Eternal Hunger

by Cameron Dean

  “You, too,” I said.

  Chet moved off down the front walk, leaving Bibi and me alone.

  “I refuse to blubber about this,” she said.

  “I should hope so,” I said. “We’ve already blubbered quite enough. Go home and get some rest, Bibi. Then go visit Randolph. Do whatever you have to do to celebrate life.”

  “If you don’t stop sounding like some therapy talk-show host, I’m not going to go at all.” She threw her arms around me and held me close. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But now you have to let go.”

  “I don’t want to,” she said. She gave me one last squeeze then stepped back. “It’s harder than I thought.”

  “That makes two of us,” I said. I made a shooing motion with my hands. “Go. Now.”

  She turned, walked halfway down the front walk, then turned back. “I’m coming back, Candace,” she said in a calm, clear voice. “I’m coming back, and so are you.”

  Then she walked to the car without looking back. I waited until Chet’s taillights had disappeared around the corner, then returned to the still and silent house, alone.

  Seventeen

  I waited until late afternoon, when the sun was just above the horizon line. The good news was that it was spring, not summer. The sun set sooner, and the daytime temperature was more moderate. Going outside was still not going to be precisely what I called fun, but I thought I could manage it.

  Who the hell was I kidding? I didn’t exactly have a choice.

  I dressed in the bedroom Ash and I had once shared, feeling like David getting ready to face Goliath. A pair of sturdy stretch jeans, black T-shirt, a pair of light-trail hiking boots. I fastened on a waist pack, carefully folded the paper Ash and I believed might be the Tongue of Thoth, and placed it inside. I thought longingly about my silver stakes, all of which I’d had to give away, because they were now lethal to me as well as my enemies.

  Finally, I grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and put on a pair of shades. I went to the garage, started up Ash’s car, and set off.

  Panic gripped me hard. I knew I couldn’t defeat Sloane and the Board. I doubted I could save Ash. I just knew I had to find him.

  I had only a vague idea of where I was going. I was trusting in a flash of a pain-filled vision to guide me. Fine, then I’ll trust it, I told myself. Somehow I would trust the psychic connection; the rapport between me and Ash would lead me to him.

  The brief glimpse of Ash’s surroundings that had come to me during that incredible moment of shared pain had convinced me that Sloane had taken Ash into the mountains. In many ways, the terrain outside Vegas would be the perfect place for the ritual the Board was about to perform. Though there were plenty of mainstream hiking trails, there was lots of isolated territory as well.

  Since Ash’s house was on the outskirts of the city, it took only about half an hour to reach the overlook that led to the hiking trails of Red Rock. I was sure these trails would lead to the uniquely shaped rocks I was looking for. I parked the car and got out to consider my options. I gazed at my surroundings—an expanse of massive red rock, broken by the occasional yucca or barrel cactus—then did a quick study of the trail map posted by the park service. Quickly, I chose the trail that seemed to lead to the most remote area. The very thought of forcing my body uphill on even the gentle slope in front of me made me ache with weariness. But there was no sense in stalling.

  If I didn’t go to the Board, they would come to me. Of that I had no doubt. And when they did, more people I cared about could get hurt.

  I headed for the far end of the overlook where my chosen trail snaked up into the hills. I had gone all of about four steps when I heard the sound of an engine coming at high speed up the hill. A moment later, a car spun into the overlook, dirt and gravel shooting out from beneath the tires. The driver was out of the car almost before the engine was off.

  “I knew it. I just knew it,” Chet said, sprinting toward me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you even know where you’re going?”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I countered.

  Chet gave me an impatient look. “I followed you, of course.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “Don’t think for a moment I’m going to let you come along.”

  “And just how do you propose to stop me?” he asked. “You can’t fool me, Candace. Your strength is already starting to fade. What happens if you can’t make it on your own?”

  “I’ll make it,” I said, my tone stubborn. “Please, Chet. Don’t try to come. If something were to happen…”

  “I know you think I’m useless because I’m not all big and brawny,” he began.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I said. “It isn’t that at all. And we’re wasting time standing here arguing.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “So let’s go.”

