Possession-Blood Ties 2 (16 page)

“No.” She shook her head sadly.

“Why not?” He felt the old violence rising in him, tempting him to break her neck and save himself.

“We’re in Death Valley. You’d never survive. Five miles through burning desert. You’ll be dead within half an hour.” Her eyes drifted shut; her head drooped on her neck. “It’s hopeless.”

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“No.” Panic rose in his chest. They were so close. “What about hitchhiking? What if we…” As he watched the road, he realized that in the entire time they’d stood there, no vehicle had passed. He didn’t need to look at her to see her silent denial. Her eyes filled with tears. “You’d never make it during the day. And at night—”

“At night, they would find us.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, it was a fine plan, for a moment.”

She stood uselessly in place. “If you tried to escape, would you take me with you?”

“Of course I would,” he said, and believed it to his bones. The why of it, however, was something he didn’t want to admit.

She looked at him for a painfully intense moment. What would her next action be? Would she cry? Would she kiss him? It looked as though she was leaning toward the latter when the doors to the sanctuary rattled, angry voices rising on the other side. Angry voices, and a woman’s scream.

Before they could move, the doors burst open and a woman, naked but for a torn scrap of a bra, lunged across the threshold. Bite marks marred every inch of her skin. Her lips were blue, her limbs mottled. These were her dying struggles. Mouse stiffened at his side, her eyes wide with horror. The woman reached for them, her face twisting in a rictus of pain as she crashed to the floor. From the shadows between the sanctuary doors, the Fangs glared at them.

“They can’t come out here,” Cyrus reminded Mouse, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the basement door. He hoped they hadn’t found a way to circumvent that law of vampire physiology. If they had, he and Mouse were truly doomed. A gaunt vampire with hollow eyes and thick stubble on his jaw grabbed the nearly dead woman’s ankle and tugged. She raised her head, turning wide, tear-filled eyes upward. Her cracked lips formed a single, soundless “Please,” and she dug her fingers into the carpet as the Fang pulled her, screaming, back into the sanctuary.

“Get back downstairs!” another vampire growled at them. Then the doors slammed shut and they were left alone.

“Wh-what—” Mouse stammered, then sagged against Cyrus. She was fainting, he realized, and he was still not strong enough to hold up her weight. He tried for the basement door, but they slipped to the carpet, falling where the dead woman had landed in her ill-fated escape attempt. He glanced at the carpet. Fingernails. They had ripped from her hands, tangled in the fibers as she’d tried desperately to keep the Fangs from pulling her back.

Mouse raised her head, and her gasp told him she saw them, as well. “Were you…When you were…”

“No.” Cyrus couldn’t look at her, at her horrified face. “No, I was much worse. They looked up to me, even if it affords me no currency with them now.”

She pulled away, trembling. “We should go downstairs. Eventually, the sun will go down, and they’ll be angry.”

Sunlight or not, they were doomed anyway, Cyrus realized as they returned to their basement prison. The Fangs showed a horrible sense of invention, holding them here. Of course they would choose a place like this, where the climate would confine their captives during the daylight, when they themselves were most vulnerable. Cyrus and Mouse were well and truly trapped. The danger of the situation, which had until

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now seemed a trivial annoyance, finally dawned on him. Mouse, the flimsy life raft he’d been clinging to, might not live through this. The thought was unfathomable. He, who’d killed with such sadistic pleasure in the past, would be spared out of necessity. Because his father willed it. But she, who’d retained her purity, body and soul, would die as a victim of circumstance.

