by Lee Killough
The thought he had looking at Ice’s eyes in Alexandria’s photographs came back to Garreth...a man without humanity...without empathy...without a soul.
The searing fire and anger pushed at Garreth to pull the trigger and finish this, so he could leave and end his agony. But he hesitated. Not for squeamishness at murder. Not for law and order. How could he let Ice die without first feeling punished...without suffering some of the pain he caused others?
Only one way to accomplish that occurred to Garreth...humiliating Ice by beating him at the power game. Though it was a game he, Garreth, could just as easily lose. He can destroy you.
He laid the gun on the desk. “You want to come across. You don’t need me for that. By drinking my blood you’re already halfway there, a latent vampire.” Could trespassing kill a vampire? He felt as if he were dying by inches. “ When you die, assuming it isn’t by some method that destroys your nervous system, you’ll reawaken a vampire. The way Raven did.”
The blood eye flared. The ice one glinted. Both narrowed. “How do I know you’re not lying, trying to trick me into killing myself?”
Garreth fought not to double over with the pain, fought to talk, to keep breathing when every breath flamed. “Because you have to know the vampire is in you, just waiting to be born. You have to know so you’ll understand when I tell you that while you can become a vampire...” He lowered his voice, Bradshaw-like. “...you never will be. I won’t let you. You’re so close, just a heartbeat away from undeath and all the power you crave, but whenever you die, wherever, however long I have to wait--time’s nothing to me--I’ll be there to destroy you before you rise again. You took away something I wanted, Maggie Lebekov, so I’m going to make sure you never have what you want now more than anything else in this world.” He made his smile thin and cold before he picked up Raven’s bag and brushed past Ice toward the door. “Have a nice life.”
Part of him hoped Ice would let him leave...let him escape this consuming pain! The rest of him listened, teeth gritted against the inferno in him, for the whisper of feet on carpet and the scrape of the gun being snatched up from the desk. Instead, another sound reached him...a ringing hiss of tempered steel leaving a scabbard.
Adrenalin blasted him. The cavalry saber above the fireplace! He spun barely in time to dodge Ice’s rush. Just barely...moving much slower than usual. Because of the pain? Was it affecting his reflexes enough to give Ice a real shot at him?
He can destroy you.
He cut around the desk to the middle of the room to give himself maneuvering space. Ice’s arm length plus the sword exceeded Garreth’s reach. Leaving him only speed and strength on his side. Maybe. He sucked in a breath full of flame.
Ice stalked him, blood and ice eyes glittering. “You can’t stop me if I get you first. Beheading ought to do it, don’t you think?” He swung the saber.
Garreth dodged. Again barely. Almost stumbling.
Ice grinned. The false fangs gleamed. “I thought vampires are supposed to be fast.” He swung again.
Garreth dodged...and found the blade slashing his sleeve just below the shoulder. Ice had only feinted.
“Touché.” Ice saluted mockingly with his free hand. “Did you know I fenced in high school?”
The sword hissed through the air...missed Garreth’s neck again as he dodged but slashed the other sleeve.
“Touché.”
Pain made Garreth’s feet feel leaden. If at some point it became impossible to distinguish between extreme heat and absolute cold, he thought he had reached it. Anger, fear, and fire had all become one torment. How long could he endure this before nothing mattered but ending it?
Long enough to beat this bastard! Maggie’s voice whispered.
Come on; you can do it, lover. Let go. Be all that you can be.
Shred that dog shit for me!
The mind rules.
Ice danced away, back toward him, away, then suddenly lunged, aiming at Garreth’s throat. Garreth ducked under the thrust...popped up again before Ice could draw back, and swung backhand.
The blow felt clumsy but it connected. The Ice’s head snapped around and he flew sideways into a leather chair.
The blood and ice eyes blazed. The mocking smile disappeared. Working his jaw, Ice climbed to his feet and circled Garreth, feinting first one way, then another, all the while keeping his arm too low for Garreth to duck under it, and driving Garreth backward.
Garreth!
It could have been either Lane or Maggie but he saw the albino’s trap even without the warning. Ice intended to pin him against the paneling. Instead of trying to dodge out of the trap, he gave before the dancing blade until his back met wood. A big leather chair blocked him sideways on the right, a library-sized world globe on the left. He blinked, as if astonished to find himself trapped.
