Donna shook her head as Charles spoke.
“Did you say Lash? Lash Gartner?” I asked. Donna looked surprised.
“You know him?”
“Apparently he was the one that called the police after Beth died. They came that night and arrested Carl who was still with the body.” There were too many coincidences. I knew that back then there had been so many loopholes killers had just slipped through. No one really knew which one to go with, the new law or their old ways.
“Carl must be heartbroken,” Donna said and she looked like she was going to cry again. “They won’t let me in to see him.”
“No visitors at all?” I asked. They both shook their heads.
“Don’t you worry about that. I saw him. He’s alright, just determined to get out of there.”
“How did you get in?” Charles asked.
“I have a contact. I’ll arrange something. We’ll get you to see your boy.”
Chapter 4
I left the Englesberg house a little after two in the morning. Carl’s parents were amazing. Sitting with them, talking about the good old days – even if they weren’t my own – made me feel at home in a strange way. For the first time in years I missed having parents of my own. I’d been driven by revenge for so long, hated my dad for so long, that I hadn’t taken the time just to miss being a normal person, and just to miss wanting to be part of a family again.
Maybe one day with Connor, when my life allowed me to look at something that resembled normalcy. I wasn’t kidding myself, that wouldn’t be soon. I wasn’t in a place where I could get married – we were in a good relationship, sure – but I still had to try figure out who I was. One day, when I managed to become the person I was supposed to be, then I could settle down and have kids of my own, and give them a life that I’d never had.
Nostalgia followed me as I walked across the lawn toward my bike. A shadow moved in the corner of my eye and snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked around me, senses suddenly alert. I could hear very well, better than before it seemed, and I could see well enough in the dark that it didn’t bother me. And there was nothing.
I took a deep breath, smelling the air. The night was thick with the smell of wisteria and the quality that the darkness adopts when the sun has been absent for long enough. And there was nothing else.
I carried on with what I was doing, pulling the helmet over my hair and straddling the bike. But I was suddenly on edge. I felt claustrophobic in the helmet, like I couldn’t see and hear enough. It muffled my senses. But I wasn’t driving without it. I’d been in enough motorbike accidents to know the value of protection. Hence the leathers even in the middle of summer. And the helmet even though I was paranoid now that I was being followed.
I started the bike with a roar and backed out of the driveway. I kept my eyes open, scanning the area around me. If something wanted to ambush me, now was a great time to do it. I couldn’t hear anything above the sound of the bike and I had blind on both sides. But nothing happened and I made it to the street without anything bothering me.
I suddenly had the urge to speed. To burst out of my skin and become lighter than air. The feeling of dematerializing vibrated through my veins, but it was just a memory. I’d done it twice before – both times by accident – and I still wasn’t sure how I’d done it. I was part human. Until a year ago I’d been more human than vampire, and being able to dematerialize and materialize at will hadn’t even been an option.
The first time it had happened I’d been in trouble. It had been after I’d accepted the side of myself that was vampire. I’d accepted the abilities, and apparently dematerializing had come with it. But it looked like I could just do it when I was being threatened.
Good to know that I was able to save myself. Not so good to know that I was threatened often enough that it had happened more than once.
But this was different. Like I said, it was a memory. Like something was reminding me of what it felt like. Like something was urging me to burst out of my skin. It was almost like a drug, something that had come over me. It made me reckless. It made me feel like embracing the night, like closing my eyes and letting my instincts take over.
And for a moment I did. I didn’t know what it was, but I wasn’t going to question it. I closed my eyes and I felt the wind whip around me. The street was straight and narrow, and nothing was around now. I could risk two counts of giving myself over to the feeling completely.
It was ecstasy. I’d never felt something like it. It burst through my veins in small shocks of electricity and made me feel like I was going to go up in fire. It felt like flame licked over my skin, but not in a bad way. It didn’t hurt. It just felt good. More than good. It felt amazing.
I opened my eyes, and suddenly someone was in front of me on the road, profile silhouetted in the shaft of light that cut through the night air in front of me. I swore and slammed on my brakes, turning the bike out so that I wouldn’t hit the person. That would teach me not to close my eyes while I was driving. I didn’t know what the hell had come over me – that was definitely not me.
The bike turned to the side and kept sliding forward, and I had a flashback of the first time this had happened to me. This felt a lot like the time I’d tried to avoid hitting someone; the first time I’d had to start relying on the vampire side of me. Of course, then the person in front of me had been a crazy feline shapeshifter woman of some kind, a pet to the people that had wanted to kill me.
I felt the asphalt grind my leathers, felt it rip through my skin and gritted my teeth. The upside was that this wasn’t my bike that was getting torn up along with my skin. The downside was that I probably wasn’t going to get my deposit back on it.
When the bike finally came to a stop it gurgled like it was drowning and smoke poured out of the engine. I squirmed and dragged myself out from under it and turned the key to switch off the bike. I looked up. The person that stood in front of me was unscathed. It was a man, and he just stood there, looking down at me.