He wouldn’t allow it. Though the realization shocked him, it was, unfortunately, the truth. When he’d told Angie that Mouse’s death would be the cause of his own, it had been the truth. And though he realized their situation had greatly influenced and intensified his emotions toward her, he couldn’t deny that the thought of losing her terrified him. And maybe that was more frightening than the Fangs and his father combined.
9

And thou art dead, as young and fair

I pulled into a truck stop on the other side of Cheyenne . It wasn’t dawn yet, but I needed a chance to get out of the van and stretch my legs. The place was small, with diesel pumps behind it and a dusty lot adjacent, where truckers could park for a night’s sleep. With more than a little trepidation, I pulled the van to the end of the dirt lot and headed to the tiny restaurant. Because of the late hour, there weren’t many customers at Arlene’s Grit Stop and Five Dollar Showers. I assumed most weary travelers stopping at this particular exit would find themselves across the badly patched asphalt road, at the Happy Ending Health Spa. The cracked pavement of Arlene’s parking lot held only two motorcycles and a rusty Cavalier. At least the van wouldn’t look out of place. The restaurant was a narrow room that ran along the front of the building. No tables, just seven or eight plastic booths against each wall. Currently, only one such booth was taken by a grizzled biker with a long, gray beard, and a young man in a leather jacket who looked like he’d just stepped from a Calvin Klein ad. The latter wore a big smile the moment he spotted me. Considering my limp, greasy hair and bedraggled appearance, his behavior became immediately suspect.

“Come, sit with us,” he invited. The bearded one didn’t look enthused about it, working the toothpick he gnawed on from one corner of his hairy mouth to the other. I shook my head as I slid into another booth. “I think I’ll let you boys have your privacy.”

A waitress, apparently just as pleased with my presence, sighed deeply as she approached my table. I had the distinct feeling there was a neglected Nora Roberts novel behind the counter she’d been leaning on.

“Just coffee,” I assured her with a friendly smile.

“Uh-huh.” She clicked her pen derisively and put her order pad back in her apron. “This must be my lucky night.”

I glanced over at my fellows in late-night dining and saw that they, too, only had coffee. The waitress, Ruby, by her nametag, scratched her backside as she retrieved a brown, ceramic mug and filled it with coffee. She brought it and the pot to my table, setting the mug before me with little ceremony.

“Another refill, gentlemen?” she asked in long-suffering sarcasm. The bearded one said nothing, but put his hand palm down over the rim of his cup. Calvin Klein pushed his mug toward her. “Absolutely. And put the pretty lady’s drink on my

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check, as well.”

Ruby rolled her eyes as she left them. “Seventy-five cents. You’re a real big spender.”

Without invitation or permission, Calvin Klein got up and came to my table. “Don’t mind her. She’s been a real bitch all night.”

I didn’t cover my weary annoyance. “I don’t use that word when referring to waitresses.”

“I’ve made a bad first impression, haven’t I?” His Cheshire Cat grin reminded me of the way Max had looked at the flight attendant. That day seemed so far away now. In solitude I lived in my own time, which functioned with a marked chronological difference from the one everyone else inhabited. An hour felt like a day, a day felt like a lifetime. Yet, with as long as time seemed, I didn’t feel like wasting mine on a cheesy, clean-cut biker in a brokendown rest stop diner. “Better hurry back, before your boyfriend gets lonely.”

C.K. seemed amused by this. “If you are insinuating that this gentleman and I are in any way intimate, I’ll have you know I am one-hundred-percent heterosexual. And available.”

“I’ll take note of that.” I hadn’t noticed his strange accent until I’d heard him speak more than a few words at a time, but now it set off an alarm in my head. “Are you British, by any chance?”

“Guilty as charged,” he said with a laugh, this time putting his accent on full display. “I’m a writer. Seeing America for the first time. I hope to find a novel in it somewhere.”

“Try Borders. I’ve seen a few in there from time to time.” Still, something about him struck me as odd. “Why do you cover up your accent?”

This question seemed to catch him off guard. In the split second he hesitated before answering, I knew whatever came from his mouth would be a lie. “I suppose I just do it automatically. Probably picked up the Yank accent from him.”

I eyed C.K.’s companion, who sat with arms folded across his chest, mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes.

“He doesn’t look very talkative,” I observed casually. “How long have you been in the country?”

Now he grew visibly suspicious about my line of questioning. “About three weeks.”

“Doesn’t seem long enough for a Brit to completely drop his accent.” I reached across the table faster than he could move, and grabbed his wrist. Ice cold.

“You liar,” I rasped, dropping his arm. “You’re a vampire.”

