In Blood We Trust (32 page)

“The government's agents did not look around very well,” she said, staring at the cache. “They must be the most ineffectual body on earth.”

“Can't even find a trapdoor, can they?” he asked. “I'd say they couldn't even find their asses, either, if they hadn't had us monsters on the run for so long.”

Hana picked up a silver machete, and the oldster frowned. She looked like a Shredder, especially when she got a belt out of the cache, wrapped it round her arm, then snapped the machete into its holster so she'd be able to hold on to it during a were-change.

The oldster tried to slough off the image, but it wouldn't let him be. This wasn't right—monster versus monster. But it wasn't right that a vampire murdered other monsters, either, just as Gabriel had done with the Civil.

With Pucci.

Hana said, “The Monitor 'bot will not have known about our first homestead, so it would not have led anyone or anything there. That is another reason for us to visit tonight.”

“You don't think Mariah will do everything she can to protect Gabriel, even before she changes?”

Hana started to walk out of the room.

“Answer me.”

“I will not stop trying to find him, Michael. I would scour this entire planet if need be, and she will understand that.”

The oldster merely grunted, then left the room, too, unable to hear more nonsense. He wished he could live out the rest of his were-life in peace, but that didn't seem to be in the cards.

Hana darted way ahead of him, running out of the homestead, already going into her were-change. The oldster gave one last look to the homestead where Sammy Ramos had died, saluted the memory of his friend, then looped his holster belt over his bare arm and chased her, his body thudding and stretching into its other form, too.

They sped over the sand and dirt, seeking the shadows—an emerging were-deer and were-scorpion followed by a dog who did his best to catch up.

A mile before they arrived at the first homestead, the oldster and Hana slowed, sucking back into their own shapes, naked as the day they were born.

“We still have time to reassess this notion of yours,” he said, rubbing at his skin. His body hated him right now. “If we overstay, we'll be sorry. The moon's at its very fullest tonight, you know.”

Hana let go of the machete belt, and it clapped to the dirt. Then she bent to extract the blade from its holster.

“Onward, oldster,” she said.

They waited for Chaplin, but it took the dog a while to reach them. When he did, he didn't stop, instead running past them.

Fifty feet farther on, he skidded to the ground, rolled in the dirt, digging at it with his nose, whining. Almost crying in a way that made the oldster cover his ears.

Without the benefit of speech, he knew that Chaplin had caught the fresh scent of his mistress again.

Both the oldster and Hana moved past him, using the brush as cover, his silver-bullet-filled revolvers in his hands, the machete in hers.

G
abriel knew he and Mariah had company well before their guests even arrived.

It had nothing to do with his vampire senses, because ever since he'd awoken on this second dusk of the full moon, he'd been watching the visz monitors that Mariah had reactivated last night, after she'd turned back to her humanlike form.

And a few seconds ago, the screens had begun to show a disturbance in the near distance, by some brush.

Predators, sneaking up on them, under the moonlight. One of them was running on all fours ahead of the other two, just like a dog, and he was rolling in the dirt like a dog would, too.

Nothing about Gabriel's response betrayed caution when he guessed that this shape must be Chaplin. And Chaplin would be with Hana. And based on the third naked body that emerged from the brush to advance on the homestead at a purposeful walk, it'd be a good bet that the oldster had come here to back her up, as well.

Gabriel heard Mariah come up from the aquifer area, closing the door behind her, setting down a pack of water that she'd already pumped.

“They've come,” he said levelly.

She hesitated, as if his distant tone were discouraging her from approaching him. Or perhaps she was staying away because he still whipped her up—made
her
pulse go haywire when his remained static. Made
her
want to lose control.

It could be that the full moon would change her mood, though. He'd never felt closer to her than last night when the orb was at its most lethal.

He recalled the old sensations—the scream of his blood when he got near her, the churning of her body rhythms. The link between them had returned, imploding within Gabriel the moment she'd burst into her full-moon form and had died just as quickly when the sun had risen.

Why?

How?

He didn't know, but he didn't need to, either, when just having the link back was good enough. He craved it as he longed for blood—as he had agonized for
her
before his gloaming had ended.

But that was all it was—another hunger.

She finally came over to the visz screens, which were posted on the wall near the food prep area. He scented, more than saw, that she'd donned some clothing she'd been forced to leave behind here when they'd vacated the premises; she was wearing an old pair of lace-up pants with her boots, a baggy white shirt. She'd washed off in the cleaning unit, too, her chin-sharp red hair still damp.

He waited for the flash of blood that would rush him at her proximity, but it never came.

But he would wait.

“Is that Chaplin?” she asked quietly as she watched the monitors. On them, her dog was getting to his feet, following Hana and the oldster, his head down.

“He's not here for your sake.”

Gabriel's bluntness made her pull away from the screens, then move toward the ladder that led to the ceiling-fixed exit door.

“Where're you going?” he asked.

“Out there.”

“The moon's going to be at its strongest soon.”

“And that's why I'm not going to wait. I'm going to talk some sense into Hana right now.”

“She can still change into her were-form, even without the pull of the moon. You're walking into a bad situation.”

“She's no match for me if I should change, too, even if it isn't to my worst state.” Mariah leaned against the ladder. “Besides, I'm not the one she wants, Gabriel.”

He went to the ladder, too. He could surprise and overcome her with his instant vampire speed and strength if he wanted to, trussing her up so she wouldn't go anywhere. Yet that'd only be a temporary solution. Even in her nonmoon form, she'd bust out of any restraints without much effort.

She wasn't about to listen to him, though, and she continued on her way out.