  I opened my mouth to protest further, but Chet put a hand on my arm, halting the flow of whatever words I had left.

  “I told you vampires took my best friend, Candace,” he said quietly. “What I didn’t tell you was that my best friend was also my wife.”

  “Chet, I’m so sorry. I—”

  Chet interrupted me. “There was nothing, not one damned thing, that I could do to help her. So maybe I can help you now, even if it isn’t what you want. You’re not the only one with a grudge to settle. So you can just stop trying to talk me out of this. I’m coming with you whether you like it or not. Now tell me how you’re going to find Ash.”

  “Okay,” I said, understanding that I couldn’t dissuade him, and suddenly incredibly grateful not to be alone. “I’m going to try and use rapport,” I explained. “Ash’s and mine. I don’t think he’ll seek me out voluntarily, but the fact that we connected involuntarily before—”

  “Like a homing beacon,” Chet said at once.

  “Something like that.” I nodded. “I won’t try to use it until we have to leave the trail, though.”

  Again, Chet understood at once. “Conserving energy. That’s smart.” He moved beyond me then, striding several determined paces up the path before turning around.

  “Well, come on,” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

  The marked trail climbed steadily. After no more than about fifteen minutes, I was exhausted. Chet walked in front, reaching back a hand now and then to tug me along.

  The trail ended in a broad overlook that opened onto a vista of the range, more red rock stretching out ahead of us, black snowcapped peaks in the distance. Chet uncapped a water bottle and we each took a drink.

  “Okay,” I said. “This is where the marked trail ends. It’s time to try the rapport. Be patient with me. This may take a minute.”

  I tried not to think that it might not work.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Chet promised.

  I turned away from the panoramic view and faced the mountains themselves. Then, eyes closed, I reached deep inside myself for the undead zone. I felt a cool quiet embrace me, an oasis in my desert of struggle and pain, and then I reached out.

  Ash, I thought. Let me feel you. Let me know that you’re there….

  And suddenly I could feel Ash’s presence, like a faint sound. Music playing so distantly I had to strain my ears to hear. I turned my body in the direction I thought was right and, at once, the connection got a little stronger. I opened my eyes.

  “He’s this way,” I said, and started to pull myself up the steep rock face.

  The contact with Ash stayed steady, drawing me to him like a lodestone. I held on to it as if it were my lifeline, fighting through the haze of exhaustion and pain. Without Chet, I never would have made it at all. I managed to put one foot in front of the other, to inch up jagged outcroppings, all the time too drained to sense that our climb was about to become an ascent straight into Hell.

  And then, without warning, we were standing on a small plateau, two enormous boulders like misshapen shoulders straight ahead of us.r />
  My head felt thick and foggy. My hands were filthy and scratched. My legs had no feeling left in them at all, but I remained standing. I knew if I sat down, I would never be able to get back up.

  “This is it,” I said. “That’s what I saw in my vision, those two boulders.”

  Chet gasped for air. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded.

  “It doesn’t look like there’s space enough between them for any kind of opening,” he said. “Why would they bring him here?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out. I really think you should go back now, Chet.”

  He shook his head. “What are you, nuts? We are not having this conversation again, Candace, so you can just stop arguing. I’m in this to the very end.”

  “I see,” a new voice said. “That means you’re just in time.”

  And suddenly, horribly, Sloane was there. He seemed to rise straight up from out of the ground. Chet and I moved at once, rolling in opposite directions, as if we had coordinated our efforts ahead of time. I was on my hands and knees, desperately trying to get up, to turn around. The thought of Sloane attacking from behind filled me with blind panic.

  Sloane dove for Chet. I saw the glint of silver as Chet reached in his pocket for a stake—one of my stakes. But Sloane was too fast. He kicked Chet’s hand, sending the stake flying. It hit the rocky ground with a feeble ping.

