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When he reaches for a second, I hold out a hand. "Mind if I join you?"
The sound of my voice startles him. The bottle slips from his hand and
crashes to the floor. I jump, too. He stares at me, eyes dull until
recognition sparks them back to life.
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"Anna. What are you doing here?"
"You're kidding, right? You forget our conversation last night?"
He doesn't respond. And he doesn't look like he's kidding. I jab a thumb
toward the door. "Who was that?"
"A friend."
"Friend? I didn t think so. I may not be able to understand Spanish, but I
understand friendship. That was not a friendly conversation. And why are we
talking like this? Why don't you let me into your head?"
Culebra presses the palms of his hands against his eyes, as if reinforcing
the barrier that's keeping me out. "It's better you don't know about this."
In two steps I'm across the room and beside him at the bar. "You can't be
serious. She was threatening you in some way. Do you think I'll let that go?"
Culebra looks up at me and laughs softly. "No. You are too stubborn to do
that."
He adds,And not bright enough to know when you should.
He watches for a reaction.
I don't give him the one he expects.You are probably right. So stop fighting
it. Tell me what she is.
What she is? Not who?
She felt human. But she disappeared.
Culebra reaches again under the bar. This time when he straightens up he has
two bottles of beer in his hand. He pops both tops, comes around, slides onto
a bar stool and holds one out to me. When we've both taken a drink, he places
his bottle on the bar and swivels to face me.
"You are right that she is not entirely human. She calls herself a Wiccan."
The phrase throws me at first, but then I remember what it is. "You mean she
is a witch."
"She prefers Wiccan."
Semantics. I recall that Wiccans prefer the other title because "witch"
conjures up evil associations. It also conjures up black cats and broomsticks.
"So, is that how she did it? She had a broom stashed outside that she hopped
on? Off to a Quidditch match maybe?"
But if Culebra catches the reference, he doesn't acknowledge it. Neither does
he smile.
"Okay," I say. "Not a Harry Potter fan. But witchcraft is mostly dancing
naked in the moonlight and love potions, isn't it? She was threatening you."
Culebra lowers his eyes. "It's not important."
The words are spoken softly, the tone almost indifferent. But the air around
us shimmers with negative energy. He's sending me a message in a way he's
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never done before. He's telling me to back away. It's a threat but not quite.
Ice forms along my spine.
I stare at him, not understanding, not accepting. When he raises his eyes to
meet mine, the feeling is gone.
"You must not come back here for a while," he says.
"What?"
"Go home, Anna. I have seen to your needs."
"My needs? What are you talking about? I'm not going anywhere."
He isn't listening. "I will let you know when it is safe to return."
"Safe? Who the hell was that woman?"
There's no answer. I'm looking right at him.
Then suddenly I'm not.
Because in the blink of an eye, Culebra is gone.
Chapter 10
Just like the woman minutes before, Culebra isgone. Not shape-shifted. I'd
see a snake. He's disappeared. I'm so shaken, it takes me a few minutes to get
up off the bar stool and search the place. He's not in any of the back rooms.
Could he be in the caves?
I wasn't aware that teleportation was one of his talents.
But then, I just saw a human do the same thing, didn't I?
The path from the saloon to the caves stretches like a dusty ribbon in front
of me. I've taken it a hundred times. It's the middle of the day. Why does it
seem menacing now?
I swallow down the feeling of trepidation and force myself to set off for the
caves. It's eerily quiet. No buzzing of insects, no rodents scurrying for
cover at my approach. Even the hum of the generator on Culebra's lighting
system is silent. When I reach the entrance, I call out.
There's no answer. Not from Culebra. Not from anyone. Because there is no one
at all in the caves. Not one shred of evidence to indicate there wasever
anyone in the caves.
I find myself tiptoeing from one chamber to the other in inky darkness, panic
so close it sits like a specter on my shoulder. Even the medical supplies are
gone, the makeshift hospital nothing but a rock-strewn cavern. This place is a
refuge for those under Culebra's protection. David was saved here. There are
always twenty or so fugitives hiding from human or otherworldly threats. How
did Culebra manage to clear everyone out? Where did he send them? Was Max with
them when it happened?
The air is suddenly suffocating, pressing against my chest like a weight.
Dank and foul, it seeps into my head like an insidious fog until I can't
think.
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I have to get out of here. The smell of mesquite and sage and the dry dust of
the desert are like a powerful magnet pulling at me. I start to run toward the
cave entrance. Even when I'm outside and the sun kisses my skin, I keep
running. Back toward the saloon. It looks more forlorn and abandoned than
ever. Some instinct tells me I don't want to go back in there until Culebra is
back, too. So I skirt around it, head for my car. When I'm inside, when I
manage to still the shaking of my hands long enough to fit the key into the
ignition and crank it over, I glance into the rearview mirror.
A shadow moves across the road behind me.
I swivel around to take a closer look.
A dark shape, floating, ethereal. How could something as inconsequential as
smoke exude such a feeling of menace?
Then, the shadow, too, is gone and all that's left is my fear.
Chapter 11
My foot jams the accelerator and the Jag lurches forward as if it, too, can't
wait to get away.
I don't scare easily. Didn't when I was human, and as a vampire, I can count
on one hand the number of times my skin has crawled the way it is now.
But what just happened is freaking me out.
A human woman disappears into thin air. Culebra gone, his hideout emptied. A
shadow not cast by anything I could see, moving of its own volition across the
road and into the desert. A feeling that I'm being driven out of Beso de la
Muerte by a malevolent spirit that hovers just out of reach, ready to manifest
itself if I should make the mistake of turning back.
I don't. I'm not sure I could.
The panic recedes as I drive farther away from Beso de la Muerte. My grip on
the steering wheel relaxes, my head clears, my heart rate slows. The relief is
enormous. Brain function returns, rational thinking creeps back, though each
thought unfolds slowly like a paper ball released from a tight fist.
Culebra disappeared.
I had no idea shape-shifters could do that.
I chew on the possibility all the way back toSan Diego . I know one other
shape-shifter, Daniel Frey, but it's a weekday and he'll be teaching now. I'm
not going to interrupt his class with my questions. I have too damned many.
I can drop in on him at his condo later.
Which leads me back to why I went to Beso de la Muerte in the first place.
The need to rid myself of Fisher's blood. I can't wait much longer. If I play
my cards right, Frey will let me feed from him. We've done it before. It also
occurs to me that the panic I felt in Beso de la Muerte might have something
to do with the bad blood circulating in my system. I learned the hard way that
it's not good to wait too long after feeding from a rogue to cleanse myself.
It's vampire dialysis. A dose of untainted blood purges the toxins. And like
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dialysis, the longer you go without it, the harder it is to separate out the
bad stuff and flush it away.
But I've always counted on Culebra. What am I going to do now? He's the link
to my blood supply. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]