Mother of monsters, p.7
Mother of Monsters, page 7
Bayo turned to the editor, his eyes wide.
The flashbulb went off, turning his golden skin a stark white.
Bayo’s voice dropped to a whisper. “What?”
Grendel slipped quickly away from Bayo as Glover moved in on him. Bayo’s surprised “What?” rang in her ears. As did quiet whispers of, “Some say she’s a Vampire.”
Scooping up Mop, she escaped the throng. Or tried to. Milling people blocked her path from the train yard. Carefully weaving her way through the crowd, her eyes got hot. Many of the survivors barely stood. Some didn’t. They sat or lay between the tracks. The crowd seemed to go on and on. They were virtual skeletons, but they didn’t call out to her like they had the night before. Even those moaning in pain did not call her over.
They no longer wished for death.
They had hope.
The initial rescue and the night so far had been a blur of furious action and high tension, but the enormity of what Bayo had done finally sunk in. He’d rescued thousands. He’d said she had saved the train from plunging, but it had been him. He’d had the audacity to envision the solution, and he’d fed her and given Cherie’s Magick time to work.
Grendel had thought it couldn’t be done, but Bayo had believed in her, and he’d believed in them. She looked back through the crowd that appeared to have swallowed him. His people had reclaimed him, and his people would see her staked and her ashes thrown to the winds. She could not remain here.
A part of her heart felt like it was fuller than it had been in over two-hundred years … and it felt like it was breaking at the same time.
CHAPTER 6
“It’s been an honor to meet you,” Glover said, holding out a hand.
Sitting with his legs hanging out of a now-empty freight car, Bayo shook it. “Thanks for coming out in the middle of the night.”
“My pleasure, my pleasure,” Glover said, not letting Bayo’s hand go. Somewhere, an owl hooted.
“I’ll be sticking around for a few days at least,” Bayo said. He had to ensure the miners were taken care of. “I’ll be happy to answer any follow-up questions you might have.”
“Let me give you my card,” Glover said, finally withdrawing his hand. He retrieved his wallet from his pocket and handed Bayo a card. Bayo made a show of looking at it, nodded respectfully, and then slipped it away.
Glover looked at him expectantly, and Bayo’s shoulders fell. “I don’t know where I’ll be staying yet.” Disappointment sparked through the Ember, and something else. Did Glover expect Bayo to give him some insight into Theo’s rise? Bayo stifled a snort. Maybe Glover expected Theo’s new phone number. Not that Bayo knew it. Primes lived in the Palace. Presumably Theo now did, too. Bayo’s mind reeled when he thought about his brother being Prime. So he did not think about it.
Bayo sighed. “Now, if you don’t mind—”
“You must be tired,” Glover suggested.
Bayo was tired, but not as tired as this morning, even though he’d brought two people back from the dead instead of just one. Maybe because in both cases he knew exactly the organs that were damaged? Maybe it was practice. He also didn’t feel as elated this time. Bee hadn’t awoken, and neither had the other man.
Dr. Haines’ warning replayed in his mind. “Four minutes post-mortem brain damage begins … Zachary isn’t himself.”
In contrast with Bayo’s misgivings, the Ember oozed with Glover’s awe. “It was amazing what you did! A talent for raising the dead … and the mine rescue, of course.”
Vampires raised the dead. Maybe that was why Bayo was uncomfortable.
Had he done the right thing?
When Grendel had first turned into a Vampire, she had killed in the mines out of mercy, because her victims had begged her to. When he’d read her mind, he’d felt how uneasy that decision weighed on her.
Bayo looked down the track, searching for her. The train yard wasn’t quite empty. The local hotels and inns hadn’t had enough room for a sudden influx of people, but tents, sleeping bags, kerosene stoves, water, and food had been distributed. The healthiest miners were spending the night in the open, and their laughter rang through the night. He didn’t see Grendel. He needed to see Grendel. They’d been through what felt like a lifetime in a few weeks. After the cave-in, during the long march in the darkness, only her presence in the shadows had kept him moving. In Folktlan, if she hadn’t been so damned determined to leave, he would have succumbed to wonder for the place and lust for her. They might have lingered. Even if they’d stayed just a day or an hour more, more lives would have been lost. As frustrated as he’d been with her, she’d kept him focused. Later, she’d gone along with his schemes even when she hadn’t believed in them, and when he hadn’t believed in them himself. The possibility of not seeing her again made his stomach lurch.
