thirty-five
Claire grabbed her bag and shawl, then hurried across the noisy gym toward the exit, hoping against hope that Alec would be waiting there. But when she emerged into the comparatively quiet entryway, it wasn’t Alec she found, but Mr. Patterson.
He was rushing in her direction with a concerned look on his face, as if coming from outside.
“Miss Brennan, thank God! There’s been a fight. Mr. MacKenzie was hurt. He asked that I find you right away.”
Claire’s pulse surged in dismay. “Alec’s been hurt? What happened?”
“I don’t know. By the time I got there, those three gate-crashers had fled.” Mr. Patterson urged her to follow him out the door.
Without a second thought, Claire complied, hurrying outside with him and across the narrow street. “Where is he? Did you call 9-1-1?”
“They’re on their way. He’s just up the hill.”
Claire hesitated. The hill. The very place where she’d seen a were-cougar attack her in the vision that had been burned into her brain. The very place Helena had warned her to avoid. But Alec needed her help. And she wasn’t alone; she was with Mr. Patterson.
“Are you coming?” Mr. Patterson asked, looking back at her.
Claire nodded, catching up to him as they dashed up the central stairway toward the Upper Campus.
The grogginess threatened to consume him. Stay awake, Alec commanded himself. Using every ounce of willpower he possessed, he crawled, snakelike, across the tiled shower floor toward a bank of gym lockers. He was thankful that the locker he’d chosen for PE was on the bottom row. Propping himself up on one elbow, he raised his bound hands up to his combination lock and shakily turned the dial. His movements were slow, as if he were trapped underwater.
To his frustration, his hands slipped and he crashed to the floor, hitting his chin painfully on the concrete. Bastard, Alec thought. How could Vincent betray him like this? His own godfather. Alec had trusted him all his life. It sickened him to think of how blind and stupid he’d been—taking Vincent’s word and leaving Claire so vulnerable.
He forced himself to try again with the lock. This time, he succeeded. Awkwardly, he pulled open the thin metal door. His eyes fell on the black lockbox that lay inside—identical to the one in his regular locker. He dragged it out onto the floor beside him.
Through his brain fog, Alec tried to remember the combination. The lock refused to open telekinetically—his powers weren’t strong enough. Shite, he thought, staring at the digital keypad in frustration, remembering how different it was to do things the human way.
Dropping onto his side, Alec struggled to input the series of digits with trembling fingers. His control was so off that he kept missing the buttons or pressing the wrong ones, and had to cancel and start over three times. Finally he got it right, the lock engaged, and the box opened.
Hurry the hell up, he told himself.
Inside lay his neatly organized array of emergency medical supplies. He grabbed a large, capped, liquid-filled syringe. Alec fell back weakly to the floor, struggling to remove the plastic wrapping. It was hard enough to do anything with his hands in such a weakened state, but even harder with them bound together like a trussed pig.
At last, he peeled off the cellophane wrapping, removed the cap with his teeth, and—with both thumbs on the plunger—stabbed the massive needle through his clothing, directly into his heart.
A rush of adrenaline shot like a rocket through his bloodstream. He sat up with a gasp and—with a single burst of restored strength—snapped the wires around his wrists and ankles.
Move, he thought, leaping to his feet. God only knew where Vincent was, and whether or not he’d already taken Claire.
“He’s right up there.” Mr. Patterson pointed toward the landing where the four stairwells met halfway up the hillside. The area was dimly lit by small lamps embedded in the low wall separating the walkway from the greenery.
To Claire’s horror, she saw a figure lying on the ground, clutching his head. It was Alec, and his hands were covered in blood.
“Alec!” She rushed up and knelt at his side. His eyes were closed and he was unresponsive. Fear gripped Claire’s heart. “What should I do?” she cried, glancing back at Mr. Patterson.
“He must be unconscious. Don’t leave his side. I’ll go down to wait for the paramedics.” With a reassuring nod, he added, “I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure everything will be all right.”
Patterson disappeared down the hillside, leaving Claire alone with Alec on the landing. Blood seeped from a wound at Alec’s hairline. Claire placed her gloved hand over the gash, trying to stanch the bleeding. “Alec,” she said softly, “I’m here. Talk to me.”
