Bad to the Bone

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  I look at my dad, then at Dexter, then my dad again. Ronan O’Riley’s face turns as white as his hair.

  “Angel, I can explain.”

  “There’s no time,” Luann says. “We know where the Fortress took Regina. Let’s go before it’s too late.”

  I squint at her, unable to reconcile her commanding tone with the meek little mouse who gave me breakfast and took my blood. “Why should we believe either of you? You’re with the Fortress.”

  “Not exactly.” She and my dad exchange a nod, then hold up a pair of badges with green blinking lights. “We’re with the Control.”

  29

  I Don’t Like Mondays

  We squeeze into David’s car, Dexter between me and Shane in the back, and my dad in the front passenger’s seat. David’s driving, since we don’t trust my father as far as we can throw him—which, come to think of it, would be pretty far in Shane’s case. Luann goes with Jim, Spencer, Monroe, and Travis, while Noah stays behind to put his show back on the air.

  “Have you been with the Control all along?” I shout to my father over the clank of the driveway’s gravel under the lurching car.

  “Only since they caught me,” he says, “which was about two days after I escaped back in August.” He turns his head so I can see half his frown. “I thought I was good, but they’re better.”

  “I figured they’d kill you.”

  “They weren’t happy. But we came to an agreement. If I worked undercover with the Fortress, as someone who shared their animosity toward the Control, at the end of the operation I could simply finish my original sentence in federal prison.”

  “You mean the sentence you had cut short by working for the Control the first time. The one for fraud?”

  “Yes.” At least this time he doesn’t rub in the fact that my testimony put him and my mom in prison eight years ago.

  “What was your other option?”

  “Never seeing daylight again.” He looks at David, whose face is tight with rage. “I’m sorry I ratted you out to Gideon. You probably want to kill me.”

  David turns off the driveway and onto the highway, jamming down the gas pedal so hard that my back slams the seat, jarring my sore arm.

  “Put your seat belt on,” he tells my dad.

  “Huh?”

  “Put it on, because I’m this far from slamming the brakes just to see you go through the windshield.”

  My father hurries to pull the strap across his chest. I wrap a protective arm around Dexter, as if I could prevent his own projectile flight.

  I turn back to my dad. “Why didn’t Lanham tell me they captured you? Why let me worry about you all this time?”

  “Because I was undercover.” Ronan turns to me with a magnetic grin. “You were worried about me?”

  “Shut up.” I rub my temple and look at Shane. He puts a hand on top of mine on Dexter’s shoulders.

  “Turn right,” my dad tells David. “We’re going north.”

  David turns, then punches the radio power button. Noah’s reggae rhythms provide a weird contrast to the snowflakes bouncing off the windshield. David clicks on the wipers.

  “Where were you all this time,” I ask my dad, “if not at the mansion in Frederick? And what about that postcard?”

  “I was at the Fortress’s headquarters in Gettysburg. The Control had me write that postcard to help maintain my cover.” He hesitates. “And it was a loyalty test for you, to see if you’d tell Lanham I’d contacted you.”

  Bastards. “I guess I failed the test.”

  “Not to me you didn’t.”

  I try to ignore the pride in his voice and the way it still makes me glow inside. A sudden thought occurs to me. “Dad, did you know I was being held prisoner?”

  “Of course I knew. Luann’s my, uh—my partner. She kept an eye on you for me.”

  “Would she have kept Benjamin from killing me if it meant risking the mission?”

  “Ciara, don’t you get it?” He points a thumb back at me. “When you were captured, you became the mission. The Control wasn’t ready to raid the place yet. But once civilians were endangered, we had no choice.”

  “So I ruined the operation.”

  “Not entirely. We got some of the bad guys. And you probably saved Wallace’s life.”

  “Great.” My short list of those whose lives I’d fight for doesn’t include Gideon’s psychopathic progeny. “But Benjamin got away.”

  “For now.” My father turns in his seat to face me. Instead of his usual slathered - on charm, his lined and dimpled face wears a deadly grimness. “But not for long.”

