rang again as I rode away. I didn’t look back.
* * *
I rode back to Seattle, taking in the sights as the clouds grew more ominous overhead
and rain started to spit down in hard, widely spaced drops. The buildings were a charming
mixture of new and old, towering and modest-height, nestled into the terrain as if
they’d been tossed and landed where happenstance chose. The pace of life here, this
late at night, was leisurely, with only moderate traffic and no sense of urgency.
The Space Needle was amazing, and Beast peeked out to get a good look, snarling,
Too tall to use for watching prey. Stupid human buildings.
After that, she disappeared from the forefront of my brain again. In spite of her
disdain, part of me thought I’d like living here.
Underneath the usual white-man smells of modern life, Seattle smelled of fish, stone,
raw wood, and green earth. It smelled of rain—lots of rain—tropical-forest quantities
of rain—and freshwater lakes and the Pacific Ocean and a sense of freedom I hadn’t
expected. Though part of that might be from getting out from under Leo’s and Bruiser’s
and even Reach’s thumbs. Unless I gave them opportunity, like with the pay phone call,
they couldn’t find me tonight without a lot of work and a lot of luck. I stopped for
gas and washed more blood, now dry, off my boots. It ran in thin trails across the
pavement.
Near the Fisherman’s Terminal, at the wharf, I found a coffee shop still open and
wheeled the bike in. I got an extra-large chai latte and a big blueberry scone and
pulled out the laptop I’d stolen from the vamp house. I went online and did some research
into flights out of the city. There were plenty of commercial red-eyes leaving, heading
east, but nothing direct to New Orleans until morning. I’d be getting in near ten.
I needed to be there a lot sooner, but I had no choice. I booked a direct flight with
one stop, but no flight change, which cost me over five hundred dollars, but I didn’t
quibble, and—not able to use cash for a flight since 9/11—I used the one credit card
I was pretty sure no one knew about. I borrowed the coffee shop’s phone and left a
message at the shot-up airport where the borrowed bike would be, then rode the bike
to Sea-Tac, Seattle Tacoma International Airport, and left it in short-term parking
with a hundred-dollar bill in the saddlebag.
With two hours left until my six a.m. flight to New Orleans, I cleaned up in the ladies’
room and ate in a terminal restaurant that served overpriced, overcooked, undertasty
food. I settled in for a long night. Having brooded myself into a total funk, I pulled
out the fancy, heavy cotton envelope and turned it over. My name was on the front
in a flowery, curlicue, old-fashioned script that looked like calligraphy. Old vamps
had the best penmanship. They’d had centuries to perfect it. Whoever had written the
two words had managed to imbue my name with elegance and menace, or maybe that was
just me projecting. Or maybe it was the spot of bloodred wax sealed with the imprint
of a bird with a human head, maybe an Anzu.
Sniffing the envelope, I detected a faint blood-scent: peaty, spicy, and a little
beery—the now-familiar blood-scent of the vamp who drained the first mate. It was
an odd scent for a vamp. Even without being in Beast form, I knew it was the same
vamp who had sent my attacker in Asheville, and all the ones since.
Deflecting a spurt of apprehension, I slit open the envelope and pulled out the single
sheet, unfolded and scrutinized it. The words were oddly capitalized, like the way
old English words were capitalized in documents to indicate their importance. Again,
it was written in the calligraphy of someone who had written in script back when that
was a prized skill.
You killed my Enforcer, Ramondo Pitri.
You will Die with your Master,
in a massacre such as you have never seen.
This, at a time of
* * *
I rode back to Seattle, taking in the sights as the clouds grew more ominous overhead
and rain started to spit down in hard, widely spaced drops. The buildings were a charming
mixture of new and old, towering and modest-height, nestled into the terrain as if
they’d been tossed and landed where happenstance chose. The pace of life here, this
late at night, was leisurely, with only moderate traffic and no sense of urgency.
The Space Needle was amazing, and Beast peeked out to get a good look, snarling,
Too tall to use for watching prey. Stupid human buildings.
After that, she disappeared from the forefront of my brain again. In spite of her
disdain, part of me thought I’d like living here.
Underneath the usual white-man smells of modern life, Seattle smelled of fish, stone,
raw wood, and green earth. It smelled of rain—lots of rain—tropical-forest quantities
of rain—and freshwater lakes and the Pacific Ocean and a sense of freedom I hadn’t
expected. Though part of that might be from getting out from under Leo’s and Bruiser’s
and even Reach’s thumbs. Unless I gave them opportunity, like with the pay phone call,
they couldn’t find me tonight without a lot of work and a lot of luck. I stopped for
gas and washed more blood, now dry, off my boots. It ran in thin trails across the
pavement.
Near the Fisherman’s Terminal, at the wharf, I found a coffee shop still open and
wheeled the bike in. I got an extra-large chai latte and a big blueberry scone and
pulled out the laptop I’d stolen from the vamp house. I went online and did some research
into flights out of the city. There were plenty of commercial red-eyes leaving, heading
east, but nothing direct to New Orleans until morning. I’d be getting in near ten.
I needed to be there a lot sooner, but I had no choice. I booked a direct flight with
one stop, but no flight change, which cost me over five hundred dollars, but I didn’t
quibble, and—not able to use cash for a flight since 9/11—I used the one credit card
I was pretty sure no one knew about. I borrowed the coffee shop’s phone and left a
message at the shot-up airport where the borrowed bike would be, then rode the bike
to Sea-Tac, Seattle Tacoma International Airport, and left it in short-term parking
with a hundred-dollar bill in the saddlebag.
With two hours left until my six a.m. flight to New Orleans, I cleaned up in the ladies’
room and ate in a terminal restaurant that served overpriced, overcooked, undertasty
food. I settled in for a long night. Having brooded myself into a total funk, I pulled
out the fancy, heavy cotton envelope and turned it over. My name was on the front
in a flowery, curlicue, old-fashioned script that looked like calligraphy. Old vamps
had the best penmanship. They’d had centuries to perfect it. Whoever had written the
two words had managed to imbue my name with elegance and menace, or maybe that was
just me projecting. Or maybe it was the spot of bloodred wax sealed with the imprint
of a bird with a human head, maybe an Anzu.
Sniffing the envelope, I detected a faint blood-scent: peaty, spicy, and a little
beery—the now-familiar blood-scent of the vamp who drained the first mate. It was
an odd scent for a vamp. Even without being in Beast form, I knew it was the same
vamp who had sent my attacker in Asheville, and all the ones since.
Deflecting a spurt of apprehension, I slit open the envelope and pulled out the single
sheet, unfolded and scrutinized it. The words were oddly capitalized, like the way
old English words were capitalized in documents to indicate their importance. Again,
it was written in the calligraphy of someone who had written in script back when that
was a prized skill.
You killed my Enforcer, Ramondo Pitri.
You will Die with your Master,
in a massacre such as you have never seen.
This, at a time of
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