Darkest Day (5 page)

All around, life slowed. Night birds twittered the last of their songs; crickets had already turned in.

I’d skipped the Council meeting, not caring if they punished me and knowing they’d eventually come find me.

Still, I sat, my heart hurting like it had been torn from within my chest.

It burned.

Throbbed.

An ache ran through me to my fingertips and toes. I’d given up shaking them to make it go away, since the sensation returned every time.

I’d watched him almost die. I’d pushed him away even though I didn’t want to, knowing I had to. I should have done it sooner, spared him the pain and kept my secret as
my
secret
.

At the crackle of breaking wood, my head snapped up. From the open, headstone-littered space, only blackness stared back at me. A tingle at the base of my neck told me someone waited, but who, where and what remained a mystery.

I didn’t have it in me to fight; without rising, I said, “Whoever’s there, go away.”

A deep laugh rumbled toward me. “Once again, sitting here alone.” Felix, his long black strands of hair, matching trench coat, and hundreds-of-years-old vampire form, appeared from within the shadows, stepping around the corner of one of the giant headstones. “You have, once again, broken the rules set to ensure your safety and come here alone.”

“At this point, who cares?” I leaned my head onto my knees again. “Besides, no one’s ever actually after me … you just all tell me they are.”

“Unfortunately for you, there are many who do care.”

Without looking up, I said, “Unfortunately?”

Felix moved closer until he stood at my side and slid down the tree trunk in nearly the same way I had. “Darling, Mackenzie. Aren’t you the one who believes your life an unfortunate set of circumstances preceded by archaic rules and regulations? Haven’t you said, countless times, that your mere presence in this world is nothing more than the Council’s drivel, meant to torture a soul into submission? If so, I would call those unfortunate.”

A small laugh escaped.
I might have said something like that.

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

“I am still willing to give up my seat.”

My head popped up. “Why? Why would you, a Council member, be willing to give up your seat? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s the way, Mackenzie.”

“Dammit all to hell, Felix.”

He chuckled. “I would, if I could, but as you know, once a vampire, always a vampire, and hell is my destiny.”

With my head against the tree, I stared into the night. “Why? Just answer me for once.”

He let free a deep sigh. “In that, I cannot say.”

“That’s the problem with all of you. You tell me nothing.”

His feet shuffled against the ground. “You have a teacher—”

“Who, thanks to those stupid, ancient rules you mentioned, has gone ahead and decided it’s time to break it off with me so I can fulfill those frustratingly horrible rules of yours.”

“Is that what he said?”

I kicked at a clump of leaves. “Not in those words exactly, but the action was the same.”

Felix chuckled. “Ah, Mackenzie. You have earned psychic powers, then?”

“When did you become the class comedian?”

“The moment you were born, darling. The very moment.”

“Why won’t you all tell me stuff?”

“Because it is not our way. You should speak with your teacher, Mackenzie. He has the knowledge.”

I threw my hands up. “Been there, done that, Felix. I ask questions. You all won’t answer. I don’t ask. You don’t tell. Winn’s got all the answers, but is giving me what
you
say I have to do, not what I really need.”

“And thus you do not wish to relinquish the human?” Felix’s brow quirked up.

The real answer—the only one I could admit to him openly—would have been a ‘Yes, of course’ when in my heart I meant a big, fat ‘No, not on your life’. On a huff, I stood. “I want information before I give you my official answer. I want to know why no one will tell me how Ridge has magical powers? How Winn nearly got sent back to the in-between, and how Maddie has a goblin for a mom but no magical powers. How did Ridge get into Winn’s hospital room? You see? All these questions need answers”

“Darling, Mackenzie, there could be another method.” Felix stood with me.

“What could you possibly tell me that would change my mind about how the Council deals with me?” I paced away toward one of the big headstones. “You. Just. Won’t. Answer. Me!” I smashed my fist into the top flat surface, making sure not to hit the marble where it would actually break.

“Have you considered that the Council may not know the answers to some of your questions? That the information they have attempted to glean from said people has not proved useful?”

“Bull—manure.”

