"That would be good," Jeremy said in a suddenly serious tone of voice. "I want to know everything. I want to find out who sent those bad vampires to my house."
Malachi could have told him, but thought now was not the time.
"Here," he said, handing over the fowl. "It's dead, so you have to hurry. It won't taste so good once it's dead too long."
Jeremy took the hen into his lap and stared down at it. He began to brush the feathers smooth. He lifted the limp head and looked at the glazed eye.
"What do I do?" He peeked up at Malachi, a lock of hair falling over one eye.
Malachi stooped and took the hen back, snapping off its head with one quick motion. Blood immediately welled and slid over the neck of the bird onto its back. He pressed the bird toward Jeremy's face.
"I can't do that," the child said, scooting backward on his haunches, holding his hands up to ward off the bloody carcass.
"You have to." Malachi waited, holding the bird out.
A look came over Jeremy's face, a wild and feral look never seen on the face of human children, even those who were starving. He blinked, staring at the blood coming from the bird's neck.
"I don't like that," he said. "I can't . . ."
"You have to, Jeremy. You need it. You'll starve." With a movement that was like the strike of a snake, Jeremy leaped forward and jerked the bird from Malachi's hands. He buried his face over it in his lap, the sounds he made causing Malachi to turn away.
This is a terrible thing, Malachi thought. This is a terrible thing. He might be better off dead.
Jeremy's voice came from behind him. "I'll never die now," he said. He had read Malachi's mind.
Malachi turned and saw the boy standing there, the dead bird hanging from one hand at his side. On Jeremy's face the blood was smeared across his lips and cheeks and chin in scarlet streaks.
"I'll never ever die." He dropped the bird and kicked it away from the camp. He wiped his face on his shirtsleeve and went to his own sleeping bag and lay down on his back, his face to the sky.
"I'm so sorry, Jeremy." Malachi stood over him.
"It's not your fault."
"Yes, it is. If I hadn't come to . . ."
"I'll make them pay one day," Jeremy said, never looking at Malachi. "When I'm stronger and can do what I want, I'll make them pay."
The quiet little boy who had followed behind his twin sister like a shadow was beginning to come into his own. He had drunk his first blood. He knew the depth of his true nature. He knew he would live forever if an enemy vampire never vanquished him.
Jeremy was Predator, and Malachi mourned the long future that lay before the child. He didn't know it yet, but the uncountable years ahead were like a nightmare from which he would never wake.
2
Mentor sat beneath the breezy willow limbs in Bette Kinyo's garden. He knew the new child vampire had just feasted for the first time on warm blood. He tried to keep a channel open to watch over the wandering pair on the Texas plains. He'd been too involved in local affairs to do it before and look what had happened. He and Ross had been too late to save the little girl and her grandfather. And the assassins had made the boy into a Predator.
The woman was at the door.
Mentor turned his head to look at her where she peered at him through the backdoor window panes. She was pale and wan in the reflected moonlight on her face. He rarely came to the garden anymore because it disturbed her. She knew when he was there. But this place was one of his sacred retreats, and right now he felt he needed it.
When she saw he had noticed her, she let herself out the door and came to join him on the concrete bench beneath the willow tree.
She looked toward the white gravel sea and the great stones there that represented peaceful islands. "You're worried about something," she said.
"It's getting easier for you to read me," he said.
"Maybe my psychic ability is getting stronger."
He remembered once when she'd called his name and he'd heard it more than two hundred miles away. She was almost as talented as any vampire in knowing of his whereabouts. It was a mystery to him when he found humans with such skill. As a human, he had never been able to do such things. He was as closed and unknowing in the world as an unopened book.
"Yes, I'm worried," he said. For the vampire nations—he was the one they came to for advice and help. He found himself hoping Bette might serve as his adviser and was surprised to realize he truly needed one.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"I think so."
They sat in silence for a time, the woman showing no impatience. She knew him well enough to know he must speak in his own time, at his own rate.
