Chapter 22 #2
Yeah, but at the moment, my brain is spinning its wheels, a truck with bald tires sucked into the mud, unable to free itself. I just keep retreading the same thoughts, trying to find some new angle or possible action.
Probably better off taking a break. Get warm, try again.
But an iron band of stubbornness inside me refuses to consider the idea of leaving until we have something. Plus I’m not even sure where we would go. Aadesh locked up the Oats house when he left. Even the union won’t be open forever if the university ends up going remote for classes …
An idea flashes through my mind, so quick that I miss it. I pause, replaying my thoughts until my mental wheels catch on that bit of traction.
The union. The display. Electricity zips through my veins when the pieces connect. “Okay, if we assume that the cemetery is the source, what if we dig another way?” I huff hot air onto my tingling fingers.
“What do you mean?” Devon asks.
“The union has a huge display on the campus’s development.
Historical and proposed. I had to help pull historical donor and alumni information for my job in alumni relations.
” I try to shrug, but I’m too cold. It comes off more like a full-body twitch instead.
“The committee requested all kinds of random historical documents from the university archives. Maybe we can find something on Old Campus or the cemetery.” Honestly, I’m out of better ideas.
“When did you last eat?” Carter takes my hands in his, warming them.
“I’m fine.” I pull away gently, fighting my own desire to maintain contact. I can’t forget that he sought me out because he needed to talk. I doubt that conversation is going away.
Devon eyes us but says nothing about it. Guilt pinches hard in me. “There’s one more thing I want to try if you’re game, Jo,” Devon says.
“She needs to eat and warm up,” Carter says.
“Maybe you should leave it up to her,” Devon argues.
Not this again. I sense we’re seconds away from laser-eyes again and I am rapidly losing patience.
It’s weird—this is not like jealousy, who gets to sit next to me or whatever, but more about which version of me they know and want to see.
Carter knows me as a student and plain old human, Jocasta Trelane.
To Devon, I’m Death’s daughter and a whole bunch of hope and the prospect of change. Both cannot exist simultaneously.
“What’s your idea?” I ask Devon loudly over the top of them arguing.
“I want you to try to claim Beecher again—”
“But it didn’t work—” I begin.
“—with me,” he finishes. “I want you to pull from me and then try it again.”
I gape at him, mouth open, nerve endings stinging in the cold air.
“No,” I say, when I’ve recovered. “No fucking way.”
“Listen to me.” Devon steps closer, cutting between Carter and me. “If it’s about strength, then maybe you need to be at full power before—”
I step back, folding my arms across my chest. “I’m full. I just fed on that Fear spawn, remember?” Then I grimace, realizing how that must sound to Carter. “It was self-defense,” I say to him. Mostly.
“You’ve been living on the bare minimum for so long, love, I think your capacity may be diminished,” Devon says gently. As if he’s not calling me defective. “You might need more than you realize.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “That’s a hell of a risk to take for a ‘might.’”
“I’m not that selfless.” He gives me that charming, full-tooth smile. “For just a minute or two. Won’t cost me that much.”
“More than I’m willing to take,” I snap.
“You want to protect Beecher, the people here, right?” he asks. “This will help you do that. If Beecher is your territory, you’ll be more closely connected. You might be able to better pinpoint whoever is behind this. Force them out of hiding.”
“Might,” I repeat.
“She said no,” Carter says tersely.
“And as I believe I said, it’s up to her. Unless you have another idea or additional information to contribute to the conversation?” Devon beams at him, but there’s hardness behind the surface of that smile.
Carter’s jaw tightens, a muscle at the back jumping beneath his skin, but he stays silent.
“You really think that might make a difference?” I ask Devon.
“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t,” Devon says.
I want to argue, but what he’s saying kind of makes sense. Not every spawn is strong enough to claim territory. I always assumed I would be—I’m first generation and my father is Death. But because I’ve worked hard to survive on as little as possible, my current version of “full” may not be enough.
“Thirty seconds,” I counter.
“A minute, at least,” Devon says back calmly, with no concern.
I don’t like it. I really don’t like it.
But … if claiming Beecher would help us figure out what the hell is going on or stop it, it might be worth the risk. Sort of.
