The Bloody City (23 page)

Sam clenched his jaw and turned away again.

“I have to sleep,” Occam said. “I have to recover from the sun.” He leaned toward June. “You’ll make sure neither of them does anything to us?” He jerked his head at Sam and Cindy.

June frowned. “Uh, sure…”

“I’m not going to mess with you, Occam!” Sam said. “You’re not my priority right now.”

“Good.” He shambled toward the closed door on the other side of the room. “For behaving yourselves, you get a prize.” He pounded on the door, making the wood shudder. “Hey! Get down here.”

A moment later, the distinct thumping of someone’s footsteps descending stairs sounded from behind the door.

The door opened a crack, then wider.

June gasped. “Micha.”

Micha stepped out. “June! Guys!”

She rushed over to him. He didn’t appear beaten up—a little pale, and he was still wearing the same clothes as when he’d been abducted, but otherwise he seemed fine. She threw her arms around him and clung. He smelled bad, but she didn’t care. He hugged her tightly in return.

“You’re all right,” she whispered against his shoulder. “They didn’t hurt you.” She looked around at Occam. “Thank you.”

“I’m not a liar,” Occam said.

She drew back and kissed Micha, hard. His mouth tasted like—popcorn?

“Aw,” Occam said. “On that happy note, I’m off to sleep the day away.”

Cindy came over and gripped Micha’s arm. “I’m so glad you’re all right.” She frowned. “You are all right, aren’t you?”

Occam had already left the room. Micha looked around at them. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are…you guys okay? What are you doing here?” He fixed his gaze on Sam over June’s shoulder. She couldn’t look at him right now.

“It’s been a really bad day,” June said softly. “You better sit down for this.”

They sat down together on one of the beds. The mattress was lumpy and stained—with what, who knew?—so she didn’t sit back much farther than the edge. Sam sat on the bed across from them, back against the wall and legs stretched out in front of him, arms folded over his chest. Cindy sat beside him Indian-style.

The story was hard to tell, but June told it. Sam and Cindy didn’t contribute.

“Damn,” Micha said, quiet and grim. “He finally struck.”

“We knew this was coming.” Cindy broke her stupor. “We didn’t know what, but we knew he would come out of hiding eventually, and in a big way.”

“I can’t believe he’s got so many people on his side,” Micha said.

“This is my fault.” Sam spoke dully. Though his face was passive and sagging, the desperate, pained light in his eyes was hard to stomach. “If I hadn’t abandoned them, if I hadn’t gone into hiding and I’d stayed visible to give them some reassurance and hope…”

“You wouldn’t have given them much hope from prison,” June said. “Which is where you’d be if you hadn’t gone into hiding. Listen, Sam. This isn’t something Robbie cooked up in the few months you’ve been missing. He’s been planning this for a long time. He indicated that at the press conference when we saved Jason, remember?”

“Right,” Micha said. “He admitted he’s been killing paranormal people to keep them away from the Institute. He’s been at this for a while.”

Sam closed his eyes. “And me being out of the picture gave him the perfect opportunity to strike.”

“He would have struck eventually, no matter what.” June sat forward. “Sam, people like him don’t plan stuff like this for years and then just drop it because they can’t find a good moment to make their dreams come true. He would have had his day, sooner or later.”

Cindy reached out and touched Sam’s knee. “She’s right.” Her voice was soft. “You couldn’t have stopped him, Sam. He’s been working against you for who knows how long, poisoning people’s minds.”

Sam opened his eyes. “I just wish I knew where Muse is.”

“Muse is a tough bitch,” June said. “I can’t see Robbie getting her so easily. Besides, she’s telepathic. I’m sure she knew they were coming.”

“Unless Robbie came alone,” Sam said. “She can’t read him, remember? Or Ethan. If they came together, alone, they could have surprised her.”

June rubbed a hand over her mouth. Robbie would do terrible things to Muse and Trina if he got his hands on them. Her brain formed plenty of grisly possibilities.

Sam unfolded his arms and clenched his fists against his thighs. “How long are we going to sit here and do nothing?”

“What can we do?” Micha asked. “Where would you go, Sam? You’d stumble right into his arms.”