Finally he sighed and said, "I might as well be honest with you. All this might affect you and your kind.”
“Humans." It was a statement.
"Yes, humans. The world you know."
He stared hard at the gravel sea and imagined himself in a small boat drifting there, the rock island so far away that it seemed but a speck on the horizon.
He said, "There's threat of war in the air. An uprising from a large party of Predators who want to come out and let the world know we exist." He had once explained to her all he knew about the vampires. How their affliction came from a genetic disease that had mutated and left him immortal. How they chose to become Predator, Natural, or Craven. How he had walked the Earth for hundreds of years and had chosen the role of moral leader and adviser, guiding new vampires and binding each nation, one to the other.
"Why do they want to come out of secrecy?" she asked.
"They're a band of misfits and loners who have never felt wanted. They were left alone to do as they wished only if they didn't try to upset the balance between men and vampires. Now they have leaders who are megalomaniacs—greedy and thoughtless Predators who don't care what happens anymore. Simply put, they want to rule and they'll do anything to get what they want."
"Would they rule us?"
Mentor put his arm around Bette's shoulders to soften the truth. "In the end, yes, they would." He felt her shiver and held onto her tightly.
"Can you stop them?" she asked.
He decided not to lie. "I don't know. They've gathered a great many followers and when they come here, they'll find more who'll want to join them. It'll be war. And it'll start here."
"They're coming now?"
"Yes. Soon."
There was another silence until Bette said quietly, "You have to stop them, Mentor. First you have to believe you can."
Mentor removed his arm from her shoulders and stood. He looked down at her, a small woman wrapped in a brightly printed silk Oriental dressing gown. Her short black hair was swept back from her face as she looked up at him.
"Do you believe?" she asked.
"I have to, don't I?" He reached down and stroked his fingers along her cheek.
"I couldn't live in a world that belonged to the vampire," she said. "A world of the hunter and the hunted. Don't let that happen, Mentor."
He promised to do his best. To give his immortality, if it came to that, in order to prevent a split in the vampire nations. He stood perfectly still when she rose and kissed him on the cheek. He didn't trust himself not to wrap his arms around her and take her away from her husband and her home. He was afraid if he moved to touch her, he'd want to spirit her away and hold her captive where he could love her as his own forever.
When she'd disappeared into the house again, he lifted his head to the night sky and rose into it above the lights of Dallas. In minutes he was in his home, having summoned Ross to meet him there. When he arrived, Ross sat on the sofa with Dolan perched nervously on a chair across from him.
Dolan looked relieved to see him. Mentor pressed him down in the chair when he tried to rise. Dolan would never be truly like a Predator. He possessed too much humility.
He took another chair and faced Ross. "You know we have to do something," he said without preamble.
&nbs
p; "I know we should have killed that bastard Upton in the beginning." Ross glared at Dolan to remind him he hadn't been any help when Upton escaped from the monastery.
"Well, you were right," Mentor said. "I should have let you kill him. But we have to deal with the problem he presents now rather than rake over the past. And it's not just Upton. It's Balthazar, too."
"A defector from Balthazar's group told me Upton's there now," Ross said. "On the island."
"So that is where he is now. Then they're close to combining forces. I think they'll come here."
"Because Upton wants us," Dolan said.
"And Balthazar wants Malachi," Ross added.
"So who will they go after first?" Mentor asked.
"I think they'll want to get to us first," Ross said, flicking imaginary lint from his pants. "Upton's been waiting a long time."
"Why can't we get some Predators together and go to them?" Dolan asked.
Mentor turned to him, interested. "Yes, why don't we?"
"I'm pulling my clan together," Ross said. "We're getting prepared. Before we could go to Balthazar, I think he'll be here. I think we'll be ready."
Later in the night after Ross had left and Dolan had retired, Mentor sat alone in the dark and moved his intelligence across the globe, searching the Canary Island of Lanzarote and the caves beneath it. While in this trancelike state his body sat immobile, a mere statue waiting for the master to return to it.
