H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (128 page)

Even in the darkness, with dawn on the
eastern horizon, the upper slopes glowed with a radiance that
seemed supernatural, and as the mountain loomed before us, we
pulled into Mount Shasta City and to the first inn I could
find.

Chapter Eleven

We got lucky.

Despite there being a New Age festival going
on in celebration of the mountain, the inn had received a
cancellation just hours before, and we were able to procure a room
with two beds. And not just two beds, two bedrooms.

I did not return to high school to sleep
with students. In fact, I had no interest in such activities. Such
physical desires had died in me long ago. No, I enrolled in night
school for the experience only. The same reason I do anything. For
the experience.

I had been turned long ago at a young age,
and it’s amazing what staying out of the sun does for your skin.
That, and being immortal, of course. Had I looked any older, I
would have enrolled in college, but I looked like an
eighteen-year-old, which just so happened to be my age on the night
my world had forever changed.

And I don’t mean that figuratively.

But that’s another story for another time.
Although physical activity never exhausted me, I used the excuse of
having driven all night and a need for sleep. This was partially
true, of course. I had a need to sleep. A strong one, although it
wasn’t so much sleeping as...biding my time, as I thought of it.
Whether or not I actually slept was open to debate, but I saw
myself as lying in a sort of catatonia. Somewhere between living
and dead, surely, as my body waited for the sun to go down.

Yeah, I’m weird.

And Parker didn’t need to know any of this,
either. Which is why once we got to the inn, she crawled
immediately under the covers of the bed in the front room, not even
flirting, while I slipped into the back room, pulled the drapes
tight, and waited for dawn.

I didn’t have to wait long. Soon, I was out
to the world. Or perhaps dead to this world in which I barely
belong.

* * *

It takes a lot to stir me from the dark
places I go during the day, and Parker, mercifully, had respected
my wishes to sleep during the day. It wasn’t until evening, just
before the sun had officially set, that she had finally roused me
awake.

I drifted up from the dark depths to see her
smiling face hovering over me.

“Boy,” she said. “You are almost impossible
to wake up.”

I sat up. The returning of consciousness was
always a bit disconcerting. I distinctly had the feeling of being
away from my body. Where I was, I hadn’t a clue, but I was
somewhere...and most certainly not in this room.

“Yeah, well, I sleep deeply.” Understatement
of the year.

“You don’t snore or anything. I mean, you
were just lying there...like a corpse or something. I couldn’t even
hear you breathe.”

Which is why I suspected most vampires of
the world avoided sleeping in hotel rooms with curious teenage
girls. Myself, I’ve never tried a coffin, although I could see the
value in it. Peace and quiet, although you could be mistaken for a
corpse...and find yourself buried six feet under.

“It’s not nice to watch people sleep.”

“I’m bored. And hungry.” She got up and was
about to throw open the curtain in my bedroom.

“Stop!”

She whirled, gasping. “What? What happened?”
One of her hands had still snagged one corner of the curtain, and
the light that suddenly filled the room, although faint, was enough
to make me recoil. She dropped the curtain, frowning.

I said, “Sorry, but I have
a...condition.”

“Condition?”

“Sensitive skin. I can’t be out in the sun
for long.”

“But there’s no sun. In fact, the sun is
almost set.”

“It hasn’t set.”

“How do you know.”

I knew. Trust me, I knew, but I said, “You
can still hear the birds. C’mon, let’s eat. Now, get out so I can
change.”

She left, but on the way out, she looked
back at me once, frowning. “Need any help?”

I couldn’t tell if she was concerned or
being coy. “Got it covered. See you in a few.”

I smiled, got dressed, and removed a very
special packet from the cooler inside my suitcase. The packet
wasn’t as cute as Parker, but it was nourishing all the same.

* * *

The town of Mount Shasta City is quaint.

It sits at the base of the south face of the
mountain. Mount Shasta is famous for its weird cloud formations
that surround the peak, and that night was no different. Streaks of
velvety contrails spread from the peak in three or four directions,
as if the mountain were wearing a crown of thorns. Additionally, a
weird, stacked plume rose directly above the mountain, sort of
capping it.

