Vial Things (The Resurrectionists Book 1)

by Leah Clifford

  He nods, his eyes on the floor. “I don’t...I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Part of me wants to hide the picture. Instead, I sit on the bed. I stay there, knees pulled up, the picture balanced on them.

  Slowly, he joins me. “How long ago did you lose them?” he asks. “Your parents.”

  “Three years.” I want him to stop. I want to stop talking about this.

  “They died like this? Like her?” he asks.

  I stare at the picture. I don’t remember the day the snapshot is from. I don’t remember the park or the picnic we’re obviously all having. But I do remember every detail about what he’s asking. “The night they died, I went out. To the movies,” I start. The words come as Ploy gets to his feet and I think he’s leaving. Instead, he moves off the end of the bed and sits closer to me.

  “The door was open …” I say finally. I know I’m not making sense. In my head it plays out perfectly. The concrete stairs with the crack in them leading up to the front door. Looking down as I fumbled the keys. The odd second of brain disconnect as I studied the two inch gap between the open door and the frame as if it would explain itself. My stomach, sinking just like it had when I’d seen the sandwich, the coffee cup with its spoiled cream, knowing already that something was very, very wrong. “I went in.”

  Ploy rests a hand on my knee. “You were the one who found them,” he says.

  “They were on the floor.” My voice is a quiet breath. Everything inside me feels deadened, numb. “They were cut open the same way Sarah was cut open.”

  For a long time, Ploy says nothing. “There’s no chance this could be related?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. Sarah said there were others she couldn’t reach. And Brandon’s only connection was through her. It had to be a hunter.” The empty blue vial told me what they were really after. What she’d stopped them from taking. Brandon, too, must have taken his before they could get his blood. Otherwise, why would they go after Sarah?

  “Did Sarah give you names of the ones she couldn’t reach?”

  “No,” I say, holding up the address book. “But every resurrectionist she’s worked with will be in here. We need to warn them. And I can go to them for help.” A trickle of doubt finds its way into me. I know so few of them, even those who live local. We all kept to ourselves, and aside from training growing up, my parents kept me pretty insulated. What if Sarah told the others about the fight. Told them I didn’t want to resurrect anymore, that I hated how we acted like some kind of mafia enforcers to these people who only wanted so desperately to live. That the threat of collecting blood money had cost my parents their lives. That I wished I’d never inherited the gene. “I think they’ll know what to do.”

  “I’ll help you find them,” Ploy says. Ploy, who would be dead because of me if I’d gotten my wish. He gives the door a nervous glance. “Should we call the police?”

  You run first. Sarah’s voice again. You get somewhere safe. “Not until we’re out of here,” I tell Ploy and start down the stairs. The sickly sweet stench of death perfumes the air. I feel it on my skin. Thick and pungent, it claws down my throat. I hold my breath, eyes closed through the living room, using memory to find my way to the back kitchen door until I finally explode outside with a great gasp. The taste doesn’t leave my mouth.

  “Where should we go? Is there someone in the book?” When I don’t answer, he goes on. “Or we can catch the bus and—”

  “I need to go to the garden,” I say. If I don’t get some other flavor in my mouth, I’m going to throw up. “I have to eat something. Now.”

  “Okay?” Ploy looks conflicted. He gestures at the back door. “There’s a whole house full of food. I can go in if you don’t—” But I’m already walking away.

  I cross the yard in a near run. My fingers fumble the latch on the fence. Ploy reaches over my shoulder and springs it loose. The door swings open. Inside, I breathe deep, my lungs filling with the scent of damp earth. A row of tomato plants hides my view of the house as I stumble past.

  “Allie, I know you’re...hurting, but I don’t think this is the best time to—”

  “Shut up and eat something,” I snap, hating that I’m taking my anger out on him. He doesn’t deserve it. I wish he could read my mind, see that I want his arms around me, comfort to pull from. Some part of me realizes I’m not being rational. I don’t care. I snag a cherry tomato and shove it into my mouth, feel the pop, taste the explosion of flavor.

