She shifted, sitting up to straighten the sleeping bag beneath her. She felt almost angry with herself…with her racing mind. She took a long, quiet breath. Everything was fine for now. If only for now. And she needed to sleep. Across the room, movement caught her eye.
Deidre was sitting on a cot against the wall, watching Promise.
Her eyes glittered in the dark, like cold stars in a bleak, February sky.
“I swear to you that it’s me, and I’m fine,” Peter said, trying to keep his tone low but still loud enough to carry through to Mark on the other side of the safe house’s reinforced door. Snow stamped nervously, and Peter shot a glance out into the neighborhood. Willow’s End slept hard in the dark; nothing made a sound, nothing moved. Not yet, anyway. “Mark! Come on, man! Let me in!”
“We need some kind of code word!” Mark said. Anxiety and frustration sparked across his breaking voice and something more. Peter thought that Mark sounded decidedly out of whack.
“Great!” Peter said. “Let me in, and we’ll discuss it. My vote is for ‘potato’, okay? Now open up.”
The locks clicked and then came the sound of something heavy, dragging. The bolt sliding back. The door swung inward, creaking, and Peter shouldered his way in, pulling on Snow’s rein. Mark stood at the end of the short foyer, a National Guard crossbow in his hands. Trained on Peter.
Peter pulled up sharply.
“Jesus! Put that thing down!” he said and then was bunted aside as Snow tried to push her way in behind him.
The crossbow swung toward the horse emerging from the dark doorway. Peter caught the look of energized terror on Mark’s face. He was going to shoot Snow. “Mark, no!” Peter yelled, pulling Snow’s rein, trying to back her up. She whinnied and threw her head up, and Mark jumped back, swinging the crossbow to follow her head. Shit. This was turning into a real mess. Peter felt hot panic race through him.
“Mark, stop! It’s just Snow! You know a horse can’t be a vampire!” He stumbled on something–shoes or something–lying on the hallway floor and nearly pitched forward. Mark would have shot him for sure, if he had.
“Snow?” Mark said and swallowed. “It’s really her?” He lowered the crossbow. “Peter?”
“Yes, it’s me…like I told you,” Peter said, trying to kick aside whatever had been rolling around at his feet, regaining his balance. “What’s got into you, Mark? You’re acting like a–”
Mark stepped close, the Coleman in his hand. Peter, who was still trying to disentangle himself from whatever tripped him up in the front hall, looked up in irritation. Four long scratches ran down the side of Mark’s face. They were fresh, bleeding freely. Peter looked down at his feet. A body…a young man, maybe fifteen, lay crumpled in a heap. His mouth was frozen in a snarl, and his elongated incisors gleamed in the lantern’s glow.
Mark followed Peter’s gaze. “I just had…uh…a little incident.” He giggled, and it was the nerve-jittering sound of someone on the verge of losing his sanity.
“Mark, go sit down in the kitchen,” Peter said. “I’ll lock us up.”
Mark turned without a word of protest.
Peter led Snow the rest of the way in and then rolled the body out. They didn’t need to have that in here with them. It poisoned the air.
Mark sat at the kitchen table, staring at nothing. When Peter came in, he smiled, but even his smile was odd, the skin around his mouth white and pulled-looking. “Hey! Hey Peter! Where’s Promise? She with you?” His voice rocked and creaked, and his eyes were filled with deep, deep hurt over his rubber band smile.
“You knew him?” Peter asked, guessing but almost certain, and Mark blinked. He dropped his head onto the table. When his voice emerged, it was barley audible, and Peter had to lean over him.
“He lived on my street. He was friends with my sister. A nice kid, he used to…used to…” Mark sighed and sat up. The table had left a red dent on his forehead. “Used to deliver newspapers.” He seemed to think that over and then continued. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”
“What’s weird, Mark?”
“That someone used to deliver the newspaper. Right to your door. Or in Will’s case–” Mark gestured to where Peter had just turned the body out, “–near the front door. You usually had to dig it out of the flowerbeds, but…but he was a nice kid.” Mark’s eyes drew down to suspicious slits, and he looked at Peter. “Did I tell you he knew me?”