I caught Parker staring at the mountain, her
mouth slightly open. The mountain was stare-worthy; indeed, as we
cruised the streets looking for a place to eat, I often saw people
standing in doorways, smoking and staring...or walking and staring.
Or just standing and staring.

The mountain was their deity. And if it
wasn’t, it was damn close.

We found a Mexican restaurant called Lalo’s
that had a full bar. The full bar part was important. We were
seated next to a display of crystals that were for sale. I knew
that Mount Shasta was a mecca for New Agers and their crystals. You
can’t have a mountain that resplendent, with mystical stories that
reach down through the ages, without somebody selling crystals.
Apparently, the restaurant was cashing in on the hype, along with
eight-dollar mixed drinks.

The crystals caught Parker’s eyes and she
studied them intently. One in particular. A beautiful,
violet-colored geode within a darker shell.

We ordered drinks and I promptly ordered a
Bloody Mary. The waitress asked to see my ID and I showed her mine.
It was a fake ID, and when the waitress was gone, I said as much to
Parker. She snickered. Fake IDs were cool to teens...and absolutely
mandatory for immortals.

When the waitress returned with our
drinks—orange juice for Parker—I pretended to sip on the Bloody
Mary. Pretended, because I couldn’t drink it. We next ordered
food—or, rather, Parker did. I made an excuse that I was never
hungry upon awakening and Parker bought it. She ordered a cheese
enchilada and the waitress scooted off.

I next asked Parker if she wouldn’t mind
getting a map of Mount Shasta from the car, a map I had printed out
at home prior to leaving. She shrugged and I gave her the keys, and
as soon as she left, I went to work. I slipped out of the booth and
to the nearby bathroom, bringing my drink with me. Once in the
bathroom, I dumped the contents and refilled it with a packet of
blood I had stashed inside my jacket.

By the time Parker came back with the map
and my keys, I was sitting again at my table, happily drinking from
my freshly-topped-off glass of hemoglobin.

“Breakfast of champions,” Parker said,
noting how I downed the drink.

“Better than bacon.”

“Nothing’s better than bacon. Except a kiss
in the rain.”

“You’re too young to be romantic,” I
said.

“And you act like you’re a million years
old.”

“No. Just a few hundred.”

I grinned and she glared at me a moment, and
then decided it was a joke.

“Now,” I said, spreading the map in front of
us on the table. “Show me where Cloudland is.”

Chapter Twelve

Combining the map with the information I’d
received when registering for Cloudland, I figured out it was a
little south of town, in the hilly area called McCloud. And there
were clouds around the mountain. And it was even a cloudy
night.

So The Answer wasn’t very original. I guess
he put all his creative energy into concocting ways to kill
people.

That draining of Cindy’s blood still
bothered me, and caused me to be even more uneasy about this whole
set-up. The fact that I’d just polished off a glass of the stuff
reminded me how weird it was. Sure, it was “natural” to me after
all this time, but I still understood that I was a freak of
nature.

For the first time, I wondered if maybe I
was getting into a situation that was a lot more weird than it
appeared. Which was saying something.

“So we just drive up to the gates?” she
asked. “I flash my cleavage and get us in that way?”

“One, you don’t have much cleavage, and two,
I am an officially registered guest of Cloudland. So I go in
alone.”

Her eyes widened. “You dragged me all the
way down here to sit on the sidelines? It’s my dad, remember? I owe
it to Cindy to get to the bottom of this, plus I need to save my
sister.”

I held up the palm of one hand. “Whoa, whoa,
whoa. Get off the martyr train.”

Her brown eyes were flashing fire now. “I
need revenge.”

“That’s not a very healthy attitude, and if
you loose your cool, you will make mistakes.”

“Jesus, Spider, I don’t understand you.
Nothing works on you. I flirt, I show some skin, I try to rile you
up, I’ve done everything but hit on that hunky guy at the end of
the bar.”

I didn’t even bother to look, and that made
her madder than ever. “What is it with you?”

I shrugged. “You asked for my help.”

