Soultaker (35 page)

No.

Not like that.

Like blood from a mortal wound. A deep gash in the neck, say. And no matter how desperately you wished to stop the hemorrhaging, you just couldn’t do it. Jake stared at the dead boy on the floor and for a moment was stunned insensible. He just stood there. He didn’t know what to do next. Didn’t have the first
inkling.
He’d known he was heading into a life-or-death situation. Knowing that on an intellectual level was all well and good. But it did nothing to prepare you for that first moment of sudden, shocking violence. He doubted anything could prepare a person for this. He looked at Kelsey’s tear-streaked face and wished he could ease the boy’s pain somehow.

But there was one thing he could try to do.

The only thing left.

He reached for the fallen book.

As he knelt he became aware of a new sound rising above the screams from the auditorium. It was an ominous sound he associated with the impending storm. He was down on one knee when he heard Kristen shout his name. The alarm in her voice diverted him from the task of retrieving the book. He looked up and saw several pieces of notebook paper come swirling down the length of the corridor, buffeted by a powerful, rushing…

WIND.

Now hold on a second.

This didn’t make sense.

A wind originating from
inside
the school?

How—

And then it hit him. It was like being struck by hurricane winds. The force of it knocked him off his feet and sent him sliding several feet down the hallway. He rolled onto his stomach and saw the mythology book go flying past him, the slim volume’s pages flapping in the gale, looking for a moment like a wounded bird struggling to stay aloft. For a nanosecond, he saw it framed in the light visible through the open back doors. Then it was gone.

Someone screamed.

He didn’t know who.

Could even have been himself.

A burst of adrenaline slammed into him and he surged to his feet to stagger after the book. The wind continued to buffet him, slamming him against the lockers more than once, but he managed to stay upright through a monumental effort of physical will. Then he was through the doors and back in the parking lot. The strange wind followed him out of the building, blew past him, and lifted the book off the asphalt. He dove for the book and a fingertip brushed its spine for a moment before it flew high into the sky and disappeared forever.

He screamed and pounded the pavement with his fist. He was so lost in feelings of impotent rage that he hardly noticed the wind had ceased blowing.

Then Kristen was kneeling next to him, a trembling hand on his back. “Jake? Baby, get up. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Jake found a fresh reserve of strength and pushed himself to his knees. He stared at the open rear entrance, saw only the dead security guard. He looked at Kristen. “Jordan. Kelsey. Where are they?”

She hesitated a moment; then her shoulders sagged. “Still in the school.”

Jake got to his feet and started walking back toward the school.

Kristen hurried after him, grabbed him by an elbow, stopped him. She spun him toward her. “Did you hear me? We have to go. Now.”

Jake shook his head. “I’m not leaving them in there.”

Kristen made a sound of frustration. “You don’t even know them! Don’t you get it yet? This is bigger than us! There’s nothing we can do to stop it. The fucking army couldn’t stop this. We have to leave before we’re dead, too.”

Jake looked at her and felt a bone-deep weariness. The day had started off with a monster hangover and he was still feeling some of its effects. He was in nowhere near peak physical condition to begin with. Factor in an ass-kicking at the hands of his jock brother, an afternoon spent speeding around town like some kind of berserk meth-head, and what you wound up with was an exhaustion so enervating all he wanted was to find a comfortable bed and sleep twenty-four hours straight. And yet he knew he couldn’t just run away. Not this time. Maybe he couldn’t save the Rockville High class of 2009, but he could at least try to save two people. And it didn’t matter that they were strangers. They were human beings. The girl was maybe even related to him somehow. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t make the effort.

“I have to try.”

Kristen made a face. “Fuck.”

Jake started toward the school again. “You can leave with out me. I understand.”

She followed him. “Right. You know I can’t do that.”

“Just so you know. I wish you would go. But there’s no time to waste trying to convince you.”

They stepped through the rear entrance again. Pages of notebook paper—the contents of someone’s discarded folder—littered the floor. Kelsey was where they’d left him, still knelt over the corpse of his best friend.

Jake approached him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Kelsey…where’s Jordan?”

