Blood Red (16 page)

She felt his arms on her shoulders, felt him shove her out of the way. He was carrying, of all things, a squirt gun.

A child's squirt gun.

Then he lifted it and shot her attacker.

There was steam, a hiss, accompanied by a roar of fury.

The man with the burning eyes seemed to disappear in darkness and shadow, even as the sound of his voice remained.

And suddenly, there on the street, so near to Bourbon and yet so far, there were suddenly scores of shadows, like moving pools of darkness.

They took on form.

And life.

Mark tossed her something.

Another squirt gun.

She stared at him, still in shock, but somehow, she reflexively caught the toy.

“Don't let anyone get the cross. Start shooting,” Mark ordered.

Shooting?

With a squirt gun?

They were crowding around her now. So many of them. They were people. They had been shadows, but now they were people.

A girl in a short skirt with a Betty Page haircut and cute freckles. A twenty-something guy in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. A man who looked like a James Bond wanna-be. A woman who was a dead ringer for the mom on
Family Ties
.

Someone almost pounced on Mark. He struck out with a kick that would have done Jackie Chan proud. Hi attacker went flying back and struck a wall—hard—then just picked himself up and started coming again.

Mark had whirled, and for a moment she thought he was shooting at
her
with the squirt gun, but he wasn't. She heard a cry of fury, followed by that awful hissing right behind her. She turned. A black form was turning to a pool of burning dust behind her.

A girl hopped on Mark's back. He caught her with both hands, throwing her over his shoulder to the sidewalk.

She looked like Pollyanna.

He took dead aim between her eyes with his water pistol. Shot.

She screamed.

The hissing came first.

Then there was a small burst of fire.

And she was ash.

Mark began to spin, a steady spray of water coming from his gun.

Somewhere, there was jazz music.

Somewhere, someone laughed.

A car horn blared.

The hissing continued, punctuated by screams of fury.

“Shoot!” Mark thundered. “Turn and shoot.”

She spun around. A man who looked like a long lost cavalier was almost on top of her. He looked so much like pictures of Charles II that shock almost caused her to hesitate.

Her finger twitched.

She pulled the trigger.

Hiss…

The man was just inches from her. He snarled and let out a cry of fury as he dissipated right in front of her, the picture of his open mouth, fangs gleaming, imprinted on her mind.

She thought that she saw fire, gleaming through a skull, as he burst into flame….

She felt something at her back. A man was there, reaching for her throat.

He touched the silver cross and screamed as his finger burned. He stared at her, his face knitting into a hideous mask of fury.

Then she saw fire for an instant, and the mask of fury become a distorted skull. He exploded, and through the soot, she could see Mark, see that he had shot the man..

And then she heard what sounded like the flapping of wings, saw a rising of shadows.

In seconds the street was quiet again. The sounds from Bourbon Street seemed to grow louder. Become real. And near.

She was still standing on the sidewalk.

She was still staring at a man.

But now the man was Mark.

She was shaking, still holding her own water pistol. He bought the good kind, she thought dryly. They held a lot of water. Kids would have a great time playing with them at a pool.

But she wasn't a kid, and she wasn't at a pool.

And already she was finding it almost impossible to believe what had just taken place.

“Are you all right?” Mark asked.

Was she all right? What was he, out of his mind?

“Am I all right?” she repeated. “Hell, no!”

He took a breath and offered a rueful smile. “I'm sorry. I meant, are you hurt? Did anything…did he touch you before I got here?”

She swallowed. She was suddenly shaking uncontrollably.

“No.”

He took a careful step toward her.

“I didn't see what I just saw,” she whispered.

“You did,” he told her.

It was impossible. It had all been so fast.
It couldn't have been real.

She looked at the ground. It looked as if a careless gardener had lost dirt from a wheelbarrow as he had made his way down the street.

He reached out, taking the water pistol from her hand as carefully as if it had been a real gun.

“We should get to Montresse House,” he said gently.

“The house,” she echoed, frowning.

“At least you're not passing out,” he murmured.

Those words suddenly gave her strength. And the little voice at the back of her mind that had whispered that there must be some veracity in the stories he had been telling her suddenly spoke up loudly.

They existed.
Vampires existed.

“Of course I'm not going to pass out!” she snapped. Right. She was shaking so hard that she could barely stand.

“Let's go,” he said.

“To Montresse House?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Of course,” she said, the light dawning. “You have a room there, too, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Deanna's been bitten by a vampire, hasn't she.” It was a statement, not a question. She was still having trouble digesting the fact that vampires were real.

“Yes.”

“Will she live?”

“I hope so.”

She started walking, her movements jerky. She felt as if she had become a puppet, a marionette, and wasn't really moving of her own volition.

As he walked at her side, it occurred to her that he had come in the nick of time.

That he had saved her life.

They were almost on Bourbon Street by then, and there were people everywhere, talking, laughing.

