Last Breath tmv-11

by Rachel Caine

  “Trust me,” he said. “You may need them.”

  She pressed them in. They made her own heartbeat sound insanely loud, but blocked out voices pretty well; she had to read his lips to make out that he said, Good to go.

  “Eve, we’ll be back,” she said. “Lock the doors!”

  Eve nodded. She looked stressed and anxious, but she had her long fencing épée in one hand, and a silver stake in the other. I’ll be fine, she said, or Claire thought she did, anyway.

  Claire rushed to her and hugged her, hard. She kissed her on the cheek and said, “Love you, Eve.”

  “Love you, too,” Eve said. Claire heard it, just barely, through the muffling sound barriers.

  Then she and Shane set off into the dark of a Morganville they no longer knew.

  There were things out there, and Claire realized why Shane had given her the earplugs by the time they reached the area around Common Grounds; there was a sound in the air, something like singing. She couldn’t hear much of it, but it made her distracted, anxious, and it made her want to take the earplugs out to listen.

  She didn’t, only because when she reached for them, Shane grabbed her hand and held on to it, shaking his head.

  Right. Whatever these things are out here, the sound is a trap.

  Shane dragged her into the shadows next to the awning of Common Grounds, which was closed and shuttered; in the red and green glow of the neon coffee cup in the window, Claire saw a human figure standing on the street corner, under a flickering light.

  In between the flickers, she thought it was black, an oily kind of darkness, but in the light, she saw a man. Pale, nondescript, anonymous.

  She knew him, and drew in her breath sharply as she pushed back against Shane’s warm, steady strength. His arms went around her.

  Magnus. That was the man who’d killed her.

  He stood on the corner for a few long moments, then turned and walked away into the darkness, heading south. Claire gripped Shane’s hand tightly and led him out of the shadows. He pulled her to a stop again. Wait, he mouthed. What?

  Follow him!

  Shane shook his head. Dangerous.

  Of course it was. But she knew, knew that Magnus was the key to all this. He’d killed her for a reason; she just didn’t fully understand what it was.

  She dragged Shane insistently on, to the corner. They hugged the brick wall, and Claire peeked around it to see where he was.

  Magnus stopped just as she looked. He was standing over a rusty iron grating set in the concrete of the sidewalk—a drain into the sewers. Claire had a flash of memory, of a grate just like that—where had she seen it?

  Behind Goode’s Drugs. When she’d followed Magnus the first time.

  Magnus seemed to . . . collapse. There was no other word for it; he broke into wet splashing drops, and in a second, maybe two, he was gone.

  Like he was made out of water. It was sickening and wrong on so many levels, and it made her feel dizzy and hot, despite the cold rain pouring down on the hood of her coat.

  That was how he’d gotten away from her behind the drugstore, and at the grocery store; he’d just flushed himself down the drain, and left her standing there confused, looking in all the wrong places. The idea that he’d been down there, looking up at her, watching her—that made her shudder all the way to her spine.

  He knew I’d seen him, Claire thought. He couldn’t take the chance I’d known where he’d gone. So he killed me rather than risk it.

  There was no sign of anyone—or anything—else on the street. Claire gulped to force down her nausea, then tugged Shane forward, to stand next to the grate.

  She pointed at it.

  He gave her an odd look.

  She pointed again, reached down, and grabbed hold. It was way too heavy for her to lift, even though she pulled until her muscles trembled and spasmed.

  Shane shook his head, sending spray flying, and bent over to put his back into it as well. With his help, she got it to creak up at a rusty forty-five-degree angle.

  The flood of water on the streets was roaring into the gutters and drainage openings, and this one was no different; it was a waterfall leading down into a black pit.

  Shane dug a flashlight from his pocket, switched it on, and lit up the darkness.

  It was like a vision of hell, if hell was made of water; thick, brown currents raced below them, carrying shreds of trash, tangles of metal, branches, the debris of everything that had washed in from the streets. She caught sight of rats swimming for their lives. They were swept along at a terrifying rate.

