The Girls With Games of Blood (34 page)

“You killed my daughter,” Crabtree said, and pulled both triggers.

Later, Jeb Crabtree seemed to awaken from a dream. He found himself on his porch, the sun pounding down on him, his dog asleep beside him. He looked at the shotgun propped against one of the columns, then down at his own blood-spattered shirt and arms. When he touched his face, he felt dried blood beneath the stubble.

He stood and looked around.
Oh,
he thought calmly,
now I remember. Bruce Cocker killed my Clora. I buried her, then I killed him.

There was one other thing to finish. It took barely a moment to reload the gun, and then another to complete his final task. His last sensation was surprise at the gun barrel’s flavor, and the realization that he now shared this final taste with the boy who killed his girl. The noise sent the dog scurrying under the porch, but he emerged shortly and began wolfing down the chunks of meat and bone scattered around the yard.

In the Bolade house, Prudence sat up at the sound of the shotgun blast, followed by the dog’s urgent barking. It wasn’t an unusual sound for the area, since someone was always hunting something regardless of what season it might be. But this sound carried a finality that got her attention.

She rose from the bed and padded to the open window. She squinted out into the late-morning sun and tried to get a sense of what had happened. She faintly smelled blood, but could not identify its source.

She felt the corner of her lip. The rip in her flesh had healed, leaving no trace of the passion that tore it. Baron Rudolfo Vladimir Zginski had awakened the desire she’d denied for over a century, and had shown her a mastery that she was all too eager to experience again. Certainly he had controlled her, but with the common goal of mutual satisfaction. And no doubt she had had a similar effect on him, given the way he’d driven himself into her.

She cinched her ruffled robe tight around her waist and blew a touseled strand of blond hair out of her eyes. Duty, she reminded herself, before pleasure. Patience would never return to the Bolade home now, not even after seeing Prudence at the bar. So the confrontation and score-settling would have to take place in the city.

She didn’t mind, though. It gave her a reason to dress up.

Byron Cocker got out of the beat-up tow truck and waved to the driver. “Appreciate the lift, Mr. Privitt.”

“No worries, Byron,” Herm Privitt said. His face looked distended from the massive chaw of tobacco tucked into his lip. “See you around.”

Cocker fluttered the front of his shirt against his sweaty chest. He’d returned the Impala and caught a ride home with Privitt, and now it was time to deal with Bruce. He’d either slept right through the boy’s return or—more likely—the little pissant had snuck in through a window or the back door. Either way, it was time to explain why the son of Byron Cocker shouldn’t be dipping his wick in a Crabtree honey pot. He was coming up on his senior year, and Cocker would be making damn sure the worthless shit kept up his grades and got into Union University in Jackson. It had been Vicki Lynn’s fondest wish.

He stopped as he was about to put his key in the front door. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up the way they always did in the presence of a serious offense. He looked around but saw nothing out of the ordinary; the neighbors’ houses were all quiet and still, the men gone to work and the women watching their stories on TV. There was no traffic at all.

He looked down at the door. The knob was intact and showed no sign of being jimmied. None of the front windows were broken. Yet experience had taught him this feeling was never wrong. A crime had been committed here.

He tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He had a gun in his car, but chose not to retrieve it. He mentally counted to three, then threw the door open and charged through with a bellow he’d learned as a novice wrestler.

He nearly tripped over his son’s headless corpse.

Z
GINSKI LOOKED OUT
at the Mississippi River shimmering in the heat and said, “Do you remember this place?”

Fauvette peeked over the top of her sunglasses and said drily, “I think so.”

They stood in the riverfront park where he had taken her the morning he demonstrated that sunlight would not, in fact, reduce her to dust. The night before he had knocked her unconscious and kidnapped her; she had never been so scared, either as a mortal or a vampire, as on that morning when he held her before the window and drew back the curtain.

