“What should we do, then?” Criseyde demanded. “Just wait around here or try to escape before shit goes down?”
“I’m not leaving here without Ivory,” I said decisively.
Les reached over and squeezed my hand. “Let’s go home,” he said.
Aleskie and Cris drove over together, while I rode behind Les on his motorcycle. I pressed my cheek hard against his back, my arms anchored so tight around his torso my muscles ached. My hair snapped in the wind. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, refusing to peek at anything as we zoomed down the street.
At last we slowed, then stopped. I peeled my eyes open and saw we were in front of the house. With shaky legs, I dismounted and found the sidewalk.
“Whoa,” I said.
Les swung off easily and sauntered toward me. “Sorry I didn’t have a helmet for you. It gets in the way when you’re hunting vampires.”
As I opened my mouth to reply, my eyes drifted down the road. The words stuck in my throat when I saw the familiar black car parked there. Waiting. Les followed my gaze and came to stand beside me. I reached for his hand, letting him know I wasn’t going to leave his side and didn’t want him to leave mine.
Rade opened the car door and glided down the sidewalk toward us as if the guy standing next to me hadn’t beaten in his face. As if he hadn’t sprung a bloodthirsty vampire upon me last night. I held tightly to Les’s hand and he didn’t move other than to press closer to me, but I could feel his tension.
An irregular rectangle of yellow light fell across the driveway as Criseyde and Aleskie opened the door for us. Their chatter fell warily silent when they noticed the vampire.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“I wanted to give this to you,” Rade said, holding a folded slip of paper out to me. “You’ve earned it.”
I took the paper without touching his fingers and let go of Les’s hand to unfold it. It was an address. I didn’t recognize it, but I kept reading it over and over, as if it would start to take on meaning. A bad, sickening feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach.
My voice was quiet, purposefully calm. “What is this?”
“That’s the address where you can find your brother.”
The paper trembled slightly. It took on new creases as my fingers tightened. I stared unblinkingly at it, the careless pen marks blurring together. Rade had written this. He’d said I’d earned it. He had known. All along he had known.
“You,” I hissed under my breath. I pressed my teeth together so hard they ached. Slowly I raised my eyes, wide with rage, to his long white face. “You kept this from me.”
“It was the only way I could show you the things I wanted you to see,” he explained hollowly.
“I didn’t have to see them,” I said, growing increasingly agitated. “I didn’t have to see! You shouldn’t have shown me!”
“I wouldn’t have let you get hurt.”
You’ve already hurt me. Ten years ago you did. And last night I was nearly killed because of you.
The words flew through my mind but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t articulate the level of my anger. Something was building inside me, something screeching and dark and wild. Les tightened his hand on my shoulder but I quickly brushed it off and lunged at Rade. As with Les, he didn’t resist the violence I unleashed upon him. He didn’t move as I threw my fists at his nose, his mouth, his chest. My nails tore two thin scratches into his white cheeks. I knew I was going to kill him, just as he’d asked. I would do it with my aching bare hands, my cracking fingers. And I wouldn’t feel the least bit sorry.
It was only a moment before Les pulled me back and I surrendered to his firm but gentle grasp around my upper arms. I breathed heavily, glaring at Rade, flexing my battered hands against my thighs.
“I don’t blame you,” he said evenly, as if I’d never touched him.
“Fuck off.”
He bent his head, accepting my anger but not, I thought, caring much about why I felt it. He backed away from us and after a few steps turned and headed for his car, lean as a snake.
“Don’t come back!” I shrieked.
My only acknowledgement was the dim sound of his engine roaring to life. He executed a tight turn and drove off without even switching on his lights.
“Asha? What just happened?” Cris asked, hesitantly coming toward us.
It was too much effort to answer her, so I didn’t. Les dropped his hands and I turned to him, speechless. I held the paper aloft between us, somehow having managed not to lose it. An unintelligible noise escaped my lips.
He took the paper and glanced at the address. His eyes returned to me, colorless in the shadowy lights lining the street. “You’re not going to sneak off into the night, are you?”
I tilted my head slightly to one side. “I don’t know?”
Half a wry smile crossed his lips. “You won’t have to. We can check this out together.” I breathed a sigh of relief as he added, “But first I want to go inside the house and try to find out what kind of place this is so we don’t just rush in blindly. While I do that, you calm down so you can go into this with a cool head.”
His words were sensible. “Yes. I’ll make us something to eat. I’m starving.”
Criseyde put her arm around me and we walked up to the house together. Aleskie followed wordlessly behind us. I looked over my shoulder at the vampire girl and smiled weakly. Because they were both vampires, I worried she would take my attack on Rade personally, but she reached up and gave my fingers a quick squeeze. It felt nice to have a new friend alongside an old one.
And Les. He sat down on the couch, one foot up on the coffee table, and started looking up the address on his phone. I paused at the entrance to the kitchen and looked at him. He felt my gaze and glanced up, smiling faintly. We locked eyes and stared without moving, without speaking, but feeling and meaning jumped between us. Heat spread. I wished none of this had ever happened. No. I wished I could just go to him and let his arms make me forget everything, just for a little while . . .
