Cloak of Deceit: An Alex Moore Novel (4 page)

“No.” His voice was suddenly gruffer. “You’re why your boyfriend is in trouble. He got carried away with you. An Undead as new as he is shouldn’t have had enough venom to turn someone completely. When they do, their victims usually go manic. You were surprisingly lucid afterwards. I thought you might survive, otherwise I wouldn’t have left you. You haven’t gone through your final transformation yet, but you appear sane.”

“Ex-boyfriend,” I corrected, raking my hands through my hair. “And I’m not so sure about the sane part.”

Of course, next to a man who broke into womens’ apartments claiming to be an Undead enforcer, the sanity bar was low enough that I could probably hobble over it. How was I going to tell anyone what had happened to me? Mom would have me on an operating table in ten minutes flat. I shuddered at the thought. I could never tell her.

Julian unfolded from the floor and held out a hand to help me up, which I accepted. His skin was warm, just like before. I realized how cold I was. Shock? Or just having no blood flow? I stood, silently pondering, until he cleared his throat and drew his hand away from where I’d been holding it in both of mine.

I studied his shielded gaze, wide mouth, and the scar on his cheek with a new importance. Julian was now the only person I knew in this nightmare come to life, the only person who knew me, besides dick-face Cody. Maybe he read my mind, because his features softened, and his shoulders relaxed.

“The Code is strict on someone as new as your ex-boyfriend making another Undead. He doesn’t have any rank and he didn’t have a license. If he was smart, he went to his Sponsor, who will probably take him before the Cloak for judgment. If he was stupid, he’s running, and someone like me will have to hunt him down.”

“Rank?”
Code? Sponsor? The Cloak?
I slumped onto the foot of my bed and rubbed my temples to keep my impending headache at bay. It was a lot to take in: not just my missing heartbeat, but an Undead enforcer in my bedroom explaining the rules of some underground vampire society. Julian started to answer my question, but I held up a hand to stop him. I didn’t have the energy to even attempt to comprehend his explanation.

“Let’s start over. Is there any way out of this?” My voice betrayed more hope than I liked. But I thought I was handling it pretty well, considering I was technically
dead
, and yet having thoughts and conversations.

A shadow passed over his face as he looked down at me, and I saw the answer in his eyes before he shook his head. “There’s no going back.”

“Right. Okay. So dead is still dead. Or…Undead, I guess.” I spoke half to myself, burying my face in my hands. I had to think, but my temples throbbed and my jaw ached.

I heard the shuffling of his clothes as Julian left the room. When he returned, he gathered my lamp from the floor. He plugged it in and turned it on, then shut off the bright overhead. “Better?”

“Thanks.” I turned my head to watch him from the corner of my eye as he sat down on the bed beside me. He unscrewed the cap of an aluminum thermos.

I licked my lips, remembering how desperately thirsty I was. The thirst surged again, now that my mental shock was wearing off. Julian took a drink and then raised one eyebrow, slanting the thermos in my direction. A metallic tang hit my palette. My mouth watered to the point that I almost drooled.

I tilted the jug to my lips and swallowed a large gulp, which I promptly choked on. “Blegh! What is that? It’s awful.”

I took another long swig. It tasted like rotten strawberries, yet was oddly satisfying.

“Tomato juice and cow’s blood.”

I spit the third mouthful out in a red mist.

He pursed his lips to keep from smiling. “Sort of a newbie cocktail.”

I eyed the thermos, fighting my urge to take another drink. In theory, it was sickening, but my body craved more. I took another small sip, trying to taste the blood, expecting to gag. I didn’t. I sighed and resigned myself to drinking the rest in two long swigs.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“Well.” Julian sounded relieved I’d asked. “Tonight you’ll go through your final transformation. It’s very unpleasant, so I’ll give you something to knock you out. I’ll leave you the number of someone who deals with cases like yours — ones without Sponsors.”

He paused, concern marring his features. I realized I was scowling at him and swept the look off of my face before handing him back the empty thermos.

“Sorry.” I wiped my mouth. “I meant on a grander scale. You know, with the life I thought I had. But I guess that’s not your department.” I fell back onto the bed, and stared up at the ceiling.

“Not usually.” The comforting tone seeped back into his voice. I closed my eyes, letting it soothe my raw nerves. “Normally, when I show up, you’re in deep shit.”

“True-dat.”

Julian laughed. The rich timbre of it made me smile, despite my grim mood. “I think you’re going to be okay.”

“Because I’m tough?” I sat up, shoulder to shoulder with him.

“Among other things.” He looked down at his lap, his brows knit together. “I’ve seen a lot of accidental turns go very badly. That’s why I came here tonight, in case you needed to be restrained and taken in, or…put down.” He sighed so deeply I felt it down to my toes. “I’m glad that didn’t happen.”

He glanced over at me and our gazes locked. I was glad too. Glad that hat he hadn’t been forced to kill me. Glad that he was here now. I’m not sure why I felt like I could, but I reached over and pressed my fingers to his neck. He started at the touch, but then swallowed and relaxed.

“Just checking.” I felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one. His skin was considerably warmer than mine, smooth, and I could still smell that faint leathery scent. I pulled down the collar of his shirt, searching for a bite mark, but didn’t find one of those either.

“We heal exceptionally well.”

I pressed my hand over the mangled flesh on my own neck.

Julian brushed my chin with his fingertips, turning my head slightly. He eased my hand away. “That one might leave a scar. He was sloppy.”

His thumb slid across the ring of swollen bumps, and I couldn’t repress the shiver his touch brought. The warmth in his fingertips painted a trail of heat on my skin, relaxing the muscles beneath.

