“Lily! Lily wake up! You’re having a nightmare…Lily!” If there were ever a time when Terry Hess missed her human form, it was now. She lifted her translucent hand to Lily’s shoulder and tried to wake her, but only managed to raise goose bumps.
“Lily Ellen Saburi!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, grateful her psychic friend was the only one who could hear her.
Lily sat straight up in bed, her hand gripping the .45 Caliber pistol tucked under her pillow. Her eyes flew around the room, disoriented. Drenched in a cold sweat, she leveled the gun at shadows, her surroundings slowly becoming more familiar.
“Jesus! Will you put that thing down before you hurt yourself? With the way you’re swinging it around, I ought to be happy people can’t die twice!”
Exhausted, Lily slumped against the headboard. She hadn’t slept much in the past weeks. Two weeks to be exact. That’s all it had been since Terry died, and it wasn’t too long afterward that she appeared in her new ethereal form. Lily exhaled, placing her gun on the nightstand and taking a cigarette from the pack next to the cheap lamp bolted to the pressed wood. She stuck the stick between her lips, lit it, and blew smoke into the already musty air. The room was dim, the ambient light from the motel’s neon vacancy sign its only illumination.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Terry said from across the room.
“Which? Smoke, or wake up screaming from nightmares haunting me since the night you were murdered? Take your pick.”
“Neither, but you don’t have to be so bitchy about it.”
“Hmmmff. What time is it?” Lily asked, squinting at the clock radio adjacent to her gun.
“Almost eleven p.m.”
Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, Lily stretched. “Time to get moving.” With a wink, she took one last drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out in the half-filled ashtray. “It’s almost witching hour.”
She padded barefoot into the bathroom and snapped on the light. Its harsh fluorescent glare made her lack of sleep all the more obvious. She grimaced at her own reflection.
The water in the tap was cold, but she splashed her face anyway, despite the gooseflesh that spread across arms. Lily looked up, water droplets dripping from her chin to her chest, to see Terry’s translucent form staring back at her from the mirror.
“Don’t do this tonight, Lily. This isn’t who you are.”
Lily grabbed a towel from the wire rack above the sink and patted her face dry. “Yeah, well, maybe that was true two weeks ago, but not anymore.”
She dropped the towel onto the edge of the sink and walked out, leaving the bathroom light on as she headed to the small round table in the corner. On top, sat enough weaponry to outfit a small army.
“Lily, please…,”
“Shut up, Terry. This isn’t your concern,” she answered, not bothering to look up as she loaded another clip into the magazine of her gun.
“It certainly is my concern! You’re my concern! Lily, for Christ’s sake, revenge is not the answer!”
Lily’s lip curled. “Yeah, but it feels fucking great,” she shot back, but quickly lost her satisfied smile when she saw tears glistening like diamonds on her friend’s cheek.
Momentarily stunned, Lily didn’t realize shades could cry. Great, one more thing my psychic ability failed to pick up on.
With a sigh, she put the gun down and walked around the bed to where her friend sat—well sort of sat—on the edge of the dresser. “Terry, don’t.”
Lily reached toward her friend then shoved her hands into her pockets. She wanted to hug Terry, tell her it would be okay, but couldn’t. Her hand would pass through, anyway.
At the impotent feeling, her anger bubbled to the surface again. It was fathomless, and every time she thought of what happened, it crashed through her thin calm veneer, flooding her with bitterness. Pressing her lips together, she fisted her hands inside her black leather jeans, steeling herself against the onslaught.
“Lil, you’ve got to stop this. It’s not doing either of us any good. What’s done is done. What, you want to get yourself killed so you can join me? I’m a shade because I chose to stay on this plane, even though my time here is done. I’ve made my peace with what happened. Why can’t you? You’re the only reason I’m choosing to stay earthbound. You need to get past all this hate and resentment, for both of us.”
She didn’t say a word, but sat on the edge of the bed and continued to pack her weapons. She could hear Terry’s frustrated sigh behind her but said nothing.
“I’ve watched your guilt and your anger eat at you, driving you crazy since I died. I convinced myself that it, too, would pass. Never in a million years did I think you were serious about this revenge ride you’ve been on—that is until you started your little practice runs. Christ, Lily! You tracked another vampire last night! What are you looking to do, become a vigilante against the entire supernatural world?”
Lily shrugged. “Pretty much.”
It amazed Lily how easy it was to recognize supes now that she was attuned to them. She had spotted the vampire last night as it tracked potential prey in Grand Central.
As much as she hated to give them credit, the bloodsuckers were patient hunters, but then again so was she.
