Blood of the Dead, page 15
Then then it was halftime, the burgers were gone, and we were all one beer down.
“So how bad is it, being hungry?” Zach asked, worrying the corner of his lower lip. He’d accidentally offered Paco his fries more than once already.
“Pretty bad, I’d imagine,” Paco said, taking point as the only resident vampire. “But Jack’s more stubborn than anyone else I’ve ever met.”
“I’ll say,” I muttered.
“How did you meet him?” Zach asked.
Paco inhaled and hesitated. “I’ve never really gotten to tell anyone that story.”
And then I remembered that he was like me in that way, in that there was no one else he could tell things to, who could fully understand or believe. It’d never been safe for him.
Until now.
So he went and told Zach . . . everything.
About how they met, how he’d had to fight to get into Jack’s real life, him telling Jack he loved him in some snowy mountain cabin, the time his other boyfriend had gone off on a cruise and Jack had even gotten to come over and play house with him, and Zach listened, rapt, until Paco fell apart near the end when we caught up with recent history.
I had never seen a vampire truly cry before.
I’d seen Paco two nights ago, yes, on his knees in the mud and screaming, but that’d been more of an anger scenario.
This was just sheer emotion, and I wasn’t prepared to deal with it.
I could barely cry for myself, I certainly wasn’t prepared to shepherd anyone else through their sorrow.
But then Zach was there, saying the right thing, slinging an arm around his shoulders, and Paco was holding on and—
“I’ll be in the other room,” I said, excusing myself quickly, going into Jack’s bedroom.
I’d already snooped through Jack’s belongings the prior night: a few books, a laptop with a passcode I didn’t know, the coffin, his bed, sheets, clothes—none of the accoutrements that Rosalie had possessed that spoke of a life well lived over the course of centuries: jewelry, important objects of art, weird magical knickknacks.
If you’d were inside Rosalie’s very nicely appointed bedroom suite below Vermillion with a light on, you would think she had had a life well lived.
But when Rosalie had died, not a single person had cried for her.
Whereas Jack had been sleeping in a plywood coffin, just one step up from a refrigerator-box-hobo, and there were two reasonably intelligent men—one of whom was a vampire—out there crying for him.
I waited and waited, and when I didn’t hear anything that sounded like crying or fucking I finally crept back out. Zach was sprawled out on the couch asleep very comfortably, and by then Paco had regained his composure.
“Sorry. I’m allergic to tears,” I said quietly, sitting down on the floor.
“It’s all right.” He shrugged a shoulder then gave me a soft smile. “How are you holding up? I should’ve asked sooner.”
For a hot second I scanned myself internally, wondering if I’d exhibited some weakness that would make a someone else ask. Then I realized he was being genuine.
“This whole thing is weird and I don’t really like it.” The words were on the tip of my tongue, so I just blurted them out.
“Me either. Sorry for calling you Renfield, by the way. I didn’t mean to touch a nerve—and I know I don’t really know you.”
I raised my hands up and slowly clutched them into fists before putting them back down. “As someone who’s been around vampires for almost a fourth of my life now, can I give you some advice?”
“Sure.”
“Vampires don’t apologize. And they don’t cry. And they usually don’t”—I waved a hand at the two of them on the couch—“fraternize. Or whatever this is.”
Paco frowned “You were with Jack that long and he never told me?”
“What? Oh—no. Noooooo. Jack and I were never,” I said, making a firm chopping motion between us, and then I decided to come clean. “I’ve really only known him for two weeks. Well, of him, before that, but I’d never met him, ’til the moment I came to the door to tell him that Rosalie had caught you, and that he needed to get over there.”
“So you—” Paco’s eyes squinted, somewhat confused.
“I was hers. Not his. And right now—I’m not anyone’s. I just don’t know what else to do. He was supposed to turn me, for helping him take care of you your first night.”
“And he didn’t?” His tone was surprised. “Jack would never go back on a deal.”
“It wasn’t him,” I said, as my shoulder’s slumped. “The same thing that was telling you to hate him told me I couldn’t let him do it.”
“So—that wasn’t all me? Just making the worst decision of my life, repeatedly?” he asked, then quietly hissed, “Fuck! I can’t believe I let myself get played like that!” He looked down at himself, dumbfounded by his own betrayal. “I—I should’ve been stronger.”
“No—I think if you had, it would’ve just killed you. It wanted to hurt Jack, and if you didn’t help it, it would’ve taken matters into its own hands. You hurt him, I was bait, and now he’s out there somewhere.”
“We’ll find him,” Paco said with determination. “We’re one night down. He just has to make it one more.”
“I really hope he does. But, Paco—there’s no guarantees. Which is why I want you to promise to change me, no matter what.” For all of Paco’s many other apparent flaws, I absolutely believed he was a man of his word.
“No. Jack was right. This is no way to live—”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I said, fighting not to mock him. “But if I don’t get changed, I’m going to die of an incurable disease, and I’m not ready to give up just yet. I’d rather be one of you than be under the ground. So—whatever else happens—you have to make good on his promise to me.”
