Stage Fright (Bit Parts) (34 page)

“This is a trial,
not
a public debate,” Victor snapped.

“Well?” Bertrand demanded.  “Did Hedda not realize what her lover was up to, or was she covering up Marcella’s crimes?”

“Let’s find out,” Victor said.

Before I could prepare myself, Victor once again raided my thoughts, digging even deeper into my mind.  I tried to fight him off, but he easily pushed past my weak blockades.  Once again, my wrists strained at my binds as I tried to thrust my hands up.  My legs kicked as my body tried to flee.

Don’t fight me
.  Victor’s voice spoke inside my head, drowning out my own thoughts.  The wrongness of his invasion made me shudder. 
You’ll make it worse if you fight.

An anguished wail filled the room.  I tried to see who was in so much pain before realizing that I was the one screaming.  “Stop!” I begged.  “Please!”

Victor continued his assault.  The deeper he went into my head, the more memories he churned up.  Including the one from the blind pig.  In a moment, he’d know that Marcella had threatened to kill him, and Hedda hadn’t bothered to report it.  If that happened, Hedda wouldn’t stand a chance.

I fought Victor, but there was no escaping him.  Now that he’d gotten the outlay of my mind, he could travel those dark passages as easily as I could navigate my parents’ house.  No wonder he had once been such an amazing playwright.  Even as a human, he must have possessed an inner eye that allowed him to see past a person’s artifice and into their secret selves.  His drama had come directly from the dark maw of emotion most people keep hidden from public eyes.  His creative ability astounded me.  I wished that he’d remained human.  His plays would have reshaped modern theater.

The moment the thought entered my mind, Victor abruptly pulled out of my head.  He rocked back on his heels, staring at me in amazement.  For several seconds, he didn’t move.  Then, as gentle as a mother’s kiss, he eased back into my thoughts, giving me a glimpse of his own, personal feelings.  He confessed that all this time, he’d never truly believed me when I’d said how wonderful his play was.  He thought I was indulging him the way everyone else in Hedda’s grieve had been.  All his life, people had mocked his aspirations.  Never before had anyone taken him seriously.  My passion for his work touched him deeply.

Victor slipped from my mind.  Giving me a warning look, he said, “Cassandra doesn’t know anything else.”

More murmurs.  Hedda closed her eyes, her lips moving silently.  Bertrand studied me with such intensity that I was sure I’d catch on fire.  He rubbed his upper lip as he thought.  Victor patted my knee once, and I sighed in relief.  I was about to be freed.

Then a terrified scream came from outside the building.

Chapter Twenty-Four

For a moment, even the vampires were stunned.  Then a shout of, “She’s gone!” drew everyone’s attention to the place where Marcella’s blackened body had been lying.  A trail of ash led to the dark depths of the building.  Somehow, while the eyes of the court had been fixed on me, Marcella had found the strength to crawl off.

One of Bertrand’s goons darted into the dark, returning a second later, the silver chains that had been binding Marcella dangling from his gloved hand.  He threw them onto the floor in disgust.

At another scream from outside, all of the vampires fled the building, leaving me tied to the chair.  Apparently, I wasn’t enough of a threat to require a guard or important enough to release.

Isaiah hurried over and knelt next to me.  “You okay?”

My thoughts bumped painfully like chunks of cement in a dryer.  My thick tongue clung to the roof of my dry mouth.  My cut wrists burned.  “Peachy.”

He quickly untied me and pulled me to my feet.  My fingers tingled painfully as the blood began to re-circulate.  I started towards the front door, but Isaiah held me back.  “Not that way.”  He guided me behind the ersatz risers and towards the back of the building.

More screams from outside.  I grabbed his hand which was sticky with blood.  “What’s happening?”

“No idea, but I’m not waiting around to find out.”

We entered a nightmare maze of dark, narrow hallways and empty offices.  The building must have lain vacant for years.  The neglected roof had leaked, causing deadfalls of plaster, broken light fixtures, and asbestos tiles.  Electrical wires hung like snakes from the ceiling.  Isaiah kept urging me to go faster, but I couldn’t get my clumsy legs in gear.  Growing impatient, he finally picked me up and carried me.

I longed to lay my head against his chest, but his stiff hold wasn’t an invitation to cuddle.  He wasn’t my knight in shining armor so much as a first responder at the scene of an accident.  My heart sank.  This rescue was an act of duty, not the result of tender feelings.

