Companions of the Night (11 page)

T
HEY PULLED INTO
a car dealership on the outskirts of Rochester. The place was closed, but the parking lot was well lit. No doubt to keep people from doing exactly what Ethan was planning on doing.

"We already have a car," Kerry said miserably. "Why do you need another one?"

"I don't want this one noticed anywhere near the Bergen Swamp."

What was worse was knowing he was right. Every step of the way, he kept making decisions that were right, and she kept getting pulled further and further into the wrong. What would Dad say if he knew what she was doing? Dad had made her take a ring she'd found on the running track at school to campus security—that was how honest he was. How would he react to her stealing a car?
Let me find out,
she prayed She was willing to face anything if she could only know that she'd find Dad and Ian alive on the other side of it.

Ethan made her get out in front of the big door marked
SERVICE DEPT
.

"You should turn off the headlights, shouldn't you?" she suggested. "So we'll be less obvious?"

"I want to be obvious. Here, lean on the hood, pretend to fill this out." He handed her a form he'd gotten from a metal container by the door.

"What are we doing?" she asked as he reached under the driver's seat and pulled out a flannel-wrapped package about the size of an envelope but a little thicker. "And what's that?"

"
These
are various-size lock picks. And
we
are using the overnight drop-off service, in case the police drive by."

Kerry leaned on the hood and stared at the form. Ethan was looking into the parked cars. "If these cars are broken and need to be fixed," she asked, "how do we know the one we'll take won't have its engine fall out halfway there?"

"Well, of course we can't be sure," Ethan replied as he crouched down on the far side of a blue Shadow, presumably to fiddle with the lock, "though I do believe the manufacturer generally prefers the term
serviced
to
fixed.
And I don't think a car is ever technically referred to as
broken.
"

"Whatever," Kerry grumbled.

He opened the door, and his voice became muffled as he leaned to do something with the steering column. "In this particular case, the car has just over a thousand miles, so it probably isn't
broken
at all; it's in for its thousand-mile warranty check. And—special bonus at no extra cost—it's blue."

"Don't tell me, blue is your favorite color." The Skylark was blue, too, though a darker shade.

"Blue is a wonderfully nondescript color for a car," Ethan said. "Nobody notices a blue car." The Shadow's engine rumbled to life.

"Handy trick," Kerry said. "Where did you learn so much about cars?"

"Ah, it's something they teach us in vampire school." Before she could think of a suitable reply, Ethan had stashed his breaking-and-entry tools in his pocket. "Get in," he told her.

While she did, he doused the lights on the Skylark and transferred Regina's quilt-wrapped body to the backseat of the Shadow. He'd also gotten the denim jacket from Regina's car, probably while Kerry was busy torching Regina's house.

"Leftovers?" she asked as Ethan tossed it into the Shadow's backseat. "From one of Regina's victims?"

"Possibly." Ethan shrugged. "I certainly didn't know all of Regina's business. It's history now."

At least that's over,
she thought once the evidence was safely in the new car. But the instant he slammed the back door, Kerry saw a black-and-white police car turn into the parking lot.
I'm going to get killed,
she thought.
Either Ethan's going to rip my throat out so I can't tell them anything, or we'll crash and burn during a high-speed chase, or the police will open fire....

But far from seeming perturbed, Ethan walked slowly around the front of their newly acquired car to the passenger side, where he rapped his knuckles on her window.

Incredulous, she rolled it down.

"Do you have the form?" he asked.

"I didn't really fill it out," she whispered.

"I should hope not." He took it from her and stood there as though checking what she'd written then he dropped it into the mail-slot-like opening in the service department's door.

The police car was cruising the lot, shining a light in the salesroom.

Still not hurrying, Ethan got into the car beside her. "How about stopping for an ice cream?" he asked.

"You're not taking this seriously enough," she told him, even though the police showed no inclination thus far to arrest them or to open fire.

