Jesse gritted her teeth. “Something happened, all right.”
Then without moving her hand, she began to tell him the entire sordid tale.
Maddox felt like hell. Even though a couple of days had passed since he’d given in and visited Nayia, he’d expected Jesse would be waiting for him when he got home. A rude awakening awaited him.
Jesse had taken her meager belongings and vanished.
Just like that, she was gone.
His first impulse was to go after her. But he didn’t. Maybe it was better she was out of his life. At least he wouldn’t have to look her in the eyes and admit the incredibly stupid thing he’d done.
He’d fallen to the bite—again.
Every time he did, he’d promised himself it was the last time. And then he’d be all right, managing to ignore the cravings tearing at his soul like a wild animal. It was a blasphemy to want it, to need it, so badly. His addiction had turned him into a liar, a man who deceived his friends and comrades to feed a disease he despised.
As for Jesse . . . What he’d done to tempt the demon inside her was disgraceful. She fought the beast, wrestled against its temptations; yet he’d urged her to give in to her hunger.
Shit. He was so pathetic.
Feeling that too-familiar lump begin to rise in his throat, Maddox swallowed hard. The movement hurt—maybe because his throat was still bruised by Nayia’s bites.
Shaking his head, he reached for the fresh bottle of Jack Daniel’s he had tucked away for an emergency. If ever there was a time a man needed liquid courage, now was that time. Sitting beside the bottle was a six-shot .38 revolver.
Not really focusing on what he was doing, he cracked the seal on the fresh bottle of whiskey and poured himself a generous shot. Downing it in a single swallow, he repeated the action three times until the burn of the whiskey cracked away the iciness inside his gut.
When he felt calmer, he reached for the gun and snapped the cylinder open to spin it around. Just last night he’d methodically cleaned and oiled the blue-black metal until it gleamed.
The .38 was in perfect working order.
Maddox contemplated the smooth clean lines of his gun in the lamp’s light. It was beautiful, an absolutely lethal piece of art. And there were six bullets in the chambers. Tipping it, he extracted five.
One was all he would need.
A great sense of relief filled his body. So, here it was. He had made his decision and decided to stare the Grim Reaper in the face. If he could not serve his purpose on this earth, he might as well step aside.
He looked from the gun in his hand, a snub nose, to the bottle. A few more drinks and he would press the barrel of the .38 to the soft flesh under his chin. He could imagine the feel of the cold metal pressed against his clammy skin; he could savor the sensation of his finger coming down on the trigger. He would leave no note. Reyen and Sam wouldn’t care why he’d redecorated the place with pieces of his head.
A man’s angry voice interrupted his suicidal reverie, echoing through the dark, empty space beneath the derelict hotel. “Maddox, you son of a bitch!”
Startled by the deep boom, Maddox hastily put down his gun and rushed to the kitchen sink to throw up. His hand groped for the faucet to turn on the water. Nothing came up but the whiskey and yellow bile. He heaved, running cold water into the sink to splash on his pale face.
“Go away,” he rasped under his breath. “Leave me alone.”
The far-removed but insistent voice continued to curse. “If you’re in that rat hole, you have one minute to get your ass out here.”
Lifting himself up, Maddox snagged a dirty rag to wipe his mouth. By the sound of things, Reyen was definitely pissed. It might be better to pretend he wasn’t home. Barrel-chested and brawny, the Indian hated trying to squeeze his massive bulk through narrow spaces. That was one of the reasons Maddox had chosen such an inconvenient place to live—Reyen didn’t like it and wouldn’t come in.
Maddox sagged against the counter. Reyen would get pissed and go away. Once he left, Maddox could finish the job he’d started.
The game plan sounded like a good one until he heard the sound of wood tearing and splintering. The shatter of brittle glass followed.
Realizing there was about to be trouble and then some, Maddox rushed out into the dilapidated lounge. He passed the bar just in time to see Reyen kicking his way through the stained-glass panels of the bar door.
The Indian stepped into the abandoned lounge. “Looks like we’re open for business,” he grunted with no small satisfaction. He was wearing a white T-shirt and black leather jacket, and his legs were clad in skintight leather chaps. His bowie knife was strapped beneath his arm, holstered within easy reach of his hand.
Reyen’s cold gaze settled on Maddox. “There you are, you frog-eating bastard.”
