I said, “I won’t do it.”
“Why? Isn’t that what you vampires live for?”
“Not this one.”
Phaedra studied me like she hadn’t quite figured me out and was looking for the hidden buttons to push.
“There’s another reason I’m here,” I said. “Barrett Chambers.”
I expected Phaedra to recoil in surprise. She didn’t.
I asked, “Do you know what happened to Barrett?”
Phaedra nodded. “He became like the others.”
Was Phaedra talking about zombies? Now we’re making progress. “What do mean ‘the others’?”
“I don’t know what else to call them. They move through the void but they are not alive. And they’re not dead.”
I wanted to fill in the blanks by mentioning that Barrett had been a zombie, but the less Phaedra-a human-knew about the supernatural world, the better to protect the Great Secret.
Zombie behavior was new to me. So were psychic signals and Phaedra’s use of the astral plane. Maybe the geniuses of the Araneum could figure it out. For now, what mattered was that Phaedra was in the middle of this supernatural whodunit.
I had part of my mystery solved. I knew the cause of the psychic signals and who was responsible. “How long have you been going into this void?”
“Years. Most of the time I didn’t know what I was doing. Whenever I mentioned it, the docs would up my meds. See this”-she pointed to the zits in her face-“side effect of the haloperidol. Plus dry mouth.” She swigged from her bottle. “The images didn’t stop, I only quit talking about them. I kept sending signals and seeing what I could learn.”
“What about what you did to me today at the restaurant? What kind of a signal was that?”
“Don’t blame me,” she replied. “That was a reaction to you. When you showed your claws and I saw the look on your face, my thoughts lashed out.”
“I promise to behave myself,” I said, knowing this was one promise I would always have trouble keeping. “You said your mother has passed on. Where’s your dad?”
Phaedra gave a chuckle that said, Him? Like he matters in my life. “My father’s doing life in Trenton, New Jersey. For murder. He doesn’t speak to me, and I don’t speak to him. I’m sure he preferred being locked up to dealing with me and my mom. You know, the Huntington’s.”
“Who are you living with?”
“Right now? My uncle Sal.”
“Gino’s father?”
“No. Uncle. He’s Sal Cavagnolo. For years I was passed among the relatives. Try being the crazy orphan girl going through puberty.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I gave my first blow job when I was eleven. I got laid when I was thirteen.”
Eleven? Thirteen? Disturbing to the point of revulsion.
I didn’t kiss a girl until I was fifteen. By that age, Phaedra was well acquainted with men and their dirty cocks.
She rattled the pills in her pocket. “Another side effect of these is increased sex drive. Not that I needed an excuse. I was dying anyway, so fucking was a good way to pass the time and make money. What was I waiting for? Usually it was better than watching television. Even with a scumbag like Barrett.”
“You slept with him?”
Phaedra gave a devilish laugh. “I never slept with anyone. But if you want to know, I didn’t have sex with Barrett. He paid me twenty dollars to look at my titties.”
“And that’s it?”
“No. I had to watch him jack off.” Phaedra put a charge in her voice like she took pleasure shocking me.
Which she didn’t. Instead I pitied her. Her story explained the “allowance” money that had fallen out of her pocket. She was dying and traded her youthful innocence for fast, cheap thrills.
“Don’t look so sad,” she taunted. “I learned lots about sex and even more about the way the world works.”
“And your uncle Sal?” I hadn’t met the guy but I had already pegged him as a rat. If he abused Phaedra, this was another reason to hang him by his tail.
“Uncle Sal’s been good to me. Around him, I can pretend I’m not the family’s dirty secret. But my aunt Lorena, Sal’s wife, hates me. She sees the effect I have on men. She calls me the strega, witch.” Phaedra gave a grin that was both ironic and condescending. “I don’t know what makes my relatives more uncomfortable. That I’m dying of Huntington’s or that I know who among them is a child molester.”
“And Gino?”
“He’s been okay. Nothing happened between him and me. Besides Uncle Sal, Gino’s the only friend I’ve had in the family.”
“Does Gino know about your reputation as a strega?”
“He says I’m the nicest of the witches in our family.”
“Any idea where I could find him?”
“I know where he lives.” Her side of the Toyota was completely fogged up. She adjusted the heater vents to clear the windows.
I drove from the restaurant parking lot. Phaedra gave directions west. “Go half a mile and get ready for a left.”
My sixth sense gave an electric pulse, though I suspected it was from my own misgivings rather than from an actual threat. Phaedra knew a lot about me. Too much. The scary part was that she learned it by going straight to my psyche.
I had to learn everything I could about her and confirm how much of the Huntington’s was true.
We approached the spur of the mountain where it crowded against the highway.
Phaedra pointed. “Here.”
I made the left turn and stopped in front of the county hospital. I fished a street map from between my seat and the center console. The county road went south along Pinos Creek. To the right, the vista remained open farmland; to the left, the ground rose into steep, rocky hills that lead to Horseshoe Mountain. The rainy fog turned the mountain into a jagged gray hump.
I put the map away and continued. We drove past a few houses.
Another county road branched from the right. We kept on the original road, passing a power relay station behind a tall wire fence, and proceeded south on the incline up the narrowing valley. No one but us fools would be out in this rain and gloom. I was sure we’d be alone for a long time.
I pulled onto a wide muddy shoulder and halted.
“What’s the matter?” Phaedra scanned the instrument panel.
“I need answers.” I removed the contacts from my eyes and looked at her.
Phaedra’s aura burned red, a typical human psychic shroud. Not vampire orange. Nor alien yellow. Just plain human red.
The penumbra broke into sharp points like it was covered in finger-sized thorns. I kept my hypnosis power in check, as I wanted to read her raw emotions.
Phaedra’s expression held an awed, fearful look like she’d put her face close to an open furnace.
I gave a leer and exposed the long fangs jutting from my upper lip.
Her aura flashed neon-bright with terror.
Good. She wanted a vampire, here I was.
Now for my questions. I blasted her with hypnosis. Her expression softened and her aura took the form of translucent gel.
I focused my gaze deep into the psychic conduit of those brown eyes. “Tell me your story. What do you know about the psychic world and what do you want from me?”
Under the power of my hypnosis, she had no choice but to tell me what I wanted to hear.
The truth.