Ravenous

by Forrest, V. K.

  “Just one more quick thing,” Gair said, coming out of his laundry room with an air filter in his hand. “Could you replace the filter in my air handler? It’s in the attic.” He passed Liam in the hallway and grabbed a string hanging down from the ceiling.

  “Gair, I really need to—”

  The older man tugged on the string, and the pull-down stairs to the attic groaned, cutting Liam off. A ladder stairs sprang down. “It’ll just take a minute.” He pushed the filter into Liam’s hand.

  Liam considered arguing with him but decided it would be faster just to climb the creaky steps and replace the air filter. Then he was out of here. He’d already been gone longer than he intended. He’d “fixed” the garbage disposal by removing a cap from a beer bottle from it, tightened the hinges on the back door so the door hung square again, carried porch furniture to the shed, and set three mousetraps.

  “I’ve got things to do,” Liam said, tucking the filter under his arm and climbing the steps. He stuck his head through the opening in the attic floor. “Left or right?”

  “Left. Oh!” Gair snapped his fingers. “Lightbulb. It blew out. Let me get one for you.”

  “I’m a vampire, Gair. I don’t need a light.”

  “Take my word for it. Save your eyesight. You’ll be glad you did when you get to be my age.”

  Ignoring him, Liam stepped onto the attic floor and carefully walked on the narrow walkway laid down in plywood strips. “You ought to nail this down. Someone’s going to fall through your ceiling doing this one of these days.” He squeezed past a pile of neatly stacked boxes and a beautiful leather trunk that had to be more than a hundred years old.

  Spotting the air handler, he searched for an opening. He was just sliding the old filter out when his cell rang.

  Damn, he was a popular guy today.

  He added the dirty filter to a pile of them on the floor and checked the direction the airflow was supposed to go on the clean filter and slipped it in place. His phone stopped ringing.

  “Got a bulb,” Gair shouted up.

  “Don’t need it!”

  “What?” Gair hollered.

  Don’t need it, Liam telepathed, trying not to be impatient. He’d been old once. He’d be old again, before he knew it.

  The ladder creaked and Gair’s head popped up through the opening in the attic floor. “Got it. Goes right over there.” He pointed to the opposite side of the house from where Liam stood perched on a two-by-two-foot piece of plywood.

  “Do you really think—”

  “Humor me,” Gair interrupted. “I like everything in working order in my house.”

  As Liam leaned over to snag the five dirty filters, his phone rang again. He considered not answering it but then shifted the filters to one hand to answer it. Afraid he wouldn’t get to it fast enough, he answered without checking who it was.

  “Liam, he’s gone.” It was Mai; she sounded terrified.

  “The dog?”

  “My dad. And the dog. And . . . and he called again. On my cell.” She sounded as if she was barely keeping it together. “The Weasel. He . . . he said Uncle Donato stole his diamonds and he wanted them back. He said he knew where to find us. Liam, what if he took my father?”

  Liam strode toward the stairs. Did the Weasel really know where Mai and her dad were? How? Surely Anthony wouldn’t have told him. Damn, but he wished the old geezer would answer his phone! “Corrato just wandered away,” he insisted, trying to reassure Mai.

  “But he’s never done it before. He’s never even gotten out of that chair. I shouldn’t have left him.”

  I have to go, Gair, Liam telepathed.

  Gair stood on the top rung of the ladder. “But my lightbulb. I wanted you to—”

  Liam dropped the filters and sprang through the air, twisting so that as he fell through the opening in the floor, he would stay clear of Gair and the staircase. He hit the hallway floor with a loud thump but landed upright. Gotta run, he told Gair.

  “Liam? Liam, are you still there?”

  “I’m here.” Liam strode out of the house, across the porch, and down the painted white steps. He slipped on his sunglasses. “Now tell me exactly what happened.”

  Chapter 20

  Liam listened to Mai as he hurried down the sidewalk, keeping a lookout for Corrato. He was sure the old man was somewhere nearby. There was no way the Weasel could have found them in Clare Point, he reasoned, ignoring the niggling detail that Anthony was now AWOL. Sort of.

