Lance gathered John up against his uninjured side. “Come on, man. Come on. We gotta run.” They stood, supporting each other.
John pointed to the left. “The river,” he gasped. “That way.”
That horrible mouth grinned wider. “Yes, run! Give me the chase!”
John staggered, trying to stanch his wounds with his bare hands, but the blood still poured. The pain radiating from Lance's back told him that they could never outrun the creature.
Lance despaired. They would die and be devoured by the carnivorous plant. No one would find their bodies until it spit up their bones. Their parents would wither and be miserable. Their friends would hike in here and get caught just like they did. No one would be safe.
He would die a virgin.
The monster stalked closer and closer. This wasn't fair, he fumed as she crouched to spring.
That clarity of anger saved Lance's life.
As she leapt at John, Lance kicked. Years of hiking and soccer gave Lance damn strong legs. His hiking boot caught her in the ribs. With miraculous aim, he found the weak spot below the arched breastbone. Crying out, she landed heavily on the ground, winded.
John pulled away, found a stout branch on the ground.
When she took to her feet, John swung with all his strength. The wood phased right through her body.
“Fuck!” John screamed as he caught himself from overbalancing. Lance could see John's strength fading.
A dreadful rumbling giggle escaped the plant-woman. “We could have done this the easy way, but your friend had to listen to his God-given sense.”
Lance's fingers snagged a rock and he hurled it at the beast's head. It landed three feet behind her. Something snagged on the panic in his brain and he knew the answer.
“Man-made material,” he yelled at John as he risked getting closer to those terrible pointed snapping teeth. The composite soles of his boot landed on her hip hinge. The impact jarred his knee, but her spine snapped back and forced her body to the ground.
When she regained her feet, the leg hung strangely from her pelvis.
John kicked out too. His blow dislocated her other hip. She dropped, whimpering like a plant in hot water.
The still-human leaf-green eyes begged them for mercy.
Lance nearly stepped forward to ease her, but then he saw John collapse to his knees. Blood soaked his entire side, plastering the other boy's shirt and jeans to his body. John could die from that wound. All that was good and pure in Lance's world would die with him.
Lance needed John. Who would he be without his friend?
Sure knowledge from somewhere filled Lance's brain, driving out the panic. Without hesitation, he landed his heel in the middle of the plant's spine. Bones cracked and shattered, splitting her body in two halves.
Her legs stilled and crumbled, leaving behind the cloying scent of dying honeysuckle.
As Lance raised his foot for another strike, she flattened to the ground, trying to melt into the soil. Lance stumbled and missed, dropping to his knees. She laughed.
John crawled forward and grabbed her wrist.
Her greedy face brightened and her tongue reached for John's blood. Lance rolled, trying to right himself enough to stop her.
“I don't think so,” John gasped. Turning white with the effort, he planted his own boot on the wiggling tongue. She was trapped.
Heart pounding, Lance spun on his rear. His foot flailed in the air and landed perfectly, cracking the bones and grinding the heart underneath.
“Please, don't!” she screamed as the flowers on the mound wilted and died. Weak, skeletal fingers clutched at his pants leg until she completely disintegrated. As the flowers and bones decomposed, he lit the spores on fire with the matches in his back pocket.
When he stood, the mound collapsed, just like the skeleton of the creature, leaving a den full of human bones and rotten clothes.
Triumphant, he turned to John.
Five days later, Lance stood by John's parents as they committed John to the home. The brightest brain in Central Illinois couldn't handle the shock of the blood loss. The damage reverted the best of them back to the intellectual equivalent of a potty-trained one-year-old.
He lied to his best friend's mother and told her they'd stumbled onto a were-bear's den. As he placed a picture of Paris on the wall of John's new room, the by-now familiar shame, guilt, and anger filled him as he admitted in the privacy of his own head that danger was beautiful to him. He yearned for corruption.
Those yearnings destroyed his best friend.
