LEGIONS OF THE DARK (VAMPIRE NATIONS CHRONICLES)

by Billie Sue Mosiman

  "I like movies," she said.

  "I won't even kiss you." He let her go and stepped back, his hands raised. "I promise. No funny business. I'm not one of those guys always out to score."

  He made her laugh. She loved how he made her laugh. He was telling her serious things in a way that didn't scare them both.

  "I don't know if you have to go that far," she said.

  "Okay, I take the promise back. Maybe I'll kiss you, maybe I won't." He turned and leaped onto the bay, hauling back on the reins so it wouldn't get skittish. "It was the booger thing, wasn't it? Something about boogers gets girls every time."

  They laughed and talked during the rest of their ride together. When they stabled the horses and were at Ryan's car, Dell felt good about everything. Damn what Mentor said. She wasn't going to be lonely and an outcast. She wasn't going to deny herself good times with Ryan. She didn't have to, damnit. She could handle herself. It was her life.

  "Friday night, eight p.m.?" He was inside his car, the window rolled down. The way he was looking up at her, the curve of his lips, the sweep of his hair over his forehead, made her want to lean down and kiss him. But she didn't.

  "Friday," she said. "Yeah."

  She watched him drive away. She wanted to give Lightning a brushing, so she meant to stay a while. And the whole time she'd be thinking about Ryan. How cute he was, how funny and sweet. She wanted to think about how good she felt, better than she'd ever felt before, and how that could not be a bad thing. It was only a date. She wasn't marrying the guy.

  What could Mentor say?

  ~*~

  Mentor said nothing. He knew of Dell's interest in her young man, and he kept silent about it. At least a fourth of all vampires fell in love with humans at least once. Some of them kept the relationships until their humans died. A very few turned their lovers into immortals, in order to keep them. But most watched their humans die and grieved so deeply they rarely ever allowed themselves to fall in love that way again.

  Mentor had been one of the latter. He'd loved Patrice with all of his soul. He had wrestled for months over whether he should or could make her vampire in order to save her from death. In the end he knew he had to let her go. When she closed her eyes for the last time, she whispered a thank you to him. She had lived with him for fifty years and knew the terror of his life. She did not want to be like him. She wanted instead to die peacefully in her own bed and go to her Creator, whom she believed in totally. She also believed that one day, when he was allowed to end his existence as a vampire, he would be with her again.

  Mentor prayed she was right. He hadn't much faith in that future meeting, but he continued to love and miss his wife, and he resisted loving another mortal.

  He had warned Dell, and that was all he could do. He could not dictate to her or force her to do something she didn't want. He feared for her, but then he feared for dozens of others like her who had decided to plunge into a love affair with a human. There was nothing he could do.

  He had to shake off his regrets because he was close to Bette Kinyo's house, and he had work to do this morning. He had been too careful the last time when he'd entered her mind and tucked her memories away. This time, unfortunately, he would have to do a better job of it or else Ross would murder her. Mentor also had to erase the man's memories as well. Both of them were getting too close to the truth.

  As he walked up to Bette's front door, Mentor paused and let his power probe the rooms of her home. He wanted to know where she and the man were, what they were doing. He really did not want to interrupt an intimacy. Truth be told, he didn't want to be here at all. Every time he saw Bette, he was reminded of Patrice, and he seemed to fall in love all over again. He really didn't want to have to contemplate such an event.

  As he searched the rooms, he easily found Bette, showering in the bath off her upstairs bedroom. She smelled of soap and lavender shampoo. She diligently washed her trim, healthy body, humming as she did so. But he could not find Alan. He searched again, thinking he had been too interested in finding Bette and had overlooked the man's scent and presence.

  No, he was right. Except for Bette, the house was empty.

  Mentor frowned. Where was the man? Now what would he have to do in order to get to him? Ross would surely kill him if he spoke to anyone about what he'd seen at Ross' home. Mentor cared nothing about the man. In fact, he was secretly jealous of both his humanity and the love Bette had for him, but he did not want to see him taken from Bette. He liked her enough to be selfless.

