HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (61 page)

Except that the
idea, the conclusion, was too crazy. If he accepted it, he would have
to rearrange his whole notion of what life was, what being alive
meant, and how the world was constructed. If the world admitted
creatures who lived on blood and never died, then there might be
miracles, a spirit world, a true God and a calculating Satan. There
might be leprechauns, for all he knew, and water sprites, and
fairies, and ogres.

If the world
admitted vampires into reality, there could be anything . . . and . .
. everything, some of which no one had ever imagined yet. That was
why science fought so hard against superstition. If a thing could not
be proven by repeated experiment, then it was not a verifiable truth,
but merely an odd aberration. If an apple falls from a tree once, it
must always fall from any height, for gravity is dependable, it
doesn't go away. There is no other explanation for gravity the way
there might be other explanations for what he and Bette had seen and
experienced.

He spoke his
thoughts aloud, "If it happens again and again, so that we can
cross out other possibilities, we might be onto something. I'm not
sure we should be saying what something is, beyond all doubt, just
yet. I need to investigate more."

"I don't think
that would be a good idea, Alan."

"Why? Because
I might be hypnotized and have my own throat torn out? You've got a
pretty good point. But I have other reasons to pursue this."

"What other
reasons?"

"Didn't you
wonder why I came up here to find out about the strange blood
shipments you discovered?"

"I thought you
missed me." She gave him a weak smile.

He kissed her then
and said, "I did miss you. Terribly. But there's something else
I haven't told you.”

“
Tell me."

He moved his chair
back. "Go ahead and eat your sandwich. This will take a while.
And when I'm done, you may not like me very much anymore."

"That could
never happen." She took a napkin from beside her plate and
neatly layered it over her lap. "Nothing," she said, "could
make me like you any less."

He thought about
that for a moment before he began to laugh and she joined him.
Nothing could make her like him less! That could be taken in two
ways, one not so flattering. "I'm going to marry you one day,"
he blurted. "I really am."

She smiled
enigmatically and lifted half her sandwich to her lips. "I don't
do Houston," she said, before biting into the bread.

"Then maybe
I'll learn to do Dallas."

"I was afraid
you'd say that."

He drank from her
milk, set the glass back into its wet ring on the tabletop, and
prepared to tell her about Charles Upton and the strange covenant
they'd made.

Outside, in the
dark rectangle of window over the stove, neither Alan nor Bette
noticed a figure pressing its face against the pane of glass. The
face stared at them unblinkingly. No telling breath fogged the
window, for no aspiration was taking place in the being's lungs.
There was no heartbeat ticking in the chest of the beast that watched
and listened just beyond the thin barrier, glaring at the couple.

~*~

Ross sensed the
advance of strangers coming to interrupt him long before he heard the
sirens and the crunch of tires over his gravel drive. They were miles
away, but they were coming, he knew that for certain.

Immediately he was
reminded of the presence he'd felt near his house. It was when Mentor
was leaving. Mentor had told him no one was there. And he had been
too dazzled by the thought of taking the two women waiting on the
sofa to sharpen his senses and discover the intruder.

Now, he was
furious, both at Mentor and whoever had been outside his home. A
stranger, a human must have seen something. He must have called the
police.

Ross moved swiftly
to the two dead women, lifting both bodies onto his shoulders, and he
strode through the house to the back, pushing open the door with his
mind. He rushed into the night with his burdens. He took them acres
behind the house, dropping them like the garbage they were. They
rolled over scaly dry ground into a natural gully. Coyotes and other
wild predators would take care of the rest.

He was back into
the living room of his home in seconds, cleaning blood from the
Spanish tile floors. He finished the job quickly, licking at the
pools and splatters the way a cat laps at a dish of milk. He took the
stained ottoman and stuffed it into a closet in a bedroom at the rear
of the house. He could dispose of it later. Back in the living room,
he surveyed his work and found it good. Without using every available
forensic tool, the police would never suspect there had been a
slaughter.

He met the solitary
policeman at the door, let him in, offered him coffee, asked what he
was doing this far from the city. While Ross was talking, he tapped
the deputy's mind and plucked from it every shred of suspicion.

Once the county
sheriff's car had left, Ross, still furious at the intrusion and the
accusation he'd found in the policeman's mind, went out the front
door and walked all around his home. He found a man's scent near the
windows. It was very distinct, filled with fear and loathing. It was
strongest behind the stand of cypress at the corner of the house.
Checking further, following the scent, he found evidence of human
effluence.

Ross howled,
opening his mouth wide and baying as a wolf does at the moon.

He would trace this
scent if it took him the rest of the night. He would follow it to its
home and find the man who had dared come onto his property, leer
through the windows, and then call in the authorities after he'd
evidently seen the two women die.

And now here he
was, pressed against the little foreign woman's window, watching
them. She was Bette Kinyo, the woman interfering in his blood bank
operations. The man was her lover, a doctor named Alan.

His lips pulled
back from his teeth in an automatic gesture of threat, but he
swallowed the growl threatening to erupt. He had come merely to find
the unwise human who had invaded his private space and dared to
report his activities. He would decide when and how to take him
later. First, he wanted to know what the man knew. He wanted to see
how much he would tell the woman.

