Vic still felt guilty about that. And who, after all, had been the coward? Himself, of course, a boy already masquerading in a man's body. His friends would have crucified him for letting the Latin King live, but it hadn't mattered. When he'd staggered into the house covered with blood, his hysterical mother had actually slapped him before realizing what she'd done. He knew she'd struck him out of fear and love, but his resentment was quick and helpless as he thought of the constant, unconditional devotion she gave Vic's nearly bedridden father. In those days physicians still made house calls, and Dr. Finocchiaro, a frequent caller anyway, came in the middle of the night to sew Vic's neck back together because in the old neighborhood you handled your own business and didn't involve the police. As a result of that night, his mother had sent him to live with her brother in Rockford, an older man who was as unyielding as a block of granite beneath a surprisingly mild exterior. Young and still impressionable, Vic had learned an appreciation for life from Uncle Mike out of which he would eventually make a career; all that trouble to save his neck and look what had happened to it.
Yes, Anyelet had seen, and Vic hadn't cared. Responding to her anger, in fact, he had mentally dared her to say or do something about it. At least it had proven she couldn't see into his mind without him knowing it, though with eye contact she could rifle someone's mind like an open file cabinet. The traitorous thoughts that so often filled the spaces that before his dark transformation had held human feelings like love, charity, and forgiveness remained hidden; now he only hated in degrees, depending upon whom and what he was thinking about at the time.
And he Hungered.
Oh yes.
There was no logic behind his theft. The notion of challenging Anyelet's authority was absurd—he no more wanted to control this motley pack of animals than he wanted to crawl beneath the sun and fry, and besides, she probably held powers that he couldn't even imagine. He wanted to live, and maybe there was his subconscious desire to betray their presence. That unknown woman wanted to live, too, and he knew that tomorrow the struggle she'd so valiantly carried on these past months would end, all because of the ravings of a stupid old man. Vic sighed and dropped the butterfly box on his cot, then slipped down a back stairway, indulging in a lazy fantasy about what he would do to Howard if he caught him skulking around. Sunup was only an hour away and he had to make sure old Hugh was inside for the day. The crazy vampire was probably hungry, too, even if he had managed to snare a rat or something else for a sort of dinner. Vic had followed him once, and while the old man usually caught something, the meal was never very large. If he didn't help things along, Hugh would slowly starve, withering until he became indistinguishable from the outcasts that haunted the tunnels and connecting basements of the downtown buildings. Vic would never be able to bear that.
The ancient vampire was in his habitual spot outside, standing where the concrete sidewalk met the metal grating on the bridge, peering between the spaces rather than over the walkway at the water below and playing an invisible trumpet. At the sound of Vic's approach he raised his head and smiled with crooked teeth.
"Waiting for Tisbee," Hugh explained. He glanced at a broken watch dangling precariously from his wrist, then sucked in a mouthful of air so he could make a blowing noise. "She's late again," he complained. "Been waiting here for a year, dammit all." The accuracy of Hugh's words made Vic start. "Boy's late, too," Hugh continued. "Supposed to bring me dinner, and the little bastard's not here. Shit!"
"It's all right," Vic said soothingly. "He'll—"
"I'm hungry!" Hugh's voice was a sudden, strident scream through the steel girders of the Wells Street Bridge. Vic gasped at its loudness, then the old man abruptly dropped his tone back to normal and gave Vic a sidelong glance. "Have to go to the dungeon soon," he said cryptically. "The fireball's on its way."
"Yes," Vic agreed. He saw the hollowness of Hugh's cheeks and the way the skin had shrunk close around his jaw. Once the old one's mouth had been full-lipped and laughing; now it was a hard, jagged slash barely covering the cracked fangs.
"Hungry," Hugh said again. He looked at Vic and for a moment the younger vampire saw regret in that shriveled expression—regret, and a plea for understanding, maybe a cry for mercy. A long time ago Vic had thought he could give Hugh a cure; instead he had frozen the old man into permanent imbecility.
