Chapter 22
Bastian straightened. “Here?! Now?!”
“Sì.”
“Shit.” Bastian’s head filled with images of boulders being piled on top of him. The crushing weight warping bones, compressing organs, splitting him at the seams until he burst open like a blood bag. He thought he might vomit.
“But we haven’t found the killer yet,” Whitby growled. “We need more time.”
Bastian said nothing as he went to the bedroom door and peered into the hall. Nobody there. They must be in the kitchen. Waiting.
“The window,” Whitby urged, pawing his leg. “We can run.”
“That will only delay the inevitable.”
“Bastian, they’ll kill you and burn Vernazza to the ground.”
“They will give me a fair trial. We have to trust in that. And maybe they’ll spare the town.”
“I’ll turn them into toads,” Whitby pledged, tone dark as midnight. “I’ll make them spend the rest of their lives believing they’re tadpoles.”
Bastian smiled and said softly, “You’ll do no such thing. Don’t give them a reason to put you on trial, too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous; tadpoles can’t put people on trial.”
Bastian looked at De Luca. All color had drained from the inspector’s face, and his eyes had gone glassy. The sight was unsettling. Bastian attempted to compose himself. He had thought he had at least another day with which to exonerate himself, but it appeared that time had run out.
“Remember what I said,” he told De Luca. “Think about yourself. The town. Don’t do anything stupid.”
De Luca’s jaw clenched. He looked like he was about to put a fist through the wall, and Bastian felt a prickle of rage in his own gut. That old rage that he kept under wraps so much of the time wanted to be let out. It wanted to tear the apartment to pieces, and the council with it.
But that would accomplish nothing. It certainly wouldn’t exonerate him.
The council had arrived, and there was nothing he could do about that.
He went into the hall. Giving Whitby a reassuring wink, he lifted his chin and puffed out his chest and stepped into the kitchen.
“This Mediterranean style, y’all, it’s just to die for,” a Texas voice twanged. “I mean, whoever thought of matching sunflower yellow with weathered timber—”
The man who had been speaking broke off as Bastian entered.
Bastian blinked at the newcomers in astonishment.
Three figures hovered in the air, the toes of their black shoes tipped toward the floor.
They wore tailored burgundy suits. A man and two women.
Aside from their differences in ethnicity—the man was white, while the women had darker skin—they were almost identical.
Hair the color of bone. Eyes shimmering violet.
Pointed nails blood-red. Fangs pricking their lower lips.
They looked at Bastian, and their combined gazes pressed into him like knuckles kneading clay.
The Obliterati. The vampire council.
“Ah, we have our rogue,” said the floating man, speaking again with that cowboy twang. “Thank you, Inspector, for rousing him on our behalf.”
De Luca said nothing. His gaze went to Commissario Zappa, who stood by the stove, eyeing the vampire council with a mixture of apprehension and disgust. He looked gray and sickly in the gloom.
“Uh, hi,” Bastian said. “Listen, before we get into this, I want to start by saying there’s been a mistake—”
“Now, now,” the floating man said, wagging his finger, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There are formalities to which we must adhere. Without rules and laws, we’re just animals, wouldn’t you agree?”
When Bastian didn’t respond, the man said, “I am Jared, and these are my colleagues Ling and Emmeline. We are representatives of the vampire council, charged with upholding the Accords, which state—”
The council member named Ling picked up his thread. “—that no vampire may kill in destinations protected by the international agreement. That includes the Cinque Terre.”
“Any vampire found guilty of breaching this agreement,” said Emmeline.
“Shall face immediate termination,” finished Jared.
Bastian shivered at their uncanny delivery. They almost seemed to share a mind. They regarded him placidly, preternaturally calm, but that force remained in their gaze. It stiffened his joints, seemed to hold him in place.
“If that’s true,” he said, “you should be focusing your energies on finding the real killer. Something is out there hunting humans, and it’s not me.”
Emmeline floated closer to him. “You deny the charge.”
“I didn’t kill those people.”
