Falling from the Light (The Night Runner Series Book 3) (22 page)

Little by little, the gauzy apathy that had covered me, wrapped me tight since I recovered myself at Tenth World, lifted. Malcolm’s arms loosened. His hand left my mouth and covered the one I had dug into the drywall.

His tongue stroked over tender skin and another wave of pleasure surged up and rolled through me. I’d thought I was tired, confused. I hadn’t realized I had a malignant vampire squatting inside my mind like a fucking cancer. Energy, real human energy, filled my body as my thoughts cleared. My vision focused slowly and, as I took a long, shuddering breath, Malcolm’s mouth left me. His forehead rested on the back of my neck, bowing my head forward, and his body was hard and heavy against mine.

I fixated on a strange noise, the tinkle of metal. The sound of filaments cracking and falling into the extinguished lightbulbs. The filtered brightness around the window and the light from the bathroom cast a warm, intimate glow. My breathing smoothed out and, even in that dingy, closed room, it felt like the first fresh air I’d tasted in days.

Malcolm’s hand ran down my arm, then paused and tracked back up. It was bleeding. I looked down at my chest. Also bleeding where I’d been bitten, those nasty red pits in my flesh that had remained even though I’d been surrounded by vampire energy.

“These should heal better now,” Malcolm said, his voice soft over an electric arc of anger.

In the right hands, bones are so easy to break
. I winced, but it was just the echo of Abel’s voice. Memory rather than programming. He’d patched up the work he’d done on me each time I angered him by swimming up from the depths of his enthrallment, but…
We’ll leave these for them to find.
He’d covered the bites with his hands each time my bones reset or new gashes closed, ensuring I’d be wearing a visible excuse for any abnormal behavior. He hadn’t kept the pain from me the way Malcolm had.

“Motherfucker.” I felt my neck, wincing when my fingers brushed the sticky edges, the exposed nerves of the bite. These ones were worth it. Abel hadn’t only prevented me from healing. He’d kept me from thinking, from feeling. And he’d made me do things, in an insidious way that made the notions seem like mine, made them seem right.

“I didn’t call Petr,” I whispered. Other memories flooded back. Cold hours on the floor of the cell, hungry and thirsty. Staring at my own vapid reflection in the mirror as I scrubbed an ashen ring of blood away from my mouth. Abel talking, spewing a stream of words and will that replaced my own, piece by piece. Programming me. Making me an extension of him.

“I figured.”

“He’ll be coming for Kevin.” The words came fast as I tried to fill the space between us. “He’s the manufacturer, but Abel promised delivery around the world. Chile was a test run, to disrupt Bronson’s territory while he tried to find a new master. When they all rejected him, he decided to offer it to Bronson. He thinks Kevin can modify it, fix the worst of the side effects. He’ll be coming for the chemist.”

“He won’t leave the resort until Bronson has accepted his pledge.”

“So we have some time?” Even as hope reared up, I realized that wasn’t the end of his thought.

“It will be happening today.” His voice was soft and, underneath, so hard. “Sydney?”

I turned to face him, and my heart fluttered in a bad way as he backed away. A few inches. A foot. Five feet and he was halfway across the room. His face was smooth, not the human face that he wore for me but that of a beautiful vampire. It hid the bruises I’d made on his heart, but I could feel them.

“What are we going to do?” I asked. “He won’t be coming alone.”

“We made other arrangements. A security team has been dispatched.”

“How do they know we’re here?”

“A very nice lady on the second floor agreed to call Petr for me while you were out.”

Because he’d known I was compromised. No wonder he didn’t want to touch me. A wave of dizziness went through me and I staggered, grabbing on to the headboard of the bed.

He crossed the space in an instant, one hand wrapping around my waist, the other gentle against my neck. His palm covered the tender patch of skin where his mouth had been, igniting a fire between my body and his. God, the sensations he’d unleashed on me when he’d bitten me.

My knees gave out and, rather than keeping me up, he eased to the floor with me.

