TWELVE
Hutton sat watching the vampire sleep. Sleep? Yes, that’s what it seemed like. He was sleeping and dreaming. It was absolutely fascinating to watch, and at the same time, incredibly worrisome.
Judas had fallen into a deep slumber after beheading the vampire assassin that had broken into the apartment earlier. It was interesting, watching how he had reacted to Jane being in danger. The bloodlust that had coursed through him was spellbinding. Nothing else was as important in that moment to the vampire, than to protect Jane, at all costs. It was as if he was tied to her somehow. As if him being there, at that moment, had been nothing short of divine intervention, but Hutton knew better.
Bowing his head, he ran a thoughtful hand over his trimmed goatee and grimaced. He had a vague inkling of where Judas may have come from and who had put him in Phoenyx’s path. The thought made his stomach turn. If this all-powerful ancient vampire was who Hutton thought he was, their problems were only just beginning.
Judas stirred on the bed, his eyes darting back and forth beneath his closed eyelids as they fought to open. Hutton was at war with a demon inside of himself.
He stared down at the large, angry tattoo on Judas’ chest. Was it truly his name, or was it a warning, that with a kiss on the cheek, he would turn on those closest to him? Was Judas truly a vampire suffering from some mysterious ailment, or a trojan horse, sent by those who wanted to take Jane from him––finally, after all these years?
He must have been lost in his thoughts because when he finally snapped back to reality, he found Judas staring silently at him, a thin sheen of sweat covering his skin. Hutton made note that it was no longer pink, and he cleared his throat lightly.
“You’re awake.”
“I’m awake,” Judas rasped, his voice hoarse and dry. There was no hint of an accent.
Standing, Hutton wiped the palm of his hands on his slacks. “You must be hungry––er––thirsty.”
The feeling of Judas’ eyes following his every movement made Hutton feel very uneasy. He cursed himself for allowing Jane to bring this monster into her home, no matter how docile he seemed. A vampire would always be a vampire. It was true, there were some non-practicing vampires, like Kassandra who refused to kill to live, but they were few and far between. The danger of Judas being here was immeasurable.
Slowly, he made his way to the refrigerator and pulled out a bag of blood that Kassandra brought over earlier, before leaving again to get back to the club. He felt the weight of the sack in his hands and sighed. The strange way that death could give life and life could sustain death amazed him. If there was a God, he was a cruel comedian of fate and circumstance.
He walked quickly over to the bed and cut open the bag for Judas, before lifting it to the vampire’s lips.
“Maybe you can unchain one of my hands?” Judas asked quietly, those unnerving eyes still watching him.
Hutton chuckled unapologetically. “I’ll take my chances feeding you myself, if it’s all the same to you.”
Judas nodded, lowering his eyes quickly and wrapping his lips gingerly around the edge of the thick, plastic bag. His eyes rolled back in pleasure and he began to suck back the life-giving liquid. It only took a minute or so for him to empty the bag before he gasped. “More.”
“How long has it been since you last fed?” Hutton inquired as he returned to the refrigerator for another bag. When he returned, Judas’ eyes were clearer than before, the fog nearly lifted.
“I’m not sure,” Judas rasped before lurching forward to take the other bag into his mouth, moaning as the blood surged down his throat.
There was something so fascinating about watching a vampire feed. The way their skin glowed with the flush of life, or how their eyes sparkled with a renewed purpose and the energy that overtook them, making them appear almost human again. A curse to have it last ever so briefly. As he pulled the empty blood bag from Judas’ lips, now full and plump from feeding, he decided that it was the perfect time to ask him some questions, while he was alert and speaking.
He discarded the bag in a nearby wastebasket and leaned tentatively back in his armchair. “Better?”
Judas nodded, trying to get comfortable in the bed, the skin around his wrists smoking lightly with every movement. If it hurt, he didn’t show it.
“Thank you,” Judas replied.
Hutton nodded, pursing his lips slightly. “Tell me, is Judas your real name?”
