Blood Walk Part 27

Anger boiled up in him. Chance brought Duncan, but it could just as easily have been Maggie.

The icy chill of fear followed. With her witness ready, play time was over. They had arrived at the finale and she lay in wait for him somewhere. Not in the Lutheran and Methodist churches on the back side of the block, nor did he think she would choose lighted stores or the Driscoll Hotel.

His eyes fell on the rear exit of the Driscoll Theatre. There. Certainty rang like a bell in him. But of course the door was locked.

He would have to go through it.

Garreth gritted his teeth.

Wrench!A vestibule stretched between the door and curtained archway into the theatre proper. Garreth huddled on the floor of it waiting for the pain to ease. Triumph and anger threaded through the anguish, though. Lane was here; he smelled her perfume.

While he fought down pain, he thought, his mind racing. Just chasing Lane with no weapon, no way to catch her, was suicidal.

Worse, the whole Baumen Police Department and sheriff's deputies from who knew how many surrounding counties would be descending on the area any time. She had a plan. He had better come up with one, too. He must think of a way to fight her, and must settle the matter quickly, before anyone else could become involved or endangered.

Only one weapon occurred to him. Could he reach it? Maybe . . . if he could make it through two more doors.

Grimacing, he stood and moved cautiously out into the theatre. The spicy-musky odor died among the others lingering there, popcorn and b.u.t.ter and candy mixing with the scents of sweat and human blood. The creaks and moans of the old building hid any footsteps or breathing, but . . . she was here. He felt it in every nerve and bone as he moved up one of the two aisles. She waited with a final arrow ready for him.Welcome to the William Tell Sitting Duck Shooting Gallery .

A bowstring thrummed. From above him. Balcony!

Garreth flung himself up the aisle under the balcony. The arrow sliced along the carpeting behind him.

"That's the trouble with a bow, Lane," he called. "There's no silencer on it. Now you catchme if you can."

He ran for the lobby and the front door, heart thundering in terror. He was, he freely admitted, scared s.h.i.tless. Lane had all the advantages: a weapon, experience, no injuries, and no conscience.

Wrench!

He staggered forward, fighting to stay on his feet.Don't fall, d.a.m.n you; don't fall! What did he have in this contest?Just my pure heart .

He sprinted for the tracks and the far side of the street.

The bowstring sang its deadly song behind him. Fire burned across his left ribs.

Garreth stumbled. He struggled half a dozen steps on feet and both hands but managed to avoid a complete fall, then he was up again, running as hard as he could.

The snow fell harder, sheeting the street like graphite. Garreth slipped twice, once sc.r.a.ping his palms as he came skidding down on them. The nerves over his ribs and in his shoulder spasmed. He gasped in anguish . . . kept moving, not daring to slow down, not daring to look back.

Weaver's Office Supplies loomed before him. He hit the door-wrench-and landed heavily on the floor inside. His head spun and he felt sweat running down his face and underarms. On hands and knees, he crawled around the back of the cash register counter.

Inside the display case lay a row of open boxes, each holding a crucifix and rosary. Garreth tried the case. It was unlocked. He slid the gla.s.s open and reached in. His hand hesitated over a rosary, though, as he might over a bare wire suspected of carrying electric current.

Come on, man, pick it up. Church and holy water didn't hurt you, remember. The avoidance is only psychological.

Quickly, he scooped out the rosary, then crawled on through the store, past the steps leading up to the mezzanine like second floor with its stock of office furniture, past the bookcases and shelves of stationery and envelopes. He flattened against the wall just beyond the door of the stockroom in the rear.

Only then did he take the time to examine the wound in his side. The arrow still stuck in his jacket but not in him. He pulled it loose from the fabric. The shirt, however, clung to his ribs, wet with his blood. Two holes and so much blood. The shirt would be ruined.

He laughed wryly at himself.Worry about a new shirt when you're sure you'll need one .

Footsteps whispered across the floor.

Garreth's heart lurched. He peered around the door. Lane stood just inside the front door, an arrow ready in her bow, her head tilted, listening. Garreth forced himself to breathe slowly and softly.