The sky was just beginning to lighten. Bayo still had a few hours before dawn. Leaning out of the car, he looked again.
“Well, I’ll be in touch,” Glover said.
“I look forward to seeing your article,” Bayo said, careful to bring his focus back to the other man.
Glover smiled. “You are going to love it.” Bayo detected no lie, so at least Glover believed it.
“Speaking of,” Glover said, “I better get to it.” He limped away. His silent shadow, a young Common photographer, hesitated. Bayo mentally corrected himself. Young photographer. Period. He wouldn’t risk offending Grendel for the short time they were together. He’d wipe the word from his mind. “I also look forward to seeing your photographs, Tommy,” he said.
At the praise, Tommy stood straighter. Bayo was too worried about Grendel to be amused. His eyes shot down the track.
“Laura and Ms. Rhinehart helped take Doctor Haines to the Goose Nest Inn. It’s close to here. Just about three blocks up Smokey Boulevard.”
It took a few moments for Bayo to parse his words. Rhinehart was Grendel’s alibi. Bayo looked back at the photographer. Beneath long dark bangs, the photographer had eyes nearly as pale as Grendel’s. They locked on Bayo’s. The Ember between them hummed with certainty. The photographer knew Bayo was looking for Grendel. During the interview, Bayo had deliberately steered the conversation away from Grendel, never lying, but omitting her role. It had been easy. The Magickal with a truth talent hadn’t asked questions about the striking, white-haired, bespectacled older woman with an Alliance accent, even though she’d brought Glover here. Glover had missed the most important story, though it had been right beneath his nose: a Vampire and a member of the Order had destroyed something evil together. Maybe this boy without Magick didn’t know that story, but he knew there was more to the tale.
Tommy reached into his pocket, pulled out a card, and passed it to Bayo. “Please give this to Laura. She’s incredible. I’d like to see her again.”
They were making a trade, Bayo realized. I am helping you see the woman you’re interested in again. Help me see this woman again.
Bayo said, “I can’t promise she’ll call you, but I’ll give it to her.”
“I trust you,” Tommy said, as though his trust was something precious.
From the front of the engine came Glover’s shout. “Tommy! Where did you go, boy!”
Nodding curtly to Bayo, Tommy took off into the night, but the Ember in his wake prickled with the photographer’s annoyance and derision for Glover. Tommy didn’t respect his boss, obviously, but why should he?
Bayo slipped from the train car and walked toward the men gathered around the Ember lights and cook stoves. Travers met him at the edge of the light. “We got you a room at the Goose Nest. It belongs to Laura’s family. Rhinehart’s there, too. It’s just up the boulevard,” he said, confirming Tommy’s intel. Travers pointed through a junction in the cars.
Travers wasn’t staying at an inn. He was staying with his people and shooing Bayo off. Bayo looked over his shoulder. Glover might not have heard the whispered comments about Vampiric assistance, but it would be out soon enough.
He had to get to Grendel. She wouldn’t be safe at the inn.
There was no way Grendel would be safe at an inn.
Instead, she hung onto a rose trellis, grimacing as the thorns bit her fingers. The trellis leaned against the upper story of a house close to the Goose Nest. Peering through a torn screen into the house’s attic, she whispered, “I promise I won’t eat your babies. I just want a safe place to sleep.”
The Magickal mother opossum hissed. “You won’t eat us? Then you want to turn me over to the UMS Military!” Clinging to her back, her tiny babies hissed, too.
