Part 16 (1/2)
Uncertain and confused, she shuffled the papers. Ever since Mark's death, she'd had a clear direction, a purpose fueled by grief and hatred. Now her world tipped upside down.
How could she have lived all those months with an impostor? She'd memorized everything about Mark in her efforts to please him. The cornflakes he liked for breakfast, how he sang while he paid the bills, the way he rose early in the morning to jog along the river...
How he started treating her after that day. His solicitous concern, when he'd never shown any previously. How he started leaving at night. The front door closing. Mark walking inside, the distinct coppery smell filling her nostrils. The tiny fear seizing her that Mark was different. And dismissing it. Because she really hadn't known her brother after all.
The very idea she'd blithely accepted a Morph as Mark stripped away all her confidence. He was her only family. Indifferent, tolerating her with sometimes amus.e.m.e.nt, sometimes boredom. Stricken, Jamie realized she was better off alone. She felt herself crumble into a thousand tiny, shattered pieces, jagged and sharp, cutting her insides. Damian kept insisting how important family was, how family was everything.
Not to her. Family meant indifferent, greedy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who shape-s.h.i.+fted into cruel, horrible creatures.
The skin on her lower back began to itch, as if the long-ago mark placed there by her cousins was fresh. She glanced at Damian. Speculation shadowed his gaze. He was going to probe, ask questions, bring up the past.
No. She lifted her shoulders in a casual shrug. ”Mark's gone now. No point in talking about this anymore.”
”Why were you in that building so late, Jamie? Did Mark tell you to go there?”
At her nod, he swore softly. ”The Morph had to get you out of your house because of the s.h.i.+eld prohibiting anyone from performing dark magick. He took you there for a reason, chere. He was probably going to kill you.”
Her chest felt hollow with panic. Jamie swallowed hard, recognizing the pure logic of his words. She'd trusted her brother, would do anything he said, had been desperate for his approval, h.e.l.l, anyone's approval, and...Why would he drag her out in the dead of night?
The line blurred between black and white, Damian the murderer and Mark the kindhearted. Her brother was a Morph. Damian killed it to save her skin. She'd lived with evil for months, never seeing it clearly. Not until she willingly embraced it herself.
The consequences of her actions slammed into her like a cannonball. Had she not acted impulsively, propelled by emotion to run away after Mark's death instead of stopping to question, she wouldn't be in this predicament. But she sought revenge, turned to evil and darkness, and now suffered from a spell threatening to turn her into stone, living but dead.
Panic and disbelief burned through her. Jamie stood, blinded by grief, rage and self-disgust. She bolted out of the room, racing through the hallway, out the back door. In the courtyard, she collapsed onto a chair, hung her head.
Tears did not come. Instead, she held herself, rocking back and forth. Heard the back door slam, sensed Damian draw near.
”Get away from me,” she said dully. ”Just go away. There's nothing good about me you could want. Just, please, let me go.”
”I will never let you go. You're my life now.” Damian drew up a chair, faced her. ”You acted out of grief and loyalty, just as I would. I wish I had found you sooner, to spare you all this. Maybe if I had searched harder, wanted more, I could have.”
All the blame rested with her, yet he blamed himself. Sorrow etched his expression. Stricken by his unguarded emotion and her own tumultuous feelings, Jamie examined her gray fingernails.
”I'm going to die, aren't I? Because of what I did, what I let happen to me.”
A matter-of-fact statement, black-and-white. Damian's mouth thinned. ”Not if we can help it. We'll find a way, I promise, we will find the book and a way out. But your powers...We have to discuss this, Jamie. You have extraordinary abilities, one reason you're probably my mate. But using these powers, they're expediting the spell.”
”Then let's talk. Maybe your brothers know why this is happening to me.”
Back inside, the brothers acted as if her outburst never happened. Jamie settled onto the couch, Damian beside her. His presence felt rea.s.suring, a st.u.r.dy rock in her windswept sea of emotions. She looked them all over.