  He searched the house supernaturally for a third time, unbelieving that he could not find the man. He had to find out where he'd gone.

  He was inside and waiting for her when she came down the stairs dressed for work. Her hair was still damp, falling appealingly across dark eyes that looked on him with dread. She halted on the stairs upon seeing him. "Go away," she said. "I didn't invite you in this time."

  "No, you didn't. But something has to be done, Bette. You're in more danger now than ever before. Your life hangs in the balance."

  She began to back up the stairs, never taking her gaze off him. "I don't know what you are, but you must leave here," she said.

  "Bette, come down the stairs to me."

  She paused with a foot poised above a riser behind her. She began to move mechanically down the stairs again until she reached the ground floor. Mentor found it incredibly easy to manipulate the actions of humans. They were no more than puppets under his power.

  "Please," she pleaded. "Don't."

  "If I'm to save your life I have to, my dear. You're a beautiful woman in the prime of your life. You're engaged in important work. You're too young to die at the hands of my colleague. I'm afraid it's the fault of your young man. He told you information he should never have found out. Neither of you will be allowed to share it."

  "We're right, aren't we? You're a vampire." Her eyes were wide and terror-stricken. She began to shake with tremors so that her hands danced on the ends of her arms.

  He stared into her eyes, hypnotizing her now, coming close to reach out and touch her pale arms. "I am vampire," he said. "And you must forget I told you so."

  It took only seconds, but to Mentor it seemed to be a long voyage beyond time. He found himself lost in her mind's fears. He stumbled through torrents of emotions that shook him and made him fall back before moving forward again, as if against a hard gale. He found all the information that pertained to the blood bank discrepancies, the memories of what she thought of him and of Ross. He found everything that pertained to vampires and every word Alan had said to her. He made sure this time she would not be able to recall them, even if someone were to try to trigger the memories. He was like an electroshock machine, scrambling the electronic impulses of her brain in a specific area holding these memories. They vanished under his assault, the way memories go dark and die away from electroshock waves.

  When he finished, Bette again collapsed from the trauma to her mind. He lifted her gently and set her down on the sofa, straightening her legs, slipping off her shoes. She had such small, delicate feet, such shapely legs. He drew back from her. She would wake in minutes and remember nothing about his visit. And nothing about what Alan had told her.

  While in her mind, Mentor found the information he needed to track her lover. It seemed that the man had left her early, going before daylight, driving south to Houston. He ferreted out the man's last name, his profession, where he worked, the name and address of the old man who had sent him on a search for an immortal, and Alan's apartment location in the city.

  Before leaving, Mentor stood looking down on the woman. Her face was a little more square and her eyes a little more Oriental, but she did remind him of his beloved Patrice. It was as if Patrice had come back and incarnated into this small Japanese woman—if only he could believe in reincarnation—which he couldn't. Over the years he'd walked the Earth, he'd never had any proof such a thing existed. Still . . . Bette Kinyo bore such a strong resemblance in so m
any ways. She awakened in him all the old memories, his old feeling of love and tenderness for a woman.

  He reached down and brushed the damp hair from her high forehead. He bent from the waist and pressed his lips there, feeling her warmth, tasting the slightly tangy fresh soap scent that lingered on her skin. He whispered, "I hope never to see you again. I don't want to love you.'

  And then he was gone, vanishing from the room, going in search of Alan Star, the man who would take his fantastic story about vampires back to Houston to a desperate employer eager to believe him.

  Ross communicated at a distance, just as Mentor was leaving Bette's house and entering the atmosphere beyond her roof as no more than a wisp of shadow.

  "Did you do it?" Ross inquired on a mental wavelength.

  "Yes, yes, it's done," Mentor lied, hoping Ross would not discover the man had got away. No one could ever lie to a vampire except another of his kind, one with the power to make it stick. Mentor always tried to be truthful, but he found himself breaking all the rules with Ross.

