Hungers of the Heart

  With a shake of his head, he banished the last of his rage and knelt by Eric’s side. The fledgling’s eyes were open, but the bones of his jaw stood out in sharp relief as he gritted his teeth.

  “I’m sorry,” Drake said, wincing at how lame that sounded under the circumstances. Eric struggled to sit up, and Drake helped him.

  “The hunger makes my temper very brittle,” Drake continued. “I lost control of myself.”

  Eric made a grunting noise, but didn’t say any­thing. Jezebel came to kneel on the other side of Eric, draping his arm over her shoulder. She glared at Drake.

  “I think you’ve done enough for tonight,” she said, then helped Eric to his feet.

  Drake had nothing to say in his own defense. Jez guided Eric toward his room, Harry tagging along beside them. Faith and Lily had already disappeared.

  Alone in the hallway, Drake was haunted by a past he’d give everything he owned to deny.

  11

  LILY LOOKED OLDER than she’d looked when they’d first stepped off the plane, Faith realized as they sat together on the bed in Lily’s room. Lily had stopped crying shortly after they’d entered the room, and now looked deep in thought as she idly rubbed one of the rope bums on her wrist.

  Faith reached out to still her sister’s hand. “You’ll just make it worse.”

  Lily frowned at her wrist, but stopped rubbing at it. “Have you figured out how we’re going to get away yet?”

  Faith stifled a sigh of frustration. “I’m working on it, sweetie?’

  Lily gave her a narrow-eyed glance. “Do you still think Drake’s going to help us?”

  “There’s no one else,” Faith answered, though right now she desperately wished there were. Drake had shown his true colors tonight, proven once and for all that he was just as much a bully as Armand. Which suggested that like Armand, he would always put self-interest first. Try though she might, Faith couldn’t imagine how she could make it worth his while to help her.

  “Maybe we don’t need any help,” Lily suggested. “If the vamps are all out hunting, and the mortals are all dead, what’s to stop us from running away right this minute?”

  Hope and terror battled in Faith’s chest. Drake had told her that she would find a safe haven in Philadel­phia. That wasn’t too terribly far away, and even a vampire as young as she could manage enough glam­our to relieve mortals of their cash, so money wouldn’t be an issue. But if Armand should catch them.

  Holding on to Lily’s shoulders, Faith peered into her eyes. ‘We can do this,” she said. “We can make a run for it, and thanks to Drake I know where we can go. But I want you to understand it’s a terrible risk. If the Seigneur catches us, there will be hell to pay. He’ll hold me responsible. You have to promise me that if the worst happens, you won’t interfere.”

  Lily shook her head. “He could kill you!”

  “I doubt he would. And even so, there’d be nothing you could do to stop him, and you’d get yourself hurt in the process.”

  Lily blinked rapidly, her eyes shining with tears she seemed determined not to shed. “I don’t want to put you in that kind of danger.”

  Faith forced a smile. “You’re. not putting me in danger, sweetie. I’m doing that all by myself.”

  “But if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be trying to run.”

  Actually, if it weren’t for Lily, she’d have run long ago and probably died in the process. But that wasn’t something she could say.

  “I have to get away from him,” she said. “It’s not all about you. If I don’t get away now, I’ll be stuck with him for who knows how many centuries?’ She shuddered. “Trust me—I’d be running for it even without you. Okay?”

  Lily bit her lip, but nodded.

  “And you7promise you won’t make a fuss if we get caught?”

  Lily’s chin jutted out stubbornly, but when Faith refused to back down from her demand, she gave another halfhearted nod.

  “All right,” Faith said, trying to project utter calm. “Let’s go.”

  “Now?” Lily cried, then lowered her voice. “Don’t we have to pack some stuff?”

  Faith shook her head. “There’s no time for that. Who knows how long they’ll be gone? Let’s just get out of here while we can. We’ll worry about supplies later.”

  She took Lily by the hand, and Lily didn’t object. Faith did a quick psychic scan, but there were no vampires lurking about in the hallway. Moving quickly and as quietly as possible, she and Lily descended the stairs. Faith groaned at the sound the front door made when she swung it open, but no one came charg­ing down the stairs after them.