“Yes, he was your sister’s friend,” Peter said. He kept his voice level. Mark would snap out of it, given enough space.
“Yes, that, but I mean…just now. Just before you got here. He knew me. He was…he was saying…” Mark began to shake. “He knew my…my name!”
Now Peter understood fully why Mark had been so jittery, so panicked. It wasn’t just that he’d had to fight off a vampire, or even worse, fight off a vampire he knew. This vampire had also known him. Most vampires seemed incapable of remembering or at all connecting with their former lives as humans.
Did that mean the plague–the intensity of the disease–was getting better…or worse?
Peter didn’t know but decided he didn’t have to figure it out right now. Better to try and turn Mark’s thoughts away from the atrocities of the night. He leaned over and clapped him on the shoulder.
“It’s good to see you, man,” Peter said and smiled.
Mark looked at him blankly for a minute, then nodded. “Yeah, me too, to see you.”
Peter clapped him on the shoulder again and stood. “Promise can’t wait to see you. She and Lea just about knocked each other out when we got back.” Behind him, Mark chuckled weakly. Peter moved to the sink and grabbed a clean rag. He soaked it with bottled water. “Lea said Lady was out here with you,” Peter said. “Is she okay?” He could hear the little dog crying from somewhere upstairs. Faint, breathy whines that he knew Mark couldn’t hear. No human could hear it. He turned and glanced at Mark.
Mark was leaned over, elbows propped on the table, and his head in his hands. “I had shut her in a bedroom while I was eating. She’s turned into a really obnoxious beggar.” Mark sat back. “I’m glad I did, now. Lea would be pissed if anything happened to Lady.”
Peter laughed. He handed Mark the rag. “That’s for your face. It’s bleeding a little.” That was a bit of an understatement, but Peter didn’t want to make a big thing over it. “Promise said she thinks Ash has missed Lady. Thinks he’ll be glad to see her.”
Mark’s eyes were clearing, and his body grew less tense. He seemed almost like a man waking from a deep, deep sleep. “You guys just got back? In the dark?”
“No, we were back to the high school by late in the afternoon. I told Promise I’d come out here and check on Chance and you. Make sure everything was good. She and Lea will be here tomorrow.”
“But how are you riding in the dark?”
“It’s something I found out during our trip. The vampires don’t mess with me at night. I think that if I wasn’t on the horse, it might be a different story. They might think I was hunting in their territory or whatever. As it is though, they let me ride right on through. So far, anyway.”
“Promise is okay?” Mark was sounding more like himself. He ran the rag over the cuts on his face and drew in a sharp breath. “Sucker really got me.”
“Yeah, you were lucky,” Peter said and then changed the subject again, not wanting Mark to dwell on just how lucky. “We found something in Jersey. The doc at the base said it’s a cure.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. We brought it back to Wereburg so Mr. West could get a look at it.” He glossed over the events at the base. No reason to go into it now.
“Mr. West?”
“Yeah, turns out your Mr. West is…was…big in the field of immunology. I don’t know how he went from that to teaching high school, but he’s back to immunology now. Promise was going to talk to him about curing Chance.” His eyes clouded. “I hope that’s going okay.”
“I’m sure it is,” Mar
k said absently. “But what about you? Do you want the cure?”
“Yeah, but it has to be worked out as far as dosage or whatever, I guess. If it goes wrong, then I’d be…you know…turned all the way.”
“That’s a big risk.”
Peter nodded. Then he changed the subject again. “Think you can sleep? I’m about to drop.” He wasn’t…in fact, he could practically feel the moon singing its cold, exciting song. How good the moonlight felt on his skin, not like the sun that itched and burned. But he had to sleep. Ignore the call of the night. Fight past it.
“Yeah, let’s go to bed,” Mark said.
They shared a room that held two twin beds. Neither of them wanted to sleep alone. Lady jumped happily when she saw them and then quickly settled, curling up at the end of Mark’s bed.
