Dreams for the Dead (22 page)

He shouldn’t have let her go with such harsh words. He was a fucking asshole, but it wasn’t too late to chase after her and make things right. But he didn’t, and he wasn’t sure why. His gut was twisted up in knots.

“What the hell was that?” Augusta asked as Tristan came back to the room.

“I don’t know,” he said tonelessly.

Nola looked hurt. “Why did you go after her?”

“I don’t
know
,” he repeated, glaring at her. He sank to the edge of the bed, avoiding Fallon’s outstretched feet, and scratched at his jaw. “I think … Gus, do you hate it? Do you hate what we’ve become? There’ve been times I couldn’t stand to be around any of you. At times I couldn’t stand myself. We’ve been evil, and we couldn’t see our sickness because we were living in it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Come on, you know what I mean. The things we’ve done to people. Things I don’t want to remember. Things I can’t even say out loud.”

His words made her blink rapidly. “It’s a little late for r
emorse, isn’t it?”

“No,” Fallon interjected nobly. “It isn’t.”

Tristan shot him a withering glare. “Look at us now,” he continued. “We don’t have any money. We don’t have anything, not jobs or friends. Barely a will of our own. We’ve lived off the map. We don’t exist, as far as most of the world is concerned. We’ve relied on Loftus, and now what? He tried to fucking kill us. We can’t ever go back to the way things were.”

“We can start our own life,” Augusta said tentatively. “On our own terms.”

“Yeah. If we knew how.”

“What are you saying, Tristan?” Nola asked, coming to stand before him.

He looked up at her and his smile held a tinge of fond regret. “It’s time to move on. We had our fun, but it’s over now.”

Her expression turned cold, but hurt shimmered in her dark eyes. “It’s that easy for you?”

“The opposite, actually. Sorry, Nola. I think we both knew it wouldn’t last forever.”

For another moment she just stared at him, hundreds of replies visible in her eyes. But she said none of them. Her tight, pained face softened, and she leaned down to kiss his forehead. And then she left. And that was it. She didn’t even slam the door in anger.

“Tristan,” Augusta said with concern. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not fucking all right, but it doesn’t matter.” He rose swiftly to his feet and gestured at Fallon. “Untie him. We need to talk, the three of us.” Augusta set to work on the ropes and Tristan said, “Tell me about the caverns, Fallon. In detail.”

“Loftus kept my mother there,” Fallon began. “Delphine.”

“Why?”

Fallon sat up and rubbed his wrists, casting an annoyed glance at Augusta. “There was a car crash. She would have died, but he decided to make her into a vampire. Her body didn’t make it through the change, though. She was neither alive nor dead, neither vampire nor human. To keep her that way until he could figure out how to revive her, he put her deep inside the earth. He kept her alive with the blood of humans, usually the ones you four had already used. And alchemical magic.”

“Thanks to you.”

“Yes.”

“And then he figured out human blood was only good enough to sustain her,” Tristan guessed. “It wouldn’t revive her. Only vampire blood would do that.” Fallon nodded. “What’s he d
oing now? What’s that red light?”

“He wants power,” Fallon said. “That’s what the light is, nothing but a manifestation of power. Your blood gave Delphine incredible strength. Loftus wants it for himself. It’s like … an amplifier. Drinking her blood makes him stronger.”

Tristan closed his eyes for a moment as voices spun in his head.
We could destroy cities. We could start wars just to bathe in the blood of soldiers. You have not yet served your purpose. You are
weak
, and I am ashamed to have made you a vampire.
Malicious silver eyes bore into him.
Everyone suffers loss, and it is no shame if you perpetuate it among humans. You simply lick the blood from your teeth and laugh at how good it feels.

The need for blood and violence crept into him, insidious. He filled his chest with a deep breath. “So how do we stop him?” he asked cheerfully.

Fallon lifted his shoulders. “Kill him. You vampires are vulnerable to wood, are you not? Drink his blood. Of course, it won’t be that simple. He’ll fight you.”

“Of course.” Tristan looked at Augusta and they both smiled toothily. “I’m feeling quite thirsty all of a sudden.”

She put her hands on her hips and flipped her electric hair. “And I think I might like a taste of freedom.”

“Well, Fallon, you’ve been the model of piety,” Tristan said, feeling strangely light and eager. “Are you g
oing to help us stop hell on earth from becoming a reality?”

“That’s overstating the matter a little. I suppose you could never manage it without me, though,” Fallon muttered dryly.

Tristan opened the door and found Jared pacing in the hall. He was much less rakish and confident than when he’d come with a careless warning about what Branek was doing to Dawn. His green eyes were glassy and rimmed in red. His brown hair hung in damp strings across his forehead. Tristan didn’t see Leila, though he knew she couldn’t be far.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

Jared bared his teeth in a nervous grimace as he spoke. “I don’t know. I think … I need help. I don’t know how to make a vampire. Loftus never showed me. Can you show me?”

“Where’s the girl?”

“In the car. I had to knock her out. She fights me, sometimes. She would have tried to get away. But I can’t let her.”

“I’m not going to show you how to make her a vampire. Take her back home, Jared,” Tristan o
rdered. “Then walk away.”

“What?” Jared looked shocked. “How could I walk away? I love her.”

“If you really loved her, it’d be easy. You’d know it was the best thing for her.”

Tristan frowned as he spoke, realizing how true that was. He recalled the harsh words he’d used to send Dawn away from him. That hadn’t been easy at all, but at the time it had seemed necessary. She’d be safer on her own, he’d reasoned almost thoughtlessly. Though he’d never bitten her and never forced himself on her, he’d done nothing but hurt her. Much of the time he was angry for fee
ling so vulnerable to her, but of course that didn’t excuse his behavior.

