Lust for Life (20 page)

We lie together, letting our breath slow, falling into the same rhythm, finally the
same.

19

A Murder of One

An hour before dawn, Shane and I decide to go to the station so we can spend part
of the day planning Monday’s wake for Jim. Two of the main Control operatives, Agent
Rosso and Captain Henley, along with our combat trainer, Captain Elijah Fox, have
been guarding the place all night and have some thoughts on how best to protect the
station from an attack.

So we pack up Dexter and head for WVMP. With Kashmir on the loose, we can’t bear the
thought of leaving the dog alone.

I enter the lounge and walk past the other vampires, a secret triumph humming through
my veins. I finally conquered my fear of being bitten. Lori will be thrilled. In fact,
she probably won’t even mind if I call to tell her.

I pull out my phone as we enter the DJs’ apartment, but as usual I’m getting a spotty
signal here. Sometimes Shane has better luck.

“Can I try your phone to call Lori?” I ask him.

“Why, whatever could you have to tell her?” He smiles at me as he hands me his phone.

“You forgot to turn it back on last night.” I watch the screen while it searches for
a signal. His bedroom often has the best reception, so I open his door.

As I step across the threshold, his phone buzzes in my hand.

IO VOICE MAILS
, the screen flashes.

Oh, crap.
I hit Play.

“Shane!” Deirdre’s terror comes through on the first word.

Shane drops his duffel bag and zips to my side.

“They’re coming for me,” she says through the speaker. “I’m at home, but I don’t know
if it’s safe to stay.” A long pause. “Call me.” Click.

He goes completely still, his eyes frozen on mine. I skip to the next message, from
an hour later.

“Shane? It’s me, Deirdre. Ignore my other voice mail. Sorry if I sounded panicky.
Everything’s okay.” The tension in her voice belies her words. “I was just being paranoid.
Hey, we should get together for lunch like we talked about.”

“We never said we’d meet for lunch.” Shane takes the phone and steps farther into
his room, leaving the door open. “It’s gotta be a signal that something’s wrong.”

He plays the message again, louder. As he listens, he cocks his head and peers intently
at the wall. “I hear someone breathing in the background. Clothes shifting.”

I can’t hear it, but he’s got fifteen vampire years on me.

“The next one’s from her number, too,” he says as he hits a button on the phone.

Her number, but not her voice.

“Shane, Shane, Shane.” The man lets out a long
sigh. “I don’t know how these phone message mails work, but I think you do. So I can’t
understand why you’d ignore one from your old lover. Is it because of that new girl,
Ciara?” He pronounces it See-AIR-ah. “I pity you, being too young to experience free
love. Things became so uptight in the eighties, when you finally got laid. By then,
sex killed. And not just sex with vampires.”

“Kashmir.”

We turn to see Noah, his light-brown eyes going round and wide behind his glasses.
His mouth hangs open after saying the name.

The caller sighs again, but the noise can’t cover Deirdre’s muffled voice in the background.
It sounds like she’s wearing a gag. My heart races faster.

“Where was I?” Kashmir sounds genuinely distracted. “Oh, right. I’m taking Deirdre
for a walk, a little gift for my blood sister. See, I remember being her age. As a
human, I was a surfer, and I used to love to get up before dawn and hit those early
waves. During my first year as a vampire, the thing I missed most was sunrises. So
I want to give Deirdre that gift of one last sunrise.”

My stomach plummets. I grab the edge of the dresser for support. Shane’s head whips
around to look at the clock: 6:09—fifteen minutes until morning twilight.

Unless she’s right around the corner, we can’t save her without burning up ourselves.

“Don’t worry,” Kashmir continues. “You’ll be able to say good-bye. To Deirdre and
to Ciara.” This time he pronounces my name right. “Shane, I’ll be seeing you.”

The phone rings and vibrates in Shane’s hands, making
him jump and almost drop it. He hits the Answer button.

Deirdre screams his name, then “Please help me. Oh God, it’s coming. The sun is coming.”

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know. They put me in a trunk and then on one of those things that goes through
the woods.”

“Who did?” he blurts.

“Kashmir and Billy, and two other blood brothers. Bruce and Leon, I think they’re
called.” She takes in a shaky breath. “They tied me to—I don’t know what it is. Cold
and metal. Then they put my phone in my shirt pocket and dialed your number.”

