Not Quite Dead (A NightHunter Novel) (10 page)

"Technically, yes, but it wouldn't be easy. As long as you're alive, his ties are to you."

A chill flickered down her spine. "As long as I'm alive?"

"Yeah."

Oh, God. She didn't like the sound of that. "If he's working for Cicatrice, we have to kill him," she said quietly. "He won't be able to resist Cicatrice, and he's too powerful in his own right. He'll resurrect all the old vampires, the ones that are so dangerous."

Eric's hands tightened around the steering wheel. "We can't kill him."

Jordyn pulled her knees up to her chest. "I don't want to either. God, I don't want to. But we can't let him do this. We can't let him unleash that horror onto my town again."
Her
town? The possessive pronoun had tumbled instinctively from her lips, even though she'd rebelled so completely against the life she'd once had here. It was a place of nightmares and loss, but at the same time, her roots were here. Her grandmother, David, and even a few friends. She thought briefly of the blond-haired Skylar Morgan, who used to hide in the woods with Jordyn when her own dad became too violent. Skye had moved after several years, but they'd carved their initials into a tree in the swamp, forever declaring themselves sisters of the heart. This town was her past, and it had helped define her. The thought of it being torn apart by vampires made her feel sick, as if the loss of it would rip out what little foundation still supported her.

"Tristan isn't just my brother," Eric said grimly, drawing her attention back to the discussion. "He's my twin, and our spirits are intertwined." He looked over at her. "If he dies, then I die as well. We can't live without each other."

Horror congealed in her belly.
"What?"

"As for him turning vampire..." Grimly, he ran his finger over his teeth, as if checking for fangs. "I don't know what that will do to me." He looked over at her. "We need to find him, and fast."

The silence in the truck spoke louder than words about the gravity of their situation.

Jordyn had fallen quiet after Eric's revelation that he would die if Tristan did. What else was there to say? If Tristan were a vampire, or even if he was simply under Cicatrice's control and resurrecting ancient vampires, she needed Tristan dead to free herself, and her town. He, on the other hand, needed Tristan alive. A conflict with no happy medium, unless they were lucky enough to discover Tristan was actually on vacation in the Caribbean. If that were the case, they could just focus on Cicatrice and call it a day…but yeah, the odds of that happening weren't looking too good.

"Go left here. This is the driveway." She glanced over at him. "Maybe he's not a vampire. Maybe he hasn't been taken over by Cicatrice."

"Yeah, maybe." He'd seen the gravesite, and he recognized his brother's work. The likelihood of a happy ending wasn't too promising. Grimly, he turned on his blinker and then swung into the rutted, dirt driveway.

The moment his tires crunched on the gravel, Jordyn tensed beside him. He glanced over at her, and saw that her face was pale. She was leaning forward, staring through the windshield, her fingers wrapped tightly around the door handle. She was biting her lower lip, and her eyes were wide as she frantically scanned the property.

He was no fool. Jordyn was scared, and he didn't like that. Scowling, his adrenaline surged, and he drew in energy from the air, preparing to do whatever it took to protect her. The magic swirled through him, otherworldly energy gifting him with its power, even as it sought to find a way to penetrate his defenses.

"There it is," she whispered.

Eric followed her gaze, then slowed the truck as his headlights illuminated a ramshackle cabin with broken windows and a boarded-up door. A rusted tin roof looked like it was ready to slide off at any moment, and the yard looked like a cemetery where used-up vehicles went to die. The shanty was on the edge of the swamp. His headlights were reflecting off the stagnant water and the reeds that guarded its shoreline. It was a place of misery and doom.

He eased the truck to a stop, but left the engine idling as he turned his bright lights on the shanty. A small rodent scurried out of sight behind a tire, but there was no other movement. "What is this place?"

"It's where I grew up."

Eric whistled softly as Jordyn opened the door and stepped out. He couldn't believe this confident, sassy woman had come from such hell. How had she dragged herself out of this beginning to become a woman strong enough to take down one of the most powerful Calydons of this century, and then survive the severing of the
sheva
bond? He'd been impressed with her since the first moment they'd met, but now? Shit. She was good. Really good.

