Blood Memories

Chapter 6

Cool, salt-laden wind from Puget Sound felt good blowing through my hair, a tiny breeze compared to the great gusts I'd grown up with in Wales. Exactly a week to the day after our experience together at Blue Jack's, Maggie dressed us both up to go hunting again, only this time we hit the waterfront.

Maybe it was my newfound companion, or maybe the wide assortment of people who lived here, but Seattle appealed to me more and more each night. A haven. A paradise. Even though we hadn't made another kill together yet, Maggie showed me the city and even insisted once that we take William for a walk on the street outside her house. He objected, shaking in agitation, but then calmed down when we both stayed right beside him and chatted of silly topics like trees and squirrels. I think he even enjoyed himself.

But tonight was different. I could feel it in the clothes she chose, the time she took with her hair and makeup, the pale cast of her face, the hard look in her eyes.

Now she leaned on the pier railing in her black Lycra tank dress and fishnet stockings, her hot-chocolate hair wisping across her cheek. She looked like a cartoon cutout from some teenage boy's fantasy magazine. That should have tipped me off. Maggie never did anything by accident.

She didn't look excited or anticipatory, not as I had expected. Edward hadn't exactly enjoyed breaking somebody's neck, but the actual prospect of hunting had sometimes filled him with glittering energy that made me turn away in disgust.

Don't get me wrong. I knew the game and the score, but simply having the facts didn't fill me with bloodlust. I took no pleasure in the fact that some mortal had to die so I could go on living. Still, I obeyed the cardinal rule we all followed: never leave a witness. Our existence depended on absolute silence. Blackness. Anyone who knew our secret had to die. The body dumped. The life erased.

No one knew the score better than me.

But Maggie viewed the entire twisted cycle as commonplace. We needed life force, so we hunted. Cut and dried. It isn't that she was aware of having no regrets. She just didn't think about it at all. Enviable.

"What now?" I asked.

Before us lay the dark water, behind us a rusted train track stretching into the city. Beyond the tracks were faded nondescript buildings too old to be of much interest.

"We wait," she answered. "Someone always turns up."

"How often do you come here?"

"A few times a year. Something told me you'd like this place."

"I do."

Wind from the sound whipped up again, blowing my hair into slightly damp tangles. I heard voices. They came from the left. Masculine laughter. Maggie turned to look.

A party of three walked down the railed sidewalk, about seventeen years old, all wearing torn jeans and T-shirts. One wore a leather coat. No earrings. No shaved heads. No makeup. They weren't skinheads or part of a gang, probably just some guys trying to get out of the house.

Maggie stepped out in front of them when they got close enough, but she didn't smile. "Lookin' for a date?"

The classy-lady-down-on-her-luck routine had vanished. She was just playing a hooker-except that her face and form were too perfect to be working the pier.

All three of the boys froze. I leaned back against the rail and let her take over.

"Yeah, but I'm broke," the one in front said. He was the tallest.

"How about some blow?"

That sounded stupid to me. She didn't look remotely like a cocaine addict. But then, some people hide it well, and it might explain why someone like Maggie would be willing to sell herself.

A blond in the leather jacket said, "I can take care of that. What about your friend?"

"She goes where I go."

"Good."

The blond had hard eyes, like empty glass. The tall guy in front seemed uncomfortable but was staring so intensely at Maggie I thought his tongue might break off. The third guy was smaller, built slight, with a white scar below his right eye and a nervous air about him-probably been kicked around since he was three years old.

The tall one had halfway decent manners and introduced himself as Travis. The blond was Jeff, and they called the little scar-face Dodger.

"Where to?" Maggie asked.

"A friend's place," Jeff answered.

I stepped up and slipped my hand into his, hoping Maggie caught the gesture and wouldn't peg Travis to feed on. Jeff glanced down at me without a flicker or hint of surprise. Cold and hollow, he would have made a good vampire.

When we started walking, Dodger fell in behind without a word. Maggie and Travis paired off, speaking in low voices, but that didn't mean anything. She'd probably follow my lead when the time came.

"You don't talk much," Jeff said.

"Do you want me to?"

"Not really."

I didn't know whether to respect his honesty or despise him for being such a bastard-in-training. Would my gift work? That was the trick. Men like Travis or Derek back in Portland had such soft hearts they were easy to manipulate. But I could never bring myself to hurt people like them-except in a few cases of emergency. It bothered me a little less to feed on hard cases like Jeff, but he was more difficult to reach, to seduce into cavalier mode.

We crossed the tracks, and I tripped on purpose, emanating uncertainty and helplessness. As though it would never occur to him to do otherwise, he turned and caught my arm. There was still a bit of human in him somewhere. Good.

