‘Where’s Evie?’ was all he asked.
Cyrus’s head shot up. ‘Not here,’ he answered quickly. It earned him an interested glance.
‘The girl’s a pussy,’ the girl sneered.
Cyrus crossed the hallway, leapt the step and backed her against the banister before she had time to finish her sentence. ‘I hear you use that word one more time,’ he said, noting the gratifying bulge of her eyeballs as he pressed close into her, ‘I’m going to …’
‘You’re going to what?’ she snapped, cocking one pierced eyebrow at him.
He bit his bottom lip, considering ideas but finding his memory disconcertingly short of them. ‘Well,’ he said after a beat, ‘let’s just say it’s not going to be pleasant.’
She pouted, ‘Mmm, sounds fun,’ she answered back, her gaze lingering on his lips. ‘Any time, baby, you and me. I can take it.’
‘Just ignore her.’ It was Ash.
Cyrus gave the girl one last warning glare and spun around. ‘Where are you finding these people?’ he demanded of Victor.
‘We need reserves,’ Victor said eying him watchfully.
‘You mean cannon fodder?’
‘What are you talking about?’
It was the boy RJ. ‘What is he talking about?’ he repeated, aiming the question at Victor.
‘You’re the forlorn hope,’ Cyrus told him, simultaneously wondering how the hell he remembered random bits of military history but was still drawing a blank on his own conquests.
‘What the hell does that mean? The forlorn hope?’ RJ asked, his voice high as a little girl’s.
‘That was the soldiers they threw ahead of the army in the old days to take all the enemy fire. Can you guess why it was called forlorn? Yeah,’ Cyrus continued, before RJ could even hazard a guess, ‘that’s right, because none of them ever survived.’
‘Is he joking?’ The boy stared pleadingly up at Victor for reassurance.
‘No, I’m not joking,’ Cyrus said, wanting to scare the kid. Evie was right. There was no way these two were going to be of any help when it came to fighting. They were only going to get in the way and get themselves killed, or worse, get one of the others killed.
‘Yes, he’s joking,’ Victor told the kid. ‘He’s trying to scare you.’
‘You should be scared,’ Cyrus spat through a clenched jaw.
‘It isn’t right, taking kids off the street,’ Vero murmured, ‘getting them involved in this.’
‘I’m not a kid,’ RJ protested.
‘We’re outnumbered,’ Victor hissed. ‘I’ll take what I can find. I took you and your sister off the street and you didn’t have a problem with that.’
Vero scowled at him, eyes flashing venom.
‘What are you saying? That I can’t fight as good as you?’ the mouthy girl suddenly asked, throwing herself towards Cyrus as if angling to start something.
‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying,’ Cyrus laughed.
RJ collapsed onto the bottom step. ‘I’m not sure I want to do this anymore,’ he said, looking up nervously at Victor. ‘When you said it was going to be like a video game I didn’t think you meant anyone would actually get hurt for like real.’
Cyrus crouched down by his side. ‘These things are not two-dimensional video game monsters.’ He pointed at Vero. ‘This girl’s sister died fighting them. Ash’s best friend? Also dead.’ He rolled up his sleeve. ‘You see these?’ he asked, thrusting his forearm in the kid’s face, showing him the scars criss-crossing his arm. ‘These aren’t paper cuts, my friend. They’re from tails, they’re from acid, they’re from knives.’
‘Well, I’m in,’ the girl said from her position on the stairs. ‘I’m not scared of nobody. I’ve been shot once already, and some bitch did this to me with a knife.’ She pulled down the strap of her tank top, showing an ugly fat worm of a scar coiling around her collarbone. ‘You best believe she needed more stitches than me when I was done with her.’
Cyrus stood up slowly. He wanted to bang his head against the wall. These two kids were Victor’s big plan to rid the world of unhumans?
‘You’re a Hunter,’ Victor said to the kid on the step in an evangelical, hellfire-and-brimstone voice. ‘You were born to do this. It’s your destiny.’
‘Oh, quit it on the destiny stuff and just tell us what you’ve found out,’ Cyrus cut in. He was done with hanging around here. He just wanted whatever information the guy had so that he could then go and find Evie. He was starting to side with her on the issue. Did they really need him?
