“There’s something about this case that you’re keeping from me, Sam. Something buried so deep that I can’t quite see it.”
“You don’t get to know all my secrets,” I snapped, pulling my hand free.
Allison, to her credit, didn’t take offense. She also knew that I could get pretty damn moody sometimes. She got it. She also knew when my snapping wasn’t about her. Of course, having a mostly open telepathic connection helped, too.
So, instead of being hurt or snapping back, she blinked and calmly said, “Nor do I want to, Sam, but I can feel the conflict within you. It’s bubbling up to your surface, then sinks down again. I’ve felt it ever since you took on this case.”
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. I almost wished Gunther would make an appearance, just so I wouldn’t have to answer Allison’s question.
“That bad, huh?” asked Allison.
“I’m afraid so,” I said, and let the full extent of my misgivings percolate to the surface of my thoughts.
“Just know that I’m here for you,” she said. “And I don’t mean that in a needy way.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Bitch,” said Allison.
Had we been guys, I might have socked her in the arm. But we were girls so, I winked at her and blew her a kiss and she shook her head, then grew somber again. “So, what gives about this case?”
I drummed my nails on the steering wheel...and decided to come clean. “I’m just having a hard time caring,” I said.
“Caring about what?”
“About catching Gunther Kessler.”
“But...but you have to care, Sam.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why do I have to care?”
“Didn’t you take, like, an oath to care?”
“To protect and serve?”
“Yes, that.”
“No. That’s the police.”
“But if you don’t care, then you are falling into their trap, playing right into their hands.”
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, fighting a feeling inside me...or, rather, trying to understand my lack of feeling. My lack of caring for the missing hikers.
It’s her, I thought.
No, it’s me.
I gripped the steering wheel more tightly. The conversation was making me feel uncomfortable. I suddenly needed some air, although air is not what I needed, ever. I rolled down the window and got a breeze going. The day was warm, and the street was mostly quiet. The old lady with her labradoodle was gone. For now.
I had a sudden, exciting image of breaking the old lady’s neck, twisting her head so hard that she died right there in my hands, while I feasted from her spasming corpse.
“Holy shit, Sam. Please tell me you didn’t just think that.”
“She’s asking for it.”
“No, she’s not, Sam. She’s a concerned citizen, wondering why two women are parked on the street for hours on end.”
I felt the anger rise in me. I felt a strong need to lash out at Allison for being such a stupid bitch. It took all I had to not say something horrible...and to not do something horrible either. I held my hands in my lap, interlocking my fingers, putting myself under house arrest. I rocked back and forth, releasing some of the energy.
A moment later, when I had calmed down, I heard Allison audibly exhale, too. She sensed correctly that the worst had passed. For both of us. Allison was, after all, a powerful, albeit new, witch. There was no telling what she would have done to me in return.
“That was scary, Sam.”
I shook my head, looking down and rocking, rocking.
“But I think what’s scariest of all is that I...” she paused, tried again. “Is that I know that was all you.”
She was right, of course. The entity within me—Elizabeth—was still firmly caged in my mind. This last little outburst had been me. All me.
After a moment, Allison looked at me. There was sweat on her forehead. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“And you really don’t care about the missing hikers?”
“I’m trying to,” I said, then paused and looked away. “But some people deserve to die.”
“I think I need to go, Sam.”
I nodded. “I think you should, too.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Good evening, Moon Dance.
When you say it that way, Fang, I wrote in my little IM window, I always hear Bela Lugosi’s Dracula.
Maybe that’s how I’d intended it to sound, Sam. What’s on your mind?
My fingers briefly hovered over the keyboard before I typed: How can I keep doing my job...if I no longer care?
Care about what?
If people die?
His answer came a half minute later: I’m not sure what to say to that, Moon Dance.
But surely you agree, I wrote. We are the same, you and I. We are hunters, are we not?
We are, Sam. But we can decide who to hunt and what to hunt and when to hunt. Or to not hunt at all. You have a viable source of blood from a willing donor.
I shook my head there on my couch, although he couldn’t see me shake it. The lights were out and, although it wasn’t quite twilight yet, the room was dark enough. The sun had set about an hour ago and I was feeling...hungry. Allison had left before my feeding, and my body was letting me know it. My stomach never growled, nor did I feel hungry, as I remembered it back when I was mortal. No, this was different. This was a physical need. I suspected this is what a heroin addict felt—an overwhelming desire to satisfy the deepest yearning. To the point where rational thought went out the window.
I missed my feeding today, I wrote. I think I was scaring her.
You’re scaring me, Sam. You have the cow and pig blood packets.
Fuck the packets.
I’m coming over. I have my own packets. Human blood. Are you home?
Yes.
Sit tight.
He logged off.
Except I didn’t sit tight, whatever the hell that means. I closed my laptop and stood and paced my small room and wished like hell my living room was bigger so I could pace in longer steps. I didn’t have to live this way. I could have more money. I could take the money I needed from those who had it. I could then take their lives, too. I could take and take and take, and nothing could stop me, not ever.
I paced the small room and shook my hands, then ran my fingers through my hair. I was hungry. Starving. I shouldn’t have let her leave without first feeding from her. I had cow and pig blood in the garage, mixed with all sorts of filthy pollutants.