InsistentHunger (6 page)

“But you’re good with people.”

“No more than you. No more than John or Rick. Okay, so I’m a
lot better with people than Alex or Veronica, but that’s like being smarter
than a moron.”

A quick laugh slipped out of Brady, but then his expression
turned serious. “I wanted to be a detective.”

“Maybe you still can be,” Paige said with a strained smile.
“On television, people do it all the time. There was that show with the Nick
guy who was dead. He made a good detective.”

Brady looked at her like she’d lost her mind and Paige had
to admit that it was a possibility.

“Or not,” she admitted.

“I did some experimenting.” Brady moved over to where weak
sunlight filtered in through crusty, cobweb covered windows. It was actually
pretty embarrassing that anyone was seeing her basement, considering that the
place was a health hazard. Reaching out, he put his hand into the weak beam.

He pulled his hand back to his chest and rubbed it with his
other hand. “It’s uncomfortable—like I can feel the sound of fingernails down a
chalkboard—feel it through my skin. But it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel good,
but it doesn’t hurt. So, if I don’t like sunlight…” Brady’s voice trailed off.

Paige ignored Brady’s invitation to call him a vampire. It
felt rude to call him one to his face. “So you probably won’t go wandering
around in daylight?”

“Um, no. Not unless you actually do set the house on fire.
I’m pretty sure fire would kill me. Well, kill me more, anyway.”

“Great, your sense of humor came through okay.”

“It’s that or run around screaming in terror,” Brady said
with a shrug. “And I am so sorry that I was so scared when I showed up. I think
that’s why I bit you.”

“Huh. And here I was feeling all complimented that you
thought I smelled good.”

Paige was almost sure that Brady blushed. “That too,” he
said with a smile, and Paige found herself smiling back. Yeah, things were
screwed up beyond all belief, but Brady was getting back to being Brady.

“Anyway, that means that these guys are probably going to
avoid sunlight too.” Paige chewed on her lip and rubbed her arm as she thought
about that. She still enjoyed the feel of sun on her face, so that was one
piece of evidence in her favor. It also meant she was better off investigating
in the day. “If you were near the water, that could be Cedar Dam Road or Mill
Road or William Shy Road.”

“Or a half dozen others.”

Paige shook her head. “Not if it was blacktop.”

“Worthington Road is blacktop.”

“Worthington Road is so torn up, you can’t tell it’s
blacktop when you’re riding over it. I’ll check out the roads and maybe you can
jump on the Internet and see if you can’t track down any information, maybe
track down some of those symbols. I’ll bring the laptop down here so we don’t
have any reporters getting a good picture of you.”

Frowning, Brady moved closer to her with his head tilted to
the side. “You can’t go out there alone.”

“Sure I can. You said the sunlight was uncomfortable,” Paige
pointed out. “They’re all going to be tucked away in their nice, shady little houses.”

“I’ve only been dead about twelve hours. Maybe it gets
better or they’re stronger than I am. Maybe you’re going to get yourself
killed. Paige, you can’t do this.” He reached out for her, but at the last
minute, he pulled his hand back.

Paige felt the righteous indignation in the pit of her
stomach. She’d been doing the job long enough to know her shit and most cops
did work alone. They partnered up during big cases like the rape case and she
often trained new officers, but most of the time in a small town like this,
patrols were solitary.

She sure didn’t need someone telling her she couldn’t do her
job. On the other hand, Brady looked worried. These people had hurt him. She
sighed and decided to go for reassuring him rather than ripping him a new asshole
for assuming she couldn’t handle herself. “Brady, I’m not going to go out and
get myself killed.”

“Good. Don’t. Let someone else investigate this.” Turning
around, he slammed the flat of his hand into the shelving and the entire metal
structure shivered. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have dragged you
into this.”

Paige got up and had reached for his arm before her brain
could warn her to be careful. “Hey, we’re partners. You came to me because you
knew that and I’m not going to let someone get away with hurting you.”

