Sin Eater (43 page)

Shit.

Kill Jasper. It’s the only way to save Damien. Take the gun from the doc and kill Jasper.

Essum knew this was trouble. He’d been sending this very simple command into the
frustro’s
mind, but she was staring at Jasper in shock, not receiving his signal. Her receptor was turned off.

This had never happened … well, not since Daphne. He couldn’t influence Iola at all. He could “speak” to her, but not command her.

That could cause a problem.

Jasper was eyeing up Voro’s
frustro
like a beggar at a wedding feast, and Essum felt his luck change. There was the bait; that was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It was such a beautiful and simple trap. He wished
he’d
thought of it.

He switched his attentions to Jasper only.
Take the gun back, and kill the man on the floor. Iola will want you, she will see how brave you were protecting her from this monster.

Jasper’s red eyes f
licked to the form on the floor who, annoyingly enough, was starting to come around with a grumble and the furrowing of his brows.

It’ll be the easiest thing I’ve asked you to do. This man is evil, he intends evil at all times.  His intentions to Iola are not pure.

The doctor jumped as Jasper swung his gaze back his way. Jasper held out a hand, and Vinnie took a step back. Foolishly, he raised the pistol with both hands and leveled it at Jasper’s face. “Get in that chair,” Vinnie said with a dead-calm tone.

Essum could’ve giggled. Humans were almost delightfully stupid. He reached
into the good doctor’s mind, trying to find that spine so he could rip it out by the root, and then he stopped.

The doctor wasn’t just booby-trapped like Claudia had been. The doctor was laced with emotional and mental poison. The second Essum felt it … he felt everything sliding away. Like his skin had started to shrink but the rest of him couldn’t keep up
with the change. He was being hoovered up like cat hair from the sofa … he was being cast away by he didn’t know what.

White light took over. Essum could no longer see, didn’t know what was going on in the room. It was as though he had been scattered like grit in the wind.

Iola watched the large handgun in Vinnie’s grasp. It wasn’t even quivering.  But Jasper showed no fear, covered the ground between them in three swift strides, and pressed his chest to the barrel of the weapon, a smirk on that terrifying countenance of his.

Jasper’s voice sounded alien when he spoke, it wasn’t anything like the tones she knew. “You can’t and won’t do it,
Veneratio
. You may be her
praesul presul,
but this is not something you should be playing with.”

Iola hadn’t taken Latin.
Praesul presul
was going to be Googled if she made it through this okay.

Claudia was suddenly next to her, pulling
Iola by her arm and swinging her slowly behind her. Claudia’s concern touched her, but in a numb way. Whatever panic, disconnect or inability to comprehend what was happening Iola was suffering from had her emotions cut right off.

Iola surprised herself by throwing Claudia off. “It’s the only way,” she said, not of her own volition. “You have to shoot him in the head. If you can’t let him do it.” Her eyes now leveled on Jasper. They shared an odd communion. They were supposed to be
in
this together, right?

Vinnie must not have heard her, because he raised his chin, as if a dare had been laid out. “Get in that chair. Sit and be quiet.”

Jasper’s fist came so fast Iola didn’t even see it; she only saw Vinnie’s head swing back, a look of shock on his face as the gun was wrenched from his slack grasp.  One hand reflexively went to his nose, which instantly gushed red.  The other tried in vain to get hold on the pistol again.

Jasper had the gun, had control, and had a look in his ruby gaze that against all sensibility thrilled Iola to her toes. But then Jasper pointed the gun right at her.

“One more move or threat or fucking
word
from you, and she is dead.” Jasper looked from Vinnie to Iola. “My sweet
tentatio-onis
, it would pain me. But I would do it.”

Iola opened her mouth to speak, but her voice suffered a frustrating impotence. Jasper cocked his head sideways, a small smile playing on his lips. He winked at her, and she felt a smirk touch her lips. He couldn’t hurt her … he was in love with her, right?