The vampire blinked slowly, a frown pulling his dark eyebrows together. He shrugged. His mouth opened and closed as he searched for words. “I’m really not sure. I mean, I think it could be. It is tattooed to my chest––forever, and for me, that’s a pretty long time. So, my logic is, if it is my name, I liked it so much that I inked it on my body for all eternity, or––someone was sick enough to put it on me for other reasons. The answer is––I don’t know the answer, but it stings like a bitch every second of the goddamn day.”
It was an acceptable explanation for the moment, so Hutton nodded and continued. “Do you have any recollection of how you turned up in that alley tonight? When Phoenyx found you, you were––”
“Writhing in unimaginable pain,” Judas laughed. “Yeah, I don’t remember much. I keep dreaming of a white van. Um––my hearing is pretty keen, so I’m fairly certain we drove over a bridge at some point because I could hear water, but I can’t be one hundred percent sure. I didn’t even know I was a vampire until yesterday, when I ripped that other vamps head off in your living room.”
“What?” Hutton was perplexed. “Extraordinary. You didn’t know?”
Judas shook his head. “No clue. When Phoenyx found me in the alley, I thought I was dying, and that she was an angel. She was so beautiful and electric. I thought she was there to collect my soul and ease its passage to the great beyond. Turns out, I’m already fucking dead.”
Hutton couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. The more Judas, or whoever he truly was, spoke, the less it came together. The only useful thing he pulled from the conversation was that he’d heard water, which meant only one thing––whoever brought him here, brought him here from the West Coast. This was strange because only the rich and wealthy lived on the West Coast of Crystal Haven––even the Sups.
Could it be him? Hutton thought. Worry marred his expression, and Hutton immediately felt ill, thinking of how he would broach the subject with Jane. If she knew that he had known all along what she was dealing with, he wasn’t sure she would ever forgive him, but how else could he protect her? What else could he do?
“You know,” Judas muttered, bringing Hutton out of his thoughts.
He looked at the vampire inquisitively.
Judas frowned. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve dreamed, but it feels good. And to sleep? Sleep is just incredible. It feels like I’m human again, even though last night solidified that I’m anything but––is this real?”
Hutton’s eyebrows surged upwards. He was unsure how to answer, knowing as little as he did. Shaking his head, he pressed his lips into a firm line and sighed. “I’m not entirely sure.”
A look of pain crossed Judas’ face as his chin dropped to his chest. That was when Hutton noticed the smoke. It was suddenly coming off his body in waves. Carefully, he reached out and touched the vampire’s arm. His mouth fell open in shock. He stood, quickly snatching his hand away, as if Judas had burned him.
“You’re––hot. Burning up.”
“Am I?” Judas groaned, his head lolling back on his neck weakly as his muscles tightened and relaxed repeatedly. His stomach began to heave. “I think––I think I’m going to be sick.”
Springing into action, Hutton grabbed the wastebasket and held it nervously beneath Judas’ head. He watched the vampire’s upper torso lurch once, then twice, before a stream of dark red blood came gushing out of his mouth and nose. Hutton’s hand instantly went to the vampire’s forehead, hot and clammy with sweat. Hutton anchored his head, as Judas’ body expelled every last drop of the blood he had ingested.
The sound of the doorknob turning spurred Hutton to look in that direction, just as Phoenyx and Cortez walked in, completely engrossed in conversation, until Phoenyx’s eyes snapped toward the bed.
***
“What the hell is going on?” Phoenyx barked, striding purposefully toward the bed, watching horrified as Judas vomited copious amounts of blood into her wastebasket
Hutton shook his head in confusion, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water before he could finally speak. “He was––burning up.”
Her eyes narrowed, perplexed by his words. “Burning up? As in fevered? The dead guy without a pulse?”
Cortez moved quickly to the other side of the bed, fearlessly reaching beneath Judas’ jaw and placing two fingers firmly to his artery. Surprise flickered briefly over his face before he too turned to Phoenyx, his mouth slack with shock.
“He––has a pulse, fresa. It’s faint, but it’s there.”