Mark put his hands behind his head and considered the dark. He was feeling better, coming out of himself more and more. It had been bad tonight, but lots of things were bad now. You had to roll with the punches. “So what’s the deal with you and Promise?” he asked.
Peter didn’t answer for a long time, and Mark began to drift, thinking Peter was already asleep.
“It’s…it’s complicated,” Peter finally said, his voice uncertain. “With me being sick and her wanting so badly to save her brother, it’s just…” His voice drifted away as he thought. “It’s like we’re the right people for each other, but we met at the wrong time. That’s the only way I can explain it.”
Mark snored.
Peter felt an instant of hurt then laughed. He put a hand over his mouth to muffle it, and his body shook the small bed.
So much for sharing your feelings, he thought.
Then he slept, too.
Chapter 6
Lady was a small, brown blur, overjoyed to the point of idiocy. She twined in and around Ash’s hooves while he stood patiently, holding still so as not to hurt the little terrier. Beside him, Snow snorted.
“I can’t tell if she’s jealous or amused,” Mark said, smiling and running a hand down Snow’s thick neck.
Peter laughed. “Maybe just confused.”
Bright, early morning sun slanted across the front yard of the safe house. Promise and Lea had ridden out from Wereburg at first light, Evans following on a bicycle. He should have looked silly, Promise had reflected, but the solid black mountainbike he rode looked as deadly serious as he did.
“Lady, you’re going to have a heart attack,” Lea said and bent to retrieve the little dog. She lifted her, shaking and yelping, to Ash’s height. Lady licked the horse and then calmed as his nose traveled over her small body, blowing gentle warmth. She gazed at him from her big, adoring, brown eyes. Although Lady would have been content to be held close to her dearly beloved for the whole day, Lea eventually put her back on the ground.
Lea looked at Promise expectantly. “Ready to go see him?”
Promise, who’d been holding her impatience in check, smiled gratefully. “Yes, let’s…if everyone else is ready, I mean.”
Mark and Lea exchanged a glance. “You and Peter are going to ride over?” Mark asked, and Promise nodded, looking mystified. “Lea and I will walk. Meet you over there. Sound good?” Lea smiled up at Mark and then turned to Promise. Her smile widened, becoming even warmer.
“Yeah, we’ll catch up to you,” she said and took Mark’s hand in hers.
Still mystified, Promise swung onto Ash and pulled him around in a circle. “Sure, whatever you guys want to do,” she said. She looked around as Peter walked Snow over. “Where’s Evans?” she asked.
“I’m here,” he said, coming from the far side of the safe house. “Just checking things out. You guys did a good job with these safe houses.” He retrieved his bike from near the porch and walked it over. “I’d heard about them–we keep telling the other outposts to do this, too–but I’d never actually seen one in person.” He glanced back at the façade. “You’re vulnerable up there, though,” he said, indicating the second floor windows. The safe house’s lower windows were boarded over, inside and out, but the second floor windows were merely nailed shut. Vampires couldn’t fly, after all, the survivors at Wereburg had reckoned. “Vampires are strong. See that kudzu growing up the side there? Won’t be long before it’s to the roof, and they could scramble right up it, no problem.”
Mark flushed. “Geez, he’s right. How come we didn’t see that?”
“He’s a soldier,” Promise said. “He’s always looking out for the civilians.” She smiled at Evans.
He got on his bike, seemingly unconcerned with the conversation between Mark and Promise, almost as though he didn’t hear it. “Let’s go,” he said. “I want to see the other set up.”
The smile drained from Promise’s face. Evans had been businesslike since they left Wereburg this morning. He’d been short and to the point; not angry and rude as he’d been when she first met him, but enclosed, somehow. Drawing back from her in preparation for a hard decision. He was here to make a determination as to the safety of how they were holding Chance. If he determined that it was putting anyone in jeopardy…Promise kneed Ash forward, a small pit forming in her stomach. She didn’t want to go against Evans. He’d done so much for her. Protected her. Saved her. But she would go against him if she had to. Chance was staying right where he was, safe and sound and under her wing, until the cure was figured out. She glanced at Peter riding next to her and found that his eyes were already on hers. He seemed to understand her train of thought from the set of her shoulders. He nodded, and she smiled back, but her smile died quickly as Evans pedaled up next to her.
