Blood and Silver - 04

by James R. Tuck

She took a deep breath, drawing it in and pushing it back out. “He is so handsome and confident. When I met him I was scared to talk to him and I knew he would never notice someone like me, someone so plain and scared of everything. But then he did notice me. And he wanted me to help him.”

  A small, wistful smile played through her tears. “He made me feel so special. If someone like Marcus, who had people listening to him, hanging on his every word, if someone like him could see me, then maybe I wasn’t so ugly. He said I wasn’t ugly.” Her mismatched eyes sparkled. “He was the only man to ever tell me I am beautiful.”

  She took a deep, trembling breath and went on, words coming in a rush, spilling out, cleaning the wound. “I knew he was mated and I felt terrible about that part of it. I was raised in a Southern Baptist home and you just don’t do that. Mated isn’t married, but it’s the same thing. I justified it by telling myself that Shani doesn’t want him, she just wants the position of being his wife. Which is true, but it didn’t make what I was doing any less wrong, only easier to justify. Cash would help us to be together because Marcus was so lonely. He wanted me. He said I made him happy and that I was beautiful and wonderful.”

  A small pale hand wiped away saltwater. “He didn’t have to use any voice tricks on me. Not at first, but once I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t want to keep being his mistress. They might have been conceived in sin, but I wasn’t going to raise my babies that way. The next time he came to me, I told him no.” She choked a little, holding back a sob. Swallowing, she moved on. “He made me submit then, using the voice. But he was used to me just doing it without question, so I don’t blame him.” A sob broke, giving lie to her words. Her voice was small, brittle. “I don’t blame him at all.”

  Kat put her arm around Sophia. With her past, she is acutely, painfully sensitive to victims of rape. Unfortunately, it is a sympathy born of experience. I had rescued her from the hands of sexually sadistic vampires who had used and debased her in ways that would have killed a lesser woman. She survived, even to the point of being able to have a romantic relationship with Larson, but because of her past she was attuned to any form of sexual trauma in others.

  Sophia folded into the circle of protection, Kat looking at me over her head. Kat’s lips were making low, soft sounds of comfort, but her eyes were flint-hard pieces of hate for Marcus. Tiff moved to kneel behind Sophia and add to the circle. The three women huddled, drawing strength from each other. Larson and I were left out by virtue of our gender, so we sat quietly, reverent in the presence of something we could never fully understand.

  After long moments, the three of them slowly broke apart with lingering touches of comfort. Three pairs of eyes red-rimmed and wet. Larson and I watched the birth of a sisterhood before our very eyes. It was something sacred, something holy. Forged in the crucible of shared experience, it wouldn’t break easily. Women already come equipped with a core of steel-fiber strength, depths of resolve a man cannot comprehend. It’s not the dynamic strength men have, all power and show. It’s a strength of endurance, fortitude. It is the strength that allows women to conceive life and to carry that life until the day it can stand on its own. These three women were now one, a three-strand cord not easily broken.

  After everyone was back in their places I put my hand out toward Sophia, resting it on the table between us. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore. You have my protection as long as you want it and longer. I will keep you as safe as I can. But I can guarantee that Marcus will never touch you again.”

  Tentatively, her pale hand moved toward mine. It hovered over my hand, not touching, just wavering in the air an inch or two above. The contrast was stark. Her hand was translucent, thin blue veins tracing below the surface, the fingers dainty along their length.

  Mine was stained with a dark patina from years of violence, not unlike the katana blade I carried. Swirls and whorls outlined as if ink-stained. Scars and calluses standing, a topographical map of violence. Carefully, her palm descended onto mine, finally touching, landing lightly as a bird. Her fingers closed over mine, and with a nod she was part of the family.

  It was that simple. A small decision on her part and just like that, we would all die for her.

  Or kill for her.

  “I have only two questions.”

  She nodded, giving me permission to ask.

  “How long did Leonidas have you when Tiff and I came along?”