He turned to look at her. The dark of his eyes had faded,
not like the film that formed over the eyes of the dead but rather as if some
of the color had leached out, leaving a lighter amber color, and with the angry
red veins in the whites of his eyes, for a second she couldn’t see Brady in
there at all. But then he blinked and she recognized the worried expression. He
ran fingers through his dark hair and she could feel him shaking under her
hand. “You can’t go alone,” he whispered in a rough voice.

“Brady, I’ve been a cop for fifteen years. I can take care
of myself.”

“Against this?” He reached up, grabbed one of the metal
supports and twisted it, ripping the screws out of the shelf and bending the
reinforced steel. Boxes of ornaments tumbled off the falling shelf, tipping so
that colored balls she hadn’t packed well slid out and fell to the floor. They
crashed against the concrete, popping like firecrackers. Brady scrambled to
catch the falling boxes, but he managed to hit one so that it bounced into the
air, flipped and dumped tinsel before landing near the floor drain. The shelf
tilted, the one support twisted into a crude S-shape and the shelf dangling.
Brady closed his eyes. “Shit. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry. I’ll clean
it up.”

Paige looked at the mess, both the spilled Christmas
decorations and the ruined shelf. That had been a heavy-duty shelf she’d bought
when she’d had big plans for home improvement and she’d planned to fill it with
shop equipment. Brady had twisted it like a bread wrapper tie. “I think you
made your point,” she said quietly. Her guts rolled as she thought about the
casual power he’d just shown.

“I didn’t mean to… I just meant to bend it.”

“Oh I think you made your point a little better by mangling it.”

“Then you’ll stay away from these people?” he asked, naked
hope in his voice.

Paige looked around at the mess and thought about that. She
still didn’t know if there was a way to fix Brady or if she was going to turn
into whatever he was or if Brady was going to get worse. There were so many
questions and she didn’t have the answers she needed—the answers they needed.

“Wait until dark and I’ll go with you,” Brady offered. “You
shoot them and I’ll hit them really hard.”

“And when we run into Alex and John from the station?” Paige
asked.

“Maybe we can skip the reunion. I’d have a hard time
explaining the whole dead thing.” Brady made a funny face and a laugh slipped
out before Paige could stop it. Brady smiled at her, and for one second, things
felt normal. “I could ride in the trunk or under a blanket, but if you’re going
to try to find the house, you need backup, Paige. You’re the one who always
told me to stick to the book. Actually, you threatened to kick my ass back to
Mommy and Daddy’s house if I didn’t follow the rules.”

“I did, huh?”

“Yeah, you did. You’re a little scary sometimes, Silver, but
if you go up against these guys alone, you’re a whole lot stupider than I ever
thought.”

“More stupid,” Paige corrected him. Brady looked at her
oddly. “Stupider isn’t a word. Don’t get in the habit of using words that
aren’t words. Your reports will end up looking like Harris’.”

Brady raised an eyebrow and looked at her even more oddly.

Paige rolled her eyes at herself. She didn’t want to listen
to what Brady was saying. He was making sense, but if she listened to him, she
was going to have to change her plans. She was going to have to go out after
dark, and right now she wanted to hang garlic all over the place and hide in
the house once the sun went down. “Does garlic bother you?” she blurted out.

And the odd looks kept right on getting odder. “I have no
idea. Do you have any? We could try it.”

“I have garlic powder,” she said after thinking for a
second. “And I’m changing the subject because I’m trying to ignore the fact
that you’re making sense.” Paige reached out to run her finger over the twisted
metal. On top of all the other things she didn’t know, she could add one
more—she didn’t know if a bullet would stop one of these guys. She did know
they could snap her neck like a twig. “I’ll make you a deal. I’m going to go
looking for the house.”

When Brady’s mouth came open, Paige held up a hand to stop
him from interrupting.

“I’ll stay in the car and just look for a location. We can
go back out after dark.”

Brady seemed to sag in relief, one hand holding the now
ruined shelf. “Deal. I’ll back you up, no problem,” he agreed.

