The Forever Song (21 page)

Wrenching open the side door, I peered inside. The interior was empty, seats torn out, rotting plywood laid across the floor. An old, flat tire sat in the corner, and a skull-sized hole, the edges lined with rust, was punched through the opposite wall. Water and snow had obviously seeped in, for the whole thing reeked of mold.

“Really?” I looked back at my blood brother. “We’re going to Eden in this hunk of metal? It’s two steps away from falling apart.”

“Sorry, sister. I didn’t realize you were such a car expert.” Jackal sneered at me. “Does the chariot not meet her majesty’s approval? Were you expecting white horses and gold wheels? You could always walk to Eden, you know.”

“You’re the king of Old Chicago. Can’t you demand a better vehicle?”

“This
is
the better vehicle.”

The growl of the engine interrupted us. Kanin had slipped into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition, making the van cough and sputter to life. It stood there, shaking and wheezing like some ancient beast, and the Master vampire drummed his fingers on the wheel, staring out the front window. Clearly, he was done waiting for us to make a decision. Zeke stepped into the van without hesitation, sitting cross-legged against the far wall, and Jackal opened the passenger door with a smirk.

“Shotgun.”

“What?” I said. But he had already slammed the door behind him, leaving me standing there by myself. Glowering, I stepped into the flimsy, rotting interior, pulled the door closed, and settled against the wall with Zeke. The van coughed once more and began to move, rolling across the barge, over a shaky, rattling bridge, and into the streets.

Back on the highway, Kanin turned the van east once more, weaving through cars and dead vehicles clogging the road, until we reached the outskirts of the city and the lanes opened up. As we picked up speed, the broken skyline of Old Chicago faded into the darkness, until it vanished from sight, and only the road was left, stretching on to Eden.

That first part of the night, the ride was hushed. Kanin drove, and Jackal rode beside him with the seat back and his hands behind his head. I sat with Zeke on the floor of the van, watching his still form and wishing I could reach out to him, somehow. He seemed to have retreated deep within himself, and my few attempts to talk to him were met with polite but vague one-word answers. He didn’t want to talk, or he wasn’t ready to talk, and the more I prodded, the further he withdrew. Eventually, I gave up and sat next to him in silence, just letting him know I was there. When he was ready, he would come around. Until then, I would let him sort everything out in peace.

The van lumbered on, the only sounds being the sickly whine and cough of the engine, and the occasional thump of tires rolling over debris. Sometimes, the road was clear. Other times, Kanin had to slow the van to a near crawl, weaving through clusters of abandoned, overturned vehicles or trees that had fallen into the road. Once, when he drove carefully around a rock slide that covered most of the pavement, the engine sputtered and died, and it took several tries to get it started again. I was relieved when it finally coughed and turned over, albeit very reluctantly. Ancient and unreliable as the van was, we were still covering ground much faster than had we been on foot.

“Oh, my, it’s awfully quiet back there,” Jackal remarked after several miles had passed and nothing had happened. Of course, my blood brother took personal offense to peace and quiet, and I could practically hear the grin in his voice. “Are you two making out?”

“Shut up, Jackal.”

He snickered. Kanin drove on in silence, determined, I suspected, to ignore us all and the annoyances that were looming. I shifted closer to Zeke, just so that my arm brushed his, and waited for Jackal’s next comment.

“So, little bloodsucker,” the raider king went on, confirming my suspicions. “How’s life as a vampire these nights? Not that I care, mind you, but we are chasing
your
crazy-as-shit sire. If he has something nasty waiting for us in Eden, I’d kinda like to know about it. Any hints as to what your psycho daddy is up to?”

“No,” Zeke answered simply. “I haven’t seen him since he left Old Chicago, a few days before you showed up.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Jackal crossed his arms, his voice contemplative. “Haven’t seen the psychopath at all, huh?” He gazed up at the roof. “If only there was some sort of link that would let you know exactly where he is.”

I jerked up. The blood tie. Of course, how could I forget? Zeke was Sarren’s offspring, disturbing as that was, so he should be able to sense where the crazy vamp was through their shared bloodline. I wondered if we could somehow track Sarren down without alerting him to Zeke’s presence. I also wondered how I could tactfully suggest that to Zeke without completely freaking him out.

But Kanin shook his head.