  Chet fought back, lunging at Sloane, brandishing a silver jackknife. The blade nicked Sloane’s wrist, and I saw him grimace as the lethal metal scorched his skin. But the painful wound did not stop him. I ran to Chet’s side, but Sloane tossed me away with one powerful blow. My head hit the ground so hard I probably blacked out for a moment. Dizzy and nauseated, I tried to stand and immediately crumpled to my knees. I watched helplessly as Sloane picked Chet up by the scruff of the neck and threw him to the ground. Then the vampire kneeled on top of him, knees in his stomach, his powerful hands pressing Chet’s arms down into the dirt. It would have been difficult enough to throw off a strong man from that position. It was impossible to dislodge Sloane. Chet kicked his legs in a helpless attempt to free himself. I heard Sloane laugh, saw him bend his head, and then his teeth were in Chet’s throat.

  Chet uttered a wet, hoarse cry of pain and terror, his legs thrashing wildly now. Sloane tore at his throat like a rabid dog. Chet’s whole body spasmed, frantically trying to throw Sloane off.

  Sloane threw back his head, as if to savor the course of living blood through his body. The lower half of his face gleamed with Chet’s blood. Chet gave a great heave, and suddenly Sloane was tumbling off, rolling to one side, and Chet sat up. His eyes, wide and glazed with pain and terror, gazed into mine. I saw his mouth work, as if desperately trying to relay a message.

  Sloane rose straight up. His powerful wings lifted him high into the air before he swooped back down. Snatching Chet up, as if he weighed no more than a feather, he carried him aloft even as he fed on him once more. I felt a shower of moisture rain down on my upturned face, knew I had been bathed by my friend’s blood. I heard Sloane give a great cry. And then a loud snap—the crack of Chet’s neck breaking.

  As Chet’s body fell back to earth, I felt the darkness rise to take me and remembered nothing more.

  Eighteen

  When I opened my eyes I was lying on my back in some sort of cave. The light was dim but I could make out hard red stone above and beneath me. I was still in my clothes, but the waist pack was gone.

  My face itched. Experimentally, I brought my fingers to my face and discovered it was spattered with small, dry drops.

  Chet’s blood.

  With a choked cry, I sat up. I was in a small room that can really only be described as a cell. The only entrance or exit was barred. A single candle burned in a sconce on the wall.

  I wasn’t alone.

  In the far corner, where the light of the candle didn’t quite reach, I could just make out a prone form. My heart in my throat, I crawled toward it.

  “Ash,” I sobbed.

  He moved then, his hand reaching a fraction of an inch. I caught it, pressed it between both of mine. Ash’s skin was almost as cold as the stone floor. He was stripped to the waist. Even in the dim light, I could see the bruises along his face and torso.

  I did this, I thought, sick with regret. If Ash hadn’t been sustaining me with his blood, he would have healed. He had used his strength to save me and not kept enough for himself. Did you even fight? I wondered? Or had he fought too hard? Had he done his best to make them hurt him, believing that his end would bring about my freedom?

  “Oh, Jesus,” I whispered. “Ash, what have we done?”

  “Candace,” I heard his voice say then, no more than the thinnest of sounds. “Candace?”

  “I’m here, Ash,” I said.

  He began to cough then, a horrible wet sound. He is injured beyond repair, I thought. Because of me, because of our love. If I could have given my life outright for his at that moment, I would have done it without a second thought.

  “Candace,” he said again, and he opened those eyes that I so loved. They were still the same, burning through the darkness as clear and pure as the light of the stars. He turned his hand within mine, lifting it toward my face.

  “It is you,” he said, and I heard the strange combination of joy and anguish in his voice. “Ah, God, Candace, you shouldn’t have come. You don’t understand.”

  “Actually, I do,” I said.

  He made a move as if to sit up then, and I helped him upright. He propped himself up against the wall of the cell, head downcast, knees bent to support his arms. I sat facing him, my own arms around my knees, our legs touching. I was almost afraid to hold him in my arms. If I did, I would begin to weep, and I wanted to be strong.

