Grave Secret (37 page)

I also didn’t know why we were waiting.

We’d been taken to a human hospital. Brigit should have been declared dead on the scene, but I think they’d recognized Lucas and wanted to make a show for him of how dedicated they were to saving lives. It was horseshit anyway. She’d been undead first. Now she was just dead.

A new wave of tears started streaming down my cheeks. I’d stopped trying to fight them, and the boys had stopped asking if I was okay. I wasn’t, and there wasn’t much anyone could do to change that. Unless Lucas killed Mercy’s pack.

When
he killed Mercy’s pack.

A short man with round, ruddy cheeks and circle-framed glasses came into the waiting room. With his tousled receding hair and boyish face, I couldn’t help but think of Radar from
M*A*S*H
, a show I’d spent much of my youth watching with
Grandmere
. Lucas, ever the one to take charge, rose to his feet to meet the doctor.

“I’m Doctor Nicholas,” he said, then removed his glasses.

I swore doctors only wore glasses so they could take them off to heighten dramatic moods. Dr. Nicholas needn’t have bothered, there was no more room for drama here.

“You’re Miss Stewart’s…friends?”

“We were her family,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. She’d been
my
family.

“You were the one who carried her to the coffee shop.” The way the doctor phrased it, there wasn’t a question. Since he already had his answer, I didn’t bother replying. “That was a very brave thing you did,” he added with admiration.

I didn’t have enough emotion left in me to appreciate his sentiment.

“Doctor,” Lucas said, trying to get the conversation back on track. “About Brigit?”

Dr. Nicholas reached to his face before realizing he already had the glasses in his hands and couldn’t remove them a second time. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

Across the room, Desmond’s shoulders sank and his face grew sullen. That was the first time it dawned on me he had actually been holding out hope. Until the moment those words were spoken, Desmond thought there was a chance we were getting Brigit back.

Seeing his face now, it was like she had died all over again, because for him she had. I wanted to go to him, to hold him and tell him everything would be okay, but I couldn’t. Nothing was going to be okay, and I couldn’t pretend to feel something I didn’t. I’d told Brigit everything would be okay, and look where it had gotten us.

“Brigit sustained a serious gunshot wound to the chest. The bullet lodged near her spine and did incredible damage to her heart. She lost a great deal of blood, and by the time we were able to get to her, she was already gone. I’m very sorry. If it’s any consolation, she likely didn’t suffer—”

“What did you say?” I asked, suddenly shaken from my zombie state.

“I said she likely didn’t suffer.”

“Bull
shit
.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Is there a guide they give you?” At some point I had gotten to my feet and was a few steps closer to the doctor than I had been a moment earlier. “Some sort of suggestion list you receive from med school that tells you what to say to a grieving family?”

“I’m only trying to help.”

“What help is it to
lie
?” I screamed. Lucas moved closer, prepared to step between me and the doctor if I lashed out, but he was smart not to touch me, or I would have unleashed all my violent urges on him instead. “She suffered. She
suffered
.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice going soft.

“She suffered.”

Desmond came from behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tight against his warm, hard chest. He smelled comfortable and familiar, but I was in no mood to be comforted. When I started to struggle, he held me tighter, shushing me quietly and pressing light kisses onto the back of my head. He was providing me the support I had been unwilling to give him only a minute earlier.

“She suffered,” I said again, tears flowing so freely they were wetting the tile floor at my feet.

The doctor gave Lucas an apologetic look, and the werewolf king patted him kindly on the shoulder. “We know you did everything you could, Doctor Nicholas, thank you.”

“He couldn’t do anything,” I wheezed. “She was already
dead
.”

“When she’s ready, there’s an officer out in the hall who’d like to ask her a few questions. I kept them out until I was able to speak to you all, but they’re quite insistent.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

After the doctor left he was replaced by two uniformed officers who asked routine questions which I answered with routine lies.

Did you see who shot her?
“No.”

Did you hear anything unusual?
“No.”

Would anyone have a reason to kill Miss Stewart?
“Of course not, everyone loved Brigit.” I wanted that one to be true, but she was a vampire after all, and not always a popular one thanks to her role in my life.

Were you aware there was a missing person’s report filed for Miss Stewart over a year ago by her parents
? “I was not.” Though it shouldn’t surprise me, since that would coincide with the time she’d
really
died. I’d often wondered about Brigit’s life before I’d catapulted her into the vampire world. I pictured her doing beauty pageants and painting her nails next to swimming pools. I knew she was originally from California, but that was it. All my knowledge of Brigit Stewart came A.V., After Vampirism.

I guess now her family would have closure.

But where was my closure?

The officers asked Lucas and Desmond some questions, but since they hadn’t been at the crime scene they couldn’t offer much help. I was told not to travel out of state and asked to call the police if I remembered anything else.

Once they had left, Desmond finally let me go. I’d stopped shaking, and for the time being I wasn’t crying. The moment I was out of his arms, I headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Lucas demanded.

I paused in the entryway. “Someone has to tell Nolan.”

“You can’t go alone,” Desmond insisted.

“What good has a bodyguard done me?” I asked. “If someone wants me dead, I’d rather they kill me than go through anyone else trying.”

Desmond picked up my purse, which he’d thoughtfully collected from the stoop of my apartment and brought along when they followed the ambulance, and met me at the door. “I’ll come with you.”

“Fine,” I agreed, and was grateful he’d insisted, even if I couldn’t manage to express it. “And
you
.” I pointed a finger at Lucas. “You will kill those fucking wolves or so help me God I will find a way the rain a fire of hell and pain on your life so epic it will make you wish your father’s father’s father had never been born. Do you understand me?”

