“Whatever. What were they doing? And those snake-things—”
“The snake-things were trying to get at us. But the werwulfen . . . I just don’t know. Maybe they were after Christophe, but the one that bit you, he wasn’t—I just don’t know, Graves. I’m sorry.” I got you into this. I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know.
“I thought he was going to kill you.” He stared out the windshield as I stole a corner-of-the-eye glance at him. “I wanted to tear his throat out.”
I don’t think he was going to kill me. But he certainly wasn’t playing nice. Graves sounded like he was having a hard time with the idea of anyone killing anything—I knew exactly how that felt. So I decided to change the subject. “How did you get my keys?”
“He dropped them.” Silence wrapped around us both. Empty streets in the middle of the day, not a soul to be seen—even wrapped up and picking their way along the sidewalks. “God, this is weird.”
You bet it is. Can a sucker do this? Change the outside world? Is that possible? Or are people just feeling the bad outside and wanting to stay in? The tires crunched. Snow kept falling, getting thicker by the minute. “Dig under the seat. There’re a few metal boxes. One’s blue, that’s first aid. The second one’s red, you don’t want that either. The one under me is gray, and it’s got a gun. We want that one.”
He waited for a few seconds. “I suppose that would be a good idea. I don’t want to mess with it, though.”
“Just get it out.” I probably didn’t want him messing with it either, if he wasn’t used to firearms. “I’ll handle the shooting, I guess. You just turn up the superhero.”
He didn’t find it at all funny. “I’m serious, Dru. I saw him hurting you, and I just—”
I know. “Did he hurt you?”
“Nah. I broke the window, though.” A jagged, bitter little laugh. He fiddled with the seat belt, and I thought of telling him to buckle up. “I was really worried about that, too. Go figure. I saw him hurting you and it was like . . . something inside me woke up, and I wanted to kill him. Really kill him, not just like saying you want to kill someone. You know? Like I wasn’t even myself anymore.”
“Oh.” What did you say to something like that? My heart gave a funny little skip. “I’m glad you’re here. This would he horrible on my own.”
I expected a flip answer and a flash of humor, but he just slumped further into the seat, bent down, and started digging underneath. “Yeah, well.”
Well, you can’t expect him to be very happy about this, Dru. My eyes flicked to the driver’s-side mirror for a second, catching . . . something. I kept looking, but it was gone and didn’t come back. Just a shadow. The ringing in my head wouldn’t go away. My shoulder hurt, and my arm wasn’t too happy either. “Are we close?”
“Turn south on 72nd; it’s two streets up. Then just follow that until we hit the suburbs.” He curled himself up to half-lay on the seat, peering underneath and digging for the field box. “How often does something like this happen to you?”
“Not very,” I admitted. I swiped at my burning cheek with the back of my hand. Tears rose again. I pushed them down, wished I had a hankie or something. Dad always had a hankie. Most of them had his initials embroidered on them in Gran’s neat, careful stitches. “More like never. Dad was always around.”
“I’m sorry about your dad, Dru.” He peered up awkwardly, his head almost in my lap. His eyes were very green, and since he wasn’t a white boy, he missed out on the blotchy part of crying.
I attempted a half-smile, ended up with a weird grimace. “I’m sorry you got bit.” I rubbed at my eyes again. The snow hissed under the tires, clumped on the windshield wipers.
“We’re sure I’m not going to get all hairy like those other things, right?” He tried a smile that looked like it hurt and fished out the field box.
Another shadow flickered in the mirror. Was it nerves, or was there really something back there? I risked going a little faster. “Absolutely. Even Christophe said so, and it was in the Ars Lupica, too.” Dad paid good money for that book and never found a chance to use it. I wish he was here to see it useful now.
I flinched. Dad. Christophe. Both gone. There had to have been at least a dozen werwulfen.
Why hadn’t they attacked us?
Graves sat back up. “Jesus,” he said quietly.
I heartily agreed. And the snow began to fall in rivers.