“What’s going to happen to Cody?” I asked to fill the heavy silence.

He let go of me and cleared his throat, his mouth drawing down at the corners. “He and his Sponsor will both be punished by the Cloak, but if they cooperate, it shouldn’t be too severe.”

It seemed like he had flipped an internal switch. Another side of him emerged when he mentioned the Cloak, a harder side I didn’t like so much. My eyes lingered over the shiny crescent-shaped scar on his otherwise perfect profile. I had to wonder: if he healed exceptionally well, what had left that mark? Had it been there before he’d turned into an Undead?

He caught me studying him and stood. “I should go.”

“No, wait.” I grabbed his hand.

The mixture of impatience and curiosity in his expression was growing familiar, as if he couldn’t quite figure me out and hadn’t decided if he liked that or not. The idea of intriguing Julian managed to thrill me just a little, despite the general downward spiral of my life, and even my recent death.

“Please.” I let my very real desperation come through in my voice.

Think, Alex — don’t let him go
.

All that echoed in my mind was the increasingly uncomfortable truth: I didn’t want to be alone. No one else could possibly comprehend what had happened to me. I stared into Julian’s dark eyes, and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I have so many questions.”

I need help figuring this
out.

“I know,” he said, all gentle reassurance, “and you’ll get answers.”

He reached into his pocket and handed me a business card, which I examined with feigned interest: ten hand-written digits. I would have staked my life —
ha!
—on it not being Julian’s number.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” A self-conscious frown distorted his handsome face. He tucked a small vial into my palm. “Here.”

I furrowed my brows and examined the viscous black liquid.

“Drink it.” He closed my fingers for me. “You should sleep through most of tonight and tomorrow. When you wake up, call the number. The Cloak will assign you a case worker to help you sort things out. Don’t make a move without calling them first. You’ll need more blood, and they can provide it for you. No one can find out about what you are, Alex. If you reveal anything about the Undead or the Cloak, they won’t hesitate to eliminate you. Consider yourself warned.”

He picked up his coat from atop a pile of folded laundry by the door and shrugged it on.

“Julian?”

He paused in the doorway and glanced back at me, his black hair falling to shadow his eyes.

“Will I ever see you again?”

“Not if you play your cards right. Watch out for yourself, Alex.” He gave me a half-smile, and then he walked out without looking back.

Guys doing that to me was really starting to get old.

I sat on the edge of my bed for I don’t know how long, teetering at the edge of the unknown.

How can any of this be real?

I examined the vial in my hand and thought about how my main gripe had always been my life’s predictability. My course had been plotted ahead of me since before I was born. Even my conception had been considered, planned, and executed by my mother like an operation. I had always felt trapped by it, had searched for a way to break the mold. But now the boring, predictable life I’d wanted to escape had been snatched away, and I faced a great big question mark. I realized how much I had taken for granted.

Still, another part buried deep inside of me stirred, an inner restlessness. That part looked at the blank slate ahead and felt
relieved
. I had no idea what could or would happen to me, and yet I wasn’t afraid. That alone should have scared the hell out of me — but I’d always felt something was missing, that there had to be
more
. I’d thought it had been growing up with half of my parentage a complete mystery, but maybe what I’d sensed was that the reality I’d grown up in was simply…wrong on several counts. Like the line between life and death.

Since I was dead already, what did I have to lose?

I uncapped the vial, tilted it to my lips, and swallowed it down.

Chapter Three

I
dreamed. This time nothing soothed away the pain or the horror. I was alone. Exposed. Falling into an endless abyss that was both cradling me and tearing at me like a raging funnel of wind. Black shadows swirled, pealing scraps of me off to become ash and join with the shadows. Powerful gusts wracked me from every side.

Suspended in freefall, I couldn’t hear my own screams over the howling wind. My physical body didn’t hurt, but whatever lived inside of it — my soul, my spirit — writhed in agony. Each piece that was stripped away left me raw and aching.

There was no sense of time. An eternity passed before I slammed into the bottom. I splattered into a formless puddle of sentient ooze. Drops of me clung together and gathered into runnels, trying to take shape. But they couldn’t fit like they had before. Parts of me were missing. And yet, I could draw from the primordial grit below me, from the haze hanging all around.

The elements in this strange state of consciousness whispered to me, offering themselves.

Join with us. You are a part of us.

Slowly, I re-built myself, guided by the voices, until I found the new me — Alex — lying there on the dry, scratchy ground. The darkness was so absolute, I couldn’t tell if I still had eyes.

As I rose to my feet, the voices took on unique tones, murmuring in a nonsensical rabble. A faint white light glowed overhead. Relief bubbled up inside me. I didn’t like the penetrating shadows. If I surrendered, would they swallow me whole?

The voices grew more insistent, rising to a confusing crescendo. I covered my ears, but it made no difference. They came from inside my head as much as outside.

The light grew steadily closer, and I surged with hope for a reprieve from the oppressive whispers. Their words felt like icy fingers probing inside my head, worming through me as if I were still made of that molten substance.

A puddle of light reached me and ebbed slowly outward, brightening the landscape. Which just brought into relief that I was surrounded by the formless shadows on all sides.

The voices enveloped me, coiling through my insides, sucking at the form I had created for myself with more desperation. The shadows kept whispering, caressing me, trying to make me a part of the darkness, one piece at a time. I fought and drew away, imagining that I could slice through them with my thoughts, but like a hydra, for every one I stopped, two more reached out.

“Leave me alone!” I shouted to hear my own voice over the whispers.

The shadows reared back.

I ran, with no direction. There wasn’t really ground underneath me, or air in my lungs, but I ran in what felt like deep sand — as hard as I could.