He plunged blindly into the inferno surrounding Jessa, groping blindly and quickly for flesh. His hands found her in a crumbled pile atop the wood, and his heart would have stopped beating if he’d still been human. He pulled her free easily; the rope had melted around her wrists, releasing her to fall onto the pile, but miraculously, she hadn’t yet burned. Her clothes and hair were singed, and a red stripe branded her left cheek. She was still breathing, a slow, noisy death rattle, but good enough. If he had to, he’d…do what was needed.
The thought paralyzed him for a second, just long enough for someone to knock him down. He struggled to his feet, pulling Jessa against his chest like a sleeping baby, and turned to face the sheriff’s wife, her thin mouth pinched and wreathed with angry lines. She brandished a Bible, and hit him with it again.
“Lady, get out of my way,” he snarled, showing his teeth, but before he had time to make good on his implied threat, one of It’s long, spiked arms shot toward her. The monster gripped her in his massive fist and squeezed until her screaming stopped and her lower body fell to the ground independently of her head and all the mess still contained in the beast’s fist.
Although Graf felt a kind of kinship with the creature at that moment, he wasn’t about to stick around and see if it felt the same way. He ran for the doors, faster than the screaming townspeople fleeing all around him could see, though he doubted any others would try to stop him. It stomped after him, bellowing in confusion as it speared people in its claws and tossed them aside.
With so many hysterical victims running in circles, It was slowed down a bit, just enough for them to escape. He crushed Jessa tighter to him and increased his speed, his preternaturally strong muscles tiring under the strain. Penance flew by, and he hoped that he guessed the way back correctly. There was nothing worse than getting lost really fast.
When he made it back to her driveway, he saw that the monster no longer followed. Neither did the crazed mob, hopefully. He still had to take precautions against that. What had Jessa said? They should board up the windows? Fat lot of good that would do them, with the kitchen wall missing and their love of pyrotechnics. Instead, he took the precaution of taking the shotgun up the stairs with them as he hurried Jessa into the bathroom.
While he ran water in the tub, he examined the extent of the damage. Her face was burned; that would leave a brutal scar, but nothing that would endanger her life. The melted rope peeled away from her wrists, pulling skin with it. Her shoes were burned, and her feet worse than any other part of her, but still, not as bad as they could have been. Nasty blisters covered the bottoms of her feet, shining yellow with fluid pressure in some places, burned to leathery white patches in others.
He’d run the bath cooler than would be comfortable for her, but not cold enough to cause her shock and not warm enough to encourage the heat trapped in her skin. He plunged her fevered body, jeans and all, into the water.
Sputtering, she sat up, her wet hair throwing an arc of water behind her. She gasped noisily, still panicked.
“Whoa, whoa!” Graf shouted, gripping her by the shoulders so she couldn’t harm herself any further than she already was. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Her entire body trembled, water making clean tracks in the soot that covered her face. Her eyes were almost comically large, irritated and red from the smoke. “Graf?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He’d barely finished his sentence when she flung her arms around his neck, crying out loud, sobs racking her pitiful, wet body. He hushed her with soft words, grateful to feel that some of the unnatural heat had left her flesh. Still, she shivered in his arms like a wounded animal, and it was a long time before he could pry her fingers loose from his shoulders.
He coaxed her back into the water and gently washed her hair and face with the homemade soap, her neck, her arms, and then gently tended to her feet. She sat in silence and misery, shaking all the while, until he helped her from the water and wrapped her in what was probably too many towels. He pulled her jeans down and carefully worked her feet from them, took her soot-stained shirt and bra and carried her, bundled in towels, to her bedroom.
He didn’t know when the mob would come for them. They would, eventually, and that trick probably wouldn’t work again. Derek wouldn’t just keep playing along. Graf would have to kill him, and hope that would end the beast’s reign of terror.
Then again, if it didn’t, they’d have even more problems. Maybe torture would work better. Torture him until he spilled all the details of his pact with the creature, how he controlled it, how it could be killed. Graf closed his eyes and took an almost spiritual pleasure in the thought of what he would do to the sniveling human. In those fantasies, Jessa was there, not pleading for mercy on behalf of her ex-boyfriend, but cheering him on, her skin pale and healed, her unblinking eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
Graf shook those thoughts away. Making someone into a vampire was a huge commitment. Not something you did when you knew someone for less than a week. Not even if being trapped with that person made you think crazy things about the way you felt about her. It was the disorienting turn the night’s events had taken that was playing with his head. If stress could cause health problems in humans, why not in vampires? Not ulcers and heart attacks, maybe just mental illness. Because he was certainly not in his right mind.
“Anybody home?” a voice called, and he jumped from the bed beside Jessa. She reached for him, clawing at his arms, and mumbled, begging him not to go, but he put a finger to his lips and eased her to the bed, pulling the blankets over her.
At the top of the stairs he grabbed the gun and put the hammer down. “Who is it?”
“It’s June,” the voice replied, and Graf dropped all pretenses of humanity.
