Outside the sky resembled an overstuffed mattress that had split and was now spewing its dark innards in great, coagulated globs, and Anyelet, Rita, and Gregory waited while Gabriel and Vic carefully repositioned the door. "I'll bring some oil to squirt around the frame tomorrow night," Gregory promised when he and Vic had finished. "It should cut down on the noise."
Anyelet glanced at Vic, but he said nothing; she had the distinct feeling he wouldn't care if the door tripled its racket, and, in fact, he'd prefer that the woman escape. Her eyes narrowed as she realized it wasn't just petty thievery she'd witnessed, but an act purposely warning their prey.
Gregory's low voice intervened on her reverie. "I wonder why she didn't come back tonight."
"It doesn't matter." Anyelet’s words were frosty as she gave Vic a long, hard look. "Wherever she is, tomorrow night she's ours."
REVELATION 16:6
Thou hast given them blood to chink; for they are worthy.
~ * ~
Vic examined the cloisonné box, turning it over and over in his heavy fingers and peering at the butterfly of brilliant colors against its fractured royal blue background. Such a tiny thing, it disappeared entirely when he folded his fingers into a fist.
Such a little thing, indeed.
Anyelet had seen him. It hadn't taken any so-called vampire "gift" to feel her shock, then her repressed rage. He
responded
to others, to their treatment, their impressions upon him, like clay pressed into a mold. He'd grown up a tough Italian kid who'd constantly fought with and against the west side street gangs, and even immortality couldn't erase the mementos he still carried, one wide scar crossing his left side from battling a kid armed with a shattered liquor bottle, another arcing around his neck, this from a fifteen-year-old who'd nearly managed to cut Vic's throat. Hand encased in homemade brass knuckles, Vic had delivered a punch to the solar plexus that had left his enemy gasping and helpless as Vic had pried the knife free, torn open the youth's shirt and carved the word COWARD across the sallow, boyish chest.
Vic still felt guilty about that. And who, after all, had been the coward? Himself, of course, a boy already masquerading in a man's body. His friends would have crucified him for letting the Latin King live, but it hadn't mattered. When he'd staggered into the house covered with blood, his hysterical mother had actually
slapped
him before realizing what she'd done. He knew she'd struck him out of fear and love, but his resentment was quick and helpless as he thought of the constant, unconditional devotion she gave Vic's nearly bedridden father. In those days physicians still made house calls, and Dr. Finocchiaro, a frequent caller anyway, came in the middle of the night to sew Vic's neck back together because in the old neighborhood you handled your own business and didn't involve the police. As a result of that night, his mother had sent him to live with her brother in Rockford, an older man who was as unyielding as a block of granite beneath a surprisingly mild exterior. Young and still impressionable, Vic had learned an appreciation for life from Uncle Mike out of which he would eventually make a career; all that trouble to save his neck and look what had happened to it.
Yes, Anyelet had seen, and Vic hadn't cared. Responding to her anger, in fact, he had mentally dared her to say or do something about it. At least it had proven she couldn't see into his mind without him knowing it, though with eye contact she could rifle someone's mind like an open file cabinet. The traitorous thoughts that so often filled the spaces that before his dark transformation had held human feelings like love, charity, and forgiveness remained hidden; now he only hated in degrees, depending upon whom and what he was thinking about at the time.
And he Hungered.
Oh yes
.
There was no logic behind his theft. The notion of challenging Anyelet's authority was absurd—he no more wanted to control this motley pack of animals than he wanted to crawl beneath the sun and fry, and besides, she probably held powers that he couldn't even imagine. He wanted to
live
, and maybe
there
was his subconscious desire to betray their presence. That unknown woman wanted to live, too, and he knew that tomorrow the struggle she'd so valiantly carried on these past months would end, all because of the ravings of a stupid old man. Vic sighed and dropped the butterfly box on his cot, then slipped down a back stairway, indulging in a lazy fantasy about what he would do to Howard if he caught him skulking around. Sunup was only an hour away and he had to make sure old Hugh was inside for the day. The crazy vampire was probably hungry, too, even if he had managed to snare a rat or something else for a sort of dinner. Vic had followed him once, and while the old man usually caught
some
thing, the meal was never very large. If he didn't help things along, Hugh would slowly starve, withering until he became indistinguishable from the outcasts that haunted the tunnels and connecting basements of the downtown buildings. Vic would never be able to bear that.
The ancient vampire was in his habitual spot outside, standing where the concrete sidewalk met the metal grating on the bridge, peering between the spaces rather than over the walkway at the water below and playing an invisible trumpet. At the sound of Vic's approach he raised his head and smiled with crooked teeth.
"Waiting for Tisbee," Hugh explained. He glanced at a broken watch dangling precariously from his wrist, then sucked in a mouthful of air so he could make a blowing noise. "She's late again," he complained. "Been waiting here for a year, dammit all." The accuracy of Hugh's words made Vic start. "Boy's late, too," Hugh continued. "Supposed to bring me dinner, and the little bastard's not here.
Shit!
"
"It's all right," Vic said soothingly. "He'll—"
"I'm
hungry
!" Hugh's voice was a sudden, strident scream through the steel girders of the Wells Street Bridge. Vic gasped at its loudness, then the old man abruptly dropped his tone back to normal and gave Vic a sidelong glance. "Have to go to the dungeon soon," he said cryptically. "The fireball's on its way."
"Yes," Vic agreed. He saw the hollowness of Hugh's cheeks and the way the skin had shrunk close around his jaw. Once the old one's mouth had been full-lipped and laughing; now it was a hard, jagged slash barely covering the cracked fangs.
"Hungry," Hugh said again. He looked at Vic and for a moment the younger vampire saw regret in that shriveled expression—regret, and a plea for understanding, maybe a cry for mercy. A long time ago Vic had thought he could give Hugh a cure; instead he had frozen the old man into permanent imbecility.
