Текст книги "Retribution"

Автор книги: Jeanne Stein

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

CHAPTER 30

I’M BONE WEARY.

Scalding hot water cascades over me, soap and shampoo wash away the smell and soot of the fire. But the image remains.

Ortiz.

His face before he was consumed. His face as we spoke in my kitchen last night.

Barely twelve hours ago. Now he’s gone.

I get out of the shower and slip into clean clothes. The cuts on my hands have already closed, the pain in my left arm has receded to a dull ache. My body hums with healing energy.

I wish my mind were so easily healed. CouldI have saved Ortiz?

I refuse to believe it. Williams is playing games with me. If I had the abilities he says I do, I’d know it.

Wouldn’t I?

Everything I had on this morning I bag for the trash. Even if I could get rid of the bloodstains the smell would remain. And the memories.

In the bedroom, my glance falls on the bed. It’s still stripped, I haven’t had a chance to remake it after the cops took the bedclothes. I want nothing more than to lie down on the bare mattress, close my eyes. It’s been two days since I’ve had any sleep.

Another image chases the thought of sleep out of my head.

Culebra—near death.

When I call Frey, he picks up. Nothing has changed. Culebra’s spirit is being kept alive by Frey’s efforts, his body by an intravenous feeding tube. He has not regained consciousness.

What has changed is the sound of Frey’s voice. It betrays the burden of working such potent magic. He sounds like a palsied old man, his voice slow in cadence, tremulous.

He asks only that I find Burke, finish it.

I ring off with a promise. I hope I’ve succeeded at hiding what I’m feeling—a sense of futility.

So far, nothing I’ve done to save Culebra has worked.

Before I do anything else, though, I need to see Brooke—give her Ortiz’ last message. Maybe if I’d told Williams’ that his last thoughts had been with him, it would have eased the situation at the warehouse.

It’s too late now for what-if.

Besides, what happened between Williams and me was a long time coming.

WILLIAMS’ CAR IS PARKED IN FRONT OF ORTIZ’ HOUSE when I pull up.

I should have known he’d be here.

Still, it doesn’t shake my resolve to see Brooke. I have a message for her and it needs to be delivered in person.

When I ring the doorbell, Williams answers it.

I prepare myself for a psychic attack. He does nothing but hold open the door and stand aside, an invitation to come in. No challenge.

No threat. When I probe, he is not questioning my presence. His mind reflects only sadness.

Brooke looks up when I enter the dining room. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her cheeks flushed. If Williams told her it was my fault Ortiz was dead, her expression doesn’t suggest it. All I see on her young face is regret.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Her lower lip quivers. “I was mad at him,” she says. “I let him leave without telling him that I loved him. Now, he won’t know.”

“He knew. He gave me a message for you.”

She looks up. Tears well again, but there’s also a spark of anticipation and hope. “A message?”

I touch her arm, wishing I had more to offer. “He said to tell you that he loved you. He wanted you to know. He wanted you to be all right.”

Brooke starts to cry. A woman comes out of the kitchen, a glass of water in her hand. She looks like Brooke, same general build, same brunette coloring, same heart-shaped face.

Williams takes the glass from her hand and takes it to Brooke. “This is Catherine,” he says to me. “Brooke’s sister.”

Catherine acknowledges the introduction with a nod. “Were you a friend of Mario’s?”

“Yes.”

“I heard what you told Brooke. Were you there when—”

For the first time since I came in, I feel antagonism stir in Williams ’ thoughts. “Yes,” I reply simply. I look over her head to Williams.

How much do they know?

He answers with an arm around Brooke’s shoulders. He speaks aloud for their benefit. “They know Mario was there at that warehouse because he received a call about a fire. He went in to make sure the building was empty. He died a hero.”

It’s a good story. “Has anyone from the department been in touch yet?” I ask.

He nods. “The acting chief has already called. He’s on his way over.”

I can’t think of any reason to stay. Catherine has taken a seat beside her sister, slipping her arms under Williams ’ so she’s holding her sister as she cries.

Williams defers to Catherine, stands back and away. He does it reluctantly as if sharing in her sorrow lessens his own.

“I should go.”

Williams walks me to the door. He hands me a piece of paper. “The address of the safe house,” he says.

It’s where I’ll go next. The girls are my last link.