  Peering through the trees into the wide torchlit clearing below is like looking through a window in time. A window opening onto a Klan rally, circa 1925.

  Three tall crosses lie on the ground, about fifty feet apart. Snow - dusted wood is piled at their bases. The largest one in the center appears to be made of white metal instead of wood. The Big Honkin’ Cross, junior edition.

  About fifty Fortress members—all male, from what I can tell—stand in rows in front of the crosses, like an audience. The wind whips the hems of their long white robes around their ankles. They each hold a four - foot - long wooden staff which they pound against the earth in a primal rhythm that spins my innards.

  They begin to chant, low and hypnotic, just like the elders in the Fortress basement. The swell of voices amid the whistling wind and snow sounds like a call from another world. I glance at the thick woods around us, half expecting the trees themselves to reach for our throats.

  Dexter growls low in his chest, and I wrap my hand around his muzzle. “Shh. No bark.”

  He shifts his forefeet and pulls back his ears in dismay, but his shoulders relax.

  Another dozen men are gathered in one corner of the clearing, outside the assembly rows. The angles of their bent postures tell me they’re restraining three prisoners.

  “Who else did they capture?” I ask my dad.

  He rolls up the sleeves of his black Control uniform. “I have no idea.” He nods to the fire extinguisher at my feet. “You’ll be okay using one of those, with your hurt arm?”

  “I can’t just wait here while Regina’s life is in danger.”

  His bright blue eyes examine me. “The vampires are getting under your skin, aren’t they? It was one thing to risk jail for them, but you could get killed.” He juts his thumb in the direction of the clearing. “These people don’t mess around.”

  “I know all too well, Dad. That’s why I have to save her.”

  “Loyalty is such a quaint concept.” He squeezes my shoulder, and I step away, out of his grip. “I’m kidding,” he says.

  I turn back to the clearing to see a guard next to each cross, long guns slung over their shoulders. They pace in front of the crosses, marching in time to the chant, like hell’s color guard.

  Maybe Dad’s right. Maybe I shouldn’t risk my life for Regina. I have no training in these brawn - over - brains operations. I’m useless.

  “How long before the Control gets here?” I ask Luann, hoping the decision will be made for me.

  She checks her watch. “ETA ten minutes.”

  “We don’t have that long.” David adjusts the focus on a pair of long, black binoculars. “They’re moving the prisoners.” He lowers the binoculars and turns to us. “We’ll have to do it ourselves.”

  In the center of the clearing, Regina marches on her own, chin held high, wrists bound behind her back. The other two people, heads covered in black hoods, are being dragged, the chanting hordes nearly drowning out their high - pitched screams.

  Luann and my dad, along with me, Shane, and the other four vampires—Monroe, Spencer, Jim, and Travis—gather around David while he draws the battle plan in the inch - thick snow.

  “The vampires will be the first line of attack,” David says, “to disarm those guards and protect the prisoners from the crowd.” He assigns Shane and Spencer to the first cross, Jim and Travis to the middle one, and Mon
roe (the oldest and therefore strongest) to the third. “Then the rest of us move in and release the prisoners. Once the fires are lit, it won’t be safe for the vampires to do that part.”

  “What about Dexter?” I ask David.

  He gives me a solemn look. “He’s a vampire. He goes with them.”

  “They’re raising the prisoners!” Shane announces.

  On either side of Regina, several men are pulling up the crosses with long ropes. Screams come from the figures tied to them. White robes cover their struggling bodies, but their arms and legs are bare.

  “Let’s go,” David says.

  We skirt around the edge of the hill, keeping just inside the tree line, out of the glow of the torchlight.

  Regina goes up, without a hood. She doesn’t scream.

  The Fortress members dump more wood around the crosses’ bases, the piles reaching past the women’s feet. The snow keeps falling, but it’s too dry and wispy to dampen the wood.

  We reach our launch point behind the crosses, just in time. Three men step forward ceremonially, each carrying a torch toward a cross, the flames snapping and sparking in the wind.