His destiny had revealed itself. Every teenaged boy ached to discover that he had powers to change the world. Lance had that power.
He was stronger, faster, and smarter than any mortal alive. His brain could access unwritten knowledge, his body told him of imminent danger. He lied over and over, telling people that the encounter with the fictional were-bear had given him these gifts. With every lie, his shamed soul withered even more.
Desperate to forget John, Lance joined the army. With his enhanced speed and strength, the Rangers snapped him up. He learned to recognize and refine the warning sense he'd felt that day. He specialized in interspecies combat, subspecializing in post-traumatic stress disorder treatment. He then served in the Middle East, putting everything he had learned to use.
At the end of his tours, he was sick of death. He wanted to protect instead of kill. The Tualatin Mountain Homeless Shelter had given him a reason to put one foot in front of the other.
He never went back to Danville. And he never, ever spoke of John again.
Chapter 20
Valerie parked the Shelby in a quiet alley behind the shelter. The clock on the tower read 3:00
A.M.
No wonder Lance slept, his head tucked against the door of her car. Damn, he was adorable.
She pursed her lips and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Nocturnal PNCs, both homeless and not, surrounded the faded building in a protective cordon. No one and nothing could pass that circle without a thorough inspection.
“Wake up.” His shoulder felt warm and solid as she tapped. Her hand lingered and caressed. “We go in through the side door. It's safer.”
He yawned. “No. The front. I won't hide. Not here.”
Double damn, he sounded good even half-asleep and being too heroic for his own good. If she were the assassin, this would be the perfect ambush. Hide amongst the other PNCs, safely camouflaged amongst his own kind, then strike.
Of course, that tiger hadn't proven to be the sharpest fang in the mouth. Odds were that Lance was completely safe.
“Through the front it is, then.” She let him out of the car. A pair of three-headed dogs emerged from the silent ring of her people and escorted them past the news crews.
The blisteringly hot lights blinded her. She hissed and tossed her arm in front of her face, blocking both Lance and herself.
“Father Soleil, where have you been?”
“Why are you covered in blood?”
“Did someone attack you?”
“No comment,” Lance stated flatly.
The dogs snapped powerful jaws near the reporters, keeping the microphones at a respectful distance.
The lines opened for them, as neatly as paper splitting skin. No one spoke, no one asked for his autograph; instead, everyone scrutinized him with eyes both worshipful and afraid. The hounds led them to the entrance in complete silence.
Valerie opened the door and looked inside, searching for threats. A blue-eyed, red-haired pixie mix looked up from a rickety card table masquerading as a receptionist's desk. A folded piece of paper taped to the table announced the girl's name was Jane.
“Can I help you?” Her elf-cute smile had white lines of strain around the corners.
Pixies were the harbingers of great joy. They should not have this kind of depressing knowledge in their big, round eyes.
“No.” Disgust at the world shortened her response.
Valerie glanced around the main room. No wonder Jane was stressed. Every inch of the shelter teemed with desperate mortals and even more desperate PNCs. A family of giant rats huddled in under the water fountain. A human mother and her infant were crammed directly behind Jane's chair. Multicolored serpents coiled around the tall exposed rafters. A whiff of horse told Valerie that a centaur roamed the halls. Those with belongings clung to their bags as though embracing their Beloved. Nervous glances told the story of strained nerves. Volunteers carrying blankets and food picked their way through the throng.
Tense, but stable. She ushered Lance in.
“Father! I am so glad to see you.” Jane's face opened in relief. The adorable girl nearly overset her table as she shot to her feet.
“Good to be back. What have you got for me?”
Business as usual for now. Valerie turned away from their greeting to study her charge for the night.
The shelter had once been a luxury hotel, complete with huge ballroom and meeting spaces. A window, decorated with plaster flowers and molding, opened into a large kitchen and dining room. Two long hallways straddled the kitchen. Signs in several languages announced the locations of the bathrooms, the first-aid room, and pointed to offices and beds upstairs.
