Texas Hold 'Em (24 page)

I turned to find that my brother had managed to get our mom out of the room and into the hallway. I joined them and found Lacey and Marie, both tense and on the lookout for more company. The hallway in both directions was deserted save for a hunched elderly woman wearing a hotel robe and blue slippers.

She was squinting at us, and shouted in a raspy voice that had been decimated by decades of chain-smoking Camels, “What’s going on? I thought I heard fireworks!”

Ignoring the old lady, Lacey fumed at me.

“That one’s deaf as a post. Luckily, most everyone else is out right now, so only half a dozen people came out to see what was going on, and all but that lady had the good sense to duck back in their rooms. Jesus, Chance, could you have made any more noise?”

“Thank my brother.”

“What? I can’t hear you, man. My ears are ringing,” Bryan said.

I noticed then that my brother was fighting to keep my mom still. She wanted to get away, apparently to head back to her hotel room.

The old lady had begun shuffling our way.

“Did any of you hear fireworks? What are you doing with that lady?” she shouted.

“Where’s Megan?” Lacey asked. When I didn’t answer, her eyes widened.

“No, she’s not dead, but she fell out the window, so she might be seriously hurt. We need to get down there fast and find her!” She couldn’t be dead. I refused to believe it.

“Chance, honey, what’s going on? Why did you kill that man? And how could Megan still be alive? We’re twelve stories up. Chance, I’m so sorry, she seemed like such a nice girl, but she’s dead, honey.” My mom stopped struggling momentarily.

She bit her lower lip in concern. “We need to go wait for Christian. He’ll know what to do. He can fix everything. Chance, you’re going to like him, he’s such a good man.” My mom was rambling; she was about to lose it.

“Can you do something about this?” I asked Marie. Normally I would be ethically opposed to pushing someone, especially my mom. But between the gunfire and the window, it wasn’t going to be long before we had unwelcome company.

“The old lady I can take care of. As for your mom, Christian must’ve compelled her to stay here and wait for him. He’s way stronger than I am. If we had time I might be able to override him, but I don’t want to try and force it. It might scramble your mom’s mind,” Marie said.

“Let’s not do that, then.” I thought frantically for a solution that didn’t involve hoisting my mom over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“Though there is something I might be able to do,” Marie said. First she intercepted the lady, who was heading toward the room we had left. Marie stopped her, caught her eyes and told her to go back to bed and get some sleep.

“Who went to the shed and fed some sheep?” The lady repeated.

Marie’s face scrunched up, and she tried again, louder. This time it took, and the lady turned around and started shuffling back to her room. Next, Marie walked to my mom and started speaking to her in slow, soothing tones. It served to gradually calm her down. Once that was accomplished, Marie suggested that she fall into a nice deep sleep.

The process took longer than I would have liked, and I was about to suggest Bryan and I each grab an end and haul her out, when she finally closed her eyes and collapsed. I had to lurch forward to keep her from falling. I still wasn’t in great shape, and it took my brother to keep us both from taking a tumble.

No way was I going to spend another eternity in that elevator, especially because I didn’t know what might be waiting for us down in the lobby, so we took the stairs. As it turned out, Bryan was the one that ended up with my mom over his shoulder. He gave us updates with unnecessary frequency about the status of her imposed sleep.

We hit the ground floor with my mom still draped over my brother, snoozing. My brother was out of breath, the seemingly endless flights of stairs taking their toll on him.

I could hear sirens approaching as soon as we opened the door to the hallway. It was clear, and we hurried to the nearest fire exit. As luck would have it, it let us out in the parking lot on the side of the building clear of the emergency vehicles that had begun to turn into the entrance. Fortunately, the first to arrive was an ambulance, but the not- so-distant sirens promised the police were right behind them.

We headed straight for the van only to discover a running car parked next to it. I kept moving; the car’s lights were off and the ancient Nissan Altima didn’t look like a police cruiser. Sure enough, as we approached the vehicles, a panicked Kevin got out of the car.

“We have to hurry—cops are on their way!” he said, in case somehow anyone had missed all of the ruckus their approach was causing.