  He got off the phone as quickly as he could, insisting Mai stay put while he found Corrato. He was going to need some help. With an entire town full of nosy vampires, someone had to have seen the old guy. He only hesitated a second before he used his speed dial. He knew just whom to call. The phone rang once, twice, three times.

  “Come on, come on, Tavia,” he muttered, looking both ways before he crossed the street, headed south toward Main Street, which ran perpendicular to the bay.

  It rang a fourth time, a fifth. But Liam knew she was at The Hill; she was always there. When she wasn’t behind the bar giving orders, she was in the brewery, mixing her magic. She slept upstairs in an attic apartment that she built after Hurricane Hazel washed her house off the beach and into the bay in ’54.

  “Come on, Tavia.”

  “The Hill, what do you want?” Tavia demanded on the other end of the line.

  “Tavia, it’s Liam. I need a favor.” He was surprised how worried he was. He was actually upset that Corrato was missing.

  “There’s a lot of things I need, Liam.”

  “I’m serious. The old guy staying with me—”

  “The one with the ugly little dog with the bulgy eyes?” she interrupted.

  He exhaled. “The one with the dog. He . . . apparently, he wandered away from my place about half an hour ago.”

  “Where were you? You have to keep an eye on humans, you know. They tend to wander.”

  “You’re a barrel of laughs, you know that? I was at Gair’s.”

  “Trying to find out what’s up with your hearing, huh?”

  “Tavia, this is important. This old guy’s daughter doesn’t know where he is and she’s scared to death. He’s a little forgetful, if you know what I mean.”

  “Crazy?”

  “No, no, he’s definitely not that. I’m not even convinced he’s all that forgetful, but the point is, we need to find him. Now.”

  “You don’t think he and the dog have gone for a walk and they’ll wander home when they get hungry?”

  “Tavia, there are some concerns for his safety. That’s why he and his daughter are staying with me.”

  “Aha! I didn’t believe you were holding the HF captive and making her your sex slave, not for a minute.”

  “What?” he demanded as he hurried down the sidewalk. He saw Mrs. Malarkey walking her Siamese cat on a leash and Sorcha and John Hilton sitting on their front porch, watching a game show on a portable TV, but still no sign of Corrato. “Who the hell told you I was holding someone captive as my human sex slave?”

  “Don’t worry your handsome little head about it. I’ll see what I can do. Where’d you say you are now?”

  He refrained from reminding her that she hadn’t let him tell her where he was. “On Petunia. Almost to Main Street. Shawn Hill was at my place doing an installation, so he’s checking my neighborhood.”

  “Okay, when you hit Main, walk toward the beach. I’ll check this side of town, see who’s seen what. I could use a little exercise.”

  He sighed, relieved. “I appreciate it, Tavia.”

  The water was cold when Corrato hit it, so cold it took his breath away. He felt guilty for leaving Prince on the shore, but there were some things a man had to do in life. Things he had to do without his dog.

  Tasting the saltiness of the ocean on his tongue, he took a deep breath and dove under. A numbness came over him, a numbness that was comforting, in a way.

  As he held his breath, he wondered if this was what
it felt like to die. He thought of Donato. Of the blood pooled on the floor. He once read somewhere that when you bleed to death, you just sort of go to sleep. He wondered if Donato had just fallen asleep.

  It was a nice thought, but he doubted it. The knife had to have hurt.

  Sometimes people got what they deserved. Which wasn’t all that comforting, because some might argue he deserved the same.

  Even though Liam was breaking the rules by having Mai and Corrato at his place, and he was in hot water over what had happened in Paris, the members of the sept were still willing to come together to help him find a human and his dog. None of them knew Corrato; it was Liam they were doing this for, and the thought was pretty humbling.

  Within minutes of placing the call to Tavia, the entire town seemed to come alive. Suddenly, Kahills were coming out of the woodwork. They left their comfortable seats in front of their TVs, pulled half-baked cookies out of the oven, and even walked away from serving lunch at the diner. All for him. As Liam walked on Main Street toward the bay, a sea of voices greeted him in his head. Familiar voices, voices he’d been hearing since the fifth century.

