"Stop it, Franklin," Ruby said. "You don't know that yet"
"I know what I feel, and I have an inkling of what David is feeling. He is seeing ghosts; psychics are relaying messages to him. I doubt that he is being prompted to perform a task as mundane as replacing the plumbing in the Hunter residence. His mission is obviously as strange as the signs that he has received thus far. It only makes sense"
David had a chunk of red velvet cake remaining on his plate, and the coffee was still warm, but his appetite was gone. Franklin, as he had hoped-and feared-had confirmed, in no uncertain terms, that a grave responsibility awaited him. And he had made their next step clear, too.
Nevertheless, David asked, "What should we do?"
"I believe you know the answer to your question," Franklin said. "My friends, we are going to embark on a field trip tomorrow. To the cave"
Shenice Stevens loved the night.
As a child, she'd loved to sit on the porch with her mother and gaze at the stars that were scattered like diamonds across the sky. "The stars are God's eyes, sugar," her mother would say. "He's always watching you to make sure you're safe"
When she grew older, her love of nightfall and silvery moons stayed with her. She especially loved night in Mississippi. There, the darkness seemed purer, deeper. Without the harsh lights of a big city-like Memphis, where she attended college-washing out the gloom, she could soak up the blackness as though it were water and she were a sponge, letting it fill her up with tranquillity.
Probably the only thing more comforting than the night was her boyfriend, Trey. His presence soothed her, no matter the time of day.
They were at a park, sitting on the cool hood of Trey's car. They sipped a chilled, peach-flavored wine from plastic glasses, the half-full bottle propped between them.
She was a junior at the University of Memphis, and had come home to Mason's Corner for the summer; Trey, a grad student at the same school, drove from the city every weekend to visit her. They spent many nights like this, sitting outdoors talking, sometimes sipping a sweet wine, and listening to soulful music. They had been dating for almost a year and Shenice was sure that they would marry after she graduated. Trey was the kind of man who was all about business and knew what he wanted out of life. She was a free spirit, a good balance for him. They complemented each other.
On the car stereo, a sensual Maxwell ballad came on, "Lifetime"
"Oh, I love this song," Shenice said. She leaned into Trey. He drew her closer, kissed her cheek.
"That brother Maxwell can sing," Trey said. "He can represent for brothers like me, 'cause you know I can't sing a lick."
"Why don't you try?" she said. "Sing a verse for me, sweetie."
"Girl, please."
"It's only the two of us out here. Sing for me, please?" She batted her eyelashes, which always made him melt like chocolate in her hands.
He opened his mouth and was about to sing a note. Then he paused.
"Look over there" He pointed.
Swaying to the music, she turned.
A large dog stood in the corner of the parking lot, revealed in the dim, yellow-orange light cast by a nearby street lamp. The oddly quiet canine watched them with glimmering eyes.
"I think it's a pit bull." Trey's voice held a trace of anxiety.
"Yeah, it does look like a pit," she said. "Why is it staring at us like that?"
Pit bulls terrified her-those dogs were murder machines. When she was in high school, her neighbor had owned a pit bull, and once, the dog had gotten loose and locked its teeth onto the leg of the postman, Mr. Jones. They had to literally crack the dog's skull in order to get it to release its grip on the poor guy. Mr. Jones required fifty stitches and had walked with a limp ever since.
The flesh of her neck tightened as if squeezed with pincers.
"Look over there," Trey said. "There's another one. Looks like a rottweiler."
On the other side of the parking lot, another massive hound had stepped out of the shadows and into the light. This one watched them in eerie silence, too.
"That looks like my cousin's dog," she said. "He has a rottie, named Kilo. He's sweet"
"He doesn't look so sweet to me. Where did these mutts come from? They don't have collars, see?"
She saw. She didn't like it at all. Her cousin's dog would never be running loose and collarless. She didn't know who these hounds belonged to.
She screwed the cap on the wine bottle. "We better get in the car, Trey."
