Chapter Twenty--two
The plane touched down right as the skies opened and heavy rain pelted the aircraft. Even though I was anxious to get started, a part of me lamented the fact that soon, I’d have to reapply my stinky phantom repellent again. Airport security would have taken issue with me trying to board a flight while covered in weed, and I didn’t think my truthful explanation of “But I have to keep ghosts away!” would go over with them.
I collected my suitcase from the overhead bin—missing my usual weapons cache—and did the wait-stop-wait shuffle out of the plane with the other passengers. Once on the gangway, I could walk freely, and it didn’t take me long to reach the passenger waiting area. A circular glance around didn’t show the face I was looking for, and there was no telltale surge of supernatural energy in the air. Frowning, I glanced at my watch. No, I wasn’t early. In fact, the plane was about fifteen minutes behind schedule. So where was Mencheres?
“Cat, welcome.”
I whirled, blinking for a second at the tall, tawny-haired stranger—and then I laughed.
“God, that’s amazing.”
The slight hint of a smile on Mencheres’s face was familiar, but not much else. His midnight-black hair and eyebrows were now golden blond, his charcoal-colored gaze azure blue, and instead of the normal, expensive-looking slacks and long-sleeved shirts he favored, Mencheres had on an Ed Hardy T-shirt and board shorts.
Most startling to me, however, was his aura. Or lack of one. Aside from his missing heartbeat, I’d almost swear he was human, because almost no preternatural energy stirred the air around us. Considering that being around Mencheres normally felt like flying a metal umbrella in a lightning storm, I was stunned at how thoroughly he’d managed to cloak his power level.
“And here I thought I was good at this cloak-and-dagger stuff,” I went on, a vague gesture encompassing my newly raven hair, brown contacts, and artificially darkened skin courtesy of one of those tan-in-a-bottle creams. I’d even thickened and darkened my eyebrows and dyed the peach fuzz on my arms from golden-red to brown. A vampire had previously identified me because of a hint of red on my armpits, even though I’d shaved that morning. Fool me once and all that.
“I’ve had somewhat more practice than you,” Mencheres replied with dry humor, taking my bag even though I could easily carry it. I didn’t argue. He wasn’t being chauvinistic; he just came from a different era. A very different era, considering the four-and-a-half-millennia gap in our ages.
We walked out of the airport without saying anything else, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves just in case this place was being watched by either Apollyon’s ghouls or ones from the other sect. We couldn’t be too careful, even though Bones had already been out the past three nights with Denise in Ohio. With her ability to shapeshift into an exact replica of me, I doubted anyone except him, Spade, Mencheres, or Kira had any idea that the real Red Reaper was in Memphis instead of hitting the bar and club scene with Bones.
Still, to further throw off suspicion, Kira wasn’t joining Mencheres as we combed the Memphis area. She was going about her business as usual, making it easier to keep up the charade that Mencheres was still at home with her. I felt bad for being the reason they were in separate states so early in their relationship, but I also knew both of them understood the necessity. Kira had been a private investigator, so she knew all about stakeouts, and Mencheres had been playing catch-the-bad-guys since the time of the pyramids.
Once we were in the car, Mencheres handed me a bag from the backseat. I didn’t even need to open it to know what it contained. The smell preceded its contents, but the two herbs had been as effective as Fabian promised. I’d only had a couple ghosts track me down in the past four days, and I sent them packing with a politely worded directive.
I kept the bag on my lap, telling myself I didn’t need to start stuffing it down my clothes yet. Just putting off the inevitable, I knew, but eau de garlique stoner wasn’t my favorite perfume. I flipped my dark glasses onto the top of my head, not needing them for concealment anymore, and settled more comfortably into the seat. I’d wait an hour or so before I called Bones. It was eleven o’clock at night; he was probably just arriving at whatever was the latest Ohio hotspot with Denise and Spade.