He shot a panicked glance at the waitress. She hadn’t looked up from her paperback. Lowering his voice to a barely audible whisper, he leaned in. “How the hell did you know that?”

I forced my transformation, letting him view my true face for just a second. Before the waitress could notice, I shook it off.

“Holy Christ, you’re not Movement, are you?” He reached into his jacket.

“No, I’m not, so leave that stake where it is.” I looked up to make sure his friend wasn’t prepping for a slaughter, either. “But you should be ashamed of yourself!”

His eyes bugged. “Why?”

“I know what you were doing! You were going to try and charm your way into my pants, and then you were going to eat me. It’s disgusting!” I smacked my palm down on the table, and my coffee cup jumped.

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This time, the waitress did look up. “Don’t let him bother you, honey. He’s been trying his same tired act on every gal what come in here tonight. And I do mean all night, Mr. Free Refill.”

“Thank you, Ruby,” C.K. muttered through clenched teeth. “For your flawless critique of my wooing style.”

She cracked her gum. “Whatever.”

I grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt and pulled him forward. “So, what’s your game?

Why are you really out here?”

With a look of pure disgust, he wrenched his clothing from my grasp. “For your information, I wasn’t lying. I am a writer.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, really. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. George Gordon. More commonly referred to as Lord Byron?” He puffed up his chest like an ostrich doing a mating dance.

“Bullshit.” I leaned back in the booth and gave him the glare I used to reserve for kids in the E.R. who swore they hadn’t seen their overdosing friend using recreational drugs.

“No.” Guiltily, he held up his hands. “I’m not deliberately seeking trouble to serve as its cause. I’m looking for inspiration.”

“Inspiration?” I echoed sarcastically. “I’m supposed to believe Lord Byron has writer’s block?”

“You try writing nonstop for centuries and not need a little help getting the creative juices flowing now and then.” He reached into his jacket. “I’m just going for my cigarettes.”

“I haven’t seen any new work from you. Of course, I’m not a big reader.” I watched him closely, ready to leap into self-defense mode at the least suspicion.

“Well, of course you haven’t. Can’t exactly go by George Gordon, can I?” He produced a package covered with dramatic artwork, and pulled a cigarette made with black paper from it. He held the pack toward me. “Clove?”

I shook my head. “Do you have any idea what those do to your lungs? You’re better off smoking regular cigarettes. So, what have you been writing?”

“My last release was Blood Heat. My pseudonym is Sharon Ekard.” He reached into his pocket, slowly again, and withdrew a glossy bookmark. “You can keep this.”

I scanned the image. A tall, dark and ridiculously muscled man with badly painted fangs held a woman in a sheer, clinging gown in the crook of his elbow. Her head was thrown back, her eyes closed in ecstasy as he leaned in for a bite. “You write…vampire romance novels?”

“Guilty as charged.” He shrugged. “But I’m looking for a change of pace. One can tolerate heaving bosoms and turgid members for only so long. My friend here claims to be heading to Death Valley on some kind of top secret mission. I don’t believe a word of it, of course, but a trip like this could easily be parlayed into a humorous travel diary.”

The scary biker in the other booth grunted. Byron turned and waved to him. “That is, if he doesn’t kill me first. Which is a very real possibility, should I continue to release information so carelessly.”

Death Valley . The land of the dead.

The biker flipped the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and shifted in the booth, propping his boots up on the seat. The familiar insignia of the Fangs, a single tooth dripping venom, rested on the arm of his leather jacket in the form of a dusty, embroidered

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patch. I had to bite my tongue to keep from making a crack about the Girl Scouts, but my mouth gaped when I recognized the symbol hastily painted below it. A dragon curled around a perfect diamond.

The dragon diamond was the Soul Eater’s pet emblem. It existed in the form of a large pendant “gifted” to the human who would be sacrificed to the Soul Eater at the vampire New Year’s ceremony. Jacob Seymour himself had given the diamond to Nathan’s wife, Marianne, and I’d selected Ziggy to be the wearer the night I’d escaped Cyrus’s house. Neither sacrifice had gone as planned.