H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (124 page)

“Parker,” she said.

I almost laughed. “Is that your first or
last name?”

“First, and don’t laugh.”

“I didn’t, did I?”

“No, but you almost did.”

“What’s your last name, Parker? Wait, let me
guess...Cindy?”

“Ha, ha. It’s Cole.”

“Parker Cole, huh?” I said. “You sound like
a child TV star or something. Ever had your own show? ‘Parker With
a P,’ maybe?”

“I can’t tell if you’re being funny or
mean,” she said after a moment. She had gone back to sitting in the
middle of her seat, shrinking in on herself a little.

She wasn’t in my car for me to make fun of,
or even hurt her feelings. A part of me didn’t care about her
feelings. A part of me didn’t care about anyone’s feelings. But I
was forcing that part of me to take a back seat. With some effort,
I said, “I was just being stupid. Actually, you have a very nice
name.”

“Thank you,” she said, but I had scared her
off a little and she still sat closed on the seat. “Why do they
call you Spider?”

“It’s a new nickname,” I said. “I’m not sure
why.”

Actually, I knew damn well why they called
me Spider. I heard the whisperings behind my back. I was creepy.
Spiders were creepy.

I turned right up Denny Street and headed
toward Capital Hill, which is an unofficial “district” of Seattle.
Capital Hill is also known as the “Freak District,” and there, as
we passed the homeless and junkies and fellow creatures of the
night, I made a right onto State Street and soon turned into
Dick’s, Seattle’s infamous burger chain.

Dick’s only served burgers and fries and
Cokes and so I didn’t need to take her order. I told her to wait in
the car and a few moments later, I returned with a single order of
food. I gave it to her as I sat back down in the front seat.

She looked at the meal, then looked at me.
We were sitting under a parking lot light and her face was glowing
palely. The oddballs and freaks were consuming their hamburgers
nearby, since Dick’s didn’t have any indoor seating, and were
laughing and talking and sometimes arguing. I caught one or two of
them looking our way, sort of like a wolf might that had observed
some sheep that were almost within range.

“Nothing for you?” she asked.

“I’m not hungry,” I said. Which was a lie. I
was very, very hungry, and I was watching some of the lost souls
sitting on curbs just outside the glow of the parking lot light.
They should have been in shadows, but to my eyes, they weren’t.
They were clear as day, and the darkness in me wanted to do
something very bold and very stupid. The darkness in me wanted to
hurt and kill and suck and drink. I closed my eyes, and did my best
to ignore the darkness.

“I can hear your stomach growling,” said
Parker, and I knew she was teasing me.

“Ha, yeah. I’ll eat later,” I said, and
decided to change the subject. “So tell me why you need my help,
and why I’m the guy you picked.”

She took another bite, chewed slowly, and
washed it down with some Coke. She set the Coke carefully in the
cup holder, then turned and faced me, tucking one leg under her as
she did so. Girls can do things like that. I couldn’t tuck my leg
under me like that to save my life.

If I had a life to save, that is.

“They say you like to help people,” said
Parker. “But most are afraid to ask you for help.”

“Afraid of me? That’s hilarious. I’m a buck
forty, dripping wet. Who are these people you speak of?”

“Well, maybe not people, just the guy I
asked about you.”

“Well, don’t believe everything you
hear.”

“I heard what you did to those bullies. It
didn’t make the papers, but word on the street says you’re either a
hero or a lunatic.”

“Maybe a little of both,” I said, not even
bothering to lie about what really happened. Word on the street
trumps the truth, anyway.

“If people are afraid of you...why do you
still like to help?”

“Helping makes me feel good.” And it kept
the darkness from consuming me, which of course would have caused
me to consume others. I looked at it as a little preventive health
care for the universe.

“What kind of problems do you help
with?”

“Any problems.”

“How do you fix them?”

“Any way I can. Whatever it takes.”

“But you’re my age...I don’t
understand.”

“You don’t need to understand,” I said.

“But these are adults.”

“I fix adults, too,” I said. “What’s
wrong?”