She watched the supe focus on a solitary male as he headed unsuspectingly out the Forty Second Street exit. But wasn’t until its potential victim crossed Fifth Avenue and passed the darkened entrance to Bryant Park that it attacked.
Stepping out of the shadows, Lily pointed her gun at the vampire’s head. “Hungry tonight?” she taunted. The fanged creature jerked its head in her direction and hissed, baring fangs.
What sounded like a half-swallowed whimper sprang from its victim, followed by the pungent smell of urine as the terrified guy stood too scared to move.
“Now would be a good time to run,” she said not taking her eyes off the vampire. Reading the creature’s fury and its thirst, Lily knew it was going to strike. With its fangs dripping saliva, the vampire lunged, its clawed hands reaching for her throat, but Lily was ready.
She swung her crossbow from under her duster and shot the bloodsucker point blank in the chest with a wooden arrow. The leech didn’t even see it coming.
“Well at least this kill didn’t make the papers,” Terry grumbled, her voice an aggravated sigh.
“Vampires are already dead, Terry, they just turn to ash when you stake them. There wouldn’t be anything left for the papers to report. Then again, remember the naked guy they found in Central Park near the fountain? He had been shot in the head, right?” She arched an eyebrow for effect. Tagging the werewolf had been a hard chase, but worth it.
“Lily, please tell me that wasn’t you, because I’m seriously starting to get scared. I convinced myself this was just one of your knee-jerk reactions, like in high school when you spray painted phallic symbols all over Chris Crowley’s car for cheating on you senior year. At least then, no one got hurt! And it kills me that it doesn’t bother you in the slightest that you took those lives—that you plan on taking more.”
Lily stiffened at Terry’s choice of words. “I don’t understand why this is so hard for you! And in case you forgot, it was a werewolf that killed you, Terry.”
She couldn’t face her friend. Squeezing her eyes shut, Lily swallowed hard against the guilt that bit into her gut. All she wanted was to scream or cry, anything that would drown out the little voice in her head chanting, your fault…all your fault.
Tightening her jaw, she turned, forcing herself to meet Terry’s translucent eyes. “Every one of the supes I hunted was out to take a human life. I was in their psyches, Terry. I saw their intents. Whether you want to admit it or not, my actions saved a few innocent lives.”
Except for the one that mattered, the little voice countered.
“But what about innocent supes?”
Lily snorted. “Don't hold your breath, but I’ll let you know if I come across one.”
“So, now you've dragged us back to Maine in the hopes of what? Finding this one particular supe? And just how do you propose to locate this creature, or are you planning to use yourself as live bait?”
“I’ve sensed it in this area for a week, and managed to narrow its trail to a stretch of woods not far from here.”
“That’s even if it’s still around. It might even be dead,” Terry said, running her hands through her hair causing it to glitter as it floated back into place.
“It’s not dead. I’d sense it—come on, Terry, even you’d sense it. I’m going, regardless of what you say. All my practice runs as you call them, have been nothing more than a prequel to this. I will kill the creature that took your life or die trying. So would you please stop nagging me?”
“You didn’t even take the precaution of telling anyone you were coming here. What if something happens?”
“Yes I did. You’ll know.”
“Considering the fact you’re the only person who can see or hear me, that’s not such a great plan,” Terry replied.
Lily shrugged, shoving wooden stakes into the side of her boot. She was hunting tonight, regardless of how much Terry disapproved.
Loose bullets suddenly ricocheted past Lily’s head, clattering against the wall. Narrowing her eyes, she shook her head. “You know, if it weren’t for the fact my hand would pass right through you, I’d punch you dead in the face, right now.”
“Dead is the operative word, don’t you think? Don’t go, Lil. I’ve got a terrible feeling about this in the pit of my stomach.”
“First off, you haven’t got a stomach anymore. Second, forget it. I’m going—and no, you cannot come with me, so you can stop with the cheap parlor tricks!”
“Oh, I’m coming with you all right, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I move in a decidedly different way from you these days, in case you’ve forgotten, and I can sense where you are and what you’re doing at any time. So don’t piss me off!”
Lily smiled at her friend. Shade or not, she was still the same old Terry, and Lily’s throat tightened even as her heart ached. She cleared her throat. “If you’re coming then let’s go, we’re wasting time.”
Picking up the last few things from the table, she turned toward her friend, her car keys dangling from her fingers. “Would you care to drive?”
“Funny, I always said you should have been a comedian,” Terry answered dryly. Then without a word, she blew right through her friend, leaving Lily shivering in a seventy degree room.
Lily rubbed her arms before shrugging into her leather jacket. “Always has to have the last word,” she mumbled, snapping off the lights and closing the door behind her.