"Why don't we dump these bodies in the sound?" he suggested.
I bent down, grabbed the dead blonde, and slung her limp body over my shoulder. I was about to get the other one, but Diego was there before me, the pimp already on his back.
"I got it," he said.
I followed him up the alley wall, and then we swung across the girders under the freeway. The lights from the cars below didn't touch us. I thought how stupid people were, how oblivious, and I was glad I wasn't one of the clueless.
Hidden in the darkness, we made our way to an empty dock, closed for the night. Diego didn't hesitate at the end of the concrete, he just jumped right over the edge with his bulky burden and disappeared into the water. I slid in after him.
He swam as sleek and quick as a shark, shooting deeper and farther out into the black sound. He stopped suddenly when he found what he was looking for--a huge, slime-covered boulder on the ocean floor, sea stars and garbage clinging to its sides. We had to be more than a hundred feet deep--to a human, it would have seemed pitch-black here. Diego let go of his bodies. They swayed slowly in the current beside him while he shoved his hand into the mucky sand at the base of the rock. After a second he found a hold and ripped the boulder up from its resting spot. The weight of it drove him waist-deep into the dark seafloor.
He looked up and nodded to me.
I swam down to him, hooking his bodies with one hand on my way. I shoved the blonde into the black hole under the rock, then pushed the second girl and the pimp in after her. I kicked them lightly to make sure they were in, and then got out of the way. Diego let the boulder fall. It wobbled a little, adjusting to the newly uneven foundation. He kicked his way out of the muck, swam to the top of the boulder, and then pushed it down, grinding the obstructions flat underneath.
He swam back a few yards to view his work.
Perfect, I mouthed. These three bodies would never resurface. Riley would never hear a story about them on the news.
He grinned and held up his hand.
It took me a minute to understand that he was looking for a high five. Hesitantly, I swam forward, tapped my palm to his, then kicked away, putting some distance between us.
Diego got a weird expression on his face, and then he shot to the surface like a bullet.
I darted up after him, confused. When I broke through to the air, he was almost choking on his laughter.
"What?"
He couldn't answer me for a minute. Finally he blurted out, "Worst high five ever."
I sniffed, irritated. "Couldn't be sure you weren't just going to rip my arm off or something."
Diego snorted. "I wouldn't do that."
"Anyone else would," I countered.
"True, that," he agreed, suddenly not as amused. "You up for a little more hunting?"
"Do you have to ask?"
We came out of the water under a bridge and lucked right into two homeless guys sleeping in ancient, filthy sleeping bags on top of a shared mattress of old newspapers. Neither one of them woke up. Their blood was soured by alcohol, but still better than nothing. We buried them in the sound, too, under a different rock.
"Well, I'm good for a few weeks," Diego said when we were out of the water again, dripping on the end of another empty dock.
I sighed. "I guess that's the easier part, right? I'll be burning again in a couple of days. And then Riley will probably send me out with more of Raoul's mutants again."
"I can come with you, if you want. Riley pretty much lets me do what I want."
I thought about the offer, suspicious for a second. But Diego really didn't seem like any of the others. I felt different with him. Like I didn't need to watch my back so much.
"I'd like that," I admitted. It felt off to say this. Too vulnerable or something.
But Diego just said "cool" and smiled at me.
"So how come Riley gives you such a long leash?" I asked, wondering about the relationship there. The more time I spent with Diego, the less I could picture him being in tight with Riley. Diego was so... friendly. Nothing like Riley. But maybe it was an opposites-attract thing.
"Riley knows he can trust me to clean up my messes. Speaking of which, do you mind running a quick errand?"
I was starting to be entertained by this strange boy. Curious about him. I wanted to see what he would do.
"Sure," I said.
He bounded across the dock toward the road that ran along the waterfront. I followed after. I caught the scent of a few humans, but I knew it was too dark and we were too fast for them to see us.
He chose to travel across rooftops again. After a few jumps, I recognized both our scents. He was retracing our earlier path.
