Blood Fever: The watchers (26 page)

“Mm-hm,” he grunted, continuing to give me a critical eye.

I gave him a critical eye right back. He carried a shepherd’s crook and a thin, yellow stick that I assumed was some sort of cattle prod. I wouldn’t let him get close enough for me to find out.

He twitched his head. “Well, girl? You don’t get up off that cold rock, you’ll catch your death.”

Catch my death.
His ominous words galvanized me. I readied
for his attack, and let the star I held in my right hand slide between my fingertips.

He curled his lip. “You come to kill me?”

“What?” I inched sideways and felt the tug of my uniform as it snagged on rock. “No.”

He pointed at the stars I gripped in my left hand. “Then why you got those? You gonna kill me, just get it over with. Or don’t. It’s time for tea.”

It was the weirdest, most normal thing I could imagine hearing. But then his eyes widened, and suddenly he looked like a crazy man.

Here it came. His attack. I braced.

“Stop there,” I warned.

But he didn’t listen. He leapt.

M
y arm shot up. Pebbles rained down on me. Mei-Ling, getting into position on the hillside above. She wouldn’t let me down.

“Back!” he shouted, bounding forward again.

“
You
get back, old man.” I took aim, my eyes zeroing in on his throat.

But then I realized he wasn’t looking at me. He wasn’t attacking
me
. Instead, he lurched past, shoving me aside. He waved that yellow stick, shouting again. “Get back.”

I spun. “Oh God,” I yelped. A Draug.
Close.
“What the…? Crap!” I skittered back, scraping my arm along the rock. “Where’d that—”

“Fool thing.” He clouted the Draug on its head, then jabbed it with his prod. “Get back.” There was an electrical
zzt
sound followed by the stink of burnt flesh.

The Draug hunched and held its head, and the keeper prodded it all the way back into its pen.

I could only gape at the man as he returned. “Aren’t you afraid?”

He gave me a funny look. “Of that thing?”

“Yes, of that thing.” I’d almost been killed by such a thing twice now. Had known several girls who
had
been killed.

He shoved his cattle prod between his belt and waistband. “It don’t scare me.”

My eyes shot to the pen. “But they could kill you.” They writhed madly now, riled up, sensing aberrations—a new human, unusual activity, singed flesh.

“So could you.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded. I guessed I
could
kill him. Probably pretty easily, especially if I could get that cattle prod out of the equation.

He sucked at his teeth and spat. “It’s just a dumb beast,” he told me, and it sounded like he meant his matter-of-fact tone to be reassuring. “Think of ’em like livestock. My father did this job, and his father before him. Probably
easier
than working livestock.”

He headed toward his stone hovel, and I hopped into step, catching up and following close. “How come they don’t kill you?”

“You got a lot of questions for a girl who’s nobody’s spy.”

I tried my best innocent smile. “It’s because…I’ve got a curious mind?”

He stopped at the front door and gave me a frank look. “Maybe that’s it.”

I repeated my question, rephrasing it. “So how come you’re safe with them, but they’d kill me?”

“How come this, how come that.” He went inside and pulled
a chain, lighting the room’s single hanging bulb. There was a small fireplace along the back wall, a cot in one corner, and a sink, ancient stove, and old-fashioned fridge in the other. Long cords dangled from a lone wall socket in what looked like a major electrical hazard. The place was dim and smelled musty and damp.

I did a quick scan, looking for a cleaver, or machete, or ax that he might bust out and use to slaughter me, but didn’t see any.

“Well? You gonna sit?” He filled a banged-up kettle with water and put it on the stove. “Or did those things in the castle whoop your bottom too hard?” He cackled at his own joke.

I ventured all the way in, pulling a three-legged stool from what I guessed was his dining table. “No, I can sit.”

“You’re not scared, are you?”

“Should I be?” It took no time for my eyes to adjust to the gloomy lighting, and I stared openly now.

He cackled again. “It’s why you’re alive. The Draug, they feed on fear.”

“And blood.” I made a little chuff of a laugh, as if to say
duh
.

But the old man didn’t like that much. His face hardened. “You’re not listening, girl.”

I hadn’t realized he was telling. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize. So…you’ll tell me why they don’t kill you?”

“They don’t kill me because I’m not afraid.”

“I don’t get it.”

He stopped what he was doing at the stove to turn and face me. “Draug drink blood, sure. They need it to live, like you need water. But what they
crave
is fear. Crave, like you crave meat or sugar or love. They’re creatures of fear. Fear makes them feel alive. They’ll cut you for your blood, but they kill you for your fear.”

His speech silenced me.

He put a chipped teacup in front of me, and it was surreal, seeing this formerly fine piece of china, decorated with tiny pink rosebuds, its rim tarnished a faint tinny color where it’d once been painted gold. “Drink,” he said. “Hope you like the goat blood.”

I stared in horror at the cup, and he cackled again, long and loud, ending in a racking cough. He cleared his throat and spat into the sink. “You’ll face down demons, holding naught but those wee Christmas stars, but you can’t take a joke.” He nodded toward the teacup. “That’s good tea, girl. Scottish breakfast. Drink up.”

I kept wary eyes on him as I picked up the cup. I was still trying to decide if the old man was simply eccentric or full-on insane.

But the warm cup stilled my trembling fingers and the tea did smell divine. I blew on it and took a sip. It was good, and it warmed something inside me that I hadn’t realized had been chilled. It gave me courage. “What are they, anyway? The Draug, I mean.”