“I feel…” I gulped air, my eyes wide and unfocused. “I feel…” Everything, all the things I hadn’t been able to feel while Abel gripped me in the fist of his blood.

“Yes.”

He held me, anchoring me with the gold ribbons inside his eyes, with the sensation of his power, that unseen touch, gliding over and through me. He shifted, pulling me until I curled up against him. His hands stroked down my back, sweeping out everything Abel had placed inside me until only anger remained, clean and fierce. I took a soft breath.

“I can’t believe how fucked up I was. I was aware, but not.”

“He blooded you three times, Sydney.” The muscles in his arms bunched as he pulled me closer. So much for thinking he didn’t want to touch me. “I wasn’t sure this would work, that it wouldn’t overpower your mind completely.”

“I’d rather have been a vegetable than a possession.”

A heavy pause before he said, “I know.”

“And you did it anyway. Thank you.”

“I should have done it immediately,” he said. “Sora told me, but I thought you were getting better.”

“You didn’t want to hurt me.”

“I didn’t, did I? Not too badly?”

“I’ve never been so happy to bleed.”

“Christ.” His bland expression blinked out, replaced by intense hunger. A hunger that I recognized. I thought of all the times he’d wanted to bite me before, every time he’d been inside me but pierced his own flesh instead of mine.

“Your influence was…potent.” I licked my lips. “Is it…do you always feed sensations like that with your bite?”

“We have to stay calm when feeding directly, so we usually project calm. But that…that was a reflection of the way you affect me. It was the only thing I could think of that was strong enough to dull that pain.”

I rose up to straddle him, then sank down slowly. His mouth was on mine before our bodies were in full contact, but his kiss was slow, tender—at odds with the hard length of him pressing against me. But he didn’t push, and when I moved against him, he stopped me. Each touch was an exploration, as though we were together for the first time. He hadn’t been this tentative, this leisurely, the first time. I smiled against his lips.

“Are you…laughing?” Mal asked, pulling back.

“No.” But I couldn’t stop grinning, even as I settled more firmly against him. “I’m thinking of when we met. When you demanded that I kiss you.”

His eyes glinted. “It was a dare, playfully made. I honestly didn’t expect you to do it.”

“No? Then why say it?”

“Because I hoped you would.” He shook his head, smoothing his thumbs along my cheeks. “If I hadn’t, this never would have happened to you.”

“Don’t say that, like you regret us.”

“Never,” he said fiercely, “but I regret that I couldn’t stop this.”

“All the care in the world doesn’t stop the bad shit from happening,” I said. “And even if it hadn’t been then, we would have run into each other again and something would have happened. Didn’t you feel it, between us, from the first moment?”

He kissed me again, a hard demand that ended with my arms around his neck and the singular thought that the clothing between our bodies was too much separation. That thought was stronger than the uncertainty over my scars, the fear whispering that maybe this wasn’t real, either. I’d missed him. I wanted him, and he still wanted me.

“As much as I am loath to release you for any length of time,” he said against my lips, “I need you to find the nearest phone that’s still functional and make a new call.”

“Yeah.” I pulled back.

“Hey.” His thumb glided along my lower lip. “Nothing’s changed.”

This time I felt the truth of the statement, and another broken piece of me clicked back into place.

“
S
hould
I bring one set of clothing for him or should I bring everything?” Mickey asked, her voice broken up by clicks along the twisted phone cord. I cast another glance around the parking lot. Everything wavering under the midday sun appeared suspicious, and I hoped it was only because of that small matter of being bitten out of a thrall so deep I hadn’t known someone else was controlling me. The alternative was that the entire world, from the clerk watching porn on his phone inside the gas station, to the guy under the hood of his car across the parking lot, were out to get me.

“Syd?”

I turned back to the pay phone. “Just one. I don’t want it obvious you’re leaving. But bring something that Thurston’s not going to be mad wearing if we don’t get to shop for a couple of days.”

“Ooh, the blue.”

“Perfect.” I had no idea what “the blue” was, since Mickey had done most of the shopping for Thurston. “And you know what to tell Petr?”

