HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (43 page)

Her parents came to
her and each took one of her arms, as if to restrain her. "Come
back to your room," her mother said.

"Yes, do as
your mother says, dear." Grandma stepped out of the way so Dell
could be led across the kitchen.

"Why? I feel
fine, I feel great! I don't need to go to bed. I don't ever want to
sleep again!"

Dell's two paternal
uncles came to the doorway and stared at her. Boyd and Daniel had
come all the way from San Antonio at their brother's urging, and now
they gave her looks that spoke silently of love and understanding.
Behind them she caught glimpses of their wives, her aunts. All of
them vampire. All had undergone this same event in their lives and
they knew both her agony and her newfound thrill of joy.

It seemed nearly
everyone in the family had arrived at the house and now they were all
watching her, commanding her to do as they bid.

"Mentor is on
his way," her father said, leading her into the hall as Boyd and
Daniel and their wives moved silently back into the living room.
"There's more to this than the initial sense of power. There's
also . . . danger."

She let them lead
her back to the room, though she knew if she caught them by surprise,
she could have shaken her parents off like pesky insects. She felt
the strength in her arms rippling through her and imagined how easily
she could heft cars and small buildings and blocks of stone.

In some ways she
realized she was acting like someone hopped up on a narcotic. She'd
seen kids at school act if as they were superhuman, as if they owned
the planet. They were deluded, of course, and she knew she was not,
but she was still behaving like a drug addict nearing euphoric
frenzy. She must listen to her parents, her family. She must sit and
wait for Mentor to tell her what she could and could not do. There
were secrets that had not yet been revealed to her, that's what her
mother was trying to say.

But it was going to
be hard to do as she was told. It was going to take all her willpower
to keep from running out of the house and throwing up her hands to
the sky to thank heaven for her new life.

"Okay,"
she said, "Okay, I'll relax. I'll try, really."

She felt her
mother's hand tense on her upper arm and knew that she was worried
about her. She turned her attention to her father and found his mind
also gnawing at worry like a termite on fresh wood.

"Not me,"
Eddie said at her back, where he trailed them down the hallway. "I'm
not worried one little bit."

Dell smiled, and
remembering, moved her tongue to her incisors to feel for them. Now
she knew the blood was not drunk. It was not like food that had to go
through the digestive system to be turned into energy. It went
straight into her veins and arteries, straight into her heart and
brain, renewing all the organs to their original healthy living
states. It made her live again. It was the means to survival. And she
would do anything for it. Anything.

~*~

Mentor used the
door as a human would, though it was within his power to migrate
through solid objects. He always forced himself to be as natural as
the Naturals when possible. To understand their anxieties and
problems, he had to have intimate knowledge of their lives and to do
that, he must live and act as they did. There were times he lived as
the Predators, too, using his abilities to their fullest, and now and
again he lived as the Cravens, shutting himself up in the house,
drawing the curtains, letting his mind die down to a weak signal. To
be of service, he had to know intimately the inner workings of the
different clans' emotional lives.

He did not bother
to knock, knowing those inside would know he was there. He stepped
across one of the Cravens lying at the foot of the door, head
pillowed on outthrust arm, staring up at him with wide eyes. "You
should get up and out of the way in order to help yourself," he
said casually as he left that one behind.

Mentor's "patient,"
the vampire he had been summoned to help, was toward the back of the
house in one of the last bedrooms. The vampire was a Craven named
Dolan, and it was rumored Dolan was on a suicidal rampage. Any act of
undue aggression, even one involving only the self, Mentor tried to
stop. Unfortunately, Dolan meant to do harm to others of his kind
before destroying himself. And that was not going to happen. It was
against all moral law to destroy your own kind unless there was just
cause.

Mentor stepped into
the room and said to Dolan, "I've come to stop you."

Dolan was an old
vampire, crouched in the corner, his back to the door. He had both
arms over his head and was shivering as if he were cold. Mentor said,
"Don't try to make me feel sorry for you. That's not going to
work. What you're planning to do is against our law. I can't stop you
from ending your life. But I will stop you from taking anyone with
you. Do you understand?"

Dolan turned slowly
to face Mentor. There was no telling how many lifetimes he had lived,
but they were many. His face reflected a soul gouged with ruts and
roads that made him look a thousand years old. Like Mentor, he had
chosen an older male body to inhabit, but it was in his eyes that his
true age showed.

He bared his teeth
now to show Mentor he was willing to fight. Mentor said, "I will
take you down if I have to. But listen to me, I would rather you talk
this out."

"Why should I
talk to you?" said Dolan. "You're only here to stop me from
doing what I want to do. I think I would rather fight you and die in
the trying. At least there might be some honor in that."

"And what
would you know about honor?" asked Mentor. "Do you think
it's honorable to wish to take others with you?"

"They all want
to die anyway. I'd be doing them a favor. Why must you always
interfere? Who gave you the right to intervene? You're not God
Almighty."

"No, I'm not.
But I've earned the right to intervene and you know that. Believe me,
you're not taking any of the others in this house with you."

"Oh, good
Christ! Have you seen them? What about the one by the door, did you
see him? Do you really think he wants to live?"

"Maybe he
doesn't want to live, but that's up to him, not you."

