Tempt (Ava Delaney #3) (6 page)

Sensing
something to my left, I tried to spin around, wavering as a bout of
dizziness struck. Again, I was somewhere else. Someone, or
something, was nearby, but I had no idea how to find them without
jerking my body another mile away.

My head
ached. The air was too heavy. Or maybe it was the lack of air. I
realised I wasn’t breathing, and that shocked me into action.
Steadying myself, I tried to move slowly the next time I saw
movement. A figure. Of sorts. Looking down at myself, I realised I
didn’t exactly look like a person anymore, either. Ethereal, I had
transformed into a wispy entity on a plane where I didn’t
belong.

The
figure moved on, and I tried to follow its path with my eyes. I
practised that for a while, looking around without being sucked
across town.

I saw
more figures as I explored, and realised I was seeing things I
didn’t usually notice. One was different to everything else—not
empty, but not living, either. Becca’s presence was so bizarrely
unnatural that it wasn’t hard to spot her.

I could
zone in on her from far away, whether I wanted to or not. Her
presence was a mass of red and black squirming energy that looked
as if, given the chance, it might explode in all directions. I
badly wanted to see what my own energy looked like to
others.

I
recognised the surrounding buildings. I stood outside of the city,
but still in a highly populated area. The curfew was a blessing. It
cleared out a lot of places that would have otherwise been teeming
with people. Places I could drive Becca to, if the opportunity
arose.

Satisfied I had Becca’s location, I tried to step back… and
got stuck. Letting go of the other planes had always been easy, but
I was held tight. I struggled with it, felt the atmosphere grow
tighter against me. Breathing was impossible, and I was pretty sure
I needed to breathe no matter what plane I visited.

Panic
overrode every other sensation. I was trapped, couldn’t move,
couldn’t help myself. The more I struggled, the tighter the filmy
air held me. The hooded figure was in my face before I realised it
had moved. I tried to speak, to ask for help. It lay what felt like
a surprisingly firm hand on my forehead and pushed.

I fell
backward, slowly, still unable move my hands. Suddenly, the world
flooded with colour and air again, and I was on my feet right in
front of the car.

“
Whoa,” I whispered, staring at my palms. Trippy. Two drops of
blood fell from my nose, an unusually crimson stain marring the
white bandage on my hand. Feeling as though I could see everything
more clearly, I remembered I knew Becca’s exact
location.

Making a
firm decision to ignore the weirdness, I jumped into the car,
hoping Esther and Peter hadn’t seen me do anything whacky while I
searched for Becca. They looked pretty bored, so I figured I hadn’t
moved at all.

“
Drive, I’ll give directions on the way.”

Peter
wasn’t surprised, having been given the same order numerous times
before, but Esther stared at me, her eyes sparkling with
intrigue.

“
How did you do that?” she asked.

“
How do you shift into a bear?” I replied.

A slight
frown creased her forehead. “Maybe you are in a bad mood, after
all.”

Peter
drove as fast as the limit allowed, and I finally scoped Becca on
my normal radar. She kept moving, not stopping to feed. I gave
Peter changes in directions over and over again.

After an
hour of driving in what amounted to mini-circles, it dawned on me
what might be happening. “I think she knows I’m coming.”

“
How on Earth can she know that?” Esther asked.

I
shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe the same way I know where she is. Maybe she
has a really good sense of smell. Maybe somebody warned her tonight
is my shift. I’m not the psychic.”

“
Neither am I, Ava. What’s with you?”

I might
have snapped back, but I caught the worry in her voice.

“
She doesn’t want to talk,” Peter said, silencing us. I just
wasn’t sure exactly who he was protecting with the
statement.

After
another half-hour of erratic driving, my impatience got the better
of me. “I’m going on foot. I’ll try and herd her toward the
racetrack. It’s still empty.”

Peter
grunted in reply, but Esther caught my hand before I got out of the
car. “Be careful.”

I
squeezed her fingers and nodded. Peter managed to step out of the
car before I did.

“
What?” I asked, itching to run.

“
I didn’t want to say it in the car, but there’s something on
your forehead.” His usual frown deepened as he stared at me. He
reached a half-second before me, batting my hand out of the way as
he brushed my skin. A little cloud of dust flew away from me, and I
jerked back, wiping frantically. Staring at my hand, I saw a weird
residue on my fingertips. A deep mauve-coloured texture that had an
almost sand-like quality stained my fingers.

“
Is it gone?” I felt a little frantic for some reason, as if I
had to get every single particle away from my skin as quickly as
possible. He frowned and used his clean hand to rub roughly at my
skin.

He shook
his head, still staring at me in wonder. “It’s a bruise. A
handprint. That wasn’t there when I picked you up.” He took another
step toward me, and I broke into a run in the opposite direction,
playing with numbers to distract me from the overwhelming
panic.

Whatever
had sent me from that other plane had physically marked me, yet
Peter and Esther had acted as though nothing untoward happened, as
though I hadn’t moved at all. I mouthed numbers in multiples of
seven—skipping fifty-six just in case—freaked out by my lack of
understanding of the things I dabbled in.

I had
grown up using numbers as a way to deal with stress, then with my
thirst for human blood, and I was back to using numbers so I
wouldn’t think about unpleasant things. A point for
regression.

I
stretched my legs and ran faster, pushing my body past the limits
of comfort, mostly due to my leg still aching from Becca’s bite. It
had healed well, though it was still stiff. I wasn’t fit, but my
body could do things it shouldn’t have been able to do. Once I let
go of human fear, I was fast. Really fast. If I fought for my life,
I was strong. And if I believed in myself, I was smarter than I
acted. Once I stopped caring like a human, the world opened up to
me.