He was taken aback at that. “Sure—fine. If you know that’s what you want,” he finished up with his whammy.
It wasn’t the first time a vampire had demanded I tell them the truth—but for some reason when I answered I stuttered. “I—think so.”
I knew my uncertainty was earnest, and then once the words were out there, it was impossible to take them back.
I felt like a cat that’d harfed up an unexpected hairball.
“That’s not good enough for me, Luna.” His expression clouded with concern on my behalf, which was entirely misplaced, and I wished there were something on the floor with me that I could throw at him. “But if I ever ask you that and the answer is yes, I’ll do it.”
“You’re smarter than Jack,” I complained.
“Only in certain ways,” he said, then put his hand to his chest. “I can still feel him, Luna. Now that I’m quieter on all fronts—he’s still a part of me. And I know it’s not because I’m lovesick, although I am—but I’m not crazy. We’re going to find him.”
All I could do in the face of so much sheer persistence was nod, and then he reached over to wake Zach up, moving to pick the other man up easily. “I’ll go get him home now, so you can have your couch back.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jack
Jack.
Jack.
Are you listening?
“Depends on what you want me to hear,” I muttered.
“What did you say?” Sam asked.
“Huh? What? Nothing,” I said. I got up far too quickly in an attempt to act normal, and my head swam, like if I’d had a hangover back in my human days.
But I had heard something.
I’d been hungry before, and never once had my hunger bothered to talk to me.
I didn’t like the options that left, conversation-wise.
“Did you make a lot of progress while I was out?” I asked Sam.
“Some,” she said.
“Good.” I dusted off my hands, and knelt to mirror her on my side of the cage, ignoring the way I could feel all the bones in my body alternating between aching and a strange prickling sensation, like they were full of ants. I rose up a little and looked over to see how far she’d gotten—she’d done good.
“Key me?” she asked, holding her current one up to show how worn it was.
“Of course,” I said, unthreading another one through its ring. It was the key to Dark Ink Tattoo’s back door. It squeaked on its hinges and needed replacing, after some artist had had a fit and taken it out on the door with a steel-toe.
What I wouldn’t give to get to see it again, in all its dented glory.
She caught the key and started in again. I’d already taken Betty’s key down to a nub, and my apartment keys were next.
I was a little embarrassed that she’d had to wait because of me—I should’ve thought about that before I’d last died—but then thinking was getting hard for me, and I knew why.
So I fisted the entire ring and tossed it to her, before I could have any dark thoughts about making her reach through the bars to take one.
She watched it land. “Thanks?”
“You’re welcome,” I said, and moved to my knees.
We both worked quietly for what felt like hours. My canal was actually getting over to the bars now, and I’d been grading it the whole time, ’til it matched up to a piece of hers she’d probably worked on when I’d been safely dead last. All I needed to do was finish up the top part, connecting the whole thing to where the water was.
“What else do you do to pass the time while I’m dead?” I asked, suddenly interested in making conversation. For some reason I wanted to keep talking—oh, hell, I knew why, I just didn’t want to admit it.
Conversation is proof of humanity, is it not?
Sam looked up from where she was etching. She’d moved the endpoint of her side far away from the gate, out of grabbing range, and was scraping out a shallow pool.
“Sleep,” she said. “Suck on a suit button.”
I knew she was doing that to keep some moisture in her mouth—she’d started it yesterday, and she played with it a lot. I could hear it clacking it against her teeth.
“And contemplate my life choices,” she added, after a rather long pause.
“Any regrets?” I asked her.
“Why? So you’ll feel better about killing me?”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” I muttered, pretending to be peeved.
But I was ashamed that she wasn’t wrong to be afraid.
Because over the past twenty-four hours my hunger had blossomed, going from something like an interested bystander to an air-traffic controller, reporting back everything she did. When she sat, when she stood, how quickly I could clear the distance to her—the speed of her heartbeats, the viscosity of her blood—there was a growing part of me that was paying so much attention to her, it probably could’ve drawn her fingerprints from memory.
But it still wasn’t me.
Not yet.
She sat back on her heels. “There was a school dance in eleventh grade.”
I stopped my small scale terraforming at this, to fully look over at her.
“I got mono. Couldn’t go. Sent my then-boyfriend to it with my best friend.”
“Ut oh,” I said, thinking I knew what turn the story was about to take.
“Yeah. If I hadn’t shared a soda with my little sister—it could’ve been me in the back seat that night, you know?” She stretched her arms out after she said it, trying to uncramp her key-holding hand, then rolled her head to her shoulders.
“You ever wonder what it was like? All the things you missed out on?” Being Faithful, I imagine she’d missed out on a lot of them.
“Of course. You?”
“Absolutely.” Like what would’ve happened if I could’ve met Paco under literally any other circumstance. But who knew if that would’ve worked? And if I’d had to be a vampire to meet him, and to love him, well—I wouldn’t take that back for the world.
I weighed the key in my hand, and then I scooted over a little bit to do an etching of a different sort.
