Minutes to Midnight (3 page)

Something unimaginable killed Teresa and
took Brendi from school. I hadn't been there for him, and the guilt
of that weighed on me. The thing that attacked his ex-wife and
kidnapped his daughter had been a Changeling, created by Queen Maab
of Alfheim. Now Maab's crystallized head rested in a safe place in
New Orleans, and his daughter Brendi lived as a Faerie of
Alfheim.

Yeah…the guy had been through a lot. And I
planned on being there for him from now on.

THERE ARE NO SUCH THiNGS AS VAMPiRES

The shower eased a lot of
the stiffness, but to be honest, I dreamed about a hot soak in a
Jacuzzi somewhere. The aspirin helped with my headache. By the time
I washed away all the blood, the zombie goo, and the graveyard
dirt, I was feeling…
okay
.

My stomach growled as I stepped out of the
bathroom just ahead of an outpouring of trapped steam. The aromatic
smell of bacon and fresh coffee set my digestive noisemaker off at
a much higher volume but I did take the stairs at a much slower
pace than usual. Mike sat at the table, an empty plate and cup of
coffee in front of him. Bacon, cheese-and-broccoli quiche,
pan-fried potatoes, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a bowl of
cut-up fresh fruit covered the counter. I piled my plate with all
of it, poured a huge glass of OJ, and sat down beside him.

Unfortunately, eating wasn't really on
Mike's mind as he shoved a folded newspaper under my nose.
"Look."

I did. I really didn't have a choice.

And who could miss the headline?

FOUR BODIES MUTILATED IN SIX NIGHTS.

I dropped my fork and took the paper from
him. "Is this the first we've heard of these?"

"Yeah. I called Illiana over
at the
Savannah Morning
News
. Apparently they've been sitting on it
by order of the mayor. But last night's bodies…" He nodded at the
paper in my hands. "Just read."

I knew my appetite would pretty much take a
dive the moment I sunk deeper into this. And…I was right.

Damn.

Last night's bodies brought
the count to four because these two bodies were kids. Five and
seven years old. Daughters of a local family, from what I managed
to read as anger seethed in the pit of my stomach. The kids were in
the backyard of their townhouse—their home being one historic town
square over from our own in Madison Square, set behind the
DeSoto Hilton
—when the
mother heard the children's screams. The description given in the
article didn't fit any of what Mike and I suspected happened. "She
saw several men with knives dragging her kids off their swing
set?"

"That's the bubblegum version." Mike
finished his orange juice. "They're not going to print anything
about zombies."

"Are we sure it's the same things that
attacked us last night?"

"The father claims he shot at them, but he
didn't know if he hit them or not. By the time the police showed
up, a couple of kids walking down Franklin had found the kid's
bodies, drained of blood I might add—I got that from Illiana, not
in the article—near a dumpster." Mike rubbed at his chin. "I'm not
sure, but the last time I shot at normal humans, they went down.
They didn't keep going. That's if the father hit them with his
gun."

"Fuck…you don't think if they'd have carried
me off—"

"They'd have sucked your blood and eaten you
and we'd be reading about a club kid found in the cemetery."

I started to make a comment, then paused.
"Club kid? I do not look like a club kid." Another pause as I tried
to process that. "I'm not even sure I know what that is." I tossed
the paper to the side of the table.

No bacon goodness for me—not after reading
that and putting those kids together with the nastiness that nearly
took me out last night. Instead, I stabbed at a slice of melon and
ate it off my fork as I rose and grabbed a cup from the sink
drainer. Gore demanded coffee.

Black.

"You looked at yourself since moving here?"
Mike held his cup up and I refilled it as well. That drained the
carafe, so I gestured to the coffee maker, silently asking whether
I should make another pot. Mike shook his head.

"I see myself in the mirror once a morning."
I set the empty carafe in the sink and ran water into it. "It's the
same face I've always looked at."

"With that haircut?" He gave me an
appraising look. "I remember the ponytail-and-suit-jacket Dags from
Atlanta. This short-haired, denim- or leather-wearing version is a
bit different."

I ignored him. Yeah, I'd drastically changed
the outer me in hopes of somehow remolding the inner person. Did it
work?

Not really. I was still a man in search of a
purpose, running from a hazy past….

"What's not sitting right with me is the
drinking blood part," Mike said, switching subjects. He did that a
lot, and it usually gave me a headache. "All the information I've
gleaned about zombies is they go after brains. But none of the
reports I got from Illiana—which you now owe her a dinner for, by
the way—mentions missing brains. Just missing blood—"

"Mike!" I set my coffee cup
down hard on the table. The black liquid inside sloshed out and ran
down the sides. "
Shutthefuckup
. Come on man, it's too
damn early for this."

He was quiet but I
could
hear
him
grin. The part about taking Illiana out for dinner wasn't all that
bad. She was cute and only a year older than me. We met a week
after I got out of the hospital. I'd been sitting on what the
locals call the "Forrest Gump bench" (I had no idea) and she sat
down beside me, waiting on a bus. She said I had that 'lost'
look.

I still don't know if that was a good
comment or a bad one. But she took pity on me, took me to an
excellent local diner, and we had a nice long breakfast. Illiana
Goldwater. Reporter and fact checker extraordinaire. According to
Illy, the paper was a small enough operation that doing double duty
and sometimes triple kept the lights on. The economy, plus the
electronic media explosion, hadn't helped the paper's sales. Illy's
interest in establishing an online presence as a reporter came just
in time and it landed her a job.

