A Fall of Silver (37 page)

He grasped her arm and
pulled her faster, flicking quick glances at her and then past her shoulder. “Come on.”

“Are they following?”

“No, not yet.” They made it to Kethan’s battered vehicle.

Father Donatello struggled with the passenger’s seat until he co
uld push the backrest forward and wriggle through the narrow gap into the backseat. Then he sat and leaned his head back with closed eyes. He looked unbearably fragile and ill, with paper-thin skin crumpled by deep lines and dark blue veins bruising his temples. There were no marks on his neck but he appeared drained of all vitality.

She stared at the
passenger seat and felt her heart flutter as she bent to climb inside. “It won’t start! Your car--it doesn’t start!”

“It’ll start.”
Kethan shoved her door shut. It squealed in metallic protest and she flinched at the sound. He dashed around the front of the car and jammed himself into the driver’s seat.

Barely able to sit still, s
he gripped the dashboard, willing the car to start as Kethan fiddled with the ignition key. Her eyes flicked to the black rectangle of the open front door.

The
front door moved. Slowly, soundlessly, it eased shut.

Then, to her
relief, the car’s motor groaned and then roared as it caught. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Home.
I want to talk to Joe.”

“He can’t tell you anything
. He’s messed up,” she whispered, uncomfortably aware of the priest sitting behind her. “They totally messed him up.”

“
Then I’m surprised you didn’t kill him.”

I couldn’t kill Father
Donatello, no matter what. I couldn’t.

Her head ached, throbbing with sharp, painful pulses that ran up the back of her neck and tightened around her skull. She pressed the side of her forehead against the cool window glass and rubbed
the nape of her neck.

Why? Why was this happening?

“I couldn’t kill them, or him.” The beat of agony in her head increased. “Even though they were vampires. My parents are
vampires!
And he’s corrupted. We can’t trust him. I’m sorry! I should’ve done something, but I couldn’t. I was stupid, weak and stupid.”

“
You did the right thing,” Father Donatello said, his voice rising eerily over the seatback. He rubbed his face as if waking up from a deep sleep. “There was something….”

“Yes, there wa
s. They kidnapped you, corrupted you. I should have killed them to free you.” She took a ragged breath. “But I was trying to be
good.
Like Kethan. I made a mistake.” The lie lay cold on her chest. She hadn’t been trying to be good, she had been afraid, too afraid to do what had to be done.

She struggled to breathe and fight back the sensation of horror
. Violent, bloody images of what might have happen flashed through her mind. Her beautiful mother, dead because of her.

But it hadn’t happened.

“You don’t believe that. Killing is never the answer,” Father Donatello replied. “But there’s something….” He rubbed his neck although there was not a mark to be seen on the papery skin.

The terrified child in her wailed
at what she had failed to do. She could have freed Father Donatello if she’d had the nerve, but if she had done that, Kethan would hate her even more. He wanted to save their souls, offer them a second chance.

And they were her
parents!
Didn’t they deserve a chance? Could he really save them? Did they even
want
to be saved?

If he did save them, w
ould they forgive all the terrible things she’d done in Mexico and since then? All the killing…
No
. Once they knew, they’d be horrified. They’d reject her, again.

“What is it, Joe?” Kethan asked in a curt voice. He
turned onto a quiet, suburban street. Despite his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, he maintained a sedate thirty-five miles per hour.

The priest shook his head. “
There was something…. No, I can’t…I can’t remember. At least the worst didn’t happen, you didn’t kill your parents.”

“Because I was stupid,
” Quicksilver said.

“No,” Kethan said.
“Killing vampires isn’t always the answer. It was a wise decision.”

“It was your kind of decision.”

A smile quirked his lips. “Yes. Wise.”

“
Right.” She rubbed her neck, bending her head forward and feeling her stiff muscles pull. Why wouldn’t her headaches go away? The pain clouded her thinking. Thoughts spun uselessly, splintering apart with each stab of agony. “I should’ve taken care of it.”

“There are thi
ngs you don’t—we don’t know,” Father Donatello said. “You can’t control everything.”

“
I can control what I do,” she interrupted. “I’m always in control of my actions—that’s why I kill them. It’s final and it ensures they can’t control me or anyone else ever again.”

Father Donatello shook his head.
“When I was there, in that house, I saw things, heard things….”

“What
?” She twisted around in her seat to stare at his tense face. “What did you hear?”

Kethan glance
d into the rear view mirror. “Did they plan this, Joe? What was their objective?”

“
Do you think they knew I was here? You think they used me?” Rage shook her. Her grip on the headrest tightened as she stared at Father Donatello. “No one controls me. Not anymore. I’ve no connection to them. They couldn’t possibly have used me.”

“
I’m not sure,” Father Donatello said in a weary voice. He ran his hand over his face. “You…. Perhaps that was it. I’m sorry, but I understand you went to Mexico. I’m not sure it was any of this was an accident, or a coincidence.”

“What do you mean?
I went there on my own. No one knew, no one could have predicted my grandmother’s death or that I would try to find my parents. I didn’t have any idea where I would go from day-to-day.” But was that true? While someone who knew her might expect her to try to find her parents, how would they know where and when she would go? She’d never settled on a specific route.

“
I overheard something,” Father Donatello said.

“What?” she asked. “They were talking about me?”

“Just a few bits and pieces.”