We were a few miles away from the airport when a blast of energy hit the car like an invisible bomb. I instinctively reached for my sleeves, forgetting I didn’t have knives strapped to my arms, when I realized it was just Mencheres dropping his shields.
“Next time, how about a heads-up before you do that?” I said, exasperated. “Thought we were being attacked.”
“My apologies,” he replied at once, folding his aura back in until it no longer felt like an explosive. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
You’ve alarmed me ever since we first met, oh ancient spooky one was my sardonic thought, but I didn’t say it out loud and he couldn’t read it from my mind anymore. Just one of many reasons why I was glad I made the switch from half human to mostly dead.
Then, just as abruptly as his power had struck me moments ago, guilt slapped me. Mencheres’s extraordinary power, age, and visions of the future had always creeped me out, but he couldn’t help being the way he was. Just like I couldn’t help being a half-breed before, or feeding from vampires and absorbing their powers now. On the weird scale, I probably outranked Mencheres, yet I was still letting my discomfort about his unusualness affect the way I thought of him.
If Bones lived a few more thousand years—and God knew I hoped he did—he might end up with many of Mencheres’s unusual abilities, too. Mencheres shared his power legacy with Bones, giving him mind reading and a strength upgrade overnight, and we didn’t know how many more things might crop up over time. How would I like it if people treated Bones suspiciously because his powers made him different from most other vampires? Even the thought made anger burn in me. Yeah, I knew how I’d like it; I’d want to kick their asses all over the place.
“I’m the one who owes you an apology,” I said, staring at Mencheres’s drastically altered profile. “Even before I was mad at you for not telling me that you’d wiped out a month of my life when I was sixteen, you always made me uneasy, and it was mostly because I was being a hypocrite.”
He glanced over at me with the strangest expression on his face. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Cat.”
“Apollyon’s minions aren’t the only ones who’re guilty of being afraid of someone just because they’re different,” I replied softly. “You’d think with how I grew up, I would’ve known better, but I still ended up doing the same thing with you. I’m sorry, Mencheres. You deserved better than that.”
The car decelerated as he pulled over to the side of the road, waiting until we were stopped before meeting my gaze fully.
“You owe me no apology.” Each word was enunciated as though it were its own sentence. “By neither word nor deed have you ever exploited me for your own gain, and I cannot say the same about my actions with you.”
Eight months ago, I might have snapped, “That’s right, buddy!” but a lot of things had changed since then.
“I don’t know what it’s like to hold a huge supernatural line together for over four millennia. The most I did at my old job was lead a team of sixty soldiers for about five years. Even though there’s no comparison between the two, I still had to make some ‘greater good’ decisions that were really tough, so while I was pissed at you over what you did, some part of me still understood. Besides”—I smiled wryly—“since your manipulating brought Bones and me together, it’s kind of hard for me to justify still holding a grudge.”
Mencheres took my hand and brushed it against his forehead in an oddly formal gesture. “You honor me with your forgiveness.”
“And you can honor me by accepting my apology, because no matter what you did, I was still wrong, too,” I countered.
He let go of my hand, an expression of amusement flitting over his features before they became impenetrable again.
“You are a very stubborn woman. Apology accepted.”
“Thank you.” Then I cracked a small, self-conscious smile. “Okay, enough with the intimate confessions, right? Let’s go find some bigoted ghouls and pummel them into taking us to their leader.”
Mencheres’s faux azure gaze glinted with a hint of the frighteningly lethal ass kicker he was beneath his soft-spoken, proper demeanor.
“Yes,” he said, drawing out the word. “Let’s. Ed and Scratch have already arrived in the city. Vlad will meet us tonight at the town house I’m renting. Once we are all here, we will begin the hunt.”
Of our group, Dave was the first to strike pay dirt in Memphis. A week after we arrived, he reported through Fabian that he’d made contact with some ghouls who had a definite bias against vampires. We weren’t sure if they were directly affiliated with Apollyon, or just some knockoff bigots, but according to Dave, he’d spent a fun-filled evening listening to them rant about how ghouls and vampires should live separate, unmixed lives. That inter-dating/marrying was a contamination of the species, and only through separatism could real “strength and purity” be attained.
