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When Wolfe felt Kaltenbach grab the back of his neck and his belt and heave, his first thought was that she wanted to move him out of the way so she could use the sniper rifle. It wasn’t until he was flying through the air that he realized the real reason why he’d been sent up the tower. Did Fain know that Kaltenbach had betrayed him? Didn’t they understand they needed him? It was his house! They needed him! The cool air rushed past, gridiron support bars of the tower flickering like posts of a picket fence while zipping down the freeway. Faster, faster, faster, and then the dark earth loomed up at him. Road. Saguaro. Creosote. Rocks. Giant prickly pear cactus.
He felt more pain than he’d ever felt in his life. He’d landed on something wet, sticky, and green-smelling. Had Kaltenbach planned that? Or had she intended him to die? Every part of his body was agony. Wolfe wanted to touch his head to see if his skull was intact, but his arms didn’t seem to be attached properly. She’d tried to kill him. Was this about those people in the mine, when she’d gone bitch-ass crazy like those PETA warriors who risked their lives to save factory chickens or something? Was this about that? Or was it about something else?
Wolfe stared up at the immense field of stars overhead and tried not to think about the fact that he’d been thrown from a tower and had probably broken every bone in his body. He wanted his body to black out from the pain, but it wouldn’t cooperate. For what felt like an eternity he lay there, willing his body to start healing itself, but he hadn’t been drinking as much blood since joining El Patron’s side. Wolfe tried to find a way to breathe that didn’t involve stabbing pain in his chest. El Patron’s people never went hunting. They never pulled someone down and fed on them together. Thought they were so high and mighty, but they threw him off a fucking tower. They needed him. How did he expect to get inside that house uninvited? Wolfe tried to move his arm but just ended up shifting weight to his pelvis, which felt broken. Living with Crispin, he would have healed by now. They would have gone into the mine and pulled someone out, had a quick snack and he’d be right as rain. Wolfe looked up at the tower. Who was she going to shoot with the sniper rifle?
Headlights briefly illuminated bats and dust motes above his head, and a moment later he heard car doors opening and shutting. He still couldn’t move. He still couldn’t take a breath without pain. Someone was here. Were they coming for him? Footsteps shuffled on the dirt road.
“Mr. Fain?” A man’s voice said. “I’m Dr. Cory Wilson. We spoke on the phone?”
“Mr. Fain is running late,” someone said, and Wolfe jerked in surprise as he recognized Joe. The jerk caused his spine to shoot agony. “Mr. Fain asked me to meet you. He’ll be along shortly with the others.”
“Where’s Rory?” Dr. Wilson asked.
At the sound of his name, Wolfe tried to turn his head, which sent new courses of agony rippling down his limbs. He let out an involuntary moan of pain.
“Over there,” Joe said. “I saw him jump from the tower. I’m sorry, I was too late to stop him. He climbed it so fast.”
“Suicide attempt. I didn’t know it had gotten this bad.” Dr. Wilson called out to someone over his shoulder. “Bring the juice. He’s in bad shape.” Turning to Wolfe, Dr. Wilson said breathlessly, “Rory? I’m Dr. Wilson. Stay with us. We’re here to help you, okay? We’re gonna get you out of there. Just stay calm. We’re gonna help you.”
Another car pulled up, and there was the sound of whacking and the wet green smell of broken cactus as Dr. Wilson began hacking back cactus pads to get to the center of the prickly pear Wolfe had fallen into. By now Wolfe had healed enough to turn his head gently from side to side, but not enough to move his arms or legs.
“He’s been impaled by that agave spine,” Dr. Wilson told someone over his shoulder. “We’re gonna have to lift him off before we give him the juice.”
“Need blood,” Wolfe managed to say. He’d landed mostly on his back, so at least his jaws weren’t crushed. “I need blood.”
By now Dr. Wilson was close enough that Wolfe could smell him. He smelled human. Good. Blood tasted best off the hoof. He hadn’t drunk directly from a human’s neck since, well, since before Crispin came on the scene. Even Crispin insisted on leaving the herd alive. All these old guys took all the fun out of being a vampire. He’d wait until Dr. Wilson got close, and then he’d lunge for the jugular.
But now two more men were climbing into the center of the prickly pear cactus They had something that looked like a straitjacket, large metal buckles attached to wide, thick straps made of some woven synthetic material. They smelled human, but the one holding the straitjacket had hands that looked like they could crush gas cans.
Dr. Wilson said. “Not too much. He will have to learn to wean himself eventually, but without it I don’t think he’ll survive the trip.”
Hands grabbed his broken shoulder, his bleeding thigh, and his opened ribcage and hoisted him into the air. Wolfe screamed, but still his body wouldn’t let him pass out. Wolfe tried to say something, but it sounded gurgled. He felt something held to his lips and drank, reflexively. It was blood, but it had been laced with something sweet and artificial, like Tang mixed with almond extract with an undertone of weed killer. It wasn’t blood, but it seemed to do the job. One of the gorilla-men shoved Wolfe’s shoulder back into its socket, and Wolfe’s body pulled the flesh back together. Dr. Wilson pressed hard on Wolfe’s chest and the next breath didn’t hurt quite as badly.
Wolfe put his hands down on either side of himself to climb out of the cactus. He was able to take a few teetering steps forward on his now mostly healed leg before the guys with the straitjacket were upon him.
Rodeo stars took down a bull with less speed and professionalism than this. Wolfe couldn’t even have told how the straps worked, but the big guys had him trussed up and the latches fastened in less time than it would take to watch a commercial. The headlights flashed at the base of the tower again, and everyone turned to see an SUV race down the last hundred and fifty feet of road.
