Throat (43 page)

I decided to open the first door.
Whew
. Empty except for a few coats, a red hoodie, and some folding chairs. A little red Dust Devil was mounted on the inside wall.

The next door was already open—I could see the edge of the tub and shower stall. Thankfully, the shower curtain was drawn back. The window was stuffed with the shower mat and a bunch of blue towels. A thrill of horror ran through my whole body.

I didn’t want to go into that little space, the bathroom. If I couldn’t get to the window in time, Wirtz could come in right behind me and trap me there. Would Sagan hear me?

I sprang to the window and jerked everything down: floor mat, towels, shades. More light blasted in. He had to know I was here now.
Unless vampires sleep like the dead. Shut up
. The bathroom closet was nothing but shelves. I raised the mini-sledge over my head, sunlight washing over my shoulders from behind. Stepped warily back into the hall, standing for a moment in the block of light I had just let in. Three more doors.

The narrow one at the end—I took another couple of steps and pulled it open. Like I thought, a linen closet stuffed with shelves, a vacuum, and a metal air-conditioning thingy. Not enough room for a vampire. I closed it again.

The weird smell was stronger now … definitely coming from back here. I tried to slow my breathing. The last two doors were on the left and right, both closed.

Which first? Left, because it would have a window.

I slowly opened the door with the hand holding the stake, ready to run, kill, pass out.

The window across the room from me was blocked up like the others, but I could immediately see the space was empty except for a desk, chair, computer, and some boxes. I tore the blankets from the window, letting the light in. Slid the closet doors back and let light fill in there as well. Nothing but a folded-up stair climber.

One left.

It would have to be the other one. The bedroom with no window. If I were allergic to sunlight, that’s the one I would have chosen.

I hated more than anything leaving the room with the light. I left the door open to the hall, but the angle of the sun wasn’t good here. None of it would shine directly into the room I was about to enter.

The last door was slightly ajar. Nothing but a strip of blackness on the other side. I could see into the blackness, sure; if I watched through the crack and moved my head from side to side fast enough, I could even make out a shape, the edges of something.… It definitely wasn’t furniture … too irregular.
The jogger’s body. Oh no
.

I pushed the door open with a finger.

A bed had been turned on edge and was leaning against the far wall. A dresser, chest of drawers, nightstand had all been pushed into a corner next to it. To make room for …

Oh my God
.

There were sleeping bags on the floor. Empty sleeping bags.

Here was the source of the smell hovering throughout the apartment that I couldn’t identify. The bags weren’t just filthy; they were coated in soil. Each one had a layer of dirt probably half an inch thick. Not Alabama red clay, but dark, loamy-looking earth. Almost black. Almost wet. The kind of soil you never saw in this state.

As if … 
As if it was brought in from somewhere else
.

The closet was the last place. No window to uncover. Whoever was in there, they had a pretty good chance of getting between me and the door. After that …

I stepped closer to the closet and listened, one foot angled toward the hall. If they were in there, they were holding their breath. I thought about a way I could slow them down. I lifted my leg, aimed a kick squarely at the place where the two closet doors came together.

Slam
.

By the time the closet doors had swung in their tracks, crashing against the inside wall, I was standing in the sunlit living room, breathing hard. I waited. Heard nothing. I waited some more. Finally I couldn’t stand it—I walked back up the hall and peeked in. One of the closet doors had come off its tracks. I could see nothing inside but the jogger’s clothes.

I looked back at the sleeping bags and for the first time noticed it—the imprint of bodies in the alien black soil.

I let Sagan in. We were standing in the jogger’s bedroom.

“Six.” Sagan swore. “Emma, how are we going to fight six vampires?”

“I don’t know. The same way you fight one, I guess. Over and over again.”

“Suppose they all come at once?”

“You were so confident you could out-think anybody. So? What do we do now, Mr. Warcraft?”

A hurt look passed over his face.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I squatted and lifted the corner of one of the sleeping bags. It felt heavy and sodden. “Any ideas?”

“Move to Saskatchewan. Change your name. I’ve seen how quick they … you … people can move. With the defenses we have set up … we could handle … two … maybe three. But this … this is suicide.”

“So I just throw up my hands and let them take me?”

“No. Of course not. But I don’t know, Emma. This is way more than … I don’t know.…”

I dropped the edge of the sleeping bag. “I know what’s creeping you out,” I said. “It’s not how many there are, is it? It’s seeing this stuff. It’s made it too real, hasn’t it? It was fun when it was all pretend, wasn’t it?”

“Now you’re pissing me off.”

“Good. I need you pissed off. I need you to help me, Sagan.”

“Great. You need my help. I thought I was the chump you keep saying would be dead the instant they got here.”

“I’m sorry. I deserved that. Okay, so here are the facts. They’re stronger and faster than you are. I’m asking you to back out now, Sagan. It’s too much to ask.”

“You want me to go when you need me the most.”

“Good. I was only saying it to be saying it. All right. Six vampires. That doesn’t mean we can’t come up with a strategy, does it? That’s where we even things out. I need you to think. They are coming for me, Sagan. Six
Verloren
. What are we gonna do about it?”

“You have to … give me a little while. Let’s look around some more.”

“There’s nothing else here.”

“Humor me.”

We went back over the apartment top to bottom looking for any kind of clue we might have missed. All we found was stuff that made us both heartsick: the jogger’s clothes hamper. The music he liked to listen to. (Alternative.) A picture of a little girl with bouncy brown pigtails, holding a toy horse.
Sister?
I thought about Manda and nearly started to cry. I brushed the tears away angrily.