"I was about to say that. Move slowly. We don't want to agitate them"
They cautiously slid off the hood of the car.
As though acting under the command of a single malevolent mind, the hounds stepped forward. Low growls rumbled from their chests.
The dogs were about twenty feet away. It would take only seconds for the canines to close the gap.
Shenice grabbed the neck of the bottle and held it like a club, wine sloshing around inside.
"Move slowly," Trey said. He sidled alongside the car, to the door. "Keep your eye on them. They'll think you're afraid if you look away"
Shenice wanted to tell him that she doubted it would matter whether she met the dogs' gazes or not. She was terrified and was sure the dogs could smell her fear, like sour sweat.
She touched the door handle.
The dogs snarled and charged.
Shenice screamed and ripped open the door, taking her eyes off the hound behind her, but able to hear its feet scrambling across the pavement at a furious rate. Coming fast. God. She had to move. Get in the car, fast, fast, fast.
Trey screamed.
She was halfway in the car, and Trey had gotten the driver's side door open, but the canine, the pit bull, had clamped its teeth on his leg. It was dragging him away, pulling him across the parking lot, his glasses falling off his face, his hands scrabbling for a hold but finding nothing but smooth concrete.
"Go, Shenice, go!" Trey shouted between garbled screams.
A thunderous roar, behind her. She whirled, and the rottweiler tackled her, knocked her out of the car and to the ground.
She shrieked. The dog's sharp teeth tore into her shoulder. Her vision blurred with tears, she remembered the bottle in her hand. She swung it at the dog's head and connected with a crack! Glass exploded, wine spraying everywhere, but the hound squealed and staggered away.
Weeping, she crawled into the car. She shut both doors, locked them.
Thank God, the key was in the ignition.
A cold pain burned in her wounded shoulder. Her blouse was wet with blood, and she tasted blood on her lips, too. She had bitten her tongue.
"Oh, Trey," she said, thickly. The pit bull had dragged Trey to the corner of the parking lot. The dog stood on his chest, deadly jaws only inches away from his face.
A man draped in dark clothing stepped into the light. Looming above Trey, he rested his hand on the canine's head.
What the hell, had this guy commanded the dogs to attack them? What was going on?
The man looked in her direction.
The pit bull leaped off Trey and bounded toward her. The rottweiler, having recovered from the blow with the bottle, charged the car, too.
Shenice gunned the engine. The car started with a throaty growl. She slammed into reverse, tires wailing.
The dogs jumped onto the hood. Snapping and barking, they mashed their snouts against the windshield as though to tear inside.
Screaming, Shenice wrestled the steering wheel sideways, to aim the car toward the road. She mashed the accelerator. The vehicle sprang forward with a jolt that rattled her vertebrae.
The dogs bounded off the hood.
She bounced across the curb and veered onto the road.
Hot tears blinded her. The numbing pain that had begun in her shoulder spread like a ravenous cancer throughout her body. Rabies. The damn dog probably had rabies. Or some other terrible disease. She had to get to the hospital.
Oh, Trey, I'm so sorry, sweetie. I'm sorry I
couldn't save you. I hope nothing bad happens to you. I hope you get away.
She had left her cell phone at home and would have to call the police when she reached the hospital. But a sickening sense of foreboding made her worry that calling the cops would be useless. Trey would be gone, she feared. As if swallowed by the very night that she used to love.
In the candle-lit basement, Kyle placed the young man's unconscious body at the foot of his father's bed.
"You've done well," Diallo said. He sat up eagerly. "Did you enjoy the hunt?"
"A woman escaped," Kyle said. "She saw me. She will tell others"
"It does not matter. You've planted a command in the chief's mind to ignore us, and he will obey, for a while yet. It is good that one of our hounds bit the woman"
"How did you know a dog attacked her? I didn't tell you"
"I see through their eyes," Diallo said. "As the infection spreads through the woman, she will become one of the valduwe. It will not take long." He clapped Kyle's arm. "You've made me proud, my prince."
