The door opened and Micah shoved the limp body over the seat and dumped it on top of Loren. “What’s not that easy?”
One of the woman’s tennis shoed feet landed on Katelina’s shoulder and she threw it off violently. “You didn’t really kill her?”
“No, I snapped her neck and left her alive.” Micah rolled his eyes and dropped into the driver’s seat. “We’ll get gas at the next place, let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Loren struggled with the body. “Dude, it’s a little crowded back here. I’ve already got Alex and Torina.”
“Just chill. Once we’ve fed, we’ll stash her in the trunk.”
“It might be easier if we put Torina in the trunk, too,” the teen suggested.
Katelina couldn’t believe the conversation and shrilled, “Are you serious? You killed her?”
“Would you shut up?” Micah yelled. At his sudden fury Katelina fell silent, eyes wide. “God damn, I thought you were the mighty vampire slayer.” She started to object, but Micah talked over her, “Check her pockets, and see if she has any money.”
Loren did as instructed and handed up a wad of cash. “Here. She’s got some cigarettes, too.”
“Good. Give ‘em to Princess.”
Loren shoved the money and the pack of cigarettes at Katelina. They landed in her lap in a confused tangle of paper.
Micah met Loren’s hungry eyes in the rearview. “Go ahead, just save enough for me and Alex, huh?”
Katelina didn’t look, but she could hear it. Wet, slurping, swallowing noises, like someone drinking a smoothie. She pressed her eyes closed and tried to shut it out.
Micah poked her sharply in the ribs. “Hey, quit day dreamin’ and count the shit, will ya? If there’s not enough there we’ll have to get some more.”
The prospect of getting more was too much, so she tossed the cigarettes on the dashboard and counted off the bills. Micah smiled with satisfaction. “That ought to do it, if you don’t buy expensive food.”
Food. With the sick, slurping sounds from the backseat, she couldn’t even think about eating.
When they got to the next truck stop, Micah pumped the gas. Despite the “no Smoking Signs”, Katelina lit one of the dead woman’s cigarettes. The nicotine coursed through her, but it didn’t make things okay.
When the gas was pumped, Micah sent Loren in with the money, then leaned into the backseat and took his share of their “dinner”. Katelina concentrated on her cigarette and watched the way the cherry bobbed in time to her trembling hands.
Micah cut his snack short and plopped back in the driver’s seat. “What’s your problem?”
“How about that you just fucking killed someone, and now you’re drinking off of them in full view of everyone?”
“Nah, these windows are tinted so dark that I could stick my ass on them and no one would see it.” She looked away and Micah turned serious. “Look, we needed money and we needed blood. I didn’t see you volunteering to share either one.”
“But you didn’t have to kill her. Verchiel-”
“Oh fuck, not another speech about the virtues of your Executioner buddy! I’m startin’ to agree with Jorick about that shit. If you think that those two haven’t killed humans then you’re living in a dream world.”
In her mind’s eye she saw Jorick at the institute, holding the dead cop. “That’s different! It was self defense.”
Micah cocked an eyebrow. “Right. Puny humans pose a real threat. Look, we needed blood. I don’t know if you’ve hung out with hungry vampires before, but let me tell ya’ how it works. First you get hungry, then that turns into this gnawin’ pain in your gut. Ya keep waitin’ and it starts to hurt elsewhere; your fingers, your toes, then your hands, your feet - you get the picture? The longer it goes, the worse it gets. Pretty soon it’s like those castaway cartoons where your buddies start to look like a big slab of ham. And since we’re traveling with a big slab of ham, it’s to your advantage we feed on someone else, get it?”
Katelina got it. She cringed back into the seat, suddenly aware of how human she was and how inhuman he was. “Jorick would kill you.”
“I’m not scared of your little ‘boyfriend’ but I think the kid would feel bad about it.” Katelina blinked uncomprehendingly and he rolled his eyes. “I’m old enough I can go without for a day or two, but I ain’t sure about Loren. He got hurt and lost some blood and I don’t know how good his self control is.”
