The Bloody City (19 page)

She sank against the cushions.

“Occam’s a lot scarier than the Institute,” he said. “Micha would be safer behind their doors.” He lowered his head. His hair obscured his face. “If the vampires fought the Institute, that place probably would have crumbled a long time ago.”

“Maybe.” She turned her face to the side. “Or maybe their power does come from their neutrality. Maybe without it, they wouldn’t be what they are. I mean, picking a side means picking a cause, and your own cause gets drowned out by that.”

Sam lifted his head.

“I wish they’d like our cause.” He pushed away from the couch and stood in front of her.

“What is Occam?” she asked. “Is he a leader? Is he in charge?”

“Vampires don’t really have that kind of structure in their society. The oldest most obnoxious ones just manage to boss the other ones around.”

“So he’s the biggest loudmouth.”

“I guess. Like everything else about them, they tend to keep the exact details from outsiders.” He locked eyes with her again. “He’s right about Muse, though.” A hint of desperation edged his words. “She’s losing her dexterity. If she were in her prime, Occam wouldn’t have dodged her like that, and he wouldn’t have been able to grab her at the clinic. She’s not reacting fast enough. Her perception is muddled.”

June held her tongue. She had tried to comfort people before and failed. The smartest thing she could do when someone was baring their anguish to her was keep her mouth shut.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without her,” Sam said.

She looked down at her clenched hand.

“When I met her,” he said, “I underestimated her, like everyone does. She was different then. She was young. She was…full of passion, the same drive I had in me. Now she’s tired, jaded. She’s seen too much. We both have.”

Muse had once told her Sam wanted a poster child for his cause, someone to let the masses look upon and feel sorry for. Maybe what he really needed was a partner, since his current one was dying.

She tried to pull something out of her brain that wouldn’t make her sound like an idiot, nor belittle Sam’s anguish. She kept it simple. “I’m sorry.”

He snapped out of his reverie. “Let’s not preemptively grieve. We have lots of other things on our plate right now. This is really not your worry.”

“I happen to like her too.”

“You should try to get some sleep. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to say?”

She sat up. “Sleep? What’s that? I haven’t had much lately.”

“We can get in the bathtub, if you like.”

She rubbed her face. Her eyes stung. Her head hurt. “What good would sleep do, anyway?”

“It’ll make the morning come faster.”

“What amazing thing is supposed to happen when the dawn arrives, exactly?”

“I’m trying to be optimistic here. You could at least play along.”

She opened her hand and gazed at the ring on her finger. “I’m not sure I’m any good at optimism.”

He kicked a shard of glass on the carpet. “You any good at poker? I found a deck of cards. We can do that instead of sleeping.”

“Too bad we don’t have any money.” She smirked. “I’d clean you out.”

“I do have my clothes.”

June lay in bed next to Trina, a tentative truce between them allowing June to enjoy half the bed. Despite the world’s belief to the contrary, she hadn’t been in bed with another woman since she was a kid, hiding out in her mother’s room pretending she had a nightmare. Right now, she wanted her mommy more than ever, wanted to curl up next to her. She wanted her mother to stroke her hair while she read one of her romance novels.

She’d never admit this childish longing, even to Jason. Especially since in their eighth year, Jason had found out over breakfast she spent the night in their mother’s bed. He called June a “scaredy-cat butt baby.” June hit him in the face with a bowl of Cheerios, milk included. June’s loving, comforting mother then turned into a bitch, putting her in time-out for an hour.

She didn’t need any more scenes like that.

Morning seeped through the window across the room, casting dull light into the shadows. Trina breathed slow and even beside her, beneath the covers, June on top. June was still too wired, too tense to sleep. She’d learned to function on minimal rest, ever alert, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

She twisted the ring on her finger. Worse than not being able to sleep, worse than waking up next to a woman who wanted to smother her with a pillow, was not waking up next to Micha after having him there, every morning, for months.

Where was he this morning? How was he feeling? Was he restrained? What did vampires do with human prisoners during the day?

