Lust for Life (21 page)

Deirdre’s screams streak into my brain, down my neck into my body, where they wrap
around every organ, sending lightning bolts through every vessel. I’m shot through
with her pain as if it’s my own.

A crackling sound begins. Her flesh is dissolving. It’s almost over. Her voice pitches
up, and she draws in a breath for one last—

No. Not one last scream.

Silence.

Shane keeps whispering, faster now, racing to reach
the end of the novena. I hold him tighter, letting him know he’s not alone.

“Amen.” The word echoes, though it’s just a whisper.

Shane stays as still as the silence itself, then turns and lets me take him in my
arms. Behind me, I hear the other three DJs retreat into the common room. One of them—Adrian?—is
crying.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Shane.

He holds me so hard, even my vampire ribs threaten to crack and crumble. “Why didn’t
I answer? Why didn’t I answer?”

Shane repeats this line again and again, until I pull away.

“Because she was a traitor and you didn’t trust her, that’s why. It would’ve been
a trap, anyway. If we’d gone to rescue her, Kashmir would’ve killed us, too.”

“I’m the one who killed Jim.” Shane’s eyes are a cloudy blue sky. “It’s me Kashmir
wants, not us. Maybe if I give myself up, he’ll leave you alone.”

I snatch Shane’s shirt in my fists so fast, it even startles him. “No! You are not
sacrificing yourself for me.”

He moves to swipe my hands off his shirt, then changes his mind and folds his fingers
around them. “I can’t listen to him do that to you, too. I can’t let you die.”

I shake Shane hard. “And I can’t live without you.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.” He strokes his palms over the backs of my hands.
“Ciara, my first death was meaningless. I want my final one to be for something.”

I shove him away. “Why? So you can go to heaven? You think you can martyr your way
into God’s arms?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“If you leave me on purpose,” I choke out, “I hope you burn in hell.”

He stares at me, and it’s like I can see his soul die. The light in his eyes goes
dim.

“No. I’m sorry.” I reach for him, but he slips away, rocking back on his heels. “I
didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I don’t even believe in hell. Why would I wish anyone would go there?”

“You didn’t mean that exactly, but you meant something low and vicious.”

“What do you expect? You’re saying you want to leave me.”

“I don’t want to leave you, I want to save you!”

“Then stay with me.” Tears pour down my cheeks as I force myself into his arms. “We’ll
find another way, all of us together. Please.”

He buries his face in my neck, his body shuddering with tearless sobs. I cling to
his back and wish I could watch Kashmir himself writhe and burn for what he’s done
to Deirdre, and what he might do to us.

Shane finally pulls away and wipes his dry cheeks, then his forehead. “Okay.” He takes
a deep breath. “We stick with the plan. Hold Jim’s wake on Monday and hope his progeny
can’t resist coming.”

I return to logic mode, where I’m happiest. “Until then, we should hunker down here.
They probably know by now that Deirdre warned us about their Thanksgiving attack.”

“Assuming that was ever their real plan to begin with.”

“Somehow they found out she told us. Either she confessed or they saw us preparing.”

“Or both.”

“So we can assume they won’t wait until Thanksgiving to attack.” An unpleasant tingle
worms up my spine. “They might not even wait for Jim’s funeral.”

“They will,” says a voice from the doorway. Adrian.

He steps inside the room and shuts the door behind him. His face is red from crying,
and his hands twist around each other. “It should’ve been me out there in the sunrise.”

“Why?” Shane asks him.

“Deirdre was a good kid. She wasn’t the only one who betrayed Kashmir.” He meets my
eyes. “I did, too.”

20

You Don’t Know Me

Shane gets to his feet, slowly, as if Adrian’s a wild animal he might scare away.
“What do you mean, you betrayed Kashmir?”

“I called the police the night of the bombing. You can check the 911 tapes—they’re
public record.” He clutches his hands together. “I didn’t want revenge. I just wanted
Jim’s freedom. Ciara, I didn’t know what he’d done to you. I thought the Control captured
him because he was too much of a free spirit. I’m so naïve.”

I shake my head hard, trying to dispel the confusion. It feels like time is tying
itself in a knot. “Wait, wait, wait. Start from the beginning.”

