Max nodded. "I guess we have to trust your instincts. Hell, this doesn't impact anyone as much as it does you. It's your life, your body, your soul."
"My higher self." She sighed.
"Should we go back, then?" Max asked.
"Lunch, then back,” Stormy said. "I'm starved for the first time in days. It's a good sign, don't you think?"
"I'm hungry, too,” Max said, though she was worried about the time. She had to get to that island today.
"You're always hungry, Max."
There was a glimmer of the old light in Stormy's tired eyes. It did Max's heart good to see it there. Then Stormy took her hand.
"I'm sorry, honey. I'm so sorry. You're in crisis, and I ought to be there for you, helping you through it, and instead I've developed a crisis of my own to contend with." She shook her head. "And you're there for me, even though your heart is breaking over Lou."
"And you're there for me, too."
"I want to be."
"You are, hon,” Max told her. "Just being here with me is a big help, you know that. Besides, what more can you do? Lou and me—that boat's been torpedoed. It's a lost cause."
"Don't give up on him just yet, Max."
Max glanced at her friend and lied through her teeth, to Stormy and to herself. "I already have."
Then she drove them to an out-of-the-way diner for a quick lunch before heading the car back toward the cursed little town of Endover . And the farther they drove, the more urgently she felt the need to get back there. She hadn't reached any conclusions about how to reclaim her friendship with Lou, how to deal with the heartbreak of realizing he would never love her the way she wanted him to. But she had to see him, to be with him. The need was almost crippling, and growing with every mile.
* * *
Chapter 20
I cannot freakin' believe this!"
Max got out of the car, which was nose down in a ditch, and surveyed the blown-out front tire. "This is great. Just great."
"It's no big deal, hon. We can fix it."
Max sighed, nodded and trudged to the trunk for the jack and the spare, but as soon as she gripped the spare tire, she realized that it was flat, too. "Hell, Storm. We are so screwed."
Stormy came up beside her, thumped the spare with a fist and made a face. "Not screwed, exactly. We still have the cell phones"
"We have reception?"
Stormy yanked a phone from her pocket and looked at the panel. "Yep. Three bars. Almost full power."
"That's odd, isn't it? We usually lose it by the time we get this close to Endover."
"Hey, who am I to turn up my nose at small favors? Maybe somebody's looking out for us"
That, Max thought, was what she was afraid of. "I'm worried about Lou. I've got this bad feeling, Storm, and I just can't shake it."
"Lou's fine. And we'll get this tire changed and get back there in no time. We just need to call a garage or something. I don't suppose you know a number?"
"I think there's an auto-club card in the glove compartment,” Max said, then zipped around the car to get in and dig it out. She found the card and took it back to Stormy, who dialed the number, pushed buttons to negotiate her way through the menu and then entered the membership number from the card.
Then she looked up from the phone. "Your membership has expired. Would you like to renew?"
"Will it get me a tow truck?"
"You want me to ask the computerized voice? 'Cause all she's giving me so far is one for yes or two for no."
Rolling her eyes, Max said, “One for yes" Then she dug a credit card from her purse and read off the numbers while Storm punched them in.
Finally they got to a real live human being, only to be told it would be an hour before a tow truck could get to them.
Stormy disconnected and pocketed the phone. "An hour. Hell, Max, maybe you should lock yourself in the car."
"For what?"
"Look around, Max."
Max did. They were on a deserted stretch of highway—well, off it, to be more precise. Another car hadn't passed since the tire had blown and they'd gone skidding across the pavement and into the ditch. The road stretched like a black ribbon, unwinding over hills, around curves and vanishing into the trees in the distance. They'd come to rest off the shoulder, nose partway into a ditch where water trickled in a thin stream along the bottom. It could have been worse. A grassy bank rose up for twenty yards on either side, ending at a tree line of pines. It was as if they were in a tunnel with a pavement floor and a blue-sky ceiling.
She looked at Stormy again, then let her mouth fall open in surprise. "You think I'm afraid to be alone with you?" "Aren't you?"