As if summoned, the teen appeared. Micah got out so he could slide into the backseat. Once he was in, the teen handed Katelina a bag of chips, a soda and a bottle of pain killers. “For your wrist,” he explained proudly.
She nodded, trying to reconcile Micah’s picture of a starving Loren with the kid she knew.
The bald vampire started the car and pulled back to the interstate. “I already had mine,” he called to the teen. “Give the rest to Alex.”
“How? He’s unconscious.”
“Improvise.”
Katelina watched with growing disgust as Loren juggled people. He held Alex’s head in the crook of his arm and the dead woman in his lap. With a sigh, he pried Alex’s lips open. “We should have picked Torina.” Then he began the arduous task of sucking blood out of the woman and spitting it into Alex’s mouth.
“You gonna eat that shit or hang onto it?” Micah asked her suddenly. “I’m willing to endure your fucking chewing, so get it over with, huh?”
“I’m not that hungry.”
“Suit yourself. I don’t give a fuck if you starve to death.”
Katelina stared at her lap and tried to block out the moist sounds from the backseat. Micah glanced at her, rolled his eyes and turned the radio up. The 70s metal was only a little better.
It was several minutes before someone choked, raw and rough, followed by a groan. It was Alex. “Where am I?”
Katelina looked back as Alex forced himself into a sitting position, his legs and feet folded up in the tiny seat. His face was ashen. “What’s going on?”
“Here.” Loren shoved the dead woman towards him and he took it cautiously. Katelina’s eyes skipped away as he fastened his mouth around the wounds on her neck and began to drink.
After several mouthfuls, Alex looked up and asked again, “So where are we?”
“Don’t know,” Micah answered. “We’re heading back to the den, but we’re gonna have to find somewhere to stay before we get there.”
Alex dropped his meal, and shot out horrified questions. “Where’s everyone else? Are we all that’s left? Where’s Yaul?”
“They’re gonna meet us at the den. They said to take you, Torina and Lunch and get outta there.”
“Oh.” Alex took a steadying breath. “How bad was it?”
“I wouldn’t say it was bad,” Loren answered. “After Saeed got rid of what’s-his-nut it got better. But you know Jorick, he worries too much about her,” he pointed to Katelina. “He wanted her out of there.”
Alex nodded and went back to his meal.
It was four in the morning when Micah found a suitable place. It was an abandoned building on the edge of one town or another. They hid the car between two buildings and hauled Torina and the bloodless corpse inside with them.
If Katelina thought the building was bad from a distance, it was even worse close up. The paint was long gone and a streetlight bled through the ruined windows to illuminate naked steel girders, like bones stripped of flesh. The floor was littered in several inches of dirt, trash and shattered glass. Scurrying feet scampered away in the darkness and Katelina shuddered at the sound.
Micah led the way deeper into the dark building. Soon he was an indistinct shadow to her human eyes. She stumbled over something and Loren caught her arm. “Careful,” he warned cheerfully.
They found the stairwell. There was nothing but suffocating blackness and Katelina clutched wildly at the young vampire beside her. Then, she remembered the cell phone.
It still had a charge, but the screen had a gia
nt padlock emblem and wanted the password. She didn’t care. The light from the screen was enough and she was able to pick her way through the darkness.
The basement floor crunched as she walked across it and bits of broken glass glittered in the dull light from the cellphone. The vampires dumped Torina and the dead woman together on the floor then moved around the room, examining it. Katelina mashed the button on the phone to relight the screen and stepped cautiously towards the two women.
The girl from the truck stop was face down. Her brown hair spilled out on the dirty floor and her blue parka was smudged from her trip in the trunk. Next to her lay Torina. For being in a battle, her dress was surprisingly clean. It was her hair that was crusted with blood; a head wound. Her skin was ashen and withered and her usually full lips were pulled back from her fangs. Of the two she looked the worse.
But she’s the one who’ll wake up tomorrow.