He would not be able to pick up conversations, but he would be able to tell how many vampires were gathered in one place. He was surprised to discover the caves nearly empty. He searched for any presence at all and found two, a male and a female. He knew it was Balthazar and his woman. But where were the others? His followers? Upton and his new clan? Where had they gone?
He came back to himself and opened his eyes. Instinctively he moved from the room to the windows and pressed his hands against the glass. They weren't here yet. At least they weren't in his area of town. He'd know if they were out there, near his home.
Ross, who had left for his own home earlier, spoke from behind him. Mentor turned to see he'd come back. "What's wrong? I felt your alarm."
"They're gone. No one's on the island, but Balthazar and the woman he keeps."
"The other Predators are gone? Upton, too?”
“Vanished," Mentor said.
"Then I'll go to the island and do away with the two there. If Balthazar's followers find out he's dead and they have no leader, maybe they'll turn back."
"Be careful, Ross. Balthazar's as old and experienced as you. Maybe I should come along."
"No, stay here. If Upton's on his way, you'll have enough to deal with. Call my clan if that happens. They know something's coming. And, damnit, don't underestimate me," he added heatedly.
Ross shimmered and disappeared. Mentor sank into a chair near the window and tried to find out where Upton might be but after a few minutes realized his former prisoner was still cloaking himself so he couldn't be detected. He was keeping his mind as empty as a dried desert lake. Devoid of personality and emotion, Upton was like a tree or a mountain. He couldn't be penetrated.
Realizing he should do the same so that Upton would not know where he was, Mentor shut down his own mind so that he was operating in stealth mode. Just a few sparks in the frontal lobe allowed him to preserve his thoughts and keep them private. He hated doing it, as it shut him off from any new vampire who called for his help, but he would not let himself be at a disadvantage.
Dolan, noting the activity in the house, came to the living room entrance. "Something's changed," he said. "What can I do to help?"
"Go to the clans and tell them to hide."
"Hide? All of them? Even the Predators?"
"Especially the Predators. If they're found, they'll have to fight. We think Upton's already here. I don't want the clan to fight until we know where the enemy is concentrated."
Dolan didn't need to hear more. If a militant band of Predators had invaded the city, an alert had to be sounded. He swiftly left the house by the door, blending into the night to fulfill his mission.
Mentor stayed behind trying with all his might to find the hundreds of Predators who might have already descended on the city. If he couldn't find where Upton was, he'd have to find his minions. He wondered why Balthazar had not accompanied them and what it meant.
He wondered if he could believe he had the power to stop them.
~*~
Sereny busily swept the long corridor leading into Balthazar's chamber. Her broom left a neat pattern on the hard-packed clay floor. When agitated the best thing to do was keep busy. Otherwise she'd argue too long and hard with Balthazar, and that was always dangerous. He wasn't patient with her temper.
She had known Balthazar was half-mad. Why else would an immortal spend his days deep in the earth surrounded by bone memories of his conquests? It was . . . medieval. People might as well have never walked on the moon or created the Internet or invented fiber-optics for all Balthazar benefitted. He was really a being stuck in a far past.
On the other hand she had known Predators who built crypts of solid gold, Predators who took to the sea and sailed ships without ever coming on land except to replenish their blood supplies with more human seafarers, and Predators who abducted humans and kept them as pets, as slaves. Like Balthazar, they were thought too eccentric to bother with and therefore were left to their own devices as long as they caused no commotion.
She never would have guessed, however, that Balthazar would stay behind when it was time to lead his Predators to the United States.
"Charles can do it well enough," he had said. "Two commanders will only weaken our front."
"But, Balthazar, I thought this was what you wanted. I thought we were going to fight with them. I told you not to trust Charles. Now you've let him leave with the whole army. He may never come back." This really worried her the most. Upton had only joined them to use the ferocious Predators they'd gathered. He cared for no one but himself.
