Tempt (Ava Delaney #3) (5 page)

“
I should probably go.”

He
nodded. “Maybe we’ll make this a regular thing for a while. Until
we can find someone more suitable. I’m not sure I can take this
much of a beating every week.”

I tried
not to laugh. I’d definitely gotten my own back at him in the end.
“Whatever you say. I’ll see you tonight?”

“
Yep.” He turned his back to me. “Esther’s tagging
along.”

I bit my
lip, realising that wasn’t the full story. “I don’t need a
babysitter.”

“
That’s not what this is, Ava. She wants to see how you do it.
That’s all.” He turned back around, his eyes more earnest. “She
wants to know how to track Becca.”

“
I can hardly teach her that,” I snapped.

He held
out his hands. “I know. They all just want to feel like they can do
something.”

“
Since when did you start caring about how the Guardians
feel?”

“
We’re all on the same side. At least for now. If she can
learn from you, then—”

“
I’ll see you later.” I knew he didn’t understand my anger,
but that was because he was all about the next step. I couldn’t
move forward when I had so much on my mind. Aside from feeling
convinced one of the Guardians had something to do with the toxic
shadows that tried to cling to people’s souls, everyone wanted to
know my secrets. I was the one person they thought could reveal
everything, but I had no answers.

I
lowered my chin until the bottom half of my face was protected by
my collar. The drizzling rain slowly dampened my hair, more
irritating than anything else. The moon was full, and the night
didn’t seem as dark as usual, despite the clouds.

I waited
outside my building for Peter and Esther, unable to stay indoors
for a minute longer. The workout with Peter had driven something,
unleashed something, made me uneasy somehow.

I
recognised the growl of Peter’s car but didn’t move until it came
to a complete stop in front of me. It bugged me to see Esther in
the front seat. I hated that backseat. It reminded me of how Peter
used to make me sit there because he didn’t trust me not to bite
him.

Esther
turned around to talk to me as soon as Peter started the car. “I
haven’t seen you in ages. I’ve called, but… I guess I keep missing
you.” Her chirpy voice faltered as if she finally clued in to the
expression on my face.

“
Ignore her,” Peter said. “She’s been in a bad mood since I’ve
known her.”

Esther
grinned, her face lighting up. “She’s not so bad.” Her face was
heavily made up, her hair styled as always. I would never equate a
bear to her curvy frame. She didn’t look like a fighter, and part
of me was curious to see how we would match up in a
fight.

“
Aiden told me to tell you he was asking for you,” she tried
again.

I
seriously doubted that, but I nodded and tried to smile. I liked
Esther, I really did, but she was so confident in herself, despite
her past, that I couldn’t help feeling inadequate around her. She
knew exactly who and what she was, and she wasn’t afraid of it.
Enter me, and the difference was astounding. Even in appearance, I
was the lesser, and my admittedly boyish frame didn’t exactly hold
up well against her more feminine build. It all might have been
fine except I had an awful feeling that the Council had sent her to
hunt with me, or rather, to check up on me.

“
What happened to your hands?” she asked, eyeing the
bandages.

I
slipped them into my pockets and slumped down in the seat. “Long
story.”

“
Oh, I almost forgot.” Esther fished something out of her
stylish handbag. “Here’s a list of the manned checkpoints in Dublin
tonight.”

That
might have come in handy every other night, I wanted to
scream.

Peter
pulled down the glove compartment and took out something shiny.
“Here, wear this,” he told Esther, and held it out while keeping
his eyes on the road.

“
Thanks.” She carefully took from his hands what turned out to
be a necklace with a chunky cross. The way she looked at him
disturbed me, as if
I
had any claim on another soul.

“
You a jeweller on the side now?” I muttered.

Esther
threw me a bemused glance, but Peter just ignored me.

“
Is this going to do something?” she asked him.

“
Crosses definitely hurt her. And it won’t hurt you to have a
little extra protection.”

Her
laugh was confident, cocky even. “You know I turn into a bear,
right?”

His
shoulders tensed. “Don’t fool yourself, Esther. She’s quick.
Quicker than any vampire I’ve ever seen. You might not get the
chance to shift.”

“
Okay, okay. I get it. Safety first.” Her mocking tone
convinced me she wasn’t taking it seriously. I’d quickly learned
that Guardians were kind of up themselves, thinking they were the
untouchable elite. Shifters were pretty proud, too, so it wasn’t
surprising that Esther underestimated the situation. The fact her
protective big brother was both her alpha and her boss probably
didn’t help her awareness of danger.

I had
expected a little humility from the Council’s soldiers when their
ranks had been decimated by Becca, but Peter had warned me it only
made the others more competitive. Maybe it was good Esther had
joined us. She might see it wasn’t a game.

We drove
for a few minutes in silence before Peter gave Esther a pointed
look. “Try not to let Becca get close enough to bite you, or you’re
screwed. She’s after blood, any blood. She’s not picky. She drinks
from as many people as she can, night after night. It’s all she
wants. There’s no talking, no persuading, no hesitating. She’s all
about the blood, all of the time.”

“
So, she’s stocking up?”

He
pulled over and turned in his seat. “Stocking up?”

“
You know, for hibernation. Or another mutation.” She touched
the cross Peter had given her with a thoughtful look on her
face.

“
Wait. What now?” I interrupted.

Esther
looked back at me. “Blood’s her only food source, and it’s coming
up on summer. Hibernation time for the nightwalkers.”

I
glanced at Peter for confirmation.

