by Rachel Caine
This one wasn’t quite as murky, and it was smaller; the water was an eerie bluish jade color, completely opaque. It was as still as stone, too, as I vaulted onto the catwalk that angled over it. The draug weren’t slopping over into this pond. I thought they’d chase me … but they stopped at the concrete barrier. Even the waves curled back on themselves rather than fall into these still waters.
I slowed, and stopped. It couldn’t be. I looked ahead; at the next angled intersection between catwalks was another divider, another pool. The water there was clearer, and it almost boiled with activity just like the last pool.
But here, in between … there was nothing. I took a breath, and immediately wished I hadn’t; this whole area reeked of human waste and something else, something sweetly rotten that might have been the draug. No way I could pick out one individual component from the general stench.
I needed a sample of the water the draug seemed to avoid … and I had something to put it in. Eve’s latest gift to me, which I wore on a chain around my neck … a blood vial. Some Goths were into it, keeping each other’s blood as either mementos or trophies, but she’d gotten it mainly because it was, as she put it, my “break glass in case of emergency” supply. It was Eve’s blood. I’d never really planned on drinking it, because it was just a taste, really, but this was a true emergency, after all.
I uncorked it and drained it in one small gulp. The taste of her essence exploded on my tongue in a rush, and I felt my pupils contract and my fangs come down in response. It’s hard to describe what it feels like, except that it’s a whole lot like wanting something you know isn’t good for you. Craving, lust, hunger, fear, all balled up inside a sense of wonder, because you can actually feel the person the blood came from, at least a little. The fresher the blood, the sharper that sensation.
I held that taste in my mouth for a long second that seemed to stretch toward eternity, and then finally swallowed. The blood trickled in warm drops down toward my stomach, and I felt a spurt of energy run through me. Not much, because it wasn’t much blood, but it helped.
I knelt down and stretched out as far as I could; I had to hang at a precarious angle, but I finally got a scoop of the turquoise water into the vial and corked it. Even in the bottle, the liquid looked opaque with whatever was suspended in it. I looped the chain back around my neck and rolled to my feet.
Ahead of me, more turbulence in the next pool. Behind me, the draug were definitely ready to welcome me back.
“The things I do for you, bro,” I said, and ran straight ahead, top speed. The railing flew by in a blur, and as I approached the sharp V-shaped turn that angled across the next pool, also dangerously active, I calculated the distance, propelled myself up and onto the railing, and leaped across. I hit the other catwalk still running, but this time the draug had anticipated me, and the waves were heading toward me, building fast.
They were going to build high enough to swamp the catwalk, and once they were on it, they could pull me off balance and down into the depths.
I snarled, fangs out, and timed it carefully. Wait … wait … I kept running, faster and faster, building up momentum as the wave broke through the catwalk’s grating and raced toward me, and then I slammed both feet down, hard. It was a risk. The catwalk was old, and rusty, and if my feet had broken through I’d have been done, but the hard old bridge held, and I arced up, up and over. The wave reached up for me, and I pulled my knees up in midair.
The draug’s murky liquid form slapped at the soles of my shoes, and then dissolved and fell back into the pool. My jump carried me forward, and I landed hard, rolling with it to shed momentum, then bouncing back to my feet before they could react.
I made it to the end and leaped the railing into the tall winter-scorched weeds.
They didn’t come after me. The waves subsided back into the pool. I stared at them for a second, wondering what the hell it was going to take to really make them come out of their hiding place after me, and finally thought to look back at the other pools.
The one that I’d just crossed was agitating just enough to keep my attention, but the ones on the ends were suspiciously quiet.
Ah. The draug were crawling out from my right and left, silently circling toward me. That was better. As long as they were focused on me, they weren’t going to be going after Claire and Eve and the others …
Except that there weren’t enough of them. A few, sure—five, six on each side. There had to be a lot more of them that were strong enough to leave the pool. We’d killed many of them, but not that many; they’d been all over us inside when we’d come earlier. That meant that they were likely still inside.
With Eve.
I needed to draw them out, and to do that I had to present either a genuine opportunity … or a genuine threat. Preferably both.
I did two things.
First, I extended my fangs and ripped open my own wrist, and let the dark red blood—loaded with those delicious vampire pheromones the draug loved—spray out all over the ground around me. “Soup’s on, guys. Come get some.”
Next, as the draug charged me, I backed up against the fence, pumped the shotgun, and began to methodically kill them all. I’d never been one for killing things, but I’d had plenty of video game practice.
Turns out all that first-person shooter stuff is actually good for something. Especially in Morganville.
I was killing the last one—or at least, turning it back into splatters of liquid that crawled away to the safety of a pool—when my cell phone rang. Eve had changed my ringtone, again. She’d sampled one of my concerts. Weird, to hear my own music coming out of the speaker.
I grabbed the phone and thumbed it on. “Kind of busy right now!” I said, before the novelty of my cell phone actually working dawned on me. “Who is this?”
“Moses,” came the breathless reply. “We’ve got Shane. Heading for the truck. Claire and Eve are pinned down on the main stairs. Go get them.”