Katelina shivered at the thought and stepped away. The phone blinked out and she mashed the button desperately, afraid of the blackness and what was in it.
Loren was suddenly at her side. “We should be all right down here. There’s a kind of clean patch over there.” He motioned towards one of the walls. “I kicked the stuff outta the way so you should be able to sleep okay.”
She stared at him with defeated eyes. How in the hell did he think she was going to get any sleep after the day she’d had?
With nothing else to do, she followed his directions and sat down, her back against the wall. The vampires congregated at the far end of the room, talking softly among themselves. She couldn’t catch the words, and she didn’t care.
She smoked the last of the dead woman’s cigarettes and watched the way the cherry brightened when she inhaled. When it was down to filter she ground it out and stretched out on the dirty floor. She imagined that she could feel the dust and the dirt crawling into her hair and her nose. She clicked the button on the phone again and again to hold back the pressing darkness.
“You’re never gonna go to sleep playing with that damned thing!” Micah called. “Go the fuck to sleep or I’ll take it.”
“Just try it!” she warned. His answer was laughter, and she rolled up into a miserable ball and closed her eyes tight. She didn’t want to see when the light disappeared.
Her thoughts turned longingly to Jorick. She needed to hear him say everything was okay and feel his arms wrap around her and drown out the world. That’s what he’d do; he’d brush away her nightmares with a caress and chase the darkness away with a kiss. Only, he wasn’t there. If she was lucky, she might get to see him tomorrow - assuming he wasn’t dead. She knew she shouldn’t doubt him, but it was her luck. After the last two nightmarish days, that would be the icing on the cake.
Mmm… cake, that would taste good.
She banished the bizarre idea and tried to think soothing thoughts. The building creaked around her. Tiny rodent feet pattered in the darkness and the vampires’ voices fell in a whispered rhythm. Somehow, the macabre lullaby seemed the perfect ending to her long, black day.
**********
Chapter Thirteen
Loren shook Katelina awake the next evening. “Good morning!”
She resisted the urge to belt him for his cheer and climbed blindly to her feet. All her muscles ached. Her stomach grumbled and her left wrist throbbed. The darkness and dirt stretched around her and somewhere nearby, invisible in blackness, lay a corpse. There was nothing good about it.
“So we have her?” Torina drawled, apparently healed and awake. “Wonderful.”
There was a crunching noise followed by a sick slurping sound. Katelina reached fearfully for the cellphone in her pocket. “What’s that?”
Micah’s laughter floated to her. “Breakfast. You want some?”
A rat squealed, followed by a crunch and then more slurping. Katelina wasn’t hungry anymore.
The vampires finished their meal and Loren led her up the stairs. They left the anonymous woman’s body behind and Katelina wondered if someone would find it, and if so, when. It seemed wrong to abandon her there. Her family would wonder what had happened to her. They weren’t going to look miles away in an abandoned building.
After the basement, the street lights seemed like the sun and the heavy air felt fresh as spring. Katelina took deep lung fulls of it and savored the way it burned her throat.
Micah glanced back at her. “You better leave that fucking phone here. They can trace that shit.”
She clutched it tightly and started to argue, but he was right. Reluctantly, she tossed it to the sidewalk.
Micah smashed it with the heel of his boot, then kicked the pieces aside. With a satisfied nod, he led them to the car. Torina gave a chirp of approval and all but shoved Katelina into the backseat with Alex and Loren.
“These cars aren’t made for passengers,” Loren complained as he squirmed to find a comfortable position in the middle.
“No, they certainly aren’t.” Torina offered Micah a suggestive smile, then settled smugly into the front seat.
Katelina dug the crushed bag of chips out of her pocket. Loren didn’t care but the other three made nasty comments. She ignored them.
Torina and her cleavage controlled the radio and the passengers. Katelina was almost physically ill each time one of the guys used their best kiss-ass voice to address the redhead. It was as if they thought she’d bestow some delightful favor on them if they groveled enough. She was glad that Jorick wasn’t as pathetic and transparent as they were.