Williams is carefully guarded, his thoughts impenetrable. I’m on my way down the sidewalk to my car when he sends a message.

I want Burke. Let me know what you find out.

I pause and turn around. He’s still in the doorway. There’s a shift in what I see reflected in his eyes. Grief is eclipsed by a more powerful emotion. Here, with no one but me to see, his eyes shine with purpose. He grieves for Ortiz but that grief fuels a greater need.

It’s clear now, the change in his attitude toward me. It may be temporary but he’ll work with me. He wants Burke as much as I do. And for the same reason.

He wants revenge.

CHAPTER 31

WILLIAMS SAID WHEN HE FIRST ARRIVED AT the fire that the safe house was close. It is. The address is less than a mile from the warehouse. Smoke and ash still cast an early twilight to the neighborhood and an eerie orange glow.

There are two of the white vans from the warehouse parked outside the rambling, shabby clapboard house. It’s set back from the road by a wide expanse of withered grass and surrounded by a three-foot-tall wooden split-rail fence. Wild roses spill over the length of the fence. Bushes so dense, they have grown into the fence, becoming part of it. Bloodred roses saturate the air with the reek of their perfume.

My knock at the front door is answered by the same woman who pulled me out of the fire. She smiles. “Glad to see you looking so well,” she says.

She holds out her hand and I take it. “Anna Strong.”

“Oh, I know who you are.” She turns and heads into the interior of the house, beckoning me to follow and adding over her shoulder,

“My name’s Rose Beechum.”

Rose? With the flowers outside, it seems appropriate.

She reads my thought. Yes, it is, isn’t it? I’ve lived in this house all my life. My parents planted those bushes sixty years ago.

When we enter a back room, small talk ceases. Five of the vampires from the warehouse are seated on cushions on the floor. Curtains are drawn across small, high windows, plunging the room further into an eerie red-hued dusk. There is a peculiar stillness to the room, too, that is unnatural and disturbing. The sight and the feel of it sinks my spirits lower.

Rose is watching for my reaction. You feel it, don’t you?

I’m not sure if she means the stillness these vamps are throwing off or my reaction to it. I let my gaze sweep the room without replying.

Each young woman is now covered by a blanket. Each is feeding, eyes closed, faces burrowed into the neck of a human host. Each is still wearing that terrible collar. The spike cuts into the jugular, making it difficult to drink. Blood seeps from the wound with each swallow.

None are experiencing the exquisite joy of feeding. This is a slow, painful act of necessity and survival. It sickens me to see it.

There’s something else. The young vampires aren’t projecting any emotion or response. No thoughts reach out to me, no greetings are returned. Is this what Rose meant?

Maybe it’s trauma. Maybe when the collars are removed . . .

Rose looks doubtful. We can’t attempt to remove the collars until they are stronger. If we do, they will bleed out the same way a human would with a similar wound.

I watch the interaction between host and vampire. There is no pleasure being offered or taken. For the human as for the vampire, it is an act of sacrifice.

“Who are they?” I ask Rose. “Where did you find hosts willing to do this?”

“There are some in the human community who think vampires hold the key to human survival. The ones who believe in the apocalypse.

They align themselves to us because they think we alone will be saved. At the end of the world, they will turn to us for help as we have turned to them.”

These humans want vampires to turn them when doomsday comes? I stare at Rose, to see if she’s serious.

She is.

The idea turns my stomach. Still, what is important is what they are doing now to save the girls.

Why can’t we help?I ask. Why can’t you and I use our saliva to staunch the flow? It works on vampires as well as humans. I know. I’ve done it.

They are too weak. They need human blood first. To start the healing.She beckons me once again to follow and starts down a hall.

Come. The four strongest are back here. In the bedroom. We have been able to remove their collars. You can speak with them if you wish.

She leads me into a back bedroom. It’s set up like a dormitory, three sets of bunk beds along the walls. No windows. They have been covered over with sheets of plywood. No other furniture. It’s an odd setup until I remember that Williams called this a safe house. But a safe house for what purpose?

Rose answers without prompting. Sometimes it is necessary for our kind to go underground. You have not been vampire long enough to have experienced such a time. The last was ten years ago when the Revengers renewed their efforts to wipe us out. For now, my house and others like it are used for situations like the one you found at the warehouse. Safe haven for wounded vampires.