It took Sam awhile to notice. “Hey—that’s an unapproved location.”
“I wasn’t aware the urban planners down here were so uptight,” I muttered, working quickly.
She stood up and shone a brighter light. “What’re you doing?” she said, rising up on her toes and squinting to see.
“Mind your own business.” I tsked at her.
“No, really, Jack—c’mon.” She couldn’t see from where she was—and she was too scared of me, rightfully, to come any closer. “Your keys are a finite resource here, and I’m counting on you—”
“I know—I just need to do this first, all right? I promise I haven’t forgotten you.” I didn’t look up from my frantic etching. The work I was doing now didn’t have to be as structurally sound as her water canal, and I was mostly doing it for myself. It just felt important—
“Jack,” Sam said quietly. “This is my third day without water. My kidneys are going to shut down. Can you please freaking hurry?”
I brushed a few more grains of dirt out of the way and nodded at my work, then looked to her.
“Yeah. Since you asked so nicely,” I said, and went back into canal-completion mode.
It wasn’t perfect, and whatever water was going to get over to Sam’s side was going to be muddy, but as I notched the last connecting bit, a portion of the trickle of water that had been disappearing into the stone below was diverted, a drop at a time, slowly following the new path of least resistance that she and I had carved.
I followed along beside it on my side, and it was like watching some kind of ant race—then it dove between the metal posts over to her side, where it began to coalesce inside her carved stone pool, the world’s most shallow bowl.
“Oh my God, this worked. I can’t believe it!” she shouted, right before diving in, kneeling over to practically suck the water off the ground.
And despite her current rough condition, with her elegant form and wary nature, she reminded me of a nervously sipping gazelle, which I suppose made me into a crocodile of sorts, watching her drink from my side of the bars.
“Told you,” I said, when she got up, wiping a little bit of mud off her face.
“If I don’t get giardia, I’ll name my firstborn after you,” she said, laughing.
I paused. “How do . . . wait—what happens when Faithful have sex to have kids? Do they put you out to pasture?”
“There’s plenty of ancillary roles to take that don’t require being superpowered.”
“Your superpowers are tied to your virginity? No wonder we play for opposite teams.” And now that she was happy with me, and slightly hydrated, it was time to tell her everything. “I heard a voice this morning, Sam.”
Her eyes widened. “I knew it! We’re not alone—and of course whatever it is spoke to you.” She would’ve spat the last word, only that would’ve wasted water. “What did it say?”
“So far just my name.”
“Great. Just great,” she said, throwing her hands up into the air and beginning pacing. I watched her, for several long and creepy moments, until she noticed, and I noticed her noticing, upon which I turned resolutely around and stalked to the back of my cage.
“So I’m going to put myself to sleep.” It was yet another idea that I’d had recently. “I can do this catatonic resting-state thing, when I’m in a bad way. I’ve done it a few times before.” I sat down on the ground. “It’s like taking myself offline. Suspended animation.”
She mirrored me on her side, squatting down on her heels. “How long does it take?”
“Probably an hour for me to get into it. After that—I think I can stay like that for a few days.”
“And what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Drink water, and wait for your friends to rescue you.” She heard my pronoun choice and frowned. “Or us. Depending,” I said, and I swallowed. “I’m going to be helpless after I do this, so I guess this is me, Sam, asking you not to kill me. Because despite the fact that I am very much dead, I do have a few things out there worth living for.”
Her eyebrows rose and she shook her head. “And what about the voice that’s talking to you?”
“I don’t know about that yet. Maybe it just picked me because I’m a better conversationalist,” I said, trying to smile with flaking lips, and she huffed. “But I did tell you about it, in case after I go to sleep, it starts talking to you—that way you’ll know you’re not going crazy.”
I arranged myself on the ground, all the while knowing there was no possible way to contort myself to actually be comfortable in this godforsaken place. “I understand if you feel like you’ve got to kill me ninety minutes from now,” I said, briefly lying flat before lifting my head to take one last look over at her. Her expression was inscrutable, and that was for the best. “Also if you have to Donner Party me, eat my dick last.” I lay down and closed my eyes.
“Fuck you, Jack,” she said flatly.
“It’s probably the best part, I’m just saying,” I muttered, and then willed myself to rest.
Luna:
* * *
Halfway through the next night, it looked like an impromptu mesmerism course was taking place in Jack’s living room. Paco had the chain for the gemstone wrapped around one finger, and all three of us were watching it, waiting for it to move.
I’d tried to tamp down their expectations, seeing as none of us knew the exact moment their ceremony had charged it up the other night . . . but I also had Paco’s phone out on my lap with Nilesh’s number pre-programmed in, just in case.
Even Sugar was in on it, lurking beneath the couch, watching the gemstone swing back and forth as Paco shifted his seat.
“There’s a chance nothing will happen until right before dawn. And if that’s the case, then—”
“You toss me into the trunk of my RAV4 with a blanket over me and keep going,” Paco said, not taking his eye off the stone.