Vic had purposely fed again a short time ago, taking a small meal from a healthy man only because he knew that Hugh would be hungry and, after all, someone had to look out for the old man. The others were already burrowing into their sleeping places, filled and fat, quick to flee the coming daylight. Last night he'd been petrified during the endless moments of Anyelet's attempt to look into Hugh's mind. Now he knew that no one could see. Or maybe, as in life, no one bothered.
He offered his arm and Hugh fell upon it eagerly.
The least Vic could do was watch over his own father.
III
March 25
The Seekers—
Gathering for the Battle
1
REVELATION 17:18
And the woman which thou sawest is that great city.
C.J. eased the breath out of his lungs, feeling the tension flow from his night-knotted muscles as he stretched. For a few seconds he was enveloped in the tingly sensations, like the time the clinic dentist had pumped him full of laughing gas before pulling a molar that had shattered at the gum from a hard punch to the jaw by his old man. Back then C.J. had figured that feeling was as close to heaven as he'd ever get, because hell waited at home in the form of a fat, lazy man who claimed to be his father and who bathed in beer instead of water.
Now, hell was everywhere.
He rose, stripped, and washed, gritting his teeth against the cold air and colder water. He dressed in loose chinos and a baggy wool sweater, then reconsidered and pulled off the sweater to layer a couple of long-sleeved shirts underneath it. Finally C.J. slipped on his fatigue jacket and stepped into the hall, noting that as usual he was the first to rise. Before he went downstairs he poked his head into Calie's room to check on her. She was still sleeping, her face to the wall beneath the heavy sleeping bag. He waited a few seconds, then backed out and stepped away; two or three feet down the hall he thought he heard a low chuckle and he paused, then kept going. She was always pulling little tricks on him.
Sitting in the small breakfast room, he checked the strings on his crossbow and made sure the flights and broadheads were firmly attached during the twenty minutes it took McDole to show up. Suddenly C.J. was nervous; if the older man said no to his request… . Well, he might bitch about it, but he would never disregard McDole's orders.
"Morning." The white-haired mar's voice was cheerful. "Feels like December again, doesn't it?" C.J. nodded, reluctant to speak as McDole put a match to a can of Sterno for hot water. "Get down some coffee, would you?"
"Sure." C.J.'s voice came out hoarse and he cleared his throat. McDole watched him curiously as the teen set out their usual coffee makings on the table by the little camp stove.
"You have something you want to talk about?"
C.J. sighed inwardly; between Calie and McDole, sometimes it seemed he had no privacy at all. Well, what the hell. "Yeah… ." He'd always found it hard to ask for stuff, especially time to himself, and as a toddler he'd learned that asking for something usually caused pain. He was sure his father was either dead or one of those maggoty things in the subways, but the drunkard's lessons still lived on.
"Well?" McDole's voice was encouraging.
"I got something to do today," the dark-haired youth finally managed. "Could someone else help Calie and the doctor?"
McDole studied him, then turned his attention to draining the coffee filters, layering the air with the rich smell of the brew. "If you think it's important, then yes. Someone else can be found."
C.J. hesitated. Was what he wanted to do really that important? Enough to put the rest of the people with whom he lived to extra trouble? He hu
ng his head.
"What was it you wanted to do?" McDole asked. "Do you need help?" He offered a steaming mug and C.J. reached for it, his callused hands oblivious to the heat.
"I, uh—"
"Well, it's none of my business anyway." McDole's tone was carefully level and C.J. glanced at him suspiciously. Just what was he up to? "You seldom have time for yourself, something we all need," McDole continued. "But if you happen to be outside, you might keep an eye out for that girl we saw the day before yesterday. She looked about your age."
C.J.'s breath drained silently through his nose and he fought a grin. That sly old fart, he thought admiringly. He knew the whole time; he just wanted to see me squirm.
"Sure," C.J. responded as casually as he could. "I'll keep my eyes open." McDole raised his cup in a toast and hid his smile behind the steam.
