by L. J. Smith
A grim place. It fit Rashel’s mood as she made her way stealthily toward the abandoned project building where Vicky had brought them Tuesday night.
From its front door, she surveyed the rest of the street. Lots of warehouses. Several of them were protected with high chain-link fences topped with barbed wire. All of them had barred windows—or no windows—and metal freight doors.
The security precautions didn’t bother Rashel. She knew how to cut chain-link and pick locks. What bothered her was that she didn’t know where to start.
The Night People could be using any of the warehouses. Even knowing where Steve and Vicky had fought Quinn didn’t help, because he had jumped them. He’d obviously seen them lying in ambush and deliberately gone after them. Which meant his real destination could have been any of the buildings on this street—or none of them.
All right. Patience was indicated here. She’d just have to start at one end…
Rashel lost her thought and leaped back into the shadows before she consciously realized why she was doing it. Her ears had picked up a sound—a low rumbling coming from somewhere across the street.
She flattened herself against the brick wall behind her, then kept her body absolutely immobile. Her eyes darted from building to building and she held her breath to hear better.
There. It was coming from inside that warehouse, the one down at the far end of the street. And she could identify it now—the sound of an engine.
As she watched, the freight door in the front of the warehouse went sliding up. Headlights pierced the night from behind it. A truck was pulling out onto the street.
Not a very big truck. A U-Haul. It cleared the doors and stopped. A figure was pulling the sliding metal door down. Now it was making its way to the cab of the U-Haul, climbing in.
Rashel strained her eyes, trying to make out any signs of vampirism in the figure’s movements. She thought she could detect a certain telltale fluidity to the walk, but it was too far away to be sure. And there was nothing else to give her a clue about what was going on.
It could be a human, she thought. Some warehouse owner going home after a night of balancing books.
But her instinct told her differently. The hair at the back of her neck was standing on end.
And then, as the truck began to cruise off, something happened that settled her doubts and sent her flying down the street.
The back doors of the U-Haul opened just a bit, and a girl fell out. She was slender, and a streetlight caught her blond hair. She landed on the rubble-strewn road and lay there for an instant as if dazed. Then she jumped up, looked around wildly, and started running in Rashel’s direction.
CHAPTER 7
By the time Rashel intercepted the girl, the truck was already braking to turn around. Someone was shouting, “She’s out! We lost one!”
“This way!” Rashel said, reaching toward the girl with one hand and gesturing with the other.
Up close, she could see that the girl was small, with disheveled blond hair falling over her forehead. Her chest was heaving. Instead of looking grateful, she seemed terrified by Rashel’s arrival. She stared at Rashel a moment, then she tried to dart away.
Rashel snagged her in midlunge. “I’m your friend! Come on! We’ve got to go between streets, where the truck can’t follow us.”
The truck was finishing its turn. Headlights swept toward them. Rashel looped an arm around the girl’s waist and took off at a dead run.
The blond girl was carried along. She whimpered but she ran, too.
Rashel was heading for the area between two of the warehouses. She knew that if there really were vampires in that truck, her only chance was to get herself and the blond girl to her car. The vampires could run much faster than any human.
She’d picked these two warehouses because the chain-link fence behind them wasn’t too high and had no barbed wire at the top. As they reached it, Rashel gave the girl a little shove. “Climb!”
“I can’t!” The girl was trembling and gasping. Rashel looked her over and realized that it was probably the literal truth. The girl didn’t look as if she’d ever climbed anything in her life. She was wearing what seemed to be party clothes and high heels.
Rashel saw the truck’s headlights in the street and heard the engine slowing.
“You have to!” she said. “Unless you want to go back with them.” She interlocked her fingers, making a step with her hands. “Here! Put your foot here and then just try to grab on when I bounce you up.”
The girl looked too scared not to try. She put her foot in Rashel’s hand—just as the headlights switched off.
