Blood Harvest: Two Vampire Novels (13 page)

Her body stayed tense but controlled as she
looked first into Tony’s corner (
not anymore it’s not
, she
thought, then gave herself a hard mental slap). It was empty, but
that was exactly what she had expected. She turned instead to the
darker portion of the basement, moving right for the crawlspace
between the furnace and water heater. The smart thing to do would
have probably been to check all her blind spots and make sure
nothing was about to jump out at her, but she didn’t think that
would be needed. She’d been spared, after all. There was no reason
to let her live before only to kill her now.

Peg’s grip tightened on the knife. She was
going to change that. She was going to make this thing give her a
reason.

It sat on the floor just out of easy reach
through the opening, not exactly cowering yet still far from
standing tall and defiant. Peg wasn’t quite sure what to think of
that. It was still wearing her clothes and giving every impression
of the traumatized victim despite everything it had done. Peg
didn’t know whether to feel pity for it or righteous anger.
Surprisingly its mouth was clean. Peg had expected to see it with
Tony’s blood still covering its lips, but Zoey must have licked
them completely clean.

“Zoey,” Peg said. Despite the calmness she
still felt there was a quaver in her voice.

“Peg,” Zoey said. Peg couldn’t tell from her
voice whether she was scared or confused or anything.

“Where’s my son?” Peg asked.

“Gone,” Zoey said.

“You bitch,” Peg said. Her voice cracked.
“You unbelievable fucking bitch. After I let you into my house. Why
did you do it?”

Zoey looked down at her hands folded and
resting on her legs. “I’m sorry.”

Those two words were all it took to make Peg
lose it. With a guttural scream she lunged at Zoey, trying to stab
her through the minimal opening. She felt the hot metal scald her
skin but didn’t care for now. Without pushing herself all the way
through all the knife did was slice the air inches from Zoey’s
face. Zoey flinched back but made no other attempt to retreat. As
Peg made it through the gap Zoey grabbed her knife hand by the
wrist. Peg was already off balance as she came into the hidey hole
and the force of Zoey’s movement was enough to tip her over onto
Zoey. Zoey rolled and fell on her back with Peg on top, the knife
pointed straight down at Zoey’s neck. Peg tried to push down,
anxious for this thing’s blood to spill just like Tony’s. She
wasn’t even sure if this could kill her, but she found that didn’t
matter much right now. She just wanted the blood. She wanted some
form of retribution, any at all. Just let the blade sink down,
pucker and then puncture the flesh of the thing that…

She’s not trying to kill me
, Peg
thought.
I’m trying to kill her, so why isn’t she trying it
back?

Peg eased off some but she kept the knife in
place pointed down at her sister. She’d already seen more than
enough evidence that Zoey was fully capable of crushing her wrist
right now and then pinning Peg down to make a meal out of her.

“Fight,” Peg said. “Fight back, you fucking
bitch!”

Zoey shook her head. Her lip quivered and her
eyes started to water, or at least she thought they did. It was
hard to tell in the dimness.

“Why?” Peg said. “Just tell me why.”

“I’m sorry.”

The haze of rage faded just enough from Peg’s
mind that she started to realize something was wrong here. Zoey
still hadn’t said she’d actually done anything.

“Did you kill them?” Peg finally asked after
several moments of deep breaths.

“I’m sorry. My fault.”

She didn’t do it. She couldn’t have. There
was no way. Peg eased up a little more, adjusting herself over Zoey
so she no longer pinned the girl down. Except Zoey had never really
been pinned. She could have gotten out of it just as easily as she
could have broken Peg’s wrist.

“What’s your fault, Zoey? What happened?”

“It was here. It was looking for me. I heard
it. It came in. It didn’t need to be invited. It came in. I stayed
here. I hid.”

Peg looked down at the knife in her hand,
suddenly horrified at what she had almost done. She didn’t
understand how she could have possibly believed that Zoey had done
this. No matter what she had become Zoey was and always would be
her sister. She tossed the knife aside and got off of Zoey.

“What was here?” Peg asked. “What did
this?”