Then Iola noticed Vinnie’s expression of horror as he looked at her. Part of her wanted to ask what was up with him, the other half couldn’t care. She and Jasper had a job to do.

Claudia half-turned to her, and even Claudia took a step away. She didn’t look scared, but her gaze turned wary as she looked from Iola to Jasper and back again.

“They’re realizing that we’re the same. Better than them,” Jasper informed her. “But still … the same.”

“Must be … jealousy.”

Jasper thought that was terribly hilarious and broke into an insane giggle that she found amusing, too.

“Iola, you should see how lovely you are right now. Come,” he took her arm and she followed like a good little girl. He stood her before the glass door of the entertainment centre. “See? We’re on the same side. We want the same things.” His breath was brushing her hair against her neck, raising goose flesh.

She barely heard him. All she knew was her reflection … her light green eyes were gone, replaced with something much darker. And red.

Voro’s head was pounding out an excruciating rhythm, but he forced his eyes open anyway. The voices around him drifted and bobbed together, he couldn’t understand anything that was being said.

First thing he
did
realize was that his hands were bound behind his back painfully. The second thing he knew was that the room reeked of sulfur. It was the kind of stink that probably only
he
was aware of … after all; it smelled like home to him. Both details were very bad news.

The fabric that held his arms back was slick. As he tugged his arms apart it slid a certain amount, then stopped altogether. But that didn’t matter; he’d made enough room around each wrist to wiggle his hands free. It wasn’t as easy as it could have been since his hands were both asleep, but he made do without seeming to draw attention to himself.

He lowered his arms to his sides, feeling the human prickling of blood flowing back into his fingers. He was mildly embarrassed that he had been knocked unconscious. By a human. But he’d been in such a damn rush to get to Iola …

Iola
. She was here, at the very thought of her he picked up on her scent. Like cool water to a man crossing a desert; that scent made him feel totally at ease.

But as his eyes focused he saw Iola across the room from him, being held in front of a glass door by the man with the odd eyes. She was staring at her reflection, and Voro suddenly had a very sinking feeling that only intensified when she turned around and leveled eyes on his that were the colour of dried blood.

Holy. Shit.

Panic hit him hard. This was it. This was his
frustro
meeting his
decipio
and the two of them taking him right the fuck out.

That same panic drove him to his feet, even as the cold numbness was still in his limbs. He was upright, towering over the two of them as the strange man stepped in front of Iola. He had a gun in his hand; a semi-automatic from the looks of it. And it was pointed at Voro without hesitation.

Iola looked at him very calmly, and Voro felt a slight twinge of regret. All his plans of getting her to kill this
decipio
scum were dashed. It was the definite tug of the inevitable: not destiny, just all the pieces coming together as they
had
to. He was not going to be saved, he was not going to make love to Iola the rest of their lives and help her adapt to Sin Eating.

Can’t do it
, his brain was saying irrationally.
Can’t do that to her
.

It was too late, anyway. The process had begun, and there was no cancel button on this fucker. He could feel his skin prickle, he felt like he’d been doused in battery acid and lit on fire. The burn was on him, and as Iola’s eyes then Jasper’s fell to him, he knew he was done for.

He looked over to Claudia, where she stood ineffective to stop anything that was happening. She hated not knowing what was going on and how to stop it. She hated the very sight of
him
as well; he could taste her disdain in the back of his throat. From her brain he picked up the murder scene she had encountered when called to Portia’s house. It was tinted red in her rage … and that rage was directed at him. She thought he had done it.

Well-played
, Voro though drily, immediately knowing Essum had set that up. Just another little dig to get under his skin. Hurt the people he very nearly cared about.

Don’t lie; you care plenty
, his own mind was scolding him. He looked back to this other fellow, the one with glowing red eyes that matched Iola’s. The bastard that had to kill him, and then as legend had it, he would kill Iola, too.

There was one way to fix the whole thing, the way that Raphael had lowered his station enough to share with him.

