Deadworld (8 page)

Chapter 12

Cornelius Drake sat in the comfort of his Rolls while a light rain whispered sedately against the roof. It had been forty-five minutes, but he was in no hurry. He jotted some notes in a leather-bound journal perched on his lap, pausing every few moments to tap his chin with the tip of his pen. The upcoming sermon this week would be on the Lord’s vengeance. God was all about putting down those who defied his will. Drake could appreciate that in a deity, not to mention that that sort of rhetoric got his congregation swimming around in guilt.

Guilt made human beings so utterly malleable, and they so often performed actions that infused them with it. They lived and breathed the choking dust of their guilty consciences. You could count on people to pull around guilt’s weight until their dying breath. Nicholas Anderson dragged around that ball and chain with stubborn pride, and Drake had used it against him time and again. Some things never changed.

Drake hit the intercom button. “Wendall? What secret guilt do you carry around with you? Surely, you have some?”

There was a long silence before his crackling voice came back. “I suppose pilfering your Scotch from the cellar, sir. Good stuff is hard to come by on my salary.”

Drake laughed. “Will you be seeking penance to absolve yourself of this sin?”

“Not likely, sir,” Wendall said. “God himself can’t distill such sweet nectar.”

“Indeed. I suppose some prices are worth paying.”

“That they are, sir. That they are.”

Bernard arrived a moment later, stepping through the wall of the car and seating himself across from Drake. “Boy’s recital is finally over. Christ, that was awful stuff. Kid deserves to die on that alone.”

“Now, now, Bernard. We all have our passions.”

“Just sayin’, sir. Hope the next one is into something quiet, like knitting.”

Drake smiled. “Nothing so simple as that, my friend.” He put his journal into a slot in the door. “Go keep the riff-raff away, my boy. They shall be here soon.”

“Aye, sir.” Bernard slipped away through the trunk and walked back into the rows of parked cars.

People were filing out of the high school, parents with their children, many carrying their cases filled with violins and trombones. Some paused to put up their umbrellas, while others, not so wise as to have planned ahead, held programs or purses or coats over their heads and made their way quickly out toward their cars. The Morelands, due to circumstances beyond their control, had been running late and had parked at the fringes of the lot, pulling their car onto the edges of the football field. Moments after they had hurried away, violin case banging at the boy’s side, Drake had pulled in next to their Honda Accord and patiently awaited their return.

Drake watched them approach in the side view mirror, saw the mother hesitate at the sight of a dark blue Rolls-Royce parked next to their car before continuing forward. He opened his door and stepped out when she was between the cars.

“Ah, Mrs. Moreland!” Drake’s thin lips split into a toothy smile. He popped open the umbrella. “Wonderful recital this evening. Your son, Adam, was particularly good.”

The boy stopped directly behind her, and Mrs. Moreland’s brief turn of annoyance melted into confusion. “Oh. Hello. Thank you. Adam did very well tonight, I think, didn’t you, sweetie?”

Adam shrugged. “Sure, Mom. We could’ve been better.”

“Always room for improvement, isn’t that right, Adam?” Drake stood before his open door, allowing no possible way around. “Even the masters look for ways to play better.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s true,” he said.

“Pardon me, but do we know you?” She was trying to smile and cover her irritation as the rain continued to fall. The music program held over her head provided little relief. “Do your children go to school here?”

“We met briefly,” Drake said, his grin fading. He drew the glasses down to the end of his nose. “I realized your boy here was a perfect match.”

Her free hand came to her mouth, covering the gasp. Adam dropped his violin case on the grass. “A match for what?” she whispered.

“He looks just like an old friend’s son, if you can believe that.” He motioned at Adam, who quickly pushed his way around his mother. “Come, let me have a closer look at you.”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she began, but faltered, her mouth moving in silence like a gaping fish.

“Hush, Mrs. Moreland. Everything is just fine. No worries at all.” She nodded, and Drake turned back to Adam, reaching up to take his chin in his hand. “Indeed. The bone structure is very similar. The eyes are the same. And I shall not have to dye your hair. Wonderful. Wouldn’t you say, Mrs. Moreland?” They both nodded. “Adam, look me in the eye, son, and tell me if you don’t see the key to your life’s dreams within them.”

