Lust for Life (22 page)

“We can’t promise not to kill him,” Shane says. “But I’ll let the Control know that
they should use nonlethal methods when possible. If you cooperate with them fully,
they’ll protect you.”

“Thank you.” He puts his hands on the chair’s armrests and stands slowly.

Shane steps in front of him. “Where are you going?”

Adrian has the look of a man on his way to the gallows. “To tell Franklin what I really
am.”

21

Our House

When informed of this latest development, the Control lends us resources we could
never get on our own.

First they procure the 911 tapes from Halloween to confirm that it was in fact Adrian
who called in the warning. Though the Control is a secret agency, they work with law
enforcement at all levels in every nation. Local cops think they’re with the FBI or
Department of Homeland Security, and the top officials at those agencies are happy
to “confirm” their identities.

The fact that Adrian warned us about the bombing doesn’t prove he’s on our side. It
may have been part of the plan all along. Maybe no one was meant to be killed at the
Smoking Pig.

He still has to prove himself to us, and that means putting the Magnificent Seven
into our hands. Deirdre said that it was Kashmir and three others who had kidnapped
her, so the other three must be somewhere else—somewhere they can be taken before
Kashmir can return to town tonight.

But where? They don’t carry cell phones, so it’s not
as if Adrian can just ring them up and be like, “Hey, man, where you guys hangin’
today?” He’s called every motel they’ve stayed at since arriving in Sherwood, with
no luck. Teams of human Control Enforcement agents turn up nothing.

By midafternoon, Shane insists I get some sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see
Deirdre burning from the inside out, her beautiful skin turning to flames, then ash.
I stare at Shane’s bedroom ceiling, putting myself in her place, playing out alternative
scenarios to avert that fate. But with so many captors, how could she have escaped
or resisted? They all came for her, and then three took her away, so she had no chance
to—

Suddenly it hits me. I sit up in bed. “Duh!”

Out in the lounge, I find Shane going over the layout of Crosetti’s Monuments with
Captains Fox and Henley, in preparation for Monday’s memorial service. Spencer and
Noah are watching the four security-camera monitors mounted on the wall. Adrian sits
at the other end of the table, talking to Agent Rosso.

“Any news?” I ask them.

“None good, I’m afraid,” Captain Henley says in his clipped British accent. “Ms. Falk’s
phone burned before it could give us its location. So we’ve no idea where Kashmir
and Billy and the other two have gone to ground, only that it’s within a three-hour
radius of Sherwood.”

“That’s based on the time stamps of the messages she left on my cell phone,” Shane
says. “But she didn’t give us much more to go on.”

Elijah scoffs. “Yeah, ‘on a hill near power lines and maple trees’ doesn’t exactly
narrow it down.”

I hate when clues add up to nothing. Why can’t real
life be more like TV? “So now we wait for them to come to us?”

“It seems unlikely they’d attack the station now,” Captain Henley says. “They know
we know they’re coming.”

“But you can’t just leave us here unprotected.”

“We won’t.” He adds under his breath, “Not for the next few days, at least.”

Great. Kashmir only has to wait for the Control’s budget on Operation Rock-and-Roll-Can-Never-Die
to run out.

“I think I know where the others might be,” I tell them, “the ones who didn’t go with
Kashmir. Deirdre’s house is their last known location. She had a safe room there,
the storeroom under the stairs.”

Agent Rosso plops the lounge phone’s cordless handset in front of Adrian. “Call the
house. Remember, it oughta sound like you’re doing it in secret. Everyone else, complete
silence.” He distributes a warning glare that he’s clearly been practicing for years.

I sit on the sofa so I don’t fidget. The rest of the room goes totally still.

Adrian dials, then gets up suddenly and starts to pace. That’s good—it’ll help him
sound nervous and maybe cover up any of our own noises.

He stops. “Bonnie, it’s Adrian.” He gives us a thumbs-up and speaks to her in a loud
whisper. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you guys!”

“How’d you know we were here?” asks a woman with a high-pitched voice. “Is Deirdre
with you?”

“Bonnie, Deirdre’s dead. Kashmir left her to burn in the sun.”

“What?” she shrieks. “He said they were taking her to a safe place. Why did they kill
her? And how do you know?”

“She called Shane here while she was dying. I heard it all.”

“Oh my God.” She sobs. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m scared to death. You should be, too. Any of us could be next.”

“Why would he kill her? She’s our sister.”

