Violet bristled. “We couldn’t just leave him in their control. We have to try to help him.”
“That’s the trouble,” Malcolm said. “He’s still in their control.”
Jennie straightened. “You think Root can track the boy?”
“They’re still connected, or the kid wouldn’t be acting like this,” Malcolm said. “Jennie, do you still have some of that powder you dusted Maggie with?”
“Shit.” Jennie dug around the inside pockets in her coat, exhaling when she found what she sought. “Yes. I’ve got it.”
“Use it,” Violet said. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that right away.”
Benjy squealed as Jennie dipped her fingers into what remained of her pixie dust. The boy pistoned his legs and smashed his shoulder into Jennie with such force that her head bounced off the car window, leaving a windmill of cracks in the glass.
“Little bastard!” Jennie snapped.
She grabbed Benjy, pinned him with a knee, and scattered a small cloud of powder onto his hair and clothing. The kid thrashed against the back of the seat, trying to elude the pixie dust, but the inside of the Frazer offered no escape.
“Why are we doing this?” Violet asked. “We’ve passed plenty of places we could have left him. Someone would help him.”
“His mind is Root’s right now,” Jennie said. “There’s no telling what kind of danger that puts him in. We can’t just leave him behind.”
Malcolm might not have lived with his sister in many years, but he still knew when she was lying. “That’s bunk. Just be straight with us. Why are we holding on to this kid?”
Jennie held Benjy in place as she belted him into his seat, hands still behind his back.
“Fine.” She gave a tiny shrug. “It’s for our benefit. You both know this. If the Morák get close to us, Benjy will feel it. He’ll sense them closing in. Call him our fire alarm.”
“That’s awful,” Violet said. “He’s still alive. He’s not one of those things, and you’re putting him in danger by keeping him with us.”
“Letting him go adds to the danger we’re in. I’ll make sure the kid’s all right,” Jennie said, “but I’m not setting him free until we’re out of the woods.”
The tires slipped a bit on the next turn. It was cold enough that the rain on the road had begun to freeze. Minutes later, the first snowflakes hit the windshield, and Malcolm had to turn the wipers back on. The noise they made while scraping the glass sounded very much like screaming.
38
Alfie pushed the panel truck faster than safety demanded, but what the fuck did he care about safety? When a man had lost track of his bullet wounds, taking a curve too fast seemed a small risk.
You’re still breathing, he thought.
The idea puzzled him. His shirt and coat were tacky and heavy with blood. When he shifted behind the wheel, his clothes peeled away from the seat with a sucking sound. The weeping bullet wound in his chest pouted like a fish every time he turned the wheel. He couldn’t see the gasping edges of the wound, but he felt them.
His heart still beat. Weak and lightheaded, he wondered how much blood he could lose and remain conscious. More accurately, he wondered how much blood the average person could afford to lose, because he was not the average person—not since Root had attacked him in the wreckage of the Imperial Limited.
Darkness pooled at the edges of his vision. His head bobbed. An arm snaked up from the back of the panel truck and struck him in the temple. A bit of smoke wisped up from the sleeve.
“Touch me again and I’ll drive us into a tree,” he growled. He’d thought the monsters were all sleeping.
“Do not speak that way to us again,” Root whispered from the back. “It is still possible for you to arrive at the next sunrise alive.”
Alfie had to clench his teeth to force himself not to respond.
In the passenger seat, the ghost of Joe Hannigan had no suchrestraint. “Tell him,” Joe said. “Tell the asshole you know it’s too late.”
“It’s not too late for me,” Alfie replied.
“Not if you obey,” Root whispered, thinking Alfie had spoken to him, or to the other monsters in the back of the truck.
Alfie glanced to his right. He could see Joe when he blinked, like something floating in his vision, there from a certain angle but otherwise invisible. What fascinated him most about this was that Root and the others had no idea Joe was along for the ride. It forced him to consider the possibility that his twin brother might not be there at all, that he might be an illusion conjured by a man who was dying with unnatural slowness. The inhuman strength given to him by the touch of a vampire kept him going beyond human endurance, but his gears were winding down.
