Pale Immortal (32 page)

In the distance, Evan caught the faint sound of more sirens.

He chased Alba upstairs and across a creaking floor.

Along the way Evan pulled up a piece of splintered board and continued after Alba.

Alba scurried like a spider up a ladder attached to the wall. Evan followed.

At the top Alba was waiting. He kicked Evan in the side of the head. Evan dropped his makeshift sword, grabbed Alba's foot, and pulled. Alba tumbled to his back.

Evan cleared the top of the ladder and threw himself on Alba. The men rolled across the floor. Evan couldn't get a punch in. Suddenly Alba was on top of him—and Evan felt the cold steel of his Glock pressed to his head.

Click, click, click.

Empty.

Evan laughed.

Both men scrambled to their feet. Alba slammed the gun against Evan's skull.

Evan cried out in pain and took a step back.

The floor shifted and broke under him. In a cloud of dust and debris, Evan tumbled backward through the air, falling to the floor far below.

Consciousness returned slowly, and Evan gradually realized one arm was caught under him. He was unable to draw more than a shallow breath.

Shafts of light cut through cracks. Dust wafted and drifted gently skyward.

A movement had him turning to see Alba picking his way toward him. Something glinted in his blood-caked hand.

At first Evan thought it was the empty Glock, but it was too shiny for that.

Graham told Isobel to stay hidden, then shoved himself to his feet and began walking. It wasn't easy. It was dark, and he kept forgetting where he was going. When he did remember that he was heading back to the church, he had no idea if he was pointed in the right direction.

At least the moon was out.

Then again, maybe light was a bad thing—because Lydia appeared on the path in front of him. She was no longer hanging upside down, but her face was half-rotten, maggots crawling in her eye sockets. He took a step back and put a hand to his face. He breathed through his mouth, but that made him gag.

"Sorry," he mumbled behind his hand.

He didn't want to be rude, but. ..
Damn, Sam!
"Which way to the church?" he asked.

"I'll show you."

He wasn't sure how she could talk, because her mouth was a big gaping hole, but she seemed to be doing okay. She headed straight up a hill in a direction that seemed totally wrong. When he didn't follow, she paused and waited.

She'd been right before, so she was probably right this time.

Graham let out a heavy sigh. His leg wasn't hurting as much, but it felt swollen and heavy. He didn't want to look at it. It might look like Lydia's face.

He grabbed the trunk of a small tree and braced himself for the steep climb. "Lead on," he told his mother.

"Who are you talking to?"

He swung around to see Isobel behind him. "You can't come."

"I can do whatever I want. Who were you talking to?" she repeated.

He turned back around, but Lydia was gone. No surprise. She wouldn't want a young girl like Isobel to see her.

"Don't tell her about me."

No, he wouldn't. Isobel would think he was crazy.

He had a fever. He was dehydrated. They said the reason people in the desert hallucinated was because they were dehydrated. Being dehydrated really messed with your head.

He'd never done acid, but this might be what it was like. Not unpleasant. Kind of mind-expanding. "I knew a guy who did a lot of acid, and he was fried." Graham pushed aside a big branch, holding it so it wouldn't snap back and smack Isobel in the face.

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't remember his name, but there was a delay to everything he said and did. Kinda like his thoughts were taking a detour through his brain."

He quit talking to concentrate on climbing. At the top of the hill he spotted a familiar scene and stopped in his tracks. Isobel bumped into him from behind.

"The church," he whispered over his shoulder.

Lydia had been right. The direction he'd taken had seemed completely wrong, but here they were. He could see the grassy, open area where the road had once been. He saw the peak of the church roof and the crumbled remains of a bell tower silhouetted against a velvet sky.

Out of nowhere, panic clutched his belly. What were they doing here? He didn't want to be here.

Then he remembered. Evan needed help.

Oh, yeah.

He felt Isobel behind him, then her hand gripping his tightly. "You aren't going back, are you?" she whispered.

"I have to."

