Such a brave child. I will have to give you to her first.
I retreated, turning only when the girl tried to rush past me. I struck her and knocked her to the ground. As she cried, I reached down and ripped the silly pink jacket she wore from her back.
No. She tried to pull it away from me. Please. Don’t take it away from me.
Losing it will teach you to behave.
I closed the door on the sounds of the girl weeping. I had tired of her, tired of all of them, and it would be a relief to put them out of their misery.
I walked back through the passage, stopping at the stone stairs that led up to the hatch before I changed direction. I would have to be cautious until the stupid festival the townspeople had planned was over, or I might be seen.
“That would not do,” I muttered, swaying as the fabric fell out of my hand. “Not before I have her.”
“Cat.”
Someone shook me until I opened my eyes and saw Gray’s face. “They’re underground, locked in a vault,” I said. “He used a tunnel to bring them food and check on them. He took Sunny’s jacket from her when she tried to run.” I swallowed against a surge of bile. “When he left he was worried about being seen by people during Sparklefest. He’s somewhere right here in town.”
“Look at me.” Gray held my hand in his. “It’s okay. Breathe through it.”
I watched his eyes as I took in the cold air, and felt the nausea slowly recede. When I could speak, I asked, “Does this happen to you?”
“Mine aren’t this bad.” He glanced at Trick before he lowered his voice. “You said the guy used your boyfriend’s blood to change, right?”
“We think he did.”
“Then I think he might be like him,” he said. “Part vampire. That’s why I can’t track him.”
“Then he won’t change completely until he takes a human life,” I said. “But he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t even realize he’s turning into a vampire. He thinks he’s becoming an immortal, and that I can finish some ancient Egyptian ritual to give him eternal life.”
Trick came over to us. “You okay?”
“I just need a minute.” As I rested, I told him and the sheriff what I’d seen in the vision. To Yamah, I said, “The tunnels were different than the ones the Ravens had built. They were smaller and more narrow, and rougher stone. I didn’t see any lights.”
The sheriff looked puzzled. “There aren’t any tunnels like that that I know of.”
“You have tunnels?” Gray asked.
“It’s a long story,” I told him. “I don’t think these were under a building, not with those roots I saw hanging down from the ceiling. They might be somewhere in the woods, or under a garden.”
“Who built the tunnels that you do know exist?” Trick asked Yamah.
“That was all done before I was born,” the sheriff said. “One of the Ravens’ people used to be a miner before he joined the circus and became a clown. He managed all the construction.”
“That was Stanas,” I said. “Jesse told me about him.” I stood up. “The Jester’s Maze. Stanas lived out there for years by himself. He must have built his own tunnels under it.”
The sheriff looked skeptical now. “Why would he do that, Miss Youngblood?”
“To hide his treasure,” I said, feeling more sure of my theory now. “No one has ever solved the maze, right? Maybe that’s because he built part of it underground.”
“That’s where we should start searching,” Trick said.
“Good luck with that,” the sheriff said. “That maze covers at least five hundred acres, and most of that is woods.”
“We have until midnight,” I said. “We have to try.”
Nineteen
What had seemed like such a good idea at the cemetery started looking hopeless as soon as we arrived at the entrance to the maze. Jesse had brought me there at night, so I hadn’t been able to see just how overgrown and wild the land was. From the gates it looked like a jungle.
“The Ravens closed it to the public a few years back because of folks getting lost out there,” Yamah warned as he unlocked the gates. “You should be all right if you keep your horses on the walkways, but don’t take the one that veers off toward the lake. I can tell you that’s a dead end.”
“You tried to solve the maze, Sheriff?” I asked.
“Everyone is young and foolish at some time in their life, Miss Youngblood. I was no exception.” He looked out at the horizon. “You’ve got about ten hours before the sun sets. Once you’ve found the entrance he’s using, assuming there is one, mark it and come back.” He unclipped his handheld and offered it to Gray. “Use the emergency channel if you get into trouble.”
Trick brought some granola bars and water bottles, and packed them in our saddle bags. “I’d feel better if you’d stay here and let me take Sali out.”