  “Here goes nothing:’ Faith muttered under her breath.

  And then she and Lily were jogging down the street, trying to put as much distance as possible be­tween themselves and the house. Faith used what glamour she had to turn away the attentions of curi­ous pedestrians. A few people gave the fleeing pair a speculative look when Faith’s concentration broke, but no one tried to stop them.

  At least, not until they’d gotten about a block and a half from the house.

  Then Charles stepped out of the shadows and blocked their way. Faith came to a stop with a muf­fled shriek, and Lily gasped. Charles crossed his arms over his chest, but he didn’t look like he was an­gry or about to attack them.

  “The Seigneur decided that leaving the two of you unsupervised might not be a good idea,” he said with a hint of a smile. “I see he was right.”

  Faith swallowed hard around the lump of fear in her throat. “Please, Charles. You’ve always been kind to us. You’re a decent man. Please let us go.”

  But Charles shook his head: “I’m truly sorry, but I can’t do that. The Seigneur is angry enough with me already. I can’t afford to anger him again.”

  Faith Wanted to beg some more, but what was the point? As she’d always known, Killers were self-interest incarnate. Never would Charles risk his neck for anyone. Her shoulders sagged, and she tried not to drown in the tide of fear that swept over her.

  Lily stepped out from behind Faith’s back and looked at Charles with imploring eyes. “Please! Un­cle Armand is going to.. .“ A fat teardrop rolled down her cheek, and she grabbed Charles’s arm. “You know what he’ll do to her!”

  Charles smiled benignly and wiped away the tear. “I won’t let you run away, but that doesn’t mean I have to tell the Seigneur you tried.”

  Relief weakened Faith’s knees, even if she couldn’t help noticing the odd way Charles was look­ing at her sister. Like Armand, he’d always played the role of the kindly uncle with Lily. He wasn’t looking terribly avuncular at the moment, however. His thumb stroked over Lily’s cheek once more, os­tensibly to wipe away another tear, but Faith wasn’t so sure.

  “We’d better get back to the house,” she said, ca­sually drawing her sister away. “If Armand finds us outside, it won’t matter what you say.” -

  “Very true,” Charles agreed.

  And with Charles hovering nearby to crush all hopes of escape, Faith and Lily returned to the house.

  ***

  DRAKE FIGURED THAT a truly wise man would stay away, but he couldn’t stop himself from stopping by Eric’s room to check on the fledgling’s condition. Eric was stretched out on his bed, his back propped against the headboard by a stack of pillows. Both Harry and Jez had pulled up chairs to sit beside him, and when Drake stepped into the room he had the distinct impression that Eric was growing impatient with their coddling.

  Jez had been in the middle of saying something, but she cut herself off when Drake entered. The look she gave him was cold and angry, and there wasn’t a thing he could say to make that look go away. Harry looked uncomfortable, his gaze fixed on the floor. Eric’s expression was conspicuously neutral, except for his eyes, which couldn’t conceal his antipathy.

  Drake had felt more welcome in Eli’s meeting hall on the day Fletcher had dropped his bombshell.

  “I’m sorry for what I did,” he said. “I lost c
ontrol, and there’s no excuse for that. But Eric, if I hadn’t stepped in, there’s a very good chance you’d be dead right now.” He met the fledgling’s mutinous gaze. “Neither Gabriel nor I would kill you for being a pain in the ass. The Seigneur would. Maybe you think get­ting up in his face is brave, but you’re wrong. It’s just stupid.”

  “You’ve made your position on that very clear,”. Jez said, not in the least appeased.

  Drake set his jaw. “I’m going to do everything in my power to keep all of you alive while Gabriel is gone. Hate me for it if you have to. I’m used to it.” His gut twisted with the truth of his own words, but he hid his pain under a stony façade.

  “No one hates you,” Harry said, startling everyone because he was usually so quiet. “We just hate feel­ing helpless.”

