She stopped hyperventilating somewhat, matching her breathing to my calm words. “Y-yes.”
“Good. Estelle, can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“They’re after me. I’m hurt. They’re coming after me. I need help.” Her words came faster and faster. My heartbeat sped up along with them. Her voice lisped, like she held her mouth too close to the phone.
“Wait a minute. Explain your situation. Who’s after you?”
She swallowed, loud enough to carry over the line. “Have you heard of Elijah Smith? The Church of the Pure Faith?”
I stood and started pacing. More than heard of him, I was almost ready to show up at his door and let him have at me just to learn something new. I so wanted to expose him for a charlatan. Right now, the church caravan was parked some sixty miles away from the studio.
“Yes, I’ve heard of them.”
“I left. I mean—I want to leave. I’m trying to leave.”
“Oh. I mean—oh.” I, who made my living by my voice, was speechless. No one had ever left the Church of the Pure Faith. None of Smith’s followers had ever been willing to talk about him.
I had so many questions: What was she? Had she gone looking for a cure? Did it work? What was Smith like? This was the interview I’d been waiting for.
“Okay, Estelle. Let me make sure I’m clear on this. You are—what, vampire? Lycanthrope?”
“Vampire.”
“Right. And you went to the Church of the Pure Faith seeking a cure for vampirism. You met Elijah Smith. You—were you cured? Were you really cured?” What would I do if she said yes?
“I—I thought so. I mean, I thought I was. But not anymore.”
“I’m confused.”
“Yeah,” she said, laughing weakly. “Me, too.”
Estelle sounded exhausted. How long had she been running? The night was half over. Did she have a safe place to spend the day? And why had she called me?
Witnesses. We were live on the air. Thousands of witnesses would hear her story. Smart. Now if only I could live up to her faith in me.
“Are you safe for the moment? Are you in a safe place or do you need to get out of there right now? Where are you?”
“I lost them, for now. I’m in a gas station; it’s closed for the night. I’ll be all right until dawn.”
“Where, Estelle? I want to send you help if I have to.”
“I don’t think I want to say where. They might be listening. They might follow you here.”
This was going to be tough. One step at a time, though. I covered my mouthpiece with a hand and called to Matt. “Check caller ID, find out where she’s calling from.” Through the booth window I saw him nod. I went back to Estelle. “When you say they’re after you, do you mean Smith? Do you mean his people? Do they want to hurt you?”
“Yes. Yes!”
“Huh. Some church. Why don’t people leave him?”
“They—they can’t, Kitty. It’s complicated. We’re not supposed to talk about it.”
Matt pressed a piece of paper against the booth window. PAY PHONE—UNKNOWN, it read.
“Estelle? Walk me through the cure. You saw a poster announcing a church meeting. You showed up at the tent. How long ago was this?”
She was breathing more calmly, but her voice still sounded tight, hushed, like she was afraid of being overheard. “Four months.”
“What happened when you got there?”
“I arrived just after dark. There was a group of tents, some RVs, campers and things. They were circled and roped off. There were guards. About eight of us gathered at a gate. There was a screening process. They patted us down for weapons, made sure none of us were reporters. Only the truly faithful ever get to see Smith. And—I wanted to believe. I really wanted to believe. One of the people they searched, I think he was a werewolf—they found a microphone or something on him, and they threw him out.”
They threw out a werewolf. That took some doing. “People who’ve tried to break into the Church have met up with considerable force. Who works on the security detail?”
“His followers—everyone who lives and works in that caravan is a believer.”
“But they’ve gotta be tough. Whole werewolf packs have gone after him—”
“And they’re going up against werewolves. And weretigers, and vampires—everything. It’s fighting fire with fire, Kitty.”
“So they’re not really cured.”
“Oh, but they are. I never saw them shape-shift, not even during the full moon. The vampires—they walked in daylight!”
