For the Dead Travel Fast

—-xxx—-

He'd been a beacon for too long, spilling euphoria-laced heat through the extended-stay hotel and out into the street for six hours or more. Waves of come and get me. At the time when Kate Beckett had returned to the room and realized just how powerful he'd gotten, it had already been too late.

She'd been forced to roll the windows down in the SUV, Castle curled on his side in the back seat and awkwardly strapped in, because the scent of him made her—his Progenitor—so wild she couldn't focus on the road. The damp cling of humidity, a coming rainstorm, did little to dispel the scent, but the occasional gulp of fresh air was enough to center her. Keep her stable.

She turned on his police scanner, the illegal one he wasn't supposed to have, and kept it at a low buzz beside her. He'd bought it when he had first come to the precinct because he liked to know what she was doing, where she was going—and he hadn't been sure she would tell him. When she'd discovered it half-hidden on a shelf with his collectible typewriters, she had nearly arrested him; he had apologized, promised he wouldn't use it anymore, and stuck it down in storage.

And then LokSat, and the shadows, and not knowing who to trust, and she had remembered that old shock, back before they were together, and she had pulled it out of storage and insisted they keep it in one of his cars, just in case. Trust no one, he'd joked, but she hadn't laughed.

The scanner was weirdly comforting. She felt like she had some semblance of control again. The fresh air helped, and she was gulping it like water, keeping the thirst under control, maintaining her speed, not drawing attention to them. She loved the new SUV he'd bought to replace the car that had gone over in flames; a Porsche Cayenne, and it had all the damn features plus an engine that made her shiver. Plus, it meant she had a separate AC in the back running high for him, while she kept herself at a warmer temp, and listened with half an ear to the scanner.

Maybe it was the familiar sounds of police chatter that lulled her into a false sense of security. Maybe she'd forgotten, somehow, that rolling the windows down meant leaving a trail of bread crumbs for her New York City kin: he was freshly baked cronuts and she was filling the street with the scent of one of the most amazing pastries ever invented.

(Oh God, she wanted him so much right now it was obscene.)

It was a moped at the corner of her eye which let her know she was in trouble. Gunning it, the woman on the back was racing her towards Holland Tunnel, where Kate had intended to cross over to Jersey City and take the 78 west. She knew from the moment she saw the aggressiveness of that moped that it was after her.

After him. Newly turned, the best meal out there.

Kate gripped the wheel, glanced in her rear view mirror at the flow of traffic, the patterns, tried to forecast what had to happen next, what moves she would need to make. A moped, she could take. She didn't want to, and a vehicle registered in Castle's name couldn't be part of a hit and run in the tunnel—but if she had to, she would. She had set it up, the call to Alexis, to Ryan, she had created a scenario in which a possible conflict with the horde wouldn't ask questions that couldn't be answered. Later, when they tried to resume their normal lives (God, could they ever do that?) it would be easy to pass off whatever violence they met as additional elements of the LokSat conspiracy.

But in that elaborate plan she had forgotten—as the moped drew even with Kate's car and the helmeted figure turned her way—that so many vampires were just regular people. They weren't shadowy figures with capes, they weren't hardened criminals or serial killers, they weren't even cops—they were the regular diverse people she was sworn to protect and serve.

The woman on the back of the Vespa, for a heartbeat, looked like a dead ringer for Alexis: red hair on her shoulders, thin frame, pale skin, and behind that visor, a death wish for Kate Beckett. She looked so much like his daughter that Kate's heart jolted.

It wasn't of course. That was not Alexis. But it was the moment's hesitation that forced Kate to make a new plan. There could not be carnage in the tunnel, that wasn't the way to start the next phase of their lives. And she was determined they would have lives to get back to.

She veered onto Eleventh Avenue at the last second, cutting in front of a city garbage truck and gunning the engine to make it. The Vespa tottered, tried to follow, but ultimately was forced into the Holland tunnel's restricted lanes, and soon, it was a remote speck of bright blue in Kate's side view mirror. And then obliterated by the flow of traffic.

Beckett powered up the windows and took a steadying but shallow breath. Same plan, minor diversion. She heard nothing on the scanner about them, but she was watchful.

She went north up Eleventh Avenue, heading now for the Lincoln Tunnel, her eyes darting from minivan to sedan to black-tinted windows on an SUV. She looked especially for motorbikes, delivery bikes, things that could move fast and beat traffic, knowing that they would have gained on Kate while she was stalled in bridge traffic. She had to press her damp palms to her jeans more than a few times, and when she came to a red light, she leaned across the console and fished out her gun from the glove compartment.

It was still holstered, but she loosened it, shoved it into the space between seat and center console. She didn't want to have to use it, but she would; she would. A bullet between the eyes in an innocent civilian and her ballistics would be a match. That wasn't acceptable. She'd lose her job. It was a last resort.

But. She probably, as of now, should stop thinking about keeping her job. Keeping her husband alive, that was number one. She'd deal with the fallout later. If she had to shoot a damn vampire between the eyes to stop it preying on her husband, then she would do it.

The entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel became apparent only because of the traffic. There was a squad car with blue lights flashing, but she eased the volume up on the scanner and heard nothing about two suspects in a black Porsche SUV, nor did she hear anything about the apartment, the ME coming for a body, nothing. It didn't mean they weren't looking for her, but—

The car was filling with the intoxicating flavor of the one thing she could not have, and she was beginning to fray at the seams.

Craving and lust, so potent a combination it brought tears to her eyes, blurring her vision and cracking her up, disparate trains of thought, catastrophizing worst case scenarios about ballistics when what they were up against was leagues more vicious, and infinitely fatal.

She cracked the windows—she had to, she absolutely had to—and saw the squad car was a traffic cop helping a stranded motorist. She inched past them, and the motorist turned his head and looked dead at her.

Kate swallowed, put her hand to the gun. Held his gaze, shivering when she realized he'd caught a whiff of the delicacy in her back seat.

The motorist, a man in his early twenties by the look of him, close-cropped buzz, tattoos on his neck, stepped out into traffic.

Someone screamed.

Kate flinched but tapped the brakes—she was no more than a yard from him; he was making a straight line for them. It was the car ahead of her, the driver was screaming, had to swerve to avoid hitting him. The traffic cop turned from the overheated car, saw the man, then lunged after him. Kate's vehicle almost clipped the officer as he dragged the man back, yelling in his face, red and furious and scared—and so was Kate.

She thumbed up the power window and pushed the button to recycle the air in the car. Her hands were clammy, but she saw a break in the traffic and changed lanes, her heart pounding loudly in her ears, inching them further and further from what had to have been one of her kind.

One of the horde, just one, and already—

A commotion broke out behind them, the muted shout of the police officer, multiple car horns. Then squealing tires, and the sickening crunch of a body.

She knew that would not keep the man down, and if he was crazed by the scent of her husband, he wouldn't care about remaining under cover.

She gave the car a little gas and made a dangerous lane change, zipped ahead, signaled, and changed lanes again. The tunnel closed around them, traffic was picking up speed, she pushed her foot on the accelerator and kept going.

She felt it behind them, even as the car purred in response, thirty now, thirty-five.

In the rear view, blue lights filled the tunnel.

And she saw him. A shadow between cars. Fast-moving. Unnaturally fast.

(She had never been that fast.)

It was the neck tattoos that let her know what she was seeing, who. Because what remained of his face was a mangled mess, only the mouth wide open, gaping too wide, jaw hanging slack where something had torn it away—

She pushed the car to sixty miles an hour and didn't let herself look back.

—-xxx—-