Vic had purposely fed again a short time ago, taking a small meal from a healthy man only because he knew that Hugh would be hungry and, after all, someone had to look out for the old man. The others were already burrowing into their sleeping places, filled and fat, quick to flee the coming daylight. Last night he'd been petrified during the endless moments of Anyelet's attempt to look into Hugh's mind. Now he knew that no one could see. Or maybe, as in life, no one bothered.
He offered his arm and Hugh fell upon it eagerly.
The least Vic could do was watch over his own father.
REVELATION 17:18
And the woman which thou sawest is that great city.
~ * ~
C.J. eased the breath out of his lungs, feeling the tension flow from his night-knotted muscles as he stretched. For a few seconds he was enveloped in the tingly sensations, like the time the clinic dentist had pumped him full of laughing gas before pulling a molar that had shattered at the gum from a hard punch to the jaw by his old man. Back then C.J. had figured that feeling was as close to heaven as he'd ever get, because hell waited at home in the form of a fat, lazy man who claimed to be his father and who bathed in beer instead of water.
Now, hell was everywhere.
He rose, stripped, and washed, gritting his teeth against the cold air and colder water. He dressed in loose chinos and a baggy wool sweater, then reconsidered and pulled off the sweater to layer a couple of long-sleeved shirts underneath it. Finally C.J. slipped on his fatigue jacket and stepped into the hall, noting that as usual he was the first to rise. Before he went downstairs he poked his head into Calie's room to check on her. She was still sleeping, her face to the wall beneath the heavy sleeping bag. He waited a few seconds, then backed out and stepped away; two or three feet down the hall he thought he heard a low chuckle and he paused, then kept going. She was always pulling little tricks on him.
Sitting in the small breakfast room, he checked the strings on his crossbow and made sure the flights and broadheads were firmly attached during the twenty minutes it took McDole to show up. Suddenly C.J. was nervous; if the older man said no to his request. . . . Well, he might bitch about it, but he would never disregard McDole's orders.
"Morning." The white-haired mar's voice was cheerful. "Feels like December again, doesn't it?" C.J. nodded, reluctant to speak as McDole put a match to a can of Sterno for hot water. "Get down some coffee, would you?"
"Sure." C.J.'s voice came out hoarse and he cleared his throat. McDole watched him curiously as the teen set out their usual coffee makings on the table by the little camp stove.
"You have something you want to talk about?"
C.J. sighed inwardly; between Calie and McDole, sometimes it seemed he had no privacy at all. Well, what the hell. "Yeah. . . ." He'd always found it hard to ask for stuff, especially time to himself, and as a toddler he'd learned that asking for something usually caused pain. He was sure his father was either dead or one of those maggoty things in the subways, but the drunkard's lessons still lived on.
"Well?" McDole's voice was encouraging.
"I got something to do today," the dark-haired youth finally managed. "Could someone else help Calie and the doctor?"
McDole studied him, then turned his attention to draining the coffee filters, layering the air with the rich smell of the brew. "If you think it's important, then yes. Someone else can be found."
C.J. hesitated. Was what he wanted to do really
that
important? Enough to put the rest of the people with whom he lived to extra trouble? He hung his head.
"What was it you wanted to do?" McDole asked. "Do you need help?" He offered a steaming mug and C.J. reached for it, his callused hands oblivious to the heat.
"I, uh—"
"Well, it's none of my business anyway." McDole's tone was carefully level and C.J. glanced at him suspiciously. Just what was he up to? "You seldom have time for yourself, something we all need," McDole continued. "But if you happen to be outside, you might keep an eye out for that girl we saw the day before yesterday. She looked about your age."
C.J.'s breath drained silently through his nose and he fought a grin.
That sly old fart
, he thought admiringly.
He knew the whole time; he just wanted to see me squirm
.
"Sure," C.J. responded as casually as he could. "I'll keep my eyes open." McDole raised his cup in a toast and hid his smile behind the steam.
"But only if you think of it."
~ * ~
C.J. found the motor scooter, a yellow Vespa bearing a sticker that read VESPA OF CHICAGO and listing an address fifty blocks north, abandoned on the bridge, and he knew stale gasoline had probably done it in. There was nothing to indicate where its owner had gone and he wandered into the congested buildings of central downtown more out of boredom than anything else. It was doubtful he'd find the girl unless she showed herself on purpose, and what was the chance of that? Still, he couldn't give up so soon. Once C.J. had craved privacy and the safety it offered, a harbor away from his father's brutality and the squalor and violence of the housing project in which he'd lived. Now Chicago's empty buildings hulked like great boxes with a million brooding eyes. Did the girl watch him from behind one of the windows that sparkled at every turn?
He ambled along, finally stopping at the White Hen Pantry in the apartment building at Lake and Dearborn. The market's door had already been shattered, but from the dust layering the fragments of glass it had happened a month ago or longer. Water stains crept past the threshold of the cracking linoleum, and while the contents of most of the shelves were still intact, here and there it was evident the rats had been at work. In the early months the rats had multiplied with frightening speed, becoming a major danger to the health and food supply of the humans who'd managed to survive, then starvation had hit among the vampires and the number of rodents had dropped dramatically. They still bred in the deep tunnel system and sewers, though they were seldom seen in the open. C.J. scanned the shelves but the signs of another person—an opened rather than chewed box or an empty can or two—were few and crusted with age. A deli counter ran beneath the southern windows, but he averted his gaze and breathed through his mouth as he went past it, and he'd learned long ago not to open freezer doors. Not much to see and he didn't want to eat in here anyway. Most of the liquid—ketchup, soda, bottled juice, you name it—from exploded bottles and jars had dried up; still, the smell was overwhelming.