Necromancing Nim (22 page)

Colin pushed to his feet. “They shouldn’t. They’ll think they can use Nim to lead them to it, so they won’t bother. But if they do show up, guard it with your life.” He nodded toward me. “We should get moving.”

Gwen crossed her arms, making her boobs nearly fall out the top of her tank top. Colin forgot once again that she had a face, while Gwen remained oblivious. “I don’t recall agreeing to this craptastic plan.”

I wasn’t feeling all that happy about the craptasticness of the plan, either, but I didn’t see many other options. Sebastian looked skeptical, but he hadn’t made any protest. “If something weird happens, call 911, hide and let Sebastian do the dirty work.”

“Whose side are you on?” she snapped at me.

“Mine,” I shot back. It wasn’t logical. It didn’t matter—she was my sister, so I didn’t have to make any sense when I was being mad at her. “So I need to go with Colin and…and help him.”

She gave me the same glare she’d always given me when she was six. “You’re a piece of work, Nim.”

“Whatever. We need to go.” As far as I was concerned, the matter was settled, logical or not. It was time to go kick some bad-guy vampire ass. And hope they believed I was well and truly under the influence of Pieter’s tainted bite.

Winchester Court did not in any way deserve its pretentious moniker. Located near Littleton, in the area where Denver County stuck its Denvery fingers into Jefferson County, the road itself was poorly maintained, and the small cul-de-sac was obviously zoned for vampires. The houses had no windows to speak of, and most of the yards were less than perfectly manicured. Vampires don’t like to mow. I don’t blame them—mowing is enough of a pain in the ass during the day. However, this looked less like benign neglect and more like lack of occupancy. Only two of the eight houses surrounding the cul-de-sac showed signs of habitation. Two others had foreclosure signs in the yards.

The house with 2136 next to the door in silver lettering appeared occupied—or at least there was a porch light on—and it didn’t bear much resemblance to the broken-down building from my dream. It was a bit peely in the paint department, yes, but otherwise just an average suburban home in a vampire-zoned neighborhood. I pulled up a few doors down and parked, wondering how long it would take Colin to show up. Colin had opted to go on foot. He could move nearly as fast as I could drive through residential areas, and he wanted to scope out the terrain from a closer perspective than we could get from the car. I hoped he showed up soon, since I didn’t much like the idea of sitting out here in my car where Pieter could just pick me off like a clay pigeon.

Not that there was any sign of him. Not yet anyway. Part of me almost wanted him to show up so I could spray holy water in his face and Taser him in the nuts. I scratched at the mark on my neck where he’d bitten me. Prick.

Oddly, I hadn’t really been angry about it until now. Scared, freaked out, disoriented, yes, but not really angry. I was now, though. Intensely, wickedly, searingly angry, to the point where I felt like I could shoot fireballs out of my eyeballs. I palmed the Taser and sat waiting, ready. I could picture it—ramming the thing into his crotch, watching him squeal—

A face suddenly appeared in my car window, wide and pale in the moonlit darkness. My finger convulsed on the Taser, and I nearly discharged it against the glass before my brain kicked into gear. The face was Colin’s.

“Jesus.” I put the Taser away and opened the car door. “You startled me,” I informed him. He chuckled, obviously well aware that “startled me” in this case meant “completely made me piss myself”.

“Everything okay?” he said, surprisingly diplomatic given the circumstances.

“As far as I can tell.” I got out to stand next to him. The night was surprisingly bright. Yet another side effect, or just me being paranoid? “I haven’t seen anybody. Yet.”

He made a vague gesture. “Gonna disappear. You head toward the house; I’ll cover you.”

I nodded. I didn’t really like the whole “Nim serves as bait” plan, but at the moment it was all we had.

I patted the reassuring bulk of water gun and Taser inside my jacket and began to move up the short lane toward the house. It loomed a few yards back from the street—far closer than it had been in the dream. The huge, weedy field was, in reality, a smallish overgrown yard. The wan porch light illuminated the front door.