"But I am. We still have too much time. I don't want to go to the swamp until as late as possible, to lessen our chances of being seen." Ethan pulled out of the parking lot. "Don't look back," he warned. "I'm watching." After a few moments, he said, "They're not following us."

Kerry put her hands over her face. "I can't stand this."

"Nonsense," he told her. "You're a natural."

Which was not an encouraging thought.

"Why are we headed back toward Rochester?" Kerry asked.

"More traffic this way, just in case we
were
followed. Besides, I promised you ice cream."

"This is
not
a date."

He just laughed.

They stopped at a restaurant, where he insisted on buying her a sundae. After looking at the menu as though unable to make up his own mind, he finally told the waitress, "I'll just have a decaf." He smiled charmingly.

"Afraid of staying up all night?" Kerry asked.

He turned the smile on her. "Tell me about school," he said instead of answering.

"Why?"

"What else are we going to talk about in here? What éelectives are you taking? What do you hope for out of life?"

"Oh no." She set down her glass of water so firmly the water sloshed over the rim and onto her hand. "I'm not going to have you sit there and judge me and decide if my life is worthwhile."

"All right, then," he said equably. "Have you seen any good movies lately?"

She glared at him warily, wondering why he wanted to know, how he could possibly use this information against her.

The sundae came and once she smelled the hot fudge, she found that beyond all reason she was hungry after all.
How can I be hungry when I don't even know if my family is still alive?
she chided herself.
When I don't know whether I'll still be alive by the end of the night?
But it seemed silly to go hungry until then, just to spite Ethan.

Meanwhile, Ethan carried the conversation by himself, chattering about movies and TV and books and current events. He poured sugar and cream in his coffee, occasionally ran his finger around the rim or otherwise played with it but never drank a sip.

"Can we go?" she finally asked, as a group of bizarrely dressed young people came in, loud and laughing and obviously regulars.

"It's the
Rocky Horror Picture Show
contingent," Ethan said brightly. It was a relief for Kerry to learn they were apparently in costume and didn't normally dress that way, considering the makeup that some of them were wearing, boys as well as girls. Two or three had toilet paper draped over their shoulders. It wasn't a relief that a couple of them waved and Ethan waved back.

"Friends of yours?" she asked.

"Not the way you mean," he answered. "Have you ever been..." He let the question drift off and gave her one of those evaluating looks. "No, I don't suppose you have. You really should consider having some fun once in a while."

"How dare you—"

But at least he was getting up, paying, leaving.

She followed, scowling at the group of teenagers, unable to think of any way to warn them away from Ethan.

Outside, it was even colder than she had remembered, and her breath came out frostily. Apparently by this time Ethan had enough confidence that she wouldn't lock him out that he let her get in the car in the normal way. He even held the door for her. Then again, she remembered, he had his lock picks in his pocket.

"Geez, Kerry," he said, still in his just-an-average-guy-out-on-a-date mode, "you've really got to develop your conversational skills."

Of all the nerve. "If you talked about something important—," she started.

"We can talk about important things now that we're alone," he said, starting the car. "What shall we discuss?"

"The possibility of Regina's body getting blood all over the backseat of this car."

From infuriatingly cheerful, Ethan went straight into angry. "First of all," he said, "so what? Second, dead bodies don't bleed: it's the beating of the heart that causes blood to move through veins and arteries." Considering the way he generally kept his voice soft and even and unemotional, she was stunned by his vehemence, though she had no idea what he was so vehement about. "And third, there's no blood left in Regina's body anyway."

"What are you saying?" she asked. Suddenly the ice cream sundae seemed to collect in the pit of her stomach like a solid lump. "You drank from her?" she whispered.

"No." Ethan gave her a look that indicated he was as horrified as she. "No," he repeated.

"Vampires can't drink each other's blood?" she asked.

"Of course they can drink each other's blood," he said. "How do you think—" He cut himself off. "But she was dead That'd be like ..."

"Never mind," she told him. By the look on his face, she didn't want to hear whatever analogy he came up with.