“No,” the Master vampire stated, the first thing he’d said since leaving Chicago. “It’s too soon. The blood tie takes time to develop, depending how strong the new vampire is. Sometimes it takes months. If neither sire nor offspring is a Master, it can take even longer. Often, it is triggered by intense emotion or pain; when one member subconsciously calls for help, it is felt by the whole bloodline. But I fear it is too soon for Ezekiel to have developed the link to his maker, at least not one that he can feel. The tie usually emerges after the offspring has been a vampire for a while.”

“Huh.” Jackal didn’t seem pleased with this, but I was relieved. Zeke certainly didn’t need that kind of burden, having to feel Sarren’s presence, like an evil taint, lingering in his consciousness. A constant reminder that he was still out there, waiting. The thought made me shudder.

Jackal shifted against the seat, making it groan loudly. “Guess you got lucky there, bloodbag,” he muttered, and I wondered if even Jackal found the thought of being tied to Sarren disturbing. “Any hints as to what he’s doing, then? Plans? Ideas? Creepy riddles?” He turned and peered back at us, raising a pointed eyebrow. “A message scrawled on a bathroom door in the blood of the innocent?”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Zeke said, with a dangerous undertone that warned not to keep pushing him down this path. Jackal, of course, didn’t get the hint or, most likely, didn’t care.

“Well, you’re just all kinds of useless, aren’t you?” He shifted back, settling against the seat with his arms behind his head again. But he wasn’t done, yet. “Come on, Ezekiel, you’re the progeny of the Insane One himself. Sure you can’t scrape something out of that screwed-up head to give us the jump on Sarren? I’m sure if you dig hard enough, you’ll find his special brand of crazy right where you need it.”

I slid forward and kicked the back of his seat, making him turn to glare at me. “Will you shut up? Leave him alone. How is this helping anything?”

“Hey, pardon me for wanting to be prepared,” Jackal drawled. “We can’t all be like you, sister, charging in blind and hoping your sword hits something as you flail about. You got lucky this time. That’s not going to work with Sarren.”

“Why don’t
you
tell us what he’s up to?” I challenged. “You worked with him back in New Covington. I’m sure the pair of you had plenty of chances to bond.”

“You’d think so, but not really.” Jackal didn’t miss a beat. “Turns out, crazy psychotic vampires are really difficult to pal around with. They tend to be irrationally paranoid, and his poetry was about to drive me up a wall. So I’m afraid I didn’t get any useful information out of Sarren because I was busy…oh, what was it again? I forgot why I was there.” Jackal mock frowned, then snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah! I was saving your skin.”

“Funny, I was going to say setting us up.”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“If the two of you would like to walk to Eden,” Kanin said at last, not taking his eyes from the road, “I can stop anytime.” I fell silent, and Jackal gave a disgusted snort and turned to face the windshield again. Kanin sighed. “James, we will come up with a plan for dealing with Sarren when we have more information,” he said, glancing at Jackal. “But antagonizing Ezekiel will not help, so I suggest you cease before your sister runs a sword through the back of your chair.” I smirked triumphantly, though it didn’t last. “Allison, your brother is right. You cannot go charging into Sarren’s lair blind this time around. He will be expecting you.” Kanin’s voice turned grave. “And he will be ready for us all.”

The van died an hour later.

Kanin had slowed again, driving carefully beneath an overpass that had partially collapsed, leaving huge chunks of concrete leaning against each other at treacherous angles. As we cleared the bridge’s ominous shadow, the van shuddered, gave one final wheeze, and stopped moving. Kanin tried coaxing it to life, but no amount of prodding could revive it this time. It was well and truly dead.

“Great.” I glared at Jackal as we piled out onto a lonely highway that stretched for miles in either direction. The trek to Eden had just become that much longer, and we didn’t have time to spare. “I know it’s irrational,” I told him, “but I blame you for this.”

“Whatever floats your boat, sister.” Jackal ignored my glare and walked to the front of the van, then lifted up the hood with a creak. Gazing over the complicated jumble of metal and wires, he shook his head. “Could be the fuel hose, could be the alternator. Or the engine might be shot to hell. I won’t know unless I fiddle with it.” He eyed Kanin, who stood calmly at the front of the vehicle. “Unless that screws with your time schedule, oh, impatient one. This might take a couple hours, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it started again. But by all means—” he waved a hand down the empty, moonlit highway “—feel free to take the runts and start walking, and I’ll meet you down the road. If you hear me coming, just stick out a thumb.” Jackal grinned, his eyes glowing yellow in the shadow of the hood. “I’ll slow down. Probably.”