“I can hear ‘em. Have you seen Megan? She fell out a window.”

Kevin looked sick. “She’s in my car. She’s not moving, though. She got banged up from the fall. I’m sorry.”

“Did she hit that umbrella?”

“Missed it by a good ten feet. Some other dude did, though. That was nasty. Megan fell behind it on the concrete. Of course, they both hit in plain view of the restaurant. It was raining vampires. Only a couple of people noticed but, even so, you should have heard the screams from the ones that did. Especially when I ran out and took one of them.”

“I bet.”

“Once I saw what happened, I went out to see who it was that fell. When I realized one of them was Megan, I picked her up and made a break for it. Everyone was too freaked out by the one skewered by the umbrella to even think of chasing me. Of course, by now I’m sure they’re all looking for the black guy that stole the dead white girl.”

He had said dead. I ran to Kevin’s car and wrenched open the back door. My stomach churned as I saw her. Megan was broken.

One leg had a compound fracture, with a bone protruding four inches from her calf. Her shoulder hung at an odd angle, too far down, and the skin was mostly gone. One wrist was shattered. One side of her face had been scraped away. Blood coated an entire side of her body, presumably where she’d hit the concrete and lay in the pool until Kevin got her.

I blinked once, slowly, and then picked her up as gently as I could. She didn’t move as I cradled her in my arms, carrying her to the van.

“Damn, I guess they aren’t like cats,” said Bryan. Had I not been holding Megan, I would have punched him in the face.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Kevin, helping my brother put my mom in one of the captain’s chairs. “At least she didn’t end up like that other dude.”

I laid Megan on the back bench of the van. Marie knelt down to take a look.

“She’ll live,” she said, and then with a nod, added to Lacey, “So to speak. Of course, so will the other one. And that is going to be a problem when he wakes up. Hopefully he’ll at least wait until he’s alone in the morgue. This is not working out how I planned.”

“Excuse me?” I asked Marie.

“She needs blood.” Marie indicated Megan rather than answering my question.

“I’ll do it,” I said immediately.

“It can wait until we clear the crime scene,” said Marie with an unusual air of authority.

I was about to argue with her, but my phone rang. It was Jacob.

“Kind of a bad time right now, Jacob.”

“You’re telling me! God damn it, Chance, they found me. I thought I’d have more time. I got the computers out earlier today, but most everything else I own is still here.”

“Are you at the shop?”

“Yes.”

“And Christian is there?”

“I don’t know about him, but there are plenty of vamps. You have to get me out of here.”

“Why don’t you use the secret tunnel out of the safe room? We can worry about going back and getting the rest of your stuff later on.”

“I can’t use the tunnel; it’s locked from the outside.”

“Why is it locked from the outside? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose? And what are you worried about? They can’t get in if you don’t invite them.”

“Never mind about why it’s locked. They can’t get up here where I live, but they are in the shop downstairs. That’s a business, not a home. I’m worried they’ll get bored waiting for me and set fire to the place. Hurry up and get down here.”

“We’re on our way, but we’re up in Austin, so it’s going to take an hour. Stay put.”

“Where on earth do you think I’d be going?” Jacob said before hanging up.

As Lacey sped down the interstate, I tried to ignore what was going on in the backseat, with limited success.

Megan desperately needed blood, and Marie hadn’t eaten yet, either. Despite my offer, it was decided the best solution was a third-party donor. We picked up a jogger from the trail that ran alongside the river near the hotel.

Marie had done the honors. She waited on the trail feigning a sprained ankle. It took all of thirty seconds before some poor guy stopped to help her. He was now feeding the two vampires in the back seat as we headed down the highway to San Antonio.

Lacey pointed out that just because we had a van, it didn’t mean we could go around kidnapping people. I agreed. It creeped me out, despite Marie’s assurances that the guy would be fine. She said that as soon as we hit San Antonio, we would leave him on the side of the road with enough blood left to live and a faded memory of a good time with a couple of girls in the back of a van.

