Third Strike Read online

  To Joss’s shock, Paty didn’t even flinch at the news. Instead, she said, “You probably want to grab a shower, right? I think I have one of Morgan’s T-shirts around here somewhere that you can borrow.”

  “Paty.” He shook his head at her, confounded. What? Was she in denial? Did she think that he was kidding? Joss would never kid about something like that. This was supposed to be life-changing news. Why was she acting like it wasn’t really news at all? “Didn’t you hear me? I said that Sirus is still alive.”

  “I heard you, Joss. But . . . well . . . you’re not exactly telling me anything that I didn’t already know.” She sighed as Joss stood there, shaking his head still, trying to wrap his mind around what it was that she was saying. Then she nodded toward the bathroom door. “Take your shower. Then we’ll talk. Towels are in the cabinet over the sink. I’ll find you a shirt.”

  He stood there for a moment, not knowing exactly what he was supposed to say to her and struggling with the growing realization that Paty hadn’t been surprised. She’d known about Sirus. Which made him wonder what else she knew that she wasn’t sharing with him.

  Without another word, he moved down the short hall to the small bathroom. The towels were right where she’d told him they’d be, and when he stripped down and stepped into the shower, the hot water felt good on his skin. As he watched the blood run down the drain, Joss thought about the movies. In movies, killing wasn’t all that messy. Blood hardly went anywhere. The mess of it was easy to contain. But the reality, he’d found, was far different. Blood got everywhere, and it refused to be easily cleansed away. Plus, it smelled. It took a lot of soap just to remove the rotten, metallic scent from his skin, and even then, he knew he wouldn’t feel completely clean for the next few days. It was as if the essence of the blood clung to him, the memory of the horrific act that he’d performed.

  He didn’t know what was going on with Paty, or how she’d known anything about Sirus still being alive. But he did know that he trusted her. And if she had good reason not to tell him about Sirus, reason beyond the fact that he was supposed to be on his own this summer, then it was okay. She’d explain everything, and then maybe Joss could go back to not feeling betrayed.

  Because he felt that way. And it hurt.

  Once his skin and hair were clean, Joss stepped out of the shower, toweled dry, and got dressed again. He dropped his towel, now tinged from the blood that had refused to be rinsed away, in the hamper and stepped out into the hall. Paty was in the kitchen. As she tossed him a clean T-shirt, the timer on the oven went off. Donning a bright pink oven mitt, she opened the oven door and pulled out a tray of freshly baked snickerdoodle cookies.

  Joss sat wordlessly on one of the bar stools by the kitchen island, his eyes on the pan that she was placing on the stove. Cookies. Clearly, he was either in trouble or in for some bad news. He had to be. She’d felt the need to soften the blow with cinnamon and sugar deliciousness.

  Paty slid two hot cookies onto a plate with the aid of a spatula and set it in front of Joss. He grabbed one immediately and bit into it, breathing out a series of sounds that weren’t really words, but somehow helped to cool his burning mouth. “Hawthawthawthawthawt!”

  She poured a glass of cool milk, and Joss couldn’t drink it fast enough. After he emptied it, his stomach gurgled a little, but at least his mouth felt better. He left the second cookie on the plate, giving it time to cool, and looked at Paty. “So you knew. About Sirus surviving that explosion.”

  “Yes.” She removed her oven mitt, tossing it casually on the counter. Then she turned back to Joss, a newly born tension in her stance. “I knew.”

  “How long have you known? Since the beginning? And you never told me? I’ve been living with crushing guilt for two years and you just let me live with it? You let me believe that I killed my mentor? My friend? Kat’s dad?” He hadn’t intended to raise his voice or to stand, his chest heaving in anger, but that’s just what he did. It wasn’t right for Paty to have kept this from him. Sirus had been a beacon of comfort for him during an incredibly difficult time. He’d been there for Joss when it seemed that no other Slayer would help him. More than that, he’d been like a father to Joss. His betrayal had stung, but what had stung far worse was the false knowledge that Joss had been responsible for Sirus’s death.

