Let The Darkness Lead You Home 5 страница

"There," Frank says as he drops the last probe onto the tray, sweat sticking his clothes to his back, hands stiff with tension. "Let that settle for a few minutes, then you can sit up, and I'll show you the mechanism for switching views."

Gerard must have seen him do twenty of these operations before, and usually he chats with the vamp on the table while they wait for the healing to finish, leaving Frank to start his cleanup, but this time he's at Frank's side as soon as he steps back, massaging his hands, telling him softly what a good job he did, like maybe Frank doesn't know that he fucking rocked it.

"Yeah," Frank says, wondering what the fucking hell is going on, but letting Gerard keep up the massage because it feels really good. "It went well."

"Excellent," Ulrich says expansively, spreading his arms wide again from his spot on the table, nearly knocking his pet off the little stool he's sitting on. "Excellent!" He sits up smoothly, completely ignoring Frank's protests. "I heal a hundred times faster than your master there," he says. "I regrew this arm in less than a day." He shoves his right arm in Frank's face. "Fishing boats. Very dangerous."

Frank wouldn't mind putting Ulrich in a boat—one without any kind of hold or cabin—and pushing him out to sea. A few days in the sun, and Frank would never have to see his annoying face again. "I'm sure," he says mildly, then, before Ulrich can continue to regale him with tales of his healing prowess, continues, "Are you in normal vision now?"

"Vampire vision," Ulrich corrects, but settles down with a show of active listening.

"Good. Now close your eyes and look sharply right for a second then open them."

Ulrich does as he's told. When he opens his eyes again, it's all Frank can do to hold his ground. The look the gerent gets on his face when he can see Frank in infrared drips with hunger. A cold, feral hunger that sends Frank's stomach dropping to his knees.

Gerard must see it too, because in the time Frank's taken a single shaky breath, he's pulled Trey around the table in front of Ulrich and pushed Frank out of reach. He's just in time. Ulrich dives on Trey, fangs bared, tearing into his throat with a snarl. Trey screams, a single high-pitched sound broken off by a second snap of Ulrich's jaws. This is no wound that will heal with a few licks from a vampire tongue. When Ulrich lifts his head to bite again, tearing apart Trey's shirt to get to his heart, Trey's head lolls, nearly severed from his body like he was attacked by a wildcat, not a vampire. Frank has never seen anything like this on his monitors.

It's terrifying, but Frank can't escape the room. He's pressed against the wall, Gerard's back nearly crushing his chest, hands cupped around Frank's fists twisted in Gerard's shirt at his waist. Frank can hear Gerard sniffing—the scent of blood must be overwhelming with his enhanced senses—but he doesn't ease up, doesn't leave any part of Frank vulnerable to attack. As much as Frank would love to flee, he knows better than to run from a vampire, and he's glad to have one he trusts between him and the monster he's created.

"What the fuck," Frank breathes in Gerard's ear. Gerard just shakes his head, a tiny motion Frank might miss if he didn't have his face pressed to Gerard's neck. He hears the door swing open, Bebe's voice sharp and stony, saying, "Your Majesty, we have guests!" and the snarling slurping sounds stop. Frank dares to peer through Gerard's hair over his shoulder.

Ulrich's pet has been reduced to a few scraps of blood-soaked fabric and a pile of meat. It looks like Ulrich literally tore him limb from limb. Frank tries to breathe, but can't get enough air past the restriction on his lungs, so he pushes Gerard forward just an inch. "What the fuck," he says again. Gerard shifts his head, and Frank realizes that he's lined himself up perfectly so his cold dead body is completely between Frank and Ulrich.

Ulrich's head swivels from his ravaged pet to the captain of his guard to where Gerard has Frank trapped. "Look left," Gerard says, and for a second Frank thinks Gerard is talking to him, but Gerard repeats himself, louder, commanding, "Close your eyes and look hard left." Amazingly, the kneeling gerent does, taking himself back to normal vampire vision.

"He was so filled with blood," Ulrich says, staring at the mess he made, wiping gore off his face with a sleeve.