  Mentor left Bette's house and sailed south, flying high above the city like a passing breeze, relishing the feeling of freedom he always experienced when transformed from human flesh into nothing more than molecules of energy.

  20

  Alan gnawed at worry all the way to Houston. He had begged Bette to come with him. He didn't want to leave her alone. She resisted. "I'm not a child, Alan. I can take care of myself now I know what I'm dealing with," she'd said.

  Alan left before she woke, debating whether he should wake her and try again to convince her to accompany him. But he knew Bette well. Once her mind was made up, there was no moving her.

  He drove directly from Dallas through the dark morning light to Charles Upton's building in downtown Houston. It was late morning when he arrived, and his stomach growled hungrily. The Styrofoam cup of coffee he'd purchased at a gas station sat in his midsection like a roiling sea of acid. He found a bottle of Tums in the car pocket and shook three into the palm of his hand. He chewed them on the elevator ride up to Upton's penthouse.

  It wasn't the empty stomach that caused his real discomfort. He didn't really want to make this report to Upton. He had left the penthouse weeks before believing he was on a wild goose chase for a demented billionaire. And now he was returning with news that the old man was right. There were vampires walking the land—at least that was how it looked. He couldn't be sure. He had to make Upton understand that.

  Lately it had seemed to Alan that reality was rapidly shifting. It wasn't just the fact he'd stumbled upon the lair of what appeared to him to be a murderous vampire or that a spiritlike, shape-shifting being had come to Bette and made her forget she was interested in Strand-Catel's blood shipments. No, there were other things going on in the world and being reported by top news agencies that completely baffled Alan.

  On the car radio he'd been listening to on the way to Houston he'd heard a report of a UFO in the sky above a farmhouse in Alabama. The farmer had run outside with a video camera. What he taped was being reported as straight fact. The video apparently showed a huge circle of bright light illuminating the farm as it passed over, and once it passed there was deep darkness in the sky, like a black hole, blotting out the stars behind it.

  That was odd enough. UFOs reported as if real. Were they? Could they be? If so, what did it say about reality and life on Earth?

  On the same news broadcast was a report from China that a "Bigfoot" type creature had been sighted. Left behind were sixteen-inch footprints and tufts of tangled hair.

  Either the world was changing, allowing these phenomena that seemed downright bizarre, or else humankind was going insane, maybe suffering from some sort of mass hysteria.

  Is that what affected me? he wondered, as the elevator door opened onto Upton's suite. Am I hysterical and about to report as truth some kind of momentary psychosis that happened while I was outside the big ranch windows?

  Upton's very proper, very British butler was waiting for him. Alan had called before he left Bette's house, saying he was on his way.

  "Mr. Upton is waiting to see you, sir," he said, leading Alan through the rooms to the massive bedroom. Upton was propped on pillows in the bed, as he usually was, but his color was high and there was excitement evident in his pale, watery eyes.

  Upton threw back the sheet and swung his legs to the side of the bed. He sat straight and looked stronger than Alan had ever seen him.

  "Alan! Come in, come in. Are you hungry? You look famished. Please bring Dr. Star some breakfast," Upton commanded his butler.

  "Yes, sir."

  Alan watched the butler bow formally before leaving the room, presumably to tell the cook to make a meal for him. His mouth watered at the thought of bacon and eggs, and his stomach churned. He burped behind his hand. "Sorry," he said. His mouth tasted of chalk from the indigestion tablets. He frowned.

  "Well, sit down. Tell me the news. You found them, didn't you? You wouldn't come here right from Dallas if you didn't have something for me."

  "I do have something for you," Alan said, taking one of the ornate French chairs near the bedside. God, how he dreaded telling the old man anything. He sensed something bad would happen once he did. Something he couldn't even predict and most certainly would not like.

  Upton clapped his hands together in a prayerful attitude. "I knew it. I knew they were out there. I've dreamed about them, you know. It's as if I'm walking with them in my sleep. I see a big one, just monstrously huge, bearing down on victims in a very dark wooded area where there is a red moon. Can you imagine? It's so real I wake weeping and shaking, scared to death. Because in the dream, or nightmare, if you will, the monster turns on me, finds me hiding, and comes my way. But you don't want to hear about my silly dreams. Tell me, what did you find?"