We finally reached a back exit.  A
locked
back exit.  Isaiah set me down and threw his shoulder against the door.  Hinges groaned.  He tried again, and the metal buckled.  After a third attack, the door popped open.

The moment I followed him outside, an arctic wind sawed at my face and cut like knives in my lungs.  The cold blew the cobwebs from my fuzzy mind and took the wobble out of my legs.

“Where did you park?” Isaiah asked.

I grit my teeth as another gust drove icy pellets into my face.  “I didn’t.  I was brought here in Bertrand’s limo.  What about you?”

“I’m around front.  If we want to ride out of here, we’ll have to join the action after all.”

I picked up a fallen chunk of cement.  “Count me in.”

By the time we reached the front of the building, however, everything was quiet.  The battle, if there had been one, was long played out.  Dozens of headlights lit up the cinder-strewn yard.  Unmindful of the cold, vampires stood in scattered knots.  Some hung by the remains of the bonfire where Geoffrey’s lifeless body smoldered among the embers.  A few others lingered by Martin Nowicki’s head which sat like a grisly ornament on the hood of Bertrand’s limousine.  Rita had been hanged from the broken-down chain-link fence, her body now as lifeless as her blood-soaked fox coat.  From the bitter stink in the air, it appeared that at least one vampire had been taken down as well.

I blinked back tears as I searched for other casualties.  “Do you see Charles?”

Isaiah grimly shook his head.  “No.”

“Marcella did all of this, didn’t she?”  When he nodded again, I thought of the blackened husk that had been his sister.  “How on earth did she manage it?”

Isaiah rubbed his forehead, hiding his eyes from me.  “I think you and Perry were right all along,” he softly admitted.  “My sister was responsible for all those rogues which means she’s been drinking as much shine as possible.  She’s very strong.”

When she’d been draped silver chains, she hadn’t appeared strong at all.  “She must have had help,” I said.  “There’s no way she escaped on her own.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” His eyes scanned the area.  “Now, she’ll be going after more shine to power herself up.  She’s out of control.  And crazy.”  It must have cost Isaiah a lot to finally admit that.

“Crazy, maybe.  But not irrational,” I said.  Using the realtor to get into my house had been a cunning move.

“Unless she’s angry,” Isaiah corrected.  “Then she’ll act before she thinks and try to talk her way out of trouble.  When she was a kid, she used to be able to charm everyone – our parents, her teachers.  She always got her way.”

Apparently, she’d thought she could charm her way out of trouble today at Mercury Hall, too, when she’d attacked me and Andrew.  No doubt Hedda’s decision to have her arrested had come as a nasty shock.

Isaiah’s eyes traveled from one body to the next.  “My guess is that she drank the shine from everyone here before moving on.”

Martin’s severed head leered at me from the limousine.  “She’s also sending a message to Bertrand Peabody.”

“Which is?”

“Don’t fuck with me.”

Isaiah’s car turned out to be a green mini-van, a loaner from the auto body shop where his Jeep was being repaired.  “I love your new ride,” I said.  “The domesticated look suits you.”

My lame joke wasn’t rewarded with so much as a quirk of his lips.  He’d not only rebuilt the wall between us, he’d made it thicker than ever.

When I reached for the door handle of the van, my fingers brushed wool as Hedda slipped in front of me.

“I owe you and Isaiah a huge debt.”  Hedda’s violet eyes met mine.  “You are a very brave, young woman, Cassandra.  I will never forget what you did for me tonight.  I consider you a friend.”

I nodded, sobered by the thought of what this might mean.  “What will Bertrand do to you?”

She sighed, a human sound fraught with anguish.  “Thanks to you, there isn’t enough evidence to justify my death, but Victor considers me too irresponsible to be on my own.  He’s allowed Bertrand to claim to the Widderstrom grieve.”

They might as well have cut out Hedda’s heart and fed it to her.  For a moment, I forgot Hedda was a vampire and held out my arms.  She drew back, startled, before accepting my hug.  She remained as stiff as steel in my arms, but she patted my back before letting go.

“What about Marcella?” Isaiah asked.

Hedda’s eyes remained dry, but a slight tremor in her voice betrayed her grief.  “Your sister means the world to me, but I can’t let her continue on.”

Isaiah nodded.  “I agree.”

