Blurred Memories (12 page)

He maintained the tension on
the rope, pretending that he was still dragging his feet, and the
demon that held the rope continued to jerk on it every so often
without bothering to look back. Neither guard noticed that he was
slowly coiling up the rope in his hands and getting closer to
them.

Looking ahead, he saw a rock
protruding on the side of the trail. This was his chance. He waited
until the demons had just passed it, then jumped to the top of the
rock and immediately jumped back, this time toward the demons. They
both looked at him, but too late to draw their weapons. His body
collided with the closest demon, his momentum giving him enough
force to send it crashing into its partner.

The three of them fell to
the dusty road. Hindered by their armor and their sheer size, the
demons were still down when Blake jumped back to his feet. He
frantically pressed the rope against one of the demon’s spikes in a
see-saw motion. Three slides were enough, and he cut through his
tether. His hands were still bound, but he’d worry about that
later. For now the important thing was to run.

The path would only take him
where the demons wanted him. Going back would be useless because
the breach there had been closed. Instead, Blake left the path,
rushing into a terrain of rocks and sparse vegetation as fast as he
could on such treacherous ground. He could hear the demons stomping
behind him, grunting every so often, either at each other or at
him. They sounded like they were slowly catching up to him. He
wasn’t going to lose them, was he? Change of plan, then.

He worked at the rope that
tied his wrists with his fangs. It forced him to slow down, but at
least his hands were soon free. He looked around for what he needed
and was quick to find it: a large but manageable rock, as big as
his head, and a series of flat rocks that would first hide him then
give him a boost in height. When he had a sword in hand, he didn’t
care that demons were so much taller; it was different when he only
had makeshift weapons.

He hid behind the rocks,
forced himself to stop breathing, and waited. He would only get one
chance.

It all happened so fast, he
felt like his body was acting on its own the entire time. When the
demons sounded close enough, he jumped out of hiding, swinging the
rock down onto the closest demon’s head. It impacted with a deep,
crushing noise, and the demon collapsed under Blake. It didn’t move
again.

Its companion roared and
slashed toward Blake with its sword. Blake, who was still clutching
the rock, used it to block the blow, then threw it at the demon as
hard as he could. It raised its arm to protect its head, and the
rock broke one of the bone spikes on its arm. When it lowered its
arm again, its features reflected its anger all too clearly. It
grunted at Blake, gave the ax Blake had taken from its companion a
dirty look, then attacked.

Had it been a sword—had it
been Seneca—Blake was sure he could have held his own against the
demon. But the ax was unfamiliar in his hands, heavier and more
unwieldy than he was used to.

He tried his
best.

He lost.

The demon didn’t kill him.
But it did learn, and it kept Blake in front of him all the way to
the prison.

* * * *

“
Blake? Come on, please,
you’re scaring me.”

There was a hand on Blake’s
arm. By pure reflex, he flinched away—and regretted it at once. How
often had he pulled away from his Master’s hand, only to be
punished in reply? The blow he expected didn’t come, though.
Instead, the hand returned, lighter than before. He looked down at
his arm and watched that familiar hand stroke small circles. Each
touch sent goose bumps racing down his arm.

“
Blake?” And then, more
quietly still… “Childe?”

Blinking furiously, Blake
pushed away shadows and ghosts and tried to see reality in front of
him instead. Oh, how he hated to see the undiluted concern in his
Sire’s eyes!

“
I’m fine,” fell from his
lips, the words as meaningless as ever.

Marc looked unconvinced, and
with good reason. “Are you hurt?”

Blake shook his head and
looked down at the sword at his side. He had dropped his
weapon.

Again.

Hadn’t he learned his lesson
the first time around?

“
Blake, for fuck’s sake,
talk to me! What happened?”

Blake flinched again and
hated himself for that involuntary reaction.

“
Nothing happened,” he
grunted. “I lost a fight, all right? Not the first time, and
probably not the last. Let me up.”

Marc stood up and took a
step back. Whatever he thought, he didn’t say anything and simply
offered his hand to help Blake up.

Blake didn’t take it. He
picked up his sword instead and got to his feet on his own. He
looked at the demon lying dead a few feet from where he had fallen
to the ground.

“
Your kill?” he asked
quietly, tilting his head toward the demon.

“
Yes.” Marc touched Blake’s
arm, drawing Blake’s attention to him. “What happened? You were
doing fine and you just…stopped.”

Blake shook his head, “Let
it go, okay?” he snapped. “It’s dead, I’m fine, there’s more demons
to kill, let’s move on.”

He didn’t wait for Marc to
reply and started to stride away. More demons had come through, and
the squad was struggling to hold its own. After only three steps,
however, Marc stopped him with a touch to his shoulder that didn’t
linger.

“
Where’s Simon? Did he
finish his spell?”

Blake cursed quietly. He had
forgotten about Simon. What was
wrong
with him? Why couldn’t
he just move on?

“
Still up there,” he said,
turning back on his heel and feeling like a fool. “He wasn’t done
when I came down. I told him I’d guard the entrance.”

“
Go check on
him.”

Blake couldn’t remember the
last time Marc had given him such a clear order. When he looked at
him in surprise, Marc amended his words at once.

“
Daniel wants us to leave
as soon as Simon’s done.”

Even with the invocation of
Daniel’s name, Blake had the impression that Marc was sending him
off the battlefield so he wouldn’t get himself killed—or worse,
captured again. It only pissed him off more.

“
You check on him,” he said
harshly. “I’ve got demons to kill.”

