by Amy Corwin
When they got to the road, a roiling bank of fog obscured Kethan’s car. Her heart banged against her ribs in another burst of fear. She looked left and then right, waiting for someone—something—to attack from the obscuring veils of mist. Death encircled them.
She adjusted her grip on the slick handles of her whips and flicked each hand, prepared. Ready for the worst, her body shook with a premonition of disaster.
“It’s a trap. I feel it.” She stepped cautiously to the grassy verge lining the dark expanse of road. She glanced left and then right again. Nothing.
“I don’t know,” Kethan said in a low voice. “Sutton left, so it’s not him. Just stay close.”
“You stay close! I don’t trust any of them.” She could protect herself, but what about Kethan? A sense of despair filled her. What about Father Donatello?
Kethan turned his head, but his distracted gaze flashed past her. “Did you recognize any of them? Were they from Mexico City?”
Leaves rustled on her right.
She whirled in that direction and sent the whip flashing into the darkness. A twig snapped. Someone stepped back quickly to avoid the thin, monofilament fall of her whip.
Running toward the sound, she swirled both whips to clear the way. Twigs rained down over her head and shoulders. The coils cut through slender trees and brush, leaving a trail of debris around her.
No one could get close to her or Kethan with the whips snapping through the air.
“Show yourself!” she called, releasing the full power of her rage. Give me the strength to destroy my fear!
“Quicksilver! Come back!” Kethan ran after her, his dark silhouette fading in and out of the mist. “Wait!”
She ran faster, her pulse singing. I can do this—I can save Father Donatello.
Catching up, Kethan caught her wrist and pulled her back. His brows were drawn down and he didn’t look frightened, just irritated.
“Let go.” She shook him off.
“Stop,” he repeated. “You’re just going to make matters worse.”
The cold knot forming at the base of her spine numbed her. The black tree trunks glittered damply as the mist behind them rolled along the dark surface of the parking lot and obscured the familiar, safe shape of the car.
“We lost them.” She jerked around to face him. Her glance flashed over his shoulder. The air felt slightly warmer or else she’d just grown used to the penetrating chill.
Where did they go? Are they watching us?
“We need to leave,” Kethan said. “They’re playing games.”
“We need to kill them—tonight! If you want to get Father Donatello back, it’s the only way.” She had to convince him. If he agreed and helped her, Father Donatello might have a chance.
More importantly, if Kethan agreed, it meant what she’d done, killing vampires, wasn’t an unforgiveable crime. It meant he might forgive her and didn’t think she was completely psychotic.
“No. That’s what they want.” Kethan took her arm and guided her toward the parking lot. “They want us to eliminate Sutton’s clan.”
“So what? Sutton’s people killed Kathy and who knows how many others.”
“Think about it. Why do another group of vampires a favor?”
“I’m not doing anyone a favor! Vampires are pure evil, and we need to kill them, not bargain with them. You’re the one setting us up to be used.” Why didn’t he understand?
“No one is going to be used—”
“What about Father Donatello? They’re using him right now—for a snack. I thought he was your friend.”
“He is and I’m thinking about him right now. If you kill Sutton and his clan, those other vampires will take over this territory.”
“So you want to help Sutton? His clan is more important than Father Donatello?”
A whisper of sound rustled through the dead leaves behind them. Her spine stiffened, expecting a savage attack.
Nerves humming with tension, she spun, balancing on the ball of one foot. Her senses found nothing but twisting, dark shadows and then…something…a cold void in the mist. She snapped her wrist and sent a whip cracking to the right. The silver fall sliced off a scattering of small, leafless twigs from an overhanging branch and continued through the darkness in a smooth arc.
A startled, half-scream cut through the shadows. The whip had met its mark. The crash of a body falling into the brittle detritus carpeting the forest floor broke the silence. She caught sight of a face, a dark-haired vampire with bronze skin and wide cheekbones. Fissure erupted, splitting the skin before red light flared through cracks. In seconds, the body sizzled away into a puff of gray ash.
“Stop!” Kethan’s eyes were hard when he caught her wrist. “Please. You don’t even know who you’re killing.”
“I don’t care.” He didn’t understand, and he would never forgive her. Her shoulders slumped and she suddenly felt exhausted.
Ignoring her weapons, he pulled her away from the trees. She stiffened in a panic, fearing her reflexes would jerk the whip in her hand and cut his unprotected skin.
“Come on. We’re getting out of here,” he said.
“If you want to leave, leave.” She yanked her arm out of his grip, her eyes scanning the woods. She’d never felt so desperately alone or so tired.
The coldness within her intensified.
Don’t be a baby. You’ve been alone before. Nothing had changed.
To her surprise, Kethan jerked her against him. He slid an arm around her waist and lifted her until her toes bounced on the uneven ground, forcing her to retreat.
She couldn’t get free. “Let me go!”
“Quiet! Please. We’re leaving.”
“No.” She flailed, kicking and struggling to watch over his shoulder. They weren’t safe. He was making it easy for them.
The still air around them felt suffocating.
