The afternoon had provided little more than a draining of his gas tank. Nick sat in his darkening office, considering what possible preparations they could make and wondering how he was going to keep the FBI out of this until the end. He had no answers. Until Drake made his presence felt again, there was little for them to do other than search the city and hope they got lucky. It would be soon. Given the current state of law enforcement, the timeline would be condensed, a couple days at most between kills. So it was no surprise when Nick felt the familiar pang of the other side, pulling at him like a spaceship drifting too close to a black hole.
Cornelius was drawing upon the energy of the dead, which meant he was feeding on someone. The feeling had been so faint with the boy Nick had been unable to zero in on it. He had not even been sure of the feeling until he saw the body under the tree. This time, he was leaving little doubt. Somewhere within a few miles, Cornelius Drake fed on another victim, daring Nick to find him. He reached to pick up the phone and call Shelby, only to have it ring as he grabbed it.
“Yeah?”
“Shelby’s on the line, Nick.” Cynthia patched her through without waiting for his answer.
The rumbling roar of her BMW motorcycle made it nearly impossible to hear. “Say that again, Shel. I can’t hear you.”
“North of downtown!” Her voice filled his head, full of excitement and anger. “I can’t tell if the fucker is west or east of the river though. A bit of the real stuff, Nick, I’d find him within the hour.”
“No,” he replied emphatically. “I’m on my way up now. Just keep trying to zero in on him.” She had promised no more blood, and Nick knew the disadvantage it put them in, but it just was not an option, not anymore.
“Nick…”
“No blood!” he repeated and slammed down the phone.
Out in the hall, he grabbed a bottle of synthetic from the fridge and gulped it down in one long, bitter draught. Cynthia was standing beside her desk when he came out into the main room.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” There was a hint of fear in her voice.
“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “If anything is going down, I’ll call. Keep the doors locked and don’t leave for any reason until I come back.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“Just in case, Cyn. I’m not taking any chances. We have no idea what he’s up to yet.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Thanks.” He gave a brief nod and headed out the door.
Thirty minutes later, Nick had his Jeep on the north side and was wishing he had driven the Porsche in to work. The feeling was definitely stronger, but without the spike of energy real blood would give, they would have to get damn close to home in on him. Drake was teasing them, and Nick clenched the steering wheel in frustration as he dodged through traffic, trying to get a better sense of where Drake was feeding. It had been an hour now, which gave them another half hour to forty minutes tops. If anything, Cornelius could be counted on to be consistent.
Shelby called in again, and Nick could hear the distinctive squeal of tires and the blaring of horns in the background. The woman was hell on wheels, enough to scare the shit out of the best NASCAR had to offer. He tried to keep the image of her getting plowed by a CTA bus out of his head. Damn woman!
“I’m east of the river, beginning to think he might be southwest of here.”
“Okay. I just crossed the river at Chicago. I’ll head west from here and then south,” Nick said. “Head north of me a couple miles and then come over and head down. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“We need blood, not luck,” she snarled in his ear and clicked off.
As the minutes ticked by, Nick knew she was right. The odds were slim, and someone was dying, but there would be no bloodshed to find him. It’s wrong, Nick told himself, like he had been telling himself for years, but the temptation was there, and just the thought made his mouth begin to salivate. Drake, on the other hand, was at that very moment quenching his thirst, draining the life of some poor soul, burning with the cold fire of the power of death. Nick had no clue how he would deal with Drake even if he did find him. Would bullets stop him? Enough of them might. Even the power of the other side can only heal so fast. With blood though…
Shelby interrupted the tormenting thoughts with another call. “West!” she shouted. “He’s west of me. Your side of the river.” Her engine was loud in the background, revved up high.
“Slow down, Shel. You will kill-” He stopped when the phone went dead again.
She was a good two miles north of his location. West of her could mean anything up to three or four miles. Six to eight square miles of city. Twenty minutes. Nick dug a Rolaids out of his pocket and popped two. Frustration was simmering away in his gut like a rancid witch’s brew. They would not find him. Not yet. It was all just part of the game, but one Nick could not afford to stop playing, because somewhere out there, another person was almost dead, and if Drake stuck to his routine, a fifteen-year-old young man had just about succumbed to a decades-long plot of revenge.
Nick veered east and headed for the freeway. The eerie call of death had started to fade. Reluctantly, he punched in Shelby’s number. “Go home, Shel. He’s done for now.”
“I could have had blood in five minutes, Nick.” Her voice was choking up. Nick swore silently to himself. “I could’ve tracked him, goddamn you!”
He didn’t bother saying good-bye and dropped the cell on the seat beside him. He knew she would not go home, not yet. She would ride around the rest of the evening, hoping to pick up the scent, something beyond that usual faint whiff of foulness one smelled when another one of them was within twenty-odd miles of you. She would yell more at him later, cursing his weakness, demanding he have the courage to drink, to be like Drake. But he could not. It was a promise he refused to break. It was the only one he had left, and God help him if he defiled Gwen’s memory for the sake of revenge.
Pulling into his garage, Nick got out and watched the rain whip across the driveway until the door had closed. He felt tired, beyond even the thirst for blood. The synthetic would give him his energy back, but this tired went beyond bone deep and sapped at his soul. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, hon. I just can’t do it,” he whispered.