Devil to Pay
Chapter Nine

The largest salt flats in the United States were in Utah. Flying would have been the quickest way to get there, but even though Mencheres had a private plane, he didn't choose that option. Maybe he was trying to give Blake a couple days to prepare for his death.
Driving was another possibility, but that came with its own set of difficulties, the least of which was comfort. Stuffing Blake into a backseat for over two days while driving him to his execution was cruel.
Also, the demon had a greater chance of causing an accident and killing Blake - with plenty of people around to jump into - if they were all crammed into a car.
Therefore, Elise was relieved when Mencheres said they'd take a train. It would just be the three of them. Bones had muttered something about it being too soon since the last train he'd taken, whatever that meant, and since he still held a grudge against the demon for its hours of tormenting Cat, Elise was glad Bones and Cat weren't going.
Mencheres booked two bedroom cabins for the journey. It would take them almost three days to get to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Once they boarded at Union Station, Mencheres closed himself in the cabin with Blake and ordered Elise to sleep in the other one. She'd stayed awake during the night and through the morning to watch over Blake. The demon hadn't taken him again, however, and Blake had slept like he'd been drugged. It seemed with his fate sealed, he felt relieved, while Elise was the one struggling with anger and doubt.
Once alone in the cabin, Elise didn't think she'd be able to sleep, but her body had different ideas. The rocking of the train felt comfortingly familiar, lulling her to sleep even though her mind kept whirling.
When she woke up, the sky was turning dark shades of orange and blue. Almost dusk. She'd slept the rest of the day away.
Elise bolted out of the narrow pull-down bed, guilt filling her. There went six of the fifty-five hours remaining of Blake's life, and she'd spent it slumbering while Blake had been shut in a cabin with a vampire he barely knew. True, he barely knew her, either, but compared to the time Blake had spent with Mencheres, Elise was an old friend.
She was on her feet and whipping the door open to the neighboring cabin in the next second. Blake looked up in surprise to see her in the doorframe, but Mencheres just raised a brow.
"With your haste, one might think you were afraid I'd lost him." Blake was staring rather fixedly at her midsection. Elise glanced down and felt a spurt of embarrassment, of all things. Not at the fact that she was shy over only wearing her shirt and underwear, but at how that revealed her anxiousness to see him as soon as she'd woken.
"I...thought I heard something," Elise lied.
Her sire gave her a look that said he knew better, but Blake seemed to buy it. He dragged his gaze away from her and coughed.
"I was about to go to the dining cab and get dinner. Did you want to come with me?"
"Yes," Elise said at once.
A smile spread across Blake's mouth. It transformed his face into something dazzling, but it also looked so unfamiliar on him, Elise realized this might be the first time she'd seen him smile.
"You might want to put something else on."
"Oh." There went that flash of embarrassment again, as if the clock had magically rewound, and she was a girl with her first beau. "Of course. I'll be back soon." Elise returned to her cabin, shaking her head at the strange way she was acting - and feeling.
Blake leaned back in the chair across from Mencheres. There was a pull-down table between them that doubled as a chessboard. They'd played seven games, and the vampire had beaten him every time.
"She likes you," Mencheres said quietly once Elise left the cabin.
A snort escaped Blake. I wish. "She can hardly tolerate speaking to me for longer than five minutes, so you'll excuse me if I disagree."
"Youth," Mencheres muttered. "So blind. Speaking of that, checkmate." Blake looked at the board. How the hell? "You tricky bastard," he said, seeing the trap he'd fallen into.
Mencheres gave Blake a tolerant look. "I was alive before chess was even invented. If you could beat me, then I wouldn't have learned much in my years, would I?" And Blake knew Mencheres had been around for a lot of years. Over four thousand, the vampire had stated casually, as if that wasn't a staggering number. He'd also told Blake about the history of vampires. How Cain had been the first after God cursed him with forever drinking blood as a reminder that he'd spilled his brother Abel's. That they lived in structured societies ruled by a head Master, and
- contrary to Hollywood's frequent assertion - wood through the heart was ineffective in killing them.
Blake didn't ask why Mencheres was so free in divulging this information. Who was Blake going to tell? He'd be dead soon.
Elise came back. Her hair was wet, making it appear a darker blond. Her cabin must have had a shower in it like this one did. She wore drawstring cotton pants, which seemed to be her norm, but instead of a zip-up hoodie over her tank top, her arms and shoulders were bare. Blake's gaze lingered over her pale, radiant skin, remembering what it looked like without clothes covering it.
Figures he'd meet a woman like Elise now, when he was at the lowest point of his soon-to-be-ended life. Blake wished he could have met her before the demon, when he'd be able to take Elise to a real dinner, not just a quick bite on the train's dining car. Or to a Broadway play, or hell, to a swanky blood bank, if that's what she liked. Elise had shown him more compassion than most of the humans he'd come across in the past several months. He only wished there was something he could do to thank her.
There wasn't, of course. All he could do to show his appreciation was to make the last chapter of his life as easy on her as possible. So few things were still within his control, but he could meet his end like a man. No whining or any of that bullshit. Plenty of people died before their time. Because of the demon in him, Blake had been responsible for some of those untimely deaths, in fact. Fair didn't count for a damn thing when it came to life - why should he cry about not getting fairness in death?
"I'm ready," Elise said, holding open the sliding door.
Blake stood. "So am I." And I'll prove that, Elise, when the time comes.