How the hell had he gotten to Heidi?
She remembered her own dream. He had that power. He could enter the mind.
“What is it?” Maggie persisted.
“Nothing, just a call from back home,” Lauren lied.
She heard Susan’s voice again, a whisper this time. “Don’t come. He wants you, but you can’t give him what he wants. You—”
Susan’s voice suddenly broke off in a chilling, gasping sound. Lauren realized that Maggie was still staring at her and knew she couldn’t let her face betray her fear.
“You sure nothing’s wrong?” Maggie asked.
Lauren covered the phone. “A client’s are not happy with a project, that’s all,” she said, then returned her attention to the call.
But the phone had gone dead.
They were nearing Maggie’s Volvo, and Lauren realized she had to act fast, so she said, “Damn. I can’t find my wallet. It must have fallen out of my bag. I’ll be right back.”
She turned and raced back into the library.
Then out the back door.
The call came the minute they stepped out onto the broken-down porch. It was Stacey, and she was frantic. “I don’t understand. The house was completely protected. There was no way he could have forced his way in.”
“But Heidi is gone? Mark asked.
“Yes,” Susan told him miserably.
His heart thundered. “Lauren?”
“She should be back any minute,” Stacey told him.
“Back? From where?” he demanded.
“She went to the library with Maggie, but they’re on their way back here.”
“We’re on our way, too,” he told Stacey.
“Wait!” Jonas cried. “Deanna?”
“Deanna?” Mark said into the cell.
“She’s fine.”
He nodded to Jonas, who was actually shaking. And, still, Mark couldn’t help but wonder whether this supposedly good vampire was for real. After all, he was the one who had spotted the house where the creatures were resting. A house that had been a decoy.
He hung up. “Let’s go,” he told Jonas and sprinted for the car.
Lauren found a taxi that took her down to the Square.
It was still light, but twilight was coming soon. It had been a beautiful, brilliant, sunny day, but now glorious streaks of pink and crimson were making their way in waves across a sky still lit by the glittering orb of the sinking sun.
But what did daylight matter in the end? Stephan could move freely by day when he chose. Darkness simply gave him even greater power.
There were people everywhere and no shadows yet, but even so, Lauren felt a rising sense of fear as she looked around the Square, then headed to the spot where she had first met Susan.
Where she had first seen Stephan in the crystal ball.
She stood in the square, facing the Cathedral, and felt a breeze that blew across her skin like a chilling caress.
She turned and looked around—and wondered how she had missed it.
A small tent had been pitched near what she thought of as Susan’s spot.
The same tent she had entered that first night, which now seemed ridiculously long ago.
A lifetime ago.
Her hand shaking, she drew back the flap.
And found Susan.
Deanna didn’t know what was wrong with her. She certainly didn’t feel sick. She did feel…vindicated. She also felt as if she were truly falling in love for the first time.
With Jonas…
Talk about a mixed marriage.
Even so, as she stood in the living room of Montresse House, knowing Jonas was on his way, she felt compelled to leave. Something was telling her that she had to get out. And that she couldn’; t tell anyone where she was going.
She heard Bobby and Big Jim talking on the other side of the room. “Maybe we shouldn’t have trusted that bastard Jonas,” Bobby said. “Maybe Mark would have been back by now if it weren’t for him.”
“I’ll kill him,” Big Jim said angrily.
Get out, get out now, a voice in Deanna’s head commanded. Get out. Come to me.
She could see him in her mind’s eye, a tall dark man, and he was beckoning to her.
“Looks like we’d better get ready for a major fight,” Bobby said. “I’ll call Sean. It looks like this is going to be the showdown.”
Bit Jim asked, “How do you know?”
“I don’t know,” Bobby admitted. “I just feel it, I guess. I’ve learned to go on intuition sometimes.”
Big Jim stared at him, then nodded knowingly. “Yeah,” he said simply, then headed for the back of the house, followed by Bobby.
Deanna looked toward the front door.
Come to me. Help me. I need your help. Please…
She glanced around quickly. No one in sight.
She opened the door and walked out.
Susan was lying on the floor, bleeding from a gash on her head….
Bleeding profusely from her throat.
Lauren let out a soft cry and knelt down beside her, desperate to find a pulse. She fumbled with her phone while she sought the woman’s wrist and hit 911 instinctively. “Susan, oh, Susan…I’m so sorry,” she murmured. An operator came on, and Lauren quickly gave her location. There had to be officers on the street. There had to be help nearby.
“Oh, Susan…” she said miserably.
The woman’s lips moved.
Lauren bent close to her, her heart in her throat. She was torn. The woman was badly hurt, maybe even near death. But she had to try to get her to speak. Had to find Stephan and save Heidi.
“He was here, wasn’t he? Stephan was here. He hurt you. And now I have to find him. I have to help Heidi. Susan, where is she? Please, you have to help me.”
She could hear a siren. Thank God. Help was coming.
“Please, Susan!”
Again the woman’s lips moved.
Lauren bent lower and finally realized what Susan was saying, the words she was repeating over and over again.
