“You know they got these things called computers right?” Twig said laughing as the man wrote.
“Not in the Alistair they don’t,” he said, obviously perturbed by the comment but retaining his professional tone. “The hotel has stayed exactly as it was when it was built in forty-four.
“So no HBO?” Twig asked.
“I’m afraid not,” the little man said with a shrug. “But I think you will find the atmosphere does not suffer from it. Will you be needing two beds or one?”
Twig blushed a bit and looked over at Zara. She was entranced by the gilded brass cage that protected the fireplace, where a black log was popping inside. Twig shook his head, “Um, two would be good.”
The man nodded. He looked over at a big wall of keys and plucked one of the sets from its hook. “Room 6B. Lovely. Top floor at the end. Very private.”
Twig coughed uncomfortably and took the keys from the man’s outstretched hand. “Cool. Thanks.”
“There is a drawing room down that hall, and a saloon down the street if that is more suited to your tastes. Just please, respect our other guests and keep the noise to a minimum. We have a stern policy against unruly behavior.”
Twig nodded again and went over to Zara, who was sitting in a big plush leather chair, watching the fire.
“We’re set.”
Zara seemed lost in the fire. “It doesn’t judge, does it.”
Twig looked puzzled. “What doesn’t judge?”
“Fire,” Zara said listlessly.
Twig looked back at the little man who was eyeing them curiously. Twig whispered into Zara’s ear.
“Maybe not, but this guy is judging like crazy over there. Can we go to the room now?”
Zara nodded, still gazing at the fire as she got up and followed Twig.
They walked up the stairs. Twig marveled at the brass lanterns affixed to the walls and the intricately carved grooves in the wooden rails that twisted like soft-serve ice cream.
Twig paused on the second floor and looked at Zara. “Are you okay? You’ve been pretty out of it lately.”
She gave him an annoyed look. “I’m fine. Just tired of running is all.”
“We’re not gonna run forever. We’re just regrouping is all. We can’t beat them without a good plan. Damon would love it if we charged in unprepared. We can’t play into their hands like that.”
“Maybe you’re afraid,” Zara said coldly, “but I’m not anymore. Maybe I should go back alone.” She shoved by Twig and marched up the stairs. Twig flung the keys up the stairs past her.
“I don’t need this,” Twig said. “Do what you want to do. What do I know anyway? I think I’ll go have a drink.”
“Of course,” Zara muttered as she picked up the keys. “Go get your courage from a bottle.”
“As opposed to getting it from a neck?” Twig retorted.
She looked back now, anger and sadness painted across her face. “Get your own room. I don’t think I want you around tonight.”
She walked away, leaving Twig looking up the stairs at a small chandelier with dangling crystals.
“Whatever,” he muttered, and stomped loudly down the stairs and back into the lobby. He got another set of keys from the shriveled munchkin and handed him another hundred. Twig looked down at his wolf shirt while he waited for the new set of keys, feeling quite absurd.
He went out the front door and into the dark street. The air was smoky and the usual audience of stars didn’t gaze down on him. He wondered how his dad was doing as he walked down the stiff planks of the sidewalk, past his murky, bent reflection in the windows of the closed storefronts.
13.
The funeral for Micah Caspari was a rather private affair. Only family were permitted to attend the funeral, although all were invited to Micah’s former bar, the Church, the following day, where all of Micah’s forlorn friends had a one-night all-you-can-drink tab waiting for them at the bar, paid for by Damon.
Micah had been swept into a vase already, his bloody clothes sent to the incinerator. He was already on the shelf in the foyer of Damon’s new house, formerly the Winters’ estate. Drake and Abby, Damon and Norah, stood there, heads bowed, while Doctor Reynolds paced the kitchen.
When the moment of silence was over, Damon sent the women to away, so that he might talk to Drake in private.
“So the father is gone. You are sure?” he asked while retrieving a cigar from a small box next to his dead son. He checked his teeth in the reflection.
“Yes,” Drake said solemnly. He was looking out the window at the big yard.
“And your face? Was that his work?”
“Yes,” Drake repeated. He turned away from his mentor.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ll have one of our surgeons take a look once we’ve settled things with…that girl.”
Drake nodded, and looked over at the vase.
“He was always too soft for war. To kind for what he was.”
Damon lit his cigar and snapped loudly. “Reynolds, scotch!” he barked. In the kitchen, something crashed loudly and then the whimper of an apology followed.
“Right away sir!”
Damon puffed and looked at the vase. “It’s true. I often wondered how such a person could be of my blood. Perhaps he wasn’t.”
Drake looked perplexed. “Of course he was. No man was stupid enough to go near Vivien Zokos. Plus, he had your eyes.”
“Not always.”
Drake shrugged. “What’s it matter now? He’s gone. And so is Vivian and Jonas. We are but three. We need to recruit, and fast. What about Norah?”