"No!"
"You should be. Jesus, Max, what if she comes back?"
"She…oh, hell, Storm. You're in control now, if what Martha did worked."
"What if it didn't?"
It killed her to see her friend so worried about what she might do. "I told you, I'll make friends."
"Don't joke, Max. This isn't funny."
"All right, all right. Look, if your eyes so much as start to change color, I'll get into the car and lock you out, okay?"
"Promise?"
"Promise,” Max said. "Otherwise I might be forced to kick your scrawny ass, and I don't want to do that."
Stormy picked up on the teasing in her eyes, and sent it right back. "You couldn't if you tried."
"Oh, please. I'd wipe you all over the pavement." Max playfully shoved Stormy's shoulder.
"Yeah, you would, if you had a dozen friends for backup" Stormy shoved back. They got into a pushing match, started laughing, and wound up tripping back and falling into the ditch, arms around each other. When they got untangled, they sat there in the damp grass, catching their breath as their laughter slowly died.
"You'd never hurt me, Stormy. Not really. Come on, deep down, you know that."
Stormy sighed, and Max thought she didn't agree. How awful it must be to doubt yourself that way.
"I wish we could get back,” Stormy said, looking at her watch as she got to her feet and brushed the twigs and dirt from her jeans.
"Me too. I was tough on Lou, I think. Made him feel bad."
"He deserves to feel bad after that episode. For crying out loud, how could he go that far with you and still not acknowledge his feelings?"
"He did acknowledge his feelings. They just turned out not to be the feelings I was hoping for."
"Bullshit."
Max sighed. "I was kind of mean to him. He didn't deserve that."
"He deserves my size eight in his butt."
"Well, yeah. Maybe a little." Max sighed. "How long has it been since we called?"
"Twenty minutes. You really that eager to get back to him, Max?"
She nodded. "I've gotta make things right with him. If I let last night ruin our friendship, then I'm just proving he was right all along."
"That's probably why you're having all these feelings of dread,” Stormy reasoned. "Guilt. Just a big pile of guilt."
"I hope so,” Max whispered. She looked at the position of the sun in the sky. "I just want to get back to Lou and find out for sure."
As it turned out, though, she wasn't getting back to Lou anytime soon. The tow truck took closer to an hour and a half, and then all it did was haul them to the nearest garage, close to forty miles in the opposite direction, where they waited two more hours for their tire to be changed. During that time, Max tried three times to call Lou, both on his cell and in the motel room, but there was no answer at either number. She tried Jay, too, and got no better results.
Finally, just as she was waiting for the mechanic to run her credit card, she tried the motel office.
Gary answered.
"Hey, Gary . This is Max Stuart. Room three."
"I know who you are,” he said. His tone was dull, lifeless—but then, so was he, most of the time.
"I was wondering, have you seen Lou Malone or Jason Beck? I've been trying to get them on the ph
one, but they don't answer."
"No. Haven't seen them."
"Um, is Jason's car in the lot? It's a Jeep Wrangler. Light brown. Kind of caramel co—"
"Yep, it's out there."
"Well, where could they be?" By now Stormy had come over and was staring at her, looking worried. She covered the receiver. "Jay's Jeep is there, but the guys aren't answering the phone."
"How would I know?” Gary answered.
Max thinned her lips. "Could you go check the rooms, see if they're in there?"
The kid sighed so heavily she was surprised she didn't feel the breeze hitting her ear, but he said, “Just a minute, then,” and set the phone down. She heard heavy footfalls, heard the door bang, wondered if he were really checking on the guys or just making sound effects for her benefit.
Minutes ticked by. Eventually she heard the door again, the footsteps again. Then, “They aren't in their rooms, but that goddamn kid is back here. I can't have him lurking around outside the rooms. It's bad for business."
"Yeah, almost as bad as night stalkers who try to kidnap your guests, I'll bet."
"Huh?"
