by Rob Cornell
“No sign of him. But he went missing after the incident with the guard. Several weapons were left behind after the attack on our home. A flamethrower and a crossbow, the weapon that murdered the guard.”
“Is it the woman?”
“I do not know, sir. We’ve had increased retaliation from the ogres as well.”
“Ogres aren’t prone to flamethrowers and crossbows. They prefer to get their hands bloody.”
“I’ve come to ask permission to form a posse to search for our missing member.”
Niall leaned back and stroked his chin. He did not need his followers distracted by a fruitless search. No doubt their missing companion had met his end. “No. I will have this taken care of. You and your people must continue to focus on recruiting.”
The elder follower’s fangs slipped over his bottom lip. His eyes flashed. “My lord, I vowed to take care of my community. They will see weakness if I do not pursue this matter.”
“Defiance does not further your cause here. Leave now.”
The elder drew in his fangs and nodded. “Yes, Master.”
All three stood and exited the hotel without another word, though Niall could sense the elder’s dissatisfaction. Leading was a balance of stern command and sincere compassion. But the elder was right. A leader protected his followers or else his reign would never last.
Niall gestured to another of his ex-mortal slaves that stood round like stone pillars until summoned. The freshling rushed before him and bowed. “Yes, Lord.”
“Tell Yora her king has an important mission for her and that she come immediately.”
The freshling bowed and scurried off.
Niall tugged at an ear, lost in thought. Not many mortals were so bold as to attack a nest. Not many mortals even knew such things existed. Whoever this enemy was, Niall would have to make sure they saw the light—or, as mortals characterized death, entered the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“How come you didn’t tell me you were working with Teresa?”
Marty gestured to the chair across the table from him. “Sit down, Lockman.”
“I’m not here to sip espresso and chat.” He pulled back his jacket to show off the Uzi strapped to his side. “Answer my questions before I shoot you in the face.”
“Killed by one of my own weapons.” The ogre laughed, his broad shoulders hitching. “Wouldn’t that put a shitter on my day?”
“I’m serious, Marty. I will kill you.”
“In here? A mortal offing a supernatural in a supernatural café? I don’t think you’d make it out of here alive, brother.”
Lockman made a fist at his side. “It would almost be worth it.”
“Will you fucking sit down so I can explain?”
Lockman glared at the empty chair as if it had insulted him. Sit in that chair and lose the moral high ground by treating Marty like he’d done no wrong? Or stand there glaring down at him and lose the chance to get answers. Answers were more important right now.
He sat. “That why you wanted to meet me here? Afraid of what I might do to you for lying to me?”
“It didn’t take you long to find out. How’d you do it?”
“A little fanged birdie told me a ‘friendly ogre’ was trolling bars with a woman fitting Teresa’s description.”
“A vamp?”
“Former. Now he’s a stain on the hood of the car.”
Lockman had never seen it, but apparently ogres could go pale. Marty’s green skin turned a lighter shade. “What? Is she okay?”
“That brings us to another discussion. A supernatural car? You really loaned me a fucking supernatural car named Vera?”
“She’s loyal. And she’ll look after you. I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Why? What’s going on around here that I need the extra protection?”
Marty cocked his mouth to one side. “Come on, you telling me you haven’t figured that out yet?”
“The vamps.”
“The lots and lots of vamps, brother.”
“I went into a nest that had close to fifty all living together like kids at summer camp.”
“Disturbing shit, isn’t it?”
“What the hell is going on, Marty?”
The ogre picked up his cup of coffee. A regular cup of Joe, but in his big green hand it looked like an espresso. He sipped, his pinky poking out because his thick fingers couldn’t all fit onto the mug’s handle. “Teresa would be better qualified to brief you. She’s the one did most the field work down here.”
Lockman leaned forward, hot around the neck. “You’ll have to do your best since the vamps got her now.”
Marty set down his cup, his gaze cast down at the table, his lips mashed together. “Yeah, about that.” Still staring at the table, he lifted a hand and waved over his head.
She seemed to come out of nowhere, sat down at the table with them. “Hey, Craig.”
Lockman’s heartfelt ready to burst. He looked at Marty, then back at her. “Teresa?”
She gave him a shy smile. “Please don’t hate me.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Betrayal can actually leave a taste in your mouth. A metallic and rotten taste, like moldy copper. That taste filled Lockman’s mouth and he felt the urge to retch. “What the fuck?”
Teresa brushed some of her hair back behind her ear. She looked like the proverbial cat that feasted on the canary. Lockman could practically smell the guilt in her sweat. “Don’t get mad,” she said.
“Too damn late for that.”
Marty reached across the table to get Lockman’s attention. “Don’t come down on her. This was all my idea.”
“What idea? This doesn’t make sense.” He turned to Teresa. “Who abducted you?”
“I did,” Marty answered. “My brothers, actually.”
Lockman thought about the unusual size of the vamps who attacked the cabin. Now it made sense. They weren’t really vamps at all. He wanted to leap out of his chair and use it to club Marty over the head. Instead, he fumed silently.