Grendel sighed. She’d given her room over to Laura and Dr. Haines, so other refugee women could take their rooms. But in the few minutes she’d had alone before she’d done that, she’d contacted Jack and Cherie through the room’s mirror. It was three in the morning, but they’d emerged from their bed almost instantly and spoken to her through their bedroom mirror. “A dream of finding you in the mirror woke us up,” Cherie had whispered, her golden hair sparkling in the lamplight.
“Thank you … for everything,” Grendel told them, grateful to Cherie for keeping the bridge from collapsing and Jack for creating the storm. She didn’t say more. The mirror wasn’t secure.
Nodding in acknowledgement, Cherie had forgone pleasantries. “You don’t have much time. Ashwin says that the papers in the United Magickal States are talking about you by name. The inn might not be safe.”
Leaning over Cherie’s shoulder, Jack’s icy eyes met Grendel’s through the mirror. “Mizuki said there is a Magickal opossum in an attic near the inn. Maybe you can convince her to let you spend the day there?”
“Grandmother might be safe with Beowulf,” Cherie had interjected. Jack scowled, and Cherie said, “He’s in love with Grendel.”
Grendel’s face flushed at the memory. She knew what Cherie said was true, but she also knew Jack’s cool-headed assessment was true as well: “He may love her, but his Vampire-hunting cult won’t.” A long time ago, Jack had hunted Vampires. He knew how difficult it was to go from killing Vampires to making allies of them.
The mother opossum hissed. “I shan’t invite you in. Go away.”
Grendel tried one more time. “Why would I turn you over to the UMS Military? They’d kill me.”
The mother opossum squeaked. Her babies jumped from her back, and she rolled over, closed her eyes, and played dead. Her babies promptly followed her example.
Grendel pursed her lips. “You know I know you’re only playing dead, right?”
One of the little opossums hissed, and another scolded it. “Shh … we’re supposed to be dead!”
Frustrated, Grendel blew a strand of hair from her face. She could always sleep in the sewers. The thought made the night seem colder. Grendel usually didn’t mind being alone, but she’d gotten used to Bayo being beside her. Maybe it was better she hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. Better to quit a habit cold turkey.
And then, from behind and below her came the Magickal sound of wind and waves.
Grendel froze. Bayo couldn’t have found her here?
His whispered “Grendel?” carried through the night.
Looking down, she saw Bayo standing at the corner of the house. A trail of footprints sparkled in the dewy lawn behind him.
Grendel dropped from the trellis to the grass.
“Searching for an alternate place to sleep?” he asked, voice hushed.
Wiping her hands, she looked up at him. “That obvious?”
“That smart,” he said. “There are rumors about a Vampire. You shouldn’t sleep in your room.” Grimacing, mouth twisting as though he’d tasted something foul, he looked up at the attic window. “The Magick up there tastes like garbage smells. Raccoon or opossum?”
A light in the house flickered on. Without discussion, they made their way to the sidewalk.
Grendel started to babble. “I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you, but Dr. Haines hasn’t slept in over forty-eight hours, and Laura didn’t want to bring her to the inn alone, and after the photographer took that one picture, I thought maybe I should make myself scarce. And now—”
“It’s close to dawn, you’re in a place where you’re in danger, and you didn’t know when my interview would be done.” Bayo put his hand on her back and began steering her down the sidewalk, and she felt the night’s chill everywhere his hand wasn’t.
“Don’t go to the sewers,” he said as they passed an opening in the gutter.
Grendel blinked. “Did I mention that out loud?”
“That is where Vampires usually hide. And abandoned buildings,” he added.
Grendel shivered and surveyed the neat single family homes along the street. None looked abandoned. “I guess you would know.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“Hurt me. I know,” Grendel said. “Believe it or not, you’re not the first Vampire hunter I’ve become friends with.”
She practically heard the tic in his jaw. She winced. “Oh, that’s right, we’re not exactly friends.” She didn’t mean it as a slight. They were something more than friends, but the comment earned her a raised brow.
He’d come to check on her. He could be in bed at the inn, or in a far more luxurious inn, but he’d come looking for her. “Not that we aren’t friendly.”
