Upton turned and twisted, bit and spat and cried. Mentor hung onto him. They sailed down, down, dropping with dizzying speed toward Thailand. Toward the only safe place for Charles Upton, the vampire who possessed no control, no soul, no feeling for the human race from whence he'd been born.
The monks wrestled Upton into chains. Mentor knew he would one day realize his power and try to leave, but he'd not get far.
"I'll get you for this," Upton shouted. "You can't do this to me."
"We have to do it, Charles."
"I'll . . . I'll stop killing, is that what you want? I only did it twice!"
"That's only part of it. And you'll never stop killing. What I want is for you to be a creature who understands consequences. And either you do and don't care, or you don't possess the capacity to understand. You must stay here until we find out if you'll ever change. The only other alternative is to kill you."
"If you leave me here, I'll make you pay, Mentor. I swear it."
Mentor paused at the prison cell door and stared at the old man. He shuddered inside. He had tapped Upton's mind and knew he not only meant it, but he would work every single second of his existence to make it true.
"You can try," Mentor said finally. "But I would advise against that route. Stay here and listen to the monks, Charles. Learn from them. Maybe one day you can be free." Even as he said it, Mentor knew he was wrong. Upton could never be free.
Upton spat at his captors as they padlocked his chains to the damp, smelly wall. "I will never speak to these mothers of monsters again," he shouted, twisting away from them. "I'll kill them the first chance I get.”
Mentor thought he would never get that chance.
Walking down the corridor, he glanced in on Madeline and took her abuse before leaving her to her papers and her writing. In the chapel, while red candles burned and the subtle scent of incense wafted through the air, Mentor knelt on the hard stone floor and hung his head. There was no evidence of a crucifix or any other religious artifact in the monastery, but Mentor knew it didn't matter. Prayers had been said here for hundreds of years. Maybe the God Upton didn't believe in would hear Mentor's pleas.
Being vampire was no easier than being human. It was harder. It was always a hard-fought battle between evil desire and higher morality, no matter what type of vampire you became, Natural, Craven, or Predator.
Do you hear me? Mentor cried out silently. Have you ever heard any of us and have you any mercy for us in the end?
After his meditation, Mentor rose and left the monastery. In his mind he could hear Upton calling after him, threatening, weeping, begging. He would probably have to remain in his cell until the end of time. Mentor did not believe Predators such as he ever reformed. He was a human born bad, with evil in his heart, and there it remained. While Madeline grieved through a thousand years, Upton would plan and scheme, rant and rave. Let him. If he ever devised an escape, they would all track him down and set him on fire, scattering his being to the wind.
~*~
Ross sat in the office waiting for the acting president of Upton Enterprises. David would do as he said. He had no choice.
Ross did not bother to rise when David entered the room. He immediately took over his mind, leading him to sit in a chair opposite. He put suggestions and commands into the other man's brain so that he would do as instructed, the way someone would who has been successfully hypnotized. Mentor called it mesmerizing. Ross just called it control.
I will supply a body, he said telepathically, from people I have in a Houston hospital. They will contact you when it's ready. There will be a closed casket funeral for Charles Upton. You will arrange the funeral and return to take over the company. Your press release will say what the death certificate says: Upton died of his disease. From that day forward, you will report to me only. I am your boss, your master. All profits will be put into my account in Switzerland. You will run things for me, handle all daily affairs, and you will never question either your former employer's death or my command. Do you understand?
David nodded mechanically.
"That's fine, then," Ross said, standing and speaking aloud. "Tomorrow you will send out word Charles Upton is dead. He is dead. You understand?"
"Yes, sir."
Ross patted the man on the back and left the office. Upton Towers in Houston would have been dwarfed by the new building they'd bought in Dallas. It rose in gold glass from the center of the Dallas financial district, towering over lesser buildings. And it was all his with Upton out of the way. Sometimes Mentor did him great favors without even realizing it.
Ross smiled and punched the elevator button for the lobby. He hoped Upton was enjoying his sojourn in prison. He never should have betrayed a business partner that way. It had been his undoing.
~*~
Charles leaned against the cold stone in his cell concentrating on moving his mind beyond the monastery's walls. He could not reach either Ross or Mentor, but after several attempts, he was able to connect with David.
He tried to converse with him, but it was as if he were roaming a vacant bank vault. Finally, he settled for reading the memories in David's mind. When he got to a recent memory involving Ross, Upton halted, biting down on his tongue until it bled into his mouth.
He was going to be reported dead. No one would look for him. They were going to supply a body, a death certificate, and tell the press the wealthy financier had been killed by his disease. No one would ever question it since it was public knowledge he had suffered from a terminal illness.
Upton struggled against his chains, screaming out vocally. A monk passed his cell, paused, looked in, and moved on.
Upton tried to reach David's mind again, succeeded after much effort, and searched his memory for all the details.
Ross was taking over.
Mentor had put him away so that Ross could take over.
Together they'd found a way to make him disappear so they could cheat him and use his power.
