He bobbed his head. “Well, for one, Aaron didn’t exactly say you was using a system.”
“Oh?”
“I remember what he said, because he used some of those ten-cent words of his.” Using air quotes, Dwight spoke with a nasal voice, mimicking Mr. Ulrich. “He said you were ‘manifesting a secondary power’.”
The only way Mr. Ulrich could know what I’d been doing is if he’d spoken to Maggy and gotten the information out of her. Was that what his large partner was for, muscle? I hoped they hadn’t hurt the old lady. How had they tracked her down? Maybe they’d been canvassing the area with my description, like at the bus station. The convenience stores had security cameras. I cursed. I would have to be smarter if I wanted to avoid the Grigori.
Dwight glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Now, you may not know this about me, but I’ve seen some unexplainable shit in my life.”
“What?” I asked, not knowing where he was going with this.
“I kept my mouth shut about it. I ain’t stupid.” He tapped the side of his head. “Most people think you’ve got a marble loose if you tell them about crazy stuff like that.”
“Crazy stuff like what?”
He turned his head to look me straight in the face. “Supernatural stuff.”
I felt my heart stop for a beat. “What are you talking about?”
“Yeah,” he said, eyes back on the road ahead. “I think you’ve got a knack, a way of knowing things most people wouldn’t know. You’ve got an inside track.”
I held my breath. How had he figured this all out?
He wiggled his fingers. “Don’t worry,” he said with a smile. “Things are going to be different for us from now on. All that crap between us in the past, well, that was just a case of us misunderstanding one another. It was just me being a grumpy bastard. But that’s all over now.”
“It is?” What was he getting at?
“I wonder,” he said, drawing out his words, “would you be able to do your thing at a roulette table?”
Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “No.”
His smile widened, and I bit my lip. I’d basically just confirmed that I had an ability.
“Not a fortuneteller, then, huh? What about poker?”
“What about it?”
He ground his teeth. “Don’t be stupid. Can you call someone’s bluff?”
“I don’t know.” I was sure I could, but I didn’t trust Dwight. Now I knew why he wanted to go to Vegas.
Moving suddenly toward me, he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a deck of cards still in the package.
With his thumb, he slid the top flap up. Putting the deck in his other hand, he picked out a random card. Tilting the face away from me, he said, “What is it?”
I knew I couldn’t keep pretending there wasn’t anything special about me. Sighing, I said, “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Okay,” he said. “Say I bet heavy that I’ve got a high card.”
I felt a sudden tightening sensation in my throat. It was nothing like the stomach cramps, but it was a clear sign that there was something wrong.
“I fold.”
Dwight flipped the card to me. It was a king. He stuck the card back in the deck and pulled another one out. “Same bet.”
I felt a tickle on the back of my neck, like someone was blowing on my skin. “I bet everything I got.”
He showed me the card was a two. “Can you do that every time.”
“Mostly. I guess,” I said. “I don’t know.”
He put the card back in the deck and tossed the package back in the glove compartment. “We’re going to clean up.”
“You know,” I said, trying to keep my voice light, “maybe it would be better if we stayed under the radar on this.”
“What for?”
“Mr. Ulrich is still looking for me. He’s obviously got some powerful friends. If the two of us start winning big money, word’s going to get around.”
Dwight’s smile faded. A moment later, he shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe you’re right. No sense getting greedy.” Rubbing his chin, he said, “That’s what got me caught before, being greedy. You’re one smart little cracker, you know that?”
“Thanks,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“But I’m not sure you’re as smart as all that,” he said. I sensed the change in his tone.
I didn’t say anything. He was obviously working toward something.
“I mean, Aaron did say it was a ‘secondary’ power, didn’t he?”
My stomach lurched, and there was nothing I wanted more at that moment than to jump out of the car. We were going too fast, though. I’d be killed if I tried that.
“Let me take a wild guess,” Dwight said. His voice went deep and cold. “It’s got something to do with ice, or water, or something like that, right?”
He knew. How did he know?
So much had happened since my mother died that it had almost slipped my mind. That last night Dwight had said something that had set me off.
He’d said I had the devil in me, just like my father. He knew who my real father was; he’d known it all along.
Dwight dragged his fingers along the scars on his face and sneered.
“Let me tell you about how I got to be so pretty.”
Chapter Seventeen
While Dwight talked, our speed increased. Maybe he was too distracted to notice how fast he was going. I was torn between worrying about him crashing the car, and wanting to hear what he said.
“I wasn’t always the nice, kind-hearted person I am today. Maybe I was a bit rowdy when I was young. It happens. I was full of piss and vinegar, and I liked to mess around.
“Me and a couple buddies, well, we liked to blow off steam after a long week on the docks. Didn’t really mean anything by it. No one got really hurt; maybe just their pride. Heck, if they put up a good enough fight, we’d let them walk away with their dignity and their wallets. If they were cowards … they got a lesson on how to be a man.
“Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost, but one thing we never did was cheat. We never ganged up three on one, and once in a while, we even went three of us against five of them, just to see if we could.