  The woman on Regina’s left shrieks again.

  “Oh my God.” Shane stops short and stares in horror at the clearing. “That’s my mom.”

  30

  Miss Murder

  My stomach goes cold. “Are you sure?” I ask him. “Her head is covered.”

  “I know her voice.” His own voice is strained near breaking. “The other one must be Eileen.”

  “Someone from the fortress followed us to Youngstown?”

  Luann hands me my fire extinguisher. “Before I got away from Benjamin, he swore revenge on Shane for putting Ned in a coma.”

  The torches are lowered, lighting the wood.

  Shane turns to me. In his eyes I see determination to save three of the women he loves most, even if it means losing his own life.

  “Go.” I clutch the front of his shirt. “I’ll take care of myself.”

  He kisses me hard and quick. Under his lips I can feel his fangs.

  “I love you,” he says, and begins to run.

  I unclip the leash from Dexter’s harness. “Go on, boy. Follow Daddy.”

  The six vampires—five human and one dog—stream down the hill, the three oldest in front. I gasp at the sight of their speed. It’s like watching lions chase down a herd of startled wildebeests.

  The armed guards turn and fire. None of their opening shots hits, but the man guarding Shane’s mother gets off another round before Monroe arrives and disarms him. Literally.

  Shane stumbles and falls. I cry out as I realize he’s been shot.

  He rolls down the hill, his shirt coated with blood, then pushes himself to his knees. Two or three seconds pass while I hold my breath, then he staggers to his feet and keeps running.

  I search in vain for Dexter. Is he in the middle of the crowd? Or did he run off? For his sake, I hope the latter.

  Jim charges past Regina’s cross and grabs the barrel of her guard’s gun. He slams the butt into the robed man’s head, producing a burst of blood. Spencer dispatches the guard at Eileen’s cross in a similar manner. My knees weaken at the bowel - shaking brutality.

  “That’s our cue.” David turns to me. “Last chance to back out. No one would blame you.”

  I hoist my trusty fire extinguisher. “I would blame me.”

  We dash down the hill, David and Luann to the left, Dad to the right, and me straight ahead, ignoring the pain that shoots up my right arm with every step.

  In front of Regina, Travis points the guard’s shotgun in a wide arc at the encroaching throng. “Get the fuck back. Now!”

  They obey, but only when the weapon is pointing straight at them, so Jim acts as a backup to keep them away from the cross. I yank the pin from the fire extinguisher, aim at the base of the flames, and pull the trigger.

  A huge white cloud bursts from the extinguisher, and the trigger sticks in the “on” position. The wind shifts suddenly, blowing the ice - cold chemicals back in my face. Choking, I circle to the front of the cross, as close as I dare to get to the screaming crowd.

  The fire extinguisher stops. I squeeze the handle, trying not to panic.

  “Hurry!” Regina screams. The roaring flames have almost reached her feet.

  Jim grabs the fire extinguisher from me and tries to get it working.

  “Empty,” he yells.

  A white - robed man runs up behind him, a stake raised high. “Look out!” I shriek.

  Jim whirls, slamming the fire extinguisher into the face of his would - be assailant. An explosion rocks the air, and I turn to see Travis pointing the smoking barrel of the shotgun at the sky. The pack recoils.

  Determined to put out Regina’s fire any way I can, I kick the burning branches aside, separating them to slow the spread of the flames.

  Finally I clear a path to Regina’s cross. Jim climbs over the smoldering wood and shoves on the base of the metal pole in an attempt to push it over.

  Something whistles past my ear. Regina screams in what sounds like pain. I look up to see an arrow protruding from her gut.

  Then Jim shrieks, and I realize he’s worse than shot. His sleeve is ablaze. He leaps off the pyre, drops to the snowy grass, and rolls to extinguish what’s left of his arm.

  The cross is tilted back, almost far enough to fall. I scramble through the burning wood and give it a hard shove. The hot metal sears my hands through my thick leather gloves, but I hang on. I shift around to the back, pulling instead of pushing. I can almost . . . get it.

