Last came Greta. She was immobilized, but not by a stake. A metal box enclosed her, the sides lined with little crosses. Even if she’d been one of the chosen few who can turn to mist, the box was airtight. She twisted and turned, trying to position herself so that the crosses no longer burned her skin. Each time she found a moment’s peace, sleep claimed her, and she fell back against the sizzling signs of faith.
I waited to feel angry, but the most I could manage was irritation. The werewolves were dead either way, but it would be trickier if I couldn’t go berserk on them. Just hours ago, seeing Greta in agony had been enough to send me directly over the edge. I was in control, but I shouldn’t have been. I should have been a raging black-winged terror, tearing ass across the country to save my little girl.
“Shit.” I rolled off of Rachel and sat on the edge of the bed. We’d moved the whole thing to the bedroom because she’d asked nicely and I hadn’t cared.
“Are you okay?” she asked. There was a slight tremor in her voice. “Did something go wrong? It’s supposed to hurt me more.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “Just some unfinished business. A few of my children, ones I thought I’d disposed of, are still around. It worked; I can sense them.”
I walked over to the sink and started sponging off, thinking about Irene, Lisa, and Nancy.
Irene might try to start a fight eventually, but none of this current mess was hers. She wasn’t very subtle. She would have just blown up the Demon Heart with me in it. Lisa wasn’t a threat; she was big, beautiful, and about as smart as Kyle had been. Roger had assured me once that she wasn’t a Drone, but she certainly acted like one. Nancy could have come up with a plan like this, but she never would have been able to execute it. Besides, she would have been up in my face gloating by now.
Tabitha was safe, but asleep. Greta was my only real concern.
I went back into my office and dialed Marilyn’s number.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Any messages?” I asked.
“I got a call from our friend Captain Stacey with the VCPD. He says that he hopes you can afford to keep paying for the cover-up. He wanted to make sure you knew that you have had him, two folks in dispatch, and six other officers working double duty to cover up your—and I’m quoting—’bullshit shenanigans’ this weekend.”
“Can I afford it?” I asked.
“For a while.” Marilyn sounded like she was speaking to a delinquent teenager. Rachel walked in wearing tennis shoes, short shorts, and a baby-doll T-shirt that saidBoy Toy . She approached the desk, pointing happily to a new necklace she was wearing; it was a black choker with a tiny golden padlock.
“I’ve also been meaning to talk to you about the money that you’ve been spending on clothes. I assume that Sally told me the truth about your little shopping spree?” Marilyn choked out the words.
“She did.”
“Were those clothes for your new little trollop? Will I be meeting that one again or do you already have a different one?”
I wanted to tell her she was wrong about me, but I didn’t know whether that was true anymore. There had been a line that I had been trying not to cross, the line between being a man who was monstrous and an actual monster. Now I couldn’t even see the line. I had passed it without realizing it some time ago.
“I have a couple of things to do tonight,” I said, ignoring her questions and my own guilt. “So I might be late. I have to go rescue Greta. Then I might have to kill Roger.”
“Serves him right.” Her voice was acid.
That took me by surprise. “Is he still over there? Stake him for me.”
“No, he wouldn’t be that stupid, although I imagine he isn’t far. I’m sorry I can’t stake him for you.”
“I was kidding.” I wasn’t kidding.
“Me, too.” And the funniest thing was that for the first time in the half century or so I’d known Marilyn, I could tell that she was lying to me.
“No,” I said in stunned amazement. “You weren’t.”
“Leave it alone, Eric. Please.”
“Marilyn, if something’s going on—”
“It’s nothing. I’m just tired. You said something happened to Greta?” She sounded more concerned about Greta than she usually did about me. “What happened?”
“Werewolf trouble. I’m going to take care of it now.”
“But it isn’t even noon, yet. What about the sun?”
I played with the lock on Rachel’s necklace. “Hey,” I spoke into the phone. “This is Greta we’re talking about here. Fuck the sun. Me and my new thrall are going to get creative.”
