End of Days (6 page)

There was no way to know without a lengthy search.

Charlie was still staring at the pages. He spread them out so they were side by side. “I can't believe this stuff. This is about you, isn't it? You're the orphaned son. The Lamb. Ophelia's ward.”

“Do I look like a lamb to you?”

“No. More like a reject from
Planet of the Apes.
”

“Thanks.”

“Don't mention it. I wonder who this Baoh character is?” he asked.

I did, too. He was obviously important.

Charlie elbowed me gently on the front of my shoulder. “You're off in la-la land again.”

“Sorry. I was just wondering who he could be.”

He picked up the note we'd found under the book on Dracula.

“That's the end of the world, isn't it?”

I wasn't sure. “We need to find Ophelia to see what all this means.”

He nodded, then walked over to the phone. “Johansson said they'd be here soon. Why don't you call her?”

The inspector didn't want us calling. Not with the landline. But he didn't say anything about my cell. I picked it up and hit redial. Her voice mail came on straight off.

“It's me again. Please call me right away.” I followed this with a text message, just for good measure.

“No luck?” Charlie asked.

“She must be talking to someone. I'm sure she'll call right back.”

Charlie plopped down on the sofa and put his feet up. “We should phone the girls.”

The girls. He meant Luna and her older sister, Suki. She and Charlie had fallen in love last July. If Stony Lake had been blessed with a tabloid, the two of them would have made the weekly cover. But she wasn't doing well, and it was largely my fault.

The past summer had ended in a night that belonged in a hack-and-slash horror movie. One of Charlie's close friends was brutally murdered. Shortly after that, I went berserk and got arrested. Suki had a front-row seat for most of it. Then, when it seemed things couldn't possibly get any worse, Charlie and Luna were abducted by my uncle Maximilian and handed over to Vlad, who wanted to impale them. Ophelia saved the day. I turned Charlie, and he turned Luna. But Suki was still human. And she was a mess.

I'd spoken to Luna about Suki many times since, and I know Charlie sent her lots of e-mails and called as often as he could afford to. But she just wasn't the same after
that night.
She felt like an outsider. With her living so far away, in Newark, New Jersey, there wasn't a lot we could do. I felt awful about it because I'd gone to
Charlie for help. If I'd done the right thing and stayed away from him and his friends, everyone would still be nicely tanned and living on easy street. Instead, I'd turned his world upside down. Suki's, too. There was no quick fix for this.

“You want to send her a text?” I said.

Charlie shook his head. “I could . . . I'd rather hear her voice. I haven't talked to her in a few days.” He took my cell and started scrolling for the number.

It looked as if he was about to say something, but then the other phone rang—the landline that Johansson had told us not to use. We waited. Counted two rings. The pause was supposed to come next. It didn't. The phone just rang and rang and rang. Then it stopped. I waited to see if it would fire up again. It didn't. I snatched it out of the cradle.

“What does it say?” Charlie asked.

“One missed call.”

“Can't you see who it was? There's a call display.”

“All it says is
unavailable.
”

“Who would call us?”

It obviously wasn't Johansson. Someone else from the Underground maybe. I set the phone back in the cradle. Then a loud boom shook the house.

Charlie and I stared at each other. “That came from upstairs,” he said.

A second later the front door crashed in. Several people entered. Their footfalls were loud, as if they were wearing Frankenstein boots. An alarm started ringing. That had to be the home security system. They didn't have the password. Not good. Voices started shouting.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

“Look for something we can use.”

We both glanced around the room. Charlie grabbed a table lamp. He unplugged it and wrapped the cord around the neck. Then he swung it, testing its weight. Ophelia's note sprang to mind.
Knowledge is your best defense.
What did that mean? Was I supposed to hurl books?

The alarm stopped. More people came inside. It sounded like an open house. “Should we go upstairs?” I asked.

Charlie was still thinking. Listening. All I could hear was muffled chatter. And my heart. It was winning the Kentucky Derby. Several sets of footsteps walked across the floor above. They stopped at the door by the top of the stairs. It opened with a creak and the lights flicked on. First one police officer, then another started down the stairwell. Both were wearing bulletproof vests. And both had their guns drawn. The first officer saw me and aimed at my face. Another took aim at Charlie.

“Put that down,” he said.

Neither of us moved.

The first kept his gun trained on me. The second stepped down into the room, then spoke into a radio attached to his vest near the shoulder.

“They're in the basement. We're going to need a few more bodies down here.”

“Are you Daniel Thomson?” the first one asked me.

I nodded. Daniel was my first name. Only people who didn't know me used it.

“Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head.” The officer's voice was louder this time. He pointed to Charlie. “And you, drop the lamp and do the same. On the ground, hands behind your head.”

“We haven't done anything wrong,” I said.

“That's for the courts to decide,” the policeman replied. “Now do as you're told. Down on your knees. Hands behind your head. You're under arrest for the murder of Everett Johansson.”

I'm sure you've seen this in the movies or on police shows. The bad guys or, in this case, our two innocent heroes get down on their knees, put their hands behind their heads, then get cuffed and hauled away to be interrogated. Things didn't quite follow the script. They never did with Charlie.

He set the lamp down and got on his knees. So did I. A second later, I felt the cold steel of handcuffs circle each wrist. Two other officers were coming down the stairs so that four were now surrounding us. I heard a loud ziplike sound and watched while Charlie's hands were cuffed behind his back.

“We didn't kill Johansson,” he said. The end of his tongue was rubbing underneath his upper gums. I'm guessing his teeth were dropping. By the look on his face, he was trying to stay calm. I couldn't actually tell if he was nervous or scared. Then I realized he was angry.