Adam stared, head cocked slightly to one side, like a dog who has heard a peculiar sound. “I think I do.”

“Of course you do.” He patted him on the shoulder. “They are dreams of death and quiet and peace of mind.”

“I really hate music,” he said.

Drake’s mouth quirked up at the corner. “I know. Parents always believe they know best, do they not?”

He nodded. “She’s a real bitch about it sometimes.”

“Why don’t you get in out of the rain, my boy? You can leave that wretched violin outside.”

“Yeah, cool. Thanks.” He stepped into the darkness of the car.

Drake stepped forward and placed his hand on Mrs. Moreland’s wet cheek. “I shall be taking your boy here, Mrs. Moreland. Perfectly safe, I assure you. You will think nothing of it. He shall be well taken care of.”

She nodded. “I’ll just head home then. Will you be bringing him by the house later?”

“You are very tired, Mrs. Moreland. Those lovely eyes are completely stressed. You need to sleep. You can worry about your boy in the morning.”

“Okay. I’ll worry in the morning.”

He folded up the umbrella and laid it down inside the car, taking both of her cheeks in his hands. “And you shall worry a lot when you find his bed empty. You will be sure your precious boy has come to great harm, that he may in fact be dead.”

She stared into the glowing, soulless orbs. “But he’ll be with you.”

“He will be dead, and you will know who did it, but the image shall elude you, like chasing a dandelion upon the wind.”

“Oh.” The rain running down her cheeks looked like tears. “I won’t remember?”

Drake shook his head. “I am afraid not, my dear. You will only know that if you had not made him play music, he might still be alive. Now go, rest. Sleep the sleep of the dead, Mrs. Moreland.”

He stepped into the Rolls and pulled the door closed so she could walk by. She drove away without looking back.

Adam sat in the seat, staring straight ahead. “Your eyes are full of death.”

He clasped the boy’s knee with his hand. “You will be fine, son. Death is not the end.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

Drake grabbed Adam’s chin and turned his head to face him. “Does it look so terrible in there, Adam?”

“It looks cold.”

“Indeed. Indeed, it is very cold. You shall make new friends though. You shall see.”

“And what then?”

“Hmmm? What then?” Drake sat back in the seat, giving Adam a sidelong glance. “Well, then you truly shall die.” When Adam merely nodded and continued to stare ahead, Drake pushed the intercom button. “Take us away from here, Wendall. Perhaps later you may have a glass of Scotch with me.”

Wendall looked back at the one-way glass dividing them, a smile upon his lined face. “That would be lovely, sir.”

Chapter 13

The afternoon had provided little more than a draining of his gas tank. Nick sat in his darkening office, considering what possible preparations they could make and wondering how he was going to keep the FBI out of this until the end. He had no answers. Until Drake made his presence felt again, there was little for them to do other than search the city and hope they got lucky. It would be soon. Given the current state of law enforcement, the timeline would be condensed, a couple days at most between kills. So it was no surprise when Nick felt the familiar pang of the other side, pulling at him like a spaceship drifting too close to a black hole.

Cornelius was drawing upon the energy of the dead, which meant he was feeding on someone. The feeling had been so faint with the boy Nick had been unable to zero in on it. He had not even been sure of the feeling until he saw the body under the tree. This time, he was leaving little doubt. Somewhere within a few miles, Cornelius Drake fed on another victim, daring Nick to find him. He reached to pick up the phone and call Shelby, only to have it ring as he grabbed it.

“Yeah?”

“Shelby’s on the line, Nick.” Cynthia patched her through without waiting for his answer.

The rumbling roar of her BMW motorcycle made it nearly impossible to hear. “Say that again, Shel. I can’t hear you.”

“North of downtown!” Her voice filled his head, full of excitement and anger. “I can’t tell if the fucker is west or east of the river though. A bit of the real stuff, Nick, I’d find him within the hour.”