I hung up the phone and Rachel put her arms around me. She was nervous and curious at the same time. “Creative?”
“Yeah,” I told her as I walked back to the bedroom. “Creative.”
I emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later with my clothes on. “How do my eyes look?”
“They’re back to normal,” she said. “I guess a little blood was all you needed.”
“I need you to go shopping for me,” I told her. “I need a jumpsuit that covers up as much skin as possible and a full-face motorcycle helmet with one of those little thingies that covers up the neck. Get the helmet visor as dark as you can. I have boots, but I need a pair of gloves in my size. Call a cab. Get the stuff and meet me back here by two o’clock. I want to be up on Bald Mountain by four.”
“Okay,” Rachel said. “What’s the rest of the plan?”
“Leave that to me.” I kissed her. “Oh, and buy a bigger purse, it might need to hold two.”
I gave her the money from the safe and she laughed at the amount. “When I get back from Vegas, will you still love me?”
“You head anywhere near Vegas,” I said, tapping my temple, “and I’ll know, remember?”
“Only if you think to check,” she teased.
We kissed a long, lingering kiss. She let her hands wander across my chest and lower still. It was then that I smelled the cinnamon. I was ready for it this time. Thoughts and feelings that were not quite mine danced gently through my brain like little puffs of cotton candy. “Trust Rachel,” a sweet tender voice ordered my mind. “Love Rachel. Need Rachel.” Riding the wave of sensation, I let my hands drift across her breasts and down her back. I grabbed her butt and started kissing her harder. She pushed gently away from me and I didn’t let her go, kissing my way down her neck instead.
“Not that I’m complaining, Eric, but if you want me to get everything done in time to leave…”
I let her go reluctantly.
I had Magbidion’s phone number written down on a blue sticky note stuck to the bottom of my desk drawer. It came free easily and I stuck it on the desk. Did I care if Rachel was trying to use magic on me to enhance our sex, to calm me down, to make my heart beat? The sad and sorry answer is that I didn’t.
Roger was in the same category as Rachel. I didn’t really care that he had set me up. I wanted to know why he’d done it and if we could resolve things, but basically, he was my best friend. Sure, he was an asshole, but so was I. He was also the only person still around, other than Marilyn, that I’d known when I was alive. Like my Mustang, I wouldn’t give up on him unless I had no choice.
So what if Roger had sicced some werewolves on me. I could kill the werewolves. I would rescue Greta. Hell, if he wanted the Demon Heart shut down bad enough to spike my blood supply, maybe I ought to just shut it down. I knew that it embarrassed him, that he was afraid his upper-crust pals would look down on him. What if this all could have been avoided by my buying out his interest in the Demon Heart? I hate questions like that—what-ifs. They can drive you crazy.
I wasn’t proud of it, but it all boiled down to the bliss of ignorance. If I knew for sure what was going on with Rachel, or with Roger, then I might have to take action and the truth was that I just didn’t want to do that. Why would I? Let’s say your spouse is good to you, treats you right, and you have a long happy life together. D
o you really want to find out fifty years down the road that she hated your guts the whole time or that for thirty of those years she’d been banging the milkman every Monday and Wednesday? If it were me, I wouldn’t. Does that make me a bad person?
A little voice in my head told me that I was a bad person regardless. Everything else was just a bonus.
26
ERIC:
AGORANAUT
Bald Mountain wasn’t much of a mountain compared to the Rockies or the Smokies, but it was big enough to count. Oak, dogwood, and pine trees made up most of the surrounding forest. The bulk of the land had been designated a state park in the late thirties or early forties. For two dollars, anyone could get a day pass to visit the park from about seven a.m. until sunset. They also had overnight passes for campers and areas set aside for RV parking. I hadn’t been out to Bald Mountain since Marilyn and I had been dating. The picnic area was different and there was a conservation center, but the park itself looked surprisingly familiar.
