Burning Alive Read online

Page 8

 

  Logan shut the door behind them and looked around the room.

  Helen loved this space more than any other in the house. She’d decorated it herself using a palette of cool ocean blues and greens. There was no clutter because she hadn’t lived here long enough to collect it, and the blond oak furniture was all streamlined and understated. She’d used the insurance money she’d collected when her last house burned down to buy a few high-quality pieces and she loved every one of them. She really hoped that the unexplainable fires that haunted her all her life wouldn’t destroy this piece of solace she loved so much.

  “Are you ready?” asked Logan.

  “As I’ll ever be,” said Drake. “Helen?”

  She was never going to be ready for whatever they were going to do, but the sooner it was done, the sooner she would be rid of them. “Let’s just get this over with. ”

  Drake sat on the edge of her bed, tugging her down beside him. He stroked the side of her face with a barely there glide of his fingers. She couldn’t handle his gentleness, not when she knew how things would end between them.

  She covered his hand to stop his caress, but instead, she only managed to press his hand against her cheek. Her skin tingled and streamers of what she could only describe as electricity were winding their way down her body, through her chest and stomach, down her legs until they disappeared through her toes.

  Drake offered her a reassuring smile. “It’ll be okay. I promise. ”

  Helen closed her eyes, fighting the sting of tears. He had no idea what he was going to do to her. She could see it in his face, in the earnestness of his expression. He’d never hurt her on purpose. He was going to watch her die, but she couldn’t believe he would be the one to kill her.

  Logan reached up and placed an elegant, long-fingered hand on Drake’s head, then did the same thing to Helen. She felt a jolt of something she couldn’t name and then suddenly, she was back in Gertie’s Diner helping Miss Mabel into her seat.

  Thomas wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do with Miss Mabel. She kept eyeing the front door like she thought she might actually be able to outrun him. The last thing he wanted was for her to hurt herself doing something stupid.

  “You never did get to eat tonight. Are you hungry?” he asked her, hoping to help her relax and quit thinking about escape.

  “I suppose I am. ”

  “Do you think Helen would mind if we rummaged through her fridge?”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t. The woman doesn’t have a selfish thought in her head. ”

  Thomas checked outside again, hoping none of the Synestryn had found them here. If Zach had spilled so much as one drop of blood on the driveway, this place would be swarming with them soon.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked him. “You’re making me nervous with all that fidgeting. ”

  Fidgeting? It sounded like something a two-year-old would do. Thomas tried not to be offended. “I’m just making sure we weren’t followed. ”

  “By whom?”

  Not whom. What. Dealing with humans was such a pain in the ass. He would so much rather just go kill something. Tonight was supposed to be a prime-time killing spree, too. This area was crawling with demons, though no one had figured out why yet. And Thomas didn’t particularly care. He was nearly out of time and he wanted to make sure he made the most of what he had left.

  The wind shifted outside and he felt the last leaf on his lifemark—the image of an ancient tree stamped into his flesh—sway over the skin on his chest. One leaf left. Once it was gone, his soul would die and his ability to distinguish right from wrong would fade. He’d no longer care about the people he loved. He’d no longer love.

  Part of him longed for it. No love meant no grief, and the grief he carried for Kevin kept gnawing at him, eating him from the inside out. He was so fucking tired of hurting. Tired of watching his brothers die. As soon as they found Kevin’s sword, he was going to leave the Theronai before he could hurt any of them. He’d find the biggest, baddest nest of Synestryn he could and dive in headfirst.

  But before he could do that, he had to make sure they found Kevin’s sword, and before they could do that, they had to make sure Helen and Miss Mabel were safe. His vow to protect humans demanded no less.

  “Listen,” he said, trying to hold on to his patience, despite the pain and grief gnawing at his insides. “This is really a lot more complicated than it seems. Why don’t we just go have a sandwich or something, okay?”

  “Don’t you get all snippy with me, young man. ”

  Young man. Thomas couldn’t help but smile. He might look like he was around thirty, but he’d passed his five hundredth birthday a few years ago. “No, ma’am. No snippy here. Come on. ”

  He helped her up off the couch and got her settled behind her walker. She was so frail, he worried about hurting her every time he got close. Every move he made with her was carefully controlled, slow and methodical. It took them a few minutes to get into the kitchen, and Thomas tried to hide his impatience. He had no idea how long Logan and Drake would take, but the longer they did, the more dangerous things were going to get.

  Thomas sat Miss Mabel at the kitchen table and peeked inside Helen’s fridge. She had several stacks of sealed trays with clear lids. Inside each one was a full meal, though it would probably take three or four of them to fill him up. It looked like more than two dozen trays and each of them was labeled with dates and contents on a strip of masking tape. Boy, this chick was organized. “What do you want? Chicken and noodles, beef Stroganoff, or spaghetti with meatballs?”

