Everlasting (Night Watchmen, #1) (32 page)

“Thank you,” Cassie says, dipping her head.

“Anyway,” Gavin drags out, “can we go now?”

“How can I make the best of anything when my Hunter’s stuck to…to her?” Jezi asks with her arms folded across her chest, her usual stance. I wish I could bottle up her attitude and use it as a hex on my foes.

“Jezi, knock it off,” Jaxen warns. “We talked about this. You said you understood.”

She shoves her chin in the air. “Maybe I lied. And you know what? Maybe I don’t feel like hunting tonight. You have the Everlasting, so it’s not like you need me, right? Not when you can pull power off of her.”

He growls a warning.

“What is she talking about?” I ask, feeling years away from understanding her words.

She turns her attention on me. “Oh, you didn’t know? Here, let me show you.” She shrugs out of her jacket and hands it to Cassie. Cassie’s eyes are closed and her head’s pointed to the ground. Jezi steps closer to me, rolling up the fabric of her shirt that covers her forearm.

“Jezi, please. Stop,” Jaxen says, this time sounding somewhat nervous.

I look over at him and then back at her. “This,” she says, pointing to the affinity mark on her forearm. It’s an awkward heart shape, the same as mine. “This is what I’m talking about.”

My heart is synchronized with the deafening pound of my pulse. My lungs refuse to work, refuse to let me inhale, but my mind is in overdrive, processing more than I can handle in that moment.

“We have the same affinity mark,” I blurt in shock, my voice shuddering as I gasp for air. No wonder the attraction, the closeness, the need to be around him and with him.

“I know.”

Those two words he says so calmly, but with the kind of calm that only ever appears right before a storm, the kind that tricks you into thinking everything is okay, only to yank the rug out from under you when you least expect it.

I just pray I can weather his storm.

“That was stupid,” Cassie says to Jezi. “She doesn’t need this added to her plate right now.”

“No one asked you,” Jezi says, her voice dangerously low. “I’m done here. Report to Mack if you have a problem.” She walks off, disappearing into the shadows of the night.

No one dares to say anything else to Jaxen, no one except Gavin, of course.

“That’s bordering abandonment,” he says, his glassy blue eyes floating over to me. I look away from him, directing my gaze to the blur of darkness.

“No one’s abandoning anyone,” Jaxen says, breaking up the silence. His hands plunge through his hair and then stop, gripping back whatever internal war he’s fighting. I want to touch him so badly. I want to console him, ask him the million questions floating around in my mind, and show him that I’m not upset.

“What does this mean?” I ask.

“It means you’re treading more dangerous ground than you thought,” Cassie says. “You thought being the Everlasting was hard? This kind of thing would make everyone question the Culling, question our leaders. No one can know.”

“But, the Culling quartz...”

“Apparently it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Your shared mark proves that.”

“Cass,” Gavin warns. He looks at me. “Just drop it. This isn’t a safe place to speak about this. Let’s go.”

Gavin gets in the car, and Cassie hops in the passenger seat. Weldon slides into the back, leaving the door open for us. I pick up my bag, toss it in the trunk, and slide in with Jaxen right behind me. Gavin takes off, leaving trails of exhaust fumes in our wake.

Leaving my ability to make sense of what’s happening.

Gavin drives us to an
abandoned street somewhere in Brooklyn. The entire ride has been silent ever since the doors closed and the car rolled forward. It’s a horrible silence, the kind of silence where your thoughts scream at you to listen and dissect, the kind of silence you don’t want to have when you’re crammed in an overheated car on your way to take on the supernatural.

Gavin’s the first to break, and I can’t help but sigh with relief when he does. “I can feel it buzzing in the air,” he says. He eyes Cassie, who’s staring out at the city lights. When she doesn’t say anything, he nudges her elbow off the center console.

“Hmm?” she says distractedly, looking over to him with a thin smile.

“I said, I can feel the buzz of paranormal activity,” he repeats, his head tilting to her with his brow lifted smartly. “It’s been awhile.”

“Oh,” she says with a laugh. “Yeah, it’s been awhile, that’s for sure.” She rests her chin in the cup of her hand and turns back to stare out the window. I almost wish I could go back and get Jezi, just to remove the awkwardness. Jezi’s her friend, and here she is, with me and Jaxen, taking me on a hunt. It can’t be easy for her. I take a deep, pained breath and close my eyes.

It wasn’t my fault.

Heat scorches the side of my face. I open my eyes and peer to where Jaxen sits. He’s turned away from the window and is looking at me. His brows crease when he narrows his eyes on me, and then to the place on my arm where my mark is.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I dare to ask, tilting my head.

He doesn’t say anything at first. He just clears his throat, still wearing a crease on his forehead. I think I age ten years before he finally speaks. “I didn’t want to make things worse for you, confuse you. Mack’s looking into it. It’s part of the reason I went to Ethryeal City with him. I wanted to find out the truth, but the few he trusted enough to ask are stumped and advised we keep this to ourselves. This hasn’t been seen before.”