Kanin gave him a level stare. “No,” the Master vampire said, as if that was the end of it. “We go to Eden together, or not at all. Unless someone truly wants to leave for good, we face Sarren as a unit. There is too much at stake to take chances.” Jackal shrugged and stuck his head beneath the hood again as Kanin went on. “We can make up for a few hours if we have a working vehicle. What do you need to repair it?”

“Besides a bloody miracle?” There was a grunt, and Jackal swore. “Parts. Tools. And a new engine would be fucking fantastic. But since we’re sort of screwed on any of those, peace and quiet, without a certain obnoxious sibling bitching at me every two minutes.”

“Funny, I think that exact same thing every day.”

“There were a few vehicles a couple miles back,” Zeke said, startling me. His voice hadn’t changed; it still was empty as ever, as if none of this interested him. “They looked abandoned. Want me to go see if any of them start? Since this is going to take a while.”

“The puppy speaks,” Jackal mocked, peering up from the hood. “And he actually said something useful. Yeah, why don’t you do that, bloodbag? And while you’re at it, see if any of them have fuel. Fixing this thing won’t matter for shit if we don’t have gas.”

“I’ll go, too,” I said, quickly pushing myself off the van.

Jackal snickered and muttered,
“Big surprise,”
as he ducked back under the hood, but I ignored him. No way was I letting Zeke out of my sight now. I didn’t
think
he would head off down the road alone to meet the rising sun, but I honestly wasn’t sure. This cold, emotionally detached Zeke worried me more than if he’d acted angry and bitter.

I wanted to talk to him without Jackal’s snide comments or Kanin’s silent but unmistakable presence. If I could just get him alone, talking freely, maybe I could break through the icy shell he’d built around himself. Or at least get him to tell me what was going on.

“Allison.” Kanin’s voice reached me over the van. I glanced at my sire, saw sympathy and understanding in his dark eyes. “Be careful,” he warned. “You will likely not meet with rabids or humans, but still, remain on your guard. Return immediately if there is trouble.”

“We will,” I promised, and glanced at the vampire beside me. “Ready, Zeke?”

Zeke returned my gaze and nodded, but his eyes remained distant. Reaching into the van, he emerged with a faded red container and turned down the long stretch of highway behind us. “Let’s go.”

We followed the road for several minutes in silence. Zeke walked next to me, gaze fixed on the distant horizon. Around us, nothing moved. The highway stretched on, empty and still, the only sounds the crunch of our boots on the snowy pavement. I was trying to think of a way to talk to Zeke, to breach the silence, when his voice echoed quietly into the stillness.

“Go ahead and ask.”

Startled, I glanced at him, seeing his empty face, the cold, remote eyes, and swallowed painfully. “Zeke…” I hesitated, not really knowing how to put it, what to ask.
I can’t reach you. You’ve pulled so far back, I don’t even recognize you anymore. Is this a choice, or is this what you are now? Is there anything left of the old Zeke? The one I…fell in love with?

“This isn’t like you,” I finally said, wishing I knew how to express my true thoughts. He didn’t reply, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with me, and my concern spiked. “Talk to me, Zeke,” I urged. “I know you have to have questions, about everything. I can help. I’m not as good a teacher as Kanin, but I’ll do my best.”

“I don’t want to know,” Zeke said. At my confused frown, he finally looked at me, a flicker of pain finally cracking his icy mask. “I don’t need to understand vampire politics, or rituals, or if they have special holidays,” he said. “I only have to understand one thing—I’m a demon. I may not have wanted it, but it’s what I am now.” His jaw tightened, brow furrowing as if he was in pain. “This rage, and bloodlust, and Hunger…I can
feel
it inside me. And if I let it go, for one second, I’ll lose everything.”

“You can control it—”

“I’m
trying,
Allison.” He bared his fangs, then his face smoothed out, returning to that blank front of indifference. “I’m trying. If I don’t think about…what I lost, if nothing matters, I don’t feel it as strongly. If I give in to anger or hate or regret, it’s that much closer to coming out.”