This time Upton howled so loud and so long several monk guards came to his door and shushed him. He roared into their faces, throwing himself this way and that around the cell his chains rattling like thunder.
Seeing they would not subdue him, the monks left again, just as if he were no threat. No one could hear him beyond the monastery enclave. No one would ever search for him. He had been outwitted and imprisoned.
Well! He would find a way to extract his revenge on both the old Predator vampires who had done this to him. If it took a thousand years, he would find satisfaction.
He stopped fighting and sat back quietly to think. His considerable intelligence would save him.
All he had to do was think his way out of this. He had all the time in the world at his disposal to put a plan into motion.
~*~
Mentor was alerted when Upton went crazy. He kept a very minor watch on the vampire, but even if he hadn't, the monks would have sent word. He knew Upton planned escape some way, some day. He'd have to watch him closer now.
It did not surprise him to discover Ross had taken over Upton's enterprises. He cared little about that, feeling Ross would always be pliable to some extent. He was no Upton.
Mentor sat in the backyard of Bette's house. Inside, she slept in the arms of her husband. Outside, the trees rustled and the moon went in and out of cloud cover.
Mentor's thoughts moved to Dell. He gently probed the fetus she carried, touching it with his consciousness. She would give birth to a dhampir, half vampire, half human, and the half-breed would grow to loathe his mother's clan. It would want to eradicate them from the Earth. She didn't yet know these things, not truly know them, but she would learn when it was too late.
But no matter, no matter, the world would go on. God might listen, or He might have gone on a vacation. Ross would continue being rambunctious and often deadly, his power growing as Upton's billions burgeoned. Bette would love Alan, and she would be loved in turn throughout all the days of her life. Upton would rage and p
lot, his heart growing ever darker.
Arid the world would continue to turn. That was all Mentor knew with any certainty.
He looked around once more at the peaceful Japanese garden before sailing above the Earth where he paused, looking down upon it. He then looked up, into the vast reaches of dark, endless, cold space where the universe twirled. None of them had ever tried to go farther out than where he was now. What if they tried? What if there was another habitable planet they could migrate to? But they would just die there, cut off from mankind.
He sighed and looked down again at the blue, swirling globe of his home, the prison where human and vampire were caught in a timeless struggle. If he must have solace, then this was it.
The world would go on, whatever happened to him and his kind. It cared little for the affairs of the creatures living upon it as it spun through space and time.
It would always go on, with or without him, through all the risings of all the red moons.
KEEP READING FOR A PREVIEW OF BAD TRIP SOUTH
At the piping of all hands,
When the judgment signal’s spread—
When the islands and the lands
And the seas give up their dead,
And the South and North shall come;
When the sinner is dismayed,
And the just man is afraid,
Then Heaven be thy aid, Poor Tom.
Lament for Long Tom
John Gardiner Calkins Brainard (1795–1828)
ONE
The thunder of gunfire filled the weeded area between the abandoned, unpainted house and the line of half a dozen patrol cars. Windows in the house cracked and blew inwards with ear-shattering concussions.
Suddenly the door opened and a little girl came running from the house toward the police cars. She was screaming, her legs pumping, and dark hair flying. Both her arms rotated like pinwheels and from deep in her little chest issued a silent scream. She looked like a ragged street child thrown on the mercy of chance.
All around her the gunfire exploded, with shots coming from both directions, from behind and in front. Miraculously none of the bullets struck her as she rushed forward, her eyes wide in terror and spittle flying from her lips.
She ran until she collapsed into the arms of a man who stepped from cover behind a car where he’d been hunched. He caught her, stumbling back when she barreled directly into his extended arms. He threw her down to the ground behind the trunk of his car.
An order of “Cease fire!” had been called out and yet was not obeyed as soon as she appeared. Now that the child had crossed through Hell and survived it, the gunshots halted. That is, they stopped except for the shots coming from the house where someone at a broken window shouted something unintelligible and fired a handgun over and over, the single shots ringing and echoing loudly up into the cold blue Texas sky, drowning out the little girl’s sobbing. . . .
* * * * *
“Can you tell me what happened?” The policeman—a psychologist, he said, a very special kind of policeman—sat back in his chair and took a drag on his cigarette. He squinted one eye as smoke coiled lazily past his brow.
I kept glancing around and fidgeting in my chair just like I always did in the doctor’s office when I was a little kid. Only this wasn’t a doctor’s office and this wasn’t my hometown. And the man at the desk wasn’t going to give me a magic shot to make it all right.
I was used to a little town and a little reception area where the sheriff sat behind his desk reading Burpee seed catalogs and Field and Stream. Nothing like this place.
Outside the office I could hear the noise of the station where at least a dozen people worked. There were policemen answering telephones, lawyers talking to people who had been arrested, illegal aliens pleading in their own language, and, out on the street, the whole city making noises like a country band I’d seen once up on the platform in the gazebo in the middle of our town. They had a tambourine player, a man on a washboard, a drummer, banjo and guitar players. That band and this place made me want to put my hands up to flip down my ears and press them hard against the side of my head to make the sounds go away.