She had completely forgotten her food. She
wondered if some punk teenager could help her with her problems,
and I was beginning to suspect her problems were very, very
big.

“Look,” I said. “None of us wind up in night
school without a seriously screwed-up life. All the normal kids are
getting trained for day jobs in regular society. We’re the sort
they don’t want peeing in the pool. So whatever it is, it’s
okay.”

She chewed without tasting, staring blankly
out the window at her past.

I reached out and gently touched her forearm
with my finger. I knew what the reaction was going to be, and so I
was ready for her to shiver.

“I can help you, Parker. But you need to
tell me what’s wrong,” I said, and something interesting happened
as my fingers rested on her arm, as I spoke sincerely and honestly
with her. The darkness in my heart, the dark whisperings that
sometimes filled my mind, subsided. Subsided significantly. I
almost, almost, felt human again.

“There is a man who likes killing
girls.”

For most people, something like that would
be a shock. But I’m not most people. I’m not even people.

“That’s terrible.” I didn’t ask if she was
making up a story. She wasn’t.

“You believe me?”

“Who is this man?”

She turned and looked at me, and I saw the
tears in her impossibly round eyes.

“My dad,” she said.

Chapter Three

I hoped this wasn’t a pervert case. I hate
pervert cases.

“And you know this how?” I asked.

“That part I need to fill you in on later.”
Her once-sweet, shy exterior had now turned a tad darker. Which was
okay with me. Darker was right up my alley.

“So what can you tell me?” I now grabbed a
pencil from my pocket and began writing on a piece of paper.

“What are you writing?” she asked
abruptly.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “My notes will be
cryptic.”

She didn’t get the wry humor. “Alright, my
dad is one of the most intelligent men in the world. I know that
sounds crazy, but it’s true. He’s a world-renowned physicist. He
does a lot of research for Berkeley and Ivy League schools. Over
the past eight years he’s been delving into a different, ah, kind
of scientific method.”

“Different how?”

“It’s not even really scientific. It’s
more...metaphysical. To put it simply, my dad runs a cult. He has
this big compound called ‘Cloudland’ on a property near Mount
Shasta.”

“A Moonie-type thing? Branch Davidians?
Suicidal comet-hoppers?”

I wondered if she would catch the
references, but she didn’t miss a beat. I guess when your dad runs
a cult, you’re up on all things cultish. She said, “One man’s cult
is another man’s paradise. But this is way bigger than just one
power-tripping dabbler in the dark arts. He’s converting some of
the greatest minds in the world into believing his theories.”

“And how does killing girls play into
it?”

“Just like with every cult, people
eventually wise up and want to leave.”

“And he kills them before they leave?”

“Well, he also wants the blood sacrifice, I
guess. Killing two birds with one stone.”

“Why only girls?”

“Because he believes women are the conduit
to the mystical power he wants to channel. The ‘feminine divine,’
I’ve heard him call it.”

“So mostly women are in his cult.”

“Right. Men are just not that attracted to a
religion where they are second fiddle. Plus, he kind of likes to be
the center of attention. He’s a total alpha male.”

“So what do you want me to do?” This was
becoming a lot larger than anything I had previously taken on.
There were a lot of layers to this.

“I want you to stop him.”

This was a pretty tall order for someone
who, as far as she knew, was just another loser in night school.
“Stop him how?”

“Any way you can.”

I would have thought she was a little out of
her gourd if I didn’t suspect she was telling me the truth. I get a
feeling from people, and more often than not it’s the right
feeling. From her, I was experiencing honesty and fear and
confusion. Still, even a crazy person could project honesty and
fear. And pretty much everyone on the planet had a heavy case of
confusion.

As I said, night school isn’t exactly a
haven for the best and brightest. I’d have to learn a little more
about Parker Cole, and even though I trusted her, I’d need to know
things about her she wasn’t even aware of.

And I also needed to know what she knew
about me. This was a little extreme for our first conversation. One
minute I’m sitting across the aisle in history class, the next I’m
hearing the kind of dark confession that don’t usually come up
until at least the third date.

I said, “Do you want me to expose him for
the fraud he is?”