“I should shoot you right there,” he said, raising the gun to point straight at her chest. “Get out and tell your friends down at the bar that if they show up here, I’ll kill every goddamned one of them.”
June didn’t flinch, even with the sudden appearance of a vampire pointing a gun at her. “You’d never be able to hold them all off. They’ll form a mob and be here before sunrise.”
“Nice of you to warn us before you run back and join them,” he snarled. “Don’t make me tell you again to leave.”
“I’m not going to join them. Put the gun down, and I’ll tell you what I know,” she said calmly.
“I’ve already heard what you have to say. I was in the gym, remember? I was the one tied to a stake?” His finger ached to squeeze the trigger. “If you knew so much, you could have at least told them stakes work best on vampires if they’re shoved through our hearts.”
“I know that,” she said. “I also know where Derek went after he summoned It to try to get rid of Jessa.”
This made Graf lower the gun. He reset the hammer, but he didn’t let the weapon leave his grip. “What?”
“Is Jessa here? She needs to hear this.” June glanced toward the stairs, and Graf stepped protectively in front of them.
“I’ll decide what Jessa needs to hear right now. She’s in bad enough shape as it is.” He gestured at the couch with the barrel of the gun. “Sit down, and start talking. Because I’m awful hungry, and you look like you must taste good.”
This shook her, when the gun had not. Her face went pale, and she sat, as instructed, but when she spoke, her voice still held that unflappable calm. It was a ruse, Graf realized as he listened to her.
“About that,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I’m not real proud of my past. I know you’re not interested in the details, but the people I fell in with weren’t good. I did some things that I probably shouldn’t have done, and ran up a debt to some people I should have paid back. And they made sure I paid them back, in blood. When I saw you here, in my town, well, you can understand why I wouldn’t want your kind here, after what they did to me.”
“I understand.” And he did. He knew what kind of sadistic SOBs there w
ere out there, blowing everybody else’s cover. “I don’t particularly care. Get to what you know about Derek.”
She blew out a long breath. “I guess I don’t have any excuse for not telling you sooner. I found out myself the night everybody was out looking for Becky. Derek was drunk, and he started talking.”
“Derek being drunk seems like a pretty regular occurrence,” Graf said, sitting in the floral armchair.
June shook her head. “Not like this. He could barely walk. He stayed until closing, and I figured he was just passed out in the back booth. Figured he’d sleep it off and that would be it. But he woke up a little, and started confessing things to me. You have to understand what life used to be like for Derek and Becky and Jessa. Jessa was homecoming queen, Derek was homecoming king. He was our star football player. Back when I was running a restaurant and not just a booze joint, he would walk in the door and everyone would want to talk to him about the game, and what colleges were scouting him. Him and Jessa and Becky were like the Three Musketeers, you’d see them everywhere together. Sometimes in a big group of friends that would come and go, but they were always together, ’cept when it was just Jessa and Derek.”
Graf nodded. “I’ve heard this story. Get to the part where this means anything to me and you walk out of this house alive.”
“I don’t have any illusions about leaving here alive,” June said, just as unblinking and stone-faced as he was. “When Derek got drunk that night, he said it was all his fault Becky left, which was pretty much plain to everyone in town. But I told him things would work out, and Becky would come home. That’s how it always happens. They have a big fight, Becky always comes home. He said no, that’s not what he meant. He never meant for everyone to get stuck here, he said. He just wanted things to go back to normal.”
Graf frowned. “Back to normal?”
“That’s what he said. After that, it was mostly nonsense about the scholarships he’d missed out on and how he’d sacrificed everything for Jessa, so it was her turn to sacrifice. He talked a lot about Sarah Boniface, too. Some folks thought there was something going on between them, but he’d married Becky… I didn’t think Derek was smart enough to juggle three women, when he was doing so badly with two.”
Something cold gripped Graf’s stomach. “What else did he say?”
“He made me swear never to tell anyone. Said no one would be mad at him once he got his reward.” She sighed as though a great weight had been lifted off her. “Put yourself in my shoes. If you knew what vampires are capable of, and one came to your town, are you going to worry about getting rid of him, or getting rid of the drunk who thinks he’s got control over something that for five years has seemed utterly uncontrollable?”
Graf wanted to stay mad at her, and desperately tried to call up the fury that had caused him to point a gun at her in the first place, but he couldn’t. Whoever the vampires were that she’d run into, they’d obviously made an impression on her. The scars she’d revealed had been worse than any Graf had ever seen. He’d known vampires with dedicated feeders. Sophia had even had one for a time, though she hadn’t treated him as badly as the unnamed vampires had treated June.
Unfortunately, that left him with the problem of knowing what to say to her. He wasn’t going to apologize for whatever had happened to her, because he was still mad enough to be spiteful. He wasn’t going to thank her for the information, because that was the type of thing she should have told him, oh, maybe sometime before he was standing on top of firewood, tied to a fucking stake. “Why didn’t you tell us? At least Jessa? People need to know if a monster is chasing them down.”
“I was going to tell you, but then Chad disappeared. I think you killed him.” She was asking for confirmation, Graf realized.
