Possession-Blood Ties 2 (26 page)

Unbidden, the image from my dream flashed through my brain. Two dead, covered in blood. I’d thought it a premonition, when really my stressed brain was just having a field day inundating me with horrific imagery. The article went on to list the missing persons—a priest, a nun and a parish secretary presumed to have wandered into the desert—and an ominous warning about record temperatures making their chances of survival slim. And the missing persons had made no effort to contact authorities when the fire broke out. That struck me as a bit fishy.

I sat back on my heels, unsure what I should read into such a news item. For a sleepy town like Louden, a big fire was big news.

That there were three people wandering the desert when they should have been resting in a county morgue’s cooler made it a piece of interest. If the Fangs were in town, what were the chances the victims never called the fire department because they were dead already?

It would be just like the Fangs to trash a church.

I read on, searching for any other unusual news stories until I couldn’t stay awake anymore, then fell asleep with my head cushioned by the local girls’ volleyball scores. I don’t know how long I’d been out when my phone rang.

“What the hell kind of brothel did you send me to?” I hissed after I hit the connect button.

“A male prostitute tried to steal my blood yesterday!”

“Um…this is Max.”

“Oh.” I’d been expecting Byron to call and gloat or give me another travel tip. “How are things in Michigan?”

“Apparently not as interesting as things in—Did you say you were in a brothel?” Max’s voice lacked his characteristic humor. In fact, he sounded pissed off.

“Well, technically…”

His loud curse soared above the crackle of static. “Oh, that’s great. I’ve been sucked into a parallel universe where everyone else gets to have sex and I get to walk around with a permanent hard-on. I’m in hell.”

“Let’s not get graphic.” I wiped a line of drool off my cheek and hoped the newsprint hadn’t marked my skin.

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Max was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was grim. “I found Nathan.”

Oh, God. My arm fell, as though it were no longer attached to my central nervous system. Had he killed Nathan? I tried desperately to connect to the tie I’d blocked before. I’d stupidly, selfishly shut myself off from Nathan, and now he was dead. I’d wasted my last moments with him.

“Carrie, are you there?”

I made a squeaky affirmative noise, not wanting to sob into the phone.

“He wounded the other assassin pretty bad. I haven’t seen him since.”

If I had been standing, I would have fallen down. The relief would have dissolved my knees right there. I wanted to open my mouth and shriek praises to the sky, but all I said was, “Oh?”

“Well, don’t sound impressed or anything.” He made one of his long-suffering-Max sounds. “I had to trail Bella forever, she kicked me in the face, she shot me but yeah, my hard work is nothing to get excited over.”

I held the phone away from my face and frowned at it. “She shot you? Max, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just a flesh wound,” he assured me cheerily. “I’m going out again after sundown. Anything on your end?”

“I think so. It may be nothing.” I dismissed the notion because it was too unlikely. “I don’t know, this drive has been weird.”

“Oh, I understand, what with the male prostitutes and all. But it’s about to get weirder. I ran into Dahlia.”

Though the gesture would have been lost on him, I’d been prepared to raise my middle finger at the phone. I froze at his words. “Dahlia?”

“Yeah. She had some psychic vision. I’m not sure what it was about. And I wouldn’t put much stock in it before exhausting all other options, but—”

“I would.” Dahlia had powers I would never underestimate. “What did she say?”

“Louden. And Hudson.” He said the words as if they weren’t sending electric shocks straight down my spine. “Oh, and the Virgin Mary fits in there somewhere.”

“Max, I have to go.” I resisted the urge to ask him to be careful one last time, and clicked the phone shut. Grabbing at the stack of papers I’d just read through, I found the bulletin about the church fire again. There was too much coincidence, too much about Dahlia’s vision that supported my suspicions. Cyrus was at St. Anne’s, or had been before it burned down.

I forced myself to sleep—I had no clue what I would face in the desert and I needed to be prepared for it—only to be woken just after sundown by the roaring of motorcycles. At a strip mall in Louden, the Fangs found me. My first thought was to follow them. Then I got some sense and realized a bright orange, hulking monster of a rusted-out van was probably not the best camouflage. I was on the right track. I couldn’t blow it by being impatient.