As I
ran, I made a decision. I wanted to live without fear or regret. I
wanted to know myself and more about my abilities.

But I had to beat Becca first. The doubting voice in my head
was loud.
How
could I beat Becca? Last time, she almost killed me. She’d
killed better fighters. How could
I
survive without killing her first?

I kept
my eye on Becca using my other sight, but she kept moving. At least
if she was running then she wasn’t murdering anyone. But how did
she know to run? I had acted as though it didn’t matter in the car,
but it bothered me. Maybe she found herself connected to me as much
as I felt connected to her.

Knowing
she could somehow sense me helped me drive her toward the
racetrack, but so much running had me wheezing, and the ache in my
leg increased until a bit of a limp kicked in. By the time I began
to close in on her, I was exhausted and running on the fumes of a
final adrenalin rush.

I texted
Peter to let him know she was close to him. The racetrack was
practically abandoned with the country on alert. The entire island
had been burdened with curfews, daily warnings, and extended police
patrols. With lots of open space and a decent lack of humans
running around, the racetrack was the perfect place for a battle,
and hopefully, a capture.

Watching
Becca’s energy move was strange. Sometimes she ran in random
directions, and at others, she zoned onto a path like a bullet.
Those times were when she spotted a human, like when she caught
Peter’s scent at the racetrack.

My
stomach dropped when I sensed her on the hunt, and I sped up as
much as I could. By the time I caught up, the bonnet of Peter’s car
was all but crushed, and he was swinging a gigantic sword over his
head like a madman. His rage was overpowering, flooding me with the
same emotion. Score for the empathy.

But
Becca wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her eyes were on the bear
towering over her, the bear in Peter’s way. As I closed in on them,
Esther swiped a paw and snarled ferociously, but Becca remained
unflinching. Peter hesitated, unwilling to risk either hurting
Esther or murdering Becca. Either way, the Council would be
pissed.

Wrapping
one arm around the bear’s throat in one speedy motion, Becca swung
herself over Esther’s shoulder, clung to her back with her knees,
and was about to attempt a neck break when I unclipped the silver
chain belt around my waist and threw it around her neck. I yanked
it back, falling to the ground and managing to take Becca down with
me. Esther clawed at Becca, who was too busy twisting and grabbing
at me to notice.

“
Back off!” I shouted at both Esther and Peter, who came
running to help. I couldn’t catch a crazy, mutated vampire
and
worry about other
people getting hurt at the same time.

Peter
listened. Esther didn’t.

Becca
let out a howl of rage and reached for Esther, breaking the chain.
I kicked Becca aside to give me enough space to jump in front of
Esther. I punched Becca in the face, throwing all of my strength
and Peter’s anger behind it, then screamed at Esther again. She
swiped at me with a rumbling growl, so I punched her, too, knocking
her back. I ran after Becca, who had fled. Swearing, I caught up to
her and kicked the back of her knee to trip her. She fell, and I
toppled over her.

We
rolled together, my head smacking the ground. I flashed my fangs,
and she sort of bounced over me before getting up to run again. I
was too sore and exhausted to keep going, so I lay there and
watched the stars, my fingers brushing against moist blades of
grass, until Peter and Esther caught up to me.

“
What the hell were you doing?” Esther shouted, back in human
form. She wore Peter’s shirt, displaying most of her bare legs. “I
almost had her!”

“
You had nothing,” I huffed back.

Peter
grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. Doubling over, I wheezed
out my next couple of breaths and ignored Esther’s griping long
enough to sense out Becca’s location. She was still running, and I
would never catch her.

“
What’s this about?” I straightened myself, gesturing to her
bare legs.

“
I didn’t have time to undress, so my clothes tore when I
shifted.” She shoved me in the chest with both hands, her nostrils
flaring with anger. “You hit me!”

“
My God, you’re an idiot,” I said. “One thing I tell you to
do. One thing.” I waved my hands, unable to continue.

“
I could have taken her,” she insisted.

I made a
noise because that was all I could manage.

“
Are we going after her?” Peter interrupted. I grabbed his arm
to look at his watch. I would never catch up to her before sunrise.
I had been running most of the night already, and my leg was
killing me. I shook my head.

“
Are you kidding me?” Esther was really doing my head
in.

“
Look, by the time I get remotely close to catching up with
her, the sun will be up. Game over.” I leaned over again,
struggling to slow my racing heart.

“
Perfect. We get her during the day. Go track her!”

I
carefully debated punching her again. “I can’t. Peter, take her
home.”

I turned
to leave, but she grabbed my arm.

“
What do you mean, you can’t?”

“
I’m not a performing seal, Esther. I can’t find her during
the day. She goes off my radar. Dies. Or whatever. I can’t keep up
with her long enough to figure it out for sure. If we find her
during the day, it’ll be a total fluke.”

“
But—”

I sighed
heavily. “Peter, please. Take her home.”

“
What about you?” he asked.

“
I can’t sit in a car with you two tonight.
Goodbye.”

As I
walked away, I heard him say something about bringing her back to
his place. I was just glad to be out of punching distance. I liked
Esther, but I obviously couldn’t work with her. I trudged through
the grass, a cold breeze blowing across my hands.

“
So, you didn’t ditch me, then,” I muttered, and felt a cool
ghostly arm around my shoulders the rest of the way
home.

Going
over the sheer disaster of the night before was so depressing, I
actually felt excited when I received a text from Yvonne. It could
only mean a job, and that would take my mind off the epic failure
into which my life had devolved. When I rang her, she briskly told
me to collect a payment from Eddie and deliver it to Daimhín that
night. My heart sank at the idea of being around Eddie, but it had
to be done.