looking for Eddie. Eddie had betrayed him; he had gone against
everything Talon had presumably taught him and Talon was going to
take his revenge. I could see that in his mind with perfect
clarity. I just didn’t have time to warn Eddie and he was facing
the wrong way.

He couldn’t
see Talon. He couldn’t see the gun or the bullet that sped towards
him. Marie could.

She ran
between Eddie and the shot. She put her body in the way to keep him
safe. She took his bullet through her chest.

I saw Marie’s
chest disintegrate under that bullet. A spelled bullet, like our
knives had been, but for shifters. A spell to eat away at a
shifter, to stop them healing. Not that Marie would have been able
to heal such a wound anyway. I could see through her chest as she
was flung backwards by the force of the impact.

Her chest was
simply gone and her body slumped. Her mind slipped away from me
even as I desperately tried to hold on to it. There was no goodbye,
no time to think through her life. The bullet took her so quickly,
her mind simply shut down at the assault. The poison spreading too
fast through her body. Her mind...her beautiful, careful thoughts.
Gone.

I saw Talon go
to load his gun again.

I saw him pull
back the mechanism.

I saw his mind
laid out before me.

I was in front
of him before I’d fully had time to contemplate moving. I felt my
claws sink into his stomach and tear. It wouldn’t kill him, he
would heal, but it would hurt. I wanted him to hurt. I had felt
Marie die; I had felt her mind fall away from her in instants and I
hadn’t even known her last thoughts. I felt my hand push through
his flesh.

I pulled on
his intestines until they were outside of his body and still it
wasn’t enough. He could spend a hundred years at Jalas’ mercy and
it still wouldn’t be enough. He had killed Marie; the thought
burned itself through my mind. I could see her falling, the image
would be seared into my mind forever more. It would join the images
of my parents and their torturous deaths. Forever to remind me what
happened when you let your guard down, when you stopped
watching.

I felt the
anger at all of the death I had seen. My parents and Marie added to
the carnage around me. My outrage at what Talon had done consumed
me; he had taken children and condemned them to death, he had taken
my mother from me. I felt only the need to make him pay, there was
no other thought left to me. I no longer cared that Hunter was weak
and unprotected. I did not notice that the building was caving in
around me. I saw only him, I saw only pain.

I felt his
mind give around me. I filled him up. I shoved all of my power
through him. I could vaguely hear him screaming. It made me think
that at some point the girl had stopped screaming and I hadn’t
noticed. I didn’t care. I didn’t care that she could be dead, or
that she might have been driven mad.

The world
stood still around us for a moment. An eternal moment hung
suspended in the air. I remembered the minds of the prisoners. I
remembered what their memories felt like. I could see into their
minds as they were tortured, as they had died in the worst possible
ways. I shoved all of it into Talon. Not the secondhand memories
that I had but the firsthand experiences.

He would feel
the heat of the flames as he burnt alive. He would know the terror
of being walled up alive. He would see his blood coating the walls,
his insides glistening on the outside.

I knew that
for as long as he lived he would see nothing else. He would know
nothing but terror. I seared every good memory from him; his
memories of his mother’s arms, his father’s laugh, his friends, his
family. Gone. Just like my mother was gone – my comfort and my
love. Stripped away in one horrifying moment.

I collapsed as
I felt his mind slip from mine. I had done the unimaginable. I had
completely destroyed his sanity and his mind. I had taken the worst
of everything I had ever known and I had forced it on him. The
Covenant would have my life in a heartbeat and I couldn’t bring
myself to care. I felt empty. I was drained.

Power always
had a price and I wondered if my death would be the price I would
pay for this. My energy was gone; pushed through Talon with the
memories, the magic. He would feel a thousand deaths and still
there was a thought that it wasn’t enough. But I was done. I was
exhausted from the show of power; the magic I had pulled through me
had dissipated and taken part of me with it.