“She told Shane about Kashmir and all of you guys—that you were out to kill him and
Ciara. She even told them about Thanksgiving.”

“Ugh, fledgling bitch! But still, she didn’t deserve to die. Not quickly, anyway.”

I curl my lip at Bonnie’s words.

“Are you at the station now?” she asks Adrian.

“Yeah, I’m in my room. They’ve got Control agents swarming all over, but not our apartment.”

“I wish you were here. It sucks, three of us in her teeny little storeroom. Wesley
and Oscar both snore. By the way, Kashmir wants to move again.”

“Where?” Adrian asks.

“I don’t know. Not far. We have to stick around for Jim’s wake Monday night and the
bloodbath we’re having in his honor.”

“Have Kashmir call me when he gets in. I want to talk to him about Deirdre.”

“A little advice, Adrian? Kashmir’s had it up to here with your lectures. You better
watch out, or you’ll be the next one greeting the sunrise.”

She hangs up, and Adrian slowly puts down the phone.

“Either she’s a really good actor,” I tell him, “or they don’t suspect your loyalty.”

“Didn’t you hear what she just said?”

“You don’t threaten someone you’re about to off,” Shane says. “It scares them away,
sends them running into the arms of your enemy.”

Elijah picks up the phone. “I’ll call in their location. We’ll have a team there at
sunset to take them into custody.”

“But no one dies, right?” Adrian asks Elijah.

“They’ll wait until after dark, then go in, holy-water pistols a-blazin’.”

“Wait,” Shane says. “If the Control takes out three of the Magnificent Seven, that
still leaves Kashmir and the other three on the loose. And Adrian’s cover’ll be blown.
They’ll know he ratted them out.”

“Good point.” Elijah starts to dial. “I’ll tell them to keep one vampire at Deirdre’s
to answer the phone in case Kashmir calls and gives a rendezvous point. But since
they don’t carry cell phones, they’ll probably just show up, straight into our arms.
Bada bing, bada boom.”

I wish I shared his optimism, though I’m sure much of it is a façade.

To occupy my mind until sunset, I ask Jeremy to help me finish addressing and stamping
our wedding invitations, since David made Lori stay at home today with a Control bodyguard
stationed outside. This simple task feels irresistibly bold. It asserts that
yes, we will be alive on Monday to mail these things
. And alive next month to get married.

We sit on opposite sides of my desk. David’s in his office
with the door open. Behind Jeremy, Franklin’s door is closed and locked, the way it’s
been ever since he found out the truth about Adrian.

Jeremy picks up a fresh sheet of violet-adorned “Love” stamps. “My girlfriend Lea
went to a bridal shower last weekend. When they walked in, the guests had envelopes
on their plates. Turned out to be the bride’s thank-you notes for them to write their
addresses on, so she wouldn’t have to do it herself.”

“I’m an etiquette idiot, and even I know you have to address everything yourself.
I would’ve written inside: ‘Dear Ciara, Thank you for the blank. What a blank gift!
It will come in handy when we blank.’ ”

“Like Mad Libs. You could even fill in the part of speech. Noun here, adjective here,
verb here.”

“I would. I’m courteous that way.”

Jeremy picks up the next envelope and stops. “I guess we don’t need a stamp for this
one.” He puts it in front of me.
Deirdre Falk.
“You invited your fiancé’s former blood-donor-slash-lover to your wedding?”

“We needed to fill the vampire side of the church. Shane’s Irish-Catholic, so his
human family is huge.”

He takes the invitation and traces the outline of her name. “I can’t believe she’s
dead.”

“Sorry.” I put my hand on his arm. His dreams of being a vampire died with her. “I
know you had a bond with Deirdre. You saved her life.”

He sets the invitation aside and picks up the next. “I hadn’t decided yet whether
I wanted her to turn me. After you and Shane left last night, I thought about it for
a long time.”

“It’s a scary thing to have to plan.” I should know.

“In college I worked on a suicide hotline. They told us to ask the callers if they’d
figured out how they would kill themselves.”

“You’d just ask them straight out?”

“Yeah, they’re used to everyone in their life beating around the bush about it. People
worry that if they say the word ‘suicide,’ it’ll make it real. It’ll make it happen.”

“Like saying ‘Beetlejuice’ three times makes Michael Keaton appear in wacky makeup.”