Fine, she could have it. “I did. I killed him after he tried to murder Jessa.”
“Why would he try to murder Jessa?” June’s face screwed up in disbelief and disgust.
“Derek told him to. I guess his little conversation with you explains why that would be.” Graf put the gun aside. “For the record, I’m not an asshole who abuses humans.”
“You bit Jessa,” June accused.
“Yeah, but she wanted me to.” He rubbed his eyes, and actually blinked a few times, even though he didn’t need to. It was soothing to get the smoke and dust out. “I put Chad out of his misery fast, and he deserved it. You small towns love self-defense, right?”
“What are you gonna do now?” June asked, jerking her head toward the stairs. “You guys can’t get out of here. You said she was in bad shape. And they’ll be coming for you.”
“They can try.” It was a stupid thing to say, but bravery had a component of stupidity, didn’t it? “What would you do, if it were you?”
“Murder-suicide.” June laughed, a sound that rattled low in her chest.
“I’m not going to let anyone hurt Jessa,” he vowed, and felt the helplessness of that vow immediately. There was no way out of this. They couldn’t leave town. They couldn’t hide. “Now that you’ve told me this, are you going to deny it to everyone else? Set us up again?”
June didn’t answer.
“Fine. Just remember, now they know about you. You were in with vampires. There’s something that makes you different from them. Eventually, they’ll use that against you,” he warned.
“I know. I’ve always known that.” June’s eyes were catalogs of every sadness a person could experience. Weary of the game, she’d just cashed in her chips and left the table, and she knew it.
So, that was how it was. Don’t misstep, don’t fall out of line, or the people of Penance will safely remove you. Well, fine if they wanted to live like that, but Graf wasn’t going to. And he wasn’t going to die like that, either.
He stood and faced the kitchen, eyeing the missing wall. There wouldn’t be any time to repair that, for sure. But they could put up some beams to make entry more difficult. “Where would I find some lumber?”
“We don’t have much in the way of lumber, Graf. There’s a sawmill, but it only runs if someone needs it, and they cut their own trees down.” June came to stand next to him. “You thinking of a remodeling project?”
“I was thinking of sealing us up in here.” How long would that safety last? Eventually, someone would find a stray brain cell and bring over an ax. Then, they’d be right back where they’d escaped from.
“You could use the wood from the barn,” June suggested. When he didn’t answer, she continued. “It’s mostly still good, at least it looks good. She ain’t got chickens no more, so it’s not like you need to keep it up.”
“True.” He rubbed his chin. “We don’t have to stay safe forever, just until we can get Derek to talk.”
“Or until someone wounds It again,” June said quietly. “You know that’s an option.”
“Not an option.” The thought of the sun filling the sky, the burning, helpless… Not again. No way.
“What’s the plan, then? Just stay here forever?” She snorted. “You sound like Jessa.”
“Well, sometimes fear can paralyze a person.” That was all he would say on that particular subject. Sure, he had some pretty intense feelings for Jessa, but he wasn’t thrilled to be compared to her in the agoraphobia department. “Let’s concentrate on get ting Derek out of whatever he got himself, and everyone else, into.”
“Is that something you can do?” June asked doubtfully.
Graf faced her, considering. She hadn’t been so keen on helping them when they were locked up in the high school, or when they were about to be barbecued. The scars on her body stood testament to why she wouldn’t trust him, but she was here, now, alone with him without trying to stick a stake through his heart. Maybe he had to trust her, on general principle. “I think so. I don’t know. But I know that I can’t let them kill Jessa. And I can’t protect her on my own.”
June nodded, her large, blue eyes shining with unshed tears. Of regret, maybe? Or fear? Graf didn’t care. This woman had b
etrayed them once, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.
Eighteen
Jessa woke to darkness and sat up, rubbing her eyes. Graf lay beside her in her bed, looking like a dead man, he was so still. Her whole body ached, and her face felt like she had a terrible sunburn. Her feet just plain burned, and when she flexed her toes, something popped and ran down to her heels. She didn’t want to think about that too much.
Graf had probably stayed up with her as long as he could, then passed out from exhaustion. Even vampires could get tired; she’d found out that much when they’d had sex in the teachers’ lounge of her old high school, of all places.
Exhaustion or no, one of them needed to stay up. He had probably been right about fear of It keeping people indoors. So, she hadn’t imagined that, just before she’d lost consciousness. It had come; Derek had called the demon up to keep from blowing his cover. To condemn her in one final attempt to get rid of her.
Why hadn’t that betrayal crumbled her? After he’d tried to kill her, it probably shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d tried again. Surprise was different from hurt, though. A leg you broke twice hurt just as much the second time as the first time.
It was because of Graf. She could try to deny it all day long, but it wouldn’t do any good. There had been a time, not too long ago, that she would have gone on loving Derek even after he’d tried to have her killed, kill her himself, and frame her to get her killed. It stung to realize how stupid she had been. The fact that she could think back on it was a blessing, though. And her new self-awareness wouldn’t have been possible without Graf.
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