The Sunlight Slayings (17 page)

Oliver understood what he was hearing. When he spectralized, he was pushing himself along the parallel forces of other worlds, like they were balance beams that he was walking out on. Jenette could pull him farther than he could get on his own. In the Borderlands, Oliver would exist as energy and could untangle himself from the Scourge. “That could work,” he mused, “but how do I know this isn't your next try at killing me?”

Oliver heard a slight laugh in the dark. “You don't,” Jenette replied.

He knew it was dangerous.
Maybe I could get my parents, even my brother, anyone. Tell them about Emalie. Maybe if I beg, they'll let her live as long as I never see her again or something
. But that sounded just as risky as what they were about to do. “Okay. Let's go.” Oliver started for the door.

Oliver heard Dean sigh and follow behind him. “You coming?” Dean asked Jenette.

“I'll meet you there,” she whispered.

Oliver led the way outside and down to the street. A police car sat idling at the curb, steam curling from its tailpipe. Oliver opened the back door and slid in, followed by Dean.

Detective Pederson glanced back at them. “Everybody in?” he said flatly, and drove off without waiting for an answer.

Oliver felt his nerves sizzling. “How do you know me?” he asked.

“You might not realize it,” Detective Pederson began, and Oliver could immediately tell by his condescending tone that this was someone who really disliked vampires. “But you're wanted for murder.” Pederson's eyes darted to the mirror again, this time focusing on Dean. “Though I guess that's going to be a little trickier now.”

“But you're not arresting us,” Oliver countered.

“What good would that do?” Pederson shot back. “An arrest is how a human is treated. A human who is innocent until proven guilty. There's nothing innocent about a demon.”

Oliver felt like pointing out that technically, he didn't have a demon. “So then why not just stake me and get it over with?”

“I'd love to,” Pederson said coldly. “But I'm not a fool. There's a bigger plan for you.”

“As usual,” Oliver muttered.

“What was that?” Pederson asked.

“Nothing.”

The car continued in silence. Detective Pederson took one turn after another, then pulled to the side of the road. Oliver and Dean looked out the window to see the base of the Space Needle. “Get out,” Pederson said simply. “She's up there.”

Dean opened the door and stepped out. Oliver followed, slamming the door behind him. Detective Pederson immediately drove off.

“Friendly guy,” murmured Dean.

They started across an empty triangle of wet grass. The Space Needle had a narrow, three-legged base that rose up to a large round disc high in the air: a restaurant with windows all around. Fog had rolled in, engulfing the structure halfway up the legs. The restaurant was barely visible, a smudge of light within the mist.

“I came here for dinner once,” said Dean, his nerves making him chatty as they approached the gift shop at the base of the Needle. “It was pretty good, except we had to dress up, you know, ties and stuff. It's really nice up there, and—”

“Hello, gentlemen.” Oliver halted just in front of the glass double doors that led inside. He turned to find a man sitting on a nearby bench. He was leaning back, one leg up on the other knee, with a computer in his lap. “Glad you could make it.” Just by the tone of his voice, Oliver knew they were talking to the one in charge, and yet he didn't quite look it. Instead of being tall, he was shorter. Instead of being muscular, he was overweight. His untucked dress shirt and leather jacket were draped over a wide middle, with baggy jeans. He had shaggy, curly hair, and the blue light from his computer darkened the acne scars on his face. His pale complexion made Oliver wonder for a moment if he was a vampire, but his scent clearly said otherwise, not to mention his appearance. A vampire adult would never look so unkempt. He stood up, dropped his computer in a shoulder bag, and walked over, hands in his pockets. “I'm Braiden Lang. Nice of you both to come.”

Oliver and Dean just stood there.

Braiden shrugged. “Well then, let's get to it, shall we?”

Oliver was just about to reply when he got a better look at Braiden's eyes and realized that his appearance was a trick. The way they darted keenly back and forth revealed that he was capable of very dangerous things.