"No wonder you're a survivor," he said. "Looks like a tough place for a kid."

She glanced over at him, surprise in her eyes. "It was worse when my father was alive. Now it's just an empty house."

"An empty house with memories. Don't underestimate the power of the past. It can choke the life out of you when you least expect it."

She cocked her head. "You say that like you've lived it."

He managed a cheeky grin. "Sweetheart, doesn't everyone have a skeleton in their closet?"

"Not everyone has a skeleton that can choke the life out of them on a moment's notice," she observed.

"Yeah, well, poor deprived bastards then, right?" Yeah, he knew she was digging for information, but he didn't want to talk about it. Instead, he reached into the back of his truck and pulled two flashlights out of his bag. He handed one to Jordyn as he climbed out. "I assume the electricity doesn't work anymore."

"I think that's a safe assumption." She sounded grim. "It didn't work much when I lived here." She started to walk across the yard, and he kept close behind her, flashing his light over the surroundings.

The light from a nearby house shone through the trees on his right, and he could hear voices laughing. To his left, he could just make out another house, one that was brightly lit and looked huge. "You lived next door to a mansion?"

"It wasn't there when I was a kid. The neighborhood is being upgraded. No developer wants this property though."

"Why not? Money talks, doesn't it?"

"So do rumors. Supposedly, this land is cursed."

He turned the light on her. "Cursed? As in a real curse?"

"Yep. Everyone who has ever owned this property has died in a pool of their own blood." Her face was pale and glowing in his beam. "Guess who owns it now?"

"You."

"Me." She managed a smile that didn't reach her eyes, then turned away to flash her light over a small headstone. "The best dog ever," she said softly. "She bit my dad three times, once so badly that he couldn't use his right hand for a month. I loved her so much. She was part pit bull and part Rottweiler. She used to sleep with her head on my stomach, and once I got her, my dad never messed with me again." She laughed softly. "Well, it wasn't until the third time she bit him that he figured it out. After she bit his thigh, less than an inch from his crotch, he learned his lesson well enough to remember it even when he was so drunk he couldn't recall his own name. He threatened to shoot her, and I just told him that I'd get another one, and that maybe the next one would bite him in the throat instead of the thigh." She grinned. "And I might have taught her to go for his crotch as well. Maybe."

"I can see you doing that." Eric couldn't believe the warm good humor in Jordyn's voice as she spoke of her dog. Clearly, her dad had been a complete piece of shit, and had probably laid a hand on her more than once, but she wasn't dwelling on that. Instead, she was telling stories about her dog and smiling. The woman was resilient and a fighter, no doubt about that. As he said...impressive. Riveting. Compelling. Sexy as hell. Every word out of her mouth heightened his attraction to her.

She deserved a good guy, a better guy than he was even on his best day, but he had a bad feeling that after a few more hours in her company, he wasn't going to care. He couldn't get her out of his head. He couldn't stop picturing her as a skinny kid, hiding from her roaring drunk of a father, hunkering down in the swamp with just a dog to protect her.

Well, that day was over. She didn't have a dog, but she had him. She'd come back to town to help him find Tristan, and there was no way in hell he was going to leave her unprotected, not from vampires or memories. No matter what. He glanced out at the woods around them, and sent a message to his brother.
Tristan, don't you dare hurt her and make me have to choose. You hear me?

Silence.

After a lifetime of mental telepathy with his brother, there had been radio silence for a year, and he didn't like it.

Apparently oblivious to the protectiveness raging through him, Jordyn ran her toe over the ground in front of the grave. "Such a good girl," she said, her voice tinged with sadness. "I left home the day after she died, when I was sixteen. There was no reason to stay once she was gone."

Eric noted the heart etched on the old wooden headstone. Crooked, as if the hand that had carved it had been trembling with grief. Instinctively, he took a step toward her and set his hand on her lower back. He had no idea how to comfort her, but touching her felt like it made sense. "What was her name?"

She leaned into his touch, just barely, but he noticed. So, yeah, right call then.

