Don’t Bite the Messenger (5 page)

I turned back, and the expression he wore now made my chest tighten. “You’re right.” I kept my voice low so that he wouldn’t hear how unsteady it was. “I lied about my name. But I have my reasons. I’m sorry if that doesn’t work for you.”

“Mary.” This time his voice was a warning. I slammed the door behind me.

***

I felt better than I should have even if Malcolm thought I looked like shit, which a reflective window emphatically confirmed I did. Not that I cared what he thought, or the window. He’d deceived me into thinking he was human, the rotten sneak, and had probably untied my robe in the night to steal looks at me. I poured milk into my coffee and stirred it viciously, cursing under my breath and sending another coffee bar patron sidling away. This wasn’t a good time for me to be among people.

I shoved through the coffee shop door hard enough to knock the bell off, then burned my hand with coffee when I bent to retrieve the merry little bastard. Fuck it. The door banged closed behind me. It was biting cold outside, making my lips tingle and my eyes water. Despite that, I stopped, rooted in place. If Malcolm was still at my apartment, I might do something foolish like try to kiss him again or—God forbid—apologize. I sighed. I had it bad for him. I
should
apologize. He wasn’t the men of my past, had never so much as threatened me, and I had barely been civil to him. Then again…

Malcolm was probably wealthy, was certainly arrogant, and he was stronger than any human man could be. He didn’t want to see me hurt, but he couldn’t see himself through my eyes. He had more capacity to hurt me than anyone else, because I wanted kindness from him. Kindness, and so much more.

The cold, combined with the fact that the sun had set, woke my self-preservation instincts and I started walking. Surely he would be gone. He probably needed to feed—I wasn’t sure how long refrigerated pig’s blood could tide a vamp over for—and check in with Bronson. The Master was no doubt putting together some kind of hunting party. Retribution was high on vampires’ list of likes, and I was apparently his pet courier.

I’d had death wrapped in plastic in my trunk, and all I had to show for it were bruises and a bad mood. I’d won. So why did I still have such a bad feeling?

I started the recalcitrant Suburban on my way in to the apartment to give it time to defrost. I’d head in to I&O to see whether I could get any additional information on that Price guy. And then…then I should leave. McHenry wouldn’t let me drive for a few days after I’d been hurt anyway, and I could probably move up my flight date. The change fee would be worth it.

Price had known that I was Bronson’s courier, which meant he had connections in Anchorage. The news of last night’s events, including my survival, would have hit the street no later than the minute I was wheeled into the hospital. I could lie low with the best of them, but I was only human. I might be able to stand up to a baby vamp, but not much more. All I had on my side was the ability to run.

The door stuck and I winced when I shouldered through it. Inside, the building smelled like bleach, and the soothing sounds of the washing machines drifted out of the open laundry room. In my own house, I wouldn’t have to share laundry facilities. That was something to look forward to.

I paused on the landing between the first and second floor, the back of my hand raw from cold, my palm hot and moist against the paper coffee cup. The building was quiet. It was a workday and early yet for the other tenants to be returning. Still, something felt off. Beneath the soles of my boots the floor trembled, and I relaxed. Only an earthquake. I climbed, clutching the banister as the tremor continued, and stepped from the stairwell into a crackling gale of etheric energy.

The light flickered overhead, illuminating a dark-clad swarm of vampires fighting on my doorstep.
On. Off.
The images flashed like a hypertensive slideshow.
On. Off.
Drywall broke and crumbled in the dark, and artificial light from my apartment streamed in through the holes.

Not an earthquake.

I dropped my coffee and sucked in a breath. Three of them turned toward me, the dull sheen of their eyes almost as disturbing as their mouths, distorted around massive curved fangs. From behind them, Malcolm rose up, blood running from his forehead and streaking his cheek and chin. My heart skipped a beat as I gaped at his fangs, the golden glow of his eyes.

“Leave,” he yelled. Then he lunged, and one of the vamps dropped in a dark spray of blood.