  Shane put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head, again. It was too dangerous; he was right. Going into a storm drain was suicidal in this rain; they’d be swept away and mashed up against a grating and drowned, at best.

  Besides, apparently Magnus could turn himself into some kind of liquid. How could she possibly track that?

  Think. Surely, with all this rain, Magnus wasn’t actually living in the sewers; maybe it was his version of a highway. But obviously he was comfortable in the water....

  The singing was starting up again, high and sweet at the edges of her awareness, and she unconsciously reached for her earplugs, then stopped herself.

  The singing.

  Like the old stories of the sirens, in Greek mythology. Or the mermaids.

  Singing, to lure people to their deaths.

  All she had to do was follow the sound.

  Shane pushed the grating down and spread his hands in a questioning gesture.

  She grabbed his arm, and towed him on, through the rain, in the direction that the creature who’d killed her wanted his prey to go. Toward the singing.

  They had two advantages, she figured; one, they were at least partly protected against the sound of that music. And two, they were coming into it knowing the risks.

  The singing seemed stronger as they walked south, into one of the less-populated areas of town; there were abandoned houses here, and old shuttered buildings that had once been stores. There were still a few homes being lived in. A thick knot of dread formed in Claire’s chest when she saw that some with lights on had open doors, as if the inhabitants had simply walked out and left them as they were.

  She caught sight of a woman ahead of her in the rain. No coat. She was wearing light house shoes that flapped wetly in the icy stream running down the sidewalk, and her clothing was plastered flat against her body. Claire pointed, and she and Shane ran forward to catch up with her.

  The woman—a vampire?—didn’t seem to notice them at all. She was staring straight ahead, and her wet face was blank as she struggled on, one step at a time. She was shuddering with the cold in her thin clothing.

  Shane grabbed her and pulled her to a stop. She tried to yank free, but not as if she was alarmed by getting surprised on a dark street; it was more impatience, as if he was an obstacle she had to overcome to get where she needed to be.

  After a few seconds of silent struggle, the woman suddenly turned toward him and swiped her fingernails at his face. Definitely a vampire: her eyes were muddy red, and her fangs flashed sharp in the dim light. Shane let go as he ducked, and she stumbled on, at the same relentless pace.

  Can’t stop her, Shane said. Want me to . . . He mimed knocking someone out. Claire shook her head. She hated to do it, but the woman was leading them where they needed to go.

  They followed behind at a careful distance, but it didn’t seem like there was any reason to worry about being spotted; nobody else was around at all, and certainly the woman didn’t care if they were behind her, as long as they didn’t get in her way.

  She slowed and turned, finally, and shuffle-splashed her way up a set of steps toward a big, old building with windows soaped opaque. Shane played his flashlight over the name over the door.

  MORGANVIKLKLE CIVIC POOKL.

  Whatever it was, it had been closed for ages; the building looked old and sagging, and the paint had peeled from the brick to leave it looking diseased and rott
en. The big white door had been locked, Claire saw, but the hasp was broken off now, and the rusted lock lay on the stairs.

  The woman went to the door, swung it open, and disappeared inside. This close, the singing was soaking through the earplugs, making Claire feel sick and shaky with the need to take the soundproofing out and listen, really listen. The message was important, and she could almost understand....

  Shane reached up for his, and she grabbed his hand and shook her head. He took a deep breath and nodded, and together, they went up the steps to the white door.

  Ready? She mouthed it to him, and got a flash of a smile in response.

  Not really, he said. But let’s do it.

  She had the urge to move fast, but held back; Shane couldn’t move at vampire speeds, and leaving him behind, here, wasn’t even an option. Not with that sound pressing down, dragging and piercing right through the soundproofing now, digging into her brain. Closer, it was singing. Come and rest. Come and rest.

  She didn’t want to rest, but she couldn’t stop herself from moving forward, slowly, with Shane’s hand clutched tight in hers.