His highly uncharacteristic action brought stunned expressions from both Travis and Dodger, but he didn't seem to notice and kept walking. I turned off the power for a while, knowing it worked if necessary.

"Listen," I said, "when we get to your friend's place, can you go in by yourself?"

"Why?"

"Deals scare me. Maggie went in to get some stuff with a couple of guys last month and almost got busted. I don't like cops."

"Yeah, okay. But you ditch me, and I'll kick your teeth in. Me and Travis gotta trade a few free runs to pay for this shit, and I don't use it myself."

Charming.

"You're crack runners?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes. Depends on cash-flow problems. I don't like cops either."

We stopped by a run-down apartment building. "This is it," he said. "Be right back."

He disappeared inside.

Maggie kept up small talk with Travis but glanced at her watch a few times. After three minutes she said, "I need to find a ladies' room." She pointed up the street toward a dimly lit gas station. "You meet us up there when Jeff comes out."

Travis wavered for a second, not quite sure if he should let her leave, and then nodded. "Yeah, sure." Why would she take off when he was getting her what she wanted?

I followed her at a normal pace until we were out of sight. Moving around the nearest shack, we doubled back down an alley, entering the apartment building from the other side. As far as Dodger and Travis knew, we'd gone down the street to a gas station, and Jeff was on his own making a deal. People disappear all the time over money, coke, or crack. He might never come back out of the apartment, but no one would suspect a couple of hookers who'd gone to pee at the local Exxon. His friends would be confused and angry and scared, and in an hour they wouldn't know what to think.

Inside, the staircase smelled like rotting vegetables. Since we didn't know what room number Jeff had gone to, we just leaned inside the stairwell of the second-floor landing and kept watch.

Footsteps sounded a few minutes later as Jeff came down from an upper floor. Surprise crossed his features briefly. "I thought you'd wait outside."

"Got cold," Maggie answered. "Your friends are in the lobby."

He didn't seem to find that unusual and nodded. "Got the stuff. We can go to my place."

Of course, when we reached the lobby it was empty. "Where are they?" Jeff looked around.

"I don't know," Maggie said. "We should wait, though."

Stepping into the darkness under the bottom stairwell, I motioned to him with my hand. "Come in here."

He smiled slightly for the first time and walked over, ducking his head to move inside the shadows. He pushed me up against the back wall. I couldn't see anything, but smelled spearmint gum on his breath. This was Maggie's usual trip, not mine, so I let him lead for a few seconds. His mouth moving up my neck felt alien. I didn't like it.

Too fast, I struck under his chin, catching the top layers of his throat but missing a solid hold. He actually screamed and rammed my backbone against the wall.

Careless on my part. Too fast.

Releasing my bite just long enough to get a better grip, I clung to him desperately, but he felt my teeth withdraw and pitched me off. He bolted back out into the lobby. I ducked after him in time to see Maggie grab his short blond hair.

She didn't try for a grip, but just jerked him back, bit down once at the full extension of her mouth, and ripped. Dark blood sprayed her dress. His face was horrible, not some sleepy, half-conscious sweet dreamer like Gunner had been last week. Twisting panic and disbelief contorted Jeff's mouth, and he lost consciousness while still kicking and gasping.

When he stopped moving, Maggie dragged him back under the stairs. We took turns feeding. I tried not to think or feel anything as I saw flickering images of his life pass through my mind while drinking his blood… comic books, beer bottles, an angry mother who hated herself.

I pulled away from his throat and closed my eyes.

Using a knife she always carried in her handbag, Maggie cut jagged slashes in the torn flesh of his throat, making it look like someone had done a poor job murdering him. I took his wallet, and we walked out the back, leaving him for the janitor to find-if this dive had a janitor.

"There's a pint of blood on my dress," she hissed.

"I'm sorry."

Staying in the shadows, we made our way back down to the pier. Once we reached it, she climbed over the rail down to the rocky beach and knelt to try and rinse herself with salt water.

My knees buckled slowly down beside her. "I'm really sorry."

"What exactly happened back there?" she snapped.

"He was touching me. I don't know. His neck felt close enough… I just missed. That's never happened before."

"Well, it's a good thing you weren't alone. This is a safe city for me. I'm careful. One screwup, even one close call like that, could end everything. Do you understand?"

"Don't give me a safety lecture. I hunted in Portland on my own for over ninety years, just different from you."

"Like how?"

"Different. You play a lot more games. Take more time. I used to just stand outside an alley somewhere looking scared and someone always stopped to either help or hurt me."

Turning away, she splashed more water on her dress. She wasn't angry at me, just shaken. "You're so strange, Leisha. Not like one of us at all."

"Then why do you keep me? Why do you let me stay?"

"I don't know."

We sat on the rocks like that for an hour, neither one of us saying a word.