Pale Immortal (27 page)

Lover's Leap.

A hairpin curve, then another quick right.

The road fell out from under him. Low branches scraped the sides of the car as the tires regained contact with the ground.

Evan cut the engine.

He tumbled out, shutting the door behind him. The narrow lane was a dead end used by maintenance workers. If he was spotted, there was no escape by car.

Ducking, knees bent, he ran for cover of the stone wall that circled the end of Lover's Leap. Above his head twin headlight beams bounced off tree trunks. The beams shifted as the car made the hairpin curve, tires squealing.

Keep going. Just keep going.

Evan crouched lower, hands pressed to the stone wall as the siren and flashing light invaded the quiet.

Evan listened intently, waiting for any hesitation or indication that the driver was backing up or turning around. The vehicle stopped, then sped away.

Evan waited a full half hour. Then he returned to the car, backed up the hill, shot onto the narrow lane, and headed out of town.

A distant rustling and murmur of voices coaxed Graham out of a semiconscious state.

It was dark. Pitch-black.

He turned his face toward the vicinity of the door. A circular glow appeared in the blackness, followed by a rustling of movement.

Alba entered the church, a lantern in hand. His footfalls echoed across the floor as he set the light on a nearby pew.

"How are you feeling?"

Travis, Craig, and Brandon trailed after him.

Graham struggled to get himself upright, elbows pressed into the mattress. His head felt thick, and the movement made him dizzy.

Alba dug into a plastic shopping bag and pulled out candles, which they all lit. Then Alba crouched down by Graham, produced a key, and unlocked the padlock.

"Whew," Travis said, raising a hand to his face and leaning back. "He stinks."

Alba smiled at Graham as he unwound the chains. "Look who's talkin', huh?"

A shared joke.

Graham nodded and smiled back as much as he could. Once the chains were off he felt light, so light he would have to be careful or he might float all the way up to the ceiling and out a hole in the roof.

He was thirsty. Not hungry anymore. He hadn't been hungry in a long time.

Alba must have read his mind. Or had Graham been thinking out loud? Anyway, Alba pulled out an insulated mug that said peaches on the side.

God, that didn't even seem real, thinking about that place. This.
This
was real.

The girl... What was her name ... ?

Alba unscrewed the lid and held the mug out to Graham. It was one of those tall, thin ones, the kind that didn't have a handle.

Alba laughed. What was he laughing at? He lifted the cup to Graham's mouth. "Come on, drink this. You'll feel better."

As soon as the cold metal touched his mouth, Graham's body responded by swallowing.

Thick. Cold. Salty. Metallic.

He recoiled and looked down. "What the hell?"

"Just drink it."

Graham wiped his mouth, then checked out his fingers.
Red.
"What is it?"

"You know what it is."

"Blood?"

Graham glanced up to where
she
had been.

"We took it down, remember?" Alba asked. "This morning. And I wouldn't give you her blood. What kind of person do you think I am? That's sick."

Graham thought about the blood he'd heard had been stolen from the hospital. For some reason that didn't seem so bad. Already packaged and on a shelf. Kinda like grocery shopping. Maybe the blood in the cup was that blood. Maybe he wouldn't even ask.

"You want to be a Pale Immortal, don't you?" Alba asked.

Graham looked past Alba's shoulder to Travis, who was standing there taking it all in. He gave Graham an exaggerated nod, then went through a drinking pantomime.

Graham lifted his hand and wrapped his fingers around the mug. That single swallow and he could swear he already felt stronger. And it hadn't tasted that bad, he tried to convince himself. It had just been a surprise, that's all.

He looked down at the container. It wasn't full. It wasn't even half-full. That was good. He looked up at Alba. "Do you have a straw?"

Everybody laughed. All of them. Travis doubled over, bracing his hands on his knees.

Yep, I'm a fucking clown. Just give me some balloons to twist into a wiener dog.

He really
had
wanted a straw.

