chapter Ten
The girl's words had unnerved her, but Bliss managed to stay calm as she hurried across the hospital parking lot. She had faced monsters tougher than hounds. After all, they were merely her father's attack dogs and she wasn't going to be scared of a few mangy mutts no matter what that spooky-eyed girl said.
She dialed Jane's cell phone, needing to hear her aunt's friendly voice, and was disappointed when the call went to voice mail. Bliss left a message. "Hey, it's me. It's her all right, but she was uncooperative. Really uncooperative, if you know what I mean. I'll tell you more when I see you. I'm on my way back to the room. See you in a bit."
Traffic was slow and it was dark when Bliss rolled into the crowded parking lot. The Bedside Inn was more apartment house than motel; too late they had discovered it served as a halfway station for people who couldn't make first and last months' rent or pass a credit check. When Bliss exited the elevator she found the doors to several rooms open on the floor, tenants chatting in bathrobes and wet hair, swapping stories and gossip. Kids ran from one room to the next as if the whole complex were their playground. She had experienced a moment of panic when she first saw the small, ugly room. There was graffiti on the pillows and the bedspread looked like it had last been cleaned in the Reagan era.
As Bliss made her way to her room, she nodded to her neighbors and leapt over their kneeling children, but the other tenants were cool to her; no one returned her nervous smile, and some looked outright hostile. It was with some relief that she finally reached her door. She knocked rather than using her key, just to let Jane know she was there. "Aunt Jane? It's me." She waited for her to open the door, but nothing happened. Could Jane still be sleeping?
She'd have to open the door herself. She slid the key-card into the reader and the light flashed green. She turned the lever and pushed the door open. The room was completely dark. She hated to wake up Aunt Jane, but she couldn't see a thing.
As soon as she turned on the light, she wished she hadn't. Furniture was tipped over, the room in disarray from a clear sign of a struggle, and the walls were raked by claw prints. There was no sign of Jane anywhere.
Bliss screamed.
No one hunts the pack, the broken girl at the asylum had warned.
A few hours later Bliss sat in her rental car in the motel parking lot, unable to move. None of the residents or staff at the motel had seen or heard anything. She had answered the questions posed by the police and the motel security and waited until they had cleared her alibi, thanks to the clinic's visitor log. Finally, the detectives dismissed her for the night. She meant to take a little break, maybe pick up something to eat, although she wasn't hungry. But she needed to get away from the chaos and fear for a bit, to be alone so she could think. She bit her fingernails one by one. The hounds knew she was looking for them. She was in danger unless she stopped, unless she gave up her pursuit.
They wanted her to give up, and they had taken Jane as a hostage. But why? Did they know Jane was the Watcher? And what did the hounds know of Bliss's quest to find them?
Bliss knew she was on the right track; she was so close now. She had to keep going. She couldn't be scared, even if she had seen what they did. Her mother had given her a task; she had to see it through. She had known what she was getting into when she began. She had to keep searching for the hounds, and she couldn't leave Jane - her dearest friend in the world - in their hands, she could only hope she was still alive.
She looked out across the pale gray parking lot. The sun had vanished and its orange light was now replaced by a row of sodium lamps on tall posts. The lights cast a grainy yellow that made everything look as though it were one color: the trees, the distant traffic. A half mile away she could see a drugstore glowing brilliant white and a road trailing off to the west.
If she'd still had the vampire sight, she would have been able to see the curtains on the window of a house many miles away. But she was human now, with human limitations. She could no longer listen to a conversation conducted across the room; she could no longer lift objects five times her body weight. She could no longer do any of the things she had taken for granted when her blood was blue. Since the purging of her vampire self, she had not attempted to use any of her old powers. What was the use? She didn't want to look back and wish for something she could not have. But now she wondered if maybe some of her power had remained, if she could still enter the glom. The hounds are creatures of shadow... Why hadn't she thought to find them that way before?
She closed her eyes and relaxed her muscles, letting her mind go blank, letting her consciousness expand beyond her and her physical limitations, allowing her to leave the tangible world. It felt as if she were slipping into a pool of warm water. When she opened her eyes, she was in the glom, in the world of twilight and specter, phantom and mirage.
Bliss moved cautiously through the empty landscape. The world of the glom had a slightly different tinge than she remembered. She did not know if it was because she was no longer a vampire, but for the first time, she felt alone and vulnerable.
Suddenly, a light in the glom, bright, like a spotlight, shone on her. She cowered from its brilliance, shielding her eyes. With a start, she saw there was a boy in front of her. He was dark-haired and handsome, with a high forehead, a strong jaw, a fierce and noble visage - but his face was anguished. He stared at her - and she stared back.
Who are you?
Bliss wasn't sure who was speaking, him or her, but it was clear they both had the same question on their minds. She saw his gaze linger at the stone around her neck, his eyes growing hard, and she put up a hand to cover it, and before she knew what was happening -
She was thrown backward and when she recovered she saw she was somewhere else. A butcher shop. She saw the meat hanging on hooks, the white paper, the bloody shanks. Then a wolf stalked out of the darkness. A silver wolf with flat yellow eyes.
It was a hellhound; she was sure of it.
It leapt at her and Bliss felt herself pushed out of the glom and back into the real world, shaking and struggling to breathe.
She was still in the motel parking lot; next to her a family was unloading their luggage from a minivan.
Who was that boy? What was that light? No time to think about that now. The glom had given her the answer she needed. It had shown her a Hound of Hell. She had spied the address of the butcher shop on a paper bag. She would go there immediately to find the hound. She would follow wherever it led. And if she discovered Hell, well, she had already been there once.