My gaze sweeps the room. The four female vamps in here are feeding. The collars have been removed. As I watch, the throat wounds on two are closing. The jagged holes are rough edged, as if the spikes were serrated. There are bruises where the collars bit into the flesh.

The other two are not so far along in the process. Their throats still bear gaping wounds, seeping blood and a clear liquid. There is desperation and pain in the way they grip their hosts. The humans are quiet and bear it well.

Better than me. The urge to turn away is strong.

But suddenly I realize what it has taken some minutes to register. Shaken, I turn to Rose. There are only nine.

She releases a breath. One didn’t make it. She was too far gone.

One of the vamps whose wounds are almost closed sees me at the door and gently pushes her host away so that she can stand up. She is the first woman I saw when I entered the basement. Someone has given her a sweat suit, and she tugs at the hem of the top as she approaches. She’s very young, can’t be more than a few years older than Trish. Her blond hair is tucked behind her ears and she smiles at me shyly.

My mind recoils from the horror that this girl has experienced—first being made vampire at such a young age, then finding herself a victim of torture.

In spite of it all, she’s smiling at me. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says. “I never got a chance to thank you.”

She’s small-boned and waifish. How long have you been vampire?

She looks at me expectantly as if waiting for a response to her greeting.

I try again. How long have you been vampire?

The expression on her face remains the same—eager, a little puzzled now at my silence. When I probe her thoughts, I realize with a start that she isn’t hearing me telepathically.

You see,Rose says. Something’s wrong. She is much stronger than the others, much farther along in the healing process. She should be able to understand us.

The girl is frowning now, picking up on negative energy without understanding the cause for it. “What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice trembling.

Rose and I look at each other. Neither of us knows how to respond.

The girl is becoming agitated. Her hands fly to her throat, her body begins to shake.

I step to her, put an arm around her, hug her close. She doesn ’t deserve more terror. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Nothing is wrong. You’re safe.” I feel her ribs through the fabric of her top. I turn her back to her bunk. “Sit, please.”

She lowers herself onto the bed, clings to my hand.

The other three vamps are watching. The same sense of silence pervades this room that I felt in the other. I project my thoughts into their minds. I get flashes of emotion, but nothing else. No recognition, no response to indicate they are aware of my probe.

Rose echoes the question in my own head when she says, They are not like us. They are vampire, but different.

I look from one of the girls to the other. They are all staring at Rose and me, feeling our anxiety, projecting their own.

Anxiety is the only thing they project. I don’t understand it. I know I heard them in the warehouse. Heard their screams. It’s how I was able to find them.

But now?

The girl beside me on the bunk gives my hand a squeeze. When I look at her, she says, “My name’s Rebecca.”

I push my concerns away for the moment. “Hi, Rebecca. I’m Anna. Do you think you could answer some questions for me?”

She nods.

“How did this happen to you?”

Rebecca closes her eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispers.

“Can you tell me how long you were there?”

A voice on my left answers. “She was the newest. She was brought in three days ago.”

I turn. The speaker is a woman in her early twenties, dark hair, huge eyes. The marks on her neck are almost gone. “They only brought in a new one when one of the others—”

Her voice breaks off. She pauses, gathers herself, continues. “It happened the same for all of us. We are newly made. We were to meet our sires for the first hunt. We were directed to an abandoned building. When we got there, we were drugged. We woke up in hell.”

She speaks in a measured voice, calm, detached. She projects an inner strength, perhaps because of all who made it out, she, in spite of her youth, may be the oldest.

“What happened then?” I ask gently.

“We were given something to wake us up. There was a man, a human. He bound us and strung us up. Then he —” A sharp intake of breath, a hand to her throat. “He forced the collars on. The pain was terrible but we couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. To try only made it worse. When he was sure it was on properly, he attached the bags. We watched our blood—our life—drain into those little bags a drop at a time.”

Rebecca is crying beside me. I put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry.” It’s directed at all of them but it echoes like an empty sentiment even in my own head. Saying I’m sorry means nothing.

Killing the witch who is responsible will mean something.

Rose raises an eyebrow at me. Find out what you can.

She ushers the human hosts out of the room and leaves me alone with the girls. They all have the same expression on their faces.

