SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  Peering closely, Mentor saw the magic begin. The figures on the old cards began to waver and finally to actually move about the face of each card as if there was a separate world, a completely different dimension of reality within each individual card.

  So this is what intrigued Charles so, Mentor thought, watching the cards carefully. Madeline was right, after all.

  Suddenly a bolt of understanding rushed through his mind as if the cards had sent the lightning across the space between them. Mentor looked at each card in turn, placing them in the same sort of rectangle he'd seen in Upton's cell. He ran his fingers over each one, as if blind and reading Braille. Just as a book opens and the pages reveal knowledge through printed words, the cards began to reveal their own esoteric knowledge through figural scenes.

  A war will come between vampire clans, they whispered to Mentor's mind.

  The imprisoned one will free himself and lead it.

  There will be much destruction in the vampire nations; death meted out without mercy, and blood running in rivers.

  Your life hangs in the balance.

  Mentor's mind was freed, going blank for just a moment and then returning him to himself. He sat back, mouth agape and eyes wide. The card figures had stopped moving now. The cards lay immobile, just pieces of old cardboard and artist renderings in paint.

  Mentor rubbed his brow and hung his head. He sighed heavily. He had no doubt about the veracity of the cards' prediction. The cards had shown him scenes of Upton standing before an army of Predators somewhere deep inside the Earth in tremendous vaulted caves. He had heard Upton's persuasive voice, his words powerful and inflammatory. He had seen Predators preying on the helpless Cravens, killing with fire and with polished steel. He had seen blood, the Life Giver, taken away and spilled on open ground.

  "My God," Mentor whispered.

  He knew, though, that the cards were not an item that could be used to free Upton from captivity. They foretold the future for the one who possessed them just as they had done for the original owner. That and no more.

  Furious with the prediction, having hoped the clans would never decide such a fate for one another, Mentor grabbed the scattered cards, swooping them into his hands with the same speed he'd used in the monastery. He crushed the deck in his hands as he stood and approached the dead fireplace. There he stooped and drew back the metal mesh curtain. He placed the deck on the grate and reached for a box of matches lying on the hearth.

  You'll tell no more tales, he thought, striking a match and setting fire to the edges of several of the cards he pulled loose from the deck. Once they were aflame, he stood and stepped back. He watched until all the cards caught and were consumed to ash.

  He sensed someone at his back and turned to face Dolan. "It's early in the season for a fire, isn't it?"

  "I had to get rid of something," Mentor said. "I'll tell you about it later."

  Dolan didn't respond, but stood quietly, hands at his sides.

  "Have you been lonely here?" Mentor asked. "I haven't been gone too long, have I?" It seemed to him he'd been away from home for days, when in reality he knew it was not more than a few hours.

  "I'm all right," Dolan said. "I still have no idea how I can be of any use to you, though."

  It came to Mentor how Dolan could help. An inspiration. "Have you ever been to Thailand?"

  "No. I know it's odd, but I've always stayed in this country. I think I was too depressed to think anything would be better anywhere else. Isn't Thailand where we have one of our prisons?"

  "Yes, in a monastery I found abandoned many years ago. I need you to go there. I want you to stand by and watch someone for me. His name is Charles Upton, an American businessman."

  "I've heard of him. He runs a big company down in Houston, doesn't he? A multimillionaire?"

  "He used to. His operations were moved to Dallas. He's vampire . . . Predator. Made by Ross."

  Dolan let out a low whistle. Few of them were changed to vampire by being infected and given the blood of another. The made ones were usually superior and became clan leaders, sons and daughters, as it were, the inheritors of ancient blood.

  "Why do you need me to watch him? Can't you do that from a distance? And what about the monks? Don't they do that?"

  "They do, but sometimes they make mistakes," Mentor said, thinking of Joseph giving the cards to Upton. "And I do monitor Upton from the distance, but I worry one day, just at the moment I'm enthralled by the Predator-Maker in the death dream, one day when I'm trying to guide someone through it—my concentration focused in death—that's the exact time Upton may find a way to escape. I'll never know it and won't be able to prevent it."