I moved without thought, tripping backward and stuttering down the stairs. Someone screamed, a savage, scraping howl. It didn’t sound like Malcolm, thank God. Behind me, the lightbulbs cracked and fizzled out as the fight escalated. I spun onto the last landing and stumbled to a halt, breathing hard.

A figure stood at the bottom of the stairs, pale yellow hair plastered to his skull. Price’s right-hand man. Richard. A woman lay limp at his feet, and he held her arm as though he was dragging her. She wore green scrubs and looked familiar, someone I’d passed in the parking lot in the morning maybe. The suckers had to influence someone to let them in. I hoped that was all they’d done to her.

The Nazi wannabe dropped the woman, who rolled onto her side, her arms wrapping around her middle. That was a good sign. He climbed two steps and stopped, widening his stance, trying to block me in.

“Come with me,” he said. His words filled my head with cold fog and glass shards of pain. I backed up until I hit the wall, my throat tight as though I was choking on the command. I blinked, clearing my eyes and my head. Go with him?
So
not going to happen. I had to get past him and buy myself thirty seconds to get to the Suburban.

“Yes,” I murmured, pushing off the wall and picking up speed. His head tilted to the side, probably wondering what he’d done to elicit such an enthusiastic response. I dropped my left shoulder, grabbed the banister with both hands and kicked off of the stairs. My legs sailed out in front of me and I tensed, striking him in the chest. He crashed into the corner.

I landed hard and rolled until the wall stopped me. I pulled myself into a crouch and felt around in my bag until my fingers brushed the scored hilt of my knife. I snapped out the six-inch blade. The woman’s eyes were glazed, her mouth moving weakly. The vamp was motionless. Another howl from above, then the sound of wood splintering. I ran.

Flat-out, barreling out of the building and sprinting for the truck. The door crashed open behind me, and prickly cold energy slapped against my back. He was coming. I slid around the Suburban, bent knees locking as I lowered myself reflexively to stay upright. I ran a few steps into the street when the ice ended.

And then the world tore open. The top of the apartment building exploded in a deafening burst of smoke and wood. I turned, catching a glimpse of the roof blowing outward, and then the sucker hit me. I tucked my chin when he tried to get an arm around my neck, rolled with him as we landed hard against an icy drift. His arm tightened around my waist, and he dragged me up, pushing me back against the snowbank with a cold, hard hand. The hilt of the knife bit into my palm, the blade pressing back along my forearm.

Richard’s mouth moved, lips stretching around partially dropped fangs. I couldn’t hear anything but the underwater sound of my own breathing. Debris rained down on us, broken flaming bits of my home. He twitched, and then he arched backward, hands scrabbling, trying to reach something on his back. Flames crept up his shoulders. I shoved his arm down and swung the knife.

He turned his head, thinking I was trying to punch him. I straightened my wrist and the blade flashed out, slicing across his face. Scrambling backward, I kicked him off of my legs and staggered to my feet. He writhed, his blood steaming in the cold air.

I jogged down the block then crouched between two cars, panting. My hands shook as I wiped the knife on a tissue, forced it to fold and stowed it. The building burned. The fourth floor was gone, the second and third torn open. Orange flames danced inside of roiling black smoke. The squeal of car alarms and the security system pierced the cotton in my ears. People from nearby buildings wandered into the street, staring at the building, dazed. They were all human. My shoulders slumped. Malcolm wasn’t among them.

A hand weakly gripped my ankle, and I leapt to my feet. Richard crawled toward me, his flesh waxen and pale. The yellow hair at the back of his head had burned off, the bottom of his right cheek flapped away from his face, and a thick slick of blood followed him. I backed away, pulled my hat tight and ran around the neighboring apartment building. I kept running. Over chain-link fences, through the narrow slots between government row-houses. My lips formed Malcolm’s name, but I couldn’t hear myself saying it.

The problem with paradise is that it’s small. For the most part, the real world leaves it be, but the real world is greedy and expansive so paradise has to stay small to remain pristine. It’s quiet, too. Uneventful. I suppose those are parts of the definition of
peaceful
. They’re also components of the definition of
boring
.

