The Lingering Dead (24 page)

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Authors: J. N. Duncan

BOOK: The Lingering Dead
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Chapter 23
After three shots of tequila from Nick's cabinet, followed by another three shots of espresso, Jackie still felt jittery. The wound on her stomach both stung and itched, and she had that tweaky feeling of being exhausted but too frazzled to even consider sleep. The grandfather clock in the great room struck another quarter hour, reminding her that it had now been over ninety minutes since she had called Nick. He would be here soon, and to her surprise, she found that she was desperate for his presence.
“Would you at least try to relax?” Laurel said for about the fourth time since their arrival. “You're making me dizzy. Go soak in Nick's steam bath.”
“He'll be here soon,” she replied, “and I don't want to be lost in the shower when he gets here. Besides, I couldn't sit in there for one minute, let alone fifteen. How am I supposed to relax anyway?”
“I know,” Laurel said, who continued to stay with Jackie as she paced around the house. They had been everywhere except Nick's bedroom. “But you should try. You just need to take a breath.”
“I can't!” Jackie threw up her arms in disgust. “I don't know how to wrap my mind around what happened back there. A vampire wants me dead and some freaky alien thing wants my help for God knows what. Why does it need me? I don't get it. What could I possibly do that would be key to its needs?” She groaned in frustration. The same questions had been rolling around in her head over and over again since their return. There were no answers, only more questions.
“We can deal with Nix later,” Laurel said calmly. “Right now, Charlotte is the most pressing matter. We have to figure out a way to stop her.”
“I know,” she yelled. “Shit. Sorry, Laur. I know we do. McManus is putting the team together. We'll make a plan, though what the fuck that plan might be is beyond me. We can't arrest her. We can't detain her long enough for her power to dissipate, since she's already shown she can cross over to escape. She knows we won't leave her alone. So, this is goddamn Drake all over again. We'll have to fill her with enough holes to make swiss cheese out of her or blow her up or cut off her goddamned head!”
“Sweetie, please. We'll figure it out somehow. We always do.”
Jackie finally flopped down on the couch by the fireplace. “I don't know if I can do it, Laur. She's a bitch, a sociopathic, manipulative, egotistical bitch, but ... hell. You saw her. She's a damn kid, a petulant little teenager who can't get her way, and I'm supposed to empty my Glock into that pouty little head? She isn't Drake.”
“Let's just worry about that when the time comes,” Laurel replied. “There's no point stressing over—” She stopped and looked toward the front door. “I think Nick's here.”
A second later, Jackie felt him, too, the cold shifting feeling of death wrapping around her. “Thank fucking God.” She jumped to her feet and made her way toward the front door.
He was walking up the front walk from the driveway, quick and purposeful, his scar-lined jaw set with determination. His eyes had a fiercer brightness to them than usual. When he realized she was standing behind the glass of the screen door, everything eased, and his mouth relaxed into a faint smile.
“A sight for sore eyes, Ms. Rutledge,” he said.
Jackie opened the door but stopped him in the threshold and threw her arms around his neck. A second later, she got the one thing her body had been craving since her return, the physical surety of his embrace. Jackie held on tight, burying her head against his chest and savored the security of those unnaturally strong arms pulling her against him. That cool strong shell of protection made those jitters fade into the background.
“Really glad to see you,” she said, finally letting go. “This whole thing is getting a bit out of control.”
He stepped by her and into the foyer. “So it seems. You want to tell me what happened?”
“You aren't going to believe it,” she said. His silence answered her statement. “OK, you probably will, but I'm still trying to myself.”
“Come on and sit down,” he said. “You look stressed. You need anything?”
She waved him off and walked back toward the fireplace. “I had a couple of shots already. Didn't help.”
Laurel laughed and sat down next to Jackie. “She must love you, Nick.”
He paused before sitting. “Oh?”
“I tried for over an hour to get her to sit down and relax,” she replied. “You did it in thirty seconds.”
Jackie's fist swung through Laurel's arm and hit the cushion. “You aren't helping.”
Nick sagged back into the couch next to Jackie and heaved a sigh. “Wish we could stay a while.”
“McManus said things were going crazy there,” Jackie said.
“Charlotte has the town in an uproar and that Carson fellow is a useless snake, but that can wait. Tell me what happened.”
Jackie told him, rolling her eyes when he stopped her to check her wound, and narrowing his own with worry when she explained what happened with the Spindly Man.
“Nix,” he said, perplexed by what she had said.
“I can't pronounce what he said. It was absurdly long, and had some weird inflections I could never replicate.”
“So, what could you be so important for?” he wondered. “He protected you against Charlotte and went after Laurel, but wants you. Curious.”
Jackie snorted. “That's one way of looking at it.”
“I think it does what you can do, Nick,” Laurel said.
He leaned forward to look at her. “What do you mean?”
“I believe those spines are used to absorb spiritual energy. That's why everyone in Deadworld runs from it.”
“And it went after Charlotte with what almost seemed like relish,” Jackie said, recalling the odd sound it had made before attacking. “But why not me? I have the same energy.”
Nick made a groaning sound, rubbing his face with his hands. “Because you can open the door between worlds,” he said. “You aren't key to what it needs. You are the key.”
The jittery nerves began to make a comeback. “You think it wants to come here?”
“I don't know,” he replied. “Maybe. You didn't get a chance to ask.”
“And I have no intention of going back to ask him,” Jackie said.