  She left her hand in mine as her brow furrowed in concentration. “I was in and out of consciousness, so it’s hard to tell, but not long. They tried to snatch me on the way to a group of predators to set up a meeting for Marcus. I got away and ran. I had to change to my dog and try to lose them that way. They chased me for miles and miles, and every time I thought I was safe, another one of them would be on me and I would run again. Until they herded me to that lot where Leonidas collared me and beat me.” Mismatched eyes bore into mine as her memory flared.

  They were done with tears. Now only deep banked fires of anger burned inside. “He called me the worst names as he beat me. Whore. Slut.... Worse than that. All the while he kept trying to hit me in the stomach.” Kat rubbed her shoulders in comfort. Sophia still stared at me, straight in my eyes. “Thank you for saving me and my babies.”

  I shook my head at her. “Don’t mention it. How did Marcus handle it when you told him about being knocked up?”

  “With the fighting about not being his mistress and how busy we were on the road, I couldn’t tell him.”

  “But you said he knows.”

  “I convinced Cash to claim it was his.” Finally, she pulled her hand from mine. “I thought about just leaving but couldn’t. So I told Shani I was pregnant by Cash. She thought all the times I was with Marcus were spent with Cash, so it fit.” Her fingers fidgeted with a pizza crust. “She is the one who told Marcus.”

  “How did he act after she told him?”

  “The same. But he hasn’t had time to react. I told Shani the night before I was attacked.”

  Marcus, you dirty, filthy bastard.

  25

  The Comet rumbled, growling down the neighborhood street. The big motor slowly rocked us back and forth, back and forth, back and forth as we crept by the small ranch home. It sat just off the road in what used to be a good neighborhood. The lawn was about three weeks past needing to be cut. The neighboring houses were close but separated by large run-down yards and overgrown holly bushes. Trees overhung the roof, windows dark and empty.

  “I don’t think they are home.”

  I kept looking past Tiff, who was sitting beside me. “Is this the right address?”

  Kat answered from the backseat. “Cooper residence, 843 Banty Lane. This is them.”

  We were on the way to meet Father Mulcahy, Boothe, and the others when we got the call that no one could get in touch with the Coopers. They had not shown up at the Warren and were not responding to the network. Since we were on the way, I offered to go over, check on them, and bring them in. Now I sat outside their perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary, perfectly dull suburban house, with dread clenching my guts in both hands.

  “How many people in the family?”

  Larson spoke up. “Four. Mother, Carol. Father, Ben. Son, Rudy. Two years old. Daughter, Mary. Eight.”

  “What kind of lycanthrope are they?”

  “They call themselves gamefowl.”

  Game fowl. It took me a second to realize the term meant they were Were-chickens. I kept looking at the house, my eyes searching for something out of place or some sign they were out of town. No mail piled up. Two vehicles in the driveway; a Toyota that had seen many a mile under its wheels and a minivan with a caved-in fender. Empty trash cans were at the head of the driveway. If they were gone, it was recently. Earlier today, last night at the earliest.

  Sophia leaned up, putting her chin over the back of the seat. “Does this feel wrong to anybody else?”

  It was hard to look at her since she was so close. I
kept studying the house. “Is that just a feeling? Or some lycanthropic-heightened-senses kind of feeling?”

  She looked at me sideways out of her brown eye. “Just a feeling, but I can’t tell why. Maybe we are all just on edge and it is giving us the heebie-jeebies.”

  I looked back at the house. It sat still and silent, growing darker in the fading sunlight of early evening. Heebie-jeebies was right.

  “Take the wheel,” I said to Tiff, opening the door and sliding out. She moved over to the driver’s side, foot touching the brake as mine left it. Just like we had practiced. She settled in as I quietly shut the door. I had taught her to drive the Comet without adjusting the seat so that she could take the wheel at a moment’s notice. Or give it up if I came in a hurry.

  I squatted down so that my face was even with hers. My eyes stayed on the house through the other window as I talked to her.

  “Keep the car in gear. If I am not out in fifteen minutes, then drive away and call Father Mulcahy. He will know what to do.”

  “I could come in and get you.” She said it plainly, like it didn’t really matter.

