Mentor knew he had to do it. He was able to walk among mankind and pass easily as one of them. He made it his number one rule not to separate himself from the world, except for the youth, who changed their fads so often he could never keep up with them. Without staying close to adult society, he could never hope to gain the trust of their souls when the time came to choose the eternal path.
"All right, tell me what you know."
For the next few minutes Ross gave him details, addresses, and other data. Mentor knew what he had to do. He would approach the woman who was about to uncover their secret and he would mesmerize her into forgetting. That way she'd come to no harm. If he failed, Ross would simply kill her and cover up any trail she'd uncovered.
Mesmerizing was an ancient gift that was as real as a cloud, a leaf, or a stream. Magicians, bound by earthly magic, considered mesmerizing another word for hypnotism, but it was far beyond that. Other words for mesmerize were to spellbind, stupefy, and to find entry. To mesmerize people, Mentor had to enter their minds, meld with their souls, and change their memories as one would wipe a slate clean. It had to be done by a master, or it was considerably dangerous. In the beginning when he was first learning how, Mentor had accidentally wiped a few minds that were never the same again.
More guilt. And guilt he had no choice but to live with.
When Ross had gone, Mentor left his home and stood outside, feeling the early morning wind on his face. Earlier, when Dolan had left, the sky had been clearing, but now a few white clouds with dark underbellies coasted near the moon. In another city they might portend rain, but in Dallas they would no doubt scatter and disappear before even a drop of moisture could condense.
He would see the woman, Bette Kinyo, on the morrow. Tonight he had urgent business. It was not in the city, but out in the South Texas countryside near the border with Mexico. A family of Naturals lived there, and tonight one of the women was undergoing the change. The disease had begun earlier in the day when they'd first called for Mentor's help. Now he must hurry, or his charge would be lost. She might become a Predator. That was the fear of her family.
She might anyway, despite his guidance, but at least he would have tried to dissuade her. There were too many of them already, especially along the border where he knew more murders were going unsolved than in all the rest of the state. The authorities thought it was the work of a serial killer who left his victims horribly mutilated, but Mentor and his kind knew what it really was. Too many Predators in the area and too few sources of blood.
What they did not need was one more running loose.
He must be on his way.
With a flick of his will and a mental explosion that changed the very atomic makeup of his being, Mentor dissipated into the Dallas night wind an insubstantial shadow among the clouds sailing south. Just before he'd left the earthly plain, he'd heard the telephone in his house ringing and knew it must be Hank.
He'd speak with him later. He had all the information he needed for the time being.
Chapter 12
It was not Dell's birthday, that day was in June, after graduation, but it felt like it. On Saturday morning when she woke, Eddie stood at the end of her bed. She'd slept so deeply that she felt now as if she were coming up from a black well of unconsciousness where nothing had ever lived.
She'd heard someone call her name and opened her eyes. "What are you doing?" she asked, coming up onto her elbows. Eddie was bending over the foot of her bed and tugging at her covers.
"Mom and Dad have a surprise for you."
"What kind of surprise?" She threw back the covers and stood to stretch.
"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you. They're waiting in the living room. C'mon."
Her parents were dressed, standing in the center of the room together, and in her father's hand dangled his car keys. "If you'll hurry and get your clothes on, we'll take you to see something special," he said.
"What?" she asked. "What's going on?"
"Tell her," her mother said to her father.
Her father shook his head, grinning slyly. "We wanted you to see for yourself. So hurry up, we're waiting. And no reading our minds, young lady."
She rushed back to her bedroom and stripped off her pajamas. She put on shorts and a sleeveless shirt.
She almost ran into Eddie when she hurried into the hall. She grabbed him by the back of his shirt. "Tell me what it is!"
"No way. Let's go, they're already in the car."
They drove from the neighborhood, through the suburbs of Dallas, and south, out of the city. When the terrain changed to wheat and cotton farms, Dell could not control her curiosity any longer. "Where are we going? Is it a long way?" She remembered being a little child again, asking her parents every few minutes how far it was to their destination. Vacations must have been tedious for her parents, she realized, having children whine at them for hours on end.
"It's not far now," her father said.
"You're gonna like it," Eddie said, punching her in the arm lightly.
It was a horse! She knew it was a horse. It had to be! She had begged for a horse since she was eight years old. They had never had a pet, not even a dog, and she'd yearned for an animal for years. Her parents told her that most pets sensed they were different and were never happy around them. They would cry and scratch at themselves, they would turn in circles going nuts, and once let outside, they would probably disappear.
Dell had seen it happen before her change when Eddie played over at a friend's house. If his friend had a pet, even if it was a hamster, the animal went bonkers trying to get away from Eddie and the scent the animal picked up that he was not quite human anymore. Eddie always made a joke out of it, saying animals just didn't like him and that was all right, because he didn't like them either.
Gosh, even Carolyn had a pet. It was a big, fat, fluffy cat she named VeryPretty. "That's a dumb name," Dell had said, rubbing the cat's fur and feeling it purr beneath her hands.
