Companions of the Night (9 page)

In any case, Ethan had his head raised. He was watching her, waiting.

"They think I'm one of you," she continued, putting it together in her mind even as the words came out. "But they're hoping to draw me out of hiding by using my family. Maybe you can draw
them
out by using
me.
"

At least he was considering it.

"I have nothing to lose," she said, remembering, a moment later, that he had said the same thing last night. It couldn't hurt to remind him he owed her his life ... or rather, his continued existence. "At least this way I get a chance. My dad and Ian get a chance. I can go places you can't. Or at least, I can go at times you can't It'd be like gaining back the daylight."

His expression told her nothing. She should probably be mentally preparing herself for death—that would be more useful than pleading. But how
did
one prepare for death? And while she was trying to work that one out, he stepped back. Then he released her arms and stepped back farther. With a slight smile he bowed his head to indicate acceptance. For the moment.

She still couldn't see that his teeth were long enough to have done what he had been about to do. But she had no doubt how close she'd come to dying. It was hard to get her voice to work, but she asked, "What assurance do I have that if I help you in good faith, you'll let me and my family live afterward?"

Ethan looked surprised, then he laughed, seeming genuinely amused. "None."

She realized that, like Regina's, his ready smile was most often pretense. She supposed that after a couple hundred years vampires had probably heard everything, seen everything, done everything already; no doubt most of the time they were bored out of their minds. She wondered—same old question, but with a new twist—how old Ethan really was. Old enough to have developed acting skills, definitely. And to be a good judge of people. He had seen that she would respond well to a poor frightened victim, so that was what he had been for her when he needed her help last night. No doubt he could convincingly be other things for other people.

In a moment all trace of humor was completely gone from his face. His voice was neither harsh nor threatening; he might have been reading course descriptions from the college catalog: "Of course, if I even suspect the possibility of betrayal, your family will be the ones to pay for it." His voice got even softer. "Believe this, Kerry: An easy death is only one of the choices I can offer."

He waited to see that she believed, which she most emphatically did. Then, "Come," he said, putting his hand out for her.

She took one step forward, to show that she would follow and he didn't need to hold on to her. He didn't move, so they stood face-to-face looking at each other until she finally gave him her hand. She shivered as his cold, strong fingers closed around hers.
How are vampires made?
she wondered.
Had a vampire bitten him when he'd still been mortal? Human,
she corrected herself. He'd referred to nonvampires as
human,
as though humans and vampires were two different species. Which probably made killing people easier. The stories she'd read and movies she'd seen offered conflicting methods. Surely there was more to it than a vampire's victims becoming vampires; after enough years of that, there'd be more vampires than humans. Or was there something about being bitten a certain number of times? And what about being buried in unconsecrated ground? Kerry wondered if Ethan had spent any time in a grave The thought made her shiver. But he only led her as far as the desk, and if he noticed—he didn't comment.

Ethan sat down and turned on the computer; it made the distinctive high-pitched squeals that indicated it was attached to a modem. He watched her while he waited for the screen to come up, probably to see how quickly she caught on to what he was doing. It took a couple seconds.
Fast, slow, or average?
she wondered, sure that he could tell from her face the moment she guessed, though she couldn't tell anything from his face. And she doubted she could have even in better light than from the flickering monitor.

Once the prompt appeared, he typed, one-handed because he was still holding onto her hand: "Had to leave abruptly. Regina can't come. I'll catch up when I can. Michael."

"Is that your real name?" Kerry asked, trying to decide whether he looked more like a Michael or an Ethan.

He looked in her direction but didn't answer, and in the dim light she still couldn't make out his expression, if he had any.

"You're warning the other vampires, aren't you?" she asked. "What is this, a bulletin board for vampires? You all subscribe to the service and every day—every night—you check for secret messages to see if anybody's on your trail?"

"Something like that," Ethan acknowledged.

"I thought the big advantage of being a vampire was living forever, not having to be afraid of anything."

