A pause. “I’m always afraid.”
He considered several responses. Finally he said, “Me too.”
“When I told you I couldn’t have sex with you—”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I wasn’t offended.”
She snorted. “I’m not worried about offending you.”
He rolled over, and though the candles had winked out, there was a shaft of moonlight bisecting her face. He made out her brow, the lines there visible, but not deep. He saw how wide her eyes were, the way her lips remained slightly open, as though she was slightly amazed at what she saw.
He shifted onto his side. Much better. Their faces were ten inches apart. He was glad he’d brushed his teeth.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
He assumed she would make a smartass remark, blow holes in his ego, but her gaze never wavered.
“We can never make love,” she said.
He thought of Susan, but when he did, it was with Iris’s face.
“You’re disappointed,” she said.
He cleared his head. “It isn’t that. It’s Susan and…” He studied her expression. “Is it because of your husband?”
Did her eyes moisten a little? “Yes.”
“You miss him,” Dez said, “like I miss Susan.”
She laughed, a brittle sound in the silent bedroom. “You’re not getting it.”
He frowned at her, waited.
“He was fine,” she said. She gestured impatiently. “He was a husband. Decent. Steady.” She sniffed. “But it wasn’t like we were madly in love. Then again…” She drew in a ragged breath. “…he gave me Cassidy.”
“So…you feel like sleeping with someone else is dishonoring—”
“Would you just shut up?”
Dez closed his mouth.
She seemed to relax, her head sinking into the pillow. “You remember what happened to Keaton,” she said. “What he changed into?”
“The minotaur.”
She closed her eyes, opened them. “Did you study that sort of thing?”
“What, mythology?”
When she didn’t answer, he said, “Sure, some.”
“Some of those Greek creatures were real.” A shuddering breath. “Are real.”
“I gathered that.”
“Dez….”
“It’s okay,” he told her. Though he felt slightly treacherous lying here with her, both of them under the covers, both of them hardly dressed, there was no denying how wonderful it was, how intimate.
She appeared on the verge of tears.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I would never pressure you into—”
“I’m a siren.”
He stared at her.
“Or I think I am.”
He frowned. “How do you—”
“I was in the bathtub, singing a little. My husband wandered in with this dopey look on his face. I’d never seen him look like that. Like he was hypnotized. It creeped me out, and when I told him so, he blinked and looked around like he didn’t know where he was.” She wiped her nose. “Maybe I should have known then.”
Dez stayed quiet, the dread evoked by her story slowly coiling around him.
“When the world was falling apart, I started having dreams,” Iris said. “Urges. I told myself they were just brought on by the terrible stories in the news, but there were aspects of the dreams that were so real. So vivid.”
Her eyes were imploring. “I imagined I was on an island. There were other women there, but we didn’t talk. We just sang. And we were hungry.”
Dez listened, though he didn’t want to hear the rest.
“That’s how my husband died,” she explained. “I was humming some melody, one I’d only heard in my dreams. The next thing I know, he’s staring at me in that hypnotized way. We began to kiss, far more passionately than we ever had. I didn’t know I’d changed until we were making love. I was on top of him, starting to climax, and….”
Dez’s body had gone numb. Everything except the slam of his heart. He could feel that all right.
She swallowed, glanced up at the ceiling. “I didn’t even realize what was happening until I’d torn his throat out. Even then it felt natural, like I had done it a million times before. It wasn’t until I climbed off the bed and looked in the mirror and saw what I was….”
“Iris….”
She bared her teeth. “I’m a monster, Dez. I’m a fucking monster, just like Keaton. Worse than Keaton, worse than Tom Chaney.”
He was incapable of speech.
“So you see?” she said, eyes imploring. “We can never be together. Not in that way.”
Because he had absolutely no idea how to respond, he didn’t respond at all. Just let her get it out. Don’t hurt her by saying the wrong thing.
But evidently, she’d already said what she wanted. Was maybe waiting for him to speak.
“Okay,” he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“I get it,” he said. “No sex.” He shrugged. “I don’t want to die any more than you do.”
The glimmer of a smile on her lips?
He said, “There’s no rule against us sharing a bed though.”
Her expression darkened. “As long as you don’t….”
“Try to fuck you?”
She swatted him, her mouth open in an incredulous grin. “Dez.”
Through his laughter, he said, “Hit me if you want, but you’re the one who’s gonna have to stitch me up.”
“What if I refuse?”
“I’ll have Levi or Michael do it.”
She grunted. “Michael’s out cold. And Levi can’t even tie his shoes, much less sew a wound.”
Dez thought of how the kid had helped him in the Four Winds, how Levi had managed to stay alive this long on his own.
“Don’t underestimate the kid,” he said.
Iris didn’t answer, but she wore a contented smile.
“You need to sleep,” he told her.
“If I can.”
“You have to,” he said. “We have a long walk ahead of us tomorrow.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“We’re heading into vampire territory,” he explained.
“Blood country,” she corrected.
He hesitated. “You said most vampires are women.”
“So?” she said. “Does that mean you won’t be able to kill them?”
He shook his head. “We have to find Cassidy and Susan.”
She searched his face, hope and doubt at war in her eyes.
“We’ll find them,” he said. “We’ll find them and take them back.”
A tear leaked from the corner of her right eye. “What if they’re—”
“They’re alive.”
Her voice was scarcely a whisper. “You believe that?”
He returned her gaze. “I do.”
Iris smiled then, a vulnerable, grateful smile, and not long after that she was asleep. Dez watched her a long time, wondered what the odds were of her daughter surviving a year with the vampires.
Slim. Less than slim.
Still…what choice did they have?
Dez closed his eyes and wondered how it would be in blood country.
He tried to sleep, but images of vampires kept intruding.
Even worse, memories of his little boy.
Dez tried to imagine Will as he’d be now, but found he was unable. To Dez he’d always be four years old. Four and full of wonder, full of laughter.
There were tears on his cheeks, but he made no move to wipe them away. He deserved the pain. He’d never forgive himself for failing to save his boy.
You can’t change the past. You can only try to help Iris get her daughter back. You can save Ca
ssidy, even if you couldn’t save Will.
Dez closed his eyes and remembered his son.
When the first predawn glow began to creep over the countryside, Iris shuddered, murmured a few unintelligible sounds.
Dez reached out, touched her cheek. Told her it was okay, she was safe. Iris whispered the name of her daughter once, twice, and Dez told her Cassidy was safe. They’d find her soon.
God, he hoped he was right.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my pre-readers, Tim Slauter and Tod Clark, for their invaluable contributions. I owe an enormous debt to B.J. Austin, my rocket scientist friend who spent hours patiently explaining to me what could and could not be done with rockets, missiles, and all sorts of technology. If I got anything scientifically wrong in this book, blame me; anything right is totally attributable to B.J.
Thank you to editor Don D’Auria and publisher Nick Wells for believing in this book. Thank you also to Brian Keene for being the best big brother, mentor, and friend a person could have. Thanks to Josh Malerman, Caroline Kepnes, Jeff Strand, Kelli Owen, Becky Spratford, Bob Ford, Tim Waggoner, Kristopher Rufti, Ron Malfi, Sadie Hartmann, Paul Tremblay, Paul Goblirsch, Bryan Smith, and Mary SanGiovanni for their friendship. Thank you to my grandpa, Jack Janz, for spending time with me every weekend. Thank you to Ryan Lewis for being the greatest manager in the world. Thank you most of all to my wife, my son, and my two daughters. I love you and thank God for you every day. Being with you is the greatest blessing of my life.
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Text copyright © 2020 Jonathan Janz
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