She slipped the ring off and lifted it to the light, the gold gleaming faintly. Real gold, not cheap painted crap that would turn someone’s finger green. Micha had kept wearing it, despite his anger and outrage, and she never questioned him about it. Maybe he, like her, held out hope things weren’t what they seemed.

Something moved in the corner of her vision. Something familiar.

She sat bolt upright before her mind fully processed what she’d seen. However, when she looked into the shadows on the other side of the room, nothing was there.

She knew what she’d seen, though. Rose.

Trina stirred, mumbling in her sleep, and settled down again. June’s heart thumped in her ears.

No ghost. Maybe she was imagining things. Maybe the lack of sleep was catching up to her.

She slowly lay back down, still vigilant, scanning the room. The night June had first seen Rose, when she’d awakened in Sam’s hotel suite to find the lost spirit standing over her, was the beginning of a nightmare. Everything Rose said eventually made sense, but she could have just sent messages via Ouija board or something. June didn’t need to see her.

She held the ring up again and turned it in her fingers, trying to guess the size. Micha had some thick fingers. She knew that all right.

Like a punishment for her inappropriate thoughts, Rose appeared, whole and vivid, at the end of the bed.

June jerked upright again and scrambled back against the headboard. By the time she plastered herself to it, Rose had disappeared once more.

“What are you doing?” June said into the empty room. “What’s going on?”

Trina stirred again and rolled over, her back to June.

This time it couldn’t be her imagination. Rose had been standing right there, clear as day. Clearer than she’d ever been.

“What the hell?” June whispered.

After a few minutes, in which Rose didn’t reappear, June looked down at the ring, frowning.

She pinched the ring between her thumb and index finger and held it aloft, pointed at the end of the bed.

Like a projector flickering on, Rose appeared.

She looked as she always did: pale, lifeless, still. However, this time she stared at the ring in June’s hand, instead of at June. The air around the bed grew chilly.

“Holy shit,” June whispered.

She could apparently summon Rose at will now, using the ring. This would be useful if it meant she didn’t show up any other time, only when June wanted her.

“Can you hear me?” June asked. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

Rose lifted her blank gaze to June’s face, her eyes seeming both unseeing and all observing at the same time. This was the first time she responded in a manner suggesting sentience, and it was super creepy.

“They got Micha,” June said. “But I’m gonna get him back. Can you like, see if he’s okay?”

“Beware of what he’s offering,” Rose said, in her airy, nerve-jangling, whispery voice. “He has more to use against you than you realize.”

Still being all weird and cryptic. But then…

“Occam is a clever vampire.” Her voice changed, growing almost companionable, almost human. “Many vampires are. They enjoy toying with non-vampires. I found that the most difficult part of working with them.”

June nearly dropped the ring. “You’re actually communicating with me. You understand me.”

“I’m attached to you. I can’t leave your side to find out if Micha is all right.”

“Why are you attached to me?” June sat forward, still scared, but eager to get this opportunity. “Is it because I was there with you when you died? Or is it because I’m…with Micha?”

“You’re the only hope I have of leaving a good name in this world. You have to find out the truth, about what I was forced to do at the Institute.”

“Lady, I got enough problems without avenging the dead.”

“You must learn the truth.” She drifted closer, passing through the bed, a wave of cold preceding her.

June shrank against the headboard again.

“You must discover how I was a means to their end,” Rose said.

“Why don’t you just tell me what they did?” June’s voice shook. “Cut out the middle man and save me a bunch of work.”

She drew closer, and June panicked. She scrambled off the bed with a yelp. In the process, she dropped the ring on the floor. Rose vanished.

Her flailing woke Trina. She rolled over and lifted her head.

“What are you doing?” Trina’s voice was thick with sleep.

“Nothing.” June’s heart pounded and her side ached. “I just had a bad dream.”

Trina sagged against the bed. “Oh.” She tugged the blankets up around her chin. “Man, it’s cold in here.”

June snatched up the ring and placed it on the bedside table. “Yeah, it is.”

