Blurred Memories (11 page)

Not Marc, obviously; Marc
was already there, or at least that was what Blake had believed.
Not Kate either. Kate needed help as much as he did; more so,
maybe, because she had to be protected both from their Master’s
caprices and Blake’s mistakes. But someone. Anyone. Even Simon. He
had been the only other person Blake knew for sure cared about
him.

When enough time had passed
with no rescue, when thinking had become more and more difficult,
Blake had stopped hoping altogether, stopped thinking about his
life before the cell, and in time it had become as distant, as
blurry in his memories as a half-remembered dream. He had even
forgotten Simon’s name.

To hear now that, during all
that time, Simon had in fact been trying to find a way to reach him
felt strangely heartwarming. And at the same time, it left a
bittersweet taste at the back of Blake’s throat. Simon had tried.
He had failed, but he had tried. If Blake knew Kate at all, she had
kept close to Simon to check on his progress and urge him on. But
Marc—Blake’s Sire—the one person who
should
have
helped…

Marc had left. Gone on to
fight with other groups. He had given up.

It hurt. It hurt so
much…

“
Bl—Blake?” Simon
whispered. “Are you…are you all right?”

Blake closed his eyes for a
second and shook his head, trying to shake away thoughts that
weren’t helping anything.

“
You’re not?” Simon now
sounded terrified. “Should I…should I call Marc? Or Kate?
I—”

“
No,” Blake grunted. He
blinked several times then focused on Simon next to him. “I’m fine.
And you’ve got some mojo to do, don’t you?”

Simon continued to look up
at Blake, the wooden bowl forgotten in his hands.

“
I’m fine, really,” Blake
said again, and hoped he sounded more convincing. He was so damn
tired of having to repeat those stupid words over and over when no
one ever believed them anyway. “I… Thank you. For trying, I mean.
Even if you didn’t succeed, I know you must have tried very hard to
help me.”

Harder, in any case, than
Marc. The thought lanced through Blake again like a knife, but he
had had a lot of practice at ignoring pain, physical or
mental.

“
Are you done?” he asked,
gesturing at the bowl and the paste inside it. “What now,
then?”

Simon blinked and looked
down as though just remembering what he had been doing. He still
didn’t resume his preparations, however, and after a second or two,
he was back to looking at Blake with undisguised
discomfort.

“
What about…what about the
rest? Can you forgive me for touching…for what I did? I was just
trying to help. I didn’t know any other way.”

Blake knew what he meant. He
would have blown him off, too hurt and impatient to leave the
breach behind, if not for the quiver in Simon’s voice. He really
needed to hear this. And unlike many things Blake had been asked
lately, this one cost him nothing.

“
There’s nothing to
forgive. Really. Don’t worry about it anymore.”

Simon’s smile lit up his
entire face, giving away just how much all of this had troubled
him. Blake tried to smile back, but what came out felt like a
grimace rather than a proper smile. Some days, Blake wondered if
he’d ever learn to smile again.

Chapter 9

On the rooftop, Blake waved
back at Kate, and she released the breath she had been holding. She
wished she had pushed harder about accompanying Blake and Simon.
She understood why Marc had suggested they go up there. Daniel had
seemed rather certain that demons would come through and attack,
sooner or later. The demons didn’t have an alarm like in the City,
nor did they keep guards by the breach like at some other places,
but they always seemed to know when soldiers were close by. When
the demons did attack, Blake would be out of harm’s way and have a
good reason to stay there. Still, she hated being so far from
Blake, especially when there was a breach nearby, almost close
enough to touch. What if his memories took hold of him again? Would
Simon be able to help him?

She turned her back to the
building, resolutely telling herself that things were for the best,
even though deep down she couldn’t help but wish Blake were as far
from the battlefield as possible. He had wanted to come, but was it
such a good idea?

“
Do you think it’ll help
him to be out here?” she asked Marc when the question wouldn’t stop
bouncing around in her mind. “To do something against the
demons?”

Marc’s silence stretched
into uncomfortable territory. Kate turned to him, and the dark look
on his brow sent a wave of ice deep into her bones. He must have
noticed her shiver, because his features turned apologetic and he
drew her into a brief hug.

“
I don’t know,” he murmured
when he released her.

They both returned to
watching their surroundings. Kate noticed that Marc’s gaze flitted
upward, to the rooftop where Blake stood guard over
Simon.

“
I hope,” he said after a
while, still as quietly. “I don’t know what else we can do to help,
not when he still won’t talk to us.”

A wave of guilt washed over
Kate, and she shifted uneasily where she stood. Blake
had
talked to her about one small part of his experience and why he
loathed seeing her on her knees. Part of her had wanted to mention
it to Marc, share this small step with him, but so far she hadn’t
said anything, and she still wasn’t sure why not.

“
Did he… I mean,
before
. Did he use to talk to you about things that bothered
him or…”

Kate didn’t finish her
question; she didn’t have to. She could already read the answer in
Marc’s flat eyes. Blake’s reluctance to confide into anyone wasn’t
anything new—and no, Marc didn’t have any tricks to help Blake open
up.

She sighed. “I
wish…”

She bit her lip rather than
finish voicing that thought. Marc knew. He had to. And he
undoubtedly wished the very same thing.

“
He’s getting better,” Marc
said with a soft smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s just
hard to see at times because it’s so slow and we’re so close to
him. Don’t lose hope.”