Kelsey sniffled and looked at him through eyes shiny with tears. “I don’t know,” he said in a numb monotone. “She was gone when the wind stopped.”

Jake grimaced. “Fuck.”

Of course.

It fit right in with everything else that had happened today. Nothing could go down the clean and easy way. If he’d found them, he would’ve heeded Kristen’s advice. She was right. They couldn’t win. They’d been stupid to ever believe they could. But with Jordan missing, he felt obligated to look for her.

“You didn’t see where she went at all?”

“I just told you, I looked up and she was gone.”

Jake sighed and looked at the open door to the auditorium. His stomach churned and he felt faint. It was the only place she could have gone. He would have to go in there.

He took a step toward the door.

Kristen grabbed him by the arm again, more forcefully this time. “No. I mean it. You’re not going in there. If I have to, I’ll shoot you in the fucking foot and drag your stupid ass out to the car.”

Jake looked at the door again.

Then he looked at Kristen, saw the fierce determination on her face. She would really do it, he knew. Shoot him to save
him from himself. He could feel his resolve diminishing. It was so tempting to just admit defeat and slink away.

Then something happened that frightened him more than anything else that had happened.

The screams stopped.

There was a long moment of frozen silence. None of them moved. None of them said a word. Jake felt a deep coldness pierce the center of his being.

They all knew what that silence meant.

They were all dead.

All the kids.

Jesus fucking Christ
.

Jake’s breath caught in his throat and tears stung his eyes. He would have collapsed to the floor had Kristen not been holding on to his arm. The enormity of the loss hit him like a blow to the gut from a heavyweight champ. His knees sagged and Kristen drew him close, wrapped her arms around him.

A sound broke the silence.

Jake’s heart started hammering again.

Footsteps.

Coming from somewhere on the other side of that open doorway.

Someone on high heels.

Then the person came through the doorway and he thought his heart might stop altogether. His mouth opened. He forced the word out. “Moira.”

The demon smiled. “Hello, Jake. I’ve missed you.”

Kelsey got shakily to his feet and moved backward a step. “Something’s not right. That’s not her. Not Myra. But…”

Kristen’s grip on his arm tightened. “Jake? Who is this? Do you know this person?”

Jake didn’t reply. He was temporarily incapable of speech. A mind-bending sense of surreality gripped him. This thing was their enemy. Lamia. And at the same time it was Moira Flanagan. The hair. The clothes. The eyes. The mouth. That same knowing smirk, so playful and full of sexual promise.
And yet…there were little differences, slight subtleties in the shape of her face. A moment after he sensed this, he saw through the disguise. Moira Flanagan was still dead. This was her baby sister, the girl he’d met at the Grill his first day back in town. Bridget. He couldn’t fathom why she would have gone to such lengths to look like her dead sister.

Lamia moved a step closer. “It’s true. This is Bridget’s body. But I am Moira, Jake. And I am Lamia. I am the woman who was the center of your world for a few precious years. The one you made love to in the back of your car down by the dock. The one you read your first stories to. You’ve never loved anyone like you loved me.”

Jake shook his head. “No. Moira’s dead. She went for a ride with my brother Michael. There was an accident. They both died.”

Lamia smiled again. “Moira’s body died, yes. But the essence you loved lived on, just as it has lived on through the ages.” She held out her hands, looked at them, then looked at Jake again. “This is just a shell. I can inhabit any female body. You like this one, yes? I can take another if it’s not suitable.”

The sense of surreality intensified. Too many horrific revelations in too short a time span. The dead love of his life had never really died. Had never been truly human. He thought of all those drunken, wasted years he’d spent mourning a monster and would have laughed if not for the tragic circumstances.

He found his voice at last and said, “You killed them all, didn’t you?” He nodded at the open door behind her. “All those kids. They’re all dead.”

Her smile remained placid. “I fed, yes. It’s irrational to hate me for it, Jake. It’s simply my nature.”

“And now you’re going to kill me?” He glanced first at Kristen, then at Kelsey. “And them.”

She moved another step closer, raised her hands, splayed her fingers. “Them, yes. Not you.”

