For the Dead Travel Fast
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Castle tilted his head to the seat, limp, his heart still pounding ferociously in his chest.
Kate shuddered and pushed back from him, her hair messy and wild with the humidity in the car. She stared as if sightless, and he shook his head wordlessly. He couldn't explain it either.
Her hands were shaking as she pulled her panties up. It had started all fun and games, but it had ended with sex in the backseat of the Porsche on the side of the road in the dark, and it was damn stupid, it was foolhardy, it could actually be called dangerous.
"What the hell is wrong with us?" she rasped, wriggling beside him to get her pants back on. "What the hell is wrong with us."
"I…" He didn't have an excuse. "We got carried away." It sounded as lame as it felt.
"I can't believe I even suggested giving you a blow job in the back of the car." She yanked both hands through her hair and turned to him. "We didn't even take our clothes off. Well, my pants but—"
"No, I know. And I usually insist," he said. "You know I hate it rushed." He felt struck dumb, and his hands throbbed where he'd been digging into her hips so hard. He hoped he hadn't hurt her, considering his newfound strength. "Did you at all feel the need to drink? Because I didn't."
"No," she said, brightening. "Hey. That's good, right?"
"Is it? Stupid to pull over on a highway and have sex. Headlights went past us multiple times." He swallowed painfully as he remembered the look on her face with the harsh light over it, the ecstasy as she'd thrown her head back, how he'd been buried inside her so deep—
"Shit," she hissed. "It's the pheromones. Oh God, Castle, it's the damn vampire pheromones." She wriggled between the seats and slid behind the wheel. "We have got to get out of here. Find this Wahkara. Get someplace safe."
He nodded miserably. "Maybe I should stay back here."
"Maybe."
It was smart, but it still stung. "Crack the windows, take the AC off recycle," he demanded.
She didn't respond, but she was already adjusting the settings on the dash and then nudging the power windows down.
"Little more back here," he told her.
The moment the cool whip of the wind hit him, he let out a breath and closed his eyes, the sensation of fresh air in his lungs more necessary than he'd realized. Tension, he thought it was. A lack of tension, now that he could clear the vampire pheromone from his lungs. It had all built so naturally, slowly over time, but not even an orgasm had relieved that ever-tightening vise.
He gulped fresh air and finally looked her way, caught her pale visage in the rear view mirror.
She was crying silently.
"Kate," he started, tilting forward to cling to the back of her seat. "Hey, no. Don't do that."
"I'm okay," she rasped.
"No you're not," he sighed. He hated to not touch her when she clearly needed comfort, but he was afraid of what a touch might do, when his phasing was just so unpredictable, when the urge to fuck was still so strong. "But you will be. We both will be. I'm sorry we lost control—"
"It felt really good," she croaked.
He chuckled, his forehead resting against the back of her seat. He couldn't look at her gorgeous illuminated face right now. "I know. It really did. It really did. Even cramped in the back seat with most of our clothes on, it felt really good."
"Stop, it just makes me horny, that low rough voice when you're aroused."
He grunted, couldn't stop himself from reaching over the seat and touching her shoulder. She lifted her hand and caught his fingers, squeezed, held on.
One desperate moment, he had the wild thought: I could just slide my fingers down—
She let go.
"Put your seatbelt on, Castle."
He sighed but he shifted back and put his seatbelt on, turned his face to the window, let the wind whip around his hair, feeling somehow gaunt. Less than. Like the sex had hollowed him out.
"I love you," she said. Her voice was picked up by the wind from the highway as they sped along in the night. "I love you, Castle, but we can't do that again."
"I completely agree." He rubbed both hands down his face, aware there was a different tension now between them. "Oh, I mean, I love you too."
She chuckled? He thought he heard some soft sound of amusement from her but it was hard to know, what with the wind coming in and how not funny it was. The wind had cleared the car of their combined scent—and the musk of sex—and every clean breath made his head clearer and clearer.
It felt like waking up from a weird strange dream.
Kate made a noise from the driver's seat. "We're not far out from Towaoc. Can you grab the map and look?"
"Yeah, but you'll have to roll up these windows back here."
There was a moment's hesitation, but she did, and he leaned forward and gathered the maps from the side pocket of the center console where he'd stashed them. In the backseat, he spread them out once more and plotted their position based on the highway signs flashing by in the darkness.
The landscape had already shifted without him taking especial note: Nebraska's soybean fields were long gone; the scrub brush and brown desert giving rise to rock formations that defied description.
"Castle?"
"Yeah, yeah." He returned his focus to the map. "This says we're coming up on it soon. Sixty miles or so? Have you seen any signs?"
