CHAPTER SIX

He was short, like her, but with spiky black hair and a compact, muscled body. When he'd pinned her to the ground, it felt like being covered by a marble statue, hard, heavy, and cold. Not that hot or cold made much difference to her anymore.

He walked proudly, stomping through the late summer weeds with his head held high. He looked part Japanese. His eyes were big and dark brown, but slightly slanted at the edges and they were set in a boyish, Caucasian face. She'd seen his face up close when he'd lain on top of her.

It brought back a memory of that night, the night when her life changed forever. The flash of memory wasn't entirely unpleasant, but she hadn't liked the helpless feeling she got when she'd realized there was nothing she could do to get Yahiko off of her. In Yahiko's eyes she hadn't seen any sort of lust or sadism. He'd looked annoyed, yes. Angry, even, but not enraged. She realized that it comforted her, and felt foolish for allowing it to.

All the way down the mountain trails, Tsubame kept her eyes on the back of Yahiko's head. He had a good natural sense of direction, but he walked as if he didn't care that he was leaving tracks.

She wondered if he knew she'd been leading him in circles for the past month, hoping he'd get bored and go home. Finally, she let him catch up to her after she'd fed so she'd be strong when they battled. Luckily they'd fought near the trailhead where she'd first sensed him.

It was strange, that. The first time she'd sensed Yahiko she hadn't known what it was she was feeling. It was a kind of tingling awareness of a presence. It was different than her awareness of prey. Animals and humans both gave off a distinct odor. Even if she was downwind of them and they were completely still, if something in the bushes was watching her, she was able to sense that she was being watched. Vampires, it seemed, gave her another sort of awareness in the pit of her stomach rather than her brain.

The trailhead was nearby. Since they could move quicker than humans, and Tsubame knew a shortcut, they made it to the parking lot in under an hour.

Yahiko's car was a big, old-looking maroon Cadillac.

"I'd rather drive an SUV but they're not practical." He told her, opening the back door and tossing in his wakizashi and the backpack he'd caught up on the way down the mountain.

"Practical?" Tsubame asked.

Yahiko grinned. "Yeah, you know. SUV's don't have trunks." He slammed the door shut and walked around to the other side of the car.

Tsubame followed, thinking hard. It was difficult to get back in the habit of speaking. Her life for the past ten years or so involved acting and reacting, not communicating. Then it came to her. "You mean you sleep in the trunk of the car?"

"If I have to. Traveling sucks. When the sun comes up and there aren't any motels in sight, you got to do what you got to do to find shelter." Yahiko stopped in front of the passenger side door and opened it.

Blinking at the unfamiliarly gallant gesture, Tsubame ducked her head and got in. Yahiko slammed the door shut behind her, went round to the other side and got in the driver's seat. Seeing him reach over and pull on his seatbelt, Tsubame copied him. The seats were synthetic leather, slick and comfortable.

She jumped a little when Yahiko turned the key in the ignition and the scent of burning gasoline filled her nose. She'd forgotten how smelly cars were up close. Yahiko reached across her, opened the glove box, and took out a cassette tape, which he removed from its plastic casing and popped in the player in the dashboard. The strains of the Beach Boys' music filled the car.

"They still listen to the Beach Boys?" Tsubame asked wonderingly.

"I still do. Heck with the radio stations. Most music today is crap." Yahiko said absently as he twisted around to see while backing the car out of the lot and getting it on the road.

Feeling rebuked, Tsubame stayed quiet as Yahiko navigated his way down the mountain. He hummed along with the music as he drove. At the foot of the mountain he bought gas and left Tsubame in the car to make a phone call.

She leaned her head back and watched him in the phone booth. Outside the car, the gas station was near deserted. One bored attendant sat inside the small cashier's area of the mini mart, the gasoline smells and glassed in walls between them minimizing his scent. Other than that there was no one else around. How long did this vampire rule bind her to Yahiko? Once she helped him find the killer, was she then free? She didn't feel any different. Maybe it was a vampire courtesy thing, not a physical binding.

What was she doing here? In a car? Going to places with innocent people crowded around her, helpless against her? Beyond the circle of light from the fluorescent panels over the gas pumps and mini-mart lay the lowest slopes of the mountains leading back to her territory. She placed a fingertip on the smooth, cool glass of the passenger side window and looked out beyond the gas station longingly.