Nobody had answered when I’d called and there was no voice mail attached to the number. Tenth World had put me through to the feeder floor where someone had a bead on Mickey. It would have to do since I didn’t know any local runners I’d trust to deliver the message.

“I’ll ask Laura to find him for me. I still… My brain gets a little funny around a lot of vampires.”

“I hear you.” We listened to each other’s silence for a moment.

Now that we knew Kevin had information that could actually damn Abel, Mal wanted Bronson’s soldiers in place to ensure we made it to Tenth World. Abel wouldn’t kill anyone on Chev’s land, but I had no doubt he’d sacrifice Kevin and every last member of his new crew to cover up what he’d done to Bronson.

Mickey and I were going to hole up with Thurston until Mal convinced Bronson to take care of Abel. My relief at not having to return to Tenth World, at getting Mickey away from so many suckers, was sharp. And while I trusted Soraya and Thurston for the most part, I wanted away from all the undead in the world except the one who’d just woken me back to life.

“We’ll get things back to normal, Mick. Better than normal, even. How’s that sound?” I tossed back an energy drink and cracked a bottle of water for the chaser.

“Eh.” Her voice drifted, the words coming slower. “It’s not so bad. At least I got a little adventure. It’s what I was looking for, after all.”

The pay phone cord creaked between my fingers. A lot of adventure, but not the good kind. “You don’t need them, Mickey. You don’t need the bite. Your body will figure that out.”

“Laura says a couple of weeks, maybe sooner if I’m totally separated from their energy. But it’s frustrating, falling like that, and wanting it so badly but not being able to control yourself…” She inhaled sharply. “
Lo siento mucho
. I did not mean to—”

“It’s okay, Mickey. I’m fine now.” I was, and she didn’t have to know exactly how far I’d fallen. “How about this? I’ll forgive you if you get here as fast as you can.”

“Deal. Take care of yourself until I get there. Say hi to Thurston.” Simple as that, she was back to her peppy self. But beneath that was a new shadow, one I’d been partly responsible for. I hung up. I wore a new shadow as well, but it was smaller. My abduction, that violation of my mind, had changed things, but the biggest change was a step beyond that.

I’d thought the worst thing that could happen to a person was death. But it wasn’t. It was loss. I’d been torn up and sprinkled in the wind like so much paper. I was reassembled now, whole, but I’d still hurt other people.

I loved Malcolm, in a way I’d never felt or imagined I could feel. My love was bigger than shame, stronger than fear, but only just. I could look him in the eye now because it gave me more than it cost me. And because he was still with me, despite everything.

I walked around the drugstore and down a side street that offered a little shade. That brought the temperature down from a hundred and twenty to a cozy hundred. I could feel my body again in total, the strength of certain muscles and the soreness in others. The pull of medical tape against my skin from where I’d bandaged myself in the drugstore bathroom. Better yet, my thoughts were my own. No second-guessing, no vile whisper to reorient me when I decided on something contrary to the directions Abel had planted in me.

I tapped on the door before easing it open. The room was dark, but I could feel Malcolm hovering away from the light. I slid the door closed and toed the blanket back across the threshold.

“We should talk to Kevin again,” I said. “See how much we can get from him before you take him back. He might clam up once he’s in front of Abel.”

“Better to know what he’s hiding before he hides it?” He leaned his hip on the dresser, hands in his pockets, a slight smile playing over his lips. “The retrieval team should be here soon, but we can bring him around. He’s tight-lipped when he’s not screaming obscenities.”

“That’s not his fault. Well, probably not. He might respond better to me.”

“Because you’re human?”

“Because I don’t scare him, and because of my blood. He’s curious by nature, but he has a serious scientific hard-on for the Puer Morsus.” I headed for the door connecting the rooms. Mal reached past me and flipped the lock, but instead of opening the door, he leaned against it.

“Where did you hear that term?” His voice was soft.

