Blurred Memories (25 page)

“
I’m sorry,” he told a
still-glowing Kate. “He’s not.”

Chapter 21

Kate paced in the courtyard
in front of the hotel until the truck finally arrived. She stilled
as it stopped and crossed her arms, hugging herself.

Daniel had confirmed that he
also couldn’t feel Marc’s presence—and apologized for leading her
to believe Marc was back, even for a few moments. Now he stood at
her side, his presence comforting even though he didn’t say a word.
She wished Blake were there, too, but he had refused to
come.

“
Either he’s trapped there
or he’s dead,” he had said when she had asked him to accompany her.
“I don’t know which is worse. I don’t
want
to
know.”

Now that the answer was
near, Kate wasn’t sure she wanted to know, either. Her stomach
twisted, and she watched people she didn’t know step out of the
back of the truck. Three of them were looking around and trembling
like they didn’t know where they were. Medics approached them and
led them away. Another medic tried to approach Jen, but she refused
his help even though she held her arm stiffly like it was injured.
Simon finally jumped out of the truck. He looked exhausted, and
blood stained his cheek. He walked at Jen’s side, and the two of
them came toward Kate and Daniel.

“
Where is he?” Kate asked,
unable to restrain herself any longer. She hated how much her voice
shook on those three words, but at least—small mercies—she wasn’t
crying. Dead or trapped… Kate didn’t want to hear either
option.

Simon looked down at the
magic bag he was holding in front of him. Jen gave him a look,
rolled her eyes, and said, “The demons captured him.”

Kate’s instincts took over,
and she reacted without thinking. Her fist flew, and before she
even knew what she was doing, it was smashing into Jen’s face with
every bit of strength Kate possessed. Jen fell back flat on her
ass, looking up at Kate with clear surprise as she touched her face
gingerly.

“
You bitch!” she spat. “You
broke my nose!”

“
You’re lucky I didn’t
stake you,” Kate’s voice cracked like ice. “I haven’t ruled it out
yet, so shut the hell up.” When she turned back to Simon, he took a
step back, maybe expecting the same treatment.

“
Is she telling the truth?”
she asked.

Simon gulped noisily. “I…
Yes. I’m sorry, it was all so—”

“
You know what they do to
their prisoners and you
left him there
?”

The last words were all but
a shriek. Daniel rested his hand on her arm. Jen, who had pushed
herself back to her feet, looked ready to fend off a new
attack.

“
He told us to go,” Simon
protested. “He said he’d be right behind us, covering us, so we
took the prisoners to the breach, and when I looked back…he wasn’t
there anymore.”

Kate felt like the world was
falling to pieces around her. She had gone through this when Blake
had disappeared through that breach. She couldn’t bear the thought
of going through the same thing with Marc. Would he be tortured
like Blake had been? Or executed, maybe? No, he wouldn’t let
himself be caught, he would force them to kill him, and take as
many demons with him as he could.

Or at least, he would try.
Blake hadn’t been able to do as much himself. Could
Marc?

Daniel’s hand was still on
her arm, but despite the support he offered, she could feel herself
wavering. She started to turn away, wanting to go back inside and
find a place to sit, but through the curtain of tears that blurred
her vision, a shape appeared. Blake opened his arms to her, and she
stepped in his embrace with as much relief as love.

“
We have to get him back.”
Her words were muffled against his chest.

She remembered saying the
same thing to Marc, what felt like so long ago. It had taken
months, almost two years—entire centuries—before Blake had returned
to them. They couldn’t let the same thing happen to
Marc.

“
We will.” Blake pressed a
kiss to the top of her head like a promise. “We’ll get him. We’ll
bring him back.”

Kate clung to him a little
tighter, glad beyond words that he could be there with her, for her
and for Marc.

She only hoped he wouldn’t
stumble again now.

* * * *

Blake didn’t want to do
this. He wasn’t even sure he would be able to get through with it.
He had to, though. Kate needed him. Marc needed him. Everything
else was secondary, including the fear that was rising inside him
like a tide at the thought of going through a breach
again.

“
We’ll bring him back,” he
said again, as much to reassure Kate as to convince
himself.

When he looked up again, he
felt a jolt at how many gazes were focused on them. Simon’s eyes
were full of tears. Daniel’s were flat, almost lifeless. And
Jen’s…

He clenched his teeth when
he looked at her. The blood had stopped trickling from her nose,
but it still stained her upper lip. Had he had a stake, she would
have been dust already. She had already taken Marc from him once.
She had tried to take Kate away, too, in the City. And
now…

“
This is your fault,” he
practically growled. “If anything happens to him—”

“
He’s a grown up,” she
interrupted him. “He made up his own mind to go there. It was his
decision to get out from under the glamour to fight, his decision
to risk freeing prisoners.” She paused and hesitated, glancing at
Simon before she began again. “And no one made him touch that orb
thing. Actually, I
told
him not to touch it.”

Kate turned in Blake’s
embrace, although he held her tightly to his chest and didn’t let
go. She asked the question before Blake could.

“
What orb?”

After another hesitant look
at Simon, Jen answered. “Demons use them when they do magic. Marc
touched one of them and…something happened. I don’t
know—”

“
He said… He said he saw
what happened,” Simon cut in. “What happened to you, I mean. When
you were in that prison.” Simon looked at Blake apologetically. “It
sounded like…like he remembered doing it.”

Blake’s arms tightened
around Kate. She covered his hands with hers and squeezed gently,
lending him back some of the strength he had given her.

For months, Blake had tried
to protect both of them from the demons—figurative and literal—that
lurked in his head. He didn’t want them to know how bad it was and
wake up from the same nightmares. It was bad enough that he
remembered; they didn’t need to.

