Blood and Kisses - By Karin Shah Page 0,63
home wasn’t the only place he owned with an escape route.
He made his way to the pedestrian bridge at High Falls and jumped over the side into the gorge. His clothing flapped as the wind rushed by. He landed lightly on his feet at the bottom of the gorge, and found the secret entrance to the Tomb. A door cut into the bedrock at the base of the falls, masked by rocks and vegetation.
Once inside, he made his way up the worn stairs and through the narrow, dusty passage carved through solid rock that led to the office of the tavern. Tom was standing with his back to the passage door checking over an inventory list.
“Tom,” Gideon said as he came up behind his manager.
Tom jumped and spun around, one hand on his chest. “God, you startled me. What are you doing here, Gideon? The police are everywhere. They’ve already been through every inch of this place.”
“Did you follow standing instructions and destroy my emergency rations?”
“No,” Tom confessed warily. “I thought you might need them. They’re in the passage.”
“Good man.” Gideon drew back and allowed Tom to lead him back into the tight corridor.
Gideon pulled the door shut behind him. He could see perfectly in the pitch darkness, but Tom flicked on a small flashlight they kept near the entrance. “Besides, I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I can’t just pour it down the sink. They’ve got that luminol stuff,” he said as they walked down the stairs.
“You’ve been watching CSI.”
“Naw—well, yeah, but I heard about luminol years ago, from that Discovery Channel show, the FBI Files. Here it is.” Tom was an aficionado of T.L.C. and the Discovery Channel. He’d confessed to Gideon once that he hardly moved from the couch during Shark week.
He shined his light at a rectangular, blue cooler Gideon had walked right by when he’d come in. Gideon was surprised he hadn’t smelled it. He must be more drained than he thought.
Tom flipped the cooler open with his foot, displaying plastic bags of blood on ice. “I better get back before they know I’m missing.” He slid past Gideon and headed back up the stairs.
Gideon gulped down as much of the stale, chilled blood as he could stand. He preferred his blood warm and fresh, but he’d take what he could get. He didn’t have time to hunt, nor did he want to risk feeding when the place was swarming with police.
A moment later, flush with blood, he prepared to resume the search.
The club closed at two-thirty a.m. That gave Akos less than eighty minutes to find a new victim from one of its patrons, and dawn was a mere three hours after that.
Akos. Gideon felt his eyes ignite as he imagined rending his enemy limb from limb. He gritted his teeth. Death was too good for Akos, but it would have to be enough.
He wondered how Thalia was making out at the hospital. The doctors had probably taken her friend into surgery. He was no doubt being transfused at that very moment.
Was Paul a suitor? The man who would one day be the father of her children? She’d said Paul’s name with such emotion. There was fondness there, maybe more. He disliked the imaginary man who would some day win her. He hated Paul.
The decision to leave her at the hospital had been forced on him, but it was for the best. He hadn’t had enough power in him to teleport them both one more time, and he hadn’t wanted to lose Akos.
She would be safer at the hospital, anyway. Akos couldn’t know where she was.
Gideon was struck by the nagging feeling he’d forgotten something. The sense of unease followed him as he cloaked himself in invisibility once more and flew up out of the gorge.
He hovered high above the Tomb.
Now he could see the police presence in full force. A man dressed in dark clothing, sat on the roof with a pair of binoculars and a high-powered rifle. There were other similarly dressed men on other rooftops nearby. Down on the street he saw several plainclothes officers sitting in their cars, and still more pretending to enjoy the evening air. The police were throwing everything they had at this case.
A man and a woman left the Tomb and Gideon tracked them. He probed the man first, before he realized Akos could have just as easily disguised himself as a woman. His last victim had been male. He examined their thoughts.