I traded the Piilani Highway for the Mokulele, the wind wicking the day’s humidity from my skin like a lizard lapping dew. Sugarcane fields jostled in the passing headlights of shiny rental fleets and sun-faded local cars. The national bird refuge smelled unpleasantly swampy. It had been a dry spring.

Traffic all but disappeared a mile down the Hana Highway and the night whispered by, gentle and easy. I flipped up my rearview mirror to dim the headlights bobbing along behind me, breathed in the sweet air—overlaid with salt from the sea—and thought about nothing but the rumble and twist of the road. I could zone out while surfing and driving, but I couldn’t surf at night and there are only so many miles of road on a small island.

I was about a million miles away from the self I knew. Maybe the last few years had hardwired me for tension, repeating patterns of buildup and release, because the more I tried to relax, the itchier I felt inside my own skin. At least in Anchorage I could have driven away at any time. If I wanted off the island, I couldn’t just go.

“Leave,” Malcolm had yelled.

I’d gone, and the memory of seeing him outnumbered, of feeling the force of the explosion was like a dream in which I wanted to run but couldn’t. Maybe he’d needed help but I’d left him torn to pieces in the snow. Maybe he would have come with me, and I could have woken to find him beside me these last few months. Maybe there was nothing left of him to find.

I shook my head, refocused on the road.

I’d hitched my way out of Anchorage and into Canada. In Whitehorse, for the first time in my life, I stole a car. When I crossed the border in Whitlash, Montana, a day and a half later, it had a new license plate, and I was a jumpy brunette by the name of Sydney Kildare. It took me a week to recognize my own reflection. I dumped the car in Spokane, flew to Los Angeles and scored a standby ticket on American Airlines to Maui.

I’d lost my down payment on the house on Oahu. So much for Sunset Beach, but I figured it was worth it not to go the one place vampires knew to expect me. Even if it was only Lucille. Hopefully they’d think I died in the explosion.

I parked the convertible 1970 Bronco under the carport and sat for a moment listening to the engine cool and the sound of old-school reggae leaking out of my landlord’s house twenty yards behind me. I slipped out of the truck, smoothing my skirt over my damp bikini bottom and fixing a tank top strap that had slid off my shoulder. The sunburn I’d cultivated in my first month had finally given way to the deep tan of a habitual surfer. My hair had grown into a sleek, if very short bob, and red highlights were developing in response to the sun. I actually looked like a real girl.

Over the music, a baby insistently made itself heard. I smiled. Mine Kabasawe had almost been born in the back of the Volkswagen Rabbit I’d bought with cash when I first arrived on Maui, not able to completely relinquish my dream of Hawaii. Her mother, Leilani, had gone into labor at the slow French café I’d been having lunch at in Paia. I’d tossed her into the Rabbit and made the hospital in Kahului in twelve minutes flat, despite road construction. It was the most fun I’d had since …well, a long time.

Leilani had been so grateful she’d talked her uncle Hiro into renting me a place on his property near Haiku. It was an old house set in a small clear-cut, surrounded by a protective tropical forest. A porch wrapped around three sides offering a view of craggy cliffs and, far below, a turbulent shore. The open layout made the house feel much larger than nine hundred square feet. It had been built when “outdoor living indoors” had been in vogue and the walls were lined with cut-out rectangles covered only in screens. Hiro called them windows and said he would hang shutters in the winter.

I should have felt exposed. My old apartment had been cinder-block construction, with small, high windows. I’d thought it felt safe, but in reality it was like living in a bunker, oppressive and cell-like. But this place reflected the new me: out in the open, wearing my real hair and using my true name. So why was I still so restless?

The music and baby’s crying ending at the same time behind me, replaced by Leilani’s voice singing a lullaby. The sound faded as I made my way up the gentle rise to my house. It looked like a ship resting on a crab’s back. Six beams supported it at the sides, and a round central column rose up through the middle, disguising the pipes and water heater. The jungle leaves flapped in the evening breeze, and the crash of waves onto the rocks below was violently soothing. Hiro had lit tiki torches around my porch, which he did most nights when I didn’t get home until after dark. He must have been a lighthouse keeper in a former life.