"Of course he was filled with blood," Bebe snaps. "He was human."

"But I could see it. It was right there. " Ulrich's looking at her now like maybe all of this is her fault. Frank doesn't move a muscle.

"You watched the infrared vids," she says, stern but not disrespectful. "You saw what the humans look like through the alts. We talked about this."

With a last look at the remains of his pet, Ulrich stands. "Damn it," he says. "That boy had absolutely no gag reflex." He doesn't so much as glance in Frank and Gerard's direction before sweeping out of the room.

"I hope your things aren't too much of a mess Mr. Iero," Bebe says, and gives them a little bow before backing out of the room after her master.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Frank shoves Gerard off him. "No, seriously, Gerard, what the fuck? What the fuck did I do to him? He just fucking ate his pet! Like chewed him up and swallowed him! Who does that?"

"You didn't do anything," Gerard says, his voice all calm and reasonable and making Frank even angrier. "Sometimes the ancients—"

"Fuck the ancients. Fuck that. Last night that guy was sucking his cock and tonight he got his throat ripped out. Right after I installed the alts. Don't fucking try to tell me there's no connection." All Frank can see is the red of Trey's blood. He wants to get the fuck out of here. He wants to forget the kid's name. He wishes he never knew it.

"Frank," Gerard says, trying to reach out for him. But Frank jerks away.

"I'm wishing I didn't fucking know his fucking name right now," he shouts. "How fucked up is that? Like if I didn't know his name that might make this okay. It's not fucking okay. Don't tell me it's fucking okay."

"Frank," Gerard says again, and this time he moves too fast for Frank to sidestep, wraps Frank up in his arms. Frank only fights for a moment before he lets Gerard hold him up.

They stay like that while Frank catches his breath, while his heart rate slows and his limbs stop shaking. Fucking adrenalin. Fucking crazy-ass wild vampires.

"Let's get your things and leave," Gerard murmurs into Frank's hair when Frank starts wriggling loose.

"Fuck my things. I don't want my things," Frank mutters, but he's stepping out of Gerard's hold to gather up his instruments even as he says it. He doesn't wash them, or worry about them going in the right compartments, and he knows he's going to regret it when they get home, but he could not fucking care less right now. He's not going to stay here a minute longer than he has to.

"Come on," Gerard says as Frank's closing the last case. "We'll get someone to bring those down to the car. Let's go." Frank nods and Gerard picks him up again like he'd done when Frank was blindfolded. It's less frightening when Frank can see him coming, until Gerard gets them out in the hall and starts moving at speed.

It's like what Frank imagines riding a roller coaster in a wind tunnel would be, and Frank can't breathe or see anything more than a blur, but then it's over, and they're standing in a wide front hall under a ceiling that soars three stories above their heads.

"You're going to need this," says a man's voice from behind Frank. He turns to see a vampire in a British army uniform circa the first world war holding out the scarf Gerard had used to blindfold him on the way here.

"No," Gerard says. "I'm not." Frank's heart, which had begun to pound in anticipation of another descent into darkness, stutters.

"House rules," the soldier says, still holding the horrible thing outstretched.

"You can take your house rules and shove them up your phony English arse," Gerard says, arm still around Frank's shoulders. "Have someone bring our bags to my car."

"House rules," the vamp says again, but he drops his hand this time.

"Bags. My car," Gerard repeats, and opens the front door.

It's less than five minutes after Frank climbs into the passenger seat that the vamp dressed as a soldier, and Ryan, still in his pinstriped suit, come down the steps loaded down with all the bags, and Frank watches in the side-view mirror as Gerard helps them load first the cases and then the duffles into the trunk. As they finish, the soldier hands the scarf to Gerard. Fucking pushy bastard. Even as Gerard takes it willingly, Frank trusts he won't use it again. Because Gerard is stubborn and angry, and he wouldn't do anything right now that would make the Southern gerent happy. But Frank's fingers still wrap around the door handle as he watches Gerard run the fabric through his fingers just at the edge of the framed reflection. "He won't," Frank finds himself whispering.

