Maggie Shayne – Twilight Prophecy (страница 2)
He got in. She went around, got behind the wheel and started the engine. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a key. “Turn toward the door,” she ordered.
James turned toward the side window, so his back and cuffed wrists faced her. She inserted the key, twisted it and the cuffs sprang free. But even as he brought his hands around in front of him, he saw one of the nurses from Melinda’s room coming through the hospital doors, frowning as she moved toward the car.
“Incoming,” he muttered.
And then the nurse had rounded the car and was tapping on Brigit’s window.
Brigit rolled it down in the middle of the nurse’s “I knew it! You’re not a cop at all, you’re—”
Brigit released a growl like that of a panther about to strike. Not human, that sound. It sent chills up even James’s spine. He knew she’d exposed her fangs, and probably showed her glowing eyes, as well.
The nurse backed away so fast she fell on her ass, and then Brigit hit the gas and they pulled away, tires squealing before catching pavement and launching the T-Bird into motion.
“That was unnecessary.”
She glanced his way, fangs still visible, eyes still aglow. “Says who?”
“Says me. And will you put those damned things away?”
She shrugged, but relaxed enough to let the razor-sharp incisors retract. Her eyes returned to their normal striking ice-blue shade. “So are you done bitching now? Ready to throw in a ‘Hi, sis. Thanks for saving my ass back there. Great to see you again.’?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “It is good to see you again, little sister. How are you?”
“I’m good. So far. And you?”
“Fine.”
“Typical. One-word answers always were your thing. And I see you’re still trying out ways to use your gift. You decide to eradicate death altogether now, or just for those you deem too young to die?”
He lowered his head. “I didn’t need your help, you know. I do this sort of thing all the time.”
“I know you do. Unlike you, big brother, I care enough to keep track of my kin.”
He closed his eyes. “I’d see you more often if you didn’t give me this lecture every single freaking time.”
“What lecture? The one about abandoning your family? About turning your back on what you truly are, J.W.?”
“It’s James.”
“It’s J.W. It’s always been J.W., and it’ll always be J.W.”
“And I didn’t abandon my family or turn my back on what I am.”
“No? When’s the last time you exposed your fangs, J.W.? When’s the last time you tasted human blood?”
The last time.? It had been when he and his sister—his twin—had been adolescents, and their honorary “aunt” Rhiannon had insisted they imbibe. From a glass, not a warm pulsing throat, and still it had repulsed him.
“You’re lying to yourself,” Brigit said. “It was delicious. It set your soul on fire and left you craving more, and you know it as well as I do.”
He was startled, but only briefly. “I’m not used to being around someone who can read my every thought.”
“Yeah, well, whose fault is that?”
“Look, I admit, the blood was … appealing. That’s what repulsed me. I don’t want to be … that way. And I’m not denying who I am, I’m choosing who I want to be, even while trying to discover why I’m here, why I was given this power.” He turned his palms up and stared at them, as he had so often throughout his life. “Power over life and death.”
“You’ve always been so sure there’s a reason,” she said softly.
“I
She nodded. “Well, I hate to admit this, bro, but you’re right. There is a reason. And I have recently discovered what it is.”
He stared at his beautiful twin, his opposite in almost every way. And yet they were the only two of their kind. He was certain she was kidding at first, because she had always teased and taunted him about his yearning for meaning, his quest for understanding. His innate sense of goodness and morality. But she didn’t laugh or even smile at him this time. And her face was stone serious.
“You think you know why we were born?”
“Yeah. And it’s not to run along the seashore revivifying dead starfish and tossing them back into the waves like you did when we were kids, or to cure little girls with cancer.” She licked her lips and shot him a quick look. “That’s what you did, just now, isn’t it? Cured her?”
He felt warm all over, and his smile was genuine. “Yeah. She’s gonna be just fine.”
Brigit’s lips curved upward, too, before she bit back the smile and put her trademark stern expression back in place. She was a hard-ass. Or at least she liked people to think she was. They’d played these roles all their lives, and he often wondered why she’d taken to hers as easily as he had taken to his.
His was easy. He was the good twin. The healer. The golden child.
Hers was a harder role to embrace. She was the bad twin. The destroyer, in a manner of speaking. And yet she’d never once complained about the label, even mostly seemed to try to live up to the tag—or rather, live down to it.
“Well?” he asked at length. “Are you going to tell me?”
“I think I have to show you.” She nodded at a magazine that was rolled up and tucked into the cup holder between them.
He sighed, about to argue with her, but when he met her eyes, he found her mind open, as well. Nothing hidden, no barriers, which was a very rare thing for his sister. He narrowed his eyes and felt only sincerity coming from her. No pretense, no hidden motives.
“The end of the world is coming, bro. It’s coming—and we’re the only ones who can prevent it. That’s why we were born. To save our entire race. Read the article while I drive. The page is folded over. I just hope we’re not already too late.”
“Too late?”
“I think it’s going to start tonight,” she told him.
He shook his head, still not following. “You think
Brigit licked her scarlet-stained lips and sighed. “Armageddon. At least for our kind, and maybe for theirs, too.”
“We’re one-quarter human, Brigit. Their kind is also our kind.”
“Fuck their kind.” Her eyes flashed.
“Either way,” she went on. This might be it for everyone. Unless we do something about it.” She looked at her watch. “In the next forty-five minutes, as a matter of fact.”
“And where, exactly, is Armageddon going to break out in forty-five minutes?”
“Manhattan,” she said. “At a taping of the
Frowning, he buckled, then opened the copy of
Brigit pressed harder on the accelerator, and the car’s powerful engine roared like a vampire about to feed.
Lester Folsom wasn’t enjoying life anymore, and he was more than ready to leave it behind. But he wasn’t willing to take his secrets to the grave with him. Those secrets were worth money. A fortune. And hell, he’d risked his life often enough while learning them that he figured he’d earned the right to spill his guts and reap the benefits before he checked out for good. So he’d spent the past year doing exactly that.
He was old and tired, and he was damned achy. And it had happened all at once, too. None of this gradual decline one tended to expect from old age. Not with him. One week he was feeling normal, and the next, he noticed that it hurt to lift his arms up over his head. The balls and sockets in his shoulders felt as if they’d run out of lubrication, stiff and tight. And he felt something similar in his knees and wrists and even his ankles now and then. It had happened right about the same time his eyesight had gone to hell. And it had all been downhill from there. His hair had thinned, and what remained had gone silver. His back had grown progressively more stooped, his skin more papery, with every passing year.
The beginning of his end, as nearly as he could pinpoint it, had been fifteen years ago, right after he’d retired from government work. His pension was a good one. But not as good as the advance River House Publishing had given him for his tell-all book. That money had allowed him spend the past twelve months on a private island in the Caribbean, basking and writing. Reliving it all, and yes, occasionally jumping out of his skin at bumps in the night. But they’d all been false alarms.
They wouldn’t be, after tonight. If his former employer didn’t get him, the subjects of his life’s work would. Either way, he was history. And that was fine.
He’d had that year in the tropical sun. Sandy beaches and warm saltwater made bifocals and arthritis a whole lot more bearable. And now the year was over. The book would hit the stands one month from today. He figured he’d be dead shortly thereafter. But he was ready. His affairs were all in order.