Companions of the Night (15 page)

"I don't take that bus home on Fridays," Kerry said. "Because of working at the store. But Brockport Townline Road and Thirty-one, that's right before my stop. Do you think this had anything to do with"—Ethan raised his eyebrows at her—"us?"

"If not, I would say that's a fairly incredible coincidence. Our pursuer is beginning to get a face. Or at least a hairline."

"This is not something to take lightly."

"Oh, I'm not taking it lightly," Ethan assured her. "One thing we've learned over the years, the number one rule—after
You can never have too many covers on a window
—is
Don't mess with kids.
"

She remembered the very first night, when he had talked her into not going to the police, arguing that the people from the laundry would never mention her.... "
People go crazy when other people hurt kids,
" he'd said. It was to lessen their chances of being found out, but still, she thought, it was one point on the side of the vampires.

"This is awful," she said. "Whoever this is, he risked killing a school bus-load of kids to get at me What kind of a person would do something like that?"

"Not a very smart one," Ethan said, "if he's after you because he thinks you're a vampire, and he rammed the bus in the afternoon."

Kerry picked up her fork and jabbed it into her omelet several times before she realized what she was doing She mushed what was left of her food into a soupy mix. "Now what?" she asked.

"We need another car," Ethan said.

Kerry looked at him in shock.

"We'll rent it," he assured her. "It's just at this point I don't know if my name has gotten tangled up in all this."

"You mean because of"—she finally remembered that they were in a public place—"the people from the laundry disappearing?"

He was obviously startled at the suggestion. "No They didn't disappear Regina and I made it look like it involved drugs and prostitution."

"
What?
" Kerry asked. "Why?"

"Because that's the kind of thing the police see so often they're the least interested in it. And to keep the families off track."

"The poor families, though." Kerry thought of shocked parents and spouses spending the rest of their lives thinking they'd never really known their loved ones. Like she'd realized she'd never really known her mother.

Ethan shrugged.

"What about Regina's house? Has that been tied in to this?"

"A different article entirely" Ethan turned to the local section. Kerry could read the headline upside down:
S
INGLE
-F
AMILY
H
OME
C
OMPLETELY
D
ESTROYED BY
B
LAZE
, and underneath that, in smaller print: Fire of Suspicious Origin. Ethan read aloud: "'...arson suspected ... no one hurt in the blaze.... The owner wasn't home at the time of the fire, and the police are seeking her for questioning.'"

"So," Kerry said, "nothing specific has you worried, but you're just going to"—she suddenly realized, halfway through the sentence—"drop Ethan Bryne and pick up a new identity."

He didn't answer.

"It must be tough," she said, "living through eternity always having to look over your shoulder."

There was a flicker of annoyance across his face, but before he had a chance to say anything, his attention suddenly shifted to the front door.

Kerry saw a policeman had just walked in. For a moment she thought about jumping up, asking him for help. But how likely was a policeman to believe in vampires? And besides, who was better suited to rescue her father and Ian from vampire hunters—a policeman or a vampire?

Ethan, she was sure, read all of these conflicting thoughts on her face. He gave her a second to be sure of her choice, then: "So," he said breezily, opening the newspaper to the last page, "which is your favorite comic?"

It took Kerry a moment to catch up. "'Calvin and Hobbes.'"

"That's the morning paper. How about 'Peanuts'?"

"Fine."

The policeman seemed to know the woman who was the hostess, and the cook, who came out from the kitchen wearing a chef's hat and a white apron.

Ethan spread the paper out on the table, and they both leaned over it to read "Peanuts." "Cute," Ethan said.

"
Mmm-hmm,
" she agreed, though she was too distracted for the words to make any sense. Police, or even mall security guards, always made her feel guilty—even when she hadn't done anything. She hoped she didn't
look
guilty.

The policeman was looking around the restaurant, and she was sure he paused an extra few seconds on her.

"I don't get 'Doonesbury,'" she said.

"I never get 'Doonesbury,'" Ethan said.

The policeman was definitely heading toward them.

"Excuse me."