  Mentor glanced at the heap of ashes in the grate before saying, "He may be a threat to all of us one day if he gets free. He doesn't know his powers or how to use them, but when he finds out, someone needs to tell me. I want you to be there to do that. I can't go there and devote myself to him, Ross can't go, and you'll be doing me a great favor."

  "Of course, I'll do it. I need to be of service."

  "Fine. That's what I wanted to hear. You see? There is a need for you, Dolan; you're vital to me. But be warned. Charles Upton is no fool. As a man, he was devious, vindictive, and vicious. As a vampire, he has grown cold and deadly, his nature only intensifying. You must not let him see you or even sense you nearby. Ask the monks to give you a room far from him and just keep me posted." He wasn't sure Dolan would be that much of a help, but it would keep the old vampire busy and give Mentor a break before he had to train him for some other job. Besides, he really did need someone besides the monks to keep an eye on Upton. Cravens were especially telepathic, spending most of their long lives turned inward and alone. Dolan could monitor Upton easily enough without sending any signal he was doing it.

  Before the sun rose and Dolan had to hurry again to the safety of the basement, they went over Dolan's duties and the seriousness of his post at the monastery. They arranged for his departure, Mentor taking up the phone and calling an airline to reserve a ticket for Dolan. As a Craven, Dolan possessed weaknesses and limited powers, except for telepathy. He could not transmigrate the way Mentor did so easily and hadn't even a clue how it was done. He would travel conventionally, aboard an airline, and be at his destination by the next night. He would interact with humans and must be coached to pass among them without comment. Mentor would provide him with papers, with a passport and money. Dolan was excited at being granted such a momentous task.

  Just before he left Mentor's living room where dark night gave way to the gray dawn of morning, he thanked Mentor for trusting him.

  Mentor waved away the thanks. "Just do this job right, and then we'll see about training you for other responsibilities. I can't tell you how long this might take, however. Be prepared to stay at the monastery a while."

  "I have time," Dolan said, smiling.

  When Dolan left, Mentor sat back and let his head rest against the sofa. He wasn't going to have time to do something about Dolan's sensitivity to the sun. The Craven would have to outfit himself to protect his skin.

  Mentor dozed and woke with the sun full in the sky, light streaming through the windows to warm his home. He immediately looked to the fireplace to assure himself the cards were gone. He was startled to see that the ashes had vanished. He rose to investigate, glancing at the coffee table only to see the cards stacked there, whole and untouched.

  He should have known. Cards that could come alive and portend the future could also preserve themselves as long as they wished, just as a vampire could. He found the tattered velvet and wrapped the cards in them, then turned one way and then the other, thinking where he might put them away. No one should consult these cards, that's all he knew. Not even himself, ever again. They would never foretell good fortune. They were a divination method for chaos.

  He finally put them into a steel box where he kept mementos from his life with his wife. He locked it with a padlock and replaced the box beneath the loose f
loorboard in the kitchen under the table there.

  He might not be able to destroy the cards, but at least they were no longer in Upton's possession.

  Chapter 6

  When Malachi had been fed and dressed for dropping off at the day care center, Dell rushed around to find the keys to the old Toyota she drove. She found them beneath a heap of bulk mail on the hall table. "Hurry, Malachi, we're late."

  She had her hand to the center of his small back, pushing him just a little toward the front door. He often dawdled and today wasn't the day for it.

  Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, unmovable. "What are you doing?" she asked. "We have to go."

  "Aunt Celia is on her way. And Carolyn."

  "Aunt Celia?" Dell had been in too much of a hurry to open up the channels of her telepathy and precognition. She now reached out with her mind and saw her aunt driving down the county road toward their home. Next to her Carolyn dozed, her head laid against the seat and slumping toward her shoulder. Celia was driving with one hand and drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup with the other. There was a deep crease imbedded between her eyes. Something was wrong with Carolyn.