Eyes coldly triumphant, Ice swung the saber.
Garreth gathered the fire to him, stared it in the face...made it himself. Now...or never.
The blade angled down, clearly expecting Garreth to try ducking. But Garreth sprang forward, and by the time the blade reached him, he had reached its hilt. He caught the sword by the guard and shoved upward. At the same time he grabbed Ice by the throat, fingers locking around the adams apple. Ice’s yell cut off in a gurgle.
Deja vu. Without witnesses.
“All right, you’ve had your try at me. Now it’s my turn.”
Squeezing, Garreth shoved, driving Ice backward. Ice stumbled, choking, eyes blazing, free hand clawing at Garreth’s wrist. His lips pulled back as though to talk, but Garreth tightened his grip and the attempt became a wordless snarl. Ice jerked his sword hand, trying to twist free. Garreth tightened his grip still more. Cartilage crumpled between his fingers. The blood and ice eyes bulged and Ice released the sword to claw at Garreth’s wrist with both hands, mouth gaping wide in a vain struggle for air. His knees buckled.
Garreth dragged him the last few feet to the desk and hoisted him back across the top, where he would have raped Amber...laid down the sword...picked up the Desert Eagle and shoved the huge barrel in Ice’s mouth.
The albino stared up at Garreth with eyes almost popping out of his head...disbelieving... terrified. The blue eye turning as bloody as the other from capillaries rupturing in it. He tried clawing for the gun but with the oxygen supply to his brain failing, had no strength and his fingers only waved feebly.
“You lose,” Garreth said before Ice lost consciousness. “Everything...both this life and your chance to be a real vampire. You die just a humbug.” He aimed for the spine. “This is for Maggie.”
Reichert had wondered what monsters she expected to run into that made her pack such a weapon. Meet one. The roar of fire around and in Garreth drowned out the sound of the shot, but Ice jerked in concert with the gun’s recoil and beneath his head, blood spread out across the desk top.
Garreth stepped back to avoid it, laying the gun on Ice’s chest. Other than glazing over, he noted, the albino’s eyes looked about the same as in life...just as empty of humanity.
He picked up the sword again. “And this is to make sure that you never, ever hurt anyone again.” Holding the saber two-handed, he slashed down with all his strength.
The head tumbled backward and plopped into the desk chair.
Way to go, lover! Was it as good for you as it was for me?
“Put a sock in it, Lane.” He searched himself for satisfaction or guilt, but pain left no room for either.
Trying to pick up the sword again, Garreth discovered that the force of his blow had buried the blade in the desk top. He left it. Let the detectives working the case look for a killer big and strong enough to crush a larynx with one hand, then chop through a neck with that much force.
One more thing to do. He checked the desk drawers. As he hoped, Maggie’s billfold and badge case lay in a top one. He pocketed the badge case. The billfold tied Ice to Maggie’s death. The badge would go back to Martin, handed over privately, with the true story o
f what happened here, whatever the official theory turned out to be. Maybe he would bury the badge with Maggie’s ashes.
“Rest in peace, Maggie.”
You, too. It’s a righteous kill.
Garreth checked his gloves. They looked clean. To be safe, though, he used his handkerchief to turn the bolts on the front door, so it was locked tight from the inside before he passed through. Closed windows, locked door, bloody homicide. This should be an interesting investigation. Maybe they would also find the body of the house sitter stashed somewhere in the grounds.
Outside, the fire evaporated. His bones, too, it felt like. Garreth crashed to his hands and knees. He had to crawl to cross the terrace, then cling to the balustrade to keep from pitching down the steps on his face. Every inch of his body ached.
The Mercedes was gone, he noticed. Candy having the good sense to take off when the screaming started, no doubt.
“Garreth?” Raven came tearing up the lawn. “I heard a shot!”
“Yes.” Releasing the balustrade, he tried to walk. Unsuccessfully.
Raven slid under his arm to support him. “Where did he get you?”
Belatedly he realized what his condition made her think. “He didn’t. I got him.” He still felt neither satisfaction nor guilt, only weary relief. In this life his choices so often seemed to be between evils. Maybe not this time.
Raven blinked in confusion. “But if you got him, why--”
He grimaced. “I entered a dwelling uninvited, remember?”