Shane steps closer to Adrian. “Yeah, like, who the hell are you?”

“These days I’m Adrian Donovan. But when I was alive, I went by Carl Keller.”

I remember the name from Jim’s box of progeny paraphernalia. He went to a Dead show
in San Francisco with Carl and Bonnie. But that was, what, the mid-seventies? “How
could Jim be your maker when
you were turned in 1965? He didn’t even turn until 1970.”

“My turning wasn’t until 1975.” He gestures to his wool poncho. “I prefer the early
sixties, though.”

His ease with seventies music makes sense now. He didn’t have to learn it to survive
at a classic rock station. He’d lived through it, with Jim as his maker.

“You lying sack of shit.” Shane grabs the front of Adrian’s poncho, opens the door,
and drags him out into the common room. I follow quickly, worried that in his rage,
Shane will toss Adrian out into the sunlight, which he can’t do without burning up
himself.

Regina and Noah are on the couch together. Her tear-soaked face is pressed against
his chest. I remember that her other progeny, Shane’s blood sister Sara, died the
same way as Deirdre, though by accident instead of murder.

Shane shoves Adrian into the armchair and turns to them. “He’s one of Jim’s. All this
time and he didn’t tell us. He’s Carl Keller.”

They sit stunned for a moment, then Noah simply says, “You shaved your beard.”

“A spy for Kashmir? Motherfucker!” Regina leaps up, claws out, and Noah barely grabs
her in time. “We let you stay under our own roof, and you sold us out!” She twists
and writhes in Noah’s grip. “Let me go, I need to kill him.”

Adrian watches her carefully. Despite his peace-loving demeanor, he’d surely defend
himself with lethal means. Vampires don’t live almost fifty years—crap, I mean forty
years—without learning how to fight.

“Regina.” I almost step between them, but my own sense of self-preservation keeps
me out of the way. “If you kill him, he can’t answer our questions.”

“If I kill him, he can’t betray us again.”

“I haven’t betrayed you!” Adrian raises his hands. “That’s what I’ve been trying to
say. I didn’t come here to spy on you. I came here because this is a dream job. Living
with other vampires, having fans who adore us, getting to sit in the same chair, sleep
in the same bed, as one of my idols—”

“That idol of yours killed my cousins.” This new fact shuts Adrian up. “You already
know he nearly killed me. So stop romanticizing him.”

“I stopped romanticizing him about a day after I turned. I’ve seen him do more nasty
things than you can possibly imagine. But the blood bond can never be broken, not
even by death.”

Shane and Regina share a look, and in the brief silence Noah speaks.

“I know what you mean.” His voice is soft but commanding. “My maker was a monster
by any standard. He abandoned me when I refused to kill. But I know that when his
death comes, I will feel the same tear in my heart as I would if we were best friends.”

Regina goes limp in his arms. After a moment he lets her go, and she stalks back to
the couch. “Start talking, you bastard.” Noah sits beside her, and I sit on his other
side.

Only Shane stays standing, blocking the path between Adrian’s chair and the exit.
“You were turned in ’75. By Jim alone?”

Adrian lowers his head. “By Jim and Kashmir, in California.
I was the first of what they called the Magnificent Seven.”

“After the movie?”

“It was Jim’s favorite when he was growing up.” Adrian’s light-brown eyes skip over
us. “Kashmir would find the fledglings. He’d befriend us, promise adventures, then
hand us over to Jim, and the two of them would turn us together. If we fought back,
we died for good. And sometimes, even if we didn’t fight back, we died for good. Sometimes
Jim and Kashmir overdrank.”

“Were you really in medical school when they found you?” I ask Adrian. “Or was that
a lie, too?”

“It was the truth. Sometimes I’d patch up the humans they left for dead and get them
to a hospital.” His gaze drifts slowly to the floor like a falling leaf. “Sometimes
I was too late.”

“Why didn’t you finish school?” Regina asks.

“Day classes, obviously. Jim said he was giving me a long future, but really, he took
my future away when he made me this.” He gestures to his body with disgust.

“Did you leave them,” Noah asks, “or did they leave you?”

“Both. Jim wanted to take the Magnificent Seven back to England, find his own makers,
and show them what he’d become. They wouldn’t let him turn anyone, because they thought
he was too crazy.”