He lifted the mug to his mouth and downed the contents in two takes, pausing between each hoist of the cup to gag slightly. When he was finished he returned the container to Alba and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

He could feel the blood lying cold in his belly. Maybe it had been cow's blood. Maybe it hadn't been human blood at all.

"Where'd you get that?" he asked, unable to stop himself, even though he didn't want to know.

The blood was beginning to warm up, beginning to digest. He hadn't eaten in so long that his stomach felt huge. It was rumbling, kicking into gear as it struggled to figure out what to do with this shit. "Was the blood from a person?"

"Oh, yeah." Travis smiled a huge smile. "Can we bring her in now?"

Her?
The donor was with them? Graham didn't like that. He didn't like that at all.

Travis disappeared out the door. Graham heard feet shuffling through dry weeds and grass. Then a movement in the opening caught his eye as someone stumbled into the room.

The girl.

The girl whose name he couldn't remember.

Isobel.

Her mouth was covered with silver duct tape, her wrists bound in front of her with the same stuff. She was wearing a black skirt and a pink sweater he remembered from that other life of so long ago. Her knees, above black boots, were caked with blood. And her face ... Her face was gray; she had dark circles under her eyes.

She stared at him, freaked out.

He was glad the dead body wasn't still hanging from the rafters.

Oh, Isobel. If you'd seen that thing.

It would have sent her over the edge. It would send anybody over the edge.

He started to move, to jump up and run to her. Pain shot up his ankle, and he crumpled back down on the mattress.

"Pretend you're one of them,"
his mother's voice whispered.
"Make them think you're one of them."

He looked back up at the beam above his head. The rope was still there, but the body was gone.

The only way to fool them is to go all the way. To become one of them, because they're smart. They'll see through you otherwise.

Now he realized her voice hadn't come from inside the room at all. It had come from outside, sounding echoey and distant.

"I believe you two know each other," Alba said, watching Graham intently.

The really weird thing was, now that he'd finished off the blood, Graham's thinking wasn't as fuzzy. His vision was even clearer. He suddenly understood that this was a test, and if he passed he would be a Pale Immortal.

"Yeah." Graham ran his tongue across his lips. "I know her."

What were they going to do with Isobel?

Once again his eyes were drawn to the rafters. He knew what would eventually happen. He knew where she would end up.

Alba motioned toward her. "You can take the tape off her mouth."

Travis, who was holding her by one arm, reached up and ripped off the duct tape. She flinched, but remained silent. Graham was impressed.

"If you make a sound, we'll put it back," Alba said. "And anyway, if you scream, nobody will hear you out here." He turned his back to them and bent over the pew near the lantern. He rummaged around in the bag and pulled out a small plastic box.

"Stand up."

Graham stood, much more carefully this time, favoring his good leg.

Alba held something small and metal in his hand.

A single-edged razor. The kind carpenters might use to scrape paint off windows.

"Take it."

Graham took it.

"I think you know what I want you to do."

"Become one of them."

Graham looked at the razor in his hand, then up at Isobel. "Yeah." He stepped toward her.

Her mouth was colorless, trembling. Tears glistened in her eyes. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, at least with his expression, but Alba wasn't dumb. He
would
read him.

So Graham remained emotionless. For a moment he thought about turning and attacking Alba, but that was a stupid idea. He could hardly stand, let alone bring down three guys.

"Why are you doing this?" Isobel stared directly at him, separating him from the pack. Graham wanted to look away, but Alba would see that as weakness.

"I thought you were different." Her voice was tired. Breathless. Good thing he was so fucked up himself. Otherwise he might have given away how worried he was.

"I
am
different."

"You think you're a vampire? There's no such thing as vampires." She looked from him to Alba, to Travis, to Craig. "There is no such thing as vampires."

Graham reached down and lifted her bound arms. Her elbows were bent, her upper arms pressed against her breasts in a cramped position. Now he could see a bandage wrapped around one of her crossed wrists.

"Not too deep," Alba warned.

