Man Made Murder (Blood Road Trilogy Book 1) (27 page)

He didn’t mind them. He was sated. He felt like he could fuck a girl and it wouldn’t bother him. On another night, it might be fun.

The door to the back swung open as he approached it, Wayne wild-eyed. “Where the hell were you?”

“Getting some air.”

“Jesus, we’ve been looking all over. Even the cops are looking for you.”

His back stiffened. Cops looking for him couldn’t be a good thing. Had they tied him to the couple in the basement? Or the fucking biker in the dumpster. That had been a dumb fucking move, leaving the body behind a club. “That’s a little overboard, isn’t it?”

“Nothing’s a little overboard tonight,” Wayne was saying as he rubbed his throat like there was something wrong with it. He was about to say more when Mike seized Dean by the arm.

“It’s about fucking time. Are you ready to go on?”

“What’s the rush?” But Mike was turning him toward the stage doors, where the other three waited, their faces anxious and relieved at once.

This couldn’t be good—but no time to ask about it. They stepped onto the stage to the cheers of the audience—raucous, pent-up. Spilling over. The mass of sweat made Dean’s nose twitch; the smell underneath made his fingertips jitter. It smoothed out as they headed into their first song, music taking over everything. His whole being becoming jangles and light.

Every now and then he glanced up, scanning over the crowd. Looking for cops.

Looking for his vampire hunter.

“
L
et
’s get this out quickly,” Mike said, stepping around a piece of equipment Wayne and Teddy had left in the hallway.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Wayne rubbed his throat again as he moved a flight case along with his other hand. Once his point was made—Dean wasn’t sure what that point was, still—he dropped his other hand to the case and hustled it out the door.

“Stay here.” Mike put a hand against Dean’s chest before he could head out.

“What the fuck’s going on?”

“We’re making the fastest break out of town ever.”

“I’ll feel a lot fucking better when we get on the road,” Shawn said, rubbing his arms.

“What—”

“D’you hear that?” Jessie pushed between them to look out the venue’s back entrance. Everyone leaned toward it, listening.

All Dean heard was the traffic going by and the sped-up beating of people’s hearts.

He caught the sleeve of Shawn’s jacket. “What the fuck’s going on?”

Shawn told him about the guys on bikes, about them getting on their bus, choking the shit out of Wayne for trying to stop them.

“They just took off?” Dean said.

“Yeah. We thought they’d gotten you or something when we couldn’t find you.”’

“I was just getting some air.”

“Nice of you to tell someone.”

“Thought I had. Maybe not.” He watched the bus, its belly doors open like mouths. Teddy shoved gear in while Wayne and Janx jogged back in to get more, pushing through the guys crowded at the door. Fans hovered at the edges, hoping to catch sight of the band, a few of them pointing at the doorway.

The situation wasn’t helping his dread one bit. He rubbed his chest, backing out of sight, into the shadows of the corridor.

The bikers could have only come for one reason—looking for one of their own who’d disappeared.

Not finding him on the bus, had they just taken off?

He rubbed his chest. It sounded like too much to hope for.

T
he audience came out first
, a few to start, then a stream of them, spilling through the doors, widening into the street, flowing up the sidewalk.

Roadies jogged out the back, handing equipment off so it could be shoved inside.

The cops moved the straying fans along, telling them the show was over.

The roadies slammed the bay doors shut, throwing worried looks at the street as they headed back to the club.

The place went quiet.

Carl was ignored—he’d been hunched against the building across the street for so long the cops had stopped seeing him. He wrapped his arms around his shins, propped his chin on a knee.

After another fifteen minutes, the band came out, flanked by the roadies. The one who’d had the run-in with the bikers craned his head, like he was expecting the bikers to be back, waiting in the shadows.

The bus shook as they piled in, Dean’s head appearing for a moment before it went through the door.

The one Carl thought was their manager took one last look outside before hauling the door closed.

Carl jumped up. He’d figured they weren’t going to hang around here after what happened. His ass hurt from the cobblestones in the sidewalk as he strode along the same side of the street, heading the three blocks to his car. Heart racing—hoping he made it back in time. On one hand, it didn’t matter: he knew where they were headed.

On the other, who knew what might happen between here and there.

He dug his keys from his front pocket, jammed one in the door lock. Hit himself in the shoulder as he yanked open the door. Anything could happen between here and there. He pulled away from the curb and circled back to the venue in time to see the bus’s taillights turning onto Tchoupitoulas.

