In Blood We Trust (12 page)

But that was why the older GBVille vampires had already thought to send a contingent to the capital to take the politicians over, after a new batch of power blasters was set to go off in about a week.

Yup, the humans were falling night by night, though they didn't know it. Thanks to how the vampires had infiltrated local leadership offices, first in GBVille and now in other hubs, they'd been able to collect and share sensitive information via monster couriers about human government and their plans for the future. One of the best tidbits they'd uncovered was the fact that humans actually hadn't been able to afford widespread top surveillance programs at this time, because of the recovery from Indian sanctions, though they'd constantly advertised the eyes in the skies and how these worked to keep humans safe.

Lies. Just lies.

This wasn't to say that surveillance programs weren't still operational—it just wasn't as prevalent as the monsters had always feared. Unfortunately, there'd been a program in the Badlands, yet they'd been careful out there.

But even gaining this intelligence hadn't told them everything about how the humans operated; they hadn't been able to access records about Witches. Not yet, at least. But that seemed a small matter as more hubs were covertly taken over.

Tonight, Gabriel looked out the window of a gone-to-pot energy booster café, with its neuroenhancer vending machines and white tables. He was watching humanlike monsters stroll past the sleeping distractoids outside. Clearly, more creatures had heard about the hub takeovers, and they were coming out of their hiding spots to join the movement inside the darkened hubs. Gabriel could sort the monsters out from actual people because he could hear the easy rhythms inside their bodies, unlike the processed-food-clogged people who littered the streets.

He'd awakened before Mariah, and when he heard her stretch to consciousness, desire rolled through him. He tried to counter it by talking.

“Texas monsters,” he said while tracking a vampire who was gently kicking at a distractoid who lay on a sidewalk. “They don't give much of a shit about getting caught, do they?”

Mariah slowly sat up. Every breath she took reached right into him.

“Historically, Texans have always been up for a battle,” she said.

She started to freshen up, but Gabriel just kept looking out that window, determined to stay away from her. He'd done pretty well refraining from her these past couple of nights, but maybe that was because he knew she was dancing on a razor's edge, having returned here to Dallas, her nightmare.

Sometimes he regretted suggesting this location for their temporary hideaway, but that was only during those times his humanity ran through him. Most moments, though, logic told him it was right to have her face the past so she could move forward, using what she was now for the purposes of good.

For the eradication of bad guys from this new world.

“How're you feeling?” he asked.

She exhaled. “I'm . . .”

“I get it if you don't want to go by your old house tonight. We can just walk the hub again, asking around for information on your bad guys.”

Not that wandering Dallas had done any good. Gabriel had a sneaking suspicion that they'd have to visit her house to get anything accomplished . . . if that was what she still wanted.

When he glanced back at her, she was hugging herself.

“Now that we're here,” she said, “I'm dragging my feet. It's more upsetting than I imagined.”

She'd been fighting a change ever since they'd gotten to this hub. Now that Gabriel had met his own vampire kind and understood what they were about, he was finding it harder and harder to understand her reluctance to be what she could be, though he knew that she was only afraid of how she might create a mess here in Dallas that these monsters would be unwilling to deal with.

When she locked her green gaze on him, his blood chugged.

“Do you ever wonder what's happening back in GBVille?” she asked.

Now that she mentioned it, Gabriel realized that he hadn't thought about the Civil killing for a couple of nights.

He frowned. Just months ago, the Civil killing would've torn him apart with remorse every waking moment.

Mariah continued. “There's something in me that misses 562. And Chaplin, but I suppose that goes without saying.”

“Are you telling me that we ought to go back now?”

“No. We need a few more days out here, at least. But I do need to think about where I should be when the moon gets full. I'm not sure I feel secure turning into my moon form here.”

It'd be one thing if the full moon lasted only a few hours or a night, but it was usually a three-night phase—waxing, highest power, then waning. Thank-all the moon didn't peak all night long, either; Mariah had tried to explain to him once that when the moon reached its full status, it remained that way, even during daylight. But there was something about the night reaching its darkest point that struck a were-creature to madness.

Gabriel connected to her fear now, and not only because he'd seen her and 562 in lunar bodies that had reminded him of the dark goddess Kali, with a couple less arms and a wickedly sharp, split tongue. Whenever the moon turned, Mariah would have to stay away from others.

And he'd thought it was bad enough when the moon
wasn't
full—when she turned into a weaker version of her most terrible state.

He lowered his voice. “I'll make sure you're safe, wherever we are.”

He tried not to think about what had gone on the last time she'd turned. His bloodlust that night had made him even worse than she was.

She smiled at him, so close to happiness if he could only find the right words to continue with.

He gave it a try. “And I'll keep you safe,
if
you decide you want to go out there tonight.”

Her body rhythms thrummed, terror in motion.

“If you want,” he said, “I'll even go to your old place for you, just to see if there're any clues that I can pick up on—something that would allow me to hunt down any of your bad guys who still might be in the hub.”

Her eyes lightened, just as they did whenever she was pushed. “I need to be the one to do that, Gabriel.”

“But you're afraid of turning. You don't want to create a problem for these Dallas monsters if you get out of control.”

He couldn't stop himself from going to her, lifting her to her feet, kissing her on the forehead, shivering from her scent.

“I'll try with all my might to protect you,” he said.

“You can't promise things like that when we both know better.”

“Would you rather spend the rest of your life like this? Afraid?”

“I'm not afraid.”

As if to prove it, she headed for the door, going into the street.

