Had they lived in daylight, Cade would have blocked the sun. His was a shadow that loomed so large Vall had never been able to see past him, and when Vall had finally decided to leave the privileged sphere of Cade’s personal colony, all Cade had said was, “Nestor doesn’t deserve you.”
How little Cade had understood. Nestor had had nothing to do with it.
Vall stared out the window. There was nothing of interest to see. Not because the stretch of Interstate 94 was devoid of lures to entice both humans and the undead—just the opposite. The road was one long corridor of the sleaziest establishments both worlds had to offer. The adult bookstores, cheese shops and outlet malls of old had given way after Hell to blood bars, porn shops, and so-called vamp clubs that offered up everything a weary traveler could want. But none of it appealed to Vall.
Neon lights flashed endlessly, filling the night with color, a poor imitation of the Las Vegas strip, but Vall turned his gaze inward. He wondered what Cade would say to him. Would he welcome him home, like a prodigal son? Would he punish him for leaving, or simply ignore him? Vall had known Cade for over two hundred years, and yet there were times he felt he knew him no better than the meatball driving the car.
At least with Kilpatrick, what you saw—as unappealing as that might be—was what you got. Cade, on the other hand, was always in his own little world. He stared at things only he saw, and he answered questions with questions. Everything bounced off Cade, and nothing seemed to touch him. It was a world Vall had found empty and suffocating, yet there were times Vall had wondered why he’d moved only one hundred miles away, instead of to New Orleans or New York.
He looked at Kilpatrick and felt a smile tug at his mouth. Dealing with the meatball was a whole lot easier than dealing with Che Kincade. Hell, Kilpatrick was an absolute joy.
Twenty-two
October 9, 1871
Chicago, Illinois
IT WAS A TOSS UP as to which creature was more shocked by the shot, the colt from the sound or the mortal whose victim failed to topple from his saddle. Wulf took advantage of the man’s surprise and swung the Conley’s Patch two-by-four like a cavalry sword. The end of the board cracked against the man’s skull, but failed to bring down the giant, who merely waved one hand as though annoyed by a bee. With his other hand he raised his pistol again, and Wulf wasted no more time, burying his heels in the horse’s ribs. Chess whinnied and reared, and when his flailing hooves hit the ground, he bolted forward, felling the man at last. Shouts erupted from those witnessing the event, and though Wulf doubted most felt little sympathy for the would-be murderer, being questioned by a policeman was the last thing he wanted. He urged Chess on without regard for whomever blocked his path, and the tactic proved effective in getting him across the bridge. People who saw the black colt’s wild eyes and flaring nostrils voluntarily gave way, and those who didn’t were motivated to move by the two-by-four.
Several blocks into the North Division, Wulf slowed the horse and put his hand to his chest. Cold blood soaked the front of his shirt. The man’s aim had been true, and had Wulf been human, he’d be fish food in the Chicago River, and Chess would have a new owner. As it was, he’d suffer a few hours of what le père called “character building.” He himself called it “bloody fucking pain” and had tried to tell le père the last time he’d been shot that his fortitude was well enough developed, thank you, without further shootings, stabbings, or broken bones.
But for now shock and the events of the night mercifully numbed him from the pain and allowed him to do what needed to be done.
There was no sign of Doro at the next house he stopped at, but thankfully the neighborhood was civilized enough for Wulf to dismount and give Chess a chance to rest. The lair was a substantial one, housing more than a dozen vampires. Wulf found the few who’d stayed on the roof garden that had been built atop the rear portion of the brick house. The bodies of two girls were with them, adorned with ribbons of silk and blood.
He knew he wouldn’t like the answers, but he asked the questions anyway. “Where’re Boston and the others? Gone to see the fire?” Boston Ackerman was an able master, but like le père, had too large of a colony to oversee.