He plopped down on a stool across from me. “They tried to be vampires. Didn’t make it.”

I pictured the creatures in my mind’s eye. They were in the shape of men, though I knew that many had been no more than boys. “No, I mean, how do they come to be? Did the vampires mess up? Did something go wrong in the change?”

He shrugged. “There’s a test. These are them what didn’t pass.”

I tried to make sense of his weird accent. “You mean like a written exam or a physical or something?”

“A test.
The
test. Boys go into the cave and they either come out Vampire or they come out the Draug.”

He’d said
the
cave, not
a
cave. It struck me who could tell me about this test and this cave. Carden. The need to save him was more urgent than ever, and it felt like this was somehow connected. “What happens in the cave?”

“Can’t say for sure.” He sipped his tea as casually as though we were discussing the weather.

I studied the old man, studied his features and his movements, wondering—as I did whenever I spotted a human—if this might’ve been some relative of Ronan’s. “What’s your name?”

He peered hard at me, looking bemused. “That’s something I don’t generally tell strangers.”

“I’m Drew. Well, Annelise Drew, but people call me Drew. So there. No longer a stranger.” I sipped my tea, trying hard to look as nonchalant as I’d made my voice sound.

He did that cackly laugh of his, only lower this time. “I’m Tom. And folk just call me Tom.”

Was this guy actually okay? Granted, he was a strange old dude and, wow, he smelled, but he didn’t strike me as a sociopathic killer. Which brought me back to square one: Who
was
the sociopathic killer?

What the hell…I figured I had nothing to lose and said, “So, Tom. I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything strange, have you?”

He looked at me like I was the nutter, not him.

“Okay,” I quickly amended. “I know there’s lots of strange stuff. But girls have been dying.” Something in his cheek twitched, and I sped up. “I know—that tends to happen a lot
around here. But there have been mysterious killings, too, stuff like bodies being drained, and nobody knows who’s doing it.”

He bristled. “Why would I know?”

“Because you seem like the type of gentleman who notices things,” I said, turning on the charm. I was rewarded with another cackle.

He nodded, looking decided about something. “Aye, and so I do see things. Like that new vampire who’s roaming about.”

A horrific thought sideswiped me.
Carden.
Carden was a new vampire.

I’d been with him during one of the killings, though. I knew he was innocent. Wasn’t he?

Still, I had to ask. “What does this new vampire look like?” I held my breath, waiting for the answer.

“Pale. Shifty. Like all the vampires look.”

“Please.” I’d aimed for exasperated, but my voice came out sounding helpless and lost. “Dark hair? Light hair?” After a moment’s hesitation, I added, “Kilt?”

He gave me a cockeyed look. “Kilt? Nah, not the kilted one. This one is smaller, with white hair.”

“White hair?” I hadn’t seen any white-haired vamps.

“Dead white.”

I sat forward on my stool, feeling electrified. “You mean he’s old? Or, rather, was older when he changed?”

Tom’s expression shuttered. “Teatime’s done. Talk’s done, too. You be off now. Feeding time. Gonna get messy around here real soon.”

I carried my cup to the sink. Before he could disappear out the door, I asked, “One more question?”

“Can I stop you?”

With a smile, I shook my head.

“Well, girl.” He rapped his staff impatiently in the dirt. “Spit it out.”

“What you just told me…If there really is a rogue vampire wandering around…” This man had seen the real killer—it could be the ultimate proof, clearing Carden for good. “Would you tell the vampires for me?”

“Already did.”

“H
e already did?” Mei-Ling looked at me in disbelief. We were half jogging, half running back to campus. Not only was it getting perilously close to class time, but we were also beginning to freak out about being so far off the path.

A small trail led down the hillside, to a narrow stretch of beach. I felt exposed on the foreign terrain and hoped to do a big chunk of our backtracking along the coastline. The stretch of navigable beach wouldn’t last forever, but a wall of rocks might shelter us from view.

“What do you mean the Draug keeper told the vampires Carden was innocent?”

I shot her a look. “Exactly what I said. He told the Directorate he’d seen the killer and it wasn’t Carden.” The beach flattened out, and I upped my pace. “We need to hustle. Can’t have you late for Dagursson.”

But being late wasn’t the biggest thing on my mind. I feared there’d be no stopping the Directorate. They didn’t care about
catching any killer—they just wanted Carden dead. Part of me was terrified they might’ve even killed him already. Though some other part believed I’d know instantly if he were gone.

Either way, I wanted, longed, to be closer to him. Being so far apart made me feel…off. Wrong.

And, realistically speaking, if I were to be caught now, it’d raise all kinds of alarms. It was no secret Carden and I had often been seen together. Me off-roading so blatantly would get both of us killed.

“Slow down a sec.” Mei-Ling held up her hand and stopped, bending and grasping her knees to catch her breath. “If they know he’s innocent”—she looked up at me, panting—“why haven’t they freed him?”

They didn’t free Carden because this was all a ploy—
Alcántara’s
ploy—to frame him. To see him killed. But why? An old grudge? Jealousy? And what did
I
have to do with it? But I was too afraid to say all that. Finally, I spoke all the truth that needed to be said. “All I know is that I have to get him out of there.”

Mei stood, and we set off again. “What now?”

We were still moving briskly, but not as fast as before, and it frustrated me. I wanted to race home. But seeing her hand clutching the stitch in her side, I forced myself to let up. I used the easier pace as an opportunity to think. “I guess we stick to the original plan, only instead of using me as bait to catch the Draug keeper, we’re going to lure a rogue vampire instead.”