  "Oh, no, we don't have time," she said, moving past Malachi to the door and opening it.

  "She has a problem with Carolyn. Carolyn's sick. Aunt Celia's afraid."

  Halfway out the door, her foot stepping onto the porch, she turned to her young son. He had alerted them before when someone was coming to the house. She usually knew before he did, but he played the parlor game for his father's amusement. Yet he'd never told them what was in the minds of the people who approached.

  This new ability had to do with his fever and near-catatonic state the night before when she'd called for Mentor, she knew it. Malachi would be changed, Mentor had told them. He'll be true dhampir—human with vampire abilities.

  While Dell stood looking at her son, he vanished before her eyes. Her heart stuttered in her chest. "Malachi?"

  He reappeared, or seemed to, holding the cordless telephone out to her. "I guess you'll need to call work and the day care center. To tell them we'll be late."

  He had moved so quickly that, while she was lost in thought, he'd sped to the living room to retrieve the telephone. This was new. He had never done anything like it before.

  She took a deep breath. She realized getting used to this change was going to take some time, "Thank you, yes, I guess I better call in."

  Aunt Celia, Malachi's great-aunt, was not vampire, one of the few members of Dell's family who had been spared the disease. Her daughter, Carolyn, had not been infected yet either. Unless the sickness Malachi spoke of was the beginning of it.

  By the time Celia arrived, Dell had made excuses to her boss at the library and alerted the day care center that she'd be bringing Malachi in late. When Celia stepped from the car, waving a bit, Dell had already moved her mind across the distance from the house to the car and to her cousin, Carolyn. A year younger than Dell, Carolyn always seemed much younger, especially after Dell became a Natural. Nevertheless, in the past few months Carolyn had fallen in love and she was engaged, planning her wedding for the summer. The whole family was involved, happy for her.

  Dell carefully sensed Carolyn's being as if she were a dog sniffing a bone. Carolyn dozed in and out of a fever much like the one Malachi had suffered the night before. At first Dell stiffened, fearing the worst. For Malachi the fever meant he was becoming more fully what he already was as a dhampir. But Carolyn was human and a fever could presage the beginning of porphyria and death and rebirth as vampire. Dell probed her mind, looking for the dread dream place where the soul decided if it would return as Predator, Natural, or Craven.

  She found nothing but wisps of regular, human-inspired dreams. Carolyn was ill with a form of pneumonia. Treated with antibiotics she would be fine again. Dell was so glad she felt light all over.

  Dell hurried to the car and stepped into her aunt's embrace, returning to herself. She smiled and said, "Carolyn will be fine. It's only pneumonia. With medicine, she'll be good as new."

  Celia, used to her vampire relatives possessing advanced knowledge, still showed surprise that Dell had discovered her fear so quickly—even before she'd said a word. She slumped a little in relief. "Oh, thank you, Dell, thank you."

  "Come inside. I haven't much time, but it's been so long since I saw you." Dell led her indoors and asked if she wanted coffee. They decided to leave Carolyn sleeping in the car, as sleep, Dell told her aunt, was exactly what Carolyn needed right now. "Coffee?" she asked.

  "No, I just had a cup, thanks. I was so worried I just lost my mind. I tried to call you, but no one answered."

  Dell wondered why she hadn't heard the phone. They lived so far out in the country, the phone was on a trunk line that sometimes proved unreliable. Often people reported they'd tried to phone when she'd been home and she never received the call.

  "It's my phone, I guess," Dell said. "Sometimes my calls don't get through."

  "Well, when I couldn't reach you, I was in the car with Carolyn and driving here before I could stop myself. I drove past your parents' house and they had already left for work. I didn't know where else to go, who to go to. I almost called an ambulance, but Carolyn stopped me. She refused to go to the doctor. She was afraid . . . well, you know . . ." Celia ran out of steam, her voice trailing off.