Victor glared at him for a second but then strode into the front room. Cyrus followed him, ready to lay into him with his fists if necessary to get the guy to answer. He found Victor standing in front of a giant map spread across the far wall of the room. Cyrus stepped closer and saw that the map was covered in small red pins and then he reeled backwards as he made out the detail in the photographs lining the map.
‘I found their lair,’ Victor said, pointing to a place on the map. ‘It’s here.’
Chapter 26
Evie ran. And as she ran she tried to wipe the image of Cyrus clean from her mind. Why was he being so damn nice to her? She didn’t want niceness. Or concern. She didn’t want to feel better. She didn’t deserve to.
She had wanted more than anything to stay wrapped up in a cocoon of hatred and anger. It made everything easier that way. But last night, when Cyrus had put his arm around her and she’d caved in and leant on him, for just a second she’d felt the anger lessen. It still hovered there, like a dog waiting to pounce, but it had backed off into a corner, allowing room for the sadness to come. And that was far worse than the anger. If anger was rocky ground, sadness was the quicksand beneath, waiting to drag her down. Only if she was angry could she keep going, keep moving forward.
Where was the old Cyrus when you needed to keep your anger honed and focused? He would have managed to keep her fury levels constant with every damn comment that came out of his mouth. But this new, sensitive, enlightened Cyrus model was going to be her undoing. Because not only was she losing her grip on her anger, but she was also feeling twinges of something else, another type of feeling that she was on familiar and uncomfortable terms with – guilt.
Guilt that she had let another guy comfort her. Guilt that she had felt safe in his arms. Guilt because she didn’t want to feel that way about anyone but Lucas.
So why then was she wishing that Cyrus had come with her? Why was she thinking of him even now as she ran?
Because Lucas is dead, the voice in her head screamed. He’s dead!
But that didn’t matter. She still loved him.
But how long can you stay in love with a dead person? the voice in her head yelled at her.
Yes, she would always love him, but could you be in love with someone who was dead?
She slowed up as she got closer to the building, coming to a stop just outside and looking up at the curtained windows. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have come. But she had suddenly, desperately, needed to see them.
When she knocked on the door she caught a fleeting image of Lucas leaning nonchalantly against the wall, a roguish smile on his lips. She closed her eyes and leant her fist against the wall to steady herself.
At the sound of the lock easing back her eyes flew open. Lucas’s sister Flic was standing in front of her, shock plastered across her face. For a moment Evie thought she was going to slam the door shut on her, but she didn’t. After a long beat Flic stepped aside and let her pass.
‘Who are you running from this time?’ Flic asked, one dark eyebrow arching as she shut the door behind her.
Evie didn’t say anything. It was hard, much harder, seeing Flic than she’d thought it would be. She looked so like Lucas with her straight dark eyebrows, sharp cheekbones, and full, overly sensuous mouth. Even the faint husky drawl of her voice was a reminder. She was torn between wanting to stare at her and needing to look away.
‘I’m sorry …’ she st
uttered, her hand reaching behind her for the door handle, suddenly overcome.
She shouldn’t have just turned up out of the blue like this. Why had she? She wasn’t even sure. It had been a stupid idea.
‘What are you sorry about this time?’ Flic snapped. ‘For waking me up in the middle of the night yet again? For turning up unannounced? Isn’t this normally the part where you ask me for my help? That’s the usual routine, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ Evie said, shaking her head. She didn’t need Flic’s help. Did she? She frowned to herself. Was that in fact why she’d come?
‘I just wanted to see you,’ she mumbled, realising how lame that sounded.
Flic studied her more closely, her arms crossed over her chest, as though waiting for the punchline to the joke.
‘I miss him,’ Evie blurted.
Flic’s mouth opened, then quickly shut as she swallowed down whatever she’d been about to say. ‘It’s not your fault, you know,’ she finally said.
Evie’s head flew up. Those were the last words she’d expected to hear from Flic. She’d expected Flic to yell, scream, fight, hiss. To shove her against the wall and punch the living crap out of her.