“There’s a vein about to pop in your neck, brother. Take it easy.”
Lockman glared at the ogre. “You son of a bitch.” Then he pointed at Teresa. “You, too. You did this to get me down here. To help find your sister.”
Teresa opened her mouth to speak, but Marty cut her off.
“There’s more to it than—”
“Shut up. I want to hear it from her.”
Marty folded his arms and sighed through his nose.
Teresa gave the ogre a glance as if to make sure she had the okay to speak. When she did start, she wouldn’t look Lockman in the eye. “After Mandy first went missing, I hooked up with Marty to get equipped. I explained what happened and he volunteered to help.”
“Then why bring me into this?”
She held up a hand. “I’m getting to that.”
Lockman forced himself to keep quiet and let her finish. He gestured for her to go on.
“We came down here to look for Mandy. We didn’t find her, but what we did find…”
Marty propped his elbows on the table. “A legion of vampires. Scores of them, all working together. Old originals and the freshest of turns.”
Again with the organized vamps. Only Lockman couldn’t deny it anymore. He’d seen a large group of almost civilized vamps living in a little commune like hippies. But fifty vamps didn’t add up to a legion. Or scores. “How many are we really talking about here?”
Marty shook his head slowly. “Uncountable. Spread out all through the city and surrounding counties.”
“Estimate,” Lockman said through his clenched teeth.
“We haven’t seen them all, Lockman. It’s a lot. You’re going to have to trust me.”
That rotten metal taste filled Lockman’s mouth again. “Sorry, Marty, but you are the last person I’m going to trust at this point.”
“Then trust me,” Teresa said. She finally looked him in the eye.
Lockman didn’t like what he saw there. Fear. Maybe even panic. “Why should I? After what you pulled.”
“You know me. Marty is right. This is bigger than just Mandy. This is a potential war.”
Echoes of what LaRue had said pinged in his mind. War. A war with the vampires. “That’s why you think they’re organizing?”
“Why else? Somehow, someone or something rallied these vamps and made them work together in numbers we have never seen on this plane.”
“The vamps are tired of hiding,” Marty said, “and being hungry.”
Lockman stared back and forth between the two of them. An ogre he never fully trusted and a woman he would have trusted with his life. Both of them part of a ruse to draw him into something he wanted nothing to do with.
He focused on Teresa. “You asked me to find your sister. You didn’t say anything about a potential vampire war.”
“Would you have believed me if I had?”
“But what I hear you saying is that this was never only about Mandy. From the beginning you wanted to get me involved with this.”
She bowed her head. Nothing to say.
“You lied to me from the start.” He pushed his chair out. “I don’t want any part of this. I have a family now. One that I abandoned for the second time because I thought you were in danger.”
Marty stood before Lockman could. The ogre stared down at him. “You’re already a part of this, brother.”
“Only because you played me.” He stood. “Now that I know the game, I quit.”
Teresa reached out and took his hand. “Please. Hear us out.”
Lockman pulled his hand away. “I’ve heard enough.” He skirted the table, intending to head back the way he came to make sure he could get out of this nightmare café.
Marty stepped into his path. “Your destiny lies with us.”
“Step aside, Darth Vader. And keep your fucking bullshit prophecies to yourself.”
“What are you, deaf? There is an army of vamps down here. You going to let that keep happening?”
“There’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. This is all part of my vision. Your place is here. You have to help stop this. The vamps aren’t just a threat to mortals.”
“And I’m supposed to give a shit about you friendly supernaturals?”
A few of the closest café patrons turned and stared. Some faces showed recognizable disdain. Others looked just plain weird, unreadable.
Lockman’s skin crawled at their scrutiny. He felt the weight of his minority status in this establishment. Time to get out of there. He craned his neck back to meet Marty’s eyes. “If what you’re telling me is true, I have two people I care very much about alone and unprotected. My responsibility is to them. I should have never left them in the first place.”
Marty’s red eyes darkened. “How long do you think you can hide, brother? How long before these vamps spread their numbers across the country? Across the world? Where will Kate and Jessie be safe then?”
“You’re out of your mind. That couldn’t happen.”
“What if I could guarantee that it will?”
“There would have to be one hell of a cause to bring together that many vamps.”
The hinge of Marty’s jaw bulged as he ground his teeth. “There is.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Like old times. Jessie disappearing for days. Kate left worrying, imagination wandering the halls of castle Worse Case Scenario. Images and possibilities haunting every thought while she tried to convince herself with the mantra, She’s all right. She’ll come back when she’s ready. She’ll all right. She’ll come back…
But Kate would be damned if she sat around in a motel room that smelled like old shoes and insect repellant, waiting for Jess to come back. So she went out looking. At first trolling the local areas. The out of the way diners and drug stores. The nearest town, that amounted to little more than a few dirt roads and rows of empty-looking houses. Then further out. Cruising like she had as a teen along Woodward Avenue. Aimless, pointless driving. Until finally, the obvious answer swung back at her like a boomerang she had forgotten she’d thrown.