“Do your powers work around her?” Weldon asks quietly from the other side of me.

He nods and then looks back out the window. “The closer I get to her, the stronger they grow. That’s all we know.”

Gavin glances back at Jaxen and then back to the road as he pulls up to a red light. His eyes find me in the rear view mirror. “What do you say, Faye? Demon or Vampire?”

Again with the choices. It still feels strange to have a choice, to take a pick. “We have a choice? I thought we were on assignment.”

“Yeah to take a nest down. The street we’re on has both Demons and Vampires.”

It only takes me a second to deliberate. I scoot forward, biting my lips to bite back my smile. “Vampire,” I say, feeling like I just got to pick which restaurant I wanted to eat at. The thought thrills me to the core, lifting some of the heaviness in my chest.

“Good choice,” Gavin says. He turns down a dark street. Abandoned buildings are cram-packed with homeless people. The pavement is cracked and in desperate need of repair. There are very few street lights and even fewer signs of life. It’s an urban wasteland of broken promises and wasted dreams, a sad place to be and the perfect place for a Vampire to pick up a snack.

“Everything you need to know about Vampires can be summed up in what I’m about to tell you,” Gavin says, pulling up to the only smooth piece of sidewalk around. An abandoned house jammed between two other inhabitable houses sits beside us. I look away from the house and find Gavin turned around in his seat, crystal blue eyes staring at me.

“Okay,” I say, taking long, slow breaths to calm the flame of excitement kindling inside me.

“Vamps are animalistic. Though they inhabit humans, you have to remember they are a virus from Hell, one of many. You obviously know they feed off of blood and have cunning strength, but they can’t easily detect us when our volation is on. They’re, for the most part, an easy kill.”

“Unless you stumble into a nest,” Cassie points out. She turns to face him, her eyes lit with images from the past. “Remember that one time?” She nudges him.

“Yeah,” he says distantly. “Good times.” He smiles at the memory, and then shakes it away. “We’re taking a nest down. A nest can be anywhere from five to twenty Vamps. They like to inhabit abandoned areas where fresh blood wanders in for shelter. When Vamps are in a nest, they are connected by blood to one another. They’ll know if one of their own has been vanquished. That’s when things get serious.”

The homeless, I think with a shudder. Poor people.

“Tell me what you sense. A good Hunter can tell if they’re near a nest or not.”

I shut everything out and tune into my instincts. My body hums with power and a need to use it. “I smell the stench of stale blood and dark power. Old power,” I say.

The corner of Gavin’s mouth kicks up. “Good. That’s Vampiric power. They’re one of the oldest paranormal spawned from the Underground. Is there a nest? Use your volation like we talked about in training.” There’s so much around us that it’s hard to distinguish what’s what.

But I’m part Hunter. It’s bred in me to hunt. I put all of my focus on the Vampires and look back at the house. With my volation in full thrum, I push it out toward the house, like a brief gust of wind, and wait. It rushes over the house in a wave with every point of contact it touches sparking under the low pulse of power. I can almost see the walls and layout of the home through the pulsing of my power. Two dark forces are on the second floor. Vampires.

“There are two Vamps in the house next to us, but I don’t just sense them. I sense something else, something darker…more powerful. There’s a stench in the air… Sulfur?”

“Very good,” Gavin says, smiling at me the only way a mentor would- proudly. “The rest of the Vamp nest must be out on a hunt. The leader always stays at the nest. Food is brought to them. That means, one of those two will be very powerful. There’s a Demon nearby too. We need to be on guard. Always stay tuned in to what’s around you, because you never know what can appear.” He turns in his seat. “So how are we going to do this? Who’s waiting in the driver seat in case something goes wrong?” he asks Jaxen.

They pull out the game of paper-rock-scissors.

Gavin lands a rock.

Jaxen lands a pair of scissors. He tenses up.

“Lose again, brother,” Gavin boasts. “One of these days, you will master the craft of palm wars.”

“Whatever,” Jaxen says, giving nothing away. “Are you sure you can handle this?”

He’s looking at me when he asks this. “Me?” I ask, flinching my head back a little. “Yeah, I’m totally ready.”

He casts his eyes to the roof of the car and then onto his brother. “Just please be careful. Don’t show off or…slack off.” He looks over to Weldon. “Be a good partner to her.”

“Duh,” Weldon says.

Gavin snorts. “Slack off…” He gets out of the car and opens my door. Weldon slides out. I go to do the same, but Gavin stops me. “Take your flux out. Turn it into a stake.”

I take it out and focus on the flux in my hand, picturing what I want it to be, before sending my volation to it. The flux turns into a wooden stake that continues to spark with my magic. He does the same, and then walks around to open the door for Cassie.

