Blurred Memories (3 page)

Simon snorted into his
glass. He still hadn’t drunk more than an inch of the beer. At this
pace, he would still be there when the pub closed. Raising her
hand, Kate caught the waitress’ attention and pointed at the empty
cup of insta-coffee on the table. It had been Blake’s, ordered in
lieu of a second beer. He didn’t deal well with alcohol anymore, as
they had discovered on their first visit to the pub. Kate’s heart
ached at the memory, as though a steel fist had tightened over it.
It had been one of their worst nights to date. She never wanted to
see that look of fear in Blake’s eyes again or watch him flinch
away from her and Marc, his body shaking as he squeezed his eyes
shut.

At least he hadn’t tried to
hurt Marc that time. But afterward, he had pointedly refused to
tell them what he had remembered or what had set him off. Getting
him to talk about what had happened to him was all but impossible.
If only he could understand that neither Marc nor Kate thought any
less of him for stumbling sometimes…

With a blink, Kate pushed
away the memory and focused on Simon again.

“
They have two dozen mages
trained to close breaches,” he was saying. “And they’re training
more every day. They don’t need
me
to do it.”

The argument was familiar,
even more so because Kate had used almost the same excuse five
months earlier when she had told Daniel she wouldn’t return to the
squad with him, at least not right away. She was but one soldier,
she had said. Thousands, millions of people were fighting demons
throughout the world; what difference did one less make?

The claim had been hard to
voice, because it ran contrary to everything Kate believed. She had
joined the squad precisely because she believed one person could
make a difference in the fight.

And she knew that, deep
down, Simon believed the very same thing. As much as he enjoyed
playing with magic and figuring out new spells, when he had
enrolled in the squad, all he had wanted was to join the battle
against demons. Kate had recognized an echo of her own motives in
him, and she had taken him under her wing. Unfortunately, Simon’s
enthusiasm hadn’t lasted past his first face-to-face contact with
one of their adversaries. All the power he wielded amounted to
nothing when he allowed his fear to get the better of him. It had
taken all of Kate’s persuasive skills to convince him not to quit
that first night, and a lot of work after that before he had been
able to do magic when demons were nearby. She hoped she still knew
him well enough to convince him now.

“
You’re going to get
bored,” she said again after accepting her cup of insta-coffee from
the waitress. “All the magic they need here is for non-vital stuff,
and you know it. You’ll miss being useful.
Really
useful.”

Simon shrugged and looked
away. “I won’t miss demons, that’s for sure.”

The pub served its coffee
hot, right on the edge of being too hot, and faint volutes rose
from the cup. Kate blew gently across the surface, then breathed in
the aroma before bringing the cup to her lips. Strong and
unsweetened, the coffee awakened every inch of her tongue and
palate.

Savoring each slow sip, Kate
considered her options. She didn’t like to play dirty, but when she
had contacted Daniel to tell him they were coming back, he had made
it clear that the squad needed Simon’s skills. For Daniel to insist
that much, surely something had to be going on. She didn’t see a
better solution now than to play on Simon’s weaknesses.

“
I’m worried about Blake,”
she said quietly, speaking right against the rim of her cup. As
warm as the cup was, the words still came out glittering with
frost. “He’s not getting any better.”

Simon sat up as soon as she
pronounced Blake’s name, as though electric current had suddenly
passed through him. Now, he leaned forward toward Kate and barely
avoided spilling his beer between them.

“
What do you mean, he’s not
any better?” he asked, his voice shrill with worry. “He looks
better to me. He’s been smiling and…”

His voice trailed off at
Kate’s dismissive gesture.

“
Smiling doesn’t mean
anything,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “It’s just a
mask, so we won’t worry. But he still—”

She stopped herself and
pinched her lips tightly together before she could reveal that
Blake still suffered from nightmares, amongst other things. It was
one thing to lure Simon into accompanying them, but a very
different one to betray Blake’s trust. She wouldn’t cross that
line, although she could get close to it.

“
He still scratches at his
tattoo, sometimes,” she confided. “Like he used to before you did
that spell on him.”

“
He does? Why are you
going, then?” Simon murmured, his eyebrows knitted in
incomprehension.

This, at least, Kate felt
comfortable sharing. “Blake wants to go. He wants to
fight.”

“
But he could relapse,”
Simon protested. “If the tattoo is still bothering him, it could…”
His brow furrowed more deeply, and he picked up his glass again to
take a small mouthful. Once again, the taste caused him to grimace,
but he barely even seemed to notice as he spoke quietly to himself
like he sometimes did when he prepared magic. “The spell wasn’t
strong enough. I should have known. If I had had hawthorn powder
maybe… I wonder if I could…”

His head suddenly jerked up.
His eyes focused on Kate again, and he glared. “You’re doing this
on purpose!”

Kate gave him the most
innocent look she could muster. “Doing what? I’m just sharing my
concerns with a friend. I thought you cared.”

Simon pointed a shaky finger
at her and all but hissed, “You
know
I care about him. You
knew I’d want to help if you told me about this. How am I supposed
to do that if I’m here and he’s God knows where?”

Leaning back in her chair,
Kate took another sip of coffee and didn’t reply. Simon continued
to glower for a moment before he shook his head and muttered, “I’m
an idiot. He played the same trick on me in the City, and I’m going
to fall for it again, aren’t I?”

Kate gave him a confused
look. Simon picked up his drink, and this time, grimacing or not,
he emptied half of what was left of his beer. The glass clanked on
the wooden table when he set it down again. He wiped his mouth with
the back of his hand before he explained, “Remember when Jen took
us to the City? And Blake came to save us because it was a
trap?”

