Mrs. Sadler glanced at her husband. She bit her lower lip, as if she didn't know what to do. Cammie could feel her reluctance. Mrs. Sadler didn't want to let Cammie go—probably afraid she would never see her again.
"I will call you as soon as I hear," Cammie said. "Thanks for your help."
Gary nodded and waved absently. Apparently someone had answered on the other end of the line. Mrs. Sadler stood in the center of the room, her hands clasped tightly before her chest.
Cammie didn't wait for a response. She let herself out the front door, pulled off her shoes, and ran down the walk. Gravel bit into her feet, but she didn't care. The quicker she moved, the quicker she would get information.
The drive out of the neighborhood was easier than the drive in. It took only a few minutes to make it to Willamette Street, and then she knew where she was. The rows of restaurant chains mingled with family-owned businesses. The traffic was heavy here—for Eugene—but the area had a pretty, sparkling feel, almost as if she had stepped back in time, when the world was a safer place.
But it wasn't safer. Ben was missing, and when he was supposed to reappear, his girlfriend disappeared as well.
It took ten minutes to drive from the Sadlers' house to the hotel. The lack of sprawl here surprised her. In Madison, it would have taken a half an hour to go from the far south side to the middle of town. She parked the car and hurried up to her room, ignoring the stare the bellhop gave her in the elevator because she was carrying her shoes.
She let herself into her room, tossed her shoes in a corner, and pulled off her shredded pantyhose. The hose were black—she supposed the bottom of her feet were too. She sat on the bed, dialed information, and got a phone number for Steve Henderson. It was easier than she expected.
The phone rang five times before a groggy male voice answered.
"I'm calling for Steve," Cammie said. Then she held her breath and hoped.
"Je-sus Christ." The voice sounded a bit wider awake. "Steve's outta here. If you got any of the money he owes me, I'll talk to you. Otherwise try him at the Keg."
He hung up. After a moment, the line disconnected, and a dial tone hummed in her ear. The Keg. She called information again, got the bar's number and dialed.
Someone picked up after two rings. Madonna pounded in the background, and laughter filtered into the phone. Cammie could almost smell the cigarette smoke. "Yeah?" The voice was male and abrasive. "Whattya want?"
Cammie swallowed. "Is this the Keg?"
"Guess so."
"I'm calling for one of your customers."
"We don't talk about who’s here and who ain't. You could be an ex-wife or something."
"I'm not." Cammie balled up her free hand into a fist.
"How'm I supposed to know that?"
Talking to him wouldn't work. She would have to go herself. She glanced at the clock. 9 p.m. Portland was two hours away. "What time do you close?" she asked.
"Two."
"I'll be there," she said, but by then the line had already gone dead.
Chapter Twenty-One
The clock radio came on with a soprano screeching Wagner. Van winced. Her eyes felt gummed together. She hated Wagner. It made her think of the bad times. She reached up with one hand and slapped the radio off.
She stretched against the flannel sheets on her futon. One disadvantage to being a vampire was that she woke up cold. The blood running through her system had thinned. She would need food before she did anything else.
A thin ray of gray light eked through the shade. Her room was small, and she had never had the windows boarded as[C&F94] the others had. Some ancient hope let her believe that someday she would be able to tolerate light. She funded research in sunblocks with some of her excess money. With humans suddenly so afraid of the sun, vampires might find the protection they needed against the harmful rays.
Modern times. She still could not get used to all the conveniences. The world was changing too quickly for her. She tried to keep up, tried to act like a woman of her physical appearance should, but at times she wanted to let it all go. Mikos teased her because she had not completely lost her accent. She never told him that she had also kept her old-[C&F95] world loves. The mementos were merely stored where Mikos could not find them.
She rubbed her eyes and sat up. She had kept something from each era, but some eras had appealed to her more than most. And some she hated more than others. Since the '30s, though, she felt as if the world were[C&F96] getting ahead of her.