Like Gerard heard him, he stops playing with the scarf and loops it around Ryan's neck, tucking the ends into his suit jacket, patting him on the chest. Ryan fakes a swoon, and his friend takes advantage of the momentum and pushes him onto his ass. Gerard misses the byplay he caused though, because he's already climbing in the car.

As they zoom down the drive, Frank turns in his seat to raise both middle fingers at the house. "Good fucking riddance!" he shouts over the music blasting from the speakers.

Gerard doesn't slow at all as they hit the gate, and when Frank catches sight of the wide eyes of the vamps in the guard house, he starts laughing and can't stop. He's howling, slapping his thighs, and then there are tears streaming down his face, snot slicking his upper lip, and he starts wondering if he's ever gonna quit. Gerard's wondering the same thing, clearly, because twenty or so minutes past the compound border, he pulls over, turning down the music, and grabs Frank, gives him a shake.

Frank tries to stop, he does, and he manages to take one deep breath, but then he thinks about how shocked the guards looked and he's off again. Through his gasps and his tears, Frank's dimly aware of Gerard pushing his seat back, fumbling with their seat belts, before he hauls Frank onto his lap, wedging him past the steering wheel so he can pin him against the door with his body, wrap Frank tight in his arms.

"Shhh," he says. "Frankie, shhh. It's okay."

Frank fucking knows it's okay. It's just funny. But trapped by Gerard's body, Frank starts to get a grip, and the laughter peters out.

When Frank can finally breathe again, Gerard wipes his cheeks with the tail of his shirt, frames Frank's face with his hands and looks at him carefully. The moon is bright enough that Frank can see Gerard's features, but he wonders how much more detail Gerard can see of him.

"What are you looking at?" Frank finally asks when he can't take the scrutiny for another second.

"You don't smell scared anymore," Gerard answers.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Gerard leans closer, close enough so his nose is touching the hollow between Frank's collar bones, and sniffs deeply. "Just the leftover. In your sweat. But your skin smells okay."

Pushing him back, Frank mutters, "I get it alright? I stink."

"Is that what I said?" Gerard goes back in, snuffling his way along the line of Frank's collar like a fucking puppy. And jesus, really? Frank's gonna get hard right now? Stinking of fear and sweat and sitting in a fucking vampire king's lap in a car stopped on the side of a deserted road?

"Fuck you," Frank says, pushing him away again. His dick holds at a little stiff, and he silently tells it to fucking keep it that way.

"You started laughing and you smelled like you did in that operating room when— When."

"Did not." But what the hell does Frank know? He doesn't have a vampire nose. "Did not," he says again for good measure.

"Okay," Gerard says. "If you say so." He doesn't even pretend to sound convinced. But he does deposit Frank back on the passenger side, which is something. As he's adjusting his seat, he eyes the clock on the stereo. "We're going to have to stop for the day," he says. "Even running, I'm not sure I could make it before sunup, and besides, I'm not leaving you to drive home alone."

Frank should have thought of that. Should have realized that they wouldn't be able to make it home. He shouldn't have made Gerard leave so late. "Where will we stop?" he asks. He hasn't been outside a zone compound for more than a few hours in years. Does Gerard have friends they could stay with? Someplace with shutters or a basement or a bunker?

"We'll find a hotel. Even in the backwaters they should all have shutters." Gerard doesn't sound concerned, so Frank tries not to worry. If there's one thing vamps are good at, it's self preservation.

"Okay," he says. Frank's throat is tight from all the laughing. Which is weird. That's never happened to him before.

"We have a few more hours anyway. Enough to get across Southern's border." Gerard turns the music up again then, but not quite loud enough that Frank misses him adding, "I hope."

Gerard opens the car's engine full throttle, and Frank tries to enjoy watching him drive, but Gerard never gets the abandoned look on his face—his mouth stays set and tight, his shoulders hunched—and eventually, despite his best efforts, Frank's eyes drift shut and he sleeps.

When he wakes, the sky off to his right is starting to edge pink, and fuck, Gerard's pushed it too far, the sun's coming up and they're still in the car. But they're turning into a lot, passing a sign that says Dew Drop Inn in flickering neon. Frank can see metal shutters rolled up above the windows, but still, this doesn't look like someplace all that safe for vampires.

