Immortal (18 page)

He opened the door to the women’s room and propped it open with the caddy. As he leaned over to grab the pair of rubber gloves his mother had insisted he wear when cleaning, he got a strange feeling. The hair rose on the back of his neck and he straightened slowly, slipping one hand into a glove. He listened hard but heard nothing but the whirr of the fans in the air-conditioning unit.

He stepped out into the hall to look around the open door. Nothing. No one. Staring down the dark hall, he slid his other hand into a glove.

Something just didn’t
feel
right. The girls had been gone almost an hour. Could they have come back? “Kaleigh?”

Nothing.

Regan stood there a minute longer, listening. He shook his head as he walked back into the bathroom and flipped on the lights in the single-seater. He would have said he’d been watching too many scary movies, only he didn’t like scary movies. Because, well…he got scared.

He grabbed the toilet brush and the blue liquid stuff to clean the bowl and got down on his knees. It didn’t look too bad. He squirted the cleaning stuff around the rim and scrubbed, then flushed, just the way Mary Kay had taught him. At the tail end of the flush, he thought he heard a sound behind him, but he couldn’t be sure. The toilet was pretty loud.

Had it been the back door?

Regan got to his feet, walked into the hall, toilet brush still in his hand.

Something in a cape flew straight at him. Just like in the nightmares. Only this time, he was absolutely, positively sure he was not dreaming.

K
aleigh and Katy hurried along the narrow, overgrown path that ran through the middle of the game preserve on the edge of town. The darkness didn’t bother either of them. They’d hunted these woods for three hundred years. What did bother Kaleigh were the stupid mosquitoes.

She slapped her neck. “We should have brought bug repellent.” She always used repellent in the summer when she had to hunt. Like the other members of the sept, she only needed to feed on blood once a moon cycle. The deer that lived on the state-preserved land and were cared for by the sept were enough to keep them all nourished and safe. The readily available deer here in the new world had enabled them to cease the taking of human blood.

“I don’t suppose you brought mosquito repellent?” Kaleigh asked, scratching her neck. There was no breeze on the summer night air. It was hot and humid and the mosquitoes were making her itchy all over.

Katy felt around in the bag she carried slung over her shoulder. “Nope. Got gum. Want gum? It’s Triple Watermelon Blast.”

“No, I don’t want gum. Gum isn’t going to keep these damned mosquitoes from biting,” she complained irritably. “We’ll be there in a minute. Once we get the fire started, I’ll throw some leaves on it. The smoke will keep them away.”

“It’ll make my hair stink, too.”

Kaleigh heard Katy unwrap a piece of gum. She smelled the Triple Watermelon Blast and her stomach did a flip-flop. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Rob would certainly have objected, which was exactly why she hadn’t told him about the secret meeting. The question was, what was she going to do if the teens wouldn’t agree to stay away from Tomboy’s illicit basement parties? Would she have to go to the Council?

The two girls entered the clearing that still held bad memories from two summers before. A human had lost his life here. And it had been Kaleigh’s fault. Sort of. It was his own stupid, evil fault that Fia’s then-boyfriend had had to kill him. That didn’t mean she didn’t think that some day, when the
mallachd
was finally lifted and she died a real death and met God at the pearly gates, she wouldn’t have to stand accountable for her part in the deaths of Bobby, Mahon, Shannon, and the human.

“This should only take a minute. I’ve got the wood ready to go.” Kaleigh pulled a pack of matches out of her back pocket. “You want to grab some leaves, preferably damp?”

“Why do I always have to do the dirty jobs?” Katy grumbled, wandering off.

Kaleigh knelt to one side of the firepit. One strike of a match and a blaze leapt from the dry kindling she’d carefully stacked this morning. She sat back on her heels and watched the flames lick the edges of the wood. After all these centuries, she was still fascinated by fire and she liked the idea that something could still hold her attention this way. It made her feel more…human.

“Dang, girl.” Katy tossed a measly handful of leaves on the fire and glanced around. The quick-spreading blaze cast a circle of soft light around them. “Looks like someone’s having a party.”

Kaleigh had dragged the logs once used for benches and laid them around the firepit, making a nice circle. She had to cut back some of the underbrush and haul away some fallen branches. Now the area sort of resembled the original Council fire, which had been in this very place. When they’d first arrived in the colonies, they’d come here to meet, fearful of being seen by humans. Now they met in the museum, right in plain sight. It was always the best place to hide.