There was
blood everywhere. I had a feeling that some of it was probably mine
but there were no cuts left on my body. The power burning through
me had seared and burnt but it had healed me. My body was like new.
I could feel the air on my skin with startling clarity as the world
faded away.

Eddie turned
as I felt myself starting to faint. I welcomed oblivion and
whatever it would mean. I couldn’t handle what was happening. The
Covenant was wiping the floor with the rogues and I just didn’t
care. I felt as though I would never truly care about anything
again. The loss was too great to bear.

Marie was
dead.

I clung to
whoever was holding me with every ounce of strength I could muster.
It wasn’t as much as it should have been. I felt weak and helpless,
vaguely like I’d been set adrift. My rock was gone; I relied on
Marie for almost everything. I had always known that. I just
couldn’t comprehend life without her.

I only noticed
the world again when we entered the back garden because the light
changed; from the dim half-light of the back alleys, to the
semi-brightness of the garden. It didn’t compute with me that there
shouldn’t have been so many lights. Marie didn’t leave the lights
on but I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking that it meant I
was home, even though it didn’t feel like home to me any more. Not
really.

I kept
flashing back to Marie’s face as the bullet took her. There hadn’t
been enough time for her to be fearful or surprised, but I had seen
her determination. She would not let anyone hurt one of hers and
she had taken Eddie as hers when he moved in. As I had taken him
for my responsibility – it just took me a little longer to get used
to the idea. I felt then that it should have been me. Marie had
taken Eddie in but I had taken responsibility. It should have been
me lying broken on the floor of the warehouse.

The house was
warm compared to the outside. I had lost my coat somewhere along
the way. Or maybe I’d never worn one out. I couldn’t remember. My
ripped sleeves left my arms bare. I only noticed that I was cold
when I got into the warm. I felt some of my muscles relax in the
heat as much as they were able.

I was carried
up the stairs very carefully. I knew personally that it wasn’t easy
to carry someone up these stairs. You had to walk sideways to
avoiding hitting the head of the person you were carrying. I had
enough of me left to notice that and to pull my head further in. I
rested it against his shoulder. I knew that whoever was carrying me
was a he. I simply couldn’t find the energy to open my eyes and see
anything else.

I felt the
warm tiles of the bathroom against my skin. I actually opened my
eyes then. I had been expecting to be put to bed and tucked in. I
wanted to go to bed. I wanted to sleep and wake up to find that
none of it was real, that it was all some macabre dream. Instead I
saw Eddie take his top off and turn on the shower.

“Alright, come
on.” Eddie sounded gentle and yet managed to be frustrated at the
same time. I wasn’t going to be much help. I did want to be clean,
the blood had stuck firmly to me and it wasn’t helping with my
mind-set. Once I noticed the blood I wanted it off.

“Trix, I’m
going to need to undress you so that I can get the blood off of
you. Do you want me to get someone else to do it instead?” He
sounded so reasonable, so calm. I clung to him. I probably would
have preferred someone else, Stripes or Hercules maybe.

Although, even
in that state I had a voice that said I tried to avoid being around
Hercules too much when I was naked. He just gave off such a player
vibe that I was determined to keep us as friends. I also wasn’t
thinking clearly or I would have realised that Hercules would never
take advantage of me. Ever. I trusted him with everything I was but
he wasn’t there right then and I needed someone to cling to.

I held on to
Eddie with as much strength as I could and shook my head. I could
also admit, just to myself, that I didn’t want to be left alone for
the time it would take him to find someone else. Besides, I
thought, he was going to see me naked eventually. It’s not like I
shifted in my clothes, then I remembered that I’d already shifted
in front of him and I relaxed. I don’t know why knowing that he had
already seen me out of my clothes helped. It just did.

He carefully
peeled my hands away from his arms. It didn’t seem all that easy
for him. I wanted to hold on to someone. I didn’t want to let go. I
hadn’t fully appreciated that my holding on would hurt him but he
didn’t show any sign of it. He just extracted himself enough to
work his arms.