Phoenyx blinked hard, her hand clenched into a fist as she watched Judas helplessly vomit everything he had in his system. A pulse. It isn’t possible. Glancing at Hutton, he shook his head, in as much shock at the news as she was.
She edged closer, her fingers stretching out to graze the skin on Judas’ arm. She suddenly pulled back, as if he’d burned her. He was hot. Unbelievably hot.
Crouching down beside the bed, she reached for some tissue and wiped carefully at his chin, trying to remove the blood that was already crusting there. He lifted weary eyes to hers and blinked slowly before a slow smile spread across his bloodstained lips, his teeth tinged slightly pink. His cheeks were flushed, and he was––well, he was breathing. She could clearly feel his breath fanning against her skin.
Searching her face, he swallowed hard, barely able to stop his eyes from rolling back into his head from the intensity of the fever. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he murmured, before passing out.
Again.
Phoenyx exhaled, and stood. She turned abruptly on Hutton, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “What the fuck is going on, H?”
“I don’t know,” he hissed, just as perplexed as she was. He raked a hand through his salt and pepper hair in confusion.
It was then that Phoenyx took notice of how much Hutton had aged over the years since they first met. He’d had some grey twenty years ago, but he was a handsome middle-aged man, who just so happened to find her in the middle of nowhere and gave her sad little life meaning. He taught her how to use her skills, when she had no idea what to do with them. Things that would have frightened her without his knowledge to guide her, like how physically strong she would become, or how little sleep she needed in order to thrive. Time was passing so quickly.
“We need to find out what’s going on,” she said faintly, to no one in particular, before meeting Hutton’s worried blue eyes. “How do we do that, H? Where should we start?”
She watched him as he searched his mind for something––anything to tell her, and coming up blank. Then suddenly, like a lightbulb going off, his eyes brightened, and he shook a finger aimlessly in the air while he began to pace.
“A blood test,” he said, matter of fact.
Phoenyx and Cortez exchanged curious glances before she cocked her head and drew her brows together. “H, he’s still a vampire. Besides, what the hell would a blood test tell us anyway?”
“Well for one, you’d be able to tell if the blood in his body is living or dead,” Cortez offered, surprising everyone a little with his acute perception.
Hutton withdrew a pocketknife from his trouser pocket during the exchange. He carefully extracted the blade before making a neat, shallow slice along Judas’ left arm. Judas twitched in his sleep, as if he’d felt something pinch him. Phoenyx watched, amazed, as red blood welled up from the cut to trickle down the side of his forearm. Closing the blade quickly, Hutton straightened his shoulders, seeming quite pleased by his discovery before falling back into puzzlement.
“Fascinating,” he murmured thoughtfully.
She stood, transfixed by the blood as it dripped onto her sheets, even as she watched the cut begin to heal right before her eyes. Steam kept curling upward from the silver encircling Judas’ wrists. Every fiber of her body told her that he was alive and breathing, with her own two eyes if was obvious, and yet, he was still reacting to vampire vulnerabilities. She supposed a blood test would be their best chance to figure out what was going on. It might give them at least some of the answers––if not all of them.
Nodding slowly, she crossed her arms over her chest and pressed a thoughtful thumb to her lips. Turning to Hutton she briskly agreed. “A blood test it is. What do you need me to do?”
“Not you,” Hutton said, turning to Cortez. “Call your lady friend and ask if she can get in touch with her hospital contact? This needs to be hush, hush and I’d be willing to pay her handsomely. I need blood collection tubes, a tourniquet, cotton balls, bandage or medical adhesive tape, and alcoholic wipes. I’ll also need an 18-gauge needle. Do you think Kassandra can get these things, and do it as secretly as possible?”
“I’m on it,” Cortez said, already dialing Kassandra.
Phoenyx let her eyes travel over Judas slowly, taking in the color of his cheeks and the way his chest was slowly rising and falling beneath the now bloodstained sheets. She could only hope a blood test would be able to give them some answers.
