Kindling.
That's what the broken bones sticking out of her thighs had looked like, the blood drying as it came into contact with the air.
"She won't run." A giggle. "She likes it, you see."
"Would you like to see him?"
Swiveling on her heel, Elena stared unseeing at Jessamy's startled face, her mind locked in that kitchen awash with a suffering that would stalk her for eternity.
Jessamy touched her with a hesitant hand. "Elena?"
"Yes," she said, forcing the words out past the brutal hammer of memory. "Yeah, I'd like to see Sam."
"Go on in." Jessamy's eyes held a quiet concern, but she didn't pry. "I'm herding the other children back to the classroom."
Digging up a smile from somewhere, Elena shut up everything else and walked inside Sam's room. "So," she said, "this is how you get out of writing Jessamy's essays."
A sparkle in that gaze she'd worried would go forever dull. According to Keir, Sam remembered nothing of his abduction-likely as a result of the head wound. There was a good chance he'd remember later on, but the healers and his parents planned to prepare him for that eventuality. By then, he'd be stronger, hopefully more able to process the events of that terrible night.
"No," Sam said, his voice husky. "She said I have to catch up."
"Sounds like her," Elena whispered, then gestured at the gifts. "You got a good haul."
"Did you bring me a present?"
Elena grinned. "Did I ever? I even asked your parents if I could give it to you."
Excitement had him straining forward. "What is it?"
"Hey, careful." Settling him back on the bed, she reached into her pocket to bring out a small dagger tucked into an intricately designed metal sheath.
Sam's eyes went huge as Elena put it into his hands. "I was given this after I completed a hunt for an angel in Shikoku, Japan. He told me it was a thousand years old." She touched the ruby at the bottom of the hilt. "The legend is that this ruby was once part of the eye of a dragon."
Small fingers ran reverently over the jewel. "What happened to the dragon?"
"He was such an ancient being that one day, he simply decided to sleep. After a while, he turned to stone, becoming the biggest mountain the world had ever seen." As she spoke, she couldn't help but remember the times her mother had told her and her sisters stories as they lay tumbled in their parents' bed.
Even Belle, far too cool for everything, had sprawled on the floor, painting her toenails or reading magazines. But she'd never turned a page while Mama told her stories.
Blinking away the bittersweet images, Elena continued to tell the tale she'd originally heard from an old Buddhist monk as they sat drinking green tea beside an immaculate sand garden. "His eyes turned to rubies, his scales to diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds.
Only one warrior was brave enough to venture near the sleeping dragon."
"Did the dragon wake?"
"Yes." She leaned close, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. "And because the warrior had been so brave, the dragon gave him a piece of his eye."
"The rest?"
"They say the dragon still sleeps, and that if anyone is ever smart enough and brave enough to find it again, the dragon will give him the world's riches."
"I'm going to find the dragon." Sam's eyes turned as bright as those mythical jewels.
"And I'll take good care of your present."
"I know you will." Reaching out, she brushed tumbling black curls off that sweet face, keeping a tight hold on the rage that had her hunter senses humming for blood. "Sleep now. We'll talk again later."
Keir came in as Elena rose. She watched him soothe his pianist's hands over Sam to lull the boy into a deep sleep. "He'll treasure it, you know," the healer said, placing the dagger carefully on the bedside table. "It's the kind of thing a child takes into adulthood."
Elena gave a small nod, barely keeping her feet under a sudden avalanche of memory-
as if her subconscious had just been waiting for Sam's eyes to close. Why here? Why now? Neither Ari nor Belle, nor her mother, had ever made it to a hospital. Only to the morgue.
"Why did you bring her here?" A strident feminine voice. "She's a child."
A big hand around hers, giving her the courage to stand firm. "She deserves to see her sisters one last time."
"Not like this!"
"Beth's too young," the man said, "but Ellie isn't. She knows what happened. Dear God, she saw it all."
"Her mother-"
"Screams every time the drugs wear off, screams until the doctors medicate her again."
Jagged words. "I can't help Marguerite, but I can help Ellie. It's all jumbled up in her mind. She keeps asking me if the monster made Arielle and Mirabelle like him."
"I won't let you do this."
"Try standing in my way."
"Elena?"
Mumbling a hurried good-bye when Keir looked at her with a too-perceptive gaze, she made her way out and into the corridor. Her mind couldn't stop circling around the truth her subconscious had just disgorged-Jeffrey had taken her to see her sisters. He'd fought her aunt, fought the hospital staff, fought everyone . . . because she'd needed to see that Arielle and Mirabelle truly were gone, that they hadn't been dragged into Slater's foul world.
"It's okay, Ellie." A big hand stroking over her head. Tears in that deep voice. "There's no more pain where they are now."
Ari and Bellehad appeared at peace in spite of the way their lives had ended, their eyes closed in rest, their bodies looking whole beneath the white sheets. Elena had pressed her lips to each cold cheek, patted their hair, and said good-bye. They'd stayed beside the bodies for over an hour until . . .
"Okay, Daddy." She slipped her hand into his, looking up at the man who'd always been the strongest pillar in her universe. "We can go now."
Moisture glittered in that pale grey gaze that had always been so firm, so strong.
"Yeah?"
"Don't cry." Reaching up as he bent down, she wiped away those tears. "They're not hurting anymore."
Elena staggered into a side corridor, her hand shaking as she braced herself. She'd always believed she'd lost her father the day it all ended in blood, but she'd been wrong.
He'd still been her father that afternoon at the hospital, still been a man willing to fight for his daughter's right to say good-bye.
When had it all gone wrong? When had her father begun to treat her as an abhorrence he couldn't stand to look at? And how many more memories had she buried?
"Elena?"
Turning, she found herself face-to-face with Keir, his expression careful. "Would you-
"
But Elena was already shaking her head. "I'm sorry, but I have to go." She almost ran to the waiting room, taking the hidden stairs to the top level. Her wings dragged on the steps designed for vampires, but she made it up and out into the icy air without being stopped by anyone else.
The wind was a cold slap against her overheated cheeks, the fresh air a welcome balm. "I don't want to remember." A cowardly thought, but she wasn't strong enough to bear the knowledge hanging heavy on the edge of her horizon. Because it was bad. Worse than anything else. And she was already struggling to survive the memories.
A cough from her left. "I'd ask if you were stargazing, but it's only five."
Her back went stiff. What had she said? Anyone but Galen. "Venom."
21
The vampire was wearing his signature black sunglasses, his lips holding a familiar mocking edge. "At your service."
She realized he had to have left New York as soon as Dmitri arrived. "Do vampires suffer from jet lag?"
Venom removed his sunglasses, giving her the full impact of those eyes slitted like a snake's. It didn't matter that she'd seen them before-her skin still crawled in visceral shock, a gut-deep response to the alien intelligence in those eyes. Part of her wondered if it was only his eyes that had been changed when he was Made-did Venom think like a human, or was his intellect a far more cold- blooded thing?
"Offering to soothe my aches, hunter?" the vampire said, flicking his tongue over one long incisor and coming away with a golden droplet full of poison. "I'm touched."
"Just being friendly," she said, matching snark for snark.