Bloodfire (Empire of Fangs) (11 page)

18.

Sam looked down the hill at the back door of the Alistair.
 
Harold had come out and lit the lamp that hung by door earlier, but Sam didn’t need his signal to know she was inside.
 
He could sense her.
 
He could smell the German’s blood in her.
 
Coursing like it coursed through him.
 
Whispering and chattering.
 
Who was she?
He wondered.
 
Was she a bride of Drake’s?
 
Sent here to lure him out of the shadows?
 

He heard the loud explosion.
 
It came from the saloon.
 
He could feel the bond with Casey snap inside of him.
 
He was gone, and Sam cursed himself for underestimating the
Sollero
boy.
 
Fool that he was, Casey was loyal.
 
Sam couldn’t help but feel jealous.
 
Whatever sliver of a soul Casey had retained was now free, and no hell could be worse than this one.
 

He walked out from behind the trees, down towards the Alistair.
 
Harold always lit the lamp when there was fresh meat in the Alistair.
 
Like all smart humans, he kept himself useful, kept his own neck unscathed.
 
He had someone pick up the cars of the victims and take them to a chop shop out in California owned by his nephew.
 
The bodies were incinerated in a shed.
 
The blood trade had made Harold a wealthy man.
 

Harold couldn’t know that the girl in his midst was as dangerous as Sam.
 
That she could pluck his beating heart from his chest like strawberry.
 
To him, she was just another offering to the monster in the dark.

Sam entered the hotel, into a brightly lit hallway that led to the lobby.
 
He held his hand out in front of him and slowly made a fist.
 
The lights dimmed.
 

As he stood there in the empty lobby, listening to the wind break against the hotel and the old wood of the place creak and moan, he remembered how the wind had howled that fateful day when he had crawled to the Danube and threw himself into the current.
 
He wanted to sink.
 
To die.
 
But he floated like hollow flotsam downstream.
 
And he lived, and he became cruel.
 
When he clawed his way up out of the Danube and limped into the sleepy town in the tattered robe, dripping a trail of water down the dirt road, some kids had gathered about him and began to tease him and throw handfuls of dirt at him.
 
He lunged at one, the biggest of the lot, and bit into his supple neck.
 
He had finally become what he had been accused of being his entire life.
 
A freak of nature.

He looked at the old newspaper clipping on the wall and studied one in particular that showed a gruesome aftermath of a gunfight in Viper canyon.
 
He remembered the sting of the bullets, the mob, the torches and shouts.
 
His whole life he had been running from some mob or some group of people that wanted nothing more than to destroy him.
 
He wondered if it would ever end.

No, Sam thought.
 
This was as far as he would run.
 
Whatever the outcome, he was done running, and he would not go gentle into that good night.

19.

“So how are you enjoying married life?” Norah asked while plucking a petal from the large rose in front of her.
 
She had taken her daughter out to the garden to get away from the frantic Doctor Reynolds.
 

“Fine I suppose,” her daughter replied blandly.
 

“And the other thing?
 
I suspect that is fine as well?”

Abby looked up at the sky.
 
The smoke from the wildfires had carried into the city, and obscured the view of the stars.
 
“More than that.
 
The feeling, when I first fed…he was disgusting you know.
 
A big greasy trucker.”

Her mother made a face.
 
Abby knew her mother too well to know that under her icy shell she was worried.
 

“And you killed him, just like that?”

“Just like that,” Abby said with a smirk.
 
“Something takes over.
 
You can’t imagine how strong it makes you.”

Norah ducked down and fluffed a group of hydrangeas.
 
“You might be surprised what I can imagine,” she said.
 
Abby detected that all-too-familiar tone of jealousy.
 

“And has Damon told you when you will join us?” Abby said, gliding past her mother down the dirt path between the thick crops of flowers and ferns.
 

“Soon enough.
 
But I didn’t bring you out here to talk about myself.”

Abby stopped walking and looked back at her mother, who was still squatting down and picking at the pinkish flowers.

“So what is it you want?”

“Damon seems worried about this…ghost he keeps mentioning.
 
He’s obsessing over it.”

“Well, I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“And they are in there now, making plans without us.
 
Keeping us both out of the loop.”
 
Norah stood and sighed.
 
Abby rolled her eyes.
 
“I’m sure it’s boring anyway.”

“Vivian was out of the loop too,” Norah said, eyes measuring her daughter, waiting for her response.

“She also betrayed her husband.”

“And Micah? Your friend Zara killed them both.”

Abby straightened her blouse, looking disinterested.
 
“Only because they were fools and thought she was one of us.
 
Drake will deal with her, I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“Yes…your very capable husband.
 
And what, pray tell, happened to his face? I can barely stand to look at the man.”

Abby was beginning to grow annoyed at her trying mother.
 
“It was a cheap shot, some weapon the
Sollero
guy had.”

“I’m guessing that’s the same stuff they used on Vivian? Before she exploded?”

“Probably.
 
Why do you ask mother? Are you worried about exploding?
 
Last I checked you were still human.”

