Cloak of Deceit: An Alex Moore Novel (34 page)

I turned back to glance at Carl’s broken body, propped in the back seat. He needed medical attention. How long would I make them wait? Each extra second could cost us. Was Julian’s life worth risking everyone else’s?

Despite how irrational it sounded, the answer that came was
yes
. To me, it was. This was all for Julian. It didn’t matter without him.

The decision was made for me though, when Julian stumbled into the clearing. He sagged under the burden of Andreas’s body, and he was covered in blood. I ran to him. He waved me back, but I ignored him.

Light flashed in the trees, followed by the whiz and ping of bullets hitting mud. They slung a trail of tiny explosions at Julian’s heels, climbing closer. He fell.

No. I can’t lose him now. I
will not
lose him like this.

It felt like the ground lurched out from under me. My legs ate up the distance to his side, my muscles burning. But my body felt separate from myself. I lifted away from it and dangled in the air above, cradled by…shadows. Whispers fell around me like rain, pooling together and caressing me in rivulets. I felt porous, and I soaked in the power of the collective. I fell back into my body, still running, though the world around me seemed frozen still.

Julian lay on the ground under Andreas, face-down in the dirt.

Several Undead armed with automatic weapons closed in on them from the edge of the clearing.

I tossed them into the forest with a wave of my wrist — ten of them, all at once. I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t even myself. I was just a vessel of power with one goal: get to Julian. I knelt beside him and threw out my arms. Power tinged my vision with hot white sparks.

The ground shook, and the earth underfoot rippled outward, a widening wall of mud and stone. The trees creaked and swayed, then started to topple and crash down like dominoes, drowning out the gunfire. Still, an army of guards came in waves, the entire compound focused on a single target.

I pulled on the collective with everything I had, dove into the darkness, swallowed it, milked it. I tied every desperate feeling I had into the mix: rage, fear…and love. It all fed my hunger for obliteration of anything that wanted to harm Julian.

The trees burst into flames. The last few Undead screamed into the night as I shoved them through a shield of fire conjured from pure fury.

I rolled Andreas off of Julian, then flipped my Knight over.

Katya appeared beside me and helped me lift Julian’s shoulders.

He groaned.

“Thank you,” I said, hefting Andreas over my shoulders. I wasn’t sure if I was thanking Katya for helping, Julian for living, or the collective for saving us all, but it was the only thing I could think of to say.

We climbed into the van and fled the burning clearing just as the clouds opened up to add their own deluge to the destruction I’d reaped. By the time we hit the public roads, I was shaking. The Eastern horizon was bleeding to pink as we covered the miles in silence. My head lolled from exhaustion.

“Alex,” Julian rasped from my lap.

I’d done my best to staunch his wounds, but was sitting in a puddle of his blood, none the less. He wasn’t healing at an Undead speed, and that worried me. I lifted a sticky hand and stroked the scar on his cheek. “Yeah, Jules?”

“I’m glad you didn’t listen to me that time.”

I nodded and bent to kiss his brow.

That makes two of us.

Chapter Twenty Two

T
he Grigoric Agents dropped us off at an out of the way motel that took cash and didn’t ask questions. A good thing, since they unloaded three seemingly dead bodies into the room and took off with another in critical condition.

Carl was by my side when I stirred the next night. He was bandaged and banged up, in a splint and a cast, but shining with his signature “all’s well” smile. He filled me in on what I’d missed. Katya had called to let me know Esmond made it out alive, per my request. I didn’t remember asking her to, but I was glad for the news. The days ahead would be rough enough without the grief of another death weighing us down.

Carl, Dawn, and Ian took nursing shifts for almost a week and kept a constant supply of blood moving into our impromptu hideout. I hadn’t sustained the injuries Jules and Andreas had, but I’d over-exerted and I was newly turned and therefore weaker. My metaphysical drain and the compounded stress had cost me too.

It took Julian two days longer than me to recover, with constant infusions. I found out he’d technically lied to me — Undead could die if they lost too much blood, if they weren’t able to heal fast enough and couldn’t drink more. He came very near it. I stayed by his side the whole time, in case he woke up wondering where he was. When he did open his eyes, he only smiled softly and kissed my hand, then drifted back to sleep. I’d never seen him look so peaceful.

I let myself finally cry that night, rocking in Carl’s arms.

We were going to be okay.

The dam of strength I’d built those first few days came crashing down with the knowledge. It seemed like the best time to finally fall apart.

We kept Andreas sedated the first week to spare him the pain of his body regenerating, and because we didn’t know what sort of mental shape he’d be in when he finally came to. He’d been starved of blood for an extended period of time, and he could still be too far gone. We didn’t want a full-strength crazed Undead on our hands, at least, not until Jules was strong enough to handle him.

Julian kept the same vigil by his Sponsor’s bedside that I had. Though relieved and grateful, he remained distant. He didn’t seem open to affection, and merely tolerated my lame attempts to comfort him. So I gave him space. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to face the question he did — whether he would have to put down his oldest friend, whether there was anything left of the man he’d once known like a brother.

At one point, I stumbled in on them to find Jules holding Andreas’s hand and speaking in the same dulcet tone he’d used on me, but in a language I didn’t recognize. His eyes were filled with tears. It seemed like he was praying. I never told him I’d witnessed that moment. It was private, not meant for me to see, but it made my chest swell to overflowing with love for him — my Undead Knight. He deserved something good for a change. We all did.

By the second week, we’d upgraded to two connected suites in an extended stay hotel. Despite my urging, Carl refused to stay with Dawn and Ian. They’d already begun work to relocate Monique’s halfway house and research facility. Even after her betrayal and tragic end, they gave her a memorial service. Julian and I didn’t attend, but it sounded lovely — white doves and wreathes of French lavender. She had touched many lives.

