"When did this start?"
Ryan said, "During his bath. We had eaten dinner, and I was bathing him before bed. He felt hot, then he began to complain his head hurt."
"Is he dying?" Dell wrung her hands, the blood from her weeping making red tracks down her cheeks to stain her blouse.
Mentor turned back to the boy and entered his mind. For some seconds he searched there, and when he was sure, he retreated. He turned to Dell. "He's not dying. He's becoming what he is destined to be. A dhampir."
"I thought he always was." She wiped the blood off her face with the wet washcloth she'd been using on her son.
"He was and he wasn't. He'll undergo the change in the unconscious state, the same as you did, but the difference is he will not die. Once the change is complete, he'll wake and be fine."
"Will he be different?" Ryan asked.
"Stronger than ever," Mentor said. "Everything you know about him will be increased. He'll be even smarter. His memory will be incredible, his stamina unimaginable for any normal man. He'll be able to move . . . fast. He'll be able to see better, hear better, and instinctively sense danger—all more than he ever has before. By the time he is grown, he will be as gifted as any of us who are full vampire. He'll only lack a few of our abilities, but the ones he's left with will be as strong or stronger than our own. A dhampir's instinct is to survive. This is a human instinct, as well, but in Malachi it will be extremely refined. In all situations he will struggle, using every gift he possesses, to survive."
"He's not suffering now?" Dell remembered her own death and the terrible trauma of it.
"No, he's not suffering."
"Oh, thank God." Dell collapsed by the bedside and took her child's hands. "I was so worried. I thought . . ."
"You thought it was the mutated porphyria," Mentor said. "Well, rest easy. It's a passage, but the only one he'll ever have. When he does die, it won't be like your death, Dell. He won't suffer then, either."
Ryan walked Mentor from the bedroom and to the front door. Mentor often liked to use conventional methods of entry and exit from houses and buildings, conventional transportation when he wasn't needed somewhere urgently, and tried as much as he could to move about in the world like the man he used to be so long in the past. "Dell seems troubled," he said. "Beyond this present crisis, I mean."
"She worries a lot," Ryan said. "About Malachi, me, her job, the future. I tell her not to, but . . ."
"She's stubborn," Mentor finished for him. "I certainly know that. And what about you? Are you okay with your life? With your family?"
"I love them," Ryan said. "No matter what they are.”
“Or what they become?"
"Yes. No matter what they become."
Mentor patted the young man on the shoulder and let himself be shown out the farmhouse door. Mentor's own wife had said almost the same thing to him when she'd been alive and happy with him in their home in Scotland in 1789. She would love him, she said, no matter what he was—and he'd always been vampire when she'd known him—and she would love him, she said, no matter what he might become—murderous fiend, or a compassionate man willing to forgo the quick, neat thrill of taking life. Until her death in 1822, their love had been the abiding force of his existence.
After her death he retreated into solitude in a cold deserted castle in Sweden to mourn. For thirty despairing years.
He hoped Dell would not be so unfortunate when one day she, too, lost her human family.
"Go to her," Mentor said, waving good-bye to Ryan. "The boy's waking. Remember—though he will be changed, he is still your son. He is more human than vampire. Remember."
Mentor took to the sky and headed for Dallas and home where his protégé awaited him. It had come to him when speaking with Dolan in the house of the Cravens. He could use a partner, someone to help him with the burgeoning population of vampires in the southwest region of the country. Dolan might prove helpful.
Ryan had long since gone to bed and now slept soundly. He had to be up early for work. Dell, unable to sleep and never needing as many hours of rest as her husband, sat in the living room darkness, rocking her son in her arms.
Malachi had come from a fevered state of unconsciousness earlier that evening to surprise his parents with a small joyful laugh. "I had a dream, Mommy," he said.
Immediately Dell had remembered her own nightmare when she'd died and met the Giant Predator in the dream-world. He had wished to devour her and make her his own. But Mentor had assured her the same thing wasn't happening to Malachi.