  “Believe me, I hate it, too.” And he hated being re­sponsible. He hated that he had to make all the hard decisions, with no one here to back him up. How he wished he could hand this whole mess over to Gabriel or Eli. Hell, even Padraig!

  “Unless we all want to keep playing doormat,” Jez said acidly, “we’ve got to get Gabriel back. And we haven’t made the slightest effort to do it.”

  Drake shook his head. “You have no idea how much I want him back right this moment. But if we find him, we’ll lead the delegation right to him. Don’t forget, they’re under orders to bring his head to La Vieille.”

  “Their delegation is down to only four vamps!” she! protested. “The four of us together could take Faith and Louis, and you know Gabriel can take Charles and Armand.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Drake asked, and her hesi­tation was all the answer he needed. “What would happen if his glamour gave out on him at the crucial moment?”

  Jez’s shoulders slumped, and Drake knew she saw the truth, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

  “Look,” he said, “this situation sucks. We all know it. But we have to play it smart. We won’t do anyone any good if we get ourselves killed.” -

  No one answered him, but at least they didn’t ar­gue, either. A leaden silence descended, and Drake could think of no way to break it. He looked at the three Guardians sitting there together, providing a united front, and he felt more keenly than ever his role as the outsider looking in.

  When his mother had abandoned him in Five Points to the tender mercies of his father, he ha turned himself into Johnnie Drake and earned him. self an insider’s position. But it seemed that while he had managed to create a convincing gangster per­sona, he’d never be able to turn himself into the kind of man the Guardians would accept. All these years, he’d told himself the only rift that divided him from the Guardians was his status as a Killer. But perhaps the differences ran far deeper than he’d realized.

  Shaking his head, Drake slipped from the room without another word. He started down the hail, but the door behind him opened and Jezebel stepped out. She closed the door behind her, moving to stand within a foot of him and lowering her voice. The cen­sure in her eyes was almost more than he could bear.

  “For the time being,” she said, “I have no choice but to accept you, since I’m not powerful enough to kick you out. But when Gabriel gets back, I want you gone?’

  The pronouncement should have sparked his tem­per. Instead, it just hurt, though he tried to keep the pain from showing on his face.

  “Ask yourself this, Jez. What would Gabriel have done in my shoes?” He knew the answer to that per­fectly well, as he was sure she did. Gabriel had spent five hundred years wallowing in violence, and Drake doubted he’d be suffering any remorse right now.

  “He might have attacked,” Jez conceded. “But I could have stopped him. He wouldn’t have. . . brutalized Eric like that.”

  Drake suspected her perspective was a little off where Gabriel was concerned. Gabriel had never raised a hand to her, but Drake had personal experi­ence with just how brutal he was capable of being. Of course, that experience predated Gabriel’s relation­ship with Jez, so perhaps he really had changed since then.

  “If it weren’t for the hunger, I wouldn’t have done that, either,” Drake said, hoping it was true. “I just…” He sighed heavily. “I don’t want to feed without Gabriel. I don’t want to take that chance?’

  He thought there might be a slight softening of her expression, but her stance remained unchanged. “When he gets back:’ she repeated, “I want you gone.”

  This time, the pain those words inspired roused his temper. He clenched his fists and sucked in a deep breath, holding himself together for all he was worth. Then, knowing he risked another explosion by stay­ing, he turned on his heel and retreated to his bed­room.

  ***

  AFTER THE ABORTED escape attempt, Faith was more convinced than ever that her only hope for getting Lily away from Armand was Drake. Despite what she’d seen him do tonight.

  She left Lily ensconced in her room, IMing with her friends from school, and set out in search of Drake. A quick psychic scan told her he, was in his bedroom. Unbidden, the memory came to her of waking up to find herself pressed against his body, his arm draped around her. The memory made her whole body flush with warmth, but she dispelled it by thinking about the very different side of him she’d seen tonight. She had to remember he was a Killer, had to remember that despite moments of kindness, he was no knight in shining armor.