I look to Carter. “If it looks like this is going wrong, if he’s too pale or”—I pause, grimacing—“aging before your eyes, I need you to interrupt. Throw something at me. Don’t touch him. Don’t touch me. You might get pulled in. Okay?”
In his place, I think I would have a thousand questions. Or I would have noped out of here the second we had to talk about husks. I mean, seriously. He was just some random guy who had the misfortune to sit next to me on a couch at a party one time. That’s how it all started.
But Carter just nods.
We wait until the police officers are on the far end of the barricaded area, with their backs to us, and then we hurry across the street to the cemetery once more.
Devon and I crouch down near the cemetery’s center, trying to keep out of sight. Carter, however, stands ramrod straight, as if daring someone to challenge his right to be there.
Taking Devon’s hand in mine, I draw in a deep breath and focus.
I haven’t pulled life from others this frequently …
ever. What frightens me most is that it seems to be getting easier and easier.
Like how the thing you told yourself you’d never do gradually becomes part of your new normal if you just keep crossing that line.
“I’m scared I’m going to kill you,” I blurt.
“You won’t,” he says, smiling at me. He reaches out with his free hand and tucks my hair behind my ear, out of my way.
I wish I had his confidence. It took real effort to stop myself from draining the Fear spawn, and this, too, feels like a slippery slope.
Not just feeding but killing. It’s what I was made for.
I’ve found ways around it, sure, but when it comes to instinct, desire, that’s where I live. To take lives.
The life in Devon swirls brighter, stronger than any I’ve seen before. I have the distant thought that maybe that’s because Devon, himself, is stronger than anyone else I’ve ever fed on. But I don’t have time to chase the idea or ask before raw greed rises up in me.
We all have that avaricious side to us. The id proclaiming, “I want it, so I’m going to take it.
” But society—and, hopefully, awareness of others as individuals in their own right—trains us not to act on our own need for immediate gratification.
To consider others and laws regarding their rights before taking.
But this pure, unadulterated hunger that rises in response to Devon’s life joyously swimming in him is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It hits with no warning, no ramp up. Just sudden and absolute need, even though I would have sworn I was fine seconds ago.
Without even making the conscious effort to do so, I’m pulling from him, our joined hands forming a bridge between us, as I drink him in, one overwhelming and delicious gulp at a time. It is endless and singular at the same time, until an irritating buzz begins in my ears.
I jerk my head to one side, like a horse trying to flick off a fly, but the distracting sound continues.
Then I realize it’s talking. Devon is talking to me. “Enough, Jo. Enough.” His voice is tiny, very far away.
I can ignore it. I can just keep drinking in his life. He can’t stop me. The thing in me that is me and not me at the same time—the part of me that is my father—shivers in delight.
But with the delight comes a vague sense of horror at my reaction. And it’s only the tiny whisper of self-loathing that pulls me, the conscious me, back into the driver’s seat.
Opening my eyes, I lurch back from Devon, untangling my hand from his, where I’d evidently locked onto his fingers. Carter is a shadow standing over us.
“No,” I croak.
“It’s okay. Try it again,” Devon says.
I try to shake my head no, but spirals of dizziness curl around me. Is this why my father does this? Does it always feel this good?
I won’t be able to stop myself next time. I know it.
“No. The claim,” Devon says, redirecting me with a gesture toward the ground.
Oh. That. Right.
Warm and drunk with the life moving in me, I reach down and touch the cold earth beneath the icy spears of grass. It takes me a moment to find the words. “Beecher is mine. I claim Beecher as my territory. Beecher is mine. Beecher is my territory.”
Just as before, I’m awash in the sensation of movement, in the feeling of my recently acquired energy departing in a cool rush.
“More. Push,” Devon says, nodding encouragement.
But there’s nothing more to give, and I can feel the first ripples of that rejection—the pushback—starting.
“I don’t … it’s not…” I try to explain but my words come out slowly, slurred.
Devon touches me, and instantly I feel the connection between us resume—me pulling from him, feeding from him, and channeling it into the ground.
No, no, no!
The tiny ripples of pushback from the ground swell into tsunami-sized waves and slam into me.
It’s like running as fast as possible face-first into an invisible wall.
There’s no polite tingling or warning numbness this time. Just whole-body rejection—the sense of wrongness and then soaring through the air as I’m ripped away from the ground and Devon’s hand.
Then … nothing.