If Devina was a parasite, as Eddie had said, and she entered through a wound in the soul … he knew he was making the infection in him worse every time he saw her, anytime he was with her. But even knowing that, he would have done no differently tonight.
Sacrifices were to be made. Had to be.
For some reason, he thought of the night he had spent sitting outside of Sissy’s room like a dog.
That was the closest he was ever going to be to her.
And that hurt more than anything else.
Shutting himself in his room, he went over and got in his bed. The lights were off, and even though the daylight was coming soon, the room was dark because of the velvet drapes that were thick enough to keep a vampire safe from even July sunlight.
Within hours the cycle of the war would start again, another soul ready to be conquered or lost. And assuming the Maker didn’t come and recruit him into Nigel’s vacated seat at the tea table, Jim was now down one, the momentum of the war having shifted dramatically in the opposite direction.
Somehow, by some miracle, he needed to find the strength to fight again, at least until he learned whether Devina had spoken the truth … or had lied as usual.
He had no idea where the focus and drive were going to come from.
His tank was truly empty.
So maybe Devina was, for once, right. For the first time in his life, he saw the value of quitting. He sure as shit wasn’t doing anyone any good with the way things stood now.
Closing his eyes, he let his body take over, the need for sleep canceling everything out, erasing even the fact that Sissy was pissed off down the hall, and Adrian was somewhere in the house no doubt aching from the sacrifices he himself had made, and Eddie was still lying in state, smelling as beautiful as a spring meadow.
He was a blank slate as he was claimed by a black void, his last conscious thought that he knew why Nigel had done what he had.
And he didn’t blame the archangel one bit.
Chapter Fifty-eight
“Okay, I think that’s all I need.”
As Detective de la Cruz, the one Cait had met outside the Palace Theatre, closed his little booklet, Cait winced and went to rub her eyes.
“Ow.” Yeah, not touching much of her puss would be a good idea. If she remembered correctly, she had a dozen stitches in it.
“Can I get the nurse for you?” the man asked, concern on his tired face.
“No, I’m fine.” She pulled the white hospital sheets up higher on herself. “Just have to remember not to…”
Make any contact with anything on her body, whatsoever.
He gently touched her shoulder, being careful not to get in the way of her IV. “I’m going to put in my report that it was justifiable homicide, Ms. Douglass. I don’t think this incident is going to go to a grand jury, I really don’t. The D.A. and I have worked together for a long time and there’s a lot of trust between us. If you hadn’t killed him, he’d have finished the attack on you. Guaranteed.”
“Thank you, Detective. I’ve never … I never thought something like this would happen to me.”
“You survived. And you’re going to get through this. It’s going to take time, but … you’ll come out of it.”
She could feel tears coming again, but God, she’d cried enough for ten years. “Thanks.”
“Call me if there’s anything I can do for you, okay? And I’ll e-mail you a list of counselors that have experience with this stuff. They can really help on the flipside. Trust me.”
He smiled at her, and then walked out, shutting the door quietly behind himself. Turning her head to the window across her private room, she stared at the gathering sun, and listened to the beeping behind her, and the hushed voices at the nursing station outside, and the bustle in the hall of people coming and going.
She hurt all over, her body aching in places she hadn’t even known she had. And she wished, more than anything, that she had someone to call, somebody who could come and tell her, even though she wouldn’t have believed it, that everything was going to be all right.
She’d decided not to get in touch with her parents. Not yet. Even if they were in the country, she wouldn’t have wanted them to come rushing east with their manic prayers and Bible verses. She wasn’t as angry with them as she’d always been, but she wasn’t up to all that, either. And she couldn’t call Teresa. God, no … she’d shot the woman’s favorite singer dead, for godsakes.
Then again, knowing her old roommate? The fact that G.B. had turned out to be a homicidal maniac was going to change her opinion pretty damn fast.
For all Cait knew, she was going to be hero in the woman’s eyes when they saw each other next: Teresa liked Dirty Harry movies even more than she liked heavy metal from the Reagan decade—
Some kind of shouting lit off out in the hall, and suddenly, all the normally quiet sounds went total-chaos, people yelling, running, the focus getting louder and louder as if a hurricane were closing in on her room—
Her door opened, some big shape pushing it wide.
“Duke!” She sat up so fast, her stomach nearly revolted from the pain. “Oh, my God! Duke, what are you—”
“Sir, I have to ask you to go back to your—”
“You were just operated on, sir, you need to—”
“Mr. Phillips! Please at least sit down—”
In spite of the fact that he was white as a ghost and weaving like a drunk and surrounded by hysterical medical staff, Duke ignored the drama, shuffling in with his hospital johnny and his compression stockings, leaning on his IV pole for support.
“Hi,” he said in a hoarse voice.
Cait burst into tears and broke out laughing at the same time, a total emotional overload taking her in both directions until all she could do was reach out to him.
“There room for two up on that thing?” he said with a grunt, still ignoring the swarm of people in scrubs and name tags.
“For you, yes.” She wiped her face but didn’t get far clearing her eyesight. And she continued to laugh and cry as she pushed herself over.
It was a hard thing to watch, him stretching out. Clearly he was in tremendous pain, his body moving like an old man’s, his coloring becoming worse—if that was possible.
But then he shoved away the hands that grabbed for him. “What. You wanted me to sit down, I did you one better. Now, leave me the hell alone.”
Well, looked like her bouncer was prepared to start swinging if he had to—and no one needed that, did they.