Nightingale Girl (12 page)

I sit at the table until Noah appears again. He’s holding a steaming plate of food and a mug.

“You know how hard it was to find this?” He sets breakfast down, then sits at the chair opposite me.

“How hard?” I ask as I dig in.

Noah looks away. “Luckily some old lady knew how to make pancake mix from scratch. Had her whip up a short stack before she turned into a gooney. Some weird dude in the woods killed a pig and cut the bacon fresh. Found the hot cocoa—”

“Stop. I’ve decided I don’t want to know where this came from.” I try not to think about a dead old lady cooking my breakfast.

When I’m done eating, I push the plate away. I stand, find the thigh holster for my blade, and strap it on my leg. I secure my weapon, then find the thin leather jacket I’ve been wearing thrown across one of the chairs near the door. I put it on, then turn to Noah.

“Shit, Meg.” Noah stands. “That’s hot.”

“Shut up.” I reach for the door handle and smirk, tipping my head toward the blade. “It’s better than a Beretta.”

“Don’t know about that. Those guns saved your life once.”

“Yeah. I did shoot seven Hellions and Jim.”

“Where you going?” Noah asks.

“You my manservant or my nanny?”

He shrugs. “Pretty much the same thing.”

“I’m not going to stay locked up waiting to be someone’s Hungry-Man TV dinner. Let’s go find some trouble.”

Noah smiles wide. “That’s my girl.”

We head for the entrance to the burning caves, but the droves of stinking, meandering meat sacks drive us back. They keep a few yards’ distance from the opening, never entering.

“We should wait until night,” Noah suggests.

“But I’m bored now.”

“Hang on.” Noah dashes out of the cave and sprints around the dead to a pile of gravel. He grabs a handful before running back to me. His cheeks are flushed. “Okay. Come on.”

I follow him back to my room and out on the balcony. Noah bends and pours the handful of pebbles on the floor.

“What are you up to?”

He smirks up at me before taking three of the pebbles and moving toward the railing. Noah leans over and throws a rock. Moaning erupts below.

I move to look over the railing. There’s a group of the dead far below my window. It must be fifteen stories or more down.

Noah tosses another pebble. They shift and moan, searching for the source of the noise, hoping for a fresh neck to bite into.

“That’s cruel.”

Noah shrugs. “You’re bored.”

A bird flutters by; it’s more of a shadow, but it gives me an idea. I bend and take a handful of pebbles.

“What are you doing?” Noah asks.

I lean my hip on the railing and hold my hand out.

“Try it,” I suggest.

He grabs a handful of stones and mimics my stance.

We stand like this for minutes.

Noah turns, raises his eyebrow in question, then yawns exaggeratedly.

A bird flutters down and lands in his open hand.

Noah’s eyes widen.

“Ye of no faith,” I mock.

It’s a robin, which pecks at the stones a few times before ruffling its feathers and flying away in frustration.

“Cool.” Noah smiles.

I’m still on the fence about staying down here with Sparrow, but I’m not going to continue to be bored out of my mind all day long waiting for him to come feed off me. I just need some distraction, some time to think things over for a little bit.

“Manservant. Can you get us some birdseed?” I ask.

Noah disappears, returning a few minutes later with a plastic bucket filled with seed. “You don’t even want to know where I found this.” He hefts the bucket to the corner of the balcony and sets it down.

“You’re right. I don’t.”

I take a handful of seed and move back to the edge of the balcony.

Noah does the same.

“Is this what we’re going to do all day? Let birds eat out of our hands?”

Three chickadees land on the railing. They hop closer and closer until two flutter up to my hand to eat. The other takes flight and hovers around Noah’s hand before landing and pecking at the seed.

“Why not?”

“The Meg I knew would never do this.”

“Maybe I’ve changed.”

Noah chuckles. “People don’t change, Meg. They just suppress it all.”

“That was deep.”

“And I wasn’t even under the influence.”

We watch the birds, laying out seed and letting them eat from our hands until night comes.

After all the birds have gone, Noah presses the lid on the container of seed. He moves to stand near me. Our elbows are resting on the stone railing as we both stare off into the moonlit vastness of Hell, until there is a knock on my door.

“Come in,” I shout.