A drunk passed her, and he was wonderful. He was real.
Normal
.

“You've been following me,” she said accusingly, stopping and turning on him.

“Whenever I've been able to,” he said, stopping, too.

She was tempted to hit him. “You were late!”

“I thought you were at the hospital. I came as soon as I got word that you'd left,” he told her.

She wanted him to hold her. She wanted to crawl into his arms. No, she wanted him to be normal, too. She desperately needed to take a step back.

She opened her mouth to speak. There was so much to say, to demand to know. But nothing came out. She didn't know where to start.

She took a step toward him, then another. She leaned against him. He seemed solid. Strong. His arms came around her, holding her, and she stood there, shaking.

Oh, God, it was so much better here….

She laid a hand on his shirt, feeling the strength of his body was through the fabric. She had wanted to be near him, but she had been afraid.

Even now, she didn't dare trust him, even if…

Even if he had saved her life.

But she needed the clean, male scent of him, the vital strength of his form….

The sound of his voice.

Oh, God, it would be so easy to…

She pulled away from him and started walking again.

They reached the house on Bourbon Street, and all of a sudden the air seemed to be full of birds. Masses of birds. Or bats.

Or winged shadows.

Mark saw them, too, and his face tensed. But he didn't appear to be afraid. Instead, he looked angry.

“Open the gate,” he said softly.

She did, and the birds or bats,
or shadows
, continued to hover overhead. But they didn't come closer.

She and Mark walked up the pathway to the house. The front door opened before they were even half way there. “Come in, come in, and hurry, please,” Stacey said.

It was evident that she'd already met Mark.

“What happened?” she demanded.

“Stephan made his first real play for Lauren,” Mark explained.

“Oh, my God, where? When?” She looked at Lauren suspiciously. “He didn't…?”

“No,” Mark told her. “But he's getting bolder. She was right off Bourbon.”

Stacey let out a sigh. “Was he alone?”

“No. He has an army with him, just as I predicted,” Mark said.

Lauren stared from one of them to the other. They were talking as if the city were under siege, and by an enemy they had fought before.

“A regular infestation,” Stacey muttered. Then she saw the way that Lauren was staring at her and smiled, shrugging her shoulders. “I assume now you understand the rule about not inviting anyone in, anyone at all.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Lauren said. Because she did. They were insane. And she was insane, too, because she was seeing what they saw.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured. “I'm trying so hard to…”

“To believe what's unbelievable,” Stacey said.

“So you
do
believe that vampires exist?” Lauren said.

“Of course,” Stacey told her.

“But….”

Stacey shook her head, staring at Lauren. “But why doesn't the world know? You've just seen them—and
you
still don't completely believe. And,” she said, and hesitated, looking at Mark, “I think that Mr. Davidson could tell you that there are plenty of vampires out there who are living their lives in as normal a manner as possible, hurting no one. But there are also those who…” Again, she paused. “There are people, regular people, who are psychotic. Cold-blooded killers. It's no different in the world of the undead.”

“The undead,” Lauren murmured slowly. “In other words, I may already know some vampires, good vampires, and I just don't realize it.”

“Maybe.” Stacey said. “Many exist without their closest friends knowing the truth.”

“Sure they do,” Lauren said skeptically.

“I know that this is a lot to take in,” Mark said.

“But the important thing is, you're safe here,” Stacey said. “Big Jim sleeps out in the caretaker's cottage, Bobby is here a lot of the time, and I've been through this myself before. Our only weaknesses can come from within.”

Lauren stared at them. “Lieutenant Canady told us to come here. Are you telling me that a police lieutenant believes in vampires?”

“Yes,” Mark told her.

“His wife used to be one,” Stacey explained matter-of-factly.

“Used to be?” Lauren said.

“No one really understands what happened there, but Maggie was a vampire. For years and years. Then Sean came into her life, they had a major battle with a really vicious enemy, and then…she was human again. It was really great for Maggie, because she desperately wanted to have a family. It's different with Jessica Fraser, who owns this place. She's vampire, too. A good one, of course.”

“Of course.”

“That's why Sean sent you here,” Stacey explained. “We know how to fight evil. We've all fought vampires before.”

“The bad ones, of course,” Lauren murmured.

“Of course,” Stacey said, gravely serious.

Could this nightmare be real? Lauren wondered.

When she'd woken up just a few days ago, the world had been spinning on its axis, and, though they'd had their problems, they had all been…

Sane.

But now…

Mark Davidson set a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up into his eyes. Serious eyes, striking eyes, eyes that had practically hypnotized her from the start.

“It will be all right. I don't intend to stop until I've taken Stephan down, and it won't matter how many servants he has running around, doing his bidding.”

“Right.” She knew she sounded exhausted and disbelieving, and she didn't care.

“I need a shower,” he said. For the first time she noticed that there was black, sooty, stuff all over his shirt.