Ethan didn't answer. He stood, and this time he headed downstairs. They made their way without turning on any lights. Part of that could be thorough familiarity with the house, but Kerry was beginning to suspect that Ethan could see in the dark a lot better than she could, especially after he skirted a kitchen table that Kerry didn't see till she collided with it.

He paused long enough to let her rub her bruised hip.

"Are there other vampires in Brockport you need to warn?" Kerry asked.

"Oh yeah." Ethan's sarcasm was thick enough to recognize without seeing the smirk on his face. "Brockport, New York, is a regular hotbed of vampire activity."

She put that down as something to remember. It might prove useful at a later date: that Ethan and Regina could well be the only vampires in the area. Or was that just what he wanted her to think? "So, what were you and Regina doing here?" she asked.

He was back to not answering.

"What about Rochester?" she continued. "Any vampires there? Or in Buffalo?"

He pulled her around to look directly at her. She could barely make him out in the soft glow that was all that reached them from the light now on in the living room. "Don't," he warned in a soft and matter-of-fact voice, "make a nuisance of yourself."

"Sorry," she said. "I don't know what I need to know to keep both of us alive." Not that Ethan was, strictly speaking, alive.

"You don't need to know about other vampires," Ethan told her.

"Right," she said. And then again—because it couldn't hurt, "Sorry."

Vampires in Rochester and Buffalo,
she noted mentally.

Ethan opened a door that could have led directly into a blank wall for all she could make out in the dark. But he took a step down, she could feel that. "I can't see a thing," she said. "If you've got the extra energy to keep me from tumbling down the basement stairs, that's fine, but wouldn't it be easier on both of us if you just turned the light on?" She hoped she sounded as brave as she thought she did.

He stepped back onto the same level and reached behind her. The light over the basement stairs came on. "Better?" he asked.

"Yes." Politeness couldn't hurt. Even if it wasn't sincere. "Thank you." Not that she liked the idea of going down there with him.
What can he do to me down there,
she tried to console herself,
that he couldn't have done just as well upstairs?

Besides bury my body when he's through?

But Ethan said, "Sometimes I forget," by which she took him to mean sometimes he forgot human limitations, which was probably as close to an apology as she'd get from him. Just when she'd worked that out he added, "Don't become a smart aleck."

He tugged on her arm, the only warning she got before their hasty descent of the stairs.

The idea of burying didn't seem so clever when Kerry saw that the basement had a dirt floor. Were any of Regina's victims down here? she wondered. Was Ethan planning on burying Regina?

The place was a mess. It looked as though Regina had gone through at least two sets of furniture for every room and piled all the extras down here. Among all the other stuff, Kerry spied a moped, practically furry with dust. That seemed to be what Ethan was heading for. But he stopped just short of it, picking up instead a red-and-yellow can that sloshed when he shook it.
Gasoline,
Kerry's father would say,
belongs in a garage or shed; it's dangerous in a house.

And where's Dad now?
she wondered.

"You're not going to—," she started.

He did. He poured great dollops of gasoline on a green damask love seat with tassels.

"But what about the neighbors?" she demanded, not quite having the courage to grab his arm She couldn't have made him stop in any case, but she felt guilty for not making the attempt It was a five-gallon drum, and it had sounded just about full "What if the fire spreads?"

"Not likely, with a brick exterior," Ethan said. "And it's necessary in any case. I have no idea what she has here, what people could find. Old pictures, papers. Seeming anachronisms that might get someone thinking."

It was how vampires survived, Kerry realized: people not thinking about vampires anymore, not believing, seeking rational explanations. Like assuming that vampire hunters were crazies. No wonder he was jumpy at the idea of a big old houseful of proof. He still had hold of her hand, and he pulled her along as he kept on pouring gasoline all the way up the cellar stairs, across the kitchen, into the living room, and up the stairs to the second level. The automatic light had come on in the guest bedroom closest to Regina's room. Kerry balked, but he dragged her along as effortlessly as a child with a pull toy.