CHAPTER 27
Way out in suburbia, the streets had naked trees clutching at the sky, their cold limbs grasping at soft white ribbons and sometimes festooned with icicles. Some actually had Christmas lights up, though it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet. Or maybe they just hadn’t taken them down from last year.
The streets were scraped and sanded out here too, but they were fast blurring under the onslaught of snow. 72nd Street had turned into McGill Road briefly, then jagged and become 72nd Avenue, narrowing, winding, and branching off like an artery getting further and further from the heart. The houses got a little bigger, the sidewalks broad and scraped clean. I saw flashes of fields, too—weird blank expanses of flatland, scarred only by the lines of ditches and more naked, shivering trees. The wind howled. Graves played with his half-empty pack of Winstons, glancing longingly at the window every now and again. If the wind wouldn’t have torn a cigarette out of his hand, he could have had all the smokes he wanted. I might have even joined him, no matter how bad it smelled.
And, you know, if I could have forgotten the slithering, thumping sounds of the little winged snakes hitting the truck. I suspected that might make me nervous about rolling the windows down for a good long while.
The shadows kept flitting behind us. Whatever it was could have overtaken us if it was really serious about it. We were barely crawling, and I’d started to shake, hungry and sick from adrenaline all at once.
I would have given a lot for another cheeseburger just about then. Or a strawberry shake. Or anything, really. Even some stale granola.
But not apple pie. The thought made me feel even sicker.
“There’s Compass Avenue.” Graves shivered, though it was warm enough with the heater blasting. “Next comes Wendell Road, and then Burke. If the map’s right.”
I eased off the gas, ready for the truck to misbehave at any moment. The dashboard clock was still set to Florida time, an hour ahead. I was getting sick of this polar bear shit. “How do people live up here? This is insane.”
“They dress up a lot. Do their hair. And drink. Beat their kids.” Graves shifted nervously. “They beat their kids a lot.” We rolled through two more intersections, then slowed to a creepy-crawl, the engine turning over smoothly, wipers muffled. “Why the hell are we coming out here again?”
“Because we won’t make it out of town before dark on our own. It’s already two in the afternoon.” I peered at the sky, squinted out the windshield again.
“We could make it. I’ve got money. We could just get the hell out of here. We could take a bus if the truck won’t—”
“A bus. Like we wouldn’t get caught at the station waiting for the next one when the sun goes down. For God’s sake, Graves, we need help.” I wondered if I should tell him that I was seeing little darting things in the mirror. He didn’t need that to worry about. “Huh.”
We slowed down.
Burke and 72nd was actually a three-way intersection. Directly in front of us, where the two roads split to make a Y, a stone wall rose. There was nothing else around; the houses had petered out half a block ago and open space—weedy lots or fields, who could tell—ran away on both sides. Just over the wall on the right, a red-tiled roof peeked, little bits of color peeping out under the snow.
“Burke and 72nd. It’s got to be that place.” I goosed the gas, pointed us toward the right fork. “Jesus. Talk about conspicuous.”
“I’ve never been out this way.” Graves drummed his fingers on the door. “It smells bad.”
Well, you’re the one with the super nose now. “Bad how
?”
“Rust again. And something rotting. Like a dumpster in summer.”
I sniffed deeply but didn’t smell anything. The ringing in my head was a constant; I was used to thinking through it now. I didn’t taste anything other than hunger and the thin metal tang of exhaustion. My back hurt, my throat hurt, my arm wasn’t too happy—I was just bad all over, and ready to hand over this whole problem to someone older and more experienced.
Why hadn’t I just given the keys to Christophe? He might still be alive if I had.
“I wish I’d just given him the keys.” My voice broke on the last word. I snuffled up another sob, pushed it down. It was time to stop being a whiner and focus on getting us out of town.
“I don’t.” Graves’s fingers drummed, paused. “What are we going to do, drive up to the house and walk in, announce we’re vampire hunters, and ask them pretty-please to—”
“We’re going in to find whoever Christophe had coming to pick us up. If I’m valuable to them, they’ll help us get out of town.” Then I’m going to sleep for a week, and after that . . .
