by Linda Welch
I shinny up to the next floor. I’ll have to get inside and check out the rooms at the front of the house if I don’t find Verity soon.
The first room I look into is another empty bedroom. Not a vampire in sight so far. They must still be in their safe room, but they will be stirring, waking.
I edge along the ledge to the next window.
Verity sits in profile on a stool inside a cage, stunning in a fitted crimson dress which blends into a froth of red lace below her knees. A high stiff collar above a Queen Ann neckline cups her long slender neck; her black hair is pulled back from her face and pinned on her head by a high comb from which a red lace mantilla flows. She looks deceptively demure with her hands folded on her lap and ankles crossed above red high-heeled slippers.
An open window. How cruel; freedom so near, yet so far.
The cage must be silver or silver plate over another metal. Silver is anathema to vampires. Her enhanced strength doesn’t help Verity; she can’t break out.
Shit. The banquet, the dress … tonight is the night. The servants are readying the ballroom downstairs for the ceremony and reception. Today is Verity’s wedding day. I have to get her out.
“Verity.”
She swivels on the stool, slips off it and squints at me. “Rain?”
I slide one leg over the sill. “In person. Sauvageau sent me.” My other leg joins the first and I settle down on the board floor.
Verity laughs, though quietly. “I should have guessed if he sent anyone it would be a wraith. They can’t sense you and barely see you as you are now. Where’s Castle?”
My gut clenches. “Not here. Just me.”
Verity moves nearer the bars, hands reaching, but hisses and lowers them before touching the silver.
Kneeling at the cage, studying the lock, I quietly curse. How in hells am I supposed to get her out? “How did they nab you?”
“I was stupid.” Verity huffs a self-depreciative laugh. “I was at The Medallion with friends and met a considerably luscious man. He must have put something in my drink. I remember feeling woozy. He offered me a ride home. The next thing I know, I’m in my gilded cage.” No longer serene, Verity paces an angry circle. “Alain sent you, so you obviously know more than I.”
“The Station Master was in on it. He let you and the Greché through the doors.”
“I hope he suffered before Alain had him ripped apart.”
“Afraid not. He came Upside with the Greché.”
“Ah, Gervaise Greché.” Verity fists her hands. “He has a lot to answer for.”
“The main thing is to get you out of here and back Downside. Revenge is for another day.”
Her elaborate coif draws my gaze. “Verity, do you have hairpins?”
“Hairpins?” She pats her hair and nods.
“I may be able to use them on the lock. Toss a couple through.”
Her fingers pluck; two long slender pins with diamond tips tinkle through the bars and land on the floor.
“I can’t handle them unless you touch me. Put your hand through the bars.”
Verity eyes the bars. “I may be dainty - ”
I snort.
“ - but they’re too close together even for my hand.”
“Yeah, and vampires stink when they sizzle.” I push one knee against the bars; my kneecap fits between them. “Try this.”
Verity gingerly extends an index finger and touches my knee. I instantly bulk up, and grin. “That’s more like it. You’ll be out in a jiffy.”
Working on the lock, I sing beneath my breath. “Burn baby burn, la la la la, burn baby burn.”
“Very funny,” from Verity.
“Rain,” she whispers urgently. “They’re coming.”
Hell and damnation. “How many?”
Her eyes narrow. “Three vampires and one human.”
A human to unlock the cage. The vampires won’t come near it.
I give up on the lock. Maybe I can open it with more time but have run out of that commodity. “You know what they mean to do. We have to take them down. Now or never.”
Take down three vampires? Am I as crazy as I sound?
“You can’t handle them by yourself. Wait until they let me out.”
I agree, and am glad she came up with the idea.
Apart from the cage, the room is sparsely furnished with two wingback chairs and matching couch upholstered in green velvet, and a low table. I squat behind the couch, glad vampires can’t sense wraiths as they do other vampires and humans.
What the heck? I still have the pins, but they are as insubstantial as my flesh. I barely feel them, they are close to weightless, like me. Do I keep whatever I hold when I’m solid? Why not? Like my clothes and weapons, now the pins are in my hand they are part of me, unusable unless a vampire or wraith touches me.
I experiment, opening the fingers of one hand. The pin drops to the board floor and rolls under the chair. I can’t pick it up again, like grasping at nothing. I drop the other pin; it won’t be of use against a vampire.
I didn’t bring many weapons: an eight-inch blade, a stiletto and a smaller knife strapped to my shin, all silver. Hardly daring to breathe as I wait, my hand hovers at my chest, ready to pull the long knife when I grapple with a vampire.
Through the small gap between the couch and a chair, I watch the door open and the human enters, followed by the vampires. The human, a young man, short and skinny with white-blond hair shaved on the sides with a long section tied back in a queue, struts in cockily, grinning at Verity. The vampire men are tall and bulky in white dress shirts. They look pretty much alike: olive-skin, oval faces, long narrow noses, fleshy lips and beautiful doe eyes. The black-haired guy sports sideburns, the one with rustred hair has a skinny moustache and the third, also black-haired, wears it in dozens of tiny braids.
Verity watches their approach haughtily. She doesn’t look in my direction. Good girl.
