Second Chance

  To his left, a bird began its call, but no bird that Joss was familiar with. After its coos had become cries for a few minutes, the bird morphed into Morgan, who stage-whispered, “Are you stupid? It’s me! What bird on earth sounds like that?! Get up here!”

  Joss looked up, shaking his head at his assumption. Morgan was perched in the lower hanging branches of a nearby oak. Joss climbed the tree with a precision that he’d been lacking before last summer. As he shimmied out onto the same branch that Morgan was perched on, Joss whispered back. “Sorry. You were really convincing. I thought you were a bird. Just one I didn’t recognize.”

  Morgan’s eyes were scanning the area below, his voice sounding only slightly distracted from the subject at hand. “I’ll take that as a compliment, little brother, but unless you see me sprouting feathers out of my butt, don’t believe it.”

  He wondered if that was Morgan’s way of saying that he shouldn’t take anything for granted, but the thought flickered out of his mind just as quickly as it had entered. Morgan was not the judgmental type. Not like Joss’s uncle. Not like Joss’s father.

  His father.

  The image of his dad entered his mind immediately, and he wondered if he would ever see his dad again, or if they would ever be the family that they had been before Cecile had been murdered. He wanted that more than anything—to have his dad back again—even more than he wanted vengeance for what had happened to his baby sister. And he couldn’t help but wonder at that moment if he ever would. Would he die tonight? Would his parents soon be attending the funeral of their only remaining child? Would they cry at that funeral? Or had they become so empty, so devoid of sadness and loss that their tears had dried completely, leaving nothing for the mourning of their only son?

  He hoped that there would be more than blank stares and emptiness. He hoped—guiltily—that there would be at least a few tears left for the son, the way that there had been so many for their daughter.

  It hurt him, to think these things, to feel these things, but what it boiled down to at the moment was that all Joss really wanted was to be seen by his parents. To be recognized and loved and, damn it, revered. At the very least, he wanted to be noticed. He was sick and too tired of being the Invisible Boy. He wanted to be their son again, and if he had to die tonight to be just that . . . then that, he supposed, was exactly what he had to do. Gone were the days of being invisible. Long live the era of their son, the Slayer.

  Even though they most likely would never know the importance of his position.

  “What are you doing here, Morgan? Abraham said you weren’t allowed to come with us.”

  Morgan shook his head sadly. “I had to come. I couldn’t stay there, poking at a dead body, wondering if I’d just let you all march to your deaths without me. And I know what your uncle thinks about me, that my loyalty is compromised, that I’ll likely eventually divulge information to my brother, endangering our crew, and at greater risk, the Society itself. But I swear to you, little brother, my loyalty is absolutely to you, Paty, Ash, Cratian, and Abraham. I would never betray any of you, and I would never endanger the Slayer Society’s existence.”

  Joss listened, but couldn’t help but wonder why Morgan would choose this moment to express his loyalty to their cause. Perhaps he thought he might not get another chance. Or perhaps he thought that no one in the clan would listen to him the way that Joss would.

  Or perhaps, Joss thought with a suspicious worry, Morgan viewed him as gullible, an easy target for someone who was hell-bent on helping the vampires learn as much as they could about the Slayer Society.

  And maybe, as loathe as Joss was to admit it, based on Joss’s past performance, Morgan might have been wise to think that Joss was the perfect target.

  “I just wanted you to know that.” Morgan’s voice trailed off, leaving them with only the sounds of night filling their perked ears. Joss felt a bit guilty about not having replied. He’d wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what to say, exactly. Wasn’t saying nothing at all better than saying something stupid or inane? So Joss had remained silent and hoped that Morgan would understand.

  After several minutes of awkward silence between the two, Morgan gestured to the scene below them with his chin and whispered, “What do you see, little brother?”

  Joss looked around at the moonlight-filled park and shrugged. “Just the park. Why?”

  Then Morgan threw him a meaningful glance and gestured again. This time, his words hit Joss like a gentle slap upside the head. “But what do you see?”