I was about to confirm all that when I heard the draug start shrieking. I wasn’t prepared for it; the noise went through me like an arrow through the head, and I almost dropped the phone, but I managed to hang it up and get it back in my pocket. I didn’t know what had happened to hurt them that badly, but even though the screaming hurt, it made me savagely happy, too.
It would damn sure keep them busy.
I raced back over the catwalk that led through the safe pool, and broke the lock on a door to the inside of the building. There were more pools in here, just a couple, with more catwalks, and I saw that one of the pools was a thrashing, shrieking mess of silver and black that, even as I watched, quieted into stillness.
There were open canisters of silver nitrate discarded nearby. And blood. Lots of fresh human blood.
Shane’s.
The blood trail went off to the left, but I plunged straight ahead, for the stairs that went up a floor into the main lobby. I caught sight of the truck outside the doors, and figures moving around it—Hannah’s distinctive form was standing guard, so they were all safe, for now.
I ran upstairs, toward the smell of burned gunpowder, rot, and fear.
I met Claire and Eve coming down. Claire was supporting Eve; she seemed to be limping and cursing a lot. Claire still had her shotgun, but Eve’s hands were empty. Unarmed.
I didn’t think, I just took Eve in my arms and lifted her. The scent and warmth of her wrapped around me, and she leaned her head wearily against my chest. “Hannah found him,” she said. “Shane’s okay. He’s alive.”
I kissed her forehead. “I know. You’re safe now.” She wasn’t bleeding, which was a relief; the limping must have been from a twisted ankle. Tenderness flowed through me, relaxing muscles I hadn’t even known were tense; her fingers crept around my neck, and even though she didn’t lift her lips to mine, she didn’t flinch. “I swear, you’re safe, Eve.”
“They had us,” Claire told me. “The draug had us cornered. But they ran.”
“Yeah. Looks lik
e Hannah threw a bomb in their party pool,” I said.
“Shane—”
“I know, she’s got him. You were right. He’s okay.” I knew, but didn’t say, that he’d lost a lot of blood; she could probably figure that out on her own. The important thing was that Shane had come out of this alive.
We all had, as far as I could tell.
Win.
Claire took a deep breath, racked her shotgun like a professional, and said, “I’ve got your back. You just take care of her.”
I escorted her, or she escorted me and Eve, to the truck. I opened the back to find Shane sitting in the cushy throne chair, covered in painful draug stings, his whole body seeping blood all over the upholstery. He looked paper-pale and shaky, but he raised his hand and said, “Hey, bro.”
“Hey,” I said. It was all I could manage. I realized, looking at him, that we’d been maybe a minute or two away from all this being utterly useless. He couldn’t have held out much longer.
It scared me.
Richard and Monica were standing, though Monica looked mutinous; her expensive shoes were broken, and her dress was smeared with blood. She glared at me as if daring me to make some kind of comment.
“Thanks,” I said to her, and I meant it. “Both of you.”
Richard nodded. Monica frowned, as if she’d never had anyone thank her before and didn’t know exactly how to handle it. That seemed likely.
Claire shoved past me, jumped in, and headed straight for Shane. He put his arms around her when she hugged him, but there was something odd in his face, something … tentative. As if he wasn’t sure all this was real. If she was real.
No time to sort it out. I slammed the back door and jumped in the front with Eve and Hannah, and we got the hell out.
Fast.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CLAIRE
The entire ride back to Founder’s Square, Claire kept telling herself that Shane was all right. His skin was slick with blood from the bites, and he was pale and weak, but he was alive. And anything else could be fixed. Had to be fixed.
It had been only twenty minutes, maybe twenty-five, that he’d been in the draug’s power. Michael had survived a whole lot longer than that, and he was just fine.
He’s going to be all right.
But the way he was holding her felt … strange. Tentative. It was more than the weakness.
“Hey,” she said to him, resting her head against his chest. His heart was beating fast, but it sounded strong and regular. “What happened in there?”
“Where?” he asked. He was with her, but he sounded … empty. Or at least, very far away.
“Where you were.” Still are.
“I’m fine,” he said, which didn’t answer her question at all. “You smell like gunpowder.”
“New perfume,” she said, straight-faced. “Do you like it?”
“Edgy,” he said, which was almost his old self, but phoned in, again, from a long way off.
“Shane—”
“I can’t,” he said, very softly. “I can’t talk about it right now, okay? Just—leave it.”
She didn’t want to, because the look in his eyes, the way he was holding her … It made her anxious all over again. It felt, somehow, as if they hadn’t found him, or at least not in time. As if part of him was still trapped.
She just curled closer to him, willing him to be all right, and said nothing else all the way back. His body was there, solid and living, but there was something else that just wasn’t there, and when she looked up into his eyes, she didn’t see … didn’t see Shane. Not completely.
“He okay?” Of all things, it was Monica asking that question, crouched awkwardly on her broken heels with her brother standing silently behind her. She looked as if she was actually, momentarily, interested. “I mean, Jesus, that’s a lot of blood.”
