Companions of the Night (10 page)

She lit the second match in the living room, but her hands were shaking too hard to get the third going. The smoke was stinging her eyes, her throat felt as though she'd been drinking gasoline, and she thought,
If he wants a third, he can do it himself.

Ethan was already sitting in the car, the engine going, when she slammed Regina's front door behind her.

She could scream. She probably would have time for one
Fire!
or
Vampire!
or
Help!

But only one.

She got into the car, very much aware of the bundle in the backseat, the decapitated body of a murdered vampire. Very much aware of the living—more or less—vampire beside her.

And very much aware, before they reached the end of the street, of the dark smoke filling the darker sky behind them.

A
FTER SEVERAL MINUTES
of driving, Kerry roused herself enough to ask, "Where are we going?"

"Bergen Swamp," Ethan answered.

"There's a swamp in Bergen?" The Bergen town line was about two minutes from Main Street, Brockport. "I thought Bergen was mostly farms and student housing."

Ethan glanced at her. "Well, it's hardly in the same category as the Florida Everglades But, yeah, it's a swampy, wooded area. Good for hunting."

For a moment Kerry thought he meant vampires hunted people there. Then she realized he meant game hunters, after deer and rabbits. "Oh." She was unable to hide the relief in her voice.

He glanced at her again, and again what she was thinking must have been transparent. He sighed, loudly, and shook his head.

Kerry looked around at the familiar countryside rolling by in the darkness: fields and occasional houses. Her heart did a quick flutter, but she tried to keep her voice casual. "I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but you passed through Bergen about five minutes ago."

He gave her one of those looks she was beginning to think of as a vampire-thinks-of-amusing-thought-that-is-amusing-only-to-other-vampires look. "I thought we were talking about long-term goals," he said. "We have a couple errands to run on the way."

"Such as?"

"You aren't going to like them, so I'd rather put off telling you." He saw her expression and laughed. "But I doubt they're as bad as what you're thinking."

What she was thinking was that they were heading off toward Rochester to find a victim for him to feed on. The awful, frustrating thing was that—even if that should turn out to be what he intended—when the time came, chances were there would be absolutely nothing she could do to prevent it.

She forced herself to think of alternatives. Maybe he was telling the truth. For once. They were definitely going in the direction of Rochester, and there was little else between here and there except towns even smaller than Brockport.

Rochester.
It suddenly came to her. He was going to enlist the help of other vampires. Which probably significantly increased her chances of losing her own blood.

He was watching her, evaluating, still amused. "Besides," he added, "we have time to kill."

And she was sure he was aware she could think of two ways to take that. She intentionally ignored one of them.

"What about my family?" she demanded. "Aren't you forgetting them?"

"Definitely not," he answered brightly. "They're absolutely the only control I have over you."

It wasn't exactly the answer she'd anticipated. "Well?"

"
Well
what?"

"They're in danger. Now, unless you know that they're being held captive in Rochester—and I don't see how you could know that unless—" She stopped.
Was
Ethan involved? Had he arranged for Ian and her dad to be kidnapped as part of some elaborate vampire scheme to ... But she couldn't work it out in any way that made sense at all.

Beside her, Ethan waited patiently for her to continue.

"Unless you know that they're being held captive in Rochester, we seem to be headed away from them."

"I have no idea where they're being held," he told her. "Was that what you were asking?"

"I was asking ... I was pointing out, because of the time involved ... Couldn't you do whatever it is you're going to do with a phone call?"

Ethan gave her a puzzled look and said, "No," in a tone strongly indicating she was wrong about the purpose of this trip being to communicate with Rochester vampires.

She said, "What if whoever has Dad and Ian..." She needed a deep breath to continue. "...kills them while we're busy running your errands?"

"Kerry, I don't know who has your family. But if they're still alive—now, at this moment—it doesn't make sense for whoever has them to kill them. They're useless dead."

"Unless I don't know they're dead."

"There is that," he acknowledged. "But there was nobody at your house. I would have heard. And I would have known"—he was saying this last part slowly, phrasing it carefully—"if your father and your brother were dead in the house. If there had been a quantity of spilled blood, I would have known it."

Kerry spared a thought to be pleased that she had been right about that. And if she could keep her wits about her, gather enough useful information, she just might be able to overcome Ethan, rescue Dad and Ian, and come out of this alive.

Ethan was saying, "So they probably weren't dead at the house and it would be no advantage to take them away from the house and
then
kill them. Whoever is after me has invested a significant amount of time studying the situation. He ... She ... They ... aren't going to rush things now. I'd say your family is safe enough for the next few days. Their best hope is for us not to become overly hasty through misplaced concern."

Kerry tried to find the flaws in his reasoning, besides the obvious one: that he had no concern for her family. "That works out well for you," she finally said.

He just flashed a cold smile.

When he didn't volunteer any more information, she asked, "What are we going to do at the Bergen Swamp once we get there?"

Ethan stopped for a red light out in the middle of a country crossroad, no other traffic in sight. He rested his face in his hands. "Get rid of Regina's body."

Kerry still hadn't been able to figure out what he felt about Regina's death: grief for a loved one, or annoyance because the circumstances were inconvenient, or something else she couldn't begin to guess. Every time she settled on one, he did or said something that shifted the balance again.
Could
vampires love?

"The light's changed," she told him.

After a few more miles of silence she asked, "So she's truly dead?"

This time he couldn't seem to grasp what she was asking.

Before he was forced to state the obvious, that her head had been cut off, Kerry said, "I mean, I thought the only way to kill a vampire was a stake through the heart."

He was looking at her as though she were crazy. The worst part was she wasn't sure why.

"I thought anything less than that, the vampire would recover from."

