I let my head fall back onto the headrest and lick the blood from the corners of my mouth. My body tingles with the infusion of Frey's blood. When I glance over at him, he is leaning back on his seat, too, and his hand is on his neck. From his expression, though, I don't think he's feeling quite the same things I am.
"Don't worry," I say, feeling a little sheepish. "I haven't left a mark."
For the first time, I notice the claws retracting as I watch. "Why didn't you stop me?"
A brittle smile twists the corners of his own mouth but his eyes are cold. "Believe me, if you had kept at it a moment longer, I would have." He tugs again at the torn collar of his shirt. "And it's not my neck I'm thinking about. You've ruined my favorite Perry Ellis shirt."
"I'll buy you a new one."
There is a protracted silence which is finally broken when he swivels on the seat to face me. "Why didn't you just ask me about Boston?"
I feel color flood my face. "I should have. I'm sorry." I blow out a breath. "It just seemed too coincidental - the killings in Boston and now here."
But before I voice any other concerns, I'm hit with a realization that sends shock waves rippling along my spine.
I'm not hearing Frey in my head anymore. What's happening?
But he just sits there, an expression of anger, irritation and disappointment stamped on his face. Then the expression changes. "Oh, you get it now, huh? We can't communicate that way anymore. You've ingested my blood. You've broken the link. Now we have to communicate this way. You are such a pain in the ass."
"Broken the link? What does that mean?" I look down at my hands. "Jesus. Am I part shapeshifter now?"
"Don't you think you should have asked that question before you attacked me?"
His tone is scalding. My face must betray the anxiety I'm feeling because he relents with an abrupt wave of his hand. "No. You are not part shapeshifter. Vampires only consume the essence of their supernatural victims, not the physical manifestations. But in some cases, like this one, it creates a barrier that prohibits thought transference. I don't know why. It just happens."
"Does that mean I won't be able to communicate with all shapeshifters?" I'm thinking of Culebra now.
"No." His look is pointed. "Only those you feed from."
Is that a relief? I'm not sure. I crank the engine over and look around. I can't believe I lost control so completely that I attacked Frey in the middle of a parking lot in broad daylight. Granted, it is a lower lot and we don't seem to have attracted anyone's attention, but it was a stupid thing to do.
I pull out and head back for the freeway. This time I make sure no one is following. In fact, I don't take a direct route to Balboa Park, but a circuitous one. From the stadium, I take 15 to 8, get off at Rosecrans, switch to Sports Arena Boulevard, and take Nimitz south to Harbor Drive, Market to 6th. No one car is behind us the entire drive.
When I turn into the Park, Frey speaks for the first time since we left the stadium.
"I think you should let Trish stay here," he says.
"You trust these people?"
He nods. "Yes. With my life."
I'm approaching the parking lot in front of the museums that line the El Prado. As usual, there are no spaces right in front, and I have to wind my way down towards the organ pavilion to find a place to park. Once we do, I turn in the seat to face Frey.
"Who are these people you work with? What are they?"
"Humans, mostly."
"Humans?"
He rolls his shoulders. "You'll see. There are also shapeshifters, seers, vampires." He raises an eyebrow. "You'll no doubt recognize one in particular."
"Because he's a vampire?"
But Frey has opened the door and is standing with an impatient scowl beside the car. "Let's go. I thought you were anxious to see Trish."
I am.
And I'm not. How am I going to tell her about her mother?
Frey has already started down the sidewalk, so I rush to catch up with him. The park is full of people, families, students, artists with their easels set to catch the play of sun and shadow on buildings that shouldn't exist. Balboa Park was a temporary shell built to accommodate the Panama-California Exposition held in 1915. But the beauty of the place was far from temporary and restoration followed restoration until now, the park houses an impressive array of galleries, museums, restaurants and a world-class zoo.