They turned onto Promise’s old street and a familiar swell of depression enveloped her. The neighborhood looked both the same and also, irretrievably altered. The same because the same houses, mailboxes, lampposts, trees, and in some cases, cars, were still here. Altered in that it had that fundamentally abandoned look that Promise had seen in town after town as they’d traveled to and from the base. The lack of children or children’s toys, the lack of dogs barking and lawnmowers mowing, the lack of life.
She glanced down at Evans. His face was neutral as his eyes scanned and rescanned the street and houses. “You don’t notice it anymore, do you?”
Evans looked up at her. “Notice what?” he asked, sounding surprised. He noticed everything, his raised brows seemed to say.
The horses’ hooves clip-clopped hollowly, the sound dying a muffled death when it hit the cold, brown grasses on the lawns surrounding them. It reminded her of how little she had left in this world.
“The emptiness,” Promise said. “How sad it is…do you even see it?”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and he clenched his jaw. “Don’t do that,” he told her flatly. “It doesn’t do either of us any good.”
“Do what?” she asked, her voice incredulous–a little too incredulous.
“Don’t try and make me the bad guy,” he said. “This the one?”
Promise looked where he was indicating. Her old house. She nodded, unable to speak, and pulled Ash to a stop. She was suddenly afraid to go in. Afraid of what she’d find. Or not find.
Evans pedaled up the driveway and leaned the bike against the garage. Then he turned and looked at them expectantly. “Come on,” he said, with slight impatience but no unkindness.
Peter turned to Promise and ran a hand down her arm. “You ready?”
“As I’ll…” she said, her voice trailing away. She had a sudden presentiment that Chance would be dead, and her throat tried to close, tightened by tears unshed. But, whatever was, was. She had to face it. It’s what she’d gone all that way for. She cleared her throat and lifted her chin. “As I’ll ever be.”
The house was bone chillingly cold inside. And dark, darker it seemed, than the outside would indicate. Promise blinked several times, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the gloom, but nothing changed. She realized it was her nerves, her mindset.
“Go ahead,” Evans said.
Peter squeezed her hand.
“Come with you or wait? What do you want us to do?”
She hesitated and then decided. “Let me go see him first. Then…then I’ll…” she trailed away as her eyes wandered down the hall. She swallowed as she took a step, and Peter dropped her hand.
The familiar hallway, familiar kitchen. The family room looking out over the backyard where her parents had died, the sliding glass doors busted out from the night they’d captured Chase in the laundry room.
The laundry room. Heavily reinforced, a small, rough-hewn door at the bottom. Silent. Deathly still.
“Chance?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. No answer. She cleared her throat and knelt, her eyes on the bottom of the door as though she might be able to will her sight under it, to see him. “Chance? It’s me, it’s Destiny. Are you there, honey?”
Her voice almost broke on ‘honey’, and she swallowed again. Fear caused a wave of anger to flood through her. “Chance! You answer me!”
Silence.
She leaned her forehead against the door and tears slipped from beneath her closed eyelids. Please, she thought, rocking her head side to side, the rough wood digging into her chilled skin. Her teeth began to chatter lightly. Please, please…please let him be alive…he’s all I have…he’s all I have in this world…please let him–
“Prooomissss…”
Her eyes snapped open and both hands went to the door. “Chance!” Had he really spoken? Or had her desperate mind manufactured it? “Chance, say it again!”
Seeming to slip around the edges of the small, makeshift door, his voice came again. “Prooomissss…” It was his voice, but it was also the voice of a vampire: the swallowed breath, the inhuman hiss. “Proomissssss…”
Blood Run – The Complete Trilogy – First Promise, Two Riders, Last Chance Page 34
