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“This time, it really wasn’t me,” I protested.>Ow.
As I stretched my aching jaw, I realized Jeanine was trying to prevent hurting me too badly. The stun gun was enough to keep me in line, but she didn’t trust herself to really lash out. She needed me. And the only reason I could think of for keeping me alive would be to—
“Gabriel,” I groaned. “You want Gabriel here for whatever weirdo ritual you have planned. I’ve been relegated to bait. This is insulting.”
“Don’t be insulted, Jane,” she said, her lip drawn up into a bewildered pout. “It’s a compliment, really. Gabriel cares for you. He’s almost obsessed with your safety and happiness. As soon as he realizes you’re not at the shop, he’ll come running here looking for you. And your … predicament is just the incentive he needs to cooperate. Do you realize that I’ve been trying to contact him for decades, but the first time he ever responded in any way was when I told him I was going to talk to you, to hurt you? Personally, I don’t see the attraction.” Her rosebud features grew dark, petulant. “It’s not fair. He cared enough to turn you completely, to make sure you could take care of yourself, fend for yourself. He turned me into less. He made me into a ghoul.”
“You are not a ghoul. You’re a hypochondriac. You travel with a humidifier, for goodness sake.” When a lightning-quick flash of insane fury crossed Jeanine’s features, I had an idea. If there was no bait, there was no trap, no reason for Gabriel to be here. Jeanine would be left with no big evil plan. She wouldn’t be able to hurt him. And with me gone, Jenny would finally get the house. Now that my life seemed to be finally, truly coming to a close, I found I didn’t mind so much. Annoying her didn’t seem so important now. It really sucked that I was reaching some level of emotional maturity moments before imminent death.
I snickered loudly, making my voice as condescending and Courtney-like as possible. “You don’t even have the guts to come after me yourself. You had Foot Boy do your dirty work for you.”
Jeanine rolled her eyes but didn’t respond. I dug deeper into the bitchy-insult well, lowering my voice to a sly, sneering tone. “You know, Gabriel told me all about your little crush on him, when you were human. Following him around like a little puppy dog, making a nuisance of yourself. I pointed out that not much has changed, since you’re still doing pretty much the same thing. And we laaaaaaaughed. Did I mention we were lying in my bed, naked, at the time?”
Jeanine’s teeth ground together as she barked out, “Emery!”
Emery turned and really walloped me. Unfortunately, he did it at just the right angle, so that my temple barreled into the corner of a china crate. I slumped to the ground, my head spinning, blood seeping through the neck of my sweatshirt. I was vaguely aware of my arms being pinned under my back, the ropes biting into my wrists. So, instead of dying to protect my beloved, I was going to wake up with a headache and a serious case of pins-and-needles in my arms.
Overall, not my most well-thought-out plan.
As unconsciousness tinged the edge of my vision, I glared up at Jeanine. “I don’t like you.”
Jeanine grinned, patting my cheek. “I’m glad we’ve got that out in the open.”
From the dark, bottomless pit of oblivion, I heard shouting. I blinked a few times. I heard Dick’s pained howl and his voice moaning, “No, baby, no,” over and over. When my eyes could focus, I saw him in the corner, Andrea’s body pressed against his chest, his face buried in her neck.
Gabriel’s voice was louder, stern. “Stay down, Emery!”
I sat up, wincing at the numbness in my arms. I shook my head, trying to fling away the last fuzzy spots in my head.
“Gabriel?” I peered up, seeing Gabriel choking Emery against a wall as Jeanine stood nearby, wringing her hands. She looked so helpless and panicked. It seemed that faced with the object of her obsession and fury, our mutual sire, all of her high-flown evil plans had evaporated, and she was reduced to dithering like a flustered schoolgirl. I almost felt sorry for her.
But not really.
Gabriel dropped a barely conscious Emery at the sound of my hoarse whisper. Emery slumped against a stack of crates, toppling them over. I heard Jeanine gasp as one of the unlit hurricane lamps shattered near her feet, soaking her cloak in the lamp oil.
“Jane?” he murmured, probing my temple gently with his fingertips. Between the barely healed cuts on my arms, the head wound, and the drying maroon blood soaked into my sweatshirt, I imagined I wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests soon. Sadly, at this point, I think Gabriel was used to seeing me this way.
“I’m really sorry about this. Emery got me from behind.” I groaned. “That’s not what it sounds like.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Bored and annoyed, a little worried about Emery’s mental state. But yeah, I’m fine,” I grumbled, trying to push to my feet. “Nope, I was wrong, my head really hurts.”
“Come upstairs,” he said, taking my arm and supporting my weight. “Jeanine, I’ve called the Council here. You’ve gone too far this time. When they see …” Gabriel’s voice broke as he took in the sight of Dick huddled protectively over Andrea. “There’s nothing I can do to help you.”
“That’s not true,” Jeanine mewled. “You and I have a long-owed debt to settle, Gabriel.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” he growled, pushing past her and dragging me with him.
“All of this is your doing! Your fault. You made me what I am!”
The pitiful voice, the sight of Jeanine’s twisted baby-doll visage, were playing Gabriel’s guilt strings like a virtuoso. I could see the conflict play out on his face. After everything, he wanted to try to find a way to help her. He turned, leaving me to stand as my sense of equilibrium returned. “I shouldn’t have left you alone, Jeanine,” he said. “And I’m sorry for that. But I was afraid of you, afraid of the things you would do. I was ashamed of you. I thought that you would listen to Violette, that she could teach you.”
“She didn’t teach me anything!” Jeanine pouted. “It was just more rules! More rules than my Grandmama had. Don’t feed from the weak. Don’t kill for the sake of killing,” she said, mimicking a heavy French accent. “It was so much worse than my life. You left me with that. I didn’t have anyone to turn to. Please, just give me more of your blood. Make me whole. The Council will understand that I was sick and not in my right mind, that I had no choice but to do what I’ve done, especially when you talk to them.”
He took a deep breath. “I won’t do that, Jeanine. I won’t speak for you and I won’t give you another drop of my blood. There’s no such thing as a re-turning.”
“Yes, there is!” Jeanine screamed.
