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They both stopped thrashing and let the moment settle around them.
“Are you hurt?” Crow asked.
“Everything hurts,” was LaMastra’s muffled reply.
“Let’s get this frigging carpet off us…”
But that fast the folds of the carpet were whipped away from Crow by unseen hands. While LaMastra still struggled to get free of the carpet, Crow scrambled around onto his hands and knees, his heart hammering in his chest, scrabbling for the fallen flashlight, but his desperate fingers sent it rolling away. The light pinwheeled around and then came to an abrupt stop as someone caught it with the toe of a polished shoe.
On all fours, Crow stared at the face of the man who stood over them. The blood turned to ice in his veins and the world seemed to spin sideways into unreality as he watched the man bend down and pick up the Maglite.
Jimmy Castle held the light in his bone-white fingers. He held the beam under his chin the way a prankish child might at a campfire.
“Boo!” he said, and his mouth stretched wide to show two rows of jagged white teeth.
Chapter 35
1
It took a long time for Val to soothe Mike. Clinging to her he seemed to regress to an almost babylike state, his words reduced to an inarticulate wordless noise that was drenched with tears. She stroked his matted hair and kissed his dirty face and rocked him back and forth until his terrible sobs slowed to a whimper and then he felt silent. Jonatha and Newton came in and when they saw Mike they kept silent; Weinstock waved them over to the far side of the room. Jonatha sat in a chair and Newton leaned against the wall, both of them looking as confused and uncomfortable as Weinstock.
When Mike finally lifted his head, he sniffed, accepted the tissue Val gave him, then slowly looked around the room as if he’d never seen it. He wiped his nose and blotted his eyes. He offered no weak smile or embarrassed apologies for his tears. People in wartime don’t need to do it, and their fellow refugees don’t require it of them.
Because his eyes were now so red and puffy Jonatha and Newton didn’t immediately notice their unnatural look.
Val helped Mike to his feet and led him to the bathroom. “Why don’t you clean yourself up, honey? Take your time. You know Mr. Newton, he’s a friend. He knows what’s going on. Professor Corbiel is also a friend. She’s from the University of Pennsylvania. ” She put her hand on his cheek. “She’s a folklorist. She knows about vampires. ”
That made Mike’s eyes flicker and he turned to look at her and she saw his eyes. Jonatha gripped Newton’s knee and her fingernails dug deep.
Mike went in and closed the bathroom door.
Val and the others huddled around Weinstock and she told them what Mike had said.
“What’s with his eyes?” Newton asked.
“We don’t know yet,” Val admitted, “but something terrible must have happened. ”
They heard the toilet flush and the door opened. Mike came into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. His face was composed, but the abiding hurt was there in the stiffness of his posture and the profound sadness of his face.
“Mike,” Val said, sitting down next to him, “you know what’s going on in town, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Some of it,” he said. “Maybe a lot of it, but not all of it. ”
“What do you know?” Newton asked.
Mike sighed. “This is going to take time. ”
Val wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “We have to know. ”
“Before I tell you what I know I guess I should tell you how I know. ” He took a breath, held it, let it out slowly. “You know that there are vampires in Pine Deep, don’t you?”
Val just squeezed his shoulder.
“My mother is one of them. ”
“God…” Weinstock breathed.
He told them what happened at his house and didn’t dare look at the horror on their faces. “She saved my life,” he said, and sniffed back some tears.
