A Dark-Adapted Eye Page 9

  I remained on the couch, though, too cowardly to let him know how I felt. The timing was much too wrong anyway.

  Les dropped his hand and let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “I think we should stay in the same room tonight,” he said.

  Something fluttered in my chest and I stifled a nervous, inappropriate giggle. “Um. Okay.”

  “I’ll sleep on the floor in your room.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That’s fine.”

  He grabbed his jacket and the gun, looking beaten and weary. Ivory was my brother, but he was Les’s best friend. They’d been close for ten years. Whatever I felt about Ivory’s absence, Les was feeling something similar.

  It was impossible to think my tall, blond, handsome brother was gone. But he was. And we would need our strength and wits in the coming days to figure out how to get him back.

  Fatigue was dragging us both down quickly. I headed to my room, Les following behind me. There was about four feet of space on either side of my bed, and I arranged some blankets and a pillow for him on the side beneath the window. He would be just a few feet from me, close enough to touch if we both put our arms out, and I was acutely aware of the distance. I’d never thought something so terrible would bring us this close together.

  In my room, in the dark, I lay shivering beneath the covers. Though my eyelids were heavy, I was finding it difficult to get to sleep. Over and over I replayed every word we had said to one another that night. If I was quiet enough, if I held my breath, I could hear him breathing. The distance between us was nothing, yet it was everything.

  ~

  He had left my room by the time I woke up in the morning. For a moment I stared at the rumpled space where he’d lain on the dark brown carpet, then popped out of bed. As soon as I’d gotten dressed, I sat in front of the closet mirror to fix my hair and called Criseyde.

  “Can you come over today?” I asked eagerly. “Something happened.”

  “Sure,” she replied in a bright voice, the unfriendly exchange we’d last shared instantly forgiven and forgotten.

  I hung up the phone and gave my wavy hair a shake. I never did much with it anyway.

  Before I left the room, I drifted toward the wall beside the door and ran my fingers over the patched area, a slightly different texture than the rest of the wall. Ivory had gone to the hardware store that very day for supplies to fix the hole my dad had created. He’d muttered curses to himself the whole time.

  I had always tried to rebel against anything Ivory ever said to me. I had resented him telling me what to do and how he’d assumed the role of protector, but now I wondered if things somehow could have been different if only I’d listened to him. He’d only wanted to keep me safe. He’d done everything for me because he’d never had a choice, never had a chance to do something different, and I’d reacted like a brat.

  This wasn’t my fault, I knew, but I found myself the easiest person to blame.

  Les joined me in the kitchen a few minutes later as I was making coffee. “I think you should learn to shoot today,” he said.

  “You mean you’re finally going to give me some of those self-defense lessons Ivory promised last year?”

  He gave a short laugh. “Yeah.”

  I smiled. “Can we do it this afternoon? I have to run an errand with Criseyde first.”

  “Sure.”

  We danced silently around each other as we grabbed mugs and fixed ourselves cups of coffee. I held my breath until he left the room. Leaning against the counter with a small sigh, I listened idly when he turned on the news.

  “—the Las Secas housing market at an all-time low . . . rental prices soaring . . . unemployment rate one of the highest in the nation . . .”

  The news was so depressing even when they weren’t talking about vampires. Les, for some reason, was practically addicted to it, just like Ivory.

  “Why do you watch the news all the time?” I asked.

  “To learn about vampires. Sometimes you can get an idea where they’re attacking. Or even pick out patterns.” He shrugged. “It just makes hunting them a little bit easier. It helps dehumanize them.”

  “Oh.” His answer was so simple, yet I’d never considered it.

  When Criseyde arrived, I ushered her back to my room and shared with her the events of last night. She listened silently as I spoke of Lucinda and the club, the fight, Ivory’s kidnapping by mysterious vampires, and Les kicking Aleskie out of the house.

  “Wow,” she mumbled, trying to process it all. “Ivory . . . I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “Not forever,” I said, hoping it would turn out to be true. “We need information on where he is and who has him, and I have an idea. Sort of.”

  “How can you sort of have an idea?”

  “Well, it’s not a very good one,” I admitted, “but it’s all I can think of.” I lowered my voice. “And we can’t tell Les what we’re doing.”

  “Devious. Tell me.”

  “I want to talk to Rade.”

  Criseyde blinked. “The vampire?”

  “Ssh. Yes.”

  “But he’s—”

  “I know! You’re the one who tried to get me to go over there in the first place, remember?”

  “I wasn’t serious. Okay, I was, but still.”

  “Well, who would know better where vampires are keeping my brother than another vampire?”

  “What he knows won’t matter, because he will kill you.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Cris. You didn’t see the way he looked at me that night at Shiver. It’s like we have this connection. And yes, I know how that sounds.”

  “You’ve thought about this then? You’ve actually, truly, considered all the possible consequences? Like death and dismemberment? Like dismemberment, then death?”

  I nodded solemnly, thinking how odd it was for Cris to be the one cautioning me for a change. That much was true, though—I had considered death and pain and other horrors. I’d considered my own rippling feelings of disgust and hatred. And after all that I still felt there was no way I could have peace of mind until I’d seen Rade and confirmed whether or not he knew anything about Ivory.