But now… If what Simon said
was true, Marc knew. He remembered.

Was it a coincidence that he
had been taken by demons right after uncovering that knowledge that
shouldn’t have been his? He had battled demons for decades upon
decades and never received more than scrapes. Blake couldn’t
believe that the timing was a coincidence. What Marc had seen had
to have affected him. He must have lost focus. That was why he had
been captured.

Blake refused to think even
for a second that Marc hadn’t been captured and had been killed
instead. The possibility was too terrifying to even
acknowledge.

“
We have to go.” He was
almost startled by how rough his voice sounded. “We have to go and
get him
now
.”

Kate was trembling against
him, but her voice was steady when she asked, “Simon? Are you
coming? We could use your help.”

Simon didn’t hesitate for
even a second before nodding. “Yes. Of course.” For once, there was
no scent of fear wafting from him. “But I’m not sure I remember the
way. I wasn’t feeling too good, and I just followed
Jen.”

“
Wait,” Daniel said, “slow
down. Think for a minute.”

At the same time, Jen said
forcefully, “I’m not going. You said you’d do that spell on my
tattoo, mage. That was the deal: I go with you two and you make it
impossible for demons to track me. Do it now. Before you
leave.”

“
Deal?” Daniel’s voice rose
in volume. “I didn’t agree to any deal. And we can’t go rushing
through the breach like that. I need to ask my
superiors—”

“
Daniel,” Kate interrupted
him. “You already know that they’ll say no. They only agreed before
because they couldn’t afford to lose Simon, you said so yourself.
If you don’t want to go without their approval, then don’t. We’re
going, and that’s that.”

When Kate told Simon to go
inside to do his magic on Jen—and do it fast—Daniel didn’t react.
The most peculiar expression was etched on his face, and it
remained there even after Kate turned in Blake’s embrace to tell
him she would get their weapons and armor, and try to find
volunteers to accompany them. Blake remained in the courtyard with
Daniel and couldn’t begin to understand what was holding Daniel
back.

“
You’re his Childe,” he
said, causing Daniel’s head to snap up. “If you were the one
trapped there, and there was anything he could do to get you out,
he would, and you know it.”

Even as he said the words,
Blake realized how true they were—and how they applied to him as
well. He had lashed out at Marc about it, but he wouldn’t do that
anymore. He would use that anger as fuel to fight demons. And he
would free his Sire.

Before that, though, there
was one thing he needed to do.

He left Daniel to his own
thoughts and strode back into the hotel, following the trail of
Simon’s and Jen’s scents to the otherwise-empty dining hall. Jen
was sitting on the edge of a table, her pants pulled down to her
knees, exposing the tattoo on her leg. Blake slowed down,
scratching absently at his own thigh as he watched Simon whip up a
greenish paste in a small wooden bowl. Simon glanced back at him
but only acknowledged Blake’s presence with a light nod and didn’t
stop mixing his ingredients or whispering the spell under his
breath. Blake had vague recollections of Simon doing a similar
spell on him, a few months earlier.

He watched in silence as
Simon spread the paste over Jen’s skin, obscuring the tattoo
without fully covering it. A few more chanted words caused the
paste to glow, and Jen shuddered. Simon wiped beads of sweat off
his forehead with his sleeve and pulled back to turn to
Blake.

“
Would you like me to do it
on you, too?” He gestured to Blake’s thigh. “It’s a little
different from the spell I did on you, and I think it might be
better.”

Blake shook his head. “I’m
fine.”

“
But you’re scratching it
again,” Simon pointed out.

Blake looked down and made a
conscious effort to stop. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said with
a shrug. “It’s just an old habit. You could remove the tattoo
completely and I’d still do it.” He turned his attention to Jen and
gestured to her leg, now covered again as she fastened her pants.
“You’ll keep scratching, too, spell or no spell. You won’t leave
the demons behind by hiding from them. I’ve learned that
much.”

With a scoff, Jen pushed
past him. “Maybe not, but I’ll sure try.”

“
He believed in you.” Blake
turned to follow her with his eyes. “He left his own Childe behind
because you asked him to. And even after you betrayed him, he still
let you out of that cell. He still believed you were worth a shot.
Don’t you think
he
is?”

Jen had slowed down,
although she didn’t look back. She paused, shook her head, then
strode away.

When Blake climbed into the
truck a few minutes later with Seneca in his hand and Kate at his
side, twenty or so other fighters were waiting. Daniel was there.
So was Jen.

Blake only wished the
reinforcements could settle the growing apprehension in his
stomach, like a black hole that threatened to swallow everything,
including his hope and courage. He couldn’t falter now, though, not
when his Sire’s life was at stake, maybe even lost
already.

No breach had ever seemed as
foreboding as this one. Blake took Kate’s hand and nodded. She
nodded back and called out a, “Let’s go,” to the rest of the
soldiers.

The two of them stepped
through first—together.

Chapter 22

As they crossed the breach,
Kate kept a close eye on Blake, or as close as she could when her
stomach was lurching. It was night in the demon dimension, and with
only the faint glow of the breach to provide light, she had some
trouble gauging Blake’s expression. She wanted to ask him if he was
all right, but she knew he would lie if he wasn’t, so what was the
point?

The rest of the strike team
came through behind them, with Simon close to the front. His face
looked strained, although in a different way from the soldiers, all
of whom seemed to feel sick like Kate did.

“
The nausea will fade,”
Simon said through gritted teeth. “And the glamour I’ve got over
all of us will do the same soon. I can’t hold it much longer. Last
time there were demons right ahead. Maybe we can take them by
surprise and clear the way.”