And then we were back to that first alley, where Kevin and the other guy had gotten stupid with the car.
"Unbelievable," Diego growled.
Kevin and Co. had just left, it appeared. Two other cars were stacked on top of the first, and a handful of bystanders had been added to the body count. The cops weren't here yet--because anyone who might have reported the mayhem was already dead.
"Help me sort this out?" Diego asked.
"Okay."
We dropped down, and Diego quickly threw the cars into a new arrangement, so that it sort of looked like they'd hit each other rather than been piled up by a giant tantrum-throwing baby. I grabbed the two dry, lifeless bodies abandoned on the pavement and stuffed them under the apparent site of impact.
"Bad accident," I commented.
Diego grinned. He took a lighter out of a ziplock from his pocket and started igniting the clothes of the victims. I grabbed my own lighter--Riley reissued these when we went hunting; Kevin should have used his--and got to work on the upholstery. The bodies, dried out and laced with flammable venom, blazed up quickly.
"Get back," Diego warned, and I saw that he had the first car's gas hatch open and the lid screwed off the tank. I jumped up the closest wall, perching a story above to watch. He took a few steps back and lit a match. With perfect aim, he tossed it into the small hole. In the same second, he leaped up beside me.
The boom of the explosion shook the whole street. Lights started going on around the corner.
"Well done," I said.
"Thanks for your help. Back to Riley's?"
I frowned. Riley's house was the last place I wanted to spend the rest of my night. I didn't want to see Raoul's stupid face or listen to the constant shrieking and fighting. I didn't want to have to grit my teeth and hide out behind Freaky Fred so that people would leave me alone. And I was out of books.
"We've got some time," Diego said, reading my expression. "We don't have to go right away."
"I could use some reading material."
"And I could use some new music." He grinned. "Let's go shopping."
We moved quickly through town--over rooftops again and then darting through shadowy streets when the buildings got farther apart--to a friendlier neighborhood. It didn't take long to find a strip mall with one of the big chain bookstores. I snapped the lock on the roof access hatch and let us in. The store was empty, the only alarms on the windows and doors. I went straight to the H's, while Diego headed to the music section in the back. I'd just finished with Hale. I took the next dozen books in line; that would keep me a couple of days.
I looked around for Diego and found him sitting at one of the cafe tables, studying the backs of his new CDs. I paused, then joined him.
This felt strange because it was familiar in a haunting, uncomfortable way. I had sat like this before--across a table from someone. I'd chatted casually with that person, thinking about things that were not life and death or thirst and blood. But that had been in a different, blurry lifetime.
The last time I'd sat at a table with someone, that someone had been Riley. It was hard to remember that night for a lot of reasons.
"So how come I never notice you around the house?" Diego asked abruptly. "Where do you hide?"
I laughed and grimaced at the same time. "I usuall
y kick it behind wherever Freaky Fred is hanging out."
His nose wrinkled. "Seriously? How do you stand that?"
"You get used to it. It's not so bad behind him as it is in front. Anyway, it's the best hiding place I've found. Nobody gets close to Fred."
Diego nodded, still looking kind of grossed out. "That's true. It's a way to stay alive."
I shrugged.
"Did you know that Fred is one of Riley's favorites?" Diego asked.
"Really? How?" No one could stand Freaky Fred. I was the only one who tried, and that was solely out of self-preservation.
Diego leaned toward me conspiratorially. I was already so used to his strange way that I didn't even flinch.
"I heard him on the phone with her."
I shuddered.
"I know," he said, sounding sympathetic again. Of course, it wasn't weird that we could sympathize with each other when it came to her. "This was a few months back. Anyway, Riley was talking about Fred, all excited. From what they were saying, I guess that some vampires can do things. More than what normal vampires can do, I mean. And that's good--something she's looking for. Vampires with skillzzz."
He pulled the Z sound out, so I could hear how he was spelling it in his head.
"What kinds of skills?"
