The Medium

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Coyote brought the clothes and blanket. The jeans were too long, and the plain white t-shirt fit like a circus tent, but the vampire seemed more comfortable clothed than in wet pajama pants. He huddled under the blanket, turned up as hot as it would go, and visibly relaxed.

Kim made note of that. It seemed to act on him almost like a drug; he let his eyes close and leaned against the back of the couch, looking almost content.

Zeb and Coyote waited patiently in the kitchen while she got her guest calmed, clothed, and situated, then listened as she explained in a whisper what she’d figured out. She wasn’t sure why she whispered, since there was nowhere in the apartment a vampire wouldn’t hear her, but it seemed more considerate.

“He’s better today,” she finished. “He was pretty bad this morning, when he tried to leave, but he seems more… more there. Lucid. Not completely, but definitely more than yesterday. So I’m guessing that means he’s going to continue getting better, maybe remember some stuff. Unfortunately, I think that also means Duran didn’t forget about him.”

Coyote shot a look at Zeb. He scrunched his face up and shook his head, making his braid sway.

“You’re asking for a lot of faith, Kim,” he said. “And I think you’re giving an awful lot of faith without a whole lot of evidence. If there are any of those… Ooshkahjuhnee out there, they’re few and far between. Help him, by all means, but don’t you trust him as far as you can throw him.” He paused, huffed, and seemed to get it out of his system. “What makes you say Duran didn’t forget him down there?”

Kim frowned and glanced into the living room. “Rocky’s been here less than twenty-four hours. Less than twenty-four hours, and he’s getting better, starting to shake off whatever Duran did to him. It probably happened faster because he’s, y’know, not completely dry and not stuck in the dark in a pile of bodies. That’d help anyone’s mental state. But if this crap can wear off, it’s got to be reinforced occasionally. Thus, somebody’s got to come around and reinforce it.”

“Ongoin’ effort,” Zeb agreed. “Gotta take energy to keep up somethin’ like that. So our little friend’s not just a throwaway toy.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt and looked seriously at Kim. “Kimmy, you mighta just ticked off the devil, takin’ away his favorite. He might be comin’ after you, now.”

“Only if he can find me. I haven’t been conspicuous. And it could take him a few days anyway to find out his doom dungeon got trashed. That’s plenty of time to get a hold of Tony and Edith and get them down here to finish this mess.”

“So what’s the plan until then?”

“Feed him again. He’s functional, but not strong. Weak body does a mind no favors, so he’ll hopefully get better faster if he’s at or near healthy. If he doesn’t, Coyote, I was hoping you could take a walk with him. If he is Broken or whatever, we need to find that out fast, because if he is, there’s no telling what they might do to him in Amarillo.”

“Last resort only,” Coyote warned. “I’m not real keen on taking a walk with anyone Duran’s gotten to. Those sons of guns can set booby traps like no one’s business.”

“Truth. So if he doesn’t remember anything useful, say, by tomorrow…”

“Yeah, I’ll do it.” Coyote leaned heavily on his cane for a moment, then moved back into the living room. The others followed.

The man on the couch turned his face toward them slowly and opened his eyes. The pupils were dilated, and the whites had begun to take a pinkish tinge of straining capillaries. As Kim watched, a vein burst, and a vivid red stain appeared in the corner of his left eye.

“Again?” he whispered. He sounded more resigned than afraid.

Kim nodded. She didn’t anticipate anything less unpleasant than last time, but she also guessed that even being held down was better than starving. The vampire managed to hold still until everyone was situated, but his muscles gradually tensed until he began to jerk weakly. Kim held his head still and poked open a bag of plasma. She got seven of them in him before he managed to pull his arm out from under Coyote and dug claws into Zeb’s jacket.

They unhooked him while he twitched and apologized.

“Better?” Kim asked.

He nodded. He was starting to flesh out, looking less like a concentration camp survivor and more like someone getting over a long illness. One finger traveled contemplatively down the scarred skin inside his forearm, then made a sharp move toward his thigh, quickly aborted. His Adam’s apple jumped.

“Thanks,” he said. He picked himself up and wriggled back under the electric blanket. The stained white of his eye had already faded.

Coyote growled something unintelligible but definitely ungracious.

“Call me if you need me tomorrow,” he said, and he grabbed his cane and left.

Zeb sat on the end of the coffee table with his long legs tucked underneath himself and popped a stick of gum into his mouth. He offered one to Kim, who took it, and one to the vampire, who declined. Then he grabbed at his jacket pocket, failed to find what he wanted, and cursed.

“Son of a gun stole my keys,” he said with a snort. “Guess I’ll be needin’ a ride home.”

The three of them piled into the El Camino, since Kim refused to trust Vickie with guard duty again. They stopped off along the way so she could run into the supermarket and pick up cheap men’s sneakers, sweats, and a safety razor.

Zeb twisted in his seat to study Rocky with a guarded expression.

“He doesn’t mean nothin’ by it,” he said slowly. “Coyote. He said he’ll help you, an’ that means he will. He just doesn’t want you to think he likes you or anything. Bein’ perfectly honest, he was a lot worse to the last guy Kim dated. She ain’t his daughter or anything, but close.”