It was quiet. He couldn't hear or see anything or anybody. But then, he
had
seen Lydia, someone who wasn't supposed to exist. "Wait here."

Isobel squeezed his hand harder. "Don't go. The police will come. Wait for them."

"We don't know that. Nobody has come yet. I've been here for days, and nobody came. I'll be careful."

He slipped his hand from hers. Crouching, trying not to drag his foot because of the noise, he moved toward the church. He limped across the open area that had been the old road, quickly dropping into deep, rustling grass and brush that scratched his arms. He was used to sneaking around. He'd done it a lot when he'd lived in Arizona. Sneaking out of the house at night, then sneaking back in.

He crawled to the window, then peeked inside.

One small candle sputtered on the floor, the flame tall and moving wildly even though Graham didn't feel any breeze.

He slowly rose to his feet, at the same time scanning the interior.

There was no sign of anyone.

Now what, Lydia?

A shadow fell across him.

For a second he thought he saw Lydia swinging from the rafters again before he shifted his eyes away. Or had she always been there? When he looked back up, she was gone. A trick of candlelight?

He strained for any sound, but there was a roar in his head like the inside of a shell, and it was almost impossible to sort the internal from the external.

Until he heard gunshots.

He was fairly certain those weren't in his head.

Graham heard a crash that seemed to come from the other end of town. He limped in that direction, trying not to think about his injury, yet unable to keep from visualizing a boot filled with rotting meat. Some round stub that looked more like a ham hock than a foot.

He hopped to a stop in front of a cluster of crumbling buildings—and heard another sound coming from deep inside the tall stone structure. Dragging his foot behind him, he moved as fast as he could. When he reached a vine-covered doorway with no door, he looked through the barrier of stems and tangled greenery to see Evan sprawled on the floor.

He was hurt. Badly hurt.

Alba stood over him, a knife in his hand.

Graham looked around for something—anything—he could use as a weapon. He spotted a piece of wood that was narrow at one end, wide at the other.

He picked it up. "If you want to be a vampire, then die like one!" Graham charged, a horrible sound coming from him, a sound that was half scream, half roar of rage, meant to trick himself into thinking he could do what had to be done.

At the last moment Alba turned to face his new enemy.

The wooden stake went through Alba's chest wall and through his heart, stopping when it hit bone.

Alba didn't die immediately, not like on TV or in movies. That would have been a lot better—if he'd just closed his eyes and dropped to the floor. But no, he stared at Graham in shock and disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something. Instead of words, chunks of blood and stuff that looked like raw liver poured out.

His heart? Was that his heart?

Could a person live after the heart was destroyed? Apparently so. At least for a while.

Time froze.

Graham's ears started doing something weird, almost like they'd closed.

Just shut yourself off.

Yeah, he'd done this before. He knew where that switch was.

One last spurt of blood, and Alba folded as if the bones had been jerked from his body.

Graham tried to close his eyes but couldn't. It probably wouldn't have helped anyway. He would probably still see Alba's face, still see the horror in the man's eyes, the accusation and surprise.

Not you. You wouldn't kill me. I would never have expected that of you.

"G-Graham?"

Close your eyes.

Evan was talking to him, trying to get his attention, but he didn't want to deal with Evan right now.

He'd just killed a man.

He staggered backward, his gaze going from Alba and the awful, surprised look on his face, to Evan. He could see from Evan's expression that he understood the horror Graham was feeling, and that made it worse, made it more real.

He didn't want to be Graham anymore. He didn't want to be standing there, held together with Graham's skin.

"It'll be okay," Evan said. Each word seemed to require a struggle. Like he couldn't breathe.

And his effort did no good. It didn't ease Graham's despair.

He'd killed a man. He was sixteen years old, and he'd killed a man. How messed up was that?

He heard a sound and looked over his shoulder.

Isobel stood in the doorway, silhouetted against a sky that was growing lighter by the second. "Get out!" he shouted, and waved her away. "Get out of here!" He didn't want her to see what he'd done.