It wasn’t the policeman’s fault. All the noise. He didn’t know how nervous it made me. I liked him a lot. Although he said he’d worked with my Daddy back in North Carolina, this was the first time I’d ever met him. Who would have thought he’d be all the way down here in Brownsville, Texas? But then who would have thought I’d be here either? I could tell he was sorry about everything and how I had to talk to him.
He looked like Captain Kangaroo, but a lot younger. Bushy gray eyebrows stuck out over his eyes and his face was round, his mouth about to break into a smile, but didn’t quite. His eyes didn’t match his face. They were the kind of eyes Daddy got when he had a suspect in his squad car, questioning him. Real serious. No fun. Fun was a long way off from eyes like that.
This man had been a police psychologist a long time, I could tell. He was probably more of a policeman than he was anything else, sort of like my Daddy was in the beginning, back when I was a really little kid.
I locked my hands together so I wouldn’t bend down my ears, and asked, Where do you want me to start?
He took the cigarette from his lips between thumb and forefinger, like hoody boys do on TV shows, and waved it in semi-circles toward me. “How about from the beginning? I have plenty of time, little lady.”
I tried to smile because he was trying to be nice, but I wasn’t a lady yet. Mama’s a lady. You have to be over twenty years old to be a lady and I’m only ten.
He was waiting for me to say something, though, so I told him. . . .
. . . When Daddy turned into the parking lot for the Long Horn Caverns outside of St. Louis, I knew he was only doing it for Mom and me. To make up for the fight they’d had outside of Memphis where Mom let slip what she planned to do after our trip. She was taking me to Grand’s and moving out for good. She was divorcing him.
I knew that already so I wasn’t surprised, but when she said it to Daddy, his voice got deep scratchy, like one of those old record albums Mama let me have. I wasn’t surprised because I’d heard her talking to Grand when I was supposed to be packing for the trip the week we left North Carolina. Then Mama caught me eavesdropping and set me down for a talk. I knew it was really serious when we had to have a talk. Parents don’t take much time with kids with for real, grown-up conversations, unless it’s serious.
I was kind of relieved after I tiptoed to the doorway and listened. I’m going to miss Daddy, I thought, but we have to get out before something terrible happens.
It was really hot that day in the car, driving into the big parking lot for the Long Horn Caverns. So hot the air conditioner on our new car Daddy had just bought couldn’t cool us down.
I paused, looking at the nice psychologist. It’s a long story, I said. Are you sure I should tell you everything?
He waved me on again. He’d lit another cigarette. I don’t mind cigarette smoke. Most kids do, they make a big deal of it, coughing and stuff, but I’m used to it. It makes me feel at home. Daddy smoked Kent, the long skinny ones, before he quit when I was eight. I still sort of missed the smell. I knew when he was in the house when he used to smoke. I could detect him without hearing his voice or his heavy footsteps.
Anyway, Daddy drove into the Long Horn Caverns’ entrance and said, “You’ll like this, Em.” He turned off the ignition and almost instantly hot air from outside the car made the air inside feel stuffy and too close. He’d parked in front of the caverns and now opened his car door. Then the heat outside whooshed inside in one big heavy wave that smacked me right in the face.
I’d like anything better than sitting in the car where it was so ugly quiet, them not speaking to one another. Mama never talked back to him. If she did, the ugly quiet turned to screaming and hitting. Daddy hitting her.
I could smell something awful burning when they fought, like plastic or rubber, but I knew it was my imagination
. Nothing was burning but the two people in the front seat. Daddy had been bad for a long time. He hadn’t raised a hand to me, but he’d hurt Mom more than once. It was hard loving him. I think some grown people are real hard to love even when you’re supposed to and you want to.
“You know what I mean?” I asked the nice psychologist.
He said he knew. He knew that for sure. And he added, “Even when you get grown up, sometimes it’s hard to love people when you think you should.”
I wanted to think about that. No one had ever told me that secret before about grown-ups. But he was waving me on so I put my head back against the chair and looked up at the ceiling until I could see the caverns again, that cool, dark entrance in the side of the hill. All I could think about that day was how cool it must be underground and how fast I wanted us to walk through the boiling sunlight to get down there in the caves.
As soon as I was out on the scorching parking lot, shading my eyes to see the promise of the cool caves ahead, I noticed that man.
Crow.
They called him Scarecrow in prison, but that didn’t fit him, he said, he wasn’t like no old damn raggedy-butt suit hung out on a cross in a field. So we called him Crow.
He wore black, like a crow’s feathers. I thought he ought to wear shirts, because he had a chest that showed his ribs, and it was too white, like bread dough, but that day he only had on a black leather vest over black denim jeans. His belt had a round polished brass buckle that glinted golden and shiny as a mirror.
LEGIONS OF THE DARK (VAMPIRE NATIONS CHRONICLES) Page 28