"Molly." Jordyn shined the light around, and he saw a tattered tire swing hanging from a nearby tree. "David put that up for me. We used to swing out over the swamp and jump in. David, my friend Skye, and I."

He studied the thick, swampy area. "Seriously? What about gators?"

"The risk was part of the fun." She grinned at him, a sudden sparkle in her eye. "Aren't you a risk-taker?"

He was surprised by the change in her personality. They were in a brutally depressing place, and yet she seemed to be vibrating with more life and energy than he'd ever seen before. How did someone shine when surrounded by such hell? But there was no doubt about it. Something about her had shifted, and she was more confident and more self-assured. Was it the memory of a dog that had kicked ass and taken names on her behalf? Or the friend that had built her a swing? Or the recollection that she'd braved gators and won on numerous occasions? He didn't know, but somehow, in this mire of hell, she'd found strength.

And damn if that didn't make her even more attractive, which was great, of course, because he definitely needed to be even more into her than he already was, right? Not so much.

Shit. He was going to have to get her naked, wasn't he? He was pretty sure he was.

Jordyn walked across the junkyard, her flashlight skimming over the carnage. "You know," she said, "I didn't want to come back here. I avoided returning to the house when I came back for my dad's funeral, but there's something about being here that feels good." She crouched next to a flat patch of dirt and ran her hand over it. "It just feels like a piece of me that's been missing suddenly came back to me." She glanced at him. "It doesn't make sense, does it? This was a terrible place for me, but I feel more complete being here."

He walked up beside her, still scanning his light over the woods around them. "It's home," he said. "It's your roots. It made you who you are today."

She let some dirt sift through her fingers. "But it was a bad home."

"With a loyal dog and a couple good friends, right?"

She smiled at him. "True." Wiping her hands, she stood up. "Where's your home, Eric? Where do you and Tristan come from?"

He shrugged. "We were dumped on the steps of an orphanage when we were three weeks old with a note that had our names and the fact that I was two hours older than Tristan. That's all we know."

Her brow furrowed. "So, what about Tristan's powers of resurrection? How did you find out about that?"

"The hard way. Little boys like to play in cemeteries." He grinned, remembering that day. "When that old man came out of the ground with a hatchet in his hand, I've never run so fast in my life. We were scared as hell. The dude was half-decayed and he disintegrated the moment Tristan starting running, but it gave us ideas, and after that, we started messing around. We did some cool shit, some really stupid shit, and a lot of stuff that ended up nowhere."

She cocked her head. "What about you? What do you do? Can you resurrect bodies, too?"

"Nope. I'm a spirit guy. Ghosts. Specters. That kind of stuff. I can summon the energy of spirits and use it to do things. It's kind of like magic, but my power comes from spirits. What I can do depends on the nature of the energy I harvest at that time. It can be a little dicey, but it usually works pretty well." He looked over his shoulder at the woods again. A faint layer of fog was rolling in. "Should we be moving on?"

She followed his glance, and hopped to her feet. "No, I need to get some stuff. Come this way." She hurried past him, and he followed her as she headed off down a trail behind the house. It seemed to lead straight into the swamp, but at the last moment, the path curved to the right so it went beside the mucky water. The trail was overgrown so thickly that he wound up pulling out his dagger and cutting a path for them. The farther they traveled, the quieter Jordyn became, and the darker the swamp became...except for the mist sliding over the surface of the water.

His hand on the hilt of his knife, he moved nearer to Jordyn. "Tell me how we kill Cicatrice, if he shows up. Beheading, fire, and a wooden stake?"

"No. Those won't kill him. They'll slow him down, but not finish him off." She shoved aside a huge branch, and suddenly they were in a clearing. He flashed his light around and saw an ancient wooden totem pole in the center of the clearing. Burn marks scarred the carvings, and the paint was old and faded. Bones lay in random designs around the base of it. Some of them were crumbling and gray, almost completely decomposed by the earth...but there was a small pile of them in a perfect pyramid, and the bones were gleaming white. Fresh and picked clean of all flesh. "Shit. Your grandmother didn't leave those, did she?"