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“You have too much talent for this job, anyway, Jace. I always knew that it wasn’t a good fit, and that you’d leave eventually.” She smiled at me and touched my cheek. “Or get fired for running that mouth of yours. But that doesn’t mean I won’t miss you. Now here’s the address to the cabin,” she said, pressing a piece of paper in my hand. “You can fish in the stream on the property or just sit on the porch and stare at the scenery. And I have cable, so your little brother can watch his TV programs. You could use a change of scenery.”
“Thanks, Suzanne. I might take you up on it.”
“I hope you do. Just let me know and you can drop the key back off with the security guard, so you don’t have to come upstairs. Now I have to get back, but I want to hear from you soon.”
I promised she would, and we hugged, and air kissed before she left to go back upstairs. I sat there for a few more minutes until I realized the guard had lumbered to his feet and was heading my way. I got up and picked up my cardboard box, glancing down at it. A picture of Tyler when he was younger. Some pens, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a pair of old sunglasses and my notebook where I kept passwords. That was all I had to show for all the months I’d worked there. Not much of a haul. I stuck the box under my arm and made my way out of the building.
Chapter Twelve
Logan
It was close to midnight. Conway and I had been in a van parked out a little way down the street from the front of Toby Baker’s rooming house since around ten. We were watching the rear of the place on a camera attached to a tree in the backyard, where Conway had installed it a few days earlier, and it was broadcasting a clear view.
Malone may not come, but we’d been searching for him all over the city and making it hard for him to take any more of his homeless victims. It had been two nights since the last murder, and we were hoping he was hungry enough to come after a sure thing.
He could simply come to Toby’s window and either lure him outside or compel him to let him in. Conway had checked the outbuildings around this old house earlier in the week, and again before he put up the camera.
Conway shivered and gave me a fierce look. “It’s too damn cold tonight to be staking out a damn bloodsucker.”
“Gettin’ old, Theo? You used to not mind the cold so much.”
He mumbled something grouchy in return, and I laughed softly at him. “Why do you think Malone will be out here tonight anyway?”
“Just a feeling. He’ll be hungry by now and it’s been a while since he fed. The police are all over those homeless camps. He’ll be ready for a thrall.”
“Why not go after Jace again?”
“He’ll know by now that we’ve been around talking to him a lot. There was an intruder in that shed of his just before Halloween. It had to be Malone, and I don’t know if he’s been back since. O’Neal was already in bed, he said, but the dog next door was barking his head off and he saw a shadow by the tool shed door. Whoever it was ran across the yard and jumped over the hedge between O’Neal’s house and the neighbor’s house. It’s probably when he got that machete that belonged to O’Neal’s dad. Why, though? Why steal the damn thing and his mask too? Makes no sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make total sense,” I said, thinking aloud. “Like I said, he’s crazy, and I think he has been for a long time. Obviously, he wanted to involve Jace in some way. Or just mess with him. The one thing for sure is that Malone will be doing it to satisfy his needs, whatever those are. It could be a need for blood, sex, revenge or all three. Or he could be ready to make Jace his thrall and leave the area, so he’s burning bridges and being vindictive. Whatever. But he did what he had to do in order to maximize his goals. He was looking out for his own self-interest.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He’s obviously a psychopath—like I said, I think he was probably that way even before the vampire got to him. We know he staged this so-called disappearance. The only question is why. Why would he bother with such a thing and try to pin his murder on Jace? Does he have some reason to want revenge against him?”
“Wouldn’t killing O’Neal be enough?”
“For most vampires, absolutely. But he’s different from any half-blood we’ve ever hunted. Maybe because he was already a psychopath before he was bitten. Maybe he wants Jace to suffer for getting Todd killed,” I said. “I want to find him and ask him. Before we stake him.”
As we sat there watching, a shadow suddenly detached itself from a large oak tree in the backyard and flew across to Toby Baker’s window. Though we couldn’t make out much of a form in the dark, I knew it had to be Malone.
The shadow form began to reach toward the window and in only a minute or less, the window rose, and Toby stood there, his eyes open, but so dazed looking we could even see it on camera. I jumped to my feet, hurled myself out of the van and began running.
I knew Conway was behind me, but I had a burning need to get to Malone first. I sprinted across the front yard and ran around the back. I saw them right as I turned the corner of the house.I could smell the rot and the damp, musty odor of grave dirt, and it clung to the back of my throat.
Toby Baker was bent backward over the bloodsucker’s arm as Malone fed deeply from him. I already had one of the iron daggers in my hand, and I flung it at him, hoping to distract him until I could reach Toby. Malone’s long, white fangs were buried in Toby’s pale throat, and as the dagger flew past his head, the monster raised up to snarl at me, Toby’s blood ran freely from the puncture wounds at his throat.
I hurled another dagger straight at Malone’s head and leaped toward them. Malone saw that blade coming too and jerked his head sharply to the left to miss it. I jumped in front of Toby, knocking his limp body to the ground and Malone’s grasping claws away from him. Malone fell back with a hiss and swiped at me with a vicious clawed hand.
I heard Toby moan as he fell but I had no time to check on him, as I barely missed being decapitated by the creature in front of me. I pulled out another knife and swung it in front of me to force him back.
He roared at me, just as Conway rounded the corner, hurling his own blade through the air. Malone fell backward on the ground, the blade embedded in his shoulder. He jerked it out, still roaring and I ran over to leap on top of him, but he scrabbled backward like a scorpion. The ground beneath us was being torn up, and Conway slipped on a muddy patch in the grass and went down. Malone got back to his feet and snarled at us, swiping at us again with his claws to hold us off. I caught a glimpse of his white face in the moonlight, his eyes full of murder and passion and as yellow as sulphur. As bile. Meanwhile, blood, as black as his heart, was oozing from the wound on his shoulder and another at his throat, so one or two of my wild swipes at him must have landed.
A violent battle was raging between us now, but perhaps sensing defeat, Malone flew up in the air and came down behind us and beside Toby. He began screaming as Malone grabbed him by his long hair and started dragging him into the shadows. Lights had come on inside the rooming house and all over the neighborhood.I thought I heard sirens in the distance. I kept inching forward, keeping Malone on the defensive, while Conway was back on his feet and started circling around to the rear. We had done this kind of thing many times before.
Without warning, he bent to swoop Toby up in his arms and fling him at me. I had no choice but to catch him, and when I did, Malone leaped straight up into the air and into the branches of one of the bigger trees.
Toby cried out in distress, distracting my attention for only a second, but it was enough to give the vampire the chance he needed. He fell from the tree down on top of me again and took me to the ground. I felt a sharp, almost debilitating pain in the back of my head as I landed on something hidden in the grass. His fetid stench was all over me, overpoweringly strong. His inhumanly strong hands wrapped around my neck, and he began choking me. Darkness was creeping around the edges of my consciousness, when Conway fell on his back and began stabbing him in the back of the head.