"VeryPretty doesn't think so," Carolyn said. "She likes it.”
Now, when Dell went to visit her cousin, she knew VeryPretty would shy from her and hide beneath Carolyn's bed. It made her sad to think about it.
But she had not wanted a house pet like a cat or dog. She had always wanted her very own horse. It might be spooked by her, sensing she wasn't human, but she knew she could reach it with her mind, make it comfortable with her.
One of Cheyenne's cousins had kept a horse where she lived on a ranch outside of Dallas. Dell had been visiting the cousin with Cheyenne one day and fell instantly in love. The horse at first shied from her, but after snuffling through its massive nose and prancing away from her twice when she neared it, she spoke to it softly until it steadied. He finally let her rub his nose. She had asked to ride it and Cheyenne's cousin said sure, why not? She hadn't taken the horse faster than a trot, afraid she'd fall off, but once out of the range of her friends' hearing, she had whispered to the horse how majestic he was and how wonderful it was to ride him.
She had been ten years old. The horse was just an old gelding that kids had been riding for years. At home, she had pestered her parents about it. "Why can't I have one?" she'd asked. She'd been told how expensive it was to buy a horse, not to mention its upkeep. They would have to board it at a stable, pay for its food and vet bills, and at that time they simply could not afford it. Everything they could earn went toward living expenses and the cost of the blood the Predators sold.
Crushed, Dell had stopped begging. Her parents really did work very hard. But she'd never stopped hoping to one day own a horse of her own. Now they were driving out of the city and all around them were ranches and farms fenced off from the road with barbed wire and hollow steel rails.
"It's a horse!" she cried, unable to keep quiet. She just had to know. "You've bought me a horse, haven't you?"
Her mother turned from the front seat, smiling. "We thought it would be good for you."
"Oh, Mama, thank you, thank you! Tha
nk you, Daddy!"
"Now don't get too excited," her father said. "It's not much of a horse. We knew it would cost a great deal to keep it boarded, so we had to buy an older one than we would have liked."
She didn't care. She didn't care if it was old as Methuselah, at least she could ride it. She could love it. She could have something of her own.
At the stables where her father turned in, Dell eyed all the horses wandering in the paddocks and standing by the stalls. When the car stopped, she was the first one out of the door. She hurried to a man leading a horse by a halter. "Is that my horse?" she asked, breathless.
"And who might you be?" the stable attendant asked in a friendly way.
"Dell! Della Cambian. You have my horse here?"
"Well, shoot, little girl, I think we just might have it back there in one of those stalls." The man grinned, and a gold crown shone from an upper incisor.
Dell turned to the stalls and saw several horses still closed in there. "Which one?"
Her father was at her side then and said, pointing. "That one."
It was at the far end in the last stall. He had his head hanging over the gate and Dell saw that he was a roan with a white spot right between the center of his eyes.
"Oh!" That's all she could say. To her it was the most beautiful animal in the world. Her father had said the horse was old, and that made him cheaper, but to her the horse was ageless and grand. She ran all the way to the stall, coming to an abrupt standstill just before the horse so as not to spook it.
"Hey," she called softly. "It's me, Dell. Want to go for a ride?" She telepathically talked to the horse in a soothing monotone that she knew he could hear inside his mind. She was so afraid he would fear her. If he feared her, she would never be able to keep him.
Good horse, nice horse, she thought. I love you, do you know that? I do love you already.
She felt ten years old again once the horse was saddled for her and she had climbed aboard. His name, the stable hand said, was Lightning. "Not like he's fast anymore," the man added. "He's a little long in the tooth for racing."
Dell waved to her beaming parents and to her brother, who looked like he would split open with joy. She turned the horse with the reins and locked her legs around him. He started walking slowly, and that was all right with her. She was communicating with him silently, knowing he could read her thoughts. Good horse, she thought again. What a fine horse you are. We will be friends, we will be pals forever.
He took her across a field and to a riding path. He didn't move fast, never went into a trot, but Dell felt she was kissing the wind on the back of a giant, valiant steed. She was free! They were one, she and the horse, moving under the dappled shade of the path, all alone.
She forgot that she was unnatural trying to live a natural life. She was not a vampire who depended on blood to live, but just a girl riding gently through a forest on the back of her very own horse, Lightning.
Time stopped and she had no idea how long she'd been riding when finally the horse, knowing where he was to go, returned to the stalls. Her parents sat at a concrete picnic table in the shade of the stalls, while her brother stood trying to pet a goat tied to a stake. The goat was bucking to free himself, whinnying at Eddie's strange scent.
Dell rode up, pulling at the reins and calling, "Whoa," to Lightning. She dismounted, her legs shaky, the reins in her hand. "This is the best surprise I've ever had," she said.
Her father came over and when Lightning shied from him, jerking his head back, waited for the horse to calm down. "He's twenty years old," he said. "He was owned by a family whose children all rode him, but now they're all grown and didn't want him anymore. I thought since you always wanted a pet, he'd be just right for you."
Dell kissed her father's cheek. "I love him," she said. "He's wonderful."
