He turned his head toward the wall and there was Mandy. Terry almost screamed, but he didn’t. For some reason he did not want Sarah to know he was awake. Mandy stood there in her tattered green dress, with her wan face streaked with dark lacerations and bright blood.
“I know you tried,” she said sadly. “I know you tried to do the right thing. But you waited too long.”
Terry did not say a word.
“Now it’s all too late.” She looked over to the window beyond which purple-black clouds poised like fists above the skyline of the town. “It’s going to be awful, Terry. So awful. I tried to help, but I messed it all up and now they’re going to win. I’m sorry, Terry.”
Terry did not trust himself to speak. He didn’t know who “they” were, and he didn’t much care. He was tired of ghosts and their cryptic messages, tired of madness and possession and curses. All he cared about was Sarah, and he knew that he would never be able to touch her again.
Mandy moved closer to him. “I love you, Terry. I never wanted to hurt you, you know that, don’t you?” She searched his face for a long time, but he never let her see his feelings, and she slumped with an even greater sadness. “He’s taken everything from us, Terry. And even though he’s won, he won’t let it end, won’t let it be over for us.” She touched his face and he flinched. “There are so many ghosts in this place, Terry. We’re lonely, and we can’t rest. Not while he lives, and he’ll live forever.”
Tears fell like rain from her blue eyes. “I thought God would save us. I thought that’s why I was able to come back, because God wanted me to help you stop the curse. That was stupid.” Her voice was crushingly bitter. “What does God care?”
Terry felt a tear form in the corner of his own eye.
Mandy seemed paler, less substantial as if she was fading away like morning mist. “I know that you don’t want to do this, Terry, but you won’t be able to help yourself. You’re a monster now, Terry. His monster. He owns you, Terry, and he’ll make you do terrible things. It’s not your fault. No one is strong enough to stand up to him. I wanted to help, but I can’t even do that anymore. There’s not enough of me left.” She bent forward and kissed him. “I love you, Terry,” she said again and then faded completely from his sight.
Terry almost cried out as she vanished. The single tear rolled down across his cheek. Sarah rustled the newspaper as she opened to a new page. Outside the room the world ticked another second toward the Red Wave; inside his body Terry could feel the beast clawing to be unloosed.
(3)
“Come on, come on,” she muttered into the phone, urging Crow to pick up. It rang once and then went right to voice mail. “Shit, still no signal!”
Over the last couple of hours Mike had told them the whole story as he knew it. The whole story, including the parts with Tow-Truck Eddie—which none of them could explain.
“Eddie’s a religious nut,” Weinstock observed, “but even Crow always said he was a stand-up guy. He’s about the last person on earth I’d pick as someone likely to side with Ruger.”
“He’s not,” Mike said. “Not exactly. The Bone Man told me that for years now Griswold has been talking to him in his thoughts. Maybe it’s a kind of telepathy, but Griswold has been pretending to be the voice of God, and he’s basically brainwashed the guy into thinking I’m the Antichrist. He calls me the Beast.”
“Beast of the Apocalypse, sure,” agreed Jonatha. “That makes a kind of twisted sense. Think about it—if this tow-truck guy is really a devout believer, then he is, by that definition, neither corrupt nor evil. That means that if he were to kill Mike then it would have the opposite effect of, say, Vic or Ruger killing him.”
Newton looked from her to Mike. “Which is what?”
She shrugged. “Mike would just be dead. None of the qualities he has as a dhampyr would be infused into the local landscape.”
Weinstock grunted. “So…he’s a sick, twisted, murderous bastard but a good guy sick, twisted and murderous bastard?”
“More or less, yes.” She held up an emphatic finger. “That doesn’t make him any less dangerous. If he’s been this badly brainwashed, then he’s on a par with a suicide bomber…a total fanatic.”
Val made an ugly sound and they all looked at her. “I don’t care if he’s Saint Jude reborn—if he comes near Mike again I’ll kill him.”
No one doubted her.
“Try calling Crow again,” Newton suggested after a moment. “And maybe those cops, too.”
Crow’s phone went right to voice mail again, so she tried LaMastra’s cell and got the same thing; but when she called Ferro’s phone it rang six times before going to voice mail. A signal, but no response.
“This is bad,” Mike said.
“You know that,” Weinstock asked, “or are you guessing?”
“Some of both, I guess. The Bone Man told me that Griswold was going to do something today. Something called the Red Wave.”
Newton turned away from the window where he’d been watching the storm clouds thicken and darken. Even though it was only three o’clock it was as gloomy as twilight outside. “Which is what exactly?”
“I’m not sure. He wasn’t sure, either. All we know is that Vic and Ruger have been working hard to make as many vampires as possible so that the Red Wave will work, and that whatever it is will be bad. Really bad.”
Val cut a look at Weinstock. “The Festival?”
“Has to be…damn it!”
“And it’s supposed to happen tonight?” Jonatha asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t know what it’ll be or when it’ll start.” He put his head in his hands. “It’s so frustrating to know some things in so much detail and not other things. I feel like I’m trying to put a puzzle together and I don’t know if I have all the pieces or even if the pieces are part of the same puzzle.”
“I have to go and warn Crow. If he’s walking into a trap…” The hunting hawk look was back on her face even though her eyes were bright with terror. She looked at Newton, expecting him to say something, perhaps offer to guide her to Dark Hollow, but he blanched and even backed up a step.
“I…can’t…” he said.
“Val,” Weinstock said, “no, we could never get out there and find him. Not in time. We have to do something to stop the Festival. If Ruger and his goons show up tonight, it could be a slaughter. Everyone’s going to be in costume…Ruger could walk right up to someone and no one would know who he was until it was too late.”
Chapter 37
(1)
“Dear God!” gasped Crow as he climbed to his feet. Tears streaked his cheeks, but not just from the cordite. “Dear sweet Jesus God.”
Beside him, LaMastra was furiously reloading his shotgun, flicking frequent nervous glances around at the shadows as he worked. The vampires were sprawled like dolls knocked off a shelf by an earthquake, their white faces strangely empty of malevolence. Kneeling, Crow peered in wonder at the face of Jimmy Castle.
“He doesn’t have any fangs,” he said softly. LaMastra looked up from his shotgun. “They must have gone away after he died. Anyone finds these bodies it’ll just look like we murdered them all.”
“I don’t care,” LaMastra said, and Crow turned and gave him a sharper look. The big man’s eyes were twitching and jumping, and he had a nervous tic that made it look like he kept trying to smile.