Sherman’s eyes opened and he waved weakly at Sunni.
“I’m okay.” He sat up and rolled off the hedge. “I’ll come in by the front door. Just give me a minute.”
She sat on the landing with Richard, watching Isabel and Delia in the foyer below, hoping that Isabel wouldn’t wake up before Sherman returned. Unfortunately Isabel did wake up, but so did Delia. Sunni stood, torn between running downstairs and helping Delia and staying with Richard to make sure he stayed tied up.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got her,” Delia said. She waited calmly while Isabel crept forward, stealthy but awkward, like a zombie lion. When she was close Delia neatly executed a martial arts maneuver, grabbing Isabel’s arm, twisting it behind her and pressing her to the floor. She was kneeling on Isabel’s back when Sherman walked in.
“Are you all right, Delia?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just got knocked out for a minute.”
Sherman brushed his hands together. A fine glitter of rainbow-colored dust sifted between his fingers. “Pity about the window,” he said, looking at the hole in the wall that he’d just fallen through.
“All right, let’s get a move on.” He looked at Delia. “Will you be all right with her, Delia? We could, uh, neutralize her now.”
“No!” Sunni leaned over the balcony. “Sherman, isn’t there anything you can do for her?”
Sherman bent over Isabel. He lifted her eyelids and checked her pupils, and then laid his fingers against her neck to feel her pulse. Lifting her upper lip, he looked at her canine teeth. Finally, he nodded. “I think there’s still a chance she can recover. ”
Delia moved closer. “I can handle her for now, Daddy. We’ll deal with her when you get done with Richard. ”
Sherman bounded up the stairs and bent over Richard, who glared at him with dark, malevolent eyes.
“You’re a traitor to our kind, Shanyuan,” he hissed.
Sherman gave a dismissive snort. “We are not the same kind. Not even close. “ He approached Richard and crouched by his head, but Sunni noticed he kept a respectful distance from the silver chain. “The Council has been after you for years. But it took this girl to bring you down.”
“You better hurry,” Delia said. “Someone’s going to report that broken window and the police will be coming.”
Sherman lifted Richard’s head, taking care to keep his hands away from the silver. “You get his feet,” Sherman said to Sunni.
Sherman opened the back of the van and they tossed Richard on top of a pile of cardboard produce boxes. He didn’t struggle, but his eyes bored into Sunni, never leaving her face. Even after she closed the door she imagined them burning twin holes in the metal, like laser beams.
She hopped into the passenger seat and strapped herself in. Which turned out to be a good idea, because Sherman drove his van like a race car. Traffic was light, since it was four in the morning, mostly just taxis and delivery trucks, and Sherman sped down Market Street, running every red light and weaving around every car as if it was double-parked. Sunni put her hand gently on the old man’s arm.
“Sherman, we’ve got a captive in the back. We don’t need the police stopping us.”
He laughed. “Sunni, this is how vampires drive. You better get used to it!”
She nodded and checked her seat belt again.
They pulled into the parking lot at the Yerba Buena Cove Yacht Harbor. Sherman climbed into the back of the van with Richard. Sunni got out and looked around, checking inside nearby cars. When she was relatively sure the coast was clear she opened the wharf gate, returned to the van and opened the back door. Sherman had covered Richard head to toe in a plaid blanket. He looked like a corpse.
“What does that chain do, paralyze him?” Sunni asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” Sherman answered. “I’ve never used it before. My father gave it to me, and told me only to use it in cases of extreme emergency. ”
“Do you think we should cloak ourselves, so that no one sees us carrying him to the boat?” Sunni asked.
Sherman shook his head. “We can’t cloak Lazarus. Don’t you think that would look more suspicious, a bundle moving by itself?”
“I suppose so.” Sunni grabbed Richard’s feet. They hurriedly carried their burden through the wharf gate and down the dock to the Rose, with Sunni fervently praying that no one would appear out of one of the gently bobbing yachts around them. They stopped at the slip where the Rose was moored. Sunni looked at the boat and at their package.
“We’re going to have to put him down,” she said. “I’ll jump in and then you hand him to me.”
Sherman nodded. Even though he was ancient, he didn’t look the tiniest bit winded. Sunni was sure that he could have carried Richard himself, but that he was letting Sunni help so that she could feel she was an equal partner in the endeavor. Revenge was not so sweet when someone else did it for you.
She jumped onto the stern deck and took a moment to move a box to make some space. When she looked up she screamed. Richard was standing up, holding Sherman in a chokehold. The smaller vampire’s legs kicked wildly in the air.
“How did you … ?”
Richard laughed. “So much you need to know, dhampir, about vampire weapons and every other thing. If only you had let me teach you, but instead you relied on these pitiful substitutes. You could have been a worthy companion.”
He inclined his head to look at Sherman, who was struggling like a bug in a spiderweb. “On the other hand, you, Shanyuan—”
He took one step forward and opened his arms.
“—you are not so worthy. ”
For a moment Sherman was suspended in the air above the water, long enough that Sunni registered the look of surprise on his face as his arms and legs pinwheeled desperately. He hit the water with a small splash, and then, like a bubble popping, he disappeared.
“No!” Sunni grabbed a life preserver from under a seat, and then ran to the railing and threw one leg over, intending to jump in. She stopped when she looked in the water and saw only steam rising. The steam was roughly in the shape of a person.
Sunni sank to her knees, clutching the life preserver to her chest. Sherman had been wrong. It wasn’t like the Wicked Witch of the West. When she melted, she left her hat, shoes and broom in a wet puddle. Sherman had disappeared as completely as if he’d never existed. How was she going to tell Delia she got her immutable father killed?
She regained control after a few seconds and wiped her face with her shirtsleeve. Now she was at least going to go down with a fight. She took three quick breaths and felt the change come over her as her body readied itself for battle. She crouched and sprung, grabbed the railing lightly and vaulted onto the pier. She had intended to land on Richard, but he was no longer in the place he’d been a second earlier. He was farther down the pier, locked in a mortal struggle with Jacob Eddington.