I twist around, still holding the jacket in place. “Oh shit…Edgar.” I totally forgot he was there.
“Who’s that?” Baz asks. Quickly I explain Edgar’s role in everything, and she gives him a stern look.
“Maybe he’s not completely useless,” she mutters. “Heathcliff, help me get him over to the boys. They could use some blood.”
“What?” exclaims Edgar. He’s trembling, and there’s a wet spot on his pants where he must have pissed himself. “Nobody’s taking my blood. Haven’t I been through enough?”
Heathcliff strides up onto the platform, grabs the roll of duct tape from the floor where he left it, and rips off a piece. He places it firmly across Edgar’s mouth. “Asshole. Least you can do is help the people who had to fix the problem you caused.”
I lean against the end of a pew, too tired to do anything but watch as Heathcliff carries Edgar to where Nick and Cody fell. He and Baz hunker down over the bodies. I can’t see what they’re doing, but after a few minutes, I hear slurping sounds and Edgar’s muffled screams.
“We don’t want him dead,” Baz says to Heathcliff. “We’ll have to stop them in a few minutes and find another source. Dorian can give a lot, but too much puts him out of commission for a while. We need somebody else. Human, not vampire.”
“I can do it,” Heathcliff offers, but I can tell he’s reluctant. Honestly I don’t blame him…but I don’t think we have much choice.
Then an idea pops into my head. It’s vengeful and wicked, but after what I’ve endured, I don’t fucking care. “Edgar’s phone,” I murmur. “Should be on the pulpit. Text Robert Earnshaw from Edgar’s phone and ask him to come to the church. Ask him to bring Nellie Earnshaw, too. Tell them it’s an emergency.”
28
Heathcliff
Cathy’s dad and aunt show up about fifteen minutes later. Doesn’t take me more than a few seconds to get Mr. Earnshaw under control and tape his wrists, mouth, and ankles. Then I pick him up like he weighs nothing, even though he’s about the same size as Hindley, and I carry him over to Nick, the redheaded vampire, while Dorian and Baz subdue Aunt Nellie. We tape their mouths so they can’t scream, and when I feel a twinge of pity, I picture them standing there, watching Cathy’s throat being cut. Fixes my guilt right up.
It’s funny how quick you can get used to things during a crisis. After watching Cathy get dismembered by a god and reassembled afterward, seeing Nick’s freckled face pressed into the crook of Mr. Earnshaw’s neck, sucking his blood, doesn’t seem so shocking. But it’s still strange as hell watching the vampires’ wounds closing and their shattered bones clicking back into place as they drink.
Cathy doesn’t explain anything to either her aunt or her dad. She’s wearing a pair of faded, stretchy leggings and an oversized T-shirt that Baz found downstairs in some donation bin. She stands there, arms folded, watching her relatives struggle while the vampiresdrink. I notice her fingertips fumbling along the seams of her new scars. They don’t bother me a bit, but they seem to make her self-conscious, and I hate that. She’s been so strong.
While I hold Mr. Earnshaw still for Nick, I glance over at Daisy. She’s been locked in a low, one-sided conversation with Cernunnos’s new form for a long while now.
“Think she’s okay?” I ask Baz.
She shrugs. “Dorian and I haven’t been part of this group very long. I don’t know everything about Daisy’s powers. But I do know she once got deep inside the head of this older vampire—really messed him up. Made him pretty much catatonic. He’s still locked up in Gatsby’s dungeon, and he’s got just enough brain function to take care of himself, nothing more. Maybe that’s what she’s doing to Cernunnos. Locking him down.”
“Can she do that to a god?”
“I guess we’ll see. Maybe she wants to be really sure he’s contained, and that’s why she’s taking so long. I hope it works.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Cody lifts his head from Aunt Nellie’s neck, smiles, then takes another long pull at her vein. He licks the wound afterward.
“They lick it to heal the punctures,” Baz explains. “Their saliva has some healing properties. Can’t heal deep injuries, though…or scars.”
She says “scars” quietly, but Cathy still flinches and tightens her arms around herself. After a second she walks away, up the aisle. She turns left when she reaches the platform and disappears through the door that leads to the back room.
“You good?” I ask Nick, and he nods. He’s a skinny guy, but now that he’s had some blood, his vampire strength is returning. He can handle Mr. Earnshaw.
I jump up and head to the back room. At first I don’t see Cathy atall. Then I locate her, wedged into a corner beside a rack of hymnals, curled into a ball, sobbing.
“Cathy.” I kneel down and keep my voice as gentle as I can. “Can I help? Is it okay if I touch you?”
“God, always,” she chokes out, and she lunges into my arms.
I hold her head close to my chest with one hand and wrap my other arm around her while she cries. I’m wearing cast-off clothes now, too—gray sweatpants and a T-shirt that hugs me way too tight and has a big wet spot from Cathy’s tears. But she’s here with me, and that’s all that matters.
I duck my head and inhale against her tangled brown hair. She smells like midnight, the winter kind where you walk out under the stars and the cold is so sharp it stings, but the air is fresh, too, so you can’t help inhaling again. It’s the smell of darkness, and cold, and death. Beyond that, she smells a little bit like the soap from dispensers in the woman’s bathroom. There’s a bitter coppery smell, too. And then, underneath it all, as I nuzzle deeper into her hair, she smells like Cathy. Honey and magnolias, green leaves and wild summer.
“Are yousmellingme?” she asks.
“You bet your ass I am. You smell sexy as hell.”