“But you ent-- Oh.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “You mean even after you were inside, it felt like at the door of Lien’s?”
“Every. Single. Fucking. Second. Where’s Amber?”
She gestured toward shrubbery near the gate. “I made her go to sleep.”
“Help me down to her, then you go after the car.” He fished out the keys with trembling fingers and gave her directions to it.
By the time Raven came back, lying full length on the grass had leached away enough of his weakness for him to stand and walk. Slowly. He stripped off the blazer and rolled it inside out with the gloves tucked inside. Somewhere away from the city he would dispose of it.
“Okay, you can drive back to the hotel. Just don’t get us pulled over.”
Raven stared in astonishment he sank into the passenger seat. She handed Amber in to him. “Ice is really dead?”
He cradled the girl on his lap. “Truly dead. For evermore.”
Raven slid under the wheel and headed north. “What happens to us now? What happens to Amber?”
“She’s latent, so I guess she can choose whether she wants to be a vampire. Like a living will. As for the two of you...” Garreth sighed. He felt crushed as if he lay naked in full midday sun. “I can’t turn you loose.” He had no more stomach for death. A righteous killing did not make his hands any less bloody. “You’re fugitives, probably for life, and I’m your best chance for not being caught. So until we find a better solution, you two will have to put up with being in my custody.” A sobering thought. He had been a rotten father to Brian. Could he do any better a second time around?
Raven nodded. “I deserve it.” She pounded the wheel with a clenched fist. “I’ve been so stupid!”
She made it such an ultimate sin that Garreth felt compelled to say, “I hope not. Stupidity is incurable. Foolish, yes...headstrong...rebellious. Young. That was a good thing you did for Becker.”
The Cenotaph song ran through his head. ...Lives enclosed by sunless spaces. Abruptly he remembered the poem that fell clutch of circumstance came from: “Invictus.” Grandma Doyle read it to Shane and him. How could he have forgotten that? Out of the night that covers me...
Raven said, “Do you believe in redemption?”
He glanced down at his hands clasped around Amber. “I hope it exists. We can all use some.”
“My father believes in redemption.”
“Well, he’s living proof of it.”
“I wish I could talk to him.” Her voice trembled. “I wish I could go home. Can I ever?”
“Not the way you’d like. None of us can. But visits, yeah, sure.”
She stared through the windshield. “Maybe after I’ve learned more about me, stuff you haven’t told me...like how you came in through that window without opening it.” Raven paused. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to tell my parents what I am now?”
He shrugged. “It depends. A former Teddy Rivers might understand that living on the edge of hell doesn’t necessarily make someone a demon.”
She drove in silence for a while, then asked, “Where are we going?”
“After we check out of the hotel, because a business emergency requires my immediate presence elsewhere, we’ll boogie back to Omaha to concoct ID for Amber, then catch a plane for San Francisco. After that piece of carrion is found, everyone needs to believe I was out there when he died.” It would be a good time to dispose of things he had had in storage too long, and Lien would be good for Amber. Though this time they would stay at Holle House to keep from hitting Harry over the head with the girls were.
Outside the car the nighttime city flowed by. Presently Raven said, “I think I’ll call my folks from there. So they’ll know I’m--well, sort of all right, and sorry about being such a butthead. And that I love them.”
A stoplight ahead turned red. While Raven sat waiting for the green, Garreth considered “Invictus”. Maybe he could find a little book of poetry with that in it and leave it for Raven to “discover.” A better theme song than the Cenotaph tune. Something he might do well to remember, too. In his head Grandma Doyle’s voice whispered the last verse: It matters not how strait the gate/How charged with punishments the scroll/I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul.
The End
Lee Killough books Also published by Books We Love
The Doppelganger Gambit, Brill/Maxwell #1
Blood Hunt, A Garreth Mikaelian Mystery Book #1
Blood Links, A Garreth Mikaelian Mystery Book #2
Wilding Nights
The Leopard’s Daughter
Aftershock
Lee Killough has been storytelling since the age of four or five, when she started making up her own bedtime stories, then later, her own episodes of her favorite radio and TV shows. Because she loves both SF and mysteries, her work combines the two genres. Although published as SF, most of her novels are actually mysteries with SF or fantasy elements...with a preference--thanks to a childhood hooked on TV cop shows--for cop protagonists.
