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My mouth fell open in shock. I thought for a second I might faint, but I knew that if I did, I was dead. “Dylan! Wh-where did you come from? How did you know I’d behere?” I could feel my heart pounding as I babbled, trying to get him talking.
He gave me a horrible parody of the same old Dylan smile, the one that used to be so boyish and charming. But now blood dripped down his face from whatever damage Logan had done to him and his eyes that had once been so beautiful, were yellow and manic. Or maybe they had always been manic, and I was only now seeing the truth. I staggered backward a step as he came toward me, and he lifted his hands in the air, palms outward.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.” He gave me that hideous grin again. “Not much.” He hissed the word, a long, sibilant sound that was as cold as ice.
I broke and ran for the front door, but he flew forward and caught me around the waist to hurl me down to the floor. He didn’t fall down on top of me like I thought he would, only laughed maniacally to see me so frightened of him. It was such a totally evil, inhuman sound—it sent chills all through me. He allowed me to get to my feet, like he was enjoying this game of toying with me. He sniffed the air. “Your blood is calling to me. I have to finish this, I’m afraid.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s been too long since I’ve fed. I’m sure you understand.”
I scrambled backward and looked around frantically for any kind of weapon. I reached out for a nearby end table and grabbed a big, heavy crystal candy dish I’d noticed there. I hurled it at him, and though he tried to duck, it hit him on his forehead—painfully, I hoped—and then bounced off him. Blood welled darkly from the deep cut it made on his brow and dripped down the side of his face.
He touched his hand to it and then looked down at the black blood on his fingers. He licked it and grinned at me again. His face suddenly changed then, became feral as he sprang toward me and wrapped his strong fingers around my throat. He lifted me off the floor with one hand and began to choke me. I panicked, pulling uselessly at his wrists, trying to throw him off me. I kicked out at him, but he clung to me like a burr, and I couldn’t breathe at all. We were by the big, open fireplace, and the heat from the fire was blistering the side of my face. I wildly twisted and turned and managed to kick out at him, but he still clung to me, slowly increasing the grip on my throat and cutting off my air. His strength was inhuman and how could I have never seen that before?
With my last bit of strength, I twisted out of his hold, and fell to the floor. I grabbed his leg and pushed backward against his knee with everything I had. I was desperate, and maybe in my desperation I found new strength. Maybe what Logan had told me in was true and I really wasn’t quite human anymore.
I’ll never know for sure. Somehow, I managed to make him stumble backward, looking surprised. When he did, he tripped over the hearth, falling back on his ass right next to the open fire. The flames licked out at him, but he rolled away, laughing at the look on my face. But I could see what he couldn’t. The tail of his shirt had gotten too close to the burning embers as he sprawled backward. Just the merest fraction of an inch, but it was enough.
His shirt caught up like it had been dipped in gasoline and in seconds, the flames engulfed his torso and his head. His screams were horrible.
He reeled up out of the fireplace, clawing at himself and trying to run, only causing the flames to fan even higher. He stumbled toward the kitchen, whirling around and around and shrieking. He collapsed, his claws reaching for me, still making those awful, choking sounds.
I was frozen in horror and couldn’t move for a moment. Tears streamed down my face, and I was screaming myself to help drown out his shrieks of agony. The smell of him burning is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget. His blackened, still burning body was still by this time, but he was stilltwitching on the tile floor. Still alive.
He couldn’t speak, and could barely breathe, yet he lived. I knew him then if I hadn’t known before for what he truly was. I went over to the kitchen to find the fire extinguisher and I sprayed it until the fire went out. Then I found the largest knife in the rack, a huge, broad butcher’s knife. I went back to him and knelt beside him. One of his eyes opened and he stared at me, though he was beyond speech.
I plunged the knife into where I thought his heart must be and then kept bringing the blade down on him again and again and again. I could hear myself screaming with every strike. The last time the knife plunged inside him, I left it there, and slowly, like an old, old man, I got back to my feet.
I turned away from the horror on the floor and made my way to find Logan.
