Chapter 35

The sound of laughter cut through the clank of glasses and the crush of peanut shells under foot, mingling with the crooning sound of music sung in a Slovak language she didn’t speak as Jo tried not to breathe in the smoky air. Crossing the bar wasn’t as difficult this time since this establishment wasn’t as crowded as the one she’d first met Ryker in, and the lights were up, perhaps in an attempt to allow patrons to spot pointy teeth before they became a problem. Or maybe it was the fact that this tavern was attached to a hotel, unlike the seedy back alley haunt Ryker normally played cards in. Either way, she wasn’t impressed with his ability to pick watering holes and would’ve just as soon left him behind when her team pulled out of town. But she’d more or less made a promise she would look after him, and even though he’d been the one to take off without telling them where he was going, she still felt the pull of obligation. At least, that’s what she was telling herself had brought her there.
With her hands shoved deep into her jacket pockets, she made her way over to him and slumped down on an empty barstool next to where he sat, hunched over, picking through a bowl of peanuts with one hand as the other clenched a half-empty bottle. “No poker tonight?” she asked, her eyes shifting for a second to the game going on across the room.
“Nah. I already took enough of these bastards’ money.”
She didn’t need to see the cash to know that was true. Adjusting her foot on the bottom rung of the stool, she shifted her weight, not exactly sure what to say to him. Her team was leaving in a few minutes, on their way to a hotel closer to the next X on the map, and he needed to go with them. Unless he didn’t mind dying. They weren’t far enough away from the village where she’d found him that the mob wouldn’t hunt him down eventually, especially now that the Vampires had to know someone from there was responsible for ratting out their location. If the angry humans didn’t get him, the bloodsuckers would.
“How’d you find me?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts of how to tell him he had to go with them with a question it hadn’t even occurred to her he’d ask.
“What do you mean? Do you think I haven’t known where you’ve been all damn day?”
He shrugged and cracked open a peanut with one hand, tossing the shell on the floor and the fruit into his mouth. “I didn’t ask you when you found me. I asked you how.”
Jo snickered and ran a hand through her hair, which was difficult since it was tied back in a ponytail. “I have eyes everywhere, man. That’s how I roll.” She would just as soon not tell him the truth, if she could avoid it, but something told her this guy wasn’t going to accept that answer.
He didn’t. “What eyes did you have on me?”
She stared at him for a moment, contemplating whether or not a lie would fool him. Deciding that it wouldn’t, she decided to just be honest for a change. “My aunt. She can read minds. She wasn’t spying on you all day, though. Just letting me know you were still here. After she found you.”
His eyelashes didn’t even seem to flutter as he took that in. “She can read minds?” he finally said. “Like some sort of a fucking Vampire?”
“Uh… yeah. Exactly like that.”
“Is your aunt a fucking Vampire?”
Jo bit back a laugh--not at the content of the question but his unchanging expression and the anger with which the question was asked. “No. She’s a Hybrid.”
“What the fuck is a Hybrid?”
“Is that your favorite word?”
“Most days. I have others I like.” He shrugged then and took a drink of his beer. The weight of his stare shifting off of her face was welcome.
“A Hybrid is a half-Vampire, half-Vampire Hunter.” She contemplated telling him more, but since he hadn’t asked--yet--she stopped.
He took another drink, found another peanut. Jo glanced into the bowl, the stench of mildew invading her lungs. It looked as if those peanuts had been there since before her dad was born--before the Great Irish Potato Famine. “How did that happen?” he asked, the angst from earlier seeming to dry up.
“I’m not exactly sure. Some Vampire scratched her, and rather than letting her become a dirty bloodsucker, one of our Healers, Jamie, Scott’s dad--you don’t know him,” she was rambling, “decided to give her the serum to change her into a Hunter instead. But somehow she ended up being both. Or neither.”
“Huh. And I thought I’d heard of everything.”
“I doubt that,” she murmured, looking away from him toward the bartender who was busy with other customers. She didn’t need a beer anyway. She wanted one, but she didn’t need one. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t even heard of everything, and I have her for an aunt and an uncle who can’t die, so….” She shrugged, her voice trailing off, watching his eyebrows arch. That beer was sounding better by the moment.
“Everyone can die,” he said, looking away from her as he finished his beer. Ryker wasn’t shy about getting the bartender’s attention. When he signaled for two more, she was relieved and thankful, but then it occurred to her that he might want both of them for himself….
“Technically, I guess that’s true. He can die. Just not on Earth. There was this other Guardian who went through the Blue Moon Portal, same as my uncle, and he couldn’t die while he was here, but apparently, he got killed by a demon while he was in the Blood Moon Portal, so it is possible for them to die. Just not here.”
Ryker was looking at her as if they didn’t live in a world full of bloodsucking monsters, as if he wasn’t sitting next to a woman who could run at least fifteen times faster than him and see through walls. The only thing that pulled his eyes off of her was the bartender delivering the beers. When he pushed one over to her, Jo thanked him and took a gulp.