I wished there was a way to find out how much Pieter knew. It seemed to me that if what he’d done normally would have left me in thrall to him, then the fact I was in no way in thrall should have registered on his vampy radar. Couldn’t he tell that his mind-controlling dream had, for me, been nothing more than a dream? If that were the case, we’d have no element of surprise, and Nim-as-bait would likely devolve quickly into Nim-as-dinner.

Colin had disappeared. Completely. I could make out no sign of him at all. I assumed he was around somewhere, probably approaching the house from a different angle. Apparently whatever transformation had made me invulnerable to the vampire whammy didn’t extend to seeing Colin in the dark when he wasn’t right next to me. I crossed my fingers—figuratively, since it’s hard to pull a trigger with crossed fingers—and continued on my way.

To take my mind off the immediate problem of Colin’s absence, I wondered why the house didn’t resemble the one in the dream. Was it meant to look dilapidated to me, via a vampire glamour I could no longer see? Or was the broken-down bit just another cheesy touch Pieter couldn’t resist adding to a dream I wasn’t supposed to be able to remember? It was impossible to say which was the case with no one around to compare notes with. Since I didn’t know anybody else who’d been rendered immune to vampire whammy, I was on my own on this one.

I glanced around again and this time caught a glimpse of Colin slipping around behind the house. His gaze met mine briefly, and he nodded.

I was only a couple of yards from the house now. The place looked respectable—more than respectable; it appeared to be an average, single-family home in an average, vampire-zoned neighborhood. Fake windows for aesthetic value, paint not in the best shape, grass not mowed or edged. A few dead, dry azaleas graced a flowerbed next to the entryway. Vampires aren’t great with plants.

I approached the front door. No one had come out to meet or ambush me; maybe they were watching me to be sure I was alone. It was hard to say what they might be up to, and I still had no idea if I’d managed to avoid suspicion.

Not much I could do about it now, though, so I stepped up and knocked.

The sound echoed through the house. Or maybe it just seemed that way because I was so nervous. I glanced around, trying not to seem suspicious, checking to be sure I knew where Colin was.

He was close, lurking at the side of the house. I could see him when he was in my direct line of sight, but if I shifted to a slightly different angle, he disappeared. He was glamoured, then, hiding in plain sight from everyone but me. I met Colin’s gaze briefly, just long enough to be sure he was really there. He gave me a reassuring nod. At that moment, the door opened. I jumped, afraid I’d been caught out via my quick eye-lock with Colin.

The man who answered the door was not Pieter. He was a taller, broader man with bleached, straw-like hair and skin so white as to seem almost translucent. He raked me up and down with ghostly pale blue eyes. I wondered if he might be a natural albino. Vampirism seemed an almost reasonable choice for an albino. Much less chance of getting sunburned in the course of everyday activity. Moonburned, maybe.

“Is Pieter in?” I said, trying not to sound too eager or too detached. I was thinking far too much about all of it, trying to keep that balance. Maybe Colin’s instructions would end up doing me more harm than good in the long run. Either way, I only had to maintain the façade for a short time, so hopefully all would be well.

The big, pale man stared at me for a moment, making me wonder if he’d heard me or been able to process what I’d said. Then he nodded and, still without speaking, stepped back from the door and waved me inside.

I followed him into the foyer, nerves prickling as I left Colin outside. I trusted him to hold up his end of the bargain—to protect me and get me the hell out of there before anybody managed to kill me. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so trusting. He was a vampire, after all.

Pieter sat in the house’s living room, watching hockey on a high-def, big-screen TV. The players had on no protective gear to speak of—vampire league, then. The part of me still attuned to my regular job wondered if he’d paid for the damn television. The living room itself had a distinctly bachelor-pad air, the coffee table strewn with an impressive collection of porn magazines. The only thing missing was a stack of empty, cheese-crusted pizza boxes. Instead, there were several empty bottles with crimson still clinging to the insides.