  I looked at her. Hard. “You will do exactly what I tell you, little girl. That’s the deal. Your job is to get everybody in this car to safety if anything goes wrong.” She looked away from my stare. My fingers touched her chin, turning her face back to mine. “Don’t make me lose focus in there worrying that you aren’t going to do your job.”

  Her pretty mouth drew to a hard line. “I’m on it. You can trust me.”

  “If I don’t come out in fifteen minutes, what are you going to do?”

  “Drive away and call Father Mulcahy.”

  “If someone, anyone, comes toward the car, what are you going to do?”

  “Drive away and call your cell phone.”

  “What are you going to do if you hear a lot of noise from that house?”

  “Count to thirty and drive away whether you are out or not.”

  All the right answers. I smiled. “Good girl. Your training is paying off.”

  “I have a good teacher.” Leaning forward, she gave me a quick kiss, just a brush of her lips against mine. “Be careful in there, it really doesn’t feel right.”

  “I will. Hand me the shotgun.”

  Her hand reached down to the passenger floorboard, unclipping the shotgun she had used earlier and passing it over to me. It was a Benelli .12 gauge pump action shotgun, matte black with a tactical green laser attached under the barrel. Some people think a laser is not necessary on a shotgun. Bullshit. Shotguns don’t spray the entire room with lead, or silver shot in this case, no matter what television shows you. You still have to aim, not as precisely as a pistol, but you can miss with a shotgun. I checked the slide to make sure it was loaded and stood up, holding the gun along my leg. Without a second glance I walked around the car and stepped into the driveway.

  My back was to the hedge that separated this house from the neighbors. It was a tall, wild holly bush grown thick and tangled with prickly leaves. I moved quickly, all my senses open. I rolled my power out, casting it around me, looking for anything.

  Nothing supernatural that I could feel.

  My boots clomped on the broken concrete of the driveway. I stepped carefully to be as quiet as possible. Each stride that brought me closer to the house brought me deeper in the bubble of silence that enveloped the house. The air grew heavier with every footfall, pressing down on my shoulders, oppression riding in my shadow.

  Stepping carefully over a girl’s bicycle, I passed between the minivan and the hedge. Heat radiated off the vehicle, washing across my face. I swung around the front, breathing as evenly as possible, and moved into the shadow of the carport. The temperature dropped with the sun gone from my skin. I stood for a second, allowing my eyes to adjust to the shift in light.

  The carport had the normal collection of junk for a family to have—toys, boxes, and a rickety old wooden ladder that leaned haphazardly against the back wall. The screen door cried softly in protest when I opened it. Pulling the shotgun up to the ready, my hand moved carefully out to turn the doorknob. It was cold under my palm. With a turn and a push, the door swung silently inward.

  I stood for a moment, senses screaming, waiting for a reaction to the door opening. Nothing happened. No movement, no noise. Pushing the door wide, I stepped over the threshold and into the kitchen.

  The kitchen was as immaculate as the yard was unkempt. Everything was in its place, tucked away and tidy. The linoleum floor gleamed even in the dim light. Water dripped slowly from the faucet, falling into the stainless-steel basin.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Each drop split the silence of the spotless room.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  I stepped over to the sink to turn the handle and shut off the maddening noise. Inside the sink was a baby’s pacifier.

  It sat there, innocent and dreadful in its cuteness. Tiny cartoon animals frolicked on its surface. A damp baby blue ribbon hung from the ring, trailing toward the drain.

  My blood ran cold.

  Turning away, I stepped from the sink, moving into the dining room on the other side. Drawn blinds cut the light in the room making it hard to see. I walked carefully through, my back to the wall. Carpet muffled my footsteps. A light buzzing sounded distant in my ears. Stopping for a second, I tried to figure out if it was a real sound or left over from my head injury. After a second I couldn’t decide, so I kept moving.

