Inferi had been amazed.
He had never seen power like that and he knew—Inferi knew she would be the key. The key to his awakening. She truly would be the blood key. For she was the last person to be with Cognatus when he died. She was the one that took his life force from him and now that one part of her that was powerful enough to defeat the Origin of Blood would be the key to his resurrection. If the others could die for him, then he would be that much closer to waking from his slumber. Only then could Inferi truly control this world again.
Chapter 45
7:25 p.m., May 6
I was suddenly back in the north, back amidst this ugly homicide and kidnapping case. The story of Inferi faded from my mind and I was still sitting in that dark, cold, rundown barn, listening to Kenny pose questions to Fabiana.
“So, Inferi fathered more demons than just Cognatus?”
“Yes, but shortly after Cognatus’ birth, a civil war of sorts broke out between the new spawn of Inferi. Cognatus was the only surviving creature from that war.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her.
“I know nothing for sure, Timothy. All I have are stories told from the old ones. What I do know is that Inferi has plans for me.”
“So, he’s still out there?” Kenny asked.
“Yes, at the bottom of a lake in Africa. Lake Victoria.”
“Alright, we need to get going then,” I told them as I helped Kenny to his feet.
“What? We can’t go. This is a crime scene, Tim.”
“Yes, it is… And I’m not a cop and you’re way out of your jurisdiction. What happens when you need to make a report? Then we’re back in that FBI interrogation room again answering questions we don’t have time to answer. Right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Kenny was reluctant but he knew that I was right. Fabiana stood up and her thoughts flashed in my mind. The blood that pulsed in her cheeks was very hot and her eyes quivered in an intense, painful stare. Why was her soul not crusted over with barnacles for every life she’d taken? I could feel her wondering about this and I smiled at the change in her. Was she returning to me somehow? Did we just witness Fabiana’s rebirth?
She walked out of the open barn and the breeze had picked up. The treetops were dancing against the blushing sky. Fabiana could see the night owl that had fled to the safety of the trees. An illicit fire burnt inside her now and I could feel it.
“I would have liked a long walk down the Italian coastline or through uptown Roma—through streets narrow and wide. The open mouth of the Coliseum seems to call to me again,” she told me and my heart jumped in my chest. How reverently the wind seemed to receive her words.
“Me too, my sweet,” I answered. And I really did long to be there once more with her. To be in Italy again, walking those roads and dining at those cafés by the Rialto Bridge. How lovely and romantic it would feel to see the sun set over the Seven Hills of Rome…
Then Fabiana went on in her poetic fashion.
“The visions of cypress trees surrounded by the wondrous colors of Palatine Hill, the blooming flowers of the garden district in Venice, or rows upon rows of Montepulciano grape vines in Tuscany. Remembering them… It’s the only thing that has given me peace through this, Timothy.”
But there was no time for any of it except in her memory. Her heart thudded as mine did and she knew it. She ran to my arms and the embrace was intense. I brushed away the veil of black hair which seemed to be a wall separating us and kissed her again. She quieted. I loved the texture of her skin. I loved the feel of her lips on mine and when my fingers touched hers I felt some part of her love me too. She must. Right? Fabiana raced all this way to save me. So some part of her must love me. No matter what my brain was telling me, my heart knew the truth.
Kenny observed my exchanges of affection with Fabiana but he didn’t resent me for my feelings. I would have known if he had. I withdrew from her, just the same. I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable. His eyes left us as he wished to give us some semblance of privacy without making the obvious sign of leaving us.
Fabiana looked up. Her eyes appeared to focus more clearly. I looked at her.
“Are you willing?” I asked. I stroked her cheek and as she leaned into me I kissed her forehead. Fabiana grabbed both of us by our waists and took us up into the air like Superman carrying Louis Lane. But there was a problem—she no longer had her vampire strength and the weight of us was more than she could hold. We came crashing back down.
“That’s not going to work, Fabiana,” I told her gently, not wanting to injure her pride. She brushed leaves off of her body and held out her arms to us again.
“Hold me.”
“What?” Kenny asked.
“Hold me, both of you. Hold me… and hang on.” It seemed that if Kenny and I held on to her instead of her holding on to us, she could fly, but I suspected only for a short distance. I knew it would cause her some discomfort at that made me not want to do it. But she would not have it any other way.
I looked over at Kenny and he gave me a nod. Not another word passed our lips but if a word had, I would have to say that word would have been FUCK!
The ground left us in the blink of an eye. My stomach sank to my feet and then rose up again to my throat. But before I could open my eyes, I felt ground again. In only an instant, we had covered over a mile of wooded trails and brush and found ourselves standing next to my truck.
Fabiana gasped and smiled and shook out her hair. She turned for my reassuring embrace, murmuring fast like a hummingbird beating its wings.
“You’re just the same. So lovely, even lovelier than I remembered. Nothing has changed,” I told her.
Fabiana stopped and looked up at the moving clouds as though allowing time for me to absorb all that had taken place between us. Was this it? Was she going to let me love her? I wanted so desperately to have her love me that there were times I couldn’t even breathe. I felt I had been waiting so long for her. But even the slightest sign from her that she was worth waiting for was all I needed to keep going, to keep loving her. Maybe I didn’t even have a choice. But now… was this my time?