“Worked your pretty tailbone off, didn’t you?” Katy cracked her gum, taking in the circle of seating around the firepit appreciatively. “It looks nice. They’ll want to party here with us every night.”

Kaleigh looked at her and then tried to move the cooler she’d left here earlier in the day. Only it was heavy now that it was full. Realizing she couldn’t pick it up, she started to drag it. “Doubtful when they hear what I have to say.”

“Wow. Drinks on a hot summer night?” Spying Kaleigh struggling with the cooler, Katy scrambled over a log. “Need some help?”

“Yeah. You take one end, I’ll take the other. I just want to lift it over the log.”

“I’ll get it.” Katy leaned over, grabbed both handles and lifted it herself.

“Dang, girl.” Kaleigh took a step back. “Eating your Wheaties?”

“How the heck did you get this out here?” Setting the cooler down, Katy opened the lid. “And you brought beer?”

“Get out of there. There’s only enough for, like, one or two each. I carried the beer and ice separately, then loaded the cooler.” Kaleigh sat down on one of the logs and scratched her shin where a mosquito bite was rising. “I borrowed one of Malachy’s ATVs and hauled it out here on the back.”

Ignoring Kaleigh’s warning to leave the beer for the others, Katy popped open a can of Coors Light and slurped the foam off the top. “You tell him why you needed it?”

In the distance, Kaleigh heard her first
guests
approaching. By the sound of their voices, it was a bunch of the guys. Farther behind them, she heard the faint sound of feminine giggles. It had been mostly guys she spotted going down into Tomboy’s basement, but not all guys. Girl Vs liked their human blood, too. “Of course not.” She grabbed a stick poking out of the fire and used it to move one of the bigger pieces of wood.

“Where’d you get the beer?” Katy took another drink.

“None of your business.”

Katy smirked. “You surprise me sometimes. Hard to believe that you still could, as long as we’ve been friends.”

Kaleigh poked at the fire with her stick. “That a good thing or a bad thing?”

Katy sipped her beer thoughtfully. “A good thing,” she declared with a nod.

“Just trying to keep us alive.” She grinned. “Until we can die, of course.”

“Of course.” Katy raised her beer in a toast.

Kaleigh dropped her head suddenly and groaned. “Sweet Mary, Mother of God, what do I think I’m doing here? No one’s going to listen to me. If they’re getting human blood and getting away with it, why would they agree to stop just because I say they should? They’re not going to listen to me.” She threw up her hands. “This is a complete waste of time and an embarrassment.”

“Come on, they might listen.”

Kaleigh gave a doubtful glance. “Why would they?”

Katy met her gaze. When she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically solemn. “Because they respect you in a way they respect no one else in this sept.”

“Hey, hey, hey. Joe’s here!” Joe Kahill burst through the trees and out of the darkness. Holding his hands up in the air, he turned to face his followers. “The party can get started now, boys.”

Several guys came behind him, all laughing and shoving each other the way boys did. Eying them, Kaleigh took a deep breath. “Give me that.” She reached for Katy’s beer.

“Why?” Katy held the can to her breasts as if it was something precious.

“Because I think I’m going to need it more than you are.”

Katy considered the thought and then handed the beer to her.

Regan didn’t have time to do anything more than lower his center of gravity and raise his only weapon available, the toilet brush. He recognized the face of the man who swooped down on him. Not just from his dreams, but from his past. It was Asher, one of the Rousseau brothers who had captured him in New Orleans the summer before and locked him in the tomb. With the spiders. Regan hated spiders. He hated Asher and all his creepy brothers.

Asher hit Regan so hard in the chest that Regan fell backward to the floor. He stabbed at Asher with the toilet brush and gave him a good poke in the eye with the wet blue bristles. Asher howled, as much from indignity as pain, Regan guessed, but it gave Regan the split-second opportunity to transport himself out of the hall and into the main room of the arcade. There, at least, he’d have a chance at fighting Asher off.

Regan rematerialized beside the classic Pac-Man. The toilet brush had been teleported with him. He didn’t have the ability to transport himself far, or through very dense objects, like tomb walls or bank vaults, but if he could reach the garage doors on the far side of the arcade, he thought he might have a chance at passing through the fiberglass.