  Alan shivered from the cold air-conditioning vent that blew frigid air down the back of his collar. "I first interviewed the manager of a blood bank in Dallas where there have been some odd shipments out of the city across the state. I was deliberately lied to and misdirected."

  "Yes, yes . . ."

  "Then I followed a man. It's a long story, but he was suspicious and he seemed to have something to do with the blood bank situation. He went outside of the city. Walking. I had to leave my car and walk, too, to follow. It was night and pretty spooky. He went for miles and then there was a big ranch. He went up to the house."

  Upton still had his hands pressed together tightly before his lips. His eyes glittered and behind his hands Alan could see the rictus of his frozen smile. He continued, "When the man I followed left, I stayed behind a few minutes, looking through the ranch house windows. I saw . . ."

  "Yes, yes!"

  "Murder."

  Upton's hands lowered from his face. He gripped the covers around him. His eyes blazed now. "What kind of murder?"

  "That's what I've come to tell you. The man inside the house didn't use a weapon."

  "No?"

  "He tore out the throats of two women with his . . . teeth."

  Upton sucked in a big breath and held it.

  Alan continued, "Then he . . . he seemed to . . .”

  “He drained them of their blood."

  "Yes," Alan said, glad he hadn't had to say it.

  "You're sure?"

  "I was standing right outside the window. I had to stumble away and throw up, it made me so sick.”

  “He didn't see you?"

  "No."

  "So what did you do then?"

  "I hurried back to where I had my car parked. The man I'd followed had disappeared. In fact, even as I watched him on the road he seemed to . . . disappear. When I got back into town and found a phone, I called the police."

  "You did what?" Upton fairly leaped from the bed. His back straightened, his hands flew up, his immovable face showed great shock through wide open eyes. "How could you do a thing like that?"

  "But it was murder. I saw . . ."

  "If you believe you saw a v
ampire who killed two people, didn't you stop to consider that by reporting him you were letting him know he'd been observed? Are you out of your mind?"

  Alan didn't like the direction the conversation had taken. Upton, so elated, now appeared to be about to have heart attack. He was frantic, clawing his way from the bed, scooting his skinny old legs around until he could slip his feet into black velveteen house slippers. He staggered as he stood. "You have done a terrible thing by calling the authorities. You've let the vampire know someone was there. He'll find you."

  "Oh, I don't think . . ."

  "He'll find you!" Upton screamed. "And if he finds you, he finds me! What have you done?"

  Alan stood, overwhelmed by Upton's fury. When Upton advanced on him, he began to retreat to the bedroom door. "I don't see why you're so upset. He didn't see me, didn't even know I was there so he wouldn't know who I was, who called the cops."

  "Oh, God, you are so naive and ignorant. Didn't you read the material I sent with you? Don't you know what you're dealing with? I never thought you'd do something so stupid."

  "Look here, calling me names is uncalled for. I did what you wanted."

  "Yes! You found vampires. Yes! But you ruined it by reporting them. Now either the authorities will find out something, or the vampire you discovered will hunt you down."

  "That's ridiculous. How would he know . . . ?”

  “He's a vampire, Alan. Think about it. He'll know. And he'll come for you and anyone you told. He'll come for me."

  Alan thought of Bette. He had told her first. Was there anything to what the raving Upton was saying to him? Could he be correct? Oh, Jesus, oh, hell, he had to get back to Dallas; he had to warn Bette.

  Then it occurred to Alan he was behaving just as crazily as Upton. Hell, he might have been mistaken in what he'd glimpsed through the ranch-house windows. He might have had some kind of medical condition that made him fall into a trance or dreamlike state where he imagined the things he saw. Was he now firmly in control of his faculties and, if so, how could he possibly believe he'd witnessed the acts of a vampire? All his education and training told him there couldn't possibly be such a creature.