Pieter himself wasn’t particularly tall and wasn’t particularly impressive to look at. Nothing about him really screamed Russian to me, but as far as I’d been able to tell, Russians were a pretty mixed bag, appearance-wise. His eyes were deep-set, though, reminding me of Nureyev or Baryshnikov, except not really attractive. His hair was a nondescript brown, his hairline receding, and he wore a button-down shirt and jeans.

Pieter stood and smiled as Albino Vamp escorted me into the room. The smile was smarmy and, quite frankly, annoying.

“Nimuë,” he exclaimed, as if I were a long-lost relative who’d just won the lottery. “It’s so good to see you.”

He moved toward me. I swear to God, I thought, if he tries to hug me, I’m gonna take him off at the kneecaps. And he spread his arms, as if he was, indeed, planning to scoop me up. I just met his gaze, my face blank though I really wanted to give him a death glare, and his arms lowered again. He seemed disappointed. “Have a seat.”

His smile remained disturbingly happy, so I assumed I hadn’t misstepped too badly yet. I moved to the chair he indicated and took a seat. It was a big, comfortable chair, upholstered in leather. There was something crusty on the back; I perched on the edge to avoid leaning into it. I didn’t even want to speculate as to what it was.

Pieter took a seat across from me, no longer facing the TV. Strangely, the mostly healed wound on my neck began to tingle. I resisted the urge to rub the marks.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I crossed my legs and regarded him in what I hoped was a friendly—but not too friendly—manner. “You called.”

His smile turned smug. “I did. It’s good that you came.”

Unsure how to respond, I offered a noncommittal smile. “What can I do for you?”

Perhaps that was getting to the point a bit too fast, because his eyes narrowed. I fought back a surge of panic, wondering abruptly if he could smell my momentary lapse.

“Right now, you can have a drink with me,” he said.

He waved a hand, and a figure emerged from the shadows at the back of the room. It was a man—or had been a man. I wasn’t sure what he was now, and I didn’t want to think about it. Undoubtedly, this was what I would have become if Colin and Sebastian hadn’t intervened.

He moved to the liquor cabinet with a slow, deliberate step. Not a zombie shuffle, but still strangely inhuman, without motivation or emotion. Like a marionette or a poorly rendered CGI person. Almost natural but not quite. His face was blank and staring, also emotionless, his eyes empty. He took out glasses, ice, a bottle of whisky. I suppressed a shudder, not sure I wanted to touch anything the creature had touched, much less drink it.

Pieter was watching me, his eyes shrewd and narrow. “Yes,” he said, and his voice took on a darker edge. “That’s your future. But don’t worry. It won’t hurt.” A quiet pause while he flashed his fangs. “Not much.”

I turned back toward him, maintaining the bland smile while my stomach did somersaults. How far along this process would I have been without treatment? Was he implying he’d have to bite me again—turn me—to finish it off? The thought put me even more on edge. If he did try to bite me, the jig was up, because I would totally empty my squirt gun into his face.

So where the hell was Colin? He should burst in any minute—hell, he should have burst in already—to save my sorry ass from doing or saying something that was going to get me killed. Vampires were so damn unreliable.

The servant—I really, really didn’t want to think of him as a zombie, not when he was touching my whisky tumbler—crossed the room to us, carrying said whisky tumblers, and set them down neatly in front of us. Pieter picked his up and took a quaff. I reached for mine, then chickened out. The servant’s dull fingerprint lay on the glass like a bruise. My stomach lurched.

Pieter leaned toward me, watching my face closely. “I’m going to talk to you now for a while.” His voice had taken on a different tone, not quite singsong, but with a musical quality to it. “When we’re done, you’ll understand better what I want from you.”

I was immune to his voice. I had to be. But as he continued to speak, I could feel the words moving over me like honey, like warm treacle—what the fuck was treacle, anyway?—syrupy, drowning—

“Okay, that’s enough.”

That
voice wasn’t treacly at all. That voice was Colin’s, snippy and harsh, breaking through the snaring, cloying sound of Pieter’s. I snapped my eyes open—when had I shut them?—just in time to see Colin burst into the living room, heading at speed and with furious intent toward Pieter.