An address.
Judy Lockwood, aware that idle hands and idle minds were never good, kept up with her knitting, hour after hour. But as she looked down at her stitches, she suddenly had an uncanny feeling and looked up.
Leticia was awake.
She wasn’t just awake. She was straining against her restraints and staring at Judy. “The hour has come.”
Judy frowned, then hurried to her niece’s side. “Leticia, thank the Lord, you’re awake.”
Leticia didn’t seem to see her, though. She only repeated, “The hour has come.”
“What hour, Leticia? What hour?” Judy asked, frowning.
Leticia stared straight at her then, as if noticing her for the first time. “I saw him. He was killing a woman in the Square.”
Judy thought that maybe she should call for a doctor.
But she didn’t.
She made a different call, instead.
Mark practically flew into the house. Jonas was right behind him.
“Where’s Lauren?” Mark demanded of Maggie, who only stared at him, stricken. The others were there, as well, Big Jim, Bobby and Stacey. But there was no sign of Lauren, or of Heidi and Deanna.
“She got away from me at the library,” Maggie said.
“Deanna?” Jonas cried.
No one moved. They only looked guiltily away. He finally paid attention to his surroundings and realized that the grand entry hall of the mansion looked like a strange arsenal, with all kinds of bizarre weapons arranged in rows. There were a slew of water pistols. Bows and arrows. Stakes and hammers. Everyone was wearing a large cross. They were prepared.
But they were alone.
He turned, ready to accuse Jonas, but the man looked so stricken that Mark could only conclude that he really was good, or else he was such an accomplished actor that he should have been a stand-in for Benedict Arnold.
“Exactly what happened?” Mark demanded, looking from
face to face.
“Heidi was sleeping. I checked on her every few minutes,” Stacey said.
“Deanna was downstairs with us,” Bobby said.
Heidi and Deanna had walked out on their own, Mark knew. Stephan hadn’t gotten in—except into their minds.
He swung around to stare accusingly at Maggie.
Where had Lauren gone when she left the library? The nightmare that had plagued him forever was alive and vivid in his mind’s eye.
A bride in white, walking down the aisle, her eyes aglow with love.
And then the blood, the rivers of blood…
“Has anyone gotten hold of Sean?” he asked.
“Yes,” Maggie said.
Just then Mark’s phone rang. He answered and heard Sean Canady’s voice. “The Square,” he said simply. “A fortune-teller was attacked in her tent.”
Mark turned around, heading for the door. “The Square!” he shouted.
“Wait!” Bobby yelled.
But Mark wasn’t waiting.
“Catch up with me!” he commanded.
Lauren was torn. The ambulance would be there any second. She couldn’t leave Susan.
But she had to leave Susan. Because she had to save Heidi.
What if Susan died—as she probably would—because she had tried to warn her away when Stephan had been with her?
Stephan was a vicious bastard. He killed for his own pleasure and amusement. He only let his victims “live” sometimes so he could enjoy their even greater torment.
Or to create his army.
And Heidi would never have been one of Stephan’s victims if not for her.
There was no help for it. She had to find her friend.
As she left through the back flap, she heard the paramedics approaching the tent and prayed they weren’t too late.
Mark reached the Square to find a scene of utter chaos. An ambulance and two police cars were parked in the middle of the pedestrian area. Artists, singers, musicians and tourists were standing around in awkward groups, some being questioned by the police, others just curious to see what all the fuss was about.
Mark forced his way through the crowd to where an officer was holding everyone back and fielding questions.
“She was attacked,” one bystander said. “I saw them bring her out. She was covered in blood.”
“Was it him? Was it the man who threw those women into the river?” someone else asked.
He had to get into the ambulance, Mark decided. And it didn’t matter how.
Just then Sean Canady pulled up in his car. He saw Mark and beckoned him over.
“I have to speak to Susan,” Mark said.
“I have to get to her. I have to,” Mark told Sean.
They strode over to the rescue vehicle. The back door was still open; Susan was inside, lying on a stretcher.
“You’ll have to question her later, lieutenant,” the med-tech said. “She’s in bad shape, lost a lot of blood. The wound on her head…it’s amazing her entire skull wasn’t caved in. We’re getting ready to take off.”
“This man needs a minute with her,” Canady said.
“All right. Come in. But she’s probably dying. She’s hanging on by a thread.”
Mark leapt up and took Susan’s hands in his own. He willed strength into her, prayed that she would open her eyes.
She didn’t.
But her lips began to move.
He leaned close to her.
She could barely form words.
But he managed to understand.
17
I t seemed to Lauren as if they’d been driving forever.
The beautiful pink light of twilight had gone to deepest red, and now it was fading altogether. No, that wasn’t true. There was still light. Red light. Blood red light, like a mist over the moon.
Suddenly, the cab driver stopped and turned in his seat to stare back at Lauren. “We’re here. Twenty-two fifty,” he told her.
They were there?
Where?