“I need her as is. Her dealings require her to remain human, for now.”
“We need soldiers, not politicians. You think the Lesai clan is going be up for a political discussion when they pounce?”
“I know all this, boy!” Damon snapped. He took a deep breath of cigar smoke and relaxed a bit. “I know this well.” He moved closer to Drake.
“The Lee girl,” he said calmly.
“Safe in the basement, although I don’t see a point—”
“Don’t second guess me. You focus on your duties and let me handle mine. As we speak a law is being voted on. A complete lift on genetic research regulations. I have a fully staffed facility counting the minutes before they can start synthesizing. Lee knows everything that James Sollero once kept in that head of his and much more.”
Drake smiled at the crafty general. “You’re gonna have her make you some of that liquid sunlight, to use on the other clans?”
“Yes, as well as a second serum. An inoculation. But those are only theories as of now. But I do have something special from the lab that might dispel any doubts as to their skills.” He reached out his hand behind him and Reynolds placed a glass of scotch in it. “Out worm,” Damon said. He reached into his pocket and carefully handed Drake a small vial filled with a black substance.
Drake waited for the shameful human to exit. “And this will do what exactly?” He turned around in the light.
“It will give you your army.” Damon blew a big plume of smoke at the vase, where his first-born resided as dust.
14.
Mark fiddled with the radio in the cushy interior of his brother’s Benz. He wanted to hear the news. He wanted to hear what they were saying about him. About Zara.
Leo hit a button on his steering wheel and the radio went silent. “I see you still fidget like that. Can’t sit still.”
Mark gave his brother a steely look. “My daughter, your niece, is out there being hunted by cops and god knows who else. Sorry if that makes me fidget.”
“Zara will be fine. Push comes to shove we play the whole thing off as a bad case of Stockholm syndrome and she does a year in a ward, holding hands and having a good cry. We’ll make it perfectly clear to the court that she is a victim in all this. That boy, the Sollero kid, he’s clearly out of his mind. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“That’s not what is going on here Le
o. Twig is a good kid, I’m sure he is just trying to help Zara out of some trouble.”
“Oh. Well that clears it all up. The kid who had an apartment under a false name, Robocop’s by the way, an apartment the cops found four different people’s blood in, but he’s a good kid. Real Beaver Cleaver, minus the Beaver part. For God sakes, he was seen by several witnesses at the Caspari place freaking out! Kid thinks they’re vampires or something. God help us all if he gets a hold of a machine gun.”
Mark looked out the window. His interrogators had told him that the party his daughter and her friend Nicolas had attended several days ago was held at Damon Casparis’ home. They told him about the scene—the shouting between Twig and Zara. But they hadn’t mentioned the blood. He always thought he was a good judge of character, but maybe he had missed something with Twig.
“What about the calls? From Twig’s father, James.”
Leo took a deep breath. “Yeah, about that. I didn’t really want to dump this on you right out of the pokey, but it looks like your pal had some trouble down in Utah.”
“Trouble?” Mark said.
“Yeah, trouble like having your head-cut-off-kind-of-trouble.
“Christ,” Mark said with a mortified look on his face, “he was decapitated?
“Looks that way. He was found by a road near the residence of one Li Lee, or Shoe Lee, I have it written somewhere. Anyway, this Lee character evidently had some outstanding debts. Maybe they thought Sollero was in cahoots with Lee or something. They are keeping it all pretty quiet down there.”
Mark felt sick. James had sounded so worried when he called. But he was worried about the kids, and even Mark. He didn’t mention bookies. None of it added up.
“That’s all you know about it? They find anything else odd?”
“No. Well, yeah, I guess.”
Leo turned the car north, heading out of the city towards the highway.
“Well?” Mark said impatiently.
“Oh, a piece of fabric. Cops said it was part of a wedding dress.”
“A wedding dress?” Mark tried to make sense of it.
“Yeah. Maybe your pal pissed off more than just bookies out there in Vegas.”
15.
Zara couldn’t sleep, partly because she was still mad at Twig, who was off gallivanting around town while they should be figuring out how to destroy Damon and Drake. She didn’t feel right in the room either. It was elegant and immaculately prepared, with creaseless sheets and blankets on the beds, yet in all its elegance something grotesque seemed to fill the air in the place. Something Zara couldn’t place, but could feel, like how her grandmother could feel a big rain coming by a tingle in her brittle bones.
She looked out the third-story window. The murky night and the jagged tips of pines blanketed the hills like mangy fur. Swaying and quivering. She unlatched a brass hook and opened the window, letting a cool breeze flow into the room.
