“We’re leaving. Tonight. I thought maybe we would give you a lift, to make up for all the hell you’ve been through these last few days,” I said, holding the door open for the two girls. Luke’s football gear had to go into the trunk, then he climbed in back with his sister and we took off.
Five minutes into the drive back to the farm, I knew I was in trouble. My link told me that Tanya was both worried and angry at my absence and that my reception was going to be stormy.
The rest of the ride was silent, the kids shocked quiet and me concentrating on what I was going to say. After dropping Lori off at a small, white clapboard house on the edge of town, we headed straight to the farm.
I pulled to a stop in front of the barn, popping the trunk for Luke as I did so. The kids headed into the house with only a few worried glances in our direction. Me, my attention was on the thundercloud waiting for me in the barn.
“What did you do?” was my greeting.
“We’re leaving. Brianna murdered a bunch of cops in Baltimore,” I said, not really answering the question.
“I know that… it was on the note. What I don’t know is why you would endanger us by giving some human children a ride home?” Tanya replied.
“Because, Tanya, there is very little justice in the world,” I said, moving past her to the pile of gear and coolers we had left stacked in the shadows of the barn. Arkady glowered at me from behind my vampire, while Lydia studied both Stacia and I with something akin to worry. Trenton just looked puzzled.
“What? What are you talking about? And why did
she
go with you?” Tanya demanded.
“He’s talking about the hell on earth that most kids know as high school. He’s talking about the pain of adolescent torture and having almost no control over your life,” Stacia said, grabbing a big box of dried food to carry to the car.
“So you endangered all of us to give two inconsequential kids a personal popularity boost?” Tanya asked, incredulous. “And you used your slut wolf to help you?”
“We avoided cameras, cops, and people in general, so our exposure was limited. Inconsequential kids? Tanya,
I
was an inconsequential kid.
I
was mocked and ridiculed all through middle and high school.
You
try to grow up as the kid with the murdered family,” I said, stuffing a duffle bag into the back of the Subaru.
Tanya grabbed my arm and spun me about. “You’re kidding, right? You endangered our mission to try and right some adolescent karma? You seriously need to grow up, Chris.”
I looked down at her hand on my arm, then back up to her amazing blue eyes. Half my heart was ripping out of my chest but my temper had the best of me.
“I grew up at twelve when I gave up band practice to hunt demons full time. I grew up at eight when Satan’s spawn chopped my mother, father, and brother to death in front of me. I’m sorry I’m not the leader you are—that you were literally born to be. I’m just me. I don’t have the resources of the world at my disposal, the education of centuries old tutors to help groom me into calculating ruthlessness. My compass is the set of values that my parents, for the short time I knew them, and my grandfather impressed on me. I have to do what I think is right,” I said, my voice shaking but quiet.
“Calculating ruthlessness? I see,” she said. “You are correct. I have seriously misjudged you. Lydia, ride with Chris and
her.
Get them into their disguises. Arkady, you and Trenton are with me,” she said, picking up a bag and sliding into the back of the Honda.
Awasos was already climbing into the Subaru, his tail down between his legs and as soon as I climbed into the back of the car, he snuffled my hair. Lydia slid in beside me, a bag of makeup in her hands and a set expression on her face. Stacia climbed into the driver’s seat while Trenton took the wheel of the Accord. The sun dipped below the horizon just as we left the farm, darkening the sky and all our moods.
Chapter 16
Even though my birthday is Halloween, I haven’t been to a costume party since I was eight. At least that I remember. Apparently, I’ve been to a couple over the last few years, but not a single image remains of what must have been some fairly fantastic parties.
So I was interested in the whole makeup process even if my makeup artist was radiating disapproval strong enough to slag lead. At first, my own temper kept me rigid, but after I calmed down, I tried to study the problem from her point of view.
“So I get it. She’s the leader of her group, possibly the next ultimate leader of the Coven. She’s making sacrifices to be with me. I’m rambling around the local school meeting people and generally trumpeting to the intelligence world exactly where I am. So she’s mad,” I finally said to the tiny vampire who was gluing something to my face. She frowned and stopped her overly rough application of latex adhesive, studying me for a moment.
“If you understand, then why did you do it?” she asked after a beat had passed.
“Because, first of all, I took extreme precautions to avoid being captured by any and all cameras. We drove back roads, approached the school from its least monitored direction, only parked near the football field, and I zapped the one camera that was pointed in our general direction. I wore sunglasses to hide the purple peepers and we were in and out in less than ten minutes.”
She frowned in a puzzled sort of way. “You thought it through. But why take the risk at all?”
“Listen, I don’t know what growing up was like for you or if you remember it all that well, but for me it was quite literally Hell, in many senses of the word. Banishing demons, being ridiculed, exorcising the possessed, being ostracized, visiting the damned and fighting them, sitting alone at lunch. That was my whole life, and I was pretty sure it was going to end early in a fantastic bloodbath when my luck finally ran out. And I remember it well, better than I can remember any of this,” I said, waving a hand about. “So when I can take a few minutes to relieve someone else’s personal Purgatory, doing so in a careful manner, then I will.”
She sat back, visibly reevaluating me. “But you took her,” she said with a thumb jab at the driver in the front who was flicking glances at us in her rearview.
“He didn’t take me. I went along. Never really gave him a choice,” Stacia said.
“Why?” Lydia asked, “Why would you stir up trouble like that?”
“First, Princess Tinkerbell, I went to cover his back. Who do you think reminded him to wear his sunglasses? Second, I went through my own little slice of punishment in high school so I understood his motives, but in case you don’t get it, I’ll clue you in… he tries to right wrongs. Hello, he’s a freaking Angel of God, for God’s sake. And third, I’m not here to worry about Queenie’s feelings, I’m here to help watch over him.”