As Hutton and Cortez whispered fervently amongst themselves, Phoenyx laid her hand gently over Judas’ chest, where his heart was, and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly. There it was. Faint, but there––a heartbeat. A goddamn heartbeat!
She bit her lip, feeling something stirring deep inside her as she noticed the curve of his lower lip for the first time, and the way his dark lashes fanned out over his flushed cheeks. His cheeks were somewhat gaunt from malnourishment, but there was no denying that he was gorgeous. She knew that beneath his closed eyelids were eyes that pierced right through her every time they fell on her. What she had felt when she touched him that first night, the maelstrom of feelings that had been coursing through him, told her that his human life had been so much more than the life he led now as the undead.
Undead?
Judas was changing, though she didn’t know why. Still, even at their first meeting in the alley, she had tried to deny the pull she felt to him. She had fought it tooth and nail, until whatever it was between them, the chemical reaction, the sheer magic of it, drew them together. They were surrounded by literal electricity. Her eyes dropped closed at the memory of the thrill that passed through her, how the rush of it made her feel more alive than she had felt in years. It dawned on her then, that perhaps––she was changing too––and it frightened her.
Jolting back to reality, she turned to Hutton, who had been silently watching her. She bit her lip and looked away before moving into the kitchen and shuffling through the fridge. Maybe this is something I should talk to Hutton about––these odd cravings and strange sensations that have been overcoming me lately. Maybe. And then there was the curiousness of Ian Rutherford’s words earlier at the council meeting.
There was no denying that she was superhuman, what with the sheer strength of her and the agility of her body. The way she could read people’s minds and make them feel things she mirrored onto them. There was more to her than met the eye, and the thought terrified her––and not many things did.
Looking back over her shoulder, she could see Hutton staring down in intense thought at her enigma. As a scholar, he always strove to learn everything he could about the mysteries of this world, and beyond. As a midnight warrior, Phoenyx’s main concern was not getting too much blood on her new clothes, and making sure the fangs that haunted the darkness didn’t sink into her neck.
What a pair we make.
If Hutton was hiding something from her, as she had initially suspected when she’d spoken to him in the library, she was going to find out what it was. She hoped beyond everything that it didn’t change them, or what they shared. He meant too much to her.
“I’ve got an errand to run,” Phoenyx snapped, before slamming the fridge door shut and making a beeline for the door, her strides long and purposeful.
Hutton and Cortez were mere whispers by the time she found herself at the end of the apartment complex hallway. The thin, red carpet stuck oddly to the soles of her boots as she pushed the button to call the elevator to her floor. She couldn’t wipe the image of Ian Rutherford’s smug face from her mind. The arrogant bastard. Always was, and always would be. Arrogant or not, he had the answers that she needed.
Just then, Mrs. Scott, one of the tenants, poked her head around the door of Apartment 17, her blurry cataract eye watching Phoenyx as she casually waited for her ride.
“Evening, Mrs. Scott,” Phoenyx murmured without so much as turning her head to look at the old lady.
“Have you got a date?” Mrs. Scott rasped, an obvious smoker, as well as a busy-body.
Phoenyx turned her head sharply and smiled, the feeling of it stretching her lips odd and unsatisfying. “Something like that.”
Mrs. Scott snorted. “You could have at least changed your clothes, worn a dress! Young women these days.”
“If all goes well,” Phoenyx said lightly as the elevator doors slid open to accommodate her, “I won’t be wearing any clothes.”
Mrs. Scott’s gasp of indignancy was the last thing she heard as the elevator doors closed and she came that much closer to getting the answers she deserved.
Phoenyx pulled out her cigarettes, and despite the ‘No Smoking’ sign in the top right corner of the elevator, she proceeded to make quick work of lighting it. Inhaling sharply, she exhaled out from her nostrils, feeling the sting of the smoke as it passed the sensitive membranes there. She played absentmindedly with her mini flamethrower lighter and gazed heavily into the fire.
Ian Rutherford had better be ready for me, because I am coming for him, ready or not.