Killing Rites

Page 23

Even I knew enough to make sense of that.
“Jayné,” I said. “I’m Jayné. And thanks for this. Seriously.”
The driver shrugged—It’s nothing—and we started down the dark road. The passenger crowded himself against the door, trying not to touch me. He took his hat off, fidgeted with it, and put it on again.
“We’re heading for Peñasco,” he said, “but the cops got a station in Carson. We could drop you off there.”
“No,” I said. “No cops.”
The two men exchanged a look over my head. I felt the driver shrug again.
“So where you going?” the passenger asked, and as soon as he did, I knew the answer.
“You ever been to a place called O’Keefe’s?”
Chapter 14
When we pulled into the slush and gravel of the parking lot, I was amazed by the number of cars. It was eight o’clock, and apparently still the height of the dinner rush. Ramón and Marcos let me out and headed back to the road with my gratitude and a sense of being relieved to be done with me. I turned and considered the front doors. I knew I looked like hell. I didn’t want word of me to spread back to Ex and Chapin, so marching straight in seemed unwise. Freezing in the parking lot was also not a great plan. I walked quickly around the side of the building. I could hear voices from inside the restaurant, shouting over the radio. The truck’s heater had taken the edge off my cold, but I was still barefoot in the snow. I needed to get into shelter.
Midian’s RV was dark but unlocked. I didn’t know what it used for a heater, but the air was warm and close. The only light was a tiny fluorescent bulb over the stovetop. Clean dishes were stacked beside the sink. A magnet with a scorpion encased in plastic pinned an envelope to the fridge. Somewhere under the sink, a water heater burbled and hissed. No one else was there.
I sat down on the little couch and cradled my feet. After a few minutes, I stumbled to the back and pulled a comforter off Midian’s bed to curl up in. I was shivering hard, my body reacting to the cold and abuse and hellish day I’d just suffered. I didn’t figure Midian would mind if I messed up his bed. The cotton and down stank of old cigarettes, but I didn’t care. I folded myself onto the miniature couchlike thing, pulled the comforter around my head, and waited to get warm. Twelve hours ago, I’d been driving in toward San Esteban.
I thought about the little condo near the ski valley. It had my clothes. My laptop. The leather backpack I used as a purse was with Ex and the priests, along with my wallet, my credit cards, my cell phone. I wondered what they were doing now. Searching for me, no doubt, but I’d always been hard to locate magically, everything I owned with a GPS chip was somewhere else, and the trail of my footsteps in the snow ended at the highway. So far even Midian didn’t know I was here. The ashtray-stinking darkness was about as safe as I was going to get.
When Midian’s shift was over and he came back home, I could talk to him about it. Make a plan. I kept telling myself that. Feeling seeped back into my arms and legs. My toes hurt like hell, and one place near my little toe was still numb. But everywhere I pressed white went pink again when I let up the pressure, so I seemed to have avoided frostbite. I took the Ace bandage off of my arm, throwing the exorcist’s medallion in the sink.
Part of me wanted to keep going, think everything through, take action, but exhaustion and the slowly growing warmth scattered my thoughts. I was only vaguely aware that I was falling asleep, and then the sound of claws against metal woke me up.
It was daylight outside, and not the blue that came before dawn either. I’d slept through the night on the little not-quite-couch, and Midian hadn’t come in. Claws scratched against the door again, and I levered myself up, muscle-sore and aching, to open it. The Labrador chuffed at me, her breath white, and wagged her thick tail.
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Come on in.”
As she clambered up the steps, I looked around. The snow-covered ground was so white it had flecks of color—blue and purple and pink. Icicles hung from the restaurant’s eaves while meltwater from the roof dripped down them, making little caves of ice by the wall. The sky was huge and blue and marbled by cloud and contrail. And Midian hadn’t come home last night. Ozzie the Lab sat on her graying haunches, looked at me, and wagged. I scratched her ears absently. Maybe he was out feeding. Or maybe hed come in, seen me, and made other arrangements for himself. I was still wearing the white shift from yesterday, and it was starting to reek. My rider was quiet. I figured she had had at least as rough a time as I had. I didn’t know what kind of damage the near exorcism had done to her, or even what kind of shape I should hope she was in.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you there? Truce is still on as far as I’m concerned.”
I might have been talking to myself. I didn’t know. My stomach growled, my hunger level going from background noise to ravenous in about ten seconds. I tried to remember the last time I’d eaten anything. Something like twenty-four hours ago, and that had been donuts. No blood sugar probably wasn’t helping me think. I leaned over, reaching the refrigerator door easily from where I sat. The light took a second before clicking on. A glass bottle of milk, three apples, half a loaf of bread, four eggs, and a hunk of cheese. I took an apple, the cheese, and the bottle of milk. I didn’t figure Midian would mind. When I closed the refrigerator door, I noticed the scorpion magnet again, clipping its envelope to the door. With the daylight, I saw there was a single word written on the pale paper like an address: Kid.