Ultimate sacrifice.

The concept didn’t fit his skin, but as he saw Iola’s eyes and felt the pull of the universe falling
into its rightful place, he knew it was his only option.

Claudia was eyeing Damien with hatred, and she did nothing to betray that fact. But in truth, Damien wasn’t scaring her at the moment. Jasper and Iola and their fucking Halloween theatrics were getting to her just then. Damien would have to take a goddamn number.

Vinnie was rooted to the spot, bleeding from the nose and no longer trying to stop it from dripping on the carpet. He watched the scene enraptured; his face totally unreadable.

No help there, either.

Okay, so Claudia was going to have to shut down the freak circus on her own. Fine by her. Too bad there was a firearm involved, however.

The gun in Jasper’s hand wasn’t so much as quivering. It was rock-solid with its bearer’s purpose. She was going to have to take it, and it would have to be by surprise. But for the moment Iola was still too close to that pistol, and Claudia wasn’t going to jeopardize her friend, even if Iola seemed to have a bad case of the eye-bleeds.

She brought her arms close to her sides, and no one noticed the movement. Damien and Jasper were having a cock-measuring contest in the form of a stare-down, and Vinnie still seemed unable to move. So she shuffled a half-step towards the coffee table and the ugliest
brown-glazed bowl she’d ever seen in her life. But it looked heavy … and it might just do someone some damage.

Jasper’s voice echoed through the room and it caused her to freeze.

“Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head.”

Claudia looked up, startled, but saw that Jasper was still concentrating solely on Damien. So she took another half-step sideways as Damien put his large hands on the back of his head and started to lower himself to the ground. As he did so, his eyes flickered her way as though he knew what she was about to do. He even seemed to be smiling as though he approved.

Jasper noticed his attention shift however, and swung the gun around her way. Instinctively she dropped to the ground, but no shot was fired. She looked up to where Jasper was to see that Damien had grabbed the gun. Jasper was infuriated, and without another word he flew at Damien, wrapping thin-looking hands around his throat. Damien tried to push him off, but Jasper was much stronger than he looked. Or just crazy.

Da
mien had just tried to save her. What the –

Time to worry about more important things. Claudia lost no time grabbing the ceramic work of horror from the coffee table and smashing it across the back of Jasper’s head. He howled as he dropped, his hands covering the impact site.  As she watched in utter shock, thick red blood began oozing between his fingers. Blood that was too dark, too slow, and … not right.

The smell hit her and she backed away. This wasn’t real … that wasn’t even blood. And why was there so much of it? Best case scenario: it should have merely scratched him. As she watched it seemed to have nearly shorn his scalp from his skull. He flopped over on the floor, shrieking in apparent agony.

Iola immediately dropped to his side, mewing unintelligible nothings, try to soothe him.

Claudia and Damien exchanged a look, and he nodded to her. He kept the gun trained on Jasper, but she knew he wanted her to get Iola out of the way.

Claudia took Iola by the shoulder, but Iola shrugged her off. As she glared at her, Claudia wanted to weep. Iola didn’t know her; didn’t even recognize her. And those fucking eyes …

As Claudia remained distracted by wrenching an immovable object that looked a lot like her good friend and neighbour, there suddenly came an ungodly screech as Vinnie suddenly found his legs and tackled Damien around the waist, line-backer style. Both men went down, most likely because Damien was caught completely by surprise.

Iola was distracted by that as well, so Claudia wrenched her friend to her feet and tried to pull her out of danger’s way. Iola was inhumanly strong, and managed to topple Claudia over so her head caught the side of Jasper’s iron
and glass coffee table in a particularly painful way.

She saw stars, and an inky blackness started to seep
into her vision. She tried to get to her feet and shake it off, but all the light in the room collected in the centre of her vision, and as she turned her attentions to Iola and Vinnie she blinked rapidly. The light seemed to glow around them, enveloping them in light. And that’s when she fainted.