When they finally left the Laundromat—I was deeply shocked they’d make any use of that facility at all—I headed for the newspaper machine and bought a fresh copy of the Louden Times. A week had put some space between the story I looked for and the front page, but I eventually found a sidebar follow-up. Police hadn’t been able to locate the body of Stacey Pickles, age eighteen, but they had recovered the corpses of the other two victims.

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The state of the remains suggested foul play, and anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of the missing girl was instructed to call local authorities. Using details from the articles and the map March had given me, I was fairly certain I could find the place. Whether I could find it before the Fangs did whatever they planned to do with Cyrus was another thing. Then there was the small detail of actually getting him to leave with me, but I figured negative thinking would only limit my chances of success. Besides, I still had the chloroform.

It was time. Ready or not, it was time to face Cyrus again. A loud bang on the passenger side of the van made me practically jump through the roof. Outside the window, Byron grinned stupidly at me. “Hello! Have a nice time?”

I lunged across the seat, forced the door open and grabbed him by the collar of the poncy, ruffled shirt he wore. He protested loudly, but had no choice but to get in. I’d caught him by surprise and had more leverage.

“Hey, this is a very expensive shirt!” he howled, grabbing the fabric from my hands.

“It’s about to get dusty!” I grabbed a stake and pressed it against his chest. I hoped it tore the precious silk. “Why did you set me up?”

“Set you up?” he sputtered, his wide eyes fixed on the stake. “I never did any such thing!”

“March told me she was contacted by you. That you told her I was a person of interest!” I twisted the stake.

It was almost embarrassing the way he yelped. “I never meant any harm, I swear! I thought she might be able to help you!”

“Help me?” I released the pressure a bit. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe he’d come to me without new information, and it wouldn’t help me any if I accidentally killed him.

“What do you mean?”

“I thought since you were looking for this fellow, she could help you. March is very well connected.” He pushed away the stake, and I let him, watching with amusement as he rubbed his chest in a wincing display of pain.

“She’s connected, all right. She’s connected to the Soul Eater.” I reached behind me to slip the stake into my back pocket. At Byron’s startled gasp, I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’ve heard of him?”

He nodded, still rubbing his imagined wound. “Heard of him? There were rumors of him even in my time. Vampires have always been very popular. Ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray?”

“That wasn’t about vampires,” I pointed out.

With a knowing smile, he said, “Oh, wasn’t it?”

I sighed. “Listen, I don’t have time to talk about literature. Your friends down there are probably going to pick up Cyrus tonight, and I need to get to him before they do.”

“Which is precisely why I’m here.” Byron dug into the front pocket of his too-tight jeans and withdrew what looked like a glow-in-the-dark marble.

“What’s that?” I wanted to add a snide comment about him not explaining why he’d told March what I was up to. But then, he couldn’t have known we would be enemies.

“It’s a key. The Fangs are using a cloaking spell to disguise where they’re hiding your man. If you have this, you’ll be able to see what no one else does.” He smiled. “And what my uncouth companions will not be able to see, now that I’ve nicked it. But you don’t have much time. They were expecting them in an hour at least half an hour ago. And

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they’ll soon realize they’re missing something.”

“Wait.” It was too suspicious, his risking his life to help me. “Why are you giving me this?”

“That, you see, comes at a price.” He grew serious then, grasping my hands in his soft, elegant ones and pleading earnestly, “Let me write about you.”

“What?” I jerked back.

“I can’t get a book out of those cretins. They’re vile and un-civilized. I can’t spin a tale of desert heroism from them!”

“Oh, and you can get one out of me?” Right. Like I’d make such a great heroine. He nodded vehemently, gesturing with his frilled sleeves as he began to proselytize on my virtues. “You’re like…a modern Corday. Striking a lonesome, yet powerful blow for your cause in a Reign of Terror you cannot abide. Readers will love it!”

