It was a short drive to the pullout. A very short drive. And no matter how slowly I drove, no matter how much my palms sweated, or my heart beat like I was running instead of sitting perfectly still in a car, we were there all too quickly.
We were the only car in the long, curved pullout. The two-lane highway hissed with cars heading through the deepening night. Even with the windows closed, the sound of the ocean was everywhere.
“I’ll see you down there.” Rossi opened the door and strolled in front of the car to the narrow concrete sidewalk that paralleled the shore. One more step and he hopped up to stand on top of the four-foot concrete wall that was there for people to lean their elbows on while they stared at the three notable geologic sights down, down, down below.
He should not be standing there, his hands in his pockets, the last, dim, blurry light of dusk carving him a shadow against shadow.
He tipped his head, as if scenting something. I was reminded that vampires were predators, always, but here, outside Ordinary, where the idea of live-and-let-live wasn’t subscribed to, even more so.
I got out of the car. If there was trouble, vampire trouble, I was going to make sure both of us got home in one piece.
“Problem?” My hand dropped to my gun.
“No vampires, if that’s what you’re asking.” His words were teasing, but carried reproach. I knew Rossi could take care of himself. He was one of the oldest, strongest vampires on Earth.
But his injuries weren’t healed yet.
Of course I worried. “How about demons?”
He shook his head. “Not that I can sense. One way to find out.”
Then he jumped.
Jumped.
The road was built into the side of the hill, and a very nice, very easy switchback path allowed people to walk down the one-hundred-and-fifty-foot drop to the rocky outcropping where the ocean pounded and rolled.
Did Rossi walk that path? No. No he did not. He had to jump off the wall like a jerk and make me gasp before my brain kicked in.
Vampires could fly. This was nothing. This was easy. This was second nature. He wasn’t a broken bloody splatter of bones and fancy winter wear down on the basalt shore.
He was, however, an asshole.
“You, sir,” I called out into the blackness, “are a jerk!”
Low, infectious laughter drifted up with the crash of waves and slick of salt in the air.
Then there were no more excuses, no more waiting, no more reasons not to walk down to the shore.
“Just walk,” I said quietly. “Just go down the path and settle this.”
The unlit path was officially closed at dusk, but I made my way through the thin stand of trees, north, south, north, south, following the zigzag down, out of the trees, the ocean a wild thing at one side, the cliff green and wet and silent on my other. I watched my boots and took my time. The path was smooth, but it was wet from the spray.
Rossi leaned against the railed staircase that led down to the southernmost rocky flat. Walk down those steps, ramble and climb over the huge black basalt stones, teeter there on the edge, and I’d be staring straight down into a crack in the land, a canyon the ocean snarled and chewed and banged its way into, while the Cook’s Chasm bridge a lovely open-spandrel, arched above me.
Instead, I faced the ocean, the vampire to my left, Thor’s Well down and out ahead of me another fifty yards of humping hillock, craggy basalt and sand, the chasm to the north of me growling away.
It was dark enough, starry enough, I couldn’t make out the waves except for the luminous white of foam spraying upward, great winged owl feathers fanning the night.
The wind was steady here, not hard, just a shifting, constant movement.
I wanted to turn around and go home.
What if I was wrong?
What if I was right?
The tug in my chest was quiet. Calm. Waiting.