“Oh god, are you okay?” I asked him. I stood up and my leg was numb. I was going to feel this one for days. I healed pretty fast but even for a vampire who could heal up in hours a raw wound like this hurt like a bitch. The guy just looked at me, and I got a good look at him.
He had dark hair that hung in string to his shoulders. His face was long and narrow, with high cheekbones and lips that came together in a perfect cupid’s bow. The only thing that stopped his face from being beautiful, rather than handsome, was his square jaw. But there was no doubt that this was a man. Or at least, a male. He wasn’t human, he was definitely vampire. He had the characteristic tall and slender features, and skin so pale that it looked like marble.
But what really got me was his eyes. They were bright yellow, the color of a lion’s. He just looked at me without saying anything.
“What the hell are you doing in the middle of the road?” I asked. My initial shock had given way to anger and he hadn’t said anything. He still didn’t speak. Instead he just looked at me with those deadly eyes, and I suddenly knew I was in trouble. Don’t ask me how I knew it. I just did.
I’d barely completed the thought when he attacked me. He moved so fast it was a blur even to my sharp eyes. He hit me like a ton of bricks and I felt it shock through my body. It emphasized every bruise I was going to have in the morning after the nasty fall. There was a hiss in my ear as I travelled backward and the helmet I was wearing somehow came off. My hair streamed forward with the speed he was driving me back.
I tried to fight back. I had strength and fighting skill – two qualities that made me a woman you didn’t want to mess with. And I couldn’t do anything. That same fire that I’d felt while I was riding with my eyes closed burned against my skin where he touched me, and I realized that it had been him I’d been feeling. That recklessness, the feeling of wanting to let the rush consume me, it hadn’t been me.
Two things went through my mind at the same time. One; this vampire was strong, s
tronger than the vampires I usually dealt with. I’d learned the hard way that there were vampires out there that were a lot more powerful than the ones I’d been taking out. This one was in a different class than I was used to.
Two; the chances that this vampire was the one we’d been looking for was good. I hadn’t felt any other vampires around, I would have known if I’d felt this one. The feeling of destruction laced the heat that radiated off him. It was a heat that felt a lot like the revenge that had been driving me for so long, but I couldn’t be sure that was what fueled him. Revenge and hatred felt very much the same. It was divided by a very fine line.
And I would have remembered if I’d possessed this kind of ability before.
I reached deep within myself and tried to find that dematerializing quality I’d realized I had. This was a life threatening situation, alright. I could do with a little help. But apparently the vampire in me didn’t think it was necessary to save myself. The other times I’d dematerialized had been emotionally charged. This one was pretty charged, too.
I was getting scared. That was charged enough for me.
Still, nothing. All of this had flown through my mind in the blink of an eye, when we’d travelled through the night at the speed of light and I hadn’t been able to do anything about what was happening. I hadn’t been able to fight, to stop this from happening.
I thought of my guns, but it was too late. His hands were around my arms, clamped like metal cuffs that I just couldn’t get out of. I couldn’t move my arms, which meant that both my guns and the knife were out. And I had nothing else on me. I was alone, I was effectively unable to reach my guns, and I was moving at a speed with a vampire that was much stronger than I could ever be. This was the end of the road for me. If he decided to off me, I was going to be an easy target.
I’d failed Carl. If I died now he would probably rot in jail, just as whoever had framed him had wanted.
I hit a wall and it knocked my wind out. My vision swam and I couldn’t breathe. Everything in front of me blurred together until it gave way to nothing at all. Blackness enveloped me, and I let it drag me under.
I woke up on the bed in my motel room. The door was slightly ajar and that made me feel vulnerable, like anyone would have been able at any point to come in and do something to me.
The sun fell in a shaft across the room and into my eyes, and I squinted and rolled away from it. I was alright with the sun, a genetic miracle as far as my vampirism went, but with a concussion it was torture. It was worse than a hangover.
It felt like my head rolled separately from my body when I turned over, with an ache hanging in the back of my skull. I clutched my head with my hands and groaned. This wasn’t the first time I’d woken up with a concussion.
The second thing I felt was the ache on my leg. I looked down. My leathers were shredded. Great. I went through leathers too quickly, and they weren’t cheap to just replace. I could see my skin underneath, raw and swollen. It had already started healing up, looking a lot better than I think it would have looked last night.
Last night. I’d been attacked by a vampire that had managed to get into my head. Not the first person to do that, but this one had made it feel addictive, like something I wanted. And right, like something I should have been feeling. That scared me.
What else could he make me feel that in the moment I thought was right? I didn’t want to think about it.
I got up and hobbled to the bathroom. There was a small medical kit in the bathroom cabinet. It made me wonder what happened in Fort Atkinson that required guests to have a way to patch themselves up. I peeled the leather pants off me and winced. Half of the leather pieces had dried into my skin, and pulling them off hurt like hell. The damage was only on my thigh and a little down my knee. Not my whole leg.
I’d had that too.
I wondered how I’d managed to walk away with so little damage this time. I touched my head with my hand and remembered – not so little damage after all.
