Muscles fluttered under the skin as his jaw tightened. "I figured he'd finally died. Or whatever they do.
People who come back."
Clearly, Ed wasn't a fan of vampire fiction. "I don't think they just … roll over and do that."
He lowered his chin. Didn't answer directly. Or maybe he did, I realized, as I listened. "I asked him what he remembered. I was thinking — hell, you know what I was thinking." Yeah, I knew. Some suave European guy in a cape, fangs, scary music. "He said he was dying, bleeding out in the truck, and he started seeing … fairies."
"Fairies?" I said. "You're kidding me!"
"Wish I was. Fairies. Little Tinkerbelle lights. Blue. He said they swarmed all over him. I figure it was some kind of hallucination. He says — he woke up the next night and came up right out of the ground. Right out of the ground."
Oh, fuck.
Little blue sparklies.
Israel was entirely right after all. I did understand what had happened to him. Not the mechanics, not the how and why, but the basic mechanisms at play. But … the little blue sparklies were gone, right? Banished back to their own Demon dimension when Patrick and Sara, my Djinn benefactors, had sacrificed themselves to seal up the rift that was tearing our universe apart.
Maybe they were gone, but they'd left … wreckage. Israel was something they'd tried to use, probably out of desperation. The Demon Marks invaded Wardens; maybe this was what happened when one invaded a regular human and couldn't find the power needed to twist itself into a full-grown menace. Maybe it sapped life and kept the body moving, hoping to find another shell in which to grow.
I felt a need to sit down.
"You okay?" Ed asked, as I plopped my butt down on the nearest uncomfortable stool and bent over to put my head in my hands.
"I'm fine."
"Yeah, me too," he said. "He seemed to think you could fix what's going on with him. Can you? Do you know?"
"I don't know." I wasn't really sure what Israel was. Maybe he wasn't a vampire. Maybe he didn't kill people.
Maybe he was just scary as hell, and was a walking corpse.
But everything that walked the earth consumed something … and chances were that he wasn't going to live on sunlight and happy Tinkerbelle thoughts.
"He's probably dangerous," I said. "And he's not going away, is he?"
Ed sighed and shook his head. "I thought he would. Guess he's going to stick around."
"Ed. You can't just let him …"
"I know," he said, and ran his hands over his balding head. It was the same elegant shape as his brother's, minus the rose tattoo, plus a minor fringe of hair. "But I can't just kill him, either. I'm family."
I had a sister. I hadn't thought of her for a while, but suddenly I thought about what I'd do, if Sarah came shambling up to me a day after her own funeral, white and ghost-ridden. God. I'd be utterly unable to live with it, or myself. Unable to act.
That was the hell Ed was in, and would continue to be in, and it was my fault. I needed to do something, but I had no idea what. I was hungry, I was tired, I was scared, and I was badly wishing — as Rahel no doubt had intended — that I'd cheerfully complied with her request and not landed myself in this situation to begin with.
Hungry. As if the idea had triggered it, my stomach loudly rumbled.
I looked up, embarrassed, but Ed was already reaching out to scoop a rolling hot dog from the rack and fold it into a soft white bun. "Knock yourself out."
I chewed nitrates and sulfates, mixed in with some meat and carbs. Added some relish and mustard. It was the best hot dog I'd ever eaten, and it smelled heavenly; I devoured it in about three bites. Ed forked over another one. I mumbled a thanks around another bite.
"I'll deduct it," he said. "Now. Let's talk about you fixing my brother."
###
What killed vampires? I contemplated it in silence, laying on my cot in the dim wash of light from the cracked storage room door. Ed had gone home, at my insistence; I think he understood it wasn't good for him to be there, in case I had to do something radical. Wooden stakes … garlic … holy water … well, I could break off a chair leg to make a stake if I had to, and there was some garlic salt in the condiment section.
Holy water was in short supply. I wondered about crosses, but somehow, I didn't think folklore would be quite on the money with this one.
I put my hand on my purse, thinking about David, curled in his bottle. Sleeping, probably. Dreaming of better things. Maybe …
No. I didn't dare open it and summon him. Not when he was so weak. I needed to handle this on my own, without anybody else to back me up.
That felt … oddly refreshing. Whatever I did here, there was nobody else involved. It was just me, and the problem.
I got up in a restless creak of cot springs, put on my shoes, and walked to the storage room door. It was quiet in the store except for the dull hum of fluorescent lights in the corners. The night was so dark outside the glass walls that it might as well have been black paint. I wanted to go outside, breathe the fresh cold air, see the thick haze of stars, but I had work to do.
I walked to the cooler. The key was hanging from a hook next to the door, but I didn't take it down.
I knocked. "Israel?" No answer. I put my hand flat against the metal. "Israel, talk to me. It's Joanne. I want to help you. I want to figure out what happened to you."
From a great, hollow distance, Israel rasped, "Don't think anybody can help me."
"You said you saw fairies. Blue sparks. That's what changed you."
He seemed surprised. "Yeah."
"Israel, do you — " I couldn't think of a way to phrase it. "Hunger for anything in particular?"
"Yeah," he said. "But I don't know what it is. Nobody around here has it. Nobody except you."
He wanted power. Warden power. I swallowed hard and removed my hand from the door. He sounded as if he'd come closer. How strong was he, exactly? Strong enough to batter the door down, if properly motivated?
"I think I understand," I said. "The — fairies — are inside of you. They're keeping you alive and moving. But Israel, they're trapped here. They got stuck inside of you when the rest of their kind got destroyed, or banished, or whatever. And they need a place to hide. They want me because they can live and grow inside of me." Because I'd once been Djinn.
He listened, and then he just sat in silence. After a long while, he said, rustily, "Can you kill me?"
"I don't know."
"Because I'm not supposed to be here. I'm …" He cleared his throat, with a sound like nails in a tin can.
"I'm supposed to be dead."
"That's why you didn't leave town," I said. "You want Ed to kill you. But he won't, Israel. He can't."
Israel sighed, I heard it all the way through the thick insulation and metal. "Pussy."