With a grip binding her like a straight jacket, he forced his way through the tangled underbrush. She clutched at trees but the weak branches broke off in her hands. Somehow, he managed to avoid letting her get close enough to a limb thick enough to give her a handhold.
Slowly, she realized the ridiculousness of her situation. Nothing had attacked them and the icy stillness of the undead was gone.
Oblivious, Kethan dragged her to the edge of the road.
Only a darker layer of ground-hugging fog marked the black surface of the street. Their car stood indistinct behind billows of gray. Kethan’s chest expanded and pressed against her back as he took a deep breath. His heart pounded against her, echoing the throb battering her own ribs.
He tensed. His hold on her tightened before they crossed the road, the damp air muffling the sounds of their footsteps against the tarmac. As they neared the vehicle, Kethan slowed.
A light laugh brushed over their shoulders.
Quicksilver’s head snapped in that direction. She’d been wrong; they weren’t gone, just hiding at the edge of her senses. Jerking her wrist, she struggled to escape from Kethan. She had to protect them before it was too late.
When he didn’t release her, she kicked him in the shins and elbowed his side. His grip loosened just enough for her to twist free for one minute before his hand lashed out. His fingers fastened over her arm.
A cold wave seeped down her back, freezing her muscles as she stared into Kethan’s face. He didn’t seem to understand the danger surrounding them.
Dead eyes followed their movements, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Vampires lingered in the woods, coming closer as Kethan dragged her to the car.
“Wait!” she said, trying to figure out what to do, how to save both of them. When she moved, her knee banged against something, sending a zing of pain up her leg. The car! They’d reached the vehicle without realizing it. “Give me room to use my weapons.”
“No.”
“Yes!” She flicked one wrist, letting the whip’s fall slither close to his foot.
“You want me to lock you in
the trunk?”
“What trunk?” She gestured with her elbow to the miniscule car.
His mouth twisted, and he stalked around to the passenger’s side dragging her after him. He pulled open the door. “Get in.” Pressing his palm on top of her head, he tried to thrust her inside.
She gripped the edge of the roof. This must be how a cat feels when it’s stuffed into a carrier. With a frustrated sigh, she finally relented.
You can’t save a person who doesn’t want to be saved.
“Stay there,” he said between gritted teeth.
“They’re all around us—can’t you feel them? I know you think I’m nothing more than a psycho, but….” Her voice trailed off when his grim expression didn’t change. Fine. Then die because you’re too stupid to live.
“There’ll be no more deaths tonight.”
“Except ours.” She settled into the seat. The stuffy air inside the car clogged her throat. She couldn’t breathe within the confines of the vehicle, made all the more claustrophobic by the fog blanketing the windows.
“You’re just hysterical.”
“No. I’m not hysterical. Besides, I think the word you really want is ‘psychotic.’”
“Just stay here, will you? Relax.”
She gazed at him. There was no sympathy in his expression. All she saw was fatigue in the lines around his mouth and maybe a touch of annoyance in his hard eyes.
Then she glanced beyond him. Her spine tingled as she watched the air thickening at the edge of the parking lot.
“They’re coming.” The muscles in her arms tightened.
“Stay where you are.”
“I—”
“Stay.”
Sit. Stay. Good doggie. She curled her hands and held them beneath her chin like a dog begging, and she yipped. He stared at her, his face unchanging.
After a fleeting glance into the mist, she leaned back and stared forward at the gray-smeared windshield. Where were they? What were they waiting for? Why didn’t they get it over with and attack?
Kethan glanced over his shoulder once before walking around the front of the car. His slow, deliberate movements telegraphed nothing but confidence. She could see no trace of fear in either his face or body.
She followed him with her eyes, waiting. You don’t even realize you’re inches away from death….
Nothing erupted out of the mist.
He got to the driver’s door and climbed inside. Then he tried to start the car.
The motor emitted a grinding noise. It whirred, shrieked, and then just as it sounded like it might catch, it rattled to a stop. He glanced at her, the flush of embarrassment replacing the confidence in his face. He hunched forward and turned the key again. Grind, grind, whir…. The engine caught…nope. It choked.
“We should’ve taken my motorcycle.” She tried to sound light, teasing, but a desperate edge cut through her voice.
Gripping the dashboard, she stared out the window. Moisture streaked the glass in long, silvery trails. The streetlights at the corners of the parking lot created strange fishbowls of gleaming light, surrounded by the pearly-gray mist. She flicked the lock down on her door and shoved her frozen hands between her thighs.
The air grew cold and getting colder. The car rocked. Something thumped against the passenger’s side, just below her window. The vibration shook her, and she clutched the armrests. At the edge of hearing, she heard a light, almost feminine giggle.
“I should get out.” She shivered in her seat. The intense chill felt as if all her blood had been drained, leaving her empty. She didn’t even try to hide her fear or the sense of desperation dragging at her. “I—I don’t have any knives. I don’t have anything but the whips. They’re no good at close quarters.” Her voice rose. “I can’t fight them if they get in the car. I—I have to get out.”
“No.”
“The car won’t start—”
“It’ll start.” He tried again. The engine ground, the deep roar whining, liar, liar, liar….