"All kinds of stuff, it sounds like. Mind reading and tracking and even seeing the future."
"Get out."
"I'm not kidding. I guess Fred can sort of repel people on purpose. It's all in our heads, though. He makes us repulsed at the thought of being near him."
I frowned. "How is that a good thing?"
"Keeps him alive, doesn't it? Guess it keeps you alive, too."
I nodded. "Guess so. Did he say anything about anyone else?" I tried to think of anything strange I'd seen or felt, but Fred was one of a kind. The clowns in the alley tonight pretending to be superheroes hadn't been doing anything the rest of us couldn't do.
"He talked about Raoul," Diego said, the corner of his mouth twisting down.
"What skill does Raoul have? Super-stupidity?"
Diego snorted. "Definitely that. But Riley thinks he's got some kind of magnetism--people are drawn to him, they follow him."
"Only the mentally challenged."
"Yeah, Riley mentioned that. Didn't seem to be effective on the"--he broke out a decent impression of Riley's voice--"'tamer kids.'"
"Tame?"
"I inferred that he meant people like us, who are able to think occasionally."
I didn't like being called tame. It didn't sound like a good thing when you put it that way. Diego's way sounded better.
"It was like there was a reason Riley needed Raoul to lead--something's coming, I think."
A weird tingle spasmed along my spine when he said that, and I sat up straighter. "Like what?"
"Do you ever think about why Riley is always after us to keep a low profile?"
I hesitated for half a second before answering. This wasn't the line of inquiry I would have expected from Riley's right-hand man. Almost like he was questioning what Riley had told us. Unless Diego was asking this for Riley, like a spy. Finding out what the "kids" thought of him. But it didn't feel like that. Diego's dark red eyes were open and confiding. And why would Riley care? Maybe the way the others talked about Diego wasn't based on anything real. Just gossip.
I answered him truthfully. "Yeah, actually I was just thinking about that."
"We aren't the only vampires in the world," Diego said solemnly.
"I know. Riley says stuff sometimes. But there can't be too many. I mean, wouldn't we have noticed, before?"
Diego nodded. "That's what I think, too. Which is why it's pretty weird that she keeps making more of us, don't you think?"
I frowned. "Huh. Because it's not like Riley actually likes us or anything...." I paused again, waiting to see if he would contradict me. He didn't. He just waited, nodding slightly in agreement, so I continued. "And she hasn't even introduced herself. You're right. I hadn't looked at it that way. Well, I hadn't really thought about it at all. But then, what do they want us for?"
Diego raised one eyebrow. "Wanna hear what I think?"
I nodded warily. But my anxiety had nothing to do with him now.
"Like I said, something is coming. I think she wants protection, and she put Riley in charge of creating the front line."
I thought this through, my spine prickling again. "Why wouldn't they tell us? Shouldn't we be, like, on the lookout or something?"
"That would make sense," he agreed.
We looked at each other in silence for a few long-seeming seconds. I had nothing more, and it didn't look like he did, either.
Finally I grimaced and said, "I don't know if I buy it--the part about Raoul being good for anything, that is."
Diego laughed. "Hard to argue that one." Then he glanced out the windows at the dark early morning. "Out of time. Better head back before we turn into crispies."
"Ashes, ashes, we all fall down," I sang under my breath as I got to my feet and collected my pile.
Diego chuckled.
We made one more quick stop on our way--hit the empty Target next door for big ziplocks and two backpacks. I double-bagged all my books. Water-damaged pages annoyed me.
Then we mostly roof-topped it back to the water. The sky was just faintly starting to gray up in the east. We slipped into the sound right under the noses of two oblivious night watchmen by the big ferry--good thing for them I was full or they would have been too close for my self-control--and then raced through the murky water back toward Riley's place.
At first I didn't know it was a race. I was just swimming fast because the sky was getting lighter. I didn't usually push the time like this. If I were being honest with myself, I'd pretty much turned into a huge vampire nerd. I followed the rules, I didn't cause trouble, I hung out with the most unpopular kid in the group, and I always got home early.
