“If you can make it so serial killers can’t move just by glaring at them or whatever, then you could have just forced anyone into obeying you, right? If someone started asking questions, I mean. You could have made them stop. You could have made them forget all about it.”
“Eli—”
“You know what I find funny?”
“Near-death experiences?”
“You’ve told me you never lie. And maybe that’s how it is with other people—I have no idea. I think I’m finally starting to understand you a little more, and I think that’s probably true. Or at least, youthinkit is. You probably don’t ever lie to anyone on purpose.” Then he paused, and his smile vanished. Something in his expression went much softer—almost tender. “But it seems like you might lie to yourself, Nicolas. It seems like you might lie to yourself an awful lot.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE || ELI
“Burying people isn’t usually something I need to worry about,” Nicolas told me two hours later. There was a smear of dirt on his face. He struck the earth again with the shovel he held between his hands, scooped another round of soil, and added it to the rapidly growing mound beside the makeshift grave we were digging.
I frowned at him. “Then how do you dispose of the bodies?”
“I don’t.” He paused. “I have a friend on the police force. When I’m…” He hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully. “When I’m done with my victims, I put a drop of blood on their wounds to heal the bite marks. Then I call him. He comes in and gets to play hero.”
“And it just looks like… these guys dropped dead?”
“Well, naturally, I had to hypnotize the medical examiner as well, to ignore the blood loss. But yes.”
“Why are we burying Morgan Peterson, then?”
“Because it’s too obvious he was murdered,” Nicolas said, glancing over at the body beside the hole. It was covered with a blue tarp—a mercy I was grateful for. “And that inhuman force was used to do it.”
“Right,” I said dully. “Too many people would see the body and know something supernatural happened. You wouldn’t beable to predict who saw it and who didn’t. It would be harder to cover your tracks.”
“Exactly,” he replied with a tight nod. His expression was troubled. “But I’m more than capable of doing this on my own. You don’t need to be party to it any more than you already are.”
“I know,” I said, heaving my own mound of dirt with the shovel I was gripping. Sweat beaded across my brow. Even though we were deep in the national forest—an hour outside Los Angeles and surrounded by the shade of dozens of trees—it was still well over ninety degrees. “Trust me, it’s not exactly how I planned on spending my day.”
“Right. You thought you were going to break into a serial killer’s home so you could surprise your vampire boyfriend in the act of feeding on him.”
Ignoring his pointed sarcasm, I shrugged. “I guess this is probably about what I should have expected for my afternoon, then.”
“Why did you come to Morgan Peterson’s house, Eli? Let’s start there.”
I paused and glanced over to find that he had stopped digging and was now watching me steadily. His expression was unreadable. He had been very quiet the entire drive up, but apparently he wanted to talk now.
“I needed to see you in action,” I said honestly. “I thought if I could do that, maybe it would scare me enough that I could walk away from you.”
“But you’re still here,” he pointed out. I didn’t miss the way his grip tightened on the shovel.
“Yeah,” I snorted, shaking my head. “Because Ididsee you in action, Nicolas.”
“That wasn’t me,” he protested—although I felt, rather than heard, the doubt threaded through his words. “Not really.”
“You aren’t sure of that, are you?” I demanded, narrowing my gaze at him. “Nicolas, what aren’t you telling me?”
He grimaced. “I keep forgetting how perceptive you are. It’s rather remarkable.”
“I’m also smart enough not to let you change the subject by flattering me.” I paused. “So, why the doubt?”
“I’ve killed for eight centuries,” Nicolas said quietly, giving in after a long pause. His too-blue eyes searched mine. “And I never doubted myself. Not even once.”
Unease threaded through me at his words.
Eight centuries…