"Well, you're going to have to come out here and take care of him. He needs grooming and needs riding to get his exercise."
"Don't worry! I'll come see him all the time. I can get a job this summer and help with the costs."
Her father waved that off. "It's not so expensive. I think I can afford it."
On the way home Dell couldn't stop chattering. She was going to braid his mane. She was going to brush him and get to know him and together they'd wander all over the riding paths at the stables. One day, she'd get her own place where she'd have a stable built, and put him where she could see him every day. How long did horses live anyway? Wouldn't Lightning live for a long time yet?
Despite hearing most horses didn't live as long as thirty years, she thought she'd never been so happy before. She knew her parents had done this to help her adjust into her new life. They knew she needed something of her own to love and cherish, something she could talk to that would never betray her secrets. They were the best parents in the world, she thought, the best there ever were.
That night in her bed she relived her joy in how the horse had been comfortable with her despite what she was. She remembered the excitement of riding Lightning and recalled how time had stopped, dropping her into a timeless world where there were no worries or problems. As the horse walked, she had grown accustomed to his pace and let her body go loose so that finally she hardly bounced in the saddle, but rode Lightning's back as if she were a part of him.
She thought she could probably sneak out of the house and go to Lightning without using a car at all. But she didn't know how to do that yet, how some of them could transform into something else that vanished and reappeared elsewhere. But when she did know how, when she did learn how to vanish and reach her horse without the benefit of human transportation, she could visit him at night when no one was around. She'd make him her best friend of all, her confidant, her closest ally in a world where she was an aberration, an abomination, a . . . dead girl.
He already knew in some way that she was not like others who rode him. Yet he'd accepted her strangeness once she'd spoken to him telepathically, and he had taken her willingly down the riding path just as if she were still human, still just a young woman out for a trail ride.
She fell into a deep sleep while happiness flooded her and burned away all her questions and fears. She would never forget this kindness of her parents and never take for granted whatever sacrifices they were making in order to give her what she'd always wanted.
She might be vampire, she might not be permitted to live as a mortal being, but as long as she had Lightning, she thought she could find a way to cope. Only once did the thought occur to her that because the horse was already twenty, he might live only another ten years or even less and then she would lose him. She banished the thought immediately, not wishing to let reality intrude on her bliss. Deep down, she knew there were going to be a great many losses over the years to come. Not just beloved horses, but friends and relatives who had never contracted the disease. One day she'd lose Aunt Celia. And Carolyn. Like all humankind, she would have to bear those losses and go on, somehow. That there would be more of them than any human ever faced wasn't something she could think about right now.
All that mattered was that she had been given a wonderful gift and Lightning was his name.
Chapter 13
Bette Kinyo lived alone in a small house she'd purchased in an ethnically-mixed neighborhood. It was inexpensive and at the time, ten years before, she had not been making as much as she did these days. Nevertheless, she hadn't moved, even though she could have afforded a nicer place. She'd never felt an urge to abandon either the neighborhood or the home she'd made in the little house. In the privacy-fenced backyard, she had a Japanese garden that had taken her two years to construct. It was ringed with small conifers and miniature viburnums and holly. In the center of the greenery was her masterpiece, a raked bed of white pea gravel that she tended once a week, changing the rake marks and praying small prayers for a continued peaceful existence as she worked.
Inside the house she had stripped and refinished the stair rails and spindles that led to a loft bedroom she'd de
corated in Victorian style with bouquets of roses from her gardens and flowered chintz easy chairs facing a slanted rooftop window overlooking the Japanese garden. She took tea there in the late evening just before sunset, after a spare dinner. In her living room light glowed like gold, reflected from Tiffany-style lamps, and bookcases overflowed with well-worn volumes of history and poetry.
Her kitchen was left as she found it, not even a dishwasher installed to modernize it. There were open cabinets displaying a collection of Japanese Nippon dishware and on the wall she'd hung handwoven baskets she bought from local Mexican artisans.
She knew the house and every crevice and corner in it. It was her sanctuary and the most beloved possession she owned. So when the intruder appeared, she knew it even before he spoke.
She had her back to the room, her hands deep in sudsy water washing the dinner dishes. She stiffened and turned her head to look behind her. "Who are you?" she asked in a strong voice. She did not ask how he had got into her home through the locked doors. She knew immediately that he was not human and was in fact something obscene and unnatural. She had felt it the moment she knew he was there, standing behind her on the oval hooked rug in the center of her kitchen.
Unlike Westerners, she had no prejudice against the idea of the supernatural. Though she had attended American universities and was a scientist, she saw no reason to discard the centuries of wisdom that had come down through her family from their ancestors in Japan. The man who had appeared out of thin air in her kitchen might be a spirit of the house only now making itself known to her. Her little home had been built in the late 1800s, and she had wondered if any of the people who had lived in it before would want to communicate with her. But for ten years they had remained silent. Until now.
She was not afraid. She wiped her hands dry on a dish towel, planted her feet apart, and faced the being.
He had not yet spoken. Again she asked, "Who are you? What do you want?"
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