After that, what?
“What if they . . .” He didn’t go any further, but I knew what he was thinking.
“Graves.” I swallowed, tried to sound hard and sure. “We’re leaving town together. Period. End of story. You got that?”
He didn’t say anything else. I didn’t dare look at him.
We crept along, snow now coming sideways and the truck’s springs making little sounds as the wind tried to push us into the wall. In a little while there was a driveway—obviously recently cleared—and the truck struggled through the turn as if I wasn’t controlling it. An ornate iron gate was open, swept back to either side, its curlicues heavily frosted with ice. In the middle of a vast expanse of circular driveway, a fountain lifted—some kind of shell shape with a big spike coming out of the middle. Drifts piled against the wall and the edges, but the driveway itself was clean.
The house was three stories of massive overdoneness, a pile of pseudo-adobe. Why anyone would build a hacienda up here among the Eskimos was beyond me.
The truck obediently turned, following the unrolling driveway. I eased it to a stop and let out a sigh. “Okay. Let’s—”
“Holy shit.” Graves was staring past my nose, out the driver’s-side window. “Um, Dru?”
My neck protested when I turned my head. All of a sudden every bone and muscle I owned was tired, and I had to pee like nobody’s business. Driving in a snowstorm is like pulling a sled; you work muscles you never knew you had.
The big black gate had shaken itself free and was closing, little driblets of snow falling off like flaking skin. Ice crackled, and the sky overhead was a sheet of painted aluminum. The gate latched itself with a muffled clang, and a fresh wave of cold wind rattled it, moaning through the metal gingerbread.
That’s either very good or very bad. I peered up at the slice of the house I could see. Warm electric lights through every window, no shadow of movement, no sense of someone home.
It couldn’t be empty.
“Dru?” Graves sounded very young. It occurred to me that as much as I wanted someone older and more experienced, he must want it twice as much. And I was all he had.
The weight settled on me, heavier than ever. “I guess we go in.” If this is Christophe’s extraction point. It kind of makes sense, close to the edge of town and everything, but still . . .
It felt hinky. Super extra hinky with a side of bad sauce.
The engine kept running along. I could probably take out the gate with this piece of heavy metal. But if I killed the truck, we’d be out in the snow with no way to escape.
This is where Christophe said. So why are you stalling? I put the car in park, eyed the front of the house again. The front door was a huge thing of wet black wood. They certainly like everything super-sized out here. All hail Middle America.
I made up my mind and reached for the field box. “Stay in here. I’m going to check it out.”
“No way. Are you crazy?” Graves shook his head like he was dislodging a bad thought. “Don’t leave me out here!”
“Look, if I don’t come out, you drive the truck through those gates and get the hell out of here. I’ll go inside and make sure it’s safe. No reason for us both—” To get killed, I was about to say, because it was what Dad often said. “—to go in,” I amended hastily, “because someone needs to stay out here and keep the truck running in case we need to leave in a hurry. I’m trained for this.” At least, I’m better trained than you are. “I’ll do it.”
“Jesus.” Graves stared at me. His eyes were very, very green. “You’ve got a death wish.”
Right now I have a bathroom-and-sleep-somewhere-safe wish, kid. “No, I don’t. I want to get out of this alive and I want to get you out of this alive. Look, just stay here and keep the motor running. You know how to drive?”
“Are you kidding?” The look he gave me qualified as shocked. “I ride the bus.”
Oh yeah, this just keeps getting better. “Don’t worry. It’s a piece of cake.” I opened the field box, checked the gun. The clicks of the clip sliding out and back in, the safety checked, were very loud in the snowy silence, the wind suddenly hushing to a damp not-sound.
“Oh yeah? What if the door’s locked, Dru?”
I actually smiled. At least, the corners of my mouth pulled up. “Places like this are never locked,” I said quietly, and unlocked my door.