“Take care, Cassandra Jaber.  I wish you the very best.”  Hedda put her hand on Isaiah’s arm.  “Thank you.”  Then she disappeared like a gust of wind.

Once we were both buckled into our seats, Isaiah left the parking lot.  His silence lay between us like miles of stony desert.

“Thanks for rescuing me again,” I said.  “What’s the total?  Three times now?”

He nodded.  He drove with his hands locked on the steering wheel and his eyes straight ahead.  Unable to bear the silence, I turned on the radio.  Once again, jazz played.  “Herbie Hancock,” I said, wanting to impress him.  “Cantaloupe Island.”

He didn’t respond.

I watched him from the corner of my eye, taking in that perfect jaw, those luscious lips, and the intent eyes.  I longed to lay my hand on his arm but was afraid he’d pull away from me.

“You’re staying at Holy Comics until this is over,” Isaiah said stiffly.  “The church is on sacred ground, so you’ll be safe there.”

“What about you?  Where are you going?”

His lips thinned.  “I have some business I need to take care of.”

My eyes widened in surprise.  “You’re going after your sister?”

“That thing isn’t my sister,” he said.  “The vampire may look like Marcella and share her memories, but the real Marcella died the day she was changed into a vamp.  I should have taken her out a long time ago.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.  If my sister had been turned into a vampire, I would have protected her, too.”  I finally risked laying my hand on his arm.  His biceps tightened under my fingers, but he didn’t resist my touch.  “Let Hedda take care of this.  You shouldn’t have to.”

He spoke through gritted teeth.  “It’s my mess, and I need to clean it up.  If I’d done my job at the start, all of Marcella’s victims would still be living, breathing human beings.”

Isaiah used his guilt like a lash, and he couldn’t stop whipping himself.  I, however, was sick of watching him bleed.  “So now you’re going to blame yourself for all those deaths, too?”

He slammed his hands against the steering wheel.  “They
are
my fault!  My God, Cassie, I nearly died today when I saw Marcella attack you.”

“Really?”  I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.  “Then why did you leave me?”

His shoulders drooped.  “When my sister was hauled off, I worried they would kill her immediately.  I wanted a final chance to say good-bye.  But believe me, Cassandra, if Marcella had hurt you, I never would have…”

“What?  Forgiven yourself?”  I was still angry.  “
I
made the choice to go to Mercury Hall today. 
I’m
the one who insisted on being a spy.  If Marcella had killed me, it would have been my own damn fault.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is!  You blame yourself for
everything
!  Okay, you made a mistake when you told your sister to take Hedda’s deal.  But that’s in the past.  You need to get over it and move on.”  I crossed my arms over my chest and glared out the window.  “You know, this guilt-complex of yours is starting to sound a lot like self-pity.”

Isaiah’s jaw tightened.  He jacked up the volume on the radio until the speakers buzzed, cutting off any further conversation.

When we pulled into my driveway, the Jaguar was nowhere to be seen, and the house was dark.

“You get fifteen minutes to grab your things,” Isaiah said.  “Then we roll.”

I considered arguing that we should wait for Andrew, but the look in Isaiah’s eyes brooked no disagreement.  “Fine.  But if Andrew shows up, he’s coming too.”

As Isaiah and I mounted the steps to the porch, it occurred to me that my keys were still in my purse, and my purse was at my uncle’s restaurant.  Since my father had repeatedly drilled into my head that I should
never
hide house keys outside where anyone could find them, I was locked out.

I instantly forgot the key situation, however, when glass crunched under my feet.  The front window had been smashed, and the door was ajar.  My stomach dropped.

Isaiah ordered me to stay put and entered the house.  Ignoring his warning, I crowded behind him.  As we passed through the front door, I switched on the living room lights.

I stared in horror.  The couch cushions had been slashed, and the drapes yanked off their hooks.  Book shelves were upended.  My dad’s collection of mystery novels had been shredded, and the afghan my grandmother knitted for me was now just a tangle of yarn.  The mirror above the fireplace mantle was cracked.  Maggie’s clay creations had been smashed, and her paper mobiles torn to bits.

With shaking hands, I picked up the remains of a family photograph that had been taken on my sister’s wedding day.  The picture’s frame had been destroyed, but everyone’s face remained intact.  Well, everyone but mine.  Someone had jabbed a knife into my likeness, and my face was now a jagged hole.