It was what Rashel had expected. The darkness was an advantage to the vampires; they could see much better in it than humans. They were going to follow on foot.
Rashel took a breath, then heaved upward explosively as she exhaled. The blond girl went sailing toward the top of the fence with a shriek.
A bare instant later, Rashel launched herself at the top of the fence, grabbed it, and swung her legs over. She dropped to the ground almost noiselessly and held her arms up to the blond girl.
“Let go! I’ll catch you.”
The girl, who was clambering awkwardly over the top, looked over her shoulder. “I can’t—”
“Do it!”
The girl dropped. Rashel broke her fall, set her on her feet, and grabbed her arm above the elbow. “Come on!”
As they ran, Rashel scanned the buildings around them. She needed a corner, someplace where she could get the girl behind her and safe. She could defend a corner—if there weren’t more than two or three vampires.
“How many of them are there?” she asked the girl.
“Huh?” The girl was gasping.
“How—many—are—there?”
“I don’t know, and I can’t run anymore!” The girl staggered to a halt and bent double, hands on her knees, trying to get her breath back. “My legs… are just like jelly.”
It was no use, Rashel realized in dismay. She couldn’t expect this bit of blond fluff to outsprint a vampire. But if they stopped here in the open, they were dead. She cast a desperate look around.
Then she saw it. A Bostonian tradition—an abandoned car. In this city, if you got tired of your car you just junked it on the nearest embankment. Rashel blessed the unknown benefactor who’d left this one. Now, if only they could get in….
“This way!” She didn’t wait for the girl to protest, but grabbed her and dragged her. “Come on, you can do it! Make it to that car and you don’t have to run anymore.”
The words seemed to inspire the girl into a last effort. They reached the car and Rashel saw that one of the back windows was broken out cleanly.
“In!”
The girl was small-boned and went through the window easily. Rashel dove after her. Then she shoved her down into the leg space in front of the seat and hissed, “Don’t make a sound.”
She lay tensely, listening. She barely had time to breathe twice before she heard footsteps.
Soft footsteps, stealthy as a prowling tiger’s. Vampire footsteps. Rashel held her breath and waited.
Closer, closer… Rashel could feel the other girl shaking. She watched the dark ceiling of the car and tried to plan a defense if they were caught.
The footsteps were right outside now. She heard the grate of glass not ten feet from the car door.
Just please don’t let them have a werewolf with them, she thought. Vampires might see and hear better than humans, but a werewolf could sniff its prey out. It couldn’t possibly miss the smell of humans in the car.
Outside, the footsteps paused, and Rashel’s heart sank. Eyes open, she silently put her hand on her sword.
And then she heard the footsteps moving quickly—away. She listened as they faded, keeping utterly still. Then she kept still some more, while she counted to two hundred.
Then, very carefully, she sat up and looked around.
No sight or sound of vampires.
&nb
sp; “Can I please get up now?” came a small whimpering voice from the floor.
“If you keep quiet,” Rashel whispered. “They still may be somewhere nearby. We’re going to have to get to my car without them catching us.”
“Anything, as long as I don’t have to run,” the girl said plaintively, emerging from the floor more disheveled than ever. “Have you ever tried to run in four-inch heels?”
“I never wear heels,” Rashel murmured, scanning up and down the street. “Okay, I’ll get out first, then you come through.”
She slid out the window feet-first. The girl stuck her head through. “Don’t you ever use doors?”
“Sh. Come on,” Rashel whispered. She led the way through the dark streets, moving from shadow to shadow. At least the girl could walk softly, she thought. And she had a sense of humor even in danger. That was rare.
Rashel drew a breath of relief when they reached the narrow twisting alley where her Saturn was parked. They weren’t safe yet, though. She wanted to get the blond girl out of Mission Hill.
“Where do you live?” she said, as she started the engine. When there was no answer, she turned. The girl was staring at her with open uneasiness.
“Uh, how come you’re dressed like that? And who are you, anyway? I mean, I’m glad you saved me—but I don’t understand anything.”