Both women sneered at each other for a moment, and then put on their usual phony smiles.
 
Such propriety was deeply etched into them from birth.
 
“Ever the observant one, my daughter.
 
But maybe you should give it some thought.
 
Your husband, charging into battle with some ‘army’ Damon keeps mentioning.
 
Whereas Zara, who has killed two of our…I’m sorry,
your
kind…and has the
Sollero
boy at her side who I’m told has killed several ‘thralls,’
whatever
they
are, and where some ominous ghost person is laying in wake for him.
 
And you at his side.”

Abby snorted.
 
“So that’s what this is about?
 
You’re worried about my safety?
 
You think I’m weak?”

“There’s more,” Norah said, eying the house.
 
“Damon is planning something big.
 
He wants to use whatever it was that burnt your husband’s face, to use it against some group called the
Lesai
clan, as well as creating some kind of inoculation, some defense against sunlight.
 
The whole thing sounds insane.
 
I myself would try to reason with these
Lesai
people, show them some diplomacy.
 
These ones though,” she waved her hand towards the ivory mansion, “they want to charge in.
 
As all men do.”

Abby shrugged.
 
The conversation was growing tiresome and she no longer found the garden interesting.
 
She walked past her worried mother, who was twisting a pearl on a string of them around her neck and looking listlessly at a bird of paradise.
 

Abby had felt something inside her shift that night in the desert; something irrevocable, like the shattering of glass.
 
The fear in their eyes, the taste of the blood, all of it, had made her forget about pretty things.
 
Drake had shown her the pleasures of the hunt, and she felt more alive than ever.
 

20.

Zara peeked cautiously up over the steps but no ghosts were in the hallway.
 
Perhaps she was going crazy.
 
Maybe all of this was a delusion and she was strapped down in Whispering Pines, drooling all over herself and jabbering about vampires.
 
She looked down the hallway, at the floral patterns on the carpet and the brass accents on the walls.
 
She noticed nothing that might be a product of her subconscious.
 
Perhaps the clerk was just messing with her head.
 
Perhaps the clerk didn’t exist himself.
 
She got a headache just thinking about it.
 
She wished Twig was there to pinch her and wake her up from this nightmare, but if being batted around by Vivian and Micah didn’t do it, she doubted much would.
 

She paced the hallway for a bit, wondering what the dead woman’s cryptic warning had meant, if anything.
 

She wanted to talk to her again.
 
Her initial fear of the woman was now replaced with pity.
 
She doubted very much that her boy was coming to save her from this place.
 
She must have been trapped in some sort of limbo, damned to pace the lavish hallways of the Alistair for eternity waiting for a son who would never come.
 

How could fate be so cruel?
 
Why was so much punishment dealt to the innocent while evil seemed to be rewarded?
 
Zara exhaled, frustrated and angry.
 

She leaned against the wall and pictured a younger Naomi, perhaps beautiful then as her fine, sharp
jawline
and still-vivid eyes suggested.
 
A woman so ruined by the death of her husband that she had threw herself into the dark embrace of a well.

Zara was snapped out of her haze when she heard a muffled boom outside, and the hallway suddenly became dark save for a slim beam of moonlight coming in from the window of the door that led to the balcony.
 
Her eyes adjusted slowly, and soon she could see everything again, although now everything had a bluish-green tint to it.
 

She jerked upright and stood rigid.

She heard something that sounded like many whispers at once, coming from outside.
 
She crept furtively to the balcony door and took hold of the brass doorknob.
 
She gave it a good tug
 
and managed only to break the lock.
 
She then eased out into the smoky night, onto the crescent patio that jutted out and gave her a view of the thoroughfare.
 

The first thing that drew her eye was the high range of mountains.
 
The ridges of some of these hills were glowing red.
 
The wildfires no doubt.
 
As distant as the hills seemed, Zara could feel the flicker of the flames, the insatiable hunger of it that Zara had started to understand.
 

She touched her neck and closed her eyes, suddenly lost in a vision.
 
She was standing on
 
a balcony as she was now, only higher and grander.
 
A great mass of people lay before her like an ocean.
 
Beyond this mass, fires swept in every direction for a thousand miles, devouring all.
 

She opened her eyes and noticed that one of her hands was out in front of her, balled into a fist.
 
She relaxed her hand, let it drop to her side and returned to the hallway, failing to notice Twig, who was running through the town towards the hotel.

When she returned to her room she shut the door, locked it, then noticed a hooded figure standing in the shadows in the corner of the room.
 
Her fangs grew almost instantly and she felt her whole body tense.
   

“Why have you come here?”
 
The voice said, calmly.
  
He stood as still as stone.
 

Zara steadied her nerves.
 
“That’s none of your damn business, whoever you are.”

The man took a measured step out of the shadows and into a ray of moonlight.
 
She could see now his face was pale and young, and that his irises were two different colors: one blue and one red.
 
She knew immediately that he was the man from her dream and the newspaper clipping.
 
Sam
McDermont
.
 
The Ghost.
 
His dark hair was disheveled and hung down around his face like oily tendrils.
 
