A Fall of Silver (10 page)

However, t
he set expression on Kethan’s face indicated that no good would come of arguing. The sharp metallic taste of bitterness filled her mouth. How correct she’d been about the uselessness of negotiations. Someone always got what he wanted and the other person lost.

But at the moment,
finding Kathy alive was more important than winning. She yanked off the helmet and threw it onto a bench. It clacked with the muted sound of plastic against wood before rolling over like a severed head. Just before it fell to the floor, it stopped, wavering on the edge of the seat. The neck opening faced her, the void inside looked as dark and empty as a grave.

She
shivered, suddenly superstitious, almost glad to have Kethan’s heavy grip on her wrist. “Let’s go then, in the car. Stay here, Theresa. You’ve got my number. Call me if she gets back before we do.”

At least he
didn’t gloat over his victory. Kethan’s face remained impassive, almost worried, with his brows compressed into a V above his tired eyes.

Theresa threw them a set of keys and
mumbled a litany of safe driving rules. Use the seat belts. Drive slowly. Obey the stop signs. Still talking, she followed them outside and pointed at her car.

“I know what stop signs are for,” Quicksilver interrupted. “I’ve had my driver’s license for years.
Really. I can do this.”

“I’ll
drive.” He shouldered her away from the driver’s door and took the keys from her hand.

“Good.” Theresa nodded.

“Nice. I thought you were my friend,” Quicksilver complained.

“I am
,” Theresa said. “That’s why I’m relieved Kethan is driving.”

Before she
could think of a suitable response, Kethan opened the driver’s door and slid into the seat.

Negotiation
s over.

Theresa’s car was an unremarkable, ancient four-door
sedan with peeling blue paint and room for at least six well-fed adults. Quicksilver climbed inside and groped around for a minute before finding the seat belt. She clipped it over her hips, feeling diminutive and almost lost at her end of the wide bench seat.

There was so much room that i
f she’d been sleepy, she could have swung her feet up on the seat. Her toes would have rested comfortably against Kethan’s hip. She could imagine his warmth easing into her soles and up her calves, soothing the coldness that seemed to fill her with ice. Unfortunately, his preoccupied air made him seem unapproachable and distant as he swung the vehicle out of the narrow parking lot behind the orphanage.

C
older and stiff, she rubbed her palms against her jeans. She missed the physical proximity of her bike. Kethan’s knees on either side of her and his hands on her waist had made her feel warm despite the cutting chill of the night air.

Maybe it was a good thing they were a continent apart in Theresa’s car.

“It’ll be morning soon.” She gazed out the window. The sky was dark, the breeze sharp with an icy edge, and the air inside the car smelled musty and stale in comparison. “Where’s their lair? Do you know? Jason’ll take her there if he’s not finished with her. If she’s not already dead.”

“She’s not dead.
Martyn would never allow it.”

“If he’s got control.
He didn’t seem like he had a very good grip on anything except maybe his dic—” She cut herself off, feeling a hot flush spill over her face. She couldn’t forget that he’d been a priest. He already held a low opinion of her. There was no need to lower it further.

“Which means he
’ll be more likely to exert his will over Jason.” He commented casually as if he didn’t notice her foul language. He lowered his window and rested his elbow on the sill. “It’s critical for Sutton to make sure he’s obeyed, or he’ll lose control of the clan. They’ll kill him.”

“
Then if we’re lucky, maybe he’ll kill Jason, first. That would be effective to consolidate his leadership, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but it would also reduce his clan
. There are few enough as it is.”

Her heart fluttered
with sudden happiness at the thought of wiping out the vampires. Life would be normal and all the children would be safe. Her anger would vanish, and she’d finally be free…wouldn’t she? A curl of unease circled her chest, squeezing the breath out of her lungs.

Will I
ever really be free of the past?

“How many are there?”
she asked, breathless and desperate to sound casual, normal. She clasped her hands in her lap, knuckles turning white as she tried to clear her mind.

Relax. You can do this. You can be normal.

“I don’t know. Perhaps fifty.”

“Fifty!
That many?” She couldn’t handle fifty. Not all at once. Her fingers tightened.

“Yes
, but this clan is small for a group that controls the east coast from Canada to Florida. And we don’t want it to get any larger.”

“Well, at last.
Something we can agree on.” She couldn’t help smiling as she straightened. That meant they were spread thinly. There was hope that she could terminate them, once and for all. “If you don’t know where they hide, how do you contact them?”

“It’s complicated.”
He turned the car down a street that ran parallel to the road leading to the orphanage. “Martyn doesn’t like modern technology—a lot of them don’t. It was a challenge to communicate until we persuaded one of the younger ones to carry word back to him. A few of the newly transformed carry cell phones, although Martyn won’t allow them into the lair. Too many episodes of ‘Police Files’, I guess. He’s paranoid the phones can be tracked.”

“
Interesting thought.” A GPS tracking device. Could she plant one on a vampire and find all of them? Destroy them all during the day while they slept?

It would be so
easy….
If she knew a little more about cell phones. Could anyone track them or only the police or government?

Motorcycles and whips were simple
to understand, but electronics…. She didn’t even own a computer, although she occasionally used one in the library to keep up with the latest trends in self-defense.

She just didn’t trust something as uncontrolled as the Internet
and was paranoid about leaving a trail behind her that the undead could use against her.

“
Does she ever go to Renardos?” he asked, changing the subject.