“Are they still there?”

In the background comes the whine of what sounds like all-terrain vehicle engines.
Gears grind and the engine noise fades quickly.

“Not anymore,” she says softly.

Shane starts to pace, two of his long strides covering the tiny room. “Describe where
you are. Take a breath—listen, look, smell, everything.”

“Um . . . trees. Grass.”

“Is there a road nearby? Can you hear cars?”

She pauses while I dare to hope.

“No. Just birds.”

I cover my mouth with both hands, holding back a groan of dismay. Shane takes his
makeshift rosary beads from the closet doorknob. He crosses slowly to the bed, then
sinks to his knees on the floor.

“I didn’t know birds sang before dawn this time of year.” Deirdre’s voice sounds far
away now, like she’s realized we can’t help her if she’s not even near a road. “It’s
pretty here. Ben would love it.”

I look over to see Regina has joined Noah. One hand grips his while the other clutches
the doorjamb.

Shane shakes his head hard. “Deirdre, what else do you hear and see and smell? Tell
me everything.”

“There’s a hum. Power lines, maybe?” Her voice goes tight like her head is turning.
“Yeah, I can see them over my shoulder. Those big high-tension lines with the giant
towers. Does that help?”

No. No one lives near high-tension power lines. People think they cause cancer.

But there must be a safe place to hide somewhere close. Kashmir and the others would
be headed there. If Deirdre can get free and follow their tracks . . .

“What about my cell phone?” she says. “Can you trace my location from it if I stay
on the line? My GPS should be on.”

“Give me her number,” I tell him. “I’ll call the Control.”

He scribbles it on a sheet of paper. I grab it and run out of Shane’s room, heading
for the landline near the kitchen. There I dial 777, the Control version of 911. The
dispatcher answers.

“Yes, what is your emergency?”

“This is Agent Griffin.”

“Yes?”

“From Immanence Corps.”

“Oh! Good evening, Agent Griffin.”

Huh. Anca was right. I need to name-drop my division more often.

“There’s a vampire somewhere about to burn up at sunrise. Can we put a trace on her
cell phone number? She says her GPS locator is on.”

“Oh dear, I’m sorry, that’ll take hours.”

“Hours? Why?”

“The signal would have to be triangulated and even once we find it, unless she’s near
one of our agents with a vampire safe van . . .”

My heart sinks. “She’s being murdered. Her killers are holed up close by. If we can
locate the phone with her GPS, maybe they can be found.”

“We’ll do our best. What’s the number?”

I rattle it off, then have her read it back to me.

“I’ll put this through to Enforcement immediately. Can I be of any other assistance,
Agent Griffin?”

“No.” Her obsequiousness is a little creepy. Now I see why all the IC agents I’ve
known are so full of themselves. “Thank you.”

I hurry back to the room, pushing past Regina and Noah.

Shane is trying to keep Deirdre calm. “They’re doing everything they can. Just hang
in there.”

I sit next to him on the bed and listen to her voice from the speaker.

“What time is it, Shane?” she whispers. “How long do I have?”

“Let me check the clock. I think you’ve got—”

“Don’t bullshit me. I want the truth. You owe me that much.”

Elbow on his knee, Shane rests his forehead against his fingertips, like an agonized
version of Rodin’s
Thinker
. “Twelve minutes until twilight. Forty-two minutes until sunrise.”

Deirdre is silent. “I won’t see the sunrise, will I?”

I wrap my arms around myself. The indirect light
will turn her to ash long before the golden orb peeks over the horizon.

“I can feel it coming,” she says. “Starting to get tingly under my skin.” Her voice
is detached now. “Will it be quick?”

Shane closes his eyes. “I don’t know. But I’ll be here until the end. I promise.”

“Thanks,” she whispers. Then she clears her throat. “Can you do a few things for me
when I’m gone?”

Still holding the paper with her phone number, I click on the pen. From the corner
of my eye I see Adrian appear behind Regina and Noah.

“Of course,” Shane says. “Go ahead.”

“I don’t want my son, Ben, to spend the rest of his life thinking I abandoned him.
Can you find a way to tell him, someday, what happened? He won’t understand now, but
maybe when he’s older. Please tell him I love him so very much.”

“I will.”