We snatched a quick visit, a meal, and a
movie when we could. But to be honest, I really wasn't looking to
get my feet wet in the dating pool just yet, and to make myself
sound like an even worse asshole, I hadn't let Illy in on that
fact, either. Because to do that meant telling her a little bit
more about myself than I wanted to.

See…I was missing an entire
year of my life. Friends told my they were rewritten in the
Grimoire
, stolen by an
Angel. Reads like bad pulp fiction, huh? Too bad it's true. A lot
happened during that year—including the
Grimoire
. I just couldn't remember any
of it.

After defeating Maab and her
Changeling, Mike had made a wish granted to him by Maab and created
a page for the
Grimoire
complete with my lost memories. The catch to it was that it
had
all
of my lost
memories, even those from my childhood when my mother
disappeared.

Those were memories I wasn't ready to see
yet. Why? I didn't know. But the thought of bringing them back and
somehow changing the me now into the me that was—it just wasn't
what I wanted. So I buried them in the back yard and the moment I
was done…I saw my mother. Or maybe…someone I believed was once my
mother.

Mike was watching me. "So work or class?"
He'd dropped his wondering about the zombies and concentrated on me
again.

"Yes." I stretched and winced, and found it
odd once again why I didn't have a bite mark on me from the zombie
but I had—

"Sshh…just relax, Guardian. It's not your
time to die. I haven't even started with you yet."

I froze.
That
…that's what I'd heard someone say
before I passed out. I didn't remember it until that moment. There
had been cold hands, too. Touching my face. And lips brushing my
neck…

I bolted out of the kitchen and ran to the
downstairs half-bath under the stairs, which consisted of a toilet,
sink, and mirror. I leaned in and turned my head at the same time
as I tried to get a good look at my neck.

Mike appeared in the reflection. "What's
wrong with you?"

"Do you see anything on my neck?" I turned
to him and tried to tilt up to compensate for his height. "Did you
see anything last night when you found me?"

"No." Mike's right brow arched, and he
reached out and gripped my jaw and the opposing shoulder. "I don't
see anything. Why? Did it get you there, too?"

"No…" I pulled back and
looked in the mirror. Her voice echoed in my ears. The more I
thought about her, the more I remembered. "I think I was saved by
something else, Mike.
Someone
else."

"Someone else—as in, we weren't alone with
the zombies last night?"

"Right." I stepped back and threaded my way
between Mike and the door frame, then wound back to the kitchen. I
told him what I'd heard and felt before I blacked out. I sat back
down and he stood behind his chair.

I finally attacked
all
of my breakfast. A
growing man's stomach trumps all sensitivities, it seems. He
grabbed hold of the back of the chair and braced himself as he
leaned forward, watching me. "You're sure that's what you
heard?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure. And I don't think she
was human."

"Then what was she?" A grin
pulled at his mouth. "The way you were looking at your neck—don't
tell me you think a vampire bit you?" Laughter broke free. Not the
crazy kind of laughter, but more of the
you're shittin' me
kind.
"Dags…vampires?"

"You believe in zombies, Fetches, lemures,
and all manner of oogie stuff," I protested around a mouthful of
potatoes. "You know about Revenants. Why the disbelief?"

"Because I've been here longer than you and
I haven't bumped into a Revenant the entire time. And what would
one of those things be doing in the cemetery at night? That's just
so…cliche…" He continued laughing as he left the kitchen. "Finish
up and put the dishes in the washer, and I'll make sure no sparkly
undead get in."

I didn't want to ruin his
little laugh-fest with facts. Corrections, really. First of all,
vampires were not reanimated corpses. Not in the zombie sense. They
were in fact humans who shared their bodies—
bonded with
, for a better tern—with
spirits known as First Born from the Abysmal Plane. Laymen would
call the place Hell, so they'd think of a bonded human as a
demon-possessed human. In truth, the Abysmal was the yang to the
yin in the planes. The opposite was the Ethereal Plane, or Heaven.
Two halves that encircled the universe.

How did I know this?

Because one of my closest friends was a
vampire. They called their combined creation Revenants. His host's
name—the human—was Jason. And his First Born, the creature that
shared its power and long life with Jason, went by the name
Mephistopheles. They were one, and they were separate.

I hadn't told Mike about Mephistopheles, or
Jason. In fact, the only person I'd really referenced was Nona. I'd
come to Savannah for a sort of do-over on the surface. But in
truth…I was looking for me, and allowing time to heal wounds that
one day would give strength to what was coming.

Not to mention all my friends had been
threatened by an Angel named Gabriel—the one that removed the year
of my life. She promised me that if I didn't distance myself from
all of them, she would kill them, one by one.

Starting with Nona's daughter, Zoë.
Something inside of me didn't want Zoë harmed. I didn't want anyone
to hurt because of me. And because it was obvious my presence alone
did enough emotional damage to Zoë, leaving Atlanta seemed the
right thing to do.

My memories were fine until after I'd been
marked by the Cruorem. Then it was like fast forward and I was
surrounded by Revenants, witches, a Wraith, and a society created
to watch and if need be, direct creatures from the outer
planes.

Creatures like me.

They said Zoë and I were lovers. But I
just…couldn't…remember…

"Well, whatever it was," Mike was saying,
"it knew you were a Guardian, and it might have saved your life. No
idea who?"

I shook my head. "No. And that scares me
more than the walking undead."