Fingers snapped near my ear. “Food?” Criseyde said. “Remember? I’ll help.”
We made four sandwiches, a simple and mindless task that kept my hands from shaking. Two for Les, one each for me and Cris. We ate them in the living room and discussed our plan.
“I didn’t realize it,” Les said after devouring one of his sandwiches, “but that’s the address to the Market.”
“The Market?” I repeated. “That place where they do . . . research?”
He nodded. “It was deserted the last time I went. He might have been there already. Ash, do you feel comfortable taking a gun and using it? You can still have Ivory’s. I’ve got one of my own.”
My mind went back to our shooting lessons and I tried to remember everything he’d taught me. “I think so.”
“What about me?” Aleskie asked. “Should I have something?”
“You’re staying here,” Les said.
“I should come with! I could help.”
“You’ll help by staying here. The less people we have tagging along, the better.”
“Besides,” Cris piped up, “I’m staying here and I’ll need some company. No way am I going to investigate some shady vampire hideout.”
“Right,” said Les. He looked at me. “I’d rather not have you along, but I don’t think I can talk you out of this, can I?”
“Nope.”
The ghost of a smile came and went on his lips. “Well, then, we’ll go together. But we’re waiting until morning.”
“But—”
“We’re not going tonight,” he said firmly. “Normally I would, but I have no idea what’s going on there right now or how many vampires we might run into. It’ll be safer for us by day.”
“Ivory—”
“I’m not changing my mind, Ash.”
I sat back and nodded, trying to rationalize. He was right, of course. We would gain nothing by going tonight. We would have no advantage. And with th
e eclipse so close, who knew how vampires would be acting?
Like lunatics, I thought.
Ivory had already been missing for days. Anything his captors would do to him had probably already been done. I blinked back quick hot tears. The next few hours would likely make no difference.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re right. We’ll wait.”
It was an odd, uneasy night. I couldn’t sleep. Full of restless energy, I kept pacing, glancing compulsively at the clock on Les’s nightstand. The minutes ticked on but never amounted to anything.
“Stop,” Les said. “You need to rest. We both do.”
He pulled me to him. His touch calmed me. His hands and mouth gradually drew the energy from me and mine did the same for him. Before I knew it, the numbers on the clock had changed significantly and my eyelids were feeling heavy. We lay together, pressed skin to skin, entangled, because the bed was narrow and because each of us was secretly worried the other would try to leave before the arrival of dawn.
fifteen
umbra: the area of total darkness in the shadow caused by an eclipse
Dawn, daylight. Fresh sky, creeping heat tempered by a fleeting cool breeze. I squinted my puffy eyes against the bright, clear sunlight as I followed Les out to the truck. Seriously regretting my lack of sleep, I slouched down in the passenger seat and tried to pretend we weren’t embarking on a rescue mission where the odds were against us. But I couldn’t fool my nervous hands or jittering leg.
I looked at Ivory’s gun resting on the seat beside me. All I could think about was its weight, just the wrong side of manageable. My questionable aim. If we ran into even a handful of vampires, I might be too frightened to use the gun properly. Being without it would leave me virtually defenseless, but I couldn’t imagine hitting anything important in a high-stress situation. I could cause as much damage to myself as someone else.
“I’m not going to use the gun,” I said abruptly. “I’ve just decided.”
Les glanced at me. “Why not?”
“I’m not good enough. I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”
He gave a slow nod. “Okay. That’s valid. But what if someone tries to attack you? A vampire, or even a human?”
“You could cover me?”
“Well, hopefully you won’t have to rely on me. But thanks for your faith.”
“You will cover me, won’t you?” I pressed.
A vaguely insulted look passed across his face. “Of course I will. Did you even need to ask?”
“No. I’d protect you too, if I had to.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“I never wanted to believe in vampires,” I said after a moment’s silence. “I know now Ivory was telling me the truth about them, but right up until we watched them on TV I denied everything about them. I was . . . afraid to believe. If I didn’t believe, they wouldn’t be real.”
“That was the day Ivory and I told you we hunted vampires,” he said. “You had pink in your hair.”
“Yeah. You said it was nice.”
“It was.”
I smiled at him, but there was sadness behind it. We were on a rescue mission. We had been working toward this all week, but somehow it had become less and less important as the days wore on. Various occurrences along our quest for information had gotten in the way, clouding our intent. But now we were doing the thing we had set out to do from the start and it was quite possible we wouldn’t come back. I didn’t like to let myself think of it, but what if this was the last time Les and I were together? The last time we saw each other before we were killed?
I’d known better, of course, but it had seemed like we would have all the time in the world together. Now I realized how very little we’d had.
“I don’t want to be dramatic,” I began slowly, “but what if . . . I mean, we might not make it back, right?”
“It’s a possibility. It’s always been a possibility, every time Ivory and I ever went out to hunt.”
