Chapter 25
After a run of bad luck, any small bit of help seemed like a gift from heaven.
Running down a winding North Bluffs road at superspeed was all right, except when Bea stopped her ribs heaved so hard she retched, leaning against a lone streetlamp.
Sleet poured down, sticking the sweater to her torso, and her jeans were soaked to the knee.
Her sneakers were sodden, too, but that was okay.
Everything was okay, because she was free.
And what to her wondering eyes should appear but a smear of brightly lit parking lot in the distance, behind a screen of near-leafless trees? She hadn’t even known there was a transit center on this side of the Causeway.
The problem of getting on a bus while looking like a drowned rat and without a cent to her name was solved by a heavyset, whistling male driver leaving his big silver craft closed but unlocked before ambling for the brick building holding bathrooms both public and employee.
Bea prayed before testing the door, slipped through, pushed it closed—far easier than the resisting oak slab she’d had to wrestle before—and huddled on a seat halfway back, not even peering out the window, sliding down as far as possible to attempt some kind of concealment, hoping against hope.
As if the world had decided to balance out the shitty fortune of failing to kill an oversexed, name-changing bloodsucker, she was dealt another break when the driver returned to find several people waiting to board.
Better yet, he opened up the bus and didn’t even glance at the interior, being too busy getting the fare-card reader switched on.
“Free ride, holiday,” he chanted as they trooped up the steps. “Free ride, holiday.”
The unspoken public transport commitment to everyone minding their own damn business held, and by the time ten or so passengers had arranged themselves, Bea realized a few of them were almost as soaked as she was.
Some were even wearing bits of Halloween costume, which gave a nasty shock to her already-battered nerves.
What day is it? She’d forgotten completely, and further forgotten about the free-ride program for occasions prone to drunk driving. She hadn’t had to sneak aboard at all.
Apparently everyone was commuting home from day jobs at the Bluff mansions, probably a thankless task even at the best of times.
Bea was glad for the cover; she’d been expecting to be caught, pleading with the bus driver to just let her stay on, giving a sob story and risking him radioing in for a transit cop or two.
Which she doubted she had the energy to handle, even if running away and attempting to cross the Causeway on foot was her other option.
She could probably thumb a ride, but why bother?
Instead, Bea waited until nobody seemed to be looking before uncurling to sit upright, trying to act like she’d just been tying her shoes or picking up a dropped item.
Doing her best to look innocent and self-absorbed, she stared out the window, listening intently for any sign the driver was going to single her out.
It was unnerving to see so many other human faces after.
..everything. The lights hurt her eyes; her nose was awash with a complex fug of sweat, bad breath, the ghost of what everyone had last eaten, wet clothing, a faint burnt-plastic tinge of public transit.
Hearing other human heartbeats made the dry patch at the back of her throat wake up a bit, but running so hard seemed to have accustomed her to new super-senses.
The bus rumbled to life, the driver gabbled an announcement into the overhead, and after a patience-straining wait the contraption lunged into motion.
She hadn’t looked where the bus was going, but the universe threw her yet another bone—it passed right through the free-ride section around Marymont and the community college campus.
She didn’t even have to pass the driver to get out, since the doors in the middle of the bus wheezed open once they were on the other side of West 135th, and from there it was a short hop to the subway and a long walk to the only place she could possibly go.
The sneakers held up well, and one lone, dripping woman without a coat on Halloween was nearly invisible. Head down, hands swinging loosely, Bea was surprised she wasn’t shivering. It was cold, sure, but that didn’t seem to matter so much.
Please let him be home. Please, God, let him be home.
* * *
The warehouse’s side door was locked, but she heard movement inside and hammered until faint creaks said someone was sidling up to peek through the peephole. Which led to a clearly audible flurry of moving deadbolts, making Bea shiver as the splatters of falling ice apparently couldn’t.
Don yanked the door open, wiping one hand on his old Army sweatshirt. “Jesus Christ,” he whisper-yelled. “Thought it was fuckin’ trick-or-treaters. Get in, get in—I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“Me too.” Bea hurried inside, stepping over the salt line—it didn’t stop her at all, and the wall of crucifixes proved no deterrent either.
Which could have been hilarious if she wasn’t so scared.