Sparrow enters my room, and my nerves kick up a notch. I notice he’s gaunt again. Starving. He stands motionless near the door, a deep rumble echoing from his chest as he looks warily at Noah.

“You should probably leave,” I warn Noah as we both step into the room.

My manservant is gone in a flash, and it is just me and Sparrow. My heartbeat quickens as I reach for my blade and cut my arm.

Sparrow moves just as quickly as before. He latches on. I feel his teeth on my skin, the sharp pinch of pain, and the movement of his tongue. He sucks. The feeling intensifies. My knees weaken. My core burns and quivers. Sweet Jesus. I drop to the ground . . .

I come to as Noah’s lifting me off the floor. “Knew that guy was fucked in the head,” he’s muttering as he sets me on the bed and covers me with blankets.

“You don’t understand. He can’t help it,” I say. “He’s not normally like this.”

“How is he then?”

I try to shake my head, but it only lolls to one side in exhaustion. “Different,” is all I say before I fall asleep.

. . .

Thankfully, Nightingale doesn’t permeate my dreams this time. When I wake, Noah is nowhere to be seen. I check my arm and find there is a small pink scar and a smear of blood across my skin. I get up and shower.

After getting dressed in a pair of form-fitting sweatpants and an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt, I move to the balcony.

The sun is rising in an explosion of pinks and grays.

“Breakfast.” Noah’s voice startles me.

I turn to find him setting out food on the small table in my room.

“You didn’t ask me what I wanted,” I point out as I walk toward him.

Noah makes a noise. “Know you well enough. Coffee, chocolate chip pancakes, and sausage.”

I sit. “Coffee?”

Noah sits across from me. “Some crazy teenage chick south of here found a truck filled with unopened cans of Folgers. She was smart enough to set up a little French press by herself. Could smell it ten miles away. Had her make you a cup before she turned.” Noah’s expression turns thoughtful. “Strange, isn’t it. Last thing these people spend their energy doing is preparing gourmet coffees and making chocolate chip pancakes and sausage out of wild boars.”

I drop my fork and stare at him.

“What?” Noah asks innocently.

“I was really enjoying this, until you told me all that.”

“I just don’t understand.”

“Some of us really like our food. It’s comforting.”

Noah shrugs, moves his hands behind his head, and leans back. “I can’t eat, so it doesn’t matter to me anymore.”

I look down at the breakfast he brought me. Wasting it would be a tragedy. And I’m hungry. I pick up my fork and start eating again.

“Never found much comfort in food anyways.”

“What then?” I ask, taking a very unladylike mouthful of pancake.

“Thick blunt packed with Kushberry that’s been hang dried in a fifty-degree room for about four weeks.” He sucks in a breath and closes his eyes before exhaling slowly. “That’s comforting.”

I take a sip of my coffee, which is really quite good, and let Noah daydream about his pastimes of smoking weed and doing nothing productive.

When he finally snaps out of it, I find him leering at me as I’m rubbing the last of my sausage in the puddle of syrup on my plate.

“What?” I ask without looking up.

“Dressing down today? Is this you letting go?”

I sigh and eat the piece of maple-soaked sausage. “I just didn’t feel like getting dressed.” I set my fork down and finish off the last of the coffee.

Birds are settling on the balcony railing, cocking their heads expectantly at us and blinking their beady eyes. A few of them chirp, beckoning us to set out seed.

“I guess it’s time to feed them.” Noah stands.

I follow him to the balcony.

. . .

I lie awake in bed, my brain buzzing too fast to sleep. All I can think is that it’s been three days since I last saw Sparrow. Maybe he regrets almost draining me and leaving me on the floor like a sack of bones, twice.

Noah’s gone for the night. We’ve spent our days training the songbirds and playing cards. I keep asking him to find me a Jeep so we can go driving one night, but he keeps making excuses. Mostly he says Clea will kill him all over again. I don’t care; I don’t like being cooped up here like a zoo animal.

I want a beer and a party, something to drown my sorrows in and forget.

Knowing the one place where I can find alcohol here, I get up and leave my room. By the time I reach the stairwell, I wish I had something more appropriate on. I’m wearing nothing but a long T-shirt and underwear. Oh well, I’ve worn less into Walmart. A string bikini and flip-flops somehow got past their “no shirts, no shoes, no service” policy.