Maybe she’d known from the start. But she hadn’t wanted to go back there. Not only because of the destruction, but because it would remind her of the momentary life she and Craig had started to build there. Not perfect. Not even close. But better than what she used to have. Better with him in her life.
At least, that’s what she had thought.
How foolish was she for believing it could last?
Her heart picked up some extra beats as she pulled up the driveway to the cabin, and beat even faster when the cabin came into view. The van still poked out of the front of the cabin. Debris littered the porch. The broken front door gaped like a missing tooth.
Home sweet home. Yeah, right.
Kate parked the car and approached the house. She crept, as if worried she might spook Jessie into running off like a startled animal out of the brush. When she reached the door she caught herself sneaking like that and rolled her eyes. What the heck was her deal? This was her daughter, not a chipmunk.
Yet she couldn’t fight the urge to move slowly and silently. Once past the threshold, a static quality to the air made the hairs on her arms stand up. A chill rolled down her spine. Call it mother’s intuition or paranoia—not always different things—but she knew something was not right.
The van in the living room might have had something to add to that feeling. All the bullet holes in the walls didn’t help either. The smell of gas. The sparkle of shattered glass on the floor. It was enough to put anyone on edge.
What she felt she knew had more to it.
“Jess?” she called, voice broken and hoarse. She cleared her throat and called again.
Silence. Not even the usual chatter of insects and animals or the whisper of wind. As if sound had died in this place.
If Jessie had been staying here all along, the most logical place to look was her bedroom. But if she was in there, why didn’t she answer Kate’s call. She could be asleep—
—or worse.
Kate squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the speculations away. They did her no good. Find Jessie, if she was here. Then deal with the reality, not empty worries.
She approached Jessie’s bedroom, her shoes crunching on the broken glass strewn across the floor. The bedroom door was closed. The knob felt like ice when Kate touched it. She jerked her hand away.
The local humidity had to be pushing forty percent, the temp touching the high end of the eighties. Yet the doorknob to the bedroom felt like a flag pole in the middle of winter.
Jessie was in there. Kate had no doubt. She felt Craig’s absence more than ever. He would do better facing whatever waited on the other side of this door.
Open the door, Kate.
She steeled herself as best she could for whatever she might discover, grabbed the chilled knob, and pushed the door open.
The bedroom looked so normal. None of the clutter of Jess’s bedroom back in Michigan, but she hadn’t had long to collect the usual teenage artifacts that had adorned her walls and the tops of her dresser and nightstand. Still, as empty as it was, nothing strange leapt out at her. No green spectral ghosts. No werewolf crouched in the corner. No blood pouring down the walls, or flashing lights, or swirling winds. Just a plain old bedroom.
And Jessie curled on the bed.
Kate let go the breath she didn’t know she was holding. She could hear her own pulse thumping in her ears. Sweat tickled her upper lip. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist.
Jessie’s chest rose and fell in time with her breathing. She had one hand curled under her cheek. The other she held wrapped against her chest like she used to as a little girl when she hugged her stuffed horse in her sleep.
Kate watched her daughter, admiring the peaceful expression on her face. How long had it been since she watched Jess as she slept? Felt like a hundre
d years, at least. She used to do it all the time. Just sit on the edge of Jessie’s bed and stare at her, marveling that this little girl came into the world through Kate herself. A separate life, yet one eternally tied to her own.
For a moment, Kate let herself forget the bizarre events of the last year. She went back to a time before Alec, and a few years after Craig had disappeared. A young, single mother. The hardest kind of life in the world. But she wouldn’t have traded it for a thing.
She couldn’t stay in that moment, though. She had to get Jessie out of that cabin. Out of Illinois all together. Find a new home. Claw her way back to a normal life. Kate had taken care of Jessie on her own for more than ten years. She could do it again.
A deep breath, then she crossed the room to stand beside the bed. She reached down and stroked Jessie’s cheek. All the anger that had built up since Jessie took off bled right out of her. She was just glad to be with her daughter again.
“Jess, wake up.”
She didn’t stir.
Kate gently shook her by her shoulder.
Jessie rocked back and forth, but still did not wake. She looked a little pale. Was she sick?
Kate pressed her hand over Jess’s forehead feeling for a fever. Instead of a fever, Jessie’s skin felt nearly as cold as the doorknob. A strangled gasp slipped from Kate’s mouth. She yanked her hand away and pressed a knuckle against her lips.
Oh, please, don’t…don’t…
She couldn’t even think it. She shook Jessie more incessantly. Shook her until she rolled over onto her back. The arm curled against her chest flopped away, revealing the thing she had held there. The bronze cube tumbled off of Jessie’s chest and hit the floor with a hollow knock.
Kate jumped back as if the cube were a snake out to bite her. She slapped a hand over her racing heart.
The fist-sized cube seemed to stare back at her, one of the etchings like an eye.
Her cold fear turned hot. She balled her hands into fists and trembled. That thing. That thing on the floor was supposed to have been destroyed.
You son of a bitch. You told me you destroyed it.