"But only if you think of it."
C.J. found the motor scooter, a yellow Vespa bearing a sticker that read VESPA OF CHICAGO and listing an address fifty blocks north, abandoned on the bridge, and he knew stale gasoline had probably done it in. There was nothing to indicate where its owner had gone and he wandered into the congested buildings of central downtown more out of boredom than anything else. It was doubtful he'd find the girl unless she showed herself on purpose, and what was the chance of that? Still, he couldn't give up so soon. Once C.J. had craved privacy and the safety it offered, a harbor away from his father's brutality and the squalor and violence of the housing project in which he'd lived. Now Chicago's empty buildings hulked like great boxes with a million brooding eyes. Did the girl watch him from behind one of the windows that sparkled at every turn?
He ambled along, finally stopping at the White Hen Pantry in the apartment building at Lake and Dearborn. The market's door had already been shattered, but from the dust layering the fragments of glass it had happened a month ago or longer. Water stains crept past the threshold of the cracking linoleum, and while the contents of most of the shelves were still intact, here and there it was evident the rats had been at work. In the early months the rats had multiplied with frightening speed, becoming a major danger to the health and food supply of the humans who'd managed to survive, then starvation had hit among the vampires and the number of rodents had dropped dramatically. They still bred in the deep tunnel system and sewers, though they were seldom seen in the open. C.J. scanned the shelves but the signs of another person—an opened rather than chewed box or an empty can or two—were few and crusted with age. A deli counter ran beneath the southern windows, but he averted his gaze and breathed through his mouth as he went past it, and he'd learned long ago not to open freezer doors. Not much to see and he didn't want to eat in here anyway. Most of the liquid—ketchup, soda, bottled juice, you name it—from exploded bottles and jars had dried up; still, the smell was overwhelming.
He grabbed a can of soup that looked free of rust stains or punctures and a box of Ritz crackers. Outside it was damned cold and heavily overcast, but still better than the store, with its smell of rot and crumbling sense of claustrophobia. Lake Street and its overhead grid of train trestles cast too many shadows, even in the daytime, and after a minute C.J. moved on, the hope that he'd find the girl finally starting to fade. He circled the convoluted Dubuffet sculpture that graced the patterned sidewalk at the main doors to the State of Illinois Center, then spotted the granite wall that rimmed the entrance to the Daley Center's underground garage across the street. He settled there, a good twenty feet above the entrance, where he could see the Picasso and the plaza through the glass walls around the lobby of the Daley Center. Directly in front of him was the fountain, dry and filled with bits of trash. He still remembered a third-grade field trip where his teacher had shown them the plaza and the building when the name had just been changed from its former title of Civic Center. C.J. pried the can open and sniffed it, then ate and hoped for the best. One of these days he and the rest of the underground would probably end up with food poisoning when the stuff started to go bad. Most of the jars and cans had burst over the winter; only the denser items with less water, like beef stew, canned meat, or thick soup, were left. C.J. figured they'd end up existing on mixes of dried soup and lake water. If they made it.
When he was through with his lunch, C.J. gathered his trash, stuffed it in the empty cracker box, and thought briefly about leaving it on the wall in the hope that someone would see it and know that there were still people in the city who lived and ate what they'd been meant to, then he looked up at the dark glass of the Daley Center and changed his mind. What if by leaving this sign of life he endangered someone's hiding place? He couldn't risk it. He leapt off the wall and took a step to regain his balance when someone behind him spoke.
"Hi."
C.J. whirled and brought the crossbow to firing position with deadly speed; beneath his finger the trigger was only a fraction of an inch away from killing as his heart slamdanced in his chest. The practice and danger of the past months showed in his skill; even with his pulse thundering his aim was steady.
The girl never flinched. "My name is Jo," she said.