"Where'r'we?" he mutters, clearing his throat and turning down the music before he repeats himself so Gerard can actually hear him.

"We're about twenty miles from the Eastern Zone," Gerard says, angling the car into an empty spot near the large window sporting a sign that says Vacancies. "I would have stopped sooner, but this is the first place I saw with proper shutters."

"Do you want me to get us a room?" Frank asks. If they don't get a lot of vampires out this way, it might be better if a human dealt with the owners. Gerard looks around, maybe seeing what Frank sees—that none of the windows are covered even though dawn is breaking—maybe using his infrareds to see that all the bodies on the other side of the walls are warm. Frank doesn't know and doesn't want to waste time asking. "I'll go," he says.

Gerard shoves a wad of bills into his hand, says, "Go. Yes."

Frank only gets one room, even though he suspects Gerard will argue with him. He doesn't trust the shutters, and wants to be close by if any light starts shining through. "North facing if you have it," he says to the bone-tired looking woman behind the counter. Been driving all night."

After tapping at her computer for a minute, she says, "Sure," and gets a keyblank out and runs it through her machine. "Room one oh four, round the back. We got those shutter things, case'a vampires, too. They'll block the light for you."

"Great," Frank says. "Thanks." He almost asks for a second key, but it's not like Gerard's going to go wandering around a motel after sunup anyway, so he just hands over the cash and nods. The sky's getting lighter with every second. "Don't need a receipt," he says, and runs for the door.

Gerard, thank god, is sitting behind the wheel when Frank gets back to the car, not standing there laden with bags or anything. "Around the back," Frank says, a little breathless. "We can park right outside, I assume. One oh four." Gerard zips around the corner of the building, parking sloppily outside their room.

"You go," Frank says, slapping the key into Gerard's palm. "Close the shutters. I've got the bags." The way the building's shaped and how the trees line the property, this side of the motel is still in full darkness, but Frank doesn't want to take any risks. He watches until Gerard gets inside and he hears the whirring clanking sound that means the shutters are closing before he gets their duffles out of the trunk and follows his master through the door.

The controls for the shutters are right next to the window, and like they have all the time in the world, Gerard is just standing there, finger on the switch. Frank doesn't ask what the fuck he's doing. He notices that the bathroom is set in the back corner, windowless, and that it has a bath tub. "Hey," he says. "Can you go run me a bath? I'd like to soak some of this sweat off." By the time he's finished asking, he's got his fingers covering Gerard's on the controls and is edging him away with his hip.

"Okay," Gerard says, actually going, to Frank's surprise. "Do you want bubbles or anything if I can find any?"

Frank snorts. "Do I look like I want bubbles? Fuck no. Water. Hot." He watches Gerard go, trying to hurry him along with the power of his thoughts, pressing as hard as he can on the switch, like that might make the shade rumble closed any faster. Fucking things must be ancient if you've got to keep your hand on the controls the whole time. Frank's never been anywhere that didn't have automatic shutters on computer-controlled timers, with two or three backup systems in place just in case. This is fucking ridiculous. It would be quicker to do it with a hand crank. But Gerard's in the bathroom now, fiddling with the taps, the door almost completely shut behind him. He's safe.

After what feels like an hour, the bottom of the shutter drops into the well at the base of the track, and Frank takes his hand off the controls, flexes it. Despite the ancient mechanism, he can't see any cracks or chinks in the shutter itself, and the room is black except for where a sliver of light streams through the cracked bathroom door. He lets himself relax a fraction.

"How's the bath coming?" he calls, fumbling for a light switch between the window and the door.

"You'll have to come test the water. It looks fucking awesome with the infrareds, but I have no idea how that translates to a comfortable temperature for you."

Ulrich's eyes filled with ravenous hunger, Trey's blood spraying across the operating table, dripping onto the floor, Gerard's ribs crushing Frank against the wall—

And here's Gerard using the tech to test bath water. "Okay," Frank says faintly, fingers finding the light switch at last, flicking it on to weakly illuminate half the bed and a rickety table with an old-fashioned phone on it.