  My right hand, weakened by injury, slips off the cross, and I fall backward into a pile of blazing wood. A shriek rips my throat, and the smell of singed hair fills my nostrils.

  “Ciara!”

  Travis appears above me. He grabs my shoulders and drags me from the fire, then tears off his coat and snuffs out my hair.

  Regina screams again. In his haste to save me, Travis left the front of the cross unattended. Two Fortress members run forward with torches, toss them into the brush pile at the base of the cross, then leap back into the safety of the mob. The flames lick inches from Regina’s feet, while another arrow whips over our heads.

  “I got it,” Travis says.

  “No!” Smoke fills my lungs. I sit up, coughing and hacking, trying to tell Travis he can’t step into the fire, not even for a moment. “Don’t . . .”

  He gets a running start, then charges through the burning wood to hurl his weight against the bottom of the cross. It creaks, then stops. He does it again, and it falls at last. I scramble out of the way just before the bar slams the ground beside me.

  Another scream cuts the air. Travis is burning.

  The flames move up his legs, devouring them in an instant, as if he were made of tissue paper. I crawl toward him, lungs aching, but without legs, his body falls into the flames. I reach for his hand as it stretches toward me.

  It disappears.

  “Travis?” I stagger to my feet, hoping someone pulled him out from the other side. Nothing remains but his clothes, curling and sparking in the flames.

  He’s gone. Into nowhere, like Elizabeth, like his maker Gideon, like his blood brother Jacob.

  “No!” I kick one of the burning logs, trying to dissipate the fire. Maybe he rolled off when I wasn’t looking. If there’s anything—

  A heavy weight slams me to the ground. The impact knocks out my breath. I can’t get it back, because someone in a white robe is sitting on my chest.

  Benjamin.

  “Monster - loving bitch.” He punches me in the mouth, sending waves of pain reverberating through my head, matched only by the agony in my arm. I still can’t draw a breath to scream or even speak.

  He hits me again, and I taste my own blood on the back of my tongue. It flows down my throat, drowning me.

  His hands wrap around my neck. Orange and black spots dance in front of my eyes as his thumbs press my windpipe. />
  My legs kick, trying to buck him off, but he’s too heavy, too strong. My left fist shoots out and catches him in the chin. One of his hands leaves my throat, and my heart surges with hope.

  Then I hear it: the low, sharp shing! of a metal blade.

  “Let’s make this quick,” Benjamin hisses.

  No. I kick harder. Hate sharp things. Please, God, no death -by- sharp - thing.

  From my left comes a low roar that sounds straight from hell. The call of the Grim Reaper? Could I have been wrong about the afterlife?

  Suddenly Benjamin’s face is full of black fur and yellow teeth. He screeches and lets go of me but doesn’t get off. I choke in a shallow, desperate breath as Dexter steps on my face in his effort to save my life.

  The dog squeals and leaps out of sight, revealing Benjamin holding a long, bloody hunting knife. He wipes his own blood from his eye with the long cuff of his robe.

  “I know that won’t do the trick on your pooch.” He shifts the knife to his left hand and pulls a long wooden stake from a holster on his right ankle. “But this will.”

  Dexter gives a rumbling growl, ready to pounce again. Benjamin tightens his grip on the stake, waiting. Their eyes meet like a bull and a matador in the ring. A matador holding a grenade behind the red flag.

  “No!” I flail at the ground around me. My right hand hits something hot and hard. If only that arm would work. . . .

  Dexter’s growl turns into a roar as he hurls himself toward us, not knowing his opponent holds his certain death.

  Shrieking in anger and agony, I grasp the burning log and smash it into Benjamin’s face. He yelps and pulls up his arms.

  Dexter slams him from the side, and they fly off me. Breath comes back to my lungs in gasping, agonizing waves. I force myself to sit up.

  Benjamin flops in Dexter’s giant jaws, which are wrapped around his neck. The wooden stake lies beyond the unconscious man’s grip.