"What kind of dream?" she had asked her son, sitting at his side on the bed. The sheets were damp from his perspiration. His dark hair was wet as she brushed it back from his forehead. But he felt cool to her touch now. The fever had broken.
"I dreamed I could fly!"
Ryan had looked at Dell. She had sent him a glance to let him know she'd handle this.
"You know you can't really fly, don't you, Malachi?" Though vampires, if they wished, and if they practiced diligently, could perform a kind of flying feat, rising above the ground and moving through the atmosphere across the globe, her son would never be able to do these things.
"I know, but in the dream I could fly," he had said. "And I went to a place where I saw a wolf. A very big wolf with silver fur."
Something inside Dell began to vibrate with apprehension. "A wolf?"
"Yeah, he was big and everything was silver. The wolf, the moon, the whole world was silver except me."
Now that Malachi had fallen asleep as she rocked him, Dell probed his mind for remnants of the dream he'd had when he'd fallen ill. Mentor said he would be changed, he would exhibit more of his innate supernatural powers. She'd seen no evidence of that yet, but trusted she would once Malachi had rested and the long night was over. She would have to discuss everything with him, tell him the truth of who and what she was and what he was becoming. She hated the thought he must handle such important information when he was not much more than three years old. How would he control himself and not let his secret out? He was just a baby.
As she carefully tiptoed through Malachi's memories, she found the one involving his recent fever dream. Entering the remembered dream, she flew across a dark sky and came down gently, floating onto an open, featureless, arid plain. Just as Malachi had said, it was as silver as an English sterling tray, bathed in light from a large silver moon. From out of nowhere the wolf appeared. He loped easily across the plain toward her, his snout down, his eyes silver disks. His coat was thick and heavy, black with striations of silver. She waited breathlessly on his approach.
When he was but a few feet away, he halted and lifted his head. He spoke to her saying, "Who are you? I always speak with the boy."
"I am his mother. What do you want with him?" She was not afraid of the phantom wolf, but understood well how a dream being could affect the living creature that met with it. She must take care.
"He's mine," said the wolf in a menacing growl meant to warn her not to interfere with the destiny he was there to deliver.
"He is not yours," she argued. "He's just a little boy and he belongs to me and his father."
"His father! Merely human," the wolf said. "His father cannot stop me."
"Tell me what you want with my son."
Clouds sailed across the face of the moon causing the silver river of light to dim. The wolf's eyes glowed fiery amber in the new darkness.
"I want to make sure he doesn't destroy those like you and me."
"You're vampire?" The thought startled her. She had assumed the wolf disguised something else, something sinister, certainly, but not a vampire.
The silver wolf transformed, rising from four feet onto two, his snout shrinking into the bones of the face until it was a human nose. The almond-shaped eyes rounded, the ears grew small and closer to the head. The wolf was no longer animal, but a tall, straight, slim male dressed in a fine charcoal suit.
The transformation caused Dell to step back. She h
ad been in the presence of Mentor, one of the oldest and most powerful Predators on Earth. She had met Ross, the leader of the Predators in the whole region. And in her death throes as a human she had faced the raging visage of the great Predator-Maker, who might have made her like him if he'd caught her. But she had never seen a Predator like the one who now stood majestically before her. He possessed a terrible beauty, spellbinding in his brilliance. Silver light emanated from his very pores and from the fiercely determined eyes. He towered above her, at least seven feet tall, with broad shoulders, massive hands, and powerful jaws that seemed to strain beneath the silvery skin stretched over the bones there. He opened his mouth and let her see the fangs—fantastically sharp and pointed as the teeth of a shark.
She reminded herself this was the dream world and the wolf-turned-vampire could appear to her in whatever form he wished. Nevertheless, he struck fear into her heart.
"My God," Dell whispered. "Did Malachi see you?"