Sounded like the sort of bullshit Apollyon’s minions would preach, considering he was like an undead version of a KKK Grand Dragon. Dave had a tentative meeting with the same group tomorrow night, and I wasn’t going to interfere. No need to tip our hand by being impatient and grabbing the pawns if waiting meant we could get our hands on the king instead. I hoped after a couple more meetings, Dave would be trusted enough to be let deeper into the ghouls’ twisted group.
As for Vlad, Mencheres, and me, we were batting zero. Timmie’s sources pointed to some odd activity at bars, plus I’d run the information past Tate and he’d verified that the crime rate had ticked up in Memphis recently, also adding credence that this was the area Apollyon was most likely centered in. But even though we’d hit local bars looking for suspects in the past seven days, we’d come up with nothing but an appreciation for the many varied flavors of barbecue in the city. Or maybe that was just me. Feeding from the sealed bags containing Bones’s blood keep me nourished, but I still liked to vary up my palate a bit.
My cell phone vibrated in the side pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out, recognizing the number before I answered it.
“Reaper.” Ed’s voice, lowered enough that it was hard for me to hear him.
“You got something?” I asked at once, straightening. He and Scratch were across town at another popular watering hole; hopefully one more fruitful than the dive Mencheres, Vlad, and I were in.
“Maybe,” Ed said, still so low I had to strain. I’d tell him to text me if he was worried about being overheard, but as I found out before, that was one modern skill Ed hadn’t mastered yet. “Some bone-munchers came in earlier,” he went on. “They had a nasty vibe coming off them, too. I overheard one of ’em mentioning the Falcon drive-in, and about ten minutes ago, they all left.”
A drive-in? “You mean theater, right?” I asked, just to be sure it wasn’t slang for something else.
Ed snorted. “Of course. I looked it up before I called you. It’s on Summer Avenue near I–40.”
Ed might not be able to text, but luckily, MapQuest wasn’t beyond him. “Good. You head on over there, but not for at least ten minutes in case you’re being watched. I’ll start out now.”
“See ya there,” he grunted, and hung up.
“We’re in the wrong place,” I announced to Mencheres and Vlad as I signaled the bartender. “Let’s settle up and get out of here.”
Vlad’s brows rose. “Do elaborate,” he drawled.
I lowered my voice. Texting might be quieter, but it was also senseless with both of them right there. “Ed’s heard of some strange activity at the Falcon drive-in, as though the words activity and drive-in in the same sentence weren’t strange enough.”
Mencheres gave me a quizzical look. “Why?”
I was about to say, Because they’re obsolete, but then I reminded myself that for someone as old as Mencheres, drive-ins would still seem like a new form of entertainment.
“Because progress is a merciless bitch” was what I settled on, followed by “The bad news is, if the place is still open, not abandoned, we’ll have human bystanders to worry about if Ed’s right and anything does go down.”
“Drive-ins,” Vlad said, his lip curling in a way that said he hadn’t been a fan of them even when they were popular. “I suppose that’s better than a regular theater. Less people at drive-ins, and if they’re anything like I remember, most of the humans there won’t be concentrating on anything but fornicating anyway.”
His disdainful tone almost made me laugh. Who knew the reputed scourge of the underworld looked down his nose at drive-in nookie?
“Not everyone had their own castle to go back to when they were young and horny,” I said, my lips twitching.
The look he threw me was more than cynical. “My youth was spent in constant war, not the pursuit of tender seductions.”
Privately I thought tender was the last word I’d associate with Vlad, but we had places to be, ghouls to track down, and all that. I glanced at my watch. Ten forty-five. That helped, but it was a Friday night, so the drive-in would be as populated as it was going to get.
“Well, boys,” I said, placing some bills on the table. “Let’s go to the movies.”