Not restraining her, he only focused on the visz screens again, girding himself for a fight if Hana advanced even one aggressive inch toward Mariah.

He watched her open that door, pulling herself out, and slamming down the hatch with athletic grace. She hadn't even armed herself, seeing as they had no weapons here because the arsenal had been moved to the second homestead during the relocation.

Gabriel studied the visz monitors as she came into view of them, the lenses tracking her movement.

Right away, Chaplin bounded over to her, but he remained a few yards away.

“Boy . . .” she said, her sorrow-edged happiness loud and clear over the visz speakers.

There wasn't even a sound from the dog as Hana and the oldster left a respectable distance between them and her. They were both buck naked except for the silver machete clutched in her hand and the revolvers he carried.

This was a showdown, the minutes thunking toward a forced change for the were-creatures and 562's direct daughter—and it was the second moon night, the worst of all three.

Strange that Gabriel didn't feel a part of any of it.

Mariah was still looking at Chaplin, who was just about planting his paws into the dirt in an effort to keep himself from going to her. Gabriel could easily read the dog's body language, maybe because, as a vampire, he had an affinity for canines, who could be his familiars. That explained his attraction to Chaplin . . . and his initial one to Mariah, the former werewolf.

Hana said, “Is Gabriel down there?”

Mariah finally pulled her gaze away from her dog. “Why does it matter when I'm not going to let you anywhere near the entrance?”

Hana's machete trembled in her hand. The oldster stayed rooted next to her, as if he weren't going to get between the two women.

But that was the oldster for you, Gabriel thought. The conciliator. The one who always seemed to be caught in the middle until he finally took a stand.

What side would he end up on tonight?

Mariah got to a knee, holding out a hand to Chaplin. When he didn't move, she kept it up there.

Hana wasn't about to be ignored, though, and she made a move toward the homestead's entrance. Rising to her feet, Mariah blocked her.

“You may have a blade in hand,” she said, “but you'd be a fool to try to come round me, Hana. You know what'd be in store.”

“How can you protect him?”

Mariah looked sympathetically at the pleading were-woman. “Coming from someone who spent years protecting a brute when she could've been protecting herself, that's quite a question.”

“
You
are protecting a brute.”

The oldster finally came forward. “Mariah, do you have any idea what Gabriel did back in GBVille? What he could do to any of us?”

The conviction in Mariah's voice made Gabriel cock his head.

“He told me the details about Pucci's death. And if you think he'd do the same to any of us, you're mistaken.
I
wanted to give Pucci a taste of his own medicine for a while, didn't you, Michael? Gabriel was only the first of us to have done it.”

The oldster looked more uncomfortable than ever.

Hana reared back her free hand for a slap to Mariah's face, but Mariah gripped the other woman's wrist, holding it. The two stared at each other, Hana's arm shaking.

The oldster was looking straight into the visz lens now. He knew where it'd been hidden in the scrub and was talking to Gabriel directly.

“How about the Civil killing?” the old man asked.

“He told me,” Mariah whispered, and it almost sounded as if the words had scratched their way out of her throat.

In the background, Gabriel could see the winged and ragged silhouettes of shades—carrion feeders—against the moon. They'd locked on to activity down below and were hoping for blood.

They'd get it, too, just as soon as night crested and affected the moon. It wouldn't be long.

“You should go,” Mariah said, letting go of Hana, “before we're all worse for the wear. You walk your way, we'll walk ours.”

The oldster held up his gun-filled hands, as if in some kind of surrender as he came toward her. “That's not going to end anything, and you know it as well as we do. To make matters worse, there may be enemies about. We were at the second homestead, and it looks like we had some guests there after the 'bot was killed.”

He told her about the ripped clothing, the gutted arsenal wall inside the cavern.

“'Bots could be anywhere, Mariah,” he said.

She was unshakable. “There's always going to be something after us, but this vendetta of Hana's . . . It
has
to end here, because you all will end up dying if you continue coming after Gabriel.”

“Why?” the oldster asked. “Because
you've
decreed it?”

That shut everyone up. Not even Mariah seemed to know what to say.

The oldster kept on going. “Every time I look at you, girl, there's something else going wrong. First, you were the teenager who came to us, befuddled and crazed after getting forcibly bitten. Then you were the woman who didn't know what to do with the powers you'd been given, and you used them in the wrong way, although it was for all the best intentions. Now you're this—a monster on a head trip, thinking that you and your Gabriel are beyond any rules.”

Gabriel couldn't help thinking of how the vampires had treated Mariah, how she'd looked in that white dress with the light of the solar flashlight on her when they'd been resting at the water park.

562's chosen one.

The oldster added, “If you'd only accept what's put on you by acting like a savior instead of adding to this self-implosion that the monsters have brought upon themselves, we'd all be better off. You ever think of that?”

No one said anything, maybe because the oldster had hit a nerve.

But Hana wasn't here for that sort of discussion.

“Bring him out,” she said to Mariah. “Because if you do not do it tonight, I will
someday
pull Gabriel's heart out of his chest and stake it until it is mush.” She held up the silver machete. “Then I will take a bite of it.”

As Mariah reared away from Hana, Gabriel had a flash: the taste of Pucci's heart, blood dripping from it, wet and delicious.

Pucci had come close to tasting as good as Mariah used to before 562 had gotten to her—pure, untouched by the processed junk from the hubs. Hana might be just as edifying . . .

Hana's voice rose as she stepped toward Mariah, who still seemed to be reeling.

“Did Gabriel not tell you?” the were-woman asked. “Did he not describe how he extracted Antonio's heart and ate it?”