But he was here. Somewhere. Watching me.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and that was a completely human response to the feeling of being watched. I listened for breathing - other breathing - but heard nothing.
Wait, a flutter from above.
I looked up sharply. The tiny silhouette of a bat crossing in front of the window in the upper dome.
I remembered his words: I'm here with the other bats.
I turned right onto the catwalk, although I could have just as easily gone left, since the boy was directly opposite me. As I walked, I held onto the rusted guardrail, all too aware that the mesh flooring beneath me felt unsafe at best.
My footfalls echoed metallically. The whole damn catwalk seemed to sway. I scanned above and around, searching for a winged creature or the tall man with the bow tie.
I considered the possibility that I was dealing with a very powerful vampire. How long had this vampire been alive? Hundreds of years? Thousands? In that time period, what dark secrets had he uncovered? Invisibility, perhaps?
I had no clue, but I hoped like hell I didn't bump into him unexpectedly. That would just suck.
Something scuttled from above, too heavy for a bat. I snapped my head up.
Nothing there, other than beams and rafters and larger, seemingly random planks of wood. No vampire bat. Although the hiding spots were few and far between, he'd certainly had enough time to pick a good one.
He was watching me now. From somewhere. Of that, I had no doubt.
I was halfway to the boy, who was now trying to sit up. He couldn't see me in the dark, but he could certainly hear me coming. Hell, the dead could hear me coming, with all this rattling.
"It's going to be okay, Eddy," I said, although I was still thirty feet away. "I'll get you home soon."
"Oh, it's most assuredly not going to be okay," said a voice with a French accent above.
I looked up again, and this time, crawling down through the hole in the dome like a four-legged insect, was a man.
Chapter Forty-four
As I watched him crawl through the hole, briefly blotting out the night sky, an uncontrollable shiver raced through me. He looked so inhuman, so unnatural, so alien.
I picked up my pace, moving rapidly now along the narrow catwalk, my weight causing the whole damn thing to shudder.
"Mommy?" cried the little boy.
"It's okay, baby," I said, moving faster still. The old catwalk wasn't designed for running. I could see the screws in the walls giving way, dust sifting down everywhere.
Sweet Jesus.
The man scuttled down along the inside of the dome, defying gravity, defying logic, defying sanity. I actually paused, watching him moving rapidly over beams and I-beams, around planks and fasteners, down the smooth inside paneling with no obvious handholds.
And all of this he did upside down. He should have fallen a hundred times over.
The angle he took was a good one, because now it put him directly between me and the boy. Within moments, the man in the bow tie flipped down and dropped smoothly to his feet. He turned to face me, straightening his dinner jacket and adjusting his bow tie.
"A pleasure to finally meet you, Samantha Moon," he said, his voice so heavily accented that he was difficult to understand. "I believe you have something I want."
The little boy had found his way to his knees, where he now sat on the mesh flooring. He turned his head this way and that, trying to see us, which I doubted he could. The interior of the dome was pitch black.
I had no intention of leaving here without the boy - and without my medallion. Yes, I wanted my cake and I wanted to eat it, too. I realized I needed more time. I needed to know what I was up against.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Now," he said in his heavy French accent, "is that really important?"
Behind the gaunt figure, I saw for the first time the outline of a narrow door, maybe just a few feet from the little boy. Where the door led off to, I hadn't a clue. For all I knew it was a storage closet.
I said, "Then I guess you wouldn't mind if I call you Shithead."
He cocked his head slightly and his lips might have formed a smile. He was taller than me by a lot. Tall and thin and ghastly, the quintessential vampire. He advanced toward me, which was a good thing, I realized. Anything to get him away from the boy.
I held my ground.
The far less selfish thing for me to do was hand over the medallion and save the sick boy. But what about my son? How could I at least not first pursue another alternative?
Yes, I wanted my cake and to eat it, too.
It was then that I felt a heavy presence surround me, a sticky, sickly, foreign presence. It pushed on me, prodding me, trying to gain entrance. And just as suddenly the presence retreated.
"You are a strong one, mademoiselle," he said, frowning, clearly not happy. "Stronger than most. Too strong for even me to gain access."
"Lucky me," I said.
Whether or not the vampire could feel the ghost behind me, I didn't know, but I sure as hell could. Leland was clearly agitated, watching all of this from the shadows of the door, and I had an idea, recalling how the teen ghost had nearly manifested a physical hand for me to grab.
Leland, sweetie, I thought. I need your help.
Although behind me, I saw in my mind's eye the young man suddenly perk up, his countenance brightening. He didn't speak, but I had his attention.
When one is open to such communication, words and thoughts tend to be the same, and so I focused my thoughts on the door behind the boy.
Where does this lead to, Leland?
An image was returned to me, one of a long and narrow hallway, similar to the one that had granted us access to within the dome. Leland had recognized the door.
Good, I thought. Thank you.
As quickly as I could, I explained what I needed. He nodded eagerly and disappeared. To where he went, I hadn't a clue. Would he help me? I didn't know that, either. I was noticing that ghosts, although quite social, weren't the best communicators.
I turned my attention back to the tall man who was watching me curiously. "I have lived a long, long time, Miss Moon," he said. "I'm tired of these old bones. I'm tired of this world, of this race. I'm tired of feeding...constantly feeding. Mostly I'm tired of the loneliness. The eternal loneliness. You will feel it someday, Miss Moon, if you haven't already."
His words were oddly hypnotic, captivating me in ways that I hadn't experience before. I suspected this creature before me had mastered various levels of hypnotism or persuasion, or whatever the hell he was doing with his haunting voice.
I shook my head, cleared my thoughts, and imagined a sort of psychic barrier between me and this son-of-a-bitch. Except I didn't need a barrier. I needed ear plugs.