Bloodfire (Empire of Fangs) (9 page)

14.

Mark fiddled with the radio in the cushy interior of his brother’s Benz.
 
He wanted to hear the news.
 
He wanted to hear what they were saying about him.
 
About Zara.
 

Leo hit a button on his steering wheel and the radio went silent.
 
“I see you still fidget like that.
 
Can’t sit still.”

Mark gave his brother a steely look.
 
“My daughter, your niece, is out there being hunted by cops and god knows who else.
 
Sorry if that makes me fidget.”

“Zara will be fine.
 
Push comes to shove we play the whole thing off as a bad case of Stockholm syndrome and she does a year in a ward, holding hands and having a good cry.
 
We’ll make it perfectly clear to the court that she is a victim in all this.
 
That boy, the
Sollero
kid, he’s clearly out of his mind.
 
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“That’s not what is going on here Leo.
 
Twig is a good kid, I’m sure he is just trying to help Zara out of some trouble.”

“Oh.
 
Well that clears it all up. The kid who had an apartment under a false name, Robocop’s by the way, an apartment the cops found four different people’s blood in, but he’s a good kid.
 
Real Beaver Cleaver, minus the Beaver part. For God sakes, he was seen by several witnesses at the
Caspari
place freaking out!
 
Kid thinks they’re vampires or something.
 
God help us all if he gets a hold of a machine gun.”
 

Mark looked out the window.
 
His interrogators had told him that the party his daughter and her friend Nicolas had attended several days ago was held at Damon
Casparis
’ home.
 
They told him about the scene—the shouting between Twig and Zara.
 
But they hadn’t mentioned the blood.
 
He always thought he was a good judge of character, but maybe he had missed something with Twig.
 

“What about the calls?
 
From Twig’s father, James.”

Leo took a deep breath.
 
“Yeah, about that.
 
I didn’t really want to dump this on you right out of the pokey, but it looks like your pal had some trouble down in Utah.”

“Trouble?”
 
Mark said.

“Yeah, trouble like having your head-cut-off-kind-of-trouble.
 

“Christ,” Mark said with a mortified look on his face, “he was decapitated?

“Looks that way.
 
He was found by a road near the residence of one Li Lee, or Shoe Lee, I have it written somewhere.
 
Anyway, this Lee character evidently had some outstanding debts.
 
Maybe they thought
Sollero
was in cahoots with Lee or something.
 
They are keeping it all pretty quiet down there.”

Mark felt sick.
 
James had sounded so worried when he called.
 
But he was worried about the kids, and even Mark.
 
He didn’t mention bookies.
 
None of it added up.

“That’s all you know about it?
 
They find anything else odd?”

“No.
 
Well, yeah, I guess.”

Leo turned the car north, heading out of the city towards the highway.
 

“Well?” Mark said impatiently.

“Oh, a piece of fabric.
 
Cops said it was part of a wedding dress.”

“A wedding dress?” Mark tried to make sense of it.

“Yeah.
 
Maybe your pal pissed off more than just bookies out there in Vegas.”

15.

Zara couldn’t sleep, partly because she was still mad at Twig, who was off gallivanting around town while they should be figuring out how to destroy Damon and Drake.
 
She didn’t feel right in the room either.
 
It was elegant and immaculately prepared, with creaseless sheets and blankets on the beds, yet in all its elegance something grotesque seemed to fill the air in the place.
 
Something Zara couldn’t place, but could feel, like how her grandmother could feel a big rain coming by a tingle in her brittle bones.
 

She looked out the third-story window.
 
The murky night and the jagged tips of pines blanketed the hills like mangy fur.
 
Swaying and quivering.
 
She unlatched a brass hook and opened the window, letting a cool breeze flow into the room.
 

She took a shower, but it didn’t have the refreshing effect it once had.
 
She got dressed in the new clothes she had bought at a little trading post in Silverthorne.
 
Twig had given her a hard time about it.
 
“Do you really need four pairs of jeans?
 
This money has to last us you know...” he complained, so Zara had told the girl at the counter that she had rung it up wrong, and that today everything was 95% off.
 

“Dangerous,” Twig had commented while they piled the clothes into the truck.
 
“Suppose they notice missing money, check the tapes and see two wanted criminals?”

“What’s the good of being a criminal if you can’t commit a few crimes here and there?” She shot back.
 
“Besides, we paid, remember?”
 

Zara couldn’t help but smile.
 
The trip from Denver to the Alistair had been a series of small battles with Twig, and she kept track of every victory and defeat.
 
She cared about him, but couldn’t get Micah out of her head.
 
What would her life be like had she stayed by Micah’s side?
 
She would have turned into one of them, instead of becoming whatever she was.
 
She wouldn’t be hunted by the cops and everyone she cared about would be safe, even Twig.
 
Had Twig just let it go, Zara would probably be sipping wine with Micah under the stars somewhere, instead of hiding in a creaky hotel in the mountains, waiting for her enemies to come for her.

She paced the room, juggling all these thoughts in her tired mind.
 
She sat on the edge of one of the beds.
 
A bible—glossy black with a golden cross embossed on the cover—was sitting on the nightstand beside a lamp.
 
She opened the drawer, put the book inside and slammed it shut.
 

She couldn’t wait a moment longer.
 