“Rory!” A woman got out of the car before the car even stopped. She ran towards him, and that’s when Wolfe recognized her. “Rory, are you okay? Don’t worry honey, we’re gonna get you help.”
“Mom?” Wolfe stared, disbelieving. What was she doing here?
“Mr. Fain?” Wolfe’s dad had gotten out of the car and was striding across the dirt road to shake Fain’s hand. Rory’s dad had cargo shorts and his Teva’s, a Hawaiian shirt and his Rolex, but still had that ex-Marine’s posture of a man who owned the room no matter what room he was in. “Bob Wolfe. Glad to finally meet you in person.”
“Leo Fain,” Fain said, oozing charm with an accent Wolfe had never heard before. “I could have had Mr. Rivera do this, but it seemed like the kind of thing a man ought to do in person, considering your special clause.”
“Don’t get too close, Vicky,” Wolfe’s dad called out.
“Rory? We’re going to help you. We know what’s wrong with you, and we’re going to help you, okay? You don’t have to worry. We’re going to take care of you.” Wolfe’s mom was saying every word extra loud and enunciated with extra care as if he were in a coma, or maybe as if he were an imbecile or on drugs or something.
“Not too close, Mrs. Wolfe,” Dr. Wilson said. “He’s still dangerous.”
Wolfe’s mom obediently kept back five feet, wringing her hands as if she were watching him get his bones broken instead of watching him heal himself. Wolfe couldn’t believe she was here. She looked the same as always, hair with the faint blond highlights and the expensive cut that always seemed to stop an inch above her collar. She wore a turquoise sundress with one of her chunky necklaces she’d always worn, replacing the sandals with shoes that would take her orthotics. He hadn’t seen her in person in ... had it been two years? He’d come up with an excuse at Christmas, not being able to find a night-time only flight to Chicago during the rush, and he’d managed to put them off every time they called, and now they were here. Who had called them? Why were they here?
He was so hungry he was tempted to bite his own mother. He needed more juice. He needed blood. Wolfe glanced at the burly guys who had put him in the straitjacket, but they weren’t getting close. He looked down at the straps holding him. The cloth and buckles felt sturdy enough to launch an airplane off the deck of a ship.
“What are you doing here?” Wolfe asked his parents.
“We wanted to help you,” Wolfe’s mom said. “You’re not yourself right now. You’re in a bad place.”
“And it was time to sell the ranch,” Wolfe’s dad said. “You’re all grown up, and you know, Maui is more home to us than here these days. We don’t need it anymore.”
“We got an offer from Mr. Fain here,” Wolfe’s mom said, finishing his dad’s sentences like she always did.
“Fain?” Wolfe said helplessly, turning towards El Patron. “But you need me.”
“Everyone just needs you to get better,” Fain said, in a gentle, patronizing tone. “Your parents worried about you. They wanted to stage an intervention but couldn’t figure out how to do it. I offered to help. It’s for your own good. You’re sick. The people at Daylight Farms are gonna help you.”
“We gave him a steep discount on the ranch,” Bob said, and it made Wolfe want to bite his own father, because it was the same tone of voice he used every time he held money over his head. Why did you drop out of college? We spent a lot of money on that. Why did you wreck your bike? We spent good money on that. Why didn’t you like your senior trip to France? We spent good money on that. We spent good money on betraying you, why aren’t you grateful?
“Why?” Wolfe asked, and it came out as a whine. “Why did you do it?”
“Because we love you,” Wolfe’s mom said. She was folding her hands again and again as if she wanted to stroke his hair but was afraid of what she might contract from him. Wolfe’s dad put his arm around her protectively.
“Bob? You mind if I say my goodbyes to Rory before you take off?” Fain asked in a fake-cheerful tone that Wolfe hated. “Dr. Wilson says he won’t be allowed any visitors for the first month or so.”
“Not at all,” Wolfe’s dad said.
Fain came closer, not close enough to bite, not that it would do Wolfe much good, bound up as he was in this monstrous straitjacket. He crouched down, like you might to pet a neighborhood dog.
“You wanna know why? Because you are a menace to our kind,” Fain said quietly, so quietly that Wolfe doubted the humans could hear. “You’re a goddamn one-man vampire epidemic. You turned Joe and Mercedes and Brenda and Brian, like a child having kids when you couldn’t even take care of yourself. That’s why I’m betraying you. I’m betraying you because you knew about Crispin and the blood herd and you didn’t say anything. And because you ordered Brenda to betray me. You called me sire, but I renounce you. You’re not of my blood, you worthless shit. I’m going to be cleaning up the mess you left for decades. Daylight Farms is the place you deserve. It’s a conversion camp for vampires. They will torture you in the name of converting you back to human.”
“Can they do that?” Wolfe asked. He didn’t want to be human again.
“Oh, no, they can’t. But they will make you wish you were dead, and they will keep trying until they kill you. They’ll tell your parents they’re making good progress, and they’ll torture you with daylight in the name of saving your soul. And I will sleep easy knowing I helped put you there.”
Fain reached out and ruffled Wolfe’s hair. “You’re a good kid, Rory,” he said loudly. “I’m glad you’re finally getting the help you need.”
After Fain backed away, the two thugs stepped closer and grabbed rings strapped to his sides. Wolfe tried to fight them, but in his weakened state he was no match against both thugs and Dr. Wilson, who managed to get him into the back of the van.