“Which incurs its own problems if it's going to keep following you around.”
Jackie's head lolled back against the cushion. “I know, but I can't just let it come here. Who knows what it might do.”
“Agreed,” Nick replied. “We can't just let it come here, but I don't want it following you around for the rest of your life.”
“Me either,” Jackie replied. It was going to have to remain in limbo for now. Laurel was right. They needed to deal with Charlotte immediately before more people got killed. “OK, we'll figure out Mr. Alien later. What do we do about Charlotte?”
Nick sighed. “I see only two options. We get her to turn herself in and stop consuming real blood or we kill her. Regardless, we need to get McManus and the team in on this. Planning now is pointless, and we need to get back.”
As though he had been listening in, McManus called. “Nick, how's Jack?”
“Strange story and a bit shaken, but we're good here.” Nick set the phone down and put it on speaker.
“Good. Now, get on that plane and get back here. We've got shit hitting the fan in Thatcher's Mill.”
Nick sat up on the couch. “What's going on?”
“We've got a riot on our hands,” McManus said. “People here have gone batshit crazy. County sheriff showed up and is now sitting in the station with a busted nose and probably some cracked ribs. Carson is gone, and we've had a couple of shots fired in here. People are screaming about the Thatchers being dead.”
“What? Dead?” Nick asked in disbelief. “All of them?”
“Don't know, but Pernetti's team will be here in a few minutes to help us secure the station and bust a few heads if necessary, but this little jail cell isn't going to hold the whole town,” McManus stated. “It gets much worse and I'm going to have to get some National Guard over here to put this down.”
“That might be a problem if Charlotte is still around,” Nick said. “You don't want them tangling with her.”
“I understand,” McManus replied, “but you have to understand we don't have the option of telling them all we're dealing with a vampire.”
“We can't bring them in if we're going to try and kill her,” Jackie said. “People won't take too kindly to filling a knife-wielding teenage girl with fifty rounds.”
“Jesus. Yeah, point taken,” McManus said. “OK, get your butts out here. I'll meet you at the airport. I think we'll let the townsfolk cool down a bit on their own before we move in after Charlotte. I'll put Maddox up in the woods here with some binoculars to keep an eye on things and see if he spots this girl on her motorcycle.”
“All right,” Jackie replied. “We're heading out now. We'll see you soon. Be careful, McManus.”
Nick picked up his phone. “You good for this, Jackie? After, well, everything that's happened? I don't want—”
“Nick, I'm going,” she said. “This is our job. I didn't quite expect this, but we have to deal with her. That town deserves to be free.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “It does.”
“What?” There was that tone again, that resigned, regretful tone that she was beginning to realize all too well. Nick stood up and said nothing. “This is one of those Shelby moments, where I should come back with a sarcastic little barb, isn't it?”
“Shelby likes to come back on just about everything,” Nick said. “It's part of her charm. Did you want to get anything before we go?”
“We'll grab a sandwich on the way, and you're changing the subject.” She moved to get her jacket as Nick made his way to the front door. “What was with that tone of voice? Is this one of those, ‘I should have done something different back then' moments?”
He stopped at the door and turned back to her. “It is. Chasing a vampire for a hundred and fifty years will provide a few of those. But this is more wishing that sometimes I was a different person, not what I did back then.”
“I kind of like the person you are now,” Jackie said, and wished the words did not sound so utterly cheesy. “Would a different Nick have been able to fix what happened? You tried, it didn't work, and you moved on.”
He opened the door, a wistful smile on his face. “True, but a different Nick would have gone back and put her out of her misery.”
She had been about to say that they were doing that now, but Jackie kept her mouth shut. It had that feeling to it on some level, of putting a wounded dog out of its misery, only this dog had turned into Cujo and took out its pain on everything it could get its mouth on, turning everyone else into rabid dogs as well. The thought abruptly brought back the image of Jessica's eyes aglow with the dead. Jackie laid a hand on his arm before opening the screen door. “Shit. All of this craziness and I forgot to tell you. We have another very good reason for getting Charlotte out of the way.”
He locked the door and followed her out. “What's that?”
“Charlotte turned Jessica into a vampire, I think,” she replied. “At least it looked that way before all the shit hit the fan. She had the same glowing eyes that you have.”
“She's right,” Laurel added. “Charlotte has apparently figured out how to do it.”
Nick froze in his tracks. “Hell. That complicates matters. Now this is a rescue mission.” He shook his head and kept walking. “This all makes sense now.”
Jackie hurried after him. “What does?”
“The ghosts,” he said. “All of the dead Rebeccas, the rotating mother and father, it's all about her family.”
She got into the car and yanked the door shut, and Laurel slipped her way into Jackie's head. “She's trying to make a family of vampires?”
“Think about it,” Nick replied. “How is she able to keep these people around in her life?”
“She charms them,” Jackie said. “Then over time they really believe they've become a Thatcher.”
Which is why none of them will move on after they're dead,
Laurel said.
They've forgotten who they are.
“And the ghosts have lost their identity,” Nick added at the same time. “So they're stuck here.”
Jackie tried to imagine being stuck forever, roaming a town like Thatcher's Mill, not sure who you were or why you were there. “That's a very cruel fate.”
Nick swung the car out on the road and headed them toward the airport. “It is indeed, though I don't believe Charlotte would have realized what was happening until much later.”

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