I couldn’t come up with a better alternative. Megan was badly hurt, and I didn’t trust Marie enough to have her lurking around us hungry. So I turned up the radio, hoping it would block out the noises. Megan was drifting in and out of unconsciousness and Marie was persistently coaxing her to drink. At least Mom was still sound asleep through it all; I don’t think she would have approved.

True to her word, Marie left the man woozy but alive and smiling when we dropped him off in front of a convenience store. The creepiness didn’t end, however, as the sounds of feeding were replaced by those of body parts snapping back into place and knitting together, punctuated by inane comments from my brother, who had been watching both spectacles with equal abandon.

Understandably, I was anxious to get out of the vehicle, and I hopped out of the van as soon as it stopped, taking large breaths of fresh air.

Lacey had parked several blocks away from the vacuum repair shop. The street was dark. Either by intent or poor city maintenance, all but one of the streetlights were out. The one remaining light was between us and the shop, and its glow didn’t quite reach either location.

I squinted into the darkness but didn’t see anything unusual. Thankfully, that included signs of fire. All of the building’s windows were dark and, near as I could tell, intact. It was around eleven o’clock, but signs of nightlife were absent. The street, lined with small retail shops that had long since closed for the night, was completely deserted.

“I need you to stay here and keep an eye on Megan and my mom,” I told Kevin after he parked his car behind ours and got out.

“Is Megan okay? How about that guy you dumped back at the convenience store?” he asked.

“They’ll both live, but Megan’s going to be out of commission for a while, and my mom is still asleep. I need you to wait in the van. Trade keys with Lacey. If things go south, or even sideways, I want you to take off. Fast. Go somewhere safe, preferably without windows, and wait for us. You have my cell number.”

Kevin was reluctant at first, eager to both save his uncle and finally get a piece of the action. He only agreed after my brother told him he would get to watch Megan finish healing. That suggestion garnered a less- than-flattering comment about Bryan from inside the van. At least Megan had achieved consciousness.

I handed Kevin the Browning. “Do you know how to use this?”

He took the gun and nodded. “You hold it sideways and start pulling the trigger.”

I looked at him for a second, trying to ascertain if he was serious. I gave up and went back in the van to grab some hardware out of the goody bag. The bag was running woefully low. We were down to one AK, the Bushmaster, and a Glock 17. I hated plastic guns, but with no choice, I took the Glock along with the AK. After my brother grabbed the Bushmaster and a pair of stakes, the bag was empty.

I spared the time to check out the back of the van. My mom was still asleep. Megan continued to mend, though she was covered in even more blood than before, which was disturbing.

“Hey there,” I said, squatting in front of the bench seat where she was lying.

Her eyes opened. “Looks like I’m going to have to sit this one out.”

“You should have flapped harder.”

“It’s times like these when I wish we really could turn into bats.”

I took her hand and gave her a quick smile before moving to go. She held on to my hand.

“I’m glad you got your mom back.”

I moved back toward her. “Me, too. Thanks for the help. I owe you one.”

“I think you owe me more than one. Did you mean what you said back at the hotel?” She began to play with my father’s ring, using her finger to twist it around on mine.

I tried quickly to remember exactly what I’d said.

“Sure.” I didn’t remember what it was, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t lied to her.

She smiled and gave my hand a weak squeeze. “Don’t go getting yourself killed.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine. Hey, I’ll tell you what.” I took off my father’s ring and put it in her palm. “How about you hold on to this for me? It will be safer here, and I’d feel better if everything I cared about was out of the line of fire.”

Her hand clamped down on the ring and she nodded at me.

“Damn, dude, I heard that. Nice to hear that you don’t care about your bro. Now finish getting it on back there and let’s get going.”

I bent down and kissed Megan on her forehead, then pulled back and took a look at her. Despite her battered shape, she was still beautiful. Her shoulder was even back in its socket and her wrist looked healthier. Unfortunately, her leg didn’t yet; the fibula still stuck out of her calf.

Megan followed my gaze down to the bone, then back to me. I knew what she wanted me to do, but I wasn’t happy about it. Between playing sports and majoring in Physical Education, I had been around compound fractures more than most non-doctors. Normally they required serious medical treatment, but in Megan’s case, I hoped that if we got the pieces close enough together they would knit on their own.