“Do you want to play with me?” the little girl interrupted her, running her finger along the window playfully, as if the words that she’d previously spoken were all but forgotten.
Shanna opened her mouth to respond, but she suddenly recognized the girl’s face. It was her face. It was that little girl who’d watched her parents killed before her eyes.
It’s not fair.
It never stops.
***
Shanna sat up suddenly and looked around the van, a little confused at first as to where she was. Their mission came back to her quickly enough however, a new dread settling in her stomach that had nothing to do with the dream she’d just had.
She sighed and stretched her arms up above her as she peeked over at the windows that faced the mountains. Sunshine crept along the window seat, charging her flesh with its warmth and reminding her of the strange dream. It hadn’t been terrifying or anything, but it had had a weird quality to it that left her unsettled.
“It never stops,” she mumbled to herself as she stared out of the window at an old man at the front of a cart of hay. She watched as they passed its slow trek along the roadside, pulled by a scraggly brown horse, looked back until she could no longer see it. She sighed and smiled at the others, who’d all followed her example and slept soundly.
She thought of the characters in her dream. The boy from the club. That was a weird cameo. Just another person she hadn’t been strong enough to save. And Grant, the vampire whom she thought had killed Kelly until she discovered the truth behind the matter, the very first vampire she’d ever encountered. Well, as far as she knew. She could still see his flushed face when he’d lied and told her that Kelly had left him. But not flushed from the lie, flushed from blood, from feeding on the murderess Scarlet Fever’s leftovers. Her best friend Kelly’s corpse. Shanna shuddered. Then there was Valor. Valor, smoking away as usual, clouding everything in an ashen veil. She still didn’t know much about the woman. It had been so hectic since coming to Lime Bay that she hadn’t really had a chance to sit down and talk to her, relate her impressions of The Agency.
And then she remembered seeing herself there, sitting on the bar stool, gazing around at the crowd. She tried to ignore the hunger she’d witnessed in those eyes.
Chapter Eight
Night was upon them before they knew it on the subsequent day. The orange ball of fire in the sky burned in protest as it succumbed to the Mediterranean, eating its light with a slow, ravenous appetite. It sunk lower and lower, its last light displaying a spectacular scene of reflected salmon pink, before it too was devoured by oblivion and all was plunged into dusk.
Shanna sighed at the sight, at the moment when vampires were free to venture from their dwellings, when hope glowed a little dimmer across the land as darkness tainted it with the unholy and loathsome.
Rachel glanced down from where she sat atop a tall rock, night-vision binoculars at her face. “Still can’t sleep?”
“I haven’t been able to sleep since we got here…except for a quick nap in the van.” Shanna cocked her head. “I just don’t feel tired.”
“Guilt.”
“What?”
“It’s guilt. For getting Cameron killed.”
Shanna’s jaw dropped. “Cameron…he’s not dead.”
“Well, whatever. Either way, you feel guilty about your hand in all this, so your subconscious is punishing you. That, or it can’t rest until this situation is resolved.”
“You think so?”
“Sure. I mean…what else would it be?”
Shanna nodded. “Yeah. I…I had the strangest dream, too. I didn’t think I still had dreams like…I mean, I’ve had dreams…this was different, very…close to home or something.”
“Any hint of guilt in it?”
Shanna smiled tightly. “Yeah. Yeah, a lot of it.”
“See?”
“Do you have things that you regret like that?”
Rachel laughed as she pulled the binoculars from her face again to look at her. “Are you kidding? I don’t make extreme blunders.”
“Thanks,” Shanna muttered.
“But, I mean, I suppose there are a few things that could have gone differently. But I don’t beat myself up over them. I was just a…I’ve learned to think things through. Just, you know, live and learn.” She looked at Shanna sharply. “And learn fast, because in this field, you don’t get many chances.”
“Yeah, I…I know. But do you-”
“A white van just came up over the ridge,” Rachel interrupted her, pulling the binoculars from her face and looking over at her with a glimmer of excitement.