“But what do you get out of it?”

I tapped my empty glass with one gray
fingernail. “Cheap thrills and a bar tab.”

The waitress came over and asked if I wanted
another. I thought about ordering just to give the appearance of
being one of the crowd, but the bar was already filling up and
getting noisy. Apparently the New Agers weren’t so different after
all.

After I sent her away with a big tip, I
leaned toward Parker. “So, why do you think your sister’s
here?”

“I called her four times while you were
asleep. No answer. She always returns my calls.”

“Do you have a photo of her?”

Parker shook her head. “No way. I show you,
you cut me out of the action.”

“Actually, I want you to come, but you have
to do it my way. Do you trust me?”

She pouted a moment, and then nodded. “I
guess I have to.”

She fished in her purse and brought out a
small school picture and laid it on the table. I studied it. “Looks
like you from two years ago?”

“Exactly. Not hard to find her, huh?”

“So we find her. Have you ever ridden in the
trunk of a Mustang?”

* * *

My hunch was right that Cloudland would have
a pretty sophisticated check-in system. The gatehouse featured two
guards, and the one who came to my car window wasn’t carrying a
gun, but I figured they had some heavy artillery inside. I showed
him my “Summer Rain” identification, as well as my receipt.

“Summer,” he said. “That’s a weird name for
a boy.”

“I’m not a boy, I’m a man,” I said.

His bulldog face went a little hard and mean
so I let him win by saying, “My parents were raised in Big Sur. You
know, hippies.”

“I hate hippies. We get a lot of them around
the mountain.”

“You’re lucky you have a nice, high fence
topped with barbed wire all around. Nobody gets in or out without
your permission, right?”

His sunglasses were as blank as his face as
he shined the flashlight into the car’s interior. These guys were
even more paranoid than I thought.

“Open the trunk,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s in the rules where you registered.
Says ‘All guests are subject to search at any time.’ Can’t have no
drugs or alcohol on the premises. No laptops, magazines, cell
phones, pagers, Kindles, iPods, none of that junk.”

I guess I should have read the rules, but
you know how those things are. Pages and pages of legalese. Who has
time for that?

“I’m pretty sure that’s a violation of my
Fourth Amendment rights,” I said.

“We don’t got no amendments at Cloudland,”
he said. “And my job is to search every vehicle that enters the
grounds, or it doesn’t enter the grounds. And I like my job, you
know what I mean?”

“I imagine there’s not much other work
around here except selling crystals to hippies,” I said, stalling
for time.

“Open it.”

I shrugged and hit the release. As the guard
with the bulldog face went to the rear, the other guard stepped to
the doorway of the gatehouse. He was definitely packing.

Bulldog rummaged around a little, but the
only thing I had back there was a spare tire and a tool kit. We’d
left the luggage in the hotel, along with our tech toys. Since all
guests of Cloudland were required to exchange their clothes for the
obligatory tunics and baggy knickers, as well as ceremonial robes,
there was no sense bringing anything but a toothbrush, and I was
surprised they even allowed that.

“Looks clean,” he said.

I smiled, but not too much. I didn’t want my
pointy teeth to show. “Where do I park?”

“Hold on a second,” said the second guard.
He was chubby and had probably been a real cop in a former life,
because he waddled toward me with an air of practiced authority. If
the other guard was Bulldog, this one was Pit Bull Mix.

“We don’t get many boys here,” he said.

“So I’ve heard,” I said. Thanks to my
“bloody Mary,” I was pretty sated at the moment, but his big fat
neck looked inviting, and I could see his purple carotid artery
pulsing out a Morse code of juiciness.

“You’re not one of them funny boys, are
you?”

“I like to tell a joke now and then,” I
said.

“You know what I mean. A guy named ‘Summer,’
that sounds sissy to me. Are you a sissy boy? There ain’t a whole
lot of sissy boys here for you to play dolls with.”

Jesus. And I thought the jackasses in night
school were bad enough. Engaging in a morality battle with a guy
whose IQ was the same as his waist measurement wasn’t how I wanted
to spend my time.