I walked around the side of the house to the outside shower, hung my clothes on the bamboo enclosure and showered quickly in tepid water. It felt positively medieval to wash outside by flickering firelight. I groped for the towel I’d left hanging on a peg that morning, shook it to release any insects or lizards that had sought refuge in its folds and wrapped it around myself. I ran up the stairs and pushed open the screen door, smiling at the small basket of spam
musubi
and fresh tomatoes Leilani left every time she visited her uncle. She
really
hadn’t wanted to have that baby in a café. I dropped my keys on the small table by the door and carried the basket toward the kitchen, the only room other than the cramped bathroom that had walls.

“You seem to have made an impression on the neighbors,” a voice said. My heart leapt into my throat and I compulsively pulled the basket to my chest, like some kind of sun-bleached Little Red Riding Hood. He let go of whatever strange talent held his energy in check and it skittered madly over my skin, making me gasp.

“What are you doing here?” My voice sounded husky and unused, which was about right. Unless I was ordering food or exchanging stories with the couple of local surfers who had finally acknowledged me, I didn’t talk much.

“You invited me before. The invitation follows you, not the structure.”

“No. No, I mean…” There were so many things I wanted to say to him, but I couldn’t find a few simple words. I took a deep breath, hoping to steady my giddy heart.

“I am not here to hurt you.” Malcolm emerged from a dark corner and I spun, wet feet squeaking on the hardwood floor, when I caught the movement. He stopped, his hands hanging at his sides. We stood like that for a moment, facing one another in the darkness, wrapped in the sound of pounding surf and his crackling energy. He seemed to be having trouble with his control. I started toward him, absently dropping the basket on the counter, where it tipped over.

“I came to check on you,” he said, his voice low. “Bronson was concerned when you couldn’t be found.” I stopped a foot from him, his tall, familiar form backlit by the torches. My hand rose of its own accord and rested against his chest.

“Malcolm.” I almost believed he was really there and not a daydream that had followed me home. I thought of him constantly. Sitting on my board, drifting idly between rideable swells, I remembered each variation of his smile. I wanted to melt against him, to kiss him until the sun rose.

“We weren’t sure you made it out of the building.” His voice sounded rough. My senses pricked up, responding to a sudden deficit of turbulence in the air. He hadn’t controlled his vampire energy, not exactly. He had just pulled it back.

“Me?” I said. “What about you? You were still in there when it exploded. Was it another bomb?” He shifted beneath my hand, a shrug.

“I went out the window at the same time they detonated. Caught some shrapnel. Nothing too bad.”

“Nothing too bad,” I murmured, staring at him. Firelight illuminated him in patches. A jawline here. The bridge of his nose there. The smooth plane of his cheek. I turned toward a lamp on the end table, wanting to see him, but he caught my wrists.

“No lights. Nobody can see me here.”

“How very mysterious.” I smiled. “There isn’t really anyone around, you know. The trees block the neighbors’ view.” He didn’t say anything, and a cold touch crept across my back.

“Did someone follow you here?” I whispered. Was that why it had taken him so long to come, because someone was still after me? Vampires tended to gather nearer the poles. I hadn’t seen a single blood lounge or sucker on Maui, and I’d driven everywhere that wasn’t gated. Of course, most nights I was tucked away at home before the sun set, so vamps could have been out and I wouldn’t have known.

“Of course not,” he snapped. His hands dropped away from my arms and his energy disappeared from my senses so sharply it might have been torn away. I looked at him, and even in the dark knew that his expression contained no warmth. In fact, it was blank. I stepped back.

“What happened after I left?” I asked, crossing my arms and holding each elbow. I wasn’t afraid of him. Any other vampire showing up in my house two months after I’d left them behind, yes. Malcolm? No. Not him.

“You don’t know?” The lack of tone in his voice was disorienting. I resisted taking another step back, but swayed a little. He’d been angry when I left him in my apartment. Maybe that hadn’t changed. I shook my head, knowing he’d be able to see it even in the near-dark.