"No." The Predator spoke in a very deep voice that filled the plain and caused the cloud cover to scuttle from the moon. "He thinks me a wolf, which I am. I am also this." He waved one hand down the length of his body. "Your son will one day hope to dispatch me and all like me to the devil. He'll find us abominable and track us down, one by one. He'll raise a secret army to aid him in his quest. He is the single most destructive dhampir ever to draw breath. We have been warned he would come one day."
"I don't believe you," she said, scurrying away now across the empty plain, trying to will herself away from the dream and out of her small son's mind.
She was caught from behind and spun around. The huge vampire had her by the shoulders, shaking her. He then held her still, his face inches from her own, his incisors gleaming. "You stay out of my way," he said. "I can bring you down in the wink of an eye. You are nothing like me. You are like a fly crawling beneath the hand of a giant."
Dell trembled. Down the silver corridor of the vampire's eyes she saw reflected the moment of her death.
"Do you understand?" He moved in closer to lick the side of her cheek. It left a burning trail along her skin and his rank breath now lay across her face like a heavy woolen scarf. She had felt more than the flick of his fiery tongue. His incisors slowly pressed her flesh just below her chin, seeking the artery. She pulled back with a force that made him straighten and then smile horribly.
He said, "You're the one who made this child. It was prophesied he would come, but no one knew which of us would make him. He'll grow up to hunt us. We'll hide and he'll find us. First our legions and then our leaders. He knows."
Dell's voice was weak when she asked, "Knows what?”
“That we are unholy."
"We may be mistakes of nature, but we aren't unholy." Her soul raged against the idea her son might one day turn against her kind. He carried her genes. He was like her, too.
"Peer deeper," the vampire said. "Look ahead to the boy's future."
"I'll make a bargain with you." She had to do something. She realized the threat was real, dream or no dream.
The vampire seemed intrigued. He turned his head to the side, examining her sincerity. "What kind of bargain?"
"You know I'm vampire, like you. I'll raise the boy and insure he won't lead anyone against you."
"How could you insure it?"
"I'm his mother. He's a baby. I'll raise him to be peace loving and to live as a human. He'll have no animosity against vampires."
"And you promise this? With your life?"
"I do." Dell spoke without hesitation.
He let her loose, turned and went to four feet, changing to wolf again. He loped off back the way they had come when she'd sped away. "See what you can do, Mother of Malachi. I will leave him alone for a while, but I expect neither your firm teaching of the boy, nor your love for him, will turn him from his task. If that happens, there will be nothing you can do. If you get in our way then, you'll go to hell with him, your pretty head in your hands."
With a shudder and a jerk, Dell found herself free of her son's memories and his mind. She sat still in the rocking chair, Malachi sleeping peacefully in her arms. She felt dampness on her cheeks and wiped away the blood tears. The dream was terrible, but it felt too true to be merely an amalgam of fantasies either she or Malachi had manufactured.
She must see Mentor again. Now. She had to tell him what she'd learned from the wolf.
Mentor, she called mentally. Come back, Mentor, I have to talk to you.
It took him just long enough to appear for Dell to put Malachi down on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket. He slept on.
When she turned from him, Mentor stood in the center of her living room."He's all right, just as I said, isn't he?"
Dell spoke softly as not to awake her son. "He said he'd had a dream during the fever. There was a silver wolf. I tried to find out about the dream and the wolf came to me."
"Balthazar." Mentor whispered the name.
"Balthazar? Who is that?"
"He's a lone Predator who favors taking the form of a silver wolf. It could be him. Tell me more. What did he say?"
"He said Malachi's destiny is to hunt down Predators and kill them. He said vampires would come to stop him and if I got in the way, they'd kill me, too. He said Malachi would be a hunter, a destroyer. But before that, he would be the one hunted. I made a pact with him. If he'd leave Malachi alone, I'd make sure he wouldn't grow up to be a threat. He reluctantly agreed to let me try." She paused, staring into the silence of the darkened room. "It was just a dream, wasn't it, Mentor? It wasn't this . . . Balthazar, was it?"