“He
was
too crazy,” I interject.

Adrian nods. “I wouldn’t go with them. So they left me behind. I heard that on their
way across America they created a new vampire so they could still go by the Magnificent
Seven.”

That would bug me, too. It was an excellent movie, after all.

“We met Kashmir eleven years ago,” Regina tells him. “Jim seemed to blow him off.
Do you know why?”

“I only know that Kashmir hates this radio station for what he calls Jim’s ‘domestication.’ ”

I scoff. “ ‘Domestication’? He went crazy here.”

“Not as fast as he would’ve out there.” Adrian looks toward the door that leads to
the studio. “There’s something about this place. It’s a haven, and not just for good
music. I feel safe here. Places like WVMP threaten everything Kashmir stands for.
He thinks you destroyed what made Jim special.”

“Do you agree?”

“Just the opposite. I’ve heard Jim’s shows. This station brought out the best in him.
He knew music inside and out. Not just the notes, but the people and the society.
He could tell you the exact length of any song, the day the record was printed and
how many copies, which recording label executives pushed it, which stations supported
it. All that knowledge died with him two weeks ago.”

Shane shifts his stance as if to step back, but stays where he is. “I didn’t kill
Jim the DJ or Jim the musical historian. I killed Jim the monster, who would’ve killed
me and Ciara and maybe even you one day.”

“I know.” Adrian slumps forward, elbows on his knees and face in his hands. “Vampires
are supposed to live forever. What good is this kind of forever? We fade and go crazy,
and people pity or fear us, and then they kill us so we don’t kill them. If I’d known
what a curse this was, I would’ve said no.”

“They would’ve turned you anyway.” Regina twists her chain-link bracelet. “Jim never
cared about what anyone else wanted, only what made him happy for a brief moment before
he lost interest and moved on to something else.”

I force my mind back to the fact-finding mission. It’s a solace amid all this death
and doom. “How did you end up back with Kashmir?”

“He wrote to me in Albuquerque a few months ago saying Jim was in custody and did
I want to help break him out before the Control killed him? Of course I came.”

“But before you guys sprang Jim, Kashmir set the bomb under the Smoking Pig to try
to kill us. How did he pull that off?”

“It was in an empty keg. The bartender had left it outside for pickup. Kashmir stole
it, inserted the bomb, then snuck it back into the basement dressed as a beer delivery
guy.”

“Do we want to know what happened to the real beer delivery guy?”

“He’s one of Kashmir’s donors now.”

At least he’s still alive.

Adrian continues. “Kashmir didn’t tell me until half an hour before the bomb was meant
to go off. I managed to get away to phone the police in time.”

I watch him carefully as I utter the next sentence. “You probably saved Franklin’s
life.”

Adrian’s shoulders droop at the sound of the name.

“Was that real?” I ask him.

“Franklin was part of what changed my mind about the station. But I expect he’ll hate
me now.”

“He should. With me you get points for coming forward and confessing, but all Franklin
will see are the lies you told him and the way you made him feel.” Anger boils inside
me at the thought of Franklin’s imminent hurt. “After what he went through with Aaron,
he was finally starting to live again.” My voice catches, which fills me with even
more rage. I want to pummel Adrian’s face until his perfect nose is pointed sideways.
“And now you’re some kind of scummy double agent.”

“I thought I was being neutral. I thought that was the path to peace. But I was wrong.
I was a coward.”

“So now what?”

“After what happened to Deirdre, I’m on your side all the way.”

“Why should we believe you?”

“You shouldn’t. If you want, you can follow me everywhere, monitor all my phone calls.
I’ll only tell him what you want me to tell him.”

“Kashmir trusts you?”

Adrian considers this for a moment. “No, but he needs me. I’m his only connection
to you, now that he’s gotten rid of Deirdre.”

“You can tell us where to find him? How to get rid of him?”

“On one condition: you don’t kill him.” Adrian puts a hand to his chest. “I don’t
know if I’d survive having my other maker die so soon after the first. Not sure if
any of us would. So, by killing him, you might kill ten of us, maybe more.”

I think of Franklin. He’ll break up with Adrian the moment he finds out the truth,
yet it would still hurt him to see the death of another man he cares about.