Rashel hesitated. She needed information from this girl, and that was going to take time—and trust. With sudden decision she unwound her scarf, one-handed, until her face was exposed. “Like I said, I’m a friend. But first just tell me: do you know what kind of people had you in that truck?”
The girl turned away. She was already shivering with cold; now she shivered harder. “They weren’t people. They were… ugh.”
“Then you do know. Well, I’m one of the people that hunts down that kind of people.”
The girl looked from Rashel’s face to the sheathed sword that rested between them. Her jaw dropped. “Oh, my God! You’re Buffy the Vampire Slayer!”
“Huh? Oh.” Rashel had missed the movie. “Right. Actually, you can call me Rashel. And you’re…?”
“Daphne Childs. And I live in Somerville, but I don’t want to go home.”
“Well, that’s fine, because I want to talk to you. Let’s find a Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Rashel found one outside of Boston, a safe one she knew had no Night World connections. She pulled a coat on over her black ninja outfit and lent Daphne a spare sweater from the trunk of her car. Then they went inside and ordered jelly sticks and hot chocolate.
“Now,” Rashel said. “Tell me what happened. How did you end up in that truck?”
Daphne cupped her hands around her hot chocolate. “It was all so horrible….”
“I know.” Rashel tried to make her voice soothing. She hadn’t had much practice at it. “Try to tell me anyway. Start at the beginning.”
“Okay, well, it started at the Crypt.”
“Uh, as in Tales from the…? Or as in the Old Burial Ground?”
“As in the club on Prentiss Street. It’s this underground club, and I mean really underground. I mean, nobody seems to know about it except the people who go there, and they’re all our age. Sixteen or seventeen. I never see any adults, not even DJs.”
“Go on.” Rashel was listening intently. The Night People had clubs, usually carefully hidden from humans. Could Daphne have wandered into one?
“Well. It’s extremely and seriously cool—or at least that’s what I thought. They have some amazing music. I mean, it’s beyond doom, it’s beyond goth, it’s sort of like void rock. Just listening to it makes you go all weird and bodiless. And the whole place is decorated like this post-apocalypse wasteland. Or maybe like the underworld….” Daphne stared off into the distance. Her eyes, a very deep cornflower blue under heavy lashes, looked wistful and almost hypnotized.
Rashel poked her and chocolate slopped onto the table. “Reminisce about it later. What kind of people were in the club? Vampires?”
“Oh, no.” Daphne looked shocked. “Just regular kids. I know some from my school. And there’s lots of runaways, I guess. Street kids, you know.”
Rashel blinked. “Runaways…”
“Yeah. They’re mostly very cool, except the ones who do drugs. Those are spooky.”
An illegal club full of runaway kids, some of whom would probably do anything for drugs. Rashel could feel her skin tingling.
I think I’ve stumbled onto something big.
“Anyway,” Daphne was going on, “I’d been going there for about three weeks, you know, whenever I could get away from home—”
“You didn’t tell your parents about it,” Rashel guessed flatly.
“Are you joking? It’s not a place you tell parents about. Anyway, my family doesn’t care where I go. I’ve got four sisters and two brothers and my mom and my stepdad are getting divorced… they don’t even notice when I’m gone.”
“Go on,” Rashel said grimly.
“Well, there was this guy.” Daphne’s cornflower eyes looked wistful again. “This guy who was really gorgeous, and really mysterious, and really just—just different from anybody I ever met. And I thought he was maybe interested in me, because I saw him looking at me once or twice, so I sort of joined the girls who were always hanging around him. We used to talk about weird things.”
“Like?”
“Oh, like surrendering yourself to the darkness and stuff. It was like the music, you know—we were all really into death. Like what would be the most horrible way to die, what would be the most awful torture you could live through, what you look like when you’re in your grave. Stuff like that.”
“For God’s sake, why?” Rashel couldn’t disguise her revulsion.