Still, there was no response. Claire gazed down at him, overwhelmed by emotions. Love. Gratitude. Fear. Confusion. Why had he followed the trio all the way up here when they should have been parked in the lot below? Why wasn’t he moving? Was he dying? His injuries didn’t look that bad. But then she remembered Helena—also a Grigori with a head trauma—lying in a coma.
Her heart pounding with anxiety, Claire pulled back her gloved hand to see if she had stemmed the flow of blood. She hadn’t. Strangely, however, when she looked down at her bloody glove, the bright red stain flickered before her eyes and then vanished, leaving the blue satin unblemished.
What the hell? Claire thought.
She heard a sudden rustling behind her. Turning in alarm, she glanced back into the dimly lit shrubbery and scattered palm trees that covered the hillside. There was nothing there. She turned back to Alec, and gasped in shock. He was gone. Gone. Completely vanished. Leaving not a drop of blood in his wake.
How was that possible? For a moment, Claire doubted her own sanity. Alec had been lying there, half-dead, just a second ago. How could he have disappeared like that? It didn’t make sense.
She rose quickly, her mind whirling with confusion. “Alec?” Her voice was choked with panic. As she stared hard into the darkness, bewildered, something clicked in her brain. The vision.
She was living it, right here, right now, at this very moment—alone on the hillside, calling out for Alec, wearing the blue dress. How had she ever allowed this to happen? Was it possible that she’d been lured here? Then she remembered Vincent’s power. Had Alec ever really been here at all? Had it all been an illusion? Could it be that Mr. Patterson was—?
Suddenly, she heard a thunderous growl directly behind her. She started to run toward the stairs, glancing back in horror to glimpse a tawny beast leaping from the bushes and hurling itself at her with claws and fangs outstretched.
The were-cougar!
Claire screamed in terror, stumbling in her heels, as it loped at her with deadly speed and pounced. Just as the creature’s fangs and talons were about to sink into her neck and shoulders, another roar assailed her ears. Instantly, the beast was shoved aside in a blur of movement, as someone or something tackled it with great force.
Claire turned and froze. It was Alec.
Paralyzed with horror, she watched Alec battle the wildcat.
She’d never seen him fight before. At first, she was terrified for his life. But he moved with such incredible speed, strength, and agility, it nearly took her breath away. He hurled the cougar to the ground. The creature rolled and sprang at Alec again. As Alec writhed in the beast’s grip, he seemed to anticipate his opponent’s every maneuver, delivering the perfect counterattack, wearing the beast down. Claire gasped, too frightened and awestruck to move. A corner of her mind thought, No matter how smart and sensitive Alec was—no matter how much he wanted to live a normal, quiet life—this was what he was born to do—or at least trained to do. And he’d been trained well.
Anxiety hammered in Claire’s chest as the battle raged on. Alec reached into his boot and withdrew a knife with a bright silver blade. For some moments, he continued to struggle against the huge creature’s incredible strength. At last, he plunged the weapon into the animal’s belly. The cougar roared in pain and flipped to its feet, backing off with a ferocious snarl.
But suddenly, to Claire’s astonishment, it was no longer a cougar. It wasn’t a man either. It was something halfway in between—half fur and half flesh, standing on two legs, with a mane of blond dreadlocks, human hands and feet, and a cougar’s ears, eyes, teeth, and claws. With a low growl, the creature reached down and pulled Alec’s knife from his stomach. The sight made Claire sick, but Alec appeared unfazed.
Alec leapt up, breathing hard, his suit shredded, bleeding from gashes in several places. In an instant, the man-cougar lunged at him again, the knife in one hand, claws bared on the other. Alec deftly dodged the wild swings and delivered a sharp kick to the creature’s wounded belly. “Sword!” he cried.
Sword? Claire’s eyes fell on Alec’s guitar case, which lay on the stairs a few yards away. Could that be where he kept his weapons? She rushed to the case and opened it. To her surprise, a selection of swords and guns lay within. Before she could do anything, a long, thin, curved blade like the ones she’d seen in samurai movies rose out of the case and flew through the air into Alec’s waiting hand.