"h.e.l.lo, Inspector," Lane said. "I smell you, and I see blood on the floor. Are you badly hurt?"

He needed to get close to her . . . behind her.Come to me, blood mother . He groaned softly.

Lane's head turned, hunting the source of the sound.

Garreth allowed himself a whimpering gasp.

Lane moved forward, silently now . . . past the stairs and bookcases, past the stationery shelves.

Garreth tossed the arrow into the far corner of the stockroom and gathered the rosary in both hands. Breathing as little as possible, ears straining for sounds of Lane's approach, he waited.

The clatter of the arrow brought her through the door swiftly, bow ready to fire. She spun toward the corner where the arrow had landed.

Garreth tossed the loop of beads over her head and drew it snug.

Lane reached for her neck, snarling. Then her hand touched the crucifix in the middle of the rosary. She screamed, shrieking the high, tearing sound of someone in mortal agony. Garreth needed all his control to keep the rosary tight.

"Garreth, let loose!" Lane cried. "I can't stand the pain!" She clawed at his hands. "I'll do whatever you want . . . anything . . . just take this thing off me. Please.Please ." She began sobbing.

Weakness and dizziness swept through him. He bit his lip. Was this capture too late? Had he become too weakened to stay on his feet?

He thought of Duncan bleeding in the alley, Duncan, who might have been Maggie. Grimly he said, "We're going to walk out of here and back to my place."

"Yes. Whatever you want, if you'll just take this thing off! Inspector, it's burning me! It's a hundred times worse than the barrier around dwellings. Help me. Take it off!"

He thought of Harry, of Mossman and Adair's families, of his own shattered life. He thought ofI Ching. The maiden is powerful. He kept the rosary tight.

"Garreth,please !" Lane screamed.

He adjusted his hold to give him a free hand for picking up the bow and arrows. "We'll go this way:" He hoped. His knees felt weak.

Wrench!

Only his grip on the rosary kept him on his feet. The street spun around him. He shivered, suddenly feeling cold, a sensation he noted with dismay. Could he hang on long enough to reach his place?

Lane started screaming. "Help! Someone help me!"

Garreth jerked the rosary. "Stop that!"

She subsided, but he knew from the hiss of her breath that she remained in pain. Her hatred beat at him.

He angled for Maple Street. Police activity would be centering initially at the north end of the block near Oak. If they hurried past the south end, then stuck to alleys and back yards, they should reach his place without being seen. And then?

There was only one answer. But the deaths had to look like an accident, and it had to destroy their bodies completely. A car crash with the car burning should work best. It would solve everything. Lane would be punished and he would pay for her blood with his. He could stop fighting blood hunger; Grandma Doyle would be relieved; Brian could be adopted in clear conscience.

They crossed the tracks. Lane whimpered. He fought to keep his balance on the slick paving. His only regret was that he would not live to see this country under a good layer of snow. Running in it might have been fun.

Lane still reached for his hands, but each time her nails touched his skin, Garreth jerked the rosary and she subsided with a sharp gasp of anguish. He gritted his teeth, fighting dizziness and weakness.

Up the street, motors roared. Garreth looked around to see the Dreiling boy's van gunning up the street again, just in front of the red pickup. Garreth sucked in a breath of relief. He did not have to take her all the way home.

Before he could debate the rightness of the action, or change his mind, he dropped the bow and arrows and caught Lane's chin with his freed hand. A quick jerk snapped her head around backward on her neck with a crack like a gunshot. Too fast for her to know what happened, he hoped. At the same time, he lifting the sagging body and leaped directly in the path of the van.

It had no chance to stop. The Dreiling boy tried. Brakes screamed. His tires found no traction on the icy paving, though, and the van spun end for end. Garreth kept moving, pushing himself and the slack Lane in its path. The gamble was that the van would hit something before it stopped, but the gamble paid off. In front of the hotel, better than a ton and a half of hurtling metal wrapped itself sideways around a solid old light pole, with Lane and Garreth directly between the two.

Wrench.

Garreth rolled on the sidewalk, shoulder and side burning with pain. "No!" he howled. He was not supposed to pa.s.s through the pole He was supposed to die in the crash and firewith Lane.

