Darkest Hour (21 page)

Her size was the second most notable thing about her. She had to have weighed four-hundred pounds. She wore a massive Tweety Bird t-shirt that could have doubled as a tent for two normal-sized adults. Her bosom was especially pronounced, and hung to her waist like a second stomach.

The woman laughed. Every part of her jiggled. Her breath smelled like nutmeg. Her laughing petered out as her eyes took Gabriel in. What must have looked like an ordinary young girl from behind now looked quite different to her face-to-face.

“What are you?”

It was Gabriel’s turn to smile. He made sure to show some face. With one hand he smeared away the makeup on his cheeks. “Are you Lucia?”

The woman crossed herself and backed away, crossing out into the twilight on her front porch. “How can you enter my home? You are uninvited?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Come now. Are you really that unversed?” This whole trip looked like a waste of his time. Damn, he’d been certain this location had a stronger supernatural presence. Long ago, he and Otto had tracked and tagged as many supernatural strong points across the nation as they could find. Thus they would always know where to go to find power if they needed it.

Surely, their readings couldn’t have meant this woman alone.

The information was old. Things might have changed.

“You travel by light,” she said, pointing toward the sky with a trembling hand. “This I
know
is impossible.”

Her Hispanic accent thickened with her fear.

Gabriel nodded. “For most like me, it
is
impossible. I am no simple vampire.”

“Get out of my home, demon.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I need your help.”

“Help?” She scooted away while digging for something underneath the shirt that hung down to her knees. “I will not aid a demon.” Finally she pulled loose a rosary. The beads clacked together as she flung the rosary free from her pocket. She held the cross out in front of her as if wielding a knife. “Away with you.”

“I’m afraid those don’t work on me either.”

Her eyes went wide. A vein in her fleshy neck throbbed. She began mumbling something in Spanish.

Gabriel held out a hand, trying to appear as disarming as possible. He looked like a teen girl. How threatening could he truly be? “Please help me. A terrible creature turned me into what you see before I ever had the chance at womanhood. If you could just—”

“No!” Her ruddy face creased in several places like crumpled felt. Her eyes flashed. “You are no young girl. I see through you. What’s inside is older...and dark.”

Interesting. So she did have some talent. How far would it take him, though?

“Think of me what you will,” he said. “All I want is a doorway.”

She looked up at the darkening sky as if seeking guidance from a higher power. The woman knew magic was real and within her, but like many mortals she had cluttered her talent with unnecessary rules and superstition. Why couldn’t they all learn? Get the blood, and the rest falls into place.

“You won’t find answers up there.”

She snapped her gaze back to him. “What do you mean by
doorway
?”

“Tell me, Lucia. Have you ever traveled to a faraway place without having to leave your home?”

“You mean a spirit walk?”

He lifted a shoulder. “Something like that.”

“You want to take a spirit walk?”

“I want to improve your spirit walk. I want you to help me take my body along with my spirit.” Millions of “spirits” in truth. But he didn’t want to overwhelm her with details.

The wrinkles in her leathery face changed, marking her as confused. She still held the rosary and began worrying its beads between a thumb and forefinger. “What you seek is not possible.”

“The difference between possible and impossible is merely a matter of commitment, dear Lucia. If the spirit can travel, so can the body.” And the only reason he needed her help for such a thing was because a body needed to be sent. One cannot send oneself. A quirk of magical physics, but one he’d learn long ago. Otherwise, people with supernatural ability would pop in and out everywhere whenever it pleased them. It was the reason the network of interdemnsional portals was created across the world. Something Gabriel would have used if Lockman and his people hadn’t commandeered the entire network.

Lucia still didn’t understand. She rubbed at her beads and gaped at Gabriel. “A vampire has no spirit to travel. You are soulless.”

A good point, if he had been a run-of-the-mill vampire. But he had helped dear little Jessie keep her soul after she was turned. This trick had allowed his, and all the others, remain as well. “Madame, if you haven’t already guessed, there is more to me than my vampirism. I have a soul. I have many, in fact.”

She gasped, though it sounded like a belch.

