It Never Rhines but It Pours (19 page)

“There,” Cecily said, pointing.

“Where?” I braked, but saw nothing.

“There is a path there through the brush.”

“I don’t see anything,” Sarah said.

“Trust me, it’s there.”

“Will the car fit?” I asked, still seeing nothing.

“Wait here,” and with that Cecily was out of the car and disappeared into the dark.

“Creeeeeepy,” Sarah sang in a high pitched voice.

“Stop it!” I yelled. “I’m weirded out enough as it is.”

A tap at my window had me screaming and fumbling wildly at my seat belt. I don’t know what I was trying to do. Use it as a weapon? Escape? Fortunately, it was Cecily.

“Are you trying to kill me!” I hissed angrily, once I got straightened out again in my seat.

I swear she was smirking. “No, I didn’t mean to frighten you. There was some brush pulled across the driveway. I believe that there is enough room for the car if you drive slowly.”

“Ha!” I muttered under my breath as she went around to the other side to get in the car. “I wasn’t frightened. I was just jumpy.”

It was a very tight fit, and the sound of branches dragging along the side of the car was more than a little eerie. We pulled out into a clearing and I parked the car. There was a single wide trailer with a sagging wooden porch and various scattered objects filling the majority of the cleared land. With the engine off, I could hear the low hum of a generator, and the blueish light flickering across one of the windows made it seem likely that someone was watching TV within.

Sarah and I were a little slower to exit the car than Cecily. It might help to know that you are super strong, super fast, and practically invulnerable. Slow, weak, humans that we were, we were a trifle more cautious about our skin. I was glad for the light of the full moon, without it I would have been completely blind. Of course, that meant that there were long, dark shadows everywhere, but that was marginally better than complete blackness.

“How do you know that this is the right place?” I whispered. If there was anything out there in the dark, I didn’t want it to hear me.

Cecily pointed to the front door. A little, painted, wooden sign read “The Peerson’s.”

“Oh.” I took a deep breath and almost gagged. The stench of skunk was strong.

“Shall we?” Sarah was also whispering.

“What are we going to say?” I asked, suddenly wishing we had talked about this in the car. “Hi? Has Richard been around lately?”

“Put your hands in the air and freeze!” The voice sounded so close behind me that I jumped a yard in the air while trying to turn and look.

The front door had opened and framed in the light was a young boy, torn jeans, dirty shirt, and a double barreled shotgun pointed straight at my heart.

Chapter Nineteen:

Still in the Dark

“I said put your hands in the air,” the boy said again. There was a quaver in his voice but none in his hands as he kept the barrel pointed straight and true.

I slowly lifted my hands in the air, jaw still dropped open in surprise. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cecily and Sarah doing the same.

“Why are you here?” the boy asked, his voice cracking on the last word.

“Are you the Peerson boy?” I asked, trying to sound calm.

“Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“We’re looking for your mother,” I said, keeping a friendly tone and hoping that he didn’t get so nervous that he squeezed the trigger on accident. Why couldn’t he have pointed it at Cecily? She could probably survive a direct shotgun blast. I doubted that I would be so fortunate.

The boy’s tension escalated at word of his mother. “You can’t have her!” he shrieked. “She’s done nothing wrong!”

“What?” I glanced over in surprise at Cecily.

“Don’t move!” he yelled louder. “I won’t let you take her!”

Cecily cleared her throat. “Um, Piper, why don’t you
explain
to the young man why we are here.”

I was still open mouthed in shock for a moment. Why did he think we were here to take his mother? Then the word
explain
hit me. Oh. Right. I could control this situation. Who cares if Piper winds up immortal? At least we’d all be alive to get to immortality. Why was it that I was the one who would have to pay the price though? I thought about balking and not using the Voice, but then decided that I still wanted to live a little longer. I closed my eyes briefly and hoped that this wasn’t the time that sent me over the edge.

“You are not afraid of us,” I commanded, wanting to erase his fear before he shot me from pure nerves. “We are your friends and here to help you. Invite us in and tell us what is going on.” Whoops. I’d forgotten an important part. “Put the gun down. You don’t need it,” I added.

The boy slowly lowered the shotgun and rested the end of the barrel on the porch floor. “You’re friends?” he asked, beginning to sniff.

“Yes, honey,” I said, forgetting to use the Voice. My heart went out to this brave little kid. I stepped up on the shaky porch and held out my hand. “I’m Piper. This is Sarah, my sister, and Cecily, another friend. We’re here to help you.”

“I don’t know what to do anymore!” he wailed, bursting into tears. I glanced back at Cecily and Sarah, they were standing wide-eyed, no help there.

“Shush,” I gave him a half hug. “Why don’t you invite us in,” that part was for Cecily, “and we’ll sit down and have a nice little chat. You can tell us everything, and we will try to help.”

“Okay,” he sniffed, wiping the back of his hand across his nose. “Come in, please.” He stepped into the trailer and I followed.

The inside was even tinier and more run down than the outside. The carpet was so dirty and worn through that it was impossible to tell what color it had originally been. A couch filled most of the main room, and it looked as though Goodwill would have thrown it out. I counted three visible springs and numerous stains.

The small kitchen was missing most of the cabinet doors, and the dishes within were either paper or plastic. The counter was stacked high with takeout food boxes, some of which were extremely dirty on the outside. I realized that someone had been dumpster diving. I had tried it once in college, when the “in” thing to do was dig through the Krispy Kreme dumpster at closing time. The smell was enough to make sure I never tried it again. The thought of eating something that had been in such close proximity to that smell still made my stomach turn.

A short hallway had two doors leading off of it. One was obviously the bathroom; the door was left open to show a squalor that even my brother as a teenager would have turned his nose up at. The second door I assumed was the bedroom, and it was shut.

