Dark Siren (24 page)

“Alright,” Alice said, “Find something nice to wear and make your way down to the Ashwood Imperial Museum at eight o’clock. You know where that is?”

“At the edge of the Financial District, on fifth… the one close to Saint Jude’s?”

“That’s right. I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I’ll probably be waiting for you.”

“Good. I won’t be late.”

Alice hung up and set her phone on the bed, next to the matching black purse Isaac had bought to go with her dress. Another item she had never in her life used prior to today. She then crossed into the kitchen and came to stand in front of the closet door. Isaac had done a good job of repairing it before leaving, though she wondered if the wards would work the same. She hoped they would, though without the gas mask man and the poltergeist to hold back, she had no reason to believe they wouldn’t.

Before she left, she grabbed Trapper and slung the strap around her neck. She would need the camera again tonight, she knew, but it wasn’t an inconspicuous item. She had been able to get away with using it in public places before by playing the part of the photographer who hasn’t quite let go of the old-school ways. But in a digital world, and in a crowded space like the one she would be entering tonight, this camera would stand out.

Alice sighed and smoothed her thumb over the soft plastic. A sudden and inexplicable sense of dread overcame her, causing her heart to flutter like a bird trapped in a cage.

It's just nerves
, she thought,
just nerves.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Cab Driver

Alice called for a cab and waited on the sidewalk, ignoring the leering eyes of passersby. The cab was a banged up old thing with a cracked and faded yellow paint job on the outside, and cracked and faded faux leather seats on the inside. The driver wore tattered fingerless gloves, had a cigar stuck between his fat lips, and swore loudly at the radio whenever the Ashwood Adders scored against the Miami Dolphins. Alice would have admired his
I don’t give a shit
attitude, praised him for letting it all hang out for the world to see. But he kept stealing glances whenever he could, and his eyes made Alice shuffle uncomfortably in the backseat.

The drive to the museum took about ten minutes too long, but Alice was treated to a number of fantastic sights during the trip. The Victoria district melted away as the cab sailed down Ninth Street and into the financial sector. To humans, this entire sprawl of skyscrapers and dark buildings was known as the Warwick district; the beating heart of the city where corporate bigwigs swap unfathomable amounts of money, drink expensive cognac, and fuck young gold-diggers. But there was another name for this district, one that any card-carrying supernatural knew.

Vampire Central.

They were good at hiding in plain sight, vampires, but Alice had learned to spot them even from the window of a car.

A man in a light gray suit with a wireless headset in his ear stood on the sidewalk, talking about clenching some multi-million dollar deal or other. He had been doing this for a while tonight. There probably wasn’t anyone on the other end—or maybe there was, one of the vampire’s lackeys, bored out of his wits as his master puts on a good show for the peons passing by. Most folks didn’t pay this handsome man with the sixty-thousand-dollar suit and the ten-thousand-dollar watch any mind, preferring to walk with their heads buried in their glowing smartphone screens, but eventually the vampire would snag his hook into someone and she—or
he
—would be his for the night.

Another stood on a street corner with a small park at his back. The trees were tall and dark and closely pressed together, creating a natural boundary against the city itself. On the sidewalk, close to the intersection, a scruffy man with a long beard and epic dreadlocks was standing on an old bucket and preaching about the end times, about the wolves hiding in sheep’s clothing, and about how corrupt the world is. He warned those listening to his sermon to be vigilant, to be on guard, and to rally against those who would harm Mother Nature.

She found herself thinking about the story Isaac had told her about the origin of vampires. Did they have a different story to tell? Would any of them know? Alice wondered how the crowd—the vampire had some seven or eight staunch listeners now—could buy into his brand of nihilistic crap. How was it he could so easily turn logical, smart people who would otherwise keep their wits about them in a city like this, into drones hanging on his every word? But then he turned his eyes toward Alice, and her heart skipped a beat.

He was looking at her. Not through her, not past her, but
at
her. From all the way across the street, on the opposite side of the intersection, beyond rows of idle cars waiting for the lights to change, this man—this monster—had noticed her. Had he read her thoughts? Had he seen her aura? Had he smelled her strange, supernatural scent through the clouds of invisible toxic smoke? With one single glance he had turned her entire body to ice, and as the cab peeled away, the scruffy vampire’s eyes followed her. She didn’t take another breath until they had turned the corner.

Vampires
, she thought, allowing herself to breathe again.
I fucking hate vampires.

The buildings around her seemed to back away from the cab, as if bowing in reverence to the Ashwood Imperial Museum, which stood as a single building encompassing an entire city block. Gargoyles flanked each corner of the structure, carefully placed lights illuminated the name of the building, and a red carpet rolled out of the main door like an inanimate tongue. She saw people slowly climbing the steps of the museum, which had been covered by a large canopy to protect the carpet and the museum’s guests from the rain, but the cab had stopped almost half a block away.

“Twenty-three fifty,” said the cab driver. “But if you’re short, we can work something out.”

Alice cocked an eyebrow, wondering why he had stopped short of the museum, but pulled three tens from her purse and handed them over. He sneered at her again, and she watched in the rearview mirror as the tip of his cigar began to glow brightly red, bathing his face in a soft glow. The satisfied grin on his face suggested he had already done terrible things to her in his mind.

Whatever.

“Tempting, but no,” she said, “You look like you’re riddled with germs, and I don’t have medical insurance.” She reached for the car door but the lock slammed shut.

He took another drag of his cigar, turned his head, and blew the smoke into the backseat. “I could drive off right now and no one would find you until I was done. All the medical insurance in the world wouldn’t fix you.”