Jorick. She wondered where he was and what he was doing. Had Senya killed him? Had she captured him? Was he at the Citadel? The ideas made her chest tight and she pushed them away, only to have them return.
They stopped at a truck stop. Despite her horrible appearance, Katelina used the last of the stolen money to buy food and drinks. The employees stared, but Torina sashayed indoors, a shiny credit card her hand, and all eyes turned to her. While she paid for the gas, Katelina hurried to the car.
“Where in the hell did she get a credit card?” she demanded as she shoved her way into the backseat.
“She had it on her,” Loren answered and shrugged. “She said she keeps it for emergencies.”
“Then why didn’t we use that last night?”
Micah half turned in the seat to look at her. “I didn’t know she had one, did you? No? Then that’s why.”
Micah turned back around and Katelina realized she had no argument.
It was early morning when they parked in the driveway of an unfamiliar house; Oren’s new den. As usual they were out in the country. The house was sided in white vinyl and had a gray shingled roof. The second story addition looked out of place on top of what had originally been a ranch house. Only two of the downstairs windows glowed with cheerful yellow light, the others were black and uninviting. The yard was dotted with patches of snow and dead grass like a warped checkerboard. Tall, twisted trees disappeared into the night around them, the last of the pawns.
A row of cars was parked nearby, including Micah’s bright sports car and Fabian’s ugly, dented van. Alex gave a squeal of delight and hurried to a rusty hatchback. “Yaul’s here already. Asshole!”
The group trudged across the yard to the long porch. Loren followed Torina like a puppy, and Katelina was sure that she swayed her hips to reward him for his faithfulness. It made her sick.
The door opened and Oren stared out at them. His tawny hair was tamed into its usual ponytail, and his clothes were clean. He’d obviously been there awhile.
“You took long enough,” he said with no real emotion and stepped aside so they could enter.
“So how did it go-” Micah’s question was cut off by Katelina.
“Where’s Jorick?”
Oren didn’t need to answer. Behind him stood the vampire in question, relief shining in his dark eyes. She gave a squeal of delight and flung herself into his surprised arms.
“I was so worried about you! Are you all right?”
Jorick gave her a tight hug. “I’m fine, little one. And you?”
Oren cleared his throat noisily. “We were just on our way to the basement to discuss business. There will be time for your… displays later.”
Katelina glared at him, but Jorick nodded. His eyes swept over her, as if to assure himself that she was unharmed. “Why don’t you take a bath and relax. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Relax?” she echoed incredulously.
Micah snickered. “It’s his way of sayin’ you smell like a bag lady.”
Jorick’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “No, it isn’t. I just don’t see the need to drag you along when I know how much you value your cleanliness.”
Micah crossed his arms over his chest. “Told ya.”
“Oh shut up.” Katelina couldn’t deny that a bath would be wonderful. “Where’s the bag?”
“It’s upstairs in the bedroom next to the bathroom. It has an American Western motif.”
“So does the rest of the house,” Micah commented dryly. “So you took Loren’s room? Did ya think about asking him?”
The teen held up his hands. “It’s okay, I don’t mind. They probably won’t stay more than a night.”
“No,” Jorick agreed. “We won’t.”
“The room at the end of the hall is also occupied,” Oren added. “Fabian brought back a prisoner.”
With a smile, Katelina imagined Senya bound and gagged.
Jorick brushed a kiss over Katelina’s cheek and released her. “I’ll see you in a little bit.” His eyes snapped to Micah, a warning in them, and then he followed Oren through the doorway.
“Come on,” Loren said cheerfully. “I’ll show you where the room is. We can peek in on the prisoner first.”
“All right.”
They stopped in the bedroom to fetch the suitcase, then Loren led Katelina down the hallway like a child with a prize. They reached the door and Micah opened it with far too much fanfare. She took a cautious step into the small, dark room. In the gloom, she could see a handful of furniture, a medium sized wooden box and something lumpy slouched in the corner.
Amaranthine Special Edition Vol II Page 47