"Just leave him alone. I'll be there in an hour. Let the kid wait, okay?"
"Whatever." He hung up the phone, and Max felt like bashing him in the head with it.
The mechanic was back with her card and a receipt. "Sign here,” he said.
She scribbled her name as fast as she could, tore off her copy and headed for her car. Stormy was on her heels. "You really think something's wrong, don't you, Max?"
Max nodded. "I know something's wrong. And goddammit, it's getting dark."
Lou lost his grip on consciousness at some point while being dragged into the house. He regained it some time later, all at once coming wide-awake with a surge of adrenaline between the space of one heartbeat and the next. He found himself in a locked room in what had to be a basement. No windows, just concrete floor and walls. He looked at his watch, shocked when he realized that the entire day had passed. No way had he been out that long due to the beating those thugs had delivered. He suspected a more supernatural cause. The room had only one door—a steel door without a pane of glass in it. It opened outward, so the hinges were completely out of reach on the other side. The doorknob wouldn't budge, but he messed with it enough to know where the lock was engaged just below the knob. No dead bolt, or at least he thought not.
He pulled up a pant leg and took out the small, snub-nosed .38 he had hidden there in a pancake-style calf holster. It was the same gun he'd been insisting Stormy keep with her when she had to be alone—although since her attack on Max, he'd decided it might be better to keep firearms out of her reach. They'd never spotted it. Hell, they must think they were dealing with someone who'd never tangled with criminals before. Much less vamps. He knew better than to show up under-armed.
He took off his shirt, wadded it up as tightly as he could, buried the gun barrel in the fabric and rested it against the door. Without hesitation he pulled the trigger.
Even muffled, the shot was deafening.
And yet it did its job. The door swung slowly open, its lock blown to bits. Lou shook the shirt open and put it on, despite that the bullet had ripped through several folds, creating a holey pattern. He kept the gun in one hand, not sure if it would be better to conceal it in case he was caught. Then he decided if he were caught, he would damn well shoot his way out of here. He had to get to Max before she came charging to the rescue. The thought of her walking into the trap of a goddamn rogue vamp as powerful as this one was too frightening to contemplate.
He crept out of his cell, pulling the door closed behind him, so it would take a few extra moments for anyone to realize he had escaped. Then he crept through a basement that was like a labyrinth, with corridors that twisted, turned and branched off. He passed several rooms with closed doors. He thought the place was deliberately designed to confuse. Freaking Magellan could get lost down here, he thought.
He wandered for a very long time, eventually finding a staircase that led upward and following it. At the top was an ordinary-looking door, and when he tried the knob, he found it unlocked.
Listening intently for any sounds, he opened the door, back to the wall, peering around it, gun first, before he crept through and into pure opulence. The house was lush—he couldn't think of another word for it. He stepped onto deep carpet. The walls were covered in velveteen paper, the windows draped in multiple layers of jewel-toned fabrics over black, which blocked the glass.
"The windowpanes are tinted,” a man's voice said. "But one can never be too careful."
Lou whirled to see the vamp standing in the middle of the room. Behind him, the two teenage girls stood docile and frightened, their hands bound behind them. "It's okay,” Lou told them. "I'm here to get you out." He nodded to the vampire. "It's time to let these girls go, don't you think?"
"And you are going to use that weapon to force me? I think you know that gun will do me no harm."
"I think you know we've covered all this."
He lifted his dark eyebrows. "I'm impressed by your courage, Malone. Tell me, how is it you've come to know as much as you do about the Undead?"
"I get around."
"And just how much do you know about my kind?"
"Enough to know you're not the animals some make you out to be. At least, not all of you. As for you personally, I think you're the scum of the earth."
The vampire smiled slowly. "And why is that, when you barely know me?"
"What did you want with those two girls? They're children, for crying out loud." As he asked the question, he tried to gauge the girls' well-being without shifting his gaze from the vampire for more than a second at a time. They were clean, groomed. Dressed, apparently, in their own clothes. He didn't see any outward signs of injury—only fear.