“But you forget that she too is an Angel of God,” Lydia said.
“Actually, I think she’s the one that forgets that; I certainly don’t. But ya know, Spike, I never see her do anything angelic or even all that nice. Makes ya wonder.”
The car was quiet for a bit, Lydia deep in thought as she applied my final touches, shooting little glances at the back of Stacia’s head. When I was done, we pulled over long enough for me to take over the driving while Stacia got her own makeover.
Pulling back into traffic, I could feel Tanya a mile or so ahead. Our link had gone hot with anger during our fight, but now it was a cold throb in my head.
“Perhaps this is a bad idea,” I finally said. “Perhaps I should just do this on my own. That way, I won’t endanger her people or her.”
Both faces in my rearview snapped my way. “Now you’re just talking stupid,” Lydia said.
“Am I?” I asked. “Because if her mission on this world is to lead the vampire race back to God or something like that, then I’m just endangering that.”
“I hate to say it, but Lydia’s right… that’s stupid. If her actual cause for being is to lead the vampire race back to God, who’s gonna lead her? You are, Einstein. That’s why you were paired. She’s Lailah, the angel of night, sometimes referred to as the angel of conception, which sheds light on how she was
born
to the vampires, doesn’t it? But every soul gets free will here on earth and free will among vampires does not usually lead to godly ways. So you, hotshot, with your particular nature, are the one who shows her the choices she can make.”
I was stunned into silence by that little insight, and I could see Lydia leaning back and staring at Stacia with a truly shocked expression. Stacia took the pause to check the wrinkles and lines Lydia had been applying to her perfect skin, nodding in approval at the aging of her looks.
“What do you mean? My particular nature?” I asked.
“Oh please, Chris. You’re totally self-sacrificing, oblivious to personal danger, and resistant to temptation, though God knows I’ve tried. I knew what you were going to do for those kids the moment I saw the expression on your face. You right wrongs. You fight for the little guy. Why do you think that Chatterjee chick calls you the Hammer of God? It’s obvious.”
“But she was afraid of me… when we met?” I asked.
“Please. As if. She’s not stupid, well, that stupid anyway. She admitted being at six different portal closings. You don’t think she felt it like everyone does when you close portals or banish demons? She’s your biggest fan, your own personal public relations priestess. Right, Lydia?”
Lydia was still looking stunned. “You are a surprise, Reynolds,” she finally admitted. “Your stupid blonde act is terrifyingly persuasive, because I never, in a thousand years, would have thought you had enough brains to see all that.”
“Thanks, but you’ve got your work cut out if you’re ever gonna make
me
ugly,” she said, giving me a wink before going back to her critical self-appraisal.
“If he is fated to lead her back to God, then why do you hang around?” Lydia asked.
“I’ll refer you back to my free will comment. Just because he’s here doesn’t mean
she’ll
get it right. She’s messed up a whole bunch of times so far, at least by my count. If she effs it up completely, which based on this evening’s demonstration could happen, I’ll be here.”
I glanced quickly at Lydia in the mirror, catching her expression flash from shock to despair to a closed-down poker face while she got busy going through her bag of tricks. I don’t think Lydia rattles easily; in fact, this may have been the first time I’d ever seen it.
The trip to Baltimore took a little over an hour. Approaching the crime scene while avoiding detection took longer. All of our faces had been changed, enough to hopefully fool any recognition software. But we tried to stay as inconspicuous as possible. According to the details in the news, it had happened in the northeastern part of the city, in a strip mall parking lot off Belair road, which, according to the press, was a bad section of town. By the time we got there, it was close to eight-thirty in the evening and the bodies had been discovered at three-fifteen in the morning by other police units. Law enforcement hadn’t held a press conference yet, saying that the crime scene was still being processed.
That was an understatement. Seventeen hours later and the place was still a zoo. It was crowded with not just local Baltimore resources but FBI crime scene units as well, and the whole area was ringed with press units and gawkers. That was our approach—the gawker angle. My full costume consisted of black-rimmed glasses, oily hair, a pudgy acne-covered face and an equally pudgy body dressed in grungy jeans and a Star Wars t-shirt under a faded plaid shirt. It was a new take on the nerd-slash-geek look minus the Band-Aid-repaired glasses. The only way to hide my build was to fatten me up, and much of Lydia’s kit had consisted of latex appliances to round out my face and hands. Special padding in my clothing took care of the rest. My companion was pretty much the same. Big horn-rimmed glasses, black unwashed hair in a pair of pony tails, and jeans four sizes larger than her norm, in addition to braces and acne of her own. Tanya was a geekette—a pear-shaped one, I noted as I followed her through the press to the police tape line. The parking lot was at one end of a short strip mall and looked like it was either overflow parking or employee parking. Either way, it was tucked out of the main view of the road, which explained why no one saw exactly what happened.
My pudgy girlfriend found a gap in the line of reporters that opened when one turned to ask another a question, and slid into the spot effortlessly. The guy reporter was majorly annoyed when he turned back, but we just looked at him blankly when he protested our actions, Tanya chewing her gum in a sloppy manner and me just picking my nose. He finally turned away in disgust and I settled in to absorb my first look at the crime zone.
It was a frigging mess. One white and blue cop car was crushed almost flat and the other had its hood dented in a sharp V that looked like the mother of all sledgehammers had come down on it. Little white tented evidence markers were placed all around the pavement, which was lit bright by big trailered klieg lights. I saw a Baltimore Police crime scene van and two that had big FBI letters printed on their sides. A veritable army of law enforcement personnel was still processing the scene all these hours later. An armored SWAT vehicle, a gift no doubt from the military, hulked beside an unmarked sedan and a black SUV.