Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (41 page)

* * *

In neighboring, more modern
Riverside
Hills
Cemetery
, another entity possessed of Paul Devlin’s powers also woke.

No fool, Cain recognized the safety inherent in taking up residence in a cemetery mausoleum. It was much nicer than the cave he’d accidently been resurrected in out by
Stone
Creek
Swamp
. A lot dryer, too. The folks who’d spread the legends about the dampness of the tomb should try a stint in a swamp cave. However, he didn’t have the advantage of a specially designed structure complete with secret living quarters Paul Devlin had. Then again, he had no need for books or radios and wasn’t particular about changing his clothes all that frequently. He’d simply materialized within the walls of one of the larger mausoleums and ripped the top off the coffin containing the earthly remains of Nathan Wilkerson, 1892-1956. Those remains now sprawled unceremoniously on the concrete slab floor. Ethel Wilkerson, who’d never in her life known any man except her husband, still slept comfortably in her own coffin. She’d have been horrified to know she was sharing her bedroom with another man.

Cain yawned. His stomach didn’t rumble exactly, his whole body vibrated with the new hunger that had overtaken him immediately in this second life. Blood hunger. Time to hunt. He cast out into the dark, intending to cross the river to the woods. Something different. What? He stopped flight and hovered a moment. Something else. A moving life form, human in shape. Cain turned his swirling essence to the right, moving over the grounds of Riverside Hills and out across the boundaries of Rose Arbor. He hovered over the seated figure gazing out over the river at the vehicles passing by on I-75.

Cain had difficulty pulling himself together again in his excitement but finally managed. He materialized behind some cedar trees several hundred feet to the figure’s left. Could it possibly be? The man who’d banished him to that dark cave all those years ago? Though he hadn’t been just a man then and wasn’t just a man now, no more than Cain was. No mere man could ever have defeated Cain at the peak of his power all those years ago. Then Paul moved his head, giving a clear silhouette of his profile. His hair gleamed, mingled gold and silver, under the moonbeams.

Him. It was him. Cain smiled. The dark gods were with him.

* * *

Ria paced restlessly across her living room floor. She’d paced for hours. It was almost midnight. He wasn’t coming. She could go to him, of course. But she wouldn’t. If any man, ever, had earned the right to his own peace, it was Paul Devlin. She’d never see him again. She didn’t even feel the tears running down her cheeks.

* * *

Paul sat quietly by the river. His thoughts moved as restlessly as Ria’s feet. If he hadn’t been reliving the feel of Ria’s head against his shoulder, maybe he’d have sensed the dark presence watching and waiting with the patience of a giant snake. But maybe not.

He rose abruptly and walked swiftly back to his own mausoleum, disappearing behind the door. Cain strained his senses and felt Paul’s swirling essence emerge from the structure’s roof and turn toward town. He followed and hovered outside over a big house on one of the city’s older streets. The enemy was within.

* * *

Paul stood in the glow of Ria’s nightlights in the living room. The mantle clock sounded one a.m. in soft chimes. He glanced around the room, his vision needing no extra lighting. The room looked just like her. Full of rich, soft color. Shelves of books ran from floor to ceiling on one whole wall. Feminine but not frilly, elegant but not sparse. He breathed in her scent. Lemony. Like sunlight. The open door led to the bedroom. He walked over on cat’s feet and stood in the doorframe, watching her sleep.

She moved in and out of restless dreams, tossing and turning. She hadn’t wanted to sleep but the last two nights had finally caught up to her. She’d realized by midnight he wasn’t coming. She gave in to her drooping eyelids and sought her bed. Maybe in sleep she’d forget she’d found the man who’d haunted her these past months. And lost him after two nights.

He moved forward and stood beside the bed. Her hair pooled in dark shadows over the pillowslip and her eyelids fluttered. Dream sleep, he thought, and hoped her dreams were happy. He wanted to touch her but he didn’t.

He’d spent the entire night swinging like a pendulum from one resolution to the other. He was back on the opposite side of the swinging arc that had finally sent him flying to her through the night. He backed away, both relieved and disappointed she slept. Her eyes flew open. She spoke as he began the process of disincorporation.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

He halted the process and moved a step closer.

“I didn’t think I was, either.”

“But you did.”

She sat up and without thinking, raised her hand and ran her fingers through her sleep-tousled hair. The strands flowed like liquid darkness in the shadows.

“Yes. I did.”

She reached and took his hand in both of hers. He let the gentle pressure of the tug pull him nearer. On the wall, his shadow followed him. Ria’s fingers caressed his hand and her lips curved in a slight smile as they moved over his fingers.

“Your ring’s gone,” she said softly.

“Someone gave me a reason to take it off.”

The shadow of her arms raised toward him. The shadow of his arms moved downward.

Shadows and bodies merged.

The bricks and boards of the house smiled as it listened. The rhythms of love, the whispers and low laughter and sighs of lovers had been gone too long from these rooms. Now the master of the house was home.

Outside, above the roof, Cain swirled and caught the sounds. He swooped closer and passed through the ceiling, hovering in the corner of the bedroom. His old nemesis had a new love. Oh, the dark gods were
so
good! Cain laughed to himself, endless possibilities running swiftly through his brain. Retribution wouldn’t be swift. But it would be terrible.

Chapter Three

The first few nights were theirs alone. Neither had any need for the outside world. They talked and laughed and watched old movies. They touched and kissed and made love, and when Ria succumbed to human limitations and fell asleep in his arms, Paul held her and watched as she slept. Ria sensed great restraint when he held her, though.