Again, Gabriel reached out his hand. He beckoned her to him. “Come in, my dear. I have no urge to do you harm. As I said, I need your help.”

She shook her head. “Your soul is dark. You are unnatural.”

Gabriel closed his eyes. Why couldn’t he have found a
real
practitioner? Any true mystic would have jumped at the chance to try and teleport a soul-endowed vampire through space-time. Surely. What an exciting experiment. Lucia was yet another example of what was wrong with the world and what needed fixing.

“I don’t have time to find another practitioner. You will help me.”

He stepped forward.

Lucia matched his step with one backward. Meanwhile, she started digging under her shirt again. What now? A vial of holy water?

She drew a gun. A little revolver with a snub nose. She dropped the rosary to the porch and held the gun in both hands, aimed at Gabriel. Her hands shook so terribly, Gabriel doubted she could hit him even with only the few feet between them.

“Get out of my house.”

“Even if your bullets are silver, they won’t hurt me.”

She rattled something off in Spanish, spittle flinging from her lips.

Things not working out so well for ya, huh?

Gabriel caught himself growling. He did not need the girl’s scratchy little voice in his head right now. He gave her a psychic shove to drive her back to the dark, silent place she hid in between smart-mouthed quips.

That tickled a little
, she replied.
I think you lose a little control when you’re pissed. That’s good to know.

“Shut up,” he screamed.

The outburst made Lucia start. Her finger twitched on the trigger and the gun went off. Despite her unsteady hands, the bullet caught Gabriel in the side of the neck. The slug lodged itself there. Blood pumped from the hole. He felt it run down and follow the curve of his shoulder.

“Oh, Lucia,” he said. Some blood leaked into his throat, making his voice gurgle. He stuck his finger in the hole in his neck and hooked the slug out. He gave it a cursory glance—not even silver, the foolish woman—and flicked it at Lucia like a bloody booger.

The slug bounced off her bosom, leaving a splat of blood on Tweety Bird’s face.

She jerked at the impact. Her eyes bulged. The vein in her neck had doubled in size. She let the gun drop from her hands. It clattered on the brick porch. Then she turned and tried to run. What qualifies as running for a four-hundred-pound woman looks more like a twist and shuffle. She made it less than a dozen steps before Gabriel leaped across the distance between them and landed on her back.

Amazingly, the woman kept her feet. She tried to swing Gabriel off of her, but Gabriel had all the strength and leverage in this fight. He wrapped his arms around her neck and planted his heels into her thighs. Then he squeezed his arms closed slowly. He didn’t intend to crush her windpipe, though he could have gone as far as tearing off her head like he had that insufferable priest. He only squeezed enough to cut the blood flow to her brain.

The woman’s heart, both physically and metaphorically, proved strong. She kept her feet and continued to twist back and forth in an effort to throw him off. She lasted about twenty seconds before finally falling to her knees. Another ten seconds before she flopped to her side and passed out.

To get out from under her, Gabriel had to roll into one of the cactus sentries along the approach. The prickers pierced through the back of his shirt. They didn’t hurt as much as itched and annoyed. Unlike the hole in his neck, which did burn a little even as it had started to close up. He’d made the wound bigger digging the slug out, but with the slug out, it meant the wound could heal without obstruction and go back as if he’d never been shot in the first place.

He stood over Lucia and gazed down at her. Her heavy bosom rose and fell. Still breathing. Still alive. But what was the point? If he couldn’t convince her to help him, he would have no choice but to move on and find someone who would. At this rate, it could be a week or more before he reached Barrow, Alaska. He wanted to get there before daylight returned and the vampires dispersed. Lockman and his allies’ biggest fear was for another leader to take charge of a vampire army. They worried about someone like the king in New Orleans. Just another vampire, no matter how ancient and powerful.

They didn’t realize that the next great vampire leader would be their precious Chosen One.

The opportunity in Alaska was another of destiny’s cogs. It was Gabriel’s responsibility to fulfill that destiny.

He kicked the unconscious woman.

