Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (34 page)

Tamara nodded.

“They sleep by
day and rise by night, and—oh
God!
He’d rather be dead, Tamara!”

“Son,” she said gently.
“
Dere’s some things
jest ca
n’t be changed.
I know.
I tried.”

“I won’t let my brother live like that!
He’s so good, Tamara, he’s the best man in the world!
He won’t be able to stand it!”

“But son,
d
at’s whu
t I been tryin’ to ‘splain.
Humans got
de
choice.
An
’
Paul still part human.
D
at
Blood
Drinker, he jest is.
He do
whut he have to do, whu
t his nature tell him to do.
But not humans.
I have powe
r.
Cain have powe
r.
We both cho
oses to be whu
t we are
, whut we do wid it
.
An’ Paul,
dis
give him powe
r, Josh,
power
like
few men ever have in
dis world
.
D
e
power to stop Cain.
With your help.
Paul
goan
make
his own choice.
An’ we both know
s
.
We knows d
at wid Paul, the powers of darkness now be servants
of
de
Light.”

“But—but
blood!
W
on’t he want, won’t he need
—”

“We
goan
help him.
You and me.
An’ yo’ Mama.
Tonight, Isaiah dead.
An’ Paul makin’
de
change.
From life to something
dat
ain’t life like
we know it, but it ain’t death
n
either.
Tomorrow night, son,
dat’s for Cain.”

“You intend for Paul—”

“Ain’t my intention.
It jest how things
goan
be.”

Joshua protested.
“But in the stories, vampires, their victims rise!
Cain’ll be like Paul, he won’t be dead!”

“Has to have time for
de
change, son.
An’
dat’s where you come in.
Now, you
goan
help me
wid yo’ brother?”

“Mama and Papa—”

“I gots to think ‘bout Paul first.
An’ I needs to get him to my house.
Dat’s where he gots to wake up.”

* * *

Joshua led
Paul’s great black stallion, Cyclone, back to the clearing.
The horse hesitated as it approached the circle of blood, smelling the horror from another dimension.
He reared on his muscled
back legs
and
vent
ed
his protests in loud screams that split the night.

“Ain’t
goan
do it, Tamara!
This horse just ain’t
goan
do it!”

“Got
s
to.
We ca
n
’t carry him all
de
way to
de
wagon.”
Tamara walked up to the horse
and
placed her hands firmly on either side of the great head.
The huge dark eyes rolled.
She breathed gently into his straining nostrils and gradually, Cyclone calmed down.

“How did you do that?”

“Doan
matter how.
He’ll do it.
He tol
’
me he would.
Help me.”

T
he two of them heave
d
Paul
’s body over the saddle and bega
n the
first leg of the
nightmare journey
.

When they
made it
to the wagon Tamara settled an
old blanket across Paul’s body, maki
ng certain he was fully covered. The second leg of the nightmare ended at the
little white cottage
on the edg
e
s of
Stone Creek Swamp.

Tamara pulled the wagon up close to the house.
She jumped down and quickly pulled
open the
wooden doors set into the stone foundations of the cottage
.

“Wait!” she
ordered. She descended the stairs cautiously.
Lantern light flared from the aperture.
Tamara
emerged
.

“Here.
D
is
de
darkest, safest place we gots.”

Together, they brought Paul’s body dow
n
the stairs and laid it on a ma
keshift bed of blankets lying ready.

“Hoped I wouldn’t need ‘em
.” S
he sighed.
“But I got ready.
Jest in case.”

She
dipped a soft cloth into the
basin of water
standing ready and gently washed Paul’s battered face.
She cleansed the gaping cuts on his chest, the huge wound on his throat.
Joshua watched,
totally numb and g
rateful for it
. Otherwise, he’d have cried
until all t
he moisture in his own body drained out of him in
tears.

Tamara
covered Paul again with the softest of the blankets and turned the edge neatly back across his chest.

She turned to Joshua.

“So, boy.
You be alright while I gone?”

“Gone?
Where you goin’?”

“Back to town.
Got to get
to yo
’
m
ama.”

Tamara’s eyes were
red, line
d
with capillaries broken in the intensity of her chant
. H
er skin was lackluster, tinged with grayness.
Paul was six feet tall and weighed 185 pounds. In death, that weight was—well, dead weight.
Joshua
was exhausted.
He didn’t know how his aunt was
still standing.

