Cliff’s Descent by Dianne Duvall

Chapter Seventeen

A breeze cooled Cliff’s warm skin as four vampires shriveled up at his feet.

Bending down, he used the shirttail of one to wipe the blood from his blades before he slid them into their respective sheaths.

“Any wounds I should know about?” Bastien asked.

Cliff shook his head. “You?”

“No.”

He didn’t have to look to know his friend’s gaze followed his every move as Cliff collected the fallen vampires’ weapons.

Almost a week had passed since he’d fucked up Whetsman so much that the man had suffered traumatic brain damage even Seth couldn’t reverse. Cliff had no memory of it. He remembered being with Emma the night before, then… nothing… until he woke up in the infirmary with Bastien, Melanie, and Linda hovering over him while the German immortal Alleck loitered nearby.

Apparently Whetsman had been mind controlled by Gershom into stealing vials of the sedative that could be used to knock out Immortal Guardians. Linda had thought his behavior in the lab odd, noticed some vials were missing, and followed Whetsman out to his SUV to ask him about them. When she confronted him, Whetsman shot her with a 9mm equipped with a suppressor Gershom must have given him and left her to bleed out in his back seat while everyone inside remained unaware.

According to what everyone had been able to piece together, Cliff had been restlessly prowling sublevel 5 when he noticed specks of blood that smelled of Linda on Whetsman and went medieval on his ass. No one had known what had instigated the attack, however, until Seth scrutinized Cliff’s thoughts.

Cliff couldn’t bring himself to overly regret hurting Whetsman. The bastard had almost killed Linda. But the guards…

The constant acidic burn in his belly worsened.

He’d injured so many men in his blind determination to get to Whetsman. Guards on sublevel 5 who had previously been friendly and shot the breeze with him now tensed at his appearance and watched him warily. At Cliff’s request, Reordon had shown him footage of it, from the time Cliff had left his apartment until the second he’d collapsed in the lobby, where Todd and John had had to restrain some of the guards topside to keep them from shoving his unconscious form out into the sunlight.

Cliff thought the guards had been more than justified in calling for his death. But surprisingly Reordon had disagreed and had torn into the men when he’d arrived on the scene.

It had come as quite a shock. Reordon was very protective of those who worked for him. Cliff would’ve thought he’d be calling for his head after seeing the damage Cliff had wrought. But he hadn’t. Reordon had even allowed Bastien to resume taking Cliff hunting, though he’d put an end to Cliff’s eating lunch on sublevel 1.

“I hate to do it,” he’d told Cliff in the privacy of his soundproof boardroom, “but there were some civilians in the stairwell you stormed up—”

“I didn’t hurt any, did I?” Cliff had asked with alarm.

“No. You just scared the hell out of them. And I can’t chance your having a psychotic break like that on sublevel 1. Dealing with that isn’t part of the civilians’ job description. The guards, on the other hand, all know their position is dangerous. They know what they’ve signed up for. They’re aware of the risks. And they agreed to take them. That’s why I reassigned the guards who wanted to roast you to desk jobs at another location that will bore the pants off them.”

“I injured some of their colleagues.”

“And they knew that could happen. What they did was the equivalent of someone signing up to work at a mental health facility that cares for patients with psychological disorders that cause violent tendencies, then beating the shit out of the patients if they become violent. It was bullshit.”

Cliff hadn’t really thought about it like that. Turning to Bastien now, he held up the weapons he’d collected. “What do you want me to do with these? This dagger isn’t bad, but the rest are crap.”

Bastien produced a bag for the weapons and personal belongings of the vampires. Since the two of them had caught the vampires before they could pounce on the unsuspecting women they stalked, there were no mortal victims that would necessitate a cleanup crew tonight.

Once he tucked the weapons in the bag, Cliff bent to collect the wallets and clothing that remained after the vamps finished disintegrating.

He hadn’t seen Emma since his break. No access to sublevel 1 meant no lunches with her. And since Bastien had resumed taking him hunting two nights ago, Cliff had remained with him the entire time instead of roaming alone.

As soon as they finished tidying the battle scene, they headed back to Melanie’s car.

“You want some time to yourself tonight?” Bastien asked casually as he tossed the bag in the back seat.

“No, thanks.”

“You sure? I brought the duffel with a change of clothes.”

“No. I’m good.”

Bastien slammed the door shut and stood staring at it for a long moment. A long sigh escaped him. “That’s bollocks.”

“What?”

Lips tightening, Bastien rounded on him. “I said that’s bollocks. How long are you going to keep beating yourself up about this, Cliff?”

He stiffened. “I killed Whetsman.”

“No, you didn’t. Seth killed him.”

“After I brain damaged him beyond repair.”