“Alright,” Shanna murmured. She scrambled to her feet and ran into the middle of the road, quickly flashing a light on and off before returning to the rock at the side of the road in a half-stumble. It was the signal for the others, further down the trail, to get ready to act. Up a few hundred feet were the twins. Jordan would watch the van’s progress and instruct Jade when to shoot to blow one of its tires with her rifle.
Since they were on a fairly narrow trail with a mountain looming up on one side and a steep drop to the other, Amelia would be keeping a wind barrier up so the van wouldn’t lose control and roll to its destruction. At the same time, the others would pull out in front of it in one of their own vans to stop its progress. Natalia was to shoot a paint pellet at its window at this time to prevent them from knowing what to do about their situation. Then they would strike quickly, while they were off-guard. Valor told them exactly what to expect, what was protocol.
It seemed elaborate, but it was rather simple. Stop the van. That was their main concern. If they could just get over that little hump, this wouldn’t be an outright disaster. Too bad “ifs” were hard to come by for Shanna presently.
In a moment, the van was already past the first two stationary hunters, Shanna seeing little more than a blur of white as it sped by. She turned with Rachel to watch its descent down the narrow trail, its red taillights glaring at them through a cloud of ever-rising sand, angry at the scheme they’d hatched.
The crack of Jade’s rifle caused Shanna to jump involuntarily, in spite of the fact that she’d been expecting it, holding her breath, in fact, for its announcing the commencement of their plan. The subsequent squeal of brakes sent her rushing down the trail after the sound.
Rachel was at Shanna’s heels as Amelia’s powers over the wind carried an array of voices to their ears over the stretch of road that yet separated them from the action.
“Cloak - no, cloak now!” someone screamed above the screech of another van coming to a halt to block their path. “Push the bloody button!”
Another sound wafted over the scene then - a chorus of angels. The sound of airy, heartbreaking voices flooded the scene and brought Shanna to a halt at the same time as a bright flash of light drowned the scene up ahead and raced to engulf her and the sprinting hunter at her side. Her flesh tingled. Her ears sang. Her heart soared. And then everything was impossibly bleached in white before it quickly became its polar opposite and Shanna was barely aware of the taste of blood in her mouth before all consciousness ceased.
Chapter Nine
“Ssssssshhh.”
Rachel opened her eyes and sat up from where she lay. A bed of moss. The base of a moss-covered tree. “Where...?”
Just keep quiet.
Rachel got to her feet and looked around. Back home in Mississippi. In a swamp. Fog rolled in and out of the trees and the shallow water around them like a turtle on a leisurely stroll.
So quiet. Where is everybody?
Tentatively, Rachel stepped over the stream of water that flowed slowly beside the tree she’d been under. How far was she from home?
“You don’t want to go home,” a voice reminded her, echoing over the swampland omnisciently. A man’s deep voice, but whispered. Soothing.
“I…don’t?” she asked.
&nbs
p; Ssssssshhh.
Rachel thought she saw something in the water at her feet. She bent down, careful to lift her dress above her knees, so she didn’t get it muddy.
Parting the fog with her hands, Rachel took in the shape in the shallow water with horror. A blonde man was lying in the water as if he were sleeping.
Rachel shot to her feet and backed up, slipping on a patch of moss and sliding down into the water. The fog moved about her, caressing her with phantom hands. Testing her flesh, making sure it was ripe.
“No,” Rachel gasped out. She suddenly realized that she was leaning over an Asian woman, her mouth agape, like a fish.
Come in. The water’s fine.
“Ugggh,” Rachel gagged, fighting to her feet.
She was stepping on something. Just moss. Just moss. Please, just moss.
The older man’s bloated body told her otherwise.
“I didn’t do anything!” Rachel shrieked, sitting up in utter darkness. The sky overhead wasn’t paying attention. No one was. She laid back and took several deep breaths, drawing strength from the dirt around her. Dirt? Where was she? Why was she outside? At least it wasn’t a swamp… The imagery from the dream blazed across her mind, sending racking, terrified breaths through her lungs.