She didn’t have a hope in hell of going back to sleep, so she went out to the living room and turned on the news, trying to calm her nerves—the irony of the news calming her down was not lost on her. The morning air flowed cool through the broken window.

June gradually relaxed. She’d left the ring in the bedroom, not wanting a repeat performance. Somehow, even though Rose was much more forthcoming now, June had a ton more questions than answers.

About a half hour later, Muse padded out of the bedroom she and Sam were sharing. She wore a white T-shirt, too big to be one of her own, and her white leggings. June tried not to wonder if she and Sam had sex—those surface thoughts were easy to read, after all.

“Didn’t wake you with the TV, did I?” June asked.

“No. I can’t sleep.”

“Join the club.”

Muse went to the kitchen. June joined her after a few minutes. Muse was making coffee.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” June said. “About throwing a spell on you. I was just trying to protect us.”

Muse glanced up, the corner of her mouth jerking. She looked back down at the coffee she was spooning into a filter. “I acted rashly. You were right to do what you did. Occam isn’t a pleasant creature. He tends to bring out the worst in me.”

June leaned against the counter, her back to it, gripping the edge. “How much do you know about ghosts?”

“Rose appeared to you again.”

“Yes.”

“No one knows much about ghosts, not even the people who study them. Ghosts are cryptic. Sometimes they seem completely purposeless. There are different types, but they’re all a mystery.”

“What types of ghosts are there?”

“Well, let’s see.” She scrunched her face up. “There are residual ones, which are like recordings on the fabric of reality, I guess you’d say. They’re not real so much as memories, and you can’t interact with them. They’re the annoying ones who open and close doors and walk up and down the stairs every day at the same time.”

“And the ones who aren’t just annoying memories?”

Her eye twitched. “That’s what you’re dealing with, an intelligent one. A clinger, actually.”

“Yeah, she’s clinging all right.”

“You saw her die. That’s probably what made her latch onto you.”

“Why me? There were other people there. Hell, she could have latched onto Jason.”

“You’re wishing a ghost on your brother?” She opened the cupboards above her head and took out a coffee cup. “You want some?”

“Yeah, sure. And no, I’m not. But what’s so special about me?”

“It’s hard to say. Ghosts don’t follow rules. It sounds like she has unfinished business. Ghosts with unfinished business can be persistent.”

“Can they get attached to objects?”

Muse side-eyed her. “Like Micha’s ring, you mean?”

“I’m sure you can see everything that just happened in my head.” June let go of the counter and turned toward her. “So come on with it.”

“Something that was personal to her, something they had an emotional connection to—yeah, she could be controlled by it. Makes it easier to communicate.”

“That’s the first time she’s ever spoken to me directly. She responded to my questions. She used whole sentences.”

“So you’ve had a breakthrough. Congratulations.”

“Just what I want.” June rubbed her forehead. “Awesome.”

Muse was silent. She dumped a bunch of sugar into her cup.

“Is sugar and caffeine good for you?” June asked. “I mean with your…thing.”

Her face was calm and smooth, but then her mouth jerked to the side, violently, and she bared her teeth. June was struck with a quiet mixture of horror and pity.

“I’m coming apart.” Muse added more sugar to the cup. “I’ll drink whatever the hell I want. I don’t have enough time left to worry about crap like that.”

“I just thought you might be more comfortable without anything agitating it.”

She snorted wetly, a lot like the sound the coffee maker produced as it percolated.

“When Rose visits you”—grimness tinged Muse’s voice, a tone she’d used once before, when they were trapped in a tiny, featureless room at the Institute—“does she seem self-aware? Like she knows what’s going on around her?”

“Not really, not before today. She looks and acts—dead. She’s just a shell.”

Muse picked up her cup and turned away. “I see.” She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of milk.

“I don’t think”—June hesitated—“it’s a good way to spend the afterlife. Not everyone becomes a ghost, right? I think actually finding peace would be the better option.”

Muse kept her back turned to June.

“You just told me,” June said, “we don’t understand ghosts. So maybe death isn’t as bad as we think, either. We’re just afraid because we don’t know.”