Shades of Gray: A Jude Magdalyn Novel (7 page)
On a silent three count, the guard at the door grasped the knob and wrenched the door open, moving to block Williams, Gillian and I as the rest of the guard moved forward. The bells were finally silenced, and the guards gathered in front of the door, staring down at something on the stoop. One of them called back to Williams and he and Gillian stared at each other.
My heart was still pounding, but now it was adrenaline making it race. “What’s at the door?”
“The guard will take care of it. Right now, you need to familiarize yourself with the house, and—.”
I cut Gillian off, pushing to my feet despite the continued wooziness I was feeling. “I want to see. What’s at the door?”
I was already moving down the hall when Williams made to grab my arm. I eluded his grasp easily. I pushed the guard aside, it was easier thought than done considering the fact one of them had twice my body mass. Eventually, I pushed to the front to stand next to the one who had opened the door. He caught me before I fell to my knees.
Izzy was laid out on the narrow stoop, as peacefully as if she were sleeping. She was eerily reminiscent of a corpse, lacking only the pine box. Someone, in a sick attempt at humor, had wound her rosary through Izzy’s hands, clasping them over her heart.
I wasn’t aware of holding my breath until my lungs begun to burn. I let it out on a sob, clamping a hand over my mouth in an effort to contain the sound. I felt the shifting of bodies behind me, and let Williams pull me back into the house, my knees giving way completely. I pressed a fist to my heart, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down my face.
The hall was utterly silent except for the sounds I made. Eventually they fell away to whimpers. When Williams knelt in front of me, I lifted my head, locking eyes with him. My voice was low and quivered with fury when I spoke.
“When Hart dies, I want my face to be the last thing he sees.”
The sun’s first rays colored
the horizon when I laid my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. I would have traded damn near anything for an hour of absolute quiet and solitude. Not everything - but I would have traded quite a bit, for an hour without someone hovering over me.
Under the direction of Williams and Gillian, Izzy’s body had been checked to make sure she was truly dead and not just in the first stages of turning. The only good piece of news - that her neck was snapped - meant there was no way she had been turned. One of the guards advised she most likely hadn’t felt anything more than a brief snap of pain.
My eyes watered for a moment before I rubbed them with my palms. Izzy hated any kind of pain. If she broke a nail she’d whine for a half hour, minimum. If she had to die for no reason, at least she hadn’t suffered.
There had been a brief argument over what to do with her body. We couldn’t leave it on the front steps. Gillian wanted to burn the remains to make absolutely certain she wasn’t going to rise. Apparently a snapped neck wasn’t enough proof for her. I knew Izzy’s mom enough to say that if Izzy disappeared without a trace, she’d have the city in an uproar looking for her.
In the end we staged an elaborate, painstakingly detailed accident in her apartment bathroom. My guards did most of the work, with Gillian and Williams once again doing the directing. If they were looking for some sign of the leader of the Covenant, or whatever I was, to move to the forefront they were disappointed. I stood, watched without lifting a finger, or offering comment. I wasn’t hollowed out, empty, or any of those things they say are normal when you experience death. I just couldn’t seem to connect what was going on with reality.
God, I was so tired. Every part of me ached, in a way that reminded me of winter nights when none of us had been able to score enough cash for a hotel room and the shelter was full. The cold chilled right down to the bones, sucked you dry, no matter how hard you fought to stay warm. That’s how tired I felt - achy and dry.
The closer it got to sunrise, the more nervous everyone got. I could barely tell the difference, but the others seemed able to discern we were running out of time without being told in any way. We left Izzy’s apartment an hour before sunrise, and the ride back to the Crossroads - the proper name for my new home - was only slightly less terrifying than being in a professional race car. We made it in one piece and I decided to save the complaining for a time when it was a bigger deal.
The guards scattered through the house again, and before you could say the word “chaperone”, Gillian gripped my arm and frog-marched me up the stairs, leaving Williams to stand at the bottom. I managed to turn my head at the top for a quick look and caught the half smile he was fond of before Gillian herded me down a long hallway, presumably toward a bedroom.
She did take me to a bedroom, but only to drop me on the bed, plant herself on a chaise, and read me the riot act as far as Williams was concerned. I tuned out ten seconds into her speech. I’ve never been one for taking directions, even less so when it relates to my personal life. Gillian noticed, and zapped me with a little of her extra energy, anger, or plain bitchiness.
After I quit yelping and rubbing the singed hair on my right arm, she continued. “You cannot allow your lust to overtake your common sense. Believe me when I say these types of things always end badly.”