  “Okay,” he says cautiously. I watch as he goes for the beans and stashes as many as will fit into a side pouch of his pack. Only when it’s full, with one eye on me, does he start to eat. I wonder if it’s an ingrained habit picked up from the road, to store what he can for later before getting his fill.

  Sarah’s dead.

  It hits me as suddenly and painfully as a kick to the chest.

  I have no family.

  I’m alone.

  “Oh God,” I whisper. “Oh God, what do I do now?” My breaths shift to jerky hiccups. I try to slow them down but everything else seems distorted except that Sarah’s body is inside on the floor, her mouth open. My hands are shaking, then my legs. I think of the flies on the sandwich.

  Ploy drops the bean in his hand. “Allie?”

  I clutch my arms around myself.

  Ploy’s tentative, his hands resting on my shoulders before he pulls me against him. “I’m here,” he whispers. “I’m right here.”

  I can’t lose it. Not yet. I have to get us away. I have to get us safe. I glance around at the garden, wondering what the hell we’re doing here, registering how absurd it is, when a strange noise breaks through my consciousness.

  At first I think I’m imagining it, but then Ploy spins toward it, too—the far off sound of crunching gravel.

  Ploy

  A car makes its way slowly up the long driveway. “Down!” I command. When Allie doesn’t move, I yank her into the dirt and lean close. “Stay still,” I say in a whisper against her ear.

  I concentrate on the sounds. Hear the slam of a car door. Is it Jamison coming to question Sarah? Maybe he thought he could ask about Brandon and get more information. Or pretend to know Allie. He’ll be as startled as we were to find the body in there. Hiding behind the bean trellises, my eyes find the car. I don’t recognize it. It’s not Jamison’s. It should be, because he’d know better than to return to the scene of a crime. Because he promised me he wasn’t going to kill anyone else. Seeing him would clear him.

  Allie lies perfectly still. “It’s them. Whoever killed her. I think it’s them.” The words come out lifeless. We’ve got no time for her to break down. Because if she’s right, and it’s not Jamison in that car, I’ve really got to get Allie out of here.

  “Go, quick. To the gate,” I whisper, though anyone that was in the car is much too far away to hear me. “Go around to the woods. Fast as you can.” Ten seconds pass before I lift her to her knees by her backpack. She takes a step and stumbles. “Allie, now!” I growl, shoving her forward enough that she gets her balance.

  I can see the moment the switch flips back on in her brain. Her eyes meet mine and the fear is gone. She moves suddenly, catlike, her feet flitting against the mounded dirt at the base of the tomato plants as she springs for the gate. She’s through it like smoke, graceful and gone.

  I glance at the woods but I can’t see her through the overgrown garden. Allie’d found her parents when they were murdered. Now she’d found her aunt in what she said was the same way. Three years, I think. That would have made me fifteen, Jamison barely a year older. And his mother, I suddenly realize; would it have been before or after she’d died? That was when he’d brought me in on the secret power. The one we could learn. Take. Use.

  I scan the windows of the house but even though the sun is starting to set, no one turns on the lights. Any innocent person who’d stumbled on the body would have at least lit the place up if not come out screaming by now. I’m starting to think Allie�
�s right. Whoever killed her aunt is in the house.

  Crawling, I wait until I’m almost to the chain-link fence surrounding the garden to unclip the waist belt of my pack. Allie’s not in the woods. She’s walking toward me, her face pale. I slip the pack off, balance it on my palm and in one smooth motion chuck it up and over. Two toeholds, a leap for the top and then I’m dropping onto the soft grass. My adrenaline may have gotten me this far, but by the time I land I’m shaking, sweat coursing down my temples. Allie’s shoulders slump in relief when she sees me.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I ask. Already panting, I drive her stumbling into the tree trunks.

  She stares at me, wide-eyed. “You weren’t behind me!”

  “Because I wanted to make sure you made it! I needed to stop anyone who came after you. I’m the bait, Allie. Isn’t that what you use me for?”

  Her mouth opens, closes again.