  It was also true there was some other, deeper part of me that wanted to see him for reasons having nothing to do with my brother. That was the part I wanted to ignore. The part I wished didn’t exist.

  “All right,” Criseyde sighed after a pause. “I’ll drive you, of course. But I take responsibility for none of this.”

  Like everyone else, I wasn’t quite sure how vampires passed the time during daylight hours. I had only my limited experience with Aleskie to go on. Did they sleep? In coffins or beds or upside-down like bats? Did they go underground? Maybe they spent their days watching soap operas. The only thing we knew for sure was that they didn’t hang out anywhere the sun could touch them.

  Since it was common knowledge vampires couldn’t withstand the sun, it made sense we humans would find a way to use this to our advantage. And some had, I was sure. Maybe even Les and Ivory. The problem was that vampires were so elusive, so insidious an enemy, that few were willing to try. We settled for a poor sort of compromise, taking the day as our own and leaving them with the night.

  Today I had something of an advantage: a vampire’s address. I doubted many people had been to a vampire’s actual place of residence. I could have given it to Les so he could go kill Rade. I could have stayed home and forgotten it altogether. But I had to help my brother and I knew, just as I’d known that day when I was nine, that Rade would not kill me.

  The apartment complex where he lived was low and dingy, in dire need of a paint job. The buildings were plain and square behind the leaning gates. Tall, thin palm trees swayed in the air over the second story. Criseyde pulled through the entrance at a crawl. The only signs of life were the grind of a car trying to start and the clang of a dumpster lid. We peered out the windows at the building numbers, some of which were missing.

  “It's thirtee
n twenty,” I said. “To the right, I think.”

  We found the building near a fenced-in pool, empty of water except for a brown puddle that had collected near the drain. Criseyde and I shared a dubious look.

  “I'll wait here,” she said. “With the doors locked.”

  I sighed. “I won't be long. I hope.”

  1320 was on the second floor, right above 1310. I looked up the rickety metal staircase at the plain green door, tarnished gold numbers hanging askew. There was nothing on the small landing to personalize the space or give me a clue about the person who lived there.

  Not a person, I reminded myself. A vampire.

  But I climbed the stairs anyway.

  My knock sounded hollow. I glanced down to see Criseyde grinning encouragingly at me from the car. Her smile wavered, though, and I knew she was only trying to support me in what had to be the most ill thought out endeavor of my life.

  No one answered so I knocked again. Just as I began to come to the conclusion I'd misremembered the address—or that vampires weren’t conscious during the day—the door creaked open. Barely.

  “Hello?” I called, touching one finger to the door to ease it slightly inward.

  “Come in,” a voice answered.

  I pressed my palm to the door and pushed it the rest of the way open without crossing the threshold. The doorway made a bright rectangle across dirty beige carpet and a black couch, but the rest of the interior was dark, the one window covered by a large blanket to block out any extra light.

  “Rade?”

  “Close the door.”

  “I’m not coming in until I know it’s you.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then the voice said, “You were nine. Playing with your dolls. You were lonely, Asha. So lonely.”

  It was him.

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped into the cold apartment. My heart jumped madly as I shut the door. I opened my eyes and stared at it for a moment, daring myself to turn around. One. Two. Three.

  He was there. My eyes were still adjusting to the sunless room but I could see a form, tall and thin, standing on the other side of the couch. Watching me.

  “You came,” he said quietly.

  “You were expecting me.”

  “Yes. I’d hoped you would come. I knew you would remember.” His voice was soft. “Asha. You do remember, don’t you? I saw it in your eyes at Shiver. You recognized me. And you came here because you know what I did to you ten years ago.”

  “What you did to me,” I repeated, my anger mounting at his unfortunate word choice. It was enough that I momentarily forgot about Ivory, the real reason I’d come. “That's right. And why did you do it?”

  “What do you know about vampires?” he asked.

  “Enough to stay away from them.”

  “Yet here you are.”

  I blinked, feeling incredibly foolish. He was right. Why had I put myself in this situation? Les would get information without my help. I didn’t need to be here.

  I turned, reaching blindly for the door handle. My hand had just closed around it when a touch, light as a feather, drifted across my bare shoulder. I stiffened at the unexpected iciness and made my voice just as cold. “Do not touch me. Do not ever, ever touch me again.”

  “I apologize.” He sounded sincere. “Don’t go.”

  With a huff, I gathered some courage and turned again to face him. He was back on the other side of the couch, bafflingly, and now I wasn’t sure he’d really touched me at all. He looked as solemn and dead-eyed as he had at Shiver. Something haunted this vampire without a doubt.

  Probably the fact that he hasn’t drank blood in a couple hours, I thought cynically.

  “I’m not staying long,” I said. “I have some questions. Your name is Rade?”

  “Radu, actually. It's Romanian.”

  “I can see why people call you Rade.” I kept my hand on the doorknob. “My brother, Ivory Carpenter, was kidnapped by vampires last night. I was hoping you might have some information about what happened.”

  “Your brother hunts vampires,” he stated.

  “Yes.”