Taking a long drink of milk with my left hand, I plucked the letter out from under its scorpion with my right. A single sheet of paper. The note was in perfectly clear handwritten letters, tiny and flowing. Almost like calligraphy.
Hey, Kid.
I’m going to be a little vague here. I don’t know for sure who’s going to be reading this. Figure you’ll get what I’m talking about. You’re smart that way.
I make it the chances of your coming back here are pretty good, or I wouldn’t be leaving this. And probably you won’t have anybody of a clerical bent with you. But if you do, that could make for a really bad day. No offense meant, but I didn’t make it this far by taking risks that weren’t strictly necessary. Sorry to let you down and all. You’re a good kid and I like you, but I don’t see how you and me get to spend a lot of time hanging out. It’s a lifestyle thing. Dietary. You know what I mean.
I’ve been thinking about that guy you did wrong by in Chicago. I’ve seen a lot of people struggle with exactly that kind of problem over the years. Thing is, what you did comes pretty naturally to me. I know what you’re going through, but I don’t really get it. So maybe that’s what I’ve got for you. Some folks it bothers, some it doesn’t. You’re one of the ones it does.
And I’ve got to tell you, I think it’s a good thing Capt. Milquetoast’s out of the picture. I know how this sounds coming from me, but the age gap between you two was always a problem. He’s just at a different place in his life. And this work you’ve been doing? He’s not cut out for it. Twice now he invoked the abyss. Plus which what you said about him getting ridden in New Orleans? Getting a rider’s like a drinking game. Once you start losing, you keep losing—getting ridden opens you up and getting closed again is tricky. That’s something you’re probably going to have to deal with too, now that you’ve gotten the thing shucked out of you. So, you know, good luckt ifthat.
Okay. My ride’s here. I know you’ve got a metric shitload of questions about your uncle. I wish I could help you more, but hey. We do what we can, right? Here’s what I’ve got for you in three sentences or less: He was a sonofabitch. He never did anything without a reason. The reason was always that it made things the way he wanted them. You’ve got a rough road, kid. Good luck with it. Don’t come looking for me.
Your pal, Midian.
I read it over twice more, waiting to see if I felt betrayed, but all that was there was vague disappointment. Yes, he was a vampire. Yes, he killed people. Ex and Chapin and all the others would have wanted him destroyed, and for good reason. But I liked him. I wondered if my willingness to give him a free pass might not be another step down the path toward not being one of the good guys. I put the letter back in its envelope. Ozzie looked up at me with black, watery eyes, her tail thumping heavily against the floor. I sighed and headed for the back.
Midian hadn’t cleared everything out when he went. The tiny closet had a pair of paint-splattered men’s jeans that I could just about squeeze past my hips, and I found a gray sweater with a stain across the front that might have been blood, but smelled like barbecue sauce and cigarettes. The shower was almost too small to turn around in, but it was there. No shampoo, but I used the bar of soap. Lousy for shine and body, but plenty good enough for getting the worst junk in my hair out of it. The water was hot enough to scald, and ran out after about two minutes. Still, pulling on Midian’s hand-me-downs, I felt better than I had in days. I still didn’t have shoes. Or money. Or anything of my own.
So, that was what I needed to fix next.
O’Keefe’s was open for breakfast. I didn’t go around to the front. I’d done terrible things to my feet in the last two days, and sleeping through the night seemed to have gotten the blood back to every single nerve ending I had. The snow felt burningly cold. I hopped quickly to the kitchen door. The man who opened it was maybe eighteen with hair cut close to his scalp and an ornate cross hanging at his collarbone. He was wearing an ironic Santa hat complete with white pom-pom at the floppy tip, and he was smoking a cigarette.
“Hey, I’m a friend of”—I gestured back toward the RV—“of his. Could I use your phone?”
The guy looked from me to the RV and back, then stood back and let me inside. The kitchen was hot, and the smell of cooking chorizo sausage and freshly brewed coffee was like a postcard from a better world. The man gestured me toward a thin green door. I nodded my thanks and ducked through. The office was tiny. The phone was a cheap cordless with a huge chrome-and-red logo on the mouthpiece for a company I’d never heard of. It took me a couple of tries to remember how to call information, and then how to call information in Denver. All the numbers I needed were in my cell phone, and I didn’t know the actual numbers. Eventually, I got the listing I needed.