He took a drink of his as well, slower, and then set his bottle down before he muttered, “That’s some weird shit. But then… there isn’t much about this world that isn’t weird shit anymore.”
“That’s the truth.” Jo took another drink of her beer then set it down. “Anyway, we found a map at the location you tipped us off to, and we’re moving out. You’ll have to come with us.” She tried to sound assertive, as if she were somehow the boss of him, the way she was somehow the boss of everyone else all of a sudden, but her voice wavered slightly, which caused him to snicker. She knew he was going to refuse before he even opened his mouth.
“Forget it, sister. I’m fine right here.”
Jo looked around. “Sure, maybe you are for a while, but eventually, those townsfolk are going to catch up to you, especially since we wiped out every Vampire on that site, except for one. And he’ll squeal. The bloodsuckers will go back to your little village, start taking those assholes out, and the ones that live will come looking for you.”
Ryker swiveled on his barstool. “You let one get away?”
“I sent one away,” she corrected, trying not to smile as she recalled the message she’d sent the little bastard off with. It had been clever, if she did say so herself.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Ryker asked, raising his voice a little too loudly for her taste. Several people situated nearby turned to look in their direction.
Jo tried to control her temper. “What are you talking about? I had to let him go. I had a message that needed delivered. So… I sent him off with it.”
“And now I’m going to die.”
She stared at him for a moment, her beer in her hand. “Nothing has changed, Ryker. They have telepathy. Either way, they’d find out the Vampires were slaughtered and look to that village for answers. It’s the closest to the cave, and they had to know who they had a deal with. The villagers are shit out of luck. You know that. But you won’t be dead if you come with me. I already promised I’d keep you alive, and I meant it.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure I trust you, princess,” he said with a growl. “In my experience, your type is almost as ruthless as the damn monsters you’re fighting.”
His words stung a little. “You a member of the American congress?” she asked, scowling at him.
Ryker shook his head and finished his beer, no longer jovial in any way, shape, or form. “I don’t need you to keep me safe. I’m fine.”
“You just said you were dead a minute ago. What’s changed?”
He didn’t answer, only pulled some wadded up bills from the pocket of his pants and dropped them on the counter. He stood and pulled on his coat.
Jo gulped down the rest of her beer and grabbed hold of his arm. “Ryker, I’m serious. We’re moving on, and you should come with us. I don’t want you to get hurt because of what my team is doing.”
He looked at her hand where it rested on the crook of his elbow. With that much fur between his arm and her hand, he likely couldn’t even feel her, but she pulled her hand away anyway, just in case he was really even half as annoyed as he seemed. “Why in the world would I want to go hangout with a bunch of supernatural freaks who don’t need to eat or sleep or take a piss like I do?”
“Wow--you really know nothing about us, do you? I do all of those things. In fact, I’m exhausted right now. It’s true the Guardians don’t sleep much, but some of them eat--a lot. And all of us have normal bodily functions.”
Again, he was staring at her, trying to size her up, she assumed. “Be that as it may, there are clearly a lot of differences between your kind and mine. I don’t want to be the only human in a car full of weirdos.”
It was clear he was trying to make her angry by hurling insults at her. It wouldn’t work, though. She knew she wasn’t human. She hadn’t been since she was fifteen. Maybe even before that. She’d always felt the potential for becoming something else pulsating through her veins. “Ryker, you don’t have to become a member of our band. You’re not joining a fraternity. We’re just trying to keep you from becoming one of them or biting it completely before your time. Besides, you helped us once before. Maybe you’ll be able to help us again. We’ve found out some information, but none of us can figure out what it means.”
“Information?” She had his attention now. Clearly, the man liked to be important, even if she was pacifying him at the moment. “What kind of information?”
“I’d really rather not talk about it in here. The guys are waiting in the Jeep in the parking lot. Let’s go talk about it out there. We’ll be staying at a nicer hotel tonight, and then tomorrow the rest of the team is going to meet with us so we can go get an idea of what we’re up against.” She knew she wouldn’t be able to get as close a look twice. The other Vampires would’ve heard about the raid by now, and they’d be looking for anything suspicious. But she’d have to at least attempt to scout out the location ahead of time.
“Shit,” Ryker muttered under his breath, and then she knew she had him.
“Come on,” she said, gesturing with her hand, but not tugging on him. He made it obvious he didn’t like it when she touched him, which was only slightly more offensive than all the names he’d called her and her friends.
Reluctantly, Ryker began to move with her toward the door. He would go with her, at least for a little while, but she knew he wouldn’t stay unless she forced him to. Once he’d satiated his curiosity as to what they’d discovered in the cave, he’d take off again. Short of her tying him up or locking him in a closet, there was no way she could keep Ryker from becoming his own worst enemy. As they walked outside into the bitter cold, he hunkered down against the wind, tipping his head. She forgot to pretend to be cold and just walked normally, wondering why it was this Ryker fellow seemed to have a death wish.