"Joe?" he said stupidly. He was acutely aware of everything: the sound of the wind turning the corner of the County Building from the west, a scrap of paper scuttling along the street in its wake like a half-crazed squirrel, the rise and fall of the girl's chest beneath the prominent bones of her shoulders. Somewhere to his left a sparrow twittered. "That's a boy's name." Flash thought for the day, he thought disdainfully.
"It's short for Jovina." She raised a hand and pointed south; C.J. watched her finger float upward, then jerked and stared at her suspiciously, wondering if she was hypnotizing him. Most of the upper half of her dress was ripped away; the rest fell in burned tatters. She didn't seem to notice that one of her breasts, pale and hardly developed, could be seen through the ruined material, nor did the thirty-five-degree temperature seem to bother her. "I live in St. Peter's," she said.
"I've been in there," he said flatly. "It's empty."
She smiled then, and the sight made C.J. think he was going a little crazy, because he'd just met her, only thirty seconds ago, and she was standing here half-naked and weird, yet he was thinking already that she might be okay. "You were there a couple of weeks ago," she said calmly. "I watched you."
"But why didn't you say something?" His cool facade fell away and he looked at the girl in astonishment. How could someone see him without him knowing it?
"It wasn't time yet." She turned and C.J. found himself staring at a mass of impossibly long white hair that was nearly indistinguishable from the pallid flesh of her back.
"Can you come with me?" she asked. "There's someone I'd like you to meet. She can't stay with me forever."
"Who can't stay with you forever?" Score another intelligent question, he thought. Christ.
"Her name is Louise." Jo's eyes found his and for an instant he sort of got … lost in them, like fading out or locking into a light stupor when you were tired. Only he wasn't staring into space, he was staring into Jo, and when he came back a moment later, he knew without a doubt that he had to do whatever she said. It wasn't a matter of trust at all; it was …
The future.
He lowered the crossbow.
"Lead on."
2
REVELATION 12:16
And the earth helped the woman… .
Amazing, Louise thought. Un … believable.
Sitting on the front steps of St. Peter's and waiting for Jo to return, Louise ignored the cold and held up her hands, turning both front and back, flexing each finger and enjoying the feel of the wind between each digit. It was, indeed, a miracle that they were healed, but this went even further—every single scar or blemish that had ever been present on her hands was totally gone.
The cold had seeped through her clothes and Louise hoisted herself up and went back inside, still peering at the side of her right hand. Before her fall onto the street grating, she'd had a twisted, inch-long scar there, caused by
shattering the glass door in the foyer of her building with the heel of her hand the summer she was eleven. Now the scar was missing, and even her fingernails, always so cracked and bitten, were smooth and healthy—long, too, grown to manicure length past her fingertips. As she settled onto the front pew, voices drifted in from the vestibule and Louise glanced up. The sound was so fitting that for an instant she didn't pay any attention, then she realized it was voices, and not just Jo. She jumped to her feet, then stopped uncertainly as she heard Jo tell someone to follow her in.
"Good morning!" Jo called. "How do you feel?"
"Fine." Louise cupped a hand around her mouth to help carry her voice. "Where've you been?" The question was automatic as Jo led another person up the aisle and Louise strained to see. "Who's that?"
"His name is …" Jo glanced at the man walking next to her.
"C.J.," he said as he and Jo stopped in front of her. "That's what everyone calls me."
"Hi." Louise couldn't think of anything else to say. "This is Louise," Jo told C.J. "She came in the day before yesterday."
C.J. shifted his gaze back to her and Louise saw that his eyes were a discomforting golden tan. She tried to smile and knew immediately that it was more of a sick grimace than anything else. For the first time in a year she wondered what she looked like, and she couldn't stop her fingers from smoothing her hair. She'd started using her hunting knife months ago to hack off chunks of it, impatient with the care it needed just to keep it neat. Now her thoughts touched regretfully on the memory of four-inch locks of hair floating to the floor on a bright, long-ago afternoon. Her face—was it even clean? She was mortified; her eyes, an unremarkable shade of vague blue, were the only thing left. Big damned deal, she thought miserably.
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