He wore a short, clipped goatee that seemed to add a few years to his young face.
 

To show that she was not afraid, Zara too stepped forward where the man could better see her.
 
His mouth seemed to drop for a moment when he saw her.

“It’s you,” he said.

 
“You know me?” Zara said.
 
She was anxious now but she hid it well.

He reached out his hand to touch her face but she parried it with a brush of her hand.
 

He lowered his hand back to his side and his face became placid and calm again.

“I will ask this only once.
 
Were you sent by
Drachen
, who now goes by the name Drake, to destroy me?”
 
The man said both versions of the name with equal disgust.
 
“Does he send his bride to do his dirty work now?”

Zara made a face and almost laughed.
 
“His bride?
 
No, we are not an item.
 
In fact, he is trying to kill me.”

Sam stood for a long time in silence.
 
“And why would he want to do that?” he said finally, his voice less accusatory now.
   

“Because I didn’t want to join their little cult,” Zara replied.
 
“That, and I killed Vivian and Micah
Caspari
, and my friend killed Jonas
Caspari
.”
 
Saying the words out loud she suddenly realized just how pissed off she had probably made the remaining
Casparis
.
 
This made her think of her father and it gave her a pang in her stomach.
 

Something Zara had said had made Sam sit on the edge of the bed and hold his head in his hands.
 
He mumbled incoherently in a strange language.
 
It took Zara a moment to realize he was praying, which made her even more uncomfortable in the small room.
 
He finally stood up again and moved over to the window where he gazed out.
 
“Vivian’s was a dark life.”

It suddenly dawned on Zara that she had been Vivian in her dream.
 
She felt sick and had to lean a hand against the wall.
 
She wondered if this was her punishment for going against the grain, for renouncing her destiny as a vampire.
 
She wondered now, that if her dreams had been real perhaps her vision on the balcony held some meaning.
 

“What is your name?” the man said, still looking out the window.
 

Zara could think of no reason to conceal her identity to the heartbroken creature.
 
“Zara, Zara Lane.
 
And you are Sam, right?”

The man sighed.
 
“That was the name they gave me at Ellis Island.”

Zara nodded thoughtfully.
 
This man was at least ten times as old as her or more.
  
She dizzied at the thought of it.

“I’m sorry about Vivian,” she said carefully.
 
“I think you should know she was not the same when she —”
  

“Enough.
 
I don’t wish to ever hear her name again. There is little time for us to sit and talk about things that have come to pass.
 
What matters is what is coming.
 
Your friend has already weakened me by destroying a compatriot in my cause.
  
Drake comes and he wishes to destroy us both.”

Zara balked.
 
“Wait, who destroyed who now?”
 

“Whoever you have brought here has just killed a friend of mine.
 
But it matters not, not now anyway.
 
Drachen
comes for you, and he doesn’t come alone.”

“Abby,” Zara grumbled.
 
She tried to remember her old friend’s face but drew a complete blank.
 

“He’ll bring more” Sam said.
 
He squinted out at the window, touching his goatee thoughtfully.
 
“The fire is coming.
 
Maybe it’s our judgment.
 
When they come, bring them to me, in Viper Canyon, three miles north of here along Cyan Trail.”
 
He leaned in and whispered more instructions into her ear and Zara listened.
 
There was a sudden knock at the door and Zara spun towards the sound.
 

“
Zar
!
 
You in there?
 
Let me in!”
 
Twig shouted.
 
He banged against the door a few more times.
 

When she looked back Sam had already slipped out through the window.
 
She walked over and unlocked the door, and Twig bolted in the room.
 
He had strapped his stake belt back on and it rattled noisily as he moved.
  
He was sweating and covered in dust and dirt and a little blood.
 

Twig began to ramble about a cowboy exploding and a toothless woman when Zara shut him up with a long kiss.
 
He was all she had left now, besides her father who might already be dead.
  
The thought that she had lost him reminded her how much she cared for him, foibles and all.

The lights suddenly flickered to life and Twig jumped.
 
He was clearly shaken by the whole ordeal with the cowboy.
 
“Are you okay?” He asked finally.

“I’m fine,” she said.
 
“But Drake is coming.
 
I can feel it.”

“You can feel it?
 
What you have vampire GPS now?
 
Well whereabouts is he?”
 
Twig ran to the window and peered out.

“I don’t know.
 
I just know he’s coming,” Zara said.

Twig produced a cigarette and got it lit and in his mouth.
 
“Well, guess it was a matter of time,” he said between long drags.

“You killed one of them, didn’t you?”

Twig gave her a puzzled look.
 
“Yes, he wanted to know where you were.
 
I slipped the last bit of liquid sunlight into his drink while he was distracted.
 
And you know this how?
 
Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Zara sighed.
 
“You wouldn’t understand.
 
I just know okay?
 
Can you stop grilling me already?”

Twig nodded and shut the window.
 
“I say we wait in the woods.
 
When Drake comes creeping up to the hotel we jump him.”
 
He swiftly pulled out a stake and jabbed the curtains a few times with it to demonstrate.