Blessed (24 page)

On Wednesday, I walked in on Zachary and Freddy, seated at the table in Sanguini’s break room, folding napkins into bat shapes. It was a job that Nora and Sergio typically assigned to people who were getting on their nerves.

“We fly,” Freddy said.

“We drive,” my GA countered. “It won’t help to get there before —”

“We have money,” Freddy replied.

“Not buy-a-plane money!”

“We don’t have to buy —”

“You want to fly commercial?” Zachary countered. “With weapons? Do you have any idea what my supervisor upstairs would say if my sword was lost in checked luggage? Especially after that last fiasco, when it was confiscated by the cops?”

When I laughed, Freddy looked up. “Quincie, we have a working plan to beat Brad to Harker’s kukri knife, and you would be a big help —”

“You don’t have to,” the angel put in, tossing a napkin aside.

“But if you don’t come along,” Freddy added, “Zachary can’t either because his first duty is to you, as your guardian.” At my GA’s glare, Freddy shrugged. “It’s true.”

“Go?” I asked, joining them at the table. “Go where?” I paused. “Oh, wait. Never mind. I’m not supposed to know, right? So Brad can’t find out through me.”

I hated the thought of leaving Sanguini’s, especially with so many of Brad’s victims scheduled to rise in just over a week. But there was nothing we could do to stop that now. All we could hope for was to limit the powers at Brad’s disposal before he could call the baby-squirrel eaters into his service.

“Quincie,” Zachary replied, “we can find another way, if —”

“I’m in,” I replied.

Sergio didn’t mind my taking some time off. “You should get out more,” he said in the manager’s office. “Young girl like you, there’s a whole world waiting.”

More like a whole underworld. “You sound like Vaggio,” I said. “He used to always tell me not to forget that I was a teenager. What are you going to do about Freddy?” Somebody had to temporarily take his place for the midnight toast.

“Mercedes!” Sergio exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “She’s been begging me to let her play the vampire chef, and you know, she’s so fashionable, so witty —”

“So sultry in a Jane Russell kind of way,” I said, quoting what he always said.

I could hardly imagine either of them in the midst of their initial blood lust. God, Mercedes had a brown belt.

Tonight was First Thursday, which meant all the shops on South Congress would stay open late. Parking had already become nightmarish, and the ninety-something-degree heat had no effect on the already impressive foot traffic.

Outside Sanguini’s, Nora paced around the empty lot next door. “Quincie, do you know who owns this property?”

I shook my head. “When Uncle D decided to remodel Fat Lorenzo’s, he talked about buying it, but the budget ran dry. Why?”

“I think it could be turned into a wonderful garden. We could grow our own vegetables. It would bring more green onto the street.”

She wouldn’t be coming on the trip. We’d all agreed on that. But I could count on her and Sergio to take care of Mama’s restaurant while I was gone. It occurred to me, though, that staying behind might be harder, and not just emotionally. “You may be getting a frantic phone call from the Moraleses tomorrow.”

Nora nodded. “That’s all right.”

“Miz Morales can be —”

“That’s all right, too.” She rested a hand on my shoulder. “Hon, I’m not promising they won’t be out of sorts when you return. But I’m not going to tell them where you’re going, both for your sake and theirs.”

That had sounded ominous. Whoever had Harker’s knife, I somehow doubted she’d roll out the red carpet. Given Brad’s mental eavesdropping, I understood why I couldn’t know more about what lay ahead. But that didn’t make it any easier.

Truth was, we might not make it back.

Kieren and I used to talk every day. How strange that I could cease to exist forever, and he might never find out. God, I hoped he was okay.

Zachary’s car had to have been the largest SUV ever manufactured. The design looked almost military, but its sparkling black paint with red racing stripes was all glitz.

After loading up Nora’s care package, I turned to say good-bye to Clyde and Aimee.

The Possum ran a fingertip down the hood. “Hello, Mystery Machine.”

“We’re going with you,” Aimee announced. “Our parents think we’re spending the weekend at a youth retreat near Bastrop, sponsored by your church.”

I was flabbergasted. “Who’ll wash the dishes?” Not my snappiest reply.

“We found a couple of people willing to fill in at the last minute,” Clyde said.

I marched past him to the back door of the restaurant and opened it to peer into the already frantic kitchen. “Mrs. Levy? Mr. Wu?”

They waved from the sink.

“If we all die,” Clyde called, “Sergio will have to hire replacements anyway.”

Zachary drove, Freddy rode shotgun, and I sat on the first passenger bench next to Aimee, who had Clyde on her other side. So Bradley couldn’t track us, I’d offered to travel blindfolded. I felt stupid riding in the SUV that way, but he’d too often slipped into my thoughts and dreams for us to underestimate the threat.

About three minutes out, it occurred to my GA that (a) his windows weren’t tinted and (b) driving with a blindfolded teenage girl in the back might look suspicious to people in passing vehicles. Consequently, Aimee and I traded places, putting me between her and the Possum.

From the sound of the traffic, I could tell we’d gotten onto a busy highway, probably I-35. I tried not to dwell on it.