“At my noon tea with Bronson. It was cozy, and creepy. Creepy cozy. He said it was a kind of…” I searched for the right words. “That I was more different than I’d suspected.”

“That’s a very select kind of different. Did he offer proof?”

“Like, show me the letters
P
and
M
etched on my bones in an X-ray? No. He said he knew from way back that I wasn’t like the other kids. That he’d been waiting to see how I’d turn out.” I tapped the fingers splayed against the door, then jumped when his other hand closed on my hip. I leaned against him tentatively, thrilling when he didn’t move away. “Did you know? Did drinking from me do something to you?”

“Nothing I hadn’t anticipated.” His lips brushed my temple as his arms closed tight, pulling me against his chest. It felt good, but I still felt as though some small thing was missing between us. Something that hadn’t been necessary before. Hopefully that thing was nothing more than time.

“I feel like I should apologize for everything.”

“If you were to, I wouldn’t accept it. You did nothing you need to apologize for.” He tipped my head back, tilting his to gaze down at me. “And you’ll be fine.” He smiled a ghost of a smile. And then he turned me aside and walked through the door. We were moving forward, but not quite in sync.

The candles made the crummy, mildewed motel rooms smell like the overly sweet imposter of a good apple pie. Malcolm and Soraya stood over Kevin, who lay prone on one of two double beds. Thurston sat in a chair, reading the Bible that came with the room. I seriously needed to get that guy to a bookstore.

“Is he up?” I asked. Soraya glanced at Malcolm, who nodded and said, “He’ll be groggy for a few minutes.”

“Then angry,” Soraya added. “He is a very angry individual.”

“Unlike yourself.” I squeezed in between the vampires and beds and stared down at the pale human drooling on the polyester coverlet. “Kevin, wake up!”

He startled awake with a snort. “F-f-fuck you, fangers.”

So Sora was right about his anger. It quelled a bit when she and Thurston went into the other room. That also served to dampen the energy ricocheting off the thin walls, allowing me to breathe a little easier. Mal was dialed down, all but playing human as he slouched in a rickety chair in the corner diagonal from the front door. He could see the other vampires without them antagonizing the chemist and, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he looked harmless. Nothing to worry about. Of course, if Kevin tried to bolt, he’d find Mal blocking the door before he could get to it.

Kevin sat across from me on the other double bed, separated by about twenty-four inches and a gulf of mutual disdain.

“What would you like to happen here?” I asked.

“Ideally?” He smirked. “I’d like these three bastards to walk out into the sun and…” He raised both hands and spread his fingers. “Poof. All g-g-gone.”

“Well, I’ll ask them,” I said, as though considering it. “But I think we should assume that’s not going to happen. Let’s assume, instead, that—unless you start answering our questions—they will begin breaking your bones. One at a time. Smallest to largest.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” he said, wrapping his arms around his middle. “After what happened to you.”

I grinned. “Mal, what’s the smallest bone in the human body? A toe?”

“I believe it’s in the ear, actually.” He sounded mildly amused, though I still felt his wariness circling me. “Thurston can do that one. I only work tibia size and up. But we should save the femurs for Sora.” He smiled pleasantly and raised his hand, palm up, as he explained. “She prefers to inflict maximum damage.”

I gave Mal what I hoped was a conspiratorial smile. “She gets such a kick out of that.”

His return smile was forced, and I looked away immediately. So maybe I didn’t used to be so bloodthirsty. I’d had some recent lessons and we didn’t have a lot of time. I sat up straighter. I wasn’t scaring Kevin because I liked it, but I’d do worse than scare him if it meant getting rid of Abel.

Kevin’s sneer lost its conviction, and worry widened his eyes as he muttered a string of curses. Malcolm stood, smoothed his shirt, and started examining the vials we’d confiscated from Kevin, now lined up on the bureau.

“I thought you were better than this,” the human said, clenching his hands on his knees.

“I used to be.” I raised my chin. “Now, explain what you did with the Radia, please.”

“You’re not going to be able to understand.”

“Then we’ll write it down and get someone like yourself to translate. You know, another certified asshole.”

