Chapter Forty-Eight – Faith

 

They’d flooded into the room in a wordless, seamless crowd of slack faces and empty expressions. No words, just a shambling of human flesh, like oil pouring from a barrel as they flowed in and filled it nearly to the brim. All they’d left was a small circle, maybe ten feet across, where Tanchovsky and I stood across from each other.

The vampire glared at me for the whole time it took for them to enter the room and find their places. Those burning coals for eyes staring out at me. Promising never-ending torment and angst if Sam didn’t get here soon.

This was it.

This was the end of my life.

I took a deep breath. I held it. Tried to enjoy it for as long as I could. It might be one of my last.

And then, as the Renfields all seemed to settle into place, he advanced on me, saying, “Don’t worry, this will only hurt for a moment.”

I cried out in fear as I stumbled back from him. I cried out again when I hit the implacable wall of flesh behind me, where each brick was made from distorted and deluded human muscle and bone.

Hands thrust me back towards Tanchovsky as he came closer, moving slowly, a grin spreading on his face. Not the kind of grin at a good joke, either. It was the grin of a ten-year-old boy as he used a magnifying glass to kill ants. The sick bastard was enjoying this. Enjoying my fear.

I wouldn’t give in, though. If I did, what would that say about me? I needed to go out fighting, needed to believe that I’d given it my all. I set my jaw, thrust my shoulders back. “Screw you, Tanchovsky.”

His grin widened. “Such impertinence. So attractive in the fairer sex.”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. If you’re going to do this, let’s just do it then. Quit the gabbing.”

A look of mild shock passed over his face, but that grin of his soon returned.

It began to fade, though, as a bustling happened at the back of the crowd, outside the doorway. “Tanchovsky!” called a voice. “Tanchovsky! I have a lady vampire you may want here. Hurt Faith, and she’s dead!”

“Sam?” I asked, blinking rapidly. “Sam?” I shouted again, this time more loudly than before. He’d actually come for me! Had my prayers actually been answered for once?

The crowd surged forward on that side of the circle, then began to part like the Red Sea for Moses. A hole broke in the lines, and Sam and a beautiful woman I recognized from Veronica’s work came through. Tanchovsky turned to them, a look of surprise on his face.

“Abigail?” I asked, screwing up my face in confusion. Abby was a freaking vampire? What the hell? Was I that out of the loop on town gossip? “Sam? Why the hell do you have a gun to Abby’s head?”

Tanchovsky seemed to change when he saw her.

“Abby?” he said, moving towards her.

“One more step, and she gets it,” Sam barked, his hand tightening around the grip of his pistol.

The vampire stopped in his tracks. “My love? Has this shifter bastard hurt you?”

“I-I-I’m fine,” Abigail replied, her eyes as big and round as saucers. “I’m fine, honey. Just, let Faith go, please? I just want this to be over.”

“What do you want, shifter?”

“I want Faith, and I want to walk out of here. Guarantee my safety, and keep your word for once. That’s all.”

“If you hurt her, you maggot,” Tanchovsky growled.

“I said I’m fine, honey,” Abby said. “Please. I just, I just want to be away from all this, sweetie. Okay? Let the girl go, and he says he’ll let me go, too. It’s that easy.”

Tanchovsky glanced back over his shoulder in my direction, but his eyes never even reached mine. A hand went out to his side, and he snapped his fingers. “Go,” he growled. “You’re free.”

I didn’t even think twice. I just ran to Sam.

When I got within a few feet, he released his grip on Abby, and she went fleeing towards Tanchovsky’s arms, a look on her face that wasn’t anywhere near delight. If anything, it was determination and hate.

I couldn’t care less, though. I threw myself into Sam’s arms, wrapping my own tightly around his chest as I planted a kiss on him, even as he winced.

“Gunshot,” he grunted, pulling back from my kiss. He looked down at me, his eyes softening immediately. “Faith,” he whispered, a smile creeping onto his lips. “Faith.”

“God, I love you,” I said, laying my head against his chest.

He stroked my hair for a moment, but abruptly stopped. “We need to go. Now.”

I picked up my head and turned back to look at Tanchovsky and his own love reunited.

The look on his face was almost transformative. He didn’t even look like a monster anymore as he gazed down at Abigail, one arm around her waist. He leaned down, pressed his lips to hers, and pulled her tightly against him.

If I hadn’t known the vampire, I would have almost been happy for him. Love like that was one in a million, almost impossible to find. I should know, too, because I managed to actually find it.

Abby’s hand slid down her side and hitched up her dress till you could see the tops of her thigh highs. She grabbed something from the top elastic band, and her hands were a blur as she brought it up to Tanchovsky’s chest.

A muffled bang as the minuscule gun leaped in her hand, firing into his chest.

Tanchovsky’s arm went slack, dropping from around her waist as he stumbled back into the crowd. “Abby?” he asked, his voice faint and airy. His face began to crack, fissures spreading out across his skin like mud drying in the sun. His fingers, even, began to crumble, to break away as he began to die. “Why?”

“Because,” Abby replied, her voice colder than the deepest of deep freezes. Cold enough to freeze the air itself. “You lied to me, sugar, and you damned me.”

And then, with Tanchovsky’s eyes still on her, tears of blood streaming down his fracturing, anguished face, she raised the teeny tiny pistol to her temple.

I held my breath, and my heart seemed to stop beating in my chest as the gun stayed there for a moment longer, its barrel pointed at the seat of the soul.

The crack of the gun was like thunder in that enclosed space. Or like a book slamming shut after its final chapter had been completed. She dropped to the ground in a pile, her skin already cracking, the whirls of dust coming off her and her stolen skin floating into the air like a dust devil in the desert. Whipping, whirling, spinning in a tiny cyclone as it joined with Tanchovsky’s on its airy way up to the intake vents.

All around us, then, the crowd began to stir, began to finally make noise. Began to awaken from its awful, induced waking slumber.

“We need to go,” Sam said, dragging me back out through the crowd. “We need to go now, baby.”