"Listen to me!
Why aren't you listening, Mentor? Have you ever been a Craven? Do you
know what it's like to be powerless and to live in the darkness
forever? Have you ever begged for death?"

Mentor recalled the
times when he'd gone into seclusion, living as a Craven, feeding on
hopelessness. "We've all begged for death. But if we give it to
ourselves, we pay with our souls."

"That's
totally incomprehensible to me. I don't believe it. There is no
punishment worse than what I've already suffered."

Mentor shrugged.
"You may be right, but you won't find out until you're gone and
then it's too late. I can't let you make that decision for others."

Dolan swooped from
the floor, enraged and ready to do battle. It was only then that
Mentor smelled smoke and saw a cloud of it coming from the corner
where the old vampire had been stooping, his back to the room. He'd
set a fire. He meant to burn the place down. He meant the fire to
consume them all.

One second before
Dolan reached his throat, Mentor stepped aside and then rushed
forward to the corner. He waved his hand, concentrating mightily on
the molecules in the room's air, and created a damp cloak of mist
that put out the fire. He then turned swiftly and struck Dolan on the
side of his head, knocking him to the floor. "If I have to,"
he said, "if you force me to it—I will have you put into
chains. You'll never be free again. You know I speak the truth."

Dolan bellowed in
frustration.

Mentor continued,
"If you want to do away with yourself, that's fine with me.
That's entirely up to you. But you will not, do you hear me, you will
not take anyone else with you."

Dolan fell to his
knees, head hanging. In a small voice he said, "You have to help
me. Mentor, you have to help me. I can't go on this way."

Mentor checked the
fire to be sure it was out before stepping close to his patient.
"That's all you had to do," he said. "All you had to
do was ask. Now stand up and come with me."

As he escorted
Dolan out of the house, he noticed the Craven who had been on the
floor was gone now, probably locked in his room, living out his fate
with whatever strength he had left. Mentor sensed many more of the
Cravens hiding in other rooms, cringing from the disturbance they'd
sensed going on in the house. At least he had saved them from an
untimely demise.

It was dark
outside, so Dolan could be led back to Mentor's house, as the Craven
could not bear sunlight. At home, Mentor would place Dolan into a
specially built basement room where he could rest and be instructed
on how to live out the rest of his life. If he set fire to himself
when Mentor was gone, then at least something had been done to try to
save him first.

Mentor did not save
them all. In fact, he saved relatively few once they had decided to
do away with themselves. But he was charged to have mercy. It was his
job to deal with the despairing. It had never been promised that he
would always triumph.

As he hustled the
old vampire along the street, pools of iridescence shining through an
early evening fog, the streetlights made the two of them appear to be
a couple of old friends going home from work. If only it were so,
thought Mentor. If only we were human again, friends out having a
drink, and on our way home.

He shook his head
sadly. No wonder so many of us want to die. And the wonder lies in
the fact that so many of us go on.

"Tell me what
brought you to this impasse," Mentor said.

In a chastened
voice the old vampire said, "Is confession good for the soul,
then?"

Mentor saw an
alleycat dart across the sidewalk and behind a garbage can with a
bulging lid. He felt its hunger and experienced a sense of kinship
with it. "You don't have to confess to anything. You just have
to talk about your feelings."

The tale began,
haltingly at first, with long pauses. As they walked the silent
street, Dolan shying from the beams of headlights from an occasional
car, the story unfolded. It was not that different from others Mentor
had heard, but nevertheless he paid strict attention. Dew fell from
the fog and soaked their shoulders and gathered like silver jewels in
their hair.

Dolan talked, he
wept softly, and Mentor listened carefully without responding,
guiding the old one closer and closer to safety. Near his home,
Mentor heard the silent plea reach him from the Cambian family. Dell,
the new vampire, had taken blood and was in a state of ecstasy. She
was listening to her parents, staying put in her home, but they
feared she might break free from them into the night.

Mentor hurried
Dolan into the house, down into the basement, and asked him to hold
out his wrists.

Dolan stared at the
handcuffs made of solid steel. He laughed. "Do you really think
they will hold me if I want to go? I possess more strength than it
may appear."

Mentor slapped the
cuffs on him anyway, fastening them tight. "Of course they can't
hold you. But they might make you think before you fight your way out
of them. I have to leave for a while. You'll be on your own for a few
hours. It's up to you, Dolan. What happens now is up to your own
conscience. But if you do free yourself, and if you return to that
house where the others lie helpless, I swear I will be on you in a
millisecond."

Dolan slumped to
the floor, hanging his cuffed hands over his upright knees. "I'll
wait for you to come back."

"Good."

"I won't set
fire to your house."

"Even better."
Mentor smiled and turned for the stairs.

"Mentor?"

"Yes?" He
paused on the bottom step, his hand on the rail.

"I don't know
how you do this. I don't know how you keep going year after year when
there are so many of us who need you."

Mentor went up the
stairs. At the landing before the door he said, "If I didn't do
it, I'd be like you are now. I'd turn myself to ash." He heard
the old vampire's low growl of a laugh as he shut the door behind him
and locked it with dead bolts. He didn't think what he'd admitted to
was a laughing matter. But laughter was better than tears, so he
forgave his houseguest, moved to the front door, and left him behind
in the darkness of solitude.