“Servant of a mish-mash. Minion of a
combination of things.” The tears started to run over her skin.
Zoey put her hands up to her eyes as though trying to keep them
from seeing some terrible creature floating in her vision. “It has
no brain. Eyes that walk. Time to harvest me.”

The hardest part
was trying to figure out what she could possibly do next. It was
like that moment eleven years ago except so much worse. There was
nothing that could be done to make anything better so the only
thing she had in her power to do was try to understand. And this
time she knew she couldn’t call the cops. It wasn’t a matter of not
trusting them even after all these years. It was simply that there
was nothing they could do. They were not prepared for the fact that
some unknown thing had come into her home looking for her vampire
sister and taken her son.

At least there was that silver lining, if
such a thing could possibly be classified under those terms.
Brendan was still alive somewhere, or at least had still been alive
when he’d vanished from the house. This was according to the note
they had found in the fridge. Then again, “note” was hardly the
correct way to describe it.

The one thing that Peg did know was that she
could no longer deal with this alone. Technically she wasn’t alone
as long as Zoey was here, but Zoey was little help. Her speech was
still fragmented and barely coherent. Peg needed someone else here,
someone that could act as a sounding board for her thoughts and
ideas, and most importantly someone who could deal with the fact
that Peg still had her dead husband sitting on top of the vegetable
crisper. Although she wasn’t too sure about that last part, Peg
only knew one person who qualified for the others.

V arrived slightly earlier than she had
originally intended since Peg had called her and asked her to hurry
over. She hadn’t bothered to elaborate, hadn’t even allowed V to
get a word in, and V came up to the front door and banged loudly, a
noticeably frantic tone in her voice.

“Peg? Open the door.”

Peg didn’t move from her place on the couch
at first. She didn’t have the slightest clue how she was supposed
to do this. Somewhere in her mind she almost believed that if she
ignored the door and just let V go away then maybe she could go
back up to bed, crawl under the covers, and all of this would
simply slip away into nothing. This morning would be a void. She
wouldn’t have to go back to it, wouldn’t have to remember it,
wouldn’t need to deal with the consequences.

More banging. “Peg, I know you’re in there. I
don’t know what the hell is going on but I could tell from your
voice on the phone that it isn’t good. So if you don’t open the
door I will smash it in. You know I can do it.”

To Peg’s surprise Zoey got up first. She’d
been sitting on the floor in the corner of the living room—Peg had
begun to understand that, wherever she’d been all these years, it
hadn’t been someplace with comfortable cushions and Zoey couldn’t
sit on the couch or chair for longer than a minute—and she went to
the door, hesitating only a moment before opening it. She flinched
at the sunlight that came through and promptly backed away back
into the living room. V stood there with her fist up and ready to
bang on the door again. She blinked at the presence of someone
other than Peg but the resemblance was close enough that V must
have understood who she was right away.

“Uh, hello,” V said.

Zoey nodded but said nothing.

“You’re Zoey?”

Nothing.

“I’m V.”

A nod. V finally took that as her invitation
to come in. Zoey kept her distance from V but followed her back in
the living room and then took up her place in the corner again. V
watched her for several seconds before she turned to Peg. Peg
hadn’t bothered to look at herself in a mirror yet but she knew she
had to look hideous. Whatever V saw on Peg’s face made her
physically recoil before she joined Peg on the couch and put a
protective arm around her shoulders.

“Dear God,” V said. “What’s happened?”

Peg opened her mouth to answer and instead
burst out crying. V made soothing sounds and allowed Peg to
collapse against her, falling with her head into V’s lap and
curling up into a tight ball. She didn’t know how long she sat like
this, but V didn’t make any attempt to push Peg away. Instead she
just made “shhhh” noises and calmly brushed Peg’s hair away from
her sopping wet face.

After a time Peg finally had her tears under
enough control that she could sit back up and speak in something
other than blubbering sobs. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Just start with whatever’s wrong,” V said.
She nodded in Zoey’s direction, who had spent the entire time
playing with her hands in her lap again. “Does it have something to
do with her?”