  I rounded the corner of the doorway into the living room. Like the kitchen it was immaculately tidy, everything neat and orderly. Blue couch, loveseat, and recliner. All arranged around a flat-screen TV that watched the room like a dead eye. The buzzing was louder in this room—just slightly, but louder nonetheless. Curtains were pulled tight across a bay window, leaving only three squares of waning, early-evening sunlight at the top of the front door to cut the gloom.

  There should be toys here. I’d had two kids, and there was always a toy of some kind lying in wait to trip you. There was none in this room. The carpet stretched empty around the furniture, bare and void. The room sat like a hollowed-out corpse; the weight of its barrenness pulled at me like gravity.

  Tension hung on the back of my neck as I moved to the hallway leading to the rest of the small house. Four closed doors lined the hall: two on the left, one on the right, and one at the end. It was dark like a cave; the only light was a thin sliver coming from under the door at the end.

  It spilled out onto a naked Barbie doll that lay on the carpet. My eyes locked on the smooth plastic limbs that stuck stiffly in the air. Flat, vapid eyes stared at me surrounded by a mass of synthetic yellow hair. I tore my eyes away and began to check the first door on the left.

  The buzzing grew louder with each step down the short hallway.

  Slowly, I pushed the first door open, my eyes wanting to look at the Barbie one more time. Ignoring the pull, I moved on. Leading with the shotgun, I stepped inside. It was a little girl’s room. Butterflies soared across the wall behind the bed in a mural of colors robbed of their vitality by the dim light of the room. The bed was made with a simple ruffled comforter, spread smooth and tucked into the corners. The floor was bare of toys. Tiny shoes lined the wall between the closet and a small child’s desk. I stepped back into the hall.

  Barbie still lay where she was, ominous plastic eyes still open.

  The room across the hall was a bathroom; small and simple in spotless white. It only took a second to clear it.

  The urge to step over Barbie and throw the last door open clawed at me.

  I pushed it down. It’s stupid to leave an unchecked room behind you. Stupid gets you dead in my line of work. I opened the second door on the left, pushing it all the way to the wall. Stepping in, there was almost no space to move. A king-sized waterbed swelled into the room, dominating the center. A South Carolina football blanket blared out on the bed in red and black.

  The bedspread was soaking wet.


  Carefully, I touched it. My fingers came away wet but clean. Water. Slowly lifting the corner revealed a small puncture through the sheets and into the bladder of the bed. Water had puddled slowly from it to saturate the thick blanket.

  It would have taken hours.

  I dropped the blanket and moved back to the hallway.

  The buzzing was loudest as I stood in front of the last door. Now that I was here, I did not want to open that door. My hand closed on the doorknob. It turned with a soft click. I held it closed, drawing in a deep breath. Trying to stop my heart from pounding in my ribcage while Barbie looked up accusingly from my feet.

  With a push, the door swung slowly inward. Light flared along the opening. The buzzing grew with every fraction of an inch the door moved. My stomach clenched as the buzzing grew angry, furious in its wrath.

  Flies.

  Thousands of flies.

  So many flies that my eyes could only see them for a moment. Black and green, crawling and buzzing and darting. Tiny gnat flies, big black houseflies, giant green horseflies. They swarmed out into the hallway, pelting me with their sticky little bodies like hard pebbles, legs skritching, wings tickling. Their angry buzz filled my ears.

  I closed my eyes and held my breath as they flew past me, seeking food and freedom. Carrion appetites driving them forward. Once they were past I drew in a breath.

  That’s when the smell hit me.

  The smell of meat gone rancid. Green and moist and gag inducing, cut with the rusty metal scent of dried blood. It crawled its way in, worming through my sinuses. My lip curled involuntarily; my nostrils tried to shut down.

  I didn’t want to open my eyes, knowing what I would see. My mind wondered if it would be as bad as my family after they were killed. Would it be worse?

  I forced my lids apart.

  The windows were open in this room, blinds pulled off, letting light stream in. Cartoon vegetables made the wallpaper in the room. Blood, dark and tacky, dried in abstract patterns across them, like some mad painter had come in and flung it on every wall. Thick bits and chunks of gore stuck in random decoration for the leftover flies to crawl across.