The thought of wearing this thing when the young-looking monster came back and wanted to do… whatever else he wanted to do to her, was deeply scary. She couldn’t brood on that, though. Moving helped her think, and the only edge she had now was a few ounces of grey matter inside her skull. At least the necklace didn’t seem to slow that down—not that she could tell if it had, maybe.
Vampire hunting wasn’t for the faint of heart. People didn’t want to know about the inexplicable, scary shit in the world; plenty of hunters went full-on paranoid nutbar if they survived the job long enough. Doubting your own senses, your ownmindwas worse than almost anything else in the world.
If she was lucky this Father guy would eventually get bored of playing with her; for once in her life, being abandoned didn’t sound so bad. But would he take the necklace off when he did, or leave her forgotten in a corner, a discarded doll?
Donotthink about that, for Chrissake. You’re standing, that’s great. Now let’s try walking.
Why? Where was she going? She wasn’t supposed to wander—the thought was nearly overwhelming, and the most terrifying thing was that some part of herwantedto obey, wanted to just sit down and wait for another command, some direction to follow. Nothing else seemed terribly important.
I’m not wandering, I’m just going to look at the house.As soon as she settled on that mental concept the pressure eased—if she concentrated on the fact that she was doing recon instead of roaming around aimlessly, it was fine. Hunky-dory.
At least the necklace made the thirst retreat, blunting the scratchy smoke-laced burning into mild, faraway irritation, a slight but unreachable itch between shoulderblades. Layla reached the bedroom door, stared at the pink-carpeted sitting room—or was it a dressing room?
Doesn’t matter. Outside the next doorway was a hall full of corpses, already ripe and gassy from hot weather. If Grishkov had air conditioning in this place, none was working now—had it been switched off? Maybe the ancient, weirdass biter didn’t care for modern conveniences, or maybe he didn’t know how to turn them on? He seemed a few loops short of a barrel roll, as Suzy would say, tapping her temple with one brightly painted acrylic nail.
Poor Suze. And now, as Layla veered with slow drunken determination across faded pink carpet—the decorating scheme here was something else, dusty discolored furniture hulks mired in what was briefly fashionable a few decades ago—she wondered what in the hell Dan had wanted from vampire hunting unless it was avenging his wife.
If he hadn’t loved her…
But that was ridiculous; he’d married Suze, after all. Had hewantedLayla to say something before the wedding?
Maybe he did, so he could blame it on you. He always was a lazy piece of shit.
The slow burn of irritation from constantly dealing with men and their bullshit pushed back the lethargy a little more. Always necessary to throttle that anger, keep it low and glowing, coals in her chest. Any flare-up and she’d begin to stagger drunkenly instead of slow-walk, or worse, float away and come back to find herself staring blankly at mildewed wallpaper.
Holy hell and hallelujah, she had a single skill usable against a leman-leash. More than she’d expected; who knew annoyance could be weaponized?
The smell was so goddamn awful. She drifted down the hall, unable even to wrinkle her nose since just putting one foot in front of the other required all her attention, a tricky balancing act between invisible resistance, waves of lassitude, moving her unwieldy limbs, and low-level fury.
Because she had to admit she wasn’t irritated, annoyed, piqued, or even vexed. She was, Layla discovered, absolutely fucking enraged.
I’m just exploring, that’s all,she told the necklace silently.Nothing to see here, nothing to worry about.
It might have helped to run her hand along the wall, but touching the frequent splatters of drying blood and other horrible fluids was out of the question. Had the crazyass-old vampire done this, or Max?
What was happening to Max right now? The necklace warmed against her skin—really it was more like a choker, stretching from just under her chin to her collarbones, supple but also constricting. She didn’t like the word, just one extra letter away fromchoke… but getting caught up in deciding what precise term to apply to a magical piece of jewelry was a waste of time.
Layla came back to herself with a start. Somehow, she’d reached a set of long straight stairs carpeted with faded, threadbare, tacked-down blue runner, her toes arranged precisely at the edge of the top step. The flight stretched downward, a surprisingly narrow pipe lost in a huge house. Why had she checked out this time, goddammit? Had she thought about tipping herself over and tumbling, hoping for a broken neck? Good luck, with her new reflexes?—
What the fuck is that?
Rumbling, crashing, a deep vibrating roar. The sounds were distorted, rippling and stretching, but recent events had taught her there was only one thing in the world which sounded likethe Tasmanian Devil’s snarling run through several staticky amplifiers at once.
A vampire fight.
She stood and thought about this new development. It seemed important, even if figuring anything out took precious concentration away from moving.
Is that Max?It couldn’t be. He’d left her behind after having his fun, just like any man—or he’d gone back into a burning oilfield and gotten himself killed, which amounted to the same thing. She was on her own, as usual. The important thing was to keep moving, maximizing her chances of getting away.
Or figuring out what the hell to do about the stupid magical necklace. Her hand floated out, closed around the banister.
First step’s a lulu. A faint feeling of amusement surfaced; even now, she couldn’t stop seeing the bleakly funny side of things.
Her left boot hung in empty air. Her right knee bent.
Slowly, dreamily, Layla moved down the stairs.
CHAPTER 28