Wet earth and random flowers, mingled with the moist leaves from the cold hunting season air, had flattened the ground to almost nothing. All the night songs along with the scent of the river only a mile away from here were like whistles cutting through the evening, leading the distant, soft roar of the country around us. The wind died down suddenly but the songs of the frogs were strong, and there were night birds somewhere far away. It seemed they were calling out to us.
Suddenly Fabiana turned and threw her arms around me. She fastened to me about as tight as a mortal woman could, but I thought that if she were in her vampire form, if she had come at me with such passion I could have died. So much divine silk and softness to me, whispering feverish words I couldn’t catch, eyes racing over me, while I stood in the dark stock still, my heart beating frantically and excitedly. And then she began to touch me all over, open hands on my face, on my hair. Then she grabbed up my hands and slipped her fingers through my fingers. I came close to losing my mind. Did she have a clue as to the crash and thunder inside me? I locked the safe of my heart, but it would always be there for her. It would always be Fabiana that held its key.
All this while, Kenny never looked at us. He had sat down at some point, his back to the oak trees, facing Fabiana and myself. Then police sirens were beginning to reverberate in the sky as the three of us climbed into the cab of my truck and I sped off down Spencer Road, away from the scene and the approaching law. A blaze of light was growing closer behind us and I finally saw the beams of headlights peek over a hill just before we turned a corner. That was the first time in my recent memory that I had ever left a crime scene before the police had shown up. It was the first time I had created a crime scene, actually. But what about the Collins boy out there? Surely the local police would do their duty and report what they found to Harvey Collins. Poor girl.
“Don’t worry, Tim. You know as well as I do that they’ll have their hands full for some time.” Kenny said, reassuringly.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said as I drove down a windy, darkened road. The beams of my truck lights hardly pushed back the dusk of the evening or the shadows in my memory. It was several minutes before any of us spoke again. Not until I found an alternate route back to Highway 12 did I say anything to the two of them.
“Kenny, we have to get back home. We have no resources out here. The ghost has been destroyed and the victims are safe. The locals can do the rest. So let’s go.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Tim. Let’s go.”
Half an hour later, the three of us were well on our way. We had gassed up at a local station where I got a soda to ease my approaching headache. I could feel it coming from a mile away. Kenny had begun making calls on his cell while he sat next to me in the passenger seat. As I drove I periodically glanced up at Fabiana sitting behind me. Then all of a sudden her look gave me no comfort.
“What is it?” I asked silently entering her mind.
“It’s not over yet, Timothy,” she told me and I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to hear that at all.
“What?”
“He’s still working against us. The demon.”
“Inferi?”
“Yes,” she told me.
“What do you know?”
“Another is about to die… Another human-vampire.”
“What? We destroyed the ghost. We destroyed Nesto. He should not be able to…”
“If he can contact me, he can contact the others. I can still feel his power. It’s not over yet. He has great influence on any vampires that were part of the Origin family.”
“Is that why this demon, this Inferi, seems to have left me alone?”
“Yes, Timothy. I am the one who made you, not the Origin. You are considered impure by Inferi. Dirty blood.”
“Great… I guess. What can we do then?”
“We need to find the vampires. If enough die, he can…” Fabiana paused.
“He can what?”
“Wake from his slumber.”
The sleet had given away to a mist of drizzle that blanketed the hills and roads as I drove my pickup truck through the night. With every mile that passed, Kenny kept glaring in the side mirror. He was forever the cop—making sure we were not followed. He had been steadily growing more and more anxious these past few hours and he hated to relax. I wanted to talk to Kenny, but I wanted him to get some sleep first. Despite the beating of the windshield wipers, he had finally closed his eyes for a while. After the endless empty roads, a sweeping stretch of lights in the distance told me I was approaching a town. Kenny was suddenly gripped with terror at the thought of entering such an unfamiliar environment, and I almost asked him what the hell was going on inside his head. But I didn’t. I had hoped that he would come to me on his own. I fought the urge to enter his thoughts and gripped the steering wheel tightly as I joined the thickening flow of freeway traffic.
I was growing dizzy with hunger. I needed to eat.
Driving by the illuminated window of an all-night drive-through on the edge of Centralia, I swerved into the entry and suddenly Kenny seemed to be back with the world of the living. He was now alert at the prospect of food and I smiled at that. We both ordered bad junk food and I got a grilled chicken sandwich for Fabiana. I had been slowly trying to get her acclimated into eating again and had yet to introduce her digestion to greasy fast food. This would be the closest she would get on this night with me. Of course even fries from a fast food place could send her system into overload or shock.
Long tense moments passed and Kenny was frantic with worry about running out of time. By the time we made it to Olympia, I was ready to get the truth out of him. I could tell he was keeping something from me. He had seemed to abandon all hope of recovery for some reason that I could not comprehend. The ghost was gone and we were on our way back home, right where we belonged.