That earned another raised brow. Grendel scowled. “Don’t look at me like that. You know I babble when I’m nervous.”
“You don’t have to be nervous,” he said.
“We’re heading back to the inn,” Grendel pointed out.
He cleared his throat. “You can stay with me,” he said, and then added, “It doesn’t have to be anything more than what we’ve had so far. Or even … I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“There’s only one bed in your room, too?” She knew they’d set a private room aside for him out of respect. Except for her and Bayo, everyone else who had gotten a room had to share. In her case, the privacy was probably out of fear, even if she wasn’t officially a Vampire.
Bayo’s hand smoothed up and down her back, leaving a trail of heat in its wake. “I don’t know. I picked up my key and came to find you.”
“Thanks for that, but I think it would break my heart to see you sleep on the floor,” said Grendel, and then she scowled at her non sequitur. His head tilted toward her, and his lips parted slightly.
Don’t think of his lips. Don’t think about how he bit himself to give you blood and to kiss you.
She began to babble in earnest. “My heart wouldn’t break in a stakey sort of way. That has happened before, and I recovered. I can barely remember the pain. But the image of you on the cold, hard floor would stay with me forever.”
His lips quirked. “I slept on a hard cave floor for two weeks.”
“But that was different. You were still thinking about staking me then, and I was creepily hungry.” She gulped. “For the record, I have not kissed any of my other Vampire hunter friends. Or anyone, not since …” Her husband. She couldn’t say that. “It’s been a really, really long time.”
“For me, too,” he said.
Grendel’s brows rose.
Bayo flushed and hung his head. “That sounded stupid.”
Grendel took pity. “Time is relative.”
Bayo smiled. “You and your perverted math.”
Grendel smiled, a warmth that wasn’t desire, just happiness spreading through her chest. Their own private description of physics.
For a moment, the only sound was their footsteps, and then Bayo asked, “Where is Mop?”
“In exchange for my room, I gave him to Laura to take care of during the day.” She shrugged self-consciously. By day, she was helpless. “After the sun rises, I can’t even take care of an old, not particularly active, sorry excuse for a dog.”
Bayo’s hand slid from her back. She told herself she wouldn’t sigh, and then he took her hand and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and didn’t let go. It occurred to Grendel that this touch was more intimate.
They turned a corner, and the single-family homes gave way to low rise buildings: a few three and four story townhomes and taller apartment buildings, with shops at street level. At the center of the block stood the Goose Nest Inn. She thought Mizuki would describe it as First Century Post-Change architecture. Five stories tall, as wide as four of the townhomes and made of brick, it managed to be charming despite its size. Pots of flowers and herbs to ward off evil hung out from the window, and reliefs of vines and garlic carved in pale stone framed the doors and corners. In front of the inn, three vans were parked. A group of men with cameras hanging around their necks congregated on the sidewalk beside them. The post-Change equivalent of the press corp.
Grendel froze. She did not want to appear in any papers. She thought of the first flashes of Tommy’s camera. It might be too late, but she didn’t want it to be any worse. Bayo halted and glanced back at her.
“Side door,” Grendel suggested, pulling him to the left.
Bayo glanced at the press and turned with her. He sighed. “I would just as soon not talk to any more press tonight,” he muttered, as though reluctantly admitting a character flaw.
She guided him down a neat alley she’d used when she’d left earlier. Bayo pulled at the heavy fire door. It didn’t give.
“Locked,” Grendel muttered.
“Not a problem,” said Bayo. Pressing his hand against the lock, Bayo closed his eyes. Magick surged, the lock clicked, and he opened the door a moment later. “You’ve been invited in?” he asked. The hotel was also Laura’s aunt and uncle’s home, not merely a public place of business. Laura had asked her uncle if her “two friends” would be welcome, and her uncle hadn’t even blinked before saying, “Of course!”
Grendel nodded, and he gestured for her to go before him.
“Did you even need to pick up your key?” she asked him.
Chuckling, he took her hand again. “Yes, for the room number.” He pulled a large old-fashioned key from his pocket. It had the number 401 molded into its surface.
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