  However, knight or not, he was all she had. And tonight’s escape attempt had revealed an unpalatable truth—with Armand on his guard, there was little to no chance that she and Lily could escape together. Ii only one of- them was going to escape, it would hay to be Lily. The idea of leaving a sixteen-year-old girl in the hands of a Killer she barely knew was enough to turn her insides to water. But the idea of leaving her in the hands of a Killer she knew all too well was even worse.

  She rapped lightly on the door, but Drake didn’t respond. She still had no idea how she could persuade him to help Lily escape. There was nothing it for him. Quite the contrary, if Armand were to find out Drake helped Lily get away, he’d be a dead Biting her lip indecisively, she waited what n have been a full minute before knocking again. She might not know what she could offer him in return, but whatever his price, she would pay it.

  She was debating whether to knock a third time just slink away in embarrassment when his door finally swung open. He looked tired and haggard, for a moment she felt a surge of pity.

  “May I come in?”

  “I’m not good company right now.”

  Faith fought her natural instinct to retreat. “Better than Armand, surely.” He hadn’t returned from his hunt yet, but Faith could only imagine what sort of a mood he’d be in when he did.

  Drake shook his head, but swung the door open for her anyway. “Come in then.”

  “Are you all right?” she asked, then almost laughed at her own question. He’d been the aggressor tonight. Eric hadn’t landed a single blow, and even if he had, any damage would be healed by now.

  Drake sank down into one of the chairs across the room, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.. “Not really,” he admitted.

  Uncertain what to make of that statement, she came and sat across from him, peering at his face. “What’s wrong?”

  He laughed but didn’t open his eyes. “Other than the fact that there are three Killers hunting innocent mortals on my watch and I can do nothing to stop them?”

  Instinct told her there was more to it. “Yes, other than that.”

  He laughed again, this time raising his head and opening his eyes. “Other than that, my hunger has put my temper on a razor’s edge, I’ve acted like a brute and a bully because of it, and Jezebel has told me I’m to leave the city as soon as Gabriel returns.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Oh, and if I’m forced to leave the city, I have nowhere to go except back to my maker, who would separate me from what remains of my humanity in no time at all.”

  Pity stabbed at her again, though why she should feel sorry for him at the moment was a mystery. ?
??Couldn’t you go to Philadelphia?” she asked. “That’s where you told me I could go if I somehow got free.”

  But Drake shook his head. “I’ve already been kicked out of Philadelphia.” The pain that shadowed his eyes was impossible to miss. “No, if I’m forced to leave here, my only choice will be to return to my maker. And I think everyone, including me, would be better off if I died instead.”

  Faith raised her eyebrows. “Surely it can’t be that bad.” She definitely felt a pang in her gut at the thought of Drake dying. Killer or no, bully or no, he still seemed like he was at heart a decent person. But then perhaps she was romanticizing him, just .as she had François. “Your maker can’t change who you are.

  “Maybe not,” Drake admitted, looking no less haunted. “But the ‘question then becomes just who am I?” His eyes were distant and unseeing. “For more than a century, I’ve convinced myself I’m one of the good guys. That the people I’ve killed to keep myself alive were all people the world was better off with­out. I can’t help wondering if that was all a lie. Maybe I’m no better than your Seigneur.”

  Even though she’d had that very thought herself, Faith found herself leaping to his defense. “You’re nothing like Armand!” she insisted. “I know you hurt Eric, but Armand hurt me far worse, and for a far less noble cause. If you hadn’t stepped in, Armand might well have killed him. Hell, if you’d just stopped him without hurting him, Armand might still have killed him, thinking you were too nice to punish him.” Her voice rose as she gained momentum. “And at least you have the excuse of hunger fraying your temper. Armand might have been angry when he hurt me, but he was hardly out of control.” She shook her head. “No, there’s no comparison between the two of you.”

  Drake smiled at her, but it was a bitter expression. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m afraid it’s mis­placed. Yes, this time I must admit to being spurred by the hunger, but in my youth I delivered beatings as dispassionately as the Seigneur. I thought I’d exor­cized that part of myself, but I’m not so sure any­more. And if I find myself in Padraig’s orbit again, I have no doubt I’ll fall back into old habits.”