Ethan looked up; and if she hadn't known better, Kerry would have sworn he was startled to find a policeman standing there wanting to talk to them. Startled, but not worried. Curious—the way a perfectly innocent person would be.

"We're looking for a young girl," the policeman said. He even had a picture.

"My God," Ethan said, "she looks just like you, Steffie."

Kerry reached for the picture. It was a copy of the one in the paper. Hesitantly, as though thinking about it, she said, "Naw. Maybe our eyes are the same."

"Oh, the nose, too," Ethan said. "She definitely has your nose." He took Kerry by the chin and tilted her head so she was in profile for the policeman. "Don't you think?" he asked.

The policeman nodded. "The hair's different, of course, curlier and lighter." That had been a side effect of the perm. "May I ask your names?"

"Tim," Ethan said, then corrected it to "Timothy Davin, and my sister."

"Steffie Davin," Kerry said.

"Do you know this girl?" the policeman asked. "Her name's Kerry Nowicki."

"Do we have any Nowickis in the family?" Ethan asked her.

"What's the name of Aunt Fern's daughter's family—the one in Sodus?"

"Noland, I think," Ethan said.

"Well," the policeman said, "then I take it you haven't seen her?"

"I don't think so," Ethan said.

"I don't think so," Kerry repeated.

"Thanks for your trouble." The policeman went back to the hostess and asked if he could set the picture up by the cash register.

"What do you think she's done?" Kerry asked.

"Run away," Ethan answered with a knowing nod.

The policeman left.

"...or arson, accessory to murder, grand theft auto, and obstructing justice," Ethan finished.

Kerry pushed her plate away. She was becoming an accomplished liar—just as her mother had been those last several months. "What? No credit card fraud?" she asked.

"Ah," Ethan leaned in close to whisper, "that comes when we rent the car."

E
THAN USED ANOTHER
name to rent the car, charging it to MasterCard. He had several MasterCards. The new car was a blue-gray Monte Carlo, rented from a counter at the airport.

"What about the Skylark?" Kerry asked. They were on a fairly busy road, and Ethan slowed to wave ahead of him somebody who was having trouble getting out of a parking lot. That he was a polite driver was just one more thing that didn't fit in with her increasingly confused picture of vampires. "If you just abandon it, surely the police will try to track you down."

"In a few days," Ethan said. "By then, if all goes well, I'll have had a chance to return and cover my tracks. If not..." He shook his head. "I don't like to just drop out of sight—unexplained disappearances generate too much interest—but on the other hand, there won't be anybody pressing the police for answers on my behalf."

If he gets killed,
Kerry realized. He was saying what would happen if they succeeded in tracking down the vampire hunter—or if the vampire hunter found them—and he didn't survive the confrontation.

So she wasn't the only one who was worried. Or afraid?

"And what does 'covering your tracks' mean?" she asked. "Fabricating evidence that Ethan Bryne was killed in a drug-related execution?"

She didn't think he was going to answer, but he said, "Possibly. Although I'd prefer to make it look like Gilbert Marsala killed him, probably as part of a Satanic cult ritual That would explain the message on your living-room wall. The paper didn't mention it, but I'm sure even the Brockport police had to notice it."

Kerry didn't ask what he had against the Brockport police. Instead she asked, "Who's Gilbert Marsala?"

"He's the one who's after us."

She looked at him in stunned silence before managing to ask, "What makes you say that?"

"I recognized his picture in the paper." Before she had a chance to ask, he added: "The police composite. Of the man who rammed the school bus. Didn't I tell you that?" he asked innocently.

"No, you didn't," she snapped. "In fact, you purposefully led me to think otherwise. You made some comment like 'He's just beginning to get a face.'"

"It's hard to resist a good punchline," Ethan said.

"You described him. You didn't say anything about a picture."

"I was summarizing."

Kerry sighed. "Where
is
the paper?"

"I left it at the restaurant. Trust me," Ethan said. "I'm sure it's him. He was Regina's—" He cut himself off.