“What do you think, Sal?” I bent forward and pretended to listen. “She says you’re too heavy to carry around for ten hours.”
He gazed up at me. “Whether or not you find this tunnel entrance, I want you two back here before dark.”
“We’ll be careful.”
I let Gray take the lead as we rode into the gardens and followed the path to the walkways. The wood creaked under Flash’s hooves, making him skitter for a moment before Gray reined him in.
I looked at both walkways, but neither looked particularly promising. “Which one should we take first?”
“The left.”
He sounded so definite I rode up alongside him. “Are you holding out on me?”
“It’s the way you solve a maze,” he said. “You keep going to the left.”
“Have you ever done this?” I asked as we left the gardens and entered the woods.
“I read about mazes in a book.”
I ducked my head to avoid a tangle of Spanish moss. “I mean hunting vampires.”
He gave me a narrow look. “Why do you want to know?”
I tapped my temple. “I can’t remember anything, so I’d like to know what to expect.”
He hunched his shoulders. “Trick never let me track them.”
I chuckled. “You should never lie. You completely suck at it.”
“I tried a few times on my own,” he finally admitted. “There’s always more than one, and I thought if I took out a nest we could stay somewhere. I found one in California.”
I remembered how fast we’d packed up and left that state. “What happened?”
“I found out why Trick didn’t want me tracking them alone.” His expression grew bleak. “They were living in this cavern in the mountains. They’d fixed it up like the inside of a house, with furniture and carpets and stuff. I found them sleeping in beds, like real people.”
My eyes widened. “You went into the cave and looked at them?”
“I had to be sure.”
“You are an idiot.” I sighed. “So what did you do? Stake them in their sleep?”
“I didn’t have any stakes,” he muttered. “What? I’d never killed anyone. I just wanted to keep them from finding us. So I dragged in some brush and set it on fire, but the smoke woke them up.”
I winced. “Oh, no.”
“I thought they were just mindless monsters. But they’re not.” He glanced at me. “They had fire extinguishers.”
It was almost funny—almost. “Which they used to put out the fire.”
“Yeah, right before two of them jumped me.” Absently he touched his shoulder. “I ran out of the cave with both of them on my back, which was the only thing that saved me.” At my frown, he said, “The sun was still up.”
“Did it kill them?”
“Yeah, but before I could get them off me they set my shirt on fire. Burned it right off my back.” He shifted in the saddle. “Flash got me home, but I was pretty crispy. Trick had to take me to the hospital.”
Suddenly I felt indignant. “Why don’t I remember any of this?”
“One of the vamps from the cave tracked me back to our place that night.” His voice grew defensive. “I didn’t know they could do that, either. Trick never told me anything about them.”
I took a deep breath. “I killed that one, too, I suppose?”
He nodded. “We left California the next day, and I promised Trick I’d never try to track them again.”
“Until he made you try to track Jesse,” I added helpfully. “What was the point of that, anyway?”
“It was when you got into all that trouble for stealing my truck,” Gray said. “At first Trick thought the guy you helped was a vampire, and he made you do it.”
I glared at him. “Why would I help a vampire?”
“That’s what I said,” he told me. “He didn’t believe me until I told him there was no scent trail, only a bunch of tracks out by that old place across the road. I also found some stuff inside the house, like you’d been meeting him there in secret for a while. That really drove him crazy.”
Jesse and I had met several times at the Ravenovs’ abandoned manor house, and he’d always lit candles in the windows. Once he’d spread an old quilt on the floor and treated me to a midnight feast. We’d cleaned up the food before we’d left, but we hadn’t taken the quilt with us.
“Oh, my god.” I laughed. “I wasn’t having sex with him in there, you idiot. We had a picnic. It was totally innocent.”
Now he looked uncomfortable. “I don’t need any details of what you’ve done with that guy.”
“His name is Jesse, and not that it’s any of your business, but we haven’t done anything.” I saw the relief on his face. “Aside from some hand-holding, hugging and, oh yes, some pretty fantastic kissing.”