One look at his face and I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“The blood pattern has changed. One of them is carrying the other, and he’s running with him. He’s been running through the woods while we crawled after them; that’s why we haven’t heard them.”
“They’re gone,” I said.
“Good as,” he said, and there was still enough light for me to see how disgusted he was with it all.
“If we can’t trail them, then Tilford is right—we need to get out of here before full dark.”
“We don’t have enough people to move the truck, Anita.”
“We can move the tree,” I said, “and we can all fit in our SUV.”
He nodded. “Done.”
Tilford didn’t argue, and Newman didn’t try to argue with the three of us. He was learning. If we could keep him alive, maybe he’d actually be good at the job.
21
THE TREE WAS an old deadfall. It wasn’t as heavy as a fresh tree would have been, but it was heavy enough, and big enough that the four of us had to think about how best to use the muscle we had available.
Tilford keep glancing up as well as out into the trees, while we decided where best to grab hold. “Why do you keep looking up?” Newman asked.
“Sometimes they fly,” Tilford said.
Edward and I just nodded.
Newman started glancing up, too. He was a quick study; I hoped he didn’t die. And the moment I thought it again, I realized I was being morbid. Crap.
We put Tilford and Newman at the front of the tree, and Edward and I took the back. That part was bigger, a little heavier, but there was less of it to shove across the road. Edward counted, “One, two, three,” and they pulled, and we shoved. I’d never really tried to use every bit of the new strength I’d gained through vampire marks and lycanthropy. I tried now. Our end of the tree moved, really moved, and it startled me and Edward. He slipped in the leaves a little. I slipped forward and scraped my arm on a jagged root. It was sharp, and immediate, and I knew it was going to bleed before I felt the first trickle. I cursed under my breath.
“How bad?” Edward asked.
“Keep shoving,” I said.
He took that to mean it wasn’t bad, and we shoved. The tree trunk was onto the road completely now. I felt the vampires wake like a jolt down my spine. It was still light enough that they couldn’t come for us, not yet, but we were minutes away. I dug my feet in, put my shoulder down, and prayed. I prayed that if I had any super- strength, I would use it now. I prayed, “God, if I can move this tree, let me move it now.”
I breathed out in a yell, the way you do sometimes in the gym when you’re lifting something heavy, something that you’re not sure you can move. But it moved. Edward put his shoulder beside mine, and the other men pulled, and the tree moved. I yelled again, and the tree slid across the road as if it were on wheels. It just gave. I fell to my knees, because I hadn’t expected it to move like that.
“Anita . . .” Edward started to help me up.
“Car, start it now.” I said.
He didn’t argue with me. He just did what I said. I liked that. I moved my gun around on its strap so it was in my hands and ready.
Tilford crashed through the trees on the other side of the road, with Newman behind him. I pointed at the car, and my right arm glistened with blood, black in the moonlight. “Car, now!”
“They’re coming,” Tilford said.
“I know,” I said. I got to my feet. The SUV roared to life. The three of us ran for the car. I felt the night fall around us like something warm and thick and velvet. I pushed the thought away that it felt like Her. I was just scared, just freaked. It wasn’t Marmee Noir. It was just nerves.
I felt the vampires, felt them freed of the last bit of daytime paralysis. I felt them like distant thunder trembling along my skin, rushing toward us through the trees. It made me run, and I was suddenly ahead of the men. Like moving the tree, I didn’t run human-slow.
I was the first one to the door. I opened it and turned, looking past the other two men, searching the dark shapes of the trees for something that wasn’t trees.
I yelled, “Hurry, damn it!”
Newman slipped and went down, face first into the gravel. Tilford opened the door on the other side, saying, “I’m in.”
I heard him shut the door. I saw Newman scramble on all fours as he got to his feet. There was blood on his face. He’d fallen hard, but I kept an eye behind him, above him. They were coming. Moving like wind that never stirred a leaf, or brushed a twig, like a silent movable storm that was coming just for us.
I yelled, “Newman!”
I moved at the last minute so I was farther away from the open door but he could go straight into the car without fouling my line of sight. He fell into the car.
Edward yelled, “Get in!” I realized he had his window down and the barrel of his gun searching the darkness. Windows would mess up the first few shots. He knew we weren’t going to get out of here without a fight; so did I.
I put my back against the open door, searching the woods, trying to hear something above the engine’s thrum. I thought,
I breathed, “Shit.” I climbed into the truck, shutting the rear door behind me. I had time to say, “Drive!” Edward put it into gear and started backing up at speed. I made Newman move over so I could try for a seatbelt as the SUV slithered across the gravel. I knew right where they were; I felt them standing there watching us drive away. Why were they just watching? My pulse was in my throat. I was suddenly more afraid than I had been a second before.
“They aren’t chasing us, Edward. They’re just watching from the trees.”
“You saw them?” Newman asked.
I ignored him.
“Why are they just watching?” Tilford yelled from the front passenger seat.
“I don’t know.” I slid the buckle of the seatbelt home just as Edward found the four-way with its stop signs. He turned the big SUV in a circle of flying gravel. He got us facing the right way around and hit the gas. The car jumped forward. He had a moment where I could feel him fighting to keep us on the road, and then we were speeding away from them.
Almost at the edge of even my night vision, two figures stepped out from the trees. They stood and watched us go.
“That’s them, isn’t it?” Newman asked.
I nodded, watching the two figures as if afraid to look away, for fear of what would happen if I took my eyes off them. It was silly, almost superstitious, but I watched them stand there until even I couldn’t see through the thickening dark.
“Why didn’t they chase us?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I don’t care why,” Tilford said, and he turned around in the front seat so he could see us both, “I’m just glad they didn’t.”
“They didn’t need to chase us. They blocked the road again,” Edward said.
We all looked, and this time it looked like they’d pulled up half a dozen trees and formed a wall. “That took time,” Tilford said, “and more manpower than we thought they had.”
Edward slowed the car. “Tilford, you’re driving.”
“What?” Tilford asked.
“Anita, cover me. Newman, help her.” He was already climbing out from behind the wheel. Tilford cursed