But in spite of himself he felt . . . relief. Did he not really want to die, then? He had been relatively content here the past couple of months, he suddenly realized.

He realized something else, too . . . there was no fire, only the smell of spilling gas.

Lurching to his feet, Garreth scrambled for the driver's seat. He ripped open the door and reached for the dazed boy. "Come on. It's going to blow!"

One hand searched the boy's pockets as he dragged him out. Good. There were the cigarettes and lighter Garreth expected to find. Flicking the lighter, he tossed it under the van and hauled the boy backward.

Flame engulfed the van.

The driver of the pickup ran up with a fire extinguisher. Garreth reached for it. "I'll do this. You take Scott into the hotel and go for the police officers who are in the alley."

He contrived to fall as he aimed for the van. The extinguisher "came apart" in his hands, spreading its contents all over the paving but not the flames. After that, he and the people who materialized out of the hotel could only stand back and watch the van and Lane burn.

Lane! Desolation swept Garreth, bringing another startling realization about himself. In spite of his outrage at her lack of respect for law and life, in spite of burning hatred for what she had done to Harry and him, her death hurt. Pain closed his throat, grief . . .

grief for the child whose torment had driven her to seek the power of the vampire life and use it to vent her hatred on humanity, for the waste of intellect, for the voice that would never sing again. He wondered, too, if there might not also be regret for what might have been . . . companionship, the grand tour with so many wonders to delight the child still in her.

G.o.d he hurt, and was so tired.

Garreth sat down against the wall of the hotel and leaned his head on up-drawn knees.

4

"What do you mean, you're calling the supervisor to find a room for me?" Garreth frowned at the emergency room doctor. "I'm not staying." Hunger cramps wracked him.

The doctor scowled back. "You most certainly are. You may call those flesh wounds, but you've bled heavily. It's given you the most bizarre blood picture I've ever seen. You need to a unit of blood and several days observation."

Knots raced through Garreth's gut. "Make the blood To Go. I'm signing myself out."

"I'm ordering you to stay." Danzig appeared in the doorway, regarding Garreth narrow-eyed. "Or would you a.s.sault another orderly and go over the wall again?"

Garreth set his jaw. "I hate hospitals."

Danzig and the doctor exchanged glances. The chief sighed. "Skip that for a moment, then. Just tell me what you know about Mada Bieber."

Garreth froze. "What does she have to do with this?"

"Nothing as far as I know, but Anna Bieber has been calling the station frantically. It seems she hasn't seen Mada since the two of you drove off together around eight-thirty."

Garreth closed his eyes. The one loose end. Everyone believed that the person who died in the van accident was a stranger, the man who shot Ed and him. How did he explain Mada Bieber's disappearance? Then again, it occurred to him, why should he try?

She had run away once in her life once before.

He opened his eyes again. "Sue Pfeifer saw her last, turning in the keys to my car at the station."

Danzig frowned. "What?"

Garreth sighed. "It's a long story, the short of which is, in talking we discovered that she might well be my grandmother after all.

That upset her. I don't know why. Am I such a terrible person to have as a grandson? Anyway, she took off with my car. I was going to go looking for her. I thought maybe she'd decided to walk around thinking. This archer business made me forget all about her, though." He frowned in concern. "I hope that psycho didn't have friends who took her hostage or something."

"Hostage!" Danzig's eyes widened. "Oh, lord."

Garreth caught the chief's gaze. G.o.d, how he longed for bed, and for the blood in his refrigerator. The smell of blood here was driving him crazy with hunger. "Please get my jacket; I'm going home. Helen can look after me, or Maggie can after she's off duty."

Danzig's face lost expression for a moment. "If you're going to be that stubborn about it, all right."

"Chief!" the doctor exploded.

Danzig shrugged. "You can't hold a man against his will if he's able to walk out under his own power."

Please let me be able to stand and walk.

"But when you're home"-Danzig turned on Garreth with a severe scowl-"you get into bed and stay there. I'll call Helen and have her make sure you do."

Garreth dropped his eyes. "Yes, sir," he said meekly.

5

Where do they end, the roads that lead a man through h.e.l.l?