Expectant. They’re looking at me as if I have answers, when in reality, I have nothing to offer. Not yet.

“I know this will be hard for you, but I need your help. I need you to tell me everything you remember about the people who did this.

Can you do that?”

The brunette is the first to speak. “What do you want to know?”

“The man who collected the blood, did he ever talk to you? Mention what he was doing with it?”

They look at one another, heads shake slowly from side to side.

“Can you describe him?”

“Sadistic.”

“Cruel.”

“Enjoyed his work.”

Rebecca wipes at her eyes. “He was big,” she says, finally giving me something I can use.

“How big?”

“Like a sumo wrestler. But he had soft hands. I remember thinking how odd it was. He didn ’t talk to us. He just went about his work with a grim smile on his face.”

Sumo wrestler—Burke’s bodyguard?

“Was there ever a woman with him?”

Rebecca shakes her head. “No. He was always alone.”

“What about the vamp who sired you? What was his name?”

“He called himself Loren,” Rebecca replies.

“He sired all of you?”

The others nod. Rebecca adds, “But that wasn’t his real name.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. I overheard him on the phone once. When he answered he said, ‘Jason Shelton.’ Like he was answering a business phone.”

“That’s very good, Rebecca. Did you hear anything else?”

She shakes her head.

“What did he look like?”

“He was short. Maybe five feet five. Stubby. Had cold eyes.”

“How did he find you?”

She looks down and away. “On the street.” She points to the blonde. “He found her in a shelter. And her. He was a talker. When he first brought a girl in, he’d talk to her like she was awake and make fun of how easy it had been to fool her.”

Runaways. Easy pickings for a predator. “How many died before I found you?”

“Six.”

The bodies that Williams told me about in Beso de la Muerte. He was right. Someone had been killing vampires.

Rebecca rubs her eyes with the palms of her hands as if rubbing away the nightmare. “I thought I was so lucky when Loren—when Jason—found me. He promised me freedom and money and eternal life. I should have listened to my instincts. I knew it was too good to be true. And I was right. First he made me have sex with him, then he bit me. I didn ’t feel any different. He said that would change after I fed from a human. He sent me to a vacant building that stunk of piss and shit and was overrun with rats.” She shudders. “I hate rats. I think he expected me to eat them.”

Rose is back, listening from the doorway. She reaches out. Have they given you anything you can use to track these monsters down?

I can’t answer. Rebecca’s words have sparked a flash of—what? My brain wrestles with an image. It’s blurred, like a picture through an unfocused camera lens. I concentrate harder.

An abandoned building.

Rats.

A man with something in his hand.

“Rebecca, how did Jason drug you?”

She shakes her head. “He shot me with something. It looked like a crossbow but it was smaller.”

My heart begins to race.

I saw it.

I saw it all.

In a dream.

CHAPTER 32

ADREAM. HOW IS SUCH A THING POSSIBLE?

Rose is watching me. What’s wrong?

I can’t answer. I don’t know what to say. It’s crazy. How could I have dreamed what Rebecca just described? I try to dredge up images from the dream but all that’s left are impressions. Fear. Confusion.

I bury what I’m thinking deep in my subconscious.

To Rose , I think I’d better go. I’ll start a search for this Jason character. He’s the only real connection I have right now to the one who did this.

I face the girls. “You’re safe here. Rose will take care of you. I’ll be back when I have news.”

Rebecca’s eyes burn with questions I can’t answer. Yet. I hurry out before she can give voice to them. There are four new human hosts standing just outside the bedroom and Rose calls them in. At least I can leave knowing the girls are in good hands.

Williams is still at Brooke’s when I call. I tell him I may have a lead. He agrees to meet me at the cottage in two hours. I head straight there.

A shower. Cold this time, to clear away the cobwebs and try to make sense of a senseless notion. I saw what happened to Rebecca in a dream? Crazy. There’s another explanation. There has to be.

I can’t think of any. I’m as confused when I step out of the shower as when I stepped in. The only thing that’s changed is that my skin is puckered and blue-tinged from the cold. I wrap myself in a robe.

Coffee. I head downstairs. I’m filling the pot when I realize what I really want is a good stiff drink.

Fortified with a tumbler of good scotch and my laptop, I begin the search for Loren aka Jason Shelton. I google his name. The only thing that comes up is a reference to a company. Nelson Security Services.