The '30s[C&F97] were heady years. Mikos had smuggled them into Berlin in 1933, just as the economy started to turn around. He made Nazi friends, and soon it became clear that much of the upper crust were vampires. Hitler himself was hereditary, but remained a virgin until 1943. Being a virgin allowed him to be photographed and to experience sunlight. He changed after the assassination attempt, though. He had been more badly injured than the media reported, and someone—probably Mikos—had decided that Hitler needed to activate his own healing powers. One of the conspirators died first, and from then on, Hitler was crazed and uncontrollable. He hated avoiding sunlight, and worried that he would lose the support of the people, not realizing that the support was already waning. Eva hated the change too. She was a fighter, and Van often wondered if Eva had put the stake through Hitler's heart herself.
Van's hands were shaking. The memories were not easy ones. The ’30s[C&F98] were heady, but the ’40s were hell. She had to hide her German accent as best she could, protect her wealth, and run for her life. In '42, she met a vampire more powerful than she could even imagine. He raped her and nearly drained her, even though her blood was of no use to him. He had been an hereditary too, and he was doing his best to keep her in line. Ever since then she had avoided hereditaries, and kept herself in superb physical condition so that she could out-maneuver everyone, hereditary or not.
She pushed a strand of hair from her forehead. She was wasting too much time thinking. She only had a few hours before the nest woke up.
She rolled off the futon, pulled on her black spandex, and piled her hair into a knot on top of her head. Then she went into the kitchen and drank just enough to keep her levelheaded. She put the bottle back in the refrigerator, washed off her hands, and headed down the hall to Ben's room.
The boy had the same arrogance that she had seen in the hereditary who attacked her. He listened to no one and thought he knew it all. Ben would have to learn that he could not do as he pleased, that part of being in a nest was cooperation. It did not matter that he had the potential to be more powerful than all of them. What mattered was who he was now.
She would show him that he still had a lot to learn.
And she would make sure than an hereditary, child of an hereditary, would not come into the nest.
Over the years, she had learned how to move without making a sound. When she reached Ben's door, she grabbed the gold-plated knob and turned it so slowly her hand began to sweat. The small click as the tongue swung back echoed in the silent hallway. She pushed the door open and slid into the room.
Here the darkness was complete. The coppery scent of fresh blood filled the air. Her stomach rumbled. After a moment, her night vision began to work. Ben slept with his arms over his head. The girl huddled against him, as if she craved touch even in sleep.
Van pushed the door closed behind her. Another click, as loud as a rifle report, echoed in the small space. Ben did not move. Poor boy. He even slept like the dead. Strong vampires had to train themselves to snap awake at the slightest sound.
Van worked her way around the bed. She ran a hand along the girl's arm. Still warm. The girl arched and moaned. Her blood whispered in her veins, and the scent of it covered her. Van licked her lips. The girl was still fresh, and with the baby, she would be delightful. But not yet. Van let her hand drop. She made her way to the closet and slid between the half-open doors. Then she huddled up in the back, on a pile of dirty shirts, to wait.
* * *
The
sound of a creaking bed woke Van from a doze. She checked her watch: she had been hiding for nearly two hours. She leaned against the cool wall, hoping that Ben would not turn on a light.
The rustle of satin sheets, and then the girl's voice, inaudible at first. Ben mumbled a reply, and the girl said, "Please?" quite clearly. Van knew what the girl was begging for. They all did, at this stage.
"Go back to sleep," Ben said, disgust in his voice.
Van frowned. Not good. If he were going to keep this girl lured for nine months, he had to treat her well. She was not a traditional host. She would fight, if not for herself, then for the child. Ben had not yet reached that stage where the loneliness overwhelmed him. His actions toward his primary host would change then.