I slathered anti-septic cream all over the wound but I didn’t bandage it up. It wouldn’t be too long before it was closed up and scabbed over enough just to leave. Perks of being half-vampire. I pulled a pair of loose boxers on, the pair I would have slept in.
I shrugged out of the jacket. Thankfully that wasn’t ruined.
I left on the black tank that I’d worn the night before and tied up my hair. I looked in the mirror. My pupils were unusually dilated, and focusing on myself so closely hurt my head more. I was hungry and edgy.
When I came out of the bathroom, Tyrone stood in the door. I jumped, a shock travelling through my body that just made my head throb even more.
“Jesus, Adele. What the hell happened to you?” His eyes were on my thigh. I flushed, feeling suddenly exposed and vulnerable. I didn’t dress like this in front of anyone except Connor.
“Tyrone, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“I tried to phone you, but I couldn’t get hold of you. So I came to check if you were alright. It’s already past eleven.”
That late? I’d lost a lot more time than I’d thought. I hated it when that happened, when I lost chunks of time in which things might have happened that I didn’t know about.
“I saw the door was open so I thought something might be wrong.”
“I’m okay,” I said, feeling like an idiot for not even thinking about the door. The concussion was a problem, it made me forget key things. A vampire had nearly killed me last night, dumped me in my motel room, and I was forgetting to close the door.
The last bit echoed in my head again and again until the pain made me feel like I just wanted to lie down and sleep again. The vampire had dumped me I my motel room. That meant it knew where I was staying. With that amount of power I knew it was a purebred. That meant that I was safe as long as the sun was out.
“What happened?” Tyrone asked, and I realized he was still waiting for an answer. How much was I going to tell him? How much could I tell him? He hated vampires. That was okay if we were after the perpetrator. It wasn’t so great if I had to tell him Carl’s parents were vampires too and how I knew. I decided not to let him in for now.
Maybe later, when I had to.
“I had an accident on my bike,” I said.
“I saw it’s scratched to shit,” Tyrone said.
“It’s outside?”
He looked at me funny and nodded. “In the parking bay where I’m assuming it belongs.”
I shook my head, and then stopped because it hurt. “Concussion,” I said, hoping that was explanation enough for my behavior. Tyrone nodded slowly. He stepped into the motel room and I fought the urge to back away. He was a friend, not an enemy. I was dressed decent, if male boxers counted as decent. I was just jumpy because I’d been attacked.
“Let me take a look at that,” he said, taking another step closer. I couldn’t fight the urge and took a step back. His eyes met mine and he pulled up his eyebrows.
“You should go to the medical center and let them check it out. You can get an infection.”
“I’ll be okay. As soon as it’s set I’ll bandage it up and it will be fine. I’ve done this before.”
I kicked myself for saying it the moment the words were out of my mouth. I didn’t want to have to explain anything. I wouldn’t, of course, get any infections. That just didn’t count for half or purebred vampires. And I would bandage it up if it wasn’t closed enough to walk around with just like that. My body could do wonders.
“Was there something you needed me for?” I asked, hoping to change the subject. His eyes met mine and it was like he remembered. He nodded.
“I questioned a couple of the town’s people this morning, did the rounds at the local coffee shop, the convenience store and the church. I took some statements.”
“What did you ask?”
“I just wanted to find out what was the general consensus about vampires around here. There are places that hate vampires and there are places that happily coexist
with them. I thought that if they’re particularly unhappy with vampires that might give us a motive why one would be murdered.”
“What did you find out?” I asked.
“It seems like the folks around here aren’t particularly happy about vampires but they’re not hostile either. Not to the point of wanting to get rid of them. Even the ones at church seemed fairly accepting about it.”
I chuckled. “You questioned people at the church about vampires?”
He nodded, not seeing my joke. It had always been something I’d thought was a given – religion and vampires just didn’t go together. People didn’t like our existence if they believed in a greater power, because who’d made us? We were an abomination. I shrugged and he leaned against the desk with his hip.
“I wanted to ask you a favor,” I said. “I contacted Carl’s parents last night and it turns out they haven’t had a chance to see Carl since he’s been locked up. Can you arrange for a visit?”
Tyrone thought about that for a moment. “I don’t have a lot of power here, but I’ll see what I can do. I’ve used up most of my grace to get you here and to see him, but maybe I still have a little bit left I can run on.”
I smiled. “That would be great,” I said. I swallowed and looked at the carpet. “Look, Tyrone, about last night...” I didn’t know how to breech the topic with him. He’d kissed me and I shouldn’t even have let him come that close. But Tyrone was big and muscled and confident, and there was something intoxicating about a man that could fire a gun the way he could. He shook his head and held up his hand.
“Nothing to talk about,” he said. “You made your point loud and clear.” He smiled at me, flashing a row of perfect teeth and it went all the way up to his eyes, making me feel like there really wasn’t anything weird between us. I nodded.
“I’ll meet you at the station at four this afternoon. I’ll let you know then what I’d been able to do for Mr. and Mrs. Englesberg.”
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