  Dell understood her cousin's reluctance. What if she'd been dying with the dread disease that would turn her to vampire? What if she died in the eyes of the world, and then while it looked on, she rose, ravenous and splendidly lethal?

  Celia looked at Dell and continued, "But I don't mean to keep you." She sighed, releasing the pent up emotion she'd bottled on the trip. "If it's pneumonia, I can get something for her. I'll call a doctor right away."

  "There's a big lump. Right here," Malachi said, walking slowly to his great-aunt and touching her just above her right breast.

  "Malachi!" Dell was flabbergasted the way all parents are when a child does something discourteous. What was he saying?

  "A . . . a lump?" Celia placed her hand over the top of her breast, and her face blanched. She turned her gaze upon Dell. In a small, weak voice she asked, "Is it true?"

  Dell sat next to her aunt and moved her consciousness until it left her body and hovered around Celia's torso, enclosing it as a blanket would, pressing against the flesh, seeking disturbed cells. She jerked back into her own head and closed her eyes.

  "Dell? Tell me."

  "He's right. It's not really large, but it's . . . growing."

  "It's mean," Malachi said. He frowned and then amended himself. "Not really mean. It's . . . hungry. Very hungry."

  Dell wished Malachi hadn't said that. He was too young to know the impact his words might have on mortals. She admonished him on a mental level to keep quiet. He must not spout every fact he discovered. He must hush now. He glanced at her, confusion in his eyes and then a slight dawning of understanding. He put his hands behind his back and looked at the floor.

  "I didn't know," Celia whispered. "There's no pain."

  "There are things they can do," Dell said. "Go to your doctor right away. When you take Carolyn, see someone yourself."

  "I will, most certainly." Her voice was stronger, the terrible surprise wearing off quickly. Dell decided she really must have suspected something might be wrong. "I'll be all right. I'm too tough to kill off yet." Her laugh was a nervous trill escaping uncontrollably.

  She reached out to Malachi. "Come here, sweetheart. You didn't do anything wrong. In fact, you told me a very good thing and maybe you've saved my life. Don't be upset." She hugged Malachi and kissed him on the cheek. He looked into her eyes and smiled back.

  "The hungry lump will go away," he said. "Someone will kill it dead."

  Now Celia's laugh was natural and hearty. "I'm very glad to hear that, dear." She turned to Dell. "Aren't we glad?"

  Dell put her arm around her aunt's shoulder. "Of course we are. I have to tell you Malachi
's had a . . . change, of a sort. He doesn't know yet how to control all the stimuli assaulting him. He's so . . . young."

  "I understand," Celia said, standing and clutching her handbag to her soft round belly. "Don't scold him. What he's told me is important. No matter how shocking it is, at least now I know how to protect myself. And I'm so relieved to know Carolyn's going to be all right. Thank you so much, darling."

  Once Celia had left, Dell took Malachi onto her lap and said, "I'm glad you told Aunt Celia she had a lump, Malachi, but it might have been better if you'd told me first so I could check things out and then I could have told her. Some things you know can scare people. You have to be careful about what you say. Do you understand?"

  "I think so, Mommy."

  "I'm not scolding you. I'm just afraid you'll say things to other people, people who won't understand. If you scare people too much, they'll get suspicious of you or they'll get really afraid. You don't want to scare anyone, do you?"

  "Uh-uh." He shook his head and his naturally curly hair fell over his brow.

  She brushed his hair back and set him on his feet. "All right, we'll talk about this more later. Right now we have to get going."

  Once she'd dropped off her son, Dell hurried to the town library and took her position behind the checkout desk, apologizing again for being so late. All day she mulled over what had happened that morning, wondering if her admonition would stick. What if Malachi began telling his playmates things about them he shouldn't know? Or what if he mentioned something odd to his caretaker, odd enough to cause her alarm?