  “I know what will happen if you no longer exist, Ash,” I said quietly. “I even forgive you for not telling me yourself.”

  His head jerked up. “But how?” Then he closed his eyes as the obvious truth occurred. “Sloane.”

  “Guess he just figured the information was too good not to share,” I said. “It actually turned out to be useful to let him think I was so angry I would betray you. It would have worked, too, if Chet and Carl hadn’t shown up. They thought they were saving me from the bad guy.”

  “So that’s what happened.” Ash opened his eyes, and his starlit gaze found mine. “You should have stayed away, Candace,” he went on, his tone anguished. “What happens to me isn’t important now. But believing you would be safe, be whole again…it’s all that’s kept me sane.”

  I leaned forward and then I did take him into my arms.

  “Did you really think that I would turn my back on you?” I asked. “That I would buy back being human at such a terrible price? There is nothing in the world more important to me than you, Ash. Not even being human once more. If you think I would leave you alone to face whatever it is the Board is about to do, you love some other Candace.”

  He ran his fingertips across my face, wet with tears I’d shed after all. “No,” he said, simply. “I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t let me make the ultimate sacrifice.”

  We sat for a moment, simply holding each other. “Chet translated the hieroglyphics,” I said. “I know what they mean now. Not that I can see how it will do any good.”

  “But how?”

  “It was a cipher. Chet was able to decode it with a computer program. Only three of the hieroglyphics have meaning: Breath, Light, Time. But it doesn’t matter now. Poor Chet followed me here. Sloane killed him for it, and now the Board has all three Emblems.”

  “Then it’s over,” Ash said. I felt his arms tighten. “God, Candace. You shouldn’t have come!”

  “We belong together, Ash,” I said. “Even if all we do together is die. I’m here because being with you is what I want, no matter what comes.”

  “Now this is what I call touching.” Sloane’s voice slid into the room.

  I didn’t turn to fac
e him. I felt Ash stiffen and heard a clang as Sloane pushed open the door to the cell.

  “You got him to sit up, I see,” Sloane said with a sneer. “Congratulations. It’s more than he would do for me.”

  I did turn then, moving to sit beside Ash, linking my arm through one of his.

  “I’m glad you decided to join us, Candace,” Sloane went on. His tone was conversational, but I could hear the undisguised triumph in his voice. “It gives me the opportunity to thank you in person for giving me everything I ever wanted. Because of you, Ash failed the Board’s trials. And it was you who finally delivered him into my hands, however unintentionally.

  “And now you’ve brought me the best gift of all: the Tongue of Thoth. The Chairman has confirmed that’s what it is, by the way. He and the others will be here before the night is out. We’ll complete the ritual—Ash will serve as the sacrifice—and then we’ll have what we’ve sought. Immortality.”

  I waited for Sloane’s words to move me to anger, to desperation or fear. Instead, I felt nothing, nothing at all. What he could do to Ash and me, what he would do, no longer felt important. All that was important was that Ash and I would be together at the end. I had been true to myself, my choice, my love.

  “Do you like opera, Sloane?” I suddenly inquired. I felt a tremor move through Ash, knew he understood what I was trying to say. Oh, how I love you, Ash, I thought. No one else had ever been so quick, so in tune with every part of me. Body, heart, mind.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Sloane demanded, and suddenly I could hear the uncertainty in his voice. Whatever reaction he had hoped to elicit from me or Ash, this wasn’t it.

  “Simple. It’s not over till the fat lady sings,” I said. “You’re not immortal yet, Sloane.”

  He took a step toward us then, and I felt Ash’s grip tighten on mine.

  “Do you know the first thing I will do when I am immortal, Candace?” Sloane said. “The first thing I will do is take you out of this world. I don’t even want you for a drone. Ash won’t be able to save you. Not this time. He’ll go to his end knowing that your blood is mine. You’ll beg for mercy before the end, I promise you that.”