  I can’t shake off the sting in her eyes, the truth in the words, the hurt in my voice as I said them. “I…I’m sorry, I didn’t...” Glancing over her shoulder, I frown. The yard’s empty. Apparently we haven’t been spotted, but those upper floor windows are making me nervous. “We should go. Once he...whoever... sees the empty frame—”

  “He’ll know we were here, that we’re close,” she finishes for me. She pivots and takes my hand, ready to head into the safety of the woods and then her head twists toward the house.

  She slows and my plowing ahead tugs her. “Wait,” she says. “He’s right there.”

  “Who?” The yard is empty.

  “Sarah’s killer. Brandon’s. I can get him.” Her tone shifts from uncertainty to determination. “We can end this.”

  One look at her face and I swallow hard. She means it. “Allie, no. What’re you going to do, kill him?”

  “I don’t know.” She stares at the house for a long second. “If I have to. Stick to the left side, close to the woods,” she says and then seems to register my hesitation. Her eyes flash. I can’t help but feel I’ve fallen short of whatever role she’s cast me. In a challenge of a tone she adds, “If you’re coming,” and then takes off in a crouch, sprinting from one leafy shadowed area to the next. My heart pounds. I have to go with her. I have to stop her.

  Because if it’s Jamison in the house, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop him. He won’t hurt her—not unless he has to protect himself. The thing is, if he goes after her, and I don’t help her, she’ll know pretty damn quick whose side I’m really on.

  Maybe it’s time, I think.

  But if it’s not Jamison in that house, she might be in danger. And as much as I hate it, she’s not dispensable to me.

  “Damn it,” I whisper. I shrug my pack on and follow her through the foliage. Instead of heading to the back door, she darts across the perimeter of the house. When she finally stops under the living room window, I’m heaving giant breaths, though we haven’t run more than a couple dozen yards. It must be what she did to me. Concern pinches her brow but I wave her off.

  She tips her head to the window, points to my eyes. I’m taller than her by almost half a foot. Licking my lips, I nod.

  While I rise onto my toes, she slides up her pant leg and slips a wicked looking blade from a holder strapped around her calf. How many knives does this girl keep on her? I wonder as I take a quick glance of the room inside. I catch a shadow stretched across the floor. Jamison steps into the room.

  I drop against the siding, swallowing a curse. He didn’t kill her aunt. He just came here to question her and found someone had gotten to her first. It’s what he’ll tell me. Wouldn’t he panic though? Finding a body? He seems calm. Normal.

  Allie looks at me expectantly.

  I can lure her into the house. I can wait until we’re inside and turn on her. Jamison can force her to tell us how the blood works, if there’s some way we can be like her. He’ll handle it if I ask him to. I’ll never have to see her again.

  Her hand brushes mine and I force myself to meet her blue eyes. Take them in because it could be the last time.

  I’m not ready. Not until I’m sure Jamison didn’t have anything to do with Sarah’s death. Allie told me bringing me back wouldn’t change me. Maybe Sarah told him the same. As long as we can get out of here without Jamison seeing us, her pride will be in the clear and he’ll be alive. If she makes it into the house, my cover will be blown pulling her off my friend. I’ll get her out of this mess and we’ll be even for her bringing me back from the dead.

  She’s watching, waiting. I do the only thing I can. I lie. Holding up my hand, I splay my fingers and fold down just the thumb.

  Four? she mouths. Her eyes flit to the window and then to me. Her teeth bite down on her lip. She’s wavering.

  I give my head a subtle shake. We can’t take four of them. The shattered look on her face proves we both know it. I take her hand, sure she’ll make a break for the woods. Instead, the predatory glare returns.

  “We go for their car,” she says, half whispering, half mouthing the words. Damn it, the girl won’t give up.

  She creeps through the weeds alongside the house and then darts around the corner. Her words come rushed as she bounces on the pads of her feet. “No one on the porch. Ready?”