Jake moved backward a step, dragging Kristen with him. He
felt her tremble and drew her close, wrapped an arm around her. “Why not me?”

She laughed. “Because I enjoy you. I want you around. The others are nothing to me. I’ll feed on them as I fed on the children. Then I’ll feed you some of their essence. I can do that. I wasn’t strong enough ten years ago, but now I am. You’ll become stronger, too. And you’ll live a long, long time. Hundreds of years, if I wish.”

Jake’s throat constricted but he managed to push out the words: “I’d rather die.”

Lamia shrugged. “I don’t believe that. But it hardly matters. The choice is mine, not yours. You are mine. You will do as I say.”

He shook his head. “Fuck that and fuck you.”

The time to run had come. No more talking. There was nothing more they could do here other than die. He spun around and Kristen turned with him. Then Jake’s heart sank as he realized they wouldn’t get to make a break for it. The way out was blocked out by at least a dozen big dogs and an array of other animals. The dogs bared their teeth and growled at them. Huge droplets of saliva drooled from the mouths of each. Jake sensed these weren’t normal animals. The strangely glowing eyes told him that. And there was the way they’d sneaked up on them without making a sound to consider. An immense frustration tore at Jake. There was nothing to do now. No way to run. No way to fight. They could tangle with these creatures or Lamia, and either way they’d be equally fucked.

Then he looked at the .38 Kristen still held and thought maybe there was one last option, after all. He didn’t like it, but it beat the hell out of a surrender to the monster. He looked her in the eye and saw the same grudging acceptance. He pressed his lips to hers and felt equal measures of regret and longing in the way they yielded to his.

“Stop that.”

Lamia’s voice was harsher now. Angry.

Jake heard the click of her heels on the floor tiles as she
strode rapidly toward him. Jake wrapped one arm around Kristen in an awkward embrace as his other hand went for the .38. He had to do this fast without thinking about it. Had to get off two quick shots. One straight between Kristen’s eyes, then swallow a bullet himself.

BOOM!

Jake jumped at the sound, recognizing it immediately for what it was. He let go of Kristen and turned back toward Lamia, gaping at the sight of the massive and bloody exit wound just below her sternum. Then he looked beyond the demon and saw Jordan Harper. The girl pumped another round into the shotgun’s chamber and took aim again.

Instinct pushed Jordan through the open door as Kristen took aim and fired at the knife-wielding bitch who’d murdered Will Mackeson. Though she’d found temporary solace in the company of others, she knew she was the only one who stood a chance against Lamia. She had to act while the others were otherwise occupied, before they could get themselves killed by trying to face the monster.

Much of her bravado vanished as she entered the backstage area and saw all the elegantly attired bodies on the floor, all of them leaking blood from still-fresh gunshot wounds. The rest of it disappeared as she moved beyond them and got a look at her mother, who was still working her dark magic at the edge of the stage. The body belonged to Bridget, but strong, undeniable intuition told her the girl she’d known no longer inhabited that body. It was her mother. Lamia. She stood at the edge of the stage with her hands raised high over her head. Bolts of electricity arced out of her fingertips to weave a tapestry of light over the ceiling. The students screamed and screamed. The ones that were still alive, that is. Bodies were piled up at the chained doors and in the aisles between seats. The bodies looked ravaged, as if they’d been hollowed out from the inside. The eyes of the dead appeared to have burst, the sockets filled with bloody pulp. Every few seconds a finger of electric light would descend from the ceiling tapestry to strike at yet another
of the screaming students huddled between the rows of seats. The light would enter through the mouth, suffusing the flesh of the victim with an incandescent glow. The body would convulse and quickly wither. Jordan watched this and felt her resolve wither just as quickly. The energy emanating from the edge of the stage was as powerful as anything a faulty nuclear reactor might generate. Stronger. She’d only just started learning how to tap and harness her own abilities. They would be no match for what her mother could do. So she watched in numb shock as the massacre went forward unimpeded, feeling paralyzed, unable even to retreat. She knew she ought to get back to the others, warn them it was hopeless, but she remained riveted to the spot until it was nearly over.