“He fatally wounded Linda and left her bleeding to death in his car,” Bastien said, his voice rising. “I would’ve done the same damn thing to him. Hell, Melanie probably would have, too.” Cliff seriously doubted that. “And if she didn’t, Alleck sure as hell would have.”

Frustration rose. What did Bastien expect him to do, just brush it off as if he’d accidentally tripped someone? “He only did it because Gershom mind controlled him. And what about the guards?” He glared. “Did you forget about them? How many guards did I hurt, Bastien? How many fingers did I break when I yanked their weapons out of their hands with preternatural speed and strength? How many arms did I snap and legs did I shatter trying to get past them to Whetsman? How many concussions did I give them?”

Bastien made a scoffing sound. “How many guards did I give concussions and how many arms did I break when I forced my way into network headquarters after they refused to let me see Vince when he was suffering? Do you think I lie awake, agonizing over that?”

“This is different.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes it is!” Cliff shouted. “Because you know you won’t do it again, and I know I will! And I’ll do it again and again and again until someone puts me down like a rabid dog!”

Silence fell.

Cliff began to pace slowly, forcing back the violent impulses that threatened to rise again, tamping down the voices that urged him to fly into another full-blown rage.

Bastien drew a hand down his face and let out a long weary breath. “Well, fuck.”

Exactly.

“Technically speaking,” his friend mused, voice calm now, “I don’t know that I won’t do it again because some of those guys at the network still chap my ass.”

A laugh caught Cliff by surprise.

“Honestly, the only one who doesn’t is Todd.”

“Yeah. He’s a good guy.” And the only one who didn’t walk on eggshells around Cliff now.

“So… what?” Bastien asked. “You’re going to punish yourself for something you neither asked for nor have any control over by denying yourself the only happiness you’ve found since transforming?”

Cliff shot him a look. “I didn’t say I wanted to stop hunting.”

“I’m not talking about the hunting.”

His pacing ground to a halt. Cliff turned to face him. Surely he didn’t mean…

Bastien shrugged. “I know about Emma.”

Of course he did. Cliff slid the car a look, thinking of the duffel bag packed with clean clothes and hand wipes. The cash Bastien had forked over. “How long have you known about her?”

“Since the first night you went to see her.” Crossing his arms over his chest, Bastien leaned back against the car. “When you started roaming around on your own, infiltrating vampire groups and pumping them for information, I was afraid you’d pull some superhero martyr bullshit and get yourself killed, so I followed you and stayed downwind, ready to jump in if you needed me.”

Yep. That sounded like something Bastien would do. He wasn’t the coldhearted bastard so many Immortal Guardians painted him.

“Once I saw you with Emma, I stopped worrying. Because I knew you had something to live for. Something precious. Something so rare it took me two damn centuries to find it for myself.”

The love he and Emma shared was precious. “Does Reordon know?”

“About you and Emma? No. I’m sure he would’ve put a stop to it if he did. Like Seth and his Immortal Guardians, Reordon tends to be very protective of the females who work for him. Even more so if they’re gifted ones.”

Which only lent credence to Cliff’s own assumptions about the network head.

Straightening, Bastien reached beneath his coat and withdrew something from a back pocket. “Here.”

Cliff crossed to him and took it. It was a jump drive. “What is it?”

“Footage of what happened. All of it.”

“I’ve already seen it. Reordon showed it to me.”

Bastien tapped the drive. “This isn’t for you. It’s for Emma. She’s heard snippets of what happened. Everyone at the network has. And I’m sure your absence is scaring her. You should go to her.”

Cliff held up the device. “You don’t think this will scare her more?”

“No, I don’t. Any woman smart enough and strong enough to love you isn’t going to run screaming from footage of you beating the shit out of an asshole who tried to murder someone you care about. You are the sole reason Linda is alive today. Had you not confronted Whetsman when you did, she would’ve died in the back of his SUV without anyone the wiser. Zach said she was mere minutes away from death when he healed her.” He rubbed his jaw. “Aaaaaaand, full disclosure, Melanie had a talk with Emma quite a while back and laid out everything she could expect if she chose to have a relationship with you.”

Cliff supposed some might resent their interference, but he chose to appreciate it. “I did, too.”

“I knew you would. Just like I knew you wouldn’t continue seeing her unless she fully understood what happened with Whetsman and the others.”

Cliff curled his fingers into a fist around the drive. “I love her.”

“I know you do. That’s why I couldn’t stand to watch you keep torturing yourself—torturing both of you—by staying away from her. So go. Don’t worry about infiltrating other vampire ranks. We’re done with that. From now on, as soon as we finish hunting, you can head straight for Emma’s place.”

If Emma still wanted to see him after this. “Could I get that duffel bag?”

Bastien smiled. “Yeah.”