The castle is empty; nothing lurks in the hallways at this ungodly hour. I climb the stairs and make my way to the Hellions’ lair, then push open the door to find the place is empty. I focus on the bar and see the bottles of liquor lined up neat. There’s a glass-front fridge, half of it filled with beer bottles, the other half with blood. I lick my lips.

Just as I’m reaching for the door, I hear footsteps behind me and smell a familiar scent.

When I met Jim at that party in college, I thought it was hot, him smelling like embers and rock dust. Little did I know he smelled like Hell. Back then I didn’t know he was the child of Lucifer’s head Demon, raised on the earthen plane after his father smuggled him out of Hell. He hunted me down, knocked me up, and dragged me back to the tiny town I grew up in. I hate him for it. I hate him more for trying to kill me twice.

“Don’t turn around,” Jim says.

No problem with that. I can’t stand the look of his face, even before it was half-melted off. I know he’s leering at me. I feel him pinch my shirt and lift it so he can see my ass.

I freeze.

“Don’t touch me,” I warn. “I’ll kill you.” I grip my thigh looking for my blade. There’s nothing there but bare skin. Shit. This is not the kind of trouble I was looking for.

“Not touching. Just looking,” Jim assures me. “Have to see what’s so wonderful about you. Birdboy won’t touch none of the Bloodwhores. Thinks he’s better than the rest of us.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

Jim leans in close, and I feel his breath on my neck. “I’d fuck you nice and hard like I used to if I knew your grandpappy weren’t watching.”

I want to kick him in the nuts and chop his head off. But I can’t do that right now. Besides telling me not to go around unarmed like an idiot, Clea warned me that Jim’s dad will kill me. Really kill me. Vine doesn’t care if my grandfather will kill him back. But if I had my weapon, I could hurt him a little—toy with him like he did to me all those years.

I wish Sparrow were here—my Sparrow, not what they turned him into. He’d kill Jim all over again for even suggesting he was going to touch me.

Jim lifts my shirt higher, getting an eyeful, I guess. I wasn’t expecting company. I just wanted a stiff drink, forgetting for a moment that the beings around here don’t sleep at night.

I have to turn this around and get in control of the situation again. I wonder if a guy could die of blue balls?

I bend, throw out a hip real sluttylike, and listen to Jim suck in a sharp breath. The underwear is black and lace and barely there. It was meant for Sparrow to see, not Jim. It’s nothing Jim hasn’t seen before, though, I remind myself.

I had better plans for tonight: I was going to try to seduce Sparrow when he came to feed. Get him to do me like he did me on the floor of that church back when we were nothing but two lost souls, who had no one but each other. Talk about backfire. My old Sparrow’d be pissed right now. He’d get all hot and bothered. I bet his downy white wings would even ruffle.

I pretend to take forever to choose a beer. I couldn’t care less what it tastes like; I just want something numbing. Settling on Michelob Light, I take two.

“What’s wrong, Jimboy? Gotta roll a quarters in yer fly?” I let the trailer drawl work real hard.

“Fuck, Meg.” Jim tugs at my shirt again, lifting it higher. I hear him step closer, feel his heat on my ass.

I stand, ramrod straight, beers in hand. “Don’t fucking touch me.” I look over my shoulder.

Jim drops the shirt and steps away, hands up. “If you weren’t such a slut, walking around here half-naked, tempting us all . . .”

I turn, facing him for the first time since he enticed me with a glass of blood days ago. “Us?”

Jim tips his head to the shadows where seven forms stand. Shit, Hellions. I didn’t see any of them when I walked in here. But then, I wasn’t really thinking about the trouble I could get in. I was only thinking of the pain caused by Sparrow not remembering me—using me up and tossing me away every time he wants dinner—and I wanted to numb it.

I take my beer and run out of the lair. I run all the way back to my bedroom, slam the door, and down the beers in a few long swallows. I wait for the buzz to hit me.

When my lips feel numb, and my fingertips, too, it still doesn’t help. I miss Sparrow even more. And the emptiness of barely understanding what the heck is going on down here threatens to consume me.

The glowy, glowy glitteriness of Heaven gave me a headache like no other, but this place is breaking my stupid heart.

“Watch this.” Noah whistles; a yellow finch lands on his hand.

“Show off.” I sit in a chair that I dragged to the balcony earlier.