Zappa scoffed. “He was at both murder scenes, and still, he denies it!”
“Thank you, Commissario,” Emmeline said with a benevolent smile that verged on passive-aggressive, “we have noted the denial.”
Zappa fell silent, eyes bulging. He looked scared, and Bastian wished he could revel in the man’s fear, but the sight only made Bastian more anxious. The council’s presence had shaken even Aldo Zappa.
Bastian had to admit they were unnerving.
While their appearance bordered on amusing, their odor stained the air—a bleachlike scent that burned his nostrils.
Had they been embalmed? Preserved? Just how old were they?
As he looked at their spindly fingers, Bastian thought of Whitby’s story about the Obliterati’s method for killing vampires, and he almost felt the weight of those enormous rocks on his chest, crushing his bones to dust.
He shivered. Zappa was right to be scared, and Bastian realized he was scared, too. Scared in a way that he hadn’t been in years. He had so much to lose.
Ling’s eyes flashed at Bastian. “We have taken great care to examine all information pertaining to this case, and we find no evidence to disprove the charge.”
“The evidence is entirely circumstantial,” De Luca said, stepping forward.
“De Luca—” both Bastian and Zappa said at the same time, but the inspector ignored them both, keeping his gaze on the council.
“With the greatest respect,” he said, “I have spent the past twenty hours with Bastian, and I have witnessed nothing to indicate he is a danger. If anything, the people of Vernazza pose more of a threat to his life.”
“You believe him to be innocent?” Ling asked, head tilting.
“Ispettore,” Zappa snarled, and he said something in Italian that Bastian knew was a threat. Bastian was more concerned by the way the council regarded De Luca with a brittle kind of intrigue, as if they wanted to unwrap him in order to find out what made him tick.
“Please,” Bastian said, stepping between the inspector and the council. “The inspector has nothing to do with this. If you want to charge me, charge me. I won’t resist.”
“How gallant!” Jared hooted a laugh. Ling and Emmeline chuckled, too, and the sound crept like spiders over Bastian’s skin.
“I’m afraid it is time to depart,” Ling said. “Bastian Emerson, step forward.”
She removed a long, shimmering strand of silver from her blazer. It looked like rope, but thinner, more elegant. The tips of her fingers hissed at contact with the precious metal, but it didn’t appear to bother her the way silver bothered most vampires.
“No!” Whitby said, her voice solid as stone. She sat on the kitchen table, between Bastian and the council. “You cannot trust a word the commissario has told you. He’s setting Bastian up.”
As one, the council turned to look at Zappa, whose face turned purple.
“Outrageous! I have done nothing but protect this town.”
“Commissario,” De Luca said. “When you took Kerstin Gronberg’s statement, did she say that she saw Bastian kill Emilio?”
“I am not the one on trial here!”
“Not yet,” Bastian said.
De Luca remained focused on Zappa. “Are you sure you didn’t embellish Kerstin’s statement in order to convict Bastian?”
“I’ll have your badge!” Zappa screamed, slamming a fist against the counter.
“You will not harm the inspector!” Whitby spat. “Speak the truth, oaf!”
“Now, now,” Ling said.
“Yes,” agreed Emmeline, “let us remain—”
“—civil,” Jared finished for them.
“Commissario?” De Luca asked.
Zappa’s lips were flecked with spittle; his face was creased with revulsion.
“You shame your father—” he began, but Bastian broke in, voice cold.
“Who died a long time ago, dear. It’s De Luca’s time now.”
De Luca gave him an appreciative look, but Zappa whirled on the council.
“What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “Get him out of my town!”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Whitby muttered, and leapt at Zappa’s face. She sank her claws into his cheeks, and the commissario screamed, flailing as he tried to free himself.
“Stop this,” Jared said coolly.
Zappa knocked crockery from the counter, sending it crashing to the floor, but Whitby didn’t release him, cackling as she clung to his face.
Bastian offered the council an apologetic shrug. “What can I say? She’s a monster.”
Ling moved toward Zappa, pale fingers reaching for the cat, and Bastian straightened.
