Not Arturo. Carl. Why was he worried about whether I needed help now of all times?
“I can’t talk now, Carl.” I hung up on him. I’d catch hell for that later.
Carl and I were going to kill each other one of these days.
Switched lines again, had to double-check to make sure it was the right one. “Estelle? What’s happening? Estelle?” A sound rustled over the mouthpiece, then a banging noise like something falling. My heart dropped. “Estelle?”
“Yes. I’m hiding, but the phone cord won’t go any farther. I don’t want to hang up, Kitty.”
I didn’t want her to hang up. A nasty little voice in my head whispered ratings. But the only way I was going to find out what happened was if she stayed on the line.
“Estelle, if you have to hang up, hang up, okay? The important thing is to get out of there in one piece.”
“Thank you, Kitty,” she said, her face wet with tears. “Thank you for listening to me. No one’s ever really listened to me before.”
I hadn’t done anything. I couldn’t do anything. I was trapped behind the mike.
After that, I had to piece together events from what I was hearing. It was like listening to a badly directed radio drama. Tires squealed on asphalt. A car door slammed. Distant voices shouted. The phone slammed against something again: Estelle had dropped the handset. Running footsteps.
I paced, my hands itching to turn into claws and my legs itching to run. That happened when I got stressed. I wanted to Change and run. Run far, run fast, like Estelle had tried to do.
I called Cormac back.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me. Are you there? What’s happening?”
“Give me a break, it’s only been a minute. Give me another five.” He hung up.
Then on the other line, bells jingled as the door opened and closed. Footsteps moved slowly across a linoleum floor. I heard a scream. Then sobbing.
What was it about Elijah Smith that could make a vampire afraid of him?
“Estelle. Won’t you return to me? You can regain what you have lost. I’ll even forgive this betrayal.” A calm, reasonable voice echoed like it came from a TV in the next room. It sounded like a high-school social studies teacher explaining a lurid rite-of-passage ritual as if it were a recipe for mashed potatoes. A smooth voice, comforting, chilling. This voice spoke truth. Even over the phone, it was persuasive.
Elijah Smith, in his first public appearance.
“What are you?” Estelle said, as loud as she’d yet spoken, but the words were still muffled, filled with tears. “What are you really?”
“Oh, Estelle. Is it so hard for you to believe? Your struggle is most difficult of all. The ones who hate themselves, their monsters—their belief comes easy. But you, those like you—you love the monsters you have become, and that love is what you fear and hate. Your belief comes with great difficulty, because you don’t really want to believe.”
I sat down so heavily my chair rolled back a foot. The words tingled on my skin. He might have been talking to me, and he might have been right: I didn’t believe in a cure. Was it because I didn’t want to?
“A cure is supposed to be forever! Why can’t I leave you?”
“Because I would hate to lose you. I love all my people. I need you, Estelle.”
What was it Arturo had said: She is part of me. If she is destroyed, part of me is destroyed as well. Could Elijah Smith be some sort of vampire feeding on need, on his followers’ powers?
If only I could get him to pick up the phone.
Yet again, I called Cormac.
“Yeah?”
“Has it been five minutes? At least keep the line open so I know what’s happening.”
“Jesus, Norville. Hang on. There’s an SUV parked here. Three guys are standing guard in front of the building. I don’t see weapons. They might be lycanthropes. They’ve got that animal pacing thing going, you know? Arturo’s limo is parked around the corner. Lights off. Wait, here he comes. He’s trying to get in. I gotta go.” I heard the safety on a gun click, then rapid footsteps.