“But they retained their strength? They were still able to deal with a werewolf on equal terms?” Lose the weaknesses without losing the strengths of those conditions? Some might call that better than a cure.
“I suppose so.”
Interesting. “Go on.”
“I was brought inside the main tent. It looked like a church service, an old-fashioned revival, with the congregation gathered before a stage. A man on the stage called to me.”
“This was Smith? What’s he like?”
“He—he looks very normal.” Of course. She probably wouldn’t even be able to pick him out of a lineup. “I expected to be preached at, lectured with all the usual biblical quotes about witches and evildoers. I didn’t care; I would have sat through anything if it meant being cured. But he didn’t. He spoke about the will to change. He asked me if I wanted to change, if I had the will to help him reach into my soul and retrieve my mortality, my life. Oh, yes, I said. His words were so powerful. Then he set his hands on my head.
“It was real, Kitty. Oh, it was real! He touched my face, and a light filled me. Every sunrise I’d missed filled me. And the hunger—it faded. I didn’t want blood anymore. My whole body surged, like my own blood returned. My skin flushed. I was mortal again, alive and breathing, like Lazarus. I really was! He showed me a cross and I touched it—and nothing happened. I didn’t burn. He made me believe I could walk in the sun.”
When Estelle first started talking, I thought I’d gotten someone who’d been disillusioned, who’d be ready to expose Smith’s secrets and tell me exactly why he was a fake. But Estelle didn’t talk like a disillusioned ex-
follower. She still believed. She spoke like a believer who had lost her faith, or lost her belief in her own right to salvation.
I had to ask: “Could you, Estelle? Could you walk in the sun?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice a whisper.
Goddamn it. A cure. I felt a tickle in my stomach, a piece of hope that felt a little like heartburn. A choice, an escape. I could have my old life back. If I wanted it.
There had to be a catch.
I kept my voice steady, attempting journalistic impartiality. “You stayed with him for four months. What did you do?”
“I traveled with the caravan. I appeared onstage and witnessed. I watched sunrises. Smith took care of me. He takes care of all of us.”
“So you’re cured. That’s great. Why not leave? Why don’t those who are cured ever go away and start a new life for themselves?”
“He’s our leader. We’re devoted to him. He saves us and we would die for him.”
She was so earnest, it made me wonder if I was being set up. But I was close to something. Questions, more questions. “But you want to leave him now. Why?”
“It—it’s so stifling. I could see the sun. But I couldn’t leave him.”
“Couldn’t?”
“No—I couldn’t. All I was, my new self, it was because of him. It was like . . . he made me.”
Oh, my. “It sounds a little like a vampire Family. Devoted followers serving a Master who created them.” For that matter it sounded like a werewolf pack, but I didn’t want to go there.
“What?”
“I have a couple of questions for you, Estelle. Were you made a vampire against your will or were you turned voluntarily?”
“It—it wasn’t against my will. I wanted it. It was 1936, Kitty. I was seventeen. I cont
racted polio. I was dead anyway, or horribly crippled at best, do you understand? My Master offered an escape. A cure. He said I was too charming to waste.”
I developed a mental picture of her. She’d look young, painfully innocent even, with the clean looks and aura of allure that most vampires cultivated.
“When did you decide you didn’t want to be a vampire anymore? What made you seek out Elijah Smith?”
“I had no freedom. Everything revolved around the Master. I couldn’t do anything without him. What kind of life is that?”
“Unlife?” Ooh, remember the inside voice.
“I had to get away.”
If I were going to do the pop-psychology bit on Estelle, I’d tell her she had a problem with commitment and accepting the consequences of her decisions. Always running away to look for a cure, and now she’d run to me.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I was mortal now—I could do whatever I wanted, right? I could walk in broad daylight. I was assigned screening duty at the front gate two nights ago. I lost myself in the crowd and never went back. I found a hiding place, an old barn I think. In the morning, I walked past the open door, through the sunlight—and I burned. The hunger returned. He—he withdrew his cure, his blessing. His grace.”
