Third Strike (15 page)

C
onsciousness tugged at Joss, whispering into his ear with the sounds of the world. Sounds of movement, voices, machinery. Joss fought it off as long as he could, not wanting to wake in a world where he had just killed his sister, wanting only to float in the haze of nowhere and nothing and pretend that he wasn't the worst person on the face of the earth.

Henry had been right, after all. He was a monster. A monster of the worst sort. The kind of monster that exhibits no loyalty, no kindness, no love at all. It didn't matter that his action had been a fluke, a terrible accident. What mattered was that he had done it. He had murdered Cecile. And he didn't feel at all justified or relieved that he'd saved his sister from the life of a monster. Not like he thought that he would. Instead, he felt terrible that he'd killed Cecile, in whatever form she'd existed in. He hadn't saved her at all. He'd murdered her. And now nothing would be all right in his life ever again.

To his left he could hear a soft beeping noise and the faint hush of something else, a breezy noise that Joss found strangely comforting. To his right, he heard the faint, filtered sounds of traffic in the distance. As consciousness tugged harder, he realized that he was lying on a bed, a soft pillow supporting his heavy head, his left arm aching slightly at the bend, his left shoulder throbbing with pain. The air smelled uncomfortably medicinal. Hospital. He was in the hospital. Of that, there was no doubt.

As Joss reluctantly peeled his eyes open, he was greeted by the sight of a slender, redheaded nurse checking various numbers on a screen near the head of his bed. When she noticed that he was waking, she smiled broadly. “Well, good morning, Mister McMillan. I was wondering when you'd be joining us.”

“How long have I been here?” His throat burned from dryness.

“Oh, just about five hours or so. But the doctor wants you to be kept overnight for observation. Are you in any pain?” As Joss shook his head, she turned his left arm gently to the side and examined his IV. When she was finished, she patted his hand gently. “You're very lucky that your cousin was there when you fell out of that tree, y'know. And luckier still that that fallen branch didn't stab you just a few inches over, or we wouldn't be having this conversation.”

A tree. Joss hadn't fallen out of a tree. It must have been a story concocted by Henry. How had he gotten to the hospital? What had happened after he'd lost consciousness in the woods? And why hadn't Paty found his unconscious form and finished him off?

Against his will, two images flashed in his mind. Cecile, lying on her bed, a thin line of blood running from the corner of her mouth to her pink ballerina sheets. Cecile, lying on the forest floor, Joss's stake sticking out of her chest. With a gasp, he blinked the images away and met the nurse's gaze. “Is Henry here? My cousin. Can I see him?”

The nurse smiled and walked out the door. When she returned, it was only long enough to hold the door open for Joss's parents. Joss's mom rushed to his bedside, her cheeks streaked with tears. As she rambled on about how much she loved him and how relieved she was that he was okay and awake now, she brushed his hair back from his forehead, stroking it a little too roughly. Joss looked to his dad for help, but even as his dad pulled his mom away gently, Joss reveled in the attention. Joss's dad reached across the bed and gave Joss's arm a light squeeze. “We thought we'd lost you.”

“I'm okay, guys. Really.” Looking between them, he was surprised to see the concerned sorrow on their faces. Guilt filled him for not trusting his parents to worry about him, but he couldn't help it.

His mom moved closer, but refrained from manhandling him again. When she met his gaze, Joss was shocked to see lucidity in her eyes. The haze, for the moment, was gone. Her voice, when she spoke, was one of promise. “Come home, Joss. I promise everything will be better. Just come home, okay?”

She bent down and hugged him, and after a moment of surprised hesitation, Joss hugged her back, ignoring the pain. Some pains were worth it.

Once they'd parted, Joss said, “Can I see Henry? I want to thank him.”

“Of course,” His dad said as he ushered his mom to the door. “Of course, son.”

Son. Because that's what Joss was. It wasn't a falsehood this time. It wasn't some play they were putting on for family and friends. His dad had meant it.

His parents stepped out into the hall. A moment later, Henry walked through the door and closed it behind him. He moved close to the bed, his eyes full of concern. “Hey.”

Joss pressed the button on the side of his bed until he was sitting upright. “Hey.”

Henry shifted his eyes to the IV bag before looking directly at Joss. “You okay?”