And suddenly, just like that, Evie figured out why she had come. She had wanted Flic to lash out at her. She had wanted to feel Flic’s anger, hoping – no, praying – that it might feed her own.
‘You tried,’ Flic said softly.
‘It was my fault though,’ Evie argued. ‘I should have let Lucas kill Victor when he had the chance. But I stopped him. It would all have been different if I had just let him, back when we had the chance.’
Flic closed her eyes and Evie noticed the dark circles under them for the first time. ‘Maybe. Maybe not,’ she said. ‘No one could stop Lucas from doing what he wanted to do. That was the problem. We all tried. We all failed. There’s just one person to blame – that murdering son of a bitch Victor, who one day I’m going to find and I’m going to …’
‘I know where he is,’ Evie whispered.
‘What?’ Flic asked, her eyes flashing open.
‘I know where he is.’
‘Tell me that you know where he is,’ Flic answered in a low, menacing voice, ‘because you left a marker over the shallow grave where you dumped his body.’
Evie shook her head. ‘No.’ She clenched her jaw shut, feeling the muscles pulse angrily.
Flic prowled towards her, her hands closing into fists. Evie lifted her head, turning it slightly so that her cheekbone would take the hit. ‘I am going to kill him,’ she told Flic in a hoarse voice.
‘Not unless I get there first,’ Flic hissed. ‘Where is he? If you’re too chicken I’ll do it myself.’
Evie laughed under her breath. How many times was she going to get called a chicken tonight? Maybe they were right though. Maybe both Flic and that arrogant new Hunter were totally on the money. Maybe that’s why she’d run halfway across the city in the middle of the night – to hear Flic say it too. She was a coward. Why else hadn’t she killed Victor already?
‘Where is he?’ Flic demanded, taking Evie by the shoulders and shaking her so hard her head banged against the wall. ‘Tell me!’
‘You can’t kill him,’ Evie said. ‘They won’t let you.’
‘Who won’t let me? You think I need permission? What the hell’s stopped you?’
Cowardice, Evie thought. Because maybe I actually don’t have it in me, just like Victor said.
But instead of admitting this to Flic, all she said was: ‘There are more unhumans out there. Some Originals that got here before the way through closed. They’re up to something. And the Thirsters are multiplying. There are too many of them for us to handle. The others think we need Victor if we’re going to have any chance of fighting them and winning.’ She couldn’t hold Flic’s gaze. ‘They’re working with him. To destroy them.’
Flic’s hands fell from her shoulders. ‘You’re working with him?’ she asked in a flat voice.
Evie swallowed. She lifted her gaze briefly to meet Flic’s. ‘I’m not. The others are. Vero and Ash. And they won’t let me kill him until after this is done.’
Flic stared at her in disgust. Evie drank it up. She deserved it. She wished Flic would just start laying into her with the punches.
‘Well, I didn’t make any such deal,’ Flic said, her mouth set in a grim line. ‘So where is he?’ she demanded again.
‘Flic, you can’t go marching in there. He’s in a house with half a dozen Hunters. You’ll only get killed.’
Flic rounded on her, her dark hair flying like a cape, forcing Evie to shrink back against the wall. ‘You’re forgetting what I am,’ she said, her lip curling.
‘I’m not forgetting, Flic,’ Evie answered quietly, ‘but this guy killed Lucas. And he killed my parents and your parents.’
‘Exactly!’ Flic spat. ‘And you’re working with him.’
‘I’m not working with him,’ Evie protested. ‘I’m letting him live so that he can lead us to their lair. And then I’m going to kill him.’ Was she? Yes. This was why she’d come here – to see Flic. To have someone twist the knife back in her gut. But just as it seemed she was about to, Flic suddenly flopped back against the wall, her fists dangling useless at her sides and her shoulders slumping.
‘How are you going to fight them?’ she asked. ‘These Originals? What’s the plan?’
Evie shook her head. ‘I don’t know. They’re strong. And we don’t have many weapons. Not that weapons are any use. Only shadow blades work against them.’
‘I’ve got a shadow blade,’ Flic said.
