“It’s been a long time,” Moses said.
“Forever, for most,” Kasper answered.
“For most,” Moses agreed.
Kasper threw open his coat and removed his riot gun. Moses did not move. “This was bound to happen, eventually.” He stepped closer. “It’s not going to be quick, however. One way or another, I will get what I want out of you.”
Moses raised his eyebrows, and a smug little grin touched his mouth. “Really, now?”
“Really,” Kasper snarled. “No man can control their dying thoughts. There’s simply no way to cloak everything. I mention Devin, and you see him in your mind. I mention her,” he said, “and what do I see? You will lead me right to them.”
Kasper did not anticipate John Moses’ lunge. The old man was surprisingly quick. Briefly, he wondered if the old man had indeed turned, if Susan’s presence had provoked him to finally leave the daylight. Together, they crashed through the plate glass front of a shutdown coffee shop. Glass rained like shards of dust jewels. Kasper was aware of things scurrying deeper into the shadows of the old place at the sudden intrusion. His gun clattered to the floor and slid, coming to rest against the rusted pedestal base of a counter stool.
Kasper knew exactly what the old man was after, and he was not about to let it happen. He wanted Kasper to lose control and kill him quickly, before he could steal any more thoughts from his brain.
“Fuck!” he shouted, then grabbed the old man’s lapels. He slammed his forehead against Moses’ face, and instantly his vision exploded into splotches of red. Moses collapsed, and Kasper shoved him away. Blood ran down Kasper’s cheeks like hot tears.
He stood up, grimacing at his pounding head, and stumbled to Moses, who was on his knees and attempting to climb to his feet. Blood painted his face in thin, blackish ribbons. Kasper kicked him in the ribs “You fuck! You can’t trick me. I’m not a bloody moron.”
Moses doubled over in agony, coughing weakly. “Sure, you are, Kasper” he wheezed.
Kasper snatched his gun from the floor, and in one fluid motion, he swung the butt of it around like a cricket bat. It connected with Moses’ temple with a crack like the snap of old wood. Moses buckled and then fell. Kasper was quite sure the old man had gotten what he wanted, after all.
“Oh. Oh, shit,” he muttered. He scrambled to Moses. The blood flowed at a shocking rate from the grinning opening in the side of Moses’ skull and from his nose, mouth and ears. The rich, coppery perfume of it filled the air, replacing the stink of rat shit, dust and bitter, ancient coffee grounds.
Kasper placed his hands on the old man’s skull, his fingers slipping into the wound, becoming wet with hot blood. He closed his eyes and searched for something, a glimmer of thought. And it was there, faint at first, and then brightening. Susan’s blue eyes, her lips on his lips, his hands on her shoulders, the warmth of her.
Kasper hung onto those images and waited. He stared into Moses’ face, into his unfocused eyes in the gloom of the dusty diner. More thoughts came, like stones hidden inside mounds of clay, and Kasper now had to dig inside and sort them through. Susan again. Then something else, and how it glimmered, as if it were presented to him like the glint of a shell in the wash of sea foam. He snatched it up before it vanished again.
***
Susan didn’t feel at all herself. It was so cold, and she leaned into Devin to keep upright. Her tongue like a slab of meat in her mouth, and her head whirled in the lazy spinning motion of a woman who has had too much wine on an empty stomach. She tasted a sick mixture of bile and vomit. Heavy-headed and ill-tempered, she found she did not currently like Devin very much for being so high and happy. The pot the girl had smoked just was not doing to her what she had hoped.
They had separated from John some blocks back. She had been hesitant, but Devin assured her that “Old Moses is a big boy. He’ll be fine.”
Still, she had a gnawing feeling that things were not fine. It was a mistake to become messed up when Kasper could be lurking around any corner.
A few moments later, he announced, “Let’s go to the pier. One last time.”
“Let’s not, okay?”
“No. The cool air will help sober you up.” He swallowed her up in his arms and practically carried her toward the hulking shadowy skeleton of the old Forty-Sixth Avenue pier.
