Intangible (10 page)

“Stay away from me, Jonas,” Meghan said. She’d caught her breath, and stood up, glaring at him, her usual fierce self. The first time Jonas had ever seen Meghan she’d been furious, and freshly turned. By whom, he didn’t know. It had taken years of his more calming influence to tone her down to a simmering rage. But her hair-trigger temper had remained. He was glad to see it was still intact.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you still hurt?”

“No,” she said. “Leave me alone. I don’t belong to you.”

“But you do.” He opened his arms wide, gesturing around. “This is my home. I take care of my own.”

“I don’t want your care.”

Jonas took a step toward her, and she immediately stepped back.

“Meghan.”

“Jonas,” she said. “Go away.”

He threw his hands into the air, and fought the urge to grab her and snap something. But, he reminded himself, that was neither necessary nor productive. Calm. Try to be calm. He inhaled deep through his nose.

And froze.

“No,” he said, and then sniffed again.

“It’s not—”

“Are you
human
?”

“Jonas—”

“You’re
human
?” he said. “You reek of human stench. What did she do to you?”

“Nothing I didn’t want her to.” Meghan lifted her chin.

Without saying a word, he turned back toward downtown. He’d find that healer. And she would pay for what she’d done. Perhaps Lilith needed a new plaything to torture.

“No!” Meghan sprinted around him, grabbed his arm.

He wrenched away, but still she stood in his path. They glared at each other for a long moment.

“Get out of my way.”

“I did this, Jonas,” she said. “
I
did it. I chose it.”

“Get out of my way.” Each word threatened. “I could break you.”

“I know. But you won’t.”

“Won’t I?” He smiled without warmth, leaned in close to her face. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because I know you.”

“Not well enough.”

She stood her ground. “Better than you think,” she said. “You won’t harm an innocent.”

“You’re hardly an innocent, Meghan.”

“I am now,” she said.

Jonas stepped back, and looked away. She was right. After sixty-three years she knew him and knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Of all people.

“Why?” he said. “Why would you do this?”

Meghan just looked at him. “What would you give?” she asked. “What would you give to be human again?”

“Nothing.”

“What if you could breathe, eat, live again? Wouldn’t you take that chance if you could? Have a real family? Have children? Have a future?”

“You want the pain and suffering of a human life?” he said. “Again? Wasn’t it bad enough the first time around?”

“I didn’t want to be a monster anymore.”

“Humans can be monsters, too.”

“I want a future,” she said. “You have no future. It’s just the same decade after decade, century after century. You don’t get to grow old and die like a normal person. You’re just waiting for someone to kill you.” She paused, looked up at him. “I don’t want to live like that anymore, Jonas.”

“I have all of eternity as a future. You have sixty or seventy years, if you’re lucky.”

“I’m tired of fighting to stay alive-but-dead. I’m tired of watching from the outside as people
live
. I want a life, Jonas. She gave me a life.”

“No wonder Feyth was there.”

“I don’t think she even realized what she did,” Meghan said.

“I’ll kill
her
after I kill the healer.”

“She doesn’t know, Jonas. She’s an innocent.”

“She can’t do this.” He paused then, her words sinking in, and looked at her. “But
you
knew.”

“I guessed.”

“You knew,” he said. “Don’t lie to me, Meghan. You knew. I saw the trail of blood you left. The trail that started around a corner and led straight to her.
You knew.
”

Meghan pressed her lips together hard, glared at him.

“I knew that if anyone had that power it would be that girl,” she finally said.

“How?”

“I’ve been following her for months, watching her heal humans. And then there’s her brother. It all added up.”

“To what?”

“The Prophecy.”

And suddenly he knew. He could feel the knowledge burst upon him all at once.

“The Children of the Prophecy,” Meghan said when Jonas didn’t respond. “I came across it in the records a few months ago. I’d already seen her heal and I figured if it was really true—if it was really them—then she’d be able to change me.” She held her hands out at her sides and looked down at her body. When she looked back at Jonas, her sly smile held no remorse.

“But they’re dead,” he said. “They died in a fire years ago with their whole family.” He sat down on the nearest headstone. “This can’t be.”

“But it is. I’m human again.”

Feyth. He should have known. He should have figured this out as soon as he saw her the other night outside the hospital. He knew about the Prophecy—they all did. And Feyth’s family was deeply tied to it. She had done something to hide the prophesied twins. He was sure of it. Elves, he thought with disgust distorting his features. When he got his hands on her—he willed himself to stay calm.

This was a problem he did not want. But the two were here now. In his territory.

He looked up at Meghan again. She looked softer, even fragile, which was not how Jonas was used to seeing her. Her humanness really changed who she was, how she looked.

Still. He felt a blaze building in his body for the mess she’d just released. Pandora’s box. Sixty-three years didn’t count for much in the face of that.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “How were you hurt?”

“I wasn’t,” she said. She pulled an empty plastic bag out of an inside pocket of her coat. The sides of it were stuck to each other with splotches of blood. A cunning smile spread across her face.

His jaw clenched, and he took a deep breath again to calm himself. If it was anyone but Meghan, he would be ripping them apart right now.

“You tell no one,” he said, “and you leave town. Tonight.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but stopped, stared at him, giving no indication of whether she agreed. He stood up and turned to walk back toward the downtown area.

“Or I will turn you again,” he said over his shoulder, “and kill your healer.”

TEN

L
akeview Cemetery. Marc squinted at the directions he’d printed out as stone pillars rose up on the left to mark the entrance. He braked hard to make the turn, his eyes automatically jumping to the rearview mirror.