Mentor didn't reply for a few moments. When he did, his voice was strained, something Dell had never heard. "It sounds like Balthazar. He's been trying to create his own group for many years. He used to be an exile, having self-imposed the exile on himself rather than be hunted as a renegade and put to death. But for some time now he's become active in the Canary Islands, pulling several of the more disgruntled Predators under his tutelage, prophesying a coming war between the clans. He's never been . . . stable."
"He wants to lead a bunch of Predators?"
"Please, don't let this worry you. Most of us ignore him. He's more than a little paranoid. It would be just like him to hunt around to find dhampirs and threaten them. Not only would he like to see a war start, but I've heard news he's been talking about a dhampir who would come to do away with Predators. I shrugged it off as more unbridled paranoia, but if he's taken to coming as the wolf . . ."
"He's real, then." Dell sat down in the rocker, holding to the chair arms. "He's been inside Malachi's head. He's dream-walking." She looked at Mentor. "Can't you do something about him? Even with my promise, if he thinks my little boy is going to be a threat to him, he might still be dangerous. He might . . ."
"Take it easy, Dell. He still has only a handful of malcontents under him. He's neither a mystic nor a magician. He's just a little tin god in a lonely outpost, indulging in paranoid fantasies. It probably pleases him to enter a child's dreams to frighten him. It's the mark of a coward. It gives him something to do with his free time. Many idle vampires resort to such petty games. And Malachi's young. He's not afraid of him yet, not really. The wolf's just making threats."
"What about the threats? He scared me silly. He seemed extremely powerful."
"Did he?" Mentor touched her mind, exploring, finding the image of the silver wolf and the man being he showed Dell in the dream world.
Dell knew he was studying what she'd seen and had stored in memory. She said, "Well? Is it him?"
Mentor withdrew from the contact he'd made with her memory and now he frowned. "It's him. He's . . . grown.”
“Grown?"
"He's . . . stronger."
"What am I going to do if he comes back? If he decides he shouldn't wait?"
Malachi put his hands on her shoulders. "I told you. He can't be afraid of a three-year-old. And if he accepted your promise, that means he'll leave him alone for a while. I don't
think you have anything to fear right now. Balthazar is also known for a twisted kind of honor. If he gives his word, he means it."
"And the future?"
"I don't want to lie to you, Dell, but I don't want to alarm you either. Let the years pass. Watch for him, question your child if he seems unhappy or scared."
"And wait," she said. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? We have to wait."
"It's all we can do unless Balthazar moves against you or the boy. But he won't come or send anyone for a long time—if he ever does. Rest easy now. It's been a difficult night, and you're spending all your energy."
She did feel suddenly burned out. She said good-bye to Mentor and went to pick up Malachi from the sofa. She held his bundled figure close to her chest and gazed on his innocent face. Her boy must grow to understand the vampire nations and accept them. He should have no reason to want to hurt Balthazar or the Predators. But no matter how it all turned out, she would never let anyone do Malachi harm, no matter what. He was her child, flesh of her flesh, her only son.
Through the darkness, shadows draping over her as she moved, she carried Malachi quietly to the child-sized bed in the shape of a racing car they'd put into his room. She settled him into it; smoothed his hair, and tucked the cover around his body.
Then she returned to the chair in the darkened living room and sat rocking throughout many hours, worrying over the prophecy. It was fine for Mentor to reassure her, but he had never been a parent. He didn't know you couldn't put aside a real threat just because it wasn't standing on your doorstep yet. What if she failed to raise Malachi in a way Balthazar approved of? He'd be back. He was obsessed with Malachi. With no real reason at all! There were other dhampirs, why not threaten them? He must be really insane.
Thoughts of the dreamscape and the silver wolf who walked in it were enough to keep her up till dawn. By the time the sun rose, she had made a decision. She'd tell her family. She'd ask them all to help provide a protective circle around Malachi to watch over him. Her mother, her father, her brother Eddie, even her grandparents. They were all vampire and, together, they'd find a way to insure her son's safety.
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