When she got there, she wasn't even breathing hard. She opened the garage and picked up a long, slim bundle that had been concealed in a corner. Then she turned to her bike.
Besides Hugh, it was the love of her life. A Harley. An 883 Sportster hugger. Just twenty-seven inches tall and eighty-seven inches long, a lean, light, mean machine. She loved its classic simplicity, its cold clean lines, its spare body. She thought of it as her steel and chrome thoroughbred.
Now she strapped the long bundle diagonally on her back, where it balanced nicely despite its odd size.
She put on a dark full-face helmet and swung a leg over the motorcycle. A moment later she was roaring away, heading out of Clayton toward San Francisco.
She enjoyed the ride, even though she knew it might be her last one. Maybe because of that. It was a dazzling end-of-summer day, with a sky of September blue and a pure-white sun. The air that parted for Jez was warm.
How can people ride in cages? she thought, twisting the throttle to shoot past a station wagon. What good are cars? You're completely isolated from your surroundings. You can't hear or smell anything outside; you can't feel wind or Power or a slight change in the temperature. You can't jump out to fight at an instant's notice. You certainly can't stake somebody at high speed while leaning out of a car window.
You could do it from a bike, though. If you were fast enough, you could skewer somebody as you roared by, like a knight with a lance. She and Morgead had fought that way once.
And maybe will again, she thought, and flashed a grim smile into the wind.
The sky remained blue as she continued west, instead of clouding up as she approached the ocean. It was so clear that from Oakland she could see the entire bay and the skyline of San Francisco. The tall buildings looked startlingly close.
She was leaving her own world and entering Morgead's.
It was something she didn't do often. San Francisco was an hour and fifteen minutes away from Clayton-assuming there was no traffic. It might as well have been in another state. Clayton was a tiny rural town, mostly cows, with a few decent houses and one pumpkin farm. As far as Jez knew, the Night World didn't know it existed. It wasn't the kind of place Night People cared about.
Which was why she'd managed to hide there for so long.
But now she was heading straight for the heart of the fire. As she crossed the Bay Bridge and reached the city, she was acutely aware of how vulnerable she was. A year ago Jez had broken the laws of the gang by disappearing. If any gang member saw her, they had the right to kill her.
Idiot. Nobody can recognize you. That's why you wear the full-face helmet. That's why you keep your hair up. That's why you don't custom-paint the bike.
She was still hyper-alert as she cruised the streets heading for one of the city's most unsavory districts.
There. She felt a jolt at the sight of a familiar building. Tan, blocky, and unlovely, it rose to three stories plus an irregular roof. Jez squinted up at the roof without taking off her helmet.
Then she went and stood casually against the rough concrete wall, near the rusty metal intercom. She waited until a couple of girls dressed like artists came up and got buzzed in by one of the tenants. Then she detached herself from the wall and calmly followed them.
She couldn't let Morgead know she was coming.
He'd kill her without waiting to ask questions if he got the jump on her. Her only chance was to jump him first, and then make him listen.
The building was even uglier inside than it was outside, with empty echoing stairwells and faceless industrial-sized hallways. But Jez found her heart beating faster and something like longing twisting in her chest. This place might be hideous, but it was also freedom. Each one of the giant rooms behind the metal doors was rented by somebody who didn't care about carpets and windows, but wanted a big empty space where they could be alone and do exactly what they wanted.
It was mostly starving artists here, people who needed large studios. Some of the doors were painted in gemlike colors and rough textures. Most had industrial-sized locks on them.
I don't miss it, Jez told herself. But every corner brought a shock of memory. Morgead had lived here for years, ever since his mother ran off with some vampire from Europe. And Jez had practically lived here, too, because it had been gang headquarters.
We had some good times....
No. She shook her head slightly to break off the thought and continued on her way, slipping silently through the corridors, going deeper and deeper into the building. At last she got to a place where there was no sound except the humming of the naked fluorescent lights on the ceiling. The walls were closer together here. There was a sense of isolation, of being far from the rest of the world.
And one narrow staircase going up.
Jez paused, listened a moment, then, keeping her eyes on the staircase, removed the long bundle from her back. She unwrapped it carefully, revealing a stick that was a work of art. It was just over four feet long and an inch in diameter. The wood was deep glossy red with irregular black markings that looked a little like tiger stripes or hieroglyphics.
Snakewood. One of the hardest woods in the world, dense and strong, but with just the right amount of resilience for a fighting stick. It made a striking and individual weapon.
There was one other unusual thing about it. Fighting sticks were usually blunt at either end, to allow the person holding it to get a grip. This one had one blunt end and one that tapered to an angled, narrow tip. Like a spear. The point was hard as iron and extremely sharp.
It could punch right through clothing to penetrate a vampire heart.
Jez held the stick in both hands for a moment, looking down at it. Then she straightened, and, holding it in a light grip ready for action, she began up the stairs.