For the Dead Travel Fast
—-xxx—-
He was sad to see the phone go, but he'd insisted on 'donating' it rather than crushing it with the tire of the car. He'd laid it on top of a Colorado town's public trash can, the covered lid to keep off rain making a nice offering for the burner phone.
But they didn't want to hang onto it too long.
"Could be good," she said. "Might make them think we're trying to throw them off, researching southern Colorado?"
"Or it leads them right to us." If they went to Ute Mountain Reservation. "Wouldn't they look at any location I'd pulled up in a search?"
"Possibly. But also resources might be spread a bit thin."
Castle rubbed his jaw. He'd crawled into the front seat a while back, but he was still weirdly wrung out. He had the sensation of nerve damage in his arms, a bizarre weakness as if his hands wouldn't close or hold on to a thing. Even the backs of his elbows and down his forearm had sudden tingling twitches, as if the nerves were being pinched.
Mostly he was just worn out.
"Uh, who is 'they' again?" he finally asked.
"What?"
"You keep saying they might find us, or we're throwing them off. And I guess I had one idea, and then you said resources are spread thin?"
"The NYPD?" she said, but that was a question if ever he heard one. "Who were you thinking of?"
"You know, the LokSat thing? I don't know, that whole CIA conspiracy which nearly killed us."
"Did kill us," she sighed softly.
"Well, not you. You were already badass vampire."
"Well."
He grinned at her, though he knew it was half-hearted. The jokes were growing about as thin as NYPD resources in Utah. Or Colorado. Wherever they were going. "I'd assumed you were worried about this shadow conspiracy in the CIA. Since Brown is dead."
She was quiet a moment. "I hadn't given it much thought."
"Really?"
"Too much else on my mind. Like keeping you alive."
"So if not the CIA, then you think just the NYPD?" Their friends?
"I left a dead man, clearly shot by my service weapon, on the floor of our kitchen. Not to mention, Castle, totally drained of blood. Every last drop."
His chest tightened. "You could say it with less relish."
"Rel—" She cast a bewildered look his way and then softened. "Oh. You're jealous."
"Stupidly," he muttered. And yet. The vampire in him was indignant she had drunk from anything so tainted, vile, and quite beneath them. When had he gotten so snooty? "It's like sex. And I just—"
"Only with you," she sighed. "I'm only saying that with a man dead, they can't just chalk it up to a poorly timed leave without pay and forget about us."
"No, I guess not."
"Even if the boys do understand we're leaving to save our lives, to protect everyone—"
"Which apparently we're not. Or at least not the way they think."
She sighed.
The car remained silent after that. He wasn't sure they were communicating well, but he was beginning to think it was the pallor of his phases still clinging to him. It was like those times where he'd be having a dream he was in a fight with his mother, and then after he woke and went out for breakfast, just seeing her brought up those feelings of frustration. Even though they weren't real.
Now, the phantom of their bad days lingered like a bad dream.
She made a little noise in her throat. "There's the sign for Denver."
They were approaching the point of no return: the interstate split in Denver. Either they went south to the lower portion of Colorado where Ute Mountain Reservation was, or they cut north towards Great Sat Lake. Where all good vampires went to transition.
"Taco Kid said very little really," he reminded her. "And from my research, Wahkara was a famous Ute chief. Chief Walker. A Shoshone leader and famous for a massacre." He didn't even need to look at his notes. "Which makes me think it's a password rather than a real person." Walkara meant Hawk in Shoshone.
"TK gave me the impression that Wahkara was necessary to get in to Great Salt Lake," she said again. "And your research came up with a bunch of different names, including Walkara and Chief Walker, so."
"So I'm wrong?"
"So I'm arguing the other side. I don't know."
"Are we arguing different sides?" He had thought—
"I don't know how to protect you at Great Salt Lake," she croaked. "I don't know what keeps us from being mauled by the great swarms of vampires—the deranged horde—which go there precisely for the hopes of fresh meat. Which we will be serving up on a silver platter."
"Yeah," he winced. He'd thought of that too.
"But," she sighed, "strolling into the Ute Mountain Casino and Hotel for lack of anything better to do seems woefully inadequate."
"Feels like we're running on inadequate's fumes."
She flinched.
"Not you." He laid his hand at the inside of her elbow and stroked softly. "You're damn capable, and quite impressive. I don't want to lead us into a trap. And me halfway to some new phase I can't help you from, you fighting it alone."
She nodded slowly, throat working. The interstate was calling for a decision, the interchange was coming up fast.
"And there were no Ute peoples settled in Utah?" she said softly.
"Some in Utah," he repeated, "but the southern border with Colorado. Northwestern New Mexico."
"Not the same direction as Great Salt Lake."
"Perhaps a referral system," he murmured again. Restating points, that was all they were doing. Saying it out loud again and again in the hopes it would make sense.
Either they heeded Taco Kid's warning and came under the questionable protection of the Vampire Underground, or they continued on to Great Salt on their own merits and wits, no help, no access, no guarantees.
Either could be a trap.
Kate blew out a breath and made the lane change, falling in behind the cars going south, south from Denver, south towards Ute Mountain Reservation, headquartered at Towaoc, Colorado.
"Yeah?" he said, excitement zipping under his skin.
"God help us," she muttered.
"Wahkara help us."
—-xxx—-