The moment of revelation had been transcendent, and the sunrise walk afterward only slightly less so. Joggers had passed them, and in the distance a chain of barges drifted downstream surrounded by hovering seagulls. Other birds sang in the trees along with cicadas and stubborn crickets not yet ready for sleep. Buildings had shimmered in the sunrise; it hurt her eyes, but she had not looked away. It had been the most exhilarating and terrifying moment of her existence so far.

Seeing her dressed like any other teenager now, Zginski
recalled the way she looked that morning. When he found her she was covered with dirt, filth, and grime. His victim at the time, a thick-headed beauty named Lee Ann, had bathed and dressed her so that she looked more like the child she had been at her death. Now, even though her physical form was unchanged, she radiated the weariness of a sad, mature woman. He felt another of those annoying twinges of conscience at the certainty he was a source of at least some of that sadness.

He hoped his smile was mockery-free. “And how go your feeding lessons?”

“Not so good,” she sighed. “Patience doesn’t really know how she does it, so that makes it hard for her to teach it. I can almost feel it during her shows, like the air is trembling, but I can’t make it happen for myself.” She shrugged. “I tried. It didn’t work. End of story.”

“It would seem to be a unique skill.”

“So you believe it now?”

“I believe
you
believe it. Or rather, that you did.”

She cocked her head at him. His tone was gentle, but his words implied the same old arrogance. The last time he’d been truly gentle with her was the night after they’d survived the attack at the warehouse, when he implied a future that had not come to pass. “Why did I think you’d say anything different? You already have all the answers, don’t you? Except you keep them to yourself.”

Inside, he winced at her venom. “Are you angry with me, Fauvette?”

“Would it matter?” Before he could reply she continued. “You are really something, you know that? Do you even remember that night in the warehouse? That was
important
to me. I let my guard down with you.”

People turned toward them at the sound of Fauvette’s raised voice, and continued to stare due to their apparent age
difference. Zginski said quietly, “And I believe I fulfilled my part of our agreement. You experienced pleasure with a minimum of pain and discomfort.”

“Jesus, listen to yourself. I thought . . .” She bit off the rest of the sentence.

“What?” he prompted.

“I thought you felt something for me.”

He knew what he should say, knew that it was true. But he resolutely kept silent. He had felt the same for Tzigane, and that had ended badly indeed.

Fauvette continued. “And what about Patience? She practically drools every time you walk in the room. Are you going to use her and throw her away like you did me?”

“I have not thrown you away, Fauvette.”

“No, you keep me around for the next time I might be useful to you. Like when you need to find out whether or not Patience is a danger. What do you use Leonardo for, I wonder? And what . . .” Her fury caused the words to jam in her throat. Finally she said tightly, “And what exactly
did
happen to Mark?”

Zginski fought down the emotions struggling for expression. “Mr. Luminesca left,” he said in his normal cold tone. “Of his own free will. I neither requested nor compelled him to do so, and was unaware of it until after he had departed. I have no explanation for his conduct, and bear no responsibility for it.”

Fauvette felt as if her chest would burst from the rage building in it. “And why, exactly, should I believe you? You’ve told us all how expendable we are many times.”

“I have never been dishonest with you, Fauvette.”

“No, but I
am
expendable, ain’t I?
Aren’t
I?” she corrected.

“I am sorry you feel that way.”

“I could say the same to you.”

She waited until a young couple, holding hands and
basking in each other’s presence, sauntered out of hearing. Then she said more calmly, “Look, would it be a huge inconvenience for you to stay the hell away from me for a while? Whenever I see you my heart breaks just a little bit more, and I’m afraid it’ll fall apart for good before too long.”

They stood in silence for a long moment, not looking at each other. A child on a bicycle rode past, swerving at the last minute to miss them. Finally Zginski said, “If that is what you wish. But I do insist that you inform me if anything happens that I might need to look into.”

“You insist?”

“I do.”

“Well, we all know how well you can do that.” She walked away into the pedestrian traffic and quickly vanished. Everyone who passed her saw only an upset teenage girl who probably should’ve been in school.