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The first faint gray streaks of dawn found him showered and in dark sunglasses, parked in a nice suburban neighborhood. Led Zeppelin was pouring out life through the speakers of his rusted Cadillac. It was a good car, but stood out like a sore thumb here in the land of minivans and SUVs. Still, it ran like a dream. And with the mods under the hood, he could outrun just about anything. He couldn’t quite beat the devil, but it was close.
He waited for “Dazed and Confused” to moan out its last few beats and later thought that if he’d just gone to meet the widow a little earlier, instead of at dawn as agreed, everything would have turned out differently.
The newborn edge of morning sun was struggling up over the rim of the earth, peeking through scudding clouds, as he slammed the car door and hitched the duffel bag onto his shoulder. Jeans, army jacket, boots—he didn’t match the neighborhood, either. It made his back itch. He was used to blending in.
In his slices of the city, that kept you alive.
Rookwood scooped the paper drink carrier off the roof and set out for the widow’s front door. The daylight, weak as it was, was a painful glare even behind the shades.
Nice house, white with two stories, green shutters, and a good lawn. Looked as if she’d planted primroses early this year and lavender a few years back. That was good. One lavender bush was worth ten or twelve crucifixes when it came to the—
Rookwood stopped, frowning.
The cedar green front door was open a crack. He couldn’t have seen it from the street, but six feet from the door it was a wrong note in the newborn symphony of day.
“Shit,” he muttered, and strode up the walk. He hit it with the palm of his free hand, and the door jerked, stopped halfway on its arc by something soft.
Amelia King lay on the floor in the hall. The door had hit her on the head, and her long, glossy brown hair was tangled. She was paper white, in a tattered gray T-shirt and shorts that she probably slept in, and if he hadn’t been able to hear the faint whisper of her struggling pulse, he might have thought she was dead.
The entire house reeked of ash and undead. Jesus Christ. What the hell’s this?
But he knew. The bait had been taken, sooner than he’d thought.
He pushed the door closed and locked it, then knelt at her side. The coffee went on a tiny, spindly decorative hall table. The vase that had probably been sitting there last night was on the floor. He could see how she would have blundered into it, knocking a spray of dried flowers to the floor and smashing something china blue to flinders.
She was taking in little shallow breaths, her lips blue and the rest of her chalky.
“Fuck.” The duffel unzipped with a screaming sound, and the insulated chill-pack crumpled aside as he grabbed the plastic bottle. Three or four quick shakes to get everything mixed together, and he checked her teeth. There wasn’t time for a transfusion, but if she wasn’t far enough along yet—
Reflex snapped her sharp white teeth together, and he almost lost a fingertip. Rookwood snatched his hand back and grabbed her jaw. He jammed the nozzle between her blue lips and gave the bottle a gentle half-squeeze.
“Come on, kiddo,” he whispered. “Come on. It’s instinct, don’t fight it. Come on.”
She went rigid for a moment. Some shred of human decency was fighting for its life, and he found himself wishing it would win and hoping it would lose at the same time. Even when it was clinging to survival, there were some things the human animal wouldn’t do.
Like drinking the red stuff. He’d given up wondering if it made someone better or worse to get rid of the idea that there were some things you wouldn’t do even to survive.
Her lips fastened on the bottle and she guzzled greedily. The sharp points of her extended canines punctured the plastic and she tilted her head a little. The burning smell got stronger as the cold red fluid slid down her throat.
“That’s a girl. . . . Good girl.” But his eyes scanned the hall. He slid the sunglasses off carefully, blinked a few times, and found it was bearable. Visual acuity was a boon at night, but not so good inside a house with the lights on.
She made a choking noise. Her eyes flew open, and he grabbed her, shoved the spout of the bottle in as far as it would go, and squeezed. She swallowed most of the rest in a huge painful gush, then feebly tried to push him away.
“Quit it. This’ll stop the Thirst.” He gave the bottle another squeeze, and it burbled in her throat. Her arms stiffened, then she gulped and pushed at him again. Her pulse came back, the doors of her heart slamming solidly shut and then thudding open.
It was damn near miraculous.
“When was he here?” He restrained the urge to shake her. “When, goddammit?”
The bottle fell away from her mouth, hit the polished hardwood floor. Her lips were still cyanotic, but she blinked and an unhealthy flush crept up her cheeks. “What?”
“When did he come back?”
Sense returned to her dark, swimming gaze. “I was asleep. On the couch.” The gray T-shirt gaped open, torn over her chest.
Rookwood felt the urge to look down. Those breasts were worth a peek or two, even if she did have suburbia all over her. But wherever his gaze wandered, all he saw were the bruises and the fang marks. There was more than one set, and he wondered how many she had on other parts of her body. The ones on her right breast looked fresh, the edges not worn away and whitened. There was a pin-thin scraping along the border of one perky little nipple, as though a fang had slipped.
Rookwood realized he was staring at her chest. It gave him a funny unsteady feeling, as though he’d been caught peeking in her window.