Then she realized that she was in front of what should have been a lovely home and realized that it had been destroyed by the Katrina flooding. In fact, the whole neighborhood had been flooded out.
That was why there were no lights except one streetlight. The connection was weak, though, or maybe the bulb was about to go, because it kept flickering on and off.
“Twenty-two-fifty,” the cabby repeated. “Look, lady, this is where you asked to be let off, and now I gotta go. Give me your money and get out of the car. I’m not staying here. If you’re crazy enough to, be my guest. If not, it’s another twenrt-two-fifty back to civilization.”
She dug in her purse for the money. At the same time, she tucked two of the water pistols into the waistband of her jeans and pulled the tails of her tailored denim shirt down to cover them. Then she paid the cabby, but apparently she hesitated too long for his taste.
“Lady, I’m getting out of here,” he warned her.
“Sure. And thanks. Thanks a lot. Service with a smile,” she countered.
She was barely out of the cab when he gunned the motor and shot away.
She stared up at the dark house. It had been beautiful once. As she moved closer, she could see a faded advertisement for the development the house was part of. It had been called Arcadia. Old luxury with modern convenience, the billboard explained. Every house a variant of the original mansion. The one she was standing in front of. It must have dated back nearly two hundred years, and it had been meticulously restored.
Then abandoned.
As she stood in the darkness, she saw that there was light inside. Pale, barely showing beneath the drapes that covered every window.
Lauren fingered the cross that Mark had given her. She needed strength so badly. Her knees were giving out on her. She felt a rush of fear and knew she couldn’t give in to it.
As she stood there, staring at the house, the night changed abruptly.
The sky darkened, and when she looked up, it seemed that the moon rode across a sea of red.
The darkness around her seemed to swoop and swerve. Giant shadows, changing, forming, coming close to her.
The breeze whispered.
Grew louder.
And then it wasn’t the breeze whispering at all. It was the sound of laughter, soft and throaty and all around her.
A strand of her hair rose, and she shuddered; it felt as if one of the shadows had touched her face.
She gritted her teeth and fought the urge to run. The din seemed to grow, laughter rising.
Her hair was tugged.
Pulled.
The shadows began to take form, and then, suddenly, people were standing before her, at least twelve of them, all men. They were all dressed in black. Black jeans, chinos, even dress pants. Black T-shirtss, polos, dress shirts. Some were young, others older. And they were all amused.
One man stepped forward. Stephan, standing tallest, and very dark. He was wearing a black poet’s shirt and trousers that clung to his muscular legs. He wore black boots, as well, that covered his calves.
“Welcome,” he told her.
“Don’t welcome me. You know I don’t want to be here. But you have my friend.”
“I have both your friends, and if you’re lucky and very well-behaved, they just may live. Come. Come closer.”
“No.”
He shrugged. “Take her,” he said casually.
The others closed in around her. She heard someone moving at her back, and he was close, far too close. She thought she could feel his fetid breath, teasing at her nape.
Her fear peaked. and she realized that she had to move—or die.
So she moved.
She drew out her water pistols and began to shoot.
She turned to her rear, desperate to rid herself of the creature breathing down her back. He was close, and she aimed straight into his eyes. She smelled burning flesh.
He screamed, and as he sizzled and burned, he tried to change back into shad
ow. He morphed…there, not there. She saw a patch of skull. She saw wings.
She fired again, and he collapsed at her feet.
She stomped on him, and he exploded into dust and soot. An old vampire, she thought. Very old.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
The others moved on her then, and she began to spin, her water pistols working. She tried, in the midst of her terror, to remember to aim. She couldn’t waste her holy water; she had no idea how long her “ammunition” would last.
All around her, the night seemed to explode with cries of pain and shouts of fury. The cacaphony rose to a crescendo; there was fire, mist…explosions of unnamable filth all around her.
And then there was a roar of fury. “Enough!”
It was Stephan.
“We can’t take her while she’s shooting,” one of his minions said. She couldn’t tell where the sound had come from and tried to find the speaker, longing to see him die.
But Stephan roared out a command again. “Enough!”
There was stillness all around her.
Shadows formed shapes again. Only five who remained standing, and they lined up at Stephan’s side.
“She will drop her weapons,” Stephan said.
“Why would I do that?” she demanded.
He smiled. “Because if you do not, your friends will die. I will kill them slowly, one at a time. The little blonde first, then the dark beauty. You will watch them suffer, and I promise, you will hear them scream and curse you as they die.”
She froze, swallowing.
“Drop your weapons, my dear,” Stephan said pleasantly. Then he snapped out a single word in a terrible fury.
“Now!”
Time.
Time was of the essence, Mark knew.
Stephan had been toying with them all along. He hadn’t cared how many he sacrificed on the way to his ultimate showdown. Mark even knew that Stephan had planned for him to discover his lair at last. Planned for him to feel desperate.
Planned for him to come alone.
But there was no help for it.
He slipped from the ambulance and disappeared into the crowd.
He could see Canady standing in the center of the storm, fielding questions, commanding men, and he dialed the lieutenant’s cell number.
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