Sin Eater (34 page)

Jasper touched the side of his nose carefully. “Is this going to be okay? I think it’s
broken.”

“It is. Just straighten it out, it’ll be fine.”

“How do I do that?”

“Thumb on each side of the bridge, pop it back
into place.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Like a bitch. But you can’t let it heal like that.”

Jasper went to his bathroom, thankful Essum seemed to be staying put in the living room. Once he’d flicked the light on he studied his reflection with a grimace. His face was virtual hamburger meat. Claudia had beat the living shit out of him. His male ego wasn’t hurt as much as his mental health. How had he let that happen? He’d had control, he could have put her under easily.

That other need won out, though. The damn sex. And her breasts … God, they’d looked so good. They’d felt even better. Damn that bitch to hell.

Jasper moaned as he positioned
his thumbs for the nose reconnection. It was starting to swell, and that couldn’t be good. When he shoved back to the left he … stopped breathing. Stopped everything.

Actually, he fainted.

Following their argument, as
Jasper was going to the washroom to realign his nose, Essum had stayed in the living room until he began to get worried. Then he called out to Jasper through the bathroom door, but got no answer.

So Essum materialized through the door and found Jasper sprawled on the tile, dead to the world. Essum gave his brain a good mental goose, but all that did was make Jasper flinch in his sleep. Essum dug right
into the subconscious and shook it to wake the bastard. Jasper’s eyes eventually opened, and he looked tired. And very, very sick.

“What happened? I felt it when you got hurt.” Essum kept his voice soft, because all of Jasper’s mental activity was begging him to just leave him alone.

“I don’t know. I can’t …”

Essum didn’t sound mad, because he was actually worried that Jasper might be useless to him now. “Show me your hand.”

Jasper let it flop upwards on the floor next to him. That’s when Essum saw the burn on the inside of his palm, wrapping around to the back of his hand. The skin was red, wide open to the elements, and parts were turning black. It was as though he was shedding his epidermis, but there was nothing underneath.

Essum crouched in his physical form next to Jasper, catching the smell of burnt flesh … and something else. The stink of fire and brimstone. Now
this
smell he knew.

“Was the woman wearing an amulet? Is that what did this to you?”

Jasper just nodded, swallowing a couple of times in quick succession. He obviously felt quite nauseous.

“Fuck.” Now Essum was confused. He had no idea how to fix Jasper. He’d always worn the
Oryx
pendant when he’d been in human form. It was for their own protection against the forces of … well, good. And a
decipio
, no matter how tainted he or she may get, is still on the side of
good
. So the metal had burned Jasper. Essum knew it could lead to blood poisoning.

“You know her, right?”

Jasper might have been weak but he could follow the line of questioning. He nodded.

“Shit. We have to get you out of here.”

“No,” the moan was so weak Essum almost missed it.

“I need to get you somewhere where no one can find you. She got away, they’ll come for you, and this is your known address. No
w let me find us a place. I’ll need your help, the longer we wait the weaker you’ll be, and if you’re in jail you very well may die there.”

That got his attention. Jasper licked his lips, sighed, and then opened his eyes to focus on Essum. “There’s a hotel, only ten minutes away. Let’s get going before I pass out again.”

Iola awoke feeling … not herself. She had the shakes, and though she had an all-over body sweat she was totally freezing under all her blankets. She woke from fitful dreams that she couldn’t recall, and her stomach was churning like she’d had bad seafood.

A look at the clock told her it was one in the afternoon. She’d been asleep for four hours.

She pushed the blankets back and stood, then sat back down on the side of the bed again. Her equilibrium was not on board with standing up that quick.

“What the hell?” She wiped the sweat from her forehead, and fought back the urge to throw up. How had she gotten so sick this quickly?

She waited for the floor to stop tilting and tried the standing thing again, taking it slower. Apart from the constant nausea that attempt worked and she made her way to the bathroom.

She started a hot bath, noting how weird it was to have goose bumps under a marathon-grade coating of sweat. She peeled off the T-shirt she’d fallen asleep in, letting it hit the floor in a damp flopping sound. Iola crawled
into the tub before it was full, her body eased by the hot water pooling under her. Her eyes slid closed as the room started to swim again, and the only thing she heard was the water.

There was no one line of thought she could really follow. It seems eons ago that Vinnie had left. And she still couldn’t be sure the episode with Damien in her kitchen was real. God, she hoped she’d imagined that.

She used her foot to turn off the taps once the water was sitting over her stomach. That made her feel warmer, but she was still shaking.

Overtop of trying to straighten out what she’d done in the past few hours, she was also wondering if she had any flu medication in the apartment. She would strangle a puppy for some Gravol at this point, as long as it would also knock her unconscious long enough for this to pass.