He got stuck in traffic, tapping the wheel, watching for an opening. When he swung onto the road, the rumble of engines roared in his ear. He slammed the brakes. The car bounced, jerking him into the seat.

Chrome flashed by his window.

Hair rippled in the wind.

“Shit.”

The sharp blast of horn came from behind. Heart pounding, he finished entering the intersection. A van had gotten ahead of him, blocking his view of the bikes but he could see the roof of the bus ahead, trundling along. He jiggled the gas pedal, restless, wanting the van the fuck out of his way. It finally turned off, just before the bikes did. Carl followed the bikes, pretty sure the bus wasn’t too far ahead.

T
he city’s
lights faded in his rearview mirror. His stuff was still at the hotel—his overpacked duffle, his toiletries, a plastic cup he’d brought back from the Quarter, sticky with the pink dregs of a hurricane. All he had with him was the manila folder, riding on the passenger seat, sliding as he sped up to move around a slower car.

Did they know, in the bus? They had to, though the bikes were riding in two columns, their front ends even—the pairs of headlamps could be mistaken for a line of cars in a quick glance.

Skeletons on the backs of their jackets grinned in Carl’s headlights. Bony hands gripped black throttles. A full moon loomed over their backs.

Massaging the steering wheel, Carl dropped back more, giving the Cougar a little gas whenever someone looked like they were angling to pull into the space he’d left.

The city scattered into outskirts. The land was flat, the guardrails short. Beyond the reach of lights, trees of a sort he couldn’t identify made strange shapes in the shadows.

They drove for two hours, traffic thinning as night crawled onward. Somewhere at their backs, the sun was rising, too many time zones away to lighten the sky.

They swung the over top of Baton Rouge and crossed the Mississippi, its dark waters sucking light from above. Long stretches passed without sight of a building, without another set of headlights lighting the road.

Bats swooped. Eyes flashed green from clumps of trees along the road. An animal darted from a ditch and pulled back, turning tail and jumping through the scrub.

He left two football fields between himself and the bikers, slowing occasionally to let them get farther ahead before giving the Cougar enough gas to bring their taillights back in sight.

He had no idea what the fuck he was doing. There were
five
of them. And what’d he have? A manila fucking folder? A gas can in the trunk? Whoop-dee-do.

He gripped the wheel and gritted his teeth. He needed, at least, to see what happened. He’d look, get the
fuck
out of there, and then he’d take himself someplace safe, set up a new life, and maybe buy a typewriter.
The Vampire and the Rock Star
. He had nothing else to do with himself. “Why not that, Soph?” He glanced toward the passenger seat, like she was actually along for the ride.

A little past four, two bikes split off from the pack, arcing wide and torpedoing back his way. In his lane.

Their headlamps grew brighter. He squinted, started to lift his arm to ward it off—and realized the bikers had no intention of stopping.

He cranked his wheel hard, stomping on the brakes. The Cougar’s wheels skidded sideways, its rear end sliding toward the bikes.

They kept coming, slow now—rumbling and deliberate.

Grinning at him.

He stepped on the gas, yanking a look at their lights as the car careened. He straightened out and floored it, racing back down the strip of road he’d come.

The bikes’ lights pierced through his back window, illuminating the inside of the car. It made Carl feel hunted. His shoulders tightened. A sharp lump stuck in his throat.

His heart pounded. He flexed one hand, then the other, fingertips tingling. He had to pee. He whispered
shit shit shit
as a crawling heat made its way up his face.

The Cougar hit seventy, eighty. Started to shake as he pushed toward a hundred, afraid to take his eyes from the road.

The cabin filled with light.

The bikes’ engines shook his windows.

Everything outside the car was black. The road in front of him ate his lights as fast as the car could shine them.

A sign flew past, too fast to read.

His shoulders ached. Breaths huffed from his nostrils.

He gritted his teeth and drove, hard as he could, knowing this was going to end with his car upside down, vampires feasting on whatever was left of him. He saw himself glassy-eyed—dead—hanging half out his window.

His teeth chattered as the car shook under the power of its engine.

A curve came up fast. He remembered going through it from the other direction, when it hadn’t seemed like much of anything. A choke jumped from his throat as he turned the wheel.

The bikes roared forward, jumping toward him like horses that had been held back.

He pushed the pedal to the floor, trying to hold to the car as he eased the wheel toward the curve’s apex.