  “Hold it right there.” Paty pointed at him with a lone finger, and then gestured for him to take his seat again. Out of respect, he did. Then it was Paty’s turn to raise her voice. “First and foremost, I hadn’t known from the beginning. I only learned of his survival this spring, and didn’t tell you because I was under strict orders by the Society not to. What with your loyalty under question and whatnot. Loyalty—you know—that thing that the Slayer Society values more than anything. That thing that you’ve been apparently lacking ever since the day you met that Vlad kid.”

  Joss winced. He couldn’t refute what she was saying. It was true. It was all true. He hadn’t been nearly as loyal in thought or in deed as the Slayer Society required or deserved. But he couldn’t blame Vlad for that, or even Paty for pointing it out. He could only blame himself.

  “Second, don’t forget that that friend and mentor of yours was also a vampire.”

  The word hung in the air between them for a moment. It felt heavy. It felt wrong. And what was worse was that the truth of that word felt so much heavier than the word itself.

  Joss hated that Sirus was a vampire. He hated that he still cared about Sirus. He hated that he still cared about Vlad. But he was beginning to think that that aspect of him could never be changed. What if everyone he came to care about betrayed him in some way? Sirus, Dorian, Vlad—it seemed that he was meant to be more of a vampire’s plaything than a Slayer. The very idea sent a bitter shiver up his spine. Chasing it was the whisper of sorrow.

  The look on Paty’s face said that she felt very much the same way that Joss did. It made Joss wonder how the Slayer Society felt about Paty and her loyalties to them. They questioned his loyalty. Why not question hers?

  “He betrayed us, Joss. Not just the Society. He betrayed our team, and did so over a long course of time. Plus, he wasn’t just your friend. He was also mine. So don’t think that you’re the only one affected by his perceived death or surprising survival.”

  Joss released a quiet sigh. What Paty was forgetting was that she didn’t exactly have to carry the weight of guilt at having been the person who’d caused Sirus’s perceived death.

  Paty braced herself with her hands on the countertop and hung her head for a moment—long enough to take two or three really slow, deep breaths, as if she needed to gather her wits before she spoke again. Then she met Joss’s eyes, and when she spoke again, he realized that he’d been behaving rather selfishly. He wasn’t alone in this pain, in this confusion. She shared it. “I’m freaked out, too, y’know.”

  Joss eyed his remaining cookie for a moment, but had no desire whatsoever to pick it up and continue eating. Suddenly his mouth tasted sour, unworthy of a sugary reward. He met Paty’s eyes with an apology. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bite your head off just for following Society orders. I just . . . it was a surprise to see him.”

  She nodded slowly, and it was clear to Joss by the look in her eyes that she was mourning the loss of her friendship with Sirus still. “How is he?”

  “He looked fine. Healthy, I think. But worried. He said there’s something in the woods.” There was. There was something in the woods. Joss just wasn’t sure whether or not that thing was Sirus or something else.

  Paty folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head to the side in contemplation. “It could be a trick. Something to distract from him.”

  Joss nodded. His thoughts exactly. “It could be. I need to look at the coroner’s report for Tilly, the woman who lived near the café, just to confirm that she was killed by a vampire and not . . . something else. How can I get my hands on it? I
mean, the coroner isn’t likely to just hand something like that over to a random teenager.”

  Paty tore her gaze away from him then and rubbed her hands on her arms, as if trying to warm them against a nonexistent chill in the air. It took her a moment to speak again, and when she did, she seemed extremely uncomfortable. “I can’t help you, Joss. No one can.”

  She flicked her eyes to him momentarily, but then her gaze was gone again. Joss released a deep sigh, picked up his remaining cookie, and headed for the front door. As he opened it, he nodded to her over his left shoulder. “Okay. Then I’ll help myself.”