Carpet-muffled footprints edged closer to her. Van held her breath. The closet door swung open, and Ben stood in front of her, in all his naked glory. He had broad shoulders and narrow hips. He was fortunate to turn when he was young, before the flabbiness of middle age showed in his naked form. Had he been human, she would have been interested. But he wasn't, and his body was only a curiosity.
He took a silk shirt off a hanger, then pulled down a pair of newly laundered blue jeans. He grabbed socks and underwear from a pile beside her, his hand nearly brushing her thigh. Van did not move, did not even flinch. He closed the door tight, barring most of the noise from Van.
"Please, Ben," the girl said.
"Later," he said. "I want you to sleep now."
Command tones. She was still new enough that they would work. That, plus the blood loss and the surging hormones. Everything was working in Van's favor.
The slamming of the door shook the entire room. Van climbed out of her hiding place and bent over, peering under the crack in the closet door. Only one figure on the bed. The door was closed. The rest of the room empty.
Van pushed the closet door open. The girl sat up. "Who're you?"
Van smiled, even though she doubted if the girl could see her face. "My, you are pretty, child," Van said. She climbed into Ben's side of the bed. The sheets were still warm from his presence. The girl hadn't moved. She was wary. Van touched the girl's right breast. The shock of sexual desire was so strong it felt like a separate presence in the room.
The girl arched, but moved no closer. "I don't—I never—"
"Liked women?" Van licked the nipple. It was salty with sweat. "Have you ever tried?"
The girl moaned her response. Van kneaded the other breast, then nipped her way up to the neck. So easy. Easier than she had thought. The girl thrust her pelvis toward Van. "Please," the girl said.
So she liked a true orgasm. Well, Van would give her one. Her last. Van kept her thumb on the girl's clitoris, then shoved three fingers inside, playing until she found the spot that made the girl tremble with desire. Then Van bit the jugular with all of her strength.
Orgasm after orgasm shuddered through the girl. Her blood pulsed into Van's mouth. Fresh, untainted except for a faint hint of decay that had probably started with Ben. Van's hunger took over and she sucked until she could no more. The girl yelled her pleasure, and then the sound trailed off as the strength left her.
The orgasms stopped, but Van didn't. She kept drinking. She hadn't had a pregnant woman in decades. The brightness of the blood teased her, fulfilled her. She had kept herself deliberately hungry, and she didn't want to stop.
The door slammed open, banging against the wall as the light clicked on. "Jesus, Van!" Mikos said.
"What the hell is she doing?" Ben asked.
Van didn't look at them. She sucked harder, working to finish. The girl's body was cold and limp beneath hers. She kept her fingers in place, though. A bit of pleasure was barely enough payment for a meal like this.
Hands grabbed her shoulders and yanked her backwards so hard that she would have tumbled off the bed if she hadn't been holding the girl's pelvis. Van caught herself and stood. Ben was slapping the girl, trying to get her attention. Her eyes were open and glazed. Blood tricked from the gaping hole in her neck.
"What were you doing?" Mikos asked.
Van shrugged, trying to keep her voice calm. "I had not eaten in 24 hours. She smelled fresh."
Ben turned, hands clenched. "She was mine."
Van wiped her mouth with her thumb and forefinger. They smelled musky. "She was in the nest."
"You knew what she was," Mikos said.
Van licked her lips. "Sometimes," she said, "even the strongest of us lose control." She started for the door. Ben flew past Mikos and tackled her, wrapping his arms around her waist and shoving her to the ground. The flat carpet scraped her back. She kneed him in the stomach, then kicked him in the groin. As he cried in pain, she pushed him off her.
"She had no place here," Van said. "She was unprepared, a fighter, and a danger to us all. If you had not drained her, she would not have let me touch her. She even tried to protest in her drugged way. She would have broken out, virgin, and we all could have died. Think next time before you bring a new host into the nest."
Ben was hunched in a fetal position, clutching himself. She kicked him in the side and used all her force to push his body out of her way.
"You may be hereditary, virgin," she said. "But I understand survival. I will not let you threaten any of us."