She got out of the tub while the water was still hot and the room was clouded with steam. The chills had subsided and she wanted it to stay that way. Iola wrapped herself in the terry cloth robe on the back of the bathroom door after drying herself off. She was short of breath by the time she toddled down the hall to her kitchen, and she went right for the cupboard where all her medicines were.

Iola took two
Aspirin, two of the Gravol – even though it was expired - and washed the whole cocktail down with water from the tap. She hated the way the water tasted on her tongue … it left a coating similar to wet dog or something equally gross.

To bed
, she told herself.
Call in sick to work and go to bed.
She almost needed to stop and rest on the way back to the bedroom, but she pushed on, finally collapsing on top of the blankets. She caught her breath before rolling herself in her comforter, still wearing the thick robe. Iola waited impatiently for her exhaustion to get the better of her. Eventually it did, and she fell into a very deep and dark sleep.

Constable Trevor Vance looked up at the apartment building that was the last known address for Jasper McKay and set his jaw. There was already a team headed towards the doorway, wearing full flak jackets and helmets. It wasn’t a SWAT operation really, but any guy that tries to attack a cop could be up to anything.

There was also the worry that he’d tried to get Sergeant Bauer in the daytime, when it was obvious to most people it would be easiest to get her in her sleep when she was
vulnerable. Or maybe he just came upon her by chance, recognizing her car in the motel parking lot or something.

Vance always thought a cop that drives a flashy car was asking to get noticed when off-duty. He’d tried to get Claudia to trade it in for something that would
blend
but she refused. Whatever the “how” of the situation was, they had no idea what they were going to be dealing with once they got inside.

He heard through the radio as the door was kicked in, and he started up the stairs to the floor they were on, just in time to hear a constable say over the radio, “He’s not here. But it sure fucking smells like death in here.”

He was two doors down when he smelled it, and he wondered why the neighbours hadn’t been complaining. If this was his building he would have been sure a dead body was next door, unrefrigerated for about three weeks.

He entered the apartment as the two guys with the door ram were leaving, covering his mouth and nose. He found himself immediately in the living room, which looked fine. Then he crossed through the kitchen, also fine, and came to a hallway where the smell intensified.

He dropped his hand long enough to tell a rookie to crack the patio doors open, then followed his nose. The stench was cloying and it wouldn’t take much longer before he could taste it.

Remember to burn this uniform after this shift is done
, he thought. At the bathroom door he stopped, flicked the light on and looked inside.

Jesus H. Christ … what the hell?

The stink was worst here, and the room was splattered with a thick, blackish-red muck that was everywhere, mostly in the shower but also on the bathroom mirror, the countertop and floor.

He didn’t want to go in. Every nerve in his body was telling him to run from it. So he went to the bedroom.

Same thing. The bed sheets were matted with the same putrid matter, though not as badly as in the bathroom. And it wasn’t splattered here, it was like it had seeped out of … something.

H
ey weren’t going to find a body here, he knew that much. Whatever this stuff was, it wasn’t human.

“Okay, I really have to go tell Iola that she has to watch out for Jasper. And I mean it this time. I’m sure I heard the water running.” Claudia sat up, but Voro pulled her back to him, cutting off any protests with a kiss, even though his lips felt bruised.

“In a minute,” he conceded. He felt bad for it, but as soon as Claudia had gotten home he’d made sure to get her
in the mood
. The little session with Iola may have literally burned him – which had healed about three minutes later – but it also left him a bit strung out and randy.

Even though she may not have been initially willing, a little mental coercion was all it took for him to get Claudia bent over the sofa with her legs wide. Once he was done he’d felt like a heel so he took her to her bedroom and had gone down on her for about twenty minutes.

“I’m going, and I’d advise you not to stop me,” she said forcefully, which made his dick swell of course, but he let her get up and pull her clothes back on.

“I want to take you somewhere where you can walk around naked all day,” he said, running a hand across his pecs as he watched her do up her bra and herd those gorgeous
babies into their D-cups.

She shook her head and laughed silently, pulling her T-shirt back on. “Stay here. I will be right back.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He pulled the sheet down to show her how willing he was to wait for her.

Claudia’s face coloured, which he thought was adorable, and she wordlessly left to go warn her neighbour.

Tuned into
their
orgasms,
he thought when he began wondering where all the hearts and flowers were coming from. Whatever. He’d fulfilled the need and was feeling better.

Well, not better. He was still wishing he’d turned and walked away from Iola. He couldn’t get in her mind to find out what she was thinking of him, either. It had been so incredibly fucking stupid. He was going to get himself killed.