The Trials
PART TWO
To murder my love is a crime But will you still love A man out of time
Elvis Costello, "Man Out Of Time"
The Trials
It was the dawn before the trials. He crept back into the room through the hole he'd made in the wall. The masters didn't know he could do that. Escape. Push things around with his mind. Create a space where there wasn't any. They didn't know that he could travel outside the dens, that once he had even gotten all the way out to the first circle, as far as the borderlands, before turning back. The masters locked them in at night, steel meeting steel with a heavy clang. It didn't matter. He could go anywhere he wanted. But there were the others to think about, and he couldn't leave them behind.
The next day would mark him as the finest warrior of the pack. If he succeeded in besting his opponent, he would call the pack his own. He would be alpha. He had prepared for this all his short life.
All around, he could hear the sounds of his brothers sleeping next to him: their steady breathing, Rafe's gentle snore, Edon's nose whistle, Mac's quiet whimpers. He looked up at the ceiling, feeling ill. It was hot in the room. He couldn't sleep, thinking about the next day and what it would bring.
The next day began the same as any other, with rations at the commons, a plain, thick gruel that tasted and felt like lead. Fuel. He barely touched his plate; he saw his youngest brother eyeing it and pushed it toward him. There was never enough; the masters kept them fed but not satiated - they liked them lean, hungry, all the better for fighting. He watched Mac finish the rest.
Nerves? Edon asked.
He shrugged. Maybe.
You'll be good. Mac reassured him. They don't have anyone who can fight you. The youngest wolf had taken it upon himself to be his trainer, his coach. All the days leading up to this one, Mac had been on the sidelines, yelping, cheering him on, helping devise strategy, teaching him how to breathe when he had blood in his mouth, when all the muscles in his body were screaming for release, advising him how to push through the pain to victory.
They ate in silence and he watched.
Luck. Edon nosed him.
Ditto, Rafe added, doing the same.
He growled his thanks. This was it. This was what he had been waiting for. This was what he'd planned, what he'd trained to do. He would win and he would lead, or he would die.
The fight was short and brutal.
Over almost before it began.
He lay facedown in the arena, blood dripping into his eyes, blood pouring out of his wounds, blood everywhere on the sandy floor of the pit.
The blood was thick and he couldn't see. Why was he still alive? He should be dead. He had lost. He was beaten. He was no alpha.
This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen.
It was quiet in the arena. He was alone, he was sure. He was afraid to move. What if they thought he was dead? What if someone speared him with a lance if he turned over? He lay still, tasting his blood, metal and salt on his tongue. His body would heal, but for now he was in shock.
During the battle he had heard the jeers of the crowd, felt the disappointment of his den-mates, seen the fear in his brothers' eyes. They couldn't bear to watch. His talent had forsaken him. He couldn't use it. He floundered from the beginning and he knew it was the end. His end.
Why was he still alive?
Romulus raised his thumb, someone answered. He hadn't realized anyone could hear him.
It was tradition to wait at the end of a battle for the general's approval before the winner unleashed the death blow. In all the years, in all the centuries of the pit, no one had ever been spared. Not one. The crowd lusted for death, and death was given to them. He thought death would be sweet compared with what he was feeling now.
But Romulus had raised his thumb. He had let him live.
Don't try to move. You'll only feel worse.
He felt a soft tongue on his brow, mopping up the blood, wiping off the salt and the crust and the grit and the sand that had embedded in his skin.
He turned over and finally he was able to open his eyes. There was a wolf kneeling in front of him, cleaning his wounds. He recognized her. She was from his den. A plain brown wolf with kind blue eyes.
Tala.
Yes.
Tala. She was just one more cub in the litter. He did not remember seeing her at the usual watering holes where they gathered. What passed for courtship among their kind was spontaneous, physical, instant. Wolves were able to breed until they were turned, but their offspring was not theirs to raise; cubs were turned over to the masters and assigned to a den. Once they were hounds, they were infertile, soulless killing machines. When it was clear that he would be the one most likely to lead the pack, there had been many who'd wanted to share his bed, but he had resisted. He would breed no cubs for the masters' kennels. He would not give them more wolves to turn. He had succumbed to temptation only once and had vowed never to do so again.
Tala continued to clean his wounds and she pushed him to his feet. She was surprisingly strong for how small she was.
Thank you.
She nodded.
He was shaking from fear, he realized; he was still so afraid. What if the masters returned? What if they took him away? He thought of everything he and Marrok had planned - if he was killed, it would all be for nothing.
He cringed at the sound of footsteps, but Tala shook her head.
They're not coming back. Not yet.
What's going to happen to me?
Nothing. Do not worry. I won't let anything happen to you, I am here.
He wanted to believe her. He knew she was lying to make him feel better. He would be killed, tossed into the Black Fire, left to burn.
But what if he was allowed to live? What then? How could he face his den? His brothers? After this colossal failure? Where would he rank in the pack now?
The taste of defeat was new, unexpected, raw.
How could this happen? He anguished.
You let her win.
She knew.
He did not argue.
The masters did not come that day; he was not speared and thrown into the fire. Tala helped him back to their den. Life went on as usual, until their escape.
He wouldn't fall in love with Tala until they were on the other side, until they were free. But later he thought that maybe he had loved her even before. That day in the arena, when he had been defeated for the first time, when he was near death, when she had brought him back to life.