He had to tear
my top down the middle to have any hope of taking it off. It was
stuck to me so badly that he had to peel it back. It felt like he
was trying to skin me except that it didn’t hurt. That thought did
not help, I just kept flashing back to the Covenant. I’d only ever
seen one person skinned alive and the image had stuck with me. I
shook my head to clear it and focused on Eddie. Just Eddie. I
pushed all other thoughts from my head.

His hands
holding me were very strong. I could feel the potential in his arms
and it comforted me. All that strength would keep me safe. I knew
that it was only some primitive part of my mind that told me that,
but I didn’t fight it. I felt safe in Eddie’s arms and in the
warmth of the bathroom. When I stopped thinking about anything, I
started to actually relax.

I didn’t help
to undress myself. That was beyond me. I examined Eddie’s face with
my eyes and I let him move me about, ever so gently, so that he
could get my top off. He tore between the arm holes and the neck so
that he didn’t have to move my arms. He managed to do it without
forcing my eyes from his face, for which I was glad.

His eyes were
an amazing, almost liquid green. People always talk about green
eyes like gemstones but his weren’t like that. They reflected more
than they shone. They looked like the ocean; the pictures I had
seen of it when it was green instead of blue.

The colour
drew me in, they were cool eyes but they weren’t cold. It’s a line
that most people struggle to tread. He couldn’t keep all of his
emotions out of his eyes though. The undercurrent of sadness made
them more beautiful still.

I moved my
gaze out a little to see his face as a whole. His eyes were
fascinating, and they would have held my attention on their own,
but I wanted to see them in his face. My vision had started to blur
with the intense focus I had on only his eyes. I needed that
contact, that focus though or I would start to think. Thinking
would be bad.

His face
wasn’t perfectly proportioned. The lips were just a little too thin
and his nose just a little bit too big. He was good-looking though;
if his eyes had been any bigger they would have taken over his
face. It was a good face, not breathtakingly beautiful. A face you
could look at for a lifetime and see something new everyday.

Without the
arrogance that he had worn since I had met him, he looked younger.
He looked all the more handsome for the concern and gentle sadness.
He was not as far gone as I was but I could see it in him. I could
see that he was mourning and it called to my own heart in that
moment.

I felt a tear
trickle down my cheek and I didn’t try to stop it. I was still
focused on Eddie; I would not allow myself to think of why I was
crying. It was too hard. I examined his jawline, sharp and square.
I only realised that I had put my hand up to feel it when I saw my
own hand. That probably wasn’t good, but I was in bad shape anyway
so I ignored it. I wanted to touch what I could see. It was as if
it would only be real to me once I had touched it. Looking just
wasn’t enough.

Eddie ignored
me as I traced the lines of his face. He didn’t have high cheek
bones to balance out his strong nose. His nose was straight and
central so it added to his face instead of drawing attention away
from his eyes. His mouth wasn’t particularly full as I traced its
outline but it fit with his face. His eyes dominated; a full mouth
would have taken away from them and their beauty.

I let my hand
fall away as Eddie moved on to my trousers. I was actually wearing
those velvet jeggings, which should have been easy to take off, but
with all that dried blood they weren’t budging. I felt his hands on
my thigh to steady me before he started to unwind the makeshift
bandage I’d put on my knee. I decided that if I ever went on a
rescue mission again I was finding somewhere to put a first aid
kit. Maybe I’d learn to use a weapon too so that I wouldn’t feel so
helpless.

He didn’t tear
the fabric, it would have jerked me around too much. He carefully
took the waistband and started to roll them down my legs. It came
very close to hurting as he peeled them away from me. It felt like
my skin was trying to hold on to my clothes.

I didn’t think
about the fact that it was the blood that had such a hold on me. It
must have been when I punched through the vampyre’s side that I got
so much blood on me. I hadn’t even noticed at the time. Adrenaline
can be dangerously distracting.