  He looked again, this time not as a teenage kid, but as a fierce slaying machine. His eyes scanned the landscape for any sign of life. After a moment, he had it. “Fresh tracks in the soft ground roughly twenty yards out. Sneakers, size twelve, maybe thirteen. Judging by the size, probably male. Judging by the indent, likely about two hundred pounds or so.”

  “Vampire?” Morgan’s tone was that of a teacher once again, the way that it had been in the Catskills last summer. Joss liked hearing him like this.

  With his eyes locked on the imprints in the ground, Joss shook his head with confidence. “Human. The footfalls are too heavy to be a vampire. Vamps, despite their weight, move lightly over the ground. They’re masters of stealth.”

  “What else?”

  Joss scanned his eyes over the landscape, but saw nothing. His eyes fell once more on the footprints he’d noticed before, and when he looked at them this time, he noticed something that he hadn’t before. He sat up anxiously. It was difficult to keep his voice quiet. “There’s another footprint inside that footprint. Size ten loafers. Barely a dent. That’s our man.”

  He looked at Morgan, who was beaming with pride. Joss grinned. “Or monster. Depending on who you ask.”

  Morgan patted him on the back and sighed. “But now we have to do something that I really hate to do. We have to get out of this tree and away from our cover so that we can track the monster through the woods. Be careful down there, Joss. We’ll be completely exposed. If they find us before we can take them out, odds are we’re dead. Ticked off vampires are a lot harder to kill, for some reason.”

  Joss furrowed his brow. “But there are only two of them. And everyone broke off away from the group! I don’t understand why we didn’t stay together. There’s strength and safety in numbers. It says so in the field guide.”

  “Kid, not everything in life can be summed up neatly in a paragraph. No book has all of the answers. Not even the really good ones. You have to find the answers for yourself sometimes.” Without another word, Morgan shimmied down the tree and Joss followed, keeping a watchful eye on the area around them. They made it to the footprints and began to follow them, but after thirty yards of steady tracks, they disappeared. Joss furrowed his brow and looked around. Two small branches from a nearby bush had been bent back, as if someone had pushed them away forcefully. And Joss was betting that the person who’d done it wore size twelve, maybe size thirteen sneakers.

  He stepped away for Morgan to investigate and, pressed into the soft earth on the other side of the bush, was another footprint, matching the ones they’d been following. Inside, so faint that Joss had to squint in the moonlight in order to see it, was the imprint of a second shoe. Morgan let him take the lead and they followed the tracks for what felt like maybe a quarter of a mile, deep into the heart of Central Park.

  But then the tracks stopped.

  Not the human’s tracks, but the vampire’s. They were nowhere to be seen. After Boris, Joss knew that vampires were capable of hovering, but he and Morgan had carefully searched the trees to no avail. The vampire in question was simply gone.

  Morgan chewed his bottom lip nervously, his eyes moving over their surroundings again and again in every direction. He looked more worried than Joss had ever seen him before. “Let’s backtrack, little brother. See if we missed something.”

  But as they moved back through the woods, they must have gotten turned around, because before Joss knew it, they were st
anding near a rocky outcropping. A fountain stood at its center, splashing water on the ground below. Morgan looked around, trying to figure out exactly how they’d gotten off track, but all Joss could focus on was the silhouette of something that was perched on the fountain’s edge.

  White and black feathers, large eyes, and a shape that was impossible to mistake for anything else. A large owl stood on the edge of the fountain, its huge eyes locked on Joss and Morgan. Was it watching them? No, that was crazy. Why would an owl be watching them? Wouldn’t it be more inclined to watch field mice or small rabbits? But still. Joss couldn’t shake the feeling that the bird was staring at him, and not just because he was an interesting shape in the darkness.

  He nudged Morgan and pointed at the owl. “Check it out.”

  Morgan glanced at the owl and shrugged, his eyes returning quickly to their search of the treetops. “So what? You’ve never seen an owl before?”

  Of course he’d seen an owl before. But this one seemed . . . different, somehow. He couldn’t explain it. “Do they usually stare like that?”

  Morgan looked at it again, but this time, Joss noticed a visible shift in his fellow Slayer’s mood. Morgan tensed and whispered harshly to Joss, “Get out of here. Now.”

