The trunk had popped halfway open in the fal, so we maneuvered and tugged until we could wedge our bags and swords out of it.
"You didn't hear me," he suddenly said.
"Didn't hear what?"
"Before he threw us off the road, I caled you. You didn't hear me?"
I shook my head. Vampires had the ability to communicate telepathicaly, that power usualy, but not always, limited to Masters and the vampires they'd made. Ethan and I had talked silently since he'd officialy Commended me into Cadogan House as its Sentinel.
"I didn't hear you," I said. "Maybe that's a side effect of your coming back? Because Malory's spel got interrupted?"
"Perhaps," he said.
We'd only just puled our swords out when a shout echoed down from the road. We looked up. A woman in a fluffy down coat waved at us. "I saw that twister throw you off the road.
Came out of nowhere, didn't it? Are you okay? Do you need help?"
"We're fine," Ethan said, not correcting her about the twister comment, but casting one final glance back at his former pride and joy. "But I think we're going to need a ride."
Her name was Audrey McLarety. She was a retired legal secretary from Omaha with a brood of four children and thirteen grandchildren scattered across Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Al the grandchildren were in soccer, dance class, or peewee basebal, and Audrey was on her way back to town after watching a dance recital for three of the girls near Des Moines. Late as it was, it hadn't occurred to her to spend the night with her children afterward.
"They have their families to attend to," she said, "and I have mine." She meant her husband, Howard, and their four terriers.
As much as we appreciated the ride, Audrey was a talker.
We drove toward Omaha through pitch-black darkness, past more empty fields and the occasional factory, its lights and steam pulsing across the flat plains like a sleeping monster of metal and concrete.
As we neared the city, the horizon began to grow orange from the glow of streetlights. Fortunately, Audrey had grown up near Eliott and agreed to drive us al the way to the farmhouse.
Doubly fortunate, actualy, because the sun would be rising soon, and we needed a place to bed down.
We crossed the Missouri River and drove north through Omaha's compact downtown, passing a pedestrian-heavy plaza with a lot of old brick buildings and a hily string of skyscrapers before popping back into a residential neighborhood. Older houses and fast-food joints eventualy gave way to flat fields and farmland, and we ended up on a long, bone white stretch of gravel road.
The road was long and straight, and it divided fields now stripped of their crops as winter approached. Dust rose in our wake, and in the darkness I couldn't see much behind us. That made me nervous. Tate could be hiding there, waiting for us.
Ready to strike again, ready to throw us off the road—and on his second try, we might not be so lucky. And we'd have dragged an innocent human into it.
We passed farms that al folowed the same form—a main house and a few outbuildings behind a wal of trees, which I assumed was protection against the wind. The houses glowed under the shine of bright floodlights, and I wondered how their inhabitants slept with the glare…or how they slept at al.
Something about the idea of sleeping under the flood of a spotlight in the middle of an otherwise dark plain made me nervous. I'd feel too vulnerable, like I was on display.
After fifteen minutes of driving, we reached the address Catcher had given us, large steel numbers hammered into a post that stood sentinel at the end of a long gravel driveway. A farmhouse much like the others sat at the end of it, a few hundred yards back from the road, glowing under its security light. Its wooden clapboards were dark red, and it was accessorized with white awnings and wooden gingerbread in the corners of the smal front porch. It had a pitched roof, with one gable over a large picture window. I had a Little House on the Prairie–esque image of a girl in a gingham dress sitting behind that glass, spending long winter days staring out at endless winter snow.
Audrey puled to a stop, and we grabbed our swords and bags, offered prolific thank-yous, and watched the cloud of dust whisk her back toward Omaha.
"She'l be fine," Ethan said.
I nodded, and we walked down the driveway, the world silent except for our footsteps and an owl that hooted from the windbreak. I had a sudden mental image of great, black wings swooping down to pluck me up off the driveway and deposit me in the hayloft of an ancient barn. I shivered and walked a little faster.
"Not much of a farm girl?"
"I don't mind being in the country. And I love woods—lots of places to hide."
"It appeals to the predator in you?"
"Precisely. But out here, I don't know. It's a weird mix of being isolated and completely on display. It's not my bag. Give me a high-rise in the city, please."
"Even with parking permits?"