Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) (56 page)

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By the time the familiar growl of the Kawasaki rumbled out front, Chapel and I were showered, re-dressed, smashed on a very old bottle of Pernod Fils and acting silly. Slightly more sober than he, I was able to register the fact that Gary Chapel was an amusing drunk. His smile was every bit as warm and professional as ever, but when something tickled him he let loose a high, bubbling giggle that set me off over and over. Half way into the bottle, I'd realized that having Chapel feed my Harry suddenly wasn't the worst thing in the world. Especially now that I'd seen a ghoul's face slop off.

Wes joined us in the front yard to greet them, complaining about a craving for cheeseburgers. I didn't have the heart to tell him he couldn't eat real food anymore, not now, not yet. There's only so much you can tell a new dead guy in one day.

We let Harry and Batten know about the ghouls. The expressions of shock on their faces were priceless, if a little insulting. I couldn't blame them for being surprised, but did they have to go on and on about how unlikely it was that I had succeeded? Harry offered me the bag of female stuff he knew I didn't need; I hoped there were cookies inside. Our fingers brushed as he passed it, mine warm and sticky with slopped booze, his cool and firm.

An ill spark lit between us and his hand shook. Without warning, Harry's gimlet gaze bled past silver to pure white, and the voice that purled on the back of his throat was unrecognizable, inhuman. “MJ…”

Shot through with panic, I put my hand on Chapel's forearm to steady myself. “Gary…” I choked on my warning. “Oh God, Gary. Back. Get back!”

And Harry whispered, “Run, my love.”

FIFTY-THREE

Wesley whipped around and lunged at me, hissing, fangs bared. I slugged his open mouth, feeling the press of mouth-hot enamel against my bare knuckles. Psi flung open a link, a blood-red wash of wild hunger, uncontrolled. Ducking, I fell under Wes’ reaching arms, scooted through his legs, heaving the Buick's door open and plunging inside.

“Get in the car, get in the car!” I hollered over my shoulder.

The minute the doors slammed behind us, the Buick was rocking over on its side. I fished under the passenger side seat for my Beretta while Batten was distracted. With a window-shaking slam, the car rolled onto its roof. I folded into an awkward flailing ball upside down, my neck bent unnaturally. Flipping over, feeling as dexterous as a walrus on a bicycle, I watched through the windshield as Harry grabbed the side of the car and gave it another heave.

“Hold on!” I warned as the old Buick came off the ground. This time, glass broke somewhere, and the inner workings made horrible crunching metal noises as one revenant rolled it and the other slammed bodily into it from the driver's side. Batten poured out the bent passenger side door and Chapel and I followed. We beat-feet across the frozen ground, not near enough to the house to make it. The SUV's black shadow was the closest shelter.

Behind us, the Buick tumbled end over end landing with a teeth-jarring smash, crumpling into itself when it came to rest.

Batten exploded, “Fuck!”

I slugged him in the arm and shouted, “Don't look back, just go go!”

“What's going o—”

“Don't stop!” I screamed. “SUV! SUV!” We dove in, making room for one another in a desperate pile of arms and legs.

We'd barely shut the door when Wes slammed into the passenger side. The safety glass held, but wouldn't for long. Dropping in front from the sky, Harry's fist pulverized the hood. Metal crumpled with a screech. Harry bared his teeth, saliva flying from behind his fangs as he hissed in frustration. My hackles went up and stayed there. I'd never seen him feral and out of control, but I knew it was as bad as it could get.

“Don't make eye contact!” I reminded over the sound of the pummeling. “They'll try to snag you with their mind control. Keep your eyes averted!”

Chapel's shirt had been torn down one arm and his skin shredded by the Buick's splintered metal grabbing at him. Blood plumed down from Batten's nose, and he ran the back of his hand to swipe it clear.

“Kit's in Harry's room.”

“You'll never make it,” I panted. “I'll go.”

“Fat fucking chance,” Batten snarled.

“I'm faster than you could ever be,” I assured him. “And I'm the only one who can—”

Chapel pointed past our faces. “Brace yourself; they're going to flip it!”

The windshield burst in a glittering hail of glass and a back tire blew with a bang. My face dropped into the gear shift hard. A solid welt sprang instantly on my forehead like a black knuckle.

I crawled over the seat into the back, yanked down the back seat pad, accessed the spare tire well, wrestled the tire out, shoved it in Batten's lap. “Chapel, get in,” I barked. “And stay down.”