The road behind him was empty.

He pulled into the cemetery, driving slowly, and followed the winding path that twisted and turned back on itself so much he could’ve easily ended up driving in circles if he weren’t paying attention. Pale headstones glowed as his headlights washed over them in the dark. He liked big graveyards like this. The calm silence of them seeped away his tensions.

Unless, of course, he was meeting dark, dastardly creatures there to do their evil bidding. He laughed in spite of the situation. It would actually be funny if it weren’t true. But it was time to report in. And though he hated the Shadows, he was perilously close to being out of their medicine.

He’d stumbled into his room that afternoon, scrambling for the bottle tucked in his bag. A disgusting swallow from last night’s flat soda and he had laid down to give it time to take effect. Within minutes his breathing had slowed, his shoulders had relaxed, and he could open his eyes without laser-sharp pain slicing through his head. The quiet hum of indistinct thoughts swirled, and he regained control over his own mind. Sweet relief.

That’s when he’d seen the note.

A piece of black paper with a message written in bright red. Time and place. How they knew where he was all the time, was beyond him. And, quite frankly, it scared the bejeezes out of him if he thought about it too much.

So he didn’t.

He slowly made his way to the far back of the cemetery where a small copse of short pines stood just inside the cemetery grounds not far from the bike path that wound along the waterfront. He found the trees and stopped his car about twenty feet away—they always wanted him to park some distance away. He would have liked to leave the lights on so he might get a better look at the Shadows, but that wasn’t allowed. He turned off the car, and got out.

Marc paused, listening. The only thing he heard was the gentle sound of the lake water lapping at the shore. Nothing else. Which wasn’t a surprise, the Shadows never made a sound. The gentle scent of pine wafted in the cold night air.

His meetings with the Shadows were almost always outdoors in a secluded area. Graveyards, parks, forests, fields. It was never very far that he had to travel, he was glad for that. But it was always on the darkest nights, when there was no moonlight. And he never failed to forget a flashlight.

Tonight was no exception.

Man, was it dark. He walked toward the trees, peered into the pitch black for any sign of them. The slight hum of thoughts drifting in from homes surrounding the cemetery suddenly went quiet in his mind, which caught him off guard. It always did. He was so used to the hum that the total silence and the sense of being the only one in his mind felt surreal. But it was useful. It told him they were near.

In the deepest, darkest center of the trees, he sensed movement. It was pure black in there, as if light didn’t exist. Though he’d never gotten a really good look at them, they seemed to have a malleable form—able to take up space or melt away.

It was hard to tell for sure because he’d only ever met with them on the darkest of nights. He looked up into the night sky—no moon, but lots of stars. One of these times he was going to have to remember his flashlight.

His arms tingled, his chest tightened, as fear radiated from his core. The sound of his own breathing was drowned out by
bathump-bathump-bathump-bathump
pounding in his ears as blood ricocheted through his body. He took a deep breath to steady himself and licked his dry lips.

As ready as he was going to be.

“Hello?” he said louder than he needed to. Really just to annoy them, though he knew it wasn’t the brightest move. But it pissed him off that they scared the crap out of him.

“Marcus,” a raspy voice said from the center of the trees, “come closer.” Their speech—always slow, soft, each word precisely planned and executed—sent a shiver of revulsion through him. Glowing orange eyes peered out at him from the dark depths.

His mind screamed
Run!
but Marc ignored his instincts and inched closer to the trees. He didn’t want to be close enough to be touched—self preservation told him to stay out of reach. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

“What news?”

“Not much,” Marc said. “I just got into town yesterday.” But you knew that, he thought.

“You have nothing to report?”

Marc was silent. He looked up into their menacing eyes. Three sets of them. It was the only feature he could make out. They were taller than he was, unless they had climbed a tree just to give the impression of greater height. To intimidate. He wouldn’t put it past them, and he wasn’t about to let on that it worked.

“I may have found them.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I know.” He took a breath, balled his hands into fists. Stupid useless fists. It’s not like he could actually hit one of them. He couldn’t afford to alienate them, he needed them. He exhaled forcefully, looked up at the sky again. Keep it together. “I know I have. But this is different. I don’t have anything concrete. Just a feeling.”

“You were wrong before.”

“This feels different. I can’t really explain.” Marc didn’t want to give them too much information. Not that he had a lot to tell right now, but still. “What do you want them for anyhow?”

Silence.

“Perhaps you do not need the medicine anymore, Marcus?” They rustled the trees, as if leaving.

“No!” Marc lunged forward, words pouring out of his mouth. “I do. I’m almost out. But I’m positive it’s them. More sure than I’ve ever been. I followed a good tip to come here and everything points to it being them. I’d bet my li—” Too late, he realized the ruse to get more information out of him. He silently cursed himself for falling for it—they didn’t make any sound when they moved, he
knew
that.

“What are their names?”

“I don’t know yet. I just got here,” he said. He wasn’t stupid enough to tell them everything. Just stupid enough to fall for their tricks.

“You’ve seen them?”

“Yes.”

“Do they have the Mark?”

Marc peered at them, silent. This was the first he’d heard of some sort of marking. He narrowed his eyes and waited for the Shadows to elaborate.

“A
fleur-de-lis
. If these two are Marked, then it is them.”

“I don’t know.”

“What
do
you know, Marcus? If you’re not going to help us, then we cannot help you.” The trees rustled just slightly in the heavy silence. “Do you need a reminder of what your life is like without our help?”