That name was on the logo on the car in the warehouse parking lot. I click my way to their website.

Company policies, guidelines, testimonials from satisfied customers.

Pictures. A group shot in front of the company office. One of the guards in particular catches my eye.

A flash of recognition.

Clear now. But disturbing in its implication.

The guard with the dog at the warehouse was the man in my dream.

And that man was Jason.

But a vampire?

I got no such vibe from him. I got nothing except an impression of hostility and ugliness—that he was a mean son of a bitch. But a human one.

When Williams arrives, my head is swimming with confusion and fuzzy from the scotch. I keep both to myself, preferring to adopt a matter-of-fact attitude as I fill him in on the condition of the vampires at the safe house and what they told me. That Burke’s bodyguard was the one who tortured them. That I have no doubt that the security guard, Jason, was the one who set the explosives that blew the place up.

Since he’s an employee of a company listed in the Yellow Pages, I figure that would be the logical place to start looking for him.

I don’t mention that he’s a vampire or that he was the one who found the girls and turned them.

Or the dream.

I don’t know why I don’t tell him. Maybe the thought of another lecture on my ignorance is more than I can stand tonight.

I take another gulp of scotch. It burns in a good way, and a comforting burst of warmth radiates from the pit of my stomach. I cradle the glass against my cheek. Scotch was a much better choice than coffee. I’m not feeling nearly as anxious.

Williams reaches over and takes the glass out of my hand.

“Hey. I need that.”

“Tomorrow,” he says in reply.

“Tomorrow?”

“You’ll start looking for Jason tomorrow.” He takes the glass to the sink and empties it. “You look beat. Making love to a bottle of scotch isn’t going to help. Sleep is going to help. Go to bed. I’ll work on finding Jason. And in the morning, we should have the analysis of that face cream.”

He lets his voice drop off, but I pick up a feeling that he’s guarding something from me much the same way I’m guarding my uncertainty from him. What comes through is Ortiz, his sorrow at his loss. The sensation is gone in a heartbeat but it sobers me.

“What do you think Burke was doing with the blood she was collecting from the ampires? ” I ask after a minute.

“If I was to guess? The blood is an ingredient in her cream.”

I close my eyes for a minute, processing the idea, repulsed by it. “How? For what purpose?”

“It’s an antiaging cream.” His tone is abrupt, accusa tory. “Women will go to any lengths to recapture youth. Burke found a way to capitalize on that compulsion.”

His indictment of all females should spark an argument. Tonight it only sparks a weary sigh.

“How would it work? Have you ever heard of vampire blood being used to enhance a human product?”

“No. I’ve never heard of a topical application of vampire blood having any power. That’s not to say it doesn’t.” He stands up. “We’ll know tomorrow. Now get some sleep. I’ve arranged for one of our security patrols to—”

“Security patrol? What for?”

He casts a glance toward the bottle. “To make sure you have a tomorrow. Burke may be having you watched. If she is, she’ll know how you spent your afternoon. She’s bound to be pissed you got those girls out of that warehouse. I would have suggested you sleep somewhere else tonight, but you’re never inclined to take my suggestions. I did the next best thing.”

For once, I don’t argue, object or balk at what he’s saying. Truth is, I never gave a thought that Burke might come after me directly. She seemed to be having too much fun watching me dance. But saving those girls may have ratch eted the stakes up a notch.

“Culebra.”

It’s all I say. Williams shakes his head. “I’ll check in with Sandra. If there’s any change, I’ll let you know.”

I walk him to the door, close it, lock it and trudge upstairs.

Now drinking all that scotch doesn’t seem like the good idea it was earlier. My brain is fuzzy, my limbs heavy. I eye the bed, still unmade. The scotch and lack of sleep make that detail as unimportant as the fear I should be feeling that any minute Burke might strike.

For once I hope Williams was telling the truth about assigning a security patrol. Idly, I wonder if will be composed of vampires or some other supernatural member of the Watchers. The one thing I am sure of is it will be no ordinary security patrol.

I shed my clothes, grab up a blanket and pillow and fall across the bare mattress. My last thought before I drift off is how my conversation with Williams tonight is the only one in a long time that hasn’t ended with our threatening to kill each other.