  “We can’t eat those,” she said. “Those are tomorrow’s meals. ”

  Thomas peered at her over the refrigerator door. “There’s no way the two of you could eat all this food in one day. ”

  “Not just us. Helen takes food all over town, bringing it to people like me who have trouble making it on their own. ”

  “So she brings you food?”

  “Every day. And we go out at least once a week. I’d like to go more often, but she’s all booked up. Tonight was our night out, which you boys completely ruined. ”

  Again, Thomas had to struggle not to smile. Miss Mabel was cute when she was disgruntled. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to spoil your fun. ”

  “I don’t know what’s going on back there with Helen, but I don’t like it one bit. ”

  “Don’t worry about them. They’ll take good care of her. ”

  Miss Mabel snorted. “All you men have done since we saw you is push us around. You made Lexi run away, for heaven’s sake. I don’t trust you one bit. I don’t care how handsome you are. ”

  “You think I’m handsome, do you?” His flirting tone made her blush.

  “That’s not what I meant. ”

  “My apologies, then, for misinterpreting you. ”

  She pushed herself up from her chair and he could see her shaking with the effort it cost her. The poor thing had worn herself out with all this excitement tonight.

  “I’m going to go check on Helen,” she said.

  Thomas shut the fridge and stepped in her path. “That’s not a good idea. I promise you she’ll be fine. Just give them some time to figure things out, okay?”

  “She’s my friend,” said Miss Mabel. The woman didn’t even come up to his sternum and she was bent under the strain of age, but there was a fierceness in her eyes that told Thomas that she’d do whatever it took to keep Helen safe.

  “Have you heard any screams?” he asked her.

  “No. ”

  “Any crashing noises or anything else that leads you to believe they’re hurting her?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “She’s safe. Let Logan finish his work and you and I will just sit right here and have a nice peanut butter sandwich. ”

  “You’re an insolent man. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been told that a time or
two. ”

  She stared up at him for a long moment as if debating what to do. “I don’t like this,” she said.

  “I know. ”

  “And I think you all are up to no good. ”

  What else was new? “Yes, ma’am. ”

  “If you hurt her I’ll make you pay. I may be old, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make you suffer. ”

  “Damn right. You’ve got the AARP on your side. ”

  “Stop being insolent! I spent thirty years teaching school and I know all the best ways to punish naughty boys. ”

  “Now you’re just trying to scare me. ”

  She tilted her head back and he wondered how that bun stayed up. It looked as if the only thing holding it up was a single pencil, but that seemed like an architectural impossibility. “You’re beyond hope, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely. A walking lost cause. ”

  Her glare softened and she looked at him with something nearing pity. If she’d been a man, he would have decked her for looking at him like that. But she wasn’t and all he could do was stand there and take it. “You really think that, don’t you? That you’re a lost cause?”

  He didn’t just think it, he knew it, but that was still no reason to pity him.

  Thomas couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him, so he turned away and stalked back across the kitchen. Maybe a giant helping of peanut butter would shut her up.

  He slapped together a pile of sandwiches and all but slammed them down on the table.

  She looked expectantly at the empty chair across from her, then back at him and just stared until he sat down with her at the table. She waited until he’d reached for a sandwich before saying, “You forgot the milk. ”

  Logan loved walking through people’s memories. Maybe it was the voyeur in him, or maybe it was some sort of power trip, but whatever it was, he didn’t get to do it nearly often enough.

  His body was in Helen’s house, but his consciousness was at a little restaurant called Gertie’s Diner. Logan took the memories from both Drake and Helen and superimposed them on top of one another until time synched up.

  When he’d first learned how to walk memories, it had been hard to adjust to the weightless sensation and the skewed reality different people saw. Although many people saw things the same way, others didn’t. Colors were the worst. While some people saw the sky as blue, others saw it as purple or green, only they’d learned to call it blue because that’s what they’d been taught it was called. Every time he walked in the memories of someone like that, it always made him nauseated.

  Maybe it was his perception that was wrong, but he’d never once let anyone walk his memories, so there was no way to know. He’d rather die not knowing than risk letting someone dig into his mind as he was doing to Drake and Helen. He had too many secrets to keep.

  If any of the Theronai learned what his people were doing to the blooded humans, it would be the end of his race.

  Logan shoved the unpleasant thought away and focused on his job. He sped the couple’s memories forward until he saw Drake rise from his seat in the nearly empty diner. Helen was trying to hide behind a menu. She was afraid of Drake, though Logan knew from being in her mind that she’d never met him before.