Maddox raised a weary hand.
Shit.
This was exactly what he didn’t feel like dealing with right now. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Without saying a word, Reyen charged straight for him. He slammed Maddox back against the wall, pinning his forearm across Maddox’s throat. His eyes burned behind the narrow slits of his lids. “I heard you’re on the bite again,” he snarled.
Barely able to breathe beneath the crushing weight, Maddox clawed at Reyen’s leather-covered arm. The move wasn’t only ineffective, it was useless. Exhausted, half-drunk, and weak as a newborn lamb, he was in no shape to fight back.
He ceased to resist, letting his hands drop. “It’s true,” he mumbled.
Reyen immediately stepped away. “Shit.”
Supported by nothing but his own ineffective legs, Maddox slid to the floor. He licked papery lips, trying to find a bit of saliva to moisten his desert-dry mouth. “Don’t say anything, man,” he moaned, his voice barely a rasp against his ears. “I already feel like hell as it is.”
Reyen ignored him. Hunkering down on his haunches, he grabbed a handful of Maddox’s hair. He produced a small but powerful penlight, aiming the penetrating light toward Maddox’s neck.
His smoldering gaze assessed the damages. “Jeez . . . I’d hoped I wouldn’t find you like this. You’re really hooked man. Bad.”
Maddox swallowed, acutely aware of the pain in his neck. “I couldn’t help myself. I lost it, just lost all control.”
“So I heard.” Reyen snorted. “That was really rotten of you to use that little girl the way you did.”
Maddox winced. “You talked to Jesse?”
The Indian grunted. “She’s with Sam. He found her wanderin’ around like a lost puppy.”
Shame morphed into worry. “Is she okay?”
Reyen hesitated. While it was clear he didn’t like Jesse, he had enough of a heart to recognize some bits of humanity still lingered inside her. “She’s confused. She followed you that night, saw you with another woman.”
Maddox winced again. “Oh, man.”
“She doesn’t know you were seeking out a Consanguine,” Reyen said. “She thinks she didn’t please you. Sexually, that is.”
Relief poured through him. “Good.” He sighed. “I wouldn’t want her to know—”
“That you’re hooked on the bite?” Reyen laughed. “Oh, trust me. Sam’s already given her the lowdown on your perverted desires. She now knows you—a slayer—get your jollies by having your blood sucked out of your body.” His features twisted in disgust. “Freak.”
Maddox leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. “I’m a lowlife. I know it.”
“I can’t believe you’d keep seeking out the darkness.” Reyen prodded him with one booted foot. “Every time you do this, you tarnish Serafina’s memory. Man, don’t you remember how they tortured her? She died a warrior’s death, and you betray her memory by letting one of those fucking things feed off you. She pulled your ass out of the fire after you were infected, showed you what you were born to be.”
Maddox shook his head. “I never wanted to be a part of this damnation.” A man couldn’t look hell in the face and come out unscathed, especially when hell offered such sweet temptation.
Reyen barely suppressed his disdain. “Damnation?” A mirthless laugh rolled over his lips. “You don’t get it, do you, Maddox? You don’t have a choice. A mere man never does. We’ve been called to stand at the right hand of the Enlightened One, to deliver her judgment on these creatures. Yet you call it damnation. You need to get over that way of thinking or get out.”
An image of the .38 sitting on the table flashed through Maddox’s mind. If only he’d been a little bit faster to pull the trigger, he wouldn’t be sitting here now, listening to Reyen shred his already-frayed psyche.
“I was just about to,” he admitted quietly.
His answer caught Reyen short. “About to what?”
Maddox sighed and lifted his head. Cocking his thumb and extending his forefinger, he pressed the pretend gun against his throbbing temple. “I think they call it the coward’s way out.”
Reyen shot him a look of disbelief. “No way.”
Tired of sitting on the filthy, cold concrete floor, Maddox dragged himself to his feet. His entire body ached, throbbing with the neglect and abuse he’d leveled against himself for the last three days. He wanted to feel bad; he deserved to feel bad. He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t fall to the lure of the bite again. He was weak and stupid—a fool.
“It’s true,” he said, and walked away.
Reyen followed him as he led the way back to the rooms he occupied. A single dim oil-burning lamp flickered, giving the small place a shadowy, closed-in look. He didn’t care. Any hole he crawled into would do.