He really wanted to
play with both of them. Watch and intrude the way he had been
intruded upon. Learn their secrets and in the end display his
intimate knowledge of their lives before he dispatched them to the
Devil. Nothing, at the moment, could give him greater pleasure.

He sank back from
the glass, vaporizing into the molecules of a thin fog, and
insinuated himself beneath the tiny crevice at the bottom of the
kitchen door.

Once inside, he
wafted into a corner near the humming refrigerator, curling around
its side until he was behind it. From there he listened, and what he
heard increased his fury until his molecules danced like starbursts
of electrical energy giving off cold heat and light.

How he hated
humans. He could not remember what it had been like to be one.
Sometimes he convinced himself that he had never been one, but was
always Predator, always since the beginning of time.

He settled down
again, resting at the base of the wall behind the black coils of the
refrigerator's condensing unit.

He heard the man
talking about a billionaire in Houston who was dying of a disease and
wanted to find a way to beat it and beat death at the same time. That
kind did not deserve eternal life. The diseased. The old and weak.
The greedy and impure. They should die and do the world a favor.

The humming of the
machine so close to him lulled him a little and the edge of his anger
subsided to mere disgruntlement. He listened to the couple's idle
talk about searching for vampires and the making of a research center
and the possibility of life after death. Part of Ross' attention
wandered to the window over the store. He sensed something
approaching there and began to concentrate so that he might discover
what or who it was.

His fury returned
when he realized it was another vampire. It was another Predator, in
fact. He could sense the being's frightful power. He was out there,
infringing on territory already inhabited by Ross.

The creature was a
Predator, but had not supped in days. He was hungry, but he was not
coming to kill and feed. He wasn't looking for would-be victims in
the foreign woman's house.

It was a hungry
Predator who had stopped preying. Only one of them was fool enough to
do that. Mentor. Always where he wasn't supposed to be. Always
judgmental and grating on the nerves. And now he was calling to Ross,
requesting he leave his hiding place and come outside.

So you want to
pow-wow, thought Ross. You track me down and get in my way all the
time, you ass.

Ross did not want
to leave his cozy little spot behind the machine where the humming
vibrations soothed him, where the darkness and privacy were so
appealing. He had more to learn about the humans' plans. He had
wanted just a taste of the woman with the short, shiny hair and
moist, slanted, beautiful eyes.

Trust Mentor to
throw his designs into chaos.

He would have to
come out, leave the house, find out why he was being summoned. He
would relish telling Mentor that even though he might have cleared
the woman's mind about Strand-Catel's blood shipments, the man who
called himself Alan was right there to remind her and to give back
her memories. He should have wiped both their minds to insure they'd
leave the blood bank alone. How would Mentor like failing for a
change? How would he like knowing he was not infallible and that he
could not control humans nearly as well as he thought?

The couple rose
from the table and exited the kitchen. Ross spread out along the
floor, sliding from beneath the refrigerator, and out again on the
side nearest the back door where he flowed at the couple's heels. His
fog-self curled and edged over the threshold into a hall where they
had disappeared. He rose up in the shape of a head with eyes that
sought after them. Then the fog folded onto itself and slid
underneath the door like a regretful lover. In a second he was
himself again, housed in flesh, and scowling fiercely at Mentor.

"Who asked you
to come here? I thought I was through with you for the night."

"They're
harmless," Mentor said, ignoring Ross's rude sarcasm.

"The man saw
me take the two women. He was the presence I asked you about at my
house. You lied to me, and I took your word for it. Not very
trustworthy, are you?"

Mentor looked
surprised at the news. He hesitated a moment before saying, "I
can make him forget he was there and that he saw anything."

"The way you
made the woman forget? She brought up the memories again when the man
reminded her."

"I'll do a
better job this time."

"And why
shouldn't I just cut off their heads and throw them into an alley
instead?"

"You are the
beast you are because you're able to ask that question, Ross."

"One day
you're going to go too far." Ross stepped closer as if to
embrace the old vampire in a kiss.

Mentor smiled and
his incisors emerged, large and deadly in the reflected light from
the window. "I already have. Hundreds of years before you were
born. I have gone entirely too far to ever turn back now, and too far
to be intimidated by the likes of you."

Ross reconsidered a
confrontation. He hated to admit that Mentor could frighten him. As
boastful as he sounded, he knew any fight with Mentor could not have
a predicted outcome. Mentor might very well bind him long enough to
set him afire.

"All right,"
he said, "I'll let you handle this one more time, and if it
doesn't work, you have to step out of the picture and let me get rid
of them. They're just . . . just . . .”

"Pests? That's
what you feel about all humans, isn't it? Inferior and useless unless
they're doing what you want or providing you with blood."

Ross began to
shimmer and disappear. He sent one last thought to Mentor. I warn
you. This is the last chance they'll have.

~*~

Mentor sighed and
turned to the woman's Japanese garden. He walked to the bench and sat
beneath the willow limbs. They rustled sweetly in a breeze, brushing
gently and softly against his sagging shoulders. He sat looking at
the raked swirls of white gravel glowing in the moonlight like a pale
river snaking through the darkness. He studied the shadows cast by
the large boulders. They were alien mountains rising in a white sea.