He blinked at me. “I can't do that.”

“If anyone should be hiding in there it's you,” Batten told me sternly, “But we gotta get out of here before they crumple us into a big metal ball.”

“We're going to climb out, so they can shred our throats?” I challenged. “And you call me a dunce?”

Chapel's hand quickly went through his pockets for a spare clip. He didn't have one. He looked hesitant to drop the gun, though it was useless in his hand. “Why are they doing this?”

“Someone got them by the feeding instinct, throwing them a big fat dose of feral aggression. And I bet I know who.”

Chapel said, “Ruby Valli.”

“Could she do this with black magic?” Batten asked.

I was pretty sure Ruby Valli, left to her own sick devices, could do anything. With her shop burnt down and all her supplies gone, I didn't know how she'd come up with something so complex so quickly, but I didn't have time to worry about it. “Has to be her. The only other person who hates us this much…” Is dead, Dunnachie is dead, but I was careful not to finish that thought aloud. “Is a vampire hunter. He wouldn't have the skills to do this.”

Batten studied the look on my face, sniffing freely-running blood back up into his nose, then nodded. I thought maybe he agreed with my thought, and not what came out of my mouth, and wondered if my eyes had told all.

Batten put the seats back and cranked them into a half-sleep to create cavity. Wes was crouching in the corner by the rear window, making an ungodly noise in the back of his throat, pounding holes in the SUV's body like it was paper.

“Marnie, get in.” Batten motioned to the cavity, voice raised. “Don't fuckin’ argue with me, just do it.”

I pulled the Beretta out from my back and shoved it unceremoniously in his face.

“You get the fuck in, asshole, before they make me accidentally pull this trigger.” Batten dove like he'd been kicked in the temple. The SUV rocked again. “Now, I'm sure I told you: I'm faster than you. The reason for that is, right now, wearing his dinner fangs and trying to work out how to crack this shell to eat the tender morsels inside. I'm going. You're staying, both of you.”

That being said, I really didn't know what the hell I was going to do, once I got inside the cabin, but it was a safer place to think over my options. I hoped it wouldn't come down to getting Batten his kit.

I tumbled over the seat back and kicked at the weakened car window, spider-veins of fractures making it unclear. I had to do it three times, but finally squares of safety glass showered my ankle. Wrangling out of the shattered car window took what felt like forever, considering two slavering revenants in a blood rage were on the other side of the car whipping jagged-edged chunks of the SUV's metal around. I felt like I was fishing for sharks with my legs as bait.

The second my head was clear I threw myself in a clumsy roll and got to my feet. I booked-it for the front door, afraid to look where the vamps were. Breath streamed from my nostrils in furious puffs.

Wesley's alert, a high keening wail of hungry triumph, roiled over the yard behind me. An answering bellow from deep in Harry's throat told me I had two seconds, tops, to get in the house. I was wrong. A hundred and ninety pounds of angry monster hit my back and catapulted me forward into snow. I flung one arm out to stop my spin. Coming to rest, I shook my head clear.

Fangs ripped and shredded into that hand. I felt little bones bend like twigs under the pressure of Harry's jaws, threatening to snap. The high-pitched sound that tore from my chest was an entreaty that went unheard, but there was no pain.

The hand wasn't appealing enough. Harry snarled his dissatisfaction and threw it away from his blood-smeared lips, and moved closer to eye my neck. My hand felt like a slab of throbbing, useless meat.

“Harry! Harry, it's me, please come back to me,” I begged, nearly weeping as my un-chewed hand pushed the front of his shirt. If he got on top of me, I was done for. But he didn't.

He reared to strike from the side, honed-in on my throat. I shoved two fingers up fast at his eyes and his head darted aside, the curve of his neck reminding me of a cobra.

“Mind your manners, revenant!” I attempted, my voice sonorous, surprising me. “Death Rejoices, for your DaySitter calls you forth from wild pursuits, and you will listen. I command it.”

He bayed, caught in the throes of ecstasy at the scent of blood spilling from my palm.

“Or not,” I answered. I flicked my injured hand, watched bright red spray lash the snow, drawing his eye for a split second, which gave me an instant to make a break for it. Sheer luck allowed me to slip from his sudden grab. Launching away, I sprinted through the air to the porch.