He blew a strand of hair out of his face and swore under his breath for about twenty seconds before stomping his foot three times. “Goya’s serum is an ideal d-d-delivery system for vampires because of how they worked the collagen.”

I glanced at Malcolm to see if he thought this sounded at all likely.

He nodded. “It’s essential for the regeneration of tissue.”

“It’s sixty percent more effective in eighty-three percent of suckers I tested on.” Kevin sat up a little straighter, either fortified by the sound of his self-professed genius or by a great love of percentages. “It was a small sample size, only twenty-five, so those numbers may vary in the general population.”

“How’d you get twenty-five vampires to volunteer?”

“Met them at the clubs. Most of the sucks in LA are wannabes, barely-theres that can’t hack it in a real hive. They’ll try anything they think’ll up their mojo.”

“But the serum subdues them. It doesn’t make them stronger.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “I’ve beta tested a bunch of different products. There’s always one that’ll say he feels something. Stronger abilities, shinier f-f-fangs, whatever. I get positive feedback even when—
shit, that’s hot
—I’m handing out baby oil and cough drops. But, when something works, it’s hard to know what it’s actually doing right away.”

“So what happened with Radia?” I asked. “How did you make it so potent?”

“It’s a freak reaction,” he said, his hands gripping his knees. “Probably a side effect of one of the filler products, riding that delivery system.”

Malcolm’s energy hardened and I knew exactly what he was thinking. Those bodies he’d seen in Chile, human feeders chewed unrecognizable by vampires who, by all accounts, had been fond of them. And the vampires we’d found later, after the hunger had surged up and overridden the effects of the drug. They weren’t only physically distorted; their energy had changed, grown chaotic and monstrous.

“A freak effect? That’s it?” I leaned forward, letting him see in my eyes that lying was no longer an option. “What did you think would happen when you mixed a specific sort of human blood with it?”

“I d-don’t know what you’re—”

“Do not lie,” Thurston ordered from the doorway, his voice rumbling with quiet rage. “I will take your eyes if you do not explain and explain fast.”

“Thurston.” I raised my hand and an eyebrow. My voice was absolute. “When I need your help, I will ask for it. Until then, stay where I put you.”

I heard Kevin’s little gasp as Thurston lowered his head. Malcolm rose, his expression completely blank, and escorted Thurston into the other room. Thurston had lost his maker and his hive, far more than anyone else, to the ambitious chemist’s concoction.

“So,” I said. “Eyes.
That
sounds terrible. Tell me how you found out about the Morsus.”

“You tell them what to do,” Kevin whispered, “and they obey. You’re human. How can you let them do this to me?”

“
You’re
human. How could you work for the vampires who did what they did to me?”

He swallowed and swiped at his hair again. He was a smart kid, bored and entrepreneurial. He’d simply chosen the absolute worst way to go about making money. His head swept back and forth, no doubt running calculations and odds. I might have stunned Thurston this once, but deep down he had to know that I wasn’t the one running the show here. Vampires didn’t usually enthrall human specialists, people who understood complex things. It muted their cognitive skills, if they remained intact at all. But we already knew Kevin’s King Midas secret so he didn’t have much leverage.

“I hear stories sometimes,” he said with a sigh. “Vampire legends get passed down and spread by the suckers that come through LA. From their makers or whatever. Most of them are about crazy-ass warriors that the storyteller just happens to be directly descended from. But sometimes they have a ring of truth.

“The one biddy came through, from, like, Outer Mongolia. She was old. You could see right through her skin like it was wet paper. You could see the blood moving beneath. One of her acolytes gave her something of mine, talking it up. Serenity, I think. It gives them a minute or two of euphoria, with the added benefit of being mildly paralytic so they don’t have to worry about their hunger…for ninety seconds. She came looking for me. Told me I was full of shit, then got into my h-head, started r-rearranging shit.” A flush rose, mottling his neck and cheeks. I almost felt sorry for him. He rubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses, then straightened the frames.