The animal leapt toward Alec yet again. Alec quickly sidestepped the beast, extending his free hand with fingers splayed. The were-cougar froze in midair, flailing, caught in Alec’s telekinetic grip. In its struggle, the animal seemed to summon all its strength, and before Claire’s terrified eyes, it twisted and transformed back into a full-fledged wildcat. Alec’s arm wavered now. The thing seemed about to break free.
Alec turned to Claire with a sudden, forceful look. “Close your eyes, Claire. You don’t want to see this.”
Claire put shaky hands over her face and waited for the sound of the blow she knew was coming. There was a horrific crunch of steel meeting bone, followed by a heavy thud. When she uncovered her eyes, the cougar lay dead on the ground in a pool of blood, its head severed from its body.
Alec breathlessly dropped his sword to the ground and ran to Claire. “Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes blazing with concern.
The tension that had gripped Claire’s insides now rushed like a hot wave into her head, and tears of relief sprang into her eyes. She threw her arms around Alec and hugged him tightly. “I’m fine. I’m alive.” She heard and felt his wince of pain and drew back quickly. She saw now that his vest was ripped open and his shirt was soaked with blood. “Oh my God,” she cried, horrified.
“Don’t worry, I’ll heal.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. She had no idea how much time they had. There was so much she wanted to say to him, but all she could think of was, “Thank you for coming back.”
“I never wanted to leave.” Alec picked up his silver dagger, cleaned it on his pants leg, and slipped it into his boot.
“I didn’t want to go to the dance,” Claire admitted, her heart thundering.
Alec averted his eyes. The next sentence seemed difficult for him to articulate. “I’m glad you did, and that… Neil took you.”
Claire was desperate for him to look at her again, hoping he could read the emotions she couldn’t put into words. “I don’t feel about him the way I feel about you, Alec. I never will.”
Alec’s eyes returned to hers then, overflowing with relief and a love he no longer tried to disguise. Claire wanted nothing more than to move into his arms again, to feel, if only for just a moment, the comfort she knew she’d derive from his embrace. But he quickly picked up his sword, wiped it on the bottom of his tattered jacket, and replaced it in his guitar case. “Come on. We can’t stay here.” Slinging the case over his shoulder, he took Claire’s gloved hand and pulled her up the stairs toward the library, limping slightly.
“Mr. Patterson said you’d been injured,” Claire explained as they hurried along. “That’s why I came out here. But it was Vincent, wasn’t it?”
“Aye.” Alec practically spat the word out, trying to move quickly despite his injuries.
“Mr. Patterson’s been at this school for years. He couldn’t have always been Vincent.”
“No, that was just Vincent’s hoax for tonight.”
“So where’s the real Mr. Patterson?”
“Who knows? In Vincent’s current state of mind, Patterson might be as dead as that wildcat.”
“What?” Claire cried. “I thought the Grigori only killed the Fallen, not humans.”
“Clearly, Vincent is operating outside the rules. He hired a Fallen to take you out. I think at this point, he’ll do anything to get rid of you.”
“But he promised! He said he wouldn’t lay a hand on me!”
“No. When I look back on it now, he didn’t actually say that. He chose his words very carefully. He promised that no Elder would touch you. And he’s not an Elder.”
“So you’re saying he didn’t actually lie?”
“Not really.” They approached their locker. “If you’d been killed by that were-cougar, it would have looked like some random animal attack. No one could have traced it to him. He said what he needed to say to convince me to leave, so he could get to you without my protection.”
“What an a*shole.”
“That’s an understatement. You wondered how I could trust him. I wish I had listened to you.” Alec pulled open their locker and took out the black lockbox from within. “Before he led you up the hill, he drugged me and tied me up in the locker room.”
“Oh my God!” Claire said, shocked, as they moved to a nearby bench. “How did you get away?”
“An adrenaline shot. I have another box like this in my gym locker.”
Alec rested his hand on the box, which emitted an audible click as it unlocked. Claire caught her breath in anticipation. Finally, she was going to see what was inside.
It was the last thing she’d expected. The top tray was like a first aid kit, filled with neatly organized supplies, including a syringe and several bottles of clear liquid. Alec lifted the tray and set it on the bench between them, exposing what lay below: various bundles of international currency and passports from a variety of foreign countries.
“Wow,” Claire breathed in awe. “Who would have thought that someone like you would actually need a passport?”