The thought made his skin go cold, but his mind went blissfully calm. “Dead” and “killed” were terms that didn’t really register with him of course, but since he’d been doing this for six hundred years … it would feel like a death. Like Essum said after Daphne had caused his downfall.

That wasn’t correct either. Daphne wasn’t at fault for Essum. She’d merely been the bait. It was her fiancée that had done him in, all things considered.

Voro had felt … not
sympathy …
for Essum at the time.  Sympathy was not right. He’d felt his own vulnerability. The good guys had created a chink in the armour. It could happen to any of them, and it had been happening for five hundred years. That was when the Boss had stopped the rotation, to regroup and rethink the Sin Eater model.

What if this wasn’t Essum’s idea? What if the Boss had fooled Essum
into coming up with this whole scheme with the belief he was a raving genius?

What a dreamer
, he scolded himself. If the Boss wanted you out, you were just
out
.

Voro froze. That was totally true. If the Boss really wanted Voro to report back for reassignment, He sure as hell wasn’t going to rely on a mad plan from a jilted minion. He was going to grab Voro by the balls and call him Home.

Voro
wasn’t
due to be retired. Essum just wanted to get through to this side.

Your brain is turning to mush
, he was reprimanding himself again.
Took you long enough to figure that out. At least now you might have leverage over that fucking weasel.
Then he had another thought.
Wonder if the Boss is aware of what Essum is cooking up?

That thought made him smile so wide his cheeks hurt.

Claudia rapped her knuckles three times on Iola’s door and listened for the sound of approaching footsteps. The apartment was silent, so she knocked again. She felt bad if she actually was waking up her neighbour, but Iola needed to know about Jasper.

“Who is it?” The voice on the other side of the door was so sad and pitiful sounding, Claudia wondered if she had the right place.

“It’s Claudia. Iola, honey, are you okay?”

Now she heard shuffling footsteps, and the door swung inward. At the sight of her usually beautiful neighbour, Claudia gasped. Iola looked terrible. Her skin was pasty, she had gruesome bags under her eyes, and she look like she needed sleep more than anything in the world.

“Iola? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Iola rubbed her eyes, looking like a child suddenly in her large and fluffy bathrobe. “It’s like I went to sleep and woke up with the flu.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, sweetie. But I had to warn you about something.”

“Yeah?”

“Jasper attacked me at the motel this morning
. I wanted you to know before you ran into him. Did you call work and tell them you were too sick to come in?”

Iola looked confused between the startling information and the question. “Jasper what? He what? No … I haven’t called work yet.”

“Here, let me call for you.” Just as Claudia was about to open the door more and step inside, Iola’s eyes rolled up into her head and she fell forward.

“Holy shit - ” Claudia caught her just in time, then strained to pick her up in her arms. She was able to lift her, and she turned back for her own apartment, bellowing Damien’s name while catching Iola’s door with her foot and kicking it back inward. She carried Iola down the dark hall to her room, where the curtains were drawn and the black-out blinds were blocking out all natural light. She turned the bedside lamp on after laying her friend out on her bed. Iola’s skin was slick with cold sweat, and her teeth were chattering even though she appeared to be overheated. In front of Claudia’s eyes she was turning pink.

Claudia heard Damien enter the room behind her. “What’s wrong with her?” He asked softly and seriously. Claudia turned to him just in time to notice his eyes trailing over Iola’s form, concern crowding his eyebrows together.

“I don’t know. She fainted when she came to the door. Can you … can you find her cordless phone and check for Vinnie on her call display
, then call him? I don’t know what to do here. I don’t know if she needs to go to the hospital or not.”

Damien nodded, then left the room, his face serious and looking out of place since he was only wearing jeans.

Claudia put her hand on Iola’s forehead, and her skin felt very warm, too warm. Her breathing was shallow but being expelled in rapid-fire puffs. As Claudia watched Iola writhed on the bed, making a weird mumbling sound as she threw herself sideways, pulling at her robe and gnashing her teeth.

“What the hell …” Claudia didn’t want to hold her down, but she didn’t want the poor thing to hurt herself, either. The sounds coming out of Iola were horrible, dark-sounding, nothing Claudia had ever heard before. It could even be another language.

Iola’s eyes opened, then fluttered shut again. She pushed her head to the other side of the bed, then gave a loud and low moan again before breaking off into the weird chanting. She arched her back, kicking her legs and thrashing around so her robe opened up.

“Hey, hey.” Claudia tried to calm her with her voice, but Iola wasn’t hearing anything. She pulled at the terry cloth, rolling in it, before Claudia was able to wrestle her arms out of the sleeves and pull it away from her. Since she was naked as a jaybird underneath
, Claudia yanked the sheet up over her just as Damien came back into the room, talking into the phone.