“I d-don’t want t-to hurt her,” Rocky whispered, “b-b-b-but…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Zeb told him with a grin. “I hear you folks are big on self-preservation. So if you hurt her, I’ll kill you. Problem solved.”

Rocky’s expression wavered between terror and gratitude.

“I… I know,” he agreed finally.

“‘Sides, you’re assumin’ you could get the jump on her in the first place. Believe you me, if you did catch her off guard, she’d still take part of you with her.”

The door creaked open and Kim chucked a plastic shopping bag at Zeb as she slid into the cab.

“You boys getting along?” she asked.

Zeb only smiled.

She threw the car into gear and squealed out of the parking lot.

Zeb got out at a little butter-yellow bungalow with no yard and an empty driveway. His truck would come back eventually, he assured them, and hopefully Coyote would be in it. He laughed and slammed the door.

Kim waved as she pulled away. The El Camino sputtered over a speed bump.

“I want to make another stop real quick,” she said. “If that’s okay with you. Do you think you’re okay to be out and about for a few minutes?”

He fumbled with the laces of his new sneakers and muttered a half-hearted assent.

“Just real quick,” she assured him, and she wove through traffic and swerved off down a side street to pull into a weed-choked parking lot behind a boxy cinderblock building. She climbed out of the car and motioned for Rocky to come with her as she passed through the revolving doors.

The interior stopped him dead. His shoes squeaked on the polished concrete of the entryway, and he had to catch himself on Kim’s shoulder or else risk losing his balance.

“Books,” he whispered hoarsely.

Kim turned to see his gaunt face softened by an ecstatic smile, thought she saw tears in his eyes, and then he was gone. He moved faster than she would have expected from someone who walked at a zombie shuffle, but the zombie was motivated. She followed him into the stacks, worried, but he’d already begun to build himself a nest out of Agatha Christie.

“You can use my card,” she said, and he gave her a look of pure adoration.

“That’s the spirit,” a woman’s voice commented.

Kim turned around and grinned. “Books are good,” she agreed. “Hey, Miz Ainslie. I came to talk to you.”

Miz Ainslie was five feet tall, perhaps less. She was built like a lawn gnome, with a physicist’s crazy white hair and a cattle rancher’s leathery skin. A pocket-covered photography vest strained to cover her gut; most of the pockets seemed to be full of pens. She watched Rocky’s progress with fascination.

“Oh?” she asked.

“Yeah, some stuff has come up. I may or may not be coming in Monday. Actually, it could be a while. But if you send me the stuff, I can get it collated and stuff.”

“Stuff, right. You’re probably going to Vegas or something and planning for an extra-long hangover.”

“Darn, you caught me.”

Ainslie cuffed her on the shoulder and jammed her hands into her pockets.

“No problem,” she said. “I’ll leave the materials in your box, and you pick them up when you can. This won’t be messing with any deadlines, will it?”

“I don’t think so. If it does, I’ll let you know in plenty of time.”

“Good enough for me. Go take care of your stuff.” Ainslie turned an amused eye on the growing pile of books Rocky was collecting.

“Do you want me to find your friend a bag?” she asked.

They left with as many books as the two of them could carry.

Rocky read all the way back to Kim’s apartment. He stumbled up the stairs with his nose stuck in a mystery, lodged himself in a corner on the floor, and read. He read, ignoring Kim as she cleaned the couch and picked up papers. And when she turned off the lights, threw the electric blanket over him, and went to bed, he read through the dark until he fell asleep.

For the second time, he wasn’t alone.

This time, though, the sensations were confused, blurred. The other mind was quiet, as though it too was asleep. It wasn’t aware of him. That was fine. That was safe. Even asleep, though, it was powerful, and it gradually absorbed him into someone else’s dream.

It began with a sense of déjà vu, a sense that some part of him knew what was coming and an equally strong conviction that it was all completely new. He didn’t try to pull away.

There was something smooth beneath his fingertips. The feeling was blunted, dimly remembered from long ago. It resolved into the dry, curved surface of paper. A book. Light swirled, pulsed, and gained form. Rough wooden desk. Candle flame. It wasn’t a book. It was the Book. He couldn’t understand the words, but nothing else could be written in that straight, angular script, red Latin letters, meticulously painted on fresh, stiff vellum.

It was beautiful, but the words swam in front of his eyes.

et ait illis: hic est sanguis meus novi testamenti qui pro multis effunditur

He couldn’t read the rest. His fingers traveled up the page and tracked the ornate border surrounding the words, coming to rest on a stylized lamb. He had a vague memory of having drawn it himself. Ink, pigment, gold foil. For someone, it would be a ridiculous extravagance. For him, it had been a meditation.

He cupped his hand around the candle flame and blew it out. The darkness rushed in on him, too dense for human eyes, and it carried sounds. Somewhere in the building, other people were moving. He could hear their voices. One was shouting, but the others were laughing. That seemed familiar, but he couldn’t remember what it meant.

A bell…

The dream slipped away, and he let it go. His own dreams were nothing but color and noise, dizzying and meaningless.

When he woke outside, he supposed he must have been walking in his sleep. He looked down at Kim and let her take his hand to lead him back inside.