Asher screeched as he hurled himself down the dark hallway, stupid cape flapping behind him. The Rousseaus were a particularly nasty nest of vampires that lived in New Orleans and ran a drug trafficking business, among other shady dealings. Their forte was the ability to launch themselves into the air and glide a short distance, appearing as if they were flying. The capes had been added for the intimidation factor.

It was pretty intimidating.

Abandoning the toilet brush, Regan threw himself down on the floor and scrambled on his belly beneath the arcade game. He could still smell the toilet bowl cleaner on the yellow rubber gloves.

Asher hit the game hard and fell back under the impact.

Regan leaped to his feet and made for the doors. Maybe he really had a chance.

The notion lasted only a step and a half. Just long enough to give Rousseau brother number two time to fly down the hall.

Gad hit Regan from the rear, knocking him face first to the cement floor.
I could use a little help here, bro
, Regan telepathed as his chin hit the cement and he tasted blood in his mouth.
Arcade, front and center, before the Rousseaus make crab bait out of me
.

I could use a little help here, bro
.

Fin heard the message so clearly in his mind that Regan could have been standing beside him.

Be there in a sec
, he shot back and turned and ran in the opposite direction. He was three blocks from the arcade, on his way home from work. It would take him more than a second to get there. It would take him three minutes. What if he didn’t make it in time?

Fin flew down the street. At the first crosswalk, he spotted a German shepherd on the far side of the street, sniffing a paper bag that had fallen from a trash can. Fin didn’t recognize the shepherd, but he knew him. It was the stroke of luck that just might save his brother.

Arlan, I need you
, Fin telepathed as he sprinted across the street.

Arlan lifted his muzzle and sniffed the air. Smelled the intruders, perhaps. He growled.

The Rousseau brothers. The arcade
, Fin telepathed.
Regan’s in trouble.

The shepherd shot down the street, headed straight for the boardwalk. Halfway down the next block, running hard, breathing harder, Fin lost sight of Arlan. He’d beat him there. Good thing. Vampires didn’t often kill other vampires, no matter where in the world they hailed from. Sort of a
professional courtesy
. But it did happen and the Rousseau brothers were notorious for not playing by the rules. Especially when you pissed them off the way Regan had.

Gad tried to drag Regan across the floor by his ankles, but Regan was a scrappy fighter. He kicked and hollered like a madman, hurling any object he could wrap his mind around at his attackers. The toilet brush levitated off the ground and flew end over end through the air, striking Gad in the side of the head. As Regan wrapped his arms around the leg of a pinball machine, he used his telepathic powers to tip over the one trash can he hadn’t emptied. It was only half full, but the crushed soda cans and Popsicle sticks made effective weapons as he hurled them through the air. Gad let go of Regan’s leg as the first cans hit him in the head. One, still half full, exploded when he threw his hand up to protect himself, spewing Coke all over his nice black cape.

Crap
. Regan scrambled across the floor on all fours. Now Gad was really pissed. The vampires wouldn’t be satisfied with just beating him up, or beating him and then locking him up in a spider-infested supply closet. They would be out for blood. Or worse, his head. Blood could be replaced. Heads, however, could not be reattached. A vampire separated from his head was doomed to an eternity of torturous hell, trapped in a limbo that was neither life nor death. Definitely a sentence worse than being imprisoned in a linen closet.

Come on, bro. Need you, now, man
, Regan telepathed. Crawling out from under a pinball machine, he stumbled to his feet. He was halfway across the arcade. If he could just get within four or five feet of the garage doors that opened onto the boardwalk…

Gad flew over Regan’s head and landed just in front of him, arms crossed over his chest like he was some kind of demented cartoon superhero.

“Come on, guys. Easy now.” Regan lifted his rubber gloved hands. “Let’s talk this through.” As he spoke, he tried to see what else was available to throw at them. The thing was, there weren’t that many loose objects in an arcade. Pinball machines were too heavy for him to levitate or dematerialize. Maybe he could hurl a couple of skee balls if he could manage to get them out of the game, but it was on the far side of the room and iffy at best. “What do you want? You got your money.”

Regan could have sworn he heard a dog bark as Gad flew into him, knocking him into Asher’s waiting arms. Asher caught Regan by the armpits and hauled him up so Gad could take the first swing. It was a good one, causing a bone-rattling, gut-wrenching explosion of pain in Regan’s jaw. Blood spewed from Regan’s lower lip as Gad hit him a second time and Regan slumped against Asher.