“I don’t break, you know,” she said, lying on her side against him with her head on his shoulder and his muscled thigh clasped tightly between her own.

“I could break you, Ria. I could break you into pieces without even trying. And all it’d take to do it is to forget for just a second that I can.”

She never commented on his gentleness again. She just savored his hard muscles and the strength of his body, eternally that of a thirty year old man at the height of his physical perfection. A body conditioned by hours in the saddle and miles of walking. A body that perpetually wore the light tan of a summer more than a century gone.

“Paul?”

“Um?”

“When we do start to go out, when you start to meet my friends, are you Paul Everett or Paul Devlin?”

“
Everett
.”

“Why? There’s absolutely no chance there’s anybody around now that’d remember the name.”

“I’m used to it. And besides, Paul Devlin’s dead. Part of him died with Chloe and most of the rest died in August of 1888. And what little bit was left died—”

He broke off abruptly.

“You never ate anything tonight,” he said lightly. “Let’s raid the kitchen. Aren’t you hungry?”

“The rest of him died when?”

“A long time ago. Let’s see what’s in your refrigerator, if anything is. Don’t you ever cook?”

“Not if I can help it,” Ria said, but she swung off the bed and slipped on her robe.

They often put together simple meals in Ria’s newly remodeled kitchen. When she didn’t have a necessary ingredient, which was pretty often, Paul would sigh in mock exasperation and disappear, returning in ten or twenty minutes from one of the local grocery stores.

Handy as that skill was, a thought occurred to Ria.

“You don’t know how to drive, do you?”

“I couldn’t figure out how to add a garage to the mausoleum.”

“Smartass. Would you like to learn? You never know when it might come in handy.”

“I’d love to.”

They spent hours on the back country highways that stretched across Bibb and
Jones
Counties
, moving south to
Twiggs
County
and north up to
Monroe
County
, and west over into
Houston
County
. In just a few nights, Paul handled the classic Mustang’s gears as easily as he’d handled his high-strung black stallion, Cyclone.

October headed into November and the holiday season neared. It was time to move out as a couple into Ria’s circle of friends.

“And how are you goin’ to explain me?” Paul asked.

“Same way you explained yourself to me. You’re a reporter taking a sabbatical to write a book. Even though the Mobile Reporter doesn’t exist.
Mobile
’s paper is the Press-Register, so you might wanta make a mental note.”

“You knew that the first night we met?”

“Nope. But I looked it up to check your cover story the next day. And to see if they had a reporter named Paul Everett. Guess what? They didn’t.”

“And the moral to that story is, always check your facts before you talk to a lawyer.”

“And don’t you forget it. You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

“Been a long time since I’ve seen the same group of people on a regular basis. Suppose they notice—something?”

“Like I’m madly in love? That’ll surprise some folks, yeah. Think they had a pool going on when I’d fall for a guy, actually. Most folks were bettin’ on when hell froze over.”

Paul didn’t need to worry. His southern charm hadn’t faded over the years. He wowed them all, up to and including Johnny Bishop, Ria’s life-long best friend, virtual brother, law partner and co-owner of the house who had his own apartment across from Ria’s. Maybe, if Paul hadn’t been in love for the first time in over a century, he’d have noticed the fluttering presence tracking them most evenings. Maybe, if Ria hadn’t been in love for the first time in her life, her legally trained brain would have noticed the old clunker following behind them on other evenings. But neither of them did.

By the second week of November Paul had met almost everyone of importance in Ria’s life. With one notable exception.

“I think I’ve met about everybody you know, darlin’. ‘Cept your parents. You ashamed of me, or do I smell bad, or do you just not get along with ‘em?”

Ria laughed.

“Well, you do get embarrassing when you start drooling over people’s necks the way you do.”

“I haven’t done that since Halloween!” He curled his lips and his incisors, never noticeable unless he chose to show them, gleamed sharply.

Ria goosed him in the side.

“Cut that out!”

“So why don’t you want me to meet your parents?”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to meet them, it’s just—well, my parents are weird for parents.”

“Good weird or bad weird?”

“Oh, good weird, definitely.”

“Well, that explains it.”

“No, what I mean is, they don’t hover over me very much. Don’t plan their activities around me. Daddy believes you do as much harm or good to a child as you’re going to do by the time a kid’s 12, you need to stop trying by the time they’re 18, and you need to let ‘em go if you want to keep ‘em. And Daddy’s schedule’s real hectic and Mom’s real social and has lots of clubs and volunteer stuff so when I see them it’s usually for lunch and not usually together. You’re sort of not available to do lunch, you know.”

“True. What’s your father do, anyway? You’ve never said. Is he an attorney, too?”

“Oh, God forbid! He’s way too blunt for that, he’d stay in contempt of court all the time. No, he’s a doctor. I never told you that?”

“No, you didn’t. Then I’ve probably seen him somewhere, I used to hang around in the hospitals a good bit before I got the free shower offer.”

“I swear, you love that shower more than me.”

“No way, darlin’, but there’s no point in not taking advantage of—Knight!” Paul broke off suddenly as realization dawned. “Charlie Knight?”

“Yeah, that’s my Daddy. “

“Of course. Damn, you look a lot like him.”

“So I’m told. Often. You’ve seen him then?”

“God, yes. Neurosurgeon. Gets called in a lot for emergency head trauma, car accidents, things that can’t wait for morning or I wouldn’t get to see.”

“That’s my daddy, all right. I take it you’re a fan of his technique?”