Oliver and Dean followed Braiden through the doors and through an elaborate gift shop. The lights were off. They reached an elevator and found a black-clad man standing guard beside it, his foot keeping the doors open. They stepped inside. The guard followed. The doors slid closed and the elevator rose up the outside of the Needle.

Windows looked out on Seattle Center's colorful lights. The ceiling of fog seemed to lower on them, and then they were swallowed by it, and the view out the window became blank.

“It's nice to finally meet you, Oliver,” Braiden said, looking straight ahead.

“Who are you people?” Oliver asked.

“We represent the Brotherhood of the Fallen. We have protected the Nexia Gate for over two millennia. So you can guess why we hired the wraith to slay you.”

Oliver just shrugged, but inside he wondered how they knew about his destiny. He also wondered why they cared, since it seemed to have nothing to do with the humans. If anything, wouldn't humans be glad if all the vampires were free to leave earth?

The elevator doors slid open, revealing the plush, circular restaurant. Its entire outer wall was composed of large windows. The center of the restaurant stayed still, but the ring of floor beneath the dining tables spun slowly, so that customers could see the entire view as they ate. Braiden's associate nudged Oliver and Dean out of the car. Oliver was immediately overwhelmed by a noxious odor, but he couldn't begin to accept what he was smelling just yet. First, he noticed that every table in the restaurant was full of humans.

“What's with the people?” Dean whispered to Oliver.

None of the diners were moving. It was as if they were frozen in time, paused in mid-conversation, mid-sip, mid-bite. One man was even on his knee, holding out an engagement ring to a woman who was throwing her hands over her mouth in surprise. Meanwhile, the restaurant rotated slowly.

“They're in Staesys,” Oliver replied, now seeing the long lengths of red tubing that had been carefully attached to the neck of each frozen human. There were two tubes attached to the back of each neck. They ran straight upward, to hooks in the ceiling. The tubes then dropped down and separated. One tube reached the ground and ran out of sight under the table. The other ended at the tabletop, where it was hooked into a contraption that looked like a water faucet made of brass. There was one faucet for each diner at the table, and there were wineglasses placed beside the faucets.

Oliver knew about the process of Staesys, but since he wasn't old enough to attend such events, he'd never actually seen it. Staesys was a powerful ritual, only done for high-profile events, when a certain amount of elegance was preferred. The entire restaurant had been affected with a transdimensional force called
languessence
. Vampires had imposed the time scale of another world onto all the living things in this room—in this case, from a higher world with slower-moving time. This put the humans into a state of suspended animation.

Once the humans were frozen, the vampire bartenders who catered such events would hook each person up to the tubes. One tube drained the blood to a faucet, where a vampire guest could simply fill their wineglass. The other tube replaced the missing blood with an artificial plasma called sanguinase that would speed the process of blood-making in the humans' bone marrow, so that they would never know what they had lost. Since it was Valentine's Day, the caterers had probably secretly spiked the humans' food and wine with extra-romantic essences beforehand, so that their blood was brimming with passion.

Oliver could tell from the pale complexion of the diners that they had been put in Staesys a while ago, and they had already been fed on, but it was still early.… Where were the bartenders? Where were the vampire guests in their formal wear, and the vampire string quartet playing the passionate middle movements of the
Melancholia
? An event of this magnitude would have been held for the senior board of Half-Light, the elders of the Central Council, the barons who owned the magmalight refineries beneath the ocean.… Where was everyone?

“Guh,” Dean said, looking frustratedly at his feet.

Oliver looked down to see Dean shaking his foot free of something. Now, finally, Oliver accepted the scent that was positively tearing his nostrils apart.…

The silver and black ash piles were everywhere.

In the instant that he allowed himself to look, Oliver saw at least thirty dotting the plush carpet, but there had to be more. All the vampires involved in the Staesys—all slain by the Scourge.

“How could you?” Oliver mumbled.

“How could we what?” Braiden retorted. “Slay a bunch of vampires intent on terrorizing these helpless people? I don't know if you realize this, Oliver, but you and your kind are evil.”