Chapter 46
8:00 p.m., May 6
The rain had not relented, but this had not seemed to deter a single journalist, cameraman, or photographer in Seattle. They seemed crazed about the odd events that had taken root in the city as of late. It must be worth something for them to brave the downpour outside, and as Kat stepped close to the entry of the morgue she was assaulted by outstretched microphones jabbing at her like daggers. Kat pushed through without speaking or acknowledging them, not wanting any comment of hers broadcast on the evening news. Even though her likeness would most likely be broadcast throughout the city, she pushed past the press and made her way inside.
“Detective, just a few questions please,” one of them began in a nasal, pleading tone.
“Can you tell me, do the bodies all have the same marks?”
“What does Detective Johnson think about all of this?”
The last question hit her rather hard. What does Detective Johnson think? How the hell would I know what he fucking thinks? Like he would tell me a damn thing even if he did have a clear thought in that stupid head of his.
Suddenly the thought of Kenny angered her to unrealistic levels. He continued to treat her with disrespect. One phone call, just one, was all she was asking. Just touch base with her about when he and his stupid ex-partner might plan on returning to the city. But they seemed unable to even do that.
The doctor turned around as Kat entered the morgue with the demeanor of one ready to fight. Marty looked as if her home had just been invaded. Kat noticed right off the change in her and tried to hide the cautious, withdrawn attitude that was going through her mind.
The lobby was small and the thick glass partition made it impossible for any unauthorized person to get in. When Kat rounded the corner, she could not believe how many people were crammed in the room. As soon as they saw Kat in her uniform, the uncomfortable feeling of the morgue heightened even more.
Kat raised her voice and spoke, “Who are you people?”
“FBI, Detective,” one of them came back at her gruffly.
“FBI? What the hell is the FBI doing here? We don’t have any pending cases that require FBI involvement.”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that just yet,” the tall, young female agent spoke. And it seemed that she was going to be the only one of the group to address Detective O’Hara at all. Kat had intended to have a detailed, private conversation with Dr. Colleens. But now it seemed that their last talk may not have been so secret as they would have hoped, and Kat could see the panic in the doctor’s expression.
Kat knew she couldn’t just discuss outright her concerns with this case and suddenly felt she should excuse herself as quickly as she could. In fact, she couldn’t leave fast enough.
“Doc, I was just swinging by to see if you have any leads for me. But it looks as if you have your hands full here so just give me a call later, alright?” Kat tried to sound as casual as possible.
“That sounds great, Detective.” And her eyes spoke volumes to Kat. They said there would be plenty to discuss later. Much later, it seemed. If she even still had a job later.
The rain was still heavy as Kat drove home, and traffic was terrible because an accident had closed part of I-5 North. There were fire trucks and aid cars, rescuers prying open doors and hurrying with stretchers and boards. Broken glass and bent metal decorated the roadway and glistened on the wet pavement. Drivers slowed, hoping to see a glimpse of death. Kat caught sight of the end of life as she made the slow trip past an ambulance. She had seen enough of death already though—it was certainly not a novelty.
Whenever Kat smoked outside, she had a bad habit of leaving the door open wide as she sat on the steps of her front porch and stared at the dark sky. Some of the smoke drifted inside as she sat there and contemplated the cosmos. The smoke had perfumed whatever it touched and she could smell its stench on everything. She always hated that. Someday she would quit.
Her mind would not let it go. Wha
t did the FBI want with the doctor and would she be alright? Would they be calling on Kat next? Did she end her career with their little conversation at the water fountain earlier that day?
Just then her cell phone that she had placed next to her began to vibrate. Kat had powered down the ringer for the sake of her slumbering neighbors. Smoke drifted up and danced in swirls as a cigarette hung from the thin fingers in her left hand and she slipped open her phone with her right. Was this it? Was this the FBI saying that they need to talk with her?
“O’Hara,” she answered with touch of fatigue in her voice.
“Detective O’Hara, this is dispatch. There’s been a report of another body.”
“Where?”
“One mile south of the Shilshole Bay Marina,” the dispatch told her.
“I’m on my way.”
Thirty minutes later, Kat was at the scene.
The moon slipped in and out of smoky clouds and the sea heaved against the shore. Reporters flocked like frantic seagulls around the crime scene and seemed to converge as Kat pulled her car close. Kat drove up to the scene and motioned for them to move as the Channel 7 News van’s door slid open. A cameraman in a rain suit jumped out and was coming Kat’s way. He had a reporter in tow who proudly brandished an outstretched microphone in her hand. Kat rolled her window down several inches.
“Move!” she yelled at them and wasn’t nice about it. “This is a crime scene!”
They did not even care as another crew member got out some bright lights to set up the shot. For a moment, Kat sat staring angrily, turning her face hard like stone. The reporter was blocking her door, the microphone shoved through the opening of the car window.
“Detective O’Hara, can you verify that this was another of your so-called natural deaths?” she asked Kat loudly, as the camera rolled and lights burned in her face.
“Step back!” Kat said with even more anger building. Kat pushed right at her and the cameraman, almost knocking them over with her car door.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream Page 22
