He wasn’t just suspicious of David, he was scared. If there was one emotion that Ronan could identify, it was fear. “Protect us from what, Dr. MacCleery?” Ronan quietly asked.
Getting up from his chair, the doctor waved away Ronan’s query. “Nothing.” But he suddenly felt Alistair’s spirit as if his old friend was in the room with him. He reached into the pocket of his sweatpants and felt Alistair’s crumpled-up note, the note that he always carried with him, and the words wouldn’t remain silent any longer; they could no longer remain his own personal property. They had to be shared. “Because there’s evil here. Right in this school, there’s evil, and it has something to do with Zachary! I know it, I can feel it, I just can’t explain it, goddamit! But you can!” Now MacCleery was pacing the four corners of the room, without direction, only the need to keep moving. He clutched the note harder, his fist striking against his thigh inside his pocket. “I’ve always known there was something wrong with you, Ronan. I don’t know what it is, but I know that you’re connected to this man and that you’re connected to whatever evil thing he’s brought here!”
Fighting the impulse to show the doctor just how evil he could become, Ronan remained still, and when he spoke, his voice was harsh and foreboding. “You have no idea the danger you’re putting yourself into, do you?”
The doctor jumped at him so quickly, with such satisfaction, Ronan flinched. “You do know something you’re not telling me!”
There was no more room for pretense, even if the doctor didn’t know the truth about who and what Ronan was, he was never going to change his opinion about him, he was never going to think that he was nothing more than trouble, someone who couldn’t be trusted, so it didn’t matter what he said to the man. However, with his hand on the doorknob, he was compelled to give him a warning before he left. “I suggest you forget all about your bloody investigation and concentrate on your cushy job,” Ronan said. “You can’t help any of us if you’re dead.”
“I’m trying to help Alistair!”
“Trust me, Lochlan,” a new voice said, “Alistair no longer needs anyone’s help.”
Seeing Nurse Radcliff standing in the doorway—the snow gently falling behind her, her long hair pulled back in a bun, her little nurse’s cap perched on top of her head—should have been a comforting sight, but instead it frightened Ronan. This night has been out of control, he thought to himself, even for me. “You’ll keep an eye on Phaedra?” Ronan asked.
“I won’t leave her side,” MacCleery declared.
Nodding to the nurse, Ronan left, eager to be out of their company. Now that it was just the two of them, the doctor thought he could relax, but something was wrong. Maybe he was still riled up from his argument with Ronan, or maybe he didn’t like being spied on. “Were you listening from the other side of the door?”
Hanging her coat on the hook that jutted out from the wall, Nurse Radcliff sat behind her desk. “Why on earth would I do that?”
Lochlan shook his head and mumbled something. He was definitely tired, but he wasn’t imagining things. He saw her there, when Ronan opened the door, just for an instant and she looked like she had been caught. And he heard her, he heard what she said. “What did you mean, Alistair doesn’t need anybody’s help?”
Turning on her computer, Radcliff sighed. Clearly she was more interested in getting her desk in order than she was answering the doctor’s questions. “Obviously the man wasn’t happy here and wanted a new life,” she said. “Doesn’t take a detective to figure out that he doesn’t need help, especially from anyone who reminds him of his past.”
Logical, yes, but also disturbing. In fact, so was her presence. “What are you doing here anyway? It’s three in the morning.”
Glowering, Radcliff consciously softened her expression. “Another bout with insomnia,” she said. “I saw the lights on and figured you were having another emergency.”
A plausible explanation, but still it left the doctor unsettled. He explained that Ronan had brought in Phaedra and that she was resting comfortably now. “Then I’ll stay overnight to watch the girl,” the nurse declared. “Sleep will be an elusive friend for me this evening, I’m afraid.”
Lochlan couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t want her here. Oh, for God’s sake, he thought, enough with these feelings, these emotions. They were going to send him to the crazy farm. “I’m going to stay with the girl,” he declared. “Stay, go home, do whatever you want.” Just as he was about to enter the peace and quiet of the examination room, he thought of something else. “How are you doing any work without your glasses?”
Laughing, Nurse Radcliff tossed a file from one pile to another. “I was wondering when you’d notice. I had LASIK surgery last week. Remember I was out for a few days?”
The doctor didn’t remember, but he no longer cared. Everywhere he looked, the whole world was changing. No, that really wasn’t the problem, the problem was, he wasn’t looking in the right places.
When he closed the door behind him, Nurse Radcliff pulled up the sleeve of her sweater, the marks were still there. She thought they would heal on their own by now, but she was wrong. She tried not to judge herself too harshly, she was new, she was bound to make mistakes, she was bound to not be perfect. She thought for a second and then remembered what David had taught her. David always knew best, that man knew everything. She held her arm closer to her mouth and let her tongue slither out over her lips, past her chin, until it touched her wounded flesh, the flesh that had been disfigured by that disgusting water vamp. She licked the gnarled skin with her long, narrow tongue and allowed her saliva—what did David call it? Yes, her preternatural saliva—to accumulate and soak into the gash.
When the whole wound was covered, she raised her head and heard a noise like someone squishing raw, moist meat between their hands. The sound grew louder and she was proud to see her unblemished flesh bubble slightly at its edge and grow, extend, conceal the wound until her arm was once again smooth and unscarred. She had been so eager to prove her worth to Father that she had been a little bit careless. She might be a new disciple, but she understood very clearly the need to rid Archangel Academy of all water vamps. She took out the handkerchief from her purse, the white one with the embroidered lilacs and several stains of Michael’s blood. She didn’t know why Father had wanted samples of the boy’s blood, but it wasn’t her place to question His motives. All she needed to do was carry out his requests.
chapter 11
The Ending
Outside, the earth was changing.
Speeding across campus, Michael looked down and saw that the ground was mostly green underneath his feet. The color was hardly vibrant, more like a mixture of moss and dirt, but at least the widespread patches of snow were gone. February had brought with it an unexpected flurry of springlike temperatures, enough to help Double A thaw out, temporarily, from winter’s clutch. No one knew how long it would last, but until the next, inevitable ice storm struck, this reprieve was a welcome change.
As they ran past the Archangel Academy entrance gate, Ronan first, Michael a few strides behind, neither one of them felt the bursts of electricity that were designed to prohibit intruders from entering or willful students from leaving the school grounds. Such deterrents couldn’t hold them back, not on a typical morning and especially not on a morning when they needed to feed.
Watching Ronan sprint across the countryside, his broad back becoming a blur, Michael wondered where they would wind up and who would be waiting for them. “I found the perfect location,” Ronan had said and so Michael was letting him lead the way, as he always did. Each month was the same: Ronan led and Michael followed; it simply seemed more natural that way. For now at least.
A mile or two outside of Double A the terrain started to become less smooth, more rugged, gone was the flat campus and in its place an untamed countryside. Where was Ronan taking them? They hadn’t fed as a couple very often, but usually they went to a house in a poor neighborhood to feast on an elder who was brought home to die or to a hospital where they could choose from an array of patients, all of whom were within minutes, sometimes seconds, of dying. This was different. They seemed to be going away from civilization instead of into its heart. But, Michael reminded himself, Ronan had never let him down before when he was hungry, so there was no