“The cure didn’t work.”
“It did! But I had lost my faith.”
“You burned. How badly are you hurt, Estelle?”
“I—I only lost half my face.”
I closed my eyes. That pretty picture of Estelle I had made disintegrated, porcelain skin bubbling, blackening, turning to ash until bone could be seen underneath. She ducked back into shade, and because she was still a vampire, immortal, she survived.
“Estelle, one of the theories about Smith says that he has some sort of psychic power. It isn’t a cure, but it shields people from some of the side effects of their natures—vulnerability to sunlight and the need for blood in the case of vampires, the need to shape-shift in the case of lycanthropes. His followers must stay with him so he can maintain it. It’s a kind of symbiotic relationship—he controls their violent natures and feeds off their power and attention. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.” She sniffed. Her voice was tight, and I understood now where her hushed lisp was coming from.
Matt came into the studio. “Kitty, there’s a call for you on line four.”
Four was my emergency line. Only a couple of people had the number. Carl had it. I bet it was him, still trying to be protective.
“Can’t it wait?”
“No. The guy threatened me pretty soundly.” Matt shrugged unapologetically. He’d let me mess with the threats from the supernatural world. One of these days he was going to quit this gig, and I wouldn’t be able to blame him. I needed to get Ozzie to give him a raise.
“Estelle, hang on for just a minute. I’m still with you, but I have to take a break.” I put her on hold, punched the line, and made sure it wasn’t set to broadcast. The last thing I needed was Carl lecturing me on the air. “What?”
“Hello, Katherine,” said an aristocratic male voice.
It wasn’t Carl. Oh, no. Only one other person besides my grandmother ever called me Katherine. I’d met him only a couple of times in person, during territorial face-offs with Carl and the pack. But I knew that voice. That voice made my bone marrow twinge.
“Arturo. How the hell did you get this number?”
“I have ways.”
Oh, please. On the phone, behind the microphone, I had the power. I switched the line over to live. “Hello, Arturo. You’re on the air.”
“Katherine,” he said tightly. “I wish to speak to you privately.”
“You call me during the show, you talk to my listeners. That’s the deal.” Maybe if I was brazen enough, I’d forget that he’d tried to have me killed.
“I do not appreciate being treated like your rabble—”
“What do you want, Arturo?”
He took a deep breath. “I want to talk to Estelle.”
“Why?”
“She’s one of mine.”
Great. This was getting complicated. I covered the mike with my hand. “Matt, how does three-way calling work again?”
A few seconds later, I had Estelle back on the line. “Estelle? You still there?”
“Yes.” Her voice was trembling. She swallowed.
“Okay—I have Arturo on the other line—”
She groaned like I’d just staked her. “He’ll kill me. He’ll kill me for leaving him—”
“On the contrary, my dear. I want to take you home. You’re hurt and need help. Tell me where you are.”
Her breath hiccuped. She was crying. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
“It’s far too late for that,” he said, sounding tired.
I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. “Estelle, I think you should listen to him. I don’t know what I can do for you. Arturo can get you to a safe place.”
“I don’t believe him. I can’t go back, I can’t ever go back!”
“Estelle, please, tell me where you are,” Arturo said.
“Kitty?” Estelle said, her voice small.
“Arturo—you promise you aren’t going to hurt her?”
“Katherine, you’re being harsh.”
“Promise.”
“Katherine. Estelle is mine. She is part of me. If she is destroyed, part of me is destroyed as well. I have an interest in protecting her. I promise.”
Drama, tension, excitement! What a great setup for a show! But at the moment I would have given my pelt to have the whiny goth chicks back.
“I’m going to break for station identification. When we return, I hope I’ll have a wrap-up for you on our sudden special broadcast of ‘Elijah Smith: Exposed.’” I switched the phone lines off the air and said, “All right, Estelle. It’s up to you.”