The baby fussed at the same time that Valerie smelled dirty diaper. The mother picked her way through all the bodies toward the right back hallway. A sign reading
WOMEN'S BATHROOMS
told Valerie her destination.
On the other side of the large room, the centaur pushed himself off the wall and stretched far too casually. Bastard, she thought.
The horse-men sexually preyed upon human females, considering them easy targets. There would be none of that on her territory. She shifted her weight to intercept him.
Before she got two steps, a viper uncoiled itself from the roof support. It dangled in front of the centaur and stretched its jaws. Needle-sharp teeth, as long as Valerie's forearm, blocked the horse's path. Casually, it tapped the centaur's bare chest with its forked black tongue.
That settled that. One of the other snakes, an enormous constrictor, flicked its tongue at Valerie in a wink. Nothing would get past them. Now was a good time for a little recon.
“I'm going to look around,” she murmured in Lance's ear. He nodded once and went back to work.
The open, high-ceilinged room with its tall windows was not defensible, Valerie thought as she picked her way through the piles of people and PNCs. The ratio was about 60 percent PNCs to 40 percent human. Interesting.
Lance said they were out of money. She could tell. Cracks marred the once-glossy marble floors. Too-old windows rattled in their frames. The blankets looked thin. The sofas and cots had seen better days.
This place offered refuge to her kind when no others would. The hungry faces around the room challenged her to remember who she really was. A good ruler protected and sheltered the helpless. Dracula had once tried to be a good ruler. Sure, a bit extreme, but ...
The skin around her piercings burned like fresh wounds. She touched her earlobes, half expecting to feel blood. Instead, the diamonds scorched her finger. She yanked her hand away. What in the name of Lucifer's gilded horns was this?
The hubbub of the shelter melted away. Valerie smelled Ilona's distinctive perfume; wood smoke and lavender overlaid with Vlad's own rosemary.
Her wife was dead. Could she forgive herself for surviving? Could she let these precious stones, her wedding gift to Ilona, serve some other purpose than her own mortification?
Valerie pursed her lips and sought out Lance in the crowd.
Unwillingly, she smiled, warmed again by his aura. The golden glow calmed her even more than the thought of fratricide. Could vampires get Vitamin D deficiency?
It didn't matter. Ilona would have wanted her life to mean more than punishing misery.
The earrings pulsed heat again and again. The rocks had been intended to keep Ilona from poverty, from helplessness, from depending on another's goodwill. Like these despondent beings jammed into this groaning building.
She blinked herself back to the present.
Money.
Tucking herself into a dark corner, Valerie removed all her earrings. The metal settings cooled as they dropped, one by one, into her palm. She hadn't seen them loose in so long. Her fingers caressed the faceted surfaces one last time.
She curled her fist shut around them.
“Excuse me.” She stopped a human volunteer carrying a basket of paper to Jane's table. “Do you have an envelope?”
“Um, sure. Here.”
The Tualatin Mountain Homeless Shelter wouldn't need money for a very long time.
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Lance raised his head when the back of his neck itched. An older woman with untamed gray hair and enormous silver Berber jewelry pushed her way through the front door. Her tidy tweed suit and sensible winter coat contrasted with the red Birkenstocks on her socked feet. She furled her umbrella with a flamboyant flourish as she looked around the shelter as though she owned it.
Age had not withered what once had obviously been a shockingly beautiful face. Ridiculously long eyelashes rimmed silver eyes. No jowls decorated her square, determined jaw, and she walked like a woman who knew her worth. She looked like an entitled, privilege-addled white woman. Lance froze inside when she hustled herself to Jane's desk.
“Are you Lance Soleil?” Her smoke- and bourbon-infused voice carried easily over the room's bustle.
Manners were important. She might be useful, Lance reminded himself. “Yes. How can I help you?”
“I'm Glenath Tempesta. I thought you might like someone to help out.”
