He thrashed wildly for a minute or so, and then subsided as Rowan and Kestrel mentally urged him into a trance.
It was only another minute or so before Rowan said, "That's enough."
Jade said, Aw, Rowan ...
"That'senough.Tell him not to remember anything about this-and find out if he knows where Burdock Farm is."
Still feeding, Jade reached out with her mind,touching lightly with a tentacle of thought. Then she pulled back, her mouth closing as if in a kiss as it leftVic's skin. Vic was just a big rag doll at this point, and he flopped bonelessly against the steering wheeland the car door when she let him go.
"The farm's back that way-we have to go back tothe fork in the road," she said. "It's weird," she added, puzzled. "He was thinking that he wouldn't get in trouble for attacking us because-because of something about Aunt Opal. I couldn't get what."
"Probably that she was crazy," Kestrel said unemotionally. "Todd was thinking that he wouldn't get in trouble because his dad's an Elder."
"They don't have Elders," Jade said, vaguely smug."You mean a governor or a police officer or something ?
Rowan was frowning, not looking at them. "All right," she said. "This was an emergency; we had to do it.
But now we're going back to what we agreed."
"Until the next emergency," Kestrel said, smiling out the car window into the night.
To forestall Rowan, Jade said, "You think we should just leave them here?"
"Why not?" Kestrel said carelessly. "They'll wake up in a few hours."
Jade looked at Vic's neck. The two little wounds where her teeth had pierced him were already almost closed. By tomorrow they would be faint red marks like old bee stings.
Five minutes later they were on the road againwith their suitcases. This time, though, Jade was cheerful.
The difference was food-she felt as full of blood as a tick, charged with energy and ready to skip up mountains. She swung the cat carrier and her suitcase alternately, and Tiggy growled.
It was wonderful being out like this, walking alonein the warm night air, with nobody to frown in disapproval. Wonderful to listen to the deer and rabbits and rats feeding in the meadows around her.
Happiness bubbled up inside Jade. She'd never felt so free.
"It is nice, isn't it?" Rowan said softly, lookingaround as they reached the fork in the road. "It's the real world. And we have as much right to it as anybody else."
"I think it's the blood," Kestrel said. "Free-range humans are so much better than the kept ones.
Whydidn't our dear brother ever mention that?"
Ash, Jade thought, and felt a cold wind. She glanced behind her, not looking for a car but forsomething much more silent and deadly. She realized suddenly how fragile her bubble of happiness was.
"Are we going to get caught?" she asked Rowan. Reverting, in the space of one second, to a six-yearold turning to her big sister for help.
And Rowan, the best big sister in the world, said immediately and positively,"No. "
"But if Ash figures it out-he's the only one whomight realize-"
"We are not going to get caught," Rowan said. "Nobody will figure out that we're here."
Jade felt better. She put down her suitcase and held out a hand to Rowan, who took it. "Together forever," she said.
Kestrel, who'd been a few steps ahead, glanced over her shoulder. Then she came back and put her hand on theirs.
"Together forever."
Rowan said it solemnly; Kestrel said it with a quicknarrowing of her yellow eyes. Jade said it with utter determination.
As they walked on, Jade felt buoyant and cheerfulagain, enjoying the velvet-dark night.
The road was just dirt here, not paved. They passed meadows and stands of Douglas fir. A farmhouse on the left, set back on a long driveway. And finally, dead ahead at the end of the road, another house.
"That's it," Rowan said. Jade recognized it, too, from the pictures Aunt opal had sent them. It had two stories, a wraparound porch, and a steeplypitched roof with lots of gables. A cupola sprouted out of the rooftop, and there was a weather vane on the barn.
A real weather vane, Jade thought, stopping to stare. Her happiness flooded _back full force. "I love it, she said solemnly.
Rowan and Kestrel had stopped, too, but their expressions were far from awed. Rowan looked a hairs breadth away from horrified.
"It's a wreck," she gasped. "Look at that barnthe paint's completely gone. The pictures didn't show that."
"And the porch," Kestrel said helpfully. "It's fallingto pieces. Might go any minute."
"The work," Rowan whispered. "The work it would take to fix this place up ..."
"And the money," Kestrel said.
Jade gave them a cold look. "Why fix it? I like it.
It's different." Rigid with superiority, she picked up her luggage and walked to the end of the roadThere was a ramshackle, mostly fallen-down fence around the property, and a dangerous-looking gate.
Beyond,on a weed-covered path, was a pile of white pickets as if somebody had been planning to fix the fencebut had never got around to it.
Jade put down the suitcase and cat carrier and pulled at the gate. To her surprise, it moved easily.
"See, it may not look good, but it still works-"She didn't get to finish the sentence properly. The gate fell on her.
"Well, it may not work, but it's still ours," she said as Rowan and Kestrel pulled it off her.
"No, it's Aunt Opal's," Kestrel said.
Rowan just smoothed her hair back and said, "Come on."