A young vampire, well sated by both his glassy-eyed look and the blood on his clothes, shrugged a shoulder from the comfort of the fainting couch he lounged on. “He went to warn the other houses and give them in-struc-tions,” he said with a giggle, and the others laughed.
No doubt these had been given instructions as well, and Wulf was sure it wasn’t to gorge themselves on human flesh. Wulf knew the girls were beyond help, for the smell of death already clung to them, but he spared a moment to examine the vampires’ handiwork. The first girl was naked, splayed like an abandoned doll on a huge pile of dresses. She looked young—probably not yet twenty—a redhead with pale skin like fresh cream who’d obviously been feasted upon by several of the lair-mates. Trails of blood sprouted from dark bite marks on her neck and both breasts and ran in as many twisted directions as meandering woodland paths, indicating she’d been face down, face up, and upright while bled. Dark stains on her thighs suggested she’d been a virgin when she’d provided amusement as well as nourishment. A cross pendant on a red silk ribbon around her neck was still intact, and not a hair on her head was out of place. Fat red braids circled the top of her head like a perfect coronet. A little princess she’d been, providing a feast fit for a king.
The second girl, whose firm, smooth skin also bespoke youth, was spread-eagled on a layer of stiff ruffles like a suckling pig served up on a bed of greens. Her bite marks were ragged and torn, and so much blood ran from her breasts to the fabric beneath her that Wulf wondered if any at all had found its way into the vamps’ gullets.
“Where did these two come from?”
The young one snickered. “They were in the street carrying bundles. We offered to help.” The others laughed deep in their throats, a collective purr of lip-smacking satisfaction. “Do you know they each wore three dresses? It was like unwrapping birthday presents.”
The girls had probably been trying to save their most precious belongings—their fancy duds—from the destruction of the fire, never dreaming that their true treasures—their youth and beauty and very lives—would fall to the hunger of a different kind of soulless beast.
Wulf sighed. Though it had been years ago, he remembered his own days of ravenous desire, when it seemed that all the virgin blood in the world couldn’t satisfy his sweet tooth. Even now, the smell of so much fresh blood awakened his lust and set parts of his anatomy to aching, even as his mind was disgusted by the wastefulness of overindulgence.
Were these youngsters any different from the wastrels in Conley’s Patch? The journey to the other side made men no better or worse, just changed their poison. “Dispose of them as your master would want you to,” he said and left, going downstairs to look after the horse.
He supposed there was a chance Doro had gone to the West Division, but the gusts were out of the southwest. Unless there was a wind change, the buildings west of the river would be safe from the fire. He really had thought Doro and le père would come here to coordinate an evacuation with Boston, but there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the events of the night.
He spent the next two hours going from lair to lair in desperation. Some were abandoned, some occupied by those in denial that the flames would come for them. The fire was all around him now, close enough to blister his skin and boil his blood. The colors were just as intense, a riot of not only crimson and gold, orange and pink, but macabre shades of violet and purple and green. Piles of dead leaves burst into fireballs from the heat, and wooden fence posts flared up like so many matchsticks stuck in the ground. Plank sidewalks passed flames along swifter than they did pedestrians, and ivy on the side of one brick house glowed like golden lace before disintegrating to ash.
He had let the colt loose a hal
f hour ago, for the light and heat had made the animal totally uncontrollable, and he ran on foot now, searching the face of everyone he passed, looking for features he knew.
Finally, he spotted Boston Ackerman, his pale face almost rendered unrecognizable by soot and dirt. “Boston!” He screamed to be heard over the firestorm that, like a tornado, mimicked the roar of a speeding train. “Have you seen Dorothea or le père?”
Boston nodded. “I’m the tail of the column. They’re at the head, about two blocks up.”
Wulf nodded his thanks and ran, passing the line of undead that marched northward, fear and disbelief transforming them into a procession of zombies. Fire raged on both sides of the street, and sheets of flame flew overhead, creating a tunnel of white-gold death.