“I haven’t been following the news.”

“The man you knew as Price attempted a takeover, the very night you left,” he said.

“Takeover?”

“His real name was Vasiliev, one of the elder brothers of an old family. He burned out Bronson’s lounges, hit any of his residences where someone was home. Kidnapped and strung up his human helpers.”

I dropped into a chair, wishing the cushions were firmer as all the strength ebbed out of me. Malcolm settled into the side of the small couch, one arm running along the wicker armrest.

His human helpers. The people who ran his companies, his attorneys, his housekeepers… “My God,” I whispered. “Is…is In and Out…”

“McHenry’s outfit escaped for the most part. With you taken care of, it was a business they would have needed after Bronson was eliminated.”

“But he wasn’t, right?” I asked, my voice too loud, too high. “He’s all right? Rogers? Lucille…she’s all right?”

Malcolm leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Why would it matter to you, what happened to them?”

“It matters,” I cried. “Why wouldn’t it matter to me that people I knew could be dead? What is wrong with you?”

“You left at a very convenient time,” he said. I snapped my mouth closed. Vampires are notoriously paranoid. They have to be, I guess, since the only value they share is power. Wealth. They’d have to watch their backs to hold on to that for decades, centuries. “Didn’t tell anyone you were going.”

He didn’t have to say that I, of all people, would have known how to get a message to Bronson. I swallowed though my mouth was dry. “Malcolm, you were there. You know I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Do I,
Sydney
? I’m thinking I don’t actually know you at all.”

I looked away, trying to stuff down feelings of guilt, along with a stiff wash of anger. He’d said he wasn’t here to hurt me, but I’d heard those words, that exact lie, before. For all I wanted to trust him, I knew how easily a man could hurt me.

“Vasiliev left a message on Deglio,” Malcolm said quietly.

“
On
him?” My stomach churned.

“His body. Brought Bronson to the bargaining table with a promise of returning you, and then tried to kill him.”

“What? No. That doesn’t…no.” I shook my head violently, pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “I’m just a runner.”

“You delivered a letter that destroyed the Vasiliev family’s attempt to annex the Master’s holdings.”

“Why would Bronson even care about me?”

“He had made it known you were under his protection. The last living member of his human stable, in the hands of his enemy. It’s equivalent to…to seizing a castle and replacing the coat of arms. A symbolic change in ownership.”

“Why not keep someone else alive to bargain with? Why would using my name matter?”

“You still haven’t figured it out? You were known for being the only runner in the state who wouldn’t take a bribe and couldn’t be influenced. Bronson is one of a handful of masters in the world who always received reliable intelligence. That made him powerful, and made you his most unique human asset. His prize.” Malcolm practically spat the word, and I winced.

“But I wasn’t even there,” I whispered. Malcolm shifted, a quick, restless gesture that had me eyeing him for signs of aggression. I didn’t like him like this.

“We didn’t know. At first we thought you’d died in the building. Price’s people had seen you leave, and he had sources among Bronson’s soldiers. When he realized that we didn’t know where you were, he thought it would be amusing to use our ignorance against us.”

“Enjoy himself, did he?”

“No. He died wishing he’d never been born or risen undead.”

I looked up, startled by the heat in Malcolm’s voice. “Who killed him? You?”

“The Master had that pleasure.”

I swallowed. He sounded like it would have pleased him, killing a man. Bronson had killed his would-be usurper. What would he want done to me if he thought I’d been helping Vasiliev? The wind kicked up outside and the torches sputtered before the flames leapt. In the momentary flare, I saw Malcolm looking at the floor. Then he raised his head, his eyes lit by the flames and that internal glow he usually took care to hide. He would do whatever
the Master
ordered. I shivered.

“He sent you after me?” The light dropped again, but I still saw him nod. I braced myself. “To kill me?” He stood and, with an effort of sheer will, I managed not to shrink back.

“To check you for bites.”

It took me a moment to process.