“You heard Occam,” June said. “Robbie will come back and brag to the vampires about what he’s done. He’ll come to you. You don’t have to go looking for him.”

Sam sat up, away from the wall. “What the hell is it with Occam courting you, anyway?”

She flinched. “I don’t know. I guess he thinks I’d make a good vampire. Lucky for us right now, I’d say.”

He pushed himself to the edge of the mattress. “He’s very actively interested in you. So much so, he put himself in jeopardy today, going out in the sun. So much, he was willing to save all of us, because it was ‘what you wanted.’”

“I don’t know! Beyond making me a vampire, I don’t know what he wants with me. He’s kind of his own man, you feel me?”

Sam narrowed his eyes at her.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She pointed at him. “I have no idea what he’s up to. I just met the man last week, and I really wish I hadn’t. But then, you and Aaron thought it was for the best, didn’t you?”

Sam got to his feet. “Occam is more dangerous than Robbie, remember that. Robbie has a cause, something greater than himself to answer to. Occam just serves his own selfish purposes.”

She got up as well. Sam stood in front of her. His gaze was pained but angry, his lips in a tight line.

“I know this has been a really tough day,” she said. “But you can’t go running out there looking for Robbie. Not if you want to survive long enough to do something about him. There is nothing we can do but wait.”

“I’ve been waiting for months!” he practically yelled in her face. “All my waiting has led to this!”

“This isn’t your fault!” she yelled back at him. “Pull yourself together for a few minutes and think. Be the smart man I know you are—the one who saved Jason, the one who got us out of the Institute. Are you still that man, or are you going to let grief dull your edge?”

Sam didn’t speak. The house was silent around them, as if listening for his response.

“I need to know,” she said, “if you’re still the smartest man in this city.”

He hesitated, but finally spoke. “I’m still the smartest man in this city,” he said. “I am.”

“Good. Then I still believe in you. Fix this. Without getting any of us killed.”

She turned away. Micha gazed at them, one eyebrow arched.

“I can find out what’s going on.” Cindy stood. “I can at least find a TV and watch the news.”

“Occam was right,” Sam said. “It’s not safe, even for you. A resourceful man like Robbie, I’m sure he has a mental list of dissenters, if not a physical one.”

“I’ll be careful.” Cindy stepped up beside him. “Maybe I can find out what’s happened to Muse.”

“I’m not ordering you to do anything.” He sat down heavily on the bed. “If you want to go, then go. Don’t get yourself caught, or killed.”

“I’ll come back as soon as I can.” She started toward the door. “I’ll use the GPS on my phone to figure out where we are right now and go from there.”

“We’re somewhere near the Nocturnal District,” Micha said. “I recognize the area.”

Cindy slipped out the door.

Silence fell. June fidgeted. Maybe one of them would say something so she didn’t have to keep carrying the conversation.

“Wanna see my luxury suite upstairs?” Micha asked her.

“Yeah. I think he could use some alone time right now.” She nodded at Sam and stood.

Micha did too.

“We’ll be right upstairs, Sam. Promise me you won’t leave.” If he needed to cry, she would give him the space to cry without losing face.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam said. “But I swear to fucking Christ if I hear you having sex up there, I’m coming up and punching both of you in the face. I really want to punch the hell out of someone right now.”

She grabbed Micha’s wrist. “Yes, Dad.”

“I mean it!” he called after them as Micha led June up the stairs beyond the door.

“He sounds a little jealous,” Micha muttered.

“I think he’s kinda high-strung right now.”

The stairs led to a loft-like room, small, obviously meant to be a bedroom, though the only semblance of it being so was a mattress on the floor in the corner. Blankets were spread over the mattress, no pillows. A single window, over which ratty curtains hung, looked out on the street and allowed enough light to reveal the unappealing décor. The carpet, perhaps beige at some point, was stained and filthy.

“By vampire standards,” she said, “these are pretty luxurious accommodations.”

“You hungry?”

“I’m goddamn starving.”

Micha grabbed something from a pile in the corner opposite the “bed.” A heap of food sat there: bags of chips, candy bars, other assorted bags and boxes of junk. He held a bag out to her, and she now understood why his mouth tasted like popcorn.

“Apparently vampires have forgotten what kind of food humans need to survive,” he said. “It’s the thought that counts, I suppose.”