“He was an easy mark, your old man. A little tall and gangly, he walked like he was cock of the walk, showing off for his little lady. I was just going to knock him down a peg or two. Give him a taste of humble pie.
“It was only me and Eddie out that night, and I told him to hang back, let me take care of it. I remember it was raining, and I planted my feet so I wouldn’t slip—that’d be embarrassing.
“I said, ‘You got a choice, mister, gimme your money or gimme your girl.’ If they don’t take a swing, it’s usually their money they hand over.
“I waited for him to go through his options, and I saw in his eyes which choice he’d made. Instead of raising his fists, he scrunched his face up like he was constipated or something.
“What I didn’t see was a million needles strike me out of the sky, tearing the flesh from my cheeks. He’d done it. I didn’t know how, but he made the rain turn to ice and rip through my skin.
“I couldn’t do nothing but scream and run away. Eddie, that piece of crap sorry excuse for a friend, took off in the other direction. I never saw him again.”
The speedometer showed we were going thirty miles per hour over the limit. We were passing cars like they were standing still.
“It was months before I recovered, but all I could think about was getting back at him for what he did to me. Only, I didn’t know who he was or where I could find him.
“About nine months later, I was in the hospital—never you mind why—and guess who I saw? It was the girl, and she was having a baby. I put two and two together.
“I got this crazy idea that she would lead me to your father. Little did I know, your father took off like the coward he was.
“Still, maybe he’d come back to see you.
“Funny thing,” he said, his voice changing pitch, “when she saw me, your mother had no idea who I was. I guess she never figured out it was me that night, or maybe she thought your father had killed me, or something.
“Of course, you know he never did come back. Fourteen damned years I waited, and nothing.”
He growled and slapped his hand against the steering wheel. “And when I finally find out who he is, turns out, he up and gets himself killed before I can settle things between us.
“You can imagine how that makes me feel. I’ve been robbed of my chance to make it even.
“But then, I hear from Aaron about you, and how he wants me to help them out, and all I can think is, maybe I can still get what’s mine.”
My mind raced for a way out of the situation. There was nothing in the car I could use as a weapon. I couldn’t use my powers; there wasn’t even a bottle of water anywhere. Even if I did anything to Dwight, we were going so fast we were sure to crash.
He kept his foot pressed hard against the gas. “Now, I’m not stupid. I did think about this little system, this secondary power, and how a nice fat settlement might go a long way to making me feel better about what happened.
“The problem is, even if I had all the money in the world, I still have this ruined face. So, the way I see it, that choice I gave your father is still out there: the money or the girl.
“Now that I’ve had a chance to get this all off my chest, I think I’ve made the decision for him.
“I think I’ll take his girl. Oh, I’m not going to kill you. What I’m going to do is, I’m going to take your face away, like your father took mine. I’m going to make you as ugly as me, and then we’ll see how you spend the next fourteen years looking like some kind of monster in the closet.”
I tuned out the last of his threats. He was just starting to work himself up, just like he’d been doing since I’d known him. Eventually, he’d get the point where he’d act on his words, but that time was very near.
I flashed on an idea. If I could direct the water in Chief Vogel’s coffee, maybe I could take control of the water in the car. I concentrated on the engine; my first thought was to stop the flow of gas.
The car sputtered and backfired. Dwight grunted and looked at the dashboard, and pumped the gas.
Maybe there wasn’t enough water in the fuel for me to do anything. After seeing enough television shows about car trouble, I realized there would be water in the radiator.
Focusing, I willed the water in the radiator to stop flowing.
Within a few seconds, I heard Dwight curse. The engine was starting to overheat.
“Damn it!” he said, but he eased his foot off the gas and pulled off to the side of the road. By the time the car stopped, steam was rising from under the hood.
Before Dwight could put the car into park, I opened the passenger door, threw my shoulder against it, and jumped out.
“Hey!” he shouted, lunging at me with his meaty hand. His fingers brushed against my leg, but I was too fast.
The first thing I did was run out to the highway and try to flag someone down to help me.
Dwight got out of the car and ran toward me. By the time anyone came to my rescue, it would be too late.
We were already at the foot of the mountains, and there was forest in every direction. I wasn’t about to run through the wilderness. Even if I managed to keep from getting lost, if Dwight caught up with me, I wouldn’t have a chance against him.
A truck horn blasted at us as the heavy vehicle passed.
Up ahead, there was a sign pointing to a ski lodge just off the highway on a secondary road.
At a flat out run, I was faster than Dwight. I hoped I could last longer.
Before I reached the turn off, another sensation hit me, one I could not mistake.
An electric tingle went through me from that internal radar that told me another Grigori host was up ahead.
Behind me, Dwight kept coming, despite being red-faced and puffing hard from running.
There I was, right in the middle.
Chapter Eighteen
I decided to take my chances in the woods off the highway, rather than get caught by Dwight or the Grigori. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I formed a plan to find the nearest stream or river. Once there, I could use the water as a weapon to defend myself.
