And then all of a sudden Jack went still. He froze, then he lifted his head and as our eyes met I realized the Hunger was gone. Instead was a look of horror. “Jack? Jack, what’s wrong?” His hands dropped limply from my backside and he slid through my arms to the ground, lifeless.
That’s when I saw the dagger sticking out of the left side of his back, angled toward his heart, and Kabita standing behind him a look of determination on her face.
Horror slid through me. She couldn’t have. “What the fuck did you do?” I meant to yell, but it came out a lot quieter than that. Shock must have paralyzed my vocal cords or something.
This couldn’t be happening. Jack couldn’t be dead. I dropped to my knees, my hands on his face, at his throat. Did a Sunwalker have a pulse? I couldn’t feel a pulse. Shit, I couldn’t feel a pulse.
“Morgan,” Kabita’s voice snapped me out of the haze. “We were hired to execute him. He was about to kill you.”
“He wasn’t killing me, he was kissing me, you idiot.” I grabbed the hilt of the knife. You’re not supposed to pull out objects when people get impaled, but Jack wasn’t human. Jack was something else. I yanked the dagger out of his back. Nothing. “Jack? Jack.” Nothing.
His blood was everywhere, black pools in the moonlight. The thick coppery scent hit my nose and sent my stomach heaving. I tried to stop the bleeding, but there was too much of it.
I didn’t care that we’d been hired to kill him. Killing him had long since ceased to be an option. Apparently Kabita hadn’t got the message. And I was evidently in a lot more shock than I realized.
I felt Kabita tug at me, trying to pull me away from his body, but I didn’t budge. I just held on tighter to the shell that had once been Jack. He’d lived for over 900 years and tonight I’d gotten him killed.
Chapter Thirteen
I’m not sure how long I sat there with Jack’s blood seeping into my shirt, but after a while I started noticing things. Kabita was talking quietly to someone on the phone, her voice a low murmur against the other night noises that had finally returned. My butt ached from the cold ground, but my chest was warm, almost hot, from the blood. Jack’s blood.
I pressed my cheek against the top of his head, feeling the silk of his hair tickle my chin. I honestly didn’t know what to feel. One minute we’d been kissing and the next he was dead. I was used to death. Heck, I was usually the one dealing it, but this was just a little too much.
Kabita put a tentative hand on my shoulder. “Morgan?”
“How could you do it?” My voice felt stuck in my chest. I sounded broken, not angry. “How could you kill him? You knew he wasn’t one of the monsters. I told you. He wasn’t hurting me.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry, but he was biting your neck. What was I supposed to think?”
I shook my head a little. “He wasn’t biting me. One of the vamps we dusted bit me. He was just … we were just …necking.” It sounded so ridiculous.
“You barely know him.” My vision was kind of watery, but I’m pretty sure she looked exasperated. Frankly, I didn’t give a damn if she thought I was an idiot. Probably in my saner moments I’d think I was an idiot, too. Sanity seemed a rare commodity lately, especially where Jack was concerned.
I brushed a lock of hair back from Jack’s eyes. Pupils dilated and fixed. They were always saying that on those crime scene shows. I used to love those shows before life changed. Now they seemed rather trite.
Definitely dead. I struggled to hold back what felt suspiciously like a sob as I pressed my lips against his forehead, then I laid him gently back on the ground before closing his eyes.
They used to say the soul escaped to heaven through the eyes when a person died. I wondered if Jack had a soul to escape. I couldn’t imagine him sitting around strumming a harp on a cloud somewhere, but I hoped his soul was at peace anyway. I just didn’t know what I was going to do now that he was gone. I couldn’t believe he was really and truly dead. There were still too many questions left unanswered.
Something niggled at the back of my mind. Something not quite right.
“Kabita, Jack didn’t dust.”
She shrugged. “Probably has something to do with the whole Sunwalker thing. Maybe they don’t dust like normal vamps. Don’t worry about it. I’ve called Inigo. He’ll help.”
With the body. She didn’t say it, but I knew she meant he’d help us get rid of the body. Couldn’t very well have the cops around asking questions. They weren’t exactly in on the whole supernatural secret and the Feds liked it that way. Having to explain why my best friend had just stabbed someone was not something any of us wanted to do.