“Is that any way to pick a girl up?”

“I’m not trying to pick you up. I don’t have to pick you up. I can just take you.”

“Can you?”

“Sure I can.” He put the cab into Drive.

Alice rolled her eyes. “You know what happened to the last cab driver who thought he could do whatever he wanted with me?”

“No.”

“Neither do the police.”

The man laughed a raspy, hoarse laugh which sounded more like a choke. “You’ve got spunk; I’ll give you that. But I don’t like it when a woman talks back. If you watch your mouth, I might just let you go without hurting you… too much.”

Alice’s heart was starting to race. Not because she was scared of what he might do to her, but because the repartee was delaying her from doing what she had come here to do. Coming here to the museum as a guest of some big event was a bad idea, as was waiting for as long as they had before coming down. The mirror had to be destroyed, and it had to be destroyed now. But this guy wasn’t going to let her go. His aura stank of wanton lust and bad intention, and by the cavalier way in which he spoke, she suspected he had done this before.

“I think I want to take your picture,” Alice said.

“My what?”

“Your picture.” She raised her camera, which she had been strapped around her neck, and looked through the viewfinder. As she found his profile through the small square eye, she flicked the toggle on the side of the camera from REF to MAT. The camera vibrated in Alice’s hand, and the world shimmered. A moment later, she was staring at the man’s big face, though it was surrounded by a faint twinkle of shifting light—his soul.

Her heart was slamming now. It always did in the instant before the Trapping, as hesitation and guilt made themselves known. The man’s cigar blazed in the darkness of the cab. “That’s different. Most girls are begging me to let them out at this point.”

“Most girls aren’t me. Now how about you take that thing out of your mouth and you let me take your picture?”

The cab driver obliged. He plucked the cigar out of his mouth, blew the stink of cheap cigar smoke over his shoulder, and grinned. One of his incisors was missing, he had a two-week old growth on his chins, and the clearest blue eyes Alice had ever seen on a human being. They were dangerous eyes—eyes like those of the poltergeist she had captured—wide with intention and cunning.

Alice focused the frame on his face, pushed her own will into the camera, and pressed down on the trigger. The cab lit up with a bright flash of blue. Alice felt a rush of warm and cold course through her, an adrenaline-filled sensation which made her entire body shudder with delight. It was easier when her targets’ souls were weak, and stealing this man’s soul was as easy as running a hot knife through butter.

The driver’s seat was empty, now. Where once had sat a fat man with a cigar, there was only dust. His clothes were gone, the cigar was gone, and the smell of days old sweat and whiskey was gone too. Before Alice had taken a picture of him, his name had been Dale Wilkes. He had been a 43-year-old, 6-foot male from Ashwood who had been driving a cab for almost ten years, but in a couple of minutes’ no one would know he had ever existed, if they hadn’t already forgotten.

The camera made a whirring sound, and then spat a Polaroid out of the front slot. Alice snagged the picture, retrieved her thirty bucks, and reached around the front seat to unlock the back doors. She stepped out of the cab into the cool night air with the camera in her hands and her heart gently slowing down.

She took a moment to look at the picture in her hand as she walked the rest of the way to the museum. On it was the startled face of a man so harshly illuminated by the camera’s blue flash he looked more like a ghost than a person. Unlike ghosts, however, his soul would not be free to move around within the confines of the picture frame.
Serves him right,
she thought, and then she crumpled the picture up and tossed it in the trash where no one would find it.

Nate was standing by the stairs when Alice arrived, waiting for her with his hands in his pockets. She had wanted to meet Isaac here, had wanted… no, she hadn’t wanted a romantic entrance. That was stupid. Walking into the building on Isaac’s arm? Who was she, a freaking princess?

“Hey,” she said as she approached. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re not late,” he said, “I’m early.”

Alice nodded. “Alright, shall we head inside?”

“Wait… I need to know what I’m doing first.”

“Right. Well, the plan is—”

“Do you know where Emily is? Is she inside?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then why are we here? Shouldn’t we be at the movie theater?”

“Look, I brought you here because you can be of use after all, but what I don’t want to do is to waste time explaining everything to you. We think we know how to deal with this situation, but there are some things you’re going to have to trust me on and not ask questions about. Understood?”

Nate wanted to protest. His aura flashed vibrantly in brilliant shades of red and red-orange which tasted like fresh anger. But he held himself and nodded. “I’m sorry. I just want to get Emily back.”

Alice put a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “I know you do,” she said, “But something is playing out here that is much bigger than Emily. I need you to be strong… strong for yourself, and strong for her, okay?”

Nate nodded, though he didn’t truly understand what was going on. How could he? He was mostly human, and unlike Alice, had no prior experience with Nyx and what that bitch and her cronies were capable of. This was why he needed to stay the hell out of Alice’s way until she was ready for him.

“Just do exactly as I say,” she said, “Everything will be fine.”

Nate offered his arm. Alice linked her arm with his, and together they walked up the red carpet and toward the museum building. At the door, Alice spotted Dustin—the big security guard—and his security staff ticking people’s names off a checklist. Alice shuffled along with her heart in her throat, walking slowly behind the crowd, hoping Isaac had done as she had asked and put Nate on the list.

Dustin checked his list for Nate’s name, marking it off with his little red pen. Alice took a relieved breath and walked up to the door. She gave her name to a female security guard who checked Alice’s name off the list. For a moment the guard had regarded Alice’s camera with a strange kind of fascination, like she had never seen anything quite like it in her life.

She probably hadn’t.

“Trapper,” the guard had said, her eyebrow cocked. She had noticed the word written across the red strip. “You named your camera?”