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k his head, but Clementine smiled, her wide green eyes gleaming in the dark. “Oh, yes.”
“I take it that means you’ve killed one before.”
“They tickle you from the inside while you drain them. The blood stirs something fierce, like whiskey. They’re delightful fun.”
I was glad I’d explained to the cops about necromancers back at the station. It kept the unwelcome questions to a minimum. Clementine’s answer gave me the heebie-jeebies, but I welcomed her presence. She might make me uneasy, but she could obviously handle herself. Reggie I wasn’t sure about, but he seemed strong enough, and he could use his undead senses to guide us to the necros. So now we had help.
“We have to get my dad. I don’t trust him to stay in the apartment when there’s no power, and he needs to be monitored.”
“Are you worried he might…?” Desmond’s voice drifted off, unable to finish his thought, but we all managed to finish it for him. Was I worried he might kill someone.
Sutherland Halliston was insane. Not in the fun supervillain kind of way, either. He was crazy like people who had been lobotomized were crazy, all thanks to his sire, Theo, who had done everything wrong when changing him over. Sutherland had been kept under the watchful eye of the West Coast Tribunal until I realized one of their ranks—the aforementioned Arturo—had it in for me. Since my father was no longer safe, I’d brought him back to New York to be under my protection.
Except now he didn’t have other vampires watching him constantly and was living on his own for the first time. He hadn’t attacked a human yet, but I didn’t know what he would do without television and guests to distract him. Thankfully if he did take to the streets, there weren’t a lot of humans running around for him to assault, but it didn’t mean I wanted to take the risk. If he killed someone, his life could pay the forfeit, and I’d never forgive myself.
“I don’t think he’ll hurt anyone,” I said, almost convincingly. “I’m more worried he’ll endanger himself.”
If anyone was going to argue against my plan, it would be Keaty, which was why I’d hoped I could get to Sutherland before I met up with their group again. But to my great relief he said nothing. I don’t know if he agreed with what I was doing, but if he wasn’t going to try to persuade me otherwise, we would all get along fine.
Now numbering eleven, we moved through the streets with more confidence. Clementine seemed to be having the time of her life. She skipped ahead of us, opening abandoned cars and rummaging through people’s things.
“Ooooh, look at this. This MAC lip gloss has been discontinued for ages.” She swiped the bright pink hue across her lips and made a satisfied smacking sound.
“Clementine, we’re not here to shop.”
“I’m not shopping. I’m stealing.” She slipped the gloss into her jeans pocket.
There was no sense in fighting stupid battles when we were about to go to war. If she wanted to take used makeup, let her. At this point, I honestly didn’t care.
We arrived at my father’s apartment complex to find the door had been locked by some intrepid soul within who thought that would be enough to keep the monsters at bay. It might have worked against the risen, since dead fingers weren’t very adept at picking locks.
Too bad I didn’t have the patience to pick it.
I withdrew my gun and shot the door, fracturing the lock. Keaty gave me an unimpressed glare and I shrugged, keeping my weapon out in case we ran into any gun-happy residents inside. “What?”
“Thanks to your signal, I think we ought to keep some people down here in case someone comes to investigate.”
“The dead, you mean? We don’t know how finely tuned their senses are when it comes to sound.”
“No better way to find out than to shoot a door, hmm? Were you out of flares?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but I did feel guilty. I should have known better than to act in such a rash manner. “Too late to do anything about it now.”
He was right about leaving people downstairs, though, since this was nothing more than a snatch-and-grab mission. I didn’t need a gaggle of relative strangers coming with me to collect Sutherland. He was likely going to find this situation upsetting as it was, considering what he’d gone through with The Doctor—much like Holden and I had. But he hadn’t been sane to start with, so going through hell hadn’t made him crazy.
It just hadn’t helped make any improvements.
Sutherland hadn’t met Desmond yet, and this didn’t seem like the ideal time to introduce my eternally teenage father to his future werewolf son-in-law. “Holden, will you come with me? Everyone else can stay.”
Though he might have been hurt, in typical Desmond fashion he didn’t complain or question my decision. Holden, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to say no.
“Please,” I added. “Sutherland knows you. It’ll make things easier.”
“Fine.” He sounded as if I’d asked him to drink blood from someone with a disease. “Let’s make it quick.”
He followed me inside, and I debated with myself whether it was worth my time to call him out on his attitude. Yes, things were hard with us right now. Yes, I’d hurt him. But our current situation made me think he might set aside those feelings. In the past we’d always been able to focus on the problem at hand, and that was when we were at our strongest. If he couldn’t overlook his broken heart for a little while, I didn’t know if we would pull through this.
“We’re in a tough bind,” I started, hoping he’d understand what I was trying to say and fill in the blanks himself.