Joss shrugged. When he did, a hot pain tore through his shoulder. He gritted his teeth and said, “I guess. The nurse said you saw me fall out of a tree.”

“Yeah, that's what I've been telling people. I saw everything, Joss. After the whole thing with Kat, I realized you'd disappeared, so I started looking for you. When I found you, I saw you and that woman fighting, but before I could help or anything, she'd staked you.” The next words he spoke were but a whisper of shock. “Was . . . was that really Cecile?”

“Yeah. It turns out she didn't die back then after all. She's a vampire. Or . . . she was.” The image of Cecile lying dead on the forest floor threatened to resurface in his memories then, but Joss clamped down on his thoughts and did all that he could to keep them at bay.

“I'm so sorry.” Henry's eyes glistened, even in the low light of Joss's hospital room.

Joss nodded his gratitude, for Henry's empathy and for bringing him to the hospital, despite the fact that they'd been at odds. For being his brother, the way he'd always been. “What about Kat? Is she okay?”

Upon hearing Kat's name, Henry's jaw tightened some, the threat of tears drying in his eyes. It was clear to Joss that whatever feelings that Henry had had for Kat had completely evaporated since Joss had seen them last. “She's fine. Being slammed against that building stunned her a bit, but no real harm was done. Apart from a broken wrist, that is.”

Henry shrugged casually, but Joss could tell that his encounter with Kat had deeply troubled him. But Henry had a need to appear strong, and Joss respected that. “Anyway, when she recovered, before I ran off after you, I demanded to know why she was trying to kill me and why she hated you so much. She swore you're evil to the core and trying to eradicate vampires everywhere.”

Joss sank down some in the hospital bed. He furrowed his brow, wondering how right or wrong Kat might be.

With a heavy sigh, Henry said, “After a while, I just walked away. Because I know there's good in you, Joss. And if Kat can't see that, then good riddance.”

Joss could hardly believe what he was hearing. Not only had Henry
not
chosen a seriously cute girl over him, Henry had given him that solid glimmer of hope that he'd been desperately searching for ever since their freshman year—hope that someday their relationship might be repaired. It was all that he'd ever wanted from his cousin. Apart from assuring Henry's safety, of course. “Please be careful who you choose as friends.”

Henry nodded. “I will. So long as you do the same.”

Joss extended his hand, shaking Henry's in his. “Deal.”

Joss started to pull away, but Henry tightened his grip on Joss's hand, meeting his eyes. “We're brothers, Joss. We've always been more like brothers than cousins. Nothing can change that. But we can't really be friends until you open your mind and realize that all of one type of people are not the same. We can't be close again until you learn to let go of your prejudice. I need you to understand that.”

Joss did understand that. But he didn't think that Henry had it right, exactly. His thoughts had been shifting, especially this summer, and now Joss wasn't sure how he felt about vampires or Slayers. He didn't know if it was such a terrible thing to view Vlad as his friend, the way that the Slayer Society had taught him. He didn't know if mourning Sirus or looking back fondly on his conversations with Dorian were wrong. He only knew that he did those things, and that when he did, a certain sense of satisfaction had come from them. So maybe he and Henry were closer than he thought to reclaiming their friendship.

With a meaningful look exchanged between them, Henry released his grip and slipped out the door. As he did so, another man stepped inside the room past him, but Henry didn't seem to notice him at all. Joss, however, did.

“It's nice to see you again, my young friend.”

Joss instantly recognized the copper hair, the curious smile, the sparkling eyes. He couldn't help but smile a little himself at the sight of his strange, occasional companion. “Dorian . . . what are you doing here?”

A sudden twinge of fear entered him—one that wondered if the moment had come, the moment when he would take Dorian's life. But upon seeing Dorian's smile spread, Joss's panic was set at ease. Not yet, he told himself. Not yet.

“I come bearing a gift for you. A very precious gift. One I suspect you very much need.” Ever so slowly, Dorian brought his hand from behind his back, drawing out from behind him a beautiful blue-eyed girl with cascading blond curls. She looked like Cecile. But she couldn't be Cecile. Because Cecile was dead. At her brother's hand.

“Jossie!” The girl squealed and ran across the room, throwing herself into Joss's arms. Joss inhaled her vanilla scent and realized that it was true. This was his sister. But how?