Felix laughed, a far off sound that echoed and forced sleeping birds out of the tree. “Your friend Caroline has had quite the influence on you, I believe.”

She had, but I had no plans to admit it.

Felix stepped my way, not making a single sound as he did. He took my arm in his grip and turned me so I faced him. “Listen to me, darling. I should not be saying this to you, but as one who wishes some … situations had a different ending, I shall simply put it to you. We—the Council—are baffled by certain situations. You recall Free?”

“The demon? Yeah, I thought one of you sent him up as a test for me?”

Felix’s brows came together. “No. There is no record of a request for his services by any Council member.

I stepped back, bumping into the headstone. “How’s that—”

“And the magic of your human friend?”

I waited.

“No trace. No record. Not even a whiff of an idea how.”

“But—”

Felix circled me, his trench coat flapping with his movement. “So you see, Mackenzie. Not all is as it seems in this world. Even the most powerful are often at a loss for answers.” His fingers moved to the bridge of his nose.

“Why are you telling me this all of a sudden? I mean, yeah, I want to know, but why now? Why the big change of your un-beating heart?” Until that point, none of the Council had been allowed to tell me anything I didn’t ask about. Even Winn had been bound by the stupidest laws around. Lucas and Alina, my surrogate dad and mom, weren’t even an exception.

“Because—”

I stopped him. “Your nose is bleeding, Felix.”
How is
that
possible?

His hands went to his head, gripping his hair for a moment before he let go.

“You okay?”

With his back turned, he let out a yell into the ink sky and spun, his eyes blood shot. “No.” Air seethed through his teeth. “You need to go. Run. Now.”

“What’s wrong?”

One hand raised, finger pointing toward the exit. “Go, Mackenzie!”

“Tell me what’s going on!”

Felix fell to his knees, his hands plastered to the side of his face, agony written in every smooth plane.

I dropped to him, but shifted to vampire form, too, not willing to take a chance on whatever happened to him.

“Go!” His command came out a growl.

“No!” I’d never feared any member of the Council, and I didn’t plan to start. “Tell me what I can do.”

“I need—too long—”

He needs to feed? Well, that ain’t gonna happen on me.
If it did, I’d have taken Felix’s spot without a chance to choose it. I took Felix’s hand and pulled him up; tortured lines etched in his face. “There’s got to be someone around here you can snag for a snack.”

He yanked free from me and raced off.

I followed, tracking him from the lightest touch of his feet to bracken. “Felix! Wait!”

Faster and faster he went, moving through the headstones and out across the cemetery plots, too quick for me to catch up.

I stopped, letting the smallest noise breach my hearing. Felix’s gait came from the left, so I ran that way. With at least a ten second head start, he had the lead, but in youth and strength, I’d catch up. I always did, and I wanted to know what happened.

He zigzagged right and left.

I listened, dashing as straight as possible toward his sound.

Left and right.

I continued.

At the farthest fence line, silence.

“What the hell?” I paced along the side of the wrought iron fence, from one edge and back. Felix could have easily jumped the six-foot barrier, but beyond that corner, a wide open field of wheat waited, and Felix existed nowhere within it. Hands gripped on two of the metal rungs, I kicked the bottom, sending a reverberation through that section.

“Mackenzie.”

I whirled. “What the—where did you come from?”

Lucas, my dad and Felix’s right hand man when it came to all-things-vampirish, stood behind me. My heart pounded in my chest as my own fangs lowered to their full length, muscles bunched in my thighs, and an instinctive defense took hold despite him being him.

“What’s going on, Lucas?”

He drew in a breath and let it out. “You are quick, Mackenzie.”

“Yeah, I know. But as usual, that doesn’t answer my question, and Felix was on a roll for a little while there. Where did he go?” I eyed Lucas, wondering at the switcheroo he and Felix had just played.

“He will be fine.”

“Fine? Is that vampire-speak for he found a meal? I mean, c’mon …
Dad
. Felix went all batshi—crazy and ran. He was bleeding from his nose. He’s never done that. Never, Lucas. What gives?”