She would help him. He would compel her. He just had to listen to the millions of ancient voices. Just as they had given him the secret to sun walking, they would tell him how to turn a mortal into a slave.

One more body to control
, the girl piped up
. You think you can handle that?

You forget
, he thought as he dragged Lucia back to the house.
I don’t control your body. Your body belongs to me.

That’s not what it seemed like to me a little bit ago. Seems like you’re still learning to drive this thing. And trust me, freak. First chance I get, I’m taking back the wheel.

Gabriel heaved Lucia into the house and kicked the door shut.
We’ll see about that.

Bet your ass we will.

Chapter Twenty-Six

They brought Terrance Obstermeyer into the War Room, just Adam and Lockman. Lockman took his seat where he had left his laptop and, based on the steam leaking from the spout, a fresh thermos of coffee courtesy of the gnomes.

Obstermeyer looked like a frightened fish trapped in a bowl too small. His cheeks puffed and his eyes bulged. His hair stuck out in curled spikes. His rumpled shirt looked slept in. He looked back and forth between Lockman and Adam as if they had asked him to solve world hunger in the next fifteen minutes. Maybe that’s essentially what they had asked him.

Adam sat across the table from Lockman. The arrangement had the look of a job interview. Lockman supposed that’s exactly what it was. Poor Obstermeyer and his surprised fish face didn’t seem up to the challenge.

“You have to understand,” he said. “This...I’ve been studying the quantum mechanics of interdimensional portals since I graduated from MIT. I was recruited by a special government agency to study wormholes.” Lockman knew this, as that was the same Agency Lockman had worked for and what led to Obstermeyer ending up with them now. “Because up until that point, that’s what I knew existed. Wormholes. Then I learn about our access to parallel dimensions and magic portals and spooks and specters. What happened to the science? That’s what I’d like to know.”

Lockman waited to see if Obstermeyer would find his way back on topic.

Obstermeyer chewed on his thumbnail instead.

Lockman threw Adam a glance that said
You sure about this guy?

The ogre nodded. “Tell Mr. Lockman about your latest findings.”

The physicist finished chewing his thumbnail, spit it out, and started in on his pinky. He spoke as he chewed. “There are similar properties to what we define as wormholes and the portals. Without getting all technical, the portals defy physics because of their stable nature. These kinds of things simply should not be able to exist. But their general make up mocks the structure of a theoretical wormhole.”

A dull throb started behind Lockman’s left eye. This babble was even worse than Dr. Truman’s. When would these guys figure out that mojo and science had nothing in common? “I’m not sure how this helps.”

Obstermeyer spit out another shard of nail and gave Lockman the
Are you stupid or something?
look that Jess was so good at. “Aside from the obvious? Look, I have friends in other secret pockets of the government. The science divisions, not the spook divisions. They’re developing tech that can create wormholes for the purpose of space travel. The stability issue is the only thing that stands in the way.”

The smell of the coffee from the thermos called to Lockman. He took a sip, staring at Obstermeyer over the rim. This also gave him a chance to think about what to say next, because the idea of mixing science with mojo made him want to say a whole string of obscene things certain to send this nervous, twitchy man running out the door.

He set the thermos down and spoke slowly. “You want to use mojo to somehow stabilize the wormholes?”

Obstermeyer jiggled his head which made his spiky curls flop around like loose clock springs. “Righto. I’ve figured out the magical component that stabilizes the portals. It’s what us physicists call exotic matter. Something that only exists in theory. But if we can tease that matter out of a magical portal and plug it into a manmade wormhole...” He held out his hands like a stage magician displaying his latest illusion. “We’ve just made ourselves a portal.”

Lockman shook his head. “No.”

“Hold on a second,” Adam said.

The physicist’s words buzzed in Lockman head like angry bees. He swatted the air as if he could clear them physically. They just kept buzzing. “I made this mistake once, remember? I don’t even know why I agreed to sit and listen to this.”

“Hey,” Obstermeyer said as if Lockman had insulted him personally. “You’re the one who asked if it were possible. So, yeah, it’s possible. I don’t know how to do it...yet. But it’s possible.”