"It would be worse than drinking an animal's blood."

"Vampires don't drink animal blood?"

He shook his head.

She guessed. "Or ... collected blood from the Red Cross?"

If the idea of drinking someone's blood did awful things to her stomach, apparently the suggestions she was making were doing the same things to his.

He pulled off the side of the road. Alarmed, Kerry backed up against the door, but he put his hands out in a conciliatory gesture. "I only want to explain," he said. "It's important you understand." He paused as though trying to organize his thoughts. Obviously this was something vampires didn't need to discuss between themselves, and just as obviously it wasn't something they normally shared with humans. Ethan was speaking hesitantly, having a hard time putting this into words. "It's not just the nourishment from the blood itself. There's..." He ran his hands through his hair, a nervous gesture she hadn't seen from him before. As though he realized what he was doing and wanted to hide this sign of strain, he rested his elbows on the steering wheel, not looking directly at her anymore, except to steal quick glances. He had his hands together, the fingers steepled, which almost looked like praying. Perhaps he had the same thought, for he shifted position, clasping his fingers together. "There's a physical and mental bond, a sharing of ... the
spirit,
for lack of a better word...."

Kerry took in a deep breath. "I think I've heard this line from the boy who took me to the harvest dance."

Ethan laughed with what sounded like genuine amusement, which was disconcerting because she hadn't meant to be funny. "There
is
a similarity." He looked at her appraisingly, as though trying to gauge how experienced she was.

She folded her arms in front of her chest, determined to keep him wondering, before she realized that her gesture had probably told all.

Ethan said, "Sometimes, not always—but with the right partner—vampires mix the two acts: sex and the drinking of blood Either of itself is ... very pleasurable, but the combination..."

Parked on the side of a dark road, Kerry didn't like the direction this was taking, even though Ethan was showing no inclination to demonstrate. She said, "I'm sure praying mantises and black widow spiders feel the same."

"Difficult to say." Ethan was close to laughing again, this time
at
her, she was sure. "But it
is
pleasurable for both parties." He shrugged. "Or it
can
be. As with humans, there are always those who take their enjoyment from violence."

"You're saying it's pleasurable because you're a vampire," Kerry said "If another vampire drinks your blood, you don't die. I think that makes a pretty significant difference."

For some reason that startled him. Then he said, "Kerry, a vampire doesn't kill every time he feeds."

She had no idea whether to believe that.

"A vampire needs to take ... a little bit more than your Red Cross does during a blood donation, not much more than a pint. It leaves the human slightly lightheaded, a bit weak. But exhilarated. Even without the sex."

Kerry was skeptical.

"How many vampires do you think there are?" he asked.

That seemed a trap. "I have no idea."

"Good answer." Again the light laugh, which might or might not have been sincere. "But consider: one vampire, one unexplained death per night, how long would it take for people to get suspicious?"

He had a point. She said, "Are you trying to tell me you've never killed anyone?"

"Would you believe that?" he asked, his eyes wide with innocence.

She was tempted, but..."No," she said.

"Good." He laughed. "I'm glad you're not that gullible."

"So why do you kill if it isn't necessary?"

"Ah, but it is necessary periodically. Without taking blood, the vampire becomes unable to think of anything besides his all-consuming need, which just grows and grows until eventually he loses what you humans would so arrogantly term 'his humanity.' He becomes like a beast, tearing unthinkingly into the first available victim, and doesn't even recognize until too late if that victim should be his own parent or child or lover. He'll feel devastated, afterward, with their blood coursing through his veins. However, even with a steady diet of blood, too long between kills and the vampire becomes mentally and physically sluggish. He gets weaker and weaker, unable to move, unable to rise out of bed, until finally he's unable even to take the few breaths a vampire needs to survive. It's more than the nourishment, it's the draining of the life force. Feeling the echo of another person's thoughts and memories, which is just as life-sustaining to us as the blood itself And besides..."