He flashed back to see her crumpled on the pavement outside the church in Mineral Springs, Branek fleeing in a torrent of taunting laughter. Tristan had carried Dawn to the car and driven her to the motel room. He’d gotten a cup of hot chocolate for when she came to. He’d seemed to remember that was som
ething humans found comforting.

Then another time, coming to her apartment, finding the door standing open … She was unco
nscious on the floor again, and again Branek was to blame. Even now Tristan couldn’t fully comprehend the level of wrath he’d felt, or the disturbing way he’d despaired to see her hurt. Those were the times she’d needed him. The times she’d been broken.

A sudden wave of nausea made him sway. He caught the doorframe. What had he
done?

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jared hissed.

“Come with us,” Augusta implored, taking a cautious step toward him. “We need your help—”

“No! I’ll figure this out on my own.”

Jared turned from them and fled down the hall to the stairwell. Tristan held an arm out in front of Augusta as she started after him.

“Let him go,” he said. “I’ll deal with him later.”

They left the hotel, Tristan leading the way down a ragged part of Sahara as they walked toward their old home. The world was different now, somehow. It was … exciting. But not in the way he’d always felt excited: miserably, on the run from anything that didn’t make his teeth clench in rage, nothing to do but make the city bleed. He’d always been caught in this endless fall, scared of nothing but his own reflection and that blasted burning sun.

This was the excitement of breaking free of your personal demons, or at least
wanting
to, for the first time. Everything in the world turned strange when you stopped feeling sick and crawled up out of your hole. When you woke up from dreams of death, or no dreams at all.

It was even stranger, Tristan thought, how alive a vampire could feel, when everyone knew he was undead. How awake he could feel when he never slept.

Waking wouldn’t come easily to him. It had seemed it would, back in the room, but the uncomfortable, suffocating truth descended on him as they reached Loftus’s house almost an hour later. He was not in charge of himself. He was never meant to have a say in anything that mattered. Loftus’s machinations were the map of his life. After all this time he felt the pull in his blood, the compulsion to obey.

“I want to do this alone,” he said abruptly.

Augusta frowned. “What?”

“Stay nearby. Just … just in case. But I need to face him by myself.”

“Martyr,” Fallon accused. But he and Augusta walked off toward the house, leaving Tristan to cross the lawn on his own.

White-haired and dressed in black, Loftus waited on the grass, back toward a copse of fruitless mulberry trees. His mercury eyes shone with a preternatural gleam. His smile was like brittle chips of ice in the sharp turn of his jaw.

Tristan could feel power pulsing against his skin, thicker than air. It was daunting. It was … nauseating. The sulfuric scent was nearly unbearable. Redness began to flare and waver around him like demonic northern lights. It pulsed like the beat of a sluggish but steady heart.

“Tristan,” Loftus said with the barest hint of surprise in his voice.

“Yeah, I’m still alive.”

Loftus narrowed his eyes. “Of course you are. I raised you to be strong, didn’t I?”

“Sure. I guess you were only testing that when you tried to kill me.” Tristan made a vague gesture. “What the fuck is this?”

“Delphine has been quite accommodating since we resurrected her. More than she ever was in life. You see how her power comes off in waves.”

“And it’s red. I don’t think she’s very happy, do you?”

“Perhaps not. But I am.”

“Why are you doing this again?”

“My motive is simply power. With it, I can take from this world whatever I desire.”

“Sounds amazing.”

Loftus smiled, amused but vicious. “Why are you here, Tristan?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Oh, I wish you would try,” Loftus whispered ominously. Rage made him icy and still. “I will kill you, my
son
. I will throw you to hell and bring you back so I can do it again.”

Tristan shook his head, laughing softly. “Aw,
Dad
. I’ve already been there.”

As a vampire, he had power. Power to corrupt, and seduce, and shred skin like paper if he was feeling violent. Which he was. A crazed, blood-drinking creature could wreak so much madness. When everything human in him receded and he allowed savagery to consume him, he felt intox
icated and focused. And there was nothing human in Tristan now. The star-shaped centers of his eyes sparked like fire. His fangs glistened.

Power crackled in the air, an electric sizzle that made Tristan’s hair stand on end. For a moment he flashed back to bright streams of blood flowing from his wrists, constant manipulations, crazed nights in half-lit alleys, the ever-present need to prove himself to someone, anyone, and always fai
ling. He wanted to cower in obeisance. But only for a moment.

Loftus didn’t like to fight. His powers were great, but physically he wasn’t as strong as the younger vampires. He wasn’t g
oing to make the first move. He’d wait for Tristan.

What the hell
, Tristan thought.

He went for the knees, hoping to take the advantage right away. But Loftus stepped neatly to the side and slammed his arm down on the back of Tristan’s neck. Tristan threw himself to the ground to avoid broken bones. Furious, he rolled to his back and shoved a foot, hard, into Loftus’s gut. As Loftus stumbled back, Tristan flipped himself up and jumped. His teeth were bared and he was fully prepared to suck every drop of blood from his father’s body.

But Loftus was faster than usual, having drunk Delphine’s powerful blood, and he avoided the hit. Tristan was facedown in the grass once more, angrier than ever. A wave of power washed over him and held him down.

Loftus’s laughter broke through the waves of red pulsing at the edge of Tristan’s vision. “Oh, you tried. You
did
try, and I’m grateful. Now I see what a waste of time it was to bother with you brats. Although you did amuse me some of the time.”

Spitting out a mouthful of dirt, Tristan turned his head and tried to lift his arm. The weight of an ocean was upon him. “You couldn’t have done this without us,” he said, sneering.

“I realize that. But you must know I could have chosen any number of parentless children across the country. You should thank me for choosing you. You wouldn’t be what you are had it not been for me.”