  Gotta be here somewhere.

  Not to worry, Liam. Dog that small can’t walk far.

  Donal saw him walk past the police station half an hour to forty-five minutes ago.

  Petey’s out in his patrol car having a look.

  No sign of any other humans. He’s fine. We’ll find him.

  Not to worry, Liam.

  We’ll find him. We’ll find him. We’ll find him. . . .

  Their words echoed in Liam’s head as word was passed telepathically all over town. Most Kahills couldn’t telepath with anyone out of their sight, though some had a decent range of a few blocks. A very few could telepath long-distance, but working this way, as a single unit, rather than as individuals, it wasn’t long before the entire town knew what was going on.

  Liam dialed Mai.

  “You find him?”

  “Not yet, but someone saw him not long ago. He’s fine, Mai. I’m sure of it.” He hesitated. “You get any more phone calls?”

  “No,” she murmured. “He didn’t call back, but Liam, we have to do something. I can’t just sit here and wait for him to find us. I think it might be time for us to go. When we find him,” she added.

  “Go where, Mai?”

  “I don’t know. Out West? My dad’s talked about seeing the Grand Canyon.”

  “You don’t think he can send someone after you out West?”

  “You got any better ideas?” she snapped.

  He was silent for a second. He knew she was just scared. She wasn’t angry with him, just her unfair situation. “Let’s take care of one problem at a time, okay? Let’s find your dad, and then we’ll talk about this. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Her voice was shaky.

  “I gotta go,” he said. There were so many voices bouncing around in his head that it was hard for him to concentrate on the conversation with her. He waved to one of his mother’s friends who was standing in front of her closed T-shirt shop. She nodded and smiled.

  Tell Liam he was seen on the boardwalk ten minutes ago.

  He was seen on the boardwalk.

  Yo, Liam. The old guy with the dog was seen on the boardwalk ten minutes ago.

  Liam looked up to see his mother’s nemesis-turned-buddy, Mary Hall, pulling up in her Honda Civic. She put down her window. “Want a ride? Jim and Sugar saw him headed north on the boardwalk. Apparently the little dog was willing to go head to head with Sugar.”

  Sugar was Jim’s Irish greyhound. He walked her for hours a day, often on the boardwalk or on the beach.

  “Thanks, Mary, but I’m almost there.” Liam waved as he jogged across the street in front of her. He took the wooden steps two at a time and stepped onto the north end of the boardwalk. He hadn’t gone fifty feet when he spotted Jon Kahill, one of the young guys on the local police force. He was in uniform. In previous lives, Jon had served on Kill Teams with Liam. He was a good man, steady, dependable, but sometimes he got too emotional. Jon had asked not to serve on the team this lifetime, just to have a break.

  Jon pointed toward the beach. “That who you’re looking for?”

  Liam couldn’t help but chuckle when he looked in the direction Jon pointed. A skinny old man stood thigh-deep in the bay, his back to them, his arms open wide as if calling to the powers of the water, his wedding band glimmering in the sunlight. He was stark naked. It was Corrato; even from this distance, Liam recognized the back of his mostly bald head. To confirm the identification, sitting patiently on a pile of clothes on the beach was the Prince of Dogs.

  “Need help with your human?” Jon asked.

  “Nah. I got this. Thanks.” Liam’s gratitude was genuine.

  “I grabbed this blanket out of my car for him. You want it?” He offered a red blanket. “He’s probably going to be pretty cold when the adrenaline wears off.”

  “Thanks.” Liam took the blanket and made a quick call to Mai telling her which street to pick them up on. He took his time crossing the beach. Corrato was just standing there in the water, letting the gentle waves lap at him. When Liam got within thirty feet of Corrato, the Prince of Dogs turned and regarded Liam for a minute. Then he turned back to his master and gave a sharp bark of warning.

  Corrato glanced over his shoulder at the dog. “Who is it?” he asked, squinting. He wasn’t wearing his glasses.

  Liam wondered if he was asking him or the dog. “It’s Liam, Corrato.” He halted beside the dog, holding the blanket on his shoulder. “Water’s a little chilly, isn’t it?”

