Part 17 (1/2)

Lost.

It took only minutes to reach Town Lake, park Kieren's truck, and join the crowd gathered beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge.

Too many people, I thought. Too close together, too obvious. A much-tattooed woman glanced at my face and drew her boyfriend closer, slid her hand in the back pocket of his jeans. A couple of gym-buffed boys looked my way, too, but they appeared happy enough with each other, and, besides, they were too young. Too strong. The cop hovering behind the Bat Anti-Defamation League table stood with his arms folded across his chest, somehow managing to seem bored and attentive. The crowd of tourists and locals was lighter than it used to be before the murders. Bats flitted out, one after another from beneath the bridge, ravenous, but the main exodus was over.

I skirted the edge of the thinning group and then inched down the broad, sandy path, uncomfortable around the water, peering into the lush growth. I strayed off the trail here and there, listening for I wasn't sure what. My hearing was much improved, my night vision even better. Between blowing leaves, a dragonfly hovered over black ripples, exquisite, iridescent - then, with a crunch of rodent jaws, became food.

On a bench at the next dock, an old man lay sleeping. Cardboard was covering his face, neck, and shoulders. His chest was still, very. . . . But his foot was moving, jerking in its torn and filthy tennis shoe.

The dock creaked with my first step, but the man didn't awaken.

I looked around. No witnesses. These days, none of the eco-tourists or joggers would dare venture this far onto the trail.

A closer examination of the long-sleeve flannel s.h.i.+rt and pajama bottoms confirmed it. He'd probably strolled down to watch the ducks and fell asleep.

I slid the cardboard aside, revealing Mitch's face. Stubbly, bloated by alcohol. The Santa-blue eyes closed, peaceful.

My gums ached, burned, bled. I moved in, licked my lips. Just a taste, or until I drowned, either way.

No one would miss Mitch, not for days. I could dump him here in the water. The perfect victim. Unloved. Just another body found at the lake. This was why Bradley had remade me. How could I resist?

My hair fell from my shoulders, grazing his face, and Mitch's hand shot out, palming my throat like a football. He opened his red eyes and, roaring, his mouth - sharp fangs and fingernails extending as the cardboard slipped to the dock. The fingers closed, crus.h.i.+ng. Then he caught sight of my face, my eyes, my fangs. And released. His mouth dropping into an O O of surprise and apology. of surprise and apology.

I coughed, realizing I wasn't the only one who'd been caught off-guard. Raising a hand to my neck, I felt the bleeding, V-shaped marks his nails had left. I'd been foolish, I realized, to cut mine. Bradley had fed Mitch when he'd stopped by the back door at the restaurant, I recalled, and weeks before that. Infected him.

”Oops, holy c.r.a.p, Miss Missy. Quincie, girl, I didn't know you was a vampire, too.” Mitch's eyes faded back to blue, and his fangs retracted.

I thought about saying I was sorry for trying to hurt him, for not being the meal he'd hoped, for his having died. I settled for ”How'd you do that?”

He sat up, his head tilting, his expression as kind as ever. ”Do?”

”Change back. Um, look human again.”

”Haven't, you know, you taken a big bite, had your first yet?”

”No.” Once again I was myself, in control and resolved to stay that way. I hoped I could stay that way.

What time was it? Ten? G.o.d, what if Kieren had tried to call me at home?

”Ah,” Mitch patted my arm. ”You, you gotta get the first one down so the brain, so it lets you go.” He pointed to his head, as if to ill.u.s.trate. ”All that changing . . . You're a regular girl, oops! Got some good blood somewhere, in the tummy, in the veins, and now you're, you're improved and new. But the body, the sys, system, it thinks that way for a while, like a human, but then the feed, it takes over. It takes you, and you're all good. Once you get the first one. Being a vamp, vampire is all tied up, messed up with um, the, the -”

”Blood.”

”Yep, almost. Nope, wait. Spoke too, too soon. Not just that. The feed, that's what it is. The bite. Once you get past that, you, you'll get more of a hold on it, Miss Quincie.”

Was Mitch the one responsible for the lakefront murders?

I glanced at the hand-lettered cardboard at my feet. It read:

”Hocus-pocus,” Mitch added. ”Spooky me, spooky you.”

A hair past 1 hair past 1 A.M. A.M. Tuesday morning. Kieren hadn't called me back. The longer I waited, the hungrier I got. The shock of Mitch had brought me back to myself, but it would be so easy to slip again. I hadn't even realized I'd been on the hunt until putting Kieren's truck into gear, and by then . . . Christ. Tuesday morning. Kieren hadn't called me back. The longer I waited, the hungrier I got. The shock of Mitch had brought me back to myself, but it would be so easy to slip again. I hadn't even realized I'd been on the hunt until putting Kieren's truck into gear, and by then . . . Christ. Meghan. Meghan.

I got up from my kitchen table, retraced my path back across the black-and-white checked tile, and opened the freezer door. Using my fingernail, I ripped open the plastic wrap, set two icy, stuck-together chicken legs on a plate, covered it with a paper towel, slid the plate into the microwave, and hit DEFROST.

I had just sworn off the sauce, so to speak, but humans consumed animal blood all the time. Hopefully, it didn't count. And I needed a fix. Quick.

As the microwave hummed, its interior tray turning, I paced, pausing to run my fingertips along the wall phone, to tangle them in the curly black plastic cord, repressing the urge to rip it out. Where was Kieren, anyway?

I had less than an hour.

The microwave beeped three times, and I removed my sustenance. Courtesy of modern technology, the pale, fleshy poultry legs lay in a pool of watery blood.

Arguing to myself that salmonella wasn't a burning vampire health concern, I dipped my finger in the liquid and raised it to my lips. The meat repulsed me, but I picked up a leg and licked it like a Popsicle.

The leg was mostly sucked dry when the doorbell rang.

Let it be Kieren, I prayed.

It was Detective Bartok and Detective Matthews.

Self-conscious, I hid my snack behind my back.

”We're looking for Kieren Morales,” Detective Bartok said from the front step.

”I don't know where he is,” I replied from the doorway, glad I'd parked the truck a few blocks southwest so Uncle D wouldn't see it. ”Did my uncle call you?”

Matthews, the senior officer, shook his head. ”We haven't talked to him since he came down to the station. Why? Does he have something to tell us?”

I stuck with the truth, so as to trigger their cop instincts as little as possible. ”As far as I know, the last either of us talked to APD was when Detective Sanchez called me at Sanguini's on the third. I remember because it was ten days until the reopening.”

They traded a look.

”And what did Detective Sanchez call regarding?” Bartok asked.

”Well, he said -”

”He?” Matthews interrupted.

I nodded, still hiding the chicken leg.