"What?" Kerry didn't know what to make of his expression. "He was Regina's
what?
"

Ethan glanced over at her but didn't answer A moment later, he pulled over to the side of the road. He crossed his arms over the steering wheel and buried his face in them. If it had been anybody else, she would have assumed he felt faint or was about to be sick.

Which was an unsettling thought.

Going on his second night without blood,
she calculated. He had indicated he could survive longer than that without adverse effects, but since when had she had reason to believe him? "Ethan?" she whispered, not sure she wanted to attract his attention.

Cars whizzed by them. She could feel the Monte Carlo sway with the air of their passing.

Ethan sat back, his eyes unfocused. But then he blinked. He looked at her as if he was about to say something, then changed his mind, and he pulled the car back into the flow of traffic.

Regina again. The mention of Regina always did strange things to him.

It was amazing to realize—with what she knew of both of them—that his reaction could still unsettle her.

Stop thinking of him as human,
she warned herself. Every action, every word, every look he gave her was calculated.
And the fact that she couldn't guess
what
they were calculated to do only proved that she was in over her head.
And what about my family?
she wanted to ask.
I keep playing by your rules, and I've been patient,
AND WHAT ABOUT MY FAMILY?

But she could picture him, in the mood he was in, whirling around and slapping her and telling her to stop whining.

Mile after silent mile they drove. They were once again on the road between Brockport and Rochester. Kerry was beginning to actively and passionately hate that road.

Just outside of the village, Ethan pulled into a minimart parking lot, stopping the car at the phone booth tucked in the corner.

"Who are you calling?" she asked, breaking the silence that had hovered between them like an ominous third person. Like the ghost of Regina.

Instead of answering, he said, "Take off your jacket." She did, and he tossed it into the backseat and gave her his.

"Why?" she asked.

"The police here will be searching for you more actively than the Rochester police were, and the description they have says you were wearing a pink jacket."

"Yeah, but it also says I'm wearing black pants."

"I don't want them noticing you," he said. "I don't want them looking that closely at you."

"Yeah, but—"

"Would you take the damn jacket?"

She took it, though she thought people would be more likely to notice him without any jacket at all—it was about thirty degrees, and all he had on was a white dress shirt and jeans.

He got out of the car and she followed him to the phone. "Who are you calling?" she asked again.

Still he didn't answer, but he called Information, since vandals had cut the chain where a phone book should have been attached "I'd like the phone number and address of Gilbert Marsala," he said.

Kerry was standing close enough to hear the operator say she could give out the phone number but not the address.

"All right," Ethan said reasonably, "I just wanted to make sure I got Gilbert Marsala
Junior
and not Gilbert Marsala Senior."

The operator said, "We have only one listing, sir, which doesn't specify 'Junior' or 'Senior.' The address is on Canal Street."

Ethan winked at Kerry, and in a very concerned voice said, "The old man lives on Canal Street, too."

"This is at one-forty-seven Canal Street," the operator said. She was beginning to sound a bit impatient, Kerry thought. She was probably supposed to handle calls in a certain number of seconds, and Ethan was dragging this out, ruining her average.

"That's the one," Ethan said. "Thank you very much."

He didn't bother writing down the phone number, which meant either he had a very good memory or he didn't care.

Back in the car, Kerry finally, warily, asked what she'd been wondering since Rochester. "Ethan, just who is this man?"

Ethan looked startled, then flustered and at a loss for words, a first for him. "I'm sorry," he said, another first. "I forgot that I"—
Freaked out at the mention of Regina?
Kerry supplied mentally—"never told you. He's a professor at the college. He teaches English composition, both day classes and CE."

Kerry looked at him blankly.

"Continuing Ed." Her look must not have improved. "At night."

"Oh," she said. Then, "Oh. You mean Regina really
was
a teacher."

She hadn't meant to bring up Regina yet again, but Ethan was grinning at her. "Yes. And I really was a student. Neither of us full-time, of course. Anyway, Marsala was the adjunct coordinator for CE and Regina had to report to him. She pointed him out to me one night when there was a blizzard warning and all the other teachers were letting out early. He was the only one who insisted on his students staying for the full lecture. Boring little man—should have just let them go."