"What do you think I wanted with them? Hmm? Use your imagination, Malone." He smiled slowly as he watched Lou's face, had to know exactly what Lou was thinking, and seemed to enjoy letting him think it before he went on. "Fortunately for them, my…tastes do not run to children. Or I'd have drained them and left their bodies like dry shells on the shore."
Lou blinked. "Now you're lying."
"Am I?"
Lou nodded. "You've kidnapped a lot of women, but they always turn up again. Alive and unharmed."
He shrugged. "I don't have to kill in order to feed, Malone. Do not mistake that for an inability to do so. I kill when I want to. When I need to. I have no remorse for it when I do. Just as I will have no remorse if I have to kill you."
"Just what the hell do you want from me?" Lou demanded.
"From you? Nothing. It's the women I want."
"Find another font to assuage your sick appetite, pal. You're not getting close enough to smell them."
He nodded slowly. "I do not wish to feed from them. The fiery-haired one—she is the one who is the real expert on my kind, yes?"
"I know as much as she does."
"Gallant, the way you try to protect her." He smiled slowly. "You love her." Then his brows rose. "Oh, you deny it, do you? Even to yourself? It baffles me how you mortals waste what precious little time you have on such trivial matters as self-deception and fear."
"Let the girls go. You don't need them anymore, you have me."
"Yes, but I want the women. Both of them."
Lou felt a fissure of anger open up in his soul. It felt as if hot lava were bubbling out of it. "What do you want with them?"
"Oooh, you can imagine so many things, I see it in your eyes." He smiled again. "There's something puzzling about the one you call Storm. Something about her that I must understand for my own peace of mind. She…intrigues me." He sighed. "I grew so impatient waiting for Jason to bring her to me that I broke my own rules, I risked discovery, to go after her myself. You should have just let me take her, you know. It would have been easier on us all."
"And what do you want with Max?"
He shrugged. "From your woman, I
want only information. For the most part. And, well, maybe just a taste. Just a sip. It's not as if you can stop me."
Lou fired the gun dead-on at the vamp's heart. But the man moved so fast it seemed he vanished, then appeared again behind Lou.
Lou spun, hit him with all his might, using the gun to send him sailing across the room. He hit hard, and the vamp grunted in pain. Then Lou lunged at the girls, yanking the ropes free that bound their hands. "There's a boat hidden,” he whispered. "Walk counterclockwise around the island about fifty yards. It's near the shore, in the bushes. Get the hell out of here. And if you see my friends, warn them that they're walking into a trap. Go!"
The girls didn't hesitate, they ran. The vampire lunged again, and Lou turned to take him on, knowing he had very little hope of defeating one of the Undead. Especially one as powerful as this one.
But he held out, fighting with everything in him to give the girls time to escape. Praying there were no longer any thugs outside to grab them again.
He ducked a blow, then delivered one. Then he took one full on to the center of his chest, and it hit him so hard he thought it stopped his heart, even as he slammed backward into the wall, cracking the plaster.
"You are a worthy opponent,” the vamp said, standing over him as Lou pulled himself to his feet for more. "It's going to be a shame—it really is. But I thank you for the amusement." He shook his head slowly, sadly; then with a great sigh, he flung up a hand and barked a single command. "Sleep!"
Lou blacked out instantly.
By the time the tire was repaired and they were on their way, Max was petrified with worry about Lou. What the hell could have happened to him? She drove as fast as the little Bug would go all the way back to Endover and skidded to a halt in the motel parking lot.
There, in front of Lou's motel room door, little Sid stood uneasily, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Max jumped out of the car and ran to him. She dropped to her knees, gripped his shoulders. "Sid. Do you know what's happened? Where is Lou?"
"I don't know."
She looked around frantically, but there was no sign of either Lou or Jason, so she turned her attention back to the boy. "Did you have something you wanted to tell us, Sid?"
Wings of the Night 08 Blue Twilight Page 26