“Okay. Okay. Arturo, come get me. I’m at the Speedy Mart on Seventy-fifth.”
Arturo’s line clicked off.
“You okay, Estelle?” I asked.
“Yeah. Yes, I’m all right.” She had stopped crying and seemed almost calm. The decision had been made. She could stop running, for a little while at least.
I had one more call to make—to the cavalry, just in case. I should have called the police. Hardin—she’d help Estelle. Yeah, she’d take Estelle to a hospital. And they wouldn’t know what to do with her. They wouldn’t understand, and it would take too long to explain.
A normal person would have called the police. But I pulled a scrap of paper out of my contact book, got an outside line, and dialed. After six rings, I almost hung up. Then, “Yeah.” Mobile phone static underlaid the voice.
“Cormac? Have you been listening to the show tonight?”
“Norville? Why would I be listening to your show?”
Oh, yeah, he could pretend, but I knew the truth. He’d listened once, it could happen again. “One of my callers is in trouble. Arturo says he’ll help her, but I don’t trust him. I want to make sure she doesn’t get caught in a cross fire. Can you go help? Make sure nobody dies and stuff?”
“Arturo? Arturo is helping? She’s a vampire, isn’t she.” It might have been a question, but he didn’t make it sound like one.
“Yeah, actually.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Yup. Look, chances are Arturo will get to Estelle first and the Church people won’t even find her. But if the Church people do show up, they’ll have some pretty hard-hitting supernaturals with them. You might get to shoot one.”
“Whoa, slow down. Church?”
“Church of the Pure Faith.”
“Hm. A buddy of mine was hired to go in there and never got through. I’ve been wanting to get a look at them.”
“Here’s your chance,” I said brightly.
“Right. I’ll check it out, but no promises.”
“Good enough. Thanks, Cormac.” I gave him the address. He grunt
ed something resembling a sign-off.
Matt was signaling through the window. Time up. On-air light on. Okay. “We’re back to The Midnight Hour. Estelle?”
“Kitty! A car just pulled up. It’s not Arturo; I think it’s people from the Church. They’ll kill me, Kitty. We’re not supposed to leave; they’ll take me back and then—I’ve told you everything and now everybody knows—”
“Okay, Estelle. Stay down. Help’s on the way.”
Matt leaned in and didn’t bother to muffle his voice for the mike this time. His expression was taut and anxious. He actually looked harried. “Line four again.”
Maybe it was Arturo checking in. Maybe I could warn him. He was Estelle’s only chance to get out of there. “Yeah?”
“Kitty, do you need help?” said a gruff, accusatory voice.
Not Arturo. Carl. Why was he worried about whether I needed help now of all times?
“I can’t talk now, Carl.” I hung up on him. I’d catch hell for that later.
Carl and I were going to kill each other one of these days.
Switched lines again, had to double-check to make sure it was the right one. “Estelle? What’s happening? Estelle?” A sound rustled over the mouthpiece, then a banging noise like something falling. My heart dropped. “Estelle?”
“Yes. I’m hiding, but the phone cord won’t go any farther. I don’t want to hang up, Kitty.”
I didn’t want her to hang up. A nasty little voice in my head whispered ratings. But the only way I was going to find out what happened was if she stayed on the line.
“Estelle, if you have to hang up, hang up, okay? The important thing is to get out of there in one piece.”
“Thank you, Kitty,” she said, her face wet with tears. “Thank you for listening to me. No one’s ever really listened to me before.”
I hadn’t done anything. I couldn’t do anything. I was trapped behind the mike.
After that, I had to piece together events from what I was hearing. It was like listening to a badly directed radio drama. Tires squealed on asphalt. A car door slammed. Distant voices shouted. The phone slammed against something again: Estelle had dropped the handset. Running footsteps.
I paced, my hands itching to turn into claws and my legs itching to run. That happened when I got stressed. I wanted to Change and run. Run far, run fast, like Estelle had tried to do.