“You want a go at him?” Rufus asked. “See if you can get something else out of him besides ‘goblet’?”
“Chalice,” Nadia said. “He said chalice, not goblet.”
My lips parted, and every muscle in my face went slack. Blood rushed down and set my heart pumping hard and fast. “Chalice.” The word slipped from my lips without thought.
“What is wrong with her?” Nadia asked.
Wyatt’s hand looped around my wrist. I forced my head to turn. Concern lined his face. I stood up and tore my hand away from his. He matched my steps to the bedroom door. I spun around and put a hand out that nearly clipped him in the jaw.
“Stay,” I snapped. “I’m not going to freak out. I’m going to talk to him. See if I can help him find his missing chalice, and maybe get a few answers.”
I opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it before Wyatt could drum up a good retort. I didn’t need him talking me out of it or following me inside. Help appreciated, but not necessary.
The light was off. I palmed the wall until my fingers found a switch. Harsh yellow light filled the room, courtesy of a garish floor lamp, all bulb and no shade. The bed was pushed to the far wall against a mirrored closet door. A wooden dining chair lay on its side, a naked body strapped to it with a queer tangle of shoelaces and ripped sheets.
Covered in bruises and dried blood, his skin red and rashed wherever it touched the chair, Alex Forrester was easy to recognize. I had never expected to see him again, much less tied up, sporting a pair of gleaming fangs, and babbling to himself. Spittle ran down his chin and had pooled on the scuffed wood floor. Everywhere, he was surrounded by unfinished wood—one of the greatest irritants to vampires and their kin.
I crouched in front of him, but he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes remained wide, staring straight through me.
“Alex? Can you hear me?” Not even a twitch. “I’m going to get you sitting upright, okay? Don’t, you know, bite me or anything.”
He didn’t react to the change in elevation. I expected something during the fiasco, but amid my groaning and straining, he made no noise. Nothing. His lips continued to move, but no sound came out. Old wounds on his arms and legs were swollen and infected from contact with the chair, some weeping and others necrotic. All looked extremely painful.
I touched his shoulder, and he blinked. Nothing else. “Alex, it’s Chalice,” I said.
He stopped muttering. He looked up at me, really saw me. Wonder and awe softened his features and widened his eyes.
“You’re dead,” he said. “Am I in Hell? Am I finally dead, too?”
“Almost, Alex.” I inhaled, held it, let the oxygen strengthen me. It wasn’t really Alex. He had died yesterday. This was a shell that had information I needed; I just had to manipulate it out of him. “You’re in a place where you can still do some good before you pass on. I can help you.”
His face crumpled. “I should have known you were depressed. I should have seen the signs. It’s my fault you died.”
“I killed myself, Alex. It’s no one’s fault but mine.”
“Friends don’t let friends commit suicide.”
Heartbreaking though it was, the conversation wasn’t helping us. “Do you remember my friend Evy? You gave her a ride once, did her a favor?”
He pursed chapped lips. Shook his head.
“She looks kind of like me. She was looking for someone she loved. You helped her find him, but you got hurt. That’s why you’re here.”
“You do look like her, Chal. It’s creepy. Is she dead, too?”
“No, but she could die if we don’t help her.”
He chewed on his lower lip. His fangs punctured the skin and drew blood. Glittering eyes flitted to the bedroom door, to the ceiling, the covered window. “They’re in the walls,” he said.
I tensed, listened hard, but heard nothing save the occasional creaking floorboard from the living room. I imagined Wyatt standing there with his ear pressed to the door, straining to hear every word.
“Who’s in the walls?” I asked.
“Them. You know.”
“I don’t know, Alex. Who are they?”
“Millions of them, crawling through me, Chal. Making me want to hurt people. Making me want blood, but I don’t want blood. Can I please just go? I want it to stop.”
The vampire infection; that’s what he saw in the walls. The parasite that turns them into monsters. He was trying to fight those instincts, to reclaim his body again by disassociating. I hadn’t the heart to tell him it was a losing battle.
“You can go soon, I promise, but I need you to help me first. Just answer a few questions, okay?”
His chin trembled. Tears filled his eyes and spilled down both cheeks in twin streams. He pursed his lips and shook his head. “They’re everywhere, Chal. Make them go away. Make it stop.”
My heart went out to him. I wanted to end his suffering. I just couldn’t. He knew something, and big or little, I had to know what it was. When I didn’t reply, he started to cry in earnest. I’d never seen that sort of utter terror in the face of a grown man. Strike that—I’d seen it once before, as I lay dying the first time.
A sharp knock on the door stole my attention. I opened it a crack, revealing half of Wyatt’s face.
“You want to put a pause on that for a minute?” he asked, “The package is here.”
“What package?”
“The one I asked the gremlins to assemble before they wiped out all hard traces of Chalice Frost.”
I perked up. That was certainly worth a short recess. I slipped through the door, back into the living room, and pulled it shut behind me. In his hands, Wyatt clutched a bulging legal folder, held together by two large rubber bands. “Why did they bring it here?” I asked.
“It’s where I told them to bring it,” he said, as though it was the most obvious question in the world.
“Duh, genius, but why here?”
Wyatt had the good sense to adopt a hint of chagrin. “I thought I’d still have Rufus in custody when we swung by to collect it.”
Across the room Rufus grunted. Nadia had disappeared somewhere—a blessing I wasn’t about to ponder. She gave me the willies. I snatched the bundled folder from Wyatt and ripped off the rubber bands. Dozens of newspaper clippings tumbled to the floor and scattered, along with photographs and a few slips of printed paper.
I dropped the remaining contents of the folder on the dining table, freeing my hands to collect the information.
“A little eager?” Wyatt asked.
My mature response was to stick my tongue out at him. I snagged a column dated twenty-seven years ago. The headline stopped me short: “Woman Gives Birth in Mall.” I scanned the article and sucked in a breath.
“What is it, Evy?”
“ ‘Six people trapped in the women’s restroom at Capital City Mall soon became seven,’ ” I read, “ ‘when one woman unexpectedly went into labor. Part of the ceiling outside the restroom collapsed, authorities say, making it impossible for the women to exit for several hours. During that time, Lori Frost, eight months pregnant, went into preterm labor. Charlene Williams, an off-duty trauma nurse, helped Frost deliver the baby without complications. Upon rescue, both mother and daughter were rushed to St. Eustachius Hospital, where they are listed in good condition.
“ ‘The Frosts were not available for comment, but Ms. Williams described the experience as “the easiest birth of my life. Though that’s not saying much, since I work in the Emergency Room.” ’ ”
I looked up, mouth agape. “That’s the same place Isleen took me to for that memory ritual. I was born … Chalice, I mean, she was born on a magical hot spot. Holy shit, Wyatt.”
He plucked the article and read it for himself. His eyes grew wider with each sentence, letting the full meaning settle into his brain. Hot spots existed all over the city. Many were so faint they couldn’t be detected. A few, like the vampire Sanctuary, were unmistakable and made their presence felt. It wasn’t the coincidence of the location that scared me—it was the implication that Chalice had been born above a hot spot, just like Wyatt and the
