In Blood We Trust (22 page)

Chaplin lunged at Gabriel, flying through the air over Taraline, his teeth bared and ready to rip out his neck.

Survival kicked in, and Gabriel put on his speed, slicing through the night, deserting GBVille for the second time in a week.

But this time, it was because he was a true outlaw, and he'd never be back.

At least, not as the man he'd been before.

A
s the oldster watched Gabriel speed off in a blur once again, he realized just how wrong he'd been. All the hope, all the things he'd kept telling himself about someone else killing that Civil . . .

Wrong.

He knew he should call upon his were-side and give chase, but he'd never catch Gabriel. Not until he regained his senses enough to track him.

Chaplin was barking at the oldster, but it sounded as if everything were wrapped in layers of hemp, cushioning him. Then the dog latched his teeth onto the oldster's pants, yanking him off balance.

Through that swath of muddled perception, the oldster realized that it wasn't because Chaplin was forcing him to go after the vampire.

It was because he was trying to get him off the walkway and down to a nook by the watchtower.

Vamps?

Were they coming after them for mind-screws?

As the oldster ran and took shelter down the way, Chaplin went back out to retrieve a stunned and naked Hana, who'd obviously stripped off her clothing so she could comfortably were-change. The oldster took off his vest and wrapped it round her before adding the protection of his arms.

Belatedly, he saw that Taraline had already darted off into the shadows, the only other witness to Pucci's death and Gabriel's vague confession to the Civil killing.

But what to do with all that now?

While Chaplin pressed against their legs, the oldster just held Hana, who was still quieted by the hypnotic
shh
-ing Gabriel had done to her. Soon, she'd be screaming again—the sound that had brought the oldster and Chaplin running in the first place when the dog had recognized it.

Chaplin stiffened, and the oldster knew that danger was real near. He held his breath while, on a wall close to where they'd just been standing, a shadow undulated past, going toward a corner that hid Pucci's body.

It was a dymorrdian shadow who'd blended with the night.

The oldster placed a hand over Hana's mouth, hoping she wouldn't choose this moment to come out of her vamp-given stupor.

But the shadow didn't return, and after waiting a few minutes, the oldster decided that they were in the clear—that it was okay to talk.

“Chaplin,” he whispered, “do you think the shadows are tipping off the vamps to any of us who're hiding?”

The dog growled, as if to warn the oldster to shush. But, damn it, there was no way to be sure of Chaplin's intentions because they didn't speak the same language.

Would it be wise to turn into his were-scorpion form so he could fight off any more vamps?

No—silver bullets might be the best bet, seeing as they slowed down a vampire if the aim was true. Besides, were-changing might be seen as a sign of aggression that would pretty much guarantee a mind-screw for the oldster when, earlier, he'd barely gotten out of one.

It'd happened just after Mariah had taken off from the cell block where he'd been holding her. When she'd sped away in her new nonlunar form—what an ugly state, with those teeth and that mouth—the vamps had let her go without even a question. But right away, a woman vamp who didn't look much stronger than a stick had grabbed the oldster by the collar and held tight, her eyes red.

“Your turn,” she'd said.

The oldster had realized that he was about to be mind-screwed, just as thoroughly as Neelan and the other Civils had been. The vampires were making a bid for their survival—and that of the community—in their own ruthless way.

The vamp woman had drilled into him with her gaze. It'd been as if she'd ripped open a dark curtain, peeking through it and showing him a sight more heart-jolting than anything he'd ever seen—a glance from a pair of red eyes blinking open in a dark canyon.

The oldster had scrambled to recall what Gabriel taught him back in better days about how to block or thwart a vampire mind attack.

Desperate to show the vampire that he didn't want to go against the Reds, he'd thrown up a mental screen, projecting onto it.

And he'd believed it with all his might—at that moment.

The vampire's mental curtain had shut, and just like that, the oldster was back to rights, the vamp woman dropping him on his ass.

She'd left him sitting there, realizing that it was true. Deep down, he really
was
on their side, although he'd been playing the middle, acting as a peacemaker for the community.

Chaplin had found the oldster that way, still on his butt, surrounded by Civils who were in the other cells, stunned and content. They'd been told and persuaded that they'd been put away for their own benefit and would be let out soon.

The oldster hadn't corrected their assumptions. Surely it was better that no one would remember the Civil killing. The vamps had been right in doing this, although they were now clearly the faction in charge, which threw off the balance of GBVille.

But they could make this work, right?

Hell, he'd thought that much until he'd seen Gabriel in action.

Chaplin had been barking and carrying on, urging the oldster to his feet. Even before he'd followed the dog outside, he'd heard Hana screaming.

Then he'd seen Pucci. He didn't give a rot about the man—never had much, anyway—but he'd spied Gabriel, too, with Pucci's heart in his hand. With blood round his mouth.

Then Gabriel had taken off again, as fast as before, headed for Mariah, no doubt.

But where had
she
gone to so fast?

The oldster could still hear what Neelan had told that Civil winged quasi—
Find that thing once and for all!
—and how Mariah had split out of the cell in such a hurry.

Had Neelan been talking about 562?

He kept holding on to Hana, clutching the butt of a holstered revolver with the other hand. She and Pucci must've come out here because they'd been fleeing the vamps, or else they were merely seeing what was going on with the fighting—maybe the couple had even been thinking about how the vamps had been so carried away that Hana and Pucci had failed to take cover from any satellite footage that might reveal this carnage.

They'd just run into bigger trouble instead with Gabriel.

Everything had happened so damned quickly that the oldster didn't know what the hell to think now—what side he was even on at this point, in spite of what he'd shown the vampire who'd been about to mind-wipe him. There were so many sides. He wanted 562 to be okay, but he didn't like the division she/he caused. He understood the Civils' concerns, but not at the expense of his kind's own good.