He returned to the fight,
and for a little while he was alone with Seneca, a demon, and his
anger. His fangs had extended in his mouth, and he could taste his
own blood on his tongue. His entire mind was focused on one thing:
killing as many demons as possible before the squad left. He
forbade himself from actually
seeing
the demons or searching
for the familiar spike patterns of his jailers. They were meat,
nothing more, and his job was to make them bleed, hurt, and
die.

Like he had bled and hurt.
Like the Kate-who-wasn’t-Kate had died.

With each blow he struck,
something crowed inside him, a satisfaction he hadn’t felt in a
long time. Kate joined him, then Marc. He glared at them every time
they tried to steal his kills, and after a while they merely
guarded his back.

Daniel called for them to
retreat far too soon. Blake could have kept fighting all night
long. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so
good.

It didn’t last.

Chapter 10

It was all Blake could do
not to scream outright. They were insane. All of them. Marc, Kate,
and Daniel, each one as crazy as the others. And they worried about
his
mind!

Jen had already been in the
back of the truck when Blake had climbed in. Still shaken by his
experience facing the demon that had once been his captor, he
hadn’t even noticed the gagged and bound woman. He finally heard
her name halfway back to town and was unable to do much more than
stare, incredulous, when Daniel asked Marc to be present when he
interrogated her.

Interrogated? She didn’t
need to be interrogated. She needed to be staked, once and for all.
What was wrong with them?

He tried to argue when they
reached the hotel and Jen was led to an old office. Somehow,
though, it seemed that his ‘convalescence,’ as Daniel put it, gave
Blake’s opinion less weight than ever, which was how he found
himself faced with a choice: leave his lovers in a room with the
traitor and worry about what she was up to now, or stop ranting and
accompany them.

He went with them, but his
assessment of their collective sanity—and his frustration—only grew
worse with each passing moment.

“
Why did the demons send
you this time?” Daniel asked first. “Another mission? It was pretty
dumb to send you when we were right outside the breach.”

Even sitting in a chair with
her hands shackled behind her back while the rest of them were
standing, Jen managed to look as though she were sneering down at
them. The way she took on airs, like she was better than everyone
else, had always put Blake off, and he’d never liked her much. His
dislike had only grown after she tried to take Marc from him, then
Kate.

“
I knew you were out
there,” she said, disdain dripping from every word. “That’s why I
came out. They didn’t send me. I ran away from them. I can help you
close—”

Blake had started to cringe
at the first word that came out of Jen’s mouth. By the time she
mentioned ‘helping’ he was all but growling.

“
Liar.”

He was in the back of the
room, leaning against the wall near the door, but this one word
filled the space as though he had shouted, making the room seem
much smaller than it actually was. Blake could feel eyes turning
toward him, but his own gaze remained on Jen. She looked back at
him coolly and said again, “I can help you close this
rip.”

If it hadn’t felt so much
like running away, Blake would have left the room rather than
listen to one more word she had to say. Why couldn’t they all see
that she was lying?

“
That’s what you said back
in the City,” he spat. “You’re a filthy liar and—”

“
Blake.” Marc met Blake’s
glare without flinching and continued in the same quiet, gentling
tone that never ceased to irk Blake. “We were there, too. We
remember.”

It wasn’t quite a ‘shut up,’
but it certainly sounded like one. Blake’s body tensed, and angry
words filled his throat, too many of them to even voice. He leaned
back against the wall again. Daniel was the first to look back
toward Jen. Marc looked toward Kate. She glanced at him, and
although neither said a word, some kind of communication seemed to
pass between them. Blake clenched his hands to try to keep away the
sudden wave of estrangement he was feeling.

“
What do you know about
this breach?” Daniel asked. “Why is it different from the ones
we’ve closed so far?”

Rather than remain at
Daniel’s side, Kate moved to the back of the room and leaned
against the wall next to Blake. She pressed her shoulder to his and
flashed him a small smile that only reminded Blake of his own
weakness. He focused on Jen again, and his anger bubbled over in
moments.

“
It’s a trap! Can’t you all
see it?”

Daniel gave Blake an
impatient look. “Why don’t you just let her finish?”

Blake threw his hands in the
air. Kate tried to pat his arm, but he couldn’t bear to stand still
any longer. He started pacing back and forth along the back of the
room. It seemed small. Much too small to breathe properly, and it
never seemed to make a difference that he didn’t need to breathe.
It really was the worst possible time for this, but the timing
never mattered either. He tried to get a grip on himself. He had to
make them see reason before his mind completely gave in.

“
It’s always a trap, with
her,” he muttered. “She was lying back when they first figured out
how to close breaches. She was lying when she took you guys to the
City. She sure as hell is lying now. Or are you all too blind to
see that?”

His gaze flicked over all
three of them, but it stopped on Marc. He, more than anyone else,
should understand. Marc had admitted, as much as it had rankled
him, that he had been wrong when he had followed Jen, years ago.
But instead of agreeing with Blake and helping to warn the others,
Marc observed Blake with a deepening frown.

Blake froze, suddenly
hyperaware that he was panting and that his fingernails, short as
they were, bitten to the quick, were digging into his palms hard
enough that he could smell his own blood.

Kate moved forward, but Marc
was faster in reaching Blake. He curled a hand around Blake’s arm.
As light as the touch was, it felt like steel manacles closing on
him. The vise that squeezed his heart, his entire body, tightened a
little more. Blake jerked back, freeing himself.

“
Calm down,” Marc said in a
low, urgent voice. “You’re safe. Everything’s fine.”