His rear tires slipped like they were on ice. He lifted his foot off the pedal, jerked the wheel. Overcorrected, and the world spun in the windshield. He yelled, his voice pushing against the interior of the car, trapped in with him.

His tires hit dirt, and the whole thing kept spinning.

His front corner slammed a signpost, jarring him to his bones. His shoulder knocked against his door. A cloud of dirt sifted into the air.

His heart pounded.

With a shaking hand, he reached for the keys. Turned them. The engine was already running. His brain was short-circuited.

He couldn’t see a thing through his own dust.

But he could hear—

Nothing. Silence. The emptiness beyond his own engine.

He waited with his hand on the keys, his toe ready to make the move from brake to gas. Waited for the dust to finish falling in the air and let him see for sure the dead-empty road.

He was afraid to get out of the car. He was pretty sure they were gone. If they were still around, they’d have smashed his window open and dragged him out.

He was pretty sure they were gone—but he was still afraid to get out.

His heart banged so hard it thudded against his back. A muscle in his leg twitched. He had his foot jammed against the front of the floorboards like he was still trying to stop the car—his whole leg stiff.

He was shaking all over, he realized. Trembling.

He needed to piss like he’d never needed to piss in his life. He was surprised he wasn’t sitting in a puddle already. Or a pile of shit.

The car’s cigarette lighter had disappeared during the spin. So had his pack of smokes. He found the pack on the passenger floor, stuck a bent cigarette in his mouth. Felt around under his seat until he got hold of the lighter. It took three tries to push it into the hole. He sucked on the dead cigarette, his eyes on the empty road. Waiting for the lighter to pop out.

He leaned back as he breathed the cigarette to life. He
needed
that. It was his last fucking one, and it was the best cigarette he’d ever had in his life.

He smoked it slow, enjoying it to the last drag.

He pulled on the door handle. Shouldered it open. Put a foot on the dirt and rose from the car, wincing as he pulled his other leg from under the dash. He set his other foot down, gingerly, his ankle sore. Limped along the hood of his car, holding onto it with one hand.

Crunched-in metal along the side, but nothing that would keep the car from driving.

He dragged a hand through his hair, fingers shaking. His headlights picked out the shape of a disfigured bush crouching along the opposite side of the road, leaves whipping with the wind. The sleeves of his tee shirt flapped. Goose pimples prickled on his arms.

Jesus. He needed to figure out which direction was which.

D
ean sat
stiff-backed on the side of his bunk, hands on knees, staring at a point low on the bunks across from his.

Chatter came quick and fast through the open door, Wayne the center of it, him and his sore throat. All of them speculating what the fuck the bikers had wanted on their bus. Nothing was missing. Nothing was even out of place, as far as they all knew. The bikers had just shown up…and left.

Except something was missing, all right.

Dean’s cheeks were cold with the implication of it. His skin crawled.

He’d checked three times. He’d torn the blanket and pillow off the bunk mattress.

A corner of his blanket lapped the toe of his sneaker.

He ran the heel of his hand up his forehead, nerves prickling. The dread wasn’t going away, and it should have if they’d left the vampire hunter behind.

Assuming they’d left him behind.

“There’s some crazy shit on the tour, isn’t there?” Jessie was saying. “Crazy fucking shit.”

“I don’t get what they wanted.” Shawn’s voice was closer. The seals on the mini fridge in the galley gave as he finished speaking.

They wanted the knife. At the very least, they’d wanted the biker’s fucking knife.

He bent forward dragging through his bedding one more time.
Tell me the knife is still fucking here
.

Because if they had the knife, they knew the biker’d been on this bus. If they knew he’d been on the bus…

“You all right?” Shawn said from the doorway, a beer can in his hand.

“Just a little freaked out,” Dean said. He moved off the bunk to stuff the bedding back inside. Then he leaned over it one more time to shove his hand behind the mattress.

FUCK
.

He swayed as the bus picked up speed. He pulled his head out from the bunk, and Shawn was still standing in the doorway, but his head was cranked the other way.

“I wonder what that’s about,” Shawn said.

Gravity pulled them the other way, the bus’s speed dropping off. Shawn held onto the doorframe.

Dean caught the edge of his bunk as their speed picked up again.

“What the hell?” Shawn pushed away from the door, beer spilling down his hand. He strode up the aisle. The others were looking around, some of them getting to their feet.

“You guys might want to sit down and hold on,” the driver called back.