“I’d better get out.”
“Stay here. Don’t get out. They’ll go away, soon.”
“How do you know?”
The car shook as something battered it, again. With a fresh stab of terror, she realized the blow felt lower and the car had rocked side-to-side. If they kept this up, they could roll the car over.
They’d be trapped inside. Hurt. Easy prey.
Whispering a brief prayer, Kethan made the sign of the cross and turned the key once more. The engine ground, whirred and rattled. The car shook violently. His lips moved in a more urgent prayer as he his hands gripped the steering wheel. The knuckles stood out, stark white, in the dim light from the dash.
The car shimmied. The passenger side tilted up, lifting away from the ground. She gripped the door handle to keep from falling against Kethan. The moisture icing her palms made her fingers slide over the molded plastic of the armrest. She lost her grip and clutched the seat belt. The nylon bit into her chest and neck, strangling her until she was forced to unsnapped it.
“Get it started,” she said through clenched teeth. “Please, dear God, hurry!”
“I’m working on it.”
With a roar of protest, the engine finally caught. It sputtered and wheezed, complaining with metallic shrieks when he pressed the gas pedal.
A jarring hit on the outside of her door threw her against him.
She yelped an apology as she hit his shoulder. “Sorry!”
“Put your seatbelt back on.” He thrust her back with his elbow, concentrating on driving.
Despite the sickening, side-to-side roll of the car, it surged forward, righting itself with a thump. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor, grimacing as the vehicle crawled forward. The needle of the speedometer hovered over the mark for a rousing ten miles per hour.
Another thump savaging the rear bumper. Quicksilver looked over her shoulder, but the dim lights from the dash left her blinking and blind. Vague, black shadows darted toward them, blending into the blue-black night. The car sputtered. Clutching the edge of her seat, Quicksilver leaned forward.
The engine swallowed enough gas to leap forward. The speedometer read a hair under thirty.
“They almost tipped us over.” She twisted in her seat. Was that shadow a vampire watching from the edge of the woods? She shivered and rubbed her arms, her fingers sticky from perspiration. “Can’t you go any faster? Why don’t you own a decent car? You must have money—your house is fancy enough.”
His mouth twisted. “That townhouse has been in the family for years. I don’t see the point in wasting a lot of money on cars.”
“Then don’t waste money. Just get one that freakin’ starts when you need it to.” She rubbed the moisture off the inside of her window with her sleeve, but it immediately clouded up again when she took another breath.
Who were those creatures? Their shadows raced after the car, clinging to the edge of the woods. Vampires from Mexico?
Carol and Carlos’s clan? She stared through her cloudy window. Darkness fluttered by. Her mind raced, reliving the horrors she thought were over.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught Kethan’s quick glance. The concerned look on his face made her cross her arms and resolutely stare forward. When he drew in a deep breath, she cringed inside, her mind racing in circles.
Don’t say anything—please. I can’t do this right now. Please.
“Your hatred of vampires…didn’t it ever strike you as, well, a little extreme?” he asked.
An immediate, violent emotional reaction exploded from the depths, leaving her incoherent with rage. She stuttered and swallowed as she pressed her crossed arms tighter against her stomach. “Yes, it’s extreme. But you don’t know what it was like. They acted like a pair of damned cats, snagging me with their claws, toying with me.” She swallowed and covered it with an elaborate shrug. “I went crazy. I know that.”
“Crazy,” he repeated in a neutral voice, sounding remarkably like one o
f the psychologists who dashed through the orphanage on one of their lightening fast “hear ‘em, reassure ‘em, cure ‘em” crusades.
“I’m not insane.” She enunciated each word clearly. Use your calm voice, your sane voice. “I’m in control of my emotions.” Most of the time. Probably a good ten percent of the time, at least.
“No, you’re not.”
“So I lost my temper! That’s all.” She pressed her lips together. Breathe. She’d been frightened and it made her angry. It was a normal reaction. “It was understandable. They attacked us. Haven’t you ever gotten mad? Been afraid?”
“Of course., but I try not to kill anyone because of it.”
“I’m not crazy.” She lapsed into silence. Her stomach twisted, tightening in knots. What more could she say? What excuse did she have?
Something was broken inside of her, she understood that and there was nothing more to say. It was why she didn’t get involved with men. No matter how normal she tried be, men always discovered her craziness. Then the pain began.
Men always ended up running away, either unable to deal with the horror living inside her or because they tried to fix her and discovered they couldn’t. Men didn’t like to see themselves as failures, particularly when doing the Pygmalion number on a woman.
Eventually, Kethan would run away, too. He’d have to, or admit there were some things that words simply could not fix.
After an eon of painful silence, they arrived at Kethan’s townhouse. She slipped inside without breaking the hush. What was the point? She’d heard all the caring, thoughtful words before, droning on like so many bees busily creating their own little cells of honey.
She started up the stairs, leaving Kethan to lock up the house. She didn’t want to discuss her problems with him or listen to his calm, patronizing words as he tried to get her to admit she was a nut.
Unfortunately, he was quicker than she expected. He caught up with her on the landing at the top of stairs.