It had been Clyde who’d realized that we couldn’t listen to the radio beyond the Austin stations’ broadcast range because the DJs and ads would clue me (and, again, possibly Brad) in on our location.

The car, which Zachary had proudly referred to as a 1987 Impaler, had no CD or MP3 player. But Freddy had brought along his old Blondie, Pat Benatar, Billy Joel, and Pink Floyd tapes, if only for background noise.

“When we get there,” Freddy was saying, “Quincie, and
only
Quincie, is going with us to retrieve the kukri knife.”

Clyde said, “Fine by me,” as Aimee exclaimed, “No way!”

“It’s not negotiable,” Freddy insisted. “Any argument, and we let you off at the next exit.”

After a moment, Zachary added, “We both admire your loyalty.”

“But,” Freddy reminded us, “there’s a possibility that, if you don’t do as we say, you could die or worse.” He paused before muttering, “Assuming we’re not arrested first for taking three minors across state lines without their parents’ permission.”

“I’m already dying,” Aimee announced, just like that.

“She ordered the chilled baby squirrels,” I clarified.

“I’ve got — what?” she added. “Maybe a week left as a human being.”

Zachary exited from the highway, explaining that he needed to speak with Aimee alone for a while, and a few minutes later, when they got out of the car, I could hear a fast-food intercom system in the background.

Meanwhile, Freddy broke out Nora’s care package of bread sticks, pine nuts, walnuts, Italian sodas, and porcine blood.

“No crickets?” the Possum complained.

We talked and drove and drove and talked. Aimee’s mood had improved. She chatted about fantasy novels with Clyde and Zachary, who apparently had the reading tastes of a teenage girl. We all gossiped about people at Sanguini’s, and Freddy pitched the intriguing idea of opening a catering branch.

Hours later, I fell asleep listening to “Love Is a Battlefield.”

“A blindfold,” Bradley observed. “Baby, I had no idea that you were into that sort of thing.”

Refusing to play, I asked a question that had been weighing on me. “Before you lost your soul, were you a good person?”

“I was ordinary,” he answered as if that had been the most horrible thing in the world. “A short-order cook, the son of poor Russian immigrants. But soon . . .”

“You want to rule the monsters of Texas,” I said.

“Not just Texas,” he replied. “Not just the monsters. And mostly you.”

“Stay close,” Freddy ordered as I tore the dark silk from my eyes and jumped down from the SUV. The evening air felt chilly, in the upper forties. “Stay very close.”

We’d been careful. I hadn’t so much as glanced out my hotel-suite windows, and even before we’d checked in last night, every magazine or other hint of the locale had been removed from my room.

We’d left the sophomores at the hotel but dropped off Zachary a minute or so earlier, maybe a block away. Or on the other side of an immense property.

Beyond “north,” I had no idea where I was. A vast parking lot with an upscale clientele. Porsches, Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, Lamborghinis . . . a fleet of limos.

“Remember, you are a predator, as lethal as lovely, and tonight you must pass as an aristocrat as well. I regret not having had an opportunity to better prepare you, but that might’ve tipped off our mentally intrusive opponent. Perhaps it’s better this way, though. You’re quite poised for your age. To the extent possible, be silent. When in doubt, raise a disdainful eyebrow. On the off chance that you should encounter —”

“My God!” I stared up, up,
up
at a magnificent white stone castle — at the arched windows, the red-capped towers, the red dragon on the black flag. This was no scaled-down amusement park attraction. It was the real deal. Again, I exclaimed, “My God!”

“Not even close,” Freddy replied. “This, my dear, is the U.S. Midwest regional estate in Whitby Estates, Illinois. The subdivision is entirely controlled by eternals.”

Should he have told me that? “Brad —”

“May well have already deduced that you’ve been moving north, but our having left from Texas didn’t give him much to work with. It would’ve probably come up once we got inside anyway. Try not to worry. For the most part, eternals travel long distances just like humans or werepeople — by car, bus, plane, train, or boat. With any luck, we’ll be in and out before he has any hope of intercepting us.”

With any luck.

Freddy extended his arm. “You might as well know that both Nora and Zachary used to live and work here. They don’t like to talk about it.”

Resting my fingertips on Freddy’s tux sleeve, I paused at the sound of not-too-far-away howling and scanned a distant wall of evergreens.

“Sentries,” he explained, leading me through rows of parked cars toward the castle. “Don’t mistake them for werepeople. Those are eternals in wolf form who guard the property, its residents, and guests.”

“What’s the plan?” I asked in a quiet voice.

“I’ll finesse your cover, and you’ll make sure that I’m not sucked dry. We blend, making every effort to avoid Her Majesty and her personal staff.”

I nearly tripped over my taffeta skirt. “Her Majesty?”

“She’ll be the one surrounded by sycophants.” Glancing at his wristwatch, Freddy added, “In one hour, at precisely 11:30
P.M
., we’ll pay a visit to the security guard, claiming that your ruby-and-sapphire bracelet has been stolen —”

“I’m not wearing a bracelet —”

“Which will make it that much harder for him to track it down. Our job is simple. Divert the guard from the security cameras to give Zachary a chance to make off with Harker’s knife.”