  “I heard something of the incident. But I don’t know where he is or who took him. Or even for what purpose.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said, feeling both relieved and disappointed.

  “Come back tomorrow night and I’ll have more information,” Rade promised. “I won’t hurt you.”

  You already did. Before he could say anything else, I shot out the door and clanged down the shaky stairs to join Criseyde in the car.

  “How’d it go?” she asked eagerly. “I don’t see any blood.”

  “Thank god,” I breathed as she drove out of the complex. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. How could I have done that?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  I was feeling increasingly dismayed at myself. “Something’s wrong with me, Cris. There’s something in me, something horrible. He put it there.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked carefully.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know if I can stay away from him.”

  “Did you get any information about Ivory?” she said after a moment.

  “No. Rade said he heard about what happened, and that if I came back tomorrow night he could tell me more.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s when he plans to eat you.”

  “I’m not sure he wants to kill me. Or even if all vampires are bad. They may be bloodsucking demons of the night, but they look human.” I was thinking of Rade, but also Aleskie.

  She scoffed. “If pasty white skin and creepy fangs are human, then what am I?”

  “You know what I mean. Anyway, I’ll see what Les comes up with tonight. I’m sure he has some kind of plan for getting Ivory back.”

  We hadn’t been gone long and it was barely after noon by the time we got back to the house. Les was waiting for us.

  “I think it’s best we start your shooting lessons sooner rather than later,” he said. He looked at Criseyde. “You should learn too.”

  “Um, no thanks.”

  “It’s not as scary as it seems,” he assured us. “I’ll just be teaching you a skill that’s useful in our circumstances, though hopefully you won’t have to use it at all. I’d rather you know—both of you—than not know. We’ll go out to the desert . . .” His eyes drifted down to our feet. “You both might want to change your shoes.”

  “We’re going now?” Criseyde cried, eyeing her metallic gladiator sandals with a distressed frown. “These are the only shoes I have with me!”

  “You can borrow a pair of mine,” I said.

  “Oh joy.”

  I headed back to my room for some shoes to replace my flip-flops and found an old pair I’d outgrown that would work for Criseyde. I was glad Les was taking us to shoot, and not just because knowing how would help me protect myself if necessary. With any luck, learning to shoot, focusing only on the trigger and the target, would help keep my mind off whether or not I’d go back to see my vampire tomorrow.

  Criseyde had only minor complaints about the shoes and soon the three of us were on the road in Ivory’s truck. There was plenty of desert—long, lonely stretches of flat, arid land ridged with mountains—surrounding Las Secas in any direction. Les drove southeast. We turned off the paved highway on some unmarked dirt road and drove a few more miles, tires spinning up brown dust in our wake. The ground turned rough, bucking the truck at odd angles and sending me smashing into either Les or Criseyde. Though I couldn’t distinguish any landmarks among the rocky mounds surrounding us, Les seemed to know where he was going.

  Finally he stopped at what seemed to be a random spot in the middle of nowhere. He grabbed a plastic bag of empty soda cans from behind the front seat and we walked several yards away from the truck. Apparently other people came out here to shoot because an array of shells littered the ground at our feet. I could see all kinds of debris decorating the desert some distance ahead of us: broken
beer bottles, tin cans, cardboard boxes, unidentifiable pieces of metal, a chest without any drawers, and even a mattress.

  “Oh, this is lovely,” Criseyde sniped as Les made his way to the debris and began picking through it. “These shoes hurt my feet.”

  I ignored her and watched as Les set up targets for us. He lined the soda cans along the top of the chest and boxes and whatever else would hold them. A few minutes later he headed back in our direction, the harsh sunlight emphasizing the paleness of his leanly muscled arms.

  “Okay,” he said. “Criseyde, have you ever shot a gun before?”

  She flicked her fingers, as if showing off her perfectly painted purple nails. “No.”

  “Pay attention, then. First, I’m going to have you put the safety on.” Les pushed a little knob near the trigger. He continued, demonstrating as he went, “Then you’re going to insert a loaded clip—I can show you how to load one later—and chamber a round. Sight your target, release the safety, and aim. Then shoot. Here, Asha. Try to hit some of those cans.”

  Taking the gun—it was just about as heavy as it looked—I concentrated on aiming at the can that looked easiest to hit.

  “Hold it firm,” Les said. “It’s going to recoil. Both eyes open. Remember to breathe.”

  I shot, the recoil sending my hands about a foot up from where they had started. I missed.

  “That was good for your first time. You didn’t miss by much.”

  He let me shoot a few more times, giving me pointers here and there. I hit a few cans and by the time the clip was empty, I was confident I could shoot a vampire if necessary. But I wasn’t sure I could make it count, especially since I’d probably be shooting in a stressful situation where I wouldn’t have time to aim.

  Marginally satisfied with myself, I passed the gun to Les, who loaded a new clip for Criseyde. I watched, stunned and impressed, as she hit every can she aimed for.

  “Good eye,” Les said.

  “Are you sure you’ve never shot a gun before?” I asked.

  “I’m just naturally dangerous.”

  “I think I’m changing your star to Bellatrix.”

  “What’s my star?” Les asked unexpectedly.