Oliver almost let his mouth run to defend himself. He thought about pointing out that what these vampires were doing to humans tonight was no different than what humans did to so many living creatures on the planet all the time. As if a human wouldn't hook a cow up to tubes …

But the thought was forgotten, because as Oliver averted his eyes from the floor, he caught sight of a table by the window. Sitting there, alone, was Emalie. And she was hooked up to the tubes, in Staesys.

“Hey!” Dean shouted, spying her as well. “She didn't do anything!”

Oliver just stared. It was horrible. She didn't look like she'd lost any blood yet, but still …

“You were about to say something?” Braiden chided.

Oliver swallowed his revulsion. “Big deal,” he said defiantly.

“Don't even try to act like you don't care,” said Braiden. “If you didn't, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't even be you, but since you are, I wanted this to be the last thing that you ever saw.”

There was commotion beside him. Oliver turned to see two men grabbing Dean by the arms. Oliver backed away, toward the table by the window where Emalie sat. Braiden was flanked by more black-clad figures, one man and one woman who had a long scar across her left cheek. All three had their hands clasped in front of them, ready to use the Scourge.

“Why?” was all Oliver could ask.

“They say,” Braiden explained smoothly, “that a rebellion is only as effective as its publicity. Well, there's no more public slaying of your vampire kin than this. All these important vampires slain, but worst of all will be finding the ashes of their prophecy child among them. The vampires need to know that opening the Gate is not an option for them. We've stopped them before. We'll stop them tonight. And we'll stop them again. Good-bye, Oliver.”

Three sets of hands began to glow. Behind Dean, another man was drawing a long sword.

“Dean!” Oliver had time to shout, and then shimmering heat overwhelmed him, and his insides began to burn. There was no amulet shard this time. “
Nnnn
,” Oliver moaned. The burning increased. His eyes were overcome with light. He wanted to claw his skin off to release the heat.

Then he felt a presence close by.

Ready?
Jenette whispered in his ear. Oliver couldn't respond. He felt his body coming apart, but he tried to focus and spectralize.
Hang on
. Jenette yanked him backward.

In the room, the light went out, and where Oliver had stood, only smoke remained.

Chapter 14

Unraveling

THE WORLD FADED TO A
distant gray, like Oliver was viewing it through a dusty window. He could still feel the burning of the Scourge inside him, though. Through the pain, Oliver struggled to concentrate, to hold himself together, while also feeling for the parallels of other worlds—but everything was being consumed by light, the sunlight devouring him.…

Here
, Jenette said from nearby.
Take my hand
. Oliver felt her small hand close around his.
Just hang on
. Oliver felt himself being pulled, being moved into the strong currents of forces running off toward other worlds. He felt like he was wading into one rushing stream, then another, each pulling in a different direction. He tried to reach for one and push the Scourge into its current, but it seemed to burn away, turning into steam.

Not that one
, Jenette said, then stopped in the current of another parallel.
Here. Now. Push
. Oliver concentrated on the Scourge, the energy, getting himself around it like a ball, trying to move it out of him, but the burning only increased.

It's not going to work
, he thought.
It's too late
.

No, it's not
. He felt hands pulling, helping him, untangling the energy of the Scourge from him, like a knot was being unraveled. Now, finally, it was leaving him. The blinding white light was in front of him: a glowing, sparking ball, sliding away into mist. The last burning tendrils of the Scourge slipped from him, leaving wisps of smoke behind. He felt cool, but dry, like a burned ember, its light winking out.

I have to get back
, he thought weakly.

Wait
, Jenette said soothingly.
I can hold you out here for a little longer
. Oliver's eyes cooled, and he noticed her beside him now. Here, he could see her small face, her big eyes. She had long chestnut hair and was wearing flannel pajamas with tiny smiling frogs on them. Jenette glanced at him and seemed to smile a little nervously. She blew her bangs out of her eyes.
Let them think you're gone
.

Beyond her, Oliver saw a washed-out shoreline of gray sand. Water lapped on the shores. The beach of the Shoals seemed to stretch on forever.
Wow
, he thought.