Before I could jump the railing at the edge of the road, I heard the horn of a pickup truck blaring at me. When I looked at the vehicle, I was shocked to see Thomas sitting behind the wheel. He reached a hand out his window and waved at me.
Dwight had almost caught up, and I wasn’t about to stop and let him get his filthy hands on me. I raced across the highway toward the pickup as it pulled over on the other side of the road. I had to time it to avoid being hit by another vehicle.
I crossed over and glanced back. Dwight stood on the other side. A semi with a double trailer cut off his route. It gave me enough time to run toward Thomas as fast as I could.
He’d gotten out of his pickup and, seeing I was being chased, motioned for me to get behind him.
“Thomas,” I called out, stopping only once he was between me and Dwight.
There was a break in traffic, and Dwight lumbered across the highway. It didn’t seem to bother him that someone else was now in the picture.
He roared at Thomas and ran at him faster.
Thomas sang a few notes of his haunting song.
It was as if my stepfather were running through a vat of molasses. He slowed, and then, finally, stopped. Eyes glassing over, his mouth hung open, and his arms slumped at his sides.
I put my hands on my hips while I caught my breath. My stomach was still acting up. I wasn’t used to running, and the air in Denver was much thinner than I was used to.
I stared at Dwight in wonder. Thomas had taken care of him easily. There had to be a better way for me to use my power to defend myself. I was sure I could make a point of carrying a bottle of water around with me everywhere I went, and use it like my father had used it against Dwight. Still, I didn’t think that was always going to be the most practical solution.
“Thank you,” I said to Thomas. “How in the world did you find me? I thought you were going to disappear.”
Still looking at Dwight, Thomas said, “It’s a long story. Come on, we need to get him into the pickup and get out of here.”
I looked at my stepfather. “Are we going to carry him?” I asked. I didn’t think I would be much help doing that.
Instead of answering me, Thomas grabbed Dwight’s wrist and pulled gently. Like an obedient pet, my stepfather followed him to the truck. I remembered Jenny saying Thomas had turned his parents into zombies. If there was such a thing, this was it.
“Is he awake?” I asked, remembering the Anakim back at the ranch, who looked like they’d been knocked unconscious, though they had all remained on their feet.
“I just stunned him. It’s like he’s sleepwalking.”
“Will he stay like this forever?” I asked.
“He’ll probably snap out of it in an hour or so.” He added, “I can usually control how much my song will affect someone. I did a lot of training at Anak Acres.”
Thomas brought him to the back and opened the tailgate. He got up into the bed and tugged on my stepfather’s arm. Dwight crawled up and lay flat on the floor.
“Get in,” Thomas said. He hopped into the driver’s side and waited until I was in my seat before he eased the truck onto the highway.
As we passed the rental car, Thomas said, “There’s probably a GPS in it. The company will come and get it soon. We need to put some distance between us before then.”
I noticed we were heading west, toward Vegas. “Where are we going? Nowhere near Anak Acres, I hope.”
“No,” he said. “There’s a cabin in the mountains up ahead.”
“You have a cabin? We’re going to hide out there? What about Dwight?” I looked out the rear window at him, still lying down
on the metal floor of the cargo box.
“You’ll see,” Thomas said.
I looked at him sharply.
Though Dwight no longer posed a threat, my stomach had continued acting up. Even now, I felt ill. I thought it was just an effect of all the adrenaline from the chase.
Maybe I was still in danger. Surely, not from Thomas.
His face was drawn, and he looked uncomfortable.
“What’s going on?” I squinted at him. “You did get away from Anak Acres, didn’t you?” When he didn’t reply right away, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It was Jethro,” Thomas said.
“Jethro?” I didn’t know what he was trying to say. Did something happen to the caretaker? “Is he all right?”
“Oh, Jethro’s perfectly fine.” He said it with a note of bitterness in his voice. “And perfectly loyal to the Grigori.”
In a flash, I figured out what was going on. Before I could do the same trick to the pickup as I had to the rental car, Thomas pointed his finger at me.
“Don’t do anything, Serena. I don’t want to have to stun you. Like I said, I’ve been getting a lot of practice, and you’re new to your power. You don’t have a chance.” In a lower voice, he added, “No one wants to hurt you.”
I felt the pressure of tears building behind my eyes, and I bit my lip to hold them back. “Why? I thought you were done with them.”
“I was.” Thomas sounded miserable. “I don’t have a choice. I’m so sorry, Serena.”
“What happened?”
“I thought Jethro would go along with holing up the Anakim and Jenny. The moment I turned my back, he cold-cocked me.
“When I woke up, I was the one tied up. Jenny was so mad, I thought she was going to kill me. She had orders to keep me alive, though.”
“No, I mean why are you back with them?”
He took a deep breath. “Jenny called Sam Lancaster, and he spoke with me. He said he may have found a Grigori with the ability to heal.”
“Heal?”
“Yeah. He said he was going to bring him with him when he comes back, and he’s going to heal my parents.”
“But I thought…” I didn’t know how to say that Thomas had turned them catatonic because they were using him as a human shield.
The Complete Book Of Fallen Angels Page 71