  Just as Joss was turning to do as he’d been told, Morgan broke into a run and dove at the offending bird. The owl flapped its wings, leaping from the fountain’s edge to flight. But its flight was short-lived. Morgan met it in midair with his stake raised high. But as the bird flew, Joss found his feet cemented to the ground in shock. The owl transformed as it moved through the air, growing larger. It lost its wings first. They became the arms of a man. Its head followed, giving it all of the features of a man, though its eyes were the last feature to go. Joss recognized Curtis immediately. He could change into an owl? Joss’s heart raced in fear. Vampires could hide anywhere. No one was safe.

  As Curtis’s chest transformed, he twisted, digging his enormous claws into Morgan’s torso. Flipping quickly, he tossed Morgan into the outcropping in a bloody heap. Morgan’s stake flew through the air, landing several feet from his unconscious form. When Curtis landed on the ground, he was no longer an owl, but the fierce vampire that Joss had been sent here to kill. He looked at Morgan with a murderous gleam in his eye and moved forward to finish him off.

  Joss broke into a run, jumping into the air. His feet connected with the side of Curtis’s head, knocking him back into the pool of water that surrounded the fountain. Curtis skidded across the surface of the water, coming to a halt in a crouched and ready position, eyes locked on Joss. Joss’s heart was pounding in his ears as terror filled his every pore. “Slayer,” he hissed. “That is the last mistake that you will ever make.”

  Curtis lunged at him, and Joss reached for Morgan’s stake, but Curtis was too fast. Then Curtis gnashed his teeth at Joss, and all Joss could think to do was to block the attack, to stop Curtis from biting or hitting him. He blocked again and again, not realizing that he’d been backing up until his back met solidly with a tree trunk. Curtis pulled back his arm and grinned. “Slayer, I’ve decided that I’m going to rip your heart out before I eat it.”

  Curtis shot his hand forward, aiming for the center of Joss’s chest. He meant to break through Joss’s rib cage with his bare hand and tear out the tender organ that sustained Joss’s life.

  But in a moment of panic, Joss relaxed all of his muscles and fell to the ground, just dodging the blow. Curtis’s arm entered the tree trunk instead. He said something loudly in a language that Joss couldn’t understand, and pulled back on his arm, but for the moment, he was stuck. Joss knew he didn’t have much time, so he pummeled Curtis’s ribs with one fist, hoping to subdue him long enough to grab Morgan’s stake with his free hand. But just as grabbed the stake, it was knocked to the ground by an unseen force.

  Joss cursed and turned around to see Sven, his eyes furious slits, his chest heaving in breaths that suggested that he’d been running just a few seconds before. Joss’s heart beat once before he dove after Morgan’s stake. Sven was on him before his fingers even brushed against the wood, snapping Joss’s left arm like a twig. Pain lit up Joss’s entire world and he screamed at the brightness of it all, at the excruciating hurt. Clutching his useless arm to his side, Joss fell to the ground. Then Sven dove toward him. In a moment of sheer desperation, Joss reached out with his good arm to find something, anything, to defend himself with. His fingers closed over something familiar and warm, and just as Sven was falling on him, mouth wide, fangs exposed, Joss brought the stake back to his chest and forced it upward, piercing Sven’s heart.

  Immediately, he shoved Sven’s corpse from his body, pulling Morgan’s stake free. He stood and approached Curtis with a determined step. Curtis was struggling against the tree, his arm almost free, cursing at Joss in that strange language. But Joss didn’t care. He only cared about the reason he was doing any of this. He only cared about right and wrong. He gripped the stake in his fist and whispered, “For you, Cecile. Every time.”

  As he thrust the stake forward, Curtis howled. The silver pierced his skin and plunged deep into Curtis’s chest. Then Curtis went still.

  He withdrew Morgan’s stake and noted with interest that his fingers weren’t shaking at all. He’d killed the beast with a steady hand.

  From behind him came the sound of someone clapping. He turned to see Ash, Morgan, Paty, Cratian, and Abraham watching him with shining, proud eyes. Abraham offered him a nod before putting his cell phone to his ear. “This is Abraham. We need a cleanup on the southern end of Central Park.”