  The room she walked into was dark, and smelled of mold. The carpet was ancient and filthy, and overhead, the ceiling had cracked and split. Paint had peeled off in elaborate curls, like ribbons, and she ducked to avoid them. There was an old desk, and a wrinkled cardboard sign that read, when Shane turned his flashlight on it, MEMBER SIGN-IN SHEET. The clipboard was still there, dangling from a silver chain, but the papers were long gone.

  The entire place reeked of damp and rot.

  Closer, the music whispered. Peace and stillness. Closer.

  There was a hallway beyond the entry hall, and it glimmered with fairyland lights and reflections.

  Shane pulled at her hand, shaking his head frantically. He pointed at the door leading back outside, into the cleaner night air.

  But she had to see. Just to be sure.

  Claire edged forward down the hall, still gripping his hand. She tried not to touch the walls, which were black with mold. The carpet was gone now, and there were two doors off the hall, one labeled MEN’S KLOCKER ROOM, the other WOMEN’S. The texture of the floor changed to tile, and it was slick and slippery.

  The hall opened into a giant open concrete space with a rusty lacework of iron overhead. The floor was cracked white tiles, and on the walls there was more tile, in patterns Claire was sure used to be beautiful, before they were discolored with time and more of the ever-present mold.

  In the center was a big square pool, and it was full of glimmering blue-green water, lit from below. It glowed like a jewel, and it was beautiful and mesmerizing and the singing was coming from there, right there....

  The woman they’d followed was in the pool. In the shallow end, but walking forward.

  And she kept walking as the water reached her hips, then her waist, up to her chest, her neck....

  . . . And she went under.

  She didn’t come back up.

  In the deep end of the pool, Claire saw . . .

  . . . Bodies.

  Claire lunged forward and ran to the edge of the pool. Shane tried to stop her, but she couldn’t let him, not now, not now!

  There were bodies in the pool. Standing there, upright, six feet below the surface at least. They were anchored on the bottom, she thought, because she could see their arms floating. One woman’s long hair drifted lazily in the water, veiling her face, but as it wafted out of the way, Claire recognized her.

  Naomi.

  The vampire was still and silent, eyes wide. She looked dead.

  Oliver was down there, anchored nearby.

  And there was Michael. Right there, staring up at her.

  And he blinked.

  He was alive. They were all alive.

  She wanted to scream. Shane was dragging her frantically backward from the edge, and she realized that even as she’d been adjusting to the horrible reality of what she was seeing, she’d been thinking about taking one more step, just one, and sinking into that warm, still water, so calm and peaceful....

  He spun her around and screamed in her face, “Claire, we have to go!”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the hallway.

  Then stopped.

  Because there was a pale-faced man standing there, staring at them. Claire blinked, and he wasn’t there anymore—it was a black thing, but she could see his human disguise at the same time, like a skin stretched over the reality.

  Magnus.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “I killed you, girl.”

  Shane dug silver-coated stakes out of his pocket. He passed one to Claire, then took out what looked like a . . . sports bottle. One had a snap-down top, and he thumbed that off, aimed, and squirted a silvery stream out of it to splash on the thing in their way.

  Magnus screamed, and it was like that singing sound, only a million times worse, and Shane dropped the bottle and the stake and staggered, then went down to one knee. Claire came close; it hammered at her in waves of relentless sound, but she could see that the silver nitrate had hurt the thing, burned away some of his human-skin disguise, and melted part of him into a bubbling, seething mass that ran off in a black current to the tiles.

  Claire took a firmer grip on the silver stake, summoned up all the speed and strength Myrnin had granted her, and raced forward in a blur.

  She buried the silver stake where, in a human, a heart would have been. It was like pushing it into Jell-O, nothing like staking a vampire at all. Sickening. She could feel the cold ooze on her fingers.

  Magnus’s mouth opened, revealing razor-sharp rows of teeth, and he lunged at her. She yelped and rolled away, still vamp-fast, and Magnus yanked the stake out and flung it away. The wound it had left was another bubbling leak of black fluid, but he wasn’t down. Not by half.