Finally.

And she didn't hesitate in finding her old home tonight. Maybe she'd just gotten to the point where the dread of waiting overshadowed everything else.

Whatever the case, they relied on her memories to guide them to the wasted suburb where her family had once lived. Now, instead of green lawns, there was scrub and tumbleweed among debris that had rusted under the gray-cloaked sun. Instead of fresh white paint on the walls, there were jaundiced flakes, like the skin of an oldster human who'd tried to crawl away to a hole but never made it. Iron bars survived on the windows, and locks rested against the stoop, neatly in line, so out of place with the rest of this dump.

As Gabriel and Mariah stood in front of her old home, the night wind groaned around them. Tears streaked her face. Gabriel could feel the fear hauling her down, but also the urge to cry because of what had been destroyed here.

Before he could ask her if she had enough courage to go inside, she stepped onto the path that led to the front door, which creaked on its hinges, half open, as if the last person to run out of here had left in such a hurry that they hadn't shut things tight.

At first, he couldn't go inside—not until she said, “Come in with me.”

He followed her over the threshold, into what looked to be a living room. It was devoid of much except for a wire-harried camera perched up in the corner, its lens cracked. There was also a leather couch that drooled stuffing. A gutted flashlight lay next to it, along with the skins of some roots that someone had obviously discarded after eating the middle out of them.

“Someone's living here,” Gabriel said.

Mariah sank to her knees, facing a wall. The outline of a pink stain scarred it, and Gabriel could still detect a trace of blood that someone had tried to wash off.

She was sobbing now, and Gabriel didn't have to ask why. Their link provided every image:

Gabriel bent down to stroke Mariah's hair.

“It never goes away,” she said.

She could've been talking about the bloodstain, but she wasn't.

Heat was pushing off her skin, and it scorched him also.

Any minute, she might pop, bursting into an angry reflection of 562 in the form it used to adapt when it was ticked off—a body unaffected by the full moon: huge teeth in a huge mouth, no mercy.

But, somehow, Mariah found the strength to just grit her teeth, her gaze a furious green as she looked up at that wall. She slumped, her body in a miraculously controlled half change while her teeth grew in number, the new ones coming to points.

Then, slashing away her tears, she stood, started to sniff. To growl.

Gabriel took in the scents from the weave of the rug, too, memorizing them. Very, very old aromas, barely identifiable. Two that he recognized in particular: Mariah and Chaplin. Many other scents that he couldn't identify, and maybe those were the ones that belonged to Mariah's bad guys.

Maybe those odors would help Gabriel to see if any of the bastards were still in Dallas. . . .

When he heard a sound near the door, he didn't hesitate in speeding over to it, grabbing whatever it was that had been peering in at them.

Gabriel brought the intruder up to his face, grimacing at the pale-white man with scaly skin and pink eyes. In spite of his reptilian façade, his very humanlike tongue flickered in and out as he raised his clawed fingers to Gabriel.

But the guy didn't attack. Maybe because he was a Civil monster, Gabriel realized. And he was probably the creature who'd been using Mariah's old home as a shelter.

“Don't hate,” it said in a mealy-mouthed voice. The aggression had obviously been all show.

But just because it was a Civil didn't mean it wouldn't cause trouble. Besides, there was something about the oddly sweet odor of the monster that was goading Gabriel, so he hauled it into the house and let go of it. Mariah was still hunched, her hands balled at her sides, but she wasn't even in half-change mode anymore, though it seemed as if it wouldn't take much to get her there again.

“Who's this?” she asked.

“Plattoh,” the lizard-guy answered, slinking toward his torch and the discarded shells of food on the floor. “This is my home.”

She kept at him. “And how long have you been living here?”

“Since Dallas went dark. A week. More. Less. Plattoh doesn't know.”

The Civil's version of Old American speech struck Gabriel. Then again, monsters, shut-away humans, and elite business globalists were some of the few who'd clung to the dialect because they'd been in hiding, had cut themselves off from the changes in society at large, or spoke the common language with other corporatists; most humans who didn't hold the elite jobs that required languages like Chinese or Hindi or Old American generally used Text. But it could be that this lizard-man had ventured out of a hiding place recently and just started to learn Old American.

Gabriel spoke to Mariah. “His smell is the newest one in the room, so I think he's telling the truth about recently camping out here.”

Then he stalked the guy, who'd raised his hands in front of him again. Months ago, Gabriel would've been taken aback by the Civil's fear, but now he reveled in it.

“Any idea who lived here before you?” he asked.

“Hmmm,” Plattoh said, thinking.

Gabriel allowed his fangs to spring. “I'm doing you the courtesy of asking before I barge into your head.”

“Ooo, no. Plattoh talks. Plattoh talks much and more more more.” The lizard-man nodded, his long mouth stretching into a thin smile. “A lowlord gang lived in Plattoh's home i before. They sleep now, in the middle of the hub, where business is done.”

“They're under the influence of biological scare pills?”

“Yes, yes, that is right.” Plattoh's voice thinned out. “You will kill me now?”

“Do I look like I'm going to kill you?”

“Yes, yes.”

The darkest part of Gabriel was comfortable with that, even while something else inside died all the more.

The lizard-man took a long glance at Mariah, who had lost some interest in Plattoh and was staring at that bloodied wall again. She was clutching at her dress.

Gabriel lingered on her a moment too long—just enough for Plattoh to zoom out of the room on a girly sort of squeal.

Watching after him, Gabriel decided not to bother.