"Not so far—oh, there. There it is. Sixty-three miles, Towaoc. Good job, Castle."
Her casual praise nevertheless made him feel ridiculously reassured, and he had to resist the urge to rub his cheek against her shoulder like a petted dog. Instead he folded the maps and replaced them in the pocket, and then he sat back again and forced himself to breathe deeply of the clean cool air coming in through her window.
After everything, the last hour passed swiftly and in total silence. He wasn't sure about her, but for his own part, he was both humiliated at his lack of self-control (vampire or no) and also half-afraid that this whole trek had been for naught. That there would be no Wahkara, that the Vampire Underground didn't exist, that this was a fruitless endeavor.
But when the casino resolved from the neon glow dead ahead, they both let out a sigh of relief and worked together to navigate them to the correct exit. Their passage onto the federally-designated reservation of Ute Mountain was anti-climatic. There was no fence, no checkpoint, nothing like what he had been imagining, only a big white sign with the seal of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe which said: Welcome to the lands of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe: For Your Safety all Tribal and Federal Laws are strictly enforced.
As they came off the highway, there was the mountain itself in the distance and the short dry grasses, all seen through the momentary flashes of passing cars' headlights, or the glow of a parking lamp, or the burn of a security light.
"Is that a bison?" she rasped. If it had been, it was already gone, but Castle took that as a sign to climb over and into the passenger seat, taking his place at her side.
She glanced at him, wet her lips, squirmed.
He gaped at her. "You can't still be—"
"Castle," she whined. Beckett didn't often whine, but she had to be exhausted, plus apparently aroused, and her voice cracked as she tried to speak.
"No, don't. I'll crawl into the back—"
"No, not that, don't." She shook her head and twisted the wheel in her hands, but she didn't touch him. "Stay. I can—I can do this."
It would be funny if this weren't all so serious. So important. They needed to get somewhere safe before he went through a phase that she couldn't control—him or herself.
"Here it is," he said softly, pointing to the access road which would lead them all the way to the casino and hotel.
"I hope we're right about this."
"Towaoc is the only place on the reservation we don't need permission. It has to be here."
She nodded, said nothing. They'd gone through it over and over, hashed it out, debated the merits, argued loudly—nothing had changed—it was as if saying it out loud now, what they already knew, would somehow guard against tragedy.
She parked. The lights were neon pink and cool turquoise, the building itself a kind of pink adobe or stucco which the darkness could not absorb. They sat in the car, parked, for too long a time before she rolled up the windows and opened her door.
Castle hustled to follow, unwilling to let her get too far ahead of him. He pulled even at the sidewalk and took her hand, very briefly, in a show of support before letting go so she could have it free for her weapon.
She couldn't use it on the reservation, no matter how many permits she had in New York or what badge she carried. He had done his research, as quickly as possible, first by checking the Tribal Leader Directory on the Bureau of Indian Affairs (though no Wahkara was listed) and then by scanning the tribal law in regards to amnesty, asylum-seekers, and carry permits, trying to hit up as many of their issues as possible.
His research wasn't as detailed as he liked, and it wasn't as specific as he usually came away with, but it would have to do.
Kate looked at him once, briefly, before she opened one of the double doors to the casino. A gust of cold air blasted him, but Kate was already slipping inside, pushing her hair off her neck, billowing her t-shirt as if the sweat was overwhelming.
Once inside, they paused in the massive vestibule, soaring windows and bright neon giving way to the clamor and excitement of a late-night casino floor.
He was almost distracted by it, the gold and chrome, the shiny lights, the whoop and klaxon as someone hit a jackpot. The slot machines were at the front to entice them in, and he was nearly enticed.
"Rick," she said, gesturing.
Just inside the vestibule was a massive security cage with clear windows showing the many monitors and camera angles, the brisk and efficient team sitting at the computers, and beyond the cage, more computers in a narrower room, with people who looked far more threatening than necessary. If the slot machines were a lure, the security office was a clear statement of power to deter anyone who might harbor darker motives.
Just inside the security cage was a solid wood door with a crisp name plate: Darren Fox. At that moment, the door opened and a large, broad-shouldered man with close-cropped white hair and an expensive suit stepped out.
His nose was a hawk's beak; there was nothing of kindness on his face.
"That's him," Kate breathed. "Shit."
Darren Fox was the Tribal Leader for Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, and their best shot at finding Wahkara or the Vampire Underground.
"All right, let's do this," Caste said. He set his jaw and strode towards the security cage.
—-xxx—-