Voro barely knew what was happening. He was aware somewhat that the doctor had knocked him to the floor, both of them actually sliding into the kitchen on the linoleum. He maintained his grip on the gun, and tried to hold the doc at bay without hurting him. God knows why he wanted to avoid seriously injuring Vinnie; he just did.

He blocked a punch, and while Vinnie was trying for another blow he pistol-whipped him across the jaw which made the poor guy go down like a sack of cement. He got to his feet and surveyed the damage.

The doc was bleeding on the floor. Claudia had knocked herself out on the coffee table, and although she would have a slight concussion when she woke she would still be okay, just like the doc. Jasper had a huge flap of skin lifted off his cranium, and he was in considerable agony but still conscious. And still glaring at Voro with those freaky eyes.

Iola stood in the centre of the room, looking down at Claudia, totally unconcerned. She seemed to be making sure her friend wasn’t going to get up. Then she turned and raised her chin, giving Voro a challenging glare.

Her voice shocked him to the core, and in spite of himself, he physically reacted to her strong tone and the command she sounded. He wanted her as she spoke.

“Sin Eater. Do you desire to …
epulor
?” Her lips curled in obscene amusement.

The Latin
word for “dine” had an unexpected effect on him. The invitation was obvious. He was doing the exact kind of dumbass thing he was supposed to. Lower his guard, give into her, then she’d keep him distracted long enough to allow Jasper to slaughter him.

But he couldn’t look away from her as she crossed the floor to him, hips swinging like a cat on the prowl. She may as well have tied him down and strapped blinders on him.

Iola stopped within touch but short of contact. He was staring at her in a totally undignified way, he knew. But that was part of it.  There was little he could do but stare down the inevitable. This wasn’t about the legend. This was the animal in him that made him
not human
.

She licked her lips in an agonizingly slow circle, and he was aware that he was holding his breath. She smiled a secret smile and lowered her eyes to run over his chest, his arms, down to where he kept a good grip on the gun.

“
Voro
,” she said in a chiding tone. His real name sounded vile coming from her mouth. “Are you going to shoot me?”

Her hand reached down to toy with the barrel, but of course she didn’t touch his skin in any way. She rubbed the metal in a suggestive way, and he had to close his eyes. At her soft chuckle he opened them
again to see her looking at him, totally amused by the obvious agony she was causing him.

“Or is there something else you’d rather use on me?”

She crushed against him, and he closed his eyes again, willing himself not to feel her warmth through their clothes, or the softness of her small breasts on him. Her hands were on his chest, running up to his shoulders, and he took calming breaths. He had to do it … he had to …

There was the slightest scuffle, and his eyes flew open as he instinctively raised the gun behind Iola and fired one shot in Jasper’s direction. The bastard had been trying to get up … but the round tearing a hole in the carpet so close to his head made him think twice on his motivation. Finally … some sense.

“What are we going to do about this?” Iola was cooing now. “How in the world can we make this work?”

He looked back down at her, finding his voice. “Make what work?”

She was smiling again. “How can I be with you? In every sense of the word?”

He wasn’t sure he was
understanding her, but everything south of the belt was assuming it’d not only heard but comprehended clearly.

Her hands traced up and down his arms as she drank in the sight of him, wanting him. This was what he had wanted: Iola to be his, all she had to do was kill Jasper.

“You have to kill the
decipio
,” he said, testing how much she really knew of what was happening. In response she tilted her head, trying to understand him. Voro pointed with the .33. “Him. Jasper.
You
have to kill him.”

Iola studied his face, and then lost all playfulness. He almost felt relief; that he had called her bluff and now she would rebuke him, as she should.

Instead she pulled the gun from his hand, turned and calmly pointed it to Jasper, still on the floor, cowering now. “Like this?” she asked.

Voro grabbed it away quickly. The panic he felt had nothing to do with a single iota of concern for Jasper. He couldn’t …
wouldn’t
let her be soiled like this.