Epilogue
Logan
Since no one had wanted the police involved, I wasn’t sent to any hospital. Jace had the presence of mind to call Conway, who told Jace to stay calm and not call anyone else. He told him he’d send help. Then he sent in some people from our own organization who could get to us faster than he could to help me and take charge of clean up. He called Jace back to tell him to go home as soon as they took me away and that he’d be in touch. They disposed of Malone’s body, and they treated my wounds, giving me sedatives that knocked me out for few days. It seemed like every time I woke up in those first hectic days after Malone’s attack, someone was there to soothe me with platitudes and give me another pill. If I protested, I got an injection.
I’d had time before I was taken away to grab one of the agent’s hands and beg him to keep Jace safe. I made him solemnly promise me, and when Conway came to see me a few days later, he said we needed to talk, but he assured me that Jace was safe and back home with his family. I was too injured to talk much then, but before I went to sleep, I made him call Jace so I could hear his voice. Once I did, I was able to sleep again.
When I was well enough, Conway brought Jace to see me. Jace held my hand and kissed my knuckles. He was still struggling, and I wished I could be there for him, but the monks were still saying it would take a few more days of their potions and one more blood transfusion before I could leave the monastery I’d been transferred to. As for Jace, Conway told me in confidence that the monks thought they could save him, but he would have to go to the same monastery for a few weeks. Knowing what he’d say to that, I began to plan how I’d get him there, because he was going if I had to throw him in the trunk of my car and take him myself.
In fact, if I didn’t take him, someone else would, but I was hoping for his cooperation. It would make everything so much easier. A week later, as soon as I was dismissed from the hospital, Conway and I went to see him.
When Dylan Malone was mentioned, he grew alarmingly pale and shook his head.
“I thought Dylan loved me.”
“He may have been attracted to you, Jace. As much as he could be. But he was a monster and wanted you dead. And he wanted you to suffer. Suzanne said he used to rant about you and said he’d never rest until you ‘got what you deserved’. She was terrified of him herself and would do pretty much whatever he wanted. When you came back to Atlanta, he followed you and told Suzanne to offer you a job in her company. She admitted she paid the bonus out of her own savings. She was afraid not to, because he got violent about it. She told us he wanted you close, so he could keep an eye on you.”
Conway and I had interrogated this former supervisor of his, Suzanne Tate, at some length, and she’d confessed everything. She was Dylan’s aunt and had taken him in after his parents passed away in an accident. She had also been enthralled by him since his return to Atlanta. He must have needed her money too much to kill her right away.
Suzanne Tate said Malone was consumed by the idea of Jace. Sometimes he wanted to own him—he talked of killing the entire family and of how he and Jace would then make their own nest. Occasionally, revenge was on his mind. His confused and deluded brain blamed Jace for the vampire Theo Todd’s death. He had been totally consumed by devotion to his master in the end, and Jace had apparently interrupted the final stage of his turning. It only underscored how incredibly lucky Jace had been that he had survived that altercation in the hallways of his apartment house that night. Malone’s utter devotion to the vampire had been one reason the monks had decided he couldn’t be saved. He had been savage and violent right from the start of his treatment, and completely immune to their intervention. When his body began to devolve, they felt they had no choice but to put him down.
“He despised me because of that vampire? But I had nothing to do with that thing’s destruction.”
“It’s hard to say what Malone was thinking, Jace. I don’t think he was in his right mind at the end. But I believe what he said. He was planning to kill you at the cabin.”
“But to carry out such an elaborate plan…”
“Not so elaborate, and noit very good either. He needed to get out of New York City because the Hunters were after him and he had relatives here in Atlanta. Your being there was a plus, but not the only reason. Besides, he made a lot of mistakes. He played too many silly mind games, like the machete. And going overboard with the blood in his apartment. The minute I saw you I knew you couldn’t have carried him out of that apartment, and with that kind of blood loss, and he would have been unable to leave under his own steam. He should have known the Hunters wouldn’t be fooled by the blood, like the police were, but he didn’t think about that, just like a lot of other things he didn’t think through. All those ‘clues’ that were supposed to point at you to ruin your reputation and get you arrested for his murder ultimately just didn’t make any sense.”
There was a long silence before he spoke again. “Will anything happen to Suzanne?”