She took a shower, but it didn’t have the refreshing effect it once had. She got dressed in the new clothes she had bought at a little trading post in Silverthorne. Twig had given her a hard time about it. “Do you really need four pairs of jeans? This money has to last us you know...” he complained, so Zara had told the girl at the counter that she had rung it up wrong, and that today everything was 95% off.
“Dangerous,” Twig had commented while they piled the clothes into the truck. “Suppose they notice missing money, check the tapes and see two wanted criminals?”
“What’s the good of being a criminal if you can’t commit a few crimes here and there?” She shot back. “Besides, we paid, remember?”
Zara couldn’t help but smile. The trip from Denver to the Alistair had been a series of small battles with Twig, and she kept track of every victory and defeat. She cared about him, but couldn’t get Micah out of her head. What would her life be like had she stayed by Micah’s side? She would have turned into one of them, instead of becoming whatever she was. She wouldn’t be hunted by the cops and everyone she cared about would be safe, even Twig. Had Twig just let it go, Zara would probably be sipping wine with Micah under the stars somewhere, instead of hiding in a creaky hotel in the mountains, waiting for her enemies to come for her.
She paced the room, juggling all these thoughts in her tired mind. She sat on the edge of one of the beds. A bible—glossy black with a golden cross embossed on the cover—was sitting on the nightstand beside a lamp. She opened the drawer, put the book inside and slammed it shut.
She couldn’t wait a moment longer. She had to tell her father she was alright. She knew she couldn’t just call though. The cops would surely have the phones tapped. She decided she would call her friend Amy. She hadn’t really kept in contact with her since they parted ways in high school, but she still remembered her number. It was risky, but what wasn’t these days.
In the hallway an old lady was just coming up the stairs and smiled at Zara. She was wearing a very old dress. “Hi there,” she said sweetly.
“Hey,” Zara returned, offering a smile.
“Isn’t the Alistair just marvelous?” The woman said, looking around in awe.
“It’s very pretty.”
The woman touched the wallpaper on the wall and traced the pattern with her finger. Zara immediately sensed a bit of senility at work.
“Have you stayed here long?” Zara asked.
“I suppose I have,” the woman said. She looked at Zara now, up and down. “I’m waiting for my son to arrive. He is very prosperous you know. He is coming to take me to California.”
Zara smiled politely. “Do you know if there is a phone downstairs? I need to make a call.”
The woman shook her head and giggled. She reached out and touched Zara’s arm. Zara wanted to recoil, but felt sorry for the old woman. She looked sad and confused.
“I’d be careful dear. He took them you know. He’s the devil. I’ve seen him.”
Zara squirmed out of the old lady’s grip. The woman was still smiling but now Zara noticed a sort of madness in it.
“Okay, sure. I’ll be careful. Thanks!” Zara said, before running down the stairs.
Downstairs the old clerk was nowhere to be found, and did not respond to the bell. Zara snuck around the check-in counter and looked for a phone, but found none. She sighed. “My kingdom for a cell phone,” she muttered.
She walked to the pictures and news clippings. Rough, bearded men in funny pants. She read one of the clippings on the wall, taken from the Silverthorne Gazette.
1845, May, Sunday
Sherriff Sollero Killed in Canyon Showdown
The notorious McDermot gang, led by Sam “Ghost” McDermot and Casey Laylan of former Kinney Gang fame, were involved in a wild shootout last night after Sheriff Clay Sollero, his deputies, and an assembled posse cornered the desperate criminals in Viper Canyon just outside of Lost Valley. The shootout lasted several minutes and we have been informed that the melee resulted in seven casualties, taking the lives of Sheriff Sollero, five townsfolk and three men belonging to the McDermot gang.
It appears that the Ghost has lived up to his name yet again, and escaped the fight with help of Casey Laylan, who apparently ambushed the sheriff’s posse, and who is also at large.
How Sam McDermot escaped what should have been a routine capture confounds even the most inventive minds. Witnesses to the showdown have reported that the Ghost leapt into the air, over the heads of the posse, and that he took no less than ten bullets while he performed this unlikely feat.
It comes as no great surprise that the people of Lost Valley are telling such tall tales. Since it was uncovered by one Davis G. Mitchells that the well water in Lost Valley contained alarming amounts of mercury, the town has been a constant source of supernatural claims.
Whether or not the Pinkertons will be called in remains to be seen. Deputy Charles Goodway will be taking over as acting Sheriff in Lost Valley. When asked for comment, mister Goodway was reluctant to talk about the shootout, but had this to say a
bout Sheriff Sollero:
“He was a man of indisputable honor and kindness. He will be missed. And he will be avenged.”
The rest of the article was missing. She was scanning the other articles when someone cleared his throat behind her. Zara whirled around to see the little pinched face of the clerk.
“They never did catch him you know. The Ghost.”
Zara tried to look casual but was shaken. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the sheriff’s name was Sollero.
Bloodfire (Empire of Fangs) Page 6