He
shrugged. “Back in the day, vampires buried themselves in the dirt
during the summer months, after overdosing on blood for weeks.
Maybe some vampires still hibernate, but most just go abroad during
the summer months. The rest stay put and deal with the shorter
night hours, especially because they would have to officially apply
to the Council to up their quota pre-hibernation.”

“
How did I not know this? Wait, you said
mutation
as well.”

Esther
nodded. “She’s already mutated once. Maybe she’s due for another.
Some kinds of shifters need to drink blood before they change, but
they’re the type who stay in their animal forms for a couple of
days at a time. Not quite the same.”

Something in her voice triggered my suspicion. “You know
something I don’t, Esther?”

Her face
remained blank as she shook her head. I didn’t believe her, and I
definitely didn’t trust the Council. Thoughts of what had happened
to the leftover formula and the human candidate who had been
arrested still bugged me.

Peter
cleared his throat. “We’re close to the last place she was spotted.
Ava can work her magic and figure out where to go from there. And
Esther, don’t get in Ava’s way.”

Esther
looked as surprised as I felt, but she nodded. I half-expected her
to ask about working magic, but she kept quiet. The focus on her
face was a far cry from the giddy girly persona she gave off most
of the time. Maybe I had underestimated her, too.

We all
got out of the car and stood in a circle, their eyes directly on
me. The air was taut with tension and filled with the nauseating
scent of anticipation. Trying to ignore them, I focused on seeing
that other plane. My skin tingled… but nothing happened.

Esther
hovering there made me more nervous than usual. Tracking Becca
while people watched always felt awkward. They seemed to expect
fireworks and flying unicorns, not me staring into
space.

I tried
again.

Nothing.

“
What’s taking so long?” Esther blurted.

I glared
at her. “Just wait in the car.”

Peter
led a reluctant Esther back to the car. I sighed heavily as soon as
I heard the car doors close. Their expectations crippled me, and
Esther’s excitement was stifling. How was I supposed to relax when
everyone else’s emotions ramped up my own? Eddie had mentioned
finding another empath to help me control it, but being out of
control was almost preferable to asking him for a
favour.

I took a
minute to calm down. I seemed to need to do that more often lately.
Pretty much everything about me was frayed, unravelling. That made
me think about the ‘not yet matured’ bull. A conversation with Carl
about the things he had learned with his research might have been
overdue. I had already wasted too much time in the dark.

Sniffing
the air, I tried to make out Becca’s scent on the wind. For weeks,
I had regularly woken with that scent under my nose, so obsessed
with it had I been. Tracking her was hard because she literally
vanished during the day. We were left with me chasing her scent at
night and hoping she would come into the scope of my senses in
order to see her essence. Not exactly convenient.

Before
long, I resigned myself to the fact I wasn’t going to find a fresh
trail. Obviously, Becca had already moved on to another
spot.

The
problem with Becca’s movements was the unpredictability. She didn’t
appear to have a plan, her path was random, and she was so easily
distracted that even being chased by me didn’t stop her from
looking for a new hunting ground. What Esther had said about
hibernating—and mutating—had been interesting, but it only served
to put even more pressure on me to catch Becca.

Since she had turned into… whatever she became at my trial,
she had pretty much left a path of dead bodies in her wake. We
might have been able to find her sooner if she left witnesses—or
even someone alive long enough to call for help—but she tended to
kill in clusters, and it was rare for
anyone
to walk away.

Deciding
I wasn’t close enough to find her by scent only, I moved back to my
other skill, seeing things on a different plane of existence,
except I was going to put my back into it. I’d been pushing my
abilities further and further, wearing myself out, but it seemed to
get easier the more I tried.

At
first, I had only been able to reach one other level. It felt like
a web surrounding me, preventing me from moving further. As time
went on, the web started to break, and I pushed through to another
plane. I could see further, differently than before. The energies
of humans and monsters alike were so vivid there, I could almost
reach out and touch them. Yet another item on the list of things I
badly needed to find out more about.

I stared
at the ground and concentrated. My skin tingled, and it felt as if
my head were lifting off my body. Soon, a whole other world opened.
Esther and Peter’s energies pulsed nearby, their heart rates higher
than normal. Slowly at first, more and more red pulsing human
energies began popping up on my radar, then the empty spaces that
meant soulless vampires.

I had
started to see other things without trying, energies that I
couldn’t name. But some types of energy seemed naturally easier to
spot, such as human and vampire… and the beautiful glow that marked
an angel.

The
range of my vision expanded slightly. The borders pushed outward,
but it still wasn’t enough. Gasping for breath, I pushed harder,
feeling as though I were leaving my body.

My ears
popped, and everything changed.

I
stopped feeling the rain, or the wind, or hearing any noise.
Neither warmth nor cold touched my skin, just a disturbingly empty
vacuum that closed in on my body. In the distance, I saw shadows
moving, but the street where I stood had turned to a murky
shadowlike consistency, too.

I moved
my leg, feeling as though I were pushing myself through deep water.
Not unpleasant exactly, but not a natural kind of feeling for
me—too heavy and slow, as if I were weighted down by an unseen
force.

I
glanced at the car. It blew in and out of a shimmery existence, and
although I knew Peter and Esther were in there, I could no longer
hear their heartbeats.

I tried
to make a sound. Something tacky pressed against my tongue, and no
noise came out. Fascinated, I started to try again but was
distracted by a movement ahead. I glanced in that direction, and
suddenly I was there, on a different street. The movement was gone,
and I was nowhere near the car anymore.

Behind
was charcoal shadow, but as I stared ahead, I grew accustomed to
the different light and realised that everything was coloured a
muted burgundy and violet.