“Deep breaths,” I whispered. I made certain I was quiet enough that only he could hear me. “You have to fight it.”

He kept his mouth closed. His jaw muscles were tense. His pupils were widening. He was snorting like a bull just before it charges the matador. The officers were watching him. I had to draw their attention.

“Where are we going?” I asked loudly.

No one answered. One of the officers took my elbow instead and lifted me to my feet. They did the same to Charlie. I thought he was
going to freak, but he didn't. Then we got escorted up the stairs. One officer was in front of me and another was behind. Charlie was ahead, sandwiched between the two other officers. When he topped the last step, he dropped his chin and whispered so quietly I almost missed it.

“Let's ditch these turkeys. Right now. Come on. Follow my lead.”

I heard a snap. It was the sound of Charlie breaking the chain of his handcuffs. He grabbed the officer in front of him, spun, and tossed him back so that he hit the officer behind, who hit the officer in front of me. Charlie was so fast, none of them had time to react. I did. I dropped a step and braced myself so I wouldn't lose my balance when they slammed into me. It was a mistake. I absorbed their momentum, and so the officer behind me wasn't affected by the avalanche. He had time to draw his gun. I caught a glimpse of Charlie's coat. Then the back door was ripped off its hinges. The pistol went off an instant later, right beside my ear. I had no doubt the officer missed Charlie by a mile, but the shock wave from the exploding bullet hit my eardrum like a wrecking ball. Sound disappeared. All I could hear was a shrill ringing. My head began to throb. The officer fired twice more. It made me so dizzy I fell into him. He must have thought I was trying to knock him over—to escape. He started yelling at me. I could see his lips move, but I couldn't tell what he was saying. Then electricity jolted through me. I was paralyzed. I tumbled down the stairs. Aftershocks followed. And more pain. I felt another powerful jolt. And another. Someone was hitting me with a Taser, or a stun gun. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. Then my head said,
Enough is enough,
and it turned out the lights.

My ears were still ringing when I came to. I was sitting in a chair, my arms behind my back. A table was in front of me. I tried to stand, but I'd been chained in place. I looked over my shoulder. The wall behind me was a mirror. I turned and gazed at my reflection. A young kid with a stunned expression stared back. His face was bruised. His lip was split. His eyes were bloodshot and tired. I took a deep breath, locked it in my chest, tensed my muscles, and tried to
break loose. Iron bit into my wrists. Three or four sets of manacles had to be in place. I held my breath and tried again, but nothing happened. I tested the air with my nose. Smelled coffee and gunpowder. The room was small, off-white, square, with plaster walls, cheap ceiling tiles, and a cement floor.

My ears were still ringing from the officer's gun. It was all I could hear until footfalls approached from the hall. The door opened and a man wearing street clothes and tiny, round-rimmed glasses walked in. He was squat, maybe a foot shorter than me, totally bald, with tree trunks for legs and skin that was well tanned. He might have been a professional wrestler at one time. For just an instant, I was reminded of the Nicholls Ward. I wondered if I'd ever seen him there, then I realized it was his scent. Something on his clothes, like antiseptic or some kind of cleanser, made him smell as if he'd just stepped out of a hospital waiting room. He had a folder in one hand. In the other was a Tim Hortons mug. He raised his index finger, which was easily worth two of mine, pushed the frames of his glasses farther up his nose, and took a cautious sip of coffee. Then he set his drink on the table, pulled out the chair, sat down opposite to me, spread the folder open, looked at it, took a deep breath, and waited. After a cold minute, he looked up at me.

“You're Daniel Zachariah Thomson?”

I nodded. “I go by Zack.”

“I've been told that. I'm Detective Baddon.”

Baddon. I'd heard that name at the zoo. But I'd never seen this man and didn't know anything about him. He laced his fingers together and set them on the table. A wicked scar was on one of his wrists. I took a closer look at his face. He had to be in his forties. Tired, but alert. His eyes drifted up to the ceiling, then back to me.

“You know you were fingerprinted when you came in?”

I didn't know, but I said nothing. He took off his glasses and rubbed his temples, then slipped the glasses carefully back on. I noticed his eyes were watering. I couldn't tell if he was upset, furious, or just plain exhausted. “You're being charged with murder?”

I nodded. And swallowed.

“The top of Johansson's car was torn off. Like paper. Only a vampire is that strong, Zachary.”

Vampire!
I heard that word and my heart started to throw two-punch combinations against my rib cage. He knew what I was! I could feel his eyes probing. They were intense and focused. Searching for clues. My mouth was open. It had dried up like the Sahara. I had to clear my throat before I could speak.

“I didn't do it.”

He didn't look convinced. “This is a complicated situation, Zachary. You're going to have to give me a little more than that.” He flipped through the folder, then rubbed his hand over his head. “Why should I believe you?”

Why would he think I was guilty? Moisture started beading on my forehead. Isn't that just like the body? It takes all the water from your mouth and sends it to your sweat glands.

“Inspector Johansson is a friend.”

I paused. He waited. His fingers were tapping on the plastic top of his coffee cup.

“That's it?” He leaned forward on the table again. “You've been accused of murder. You're not going to get a scolding and a slap on the wrist for this. . . . You have to give me more than that.”

What else could I say? That the inspector was my supplier? Would that make sense?

“He dropped Charlie and me off at the house, then left. He was fine the last time I saw him. Well, tired. But he's always tired. He was going to look for . . .” I stopped to think. He'd gone to look for Ophelia. I wasn't sure if I should mention her name.