City of Lost Souls

She felt him laugh underneath her. “You can’t do it,” he said. “You can’t kill me.”

“To hell with you,” she snarled. “I can’t kill Jace.”

“Same thing,” he said, and, sitting up so fast she barely saw him move, he belted her across the face with enough force to send her skidding across the glass-strewn floor. Her slide was arrested when she hit the wall, gagged, and coughed blood. She buried her head against her forearm, the taste and smell of her own blood everywhere, sickening and metallic. A moment later Sebastian’s hand was fisted in her jacket and he was hauling her to her feet.

She didn’t fight him. What was the point? Why fight someone when they were willing to kill you and they knew you weren’t willing to kill, or even seriously wound, them? They’d always win. She stood still as he examined her. “Could be worse,” he said. “Looks like the jacket kept you from any real damage.”

Real damage? Her body felt like it had been sliced all over with thin knives. She glared at him through her eyelashes as he swung her up into his arms. It was like it had been in Paris, when he’d carried her away from the Dahak demons, but then she had been — if not grateful, at least confused, and now she was filled with a boiling hatred. She kept her body tense while he carried her upstairs, his boots ringing on the glass. She was trying to forget she was touching him, that his arm was under her thighs, his hands possessive on her back.

I will kill him, she thought. I will find a way, and I will kill him.

He walked into Jace’s room and dumped her onto the floor. She staggered back a step. He caught her and ripped the jacket off her. Underneath she was wearing only a T-shirt. It was shredded as if she’d run a cheese grater over it, and stained everywhere with blood.

Sebastian whistled.

“You’re a mess, little sister,” he said. “Better get in the bathroom and wash some of that blood off.”

“No,” she said. “Let them see me like this. Let them see what you had to do to get me to come with you.”

His hand shot out and grabbed her under the chin, forcing her face up to his. Their faces were inches apart. She wanted to close her eyes but refused to give him the satisfaction; she stared back at him, at the loops of silver in his black eyes, the blood on his lip where she’d bitten him. “You belong to me,” he said again. “And I will have you by my side, however I have to force you to be there.”

“Why?” she demanded, rage as bitter on her tongue as the taste of blood. “What do you care? I know you can’t kill Jace, but you could kill me. Why don’t you just do it?”

Just for a moment, his eyes went distant, glassy, as if he were seeing something invisible to her. “This world will be consumed by hellfire,” he said. “But I will bring you and Jace safely through the flames if you only do what I ask. It is a grace I extend to no one else. Do you not see how foolish you are to reject it?”

“Jonathan,” she said. “Don’t you see how impossible it is to ask me to fight by your side when you want to burn down the world?”

His eyes refocused on her face. “But why?” It was almost plaintive. “Why is this world so precious to you? You know that there are others.” His own blood was very red against his stark white skin. “Tell me you love me. Tell me you love me and will fight with me.”

“I’ll never love you. You were wrong when you said we have the same blood. Your blood is poison. Demon poison.” She spat the last words.

He only smiled, his eyes glowing darkly. She felt something burn on her upper arm, and she jumped before she realized it was a stele; he was tracing an iratze on her skin. She hated him even as the pain faded. His bracelet clanked on his wrist as he moved his hand skillfully, completing the rune.

“I knew you lied,” she said to him suddenly.

“I tell so many lies, sweetheart,” he said. “Which one specifically?”

“Your bracelet,” she said. “‘Acheronta movebo.’ It doesn’t mean ‘Thus always to tyrants.’ That’s ‘sic semper tyrannis.’ This is from Virgil. ‘Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.’ ‘If I cannot move Heaven, I will raise Hell.’”

“Your Latin’s better that I thought.”

“I learn fast.”

“Not fast enough.” He released his grip on her chin. “Now get into the bathroom and clean yourself up,” he said, shoving her backward. He grabbed her mother’s ceremonial dress off the bed and dumped it into her arms. “Time grows short, and my patience wears thin. If you’re not out in ten minutes, I’ll come in after you. And trust me, you won’t like that.”

“I’m starving,” Maia said. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.” She pulled the refrigerator door open and peered in. “Oh, yuck.”

Jordan pulled her back, wrapping his arms around her, and nuzzled the back of her neck. “We can order food. Pizza, Thai, Mexican, whatever you want. As long as it doesn’t cost more than twenty-five dollars.”

She turned around in his arms, laughing. She was wearing one of his shirts; it was a little too big on him, and on her it hung nearly to her knees. Her hair was pulled up in a knot at the back of her neck. “Big spender,” she said.

“For you, anything.” He lifted her up by the waist and set her on one of the counter stools. “You can have a taco.” He kissed her. His lips were sweet, slightly minty from toothpaste. She felt the buzz in her body that came from touching him, that started at the base of her spine and shot through all her nerves.

She giggled against his mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck. A sharp ringing cut through the humming in her blood as Jordan pulled away, frowning. “My phone.” Hanging on to her with one hand, he fumbled behind himself on the counter until he found it. It had stopped ringing, but he lifted it anyway, frowning. “It’s the Praetor.”

The Praetor never called, or at least rarely. Only when something was of deadly importance. Maia sighed and leaned back. “Take it.”

He nodded, already lifting the phone to his ear. His voice was a soft murmur in the back of her consciousness as she jumped down from the counter and went to the refrigerator, where the take-out menus were pinned. She riffled through them until she found the menu for the local Thai place she liked, and turned around with it in her hand.

Jordan was now standing in the middle of the living room, white-faced, with his phone forgotten in his hand. Maia could hear a tinny, distant voice coming from it, saying his name.

Maia dropped the menu and hurried across the room to him. She took the phone out of his hand, disconnected the call, and set it on the counter. “Jordan? What happened?”

“My roommate — Nick — you remember?” he said, disbelief in his hazel eyes. “You never met him but —”

“I saw the photos of him,” she said. “Has something happened?”

“He’s dead.”

“How?”

“Throat torn out, all his blood gone. They think he tracked his assignment down and she killed him.”

“Maureen?” Maia was shocked. “But she was just a little girl.”

“She’s a vampire now.” He took a ragged breath. “Maia…”

She stared at him. His eyes were glassy, his hair tousled. A sudden panic rose inside her. Kissing and cuddling and even sex were one thing. Comforting someone when they were stricken with loss was something else. It meant commitment. It meant caring. It meant you wanted to ease their pain, and at the same time you were thanking God that whatever the bad thing was that had happened, it hadn’t happened to them.

“Jordan,” she said softly, and reaching up on her toes, she put her arms around him. “I’m sorry.”

Jordan’s heart beat hard against hers. “Nick was only seventeen.”

“He was a Praetor, like you,” she said softly. “He knew it was dangerous. You’re only eighteen.” He tightened his grip on her but said nothing. “Jordan,” she said. “I love you. I love you and I’m sorry.”

She felt him freeze. It was the first time she’d said the words since a few weeks before she’d been bitten. He seemed to be holding his breath. Finally he let it out with a gasp.