“Right. So—just in case—I wanted to tell you I love you. I know you know, but I had to say it again. You’ve always been there for me—for me and Ivory—and you don’t know how much that means. I wish I could have told you sooner. I wish we could have had . . .” I sighed regretfully. “More time.”
“Asha,” he said tenderly. He watched the road, but his voice sounded as intimate as if he’d been whispering in my ear. “I shouldn’t have been stupid enough to think I’d ever be happy with anyone other than you. I shouldn’t have let myself get in the way of us. I’m in love with you. That’s the one thing I really do know.”
We arrived at the Market much too soon after that. The other warehouses nearest to it appeared deserted, but I could hear the sounds of unseen work drifting toward us on the barest breeze: the beeping of trucks in reverse, the slamming of doors and the screeching grind of metal, loads lifted, workers shouting and laughing. None of them knew what we were doing. None of them cared.
“Run the plan by me again,” I said, stalling for time, as Les killed the engine.
“If Ivory’s in there, whoever’s keeping him is going to know we’re here for him. There’s no hiding that. So just stick by me and act casual. Fight if you need to fight. Run if things get out of hand, which they probably will.” He handed me the keys to the truck. “Worry about yourself, all right?”
I took them numbly and shoved them into the front pocket of my jeans.
“Sorry the plan isn’t a better one. Planning was always Ivory’s thing. And even then we just rushed in and started fighting most of the time.”
“It’s all right.”
At the last second, I took the gun and held it close to my leg. Side by side, we approached the door Les had used the night he’d driven us here. It was the only one.
Before we entered, he turned me to him and we touched our foreheads together for a moment. He closed his eyes and breathed in. “Asha.” It was all he said.
It was impossible to tell the time of day inside the warehouse. A single emergency light glowed above our heads, showing bits of trash strewn across the polished concrete floor. Neat squares of ceiling lights illuminated a large rolling door at the far end of the building. A set of metal stairs rose against the wall on our right. To our left, a row of rectangular concrete columns stretched the long, echoing length of the warehouse. I squinted into the shadowed area beyond them but couldn’t make out anything.
“The computers are back there. And the rooms for . . . studying,” Les said in a low voice. He nodded at the stairs. “Offices up there.”
I edged closer to him. “What do we do?”
Just then we heard the faint thump of footsteps heading our way. Les tensed, hand moving to the knife at his hip.
A figure formed out of the shadows and resolved into a familiar face.
“Mercer,” Les said, his tension easing only slightly. “What are you doing here?”
“Where’s my brother?” I demanded, my anger mounting at Mercer’s smug smile.
His eyes flicked to me. “What makes you think your brother’s here?”
“I got a tip.”
He shook his head, the slightest bit baffled at my response. “Why is it you always seem to know things you shouldn’t know? Who in the world have you been talking to?”
“The right people, apparently,” I said stiffly. Les placed a discreet hand on my back. “I know Ivory’s here. Where is he?”
Mercer stared at me for a moment, then shrugged indifferently. “Around.”
It was his eyes shifting to something behind us that alerted Les. He reacted before I did, simultaneously spinning around and reaching for his gun. I turned just in time to see a large hand knock the gun away. My eyes traveled up the arm to a meaty shoulder and came to rest on a bland, calm face. It was the big vampire from the night Ivory had been kidnapped. With a flash of horror I remembered how easily he had killed Lucinda and how emotionless he had looked while doing it.
Les reached for his knife, his eyes never leaving the vamp
ire. But it wasn’t the big vamp that attacked. Another vampire, one I didn’t recognize, appeared from out of the shadows. He jumped at Les like an animal but Les was quick to react. The two of them fought, neither one gaining an advantage over the other, though the vampire blocked more blows than he landed. Les was very good—quick and precise and strong, seemingly tireless. I watched them, distressed at my inability to help.
He downed the vampire quickly, shoving the blade in his gut and removing it to cut his throat. I felt an enormous sense of relief until another vampire appeared in front of him.
“Asha, run.” Les, backing away from the vampire, issued the order succinctly.
I moved one foot uncertainly, not wanting to leave him.
“Stop,” Mercer said.
“Run, Asha!”
I ran. The door was only a few feet away. I had barely taken a step, however, when a gunshot echoed in the cavernous space. An abbreviated shriek escaped my lips. My hands slammed over my ears and I forced my legs to keep moving. Only fear kept me going. The door was there, right there, when something caught me about the waist. My body continued forward but the arms pulled me back, squeezing the breath out of me.
“Gotcha,” Mercer hissed.
Thrashing in his grasp did nothing, so I threw my head back and connected with his nose. With a grunt of pain he released me and I flew forward, the gun tumbling out of my hand. Stupid thing. I bit the side of my tongue as I stumbled and a metallic taste filled my mouth. Clenching my teeth against the pain, I grabbed the gun and fumbled with the safety, wishing I’d had the forethought to turn it off before entering the warehouse.
“Drop it,” Mercer said behind me, his voice deadly serious. Without looking, I knew he had his own gun pointed at me.
A Dark-Adapted Eye Page 19