Cradling Cecile to his chest and ignoring the pain radiating from his shoulder, Joss looked over his sister to Dorian. “How? How did she survive?”

“I healed her with my blood. The least that I could do, considering the things that I have done. To you, my boy. To your family.” A look of shame crossed his eyes then. One that Joss didn't fully understand. “The healing properties of vampire blood are widely known in Elysia. One can snatch a person back from the brink of death with merely a taste. And taste my blood she did.”

Joss almost asked whether Cecile was human or vampire, but stopped himself. It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all. Human. Vampire. These were just words. Cecile was his sister, and that's all that mattered to him.

Cecile had a small voice, as she nuzzled into his chest. “I'm sorry I tried to kill you, Jossie. Em was making me. She told me if I didn't that she'd kill us both. And Mommy and Daddy, too.”

He kissed the top of her head, stroking her hair. It was all right. None of it mattered. All that mattered was that Cecile was still alive.

Dorian glanced at her, a look of absolute empathy on his face. His words came out softly, almost as a coo. “None of that is your fault, little one. This entire situation . . . it's all due to my actions. And my time has run regrettably short, considering what will happen over the course of the next year.”

Joss was about to ask what Dorian had meant by that when Dorian turned his attention back to Joss and said, “I owe you an apology, my young friend. An apology that I could not give you—not until this moment, though I'm afraid it will not be an easy apology for me to give. I'm not one who normally is prone to regret, you see. But there are two things that I have done in my lifetime which I deeply regret, and this is one of them. And for that, I must apologize.”

“For what?”

“It was me, you see,” The look in Dorian's eyes was haunted, unlike anything that Joss had ever seen him express before. “That night . . . I was the vampire who took your sister from you those years ago.”

Joss's heart hammered inside his chest, despite the calming effects of the pain medication. It was Dorian. When he stretched back his memory to that night, he could see only fog in place of Cecile's attacker's face. But it had been Dorian looming over her, after all.

“I took her.” The words shook from Dorian's lips, further disturbing Joss. He hadn't seen such uncertainty or guilt from his strange vampire companion before. Dorian's words came out in near-whispers. “Though I'd been sent to do much worse. Em had instructed me to kill every child in that house, to do what I could to prevent another Slayer from being trained. I tried and began to feed, but before I could take her life, I sensed something . . . a presence . . .
you
, my dear boy.”

The vampire in Cecile's room that night had looked at him. It had touched his forehead, and said kind words. But the moment, the actions had terrified Joss and shook him to the core even these years later. Somehow, Dorian had made Joss forget his face, with only a single touch.

Dorian nodded slowly, agreeing with his silent assessment. “The moment I saw your face, I recognized you to be the boy from my nightmares, my dreams, my wonderful, terrifying visions. To my strangely mixed feeling of horror and glee, I knew that Cecile would be the driving force behind you training to become a Slayer. It was I who turned your sister into a vampire.”

Joss clutched Cecile to him, covering her ears instinctively, as if it would protect her from the knowledge of what she was. His eyes burned with furious tears. “How could you, Dorian? How could you?”

“You are familiar with Vladimir Tod, but you are not yet familiar with the prophecy which surrounds him. The prophecy of the Pravus. Even though you have such an important part to play in that prophecy, Joss. As do I.”

“In what way?” Joss's throat felt parched and overly warm, like it had been burned by hot liquid.

“I must die at the hands of a Slayer—at your hands, Joss McMillan. In order for my vision to come to pass, you had to be trained. In order for you to develop the drive to train, I had to take Cecile's life. I had no choice. I am a slave to this prophecy, as are all who are involved in it. Entangled in it . . . as it were.” Dorian looked troubled, but very much like he understood that he richly deserved Joss's wrath, if that's what Joss decided to give him. “I had a daughter once. Long ago. Cecile reminds me too much of her. Her sweetness, her innocence. I found that I couldn't bring myself to kill your sister, but due to the prophecy, I had no choice but to make you think that I had. So in the end, I took her human life and gifted her with the life of a vampire. You've actually known the entire time, having witnessed my actions. It's been lurking in your subconscious these years, resurfacing again and again in the form of nightmares.”