  “Allie, we need to get out of here! Whatever you’re thinking—”

  I grab for her wrist but she shakes my hold and breaks for the rusty Cutlass. Okay. We get the car and go, I think. There’s a way out of this. My brain sticks on the car. It’s not his. Where’d Jamison get the money for a new car? Every month or so he searches me out at the boxcar camp and tosses me a thin roll of ones with a handful of fives and maybe a ten wrapped around the outside. He’s waited tables at a Denny’s for a few years now. I teased him once about how he must be rolling in the cash, but he didn’t crack a smile. I give you everything that doesn’t go to rent, he said and I never brought it up again. I kept accepting the money because not accepting was worse.

  I speed past Allie, going for the driver’s side. “No keys,” I hiss as she drops into a slide on the gravel. I hear a dull thunk. Air squeals as she scuttles back and hits the rear tire with her knife.

  “Not after the keys!” she calls softly. “Now run!” She jumps up, grabs my hand as she comes around the trunk and yanks me through the yard toward the cover of the tall grass growing at the tree line. Orange sunset light floods through the trees. The dappled patterns camouflage us as we flop down.

  “We can’t stay.” I ease myself up, not quite onto my knees and tug her shoulder. I can’t catch my breath but it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get out of here. “Come on.”

  Her eyes don’t stray from the house. “I want to see them.”

  “And you couldn’t have waited for them to come out?” I say, exasperated. “Now they’re stuck here.” Not to mention, if she sees that Jamison’s alone, as I suspect he is, she’s going to go back into attack mode.

  “And they’ll have a lot of explaining to do,” she says. She’s got her phone. She ignores my confusion as she dials three numbers. “Yes, I need the police immediately. I heard shots fired at my neighbor’s house.”

  Shit.

  She rattles off the address, not giving the operator time to ask questions. “There’s a strange car in the driveway. Rusted gold Cutlass. She’s home alone, please hurry,” she says and then hangs up.

  “You’re so god damned stupid,” I blurt.

  “How so?”

  “Well, for one, the police can trace that call.”

  She holds the phone up. “Burner,” she says and then powers it off. “With a dead battery.”

  “Two, my fingerprints are on that picture frame, Allie.”

  “And I’m her niece,” she shoots back. “I brought my boyfriend over a few days ago to visit. Honestly,” she sighs.

  I know she doesn’t mean it for real, the boyfriend thing. My prints are in the house, at a murder scene. She’s not going to be so willing to supply an alibi when she figures out what brought me
into her life in the first place.

  I’m shaking my head when I catch the light in the window. It’s not the glow of a lamp. Not a reflection of the sunset on the glass because it’s flickering. “Oh!” I whisper under my breath. Jamison, what have you done?

  Innocent people don’t cover up crimes.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Allie. “Now.”

  “But we need to…” As she turns toward me in the dimming twilight, she must catch the flash of pity in my eyes. “What?” she says, searching the covered section of the porch. Her eyes don’t stray high enough. “What is it?”

  I’ve got to get her out of here before the flames eat through the roof. “We need to go before they find the car. They’ll run into the woods when the cops get here,” I say. It all makes sense on the surface, but I can tell by her stance that she can’t help but feel she missed something important.

  “Okay,” she whispers. “This way.”

  A minute later, I hear a yell of frustration.

  “Faster,” Allie says. “They saw the tires.” The brush closes in around us as we trudge. “We’re going to get lost if we go much deeper. There’s nothing for miles. It just gets swampier until you get to the river.”

  I don’t care about getting lost. For now, I only need her away from Jamison until I can talk to him, get an explanation. We’re heading away from the neighborhoods, from anyone who could help us. The bugs sing a chorus. If anything, I hope the noise will hide the sound of our movements. The crouched near-running already has my calves aching. A breeze blows past and I catch the scent of rain and then the light fragrance of a nearby bonfire.

  Allie’s footsteps stall. “No,” she whispers, whipping around, tears already brimming in her eyes as she puts everything together.

  I give up my quest to get her deeper into the forest. She stands quietly, staring through the trees. I can’t help it when I reach out to grip her shoulder. I’m afraid she’ll take off. Instead of running back though, she reaches up over her shoulder and lays her fingers on mine. Her breath hitches. “Sarah’s in there,” she chokes out.