I wasn’t buying it. “And the fact that you just happened to be the one who sold me the knife…”

“Naturally, I—I would have to figure into it, as the narrator. Peripherally, of course,” he stammered, at least having the good grace to look sheepish. “But the core of the story would be your valiant yet noble struggle for good.”

“Oh, like Blood Heat?” I couldn’t help the jab.

“Mock if you must. But you can’t have the key until you give me your blessing.” He held up the marble between his thumb and forefinger. It shone icy blue, as though a tiny galaxy of cold white stars existed inside.

I sighed in resignation. “You’re going to write it anyway, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

“Fine.” I snatched the key from his hand. I’d expected it to feel magical somehow, but it was only a small, smooth weight in my palm. “Where are you going to go? They’ll kill you when they find you, you know.”

“I know. That’s what she’s for.” He leaned clear of the passenger-side window so I could see the orange Volkswagen Rabbit parked beside a light post. A woman who appeared to be in her forties, with puffy, bleached-blonde hair and lipstick far too light for her orangey tan, stared back at us with worried eyes. “Her name is Penny. She’s going to give me a ride to the next town.”

“Don’t tell me how you have to pay for the gas,” I quipped as he opened the door and hopped down.

“I wish you well, dear Charlotte,” he said with a sincerity I truly believed as he swept a low bow.

I smiled, in spite of myself. “It’s Carrie.”

He straightened and turned toward the car, where Penny waited. As he walked away, he called back, “Not in my book.”

And like that, I had what I needed.

Now all I had to do was psych myself up for the job. When I’d prepared for the trip, I’d imagined actual physical combat as some far-off, never-never land probability. Now that it was a reality, I panicked. How would I fight any vampires who might give me a hard time?

Nathan had taught me some simple self-defense, but these vampires served the Soul Eater, a dangerous enough task on the most mundane days. Add to that the fact most of them liked fighting and killing almost as much as they loved their bikes, and the prospect of little

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old inexperienced me beating one, let alone a group of them, in physical combat seemed pretty damn remote.

And if I did survive the gauntlet of hardened assassins, there was still the problem of Cyrus. If they’d turned him into a vampire again, would he be restored to his old strength?

He’d crush me. Or would he still be human? Would I have to fight my own urge for revenge?

The past two months hadn’t been sufficient to numb me to the memory of his cruelty. I’d felt more pity than rage for him at the end, but I was more human than most vampires would admit of themselves. After the pain of losing Nathan, the loneliness of the last weary days, would I snap and take out my aggression toward the Soul Eater on Cyrus?

Then, there was another, more terrifying possibility. When I’d been blood tied to Cyrus, I’d been drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain. It hadn’t been love, but a sinister parody of it. I’d been completely enthralled. Now that our mental connection was regenerating in fits and bursts, would I fall prey to that dangerous attraction again?

No. I was a stronger person, having defeated him once. Still, the prospect of seeing him again didn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

First thing first, though. I had to get to him without running into the Fangs. The charred remains of St. Anne’s Catholic Church lay like a giant, abandoned campfire in the sand. It had burned completely to the ground. How the Fangs had hidden anyone here, with no shelter from the elements, without burning up from the desert sun, was beyond me.

I drove past the ruins, aware someone might be watching, and looked for an inconspicuous place to stash the van. Unlike the Road Runner cartoons, there were no convenient outcroppings of rock for me to hide behind, Wyle E. Coyote style, while waiting to ambush, and the Fangs from town were still out there somewhere. I pulled to the side of the road and propped the hood open, praying the flashers wouldn’t wear down the battery. All the stealth and cunning in the world wouldn’t help me if I successfully abducted Cyrus, but had no transportation away from the scene of the crime. I felt a little foolish as I looked over the supplies March had provided. I’d never chloroformed a person before. I’d never tied someone up—at least, not for the purpose of kidnapping. I felt like a beginner skier staring down the steep face of the advanced slope. More than anything, I wanted to go back to the bunny hill.