Alec tore off his shredded jacket and shirt. “I don’t have wings to fly on my own. I keep a bunch of these boxes, in case I need to skip town at a moment’s notice from wherever I am.” He glanced at her intensely. “I didn’t want to take anything from my lockers when I left—any more than I could bring myself to report in.”
At the look in his eyes, all the blood pumping to her heart seemed to change direction as it rose in a hot flush to her face. “You didn’t report in?” she repeated breathlessly.
“Not yet.”
Claire swallowed hard, uncertain what this would mean for his future—for their future, if they even had one. The thought so distracted her that she almost missed his next soft request.
“Help me, would you?” He handed her several packets of sterile gauze pads and a roll of adhesive tape, then held a pad over his largest wound, the one on his bicep. “And work fast—we don’t have a lot of time.”
With shaking fingers, Claire taped the pad in place, then moved on to bandage the worst gashes on Alec’s chest, back, shoulders, and stomach. As she worked, she couldn’t help but be aware of the beauty of his half-naked, muscular body. Her pulse beat so loudly in her ears, she had a hard time hearing what he was saying.
“I’m beginning to think that Vincent’s been doing this kind of thing for years,” Alec muttered.
“What kind of thing?”
“He routinely assesses Nephilim of all ages who are under suspicion of breaking laws. There have been countless incidents where he’s reported them to be harmless—and then weeks or months later, they’d conveniently turn up dead in some accident.”
“I guess he couldn’t claim that every single one of the Nephilim he was assigned to had turned.”
“Precisely. And he has more reason to take you out than anyone he’s ever encountered.”
“Because I’m a Halfblood.”
Alec nodded, rolling up his pants leg to reveal a deep bite wound on his left calf. “And because you’ve been evading him ever since your birth. I think Vincent takes that as a personal affront. Plus, he said your father tried to kill him.”
Claire bandaged the leg wound. Solemnly, her entire frame tense with apprehension, she said, “What happens now? Vincent’s still out there. He’s going to discover that the cougar is dead and I’m not. What should I do?”
“You and your mother have to disappear before he finds out. Go somewhere—anywhere—and stay under an assumed name.”
“How long would we have to stay away?”
Alec gingerly slipped his ripped, bloody shirt back on. “I don’t know. As long as it takes for me to find Vincent and bring him down.”
“Bring him down?” Claire repeated, alarmed. “You mean kill him?”
“He’s left me no choice. You’ll never be safe until Vincent’s dead.”
“He’s a master of illusion, Alec. That could take weeks. Or months. Or years!”
“It has to be done.”
“But Alec … what if the Elders find out that you killed him?”
“I’ll just have to hope that they don’t—or find some way to explain what’s going on without turning myself in.”
Alec’s last four words reverberated in Claire’s brain. Without turning myself in. So Alec intended to stay AWOL! A wave of hope spiraled through her chest, wrapping itself around her panic. If Vincent was out of the way, was there a chance she and Alec could still be together?
“Okay,” she responded quickly, “but you don’t have to do this by yourself, Alec. We can get Helena to help us. Brian and I found her—she’s stuck in a hospital in the city.”
“I wondered where she was.”
“I talked to her. She’s an Elder. She can predict everything that I’m facing, and tell us what Vincent’s next move is. Can’t we use that somehow?”
Alec closed the lockbox and stood up, deep in thought. “We can try. But it’s late. We won’t be able to see Helena until tomorrow morning. And if you’re dead before sunrise, her predictions won’t do you much good.”
Claire stared glumly at her gloved hands, which—after tending to Alec’s wounds—were truly bloodstained now, as was her dress. “I guess you’re right.”
Alec stowed the black box in their locker and shut it firmly. “We need to get you and your mother someplace where Vincent can’t find you. Now. This instant.”
“What do I tell everyone downstairs? They must be wondering what’s happened to me.”
“You can explain it all later. You can’t risk going down to the gym, Claire. Vincent might still be there, posing as Patterson, waiting for someone to find your body on this hill. Let him think you’re dead. It’ll buy us some time.”
Claire heaved a frustrated sigh, knowing that Neil was going to hate her for disappearing without a word. And Erica and Brian would be sick with worry when they couldn’t find her.
Alec helped Claire to her feet, his jaw tightening. “Come on. Let’s go pick up your mom.”