“Anastasia. Funny movie, although I don’t think you got the quote quite right. I know you didn’t get the voice.” I flopped back on the bed and pulled a pillow over my face. I wondered if it was stuffed with feather down because it sure as hell felt like it. The fluffy cushion was heaven to my tired senses. “Geez, Gillian, lighten up. I may not be able to set people on fire like others in the room, but I know when someone’s pissing on my shoes and telling me it’s raining.”
“Just like your mother. So sure you know what you’re doing.” I could hear her voice through the pillow, an odd combination of anguish, regret, and exasperation. “Even the smartest people can be fooled, it doesn’t make them any less, it makes them more human.”
I sat up, tossing the pillow aside to tilt my head and stare at her curiously. “I think that’s the least critical thing you’ve said to me in the short time I’ve known you. And, truth be told, vaguely insulting.” Pulling my t-shirt off, I tossed it toward the hard-backed chair by the bathroom door, giving a small “whoo-hoo” when it draped over the back. My bra and track pants were going to have to stay on. As much as I would love to strip down completely and turn my brain off, I wasn’t getting naked in a house full of strangers.
“I’m well aware that my personality is fairly abrasive, but being in a position of authority does not afford one the luxury of being polite and tender when dealing with allies and enemies.” Gillian rubbed her eyes, one of the few signs of weakness I’d seen from her, and pursed her lips before continuing. “We, Williams and I, have placed the lives of hundreds of people in your hands. Perhaps you can understand our - my - position better, knowing the Covenant’s future lies with your ability and willingness to learn.”
“Well, nice of you to make sure I know there’s no pressure.” When she opened her mouth to respond with an equally snarky comment, I held a hand up, palm out. “Seriously, can we just table this until we’ve both slept? I’m not at my best without sleep, and if we’re going to be throwing fireballs or moving mountains, or whatever the hell I have to learn how to do, I’d like a little sleep before I have to start learning.”
Gillian rubbed her eyes again, a gesture I could understand. It doesn’t really make you feel any better, but it helps.
“One day[?].”
“I swear, if you say one day ‘when you’re older’, I will throw a temper tantrum without the aid of magic that will make you look like an amateur.”
My threat fell on deaf ears as Gillian continued speaking over me. “I’ll tell you more about your parents, and hopefully you’ll better appreciate the delicate position you’re in. Until that time, I trust you’ll rest well. You’ve little need for alarm during the day with a house of trained warriors.”
“Yippee,” I muttered into the pillow, pulling the unbelievably soft sheet and comforter up to just under my chin. “For now, I’m serious about the checking out thing. We’ll talk more when I wake up. Later. Much later.”
I was ninety percent asleep before I finished speaking. Maybe I dreamed it, because it didn’t strike me as something Gillian would do, but I would have bet she tucked the covers around me and dropped a kiss on my forehead on her way out.
I’m not sure how long I slept.
Not long, because the first thing I noticed when I jolted out of my slumber was the sun shining through the windows. It turned the pretty, thin curtains transparent, a pale film of blue on the otherwise heavy air.
I’d been told the windows were specially tinted to allow in light but not UV rays. My look of confusion had been met with one sentence. “The whole exploding in daylight thing.”
Williams was such a smartass.
The second thing to tip me off was the pounding in my head. Worse than your worst hangover ever pounding. I’m relatively good with pain - thank you, Mother Superior - but this was excruciating. Running on empty followed by not nearly enough sleep always gave me a bad headache, but this was outlandish. If my head could have rolled off my shoulders, it would have felt better.
The third thing weighing in on my not having slept long was the guard in the chair across from me. He looked very much like he wanted to kill instead of protect.
Thoughts about why he was relaxing in what was probably an authentic piece of Art Nouveau furniture - with a very long, scary blade in his lap - made the pain in my head explode.
We sat there for a moment. Me - bleary-eyed and only partially dressed. Him - alert, scary and dressed. The bedside clock’s ticking echoed in the room, and the silence stretched until it was thinner than thread, begging to be broken. I was more than happy to oblige.
“I assume you’re going to try and kill me?”
The guard, who was supposed to be on my side, nodded, his shaved head shining dully in the late morning sun. I couldn’t stop staring at the tattoos covering his face and what I could see of his upper body. It reminded me of Celtic knot work, but it seemed… off. It was still beautiful work, starkly black against his glowing white skin; but it was wrong.
“I don’t intend to try, Prophecy. I was sent because I’m the best assassin seen in the past seven hundred years.” He smiled briefly, amused. “Well, I suppose I haven’t really been seen - but my work definitely has.”
