CHAPTER 14
How had Faith wormed her way into my life so damn fast? Was it because she was Sawyer’s, and Sawyer was gone?
What would happen when she was old enough to ask where her father was? What happened when she asked how he’d died?
I winced. I wasn’t going to think about that.
Instead I drove northwest for nearly an hour then stopped at a café with a parking lot full of semis. Truck drivers knew the restaurants with good food and even better coffee. They had to.
I was tired and hungry, and I needed to study the map. I wasn’t quite sure how to get to Inyan Kara from here.
I ordered coffee, orange juice, eggs, sausage, and wheat toast, then I pored over the map. I should reach the mountain in two or three hours, depending on how decent the roads were and how good the map was.
I could shape-shift and fly there. But that would leave me naked when I returned to human form. And returning was a given. No matter how special I might be, I wasn’t a talking phoenix.
While naked might be a good way to convince a man, regardless how old, of anything, I’d rather try cool, calm, rational logic first.
I stared at the map, experienced a few seconds of concern at the size of Inyan Kara. How would I find this guy?
Truth was, I’d been in this situation before and the how always worked itself out. Take my trip to the Badlands to find Jimmy. They were huge but within minutes of seeing them, I’d known exactly where Sanducci was. I had no doubt the location of Sani would make itself known when I needed it to be.
Worst-case scenario, once I got to the top of the mountain I would use my speed or my shape-shifting or even my psychometric talent, if I came across something the old man had touched, to find him.
I finished my food, paid the bill, made use of the large, clean facilities—there was even a shower available for customer use; the number of female truck drivers on the road had increased greatly in the past few years—then took the “go” cup of coffee I’d ordered and got back into the Impala.
The road went on and on, seeming to disappear into the flat land surrounding me, but every once in a while I could have sworn I saw the dark brush of mountains against the horizon.
I’d just slowed to take a nearly hairpin turn around a small grove of trees and what appeared to be a cemetery in the middle of nowhere when something shot into the road.
I slammed on the brakes; my coffee went flying, soaking me, the seat, the floor. I barely noticed. All my attention was riveted on the white face and terrified eyes of the young woman just inches from my bumper.
She slammed scraped and bloodied hands onto the hood. “Help me!” she screamed, then glanced over her shoulder. Blood trickled from the fang marks in her neck.
I closed my eyes for just an instant and caught the telltale buzz. When I opened them I knew even before I followed her gaze what I’d see.
Vampires. A lot of them.
However, the dozen or so figures moving in our direction resembled no vampires I’d ever seen. Covered in dirt, their clothes were torn, disintegrating into dust as I watched.
The girl scrambled to the passenger door, yanked on the handle, began to beat on it, sobbing, when it wouldn’t open. I reached over, lifted the lock, and she tumbled inside. The scent of blood filled the enclosed space, and my demon murmured.
I got out of the car, breathing deeply, and caught the distinct scent of rot. Were they zombies? I didn’t think so. I’d never felt the vampire buzz for a zombie. Of course I’d never seen a true zombie, either. Revenants were something else.
Maybe these were zombie-vampires. And wouldn’t that just be special?
“Hey! Come on!” The girl’s volume control seemed stuck on shriek. Understandable, but my ears. “Let’s get out of here!”
I leaned down. “Tell me what happened.”
“Fuck that!” She started to slide into the driver’s seat, and I flicked her back with a jerk of one wrist.
“Tell me what happened,” I repeated.
My magic hand twitch shocked the desire to scream right out of her, although now she looked at me with the same expression she’d looked at them.
“I-I took flowers to my grandma’s grave. Then smoke b-b-began to rise.”
“From where?”
“The graves,” she said in the same tone she might have said freaking moron. “The smoke got thicker and—”
She stopped, biting her lip, frowning, already doubting the truth of what her eyes had plainly seen.
“Say it,” I ordered. “I’ll believe you.”
“The smoke became them.” I nodded encouragingly. “One of them grabbed me and—” She shuddered. “He bit me, and I could feel his lips, his tongue, his teeth. Sucking. He got a—” She swallowed. “Hard-on.”
Definitely vampires, not that I’d had much doubt.