He dropped back into the chair sitting beside the kitchen table. Painfully, slowly, he reached for the pack of cigarettes sitting beside the half-empty bottle of Jack. His hand trembled more than a little as he pushed one into his mouth and then lit it with a cheap plastic lighter. Sapped by the lack of food and a generous donation of blood, he felt his hand shake more than a little. The .38 still sat where he’d left it.
Reyen’s searching gaze quickly assessed the sorry scene. “Guess you weren’t lyin’, man,” he muttered.
Maddox sucked in a lungful of smoke. Damn, it hurt to breathe. Even his head felt as if someone had smashed his skull and scattered the pieces. He doubted he’d ever be able to pick up the shards and put them back together. “I’ve been thinking. About how it all started for me. About . . .”
“Serafina?” Reyen filled in, saying the name of the woman Maddox could no longer speak aloud without feeling a spike of pain penetrate straight through his heart.
He exhaled, sending out a stream of white smoke through his nostrils. “I still miss her,” he said quietly. “She was everything to me.”
Reyen reached for the bottle, helping himself to a healthy slug. “Serafina was a remarkable woman,” he said when the bottle came down. “You were lucky to have her as long as you did.”
Maddox frowned and shook his head. “It wasn’t long enough.”
“You had twelve good years together,” his friend reminded him. “And you knew it wouldn’t last. Even if she hadn’t been killed by those murdering bastards, she was still human. There would have been a time when you had to put her in the grave and walk away. At least she went out fighting.”
Maddox gasped, close to choking on the sob of sheer loneliness and despair welling up inside his soul. Memories. Those wispy, insubstantial images lingering in his mind were all he possessed of the woman he’d loved most in this world.
“She wouldn’t give up the hunt,” he said. “Even though she knew she wasn’t as strong as she’d been in her youth, she wouldn’t stop. I begged her to, you know. But she hated staying home and tending the hearth.”
Reyen took another long drink. “In her heart she was a warrior, even though she was a woman.” He paused a moment, then added. “I liked her.”
“Do you think she hated me before she died?”
“I think she knew you were trying to get to her.”
Breathing heavily, Maddox’s heart beat double time in his chest. It hurt, an ache that refused to be dulled no matter how much booze he swilled. Cursing the pain, he lifted the cigarette to his lips and sucked deeply on its filter. The tar was going directly to his lungs, and he began to cough violently.
Reyen bared his teeth. “Smoke another one, you dumb bastard.”
“Don’t guess it’ll kill me.” Maddox snuffed out the remnants. One would think to exist forever, to be eternally untouched by time’s decay, would be a magnificent experience. Not so. Although he didn’t age, his mind, his psyche, was doomed to chip away. In many ways it was a horrifying, long disintegration.
“You can leave at any time.” His gaze searched for and found the .38. “I have something else to do.”
Reyen shook his head. “You Frenchmen are such drama queens.” Sticking out his hand, he turned up his palm, showing the symbol tattooed into his palm. “You seem to forget we swore an oath, never to be broken. We are brothers under the skin, and a man doesn’t let his brother fall.”
Maddox turned up his own hand. His palm was similarly marked. As Palindromes, as the Sons of Light, they’d sworn to fight to their final breath to take down the Telave. Yet his addiction to the bite had hobbled him, making him a weak and ineffective ally. Even when Serafina was alive, he’d craved the forbidden. But he’d never let himself fall to the lure.
Not until after her death.
Drowning in a well of misery and sorrow, he’d sought out the very thing Serafina had despised. In many ways it had been an attempt to punish himself for failing to rescue her. If the Telave wanted to kill him, he’d give them ample chances to accomplish it. Any one of them could have ripped out his throat at any time.
And he would have welcomed death.
“I’m not worth—” he started to say.
Reyen cocked a brow. “Saving?” he retorted sarcastically. “No, I don’t suppose your sorry ass is worth the dynamite it would take to blast you to hell. But if you blow your brains out, that makes Sam the number two man.” He grimaced. “And you know how the little bastard gets on my nerves. I’d have to kill him, and that would leave only one Palindrome watching New Orleans.” He threw back the last of the whiskey. “Man, that’s too much work for me.”