He knew it all came down to a choice all of them would have to make: try to alter and tame what came naturally to every monster, or divide and lessen their numbers so that the humans could pick them off all the easier if they ever found out the monsters had risen again.

There'd been no word yet from the monster contingent that had gone off to old D.C. to take down that most rotten hub of all, but the oldster supposed that the plan's success—or failure—would force the monsters in every conquered hub to decide if they wanted to compromise and live free or die out.

Now that things had been silent round them for a decent time, the oldster breathed the first sigh of relief that he'd dared.

He sat on the ground, bringing Hana with him, cupping her bared head and letting her lean on his shoulder. Her brown hair, without its usual scarf, was so short that her curls felt like clover under his hand. He was old enough to still remember how soft the very last of the clover had been.

They would wait here a minute more, just to decide what to do.

Just a minute more.

But much to the oldster's consternation, Chaplin stepped away from their hiding place, then started to heave.

Nothing came out of the dog's mouth, though. What was wrong with him? Too much adrenaline?

“Boy?” the oldster whispered.

When the canine stopped, he whimpered, lowering to his belly and resting his head on his paws. His brown hair nearly covered the sad moons of his eyes.

Mariah,
the oldster thought. The dog wasn't sick from excitement as much as heart-ill at the separation between him and his mistress. The oldster didn't know what had gone down between them when he'd left them alone in the cell block, but he'd seen Chaplin skulking out of the corridor, so it couldn't have been good.

The oldster petted the dog. “Wish I knew how to fix what ails you.”

Chaplin whimpered again, casting a gaze in the direction in which they'd left Pucci. Maybe this killing had been the last moral straw for the dog.

The oldster didn't dare discuss Gabriel and Pucci, though—not with Hana here. He didn't even want to think that they were still much too close to the man's naked, dead body.

God-all, half of him was actually glad Pucci had gotten his due. But half of him still wanted to go after Gabriel, whose bent heroism had curved far round from the oldster's conception of it.

His heartbeat wilted. Once, Gabriel had been a better man than any one of them.

Chaplin's head shot up, and the oldster put his hand near his revolver. If it was a vamp, he'd
act
mind-screwed and hope that it would work. His sight caught the image of what looked to be a frothy white cloud moving through the cover of wall shadows, just before he realized that he was seeing a line of flowing, nearly sheer nightgowns that revealed the hourglass shapes of women beneath them.

A group of gremlins sprinted in front of the intruders, snorfling as they pointed at the refugees in their nook.

One woman in front bent down and shooed the gremlins away, and the nasties tottered off, sputtering in glee when they saw Pucci's body nearby.

Shit.

“Call them off,” the oldster said. Pucci had been a dick, but limits were limits, and he wouldn't see the dead desecrated.

When the lead woman moved out of the oldster's immediate line of sight, the moonlight showed her identity.

“Get going!” Falisha said to the gremlins. Then, to the rest of the women behind her, “Herd them away.”

The others offered red-painted, moon-washed glances to the oldster, Hana, and Chaplin before they slowly moved on, keeping to the shadows again.

Falisha gave a pointed look to the revolver that the oldster hadn't quite reached for yet.

“Notice the quiet, Michael?” she asked. “That means you don't need to use a weapon on me. All's clear, and the vampires are starting to let the Civils out of their cages now. They've mind-wiped everyone they wanted to, except for any stragglers they'll pluck off as soon as possible.”

He still didn't move his hand away from the firearm, even though Chaplin wasn't growling at the tik-tik woman. That meant the dog didn't even perceive her to be a threat.

But what if the tik-tiks were in league with the vamps and the women were wandering round with the shadows in order to find the stragglers?

Then again, tik-tiks were definitely their own Reds. They'd never shown a major affinity for vamps over were-creatures. . . .

“Michael,” she said again. “I'm not here to addle you. And the fact that you're hiding tells me that either you weren't mind-screwed by a vampire yet or they believe you're fine without a wipe.”

So she had their number. “Didn't they get
you
?”

“Are you asking if the vampires mind-screwed the tik-tiks and gremlins? No. We're more like old Switzerland—the great In Between where immunity is offered and respected, so there was no need with us.”

He still didn't move his hand from his revolver.

“And if you even think that
I
can mind-screw you,” she said, “you're wrong. Tik-tiks don't have any wonderful powers like a vampire does. We have only one mental talent.”

“What?”

She rubbed her fingers together. “Touch. When we come into physical contact with a woman, we know if she's carrying a child or not.”

That was how they were able to choose a victim properly, he thought, getting off the subject as soon as possible.

“If you're not combing the walkway for mind-screws,” he said, “then what're you doing out here?” Fear choked him. “Are you scouting the sky for government Dactyls?”

“Partly. The vampires were so steeped in bloodlust that they didn't take much care with staying out of the open. We can only hope that something's happening in old D.C. right now and there's no time for the government to be combing over satellite footage.”

“Why're you out here, then?”

Falisha's coiled hair looked like black snakes in the night. “Surveying the damage. We Reds really made a mess of reorganizing the community, although I have to say that your friend's death was the only fatality.” She glanced toward Pucci. “We've already taken the body away, so he's not merely left out here. The shadow people will bury him.”

She glanced at Hana, who hadn't reacted. Even so, the oldster covered the ear that wasn't pressed to his shoulder, so she wouldn't hear all this.

“You don't sound too affected by a fellow Red's demise,” he said.

She sighed. Had Falisha ever heard about Pucci's relationship with Hana? It hadn't been much of a secret that he was a jerk to others as well as to her.