  Shane staggered up, grabbed her hand, and ran for the door he’d left unguarded. Black streamers of ooze were coming across the tile at them, and Claire had the awful, sickening feeling that if they stepped in it, they’d never get free. The ick on her fingers felt like it was squeezing them white, and she felt horrible pinpricks all over the skin where it touched. She dragged her hand against her jeans as they ran.

  There were more of them in the entry hall, black oily shadows with fake human faces, and they were all Magnus. Shane sprayed the rest of the bottle at them, and Claire grabbed a silver-coated knife from his belt loop. She slashed at the one who came for him, and heard that shriek again, an angry, pile-driving pressure like the whole ocean descending on them . . . but the creature went down, splashing into silvery black fragments that rolled aimlessly over the carpet, and Claire grabbed Shane’s arm and dragged him forward for the clear air outside. He was staggering, and in the wan, flickering glow of the streetlight outside, she saw that his nose was bleeding, and his eyes were red.

  She was bleeding, too, she realized, from both her nose and her hand. It looked as if it had been stung by a jellyfish. It was covered with little beads of blood.

  It was biting me, she thought, and shuddered in revulsion.

  “Come on!” she screamed, and Shane coughed, bent over, and vomited out a stream of water.

  But they hadn’t even gotten into the pool.

  Magnus was in the doorway, and his eyes were silver white, like moonlight on water, and he was smiling at them.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  Claire screamed again, in pure agonizing frustration, and without even thinking about it, she grabbed Shane and threw him over her shoulder.

  That shouldn’t have been possible, not at all; he was so much bigger and heavier than she was, but she felt like her veins were on fire, and she wanted to fight, now, fight this thing that had hurt her and come after Shane and come after Michael and Oliver and her town.

  But she also knew she couldn’t do that. Shane would die.

  So she balanced his weight, held on to his legs, and ran for her life, and his.

  It took f
our long blocks for the adrenaline and whatever boost Myrnin’s blood had given her to wear completely off. She began to gasp and stagger, and then went down, hard, and Shane went down with her. Her whole body felt like it was coming apart. Shane had warned her that there was a crash, but this wasn’t a crash; it was more like being ripped apart and put back together again, and God, it hurt.

  Shane had made it to his knees, looking pale and out of it, but the rain on his face seemed to bring him back. He met Claire’s eyes and held out his hand, and she took it.

  Run, he mouthed, and she nodded. She wasn’t sure she could, but he was right.

  It was their only real hope.

  They were racing flat-out past Common Grounds when Magnus—or his clone—stepped out from behind the building into their path. Claire shrieked and managed to avoid him, twisting out of the way of his grasping hand; Shane ran straight into him. He made it work for him; he got his shoulder around and rammed into the creature. He knocked it back. Whatever it was, it wasn’t completely gelatinous; there was some kind of weird strength inside of it, and that made it vulnerable to a physical attack. It staggered a few feet, and Shane made a perfect spinning turn, grabbed Claire, and pulled her into a dead sprint.

  But ahead, Claire could see more of them, more of those human disguises in that generic nothing form, and behind them . . . something monstrous. They were coming up out of the rain gutters, dripping out of faucets . . . at least four of them, with more coming behind.

  She slowed down and exchanged a fast, panicked look with Shane.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  He put his arm around her, but she shook it off and stood back-to-back with him. They circled, watching as the predators closed in. Claire wasn’t sure what was waiting in the Morganville Civic Pool, but whatever it was, she knew it was awful. Living death.

  The earplugs made the fast, rasping sound of her breathing into its own horror-show sound track, along with the rapid thump of her heartbeat. She tasted blood; her nose was still dripping, and always, there was singing, singing, that high, clear, perfect music trying to draw her back.

  She heard the roaring engine only at the last possible second before the hood of the hearse plowed through the row of creatures closing in from the front. One bounced off and rolled; the other three hit with too much force, and splashed into a thick black film over the windshield, hood, and grille.