“Touch her and die, darling.”
The council member ignored him, her fingers grazing Whitby’s fur, and fury burst in Bastian’s chest. He threw himself at Ling, seizing hold of her shoulders and wrestling her to the floor.
No, not the floor. Even though he had knocked her down and lay atop her, she still floated above the tiles, moving no closer to the floor.
Her chemical scent flooded his nostrils, making his eyes water.
A cool sigh brushed Bastian’s neck, and Jared tutted in his ear.
“This violence, man. You’re giving us all a bad name.”
Bastian rolled away just in time to evade Emmeline’s shimmering silver rope.
He wiped his eyes as he backed up to the other side of the kitchen table, where Whitby perched, licking a paw with an air of satisfaction.
Bastian reached out a hand, which she nuzzled her head into before hopping into his arms.
“I’m going to prove I’m not the killer,” Bastian said, holding Whitby close. “Just give me another day, that’s all I ask.”
Jared gave a sympathetic smile. “We’d love to do that, boy, but—”
“—the evidence speaks for itself,” Emmeline finished.
“His evidence?” Bastian demanded, pointing at Zappa.
“He’s had it in for Bastian from the start!” Whitby spat.
“Come with us now,” Ling ordered, and there it was again, that wheedling suggestion, whispering through him, commanding Bastian to follow her orders. Her scent stuck in his throat.
“Do you even care if I’m innocent or not?
” Bastian demanded. Fear was beginning to hollow him out.
Not just fear of what the Obliterati would do to him, but fear that they might actually have no interest in catching the killer.
Were they secretly enjoying the fact that innocent people had been murdered?
Were they no better than the vampires they condemned?
A worse thought occurred to him as he considered what the Obliterati sometimes did when they were finished with a trial.
They burned the town to ash. Left nothing but a smoking ruin.
Bastian couldn’t believe that people still allowed the Obliterati into their towns.
How desperate would they have to be to resort to such extreme action?
Perhaps not everybody believed the stories.
Maybe they chalked them up to hyperbole and myth.
He supposed that sometimes the truth was so awful, it was impossible to believe.
What if the Obliterati didn’t care about justice or retribution, though? What if they were simply looking for an excuse to rain unimaginable destruction on a place like Vernazza?
“The killer could strike again,” De Luca said, approaching the council. The sight caused Bastian’s chest to contract with both pride and horror. The Obliterati could tear apart De Luca in seconds, but he was moving toward them, pleading with them—for him.
“De Luca, don’t,” he said.
“You have to let Bastian go,” the inspector told the Obliterati.
“Have you lost your mind?” Zappa snarled, wiping his claw-marked face with a dishcloth.
Bastian was by the balcony doors. He felt dizzy and winded, despite the fact that he didn’t breathe.
Only now did he see that, for the past couple of days, he had been clinging to a desperate scrap of hope that the Obliterati would spare him.
He had dared to dream that they would see the truth and acquit him, despite their terrible reputation.
Pain came at Bastian’s chest as he realized he had been naive. The Obliterati wanted only to kill him, and the thought set his mind spinning.
This couldn’t be the end.
“Bastian—” De Luca began, but he broke off as the council raised their hands in a silencing gesture. They looked at each other as if communicating something telepathically and then, as one, they rushed at Bastian, silent as death, their hands outstretched for him.
Bastian staggered backward, through the doors and onto the balcony.
He held Whitby tight and cast a desperate look at De Luca on the far side of the kitchen, wanting to grab hold of him, too, but he was too far away.
There was no time. The council were already at the balcony doors, their emotionless eyes gleaming at Bastian, the air shuddering around them as they flew at him.
Just in time, Bastian slammed the doors. He heard three thumps as the Obliterati crashed against the other side, hissing displeasure, hissing his name, and Bastian knew he had no choice.
Vowing to go back for De Luca, hoping he was safe with Zappa, Bastian sprang into the air, Whitby held tightly to his chest, sailing over the balcony railing and floating down, down, down, into the streets below.