I need to calm down, she thought to herself. I need to… She stared up at the sky, the stars that hung there, twinkling serenely. She used to love sitting out in her gazebo with her mother when she was young, listening to the crickets chirp, watching the stars with wonder as her mother knit in her old rocking chair. The feeling of the man’s body beneath her weight made her shudder away from such comforting thoughts.
“Everybody has their ghosts,” a deep voice echoed in her head. Had it been from her dream? Or was she just trying to make herself feel better?
A throb of pain began to beg for attention from her leg. Sitting up in response, Rachel felt a bruise beneath her sand-coated shin. “What…?”
She looked around and noticed a body nearby. She forced the image of bloated ghostly faces out of her mind’s eye as she made her way to the still form.
Letting out a breath, Rachel confirmed a rise and fall from the person’s chest. They were alive, at least. She squinted at the person’s face and gasped as she recognized Shanna Hunt. The events predating her dream rushed back to her and sent her directly to her feet. She shook Shanna lightly, then more roughly to match her agitation. “Shanna! Shanna, you have to wake up. The others could be in trouble. Shanna!”
Shanna remained deep in unconsciousness as Rachel stopped to observe her surroundings more closely.
They were on a small ledge partway down a steep slope. Nearly a hundred feet below was a tangle of trees and vegetation. Beyond that lay a city and a body of water reflecting the moon and stars overhead. The road was a few dozen feet above them, but she couldn't see anything beyond an absence of cliff.
Turning her attention to Shanna once more, she shook the girl roughly. “Shanna! Get up, for Christ’s sake. I can’t carry you. You weigh…at least fifteen pounds more than me.” She smiled as she added “I’ve seen you and those doughnuts.”
Shanna’s eyes fluttered to the sound of Rachel’s voice, but little more than a moan escaped her.
Rachel sighed and looked up the slope, where the others were potentially in trouble, needing her help in a bad way. “Look, I can’t wait around all day. I’ll be back for you.”
She began to pull herself up the cliff side when Shanna mumbled another incoherence and sat up, a dazed, sleepy look on her face.
“Shanna?” Rachel paused in her ascent and hesitated before climbing back down, sending a small trail of dirt down the slope and over the other hunter.
Shanna leapt to her feet, a wild look in her eyes as she took in her situation. She looked down the cliff and stepped back into the slope, nearly toppling over in the process.
“Whoa,” Rachel offered a hand as she reached her. “You're alright. I'm still here.”
Shanna squinted at their surroundings and opened her mouth to speak, but ended up coughing, a fit that lasted nearly a minute. Rachel watched on helplessly as the girl eventually recovered and smiled sheepishly. “Cotton mouth,” Shanna murmured before another quick cough. “Rachel…what happened? How long was I-?”
“I don’t know. I just woke up myself.”
Rachel decided to give Shanna a few minutes to collect herself before suggesting they climb to check on their comrades. In no time, the other was walking as freely as ever, and illustrated impatience as Rachel blotted at a cut she’d noticed on Shanna’s forehead with a bandanna.
“Nasty cut,” Rachel observed. “You must have hit a rock when you went down.”
Shanna nodded absently as she stared up the steep slope. “Is the road up there?”
“Yeah. We must have been knocked over the edge by that light.”
“Oh! What happened? The light knocked us down here?”
Rachel blinked at her, but decided against a sharp retort. “Yeah. The others must have been knocked out too, given that, you know, we’re still down here, unaided.”
“Yeah…yeah,” Shanna muttered. “Unless the scholars won and they didn’t realize there were more of us.”
Biting her lower lip, Rachel looked up sharply at Shanna’s suggestion and quickly finished doting over the cut. “Alright. Let’s go see what’s going on up there.”
Nodding, Shanna smiled tightly before a tiny chuckle escaped her. Before Rachel knew it, the girl was bursting with laughter.
“Jesus Christ, are you having a nervous breakdown now?” Rachel demanded. “Our situation isn’t exactly funny.”