“Cool?” She muttered, shivering.
The pier groaned and complained against the struggle of the tide and push of the wind, but neither she nor Devin placed their full weight on the old boards. Above, the sky was a blanket, a diamond-studded veil that would not be lifted for hours yet. There were no longer any lights lining the pier; all had been broken out at some point long ago. Just ahead, the beer shack that sat near the end of the boardwalk appeared quite haunted and was leaning in the gloom.
They found the end of the old dinosaur rather abruptly, and Susan almost stumbled off into the void, but Devin held fast to her wrist. “Watch it, now!” he said. The last twenty feet of the pier had been sheared away in one of the many passing hurricanes in the past couple of decades.
Susan’s heart wanted to explode from the confines of her body, and she reached up, wrapped her arms around his neck, and clung to him out of fear and in search of more warmth. Together, they looked down, toes hanging over the edge of the splintered planks. The water appeared miles deep and as viscous as oil. For the first time, it occurred to her that the water appeared like blood in the darkness, the waves gray ghosts moving about, vanishing and reappearing, teasingly. Directly below, the broken pilings that were once the hulking legs of the pier, remained like decayed fangs, sharp and extremely sinister in the bleakness. There was no sign of the life. The sounds of music, traffic, crowds of the boulevard were no longer audible over the rush of the water. The air smelled of brine and nothing more, the stink of human life washed away with the waves.
“Well, are we going in?” Devin asked. He dragged Susan back a few steps and then plopped down on his ass and began removing his sock and shoes.
“Going in?” Susan asked, incredulous. “Hell, no. I’m not ‘going in.’”
Devin stood back up, shrugged out of his coat, tugged his sweater over his head and then unbuttoned his jeans. He stepped out and kicked them and the rest of his clothes into a small heap on top of his shoes. “It’s not like it’s going to kill us.”
“I’d rather not take any chances. You know the whole stake-through-the-heart thing. Those pilings down there aren’t much more than enormous stakes.”
“You think too much,” Devin said. He pulled at the collar of her coat. “C’mon.”
Wearing only a pair of cotton briefs, he trembled against the frigid temperature.
“Well, as enticing as it is…” Susan answered, laughing. Devin’s teeth chattered loudly.
He leapt onto the remaining railing, which bowed beneath his weight.
“You’re going to get,” Susan began, but caught herself. “Never mind.”
For someone as medicated as Devin evidently was, he was strangely graceful as he walked the creaking old wood rail. Still, Susan was positive he would fall before he was ready to make his jump.
His body appeared to be carved from marble in the moonlight. The muscles of his thighs and calves flexed as he worked to keep his balance.
He walked a half-dozen steps, then turned and walked back to where he had started, just above Susan. He looked down, wearing a rather smug expression. Susan ran her hands up his legs, over the gooseflesh that had formed on his thighs. She pressed her mouth to the bulge in the front of his shorts, and he grew hard instantly. She looked up at him. “Don’t jump. Let’s go home?” she asked.
“Jump with me, Susan. Do it because we can.”
Susan sighed. “You’re exhausting to be with,” she told him as she quickly undressed. “I see no point in this.”
“The point is that I asked you to,” Devin said. He pulled her up onto the railing.
“The damned railing is going to snap,”
she commented. Wearing only her bra and panties, she trembled uncontrollably in the frigid wind. “I hate to be cold.”
“A dead girl who hates to be cold,” Devin whispered, amused.
They faced each other a moment, and then he kissed her hard, his cold lips pressing to hers, his warm tongue slipping inside. Then, he winked and sprang backward, his body arching, a slash of white in the night. She turned to face the nothingness of the ocean, but she had already lost sight of him. After a moment, she heard a splash as he broke the surface of the water.
She peered down into the darkness, searching for Devin, but it was as if she were staring down into a well. Worry creased her brow, and her mouth grew dry. “Devin?”
Then, he was there, just below her, his upturned face only a pale smudge against the inky waters.