Her star pupils decided her work had been noble and should continue. They needed Carl’s help more than we did, but he stuck around. Despite being slightly exasperated by his terminal optimism and urging him to go, I was secretly thankful to have him there. With Julian so aloof, I had no one else to talk to, or worry with. Carl was good at distracting me, and I needed that.

My life, or the one I had lived before, was an official wreck. My mother had filed a missing-persons report in both Oregon and California, I failed my second-to-last quarter of pre-med, and without me, my soccer-team didn’t make the playoffs. Those were the least of my problems. The Cabal remained a threat, though they didn’t have to come for me now that I’d given the Cloak a legitimate reason to put me at the top of their most wanted list.

I was officially Rogue, all on my own merits. We were now three generations of criminals, Andreas, Julian, and me.

The night Andreas woke was the same that Esmond showed up on my doorstep.

Carl was gone on another blood-run. I left Julian with his semi-coherent Sponsor as I hosted the Mirage Agent.

“You look well,” he commented, sipping watered-down instant coffee.

“Things are looking up tonight.” Julian’s vigil was hopefully at an end. We could pick up where we’d left off and move on. I was ready to crawl out from under the shadow of the aftermath. I wanted to see Julian smile at me again. I wanted him to hold me tight, and kiss me, and tell me that we were going to be okay. And mean it.

“You’re not surprised to see me?” Esmond set his coffee down and made no move to pick it back up.

“Julian explained to me how you’re sort of like a cockroach. You pop-up and disappear at will and you refuse to die.”

“Charming to the last, Julian.”

“Katya called me when you showed up,” I confessed, hiding a smile.

“Really?” Esmond looked genuinely surprised — slightly less composed than his “pretend-surprised” face.

I shrugged. “I guess I made her promise to, just before I passed out.”

Esmond leaned back in his armchair and crossed his leg, flashing me with argyle before he adjusted his creased slacks. “I’m touched.”

“But you’re here to collect your due?”

“We made a deal.”

“Yes. And you delivered on your end.”

He nodded in agreement.

“But I’m not ready. I can’t leave him right now.”

Esmond sighed. “You can’t stay with him either, Alexandra.”

I furrowed my brows. No one called me Alexandra but my mother. “Alex,” I corrected. “And he’s my Sponsor, where else would I go?”

“Home.”

I shook my head. “This is home.”

“What of this new addition to the family? How is the happy couple holding up?”

I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest, shaking my head. Why did he have to be so damn penetrating? He wasn’t touching my thoughts — I would feel it. Carl had been working with me on my shielding. Was it that obvious I was worried about how Andreas would affect things with Jules? “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

“They can’t answer your questions about who and what you are.”

“And you can?” I shot back. This was not the right time for this conversation. Andreas had just woken up.

Esmond steepled his fingers over his curvy lips and rocked his foot back and forth. “The Grigori can.”

I glared at him. “Okay, fine. Do they know who my father was?”

“Is.”

My throat went dry. Voices filtered into the sitting room from Andreas’s suite, and I finally remembered to blink. I wasn’t ready. That was the only thought that swam to the surface of my shock. I wasn’t ready to leave Julian, even for a short time. I wasn’t ready to face the enigma of my origin — not when my future was still so uncertain. “I need time.”

“We thought you’d say that.” Esmond stood. “In that case, I’m to stay in Seattle and monitor you.”

I scowled. “What does that mean?”

“Whether you care to admit it,
Alexandra
, you are a danger to those around you as long as your abilities go un-checked and un-trained. The Grigori, and now
myself
, are responsible for you. Someone must be.” He forced a smile.

I scowled deeper.

Esmond pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “This is my temporary residence and my cell number. We should begin lessons immediately.”

I took the card with a sigh. Esmond showed himself to the door.

Esmond?

He paused, but didn’t turn around.

I never thanked you.

“You can thank me by not making my job such a chore, Alex.
We
don’t bite.” He winked at me over his shoulder and vanished like smoke. If my face hadn’t been stunned frozen, I would have smiled.

I went to bed alone that morning, despite my hopes that Julian would finally come to me. I woke to shouting the next night. I shot out of bed with the gun I kept under my pillow already in my hand, and slid down the hall in my T-shirt and underwear.

Carl bumped into me, tip-toeing back around the corner. He went pale, then tried to hug me to his chest and usher me back towards my room.

“What’s going on?” I craned my neck to look past him.

He shook his head mutely and pushed me back.

I held my ground. “What’s the matter?”

Something slammed against the wall. I dodged quicker than Carl could react, though he followed on my heels. The handle to Andreas’s room was locked. I jiggled it, and when it didn’t open, I stood there listening.

“Get out of my way!” an unfamiliar voice bellowed. It had to be Andreas, and he had a set of pipes on him.

“You’ll have to come through me.” Julian. Loud, but calmer.

So, they were just having a disagreement. Andreas hadn’t gone whack again. The tension in my shoulders eased. I lowered the gun, giving Carl a confused look.

“Don’t think I won’t,” Andreas said. “We both know you can’t keep me here.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

A bark of laughter. “This from someone screwing a Grigori Agent!”

I stiffened at that.

“You don’t know her,” came Julian’s strained answer.

“I don’t want to know her! You’ve gone fucking nuts! She’s one of
them
!” Another laugh, high-pitched, almost maniacal.

“She’s also one of us.”

Andreas scoffed. “I don’t care. You can’t trust them — you know that. Have I taught you nothing? You kill them, you don’t suck them or fuck them.”