As soon as I slammed the door shut the wind came back, random curls flying into my eyes, driving snow against my cheeks, white flakes sticking to them. I went around the front, not looking through the windshield—if I did, I would only see Graves looking pale and scared, and I didn’t need that.
I was scared enough for both of us.
There were only three steps leading up to the door. Big concrete urns that might have held plants were now only mounded with snow.
There’s nothing growing in here. It’s all concrete. I shivered—it wasn’t as cold as you’d think, but snow tickled me with little wet fingers, clinging to my eyelashes and soaking through my sneakers.
I touched the door, closed my hand around the knob. It turned easily, and I heard a soft, passionless sound—an owl’s throaty who? who?
I looked back over my shoulder. No sign of Gran’s owl, but the call came again, muffled like feathered wings. The truck kept running, smooth as silk. The door opened silently, snow blowing in past me.
Through the door, then, into a foyer floored with little pieces of varnished wood all smushed together and waxed to a high gloss. I stood shivering and looking at a flight of stairs going up, a chandelier dripping warm waxen light. The gun was a heavy weight pointed at the floor. I snicked the safety lever off and wished miserably that Dad was here.
How do you know he wasn’t? a little voice said in the very back of my head, and a cool bath of dread began at the base of my skull, sliding down my back with soft wet flabby fingers.
I know, I told that horrible little voice. I saw where he died, I think. He left the truck right outside, and he went down a hall in an abandoned warehouse. And someone was waiting for him.
The lights were on, but it was cold in here. Cold as a crypt. I took another two steps into the foyer, saw a hallway, and the light changed imperceptibly.
I whirled. The door slid closed, the slight sound of its catch just like the sound of the safety clicking off. The taste of rust ran over my tongue in a river, followed by the wet rotten smell of oranges gone bad, fuzzy and leaking in a blind wet corner. The ringing got worse, filling my head with cotton wool.
Something glinted on the floor, past a little square of rounded darkness that my eyes refused to see properly for a moment.
Oh shit. My sneakers made small wet sounds. Little tracers of steam lifted off my skin, it was so cold. My breath made a cloud, vanishing as soon as I inhaled. I moved as if in a dream, or as if it was last night, something pulling my unresisting body forward. It hurt
to bend myself over to pick up the familiar black leather billfold.
It was thick with cash, and I flipped it open, saw Dad’s ID, him staring into the camera like he dared it to take a bad shot of him. The picture of Mom was gone, but the mark where my thumb rubbed the plastic every time was still there, like an old friend. I straightened, automatically stuffing the billfold in my pocket, and was compelled to step forward, looking at the other little thing, glittering patiently on the waxed floor.
It was silver, and as I bent my aching knees to take a look at it my body knew, chilling all over, gooseflesh prickling across my back and down my arms.
It was a heavy locket, almost as long as my thumb. Scrollwork on its front I knew better than my own name, even, and a silver chain, now broken, that I’d seen all my life. The scrollwork made a heart with a cross inside it, and on the back there would be little foreign symbols sketched, where they could rest against the skin.
I touched it with my index finger, letting out a clouded breath that ended on a short sound as if I’d been punched and lost all my air. My fist closed over it and I pushed myself up, dry-eyed.
And all of a sudden I knew something else. I wasn’t alone in here.
Someone spoke from the hall beyond the foyer. It was a boy’s voice, more tenor-sweet than Graves’s and harsher than Christophe’s, with the same queer space between words and sounds as the djamphir’s.
“Come into my parlor, said the spider.” A light, happy giggle, as if someone was having a hell of a good time. “And obediently, she walks in and picks up the bait.”
I raised my head. Strings of damp curling hair fell in my face.
There was a shape in the door to the hallway, a cloak of more-than-physical darkness clinging to it. I suddenly knew who had been on my front porch that night. He hadn’t had an invitation, so my threshold was a barrier to him. But here I was, and here he was, and why had Christophe sent me here?
A cool bath of dread slid down my back.
“Sergej.” I sounded normal, not terrified. As a matter of fact, I sounded pretty good.