  It was a huge relief to Joss that Santa Carla wasn’t a really big town and that he was in good shape, because if he’d required a car to reach the coroner’s office on the other side of town, he might not have made it to the unassuming building that housed it. He was glad that Henry wasn’t tagging along, because there was no way his cousin would go along with breaking and entering—especially in the name of the Slayer Society. Not to mention the countless questions that Henry would ask if Joss lied about their destination. But mostly, he was glad that Henry wasn’t with him because Joss was relatively certain that if he got caught, his dad was going to skin him alive.

  The office was winding down business for the day, and for several minutes, Joss stood outside on the sidewalk next to a bus stop, looking expectantly down the street, hoping that no one would give him a second glance. After all, who suspected anything criminal from a clean-cut teenager waiting for the bus? He’d learned from his online research that a person had to be eighteen years of age to request medical records or a coroner’s report, and since Joss wasn’t yet that old, he was going to have to get creative.

  The office closed at 5:00 P.M. And that’s when his creativity would kick in.

  A police officer passed by on the sidewalk and nodded a hello to Joss, who smiled in return and went back to pretending that he was waiting for an overdue bus. After a while, no one else exited the building, and Joss couldn’t see any lights on inside. He glanced around casually to make sure he was in the clear. Once he was certain he was alone, Joss slipped around the side of the building, under the cover of several large bushes that obstructed the view of any passersby. He walked along the brick wall until he spied his golden opportunity—a window fan that had been left wedged in an open window. It had been warm lately in Santa Carla, and apparently the person in that office had thought that a window fan was a wise move. Joss imagined their boss would be furious if they found out. But he wasn’t here to teach anyone a lesson. He had to get in, get a glimpse at Tilly’s coroner’s report, and get out.

  The great thing about old buildings is that they’re generally built to be sturdy, and architects who appreciated sturdiness also appreciated large windowsills. Joss jumped up, gripping his fingers on the windowsill by the fan, and pulled himself up, until he was perched outside the window of one of the first floor offices. Holding his breath and hoping that the open window meant that this office didn’t have an alarm at the ready, Joss gently pushed the window open. When no alarm sounded, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief and set the window fan inside on the floor before climbing in after it.

  The office itself was boring and plain. Steel desks, too many stacks of papers, and big, gray filing cabinets lining the walls. After looking around for a bit, Joss realized that he was in the wrong place entirely. As quietly as possible, even though he was relatively certain that the building was empty, Joss moved out into the hall and checked a small directory hanging on the wall. The sheriff’s office was on the third floor, so he could only hope that the coroner’s office was as well. He climbed the stairs quickly and when he reached the third floor, he was greeted by a small green placard next to the door that read CORONER’S OFFICE.

  He tried the knob, but someone had remembered to lock the door when they left, so Joss reached into his backpack and cursed under his breath. His lock pick set was sitting at home on his nightstand—forgotten there after its recent thorough cleaning. Picking a lock without the right tools wasn’t impossible, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy. What he really needed was a hairpin, and maybe an Allen wrench. Moving down the hall, he tried a few doors, but each was locked, so he made his way back down the stairs to the office he’d entered the building from. Sitting on the desk there was the only thing close enough to a lock pick that was going to get Joss inside the coroner’s office, so he grabbed it and headed back upstairs, cursing in his mind the entire way.

  There’s something jarring about the sound of broken glass, and as Joss smashed the small window with the heavy paperweight he’d found two things happened: One, he hoped like hell that he was right about the building being empty, and two, he turned his head to the side and squeezed his eyes shut, fearing that a splinter of glass might fly out and cut him, despite the fact that the window of that particular door was made of tempered glass. The moment the paperweight made contact, the entire window cracked in a zillion tiny zigzag lines before crumbling to pieces all over the floor. It was a messy job, but Joss thought it was probably better to do a smash and grab and get out of the building as quickly as possible, rather than take his time performing a seamless, undetectable entry. He was quite certain, however, that his uncle Abraham would disagree.