“They were worried about me?”

“Perhaps. In their way. They were hoping you’d go to Mexico.”

“I’m sure they were,” she replied drily. They were her parents
and that was natural, wasn’t it? They wanted to see her but couldn’t break away from their work, even if they were dead.

“
If you hadn’t gone, I suspect they might have tried to find you.”

“
Find me?” Her heart flooded with warmth. They were finally coming to see her, to be a family again? “They were coming home?”

Father Donatello reached forward and patted her hand
as she clutched the seatback. “Perhaps. I only heard bits and pieces. But I do know they were pleased to find you in Mexico City instead of further south, where they lived and, uh, died.”

“B-b
ut they never
found
me! I was caught—” Her voice broke. She swallowed twice to force the thickness down her throat. “I met two other vampires. I never saw my parents.”

“No.”

“But you said, ‘they were coming to find me.’”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not precisely what I said
,” Father Donatello replied. “They had plans—”

“T
o mold her into a vampire slayer? They succeeded, didn’t they?” Kethan asked, his voice harsh. “They tortured her, building hatred and fear until she couldn’t restrain herself. She had to destroy them to survive.”

“
Speculation, I’m afraid.” Father Donatello shook his head. “Don’t make too many assumptions. I only heard snatches of conversation.”

“But you heard enough,” she said, turning around
to slump back in her seat. She wanted him to stop talking, stop guessing. His speculations didn’t help.

She was what she was.
She killed vampires because she had to and someone had to do it.

“T
hey’re nervous, though,” Father Donatello continued, his voice rising eerily from the shadows in the back seat. “They were talking about Mexico. At one time, her mother feared Allison might resume her trip and head further south to find them. They didn’t want to be found, at least not there. But she retreated north to a place she’d never been before, a place where no one knew her and where she could escape her memories.”

“
So she came here and set to work killing vampires,” Kethan said. “Eliminating the competition for her parents.”

Father Donatello patted her shoulder.
“Perhaps. I’m sorry, Allison, if I’ve disappointed you, but I’m sure your parents love you in their way.”

“For God’s sake, stop apologizing!” Her blood thundered in her ears. She rocked back and forth in her seat, unable to bear
her thoughts. Her parents had betrayed her. They had known about Carol and Carlos. They had let it happen.

Wanted it to happen and p
lanned it down to the whips on the wall and the deliberate sacrifice of two members of their own clan.

Her head pounded. Each heartbeat sent another piercing
flare of pain into her brain. Burning vomit hit the back of her throat.

“Your
parents seem determined to return to North America, though, as master vampires,” Kethan commented.

“T
hey nearly killed me!” The words tore out of her raw throat.

“They knew
you were strong, what you might be capable of.”

She glanced at him
over her shoulder. Father Donatello’s soft, brown eyes studied her, infinite pity in their depths. She hated the compassion and the knowledge that he pitied her. She’d been a tool her whole life, a useless, broken tool who thought she was helping others escape the terror of facing a vampire only to be doing the bidding of a whole clan of them.

Worthless
. Turning away, she hunched over, sickened beyond bearing. Was there no end to this nightmare? Nothing but more pain?

“They
guessed you’d find the courage to kill the pair of vampires who tormented you. Then when you escaped, they must have hoped you’d head back to more familiar territory, killing any vampires you met.” Kethan’s words, though softly spoken, fell like hammers on her exposed nerves. “You were bound to end up here if you were chasing vampires, this area has always been the seat of power for the northern clan.

So Kethan
knew she was a tool. He knew everything.

“Then
let me kill them and be done with it.”

“The
ir worst fear was…” Father Donatello paused, shook his head sharply, and then changed the subject. “When you meet them, did you see if either one of them held anything? A small box, perhaps?”

She
rubbed the nape of her neck again, not wanting to remember, but clearly seeing her father’s fist stuffed into his pocket. The sharp, square edge of something had pressed against the fabric of his pants as his muscles clenched.

She thought it had been the television remote.

“I don’t know,” she lied, not wanting to continue their discussion. Maybe she was a coward, but she’d been force-fed enough truth. What difference would it make, now, if she refused to hear every minute detail?

“
When they were in the next room, I heard them talking about a device, some sort of remote control,” Father Donatello said.

“Remote control?
For a television? Big deal. Everyone fights over the remote. Maybe dad wanted to catch up on the latest news and mom wanted to watch something else. I don’t see anything menacing about that, unless you were afraid they’d discover reality TV and force you to watch it with them.”

“No
.” Father Donatello smiled. “It wasn’t that—at least it didn’t sound like that.”

“What else could it be?
What are you afraid of?”

“
I’m sorry. I pray that I’m wrong and misunderstood, but they did mention a device in connection with you, and it did not sound good.”

“So what?
I can’t imagine them saying anything in connection with me that would sound good.”

“Something
was implanted at the base of your brain.” His words grew whispery with sorrow. “Your father said he’d activate it if you attacked them, if you wouldn’t accept their guidance. I’m so sorry, my child.”

Her stomach twisted, tightening.
With shaking hands, she touched the nape of her neck. The hard scar from which all her pain, all her anguish, emanated.

“So
they can kill me any time they want if I don’t obey like a good little daughter?” How could they have planned this? Done this to her? She cut off a harsh laugh. “Guess I’m their nice, disposable daughter.”