  Morgan limped over to him and gave him a brotherly hug before looking down on Curtis’s remains. “One thing’s for sure, little brother. The next time I get attacked by an oversized canary, I’m calling you.”

  24

  NIGHT HOTEL

  “You are so slow! Come on, Joss. Half of this stuff is for you! Pick up the pace.” Paty was walking in front of Joss, heading down the sidewalk toward the brownstone. In her arms were three boxes, and looped over her arms were four big bags of clothing, split between each arm. Joss was lugging three bags and two boxes—but with one arm in a cast. The boxes were piled so high that he almost couldn’t see Paty in front of him. She had claimed that the shopping trip was a celebration, and that the clothes were gifts for Joss. But only two pairs of pants and three shirts were his. Most of the shopping had been for Paty. And now Joss was her injured pack mule.

  To his dismay, his toes caught on an uneven bit of sidewalk and Joss tripped. He caught himself before he fell, but the packages went down, falling around him in thumps. Joss grumbled, but a moment later, Morgan appeared, chuckling. “Doing a bit of shopping, little brother?”

  Joss rolled his eyes. “More like Paty’s shopping. I’m just carrying.”

  Morgan grabbed most of the boxes and three of the bags. “One word of advice, kid? Never go shopping with a girl. Even one who carries a stake.”

  As Morgan moved along after Paty, Joss gathered the remaining packages, noted Morgan’s advice, and followed suit. It was time to head back to the brownstone, time to pack, time to get ready, and time to go home. The event filled Joss with mixed feelings. On one hand, he was proud of himself, of them, for having taken care of the vampire brothers as assigned. On the other, the only thing awaiting him at home were his parents, and neither of them seemed to have much of a place for Joss in their lives anymore. It was difficult to look forward to spending time with people who treated him like the Invisible Boy. It was impossible to face the fact that his parents would never change. Cecile’s death had shaped them into something that Joss couldn’t comprehend, and in ways, didn’t want to comprehend. He just wanted to have something to look forward to whenever he set foot in those four walls he referred to as “home.”

  As he walked, trailing a bit behind Paty and Morgan under the weight of Paty’s shopping bags, someone fell into step beside him, their paces matching immediately. He turned his head and blinked, a bit sur
prised to see Dorian walking along beside him. The corner of Dorian’s mouth lifted in a small smile. “It’s good to see you, young sir.”

  Joss glanced at Paty and Morgan, but they seemed completely oblivious to Dorian’s presence. The strange sensation came over him that Dorian was somehow making them not notice him. He looked back at Dorian, wondering if Dorian had ever controlled his awareness in that way. The idea that anyone could have that kind of power frightened him. Even if Dorian seemed relatively harmless. It was bad enough that vampires could tap into the dark recesses of a human’s mind and hear every whisper of thought that they had. It was worse that Dorian might be able to do more.

  Because he was more than a vampire. Joss just didn’t know how much more, or what that meant, exactly.

  Dorian kept his eyes straight ahead, as if he knew where they were headed and was totally okay with that. “I thought we might discuss where exactly I got the stake that I gifted you with, and why exactly I gave it to you. I believe we’ve put off this conversation for long enough.”

  Joss stopped walking, stopped moving, stopped breathing for a moment, and turned to face Dorian, who mimicked his movements perfectly. It sent a chill up Joss’s spine. “I was hoping you’d say that, Dorian. So . . . go ahead. I’m all ears. Tell me about the stake.”

  Joss looked up the street to where Paty and Morgan were still walking, and then back to Dorian, who’d already made his way half a block.

  Without as much as a brief pause in his steps, Dorian continued his trek down the street, calling over his shoulder to a bewildered Joss, who still had no idea how Dorian knew that he even had nightmares, let alone wanted to discuss them. “Come, my friend. Let us talk.”

  Joss hurried to follow after him, not knowing how he’d explain his absence to Morgan and Paty later, but too eager to understand how Dorian had come about Ernst’s stake, and why he’d given it to Joss, when the Slayer Society had not yet deemed him worthy of owning the instrument. He caught up to Dorian a block over, and silently, they made their way to a boutique hotel on a bustling street. The sign read simply NIGHT.