Kate nodded, her throat too
tight to speak. She remembered, yes. She remembered how she’d
thought she would die right up until she had heard Blake shout and
rush into the fight. She remembered the sheer glee that had exuded
from him when he fought those demons. She missed that Blake: missed
seeing him smile, truly smile, without a hint of
reserve.

“
That’s how he convinced me
to go with him and close the breach,” Simon continued ruefully. “He
said… He asked me to do it for him. He said other stuff, too, and I
knew he wouldn’t like me any better if I closed the breach, but I
did it for him anyway.” He sighed softly. “And now I’m going to let
you talk me into going back for him. Even when I know he’ll never
like me.” His mouth twisted into a pout. “It’s not
fair.”

Kate could almost have
smiled at how disgruntled he sounded. Almost, but not
quite.

“
Who ever said life was
fair?” she asked with a small shrug, her gaze returning to her
coffee. The dark brew offered her no answers.

Simon snorted, and when she
glanced up at him, his eyes were filled with unmistakable jealousy.
“Coming from you, it’s kinda hard to swallow.”

She returned the look flatly
until Simon turned away. She knew what he thought: that she was
lucky because she had the love of two men, both of them gorgeous,
strong, and courageous. He was right, of course; she felt lucky to
know them, to be with them, to share something with them that she
had never expected to find before they had met—something she hadn’t
even been looking for in one man, let alone two. The fact remained
that Blake was hurt. Broken, a little voice claimed from the depths
of her mind, but she didn’t like to use that word, even inside her
own head.

When Blake finally healed
completely and trivialities no longer precipitated him back to his
hellish memories, when he, Marc, and Kate could truly be together
the way Blake had once schemed for, then everything would be right
with the world again. Or as right as possible with demons attacking
relentlessly. Until then, Simon could believe what he wanted, but
Kate’s situation wasn’t perfect. At least, Simon didn’t have to
worry that one of his lovers would lose his mind and try to kill
the other—either that, or curl into a ball and whimper until Kate
wanted to claw her own heart out.

She finished her coffee in
two more gulps then stood and left a few bills on the table. Simon
looked up at her, lips parted on what would probably be an apology.
She didn’t need it, and she shook her head.

“
I’m tired, and we have a
long trip tomorrow night. We’ll pick you up in front of your place
a little after nightfall, all right?”

He sighed deeply before
offering a grudging, “Okay. Good night.”

She gave him a half smile
and started for the door.

“
Kate?”

She looked back at Simon.
For the first time that night, the only thing she could read from
his features and voice was a quiet certainty, the same certainty he
always showed when he overcame his fears enough to do great
magic.

“
He’ll get better. It might
take time, but he will.”

A pang of sadness rang
through Kate. After giving Simon another, more difficult smile, she
finally left the pub.

The house she shared with
Marc and Blake was only a few streets away, but Kate found herself
dragging her feet. At the last intersection, she turned left rather
than right and continued on without looking back.

Summer had retreated quickly
this year, and while it was still early in the fall, the nights
were already cool. Or maybe this was normal for Riverton. The town
didn’t stand very high up the mountain, but it was still higher
than what Kate was used to, having lived and fought on the plains
for all her life.

She walked for a few more
minutes, head down and her hands in her pockets. She regretted not
having strapped her knives to her arm and thigh. She didn’t expect
she’d need them in Riverton, but she felt naked without them. In
the deserted streets, the sound of her boot heels hitting the
sidewalk almost had an ominous echo, like a drum beating out the
cadence of soldiers walking to the fight. The squad didn’t use
drums, no army she knew did, but she had seen old movies in which a
drummer accompanied soldiers to the battle. She wondered whether
drums helped the soldiers keep their heartbeat from galloping
wildly. But then, that only worked for humans; vampires needed no
such trick to keep calm.

Kate almost missed a step
when her thoughts brought her back to the very same topic she was
avoiding.

She hadn’t lied when she had
told Simon that Blake wanted to go back to the fight. What she
hadn’t told him, however, or Marc, was that Blake had first raised
the idea a few hours after observing Kate practice sword forms in
the small yard behind the house.

“
Would you like to go back
to the squad?” he had asked her when she came back in.

“
When you’re ready,” she
had answered, and realized as soon as the words passed her lips
that they were a mistake. Blake would do anything to make her
happy.

Or almost
anything.

She felt guilty whenever she
wondered whether he was truly ready to fight again or if he was
only trying to give Kate at least one thing that she wanted. Was it
his way of making it up to her? Offering her the fight that was her
life since he wouldn’t—couldn’t—offer her the caresses she
craved?

She knew what Marc and Blake
had to be doing by now. Their talk couldn’t have lasted all that
long, and she had no doubt that they were in bed. Blake would fuck
Marc, and she had watched him do it often enough by now that she
knew how glorious they looked together. She also knew what would
happen if she went home now and joined them: Marc would guide
Blake’s hands on her, and after a while Marc would make love to her
while Blake watched them with wide, burning eyes. She also knew
what would
not
happen, however much she wished it would:
Blake would not reach toward her on his own, he would only kiss
back, and he would not enter her, not with his fingers, cock, or
fangs.

Most of the time, Kate was
glad she had even that much when she had once thought she’d lost
Blake—and Marc—for good. Blake would get better in time, and she
would wait however long it took to truly be with him. It wasn’t as
if she was neglected.

But sometimes, like tonight,
the ache in her heart was simply too much. Talking to Simon,
putting into words what she and Marc only talked about with worried
looks and furrowed eyebrows somehow made everything more precise in
her mind: how much she missed what she had once shared with Blake,
how afraid she was that he would never truly be the same
again.