“Shut that and lock it. Quick.” Not that it’ll help, if he shows up.
But the relief of seeing Don—clearly alive, in baggy cargo pants and ancient Sex Pistols T-shirt, his heartbeat almost as quick and hard as hers—outweighed nearly every other consideration in the world.
“What the hell?” Don busied himself with the bolts and chains, then whirled, hands going to his hair.
He examined Bea, soaked and wild-eyed in the middle of his hallway for the second time in her life, and his own peepers were wide as possible without popping clean out of his head. “Shit, girl. You look…”
Like a drowned rat. “There’s no time. You have to get out.”
Don blinked several times, like an owl just waking up. “What?”
“Get the hell out. Not tomorrow, not next week, now. I know you’ve got an exit plan, and now’s the time.
Stop on your way out of town to pick up Callie, and you guys have to go as far as possible then stay low.
New names, no contact with anything familiar, the whole nine.
” Bea ran out of air, had to gasp in a breath.
He had a little trouble assimilating the notion, but who wouldn’t? “I thought you’d be halfway to Mexico by now.”
“I wish I was, man.” Her fingers dripped, so did her hair, and now she was the one hopping from foot to foot. “Why aren’t you moving? Now, Donny. I don’t know how much lead time I have.”
“Lead time? You gotta give me a noun, Bebe.” But he was already moving, shuffling past her with little hush-wushes of his leather slippers.
The warehouse’s layered scents were both comforting and overpowering—spaghetti sauce from a very recent dinner, motor oil and hot metal from the chop bays in the larger part of the building, dust, the frowstiness of a man living alone, a yeasty tang of beer.
She could even smell the salt, a white mineral note, and didn’t bother to refresh the line.
“I fucked up.” The admission tried to stick in her throat next to the slowly dilating dry patch.
“Didn’t get the stake all the way through.
He’s alive, Donny. He caught me over the state line, and I don’t know how long I have before he gets back and discovers I got out.
Once you’re out the door I’ll be gone, but I… I had to make sure…”
“You gotta be kidding me.” But Don’s shuffle quickened; he led her through the kitchen and into the den.
Looked like he’d been working on audio mixing; the main monitor above his desk was full of layered tracks, spikes frozen in place, ready to be rearranged.
Had he not been watching the security cameras?
She’d tried to avoid them, not wanting to leave even that much of a trail.
“I thought they covered it up with a gas leak. It was in the paper—even Channel Five had a spot.”
“He’s using the name Andranov now.” Even that might be telling Don too much. “You have got to hurry, Donny. So help me, I will pack for you and dump you on a bus myself if I have to.”
“Andranov? But that’s…” Don all but skidded to a stop. He was cheesy pale now, and kind of green. His heart was galloping so hard it made her feel faint as well.
“I’ll talk so long as you’re getting ready to go.” Bea restrained the urge to stamp her feet like an angry child. “Move, goddammit!”
Don flinched as if stung, and headed for the bedroom door. “That’s...shit, shit, shit. Andranov? You gotta be joking, he just flew in from the old country to take over some business from Morelli and Gazzo, you know, that big oily-haired asshole with all the gold chains? It can’t be, he—”
Oh, Jesus. Bea’s knees threatened to turn into cold water, matching the rain outside.
The sweater soak-stuck to her, so did the jeans, but the shivers were from pure fear.
“So he already had that set up ahead of time. Figures. Look, you…you have no idea, Don. You really don’t.
Promise me you’ll get out tonight, and take Callie with you. Please.”
“Callie dumped me right after you left. That’s why I’m here instead of at the Halloween party.
” Don banged the bedroom door open, plunging into a dimness only lit by five different-colored lava lamps on a shelf above the waterbed.
He hurried between piles of dirty laundry, shoved the closet’s curtain aside, and began digging.
“Whaddaya mean, the stake didn’t go all the way through? ”
“I’m sorry.” Useless little words; Bea swayed near-drunkenly, listening hard.
Would the new super-senses give her any warning if Lukas was even now creeping up on the warehouse?
“I really am. It’s not like we thought, Donny.
It’s bad, it’s so bad, it’s so much worse than…
” Her breath failed all at once; her voice broke.