The skunk smell was just as bad in here, if not worse, in the close confines. It probably had to do with the lack of any noticeable air-conditioning and the open windows. A solitary oscillating fan struggled vainly against the muggy heat.

“Please, have a seat,” the boy said politely. Someone had obviously raised him right, other than the shotgun welcome.

I sat down gingerly, trying to find a spot that looked clean and wouldn’t poke my rear end. “What’s your name?” I asked gently.

“Harry,” he said. “I forgot your name.”

“Piper,” I told him again. I pointed at Sarah, “Sarah,” then at Cecily, “Cecily.”

“Hi,” he said shyly, ducking his head.

“Now tell us,” I said, “Why were you scared of us?”

“I thought you were here to take my mom away,” he answered.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because the man said that if she ever got out again that he would send people to take her away.” He started to cry again.

I stood up and found a fairly clean dishtowel in the kitchen. I sat down beside Harry on the ground and wiped his face. “What man said that, Harry?” I asked gently.

Cecily pulled out her photo of Pravus, “Was it this man?” she asked.

He recoiled and half climbed into my lap. “Yes, that was the man. He said that if we didn’t bring him the plants he needed that he would send people to take my mother away!”

I motioned at Cecily to put the offensive picture out of sight. “Hush, hush,” I rocked him gently. “No one is going to take your mother away.”

“Promise?” he sniffed.

“Promise,” I said, hoping that I was not promising the impossible.

“She hasn’t gotten out lately, I promise!” he pleaded, “She’s been real good!”

I patted him on the head. Gotten out? How to get to the heart of all this? We needed to start at the beginning. “Tell me about when you first met Pr—Richard,” I suggested.

He sniffed a bit more and blew his nose on the dishcloth. “I dunno,” he said. “He comes every year, long as I can ‘member.”

That fit with Cecily’s research. If I remembered correctly it had been ten years since Pravus first started visiting Astor. That must have been before this child was even born.

“How old are you, Harry?” I asked.

“Nine, next month,” he said proudly, “But Ma says I’m real big for my age!”

Yeah, big in opposite world. I’d seen matchsticks with more meat on them.

“Harry,” I was struck by a thought. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked sooner. The heat must be getting to me. It was the question I should have asked first. “Where’s your mother?” It was dark and late, and I didn’t like to think that she had left him out here in the middle of nowhere, all alone.

Harry looked at us suspiciously. “You said you weren’t here to take her.”

“No, of course not! I just was wondering if she was home,” I glanced back towards the closed bedroom door.

“No,” he crossed his hands over his scrawny chest. “She’s not home.”

“Okay,” I backed off. Clearly this was not the right tactic. “So, tell us more about Richard. What does he do when he comes out to visit?”

Harry scowled. “He mostly picks up the plants we’ve collected for him and threatens Mom a bunch.”

Hmm. What to ask first? Plants or threats? I decided to go with the threat question. “What does he threaten?”

“Oh, you know, he tells her a bunch of times that if anyone finds out about her that he’ll send people to come lock her up. He says that she can’t talk to nobody, let nobody see her, or she’ll be gone and I’ll be left all alone.” He teared up a bit at this.

I was slowly getting the picture. His mom must be some sort of werewolf. Why in the world hadn’t Pravus just reported her and allowed her to join her species? Did she think she was the only one? What kind of abuse was going on here? I was getting angrier and angrier at Pravus.

“Ok, so he tells your mom that she has to stay hidden. Has he told her if there are any other people like her out in the world?”

Harry shook his head violently, “Oh, no ma’am. Mom’s the only one of her kind, and if the government men found out about her, they’d lock her up, sure as breathing. They’d test her, and poke her, and study her, and never let her out!”

Maybe true. At least about the government. That was why she needed the protection of the USB. What kind of crap was Pravus pulling here?

“What about the plants?” Cecily asked. “What kind of plants do you harvest for Richard?”

“Mostly calamus root,” Harry said knowingly. “Sand butterfly pea, chaffseed, milkwort, and a few others when they’re in season. I also collect blue-tail mole skinks and oval pigtoes, when I can find ‘em.”

I nodded, but really had no idea what he was talking about. He collected weird plants and animals for Pravus. I got that. Why? I had no clue. Probably to use in some sort of WAND ritual.

“Does Richard pay you for these plants?” Sarah asked. Trust her to think of money. But it was a good question.

“Pay?” Harry was honestly perplexed. “Why would he pay for them? I’m using them to pay him, so Mom doesn’t have to go away. He says they’re not worth nothing, but that he finds small uses for them and he’ll accept it as payment until I’m old ‘nuff to get a real job and pay him cash.”

I noticed Cecily frowning. I had a sneaky suspicion, based on a lack of belief in Pravus’ altruistic nature, that those plants and animals were worth a bit more than “small uses.” He was ripping this family off! Which, come to think of it, was a good reason to want to get rid of him. If I found out that I had been cheated and lied to for ten years, I might get a little homicidal too.

Cecily sat up straight and cocked her head to one side. “Did you hear that?” she asked.

I tried to listen but only heard the normal sounds of frogs and insects. “What?”

“Listen!”

We all sat in silence for a moment. Still nothing. I made a face at her to say that I couldn’t hear anything and what did she want to do.

With eerie grace she was up and out the door. Harry, Sarah, and I just sat and stared at each other with wide eyes. The frogs abruptly left off croaking and there was real silence. Then the sounds of scuffling, grunting, a harsh cry and then silence again.

“Cecily?” I called softly. No answer.

“Cecily!” I tried a little louder whisper. Still no answer. What had happened out there? What was out there that could take out a vampire?