The thundering sound of water gushing from ancient pipes shuts off, leaving the plink-plink sound of a drip in an enclosed room and the ragged noise of Frank's breathing to fill the silence. "You coming?" Gerard says, pulling the door open enough to reveal him on his knees, one hand swirling in the water, gaze trained on whatever patterns it's making. Frank wonders if it looks like a bath filled with blood. His fingers twitch uselessly towards monitors that are still a few hundred miles and a day away. Seeing the world through Gerard's eyes is getting to be too much of a habit. And, honestly? Frank's had enough of blood baths tonight. He doesn't need to look at that shit.

"Yeah," Frank says, putting one foot in front of the other. "Coming."

They navigate past each other in the tiny space, and Frank expects Gerard to leave the room, get in bed, but he wedges himself in the corner as Frank bends down to test the water with his fingertips. "You gonna go to sleep?" Frank asks, dipping his hand farther in. It's perfect.

"I'll keep watch," Gerard answers.

Which doesn't make any sense. "Why would you— The sun's coming up. You need your sleep. Nothing's gonna happen to me in a locked hotel room."

"I'm fine," Gerard says. "We're not back in Eastern yet. You never know."

Frank sees Mikey's face, hollow and grey, his fingers like sticks despite the blood his brother carefully fed him, all because he couldn't sleep. "No," he says, louder than he means to. "No. I can take a bath tonight if you feel like you have to stay with me."

"Don't be ridiculous. How long can you possibly be? A few hours isn't going to make any difference."

"I'm not going to take hours," Frank says. He only asked for the bath to get Gerard out of the window. Though now it's there, a good soak does sound nice.

"Well then," Gerard says. "Perfect. Do you need anything from your bag?" He's got his hand on the door like he's leaving. Which is good, because even though maybe it shouldn't—he's seen Frank's bones, his veins and arteries, the shapes he is under his clothes—it feels weird to think about undressing while Gerard just watches.

Frank asks for his toiletries kit and sweat pants, and when Gerard leaves to fetch them, he closes the door. He's sinking under the water when he realizes that he probably could have asked Gerard to keep watch from outside.

When Gerard comes back, though, he doesn't stare, but busies himself at the counter, unpacking Frank's shampoo and soap and toothbrush, folding his sweats and the shirt he slept in last night to make a neat pile of them.

"Do gerents very often—" Frank starts, still finding it hard to find the words, though they're easier to say to Gerard's back than they would be to his face. "Do they often eat their pets?"

Gerard turns so he's facing the wall at Frank's feet, his profile harsh under the bathroom's fluorescent lights. "You didn't do that to Ulrich. He's never cared about the laws."

With one hand, Frank scoops water up onto his chest and watches it run down again. "Not that a gerent has to follow the laws anyway."

"I follow the laws," Gerard says.

That should be reassuring, but it makes Frank's skin itch with frustration. Gerard is proper all the fucking time, treating Frank with the courtesy due a tech of his stature, like Frank's a fucking machine. Not that he wants to be a pet like Trey, used, ignored, destroyed at his master's whim, but something. Gerard talks to him, about Mikey, his art—Frank's sure Ulrich never talked to his pets like that. But he'd sure as hell look at them if they were there, all hot and naked in a bath right next to him. And why the fuck is Frank even thinking about that right now? He just watched a man get ripped to pieces.

Frank grabs a washcloth and the anemic bar of hotel soap and starts scrubbing at where the sweat dried itchy between his legs.

"Mikey says the new soundboard came yesterday," Gerard says, still not looking at Frank.

Frank scrubs harder, down his legs and up over his belly, not sure if he's more pissed at Gerard for changing the subject or at himself for being upset about one death. He sees death every day. It's not like he doesn't know what vampires are. He shouldn't have delusions.

"Why?" Frank says.

"Bob said you needed it."