You could take the teacher out of the school, but you couldn't take the teacher out of the nutcase.

Isobel ignored him. She continued to stare at Graham as if they were the only people in the room. "I trusted you," she whispered. "Out of everybody, I trusted you."

He bowed his head so she couldn't see him swallow. "You shouldn't have."

"I stood up for you when other people called you a freak."

He brought the blade down.

A line of blood appeared on her white skin. Beads formed. Blood quickly pooled, then began to run down her arm and drip on the floor. Alba put out his hand, and Graham returned the blade. Then he lifted Isobel's arm to his mouth and sucked.

"I hate you," she said quietly.

With his head bent, blood on his lips, Graham looked up at her. "I know."

They passed her around.

Like a can of beer or something. When she made it back to Graham, he saw that she was bleeding quite a bit.

Had he cut her too deeply? Had he hit an artery?

This time she didn't speak. She didn't even look at him. He was lifting the exposed wrist to his mouth once more when whatever color in her face washed away and her eyes rolled back in her head.

She folded; he caught her before she hit the floor.

Travis helped drag her to the mattress. Alba was already pulling out a roll of gauze, which he wrapped deftly around her wrist. "Don't want her to bleed out," he said. "Not yet."

It was coming. They would string her upside down from the rafters and drain all of her blood.

Alba crouched beside her and stroked her cheek.

Graham wanted to knock his hand away.

Alba put his arms around her and dragged her against him. Watching Graham, he pressed his lips to her temple, leaving a bloody smear. "You still like her, don't you?"

Graham's heart was hammering out a warning. "I never liked her."

"You were friends."

"Not close friends."

"Did you fuck her?"

Graham closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

He wanted to hit Alba and rip his hands away from her. He'd always been a fairly mellow person, slow to anger. This rage was something new, something he'd never felt before.

"Don't do it,"
his mother whispered from wher- ever they'd dragged and stuffed her body.
"Don't
lose control."

"Well, did you?"

"No." He spoke quickly, biting out the word.

"You wouldn't be playing the gentleman here, would you?"

"Why would I want to do that? We may have hung out, but that's all it was. She was there, that's all. Just a girl." He shrugged.

Alba picked up a length of chain.

"No," Graham said.

"I'm sorry, kiddo."

"I thought I was a Pale Immortal now." Had this whole act been for nothing?

"You are, but I'm not ready to let you roam free."

He should have tried to fight. He should have tried to get away. He shouldn't have listened to Lydia. When had she ever given him good advice in his entire life? Why would he start listening to her now, when the bitch was dead?

It had been a trick. She was in with Alba. They were in this together.

Graham ran a hand across his eyes. His thoughts were muddled again, the moments of clarity getting farther and farther apart.

The adrenaline that had kept him going for the past ten minutes faded. He trembled. The room began to spin, and he dropped to the floor, letting out a cry as sharp pain shot up his leg.

Travis and Craig chained them together—Graham and the still unconscious Isobel—while Alba oversaw the operation.

Spooning.

That's what it was called. The way they were puzzled front to back, both facing the same direction, with Graham behind Isobel. She was curled up in a fetal position, her wrists still taped and crossed. They dragged the chain around them, across their chests, around their waists and hips, pulling it tight with each circle.

Was she dead? Graham wondered at one point, when Isobel didn't respond to any of the jostling or positioning. No, he could see her chest rising and falling.

While Travis looped the lock through the chain links and snapped it closed, Craig toyed with a thick strand of Isobel's hair. Her hair wasn't that long, and he got really close so he could put it under his nose like a mustache. Isobel's hair almost matched the hair on Craig's head. Graham found himself staring, trying to make sense of Isobel's blond hair as Craig's mustache.

Craig made the mustache bob up and down.

"Get away." Graham shoved him.

Craig dropped the hair and stumbled backward.

"Hey, asshole." Craig turned to look at the others, while keeping a finger pointed at Graham. "He pushed me. Anybody see that? Better tape his hands."