“It is not of your concern.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s never ‘my concern’, even though I’m supposed to be equals with these people in less than three months.”

Lucas moved to the left; instinct had me shifting the opposite way. “I do not kid, Mackenzie.”

“No. Right. You usually have no sense of humor at all. But guess what? I’m not going anywhere until someone explains what happened. Why did Felix look like he was desperate for blood?”

“You saw that, and yet you gave chase. Why?” Lucas sidled to the right. I mimicked his movement.

“You’re not answering my question!” Frustration had me balling my fists at my side.

His head tilted left.

I threw my hands up. “He looked … hurt.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “He is a vampire. And an ancient one, as you say, with unlimited healing.”

“So.” I wagged a finger at Lucas. “You’ve been my surrogate for eighteen years, and you’ve never looked like that or acted like that. And you’re an ancient vampire, too. So …
what … gives?
”

Lucas’s smile bloomed as wide as possible given the fangs at the ready. “Only because you have not noticed. There have been many a day in which I have walked away from you. But in Felix’s case, what happened immediately prior to the incident?”

“Whatchoo mean?”

“Ah. Prior to your giving chase. What happened?”

I cocked my head at him the way he’d done. “We were just talking.”

Lucas raised a brow. “Anything in particular said?”

“Uh … well, he was telling me some … stuff.”

“Stuff, darling?”

“Answers.”

Lucas gave a small nod. “And his symptoms developed during that conversation?”

I nodded.

He stood still, his gaze on mine.

“Well?”

“Unlike Felix, I wish not to suffer the same fate.”

“So I have to guess?” A light bulb illuminated—literally—above me on one of the cemetery lamp posts. “That happened …
because
he told me? Are all of you affected by stuff like that?”

Lucas nodded.

“Oh. My. God, Lucas. That’s freakishly ridiculous!” I spun around, arms flapping, and dropped against the stone closest to me, sliding down until my butt hit the ground. “Feel free to go hide in the shadows again since I won’t get any more answers from you.”

“As you wish, but, Mackenzie?”

Angling up to him, I said, “Yeah?”

“Your teacher can ask and answer those questions. That is his role.”

“Look, Dad, Winn and I … I’m not sure there’s going to be much talking anymore. He’s done that whole honorable crap thing and walked away. Well, he said it. Sorta. So, I left.”

“May I use one unsolicited human-centric cliché, darling?”

I waved him forward.

“Where there is a will … there is a way.” He tipped his head my way, and father-daughter chat finished, Lucas faded into the night.

I didn’t want to give up, but going back to Winn seemed pointless, given we’d have to part ways anyway.

Back against a large headstone, I sank to the ground and tipped my head up, staring at the stars and wishing, for a moment, I could be something other than a Changeling.

6

Winn

The night Mac left, and Dad and I had our man-to-man chat about my mom, I dropped into the sleep of the dead. Or what I thought it might be like. Sometime during those thirty hours of unconsciousness, I’d woken, eaten, returned to bed, and remembered none of it. Twice. My dad had been all too happy to tell me all about my sleepwalking and his frantic calls to the hospital, as well as the Council, just in case there’d been a lingering effect to my afterlife visit.

On the second and third day of my return, I played catch up for the week I’d been out of school. Graduation loomed only ten weeks away, with exams and final projects all due in that time, including the project Mac and I had collaborated on for months. We still had to finish our presentation, but the report had earned us the top spot in our class for content, information gathering and source reference.

“Psst, Winn,” Zoe said as she walked past my door for the millionth time.

“What?” I asked without breaking my focus from the papers in front of me.

“Can I come in?” Her voice held a conspiratorial whisper.

I scribbled the final notes on my Calculus homework.”Sure.”

A tap on the shoulder had me jumping and spinning.

Zoe giggled. “Did I scare you?”

She had. I shook off the moment. “Of course not. What do you want?”

With her lip between her teeth she said, “Do you think Dad will let me go to prom?”

As her older brother, and one who’d thought about asking Mac but had decided against it, I wanted to say, ‘No way’, but knowing my dad the way I did, I figured he’d let her. “Why? With who?”