"Why wouldn't he return?" Balthazar raised an eyebrow in question. "Besides, we'll join them later. Once everything's under control."
Sereny didn't believe him. "When? When it's all over? When the dhampir's dead? Are you afraid of the dhampir, Balthazar?"
He hadn't answered. She had scowled at him and even pummeled him with her fists in a fit of temper until he winced, but he wouldn't talk to her anymore. When his eyes had grown deadly, she backed away.
She didn't understand him. She'd never suspected he was a coward. She knew he really believed the American dhampir was a danger to the Predators, but was he actually scared of him?
Or was he afraid of Mentor? She thought that might be closer to the truth. Mentor had been around forever. They'd all heard of him soon after becoming vampire. He had lived longer than anyone they knew and it was true he possessed terrifying tricks none of them had even imagined yet, but Balthazar would have had over six hundred followers at his back. What could he be afraid of?
One Predator, even one as old and advanced as Mentor, couldn't hope to defeat six hundred. Besides, Balthazar had sent a mole into Dallas months earlier, to keep his hand on the pulse of the city's Predators. He hadn't created a safe place to flee to. Ross, on the other hand, had been holding meetings with the Predators beneath him and instructing them about combat and warfare. It was Ross they should watch, not Mentor, not old, decrepit Mentor.
Now she'd been left behind with her chosen mate, confused, angry, feeling left out of the heart of violent action. At the last minute Balthazar seemed to have betrayed her. What in the hell were they doing here alone, stuck in the center of the Earth beneath a dead volcano? She had never felt so adrift and lonely. She felt like fleeing the caves and abducting a baby from one of the Lanzarote families. She'd hold it near her breast and take a ship away from all this. She'd set up housekeeping in Spain again and pretend . . . pretend her old life had never been stolen from her by the disease that caused her to die and ris
e again.
She attacked the earthen floor as if it were the enemy, sweeping hard, raising a cloud of dust that would have choked a mortal.
She had her head bent to the task and would have run right into Ross had he not interrupted her train of thought by a very low and menacing growl.
She halted, the broom in her hands, and raised her head.
"Ross," she breathed. His name came into her mind directly from his. Though she knew of him, she had never seen this American Predator. In some ways he was like Balthazar—tall, elegant, beautifully dressed. He wore shark-gray slacks and a gray silk cape that he'd thrown back over one shoulder to reveal a blood-red shirt with long puffed sleeves that gathered at his wrists. He looked like a Spanish prince from the sixteenth century.
"Hello, Sereny. Look at the mess you've made."
She now noticed the dust cloud hanging vacantly in the still air. It would coat everything with a gritty patina and she'd have to get the rags and clean the glass lanterns all over again. She stepped to the wall and leaned the broom there. She faced Ross once more, brushing back the stray hair at her temples. "Why have you come here?"
"Why don't you try to guess?"
She looked deeply into his dark eyes and felt his destructive force boiling near the surface. "You don't have to kill me," she said, feeling an alien emotion. Fear. Fear on the cellular level that made her jangle all over, goose bumps rising on her arms. She hadn't feared another creature in fifty years, not even Balthazar, and had forgotten the primeval power of it.
"I think I do have to kill you," he said, stepping toward her. "Where is your lover? He must be drunk on the idea of victory. Why didn't he leave here with the rest?"
The word coward leaped to her mind before she could stop it. She looked away.
"I think you've got it wrong," Ross said. "He's not a coward. He's actually more cunning than Upton. He's let Upton take all the risks so that he can reap all the rewards. Hadn't that ever occurred to you?"
It hadn't. Her anger had prevented her from considering that Balthazar might have stayed behind because of secret ulterior motives. Of course Ross was right. Upton would lead the army and risk his existence against a formidable enemy. Mentor would know if he could cut off the head of the snake, it would die. Upton had placed himself in a most precarious position while Balthazar remained safe—or so he'd thought—in the Caves of the Green Man.
SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy Page 51