‘Can we have it?’ Evie asked jokingly, knowing there was no way Flic would ever agree.
Flic ignored the question. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked instead.
‘You mean, doing what I was born to do?’ Evie asked wryly. She realised that Flic would never understand. She was part unhuman. They were natural-born enemies. ‘Flic,’ she sighed, ‘I have no fight with you. I have no fight with Jamieson or any Shifter. But these ones, they’re coming after us. Tracking Hunters and trying to kill us. Ash thinks the Originals are trying to rid themselves of any threat so that they can make this realm their own. It makes sense.’ She paused for a second trying to gather the right words and make a coherent sentence out of them. ‘I tried so hard to run away from it, but I’m a Hunter. That’s who I am, and you can’t run away from who you are any more than you can run away from fate. That’s what I learnt. You have to stand and fight eventually.’
Flic didn’t say anything for a while but then she spoke. ‘I’ve been hearing stories. Rumours. There are more unhumans around than there were before the gateway shut. Or so it seems. It’s crazy.’
‘Talking of crazy, there’s something you should know,’ Evie said.
‘What?’ Flic asked, suspicion instantly clouding her face.
‘Cyrus is back.’
‘From the dead?’
‘Yeah.’
It took a while for Flic to absorb the news. She blinked a few times. ‘Explain,’ she eventually said.
‘I can’t. He can’t. He doesn’t know where he was. He was found wandering naked around Bel Air or some place.’
Flic’s eyebrows shot up. ‘When?’
‘I’m not sure. They locked him up in a mental hospital. He escaped.’
‘The drama never ends with you, does it?’ Flic said, shaking her head.
Evie didn’t answer. They stood for another ten seconds in silence, Evie’s back still pressed against the wall of the narrow corridor. Suddenly Flic, who was still leaning against the opposite wall, slid down it into a sitting position, drawing her knees to her chest.
‘I miss him too,’ she said, and Evie heard the tremble in her voice.
She stared at Flic for a few seconds in silence, and then she too slid down the wall and sat cross-legged on the floor facing her.
‘I dream about him sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘It’s like I can’t let him go. He feels so r
eal, so alive in my dreams. Sometimes I wish I could just stay asleep forever.’
She risked a glance up at Flic, half-expecting to see her sneering, but she wasn’t; she was listening intensely. ‘I keep wishing that it was him and not Cyrus that came back,’ Evie mumbled, ‘and that’s so unfair and so wrong of me.’
‘You know,’ Flic said after a pause, ‘I hated Lucas for choosing you over the rest of us. Hell, for choosing to die.’ She frowned to herself as if she’d been puzzling over this for a long time. ‘But with Lucas everything was about instinct. That’s what made him such an incredible fighter. All the time I thought he was just being stupid and stubborn for wanting to save you, to protect you when it was impossible, he wasn’t. He was just going with his instincts. So how could he have been wrong?’ Flic asked.
‘He’s dead,’ Evie pointed out.
Flic winced, then shook her head hard. ‘But he can’t have died for nothing. I don’t believe it.’
‘Well, what did he die for?’ Evie asked. From where she was sitting, the reasons were pretty non-existent.
‘I don’t know,’ Flic answered, levelling her eyes at Evie. ‘But I choose to believe it was for something worthwhile.’
‘Where’s Jamieson?’ Evie suddenly asked, both to change the subject but also because she’d just become aware of the rapid heartbeat of a Shapeshifter somewhere nearby.
‘He’s sleeping,’ Flic said, nodding towards a door at the end of the corridor.
Evie smiled. She liked Jamieson, Flic’s boyfriend. ‘And Issa?’ she asked, more out of politeness than because she really wanted to know. She didn’t like Issa, Lucas’s ex-girlfriend, quite as much as she liked Jamieson.
Flic shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She disappeared about eight weeks ago. A few days after Lucas …’ She paused, her voice wavering. ‘She was pretty cut up about it.’
She broke off at the sound of footsteps. Evie turned her head.
Jamieson had appeared in the doorway, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He was in his usual shift, his sandy-brown hair sticking up all over the place. When he saw Evie, his face split into a wide grin.