“What? I get no flux?” Weldon says, standing in the middle of the road as I get out. I toss him one of my spares. He catches it, and then his eyes turn to gold. The flux shifts into a stake, and then he walks past me. “Let’s go.”

Jaxen walks beside me around the back of car and latches onto my arm, stopping me. I turn sideways. “Please be careful,” he says darkly, his eyes hidden in shadows. “I know you’re excited. This is exciting, but it’s also very dangerous. A number of things could go wrong and I…well, just be careful.”

“I will,” I say, swallowing his concern and using it to calm myself.

He drops his hand as he turns away and gets in the front seat, but leaves the door open.

“Come on,” Cassie says. She’s been leaning against the front fender of the car, watching the whole time. My cheeks don’t redden this time, for which I’m grateful. She knows my situation and she doesn’t judge me.

When we reach the front door, Gavin holds his finger to his mouth, telling us to be quiet. Lightning sparks down his arm as he turns the handle of the front door. On the outside, I know I’m an alert, calm, composed Hunter, but on the inside, I can’t separate my thoughts from my pounding heart. I can’t stop the adrenaline leaking into my muscles, adding strength to me.

He pushes the creaking door open, and then disappears behind it. “Last chance to back out,” Cassie whispers to me. She carries a real wooden stake.

I answer her by moving forward, following in Gavin and Weldon’s steps. They take me through a dark, dank living room with sheet-covered furniture and into a small, nearly demolished kitchen. The walls have rotted away, leaving the thin layer of brick the house was built out of. Rats scurry away at the sounds of my breathing, leaving rotting food behind.

I hear a scuffling step ahead and tighten my grip around the stake. I know I’m breathing too hard. I’m too anxious, too excited, for what is to come.
Steady
, I council myself. I don’t want to blow this.

Around the corner, I find Gavin and Weldon heading upstairs. There’s a large hole in the middle, leading to God knows where. A couple of boards stick up, warped from the heavy snow that enters from the various holes in the roof. This place is an accident waiting to happen. I follow their steps, commanding my lungs to take longer, steadier breaths, but the rapid beating of my heart makes it difficult.

My hand slips on the banister of the stairs, and I catch myself, both my hands splayed out to steady me. I dart my gaze around the top floor, making sure no one heard me. Control yourself!

“Shut it off,” Cassie says in my ear.

I flip the internal switch, and almost immediately, my heart slows to a calm beat. I feel nothing but the need to hunt. It’s a force driving my steps forward. I’m a robot, a well-oiled machine of precision.

I trek the rest of the way up th
e stairs on something like autopilot when a radar goes off in my senses. We’ve found one.

In one swift stride, I make my way into the room where the stench is coming from. Gavin stands behind a Vampire with Weldon standing off to the side. Gavin has the Vampire on its knees, his stake pressed against the center of its chest.

He summons me over with a head nod. “I’m giving you this one. An initiation present. The next is yours. Stake him.”

I stop in front of the Vampire, absorbing everything in a matter of seconds; the crusted brownish-red stain around his mouth, the incisors peeking over the edge of his lips, gleaming from the moonlight sneaking in through the broken window, the cunning smile in his eyes that says he will take me for all that I am.

And yet, I feel nothing.

He’s the representation of all that’s wrong with this world, of every life stolen by the hands of evil. He’s a person who had his life taken by a hellish virus. He’s a monster who has the ability to take what was taken from him.

And now, he’s dead.

I drive my stake through his heart, watching the light dim from the shell of what once was. Blood gurgles out of the Vampire’s mouth and out of every visible orifice. I step away. All I feel is a hunger, a need to hunt.

The wildness I feel is reflected in Gavin’s eyes. “You’re one of us now,” he says, dropping the Vampire. The body slowly burns away into black, fiery ash. A chilling breeze sweeps in and lifts the ashes, carrying them out into the snowy night. “Your turn.”

Volation rushes down my arms, sparking out onto my flux. I send it out through the house, encasing it in an electric barrier the Vampire can’t escape from. The other Vampire, the leader, is so close that
I can smell its horrible stench, the spoiled blood…the dirt…the darkness. This is what I’m made for, to clean the world of this impurity, to right the wrongs that have been done. I walk past Cassie with Weldon on my heels and stop in the hallway just outside the door. The Vampire will know that one of its own just died. They’ll expect me now. This makes me smile.

I take a determined step, the deteriorated wood groaning under my feet. My boots come down on a spot wh
ere the floorboards have rotted. It gives way under my weight, and my foot falls through. Splinters pierce through my skin, burning and stinging. Gavin grabs my hand while Weldon pries the wood away and pulls me back from the floor’s weak spot. Cassie drops to a crouch and puts her hands against my torn pants and bleeding calf. She chants a healing spell, and magic vines wrap around my leg, sealing my skin.