“He’s okay,” Claire answered, when Shane didn’t. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t unconscious; he was holding on to her tightly and shivering. “Just—he needs to heal, that’s all.” Her voice shook when she said it, and Monica shot her a swift, mercilessly piercing look. There was blood in her hair, Shane’s blood, drying in a stiffened patch.
“News flash, preschool, nobody’s okay right now, and most of us didn’t have that happen.” She stood up suddenly, her expression hardening, and tugged at her dress. “I came back here to get help, not to get dragged off to rescue your lame, limp ass, Collins. So you could be a little grateful.”
Shane slowly raised one hand, and … flipped her off. It was weak, but it was so very him that Claire almost cried.
Monica almost smiled. Almost. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I thought. Truce over, asshole. Next time I see you bleeding on the side of the road, I back up and run you over again.”
“Monica,” Richard said, in a tone that said he’d had enough. More than enough. She shut up and pressed herself against the wall of the armored truck as it bumped and shuddered along. “Claire, is he still bleeding?”
“Some,” she said. She could feel the slow trickle of it soaking through her clothes. “But not as bad.” That might have been wishful thinking, which was the only kind of thinking she could do right now. “Thank you. If you hadn’t come with us …” I’d be dead. And Eve. And Shane. Maybe Michael, too, because he’d have tried to get us all back.
Richard nodded, not refusing the thanks but not making a big deal out of it, either; he just let it roll off him without really registering. “He’s strong, Claire,” he said. “He held on. That means a lot.”
“I never should have left him,” she said. “Oh God, this is my fault, my fault.” She started crying, heavy, aching tears that pushed up from the core of her body. They tasted as salty as Shane’s blood when she kissed his cheek and buried her face in the hollow of his neck.
She felt Richard’s gentle touch on her back. “Sometimes things just happen,” he said. “It’s not right. It’s not fair. But it’s nobody’s fault, Claire. So don’t do that. Don’t take it all on yourself. I promise you, it’s the last thing he wants you to do.”
She nodded, but she didn’t really feel it.
“About my sister,” he said. “She was a sweet kid, you know. When she was little. Used to come home crying every day in first grade. Everybody hated her, because her dad was the mayor. So by second grade, she gave it right back. She started fighting back when nobody was coming at her.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He shrugged. “I thought you should know she wasn’t always … what she is. She was made that way. Not born. She can change. I’m hoping she will.”
“Yeah,” Claire said. “Me too.”
Richard patted her on the shoulder again, and withdrew over to the wall of the truck.
Shane held on to her with desperate strength, all the way to Founder’s Square.
Shane needed a transfusion.
When Theo told her, Claire burst into tears again, frantic ones. Eve hugged her from one side, Michael from the other, until she calmed down enough to listen to what Dr. Goldman had to say.
“He did lose a lot of blood,” Theo said very gently, and captured her bloodstained right hand in both of his as he stood in front of her. She, Eve, and Michael were sitting in some antique white chairs in the anteroom of what had become Theo’s makeshift hospital; as waiting rooms went, it was fancy, but cold. “The transfusion will help replace that volume quickly, and it will take about four hours; I doubt there will be any ill effects, though he may continue to have some weakness as his body recovers. I tested him, since the draug carry diseases at times, but it appears he is clear of that, which is a lucky thing. All he needs is blood for now, and rest. He should be better very soon, I promise you.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “Has anyone told you how much of a miracle that is? That he, a human, survived?”
“He’s strong,” Claire whispered. She’d been saying it from the beginning, and had been confident, so blindly confident. But seeing him so pale and we
ak and shaking … that had terrified her.
“Yes, strong indeed,” Theo said, and patted her hand before he let it go. “A fighter, as he always has been. Today that served him very well, but you must understand that he will require more than physical strength. Michael can tell you that, to a point, but there may be … other factors, for Shane. What little we know of draug encounters with humans tells us the humans are forced into a dream world … or nightmares. I do not know which Shane experienced. So be patient with him, and watch for signs of any … odd behavior. All of you.”
They all nodded. Eve’s grip on Claire’s hand was almost painfully tight, but she took a deep breath and eased up as Theo rose and walked away. “That’s good news,” she said, with forced cheer. “See? Transfusion fixes him right up. He’s going to be fine, CB. Honestly.”
Eve was saying that as much to cheer herself up as to hearten Claire. Claire looked, instead, toward Michael. “How bad is it?” she asked. “Really.”
He didn’t flinch from the question, but she’d seen his nightmares, and he knew it. “Bad,” he said. “But vampires don’t react the same way to the chemicals the draug secrete; we don’t get the dream state that Theo was talking about. So we’re awake, and aware, the whole time. Humans … I don’t know what he was dreaming about, Claire. It could have been good. I hope it was good.”
“Have you talked about what it was like? To anyone?” She glanced at Eve, who looked away, lips compressed. Of course he hadn’t. Eve would have been his listener, but there was a gap between them now that they had to shout across. Maybe it was smaller than it had been, but it was still there. “You should, Michael. It must have been horrible.”