“Looking to share your resume, boast a little?” I let the sheet drop to my waist, thankful beyond reason I had kept some of my clothes on. I was also thankful that men, no matter their age or species, are men. His slim fingers stilled for a moment in their massaging of the knife blade, his eyes traveling south before rising back to my face. When he met my eyes, I made sure to keep them blank - why, no, Mr. Looking to Kill Me, I wasn’t trying to distract you with my marvelous cleavage. After a moment, he spoke again.
“I usually just complete my assignment and collect the remainder of my fee. Seeing as I’m a few hours ahead of schedule, I suppose I could take a few minutes to share some of my exploits.” This time, the smile was genuine when he asked, “Perhaps you’ve heard that Hitler and his mistress were killed in the bombing of their safe house by Allied forces?”
I stared at him; slack jawed, forgetting this was not the time to be impressed by a guy’s job. “You’re telling me you killed Hitler and Eva Braun? No way. Seriously?”
He laughed a deep, joyous sound so at odds with the conversation and situation it was more than a little freaky. “I must say, it’s almost too bad I have to kill you. It’s been a long time since anyone has been so amused with my accomplishments. He made the grave error of sending more than a few vampires to the concentration camps, turning them over to his horrible doctors as “subjects” in their various experiments. His reasoning was anything that killed an undead would truly kill mere humans. He was, quite simply, pure evil.”
I blinked, thrown off by the last words he spoke. “Pure evil? Like Satan and the Anti-Christ pure evil?”
He laughed again and rose. His boots made loud thuds as he crossed to sit on the edge of the mattress. The look in his eyes now was one I was very, very familiar with. Sometimes, you have to let the people who only get off on hearing you scream, get off. Survival is much more important than a misplaced sense of pride.
His fingertips running up and down my arm made the hairs there stand on end, something else he found amusing. This close, I could see his eyes were black. Not that he had a large pupil, but the iris was the dark ink of midnight. For some reason, the detail freaked me out like nothing else in our encounter had. The sudden racing of my pulse made him smile, which only served to scare me even more, if possible at this point.
“No, Prophecy, pure evil is something so rare that those who have been touched by it are invariably changed.” His hand slid over my naked stomach, and I felt my muscles tremble. “Even Lucifer, in all his evil, was once chosen of God. And, though he was cast out of heaven, he retains the beauty and grace that placed him so near to the Almighty. The Anti-Christ, when he arrives, will share his father’s beauty and charisma - these things will draw people to him.”
His cold hand trailed upwards, cupping my left breast. I wanted to break his hand, every bone in it, but it would have to wait a few minutes. His eyes shone with amusement as he massaged my flesh, almost like he was waiting for me to yell, cry, or beg.
“You are remarkably self-possessed. Or maybe you prefer a little danger with your mating?” One finger dipped below the lace of the bra, flicking across my nipple, and he chuckled when it peaked in response. “I might be able to indulge you. Pity, truly, that I still have to kill you in the end.”
“Yes, that part is truly a pity.” Slowly, cautiously, I moved one hand to brush over his face, tracing his tattoos with one finger, edging closer to his eyes. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it, but I would damn well try, and before he got most of his clothes off. “I only ask that you move the knife out of reach, at least until we’re finished.” His eyes narrowed. I leaned forward until I could lick his lips, laving them gently, unsurprised when his body twitched. “I have a feeling it would put me off my game, if you understand what I mean.”
Men, no matter their age or species are men, and this person sent to kill me reacted in the same way any fifty year old pot-bellied trick on the street would. He did exactly as I said, dropped the knife to the floor and kicked it away. If women would get over using sex as a weapon, they’d rule the world in one or two months, tops.
Weapon discarded, he pushed me back onto the mattress, balancing my lower body on his knees. His body, when he pulled his shirt off, was impressively muscled and covered with more of the somehow wrong tattoos. Needing just a few more minutes, I asked, “Why so much ink?” You only need a short question to get a five-minute monologue from a man.
Taking my hands, he did exactly as I hoped he would and ran my fingers over the various tattoos. One for Hitler - the largest, because Hitler was pure evil; a pair for the Kennedy brothers and one in a similar vein for Kennedy, Junior; a surprisingly pretty and delicate one for the Queen of Scots; another for Lincoln, which made me ask if he was responsible for all U.S. president assassinations - to which he responded, “Only the ones that succeeded.” The more he talked, the higher he drew my hands and the closer he moved to me. Only a few more inches, and I could hopefully execute my plan.
The ones closest to his eyes were marks from his killing of Jack the Ripper and there was no mistaking how excited my exploration of his tattoos was making him. His hands dropped away from mine, moving toward his belt buckle, and I knew this was my only chance. Taking a deep breath and reminding myself that now was not the time to be a total girl, I settled my thumbs over his eyeballs and pressed hard.