Frey doesn't explain where we are going. He simply leads me down the El Prado toward the fountain in front of the Space Theater. On the right are the railroad museum and the various gallery exhibits and visitor centers. On this side, doors open to administrative offices, some open, some closed to the public. When we reach the end, across from the huge Natural History Museum, he veers off the sidewalk, following a path that snakes back through shrubbery.
"Won't someone see us?" I ask, suddenly conscious of how easily I had been tailed today, not just by the Feds, but also by that idiot Darryl.
Frey motions for me to stop. "Watch," he says.
He takes another step toward the building and -
Vanishes.
I actually jump. "Frey?"
No answer and no Frey.
I take a timid step forward myself, then another. There's a rippling, like silk being moved by the wind, and a feeling of stepping through a heavy mist, and suddenly, I'm standing beside Frey.
His expression is the impatient scowl of one annoyed at being kept waiting. "It took you long enough."
I ignore him and look back at the sidewalk, at the people passing back and forth, and feel a tingle of excitement. The one or two who actually appear to be looking right at us, act like they see nothing. I touch my hand to my face.
"Are we invisible?"
He shakes his head. "No. This place is protected."
"Protected? How?"
He's moving toward a door I hadn't seen from the sidewalk. "A spell, of course. Only those invited can enter."
A spell? Like Beso de la Muerte? I don't remember any kind of portal there, though. And here, there are hundreds of people who pass by everyday. "But what if someone decided to take a walk back here? Wouldn't they pass through the portal or spell or whatever the hell it is?"
"What part of needing to be invited didn't you understand?"
"Well, what would happen?"
He blows out an irritated breath. "Nothing would happen. They'd find grass and shrubs and a maintenance man asking them to get back on the sidewalk."
Frey's attitude has certainly cooled since I bit him. I guess I should have expected it, but I felt I had no choice at the time and I'm not going to apologize.
He's turned his back on me to face the door. He's withdrawn a long, slender key, the old-fashioned brass kind, from his jacket pocket and is inserting it into the lock.
I swallow back the rest of my questions. And carefully neutralize my thoughts. I don't know what I'm going to see inside or who.
The door is heavy metal and actually groans when Frey thrusts it open. His body blocks my view and I push past him, anxious to see what's inside and get to Trish.
At first, it looks just like the reception area in a hundred other business offices. The walls are white stucco, striped with the patterns of sun and shadow cast by trees outside and funneled into the room through a row of small, high windows. There's a single metal desk with a computer and telephone, but no person, human or otherwise, in sight. It's very quiet - spooky quiet. And I realize that unlike other reception areas, there are no couches or chairs or racks of out of date magazines to occupy your time while you wait.
Wait for what?
Frey has gone around the desk. He punches something onto the computer keyboard. There is a whir, a flash of light, and then the screen goes dark again.
He returns to stand beside me.
I'm suddenly aware of something else - except the one we came in through, there are no other doors in this room.
I glance up at Frey, uneasiness causing a chilly edge to creep into my voice. "Where are we?"
He keeps his eyes straight ahead. "Don't worry. You'll see Trish soon enough."
"But what is this place? How do we get - "
A rumbling beneath my feet chokes off the words. At first, I don't trust, don't believe, the sensation. The floor is vibrating, falling away. The feeling is like being on a high-speed express elevator. I touch a hand to the desk to steady myself, though the descent doesn't seem to faze Frey. He eyes my hand on the desk and looks down at it with a tight little smile. I snatch my hand back and straighten up.
It seems as if we fall for a long time. I get a flash back to when I was a kid and Steve and my parents and I went to Disneyland for the first time. The entrance to the Haunted House. That delicious, scary plunge that had me gripping Steve's hand so hard he finally yelped in complaint.
In the time it takes for the memory to ebb and fade, we've come to a stop. Frey turns around and faces the door we came in through. With a hand on the knob, he glances back at me. "Are you ready?" he says, not unkindly this time.
I nod, though I'm not sure whether it's true.
But Trish is here. And that means I must be here, too.