He pulled her into the room, carefully set down the gasoline can, then shoved her against the tall antique armoire on the wall opposite from the bed. "Little girls who hang around with vampires need to get used to dead things," he said, blocking her escape by leaning against the armoire with an arm outstretched on either side of her. "In fact, little girls who hang around with vampires already are with dead things."

Kerry had no idea how to handle the sudden fierceness in his voice. "I'm sorry Regina is dead," she said, thinking that might be it. Or that the acknowledgment of his possible grief might make up for her earlier mouthiness.

"Regina," Ethan said, "has been dead—" But he cut off whatever he had been going to say, evidently deciding that was something else about vampires she didn't need to know. "...for a long time," he finished with a blatantly insincere smile. "And I very much doubt any living soul is sorry."

He shoved her toward the bed The sight wasn't as bad—and it was worse—than she'd anticipated. There was the hair, which Kerry recognized, but the body looked the way she imagined an unwrapped mummy might look: charred, blackened, and withered, more like a hairless monkey than anything human. Even the nightgown Regina had been wearing and the sheets beneath her were scorched Kerry glanced at the windows.

"Obviously opened at some point during the day," Ethan said vehemently. "Then reclosed to look normal."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked, which—while not a safe course—was the least-likely-to-provoke-him thing she could think of to say.

"Open all the windows," Ethan replied, returning to his customary bland tone.

"Fine," she told him. She had been afraid he'd want her closer to—perhaps even touching—that thing on the bed that had been Regina.

There were shutters. She'd guessed right. She flung them open and raised the windows, all the while aware of Ethan behind her, pulling loose all the sheets and bedcoverings, and wrapping up Regina's body. "Get the other windows on this floor," he ordered.

She considered making a break for it, but if his hearing was as good as his eyesight, he'd know before she made it past the first step. She remembered how he'd stood in front of the house listening and had known something was wrong. "
What do you hear?
" she'd asked. "
Nothing,
" he'd answered. Was it that he couldn't hear Regina's heartbeat? Her once-every-ten-or-fifteen-seconds heartbeat? And once they entered the house ... Kerry shuddered. He'd started swearing as soon as he opened the door, and he'd gone right to Regina. It could only have been the scent of her spilled blood.

There was no use trying to run.

Kerry had gotten five windows in three rooms open when Ethan called her. "I'm not—," she started.

"That's all right."

She figured he knew exactly which windows she'd opened, and how hard she'd exerted herself for each one. She'd never before been so conscious of her heart pounding in her chest, her blood flowing through her veins.

From the doorway, Kerry saw that Ethan had Regina and her bedding on the floor, rolled up in a quilt that he'd gotten from the quilt rack at the foot of the bed. From the smell of gasoline, she realized he'd doused the mattress.

As soon as Kerry walked in, he struck a match and tossed it onto the bed. The fire started with a great
whoosh,
faster than she'd have imagined.

Her inclination was to run immediately, but Ethan handed her the matches. "Three more," he told her. "The first down the basement stairs, the second in the living room, and the third tossed up the stairs right before you leave."

"Me?" Her voice came out as a squeak. It was hard to concentrate with the room so hot already and the overpowering smell of the gasoline. The book of matches sat in her hand, strangely heavy and incongruous. It was obviously a wedding favor—silver bells on a white background, with the message "Steve and Beth, May 24, 1947."

"The first down the basement stairs," Ethan repeated, "the second—"

"—in the living room," she finished, "and the third on the stairs." He was keeping her alive to help him; if she didn't start helping soon, he was bound to reconsider.

"Very good," he told her.

As she ran out of the already smoky room, she was aware of him picking up Regina's body easily and flinging it over his shoulder. He was only a step behind when she veered off toward the kitchen. She lit a match, thinking only at the last instant to make sure she wasn't standing in a puddle of gasoline before she dropped it.