“I hope so. If I get killed, I’ll find a way to come back
and make you miserable. At one point, that might have been an empty threat, but
now…don’t think I won’t do it,” Paige threatened, pointing a finger right at
Brady. He just gave her this boyish grin that made her want to slap him upside
the back of the head. “And don’t get cocky just because you won this round,”
she said as she headed for the stairs.

“Cocky? Me? Never,” he said in a smug tone.

“God, I’m insane,” Paige whispered to herself. She was also
going to carve herself several good stakes if she was going to go out after
dark. And buy garlic. She wondered if the Catholic Church sold holy water.
She’d been brought up Lutheran and there was a real lack of holy water in that
church, but people on television always seemed to find some. Damn, her life
really had gotten entirely too strange, but the only alternative included
admitting defeat and Paige never had been very good at that. So…step one—find
the damn house.

Chapter Six

Paige slowed down as the grove of black gum trees came in
view. This was an isolated bit of William Shy Road and she gripped the wheel
tightly to hold off a case of the shakes that seemed to threaten. A
weed-covered lane led off the old blacktop between a pair of lopsided holly
trees, their normally bright green leaves dull and patches of bare branches
sticking through.

Rolling to a stop, Paige studied a sign announcing that the
house was under renovation by Lister and Stevenson, 1973. Clearly the
renovation had not gone well because Paige could see the top floor of an old
house with glass missing from the windows and bare wood. The countryside was
full of century-old homes, some fixed up and some slowly rotting.

This one was past rotting and into condemned-land. And Paige
was pretty sure it was the place Brady had died. The blacktop, the trees, the
sign in front of the residential house, the isolation—it all fit.

She just couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten to her house.
She lived on the west side of town and this sat on the edge of the swamp,
twenty miles away. Either he’d gotten a ride or she could add speed to his
other superpowers. A shadow on the edge of her vision caught her attention and
Paige turned her head to see a man inching along the path to the house. He was
a muscular man, tall with a receding hairline and the body language of a cop or
soldier.

Easing off the brake, she inched forward so that she could see
more of the house between overgrown trees. The man had a gun out and something
bulky around his neck. Paige reached for her cell phone and toyed with the idea
of calling for units. She could claim that she was just driving around, but if
there was evidence of Brady having died in that house, the captain was going to
assume she was off on a rogue investigation. True, she was, but she didn’t need
more scrutiny right now.

So she held her cell phone in hand and watched as the guy
reached the house and moved toward one of the empty windows. He watched the
surrounding area and Paige was almost certain he’d seen her. With her uniform
on, she stood out.

Before Paige could decide what to do, something flew out the
house window. Actually, it leapt, but the leap lasted so long that the creature
gave the impression of flying as it came through the window. Paige got out of
the car, cell phone in one hand and gun in the other. The other guy would be
dead before backup could arrive if she didn’t help and she wasn’t going to let
any more people die.

“Freeze, Oxbow Police!” she yelled. Both men ignored her.
The soldier-guy raised his gun and fired two shots, but the newcomer somehow
twisted out of the way. He was a lanky guy with long hair, and the sinuous way
he contorted his body made Paige’s guts coil into a knot. He wasn’t human. He
also seemed to take longer than Paige had expected to look around.

When he leaped forward, the soldier-guy fell back without
looking too concerned. Paige started running, almost sure that the soldier was
going to get killed, but at the last second, the lanky monster reared back like
something burned him. Paige put a shot low into the guy’s side, and he turned
to snarl at her.

She froze. The monster’s skin was ruddy, almost like a mild
sunburn, and the whites of his eyes were pink with pale blue irises. There was
nothing human in the face, nothing at all. Even stranger, the monster looked at
her like he couldn’t quite figure out what to do. The soldier raised his gun
and fired three shots.

Paige watched as the back of the monster’s skull blew out in
a spray of gray matter and bone fragments, and then the body collapsed,
decaying like some fast-forwarded nature film. Skin pulled tight so that the
creature seemed to snarl as his mouth opened and his eyes protruded. Bone
started appearing through open sores, and then the flesh seemed to melt for a
split second before the body collapsed into a pile that turned to dry ash
before it even hit the ground.