“No,” he replied emphatically. “I’m on my way up now. Just keep trying to zero in on him.” She had promised no more blood, and Nick knew the disadvantage it put them in, but it just was not an option, not anymore.

“Nick . . .”

“No blood!” he repeated and slammed down the phone.

Out in the hall, he grabbed a bottle of synthetic from the fridge and gulped it down in one long, bitter draught. Cynthia was standing beside her desk when he came out into the main room.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” There was a hint of fear in her voice.

“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “If anything is going down, I’ll call. Keep the doors locked and don’t leave for any reason until I come back.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“Just in case, Cyn. I’m not taking any chances. We have no idea what he’s up to yet.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Thanks.” He gave a brief nod and headed out the door.

Thirty minutes later, Nick had his Jeep on the north side and was wishing he had driven the Porsche in to work. The feeling was definitely stronger, but without the spike of energy real blood would give, they would have to get damn close to home in on him. Drake was teasing them, and Nick clenched the steering wheel in frustration as he dodged through traffic, trying to get a better sense of where Drake was feeding. It had been an hour now, which gave them another half hour to forty minutes tops. If anything, Cornelius could be counted on to be consistent.

Shelby called in again, and Nick could hear the distinctive squeal of tires and the blaring of horns in the background. The woman was hell on wheels, enough to scare the shit out of the best NASCAR had to offer. He tried to keep the image of her getting plowed by a CTA bus out of his head. Damn woman!

“I’m east of the river, beginning to think he might be southwest of here.”

“Okay. I just crossed the river at Chicago. I’ll head west from here and then south,” Nick said. “Head north of me a couple miles and then come over and head down. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“We need blood, not luck,” she snarled in his ear and clicked off.

As the minutes ticked by, Nick knew she was right. The odds were slim, and someone was dying, but there would be no bloodshed to find him.
It’s wrong,
Nick told himself, like he had been telling himself for years, but the temptation was there, and just the thought made his mouth begin to salivate. Drake, on the other hand, was at that very moment quenching his thirst, draining the life of some poor soul, burning with the cold fire of the power of death. Nick had no clue how he would deal with Drake even if he did find him. Would bullets stop him? Enough of them might. Even the power of the other side can only heal so fast. With blood though . . .

Shelby interrupted the tormenting thoughts with another call. “West!” she shouted. “He’s west of me. Your side of the river.” Her engine was loud in the background, revved up high.

“Slow down, Shel. You will kill—” He stopped when the phone went dead again.

She was a good two miles north of his location. West of her could mean anything up to three or four miles. Six to eight square miles of city. Twenty minutes. Nick dug a Rolaids out of his pocket and popped two. Frustration was simmering away in his gut like a rancid witch’s brew. They would not find him. Not yet. It was all just part of the game, but one Nick could not afford to stop playing, because somewhere out there, another person was almost dead, and if Drake stuck to his routine, a fifteen-year-old young man had just about succumbed to a decades-long plot of revenge.

Nick veered east and headed for the freeway. The eerie call of death had started to fade. Reluctantly, he punched in Shelby’s number. “Go home, Shel. He’s done for now.”

“I could have had blood in five minutes, Nick.” Her voice was choking up. Nick swore silently to himself. “I could’ve tracked him, goddamn you!”

He didn’t bother saying good-bye and dropped the cell on the seat beside him. He knew she would not go home, not yet. She would ride around the rest of the evening, hoping to pick up the scent, something beyond that usual faint whiff of foulness one smelled when another one of them was within twenty-odd miles of you. She would yell more at him later, cursing his weakness, demanding he have the courage to drink, to be like Drake. But he could not. It was a promise he refused to break. It was the only one he had left, and God help him if he defiled Gwen’s memory for the sake of revenge.

Pulling into his garage, Nick got out and watched the rain whip across the driveway until the door had closed. He felt tired, beyond even the thirst for blood. The synthetic would give him his energy back, but this tired went beyond bone deep and sapped at his soul. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, hon. I just can’t do it,” he whispered.

Chapter 14

For the first time in six months, Nick sat on his back deck watching the sun burn its way through the morning shroud of fog, a handrolled cigarette burning down between his fingers. He could no longer remember the number of times he had quit smoking. At this point, it really didn’t matter. He took a long drag off the sweet tobacco and flicked the remainder out into the wet grass.