"He didn't know —" Mikos began.
"He does now," Van said and left the room.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The drive to Portland was a blur of fields and city lights. Interstate 5 had enough traffic so that Cammie didn't feel alone, but the cars were so widely spaced she felt as if she were driving in the middle of the night. When she drove I-90 to Chicago, the traffic was always bumper to bumper, even at 65 miles per hour.
She fiddled with radio stations, leaving the scan function on the car stereo until she found a song she liked. Not much to do except think, and thinking was making her nervous.
First Ben disappears, then Candyce, and a number of children sent here by the Westrina Center. Something was happening, and she didn't like any of her options. Either the children had gathered on their own, or someone was systematically kidnapping them, or—
(he's mine now)
—they found an alternate way to live. All of them.
She clutched the steering wheel so tightly that her hands hurt. She had the windows down and the cool night air played with her hair. Ben would never have become like their dad. Ben was a straight-A student, with dreams and a future. He wouldn't throw all of that away. Vampires were deadbeats who turned to blood-sucking because they needed some joy in their empty lives.
Ben's life was full. She had seen to that. She had saved him that morning so long ago.
Outside Salem, the traffic became thicker. By the time she reached Portland, the bumper to bumper traffic she had been missing appeared suddenly on the sharp slanting curves that marked the Interstate. She followed the signs that led her to downtown.
When she had gotten gas outside of Eugene, she had asked the gas station attendant if he knew of the Keg in Portland. From his startled glance, he clearly had, and hadn't expected someone to ask about it.
"Not somewhere you want to go, Miss," he had said with a politeness she was beginning to associate with the Pacific Northwest. "It's not a safe place."
She shrugged and smiled. "I'm looking for someone. His roommate assures me he's there."
"Better off going to his house and waiting for him to come home," the attendant said. "Seriously."
"Tell you what," she said. "I'll drive by and if it looks more dangerous than any bar I've ever been in, I won't stop, okay?"
He frowned, but gave her directions. Fortunately he didn't know her. She had been in some of the scariest bars in Wisconsin.
Burnside led her across the Willamette[C&F99] River and into a seedier side of town. She took the side street that the attendant had told her of, and immediately recognized the neighborhood. Places like this existed all over the Midwest.
She hadn't expected t
o find places like that here. Sarge had been wrong. A shiver ran down Cammie's spine.
The streetlights reflected empty pavement, but if Cammie squinted, she could see cardboard boxes propped against buildings, boxes that shifted with their occupants. Two storefronts were boarded up, and another sold sex toys. Its flickering neon sign made it clear that the store had done business for years.
The bar had no name across its front, but the words The Keg were still visible in the faded paint. Cammie stopped the car beneath a streetlight, letting the little yellow pool of light give her some comfort. She watched the bar's door for half an hour. No one entered or left.
Not a good sign. But this was the closest she had been to Ben since she started the trip. She wouldn't leave the area without a good reason.
She smoothed her hair with one hand, grabbed her purse, and let herself out the door. She locked the car, and engaged the alarm—not that it would stop anyone from breaking in, but it would at least warn her of a problem. She longed to take off her heels, but the pavement was so filthy, she didn't want to touch it with her nyloned feet.
The night had grown chill. No one had warned her that the temperatures in this part of the country could vary forty degrees between day and night. She would have to bring a coat with her from now on.
Boxes rustled as her heels clicked on the pavement. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She was being watched.
She took the two steps down to the oak door and was about to pull it open when the smell hit her. Blood, as thick as beer outside most bars. Blood mixed with fear.
She froze. The roommate wouldn't tell her about this place on a lark. Not if he knew what kind of place it was. He wouldn't want it raided, if he were part of it, and he wouldn't lead an innocent woman to her death if he weren't. Perhaps the roommate had no idea what kind of place this was.
Sins of the Blood: A Vampire Novel Page 20