"I assumed I was incompetent," Kyle said. "But if I pleased you, that will be sufficient."
"You are my flesh. Could I be displeased with my own flesh? I would be insane."
Kyle smiled awkwardly. It was strange and wonderful to receive his father's praise. His father never tired of complimenting him, coaching him, fathering him. Mother had been so terribly wrong about Diallo.
His father plunged his teeth into the human's carotid artery.
Kyle's tongue tickled. He hoped that his father would invite him to share the blood.
But he did not. Father drained the human's blood and threw the corpse to the floor.
I should not be selfish, Kyle thought. My father needs to feed far more urgently than I do. If I want to feed on a human, I should capture one for myself.
The alien thought visited his mind, uninvited. He examined the idea. Rather than being revolted, he found the prospect quite pleasing.
Why not hunt his own prey? Who would stop him? His father surely would not. Father would encourage him to hunt.
Mother's teachings came to mind: Only barbaric vampires hunt human prey. Such vampires do not know any better; they do not understand that we are the most civilized race on earth. We are not animals, we are a sophisticated, complex species who must learn to peacefully coexist with mankind....
But he had hunted for his father, violating Mother's vam pire code, and he had enjoyed it, intensely. He had not felt like a degenerate. He'd felt like a conqueror.
What harm was there in hunting for himself?
As Kyle pondered his course of action, Diallo climbed off the bed. He extended his long arms to the low ceiling.
"My strength is returning," he said. "Soon, I will be healthy and ready to begin our mission."
But Kyle did not absorb Diallo's words. He was consumed by his own thoughts.
"Father," Kyle said, "I think I am going out again."
"Are you?" Diallo said. "But I have already fed. I will not need to feed again until tomorrow."
"This isn't for you," Kyle said, in an unsteady voice, and then he added, more firmly, "This is for me"
He spun and left the basement.
Watching him leave, Diallo smiled.
In the cramped living room of a trailer home, Kyle stood over his prey: a woman he had found outdoors sitting on the trailer's steps, smoking a cigarette.
A sharp blow to her temple had knocked her unconscious.
Wearing a green house robe, the woman was middleaged, slightly overweight, and lived alone.
Kyle had laid her body across the sagging couch. He knelt before her.
Her skin and clothes reeked of cigarette smoke. But the warm flesh of her neck was smooth, and her pulse throbbed in a hypnotic rhythm.
He parted the robe, fully exposing her throat. His hands shook.
Across the room, a breeze stirred the flimsy curtains. An enormous dark-feathered bird had perched on the window ledge. A raven.
The bird glared at Kyle with disdainful eyes.
"I know who you are," he said. "Hello, Mother."
The raven cawed.
One of Mother's talents was her ability to utilize avian creatures as watchers. He should have anticipated that she would be spying on him. How long had she been monitoring him and his father?
Only barbaric vampires hunt human prey ...
"You can't stop me," he said. "You've stopped me my whole life. But not anymore, Mother."
He turned away and sank his fangs deep into the woman's jugular vein.
Hot blood spurted into his mouth. He closed his eyes, his body quaking. A moan escaped him; the moan spiraled into a croon of ecstacy.
The raven watched for a while, then flew away into the night.
Sunday morning, Chief Jackson went to the hospital to check on Shenice Stevens. He wanted to question her about last night, if she was awake.
The head nurse on duty was Ruby Bennett, Doc Bennett's wife. She came around the nurse's station to speak to him before he entered the girl's room.
"There's been no change in her condition, Chief," Ruby said. "She's sleeping."
Jackson sighed heavily. "I'11 just look in on her for a hot minute, then."
"Five minutes," Ruby said.
Jackson hated hospitals. They reminded him, painfully, of his late wife. She had spent the last few months of her life suffering in a Memphis hospital. He had visited her daily, powerless to do anything to help her, forced to watch her waste away into the grave.
As he removed his hat and entered the room, his mouth grew dry.
