Page 85 of The Undead

“Good-bye,” he said from the door. She nodded.

Now she was absolutely alone.

When the cab arrived, Maggie gave him the address of Sylvia Reilly’s house. She was tired, so tired that the whine of the tires kept pulling her eyes shut; the radio was playing a soft Latino beat that the driver syncopated with little finger-pops and pats on the steering wheel. There was a sharp odor of grass in the cab that got stronger by the minute. She opened her eyes just enough to see through her lashes; the cabbie took a big toke and ground the tiny little stub out in an overflowing ashtray.

Wonderful. She’d end up getting busted on top of everything else. Come to think of it, though, a cell might be a safe place just now—secure, surrounded by cops …

Angelo had been surrounded by cops, too.To protect and to serve, oh, God damn you, Nicky.Nicky with the quick clever hands and the devil’s smile, Nicky who almost—almost—made her forget why she got married. She’d forgotten about a lot of things, and then everything had become so clear in that one second when the truck tilted over the rail and fell. She remembered every fleck of paint, every square of shattered safety glass, as if Norman Rockwell had put it on canvas. Mike’s eyes were so deep, so blue—

Oh, Mike, how have you managed to stay sane with all this? How am I going to make it? she wondered. The grief suddenly came back full strength, as if she stood there by his fake grave again, burying the wedding ring that hadn’t meant so much to her until it meant nothing at all. Maggie fought back a sudden surge of tears.

“Hey! You getting out?” the cabbie asked suddenly. She opened her eyes and realized that they’d arrived, the big Victorian blazing with lights and good cheer in the dark night. She slipped him a twenty for a fifteen-dollar fare and watched the car drive off, trailing sweet expensive smoke as the driver lit up another joint.

Maggie turned and looked at the house. It took her a minute before she recognized the woman who came out the front door, because she just flat didn’t expect to see her.

Rebecca Foster raised McDonnell’s gun on her. And giggled.

Chapter Fifteen

Sunrise

I couldn’t stand to watch Adam grieve. It was like watching him slice himself open with a butter knife, slow and agonizing and, ultimately, useless. I walked out into the hall and leaned against the cool white plaster; the smell of Sylvia’s blood stayed with me as if I’d perfumed myself with it. It crept through the open door and slid down the baseboards; it was redly real, even invisible, and it kept me from believing that what I’d seen had been some terrible daysleep dream.

The bed continued to creak as Adam rocked his lover to an endless, eternal sleep.

I went down the stairs and sat down on the bottom step. I couldn’t decide what to do with my hands; they weren’t comfortable on my knees, they dangled awkwardly when I angled them in, they seemed to ache with phantom pains. I rubbed them together and remembered the silky texture of blood along my skin. I had consumed enough blood to keep myself going for quite a while, but that didn’t take away the fascination, the longing. I didn’tneedit. I wasn’t even faintly hungry—and yet …

I’d been on the point of touching the red liquid strands of Sylvia’s blood and tasting it when Adam had found us in the bedroom. I wondered what he would have done to me if he’d caught me. Taken off the offending fingers, probably. I wouldn’t have blamed him.

The doorbell rang. I got up in a complete mindless trance and swung the door open; I expected Maggie, but the woman who stood there shocked me into complete numbness.

“Hello, Doctor,” Rebecca Foster said smoothly, and fired the gun she held. The impact knocked me backward like a punch, but when I grabbed at my stomach I realized that it hadn’t left a wound. The bullet had gone completely through me without the slightest visible sign. “How are you?”

She fired again, and again, smoke rising up like fog between us. I kept getting knocked back until I tripped over a chair and fell. She leaned forward, put the muzzle of the gun against my forehead, and giggled. Her eyes were wide and completely unfocused.

“Adam!” I screamed.

She pulled the trigger.

It hurt. A lot. I lay there like a corpse while my strength slowly gathered; when I rolled over on my side I saw a splintered hole in the wood floor where my head had been. The flesh of my forehead felt slightly warm, and ached.

Rebecca Foster sat there in a chair and watched me, gun still pointed in my direction. There was someone standing behind her; for the briefest second I thought it was Adam, until my eyes focused and I saw him smile. No, not Adam. Not nearly.

“Want to see a good trick, Miss Rebecca?” William asked mildly, and stepped around to where I was laboriously balancing myself on hands and knees. I saw what was coming, but I couldn’t stop it. His foot swept out in one of those spider-quick disjointed movements and took my arms out from under me.

My chin hit the smooth wood floor several inches from the splintered hole. I went totally limp with pain; when I raised trembling fingers to my chin, they came away slick with blood.

My blood. Stolen blood.

Wood.It hurt, and it damaged. Like the thorns on the rose I’d picked up at my grave.

William exchanged a look and a high, thin giggle with Rebecca Foster. She stood up, reversed her hold on the gun, and hit me with the wooden grip. I felt the skin tear on the ride of my head, and blood sheeted coolly down my cheek and drizzled on the floor.

“Adam,” I whispered again, hopelessly. Foster giggled. There was a crazy viciousness in her eyes that went beyond anything I’d ever seen apart from William. He, by contrast, seemed only academically interested. It was all just a scientific experiment. He reached down and put his fingertips in the little growing pool of my blood, sniffed it, licked it with a gray tongue.

“You’ve been a bad boy, Mr. Michael. You’ve been huntin’.” His tongue explored the red in gentle, delicate swipes. “A woman and a man. Youhavebeen busy.”

“You ought to get into forensics,” I gasped. William smiled, my blood pink on his teeth.

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