Page 51 of The Vampire Always Rises
“I still don’t understand how you can see a trail from someone in a car,” Merrick couldn’t help but say, getting into the car nonetheless.
“Remember when I said that you lot shed an arcane-based blood residue? That stuff gets everywhere. It’s like a superfine powder that flies out the window, or is spread when the door is opened, or even when air is cycled through the inside of the car. It’s lying on the road like a faint copper shimmer,” Savian replied, nodding in the direction that led toward Monaco and, beyond it, Italy. “I wish you could see it. It’s really quite lovely.”
Merrick felt like all he’d done for the last few days was travel the same stretch of road over and over. “I just want to find the man. I don’t care about scenic Dark One residue.”
They drove on, Merrick puzzling over his odd feeling that something was wrong—and, more important, his need to know that Tempest was well—until a traffic delay gave him a moment to consult his phone. He pulled it out and frowned at it, lost a mental struggle, and finally texted her.
To: Tempest
What are you doing now?
There was no answer, a fact that left him feeling oddly bereft. Damn the woman, didn’t she know he was busy, and if he texted her now, it was obviously of importance?
“Wait.” Savian, who had been humming to himself and staring at the road ahead, suddenly lifted up his hand. “Can you pull over?”
Merrick did so. Savian got out and ran down the shoulder of the road a few yards, before standing with his hands on his hips, staring first in one direction, then the other. Merrick wondered if he dare get out to see what was the matter with the thief taker, but as there was no shade on the side of the road, he stayed put.
After a minute or two of the thief taker’s odd antics, he returned to the car. “We need to go back.”
“Why? Did you lose the trail?”
“No, it’s on the other side of the road, but it’s not here. There was a sign a little ways back, wasn’t there?”
“Yes. It was for the road going north.”
“Let’s go back and see if that’s what happened.”
Merrick said nothing, but he was annoyed. The whole purpose of getting the thief taker was to eliminate errors.
They retraced their route, and Merrick duly turned onto a new highway, Savian urging him forward. “This is it. See that? Waves of sanguine all over the place. Bet they had a window down somewhere. There’s something else there.”
“What?”
Savian was silent for a minute. “It’s hard to describe. It’s like there is a second sanguine, only it’s different from the first one.”
Merrick said nothing, his mind still on Tempest and the texts. Why hadn’t she answered him? Was it a ploy to make him worry? Or had something happened to her, something that prohibited her from reassuring him that she was all right?
Dammit, he disliked worrying about her. This was one more reason against ever having a Beloved.
“Hold up.”
Still thinking dark thoughts about women who made you care about them, Merrick obligingly pulled over next to a petrol station. Savian got out and made a brief search of the area around one of the pumps. Then he stood next to the car and looked down the road, a confused expression on his face.
“What’s wrong now?” Merrick asked, wishing he hadn’t engaged the thief taker. The man clearly had no idea of how to track people who weren’t immortals.
“Nothing’s wrong other than there are now multiple trails. That way, I think.” He pointed down the road, and got back into the car.
“Are you sure you are on the right trail?”
Savian flashed a grin at him. “Not impressed, eh? Well, don’t worry, you will be. Left here. No, right, go right. We’ll follow the new trail.”
“What new trail? I thought you said there were multiples?”
“There are, but this one is newer. The shimmer has a bit more gold to it. And another right turn up here.”
Merrick frowned as Savian instructed him through a residential neighborhood, the streets of which were full of children and dogs playing. He had the highest doubts that Victor would place himself into such a scene.
“And a left ahead. Very fresh trail now.”