She had to tell her father she was alright.
 
She knew she couldn’t just call though.
 
The cops would surely have the phones tapped.
 
She decided she would call her friend Amy.
 
She hadn’t really kept in contact with her since they parted ways in high school, but she still remembered her number.
 
It was risky,
but what wasn’t these days.

In the hallway an old lady was just coming up the stairs and smiled at Zara.
 
She was wearing a very old dress.
 
“Hi there,” she said sweetly.
   

“Hey,” Zara returned, offering a smile.

“Isn’t the Alistair just marvelous?” The woman said, looking around in awe.

“It’s very pretty.”

The woman touched the wallpaper on the wall and traced the pattern with her finger.
  
Zara immediately sensed a bit of senility at work.
 

“Have you stayed here long?” Zara asked.

“I suppose I have,” the woman said.
 
She looked at Zara now, up and down.
 
“I’m waiting for my son to arrive.
 
He is very prosperous you know.
 
He is coming to take me to California.”

Zara smiled politely.
 
“Do you know if there is a phone downstairs?
 
I need to make a call.”

The woman shook her head and giggled.
 
She reached out and touched Zara’s arm.
 
Zara wanted to recoil, but felt sorry for the old woman.
 
She looked sad and confused.
 

“I’d be careful dear.
 
He took them you know.
 
He’s the devil.
 
I’ve seen him.”

Zara squirmed out of the old lady’s grip.
 
The woman was still smiling but now Zara noticed a sort of madness in it.
 

“Okay, sure.
 
I’ll be careful.
 
Thanks!” Zara said, before running down the stairs.
 

Downstairs the old clerk was nowhere to be found, and did not respond to the bell.
 
Zara snuck around the check-in counter and looked for a phone, but found none.
 
She sighed.
 
“My kingdom for a cell phone,” she muttered.
 

She walked to the pictures and news clippings.
 
Rough, bearded men in funny pants.
 
She read one of the clippings on the wall, taken from the Silverthorne Gazette.

1845, May, Sunday

Sherriff
Sollero
Killed in Canyon Showdown

The notorious
McDermot
gang, led by Sam “Ghost”
McDermot
and Casey
Laylan
of former Kinney Gang fame, were involved in a wild shootout last night after Sheriff Clay
Sollero
, his deputies, and an assembled posse cornered the desperate criminals in Viper Canyon just outside of Lost Valley. The shootout lasted several minutes and we have been informed that the melee resulted in seven casualties, taking the lives of Sheriff
Sollero
, five townsfolk and three men belonging to the
McDermot
gang.

It appears that the Ghost has lived up to his name yet again, and escaped the fight with help of Casey
Laylan
, who apparently ambushed the sheriff’s posse, and who is also at large.

How Sam
McDermot
escaped what should have been a routine capture confounds even the most inventive minds.
 
Witnesses to the showdown have reported that the Ghost leapt into the air, over the heads of the posse, and that he took no less than ten bullets while he performed this unlikely feat.
 

It comes as no great surprise that the people of Lost Valley are telling such tall tales.
 
Since it was uncovered by one Davis G. Mitchells that the well water in Lost Valley contained alarming amounts of mercury, the town has been a constant source of supernatural claims.
 

Whether or not the
Pinkertons
will be called in remains to be seen.
 
Deputy Charles
Goodway
will be taking over as acting Sheriff in Lost Valley.
 
When asked for comment, mister
Goodway
was reluctant to talk about the shootout, but had this to say about Sheriff
Sollero
:

“He was a man of indisputable honor and kindness.
 
He will be missed. And he will be avenged.”

The rest of the article was missing.
  
She was scanning the other articles when someone cleared his throat behind her.
 
Zara whirled around to see the little pinched face of the clerk.

“They never did catch him you know.
 
The Ghost.”

Zara tried to look casual but was shaken.
 
It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the sheriff’s name was
Sollero
.
  

“The Sherriff, did he…do you know much about his family?” She asked.

The little man squinted at her.
 
“Well, let’s see.
 
My great grandfather was a blacksmith here in town.
 
From what my Grandmother told me about him, he was good friends with Sheriff
Sollero
, as well as the widow and her boy he left behind.”

Zara waited for the gears to keep turning in the little man’s head, but he seemed to have seized up on a thought.

“Did you know her name?
 
The widow?”

“Well sure,” Harold said.
 
“Naomi
Sollero
.
 
Threw herself in a well in town when she got the news. They say everyone was damn near mad from the mercury back then.
 
We got water filters and all that stuff these days.”

Zara looked long and hard at the ceiling before returning her worried gaze to meet Harold’s eyes.

“And the little boy?”

The man shrugged.
 
“Nobody knows what became of him.
 
State took him somewhere.
 
Had no kin other than his parents.
 
Heard he was shipped to Denver.
 
Those orphanages were no picnic back then, I tell
ya
.”
 
The man sauntered away, back behind the check-in counter and through some curtains into another room.
 

Zara had forgotten about the phone call.
 
She was looking at one of at one of the pictures next to the newspaper clippings.
 
It was of an old charcoal sketch of a man—an obvious reprint of an old
wanted
poster.
 
It was unmistakably the man from here dream.
 
Outside a hard wind blew and the hotel creaked and moaned.