Sagan found the jogger’s wallet lying kicked under a chair.

“Paul Freeman,” he read, pulling out the guy’s driver’s license.

Paul was a good-looking guy who had turned twenty-six years old three days ago. And now? Was he in pieces somewhere?

“So … not much to go on, but here’s what we know,” Sagan said. “They were here, but for some reason they left. Assuming what you saw last night was in real time … it means they only stayed part of the night. So why bring this stuff in here?” He waved his arm at the filthy sleeping bags. “Doesn’t that kinda indicate they were planning on staying awhile?”

“Maybe … maybe they got set up, then something spooked them.…”

“What could spook six vampires?” Sagan said.

“Maybe they somehow knew we were watching?”

“But all you ever saw was Wirtz and the jogger, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” I said.

Sagan walked back and forth along the row of sleeping bags, touching the handle of his grandfather’s sword to his bottom lip.

“I think … here’s what’s more likely. They’re closing in, tightening the circle. But the closer they get, the more often they have to change their base. Because they have to hide each day. Wirtz knows how close he is to finding you, so this is kind of a staging area.… He followed Freeman home mainly just to grab this place.
A place that is only a mile or so from the Space Center, a couple of miles to the tower. He’s called some of his nastiest followers.…”

“
Nasty
’s the word,” I said.

“So now that he’s set up, he brings them into his new HQ. Where they can start getting ready for the final assault.”

“I don’t know if Lena would say that
Verloren
do that much planning.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly long-range stuff here,” Sagan said. “Surely somebody will notice Freeman is missing sooner or later. He must have had a job, relatives. So this is a very temporary deal.”

“Okay … but why go to the trouble of fixing up a … haven … something like this, and then not even use it?”

Sagan rubbed his chin. “Uh-oh. You know what it could mean?”

“What?”

“They found something even closer.”

We moved faster after he said that. Rolled up the sleeping bags, dirt and all, and slung them in the Dumpsters. With any luck, today was garbage day and they would be part of a landfill somewhere before Wirtz and his killers came back.
If they come back
.

“You think … they really need the dirt?” I said as we sped away in the Jeep. “I mean, you know, dirt from their native land to sleep in? Like … Dracula?”

Sagan downshifted and waited for the noise to subside before answering. “Well … so far just about everything we’ve found out about vampires at least feels scientific. The whole thing about the zero-point field, electromagnetic particles from the sun. Maybe it’s just a comfort thing, you know? If the
Verloren
tend to be nomads, maybe that’s what they do to feel at home … bring a little home with them.”

I frowned disgustedly. “One thing’s for sure, they’ll know we’re on to them now. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Maybe it’s good,” Sagan said. “If it makes them uncomfortable, knowing, hey, we can hit them too if they aren’t more careful …”

I looked away at a long stretch of green no-man’s-land between the middles lanes of the interstate. I was thinking about the jogger. Other innocent people who would be in danger.
Six vampires
.

“There has to be something more we can do,” I said. “The longer this goes on, the more people they will—”

“Maybe there is,” Sagan said.

Sagan put down a sleeping bag—a clean one he’d brought from home—next to the tower stairs and walked back to the Jeep. He returned several times with his arms loaded with a Coleman lantern, a gym bag full of clothes, and other things I didn’t recognize in sacks and boxes.

“Night vision Webcams,” he said, taking one out to show me. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.”

I was surprised by how small they were. Five of them, one for each side of the tower and a fifth for the top. They weren’t much larger than a handheld digital camera. Each came with a four-foot “stalk” that we plunged into the ground around the base of the tower and tested for the best viewing angles. The last one we strapped to the little airplane beacon on the roof.

“Wireless,” Sagan said. “My dad knows some people who are into tech like you wouldn’t believe. This will give us more eyes to even the odds. All I have to do is watch from my laptop, and—”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” I said. “It’s different now that we know there are more. It’s crazy what I’m asking you to do. It’s … it’s stupidly dangerous.”

“Stupidly, huh? You saw what we’re up against. You need help now more than ever. Around-the-clock help. That’s me. They’re too close, Emma.”

“But … Sagan …”

“What did you think? That you could call me up and I would come running? They might have you dismembered before I even put my foot on the gas.”

“You want to know the truth?”

“Sure.”

“You’ve done so much already. Now that I’ve seen how close they are … I don’t want you anywhere near this place when they come.”

“Pulling a Clint Eastwood, huh?” Sagan said. “The lone gunman fighting off the band of murderous cutthroats—no pun intended. But in the end he wasn’t alone, remember?” He put down the box he was carrying and took my face in his hands. “A little faith?”

“I’m just trying to be realistic. You think I want to watch something horrible happen to you?”

“Who says it will? Look, it’s stupid arguing about this. They’re close, Emma. I may not be an
Auge
. But I have a little intuition of my own. He’s coming soon.”

“What if I kick you out?”

“I’ll just keep coming back.”

“This is crazy,” I said.

He picked up the box again and headed up the stairs. “Maybe so. But from now on, it’s our crazy, not just yours.”

“An iPod docking station?” I said, fishing through his stuff. “What are you going to do, recharge the
Verloren
to death?”

Sagan looked thoughtful. “Electrocution … hmmm … now there’s an idea.”

“Sorry, fresh out of transformers,” I said.

I held up his white iPod shuffle. “So, whatcha got on here we can listen to?”

“My playlist is off the proverbial chain,” Sagan said. “Stephen Hawking. Brian Greene,
The Elegant Universe. Membranes and Other Extendons.
”

“Yuck. I take it back. That’s assault with a deadly weapon. Hope you remembered your earbuds, Bud.”