Lance hissed air in between his teeth and thrust out his hand. “A pleasure.”
Glenath Tempesta was a legend. At the tender age of twenty-one, she'd been a freshly ordained radical minister. Instead of ministering in slums like her peers, she'd single-handedly formed the council for the famous Treaty of Prague. Five years later, she and her mixed-race assembly produced one of the great documents of diplomacy.
Every race of Shadow Children promised to control their appetite for human flesh. Humans promised to control their aggression. She'd laid the groundwork for PNCs to own property, vote, go to school, get modern identification papers.
This aging hippie made the modern world possible. Humans and PNCs worked next to each other, had children together, and both agitated for equal rights. More or less.
“I have some experience in dealing with these situations,” the bishop said.
Jane looked as though a choir of angels had descended. “Oh, ma'am, if you could!”
Lance held his hand up to stop Jane. He didn't really want to talk to the media anymore.
“My deepest gratitude, Bishop, but aren't you booked up with the conference? I understand you have a presentation to the schools in the morning, and you give your opening speech in less than thirty-six hours,” Lance objected.
Glenath snorted. “I think we can arrange a videoconference with the school assembly. Right now, there are more important things to worry about.”
She swept Lance with an assessing perusal.
“Namely, we need to get you cleaned up. Dried blood is a good look on you, but not on camera.” She put her hands on her hips. “You've avoided interviews all night and it's not doing you any favors. You need to ...”
Her voice faded as realization hit him. He cracked his neck with a resounding snap.
Glenath Tempesta was in the same town as Radu.
Just this past June, the retired churchwoman publicly announced her dissatisfaction with the CCC's stance on pursuing laws allowing interspecies marriages. It was the first major break between the two main international influences on policy. She had called their “take it slowly” plan “a shameful, cowardly, and pathetic denial of the reality of life.” The global media had plastered Radu's humiliated face all over the world for months.
This
was Tepes's reason for being here. He wasn't interested in furthering the CCC's so-called agenda of peaceful integration. He wanted to even the score.
Lance pinched his nose. At least she'd be safe here in the shelter. For now.
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Valerie pulled in front of Lance's quirky cottage. Time to get under a roof. They didn't have long before the sun rose.
This area of Portland was known for its colorful houses and Haight-Ashbury vibe. All the homes had tall bushes and stately trees surrounding them, providing shade, privacy, and far too many places for prowlers to hide.
Two night hags hung from Lance's trees, watching the small green house and the street with the intensity of a polar bear waiting for a seal to emerge.
A flashbulb went off. Even as Valerie spun to locate the source, one of the hags dropped from her perch. Gliding on bat-silent wings, she snatched the camera and flew away. The photographer raced after her, brandishing a fist and cursing. She laughed with the species' crazed screech all the way down the block.
A few dogs barked, but no one even looked out the window. Perhaps the photographers were getting to the humans, too. Valerie shrugged as she circled to the passenger door.
Lance called to his unconventional watchdogs. “All okay, Betty?”
The hag's leader gleefully waved at Lance.
“Most fun I've had since we moved here, Father,” she crowed back. “Thelma and Louise are watching the shelter.”
“Betty, meet Valerie Tate. She'll be staying tonight. Veronica will be back when she finishes playing with her food.”
“Bloodsucker.” It wasn't a compliment.
Valerie waved and flashed a huge false grin. “Pleasure to meet you.” She pointedly turned her back and hoisted her duffle out of the backseat.
Lance coughed, obviously covering a laugh. He walked her to his front door and handed her his keys.
As she unlocked the dead bolt, the heady aroma of spices and frankincense wafted out to greet her. His house smelled like High Mass and sex.
A rush of moisture swelled her labia. Then she opened the door.
An ornate, bejeweled Jerusalem cross blasted her eyes with radiating holiness. Five feet high and bright gold, it dominated the little foyer. Its power kicked Valerie as hard as a horse.