Rachel looked beautiful in the light that poured between the trees and in through the windshield. If I squinted just right, I could pretend she was Marilyn. It took me back to my last picnic. Roger, Marilyn, and I had gone to the park in my Mustang, top down, the wind blowing through our hair. Marilyn drove that day and I’d let Roger ride up front. The ice chest sat next to me on the bench seat. Back then, the grilling stations in the picnic area had been new. All we had to supply was the food, the charcoal, and the fire.
The fire. I’d caught Marilyn looking at me in the rearview mirror. I’d forgotten it on purpose, that look…a sad look with I-don’t-know-how-to-tell-you eyes. I buried it again.
Rachel looked over at me, the way you look at an angry dog who’s cornered you. Her hand touched my leg tentatively. “Is there something wrong?”
“Why?”
“You just…um, the link, it goes both ways a little and, I don’t know, you felt lost.”
I turned my head. Outside the window, the leaves were rich and green. “Only for the last forty-three years,” I whispered.
It had never occurred to me before, but I’d now been undead longer than I’d been alive. My vampiric existence had eclipsed my human life, and it seemed like each year beyond that balance eroded me more. Forty-three years of undeath. It seemed longer. My watch was still broken. “What month is it?” I asked.
“It’s August, Eric,” Rachel told me.
The leather outfit she’d brought me would have looked more natural on a rock star like Marilyn Manson. It did cover my whole body, though, and it was real leather, so it could probably take a beating. The mask had zippers where I thought it ought to have holes, but it wasn’t noticeable with the helmet on. Over the suit’s gloves, I wore a pair of work gloves secured with duct tape. I had the legs of the jumpsuit tucked into a pair of steel-toed work boots, secured like the gloves. Between the tinted goggles and the tinted visor, the sun didn’t hurt my eyes that much, but my vision was restricted to whatever was directly in front of me.
“What day?” I asked.
“Monday,” she answered.
“Monday the what?”
“Monday the ninth,” she answered, looking over at me. “Why so interested?”
I watched the trees go by, noting each hiking trail we passed. Rachel was doing a good job playing chauffeur. After I’d hung up with Magbidion, I’d had Carl drive a loaner out to me. It was a rusted-out hunk of junk with no air conditioner, but that just showed Carl’s intelligence.
It was always a crapshoot when it came to me and loaners. He knew that I would pay for damages, but we both felt better about it if he loaned me cheap cars…just in case. No sense in throwing money away. The heat didn’t bother me, but Rachel was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and her deodorant wasn’t keeping pace with demand.
“Roger will have something big planned for tomorrow. Something drastic…probably his big finale.”
She looked confused. “How do you figure that?”
“It’s my birthday,” I told her.
“That’s great! How old will you be?”
My sense of Greta grew stronger as we passed a turn and then started to grow fainter. “Turn around and go back,” I ordered. “She’s down that road.” Rachel made a three-point turn and headed down the road I had indicated.
“This way?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, we’re getting close.”
“How old are you going to be?” she asked again.
“I don’t remember,” I said distractedly. I was turning forty again. I turn forty every year, but it never sticks.
Greta was screaming in a metal box. Rage reached up into my chest. I could see the box clearly. Men—werewolves in human form—were taking turns rolling the box over and shaking it back and forth. Greta’s cries were louder than my thoughts. Something inside me roared, but made no sound.
“Sweet Jesus!” Rachel swore. I guessed she’d felt that one along our link.
“Stop the car,” I commanded.
Brakes squealed as Rachel slammed her foot to the floor and the car turned sideways, sliding as it went. We came to a halt at the edge of a drainage ditch that directed the camping area’s runoff under the road as it ran downhill. The car had rotated one hundred and eighty degrees from where we had started, facing back down the way we’d come. I stepped out of the car and looked back at Rachel. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, go home.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I ran down the slope into the drainage ditch and started scrambling up the rise in front of me. Greta was on the other side of the hill.