He nodded.

For once in the wolf king’s life, he didn’t try to get the last word.

Chapter Fifty

Beheading a demon was easier than breaking Nolan Tate’s heart.

I’d been with Brigit when she died, and even now, a half day later, I wasn’t sure which event had been harder on me. Watching her die had destroyed me. Telling Nolan she was gone might as well have killed me.

He’d cried. There had been screaming, followed by more crying. Then he’d thrown the television on the floor, punched a hole in the drywall and left the apartment. Desmond and I had spent the night, trading bouts of fitful sleep on the couch, waiting for him to come back. He never did.

Every time I drifted off I hoped I’d see Brigit again. I imagined she might be waiting for me in my dreams, trying to deliver an important message. I wanted her to tell me the doctors had screwed up and she was fine but they couldn’t tell because she’d had no pulse to begin with.

After a few minutes of black, dreamless sleep, I would wake up feeling worse than I had before.

Around noon we stopped trying to sleep and gave up waiting for Nolan to come home.

I spent the afternoon with Desmond, retracing the steps we’d taken the day before in happier times. I wore a dress taken from Brigit’s closet, and every so often I’d smell her specific laundry detergent and fresh memories of her would bubble to the surface. I might have been better off leaving my blood-stained outfit on rather than wearing a dress steeped in sadness. The dress was also a good two inches shorter than I was comfortable with, making me feel self-concious and uncomfortable.

Neither Desmond nor I said much, choosing to walk in silence. The daytime sounds of New York were abundant. In Central Park, tourists chattered and snapped pictures, pigeons cooed, and sparrows chittered while picking at people’s leftover food.

We stopped next to Bethesda Fountain, sitting on the edge and watching rented rowboats sail past under the untrained strokes of teenaged boys and middle-aged couples.

“What are you going to do?” he asked finally.

“I have an idea.”

“You usually do.”

“It hinges on the Rain siblings.”

“Then it probably isn’t a
good
idea,” he said.

“They never are.”

Two rowboats collided, their front ends knocking against each other. A group of young women in one giggled and apologized to the couple in the other. Youth was a funny thing, so open to forgiveness. We watched the boats part ways and drift in opposite directions across the pond.

“Are you going to tell me your terrible plan?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Will you try to talk me out of it?”

Desmond took my hand but didn’t look at me. “No. I’m done trying to talk you into or out of anything. I might not agree, but you won’t change your mind because of me.”

I squeezed his hand and chose not to placate him with a lie.

“I’m going to take Kellen back. And I’m going to make Holden help me do it.” He didn’t reply for such a long time I thought he might not have heard me. When I glanced at him, his expression told me he hadn’t had any trouble catching what I’d said. “Desmond?”

He forced a smile, which faded quickly. “I said I wouldn’t say anything.”

“Good. Then take me to Kellen’s so I can get the easy Rain out of the way first.”

“I know I said I would wait until you got here, but this is pushing the limits of my
goddamn
patience,” Jackson growled. “You’re lucky she passed out hours ago and has premium cable.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know what could have been so important you—”

“Jackson.
No
.” Desmond shook his head, cutting Jackson off mid-rant. “No.”

Jackson threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. Whatever. I’m out.” He grabbed his backpack from beside the door and was gone before I could think to put my shaking hands around his scrawny neck.

“I’m sorry he—”

“He didn’t know,” I said flatly. “Let’s find Kellen so I can get out of here.” Sunset was on the move, and I wanted to get to Holden before he scurried off to the council and made any more plans with Sig about my future.

Holden was an integral part of the plan. I couldn’t get to Calliope without a vampire, but also if I didn’t get what I wanted from Aubrey, I would accept the ultimatum from Sig and let Holden turn me. I didn’t like it, but there it was.

I needed Kellen because she was a bargaining chip. She was, ultimately, the most important part of my mission. I wouldn’t be able to do what I wanted if she was bespelled. I might have selfish motives, but they didn’t involving selling my friend back into fairy slavery. But if she was—as she claimed—honestly in love with Brokk, then I’d sacrificed all my power for nothing.

I would take Kellen to Calliope and the Oracle could tell me the truth.

If Kellen
was
in love, and it was an honest-to-God relationship I had saved her from, then I was stamping a big old
Return to Sender
on her and making Aubrey give me my powers back. I had misgivings about whether he’d agree, but if Brokk was being as big a pain in the ass to Aubrey as Kellen was being to us, I hoped he’d be begging to make the swap.

If he hesitated, I was prepared to bring up the broken promise he’d made. He’d told me he would keep the anonymous fairy killer from taking another life, and he’d failed. Between Kellen and the promise, I had to believe he would return me to myself.

And once I was myself again, I was going to kill my mother.

That’s what it all came down to. The whole plan—every convoluted aspect of it—had nothing to do with balancing the scales or restoring rightness to the world. It didn’t matter that I had responsibilities or people counting on me. I didn’t care about making Kellen happy or pleasing Sig by being what he needed on the council.

What lay at the base of it all—the foundation holding the whole mess up—was I wanted my mother to die by my hands, and I wanted them to be the monstrous hands she had created.

“Find Kellen,” I instructed. “It’s time to go.”

Desmond and I searched the apartment and found Kellen sleeping on the floor in her bedroom. There were two magnums of champagne next to her, neither opened thank God, because Kellen was a small girl and that much champagne might have killed her. Not to mention one of the bottles was covered in a thick film of dust and was probably worth more than the annual rent on her apartment.