Night
I bandaged my feet and squeezed them into boots, ignoring the sting. No dresses waited for me in the closet, just one style of pantsuit so similar to Jack’s it might have been a matching pair. I scowled at the garment, but with my only other option being the bloodstained resistance clothes, I reluctantly layered up.
“He’s not a host,” I told my room. “I don’t know how, but he got his claws into you. I’ll get him out.”
I spotted the covered mirror and ripped the sheet off, now that it was no longer required. The suited woman in the reflection didn’t look as I remembered. The black and purple clothing was fringed in black lace and tailored to my form perfectly, but the human in the reflection was frayed at the edges. My cheeks had hollowed some, my hair was hacked and uneven, and my eyes didn’t hold the smile I paraded on my lips.
Lynher Aris from before the bloodfarm didn’t exist. She had been naïve, but she’d been raised that way. The woman looking back at me was a stranger, but I’d figure her out. I had to.
I pulled at the hem of the waistcoat, straightening it over the silk blouse, and threw on the jacket, the final piece in a host’s armor. My knives were slotted neatly in the provided back sheaths, hidden beneath the jacket but within easy reach.
If the station didn’t want me here, it wouldn’t have provided these clothes. It would have locked all the doors, barring my entry, and snuffed out the lights. I checked the mark on my wrist and ran my thumb across the faded ink. I was the rightful host. Jack had no claim here.
“I shouldn’t have brought him back,” I told the woman in the mirror. She didn’t look pleased about any of this either. “It was a mistake. But I’ll fix all of this.”
My reflection nodded its agreement.
It was time to do battle with the vampire in my house.
I found him in my library office, behind the large and ornately carved desk. He sat in my wingback chair, making it look like a throne. I’d seen a different vampire overseer behind a desk just like that one. I’d stood in front of him in the slip of a covering, feet covered in mud, having barely escaped being bled dry and tossed into the furnace.
Now here was Jack, echoing that same damn image. But I wasn’t some slip of a girl awaiting judgment. I was the station hostess, and he was in my fucking chair.
Rage hit me so hard it burned my tongue.
Jack slowly stood.
The gas lamps along the walls flared hotter, brighter. Reacting to me or him? I couldn’t be sure, and I hated him for that too.
He raised an eyebrow at the station’s visible response.
“Get out of that chair.”
Remarkably, he grabbed his cane and stepped out from behind the desk, using the cane to gesture for me to take my place. “I have no wish to take anything from you.”
I passed him, brushing so close I heard him suck in a small breath, and claimed my place behind my desk. He stood across from me like when he’d pretended to be a normal man looking for the washroom. He’d looked plain then, boring even. Now he wore the same armor I did and absolutely looked like he belonged inside it.
“Did you kill all the ghouls infesting my station?” I asked.
“Yes.”
He’d cleared them all out? Alone? “How?”
Resting a hand on the desk, he leaned in. “You know how.”
“The same way you controlled the vampireguard.”
Even his smooth acknowledging nod was a statement. “This station belongs to me. The sooner you accept that, the sooner we can move forward together. The ghouls will come again. Despite my return as the host and the clear benefits that has brought, the station is vulnerable—”
I spat an empty laugh. “There cannot be two hosts.”
“Your knowledge was filtered through Gerome. He lied to you—about everything.” Jack reached into his pocket and withdrew the cracked key. Gerome’s key. He set it down on the desk between us. He’d stolen it from my drawer.
He looked up, his lined eyes so beautiful it almost hurt to witness them.
“He never told you why it was cracked, did he?” Jack waited for my reply. I stared back. “This is the first key, and it’s mine,” he said. “It was always mine. Gerome stole it and abused the power of the Night Station for his own gain. It’s cracked because he was never meant to be a host. His presence weakened this great station. His lies weakened you.”
My cheek twitched. This vampire’s words were poison. I could not let them inside, or they’d take root and twist everything around. I couldn’t physically remove him; his strength was ten times mine. If I attacked him, he’d lash out. I had to bide my time to figure out how to dislodge him.
I lowered myself into the chair, taking strength from its familiar comfort. “You killed Gerome for the key.”
“He had to be stopped.”
“Stopped? What was he doing that was so terrible? What could one mortal man do to the revered Ghost, the queen’s Chosen?”
Jack wet his lips and straightened, leaving the key between us. His lashes fluttered, and for the first time since I’d returned to find him here, his confidence cracked. “You heard that.”
“Oh, I heard everything. You summoned her power, called it to you, and used it to control the vampires about to attack you. What was it you said? ‘Our queen’s voice is mine, her will my own.’ That’s some pretty damning shit, Jack.”
He looked around the room, seeking lies. He’d been doing so well up until now, so what had stopped him? The truth, no doubt. “The past is of no use to us now. We have more pressing matters, such as what the priest will send next. You do realize he controls the ghouls?”
I blinked and recalled the way the ghouls had ignored Angelo whilst they’d flooded his hotel. “I suspected, and we’ll get to Angelo. Is the queen coming for you like before?”
He found my gaze again and pinned his to mine. The sensation reminded me of the picture in the notebook, of the butterfly dead and pinned to a board for study. “No.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Your actions in sending me to Hell severed the link between the queen and me. She believes me dead or…”
“Or?”
“I told you once what happens when we defy the queen.”
“No, I asked you why you were fighting her, and you said the alternative is worse. What does that mean?”
“Without a direct link to the queen, vampire minds devolve. You have witnessed the result of that a thousand-fold.”
The ghouls. They really were vampires the queen had either abandoned or cut off. “If you’re disconnected, why aren’t you still a ghoul, Just Jack? And it’s not just the blood. The other ghouls had plenty of blood, and they all stayed mindless.”
“Any longer and I may have stayed like them. I was barely clinging to my sanity.”
I wasn’t buying it and made sure he saw my scowl.
“Because I am…” His sharp mind grasped for the correct word, one a silly little human like me would understand. “…not like the others.”
Well, we all knew that, and it explained nothing. Besides, every word out of his mouth was a lie or the truth so twisted it was basically a lie. Of course he would tell me Gerome was bad. Of course he’d lie and tell me the queen wasn’t coming. He wanted me to think him safe. Wanted me to believe we were friends because he had a key and the station let him go anywhere he pleased.
I stared back at the monster across my desk, dressed up as though he were performing for an audience. And he was. An audience of one. As a host, I knew the role crafted lie upon lie, and if he was so adamant he was a host too, then we were both masters of the lie. If he wanted to play host, so be it. At least this was a game for which I knew all the rules.
May the best host win.
“We want the same thing,” he said.
“And that is?”
“To keep this station safe. To keep it out of the queen’s hands.”
Bullshit. He wanted power. All the Dark Ones wanted power, and my station was a temptation few could resist.
“That makes us allies,” he continued in his suave, smooth English voice. “You cannot deny that apart, we are both legends. Imagine the wonder we’ll accomplish together?”
He thought he knew me. He thought me easily pliable because he’d had his teeth in my throat and all humans were food. But he hadn’t truly seen me at my best. I was Lynher Aris, Hostess Extraordinaire, and the queen’s special toy had no idea who he truly played his game with.
“All right.” I extended my hand over the cracked key. Jack’s smile grew. He wrapped his hand around mine, and we shook. “Welcome to the Night Station.”