My mental picture of the campground grew clearer and clearer the closer I got. As I topped the hill, I saw the first werewolf, a lookout. He looked human, but even through the visor of my helmet, I could smell him. He’d been a wolf recently. We both froze, momentarily stunned. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, an inexperienced fighter, so it was no surprise that I recovered first. I put my fist through his chest and it came out on the other side holding his heart. Young or old, these werewolves were my enemies and anyone who wanted to live had better change sides quickly.
His body rolled halfway down the hill and stopped when it hit the base of a pine tree. His pack would smell the blood soon. I broke into a run and hit the campsite as soon as I cleared the tree line. A group of tents was arranged in a circle around one large tent. Garlic cloves hung on ropes over the entrances and each tent had a cross painted on all four sides. It was definitely not a vampire-friendly zone.
On the far side of the camping area, RVs with out-of-state tags were parked in double rows. Not a good sign. I’d already seen the kind of help William was rounding up and I didn’t want to get in a fight with more fun-loving representatives of the Lycan Diocese.
Two men—werewolves—saw me walk into the camp. I staggered like I’d been injured and they rushed toward me. Before they reached me, the taller one slowed down, his eyes widening. “Chuck, no! It’s a—” I grabbed Chuck by the shoulder blades, hooking my fingers into his collarbone for leverage, and tore him open at the chest, his sternum popping, ribs gaping apart. His buddy staggered away from me.
It was probably the sunlight that confused him. Even though I was expected, vampires are creatures of the night. The werewolves were used to hunting us inside houses, sewers, crypts, or apartments during the day. Was it possible that I was more frightening in the light? I wiped my visor with the back of Chuck’s shirt and charged his pal.
“Vampire!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. We ran at each other full tilt. He transformed as he ran, shedding teeth. He swiped at me with his claws and the blow caught me just right, turning my leaping dodge into an out-of-control tumble through the air. I cannonballed into one of the tents, crumpling it, tent poles snapping. The fabric wrapped around me completely, blocking my vision of all but bright blue tent flap. I’d landed within a few feet of the metal box; I could feel Greta inside.
I struggled out from under the tent as th
e werewolf landed next to me. Reaching out, I grabbed him by the muzzle and threw him hard and high into the bough of a nearby oak.
The box. I spun quickly, searching, and saw it. They had welded the box shut, and it looked like a professional job. I also found the folks who had been rolling it around. Six men and two women were gathered around the metal container, taking turns rocking it from side to side. A handful of children stopped playing and ran for the big tent. The adults started to change and more werewolves began pouring out of the other tents and the RVs. I counted at least forty. There was no way I could outfight them all, not in the daytime. I grabbed a little boy and a little girl by the scruffs of their necks and I felt like scum when I did it.
They both screamed for their mommy and one of the female werewolves turned human again. “Please, no!” It was a standoff. The males started circling, but kept their distance as I walked toward the box. The females who were still in werewolf mode backed slowly away from me, but the one in human form stayed put. I heard the tent flaps flutter behind me and I spun around.
“Don’t make me hurt them!” I shouted.
I hoped they would buy it, because I already knew I wouldn’t do anything to the kids. The little boy might have been as old as eight, and the little girl was only four or five. I couldn’t have killed either of them.
A tall man stepped out of the tent. He was six foot five and had dusty blond hair. I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but he looked like a real mountain man. A foot-long wooden cross hung from his belt, the base sharpened to a point. A smaller metal cross hung from his neck over a flannel shirt.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” he spat.
“You called,” I said acidly. “I came.”
William didn’t look fake when he transformed. No weird latex-looking skin, no fur turned all the wrong way, and when he moved, it was smooth, not the jerky stop-motion effect I’d seen so often. That alone would have earned him the Alpha title in my book. Pure white fur covered him from head to toe, and he stared at me angrily from behind ice-blue eyes. “How dare you threaten children?” The voice rang more in my head than in my ears and it was angry.
Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires Page 58