Sirens were wailing, very close now. He swore to God they were mocking him.

She extended her hand toward him. "Come outside," she said softly. "Come outside with me."

He stumbled forward, and when he reached her he threw his arms around her and pulled her close, hugging her to him, shaking all over, sobbing like a baby.

Graham and Isobel sat on a quilt in City Park. It had been a hot day, but evening had arrived and things were cooling off.

Without saying anything, Isobel extended her hand as if she were holding an empty cup. Graham passed her the smoothie they'd picked up at Peaches. Isobel stuck the straw in her mouth, took a long drink, and passed it back. "This is gonna be so cool."

The event they were waiting for was called Music and a Movie. An actual band—a
real
band—was stopping on its way from Minneapolis to Madison. A relative of Isobel's knew the bass player, and had invited them to play. Everybody was shocked when they'd agreed, but then, who could turn down an overnight stay in the land of vampires?

The band planned to play while Chaplin's
City Lights
was projected on a screen. It should be pretty damn cool.

Isobel wore a black tank top and a floral skirt. Her feet, in black sandals, sported purple toenail polish.

Graham loved her skin and the way she smelled. He might even say he loved
her,
which scared the hell out of him. Which was really weird, because they'd never even kissed.

Most people changed as you got to know them. Isobel had remained Isobel. She was exactly the same person she'd been that day she'd picked him up along the road as he'd run away from Evan's house. She was
real.

Another weird thing was that she didn't seem all that bothered about what had happened in Old Tuonela. She'd seemed able to put it behind her, while Graham struggled with it daily. And nightly.

He had bad dreams. Sometimes he saw Lydia. He would wake up and see her sitting by his bed, and it would freak the hell out of him.

In Old Tuonela, the dead are never really dead.

He believed it. He didn't want anybody else to know he believed it, but he did.

The band was setting up, unloading equipment from a white van. More people were arriving, most with blankets and some with picnic baskets.

Graham finished off the smoothie and leaned back on his elbows. "You could almost pretend this place was normal."

His foot was still there.

That was a good thing, but it had been pretty messed up, and he'd been on IV antibiotics for a long time. And he was going to a shrink. Not the school shrink, somebody else. A guy Graham actually ended up liking, even though he hadn't wanted to. The man was helping him, but certain things Graham wouldn't tell anybody, not even his shrink. Like seeing Lydia. They'd lock him up if he told anybody about that.

When Lydia visited his room at night, the smell of rotting flesh was what woke him up.

Why was he thinking of her now? Why did she keep intruding on his real life?

Change the channel. Just change the channel.

He couldn't stop. She'd been his guide out there in OT. He would never have made it without her. Maybe none of them would have made it. Now he didn't know if she'd been the monster she'd always seemed. Maybe he'd needed for her to be worse than she was. Maybe he'd needed to hate her so her lack of love wouldn't hurt so much. So that he could tell himself he didn't care.

Evan's father was moving back from Florida. Turned out he missed Tuonela, and for some reason Evan thought it would be a good idea to have another adult around. That was cool. Graham liked old people. Too bad about Chief Burton. Graham had liked him. And now Rachel was sad. And maybe leaving town, he'd heard. But Graham had to quit thinking about that. He had his whole life ahead of him. And Isobel was right beside him on a blanket.

They were seeing a band together in the park. That should make him happy as hell. It did make him happy.

"Did you really hate that CD I gave you?" he blurted out.

Wow.
He'd finally said it. He'd been trying for days, slowly working up to it, like the time he'd finally gotten up the nerve to dive from the high dive. But now the question that had been dogging him for so long just popped out of his mouth with no prethought.

"What do you think?" She was lying on her stomach, running her palm over the grass at the edge of the blanket.

"I don't know."

If she really hated it, could he still like her? God, that was shallow. Or was it? When you were passionate about something, and the person you cared about hated what you were passionate about, that wasn't good.