”Okay, you have knowledge I don't. Can you tell me why I'm getting these abilities all of the sudden? I'm human.”
Alexandre lounged in his chair, his eyes sharp, calculating. ”Maybe not. You could be a throwback to the original race, before our kind divided in half to lessen our powers.”
”Tell me something.” Her gaze raked over all of them. ”How did those Morphs track us last night? It seems like they're trailing Damian's every move.”
Raphael frowned. ”I've been thinking the same. My guys have tracked their every move on the computer and there's a pattern. Wherever Damian shows up, they're there. It's like you have a GPS chip implanted in you, t'frere.”
”Or a Morph chip.” Alexandre's sulky gaze landed on her.
Suspicion etched their expressions. She'd tried killing their brother, lived among evil. A likely target. ”If it were me, I'd sense them. I could before ingesting Damian's magick. Now I can't tell what's a Morph anymore.”
Briefly Damian explained about her ability to spot them.
”Maybe they have a sophisticated system in place. You do.” She pointed at Raphael. ”So why wouldn't they use technology? Or use yours against you?”
”Our system is hack-proof,” Raphael said tightly.
”Nothing is hack-proof. But leave that for later. I want to show you something first.”
Jamie went upstairs to her bedroom, fetched her laptop and went back. Sitting beside Damian, she powered up.
He glanced over her shoulder. ”You're tracking down something,” he guessed, frowning at the text on the screen. ”Is this computer code?”
”Yeah. When I was on Renee's laptop, I made a mental note of the browsing history. There was one Web page that caught my eye, in addition to the sites listing antique shops. A MyPlace page.”
She brought up the page. Against the black background were scrolling photos of music celebrities, video showing a popular rap star. The site belonged to someone called ”Rocker 21 NOW.” It resembled a typical page for a music-obsessed teen.
”This Web page is actually a means of communicating in code with others who know the key to the code.” Jamie glanced at him. ”Someone you know is tracking our moves. Someone is receiving covert direct orders. Someone familiar with computer technology.”
Damian looked at her screen. ”How can you tell?”
”Each Web page is written in computer code, like HTML or Java. Anyone familiar with programming can understand the code. But I checked this page's computer code and there is encrypted text, like a secret message-symbols I can't decipher. I think this is how the intruder is communicating, and giving directions on what to do next.”
”d.a.m.n,” Raphael said softly.
”Which means we have a spy.” Alexandre withdrew a knife from a sheath at his waist. The blade reflected the hard edges of his sharp profile. His gaze flicked to her. ”When we catch him, leave him...or her...to me. Whoever it is will pay.”
Blood drained from her face as she stared at the knife and his fierce expression.
Damian lifted her chin with his fingers, his touch light and rea.s.suring. She breathed in his delicious scent, blocking out all else. ”Jamie, pay no attention. I won't let anyone hurt you.” He shot Alexandre a warning look.
The other Draicon sheathed the blade. The brothers bid them goodbye and left.
When the door shut, she breathed a little easier, shut off the laptop. Damian leaned back, his thighs spilling open, his arms splayed over the couch's back. He looked in control, s.e.xy as h.e.l.l and confident. But emotion flashed in his eyes as he gazed at her gray hair.
”Get dressed. We need to find the next clue. We'll pick up breakfast and coffee on the way.”
Chapter 11.
T hey found the number of paddle-wheel revolutions on the Natchez, then returned to the house later that afternoon. When he gave her another mysterious c.o.c.ktail, she knew it was his blood, but drank it. Grayness fled her nails, but not her hair. Damian insisted on her resting. He had to leave for a while with his brother Etienne, but Etienne's wife, Cindy, and their children would be in the house. She'd be perfectly safe as nothing unwanted could get inside, Damian a.s.sured her.
Then he'd told her his family dined formally at seven. Jamie felt a yawning pit open in her stomach. Family dinners. No way.
She fell instantly asleep on the soft, acre-wide feather bed. What seemed like hours later, something tickled her nose.