The human produces a small key from his vest pocket and inserts it in the lock. He is so sure of himself, I want to wipe that smile off his face in the nastiest way. He knows Verity can’t get her hand through the bars to grab him. Though he does step back smartly after pulling the door open.
“Come, woman,” Sideburns orders.
Verity folds her arms over her impressive chest. “Come and get me.”
Ordinarily I would applaud the delaying tactic. The vampires won’t go in the cage where they can be thrown against, or at least jostled into, the silver bars. But delay is the last thing we need, surprise is a critical element and more vampires could arrive to check out why there is a delay.
We have to do this fast. I peep over the couch-back and glare at Verity.
She registers and interprets my expression. With a slight lift of her eyebrows, she says, “Oh, very well,” and steps from the cage.
As she moves into the room, Redhead and the human fall in behind her. The other vampires flank her.
Verity’s muscles flex almost imperceptibly. I launch over the couch as she lays hands on the human and throws him at Redhead.
The human rams into Redhead, mashing him against the silver bars. The young man drops, but Red is fixed in place, back to the bars, arms apart and splayed on them. He jiggles as if a million volts of electricity course through his body and the metal sizzles and spits. His teeth clack together like those mechanical toys which chatter across the floor; blood pools in his eyes and runs down his face to mingle with what drizzles from his nose. His rustred hair singes and smokes. The air reeks of charred hair and silk.
Only seconds have passed and I already cling to Sideburns’ back, heavy with full flesh, legs clenched around his waist, one arm hooked around his neck as I drag the longer silver blade from its sheath. Skin sizzles as silver carves through his left eye, slicing deep through the lid into the eyeball, slides over the bridge of his nose and jaggedly bisects his right eye. I can’t kill the vampires; I’d have to cut off their heads and sawing through a neck with a silver blade will ta
ke much too long. But I can slow them down some.
I ride the vampire down and have the presence of mind to grab my stiletto as I let go and drop off, and roll to avoid the braided guy’s clawed hands as Sideburns hits the floor.
What do you know, it worked. The two knives are now as insubstantial as my flesh but I still hold them, and when I go solid again, so will they.
Verity hits the braided vampire from the side and circles him with her arms. They tumble and slither over the floor, moving too fast for me to see what is happening, a great pile of flesh, white silk and red lace. A tearing sound which could be skin or silk. Snarls and spitting.
Sideburns crawls over the floor by feel, one hand before the other, smearing the blood which drips from his face as he tries to find the door.
The small human stumbles over one of Sideburns’ legs in his haste to escape. Sideburns’ hand lashes out and fastens on a human ankle; he pulls it to his mouth and sinks his fangs in. The human shrieks and futilely beats the vampire’s head.
Red is on his belly. His back and backs of his arms are bloody black flesh seen through the missing patches of shirt. His hair has burned close to the scalp. He will heal, though not as fast as Sideburns who is receiving a tasty transfusion of human blood.
The crack of breaking bone, and Verity comes upright holding the braided vampire with a hand either side of his oddly angled head. She broke his neck. She lets him fall. He lies on his back, head flopped on one side, arms and legs futilely spidering as though in search of traction.
“Come on,” she yells.
She grabs hold and flesh whams into me, the knives again weighty in my hands. In an embrace smooth as velvet, hard as steel, face smothered in Verity’s breasts, I try to relax as she takes us through the open window.
We land below with a thud which goes all through my body, although it doesn’t seem to bother Verity. She lowers me, smoothes her hands down the disheveled dress and straightens the high collar. “I think I’ll keep it. It suits me, don’t you think?”
“You’re a knockout.” I look up at the windows and the gargoyles gazing down. We’re sitting ducks. My turn to say, “Come on,” as I head for the wall.
The backdoor bangs open.
Verity pushes me toward the wall. “Go on. I’ll hold them back.”
Not likely. I didn’t go through all this to let her be taken again. I dart around the garden’s perimeter as she bares her fangs and charges the knot of vampires, who fall over themselves to get outside. Verity slams into a male vampire and shoves him back, managing to keep the three behind him bottlenecked in the doorway. With an animalistic snarl, she sinks her fangs in his neck and rips out a chunk of meat. A fountain of blood sprays over her, crimson polka dots on her pale face but lost in the red of her dress. With a concerted heave, the other vampires shove her and her victim aside and swarm into the yard.
A female vampire in a black strapless ball gown bears down on Verity as she tosses her assailant aside. I get between them; Verity darts at another. I close in with arms crossed at the wrists so my blades bracket the vampire’s neck. They become solid weapons when they touch vampire flesh and the woman hisses as I pull them apart sharply. Both blades rip across her neck and open up a gaping mouth. Blood washes over her breasts. She staggers back, then her feet go out from under her and she lands on her rump.
Verity holds another vampire on the ground. She rears up and smashes her bent knee down on his spine. He jerks, his body goes limp, eyes rolling like marbles.
Two more guys have enough of the one-on-ones and decide to rush in. The gathering of vampires chills the evening air as they flow across the yard. I crouch to face one coming for me.