Jeremy blinks. “Kinda. Anyway, on the hotline we knew it was serious if the caller
had a method in mind. I guess at that point it becomes about more than just wanting
to escape life. It becomes about wanting to die.”

I think of Shane before Regina turned him. He wanted eternal death, and instead she
gave him eternal life. “What about you? Are you making plans?”

“I’ve got those blackout curtains in my apartment.”

“But you need them to do your job. You work the night shift.”

“I know which song I want playing when I die: ‘Asleep’ by the Smiths. I’ve told Shane
and Regina.”

Sometimes he reminds me a bit of that band’s lead singer, Morrissey. But to say that
would encourage his fantasy.

“What about Lea?”

He raises an eyebrow. “I like Lea, but I’m not ready to make life-or-death decisions
based on her.”

I go to the next address on the list, for one of Shane’s aunts in Ohio. “I don’t think
Deirdre would’ve been a very good maker. You should stay away from anyone with Jim’s
blood in them.”

“You’re probably right.” He peels off another stamp from the sheet. “You’d be a good—”

“Nooooo, la la la la la, can’t hear you!” I put my hands over my ears and sing “Mary
Had a Little Lamb” off-key at the top of my lungs until Jeremy throws up his hands
in surrender.

“Okay, okay, sorry. You’d be a terrible maker.”

“Thank you. Can I get that in writing, with your signature?”

“Yeah, but I get to sign it in blood.”

The station phone rings. I reach to answer it, then notice it’s an internal call from
the lounge to Franklin’s office. It rings five times before he answers it. With my
sensitive hearing I can usually pick up on his every word, even with the door closed,
but his side of the conversation is nothing but a series of monosyllabic grunts.

Then a roared “NO!” and he slams down the receiver. Ten seconds later, the phone rings
again. Franklin yanks open his door, pulling on his coat.

I stand up. “Franklin, can I—”

“No.” He heads for the front door, then stops and looks at me, realizing he can’t
open it. “Fucking vampires.” He pulls his coat shut like it’s a suit of armor, then
tromps down the stairs. I hear doors slam, and in less than a minute Franklin’s car
outside roars, squeals, and departs.

“Do you think he’ll ever forgive Adrian?” Jeremy asks me.

“Should he?”

“Not until he earns it by giving us Kashmir’s head on a platter. Of course, it wouldn’t
stay on the platter, since vampires’ heads get sucked back into . . .” His voice trails
off as he looks at me. “Sorry.”

I shrug as I sit behind my desk again. “That’s reality.”

“You think vampires feel it when their bodies go through the hole?”

I think of Jim folding into himself. “I hope not.”

“Maybe it’s better to burn, like Deirdre.”

“That didn’t sound too fun, either. It took longer than I thought it would.” Her screams
still echo in my memory.

“Maybe because it was indirect sunlight. I bet it’d be faster if you just jumped out
into a sunny day at noon.”

“Then it’d be like jumping into flames, which is fast.” I think of Lori’s old boyfriend
Travis, who died saving me from a fire. He was gone in less than ten seconds. “Yeah,
that’d be the way to go.”

“Guys?” David calls from his office. “Can you take your morbid conversation elsewhere?”

“Sorry.” I lower my voice toward Jeremy. “Expectant father.”

“We need to talk about your wedding video, anyway. I had an idea: put a five-minute
edited version on the station Web site.”

“That’d be great PR. The listeners will love seeing Shane in a tux. Maybe they’ll
even send gifts.” I jot a note on a Post-it: “Add wedding registry link to
WVMPradio.com
.” It seems silly, but these small acts of defiance remind me that
yes, goddamn it, I have a future, and no undead fashion-criminal glam rocker is taking
it away from me
.

When we’re finished, Jeremy and I join Shane and the other Control agents in the lounge.
Monroe and Spencer are there, too, as well as Dexter, lying next to the sofa.

Shane stands, watching the security-camera monitors
on the wall. Spencer and Monroe flank him, the three of them as still as cats waiting
for prey.

I join them. “How’s it going?”

“Uneventful, except when Regina was here. She couldn’t stop counting the cars going
by on that one.” He points to the far right monitor, connected via satellite to a
camera mounted on a tree at the end of our quarter-mile-long driveway. It was by far
the most expensive part of the security system, but well worth it. The driveway is
full of ruts and bumps, which means drivers have to take it slow. With the camera,
we’d have more than a minute’s warning if any vehicle entered our property. Assuming
they came via the road.