The trendy bistro and bar
was an enchanted forest of twinkling lights threaded through delicate, artfully twisted trees. The ambiance was meant to give patrons the feeling of partying between the ancient trunks of a magical forest, but the cartoon cuteness annoyed Quicksilver so much she avoided it.

“She was nearly killed.
She ought to have been too afraid to go anywhere except home.” Her hands gripped the door handle. She willed the car to go faster.

Would an
enchanted forest appeal to seventeen year old girl? She grudgingly and silently admitted that Kethan might be right on that score. Kathy would probably love it.

“
But did she realize she was in danger? Was she afraid?”

“Yes
—no, I don’t know.” Kathy had been dazed and staring into Jason’s eyes when Quicksilver killed Tyler.

T
here had been no spurting blood, no gore to scare her. Tyler’s body had disintegrated into a pile of ash, powdering the trash littering the alley like a cloud of baby talc. She remembered the blank look on Kathy’s face when she told her to go home.

There had been no fear, just surprise and annoyance at th
e disappearance of her glamorous boyfriend. “No, she didn’t understand what was going on. Not really. But Renardos is closed by now.”

“There’s a retro diner next
door that’s open all night.”

“
Then go there.”

A few minutes later
, they parked in front of the diner. The building was shaped like an old aluminum-skinned travel trailer and the sight of the aerodynamically-rounded contours hit her with the memories of the vacations her family used to take before they split up. They’d spent her childhood camping in the southwest at archaeological digs, scrabbling through gritty, sand-like dirt under a sun so bright even the sky looked bleached. They’d never found anything of note, only a few shards of pottery or a handful of beads, but they seemed happy with whatever they discovered. It sounded so boring and yet she’d loved it. She adored watching the expressions of incandescent awe flare to life on her parents’ faces when they found something—anything—even old bottle caps.

Sometimes when she heard a certain low
, metallic clink, she remembered the wind chime her mother had strung up, made with twine and ancient bottle caps. The metal disks tinkled softly in the evening breezes as they cooked hotdogs over a small campfire. As the smoke swirled around them and sparks twinkled like fireflies, her parents told stories about the lives of the ancient people who left behind few traces except a few broken bowls.

The chimes hung for years in the doorway of their
trailer and finally in her bedroom window at her grandmother’s house, after her parents left her there to pursue their archeological dreams in Mexico.

Kethan held the
diner’s door open. His wide palm rested in the center of her back warming her skin through her jacket as he ushered her inside. She blinked under the over-bright fluorescent lights.

S
hiny, red leatherette cushioned booths and stools provided seating for the chrome tables and counter, gleaming under the dazzling lights. Several groups of flashily dressed kids filled the booths lining the wall to their left. The teenagers chattered and laughed, too wrapped up in each other to pay attention to Kethan and Quicksilver.

Then, one of the girls looked up. Her eyes lingered on Kethan
. She nudged the girl next to her with her elbow. The two girls smothered their nervous giggles behind fluttering hands as they glanced away and then looked back again with lingering stares.

Their glances reminded
Quicksilver again of his attractiveness. A flash of something hot flared inside her.
Irritation,
she decided, relieved that he didn’t seem to notice anything.

He swung his head from one side to the othe
r, scanning the room. “She’s not here.” He touched her shoulder.

“How do you know?
You don’t even know what she looks like.”

He stepped aside and swept his arm toward the room.
“There are no girls here alone or with a man. Jason’s not here.”

She
nodded slowly. That was not good news. If Kathy were here, at least she’d be safe.

“What does she look like?”
Kethan asked.

“Typical seven
teen-year-old. Brown hair, brown eyes. Kind of a round face. I don’t know—just a regular kid. No tattoos or piercings. No scars.” Her hand rose involuntarily, touching the scars on her throat before she realized it and forced her hand to drop.

His
sharp eyes noticed the movement and focused on her neck. She turned away, not trying to hide the ugly white scars so much as removing them from his notice.

As if oblivious to her tension,
he turned to walk to the counter. Leaning his elbows against the smooth surface, he waited as if he had all the time in the world.

The
waitress turned to him like a flower toward the sun.

H
e asked, “Have you seen a young girl during the last hour or so? Brown haired, about seventeen? Probably alone or with a blond man.”

“Are you kidding?
Renardos closes at three. We’re loaded with kids, then.”

He grinned
. “What a nightmare.”

“You’ve got that right
! Bunch of drunks. Or high. I had one girl in here tonight, threw up all over the counter. The whole place reeked, almost made me lose it myself. I can’t stand that smell. And then they expect me to clean it up and still get everyone’s orders out while they’re hot.”

“I’d have lost it.”

“Yeah, well, you get used to it.” She shrugged as she brought her right hand up to hover over the top button of her blouse, unconsciously—or consciously—drawing attention to her décolleté. “When you’re the only place open within a block of a place like Renardos, it happens. They’re supposed to card ‘em, but I swear these kids look younger and younger, even with all their makeup, tats and jewelry.”

“This girl
—she didn’t have any makeup or jewelry. Just brown hair and eyes.” He leaned toward her.

“Your daughter?”
Her eyes caught Quicksilver’s gaze for a few seconds before sliding back to Kethan’s face without any acknowledgement.

“No.
She’s missing from the children’s home,” he said.

“Oh, one of th
em. No, I didn’t see any girl in here alone.”

“She might have been with a friend
.” Quicksilver inserted herself into the conversation. Her voice rose sharply. “A blond boy. About nineteen.”