But then Diego really kicked it into gear. He got a few lengths ahead of me, turned back with a smile that said, what, can't you keep up? and then started booking it again.
Well, I wasn't taking that. I couldn't really remember if I'd been the competitive type before--it all seemed so far away and unimportant--but maybe I was, because I responded right away to the challenge. Diego was a good swimmer, but I was way stronger, especially after just feeding.
See ya, I mouthed as I passed him, but I wasn't sure he saw.
I lost him back in the dark water, and I didn't waste time looking to see by how much I was winning. I just jetted through the sound till I hit the edge of the island where the most recent of our homes was located. The last one had been a big cabin in the middle of Snowville-Nowhere on the side of some mountain in the Cascades. Like the last one, this house was remote, had a big basement, and had recently deceased owners.
I raced up onto the shallow stony beach and then dug my fingers into the sandstone bluff and flew up. I heard Diego come out of the water just as I gripped the trunk of an overhanging pine and flipped myself over the cliff edge.
Two things caught my attention as I landed gently on the balls of my feet. One: it was really light out. Two: the house was gone.
Well, not entirely gone. Some of it was still visible, but the space the house had once occupied was empty. The roof had collapsed into ragged, angular wooden lace, charred black, sagging lower than the front door had been.
The sun was rising fast. The black pine trees were showing hints of evergreen. Soon the paler tips would stand out against the dark, and at about that point I would be dead.
Or really dead, or whatever. This second thirsty, superhero life would go up in a sudden burst of flames. And I could only imagine that the burst would be very, very painful.
This wasn't the first time I'd seen our house destroyed--with all the fights and fires in the basements, most of them lasted only a few weeks--but it was the first time I'd come across the scene of destruction with the first faint rays of sunlight threatening.
I sucked in a gasp of shock as Diego landed beside me.
"Maybe burrow under the roof?" I whispered. "Would that be safe enough or--?"
"Don't freak out, Bree," Diego said, sounding too calm. "I know a place. C'mon."
He did a very graceful backflip off the bluff edge.
I didn't think the water would be enough of a filter to block the sun. But maybe we couldn't burn if we were submerged? It seemed like a really poor plan to me.
However, instead of tunneling under the burned-out hull of the wrecked house, I dove off the cliff behind him. I wasn't sure of my reasoning, which was a strange feeling. Usually I did what I always did--followed the routine, did what made sense.
I caught up to Diego in the water. He was racing again, but with no nonsense this time. Racing the sun.
He whipped around a point on the little island and then dove deep. I was surprised he didn't hit the rocky floor of the sound, and more surprised when I could feel the blast of warmer current flowing from what I had thought was no more than an outcropping of rock.
Smart of Diego to have a place like this. Sure, it wasn't going to be fun to sit in an underwater cavern all day--not breathing started to irritate after a few hours--but it was better than exploding into ashes. I should have been thinking like Diego was. Thinking about something other than blood, that is. I should have been prepared for the unexpected.
Diego kept going through a narrow crevice in the rocks. It was black as ink in here. Safe. I couldn't swim anymore--the space was too tight--so I scrambled through like Diego, climbing through the twisting space. I kept waiting for him to stop, but he didn't. Suddenly I realized that we really were going up. And then I heard Diego hit the surface.
I was out a half second after he was.
The cave was no more than a small hole, a burrow about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, though not as tall as that. A second crawl space led out the back, and I could taste the fresh air coming from that direction. I could see the shape of Diego's fingers repeated again and again in the texture of the limestone walls.
"Nice place," I said.
Diego smiled. "Better than Freaky Fred's backside."
"I can't argue with that. Um. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
We looked at each other in the dark for a minute. His face was smooth and calm. With anyone else, Kevin or Kristie or any of the others, this would have been terrifying--the constricted space, the forced closeness. The way I could smell his scent on every side of me. That could have meant a quick and painful death at any second. But Diego was so composed. Not like anyone else.