“Enjoy it while you can, Sheriff.”

Down the gentle slope of his backyard, a whiter, more solid shape of fog shifted and danced across the still waters of a reed-encircled pond, taking on a more recognizable shape as it approached the house. Nick picked up the cold cup of blood-spiked coffee sitting on the small table next to the lounge chair and winced down the cold dregs. Hot or cold, it always tasted like shit. The familiar, overall-clad form walked up through the rail and stopped next to him on the deck.

“Morning, Reg.”

He grinned at Nick, an indifferent sort of twist of his mouth that Reggie had whether the news was good or bad. The dead had a slightly skewed sense of humor when it came to the living. “Mornin’, boss. Good a time as any to take up smokin’ again.”

Nick gave him a hint of a smile. “I suppose. Things went as planned?”

Reggie held out a fist so intensely white it looked nearly corporeal and dropped something into Nick’s hand. “I’m guessin’ so.”

“Ah, thanks.” Nick turned the small square of clear plastic around in his hand a couple times before finally holding it up for a better look. “You know, I hadn’t even realized Drake had this. I thought it gone when I burned the cabin down.”

He nodded slowly. “How would you’ve known, boss? We owe that bastard something big.”

Nick studied the penny, the year 1862 standing out clear as the day he had bought it for his son those many decades ago. “The prick has had it all this time. Joshua never even had the chance to put it with his collection.”

“Do you suppose Drake has other things?”

Nick figured as much. He nodded at Reggie, rage bubbling up in his throat so acidic he was afraid he might spit fire if he spoke at that moment. He slid the coin into his pocket and closed his eyes, taking in a deep, cool draught of air. A poor kid was dead, unfortunate to have a passing resemblance to another boy dead for 144 years. Who else in Chicago resembled his dead family? Who was about to find themselves on the wrong end of a twisted vampire’s vengeance? The familiar game was afoot, and Nick did not feel ready to play. Where to begin? The chance for saving the next victim was already gone.

“Did you find anything else?”

The never-ending smile stretched a hair. “Little evidence that I saw other than the coin.”

“Anything from the police?”

“No. They seem to be washing their hands of it.” Reggie’s hands disappeared into the pockets of the overalls. “The blond woman is going to be trouble.”

“The medium?”

Reggie nodded.

“Yeah, no doubt about that. She knows we’re not what we seem.”

Laughter bubbled up out of Reggie—a soft, maniacal cackle. “Oh, I spooked her good this morning. She’s a keen one though. Had to get the penny from their evidence room. Her house is warded something fierce against spirits. I’d have set off alarms all over if I’d tried. She could tell when I picked it up though. Had to practically cross back over to avoid being seen.”

Nick shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. We’ll be hearing from them again soon, I expect. They’ll be gathering more intel on me, and after showing me the penny yesterday, that Agent Rutledge is going to be all over us. We’ll be lucky to avoid their involvement in this.”

Reggie gave him a wry, sad smile. “That didn’t go too well the last time, boss.”

“Agreed,” Nick said. “We may have little choice in the matter, however, if they try to pin anything on me or drag my ass in.”

“They have no evidence yet.”

“Circumstantial. I was at the scene. They know I’m connected somehow, and technology is going to be to our disadvantage now. They can find out things too fast these days.”

“It’s a strange world. Some days it’s good to be dead.”

Nick almost laughed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. I’ll call Shel and Cyn to let them know to expect another visit from the feds. Things are going to get complicated real quick, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll be around if you need me, boss.”

He motioned with the penny to his old friend. “Thanks, Reg. As always, it’s much appreciated.”

“We’re going to take him down this time, Mr. Anderson. You’ll see.”

Nick watched him dissipate into the air. “Yes, we certainly will, Reg.”

It was going to be a lovely day. He got up from the chair, hands going into his pockets, and rubbed at the plastic case between his fingers. Unwanted memories stirred like the wisps of fog down on the pond, ghostly tendrils rising up from the murk below.