Shenice Stevens lay on the bed, swaddled within sheets. Her mother sat in a bedside chair, her eyes red and puffy. Jackson had seen the mother several hours ago, when he was first summoned to the hospital, and the woman still wore the same clothes. Damn shame. There was nothing worse in the world than watching your child suffer.
"Hello, Mrs. Stevens" Jackson settled into another chair. "How's the girl doing?"
Mrs. Stevens was a slim, attractive lady, a savvy businesswoman who sold real estate and never had a hair out of place. But today, her hair was like a wild plant, and when she looked at Jackson she blinked, confused.
"I'm the chief," Jackson said, helpfully.
Her eyes sharpened. "Chief, have you found out who's responsible for this? The dog that mauled my baby should be decapitated, and the owner should be jailed. What are you going to do about it?"
"I'm working on the case, ma'am." Jackson's lips tightened into a firm line. It was frustrating. The young lady had driven to the hospital last night, bleeding profusely from a dog bite. By the time the staff rushed her to the emergency room, she was unconscious. She had awakened for only brief periods since.
As far as Jackson knew, the diagnosis was rabies, or something like it. He'd called Chester County's animal services, but they hadn't been able to locate the dog that had attacked her, which kept the vet from running rabies tests. The girl had said a rottweiler had bitten her, and a number of folks in town owned that breed and not all of them had bothered to register their pets with the city. It was like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Mrs. Stevens confirmed that the girl and her boyfriend had been out last night. They had not found the boy. He had vanished.
Shenice had driven her boyfriend's car to the hospital. That fact chipped away at Jackson's initial suspicion of foul play.
Intuition told Jackson that the woman had been running from something, something from which she had barely escaped with her life, and that her boyfriend had not been so lucky.
But who was responsible? A dog? It seemed ridiculous that one dog could maul two adults, though there had probably been similar cases of such things. Jackson had never seen such an incident in his time as a cop.
He had no leads. He hoped the girl woke up so she could give him a clue.
The girl's face was like a wax mask, her lips pale and chapped. She was caramel-skinned and quite pretty; Jacks
on recalled that she had won a recent town beauty pageant. But she was only a distant echo of her healthy self.
The girl's eyes fluttered open. She blinked. Her lips parted.
Mrs. Stevens shot out of her chair.
"Mama's here, baby." She tenderly touched her daughter's face. "You're gonna be okay."
Jackson pressed the button to summon the nurse. Within seconds, Ruby hurried into the room.
"Girl's waking up," Jackson said.
Shenice mumbled something inaudible.
"What she say?" Jackson said.
Mrs. Stevens shook her head. "I ... I don't know."
"The dogs," Shenice whispered.
Something about how the girl spoke the words, as if she hinted at a deeper meaning, rendered Jackson speechless. An icy chill fell over him.
What's wrong with me? he thought. She didn't say anything that should scare me.
"The man ... the dogs," she said.
Perspiration rolled into Jackson's eyes. He snapped out his handkerchief and blotted the sweat.
"What is she talking about?" Mrs. Stevens said.
The man ... the dogs ...
"Girl's babbling, gotta be delirious," Jackson said. His voice trembled.
"You might be right, Chief," Ruby said. "Please leave now. She's not in a condition to handle any questions. I'm calling the doctor"
Jackson didn't argue with her. He did not want to hear another word out of the girl's mouth. Her words terrified him, and he could not put his finger on why.
He hurried out of the hospital. In the parking lot, he jumped into his cruiser.
"I don't know a damn thing about what she said," he said, aloud. "Don't know nothing about it at all."
But why did he feel that he was lying to himself?
Franklin knocked on David's door.
"Are you ready for our cave expedition, my friend?" Franklin said.
It was noon. Franklin was dressed like a man going on an African safari. He wore tall leather boots with thick soles, khakis, a matching shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat. He carried a brown leather bag over his shoulder.
"You look a lot more prepared than I do "" David looked down at his Timberlands, jeans, and T-shirt.
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