Though for the moment they still seemed centered in the correct lane, he hadn't glanced away from her to check the road for what seemed to be an incredibly long stretch.

"Like you recovered from your injuries," she said. "Would you please watch the road?"

"God," he said.

Excuse me for my ignorance,
she wanted to say.
I wasn't exactly sure what the term
undead
covered.
Instead, she just said, "Well, I didn't know."

"What, you thought her head would grow a new body? Or her body a new head? Or the two pieces could just be stuck together, like—"

"All right, I'm sorry. I thought
your
recovery was just about miraculous."

"It wasn't anywhere near the same," he snapped.

"All right."

He cast a sudden worried look at her, which came a moment before she realized she had learned a potentially valuable lesson: Vampires were susceptible to a variety of deaths, if the injuries were severe enough.

She said, "All I was asking was if she'd be coming back."

"She won't be coming back," Ethan said. There was no way to tell how much he suspected she guessed.

I
T WAS ABOUT
a forty-five-minute drive to Rochester. Kerry asked herself about forty-five times if she was doing the right thing. How far should she trust Ethan? That was an easy one: not at all. And yet—and yet—he had let her live, when all he had needed her for so far was to light the gasoline while he carried Regina's body to the car. With an extra two minutes he could have done that himself. Yet why bring her to Rochester to kill her when he could have done it at Regina's house? Unless he didn't want her charred bones found in the wreckage of the house, for some reason she couldn't work out. Or unless there were some sort of vampire hierarchy, and he planned to offer her as a gift to the chief or king or president vampire. Which didn't make a whole lot of sense.

As they reached the suburbs, as they slowed from the fifty-five m.p.h speed limit and started having to stop for lights and traffic, Kerry wondered what were her chances of surviving should she throw herself out of the car and run screaming for help. Not very good, she estimated. Surely Ethan had taken into consideration that she
might
try something of that nature. No doubt he had confidence in his ability to stop her before she attracted attention But he was still taking a risk. What could he possibly hope to gain?

Unless he had spoken the truth. Unless he needed her help to get to Regina's killers.

If that was the case, escaping—even if possible—would doom Dad and Ian.

But how likely was it Ethan would let her live with all that she was seeing and learning about vampires? Which brought her right back to: Was she doing the right thing?

Kerry had been hoping that whatever Ethan needed he could find in one of the outlying suburbs, but he drove right into the city. Not only that, but into one of the sleazier parts of the city.

"Do you trust me?" Ethan asked.

"No." Kerry was amazed that he even had to ask.

He gave his soft, pleasant, insincere laugh. "All for the best, I suppose, but that's going to make this more difficult Please don't do anything stupid."

He'd been looking for a parking space and now he pulled over. Even though it was eleven o'clock, this particular section of the city was brightly lit; at least those buildings that weren't boarded over and spray-painted were brightly, even garishly, lit. Women—and some girls who looked not quite as old as Kerry herself—walked by in tight skirts and high heels. Despite the cold, most had their jackets unbuttoned or unzipped so they could be seen better The jacket of choice seemed to be rabbit with leather trim. There were a few young men, too, though most of the men were in the cars that very slowly cruised down the street.

"What are we doing here?" Kerry demanded.

"Shopping."

She'd been right the first time. He was looking for someone to drain of blood, someone who wouldn't be missed.

Ethan tugged on her arm, trying to get her to come out the driver's door, obviously suspecting that if he got out first she might lock the doors behind him, which at the moment struck her as a very good idea. Kerry clutched the door handle and dug in with her sneakers and her bottom.

Ethan pulled, strongly enough to make her slide effortlessly across the seats. "I asked you not to do anything stupid," he hissed into her ear.

Out on the street, the prostitutes watched with mild interest. She was sure they thought she was one of them and they were wondering if he was through with her and going to trade her in. Even when it was apparent he wasn't going to let go of her arm, some of the women blew kisses or stood with their hands in their pockets, holding their jackets open, just in case.

She was concentrating so much on the people around them, she didn't realize until the last second that Ethan was leading her into one of the stores. She balked when she saw the sign:

LOVE, ETC.
books, videos, etc.

"Trust me," Ethan whispered, beyond all reason "It's not as bad as you think."

The store was awful. Lingerie with cutouts Men's bikini briefs with peacock feathers. Posters of couples: men and women, men and men, women and women. There was no place Kerry could look that she didn't see something embarrassing. And she felt stupid because some of the stuff was embarrassing even though she didn't know what it was. And then she felt stupid to feel stupid, because there was no reason for
her
to feel embarrassed. The people who ran the store should be embarrassed.

At least Ethan kept a tight hold on her hand while he spoke to the man behind the counter. Her hand was sweaty, his, as always, was colder than any living person's. For the moment she didn't mind what they looked like. She
wanted
people to think they were together. Especially the other customer in the store, a scuzzy-looking man in a long coat. Kerry stared at her feet, sure that if she glanced up he was going to flash her.

She suddenly realized that what Ethan was buying were handcuffs. Which was bad, but probably not as bad as it could be. If he wanted to restrain her physically, he was strong enough to do it without handcuffs.

"Enjoy," the clerk said with a smirk in his voice.

Back at the car, they got in the same way they'd gotten out, through the driver's side. Once settled, Ethan turned to her and asked, "Are you all right?"

As if he couldn't see that she was shaking. "Fine," she snapped. "How not?"

"If I intended you harm...," he said with his mocking smile. "Well, I wouldn't need these. These are protection."

So they were for her.

What was he waiting for? For her to acknowledge that he was doing her a favor?

"Compared to this," Ethan said as he started the engine and pulled away from the curb, "the next part will be a piece of cake."

After a while she couldn't take it anymore. "What's the next part?" she asked.

"We steal a car."