  “Invigorating. Twelve-letter word. Third letter v. You don’t see it often in crossword puzzles.” He slowly waded toward the shore.

  As Liam watched him, he studied the old man’s withered body, remembering his own body at that age. It always seemed to Liam that his flesh betrayed him in some way. When he hit his seventies, his body began to deteriorate: hard of hearing, poor eyesight, weakness of muscle. But his mind was always sharp. He wondered if Corrato felt that betrayal now.

  “You shouldn’t have wandered away without telling Mai. She was worried about you.” He held out the blanket. “Wrap yourself in this. Dry off and then we’ll get your clothes on.”

  Corrato snatched the blanket from him. “I didn’t wander away. I walked away. The girl and I, we were supposed to go for a walk on the beach, but it rained.”

  “With Kaleigh, right.” He handed him his glasses.

  The old man clutched the blanket around his shoulders, shivering, and fixed his glasses on his wet face. “Kaleigh,” he said. “That’s her. Cute little redhead.”

  “You can’t walk away, Corrato, without telling Mai.”

  “If I told her, she wouldn’t have let me go,” he grumbled.

  “Fair point.”

  “You know what it’s like, having your daughter tell you where you can and can’t go, what you can and can’t eat? I used to change her diapers!” His pale blue eyes flashed with indignation.

  “She’s just concerned for your safety.”

  “Afraid I’m going to get it like Donato, isn’t she? Afraid the Weasel will come for me.”

  Liam watched him carefully. “I thought you said you didn’t know anything about the Weasel.”

  “No, I don’t know anything about his diamonds, but you think I’d tell anyone if I did?”

  Liam stared at the old man standing before him, naked under the blanket, his stick-thin white legs trembling. Sweet Jesus, he thought. He does know something about the diamonds. “Corrato, you have to tell me what you know. If you know where the diamonds are, you have to tell me. Otherwise, I’m afraid you will end up like Donato.”

  Corrato ran his hand under his runny nose. “Maybe that’s the way to go, eh?” He held the blanket with one hand and drew the other across his neck.

  “But you’re putting Mai at risk, too,” Liam snapped. “You want her to die?”

  “I suppose you calle
d her,” Corrato muttered, completely ignoring what Liam had just said. “Come on, Prince.” He started across the sand toward the boardwalk and the dog followed.

  “Corrato, your clothes.”

  “Babbo!”

  Liam turned to see Mai standing on the boardwalk waving wildly. “Oh, Babbo, thank God you’re okay.” She leaped down from the boardwalk onto the sand and ran toward her father.

  Liam looked back at the pile of clothes and after a second, reluctantly picked them up and started across the sand, behind the dog.

  That evening, after dinner, Liam decided to escape downstairs and go over some paperwork. Mai had inventoried so many items that he needed to compile the lists before they got out of hand. He went down to do that, and to be alone.

  He had tried to talk to Corrato in the afternoon, after the old guy took a nap, fatigued from his swim in the bay. Liam had tried to get him to talk about the Weasel, about his brother, about the diamonds, but Corrato wouldn’t give up anything. Crazy like a fox he was, reverting to his crossword puzzle questions whenever he didn’t want to talk about something.

  Liam hadn’t had any more luck getting ahold of Anthony. Now his phone was going straight to voice mail. Liam was beginning to worry. Seriously worry. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Something had gone wrong. If he didn’t hear from him in another day, he wondered if he should go look for him. But that would mean leaving Mai and Corrato alone and he wasn’t crazy about that idea.

  He’d tried Fia three times today and she hadn’t called him back, either. Damned long meeting.

  He sat at an ornate Victorian desk and tried to concentrate on the inventory lists, but he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering. Going to bad places. If Corrato had the diamonds, the Weasel would kill him for them. He’d kill Mai, too. Those were the simple facts. The question was, how was he going to turn this thing around?

  Liam thought he wanted to be alone, but when he heard Mai’s footsteps on the stairs, he welcomed them.

  “Hey,” she called as she walked toward him. She had changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt. Her sleeping attire.