There was the hiss and purr of sand under approaching shoes. Obviously, he’d overcome his distaste of wearing his victim’s blood, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t open my eyes as he came. I didn’t care. I’d found what I was looking for. After all these years, I’d found it. Damn if I was going to watch Jericho end it all.
“All my time wasted. All the delayed graduations, not to mention moving the entire Institute. Then there’s the money lost.” The footsteps stopped. “But nothing compares to the inconvenience. Nothing approaches the arrogance of your thinking you could interfere in my affairs.” The muzzle of his gun pressed hard against the top of my head, digging into skin and flesh. “My work.”
“Pull the trigger already, Frankenstein,” I said without emotion. “Just fucking pull it.”
I felt the air ripple as he leaned closer. “I should take you with me. You remember that examination table in the basement? I could take you apart on one just like it, piece by piece. I could make it last days, weeks if I wanted. No constructive purpose of course.” The laugh hit my skin with an unnatural heat. “Simply for fun. No?” The metal moved to my forehead as I remained silent. “That’s all right. This is fun as well.”
This time I heard the shot. It rang gray and sharp as a titanium bell. I felt the muzzle disappear from my head and I wondered at how easy it was; so very easy. There was no pain; no degrading of consciousness. I could still hear the roar of the waves, could still smell the leafy scent of Michael’s hair. I even felt the ground shudder as a body thudded against it.
“Stefan? Son?”
I opened my eyes to see a face that was a near mirror image of mine. Lines of age, a scattering of white hairs in the black, it was me at sixty. Strange, considering I’d just died at the age of twenty-four. At least I thought I had. “Dad.” I licked dry lips. “Dad, what—what are you doing here?”
“Saving your ass apparently.” He holstered his gun and crouched down beside me. “What the hell is going on, Stoipah?”
My eyes left him to fix irrevocably on a fallen dark figure. Barely three feet away, Jericho sprawled in a boneless huddle in the sand. Lids only half closed, he stared blindly at nothing. His chest didn’t move and the white of his teeth was obscured by blood, inky black as the sky above. Anatoly’s shot had blown out the majority of his throat; he would’ve died instantly. He must have fallen on his gun, because there was no sign of it. And that was no good. I needed it—needed it badly.
“Give me your gun,” I grated.
Eyebrows pulling into a confused V, Anatoly said gruffly, “He’s dead, Stefan.”
“Give me the goddamn gun.”
With no further argument, he shrugged and slipped it into my hand. I cradled Michael with one arm and emptied the clip in Jericho’s head at point-blank range. The shape of his skull changed to something misshapen and horrific. Now the outside of the son of a bitch reflected what lurked underneath.
As my father retrieved his gun from my hand, there was the stir of moving figures around us. It was Anatoly’s men. Jericho’s were either bodies cooling in the grass or long gone. “Have them cut off his head,” I said harshly. That was what was done with vampires, although he was worse than any undead movie monster. Jericho wasn’t coming back this time, not unless he could grow a new head. “Cut it off before they dump him.”
“Stefan . . .”
“Cut it off!”
“All right. Whatever you want. We’ll decapitate the bastard. The boys will enjoy the overtime.” Two of the men, vaguely familiar, drifted up at his snap and dragged off the body.
I felt something in me break at the sight, something hard and dark and bitter. It cracked and shattered beyond repair, and I wasn’t sorry to see it go. Pressing a hand to Michael’s back, I felt the blood seep through my fingers. “Misha?” Nothing. “Dad, we need . . . We need help.” It was the voice of a child, not that of a seasoned thug or newly minted killer. It was the voice of a teenage boy begging his father to make it all right. Please, this time make it all right.
“I’ve already sent Aleksei for a doctor. Stefan, what have you gotten yourself into?” He maneuvered out of the crouch to sit beside me. From the corner of my eye I vaguely noted that the white in his hair was more prevalent than the last time I’d seen him, the shoulders a hair less broad.
I ignored his question. I didn’t have the kind of time or coherence it would take to explain all of it. “I was looking for you,” I said distantly, because everything was distant now—everything except Michael. Lifting him higher in my arms, I could feel his breath against my neck; slow, so slow.