He saw Doro ahead of him, and she was blocked by flame on three sides, with only a narrow passage open down the middle of the street. She was hurrying through when she must have heard his voice, for she hesitated and turned around. Even blackened by the wind-borne soot she was beautiful, her long hair whipping like a flag, her eyes gleaming with courage and determination. He saw her white teeth and knew she smiled as she recognized him, but in that moment a shimmering curtain of crimson fell, blocking the opening. Wulf screamed and ran as close as he dared. His shirt caught fire, and he ripped it off, still shouting her name, praying to a God that hadn’t existed for him for one hundred and fourteen years that Doro had made it through before the sheet of flame had descended.
The wind shifted, and the waves of flame swirled and ebbed, opening the street once again. But it was a sight that burned itself so fiercely into his eyes that he knew a moment would never again pass without the image fresh in his mind.
Four burning bodies, still upright, staggered toward him, their arms stumps of flame, their death wails so piercing they sounded over the roar of the fire. He could do nothing but watch. Blackened bits separated from the bodies, sucked up and away by the swirling wind—clothing or flesh, he couldn’t tell. Black and red dervishes sucked at the bodies, ripping them apart, until there was nothing left of each but a shapeless pyre that flared brightly, then faded to ash and was lost on the wind.
Wulf sagged to his knees, not caring if the others saw him, and for the second time in his undead existence he cried, but this time no tears ran down his face, for the heat dried them to salt as they fell.
Following the deaths of Doro and le père, the sucklings panicked and ran like stampeding cattle, and neither he nor Boston could keep them together.
Wulf followed the human refugees north to Lincoln Park, where the mortals took sanctuary in the wilderness of the park along Lake Michigan. He went his own way, wandering into what was left of the old Catholic cemetery at the southern end of the park. Most of the graves had recently been relocated, but a few vaults remained, along with the graves of the poor which no one had bothered with. Wulf would need shelter from the coming dawn, and he doubted too many humans would challenge him for his chosen haven, a good-sized vault.
He saw a figure ahead of him, most likely someone demented from his loss and not caring if he slept on some poor bugger’s grave. But as Wulf neared the man, preparing to run him off with a cold word, his heart stopped. The long black hair could belong to only one man.
“Cade.”
The figure turned. He, too, was shirtless, and though his dark skin was made more so by soot, the muscular torso was as familiar as his hair. “Wulf. You’re a long way from home.”
As exhausted as his mind and body were, the words angered him. Was home nothing more than a place to Cade?
“The Nathusius were my home. They’re gone. Doro and le père both died in the fire.”
Cade was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, and it was the first time in almost seventy years that Wulf had heard him utter those two words. “I never anticipated this.” Cade’s voice was soft and almost childlike in wonder, as if he stood amongst sand castles in the rain.
“You’re a master now,” le père had said to Wulf not long ago. “My time is coming to an end. You’re young and strong. This is your time now. Your time.”
Wulf’s anger faded, and he could only nod in response. How could he blame Cade for the fire? Cade, as dominant as he was, was no God. They stood side by side as brothers, as children, both blackened by the sweat of their efforts, both humbled by a force more powerful than the undead, both grateful to have been spared.
“You’re welcome at my house, at my side. I made you this offer years ago. I make it again now,” said Cade, and his voice was already stronger, as if he fed off the making of plans.
Wulf gazed over Cade’s shoulder at the sky over Lake Michigan. The horizon was graying with the coming dawn, a reminder that time marched on, regardless of what happened to mortal and immortal alike. His time. This was his time. He shifted his eyes and studied Cade, but he was silhouetted against the sky, and his features were unreadable. Wulf didn’t know if he trusted Cade—if he’d ever trusted him—but it didn’t matter, friend or foe. Wasn’t it said that sleeping with the enemy was the best way to know the enemy?
“I accept.”
Before they stepped into the sheltering blackness of the vault to bed down, Cade pulled him close, kissed him on each cheek, and whispered in his ear. “We will celebrate when the time is more appropriate. For now, Brother, this will have to do.”