Shanna tried gesturing and eventually Rachel realized what she must look like to the girl, usually so prim and made up like a china doll, now filthy, covered practically head-to-toe with chalky dirt. She indulged in the picture she had of herself and joined good-naturedly in the laughter momentarily.
“Oh, God” Shanna wiped at her eyes and ran a hand through Rachel’s hair, sending up a cloud of powder. “You’re quite the sight.”
“Truer words…”
They smiled at each other briefly, but then the moment was past and they quickly began to struggle up a nearly-vertical slope, clawing into the rocky wall for footholds and avoiding loose rubble.
“I don’t see either van down here,” Rachel spoke up as they neared the top of their climb. “At least we avoided a wreckage.”
“Let’s hope the confrontation went as smoothly,” Shanna mumbled as she swept sand out from a pocket in the wall ahead of her. “God, I could use some water about now.”
“I know. A shower would be heaven.”
Shanna sent her a bemused look.
Rachel smirked in return and said “I know what you mean” as she hauled herself up over the edge of the slope and onto the road, turning to help Shanna up before continuing.
They both swiveled to look up the road at the same time, stiffening as if they’d choreographed their reactions. The vans were up against each other, front ends crumpled and shattered. And all was quiet.
So quiet. Where is everybody?
“Where…” Shanna let her voice trail off as they both took off at a run. She felt like she was running in slow motion. She couldn’t reach the site fast enough. Her body protested with a sharp stitch in her side, but she didn’t allow herself to slow down, rather leeching inspiration from Rachel’s labored breaths.
“They can’t just be gone,” Rachel stated as they stood in front of the vans, gasping for air. “I can’t believe nobody noticed these vans sitting out here, in the middle of nowhere. Someone must have come by by now.”
“If they had, the cops would be swarming over the scene,” Shanna countered. “We must not have been out for very long.” She gazed around them, at the inkiness beyond the vans, at the outlines of trees and bushes. And yet there was no sound beyond their own voices. The crickets, bats, and owl
s all seemed eerily absent from the night’s soundtrack. The silence sent a shiver up her spine and she wrapped her arms around herself.
“Yet no one’s here?” Rachel demanded. “What, did they just disappear?”
Shanna opened and closed her mouth. “Well…maybe this isn’t a very popular road.”
“It’s the only road into town. That’s how we knew this would be the best place for the ambush. There’s a town of three thousand people down there and…what, they don’t travel at night?”
Shanna sighed. “I don’t know, Rachel. Let’s just…look around.”
“Oh, goody,” Rachel snapped. “Then I can yell ‘Jinkies’ if I find a clue.”
Setting her, Shanna let out a breath. “Look, Rachel, I’m scared and frustrated too. But your sarcasm isn’t going to make the scenario any brighter, so why don’t you tone it down for once?”
Rachel stared at her speechless for a moment before conceding with a nod and a mumbled apology. “I’ll search the scholars’ van.” She watched as Shanna mulled this over before approving and heading over to their own van.
“Alright,” Rachel murmured as she gazed over at the scholars’ van. To call it a van would probably be an understatement. It was much larger than any family-sized vehicle in a typical suburb. Valor had informed them that protocol allowed for a minimum three occupants, but really, as many as eight people could have been housed inside the armored beast aside from the tortured-to-be.
Walking confidently up to the back doors, she tentatively held out a hand for the door when she realized a padlock lay on the ground at her feet. She bent over to examine it and found no force was used to pry it off of the door. One of the scholars had undoubtedly opened the door themselves, which meant that at least one of them was alright in wake of the explosion….or whatever it had been. “Jinkies,” Rachel whispered to herself.
Looking back over at Shanna, Rachel set her jaw and opened the door with a tiny squeak that sent shivers up her spine. Then, without allowing time for any form of retaliation from anyone who might have been inside, Rachel leapt into the dark van, where she was immediately blanketed by shadows, and at a complete disadvantage to whoever had been lying in wait, given that they’d had precious hours to let their eyes adjust.