“Coming?” he called.
“If you insist!” she answered. She leapt, feet-first, her body as arrow-straight as she could make it, before she could change her mind.
***
An hour later, Susan climbed between the cool sheets and watched Devin undress in the flickering light of the fireplace. Her mind drifted to his time with Kasper and pondered if there was anything left of that, but she closed the door on those thoughts as quickly as they had come. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was leaving Charlestowne. Even if it was running, it was better than waiting around to be killed.
Devin’s appetite for her was enormous, and he entered her hastily. Susan followed the line of his beard-roughened jaw with her mouth, tasting the residue of the salty Atlantic still on his skin. She felt on fire everywhere he touched her. That agonizing burning was something she didn’t want to end. She arched her body against his, wanting all he had to give her. He exposed his pale throat to her for a sweet moment, and she was overcome with the desire to open him up, to taste him. She pressed her mouth against him, his pulse nearly humming like electricity beneath his skin.
“I’m going to devour you,” she whispered.
Devin laughed. “Do it, then, wild girl.”
She did, with a nip to tear the flesh. Devin winced, but didn’t stop thrusting. She felt as though she were on a tiny ship, tossed by waves, down into the valleys between and then up and over the crests, each one higher than the one before.
When she reached the final peak, she dug her nails into Devin’s buttocks and pulled him to her with all her strength. She cried out his name.
***
She was coming down now, her mind calming, the drunkenness and cobwebs dissolving. She placed her hand on Devin’s chest and felt the steady, languid pump of his heart. An immortal heart, she thought, and then pressed her other hand to her own chest. Her heart would never grow diseased or tired. It would keep on and on, even when her mind became too fed up to move on. Where was the mystery in that? Of course, Kasper Jacobsen provided a touch of mystery, as unwelcome as it was.
Kasper.
The house was oddly, chillingly silent. John should have been puttering around downstairs, his jazz playing. He had not been home when they returned earlier. She should have voiced her concerns to Devin, but she had been too caught up in their selfish moment.
She sat up and looked toward the window. The drapes, drawn tightly as always, showed no light escaping in around the edges. It was still a while until dawn.
Careful not to wake Devin, Susan slid out of the bed and quickly dressed. Suddenly, she was very ill at ease. She left the bedroom and went down the hallway to John’s room. The bed was untouched, the fire in the hearth dead.
Her worry grew. She went downstairs and discovered nothing. He had not been back. Maybe he had found someone. No. Having seen inside his mind, she knew that was unlikely. She pulled on her shoes and coat, snatched up the keys to the Rover, and left
chapter fifty-two
The streets were desolate this time of morning. The sky had taken on a bruised purple hue, the low clouds lending a touch of paleness, but toward the ocean, there were hints of pink. It smelled of winter rain, cold and sharp as antiseptic. Susan guessed she only had two hours before dawn. She had parked the Rover on a side street, not very far from the district where she and Devin had hunted earlier—smelly taverns, mostly empty except for the stays and orphans who had nobody to share their nights.
Well, John was no orphan, nor was he a stray. Susan walked as silent as a cat, and her mind scanned those few around her—drunken, stupid thoughts pushed their way into her head, like the ramblings of people who didn’t have a lot to say but couldn’t stop talking. Nearer the amusement park, she passed the hulking skeletons of rides throwing grids of shadow onto the parking area and the sidewalk beyond. The warehouse where Kasper had taken her and done his dirty deeds loomed, and the tiny hairs on the back of her arms prickled.
She caught the glimmer of something, something familiar because she had grown to know it. She had dipped into John’s head enough to recognize his mental voice. It was something she should not have done; it was too much like spying on someone as they dressed, but she loved being in his head. It had been a comfortable place. Before.
Now, it was chaotic. And very close.
Tense and ready for a confrontation with Kasper, she kicked open the narrow side door to the warehouse. Inside were the same ugly carousel horses, the same stupid leftovers from the park that now resided both here and in her nightmares. She wet her lips pushed deeper into the darkness of the sprawling, cluttered building. From the ceiling, fluorescent lights cast a faint, white haze on everything.