Twenty-three
CONTRARY CREATURE, thought Kil. Duvall hadn’t minded coughing up warm fuzzies about his past to Candy, but apparently he still had a thing about getting too chummy with him. Not that it mattered. It was just idle curiosity, squad chatter to make the time pass quicker.
“What about you?” asked Duvall. “Tell me about John Kilpatrick and what it is about us that gets under your skin so much.”
The question caught Kil off guard, and he debated for a minute about answering. He could easily say it was none of the squid’s business, and that would be the truth, but he shrugged. He had nothing to hide.
“You mean besides your fangs? How could you expect anything else? You live among us in secret for centuries . . .”
“Longer than that.”
He gave Duvall a look. That was another thing. Vamps were always showing off their superior store of knowledge, as if anyone couldn’t come off as a genius after a few hundred years. But he was getting ahead of himself.
“Whatever. As I was saying, you live among us, masquerading as human, while you feed off us like a horde of parasites. You take us for fools, which maybe we are, but then as soon as the mask comes off, you want equality. You want our jobs, our rights . . .” He almost added our women, but the thought of Duvall lusting after Candy or even Veronica Main was a place he didn’t want to go.
He expected an argument from the squid, but Duvall just stared out the window.
“Did you think a peace treaty would change those feelings?” asked Kil.
Now Duvall reacted, but with a laugh, not a denial. But it was a strange laugh, like the sound of an echo, all hollow and empty-like, and Kil wasn’t sure what it meant, so he shut up and waited. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Duvall turn his head and give him one of those unemotional squid-looks, all eye but no feeling.
“Don’t look at me like that,” said Kil. “You look like Crevant.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“Like a shark with nothing on his mind but death and dinner.”
Duvall laughed again, then paused and turned away to gaze out the side window once more. “But, no, to answer your question, I didn’t expect peace to change anyone’s feelings. Peace is never anything but an opportunity for betrayal, just waiting for a time and place to happen.”
Kil wasn’t surprised by the cynicism, but it did confuse him. “But you don’t want war, do you? You told me you didn’t want war again.”
Duvall sighed softly, and Kil
wondered if he was confused, too. It made him feel good to think the vampire didn’t have all the answers.
“No, I don’t want war. But at least there’s a kind of honesty with war. The enemy comes straight at you. In peacetime the enemy stabs you in the back.”
“Maybe.” Kil was still confused. He’d never actually fought in a war, but he knew he didn’t want it, honest or not. “Well, you asked me. I told you.”
“Did you believe the Brothers of the Sun propaganda when the war was on?”
Kil shrugged. “I was a kid. Did I understand all that fire-breathing shit about unholy monsters and damnation and the vampires being a scourge on the land? No. All I knew was that my life was turned upside now. I couldn’t go outside to play after dark.”
Duvall snorted.
“Hey, don’t laugh. You don’t know how hard that was for a twelve-year-old kid. Restaurants and movie theaters started closing at dusk because they didn’t have enough business to stay open after dark. People lost jobs because plants started closing down their second and third shifts. People were afraid. Do you know what it’s like to live with that kind of fear?”
“Yeah, meatball, I do.”
Kil ignored him. “Well, it was more than that. It was the helplessness. There was nothing my folks could do. Warning kids about not talking to strangers wasn’t enough to protect us. Weapons weren’t even enough. What good would a knife or even a gun be against a bloodsucker that couldn’t die? Want to know why the Brothers were my heroes? It wasn’t the propaganda or rhetoric or even the burning. It was the Claw. When they perfected the Claw, it made the playing field equal. It gave us hope. It proved you could die, just like us. So if I don’t seem all excited about this trip to hunt down the Brothers of the Sun, you know why.”
Duvall was quiet again after that, and Kil hoped he’d given the squid something to think about.
Half Past Hell Page 17