Hands descend on me from behind, reach past my shoulders, clamp on my wrists and squeeze. Flesh is forced into me and it hurts. My bones are breaking. I drop both knives. Desperately, I fight to lose flesh, and can’t. A vampire has me. The one in front fastens his hands on my throat. Fetid breath fans my face as his mouth swoops down.
This is it. I’m coming, Castle.
My peripheral vision catches a pair of heavy black boots as they impact the vampire’s head and knock him sideways. The vampire behind me still holds my wrists but his arms relax. I thrust my fists forward and together and haul him in, ramming my head back. His nose crunches and he lets go altogether.
The boots are attached to the Goth boy, who has crashed down with the other vampire. He rolls up to his feet, loses substance and regains it as he jumps on the vampire’s chest with both feet, creating a squelchy snapping sound.
I don’t have time to think. I spin as I sense the vampire behind me coming back in. Unbelievably, the boy performs a home plate slide and clamps his legs around the vampire’s. As the vampire topples, the kid untangles, bounces up, jigging like a boxer in the ring. He kicks the vampire in the head with those heavy boots.
Holy Mother, he’s a wraith. He was watching me, not the café. He followed me.
He’s good, but fights as if he tackles a human opponent. Both the vampires he downed are already getting to their feet.
And Verity is in trouble. A male and a female vampire either side hold her by the upper arms. I aim at the female and crash into her, knocking her back, but she holds on to Verity. The kid heads for the male and punches him in the gut, following with a clean uppercut to the jaw. It does little more than annoy the vampire, but he lets go of Verity who immediately turns on the female vampire. The kid and the male vampire slap together chest to chest. The vampire’s mouth pops open as they thrust against each other. The boy steps back, my long knife in a hand bloody to the wrist. He must have plucked it up when he tackled the vampire. He gutted this man from pelvis to ribcage.
That did more than stall the bloodsucker. He’ll be down for some time.
The thunder of shoes and clatter of heels on board floors warn of more vampires. Verity drops her limp opponent into the hall where she falls in a pile of satin and flaccid flesh.
“Go!” Verity takes two strides and leaps to the top of the wall, dress furling like a great exotic red bird. I race after her and reach the wall as she disappears over it. The boy follows a step behind. We go up the wall side by side as if we have air in our bones.
Verity waits on the other side. She moves off and barrels through the apartment block’s backdoor as the kid and I drop to the ground. We race along the passage on her heels.
No one comes after us as we burst into the street after Verity and run along the sidewalk, nor do they pour from the Greché mansion’s entrance.
The fire hydrant has been capped but the children are still here splashing in puddles; lace mantilla billowing, hem dragging in the water, Verity skirts them. With me and the boy in tow, she hurriedly leads us half a block before cutting down a side street which takes us to a broad avenue busy with traffic, bright with street lamps and store lights. She stops walking and thrusts her hand in the air. “Taxi!”
“A cab?” the kid says incredulously.
Is he a new wraith, head crammed with Upside nonsense, who thinks vampires can move faster than a speeding bullet? Or is that Superman?
I anxiously look over my shoulder. “Vampires are faster than the average human, but not a car.”
“Why do you think they are not on our heels this minute?” Verity says. “They are heading for their vehicles to try and cut me off before I reach the bridge.”
The notion stifles my breath. “What if they get there before us?”
“Then we have a problem.” Verity smiles and waves at a taxi as it pulls to the curb.
We almost fall over ourselves getting in.
Verity gives the driver the address and adds, “And put your foot down. I can be very appreciative; the sooner we get there, the bigger your tip.”
Chapter Eight
Castle once said I fight efficiently because I don’t let fear distract me. It’s not true, not exactly. I don’t have time for fear, or a stomach turned at the sight of blood and intestines, or to let the s
ounds of battle and death unnerve me. But afterward… .
The cabbie stinks of cigarette smoke. The taxi’s seats are worn. The boy and I sit in the back with Verity. I can barely think over the hammering of my pulse and acid sears my throat.
Verity wipes speckles of blood off her face and neck with her gown’s damp hem before the driver gets a good look at her, and sucks her teeth.
I slowly inhale, exhale, and after a minute look past Verity at the kid. I should stop calling him a kid, even to myself. “Thanks. You followed me from the café?”
He nods. His voice is low, a little rough, as if from disuse. “I came right behind you. When I saw where you headed - I’ve had … run-ins with them before. I knew what would happen when we touched.”
His voice speeds up and he skips to the primary concern, what consumes all wraiths who wake Upside. “Nobody saw or heard me, I thought I was dead, a ghost, then I brushed against one and … changed. I stuck around their place and experimented.” He blinks hard and swipes at his mouth. “You’re the first person like me I’ve come across.”
I nod sagely. “How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything, except my name.”
“I mean, how far back can you remember?”
“A month.”
Four weeks? Impressive. I was close to hysteria when Castle found me three days after I woke. Never thought I would meet one of us Upside.
My nerves are jittering; I look through the rear and side windows, expecting to see headlights coming too near. How can Verity relax back with the appearance of unconcerned serenity? We don’t have much of a head start; the Greché must be close behind.