Crossed (54 page)

“No.” I began to relax. Maybe John Paul had been worrying about nothing. Maybe.

“Not even if I gave her back to you.”

My heart beat twice and Rachel was dead, so I knew it wasn’t her doing.

“Her who?” Like I didn’t know exactly who.

“Marilyn. Your Marilyn. Maiden name Robinson.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping in volume, her body leaning close to mine, her cheek touching mine as she whispered in my ear. “You proposed to her once and you died two weeks before the wedding day. She cheated on you with your best friend and regretted it for the rest of her life. The woman whose soul my offspring used to try to trick you into losing your own. That ‘her.’”

“She’d have to be young again.” I reached into my wallet and pulled out the picture of Marilyn on the Duo-Glide. “This young.”

“Easily done.”

“And she’d have to be healthy again and stay healthy.”

“I can make a true immortal of her if you wish, like your dear old war buddy James.”

“And she can’t be mind-controlled or hypnotized or under some sort of geas. She’d have to be her own person.”

“Of course.”

“What do you want me for?”

“What does it matter?” Scrytha laughed. “This is Marilyn. I won’t pit you against Greta or any of your creations, but I will use you for what you’re good for: to break prophesies. Those ‘best laid schemes o’ mice and men’ of which Robert Burns spoke. You will help ensure they go awry. Does it matter how?”

“When do I get her back?”

“If you say yes now, I can have her here tomorrow.”

My heart beat two more times, stuttered, and kept right on beating. I heard the sound of feet pounding down the stairs, then Tabitha threw open the lobby doors.

“Eric,” she said, chest heaving. “Don’t you dare.”

I looked away from Tabitha, unable to meet her eyes, so when I spoke, my words were directed at the floor. When it comes to vampires across the years in books, in movies, or on television, there are certain rules:

Buffy loves Angel.

Louis loves Lestat.

Bella loves Edward.

And Eric . . . Eric loves Marilyn.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Whatever it is.” I put my hand in Lady Scrytha’s and shook it firmly. “I’ll do it.”

WINTER:

I WIN AGAIN

They came into the Artiste Unknown like rats fleeing a storm. Confused. Lost. Panic in their eyes and shrillness in their whispers. Panic. Marvelous! Marvelous! MAR-velous panic!

One by one I sensed them, giving Andre telepathic instructions from my bed in the ductwork, above the sprinklers. Hidden. With a friend. We watched, my friend and I, as Andre shifted the vermin from one portion of the club to another, quietly sorting out the Vlads and Masters from the general populace, sending them to the Velvet down below where quarters were more intimate.

“Mother Goose,” I said into my microphone. “This is Rockstar.” Melvin does so love code names.

“I copy you, Rockstar.”

“How are the preparations?”

“Everything’s okay on this end, Rockstar.” Static and the sound of a van engine filled a long pause. “You’re sure you’re well above the red line?”

“Why, aren’t you the overprotective hen, darling? I had Andre draw a blue line two feet above the red line and I’m half a foot above that one.”

Most vampires don’t sleep in coffins, but I do. Concealed in what many would presume to be a central portion of the exposed ventilation system, I rest snugly in a soundproof steel box complete with a Sealy Posturepedic mattress (custom fitted, of course), a high-tech surveillance system Melvin made for me (it even picks up vampires), room for a second occupant, and a six-hour supply of oxygen . . . for those who need that sort of thing.

Father Ike, my friend, watched the monitors, light from the black-and-white displays moving like shadows on his stern priestly visage.

“And this is half the vampires in the city?” he asked.

“Closer to sixty percent,” I crowed, “but the best part is, it represents ninety percent of the Masters, eighty percent of the Vlads, and the most powerful of the Soldiers. Almost no Drones, but who can bear to be around them in the first place?”

“And it will work?”

“How dare you, Ike?” I swatted his shoulder, giddy at the tinge of flame that warmed my fingers upon contact, however brief. “It’s an open secret that Melvin works for me, and when I told a few discreet friends (all the most incorrigible gossips) I’d warded the establishment and had a plan for dealing with the failure of the Veil of Scrythax . . . well, it guaranteed they’d come, didn’t it?”

“This is why you had me agree to marry Eric and Tabitha?” Father Ike sniffed at the burned smell of my fingers.

“No, Ike.” I clicked the walkie-talkie button. “Rockstar to Mother Goose. Phase one of Operation Dorothy Gale is complete. Prepare to begin phase two.”

“Dorothy Gale?” Ike asked.

“Of course. We dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of the East.”

“The Highland Towers on Lord Phillip?”

“While displacing the other most politically important vermin in the city.” I nodded, hands clasped beneath my chin. “And now, we deal with the metaphorical Wicked Witch of the West.”

“Is Pretty Boy clear?” Melvin asked.

“Just a moment.” I watched my best thrall, Andre, conversing with Lady Gabriella.

“Winter,” Andre thought at me, “she suspects something.”

“Let her go, then,” I whispered telepathically. “In fact, see her out and offer to drive her to Sable Oaks.”

“Of course, Master.”

She seemed agreeable to that, the greedy little rat. I watched Andre lead her out. I focused on the door as it shut, the click of the lock.

“He’s clear, Mother Goose.”

“Spikes and sunlamps are set for the Velvet, Rockstar.”

“How does that fit into the Wizard of Oz?” Father Ike asked.

“It doesn’t.” I watched my waiters and servants exiting the building, none at the same time, all through different exits. I observed closely as the exits shut. “The Velvet is more along the lines of Indiana Jones, a riff on the temple sequence at the beginning of
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Everyone knows that Dorothy threw a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West.”

“That would take holy water, Winter, and I haven’t—”

“Of course not, Ike,” I purred. “You’re far too squeamish.
I had the Lycan Diocese send some down. They were quite amenable.”

“Mother Goose.” I blinked my eyes rapidly to ensure I wouldn’t need to blink again during the show. “Shields up.”

A thin red glow spread out from along a red line two and a half feet below our hiding space in the ductwork. Unseen by those without particularly acute mystic sight, the ward rolled down and trapped them all.

“Shields up, Rockstar,” Melvin said.

“Make them dance for me, Melvin.” My words rushed together, excitement rippling through me, heightening my senses. “Start the double feature.”

Screams can make a kind of music, a terrible symphony of pain. Mine was writ in treachery and surprise, in sizzling skin and wood-pierced hearts and bubbling blood. It’s saddening to admit Father Ike seemed to lack the refined ear I have.

“I know you hate them, Winter, after what they did to you and to John,” he said finally, “but this—”

“Is just the beginning,” I crowed. “I know. We’re going to kill them all, Father. And then, Eric Courtney is going to help us whether he wants to or not.”

“Us?” Father Ike pulled away from me as far as the close quarters would allow. “I’m helping
John
through this, Winter. I cannot be a party to this kind of slaughter. Not all vampires are evil. Some, like you, who have never given in to the urge to feed on human blood . . .”

“Not you, Father, I know that.”

I held up my treasured possession, a small crystallized orb. “The immortals may have seized his head from the Knights Templar, but they did not escape with all of him.”

“All of who, Winter?”

“Scrythax,” I answered smoothly. “I have his eye, and with it . . . oh, the futures I can see.”