I tried to hear past the sound of my own running in case somebody was on watch. Dark as it was, I’d probably hear them before I saw them. The moon was stuck behind a thick, black, cloudy sky, but I could just barely make out the white rock in the creek bed. I slid down the bank.
Rocks shifted under my boots, clicking and clacking like old dry bones. When I was a kid, the creek banks had been all smelly cow-crap mud and wet sand crossings. We used to dig our feet down into the really sloppy stuff and pretend like we were getting sucked into a pit of quicksand. Now a person would’ve been lucky to find a damp spot.
I slowed down and tried to keep to the edge of the creek where there was more sand and fewer rocks, but in all that silence my boots still sounded like somebody pounding the shale with hammers.
The vamp senses picked up the smell of wood smoke and burned rubber a long time before I got close enough to the front gate to see what was left of the barn.
When I got to the end of the creek, I climbed up the bank and sat on my heels in the weeds. A couple twisted heaps of junk that used to be cars sat smoldering next to a pile of charred boards and rubble. The foot soldiers must’ve been hard at work over the past couple days gathering up the debris from Colt’s attack to make the Dark Mansion grounds look nice and pretty again.
Without the barn in my line of sight, I could see stretch limos, armored black Hummers, and even a couple helicopters in the Dark Mansion’s parking lot.
In front of the big staircase, right where everybody would see it as soon as they pulled up, a fence post with a black shadow impaled on it had been driven into the dirt.
I shut my eyes before they could look too hard, but I knew. The wind blew the scent of cold dead blood, rotting meat, and shit my way. Underneath that, I could smell Colt. What used to be his smell, anyway.
For all the other nonsense Lonely had been talking, he was right about one thing—the white knight wasn’t getting resurrected again.
I swallowed the need to puke and made myself get up and walk. It shouldn’t be hitting me like this. I’d already known Colt was dead. Normal people stay dead. For it is appointed of a man once to die—and Colt had already done it more than his share of times. But some retarded little-kid part of me had been hoping that my big brother couldn’t die. Not for real. Not forever.
It didn’t matter. I had to focus on watching for lookouts. Just because it seemed like the coast was clear didn’t mean it was. Kathan surely wouldn’t throw a huge party, invite people important enough to bring their own helicopter, and then not post any guards. After what had happened with the Armistice Celebration, that would point to serious brain damage.
As I got closer, movement at the top of the Dark Mansion’s big front steps caught my eye. A pair of foot soldiers in black riot gear, packing large caliber heat and guarding the south entrance. Another pair prowled between cars in the parking lot.
So waltzing onto the lawn and booking it with Colt’s body was out. I slipped back into the creek and headed back down a ways, then took one of the draws that used to point toward the back of the house. Nowadays it pointed toward the back of the Dark Mansion.
At the end of the draw, I crawled up the bank and sat back on my heels for a while longer, watching. No movement out back. I crept a little closer, staying low. Stopped again. Still nothing. I listened for feathers rustling or combat boots stomping around.
Just over the sound of the breeze whistling through the prairie grass, I heard someone scream.
Colt
Tiffani was curled up against the sloping, rocky wall of her cell, her eyes closed, the lids a dark, bruised purple. Tears streaked down her face and her body shook.
I was there. I’d found her, finally. I choked on a sob. I was so glad to see her. This was worth it. All of it. I would do it all again if I could. I’d do it however many times it took.
I dropped to my hands and knees from what felt like ten miles up, then crawled over to her trying to ignore the sledgehammer smashing my hands and knees to paste. I couldn’t stay upright. I slumped against the wall and rested my forehead against hers. It felt like laying my face on a hot stove. I winced and jerked away, feeling some of my skin rip away from my skull.
Tiffani writhed away from me. She must’ve felt it, too.
There was nothing to show for it, no charred flesh stuck to Tiffani’s forehead. Just like the carved-up feet, the shredded lungs, and the broken body, the pain was all in my soul.
“Tiff.” I swallowed. “Open. Eyes. Please.”
Her eyelids fluttered open. She screamed in pain, her back arching and the tendons in her neck standing out.
“Tiffani.”
I could barely get enough breath behind it to whisper. She shouldn’t have been able to hear me over the sound of her