“Then there’s my house. If people go in there, they’ll wonder why I have blood in
the fridge and why I was sleeping in the storeroom.”

“We’ll take care of it.”

Under
Tell Ben
, I write:
Code White Deirdre’s House
, my handwriting shaky.

“I was way behind in my mortgage, so you better hurry. The bank people’ll be coming
soon.”

“I promise, we’ll take care of it all.”

“Shane, I’m sorry I told Kashmir who killed Jim. I might end up getting you and Ciara
killed.”

“I forgive you.”

I don’t,
I think, but stay quiet. Forgiveness is a big deal to Shane. Maybe to Deirdre, too.

I wave my hand to get his attention. “Ask her if she can tell us anything about Kashmir.
What he looks like now, what kind of car he drives, anything he said to her.”

“I can hear you, Ciara, you can ask me directly.” Her breath is coming faster now.
“He’s got dark hair, straight, silky, past his shoulder. Eyes like amber. Eyes that’ll
make you do anything. It’s why I let him into my house. Stupid, stupid.”

Sounds like he hasn’t changed his appearance much since that photo of him and Jim
was taken.

“What else, Deirdre?” I don’t mean to snap, but we’re running out of time.

“He’s got a holy-water scar, just one drop’s worth, on his right cheek. He tells people
it’s a birthmark or a tattoo. It looks like a teardrop, so—augh!”

Her yelp of pain jolts me, and I almost ask, by reflex, if she’s all right. But of
course she’s not. Noah and Regina huddle together, as if they’re in the line of the
sun’s fire themselves.

“What about his car?” Shane asks. “New, old, what?”

“Old. Black. Some kind of sports car, big engine, but I don’t know what kind. Couldn’t
tell from the inside of the trunk.” She whimpers. “Oh God, the sun’s getting closer.
Shane, will you pray for me?”

“Of course I will.”

“Two doors or four?” I ask. When he looks up at me incredulously, I continue. “A sedan
or coupe?”

“She said it’s a sports car,” he says through gritted teeth. “So two doors.”

“Sorry.” I lower my voice to the softest whisper. “Ask her if he said anything else.
Anything. Save our lives, then pray.”

“Shane, are you there?”

He angles his shoulder away from me. “I’m here, Deirdre. Are you ready?”

“No.” She’s sobbing now, almost hiccuping, but her voice is dry, with no tears. She’s
in pure fear mode. “I don’t want to die. Please, please help me.”

“Just breathe, okay? Focus on my voice.”

“I’m trying.”

“Is there something nearby that’s beautiful? A tree, a rock, anything?”

“There’s a tree. Still has leaves. Orange at the top, yellow at the . . . at the bottom . . .
of the tree.”

David has a tree like that in his backyard. A red maple, I think he said it was.

“That sounds pretty,” Shane whispers.

“Everything’s pretty here. Shane . . .”

“Deirdre, look at the tree. Don’t take your eyes off it, okay? Don’t look at the sky.
Just watch the tree while I talk.”

She sniffles. “ ’Kay.”

He bows his head and starts to recite the novena for the souls of the departed, the
same he said for me when I died and came back to life. He was praying for my soul,
and for those who’d helped make me a vampire, and for his own soul, because he was
happy they did.

For the first minute or two, Deirdre is silent except for her quickening breath. Even
here beneath the earth, with no windows or doors, I can feel the sun coming. At the
doorway, Regina and Noah have their eyes squeezed
shut, but Adrian stares at Shane hard, as if he can pull Deirdre through the phone
itself into safety.

Shane is now halfway through the novena for the second time, his magic voice lulling
my mind again. Like Orpheus, he once pulled me back from the realm of death. But now
his role is different—he’s leading Deirdre
into
that realm, and she’ll never return.

Just as I close my own eyes, Deirdre starts to scream.

Shane goes rigid, pausing for three seconds. Then he keeps going. She needs him.

And he needs me. I kneel beside him and wrap my arms around his chest from behind.
I lay my head on his shoulder and feel his body quake as he prays.

Her last words are “I’m sorry.” She screams them again and again as she burns.

Why does the sun hate vampires? Are we so, so wrong that light itself wants to crush
us into nothing?

My tears flow onto Shane’s shirt, every blink releasing another flood. Could we have
saved her if we’d gotten the call in time? Would I have saved her if it meant risking
our lives? I’ll never know.