“You can’t.
You ‘bout to fall down in your tracks.”

“Gots to.
Sadie be out of her mind.
You know
dat.”

“I’ll go.
You
stay and
rest.”

Tamara laughed shortly.
“Ought to look at yo’self, boy.
Still ain’t got
yo
’
strength back from Cain’s poison.
You never make it.
I rest later.
You stay
wid
Paul.
Gots to change my team out, you rub ‘em down and get ‘em settled after I leave.
After dat,
you go lay yo’self on my bed and sleep, you hear?
I be back.”

She turned and ascended the steps
, closing the cellar doors tightly after Joshua’s exit.
Together they changed the team and Tamara
settled onto the seat and
shook the reins.

“One mo’ time, sweet Lord, get me dere one mo’ time tonight!
Now, boy,” she leaned over to Joshua.
“Mind you
keep dem
doors
closed
tight.
Doan
crack
‘em, doan look, doan need to
let in no mo’ light den
can be hepped come daylight. You goan likely wake ‘fore we get back.
But you
doan go back down
into dat cellar
without yo’ Mama and me
.
You hear?”

He nodded.
She flicked the reins and he listened
to the creak
of the wagon wheels
winding toward town until they died away completely and left only the
night sounds of the woods.

Chapter
Thirty-Four

Back at the house on Orange Street,
Dr. Cabot
came and went.

“Nothing I can do that you can’t, Sadie,” he’d said.
He looked at Sadie with some sympathy.
Everett’s contemporaries
were pretty sure Sadie wasn’t just the Devlins’ housekeeper
but such an arrangement wasn
’t
unusual.
And everyone conceded Everett handled the situation with great discretion.
“This one was, well, anything like this is bad, but it could have been a lot worse. Another one will be.
But if we can keep him quiet, maybe there won’t be a next one.
Lestways ‘til he’s got some of his strength back.
Where’d you say Paul was?”

“He had a ‘mergency.
Up toward Bolingbroke way.
Said he might not be back tonight.”

“Well.”
Dave
Cabot glanced back
from the hall into the bedroom.
“Maybe I ought to stay.”

“No!” exclaimed Sadie, and modified her tone at the expression on Dr. Cabot’s face.
“I mean, I been in a doctor’s house a long time, Doc Cabot.
Either he
goan
sleep or he
goan
have another one, ain’t
dat
right?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“An’ do he have another one, ain’t nothing you
goan
be able to do about it, is
dere?”

“No.
I’m sorry.”

“Then you go on back home.
I watch him.”

Dr. Cabot left, knowing Sadie would, indeed, watch closely.

Now
Sadie paced
. She’d paced all night. Her present path moved from
the back bedroom where Everett
lay
and the front windows, keeping watch for
Tamara’s return
.
Right now it seemed
nothing had ever existed except this path between the back bedroom and the front windows
and
nothing else would ever exist again.
As she paced, she chanted
, a chant not so much a supplication as a
demand
for her
sons
to return
with her sister.

She
peered for the thousandth time
from the
sheer curtains
draping
the front windows, expecting to see nothing but the yard.
It took a moment to
realize her sister was actually
climbing wearily down from the wagon seat.
Tamara
stopped and
rested her head for a moment across the rough boards
of the wagon
.

Sadie flew out the door and down the walk.
She stopped dead i
n her tracks, eyes
rapidly scanning the wagon.

“My boys
.
You ain’t brought neither one of ‘em back.”

“
Dey at my house.
Joshua wore plum’
out.
Hope he sleepin’.”

“Paul?”

“He sleepin’, too, Sadie.
But it be a different sleep.”

Sleeping
.
A different sleep.
Sadie
looked at her twin.
She hadn
’t known
any human
, this exhausted, could still
function
.

“Come in
de
house.
” Sadie
took Tamara’s
sister’s arm.
“Lean on me.
You needs it.”

“Everett?”

“He restin’.
Look lik’ he
goan
beat
dis
one.”

The sisters walked inside.
Sadie settled her twin on the sofa and brought her
steaming,
stron
g, sweet
tea and as the wee hours of morning turned into daybreak, the two of them, with hot tears and steely determination, decided matters
waiting for decisions.