She took the half-empty bag of popcorn, the kind with no hulls, soft and squishy and more like Styrofoam than food. “Does this have butter on it?” She peered into the bag, grimaced, and thrust it away. “Yes. Do you have anything in your stash that won’t make me vomit in a few minutes?”

“Dig through and find something. Mi prison, su prison.”

She riffled through the pile. She cringed when a cockroach ran out and skittered across the carpet. “Splendid. Tell me they at least let you use the bathroom.”

“Yes, though the plumbing is questionable here.”

She searched carefully—anything sealed would probably be uncontaminated. “What have they been doing to you here?”

“Nothing. Just holding me. Some vampires were messing with me the night they brought me here, but Occam ran them off. Other than that, he came to see me yesterday and told me if I didn’t come up with a convincing story that Rose’s research was false, he’d make the rest of you pay.”

“Ah-ha.” She stood up, a bag in hand. “Corn chips. No gluten.”

“I thought I might be able to escape. Maybe slip out during the day. But I didn’t want him finding you and hurting you.”

She ripped the bag open. “He found us anyway. Sam says vampires are really good at sniffing people out.”

She threw all politeness to the wind and stuffed a handful of chips in her mouth. She was starving.

“So,” he said, “the FBI have my results, and now they have the information on the serum?”

She nodded, chewing.

“Then they’re about to expose the Institute.” The light from the window washed out the color of his eyes—much like Robbie’s eyes, in her still-horrified memory. “They’ll uncover the truth. They might even discover Sam and Aaron only killed Eric in self-defense.”

“We got bigger problems right now,” she said around the wad of chips. She swallowed and grabbed another handful. She attempted to eat them one at a time this round.

“You don’t have to do anything else, you know. For me. Or for Sam. Your brother is safely away from here, and the Institute is about to be blown open. You could get out of here. Your part in this is over.”

“I suppose I could. But now I find myself worrying what might happen to you poor bastards.”

“You think you can change what’s going to happen to us?”

To keep herself from shoving her face in the bag, she set it on the windowsill. “No. But I can stick around and see you safe.”

He walked over to her. “What if we’re never safe? Is this the kind of life you want, all this hiding and running?”

“At least it’s exciting. Like I’m in an action movie.”

He slid his arms around her. She pressed against him, gripping his shoulders.

“I was scared they’d hurt you,” she whispered. “Or killed you.” She drew back. “When Occam showed up at our place last night, he gave me your wedding ring.”

“Is that what he did with it? Should have known he would use it to torment you. He took it from me yesterday.” He paused. “I don’t know why I still wear it, to tell you the truth.”

“Maybe part of you still wants to believe she wasn’t setting you up.”

He drew back from her, looking out the window.

She stuffed her hand in the pocket of her jeans. “Something…strange happened.” She drew the ring out. “When I hold the ring up, I can summon Rose.”

“Summon her?”

“Yeah. It calls out to her or something. But she’s not like she usually is. She seems more aware.”

He furrowed his brow.

“Doesn’t make her any less creepy, though.” She shuddered. “I hate ghosts.”

“Do it. Summon her now.”

“What?”

“I want to see.”

She cringed. “You’ve never been able to see her when she appears.”

“Maybe it’ll be different. Maybe I’ll be able to see her if she’s connected to the ring.”

“If that were the case, why hasn’t she appeared to you before now? You’ve been wearing the ring.”

“Ghosts can’t hurt you.” He gently gripped her arm. “They might be freaky, but they can’t do anything to you.”

“Being freaked out is something.”

“I want to see.”

Could a living person have a fistfight with a ghost? Not that she assumed Micha to be the kind of guy to punch his wife, but he might be the kind of guy to punch her betraying, treacherous spirit.

“Damn you for being so good looking.” She sighed. “You’re the only person who can get me to summon a ghost.”

He smiled. “Only for a minute, I promise.”

She turned around. She picked the farthest corner and took a deep breath. Silently cursing Micha, herself, and whatever entities might be listening in, she lifted the ring, holding it between her thumb and index finger.

Nothing happened.

Micha hovered behind her, so close his body heat radiated against her back, his breath passing over the nape of her neck.