Page 76 of The Undead

“Adam?” I asked. He shrugged without even taking his hands out of his jacket pockets.

“She’s got a key. But William’s been there, Mike. He may be back.” The possibility didn’t seem to disturb him much. I kissed the top of Maggie’s head and tilted her chin up. That was a mistake. It pulled her slender throat tight, tight enough that I could see the veins pumping under her fair skin.

“When you get done, call a cab and go on to Sylvia’s house. We’ll meet you back there.”

“When?” Maggie wanted to know. I allowed myself to touch her face, very gently, very far away from the veins and the blood.

“Before dawn,” I said. Adam held out his hands for the keys. “Oh no you don’t. I drive.”

“Where are you going now?” Maggie asked. Adam looked across at the red-and-blue forest of lights in front of Foster’s house.

“That depends very much on Foster, I think. We have to wait for her to take us somewhere.”

“There isn’t anything else we can do?” I asked, appalled at the prospect of that much lost time. I wasn’t the only one. The light flared in Adam’s eyes.

“No, there isn’t,” he answered colorlessly, and let himself in to the passenger side of the Volvo. I turned back to Maggie, who’d pulled away from me but not, after all, as far as I’d feared.

“I’ll see you before morning,” she promised, and leaned forward for one quick brush of her lips on my cheek. “Take care.”

She was walking briskly back toward the other cops and the arriving plainclothes detectives before I could say anything. I got into the car and backed it silently away. We drove back in uneasy silence. Adam watched the street, chin sunk down on his chest, eyes moving restlessly. Other than that, he was completely still. After a few miles he reached over and switched on the radio, dialed it to a New Age station, and closed his eyes. But they still moved, little twitches under the lids.

“What are you thinking about?” I finally asked. He shook his head in a very minute gesture. “About Sylvia?”

“No.” He didn’t seem to want to go on. I kept my eyes on the road. “Not exactly. I’m thinking that you—you should move on, Mike. Things are too dangerous here for someone as young in this life as you.”

“Move on to where?”

“Anywhere. The West Coast. South America. Alaska. Anywhere but here.” Adam’s voice sank lower to the back of his throat. “Foster shouldn’t be in this. She doesn’t understand what she’s done.”

“You sound sorry for her,” I ventured.

“She’s human.” That seemed to close the subject. I wasn’t sure if it was an explanation or a justification. “William may take an interest in you. I would hate to see that happen. He is looking for—children.

“Is that what I am?”

“Well, you aren’t an adult. He looks for the new ones, the weak ones, and he makes them—part of him. I can’t explain that.”I don’t want to, his expression said. “This is hard for me, Mike. I don’t like to talk about him.”

“Talking about him makes him real.”

I surprised him. Adam’s eyes came fully open, dark brown and oddly tired.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Exactly. There are things in my past I don’t want to think about, and he’s one. Sylvia killed his last two converts, Lilah and George. He’s looking for new blood—which you are. My fault.”

“You seem to know a lot about how he thinks,” I said. Adam closed his eyes again.

“Oh, yes. I spent nearly twenty years as his creature. A thing, Mike, nothing more than that. I lived like him, I thought like him. It’s hard to think about it, because it’s so easy to go back. There at your house—that was—” There was a long, difficult pause. Adam cleared his throat. “He can seem more human than any of us when he wants to. Remember that. Never trust him.”

We were on the street, cruising silently down toward Sylvia’s house. It gleamed in the soft streetlights, a haven of peace, a place to hide from the constant fear and tension. Adam looked weary and beaten, but I couldn’t resist one last question.

“He—he made you, didn’t he? Made you a vampire?”

He didn’t react at all, except to turn his head and look at me. There was nothing in his expression to tell me I’d guessed right—but I had. I knew I had.

“Great. The asshole’s my grandfather,” I sighed. I got a tiny smile, barely a twitch of his lips, a flash of white teeth. Adam looked back at the house.

“You’re thinking like a human,” he warned me. I shrugged and pulled up in the driveway. The Volvo purred like a petted cat until I shut it regretfully off.

“Yeah, well, it’s a bad habit. Maybe I’ll grow out of it.”

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