Peg wanted to say
You have no idea
,
but wasn’t sure she could speak like that without breaking down
again. Instead she spoke carefully, aware that any word might set
her off again. “You have to start by swearing you won’t call the
police.”

“Fuck. That doesn’t sound good. What did you
do?”

“It wasn’t me,” Peg said. She hesitated,
making sure she actually believed with her whole heart what she was
about to say. “It wasn’t her either.”

“It was my fault,” Zoey said softly.

V looked from one to the other, then squeezed
Peg’s hand. “Just tell me.”

“Swear first. Just do it. Swear on your life
and Norm’s life and mine and your higher power or whatever the fuck
you hold sacred. Please.”

“Shit. Okay. I swear. Just tell me. What
happened?”

Peg believed her, but that wasn’t going to
make any of this easier. “Tony’s… he’s… in the kitchen.”

“Shouldn’t he be in here too, then?
Comforting you about whatever this is?”

“No, I mean he’s… he’s…”

For several moments V still didn’t seem to
understand. But Peg could see it as the realization came to her.
Slowly, calmly, and with careful steps, V got up from her seat and
went down the hall into the kitchen. Peg knew she should probably
follow, maybe try to explain as V saw it, but she couldn’t make
herself go in there again. She’d already been forced to look at the
scene one more time for more clues as to the how or the why, and
they had found a big one, but that was all she could take.

She listened carefully to every tiny sound
that came from the kitchen. She had expected to hear a gasp, but
given some of the stories V had told of her life she supposed V had
seen bad things before. None as bad as this, perhaps, but enough
that she had known to prepare herself before she walked into the
kitchen. V’s footsteps stopped right at the kitchen entrance, then
a few more as she walked somewhere else and paused again. After a
very long time Peg heard the refrigerator door open, close again
abruptly, then, after too many beats, open once more. Peg counted
the time and got to twenty-five Mississippi before she heard the
door close again. Several more moments of pause, and finally V came
back into the living room.

V stopped at the doorway, giving Peg a clear
look at her waxen face. She didn’t look ready to scream or
breakdown, however. She had that same stony look she always did
when she talked about all those moments of crisis in her past. Peg
had grown to love and admire that look. She equated it with the
idea of survival no matter what the odds. It was a feeling Peg felt
she desperately needed right now.

V came up to Peg and took a knee in front of
her, grasping both of Peg’s hands tightly in her own. “Okay Peg.
Listen to me. Are you listening?”

Peg nodded.

“I’m here to help you,” V said. “I’ll support
you in any and every way you need. But you have to tell me the
truth. About everything, understand?”

Peg nodded again.

“Okay then. So you have to tell me. Did you
do this?”

Peg shook her head. The tears wanted to come
again but she held them back.

V looked briefly over at Zoey, who still
hadn’t moved. “Did she do this?”

“My fault,” Zoey muttered. This got a glare
from V, but Peg turned her head back so they were looking each
other in the eye.

“No. She did not do this.”

“Do you know who did?”

“Minions and servants. A combination of
things,” Zoey said. V gave her a confused look. Zoey kept her head
down, not letting V see her mouth.

“I don’t,” Peg said. “I think… it was
whatever took Zoey all those years ago. It’s back for her. There
was a note.”

“A note?”

“It’s on the dining room table. I didn’t want
to touch it any more than I had to. It has… there’s Tony’s blood
all over it.”

V stood up and went to the dining room. When
she came back she had the note, although she was using one of the
cloth placemats from the dining room table to hold it. She was
probably thinking that she didn’t want to mess up any fingerprints
that might be on it, but that would require them to tell the police
at some point. Peg was certain by now that such a thing would be an
enormous mistake, both for her and the police.

Zoey had found the note in the fridge with
Tony, written on a piece of the stationary that hung on the outside
of the refrigerator for them to write notes about what to get from
the store. It had been folded neatly twice and then tucked into
Tony’s hand. The scrawl on it, however, seemed to have been written
by someone with a near-total lack of motor control. V turned it
this way and that as she read it in order to make sense of the
illegible loops and scratches.