The first thing that struck her was the smell of blood, foul and frightening, and in great amounts. The building was distressingly warm. It triggered a memory of her torture that she had managed to forget.
Again, that glimmer of John’s presence, but picking up his thoughts told her he was still alive. Coughing, weak and raspy, came from one corner, and following the sounds, Susan found him.
It seemed as if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Maybe the strange drugs she had consumed earlier were still having some effect on her mind. John had been crucified on a cross made of what appeared to be the spokes of one of the smaller Ferris wheels.
Slowly, Susan approached. She didn’t want to see this, but knew she needed to do something, and quickly.
John wore beige trousers and a white sweater she had especially liked him in, but now, the sweater was ripped up the front and almost totally crimson. Along with the sweater, his middle had been splayed open from the base of his neck to the top of his pubic bone. The skin and underlying flesh and muscle had been pulled away from the cage of his ribs and were affixed by hooks, a half-dozen on either side, to keep him open just as a child might pin back the flesh of a toad in order to dissect it.
His feet were bare, and blood dripped from his toes. The little splashes that it created when it fell to the puddle on the floor below seemed deafening.
She reached up and touched his leg just below the knee. Her heart broke. “Oh, no. John.”
To her astonishment, he responded. “He’s not here, but he’ll return soon. It’s not long until—“
“Don’t worry about that, John. I need to get you down.”
John’s face was the color of chalk. Even his eyes had lost their shimmer. He didn’t have long. Close by was a platform of some kind. On the front of the base were cartoonish characters, a spindly bird with a great pink plumage and a couple of cartoon kids who appeared to be Pinocchio’s forgotten relatives. A marionette stage. She shoved it to where John hung and leapt on top. Levitating was not an option; she was far too shaky.
How she wished she had brought Devin. She wasn’t sure she could face the death of someone she loved again. Choking back a sob, she reached up and placed her hands on John’s face.
“Hi,” she whispered.
John’s eyes closed a moment. “Hello, love,” he breathed.
Susan watched his lungs spasm and contract with each shallow breath he took.
“Listen. I’m going to get you down. I’m going
to get you home, and you’re going to be all right.”
“Home,” he said. “I didn’t lead him to you, understand?”
Susan frowned, suddenly frightened for Devin. “What do you mean, John?”
“He tried to steal my thoughts. But he’s an ass. I sent him to—“ He turned his head slightly and placed a small kiss on her palm.
Susan saw it immediately—the house on the south end. Michael.
“I’m sorry, Susan. I had to protect you.”
“Shh,” she said. “Don’t talk.” She stepped back and looked at the elaborate scaffolding Kasper had constructed. He loved torture, and this was quite a piece of work. The metal Ferris wheel spokes held John’s wrists tightly. They were bound by wire that had cut through to the bone. His ankles were bound the same way. The wires had sliced through the Achilles’ tendons on both feet. Worse were the wire and hooks that spread open the flesh of his torso. There was no way to free him without injuring him more.
“Listen. Let me turn you. You’ll heal. You’ll be with us—“
“No. I never wanted that.” John paused. Then, “You know what I need you to do.”
Susan shook her head slowly. “I can’t do that. I can’t.” She caressed his face again and pressed her forehead to his, tears pouring over the rims of her eyes. “You’ll make it if you only…”
“Do it.”
Susan leapt from the table and quickly found a large flathead screwdriver on the dusty floor nearby. She returned to John. Her eyes blurred with hot tears, and she pawed at them with her other hand. “This sucks,” she whispered.
“It does,” John agreed softly. “Do it. Now.
“Your sweet face already seems so far from me.”
Susan bit her lip and raised the screwdriver. She screamed as she drove it into his chest, splintering the bones that protected his heart. She knew she had found her target when the blood painted her hands. John’s head fell back, and he cried out, breathless.
Darklands: a vampire's tale Page 29