"Why do you follow the laws?" The gerents don't police one another, and Mikey would never interfere with anything his brother wanted to do. There's no reason Gerard couldn't rip Frank's throat out right now, sleep off daylight in that bed out there and drive north as soon as the sun set, leaving Frank's body in a tub of cold, pink water for the housekeeping staff to find. "What does it matter?"

Gerard does look at him now, eyes flat and fiery at the same time in a way Frank usually associates with Mikey. "I follow the laws because they're fair. Because they keep the balance."

Frank can't seem to stop the jerky movements with the washcloth, so he's scrubbing under his arm when he snaps, "But why do you even care? People aren't going to stop fucking. There's still like five billion of us. Are you that worried about killing off your food source?"

"We aren't all Ulrich," Gerard says in the voice that gets lieutenants scrambling to do what they're told. "He hasn't been human in two thousand years. I doubt he can remember. I can."

Frank expected some political speech or statistics about population shifts. Something he could argue with. But what the hell is he supposed to say to that? "Can you fucking wash my back then?" is what comes out of his mouth.

Gerard barks a short laugh, losing the flat glare, and drops to his knees on the bathmat.

There's a momentary struggle for the washcloth, because Frank can't actually believe he said that out loud and his brain tells him Gerard's trying to stop him from getting clean, but once he realizes that he did, and Gerard took him seriously, he surrenders it.

"How do you wash your back at home?" Gerard asks, moving the soapy cloth in small circles over Frank's skin.

"Shower," Frank answers. "Water pressure." He's pretty sure no one has washed his back like this since he went away to school. "I have a loofah on a stick if I'm really dirty."

It feels like Gerard is washing off Trey's blood, even though Frank knows he didn't get any on his skin. When Gerard rinses Frank's back and moves up to his neck, Frank says, "Do I still smell like fear sweat? Like you said in the car?"

Gerard sniffs, face right next to Frank's ear. "You smell like hotel soap. Water with too many minerals. Rust." He moves closer, nose almost touching the scorpion on Frank's neck. "The ink in your skin."

"Okay," Frank says, trying desperately not to shiver. "Good to know." Gerard's been this close to him. Closer. Tonight even. But not while Frank's been naked. "Okay," Frank says again, hardly more than a breath.

"Were you going to wash your hair?"

Frank was definitely going to wash his hair. He's much less convinced Trey's blood didn't spatter there while Gerard was dragging him out of range. "I—" he says. "Yes. But I can—" He does not need help with that. He's not a fucking fairytale princess. And Gerard's not his handmaiden.

"I used to wash Mikey's hair," Gerard says unexpectedly, his hands still on Frank—on his neck and his right shoulder. "When we'd dye it, or a few times when he got so drunk he puked in it."

Frank can't imagine Mikey drunk. Especially not drunk enough to puke in his own hair. "Is that a—" Frank says. "Do you want to wash mine?"

"I used to hate having to shower. But sometimes I miss that. The two of us in the bathroom in the basement, air all steamy, no one bothering us."

Frank takes that as a yes. "Okay," he says.

Gerard reaches for the shampoo he took out of Frank's kit instead of the hotel stuff, and Frank's grateful, because if the shampoo smells like the soap, he's not a fan. "Dunk," Gerard says, pushing Frank gently down until his head's under water.

When Frank reaches up to swish the water through the sweat-matted hair at the back of his neck and his forehead, Gerard's already there, fingers combing through the tresses while he supports Frank's skull. It's fucking weird, and Frank's not sure what to do about it, so he just clings weakly to the edge of the tub until Gerard lifts him up again. His nose wasn't under water, but he can't help wondering if it were if Gerard would have remembered that Frank needs to breathe air.

"Mikey had to wash pig shit out of my hair once," Gerard says as he lathers Frank's scalp.

"Pig shit?" Frank can't see Gerard, who's behind him, but he feels like he's talking to the same vampire who showed him the book about a man who shoots webs from his wrists.

"There was a lot of vodka, and a dare, and I passed out while I was trying to walk along a fence. They hosed me down right there in the barn, but the shit was still clumped in my hair when we got home. He stuck with it until it was all gone, though."

Дата добавления: 2015-09-29