My knees wobbled, threatening to pitch me back down, and my brain taunted. He's coming, he's faster, you'll never make it. I threw one glance back at the decimated SUV over my shoulder, saw a
swirling blur of black coat around pale flesh, kept pounding the ground, fists clenched and pumping. Three steps away, two, one, my quivering lips moved non-stop:

“Lord Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt, I revoke your welcome to my home! Wesley Alexander Wasp Baranuik Strickland I revoke your welcome to my—” I felt the brush of fingers on my neck and dove, “Home!”

I tucked and rolled. The rag rug skid with me, and I hit the hallway wall in a human ball. My Beretta went skittering out of my pocket down the hall until it hit something and jumped to a stop.

Both revenants hit the open doorway at a full run, the preternatural rush sheering the very air. They struck the spectral barrier with an audible crack, like a shot. It shuddered the door jamb, rocked the cabin like it was made of popsicle sticks. But it held.

Unwelcome, Harry staggered onto his heels, face contorting furiously. He threw back his shoulders in one quick move, shedding his long black coat in an irate jerk. His ghostly pallid chin jut forward and he roared at me, demanding my surrender. I huddled around my bleeding hand, cupped it against my middle and waited to witness the outcome. Un-Invitation in the real world? I'd done a second year paper on the theory of Un-Invitation, but like most preternatural biology, theories went untested for decades.

Harry's lip curled back, revealing the fangs that normally worked gently at my skin. Now they were weapons, cutting blades, killing canines. A sad brand of terror tore a hole in my heart. His eyes, beaming arctic white now with widening pupils eating up the expanse, rattled me more than anything else, more than my inability to catch my breath or the sickening drumming in my head or the sight of the ruined cars in the drive. His eyes were empty of recognition, empty of his fine English dignity and grace, empty of his affection or sex. They had fled to pure primal heat, wanting only to rip me open like a bag of blood. They dehumanized me utterly, and for a moment I hated him for it.

Fingers of his mind control wriggling in the front of my brain shook me out of my self-pity. Then they sought any hold they could master, a subtle pull at my willpower. Quickly, I broke eye contact, dropping my gaze to the threshold, where on hands and knees
Wesley waited, slavering for his meal. My brother's lolling head came up and through the pale rainforest of his long knotted hair, his piercing eyes also tried to catch mine.

I crammed my lids down and my lips tightened too, squelching a sob I hadn't known was building. Monster. I heard my mother's voice, and in that instant I agreed with her. Monster, she had pronounced, and this was why Harry was never to come back to her home. And now her only son, her baby, was wavering between trying to rip me open, or returning to the SUV for another hunt. Wes focused-in on my rapidly-jumping jugular and another high wail leaked from his throat.

On shaking arms, I peddled backward, making distance, thinking as long as the revenants could see me right in front of them, Batten and Chapel were safe in the demolished SUV. Maybe they could even slip out, slip away, down the road to safety. I held onto that hope until my wrist encountered a foreign rubber obstacle. The obstacle moved, tapped up and down, jiggling my hand with it.

I tilted my head back to look.

“Hello, Marlene.” Ruby Valli beamed down at me, a toothy smile, eyes glistening with victory. She had my gun.

FIFTY-FOUR

I'm not sure I even thought about it. Must have been my lizard-brain at work. My lizard-brain is miles from ladylike. As I flipped to hands and knees, one arm shot up and I punched the old lady in the box.

Ruby's air went out in a whoosh and she squeaked as her knees clamped together around her injured crotch. I scuttled past her on hands and skidding knees like a kid playing horsie as she popped her invisibility spell again, vanishing. The office door was awash with weird colors, flickering light, sickly green. I couldn't look, didn't have time. My skin crawled along one shoulder and I launched to my feet in a full-out run, arms akimbo, dripping blood from my palm, aiming head-long for the mudroom. A bullet popped in the kitchen, another, and lead zinged past me to hit the fridge with a metallic report. I scrambled behind the shadowy corner of the washing machine, using its bulk for a shield, pausing to think frantically, what to do, where to go, and also: damn shit fuck!

Inside or outside? Inside, with the invisible lady, who might be training my own Beretta around the edge of the washing machine at my skull right this second? (My forehead skin crawled with the knowledge that it was highly likely.) Outside, to be ripped open by the sweet, loving revenant I trusted implicitly until tonight. The last thing I see being the mats in my baby brother's unfortunate Viking dreadlocks as he waited for his turn to lap at my vein juice? Lord and Lady, are those my only two choices?