“If that will stop him, sure. Especially if
it will put him in jail.”

“Wouldn’t that ruin your life?” I asked.
“Sounds like he makes good money, and all that will be gone. And
you’ll wind up on Fox News as ‘The Daughter of the Monster.’”

“I can handle all that,” she said. “That’s a
lot easier to live with than knowing it’s still going on.”

“Is your dad on to you?” I asked, knowing I
sounded a bit like Dick Tracy, but sometimes there just wasn’t any
better way of saying something. Besides, Dick Tracy was
cat’s-pajamas cool back when I was alive.

Her eyebrows knitted themselves together.
“On to me?”

“You know, does he know if you know what
he’s doing?”

“You talk funny. How old are you?”

“Too old to rock and roll, too young to
die.”

She wanted to say something else but didn’t.
Parker was pretty and was probably used to getting her way. Pretty
girls mostly didn’t get a reaction from me. Mostly.

“Fine,” she said petulantly, and I idly
wondered if she even knew who Dick Tracy was, or Jethro Tull.
Probably not. She said, “No. I don’t think he suspects
anything.”

One of the guys I’d been watching at the
edge of the scraggly shrubs came sauntering over. He wobbled a
little, probably high on something. I could smell the cheap wine
and stale tobacco and the urine, and his heart was beating faster
than a little stroll would trigger.

“Trouble,” I said.

“It’s just some homeless guy.”

“Here’s a lesson they don’t teach you in
night school, Parker. The most dangerous people are those with
nothing to lose. You take a guy who is willing to strap dynamite
around his waist and blow himself up in a crowd. What can you
possibly threaten him with? He’s already decided his most precious
asset, his life, is worthless.”

“You sure do talk funny.”

The guy wore a ragged Seahawks T-shirt and
baggy jeans. He’d lived hard, so under the lights I couldn’t tell
if he was teen or middle-aged. My window was down because of the
mild weather, and I wasn’t going to roll it up, because that would
have shown fear.

“Yo, yo, my friends,” he said when he was
three feet from the car. “What you people looking for tonight?”

“We already found it,” I said. “Burger and
fries.”

He laughed, showing dark gaps in his teeth.
Meth addict, I figured. “You funny, man. But I bet you want
something more.”

“We’re good,” I said. “We were just
leaving.”

He leaned awkwardly into the car, his face a
foot from mine, sharing the scents of all the poisons inside him.
“I got what you want, and you got what I want.”

Parker instinctively clutched my arm. I
wondered if she could tell my pulse was as steady as ever—six beats
a minute.

“Later,” I said to the man, but as I reached
for the ignition, he thrust one clawing hand toward my throat.

I knocked it away, and it cracked on the
steering wheel. Maybe breaking a bone, maybe not. Not my
problem.

With my other hand, I grabbed a fistful of
his greasy hair and banged his forehead off the edge of the roof.
When his mouth opened in pain, I plucked the remainder of Parker’s
burger and shoved it in his mouth.

As he fell backward, grunting and choking, I
said, “Don’t forget to tip the waitress.”

I started up the Mustang and headed back
toward the school.

“That was...” Parker said, having trouble
forming a sentence. “That was....”

“That’s one way I solve problems,” I said.
“Are you down with that?”

I wanted her to know that some messes
couldn’t be cleaned up with a whisk broom and dustpan. Sometimes
you needed a hammer. Sometimes you had to bring out the big
guns.

“Are you...going to do that to my dad?”

“Whatever it takes,” I said. “If that’s what
you want.”

She sighed. “Whatever it takes.”

As I drove, I reached with my left hand to
the edge of the roof, feeling the wet splotches there. “Do you live
with him?”

“When he’s up from Berkeley, yes. But he
spends most of his time at Cloudland. He comes home and visits his
family once in a while.”

“Who else is in the family?”

“My younger sister Lilith and my mom.”

“Do they...know?”

“Mom’s like the robo-wife, on the library
board and bridge club and whatever club it is where you drink a
quart of vodka a day. Lilith is just a sweet, innocent kid. But I’m
worried that Dad has designs on her.”