Yahiko finished his phone call, paid for the gas, and got back in the car. As soon as he turned the engine, the Beach Boys' music began again. They drove past signs and towns with names like Squaw Valley, Minkler, and Centerville. Yahiko changed tapes twice, to another Beach Boys' collection and then a Jan and Dean tape. And then they drove into Fresno.

The lights and greater number of cars was disturbing. Tsubame shut her eyes and concentrated on staying calm.

Eventually the car stopped. Opening her eyes, Tsubame saw that they were in the parking lot of a Motel 6.

"Stay here." Yahiko ordered unnecessarily, and got out, slamming the door behind him lightly and jogging over to the office.

He was back in a few minutes with the keys. He drove them to the back of the building and parked in front of a room at the end. Opening the driver side door, he slipped out quickly and started walking.

Tsubame automatically put her hand on the door handle, but paused when she realized Yahiko wasn't headed to the room, but to her side of the car. Bemused, she let him open the door for her.

"Why do you do that?" she asked hesitantly as she got out.

"Do what?"

"Open the door for me." Tsubame couldn't remember any of the few guys she'd gone out with in school ever doing that for her, and none of the guys at the office where she'd worked did that. Of course, if they had, girls like Meg and Sara would have chewed them out for being 'sexist'.

Yahiko gave a lopsided grin. "Because if I didn't my dad would kill me." Then he stopped and grimaced a little. "Not that he could anymore." He shrugged. "I guess old habits die hard," he said. Then he closed the car door, opened the back and retrieved his sword, backpack, and a duffel bag he'd left on the floor.

Wordlessly, she followed him to the motel room door, waited as he unlocked and pushed it open, and walked past him into the room.

The room was decorated in shades of gold, beige, and brown. Along the wall to the left was a long, low chest of drawers with a TV and remote on them. A doorway with an open door set in the wall led to a bathroom. To the right were the beds with gold colored polyester coverlets. She was thankful to see that there were twin beds, not a single one, and went and sank down on the edge of the one nearest the door. A tiny table and chair stood in the space between the bed and window.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled through her nose and smelled cleaner, an artificial pine scented disinfectant. The cold scent of the humans who'd been here before lay underneath it, a man and a woman with a baby. Below that was the smell of a single man who'd had fish scales on him, probably traveling back from a fishing trip, and below that…

"You want the shower first?"

Tsubame's eyes snapped open.

"Or take a bath? You can take a bath. I'm going to have to go out and get you some new clothes so I'll be gone awhile."

"Clothes?" repeated Tsubame.

Yahiko shifted his weight. "Well, you can't go around like that." He pointed to her stomach.

Looking down she saw the bloodstains crusted across her middle. The wound had already shut and was healing up. She'd gotten worse from bears and wildcats she'd drunk from in the mountains.

"How will you buy clothes? It must be past midnight."

"Sav-Ons are open 24 hours, and the clerk told me there's one down the street. They usually have t-shirts and stuff. What size are you?"

"Small. I'm a size four." Tsubame told him bemusedly.

"OK. I'll come back and stick the clothes on the floor of the bathroom when I get back." He raised his hands at her sharp stare. "I won't look, I swear it."

With that, he backed away toward the door and hastily went through it. Tsubame had the curious feeling that if normal blood still flowed through his veins, Yahiko would have been blushing. Suddenly she wasn't worried about him spying on her in the bathroom.

Pulling off her ruined tank top, she went to the bathroom and proceeded to have both a bath and a shower, thanking her lucky stars for the little soaps and shampoo and conditioner samples on the sink countertop.

She saw the door open a crack while she was rinsing the shampoo out of her hair and tensed, but as promised, Yahiko simply pushed a pile of clothing through the crack and shut the door again. She'd sensed vampire presence when he'd returned, but the running water all around her made it fuzzy seeming and odd.

Stepping out of the shower, she toweled her hair mostly dry and wrapped the dampened fabric around her middle. Her hands stilled in their motion of tucking the excess edge in at her breast. There were two voices coming from beyond the door outside the bathroom, and now that she concentrated, she felt two different vampire presences.

Part of Tsubame wanted to try to crawl down the shower drain with the draining water. Shaking the cowardly impulse off, she strode to the door, picking her knife out of the scabbard that she'd left on the sink countertop, and pulled the door open abruptly.

Two heads swiveled around to look at her. Yahiko was sitting on the bed by the door and across from him on the other bed was a taller, lanky vampire who looked around in surprise, then smirked when he saw her. He was a very familiar looking vampire.

"You!" Tsubame hissed, and lunged forward, knife blade poised to strike.