  He pushed open the door and, after just a few minutes, located the cabinets holding the files of the recently deceased. Luckily, the files were kept in pristine alphabetical order, so it wasn’t long before Joss had Tilly’s file in his hands and was poring over its contents. Most of what the coroner had to say about Tilly’s death had been expected, but one small note gave him pause. Pause enough to realize that maybe the Slayer Society did know what they were talking about, and that maybe it really was a vampire that was responsible for the recent deaths in Santa Carla.

  Deceased showed signs of acute, severe anemia.

  Anemia. Which meant the lack of red blood cells. Which was exactly what happened when a vampire drained a person.

  Joss returned the file to the cabinet and headed back downstairs, his thoughts heavy. If the vampire that he’d killed in the woods wasn’t the one responsible for the recent deaths, and he’d seen no evidence that had suggested another vampire was in the area, then it had to be Sirus. This meant that Sirus was lying to him . . . again. And it meant something else, too. It meant that he was going to have to take Sirus down. He was going to have to kill his friend all over again. What was it that people often said about history repeating itself?

  As Joss dropped outside of the open window that had been holding that fan, a voice greeted him, startling him some. But it wasn’t a voice that he knew. As he turned around to face the speaker, he realized that he was dead the moment he saw his dad again. Standing there before him was the cop that he’d seen earlier out at the bus stop. With his hand on the gun on his hip, the officer said, “I’m betting you don’t have any business being in there, now do you, son?”

  Fear sent a chill through Joss’s limbs. He held his hands out to the side, so that the officer wouldn’t think he was trying to resist at all. “No, sir. But then again, I’ve never been a betting man.”

  Joss smiled, hoping that a bit of humor might help him get off with a warning. When the officer didn’t smile back, he thought that a different approach might be better. “I’m sorry, sir. I was just curious.”

  As the cop gripped Joss’s arm and led Joss away from the building, he said, “Curiosity killed the cat, son. You should be more careful not to be so curious. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  Joss had never been in the back of a police car before, and the moment he was, he hoped that he’d never be there again. There was something about knowing that he couldn’t escape, that he was at the mercy of the officer that sent a sick feeling through his stomach. Or maybe that was just because he knew that once he got home, he was dead.

  The officer put the car in gear, and after a few moments of silence, he said, “You want t
o tell me what you were looking for in there? The sheriff’s office isn’t exactly a place for teenagers. No drugs in there.”

  “I don’t do drugs.” Joss’s words cut off the officer’s last spoken syllable. Joss didn’t do drugs, had never done drugs, would never do drugs. He didn’t need a foreign substance to get a rush. His daily existence gave him all the rush he could handle. He didn’t need to poison his body. Clarity was key when it came to slaying vampires.

  “That’s good. Drugs will mess up your life.” The officer glanced at Joss in the rearview mirror. His eyes were sharp blue. “So what was it?”

  Joss could have lied. But he was tired of lying. Besides, something in the officer’s eyes said that if Joss lied, he’d know, somehow. So Joss went with the truth—no matter how strange it felt to do so. Shrugging, he said, “I heard about the death of this woman named Tilly by gardening shears, and I wanted to know if the coroner knew anything that the papers didn’t.”

  In the mirror, Joss saw the officer frown. After a moment, he said, “I knew Tilly. Nice lady. Her death was pretty shocking. But trust me, kid. There’s nothing else to know. Certainly nothing else to warrant a boy your age breaking into the coroner’s office.”

  Joss disagreed, but he didn’t offer up that bit of information. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry you did it, or sorry you got caught?” The officer met his eyes again, and this time, the crinkles by his eyes suggested a smile on his lips.

  “Honestly?” Honest. The way non-Slayers had the freedom to be all the time. “That second one.”

  “Promise me you’ll stick to the library the next time you get curious.”

  Joss shook his head. It wasn’t that he wanted to be a lawbreaker. It’s just that sometimes, in order to do his duty as a Slayer, he was forced to ignore the laws of mankind. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir.”