“I don’t know.” All at once, Daphne looked small and sad. “I guess because most of us felt life was pretty rotten. So you kind of face things, you know, to try to get used to them. You probably don’t understand,” she added, grimacing.
Rashel did understand. With a sudden shock, she understood completely. These kids were scared and depressed and worried about the future. They had to do something to deaden the pain… even if that meant embracing pain. They escaped one darkness by going into another.
And am I any different? I mean, this obsession I’ve got with vampires… it’s not exactly what you’d call normal and healthy. I spend my whole life dealing with death.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice came out more gentle than when she’d been trying to soothe Daphne before. Awkwardly, she patted the other girl’s arm once. “I shouldn’t have yelled. And I do understand, actually. Please go on.”
“Well.” Daphne still looked defensive. “Some of the girls would write poetry about dying… and some of them would prick themselves with pins and lick the blood off. They said they were vampires, you know. Just pretending.” She glanced warily at Rashel.
Rashel simply nodded.
“And so I talked the same way, and did the same stuff. And this guy Quinn just seemed to love it—hey, look out!” Daphne jerked back to avoid a wave of hot chocolate. Rashel’s sudden movement had knocked her cup over.
Oh, God, what is wrong with me? Rashel thought. She said, “Sorry,” through her teeth, grabbing for a wad of napkins.
She should have been expecting it. She had been expecting it; she knew that Quinn must be involved in this. But somehow the mention of his name had knocked the props from under her. She hadn’t been able to control her reaction.
“So,” she said, still through her teeth, “the gorgeous mysterious guy was named Quinn.”
“Yeah.” Daphne wiped chocolate off her arm. “And I was starting to think he really liked me. He told me to come to the club last Sunday and to meet him alone in the parking lot.”
“And you did.” Oh, I am going to kill him so dead, Rashel thought.
“Sure. I dressed up…” Daphne looked down at her bedraggled outfit. “Well, this did look terrific once. So I met him and we went to his car
. And then he told me that he’d chosen me. I was so happy I almost fainted. I thought he meant for his girlfriend. And then…” Daphne trailed off again. For the first time since she’d begun the story, she looked frightened. “Then he asked me if I really wanted to surrender to the darkness. He made it sound so romantic.”
“I bet,” Rashel said. She rested her head on her hand. She could see it all now, and it was the perfect scam. Quinn checked the girls out, discovered which would be missed and which wouldn’t. He kidnapped them from the parking lot so that no one saw them, no one even connected them with the Crypt. Who would notice or care that certain girls stopped showing up? Girls would always be coming and going.
And there had been nothing in the newspaper because the daylight world didn’t realize that girls were being taken. There probably wasn’t even a struggle during the abduction, because these girls were willing to go—in the beginning.
“It must have been a shock,” Rashel said dryly, “to find out that there really was a darkness to surrender to.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was. But I didn’t actually find that out then. I just said, sure, I wanted to. I mean, I’d have said the same thing if he asked me did I really want to watch Lawrence Welk reruns with him. He was that gorgeous. And he was looking at me in this totally soulful way, and I thought he was going to kiss me. And then… I fell asleep.” Daphne frowned at her paper cup.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did. I know it sounds crazy, but I fell asleep and when I woke up I was in this place, this little office in this warehouse. And I was on this iron cot with this pathetic lumpy mattress, and I was chained down. I had chains on my ankles, just like people in jail. And Quinn was gone, and there were two other girls chained to other cots.” Without warning, Daphne began to cry.
Rashel handed her a napkin, feeling uncomfortable. “Were the girls from the Crypt, too?”
Daphne sniffed. “I don’t know. They might have been. But they wouldn’t talk to me. They were, like, in a trance. They just lay there and stared at the ceiling.”
“But you weren’t in a trance,” Rashel said thoughtfully. “Somehow you woke up from the mind control. You must be resistant like me.”