He rubbed her back gently
before resuming his watch. Kate wanted to believe him more than
anything, but sometimes—

She couldn’t have said what
caused her to turn to the breach at that moment. Maybe she had
caught the flicker of the light shining through from the corner of
her eye. Maybe instinct, or intuition, or that same good luck that
had kept her alive and well for so long was speaking to her
again.

Whatever it was, she pushed
away her fears and concerns for her lover, and slipped into
fighting mode. She was the first to raise the alarm when one lone,
slender, human-like figure stepped out of the breach as though it
were nothing more than a doorway. That first figure was soon
followed by what looked like a dozen more—and those were
unmistakably demons, armed and ready to attack.

Had she recognized the first
person to walk through, she might have allowed the demons to
slaughter Jen. All she saw, however, was a human, someone to be
protected, and she did exactly that. With a shout to raise the
alarm, she rushed toward the breach and the demons, already
wielding her sword and with the deep-bone certitude that Marc was
only a foot or two behind her.

The last thought that
flashed through her mind before the heat of the battle obliterated
everything else was the hope that Blake would stay safe and away
from the fight.

* * * *

Kate’s cry of alarm startled
Blake so much that he all but jumped. He looked over the low wall
down to the ground to find out what was going on.

Demons were rushing in
through the breach. The squad was under attack.

Emotions rushed through
Blake in successive waves. First and foremost was worry; Kate and
Marc were down there, already fighting side by side. He needed to
go help them. Fear was next, so overwhelming Blake felt like he
would choke. The last time he had fought demons, he had lost, and
he’d been punished with decades of pain. What if he lost again?
Shame and anger surged through him. He refused to be scared,
refused to be a victim any longer. That was not who he
was.

“
Blake? What should we
do?”

Simon’s squeaky words
snapped Blake back to attention. He turned to the mage, his mouth
already open to give orders. It fell shut and he blinked when he
took in Simon’s appearance, three red lines of drying paste drawn
over each of his eyelids as well as above and below it. For a
fleeting moment, Blake wished he had paid attention while Simon did
his magic, or even asked explanations about what he was doing.
Maybe later.

“
Is your spell over?” he
asked. “Did you get the information you needed?”

Simon grimaced. “Not yet. I
need a little more time. Can you—”

“
Make sure you get it?”
Blake’s grin felt like his first real smile in months. The sense of
purpose that came with it was like a balm soothing an open wound.
“Yeah, I can do that. Come down when you’re done, all right? And do
your magic cloak thing on yourself when you do.”

He barely waited for Simon
to nod in reply before he hurried to the stairs, his sword already
in hand. In moments, he was back in the street. He remained near
the entrance to the building so he could defend its access. Most
fighters worked in pairs, but that did not worry him. Fighting was
in his veins. He didn’t need help. He only needed an
adversary.

It wasn’t long before one
presented itself.

The demon struck with a loud
grunt. Its sword met Blake’s in a clash of fiery sparks. For the
first time in what seemed like forever—what was centuries, in fact,
at least to him—Blake felt as though pure life was coursing through
him. Not until this very instant had he realized how much he had
missed the rush of the fight, and the exhilaration of going head to
head with an adversary. The fears and worries that had plagued him
when he had sparred with Marc were gone, leaving only a sense of
rightness behind.

With a shout that was part
delight, part defiance, he struck high at the demon’s chest. Seneca
rang like a gong against the thick metal armor. The demon wasn’t
hurt, but it stumbled back either from surprise or from the force
of the blow. Blake rushed forward at once and struck again, high,
then low, at the demon’s leg, and its arm, blood dark as ink
staining his blade. With a growl, the demon pulled back again; the
light emanating from the breach now bathed its side.

Blake froze. His throat felt
tight, too tight. His fingers clenched on the hilt of the
sword.

Demons were all different.
No two of them had the same pattern of protruding bones. But back
in the demon dimension, when Blake had first been captured, when
demons had dragged him to a cell, one of them had had a series of
bone spikes on each forearm, five spikes between four and five
inches in length on either side.

The demon standing in front
of Blake wore identical spikes. Five on the left forearm, four on
the right, plus a short stub near the elbow where a fifth one had
been broken off.

Where
Blake
had
broken it off.

* * * *

Shouting or struggling was
useless, and so was refusing to walk. The demons would drag Blake
over uneven ground and stones until he was bruised, maybe even had
broken bones, and that wouldn’t help him escape in the least.
Walking behind one of his two captors, with his hands tied in front
of him and a rope around his neck, Blake tried to take in as much
as he could, memorizing features of the landscape around him,
seeking paths through the rocky terrain.

The trouble was, they had
been walking for hours, and everything looked the same. Blake had
no idea where he was being led, but the further he let himself be
taken, the harder it would be to get back to…

To where?

The breach was closed. How
would he go back to his world?

He needed to find another
breach. It didn’t matter where he ended up; he only needed to go
back through. And for that, he first needed to escape.

He started to pay closer
attention to his guards. There were two of them, both in front of
him. They were grunting quietly at each other—talking, Blake
supposed. It would have helped to know what they were saying, but
Blake had to work with what he had, not what would be convenient.
He had no weapon, nothing to cut his bonds, but he didn’t need to
get to his guards’ weapons to have access to something sharp. His
guards themselves were full of sharp edges, and he knew from
experience that their spiky bone protrusions could cut like steel.
He had another advantage: they believed him beaten and caution
unnecessary. If he could get close enough, managed to incapacitate
the demons in some way, freed himself and ran fast enough and found
another breach to jump through…

Too many ifs. The odds
weren’t good, but he doubted they would get any better once they
arrived wherever the demons were taking him.