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“If the Colony wanted to attack, they could have done it tonight,” Barbara pointed out.
Rita sighed. “I have a duty to protect the town.”
“And the last thing we want to do is spread panic. Scared people do stupid things.”
She paused. A truck engine growled. Headlights illuminated the road and a large 4x4 pulled up. The lights cut and a figure climbed out. Jess Garrett. Barbara’s heart plummeted even further.
“Is everything okay here, Reverend?” Jess asked.
Colleen nodded. “Just a little Colony trouble.”
Jess took in the burnt cross, the words in the snow. Her face turned to thunder. She marched up to Barbara. “This enough evidence for you, Detective? Written in blood.”
Barbara kept her voice even. “Right now, we all need to stay calm—”
“Calm?” Jess shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you? Look around. Another snowfall tonight and we’ll be completely cut off. We are on our own. Because you dragged your feet over a cull.” She paused. “If the Colony attack, you’ll have the blood of the whole damn town on your hands. I hope you can live with that.”
39
Barbara had grown up living with the taste of fear and blood. A backhander, a punch, a kick, a lick of the belt.
Anything could provoke it. The wrong word, the wrong clothes, the time of day, the number of beers or spirits. Sometimes, trying to avoid the beating was pointless. You just had to minimize the damage.
This particular morning, Barbara had cooked her dad’s eggs wrong.
“These are like fucking rubber, Babs.”
The eggs and plate had hit the wall and her dad’s hand had whipped her head almost off her shoulders. While he yanked a beer out of the fridge, Barbara had escaped the house and run down to the river. Her nose stung, but she didn’t think it was broken. Dad had used an open hand rather than his fist.
She was kneeling by the water, splashing her face, trying to wash away the blood dripping from her nostrils, when she heard the girl’s voice:
“Are you okay?”
She turned.
Her again. The mermaid. Long, silvery-white dreadlocks; burnished dark skin. Eyes as green as the fields. So different from Barbara, with her pale, blotchy skin and lank, brown hair.
“I-I’m fine,” she stuttered. “Just a nosebleed.”
The girl nodded. “I saw you the other day. I’m Mercy.”
“Erm…Barbara. I live over there.” She gestured toward the fields.
The girl smiled. “I’m from the Hoka Colony, over in the Bluff.”
Barbara had stared at her in shock. The Bluff was a heavily wooded mountainous region that ringed the town. Everyone knew that vampyrs lived out there, but Barbara had never seen any of them before.
“But you don’t look like a vampyr,” she said.
Mercy had giggled. “What? You expect me to be all pasty white? Or to float around like a bat?”
“No, I-I don’t know.”
Barbara had been flummoxed. And embarrassed to admit that she kind of had expected that. All she really knew about the Hoka Colony was what the school taught and what her dad said, although she was now at an age where she realized that a lot of stuff her dad said—about blacks and whores and Jews—was cruel, a lie and offensive. So, she guessed that might be true of vampyrs too.
“Why don’t you have bigger…” She gestured awkwardly to her mouth, not wanting to say “fangs.”
“Oh, right, well, I’m only fifteen so the fangs don’t come through fully for another year or so.” Mercy grinned more widely, showing off her elongated incisors. “